Neve Yaakov

31°50′28″N 35°14′33″E

Neve Yaakov also Neve Ya'aqov, (Hebrew: נווה יעקב), is a large neighbourhood at the northeastern tip of Jerusalem, with approximately 30,000 inhabitants. The neighborhood is situated to the north of Pisgat Ze'ev and to the south of the Palestinian village of al-Ram.

It was built as part of the Ring Nieghborhood project on land annexed by the Jerusalem municipality from the West Bank after the 1967 Six-Day War, and is thus described by some sources as being an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, although Israel disputes this. Since the spring of 2004, construction has been proceeding on the Israeli West Bank barrier dividing this and other Jerusalem neighborhoods from other areas of the West Bank.

History

Neve Yaakov was originally established in 1924 on a small parcel of land located at the juncture of Shuafat Road and Neve Yaakov Boulevard which was purchased from the Arabs of Beit Haninah by members of the American Mizrachi movement. The village, which would be home to 150 families, was named HaKfar HaIvri Neve Yaakov ("The Jewish Village of Neve Yaakov") after the founder of the movement, Rabbi Yitzchak Yaakov Reines. It was deliberately situated at a one hour's walking distance from the Old City, which was home to most of Jerusalem's population at that time, to take advantage of the spacious, scenic desert environment while at the same time maintaining reasonable proximity for marketing, schooling, and emergency medical needs. From 1924 to 1948, Neve Yaakov and Atarot were the only Jewish settlements north of the Old City.

The village struggled throughout most of its existence from lack of financial backing, tension with neighboring Arabs and daily hardships and privations. After years of trucking water in buckets from a well 6 kilometers away, the village finally received a government water pipeline in 1935. Electricity was hooked up in 1939.

In the beginning, Neve Yaakov's Jews coexisted peacefully with surrounding Arab villagers, who sold them vegetables, fruit and eggs. During the 1929 Hebron massacre, Arabs also attacked Neve Yaakov and many families returned to the Old City. In the course of the Great Uprising (1936 to 1939), shots were heard from the Arab side almost every night. The British Mandate government supplied a cache of arms to defend Neve Yaakov, and members of the Zionist Haganah pre-state army moved in to guard the village and its water pipeline.

During the peaceful years from 1940 to 1947, the village operated a school that enrolled students from all over Israel. It also developed a reputation for its out-of-town vacation atmosphere, children’s summer camps and convalescent facilities that drew on the region’s cool, pure air. Many older Jerusalem residents remember hiking out to the village to buy fresh milk from dairy farmers.

When the Jordanian Arab Legion swept into Jerusalem from the north during the Israeli War of Independence in 1948, Neve Yaakov and Atarot were abandoned, and remained under Jordanian occupation until 1967. The land was cut off from West Jerusalem until after the Six-Day War, when Israel captured the Old City and its environs. A large Jewish neighborhood was constructed near the site of the original village, with 4,900 apartments in well-landscaped, high-rise buildings. The neighborhood filled up quickly with Jewish immigrants from Bukhara, Georgia, Latin America, North Africa, France and Iran. In the 1990s, waves of Russian and Ethiopian immigrants moved into the neighborhood as well.

Kiryat Kamenetz

Beginning in 1982, a housing development on the eastern edge of Neve Yaakov (called "Kiryat Kamenetz" in memory of the Jews of Kamenets, Poland (now Belarus), who were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust) began to be populated by young, Haredi Jewish families. Many of the residents were Anglo Haredi immigrants. In 1992, 700 new apartments were added to this development. By 1997, the burgeoning Haredi population in this area accounted for one-quarter of the population of all of Neve Yaakov.

The neighborhood is also home to two yeshivos primarily for American students, Yeshivas Bais Yisroel, and Yeshivas Lev Aryeh.

The Haredi character of the neighborhood has expanded further since 2004 with an influx of newlywed Hareidi residents, both Israeli-born and Anglo Haredi immigrants. This demographic trend began when families in other areas of Jerusalem found that they could buy older, two- and three-bedroom apartments adjacent to Kiryat Kaminetz for less than $100,000—far less than the going rate for an apartment anywhere else in the high-priced Jerusalem real estate market. Hundreds of young couples subsequently moved into the original Neve Yaakov, further altering the socio-religious character of the neighborhood. This new trend has been characterized by calling it the 'mitchared', meaning becoming Hareidi.