Har Nof

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Har Nof (Hebrew: הר נוף, lit. scenic mountain) is a mountainside neighborhood in northwest Jerusalem, Israel, home to approximately 30,000.

[edit] Population

Its makeup is almost completely Orthodox, including a high percentage of Haredi residents. It is home to a large community of English-speaking olim, including a group of Bostoner hassidim. Many other communities of Hassidim are also represented, including Ger and Vizhnitz, as well as many Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews who live near Shas leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. It is home to no less than 300 synagogues, yeshivas, and houses of study. Prominent Har Nof yeshivot are Heichal Hatorah, Machon Shlomo and Machon Yaakov.

The acknowledged spiritual leaders of the Ashkenazi Haredi community are Rabbi Mayer Alter Horowitz, of the Boston Hassidic Community and Rabbi Moshe Schternbuch of the Eidah Chareidi.

[edit] Geography

The neighborhood is constructed on terraces hewn out of the mountainside, which leads to many multi-story apartment buildings having entrances at both the lowest and uppermost floors. Getting from one street to the next might mean thirty or forty steps. At the bottom of the mountain is the beautiful Jerusalem Forest (יער ירושלים, Yaar Yerushalayim). The neighborhood is linked to the city-center by Kanfei Nesharim street, a long avenue lined with modern offices and stores which passes through the neighborhood of Givat Shaul.

The neighborhood was constructed in the 1980s on the western edge of the capital and situated mainly around the mountain's summit (813 metres), where the Arab village of Deir Yassin once stood.

City buses 2 (Har Nof - Kiryat Tzanz - Kotel), 11 (Har Nof - city center - Har Chotzvim - Ramat Shlomo),15 (Har Nof - city center) begin and end in the neighborhood and 33 (Har Nof - Malcha Mall - Gilo) .