Mahane Yehuda (Hebrew:מחנה יהודה, "Camp of Judah") is an historic neighborhood inJerusalem. Established on the north side ofJaffa Road in 1887,[1][2] it was planned and managed by the consortium of Swiss-Christian bankerJohannes Frutiger and his Jewish partners,Joseph Navon and Shalom Konstrum. By the end of the 19th century, it encompassed 162 homes. Originally occupied by upper middle-class residents, it became a working-class neighborhood beginning in the late 1920s. Today the neighborhood is part ofNachlaot.[3] TheMahane Yehuda Market ("the shuk") located across the street was named after the neighborhood.[4]
Mahane Yehuda was named after Joseph Navon's brother, Yehuda, who died at a young age.[3][5]
The Mahane Yehuda neighborhood is bordered by David Yellin Street to the north,Yosef ben Matityahu Street to the east, Jaffa Road to the south, and Navon Street to the west.[2][3]
Mahane Yehuda lay on land owned by Bank Frutiger, which owned other tracts around the city. The housing project was initially advertised in theHavatzelet newspaper in 1882 (issue 26). The advertisement, placed byJoseph Navon, promised the first fifty families a free plot on the condition that they would build their homes within six months. If this condition was not met, they would be required to pay Navon 300groschen for the land. No one answered the advertisement.[6][7]
Five years later, the consortium of Swiss-Christian bankerJohannes Frutiger and his Jewish partners Navon and Shalom Konstrum came up with another plan to sell the neighborhood. This plan called for each home buyer to pay 25napoléons up front for the land, and the remaining 150 napoléons of the costs – including land, construction, and joint upkeep of the water cistern and roadways – over a 15-year period at a rate of 10 napoléons per year.[5][7] This arrangement proved far more attractive to buyers, who snapped up the initial offering.[7] In the month of September 1887 alone, 39 buyers signed up to purchase homes.[5]
At the time of its construction, the only other buildings in the vicinity lay on the south side of Jaffa Road: a two-story home occupied by the British Consul-General of Jerusalem (today theMahane Yehuda Police Station) to the east,[3] and the neighborhood ofBeit Yaakov, established in 1885, to the west.[6] By the end of 1888, 50 homes had been built in Mahane Yehuda and some buyers had begun re-selling their homes.[5] A decade later, 162 homes had been constructed.[8] The homes were constructed in typical fashion for the day, with an inner room accessed from an outer room.[3][7]
The first homeowners were upper middle class.[1] They included the SephardiRishon LeZion of Jerusalem, HakhamRaphael Meir Panigel, Rabbi Eliyahu Navon and his sonJoseph Navon, Shalom Konstrum,Israel Dov Frumkin, and Ephraim Cohen (principal of theLämel School, often misspelled 'Lemel School').[5][3][7]
Beginning in the late 1920s the neighborhood began attracting working-class Jewish immigrants fromKurdistan,Baghdad, andAleppo.[9][10] The lower-middle-class and poor Baghdadi immigrants continued there to speak theJudeo-Arabic vernacular, eat traditional cuisine, and retain the traditional ways of arranging marriages.[11]
A census conducted in 1916 by the office of theHistadrut recorded 152 families comprising 512 individuals in Mahane Yehuda.[12] A 1938 Jerusalem census noted 600 persons living in Mahane Yehuda, including bothAshkenazi andSephardi Jews.[13]
Mahane Yehuda is home to eightsynagogues.[2] These include the landmarkZoharei Chama Synagogue ("Sundial Building"), which is open for prayer services throughout the day.[14] The three-story stone building with a wooden attic (originally there was also a fifth-floor gallery) was constructed atop a Mahane Yehuda apartment purchased by Shmuel Levy in the early 1900s; the building was originally designed as ahostel for 50 guests with the synagogue on the third floor.[15]
The Silvera synagogue andbeth midrash, posthumously named Zechut Aharon, was established by Señor Aharon Silvera (d. 1925) ofAleppo on the upper floor of his two-story apartment in Mahane Yehuda.[16] The Degel Reuven Synagogue, also on a second floor, was founded in 1893 forMizrahi Jews.[17]
In 1925 the Hasidim of the fourthGererRebbe, Grand RabbiAvraham Mordechai Alter (theImrei Emes), founded theSfas Emes Yeshiva in Mahane Yehuda.[18] The Rebbe came to live in the yeshiva from 1940 until his death in 1948, and was buried in the yeshiva courtyard.[18][19] His son, RabbiPinchas Menachem Alter, the seventh Gerrer Rebbe, also resided in the yeshiva and was buried beside his father in 1996.[19] A red-brickohel was placed over both graves.[19]
Unlike buildings frontingJaffa Road in the historic neighborhoods ofOhel Shlomo andSha'arei Yerushalayim to the west, the buildings of Mahane Yehuda facing Jaffa Road were preserved during construction of theJerusalem Light Rail.[20]
In 2011 the former bus parking lot[1] between Mehuyas and Valero Streets, astride Jaffa Road, was re-landscaped into an urban square. This 5-million-shekel project, renamed Valero Square after Jerusalem bankerJacob Valero, was faced with granite and limestone and new lighting was installed.[21] Valero Square hosts the annual municipalarba'at haminim market preceding the holiday ofSukkot.[21] In December 2014 a 2-million-shekelurban art installation was unveiled in Valero Square. Titled "Vorayda" (Kurdish for "flower"), the installation includes four huge red nylon flowers resemblingpoppies posted atop metal trunks, which "open and shut pneumatically under the influence of movement and sound under and around them". Within two months, however, the nylon petals had been "seriously damaged by rain, wind, snow and pollution".[22]
Mahane Yehuda is one of the settings forHaim Sabato's 2004 novelKe'afafei Shachar (Like the Eyelids of Morning), translated into English asThe Dawning of the Day: A Jerusalem Tale (Toby Press, 2006).[24][25]
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