Ora () is a

moshav A moshav (, plural ', "settlement, village") is a type of Israeli village or town or Jewish settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists between 1904 and 1 ...

in central

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. Located southwest 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 ...

, it falls under the jurisdiction of

Mateh Yehuda Regional Council Mateh Yehuda Regional Council (, ''Mo'atza Azorit Mateh Yehuda'', ) is a Regional council (Israel), regional council in the Jerusalem District of Israel. In 2024 it was home to 51,125 people. The name of the regional council stems from the fact t ...

. In it had a population of .

History

The village was established in 1950 by Jews from Yemen on land that had belonged to the depopulated

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

village of

al-Jura Al-Jura () was a Palestinian village that was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, located immediately adjacent to the towns of Ashkelon and the ruins of ancient Ascalon. In 1945, the village had a population of approximately 2,420 mostl ...

. The name "Ora" was taken from the

Book of Esther The Book of Esther (; ; ), also known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as "the Scroll" ("the wikt:מגילה, Megillah"), is a book in the third section (, "Writings") of the Hebrew Bible. It is one of the Five Megillot, Five Scrolls () in the Hebr ...

8:16: "For the Jews it was (a time of) radiance."; Hanna Bitan (1999) ''1948-1998: Fifty Years of 'Hityashvut': Atlas of Names of Settlements in Israel'', Jerusalem, Carta, p. 3, The residents initially lived in tents and by 1954 only thirteen families remained. In 1953 Percy Newman, a British Jewish industrialist, donated money to the

Jewish National Fund The Jewish National Fund (JNF; , ''Keren Kayemet LeYisrael''; previously , ''Ha Fund HaLeumi'') is a non-profit organizationProfessor Alon Tal, The Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, The Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben Gurion ...

for the purchase of 3,000 dunams for the moshav. Several North African Jews later joined the moshav. Residents were given tracts of land allocated for poultry farming and continued to live in tents, without running water or electricity, until 1957. Before the establishment of Kiryat HaYovel, the closest neighborhood was Beit VeGan, which was reached on foot or by donkey. In the 1990s, after the wave of Russian

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as Permanent residency, permanent residents. Commuting, Commuter ...

to Israel, the moshav increased egg production from 300 million to 500 million eggs a year. Since the 27th of February 2025, the Red Line of the Jerusalem Light Rail stops at the entrance of the moshav at the ''Ora Junction'' station.

Gallery

file:AlJuraJerusalemMay202023 06.jpg, The view from Ora to

Hadassah Medical Center Hadassah Medical Center () is an Israeli medical organization established in 1934 that operates two university hospitals in Jerusalem (one in Ein Karem and one in Mount Scopus) as well as schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacology ...

. The

village was mainly on the right spur of the valley file:AlJuraJerusalemMay202023 02.jpg, A ruined house, one of the last remains of al-Jura file:AlJuraJerusalemMay202023 09.jpg, Ora and below of it the Ein Sarig valley file:AlJuraJerusalemMay202023 10.jpg, Ein Sarig from above

References

{{Authority control Moshavim Populated places established in 1950 Populated places in Jerusalem District Yemeni-Jewish culture in Israel 1950 establishments in Israel