page_title: Yemin Moshe
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Yemin Moshe / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Yemin Moshe in snow, with Birket es-Sultan in foreground. 1920s.
context_page_description: Yemin Moshe is a historic neighborhood in Jerusalem, Israel overlooking the Old City.
context_section_description: Yemin Moshe was established in 1892–1894 by the Montefiore Welfare Fund. Located outside Jerusalem's Old City, it was conceived as a solution to the overcrowding and unsanitary conditions inside the walls. The Fund was continuing the work done by British Jewish banker Moses Montefiore and the new project was meant to mark the seventh year after the philanthropist's death. The name commemorates Montefiore's first name and a verse from the Book of Isaiah (Isaiah 63:11–12).
  The land was bought in 1855 by Montefiore with money from the estate of Judah Touro and came to be known as Kerem Moshe VeYehudit, Moses and Judith Vineyard, after Montefiore and his wife.
  The first housing project, Mishkenot Sha'ananim, consisted of two rows of buildings. Its first houses were completed by 1860 and contained 28 apartments of one-and-a-half rooms. The compound also had a water cistern with an iron pump imported from England, a mikveh and a communal oven. Few people were prepared to live there at the time due to its location outside the city walls, in an area open to Arab marauders. The original houses were built with a wall around them and a gate that was locked at night. The second row of houses of Mishkenot Sha'ananim was built in 1866 when a cholera epidemic was at its height in the Old City. Some of the people who took up residence in the new neighborhood refused to stay there at night, but that year, the demand for apartments rose as illness spread.
  The Yemin Moshe neighbourhood was built in 1892–1894 on the remaining lands around Mishkenot Sha'ananim. Joseph Sebag Montefiore, Moses Montefiore's nephew, signed the agreements which allowed for the construction project on the Kerem Moshe VeYehudit land.
  In addition to the windmill, which was built to allow poor Jews to grind their own flour, Montefiore built a printing press and textile factory, and helped to finance several agricultural colonies. He also attempted to acquire arable land for Jewish cultivation, but was hampered by Ottoman restrictions on land sale to non-Muslims.
caption: Yemin Moshe in snow. 1920s.
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