Kirya Ne'emana
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Kirya Ne'emana (, "Faithful City"), commonly known as Batei Nissan Bak (, "Nissan Beck Houses") was a historical
Hasidic Jewish Hasidism () or Hasidic Judaism is a religious movement within Judaism that arose in the 18th century as a spiritual revival movement in contemporary Western Ukraine before spreading rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most of those aff ...
neighborhood established opposite
Damascus Gate The Damascus Gate is one of the main Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is located in the wall on the city's northwest side and connects to a highway leading out to Nablus, which in the Hebrew Bible was called Shechem or Sichem, and from the ...
in the New City of
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 ...
in 1875. In the 1880s and 1890s it was joined by additional housing for
Syrian Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...
, Iraqi, Persian, Georgian, and Caucasian Jews. Most of the residents fled the area during the 1929 Palestine riots and their houses were occupied by Christians and Muslims. In the 2000s a handful of Jewish families reclaimed houses in the neighborhood.


Etymology

The name Kirya Ne'emana comes from
Isaiah Isaiah ( or ; , ''Yəšaʿyāhū'', "Yahweh is salvation"; also known as Isaias or Esaias from ) was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named. The text of the Book of Isaiah refers to Isaiah as "the prophet" ...
: :''And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning; afterwards you will be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.''


History

Kirya Ne'emana was one of the first nine Jewish neighborhoods established outside the
Walls of Jerusalem The Walls of Jerusalem (, ) surround the Old City of Jerusalem (approx. 1 km2). In 1535, when Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire, Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent ordered the ruined city walls to be rebuilt. T ...
, and one of the six Jewish neighborhoods founded in the 1870s. Kirya Ne'emana was located opposite Damascus Gate along the road to
Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
. The British Mandatory government renamed this road
Street of the Prophets Street of the Prophets (, ''Rehov HaNevi'im'') is an east–west axis road in Jerusalem beginning outside Damascus Gate and ending at Davidka Square. Located to the north of Jaffa Road, it bisects the neighborhood of Musrara, Jerusalem, Musrara. ...
in the early 1920s. The neighborhood was established in 1875, the same year as the Beit Ya'akov neighborhood on Jaffa Road. The land was purchased by Nissan Beck, leader of the Hasidic community in Jerusalem, and Rabbi Shmuel Mordechai Warshavsky, under the auspices of Kollel Volhin. The developers wished to honor philanthropist
Moses Montefiore Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, (24 October 1784 – 28 July 1885) was a British financier and banker, activist, Philanthropy, philanthropist and Sheriffs of the City of London, Sheriff of London. Born to an History ...
and his wife
Judith The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book included in the Septuagint and the Catholic Church, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Christian Old Testament of the Bible but Development of the Hebrew Bible canon, excluded from the ...
by calling the neighborhood Ohalei Moshe VeYehudit (Tents of Moses and Judith) and its main street, Montefiore Street. For a while, the neighborhood was called ''Ir Tzedek'' (, "City of Righteousness", also from the verse in Isaiah 1:26). However, all these names fell out of use and the neighborhood was popularly known as ''Batei Nissan Bak'' ("Nissan Beck Houses"). The homes of Kirya Ne'emana were built between 1878 and 1893. Though the developers had procured a sizable piece of land, only 30 of the planned 60 houses were constructed due to lack of financing. The remainder of the land was apportioned to several other groups: Syrian Jews, Iraqi Jews, and Persian Jews. The Persian Jews, who worked in the construction trade, built their own homes, which were generally small and shabby. In the 1890s another neighborhood, Eshel Avraham, was erected next to Kirya Ne'emana for Georgian and Causasian Jews. One hundred homes and a synagogue were initially built in Eshel Avraham, which grew to include five synagogues. The proximity of these Jewish neighborhoods to the Walls of Jerusalem lent a sense of security to Jews walking from Mea Shearim to the
Western Wall The Western Wall (; ; Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: ''HaKosel HaMa'arovi'') is an ancient retaining wall of the built-up hill known to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount of Jerusalem. Its most famous section, known by the same name ...
. In 1884 the cornerstone was laid for Kirya Ne'emana's sole Hasidic synagogue, Ohalei Yaakov, donated by a wealthy London Jew. Kirya Ne'emana attracted many prominent Hasidim as residents – including Nissan Beck himself. However, Beck was forced to sell his house to pay off debts and he returned to the Old City to live in a rented flat, where he died in 1890. By 1897 Kirya Ne'emana and its adjacent neighborhoods numbered 120 homes. A 1916 survey reported a total of 297 homes and 812 residents.


Evacuation

Kirya Ne'emana was hard hit during the Arab riots of 1929. Nineteen residents were killed and buried in a
mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may Unidentified decedent, not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of exec ...
on the Mount of Olives. Burglaries were rife, homes were destroyed, and three of the area's synagogues were burned. Virtually all the Jewish residents fled the area, save for a handful of Sephardi Jews, and their houses were occupied by Christians and Muslims. During the 1948 war, the remaining Jews left the area. As a result of the 1949 Armistice Agreement, the border between West and East Jerusalem divided the Jewish homes of Musrara from the now Arab homes of Kirya Ne'emana. The area fell under Israeli control in the
Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
but the houses remained Arab-owned. Some of the original buildings, and others that were constructed by Arabs, are located between Nos. 2 to 20
Street of the Prophets Street of the Prophets (, ''Rehov HaNevi'im'') is an east–west axis road in Jerusalem beginning outside Damascus Gate and ending at Davidka Square. Located to the north of Jaffa Road, it bisects the neighborhood of Musrara, Jerusalem, Musrara. ...
. These buildings house workshops, bakeries, and two pilgrim hostels. In 2001 an organization called ''Hachomot Hashalem'' (, "The Complete Walls") began quietly negotiating for Jewish reacquisition of residences in the former neighborhoods of Kirya Ne'emana and Eshel Avraham. By 2004 four families of Jewish settlers had arrived in the area. In 2009 '' Arutz 7'' reported that six Jewish families had reclaimed homes in Kirya Ne'emana.


References


Further reading

* * * {{coord missing, Israel Neighbourhoods of Jerusalem Populated places established in 1875 1875 establishments in Ottoman Syria