Nissan Beck or Nissan Bak (1815-1889 Hebrew: ניסן בק) was one of the leaders of the hassidic Ashkenazi community of the Old Yishuv in the Ottoman Palestine. [1]
Beck was born in Berdichev, 1815 to a Sadagóra hassidic family. The family immigrated to the Land of Israel in 1831. His father, Israel Beck, was one of the developers of the Jewish Quarter in the Jerusalem Old City, and the owner of the first Hebrew press in Jerusalem.[2] Beck helped his father to run the printing press.
Beck used his contacts with the Ottoman authorities to mitigate decrees aimed against the Jewish Yishuv. He helped establish the Yemenite Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem.[3]
In 1872, Nissan Beck founded the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue, also known as the Nissan Beck Shul.[4]
Beck was deeply involved in founding of the Jewish neighborhood Ḳiryah Ne'emanah, better known as Batei Nissan Bak in 1879.[3] Beck bought the land and paid for the construction of the neighborhood, opposite the Damascus Gate of the Old City. The neighborhood was originally built for ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi Jews, but since few members of his community wanted to live there, the neighborhood was eventually divided into three different complexes, one for Georgian Jews, one for Caucasus Jews and the third for Jews from Syria and Iraq.[5]
Nissan Beck died in 1889 and was buried in the Mount of Olives Jewish cemetery.