page_title: French Hill
section_title: Etymology
hierarchical_section_title: French Hill / Etymology
caption_attribution_description: English: Title: Ain Farah water supply Abstract/medium: G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection Physical description: 1 negative&#160;:
context_page_description: French Hill, also Giv'at Shapira is a neighborhood built in northern East Jerusalem after the area was conquered by Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967. The neighborhood became part of the unified borders of Jerusalem according to the Jerusalem Law, enacted in 1980. East Jerusalem, including French Hill, was never officially annexed to Israel, but it was brought under the jurisdiction of the Jerusalem city municipality, allowing Israeli law to be implemented there.
context_section_description: The source of the name French Hill is the fact that the land belonged to the Catholic Monastery of St Anne, whose monks hailed mainly from France. In 1926 the Monastery donated a plot of land to built a reservoir to store water that was pumped from Ein Farah, to supply the city of Jerusalem. An opening ceremony was held on 15 July 1926 and the location was reported in the newspapers as "the French Hill" (at the time in Hebrew in plural - Giv'at Ha'Zorfatim).
  According to local legend, it was named after a British general, John French, 1st Earl of Ypres who is said to have had his headquarters on this hill. According to this legend there was a mistake with the translation to Hebrew that named the place after the country France (in Hebrew: Tzarfat). However, French never served in this region. Had the neighborhood been named for General French, the correct name in Hebrew would have been Giv'at French.
caption: Construction work on the French Hill reservoir in 1926
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