Mishkenot Sha'ananim: the first houses outside the walls of Jerusalem
Montefiore built two rows of flats for the poor on an empty slope facing the Old City. People were afraid to settle there: outside the walls there was robbery by night—and the first tenants were paid to stay.
Jerusalem inside the walls was cramped, expensive and unhealthy: in the Jewish quarter several families lived to a room. The money to get out came from New Orleans—from the will of Judah Touro, an American Jew who made Montefiore his executor.
What was built. A long building of two rows of flats, with a cistern, a wall and heavy gates locked at night. The flats were given to poor families, equally to Sephardim and Ashkenazim. Beside them a windmill was raised, so that the residents could grind their own grain and not overpay.
Why it was hard. Outside the walls there was neither guard nor law: Bedouin raids, robbery on the roads. People went back into the city to sleep, and those who did sleep in the new houses had to be paid. Some years passed before it became clear that one could live there.
What came of it. Everything else. After Mishkenot Sha'ananim came Nachalat Shiva, Mea Shearim, Beit David, the Bukharan quarter—and within half a century the city outside the walls was larger than the city within. It began with a house in which at first people were afraid to spend the night.
How we know
Sources
Scholarship
- Encyclopaedia Judaica, "Montefiore, Sir Moses" — the building of the quarters outside the walls and the windmill
- Wikipedia, "Mishkenot Sha'ananim" — the years of building, the Judah Touro estate, the wall and the payment to the first tenants
Basis: documents and evidence.
People and places
Sir Moses Montefiore · The Old Yishuv · Halukkah · Jerusalem · Sephardim · Ashkenazim · Tzedakah