Nahalat Shimon ( he, נחלת שמעון. ''lit.'' Simeon's Estate) was a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

religious neighborhood of about 40 Jewish families in East Jerusalem in the area currently known as

Sheikh Jarrah Sheikh Jarrah ( ar, الشيخ جراح, he, שייח' ג'ראח) is a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, north of the Old City, on the road to Mount Scopus. It received its name from the 13th-century tomb of Sheikh Ja ...

.. It was founded in 1891 by Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewish

Kollel A kollel ( he, כולל, , , a "gathering" or "collection" f scholars is an institute for full-time, advanced study of the Talmud and rabbinic literature. Like a yeshiva, a kollel features shiurim (lectures) and learning ''sedarim'' (sessions); ...

s, to house poor Yemenite and Sephardi Jews. The cornerstone of the neighborhood was laid in 1890, near the

Tomb of Simeon the Just The Tomb of Simeon the Just or Simeon the Righteous ( he, קבר שמעון הצדיק; translit. ''Kever Shimon haTzadik'') is an ancient tomb in Jerusalem. According to scholarly consensus, based on an ''in situ'' inscription, it is the 2nd-ce ...

History

Nahalat Shimon was located at the tip of the

Kidron Valley The Kidron Valley ( classical transliteration, ''Cedron'', from he, נחל קדרון, ''Naḥal Qidron'', literally Qidron River; also Qidron Valley) is the valley originating slightly northeast of the Old City of Jerusalem, which then separate ...

, west of the

tomb of Simeon the Just The Tomb of Simeon the Just or Simeon the Righteous ( he, קבר שמעון הצדיק; translit. ''Kever Shimon haTzadik'') is an ancient tomb in Jerusalem. According to scholarly consensus, based on an ''in situ'' inscription, it is the 2nd-ce ...

. The namesake Jewish settler organization contends that the land was purchased in 1890 and the first homes were built soon after, housing 20 impoverished families, and that by 1947 there were 100 Jewish homes in the neighborhood. In March 1948, due to mounting Arab violence during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the British ordered the residents to evacuate within two hours. According to one of the evacuees, Justice Emeritus

Michael Ben-Yair Prof. Michael Ben-Yair ( he, מיכאל בן יאיר; born 1 September 1942) was raised in Sheikh Jarrah until 1948, is a former Attorney General of Israel, a position he held between 1993 and 1996, and former acting judge at the Supreme Court of ...

, all these Jewish evacuees from Sheikh Jarrah were given Palestinian homes in West Jerusalem in compensation.Nir Hasson,
Former Attorney General Discovers Settler Group Took Over His Family’s Sheikh Jarrah Home
, '' Haaretz'', 15 June 2021 Meanwhile, the Palestinians who were given housing in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood by Jordanian authorities in exchange for in a relinquishing their refugee documents and accompanying rights have no right under Israeli law to repossess their pre-1948 homes in

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

Sarafand Sarafand or Sarafend may refer to: Places * Sarafand, Lebanon, also spelled Sarafend ** Sarepta, an ancient Phoenician city at the location of the modern Lebanese town * Tzrifin, area in central Israel previously known as "Sarafand" or "Sarafend", ...

and Jaffa.Daphna Golan-Agnon
''Teaching Palestine on an Israeli University Campus:Unsettling Denial''
Anthern Press 2020 p.57. The settler organization Nahalat Shimon, registered in

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

, has pursued the case in Israeli courts for decades, demanding eviction of the Palestinian residents so that Jewish settlers can be housed there.

History

References

See also