The 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Ohel Moshe Neighborhood

Ohel Moshe is one of the first neighborhoods, built outside the walls of the Old City, by the Jews who left the Old City. Today it is part of Nachlaot the entrance to the neighborhood is through a lavish gate from Aggripas Street in the Mahane Yehuda market place). The neighborhood was built in 1883 as one of five neighborhoods founded in honor of the well known philanthropist, Moshe Montefiore, who started a special fund to assist in the building of new neighborhoods outside the walls of the Old City. These neighborhoods all carry his name: Ohel Moshe, Mazkeret Moshe, Yemin Moshe, Zichron Moshe and Kiryat Moshe. Ohel Moshe was designated for Sephardic Jews to complement the neighboring neighborhood, Mazkeret Moshe,that was built one year earlier, from funds for Ashkenazi Jews. The first families to settle in Ohel Moshe were well known Sephardic families that moved from the Old City. The author, Shmuel Yosef (Shai) Agnon wrote in his book, 'Tmol Shilshom': " And all places there in Jerusalem are called Moshe: Ohel Moshe, Zichron Moshe, and Yemin Moshe and Mazkeret Moshe. You want to go to one of these Moshe, yet you forget which little work is connected to Moshe, and you go from Moshe to Moshe and you don't reach the Moshe that you are looking for"… The houses in the neighborhood are built side by side in a square with a central yard with a well. One of the courtyards is called 'the Berry Garden' because of an abundance of berry trees shading it. In the heart of the neighborhood, on 11 Gilboa Street, is the birthplace of Yitzchak Navon, the fifth President of the State of Israel, whose play, ' Bustan Sepharadi' tells the story of the neighborhood (in the 1930's). And as such, the Jerusalem Names Committee placed a sign in the ' Berry Garden': "Habustan Hasepharadi". There are a number of Sephardic synagogues in the neighborhood: Adjacent to the 'Berry Garden' there is the Ioannina Synagogue for descendents of Greek Jewry; the Taranto Synagogue is situated in the Western part of the neighborhood; in the South is the oldest synagogue in the neighborhood, "Ohel Moshe' with the original sign from 1883 hanging on the front of the building. The actual synagogue is on the second floor. The first floor housed the classrooms and an oven which served the residents as well as a mikveh. The synagogue is adorned with the symbols of the 12 tribes of Israel, the holy places and other Jewish symbols, all the works of the artist Gershon Kochav. There is a sefer torah (torah scroll) from 1841 that the tradition says was donated by Moshe Montefiore. In 2004 the Community Center ' Lev Hair' promoted a memorial project, "A Picture in Stone" to memorialize the families that founded Ohel Moshe through pictures on the walls of the houses. Most of the pictures and explanations are hung permanently on the families' houses and enable those visiting the neighborhood to learn the history of the founders. The pictures were taken from family albums of the original settlers. President Itzchak Navon, who was born in the neighborhood, participated in a ceremony held on 12 Iyar 5742, April 26, 1982 to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the founding of the neighborhood. In his speech he said: " A small neighborhood whose residents lived in crowded conditions, underprivileged families with 6-7 children, however they turned out to be cultured and educated people, well mannered and with 'derech eretz' and loaded with common sense." The album in the web site gives us a glance into the 100th anniversary celebration of the neighborhood in which President Yitzchak Navon participated. The pictures were given to the Shoshana and Asher Halevi Archives at Yad Yitzchak Ben-Zvi as part of the "A Picture in Stone" Project. Read more