Old Katamon - A Guide to Jerusalem's Leafy, Genteel Neighborhood

Walk the narrow, quiet streets of Old Katamon and for a moment you feel you have left the Jerusalem you know and stepped into a southern European quarter: stone villas with arched balconies, green inner courtyards, and a silence barely broken by the sound of an engine. This is one of the loveliest and most distinctive neighborhoods in the city - not because of one big tourist site, but because of its character as a whole: genteel, green, old, and slightly hidden from view.

History and character

Katamon (officially named Gonen in Hebrew) was founded in the early 20th century, on the eve of the First World War, as a well-to-do neighborhood whose residents were mostly affluent Arab Christians. The land belonged to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which sold it off because of financial trouble - and that is most likely where the name comes from too: "Katamon" derives from the Greek "kato monastiri", meaning "below the monastery", a reference to the ancient San Simon Monastery on the hill to the west. Another version links the name to the Arabic root "qatam" (to break), after the stone quarries that once operated in the area.

The building here combined the International Style with the more ornate eclectic style - grand entrance staircases, arches, wide balconies and high ceilings, all hallmarks of the Arab and Mediterranean architecture of Mandate-era Jerusalem. Katamon was then one of the most prestigious and cosmopolitan neighborhoods in the city, and later the scene of hard fighting in the 1948 War of Independence, including fierce battles around the San Simon Monastery. After 1948 its houses were settled by new immigrants, and today it is one of the most sought-after and expensive neighborhoods in Jerusalem, especially popular with families and with the city's English-speaking community.

What to see and do

The green heart of the neighborhood is San Simon Park, which wraps around the old San Simon Monastery - a building erected, according to tradition, on the spot where Simeon the Elder of the New Testament lived and was buried. The park is effectively the residents' "central park", and on Shabbat afternoons it fills with families and groups making the most of the open space. It also holds a memorial to the soldiers who fell in the 1948 battles fought on this ground. It is worth simply walking streets like Rachel Imenu Street and Kovshei Katamon Street and looking at the historic villas - some meticulously restored - and at the striking building of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem on Rachel Imenu Street, considered one of the most beautiful buildings in the city.

Cafes and food

Katamon itself is mainly a quiet residential neighborhood, so the thriving cafe and restaurant scene sits mostly around its edges - along nearby Emek Refaim Street in the German Colony, known as one of the liveliest streets in Jerusalem for cafes, restaurants and boutique shops. Katamon residents get that proximity without giving up the quiet of the streets inside.

Getting there

Katamon sits in south-central Jerusalem, between Talbiya, Rehavia and Kiryat Shmuel to the north, the German Colony and the Greek Colony to the east and southeast, and the newer Katamonim (Gonenim) neighborhoods to the south. From the Old City and the city center it is a pleasant 15 to 20 minute walk, through Rehavia or the German Colony.

Planning a visit to Katamon or the neighborhoods around it? Take a look at livejlm.com for ongoing updates on events, shows and activities nearby - so you catch Jerusalem live, in real time.