Nahalat Shiv'a
Nahalat Shiv’a is a historic neighborhood in Jerusalem. It was the third Jewish neighborhood built outside the Old City walls in the 1860s. Today it’s a crowded pedestrian street with sidewalk cafes, next to the Downtown Triangle.
Nahalat Shiv’a means “Estate of the Seven” in Hebrew, referring to the seven founding families: Yosef Rivlin, Yoel Moshe Salomon, Yehoshua Yellin, Michal HaCohen, Binyamin Salant, Haim Halevi, and Aryeh Leib Horowitz. There are two versions of how the land was bought: Rivlin said he raised the money on a trip to Russia in 1859, while Salomon said it was his idea. After drawing lots, Rivlin won the right to build the first house on the neighborhood’s northern edge.
Construction began in 1869. At first, people were afraid to stay overnight in the new houses, thinking the Old City was safer. Rivlin’s family even waited at Jaffa Gate each morning to be sure he was alive. Yoel Moshe Salomon moved his printing press to Nahalat Shiv’a and, with Michal HaCohen, published guides and, the next year, the country’s first Hebrew newspaper, Ha-Levanon.
In 1873 a dairy opened after cows were brought from Amsterdam, and a carriage to Jaffa Gate began that summer. By 1875 about 50 families lived there. In 1918, 861 people lived in Nahalat Shiv’a, in 253 houses. The Safrai Gallery started there in 1935.
On October 9, 1994, Hamas carried out a shooting in Nahalat Shiv’a, killing two people and wounding 16. The victims included Ma’ayan Levy and Samir Mugrabi.
The Friends of Zion Museum is located in Nachalat Shiv’a, built into several of the neighborhood’s historic stone houses.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 03:15 (CET).