Stone Houses

• The ordinance requiring stone on the outside of all Jerusalem buildings is (according to a Yad Ben Tzvi http://www.ybz.org.il/?CategoryID=5 guide) a negative regulation, forbidding stucco, plaster, and other materials on outside walls.
• Three-foot-thick stone walls formed earlier houses. More modern buildings are faced with limestone or (rarely) marble. The ordinance has been relaxed on occasion.
• In the 1930s the British allowed what look like stucco-faced buildings when Arab stonemasons refused to work on Jewish-owned property. In the 1950s, when there was a huge need for housing, the municipality also relaxed the rules.
• See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/beit-hakerem.html
  http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/love-and-darkness.html
  http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/katamonim.html
  http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/one-block-from-agripas.html http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/numbered-jerusalem-stones.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/my-jerusalem-neighborhood.html

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox