Neve Yaakov

Neve Yaakov (also Neve Ya'aqov, Heb. נווה יעקב) is a large Jewish 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 Arab village of A-Ram.

Since the neighborhood is located in territory captured by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967, it is widely considered an Israeli settlement. Since the spring of 2004, construction has been proceeding on the separation fence dividing this and other Jerusalem neighborhoods from the Palestinian territories. As of 2006, the fence / wall north of Neve Yaakov has been completed, separating Neve Yaakov from A-Ram.

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. But during the Hebron riot of 1929, Arabs also attacked Neve Yaakov and many families returned to the Old City. From 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. The land was cut off from Jerusalem proper until after the Six-Day War, when Israel reclaimed 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.

Kaminetz

Beginning in 1982, a housing development on the eastern edge of Neve Yaakov, called Kiryat Kaminetz (memorializing the Jews of Kaminetz, Poland, who were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust) began to be populated by young, chareidi (ultra-Orthodox) religious Jewish families. In 1992, 700 new apartments were added to this development. By 1997, the growing Hareidi population in this area accounted for one-quarter of the population of all of Neve Yaakov. Many of the residents are American Hareidi immigrants.