page_title: Katamon
section_title: Ottoman era
hierarchical_section_title: Katamon / History / Ottoman era
caption_attribution_description: עברית: מגדל הפעמון של מנזר סן-סימון, קטמון.
context_page_description: Katamon or Qatamon is a Jewish neighbourhood in south-central Jerusalem. The official Hebrew name, Gonen, is mainly used in municipal publications. Katamon is derived from the Greek κατὰ τῷ μοναστηρίῳ.
  The neighborhood is built next to an old Greek Orthodox monastery, believed to be built on the home and the tomb of Simeon from the Gospel of Luke. The neighborhood was established in the early 1900s, shortly before World War I as a wealthy, predominantly Christian Arab neighborhood. During the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine the local population fled the neighborhood and it was soon repopulated by Jewish refugees.
context_section_description: In 1524, after the Ottoman Turks conquered the region from the Mamluks, it was reported that a church of St Simeon, previously held by the Georgians, was now empty in the wake of Muslim attacks. In 1681 Cornelis de Bruijn made an engraving of Jerusalem, which suggested that there was an L-shaped, four-story-high tower in Katamon, confirming an early 17th-century source which mentioned a "house and tower" of "Simeon the prophet". The Greek Orthodox acquired the site in 1859 and in 1881 they built there a new church and residence for their Patriarch, incorporating the older ruins. The Greek Orthodox call it "St. Symeon of Katamonas" and believe that it is built over the tomb of Simeon, with an inscription in a cave on the grounds interpreted to indicate that it was the tomb of Simeon's priestly forefathers. In 1890 the Greek–Orthodox patriarch Nicodemus I of Jerusalem built his summer house near the monastery (since the 1960s the building serves as a disabled care center).
  The neighborhood began to develop in the late Ottoman Era, in the early 1900s. According to Israeli geographer Gideon Biger, Katamon was probably planned before World War I. The lands in Katamon, like in Talbiya and Baka, were owned by the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem. In the late 19th century the church had a financial crisis which worsened during World War I. The Church sold, shortly before the war, some of its estate outside of the Old City, which were deemed as "less holy" including Katamon, which was split into plots for housing in a rural area.
  Katamon lands. Fresh air and an affordable price. If you wish to become an owner of a plot in Katamon near the monastery, to which you arrive in a paved road and the area is divided into plots in the most pleasant way with roads and paths around, every plot is five-hundred square meters and the price for a plot is a thousand Qirsh and this amount can be paid in installments of five Qirsh per week, please take advantage of this opportunity and talk with Nacla Qatan and pay him five Qirsh and the plot will be yours. Provided, however, you will continue to pay this small amount. If you want to purchase more than one plot, you are allowed to do so and purchase additional plots. And when the raffle take place, you may win adjacent plots...
  — A newspaper ad for Katamon, Falastin, 8 August 1914
  German aerial photographs taken during the war show building lots demarcated by stones at Katamon in a grid plan way, and a system of dirt roads. Despite the low prices, the neighborhood did not attract Jewish buyers because the area was completely Christian, next to the Greek Colony, German Colony and Baka. Until the war five houses were built in Katamon.
caption: St.Simeon belltower
exif: {}