Pisgat Ze'ev

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Pisgat Ze'ev ( 31°49′N, 35°14′E; Hebrew: פסגת זאב‎), is the largest neighbourhood in Jerusalem, with over 45,000 residents. Built in 1982 and populated as of 1985, it is situated to the east of the neighbourhood of Shuafat, to the south of the neighbourhood of Neve Yaakov, and to the west of the Palestinian villages of Hizme and Anatah.

Contents 1 Background 2 Construction and expansion 3 West Bank barrier 4 Street names 5 External links 6 Notes

[edit] Background

The neighbourhood was built to expand the Jewish population in East Jerusalem, and it constitutes a contiguous Jewish area along with Neve Yaakov, which until the establishment of Pisgat Ze'ev, was isolated from other Jewish neighbourhoods. It is named after the Revisionist Zionist leader, Ze'ev Jabotinsky.

[edit] Construction and expansion

Pisgat Ze'ev is divided into five sections by phase of construction: Center (1982), West (1988), East and North (1990), and South (1998). It is connected to the downtown by a direct freeway, Route 60. Because it is located in territory captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed (first through the Jerusalem annexation directorate of 1967, then through the Jerusalem Law of 1980), it is widely regarded as an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem.

The construction of Pisgat Ze'ev played an important role in the increase in the proportion of the Jewish population of East Jerusalem relative to the area's Arab and non-Jewish population. In 1990, there were 150,000 Arabs and non-Jews to 120,000 Jews; in 1993, there were 155,000 Arabs and non-Jews to 160,000 Jews.^[1][2]

[edit] West Bank barrier

Since the spring of 2004, construction has been proceeding on the Israeli West Bank barrier dividing this and other Jerusalem neighborhoods from the West Bank. One result was an increase of Palestinians with Jerusalem residency moving into Pisgat Ze'ev, which has a largely homogeneous Jewish population.^[3]

[edit] Street names

Many of the streets in the central section of Pisgat Ze'ev have names of Israeli army units that took part in the 1948 and 1967 wars. Two of them have numbers instead of names ("Street of the Four," "Street of the Sixteen"), memorializing the number of Israeli soldiers who fell in combat in this area during the Israeli War of Independence, the Six-Day War, and other battles for Jerusalem. A memorial listing the names of these soldiers can be found at the Archeological Park in Pisgat Ze'ev-Central.

[edit] External links

• Official site (Hebrew)
• Jerusalem Photos Portal - Pisgat Ze'ev

[edit] Notes