Nachlaot - Magnetic, Magical Neighborhoods of Yesteryear Jerusalem

Text & Photos: Lydia Aisenberg

A group of small, rather crowded neighborhoods, each with its own all-encompassing aura, can be found dustily rubbing shoulders, sandwiched between Jerusalem's Jaffa and Bezalel streets in the area collectively known as Nachlaot.

The varied neighborhoods that make up this lively, somewhat squashed together, enigmatic area, share with visitors some incredibly challenging architecture and planning, or lack of it. The area regularly draws hundreds of thousands of both Israeli and overseas visitors, primarily to the nearby sprawling, colorful and very noisy Mahane Yehuda market, which was established in 1928.

The Nachlaot neighborhoods were created outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, mostly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Overcrowding and unsanitary conditions were rampant within the walled city and in 1875 the first of the 'outside the wall' neighborhoods – Even Yisrael – was established.

Each neighborhood was planned for a specific ethnic Jewish community, with housing, synagogue, schools, yeshiva, shop and so forth, all leading off a central heart-of-the-community meeting place in the form of a large courtyard or square. The individual neighborhoods were managed on a communal basis with rules and regulations that residents were expected to adhere to.

However, already in the 1920s as urban planning, roads, communal recreational areas and such developed in the City of Gold, the more financially successful residents of Nachlaot began to move to the more modern parts of the fast developing new city. This was a contributing factor to the slow descent of the Nachlaot communities into serious decline.

Fortunately, the importance of preserving these unique neighborhoods was eventually recognized, and a concerted preservation project was initiated, not only giving Nachlaot a new lease of life but also protecting its rightful place in the heritage of Jerusalem.

Leaving the hustle, bustle and ear-splitting calls from vendors in the vast market, selling fruit, veg, clothing and almost everything between a trinket and a kitchen sink, the quietness, stillness and a certain comforting blanket of spirituality seems to hover over one almost immediately upon entering the narrow lanes with their small and large courtyards, so near, but distant, from the market place's constant cacophony.

With a slight breeze kicking up, one can actually hear the leaves rustling in the trees – almost in harmony with the gentle flapping of heavily laden laundry lines strung across many small, crowded verandas.

Here and there, voices of very young children can be heard somewhere in the background. A few minutes later, those sounds are replaced as the gentle hum of prayer emanates from an open window of a small and rather attractive synagogue, wedged between a corner shop and a row of small apartments, their entrances sporting piles of prams and kiddies' bikes.

A stroll around the Nachlaot neighborhoods in present times becomes almost akin to an Alice falling down the rabbit's hole experience. Surprise after surprise awaits to be discovered within the narrow lanes, courtyards and windowsills filled with plant pots, the small, intimate and larger synagogues and plethora of artistic wrought iron railings and gates.

Some areas have become very hip indeed, but have not lost their once-upon-a-time atmosphere as incredibly lifelike portraits of revered rabbis and other communal leaders of yesteryear have been skillfully painted on walls that have seen, heard and absorbed so much throughout the ages.

In the streets, lanes and alleyways, on the outer walls of smaller courtyards in front of synagogues or other historical buildings, long billboards, tastefully created so as not to clash with their surroundings, take visitors on a stroll through time to meet some of the truly amazing, yesteryear folk who lived in the Nachlaot neighborhoods, rich in history.

Texts in Hebrew and English lead one down an incredibly illustrious memory lane as the sepia photographs of past residents from different periods of time almost come alive as one reads this open book on the walls about who they were, where they had come from … the Yemen, Syria, Turkey, for example … allowing the visitor to briefly share some of their hardships, joyous occasions and above all, truly understand their important contribution to building not only the city of Jerusalem, but also – eventually – the State of Israel.