10 Facts about Meah Shearim

Post On: January 2, 2018
By: Andi
In: Places

Talking about a place in Jerusalem, let us reading facts about Meah Shearim. Meah Shearim is the name of street occupied by Haredi Jews and it was built by the Old Yishuv. To know more about the interesting information about this place, please feel free to read the description below.

Facts about Meah Shearim 1: The Name

Meah Shearim derives from hebrew, which means hundreds gates or in contextually a hundred fold. Historically, the name of Mea Shearim appeared from a verse in the weekly Torah portion that stated that “isaac sowed in that land, and in that year he reaped a hundredfold; god had blessed him” (Genesis 26:12). Eventually, based on the tradition, the society originally had 100 gates.

Facts about Meah Shearim 2: Establishment of the Place

The drew-up planning of Meah Shearim was established by Conrad Schick (i.e. a German Christian architect and missionary in 1846. Then in 1874 Meah Shearim was built and became the first jewis settlement outside the walls of old city.

facts about Meah Shearim

Facts about Meah Shearim 3: Meah Shearim was Structured

Meah Shearim was structured as a courtyard neighbourhood. It was surrounded by a wall, the gates locked every evening. In October 1880, 100 apartments had been built.

Facts about Meah Shearim 4: Incident in the Neighbourhood

In April 2015, an IDF officer was attacked by inhabitant of Mea Shearim and threatened to kill him. Then, this incident got national atttention. Benjamin Netanyahu, a prime minister, condemned the attack as “outrageous”.

Facts about Meah Shearim 5: Haredi Lifestyle

In todays, life revolves around strictly adherence to jewish law, prayer, and the study of jewish religious  texts. Commonly, inhabitant have traditions to use black frock coats and black hat for men, and long-sleeved, modest clothing for women. In addition, married women wear a kinds of hair coverings, such as wigs, scarves and snoods. And the men embed beards and many grow long sidecurls named peyos.

Facts about Meah Shearim 6: Language Used

Yiddish is a common language used by residents. They use hebrew when they prayed and religious studied because they believe that hebrew to be a sacred language hence only used for religious purposes.

Facts about Meah Shearim

Facts about Meah Shearim 7: Neighbourhood Regulations

Modesty is the most upheld in  Mea Shearim. Even modesty posters in hebrew and english are put at every entrance of Mea Shearim. When visitting the neighbourhood, the women and girls are directed to use modest dress, men and boys are urged to avoid wearing shorts and sleeveless shirts, and tourist are not allowed in large number. When entering sybagogues, men are directed to cover their heads.

Facts about Meah Shearim 8: Economy

In economic side, Meah Shearim get income from etrog cultivation, winemaking, banking, printing, soap production, and textiles.

Facts about Meah Shearim 9: The Meah Shearim Comunity

There are some comunities in Meah Shearim namely musta’arabim, sephardim, perushim, and hasidim.

Street Meah Shearim Plan in 1927

Facts about Meah Shearim 10: Meah Shearim  Key Figures

There are big number of figures who took big involve for development of Meah Shearim such as Ishtori Haparchi, Joseph Saragossi, etc.

Do you love reading facts about Meah Shearim?