Courtyard neighborhoods are

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

neighborhood A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neigh ...

s built in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

and

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The inward-facing and defensible traditional urban housing of the

Near East The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...

, ordinarily occupied by an

extended family An extended family is a family that extends beyond the nuclear family of parents and their children to include aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins or other relatives, all living nearby or in the same household. Particular forms include the stem ...

, was adapted in these cases to serve a close-knit but genealogically unrelated community.

Description

Courtyard neighborhoods were built around a large

courtyard A courtyard or court is a circumscribed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky. Courtyards are common elements in both Western and Eastern building patterns and have been used by both ancient and contemporary a ...

. A surrounding wall protected against hostile outsiders. Most of the houses were close together, with one gap that was easy to defend. The courtyard typically holds a neighborhood

cistern A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster. Cisterns are disti ...

. Such neighborhoods reflected the residents' communal organization. Typically, the apartments surrounding the courtyard were small (usually a studio apartment for each family), pushing many household tasks into the courtyard. In Jerusalem each family had one laundry day every two weeks. Hand-washing the clothing consumed many hours. That day the housewife cooked only for her household.

Neighborhoods

The Jerusalem neighborhood of

Nachlaot Nachlaot (, also ''Naḥlaʾoth'') is a cluster of 32 neigbourhoods, many of them courtyard neighborhoods in central Jerusalem surrounding the Mahane Yehuda Market. It is known for its narrow, winding lanes, old-style housing, hidden courtyards ...

(now known as part of the extended Lev Ha'Ir borough) consists of 23 historical courtyard neighborhoods. In Tel Aviv the classic example is the neighborhood of

Neve Tzedek Neve Tzedek (, ''lit.'' Abode of Justice) is a Jewish neighborhood in southwestern Tel Aviv, Israel. It was the first Judaism, Jewish neighborhood to be built outside the old city of the ancient port of Jaffa. It was founded by a group of 48 J ...

References

Neighborhoods in Israel Nachlaot Neighborhoods of Tel Aviv *neighborhood Jewish communities {{Israel-stub