Mea Shearim

thumb|upright|A wall plastered with [[Pashkvil|pashkevilin (announcements) in Mea Shearim]]

Mea Shearim (; contextually, 'a hundred fold', Ashkenazi Hebrew and Yiddish pronunciation: Meye Shorim) is a neighborhood in Jerusalem. It is one of the oldest Ashkenazi neighborhoods in Jerusalem outside of the Old City. It is populated by Ashkenazi Haredi Jews, and was built by members of the Old Yishuv.

Name

The name Mea Shearim is derived from a verse from Genesis, which happened to be part of the weekly Torah portion that was read the week the settlement was founded: "Isaac sowed in that land, and in that year, he reaped a hundredfold (, mea shearim); God had blessed him" (). According to a tradition, the community originally had 100 gates, another meaning of Mea Shearim.

History

Meir Auerbach, the chief Ashkenazi rabbi of Jerusalem, was one of the founders of the neighborhood. Conrad Schick, a German Protestant architect, drew up the first blueprint for Mea Shearim in 1846. Mea Shearim, one of the earliest Jewish settlements outside the walls of the Old City, was established in 1874 by a building society of 100 shareholders. Pooling their resources, the society members purchased a tract of land outside the walled city, which was severely over-crowded and plagued by poor sanitation, and built a new neighborhood with the goal of improving their standards of living.

Yosef Rivlin, one of the heads of the Jewish community in Jerusalem, and a Christian Arab from Bethlehem were the contractors. The work was carried out by both Jewish and non-Jewish workers.

thumb|230px|Street plan in 1927

Mea Shearim was structured as a courtyard neighborhood. It was surrounded by a wall, with gates that were locked every evening. By October 1880, 100 apartments were ready for occupancy, and a lottery was held to assign them to families. By the turn of the century, there were 300 houses, a flour mill, and a bakery. Conrad Schick planned for open green space in each courtyard, but cowsheds were built instead. Mea Shearim was the first quarter in Jerusalem to have street lights.

The Mea Shearim shuk in the 1960s.|thumb

Hasidic groups with a large number of followers in Mea Shearim include: Breslov, Slonim, Toldos Aharon, Toldos Avraham Yitzhak, Mishkenos HoRoim, and Satmar. The Pinsk-Karlin dynasty also has its center here. The Edah HaChareidis, which supervises kashrut certification and runs a Jewish religious court, has its headquarters at the western end of Mea Shearim. Mea Shearim is the stronghold of both factions of the Neturei Karta movement, which opposes Zionism, as well as the movement from whence they sprang – the descendants of the original Perushim community, also known as "Yerushalmis". Some Neturei Karta members have asked to live under Arab rule. Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, a posek of Litvish / Yeshivish Jewry, lived there.

The oldest Sephardic Haredi dynasty, Levi Kahana of Spain, has a religious cultural center in the neighborhood.

Neighborhood regulations

thumb|[[Modesty sign in Mea Shearim]]

A certificate for a building in the neighborhood, confirming that its residents have been inspected and found suitable for the neighborhood's character.|thumb

"Modesty" posters in Hebrew and English are hung at every entrance to Mea Shearim. When visiting the neighborhood, women and girls are urged to wear what is deemed to be modest dress (knee-length skirts or longer, no plunging necklines or midriff tops, no sleeveless or short-sleeved blouses or bare shoulders); men and boys are urged to avoid wearing shorts and sleeveless shirts; tourists are requested not to arrive in large, conspicuous groups; and in some of the older signs, even non-Jewish men are requested to wear kippot. During Shabbat (from Friday night at sundown to Saturday night at sundown), visitors are asked to refrain from smoking, photography, driving, or using mobile phones. When entering synagogues, men are asked to cover their heads.

Incidents in the neighborhood

thumb|[[Toldos Aharon (Hasidic dynasty)|Toldos Aharon children in Mea Shearim, 2007]]

Some residents have been criticized for attacking police, and other government officials entering the area, with stones, and blocking the streets, or setting fire to rubbish when they try to do so (otherwise known as Hafganahs).

A small, violent group called "The Sikrikim", of less than 100 families, enforce censorship on bookshops, causing over 250,000 NIS damage to a shop that resisted their demands.

A Meah Shearim courtyard in the 1940s|thumb

On 24 June 2010, politicians Uri Maklev and Moshe Gafni of the Haredi party United Torah Judaism were attacked in Mea Shearim, after they had visited the Slonim rabbi and had entered his synagogue to pray. When they emerged, they were set upon by young men affiliated with Neturei Karta who spat at them and physically assaulted them.

In April 2015, an IDF officer was attacked by men and women of Mea Shearim who allegedly threatened to kill him, while children blocked his exit. The incident received national attention. The attack was condemned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as "outrageous", and by Shas leader Aryeh Deri as "an act of terror".

References

External links

Go Jerusalem's Information on Mea Shearim