Bayit VeGan (, lit. ''House and Garden'', also Bayit Vagan) is a neighborhood in southwest

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

. It is located to the east of Mount Herzl, and borders the neighborhoods of Kiryat HaYovel and Givat Mordechai.

History

Bronze Age

A 4,000-year-old cemetery and many

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

ite artifacts were discovered in an archeological dig at the edge of Bayit VeGan. The cemetery covers an area of more than half an acre (0.2 hectare), and burials are believed to have taken place there mainly in the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

, in 2200-2000 BCE and 1700-1600 BCE. Excavations began in 1995 but the most interesting finds were discovered in 2005.

Crusader period

The Orthodox monastery of

Mar Saba The Holy Lavra of Saint Sabbas, known in Arabic and Syriac as Mar Saba (; ; ; ) and historically as the Great Laura of Saint Sabas, is a Greek Orthodox monastery overlooking the Kidron Valley in the Bethlehem Governorate of Palestine, in th ...

owned a farmstead in this area in the 12th century, during the existence of the Catholic

Kingdom of Jerusalem The Kingdom of Jerusalem, also known as the Crusader Kingdom, was one of the Crusader states established in the Levant immediately after the First Crusade. It lasted for almost two hundred years, from the accession of Godfrey of Bouillon in 1 ...

established by

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

British Mandate period

The Beit VeGan Association for establishing a religious-Zionist neighbourhood in western Jerusalem was founded in 1920. Among its leaders were Rabbi Yosef Mordechai Halevi, Rabbi Avraham-Haim Shag, Yerachmiel Amdursky, attorney Aharon Mani (of the Mani family), and Binyamin Kukia. The neighbourhood was initially planned to include 70 private homes, each with a private ornamental garden, similar to the garden neighbourhood of Beit HaKerem. Ultimately, 250 members joined the association, and the purchase of land from the surrounding villages of Ein Karem and Al-Malha began in 1921. Construction started in 1926, with 25 houses built on "Rabbi Kook Street" (now Beit VeGan Street), including the "Great Sephardic Synagogue." In 1929, the "B'nai B'rith" neighbourhood was established by members of the B'nai B'rith organization at the highest point in the neighbourhood at the time (Beit VeGan Street 36–56), where a water tower was also constructed with the assistance of B'nai B'rith. One of the neighbourhood's founders and its first rabbi was Rabbi Shmuel Eliezeri, who was appointed in 1930. At the time of its establishment, Beit VeGan was isolated from other Jerusalem neighbourhoods and formed the city's western boundary. The purchase of land for the neighbourhood was completed in 1932 when Yehuda Steinberg acquired land from the Aisha clan of Ein Karem at a site originally designated for the construction of a monastery. During the British Mandate, the army built one of its

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

stations in the neighborhood. A synagogue, Beit Knesset Migdal ("The Tower"), now stands on the spot. Bayit VeGan was the third neighborhood built in West Jerusalem in modern times.

State of Israel

A scale-model of the

Second Temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

, was located for many years on the grounds of the Holyland Hotel in Bayit VeGan. In 2007, it was moved to the

Israel Museum The Israel Museum (, ''Muze'on Yisrael'', ) is an Art museum, art and archaeology museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world's leading Encyclopedic museum, encyclopa ...

Schools and Jewish religious institutions

Many schools and Jewish religious institutions are located in the neighborhood, among them Ateret Yisrael Yeshiva, Kol Torah Yeshiva, Netivot Chochma Yeshiva,

Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a Private university, private Modern Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City.

's Gruss Kollel and Torat Tziyon program, Yeshivat Torat Shraga, Tiferet Yerushalayim, Michlalah Jerusalem College for Women, Seminar Yerushalayim HaChadash, Yad Harav Herzog, Himmelfarb High School, Boys Town Jerusalem, and Netiv Meir Yeshiva High School. The Amshinover Rebbe has his court in Bayit VeGan, on Rabbi Frank Street. The Boyar School, a secular high school for gifted students from all over the country, is also located in Bayit VeGan.

Medical facilities

Shaare Zedek Medical Center is located at the entrance to Bayit VeGan.

Sports facilities

The Beitar Jerusalem soccer club has a practice field in the neighborhood.Only a makeshift shrine reminds one of the blast
''

The Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is an English language, English-language Israeli broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, Israel, founded in 1932 during the Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate of Mandatory Palestine, Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''Th ...

'' Below the soccer field run its two tunnels for the new 16 route.

Hotels and guesthouses

In recent years, a

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

by the name of ''Malon Hen'' (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

: מלון חן lit. ''Hen Hotel'') was built on the corner of Hapisga Street, and a youth hostel on the same street was upgraded to a guesthouse.

Notable residents

* Yehoshua Neuwirth, rabbi * Ezriel Auerbach, rabbi * Ahuvah Gray, Baptist minister from the US who converted to Judaism *

Aryeh Deri Aryeh Makhlouf Deri (; ), also Arie Deri, Arye Deri, or Arieh Deri (born 17 February 1959), is an Israeli politician and one of the founders of the Shas political party who served as the Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Health, and Minister ...

, head of Shas party, several times minister, and member of Knesset

References

External links

Views of Bayit Vagan
{{Authority control Neighbourhoods of Jerusalem Orthodox Jewish communities in Jerusalem