Gated Communities

• Jewish neighborhoods built in Jerusalem during the last 50 years of Ottoman rule were gated communities. Typically two long, single-story, apartment buildings flanked a courtyard. At one end was a strong gate; at the other a wall or an equally strong gate. In those days, bandits roamed the land.
• Under the stones of the courtyard was the communal rainwater cistern. By the end of the summer it was dry. Then drinking water was bought from peddlars. During the 1947-1948 siege of Jerusalem, an elderly resident (gabbai of the Parsi synagog on Shilo Street) told me, people were glad to have the cistern water, though, he said,t hey had to shop down trees for firewood to boil it.
• In the courtyard there was also the communal baking oven.
• Jacky Levy has said that in Jerusalem the word shkhuna (neighborhood) properly applies only to this configuration, that brought its inhabitants together for essentials.
• Walking north on Diskin from Ruppin, just after KKL (which, in spite of what the Carta map shows, does go through to Diskin), turn right at the alley. You will soon be in a very pretty example of such communities.
• Look up (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/looking-up.html . A second floor has been added to most buildings. Look around. Many owners have modernized their properties.
• As you walk through the Nakhalaot, on both sides of Betsalel, you shoulad be able to trace several other neighborhoods from the same era.

Copyright 2007 Jane S. Fox