Quarters  in  Jerusalem

                Mishkenot Sha’ananim

About 150 years ago, in England, there lived a rich Jew named Moshe Montefiore. He came to visit holy Jerusalem and found many poor Jews there. He decided to help them. When he returned to England, he told his friends and started to collect money for the poor people of Jerusalem. When he came to visit the city again, he bought some land outside the Old City with the money that he had collected. He fenced off the area and built two houses which looked like forts. He invited the poor Jews of the Old City to come to live there, but none of them agreed to live outside the Old City in the deserted area beyond the wall. So he built a windmill thinking that a flour mill would attract them. In spite of this, only a few went to live there, even though Moshe Montefiore gave them a regular sum of money every month, in addition to free homes. This was the beginning of the development of modern Jerusalem outside the city walls.
 
 
 

                       Nahalat Shivah

This quarter is beyond the houses of Zion Square. It was named after seven courageous people who went out of the city walls and founded the settlement on a dry, rocky hill. They bought this land from the Turks. They divided the land into seven identical areas, so that each one got some of the  good and some of the bad land. In time, the seven people became famous family names amongst the founders of modern Jerusalem: Yehoshua Yellin, Joseph Rivlin, Michal Hacohen, Benjamin Salant, Arieh Horovitz, Yoel Moshe Salomon and Haim Halevy.
 

                        Mea She’arim

This is the very religious (orthodox) Jewish quarter. There are many synagogues and religious schools and Talmud academies. The people dress in traditional black European clothes, and speak mostly Yiddish, since Hebrew is considered a holy language - for prayers only. The people’s lives revolve around religious matters, and even the names of the streets are connected to Judaism.
 
 
 

                     Mahaneh Yehudah

This quarter was founded by Sephardic Jews, led by Joseph Navon, who was born in Jerusalem and served as the Portuguese Consul. The large market of the city is located in this quarter, and one can find an abundance of vegetables - cucumbers, potatoes, carrots and fruit, as well as clothing of all kinds and haberdashery (shoelaces, buttons, etc.). The streets of this quarter bear the names of fruit, plants or various trees, such as the plum, the nut, the palm and the pear.
 
 

                           Rehavia

This is one of the biggest and most beautiful quarters of the city. It has wide streets and beautiful houses. The streets bear names of the sages and Spanish poets from the Middle Ages, such as Alharizi, Ibn Gvirol or Ibn Ezra. In this quarter, one can also find national institutions, such as the Jewish Agency, the residence of the president and the prime minister, and the two biggest synagogues of the city, Yeshuriun and Heichal Shlomo.
 
 

                      Beit Hakerem

This quarter was nicknamed "The Pearl of all Quarters." It was founded by teachers and writers who had had enough of the hectic, noisy life of the city and looked for a quiet corner close to nature. They came to a barren hill and started to build houses for themselves there. Bialik and his friends used to come there too. The streets bear the names of poets and writers.

                                             Jerusalem Copyrights 1993, University Publishing Projects
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