25/08/2026
In the "Archives of the Jewish People", Jerusalem, a "Lease Agreement" is preserved that refers probably to a "baking oven" located in the neighborhood of "Nahalat Zvi of Kollel Shomrei HaChomos”, Jerusalem." The contract was signed on Friday, 29th of Adar 5697, March 12, 1937.
The neighborhood "Nahalat Zvi of Kollel Shomrei HaChomos”, Jerusalem, what does that mean?
According to information on the Internet, the "Batei Ungarin" neighborhood in Jerusalem, adjacent to the "Meah She'arim" neighborhood, was officially named "Nachalat Zvi" after the philanthropist Rabbi Yitzchak Zvi Retzersdorfer of Antwerp, Belgium [apparently born in 1850, passed away on February 8, 1915]. The neighborhood was established on the initiative of "Kollel Shomrei HaChomos" [also known as "Kollel Ungarin"] for the poor of the Old Yishuv in Jerusalem hailing from Hungary.
Never the less, it appears that the "oven" was not located in the "Meah She'arim" neighborhood, but near it, in the "Nachalat Zvi" neighborhood, which was established on the initiative of immigrants from Yemen. They decided to save money to purchase land and build houses. They entrusted the small amount of money they managed to raise to the educator Nissim Behar, one of the leaders of the Sephardic community in Eretz Israel.
Nissim Behar recognized that the money entrusted to him would not be enough to purchase land and build the houses. Therefore, he turned to Baron Maurice de Hirsch to lend money to the Yemenite immigrant initiators to assist them in establishing the neighborhood. In return, the neighborhood was named after the Baron, that is, "Nachalat Zvi" [the translation of Hirsch from German to Hebrew is Zvi (deer)]. In the 1920s and 1930s, when the "oven", whose rental is presented here, "Nachalat Zvi" was one of the poorest neighborhoods in Jerusalem.
Shimon Blumenthal, who notes in the contract that he is a Hungarian subject and was a key figure in "Kollel Shomrei HaChomos" during the 1930s, rented the "oven" to Yitzchak Cohen Antebi from "Sha'arei Pinah," whose citizenship is not mentioned in the contract. "Sha'arei Pinah" is a small historical neighborhood near "Meah She'arim," populated primarily by Yemenite immigrants.
With that, this circle is closed.
One more small note: The text of the contract, which is written in excellent Hebrew, and preserved in the "Archives of the Jewish People", Jerusalem, refers to renting an apartment rather than renting an "oven." Apparently, however, this imprecise phrasing bothered neither the landlord nor the tenant.
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