Originally built to populate the newly annexed areas of east Jerusalem,
Ramat Eshkol is now predominantly home to religious families.
By JOHN BENZAQUENRamat Eshkol 521(photo credit: Courtesy of RE/MAX Vision)
The northeastern neighborhood of Ramat Eshkol may be aptly described as Primus inter pares (first among equals), being the first “ring” neighborhood constructed around Jerusalem after the end of the Six Day War.Planning for Ramat Eshkol – named for then incumbent prime minister Levi Eshkol – started in late 1967, and building began in late 1968.Jerusalem is different from many other cities in the country in that it has “self-contained” neighborhoods. As the city expanded beyond its walls, the neighborhoods that sprung up were self-contained for both commercial and security reasons, and this has continued to this day.
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Ramat Eshkol was planned as such from the beginning, with tree-lined streets, small parks, a neighborhood health clinic, a small commercial center, a retirement home and a supermarket. Most of the apartment buildings are not more than four stories high. There are some high-rise apartment buildings on Eshkol Boulevard, but these are the exception.All the neighborhood buildings are swathed in stone, in keeping with the rules of the Jerusalem Municipality, which wants all the city’s building facades to have a common look.Construction of the neighborhood was not easy.Ramat Eshkol is sitauted on a former military frontier, from which Jordanian and Israeli minefields that had to be cleared first. The IDF’s Engineering Corps performed that task, under the supervision of Lt.-Col. (res.) Israel Levitt, who reenlisted especially for this purpose. Levitt, an architect in civilian life, also designed the first apartment buildings in the area.By 1970, the first residents began to move in, even though the infrastructure was poor. There were very few roads and no public transportation, at a time when the number of people owning cars was rather limited.Ramat Eshkol was meant to provide dwellings, but it had another purpose as well: to create a continuous link joining the residential estates on Shmuel Hanavi Street, those in the French Hill neighborhood and those on the Hebrew University campus at Mount Scopus.In those years, work also started on the Givat Hamivtar neighborhood, next to Ramat Eshkol. But in contrast, Givat Hamivtar was built as a suburb consisting of single family or semi-detached homes. As such, it was the first in Jerusalem to be built as a country-style suburb, consisting of houses with large gardens.Plots of land were raffled off for that purpose, but the response was not very favorable, as the area was considered problematic at the time. Furthermore, there was a time limit to construction, and people of limited means – those who saw an opportunity to upgrade their living standards cheaply – were afraid they would not make it by the deadline. Also hampering the construction and making it more expensive was the lack of paved roads, which made access difficult.According to the master plan, 80 percent of the dwellings were earmarked as semi-detached dwellings, while 20% were single-family homes, consisting of 500-square-meter plots with up to 250-sq.m. houses.Givat Hamivtar gave residents the feeling of suburban life, with pastoral streets, parks and a small shopping center. These days, the neighborhood is an affluent area.Shlomo Benzaquen, a RE/MAX Vision realtor, tells In Jerusalem that “today, these large, spacious houses attract large families. But since they sell for anywhere from NIS 3 million to NIS 5m., local Israeli buyers find them difficult to acquire. So foreign buyers, both French and Anglo, have become the predominant purchasers of these high-end properties. Many families have divided the house into two or sometimes three units to allow grown children and their families to live on the property as well, while other owners have found additional income sources by renting out the smaller units and living in the larger section.”Ramat Eshkol also has a park dedicated to Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews during World War II. The neighborhood’s largest park is Gan Hamesh Esrei (Park of the 15), which commemorates the 15 soldiers killed in one day of fighting in 1969 during the War of Attrition with Egypt, opposite the Suez Canal.The neighborhood has its own architectural finds as well. The Eshkolot Tomb, for instance, was discovered in the early 1970s during building work and got its name from a stone carving depicting a cluster of grapes (eshkol) over the entrance.Today, Ramat Eshkol is a bustling neighborhood populated primarily by religious families. Although prices are relatively high compared to the neighboring French Hill, young ultra-Orthodox families are buying there because of the religious atmosphere and the proximity to Sanhedria, another primarily haredi neighborhood. Prices, on average, range from NIS 1.4m.and up for a standard three-room apartment, to NIS 1.6m. for a four-room apartment.Unlike in other places in Jerusalem, the lower-floor apartments in Ramat Eshkol are more expensive. This is because religious families often have many children, and climbing stairs with strollers can be a bother, especially on Shabbat, as not all use Shabbat elevators.The area has also seen a significant internal upgrading trend in real estate. Since many residents like the area, they often sell their smaller apartments and upgrade to larger ones in the neighborhood.Meanwhile, the suburb is attracting young couples who rent apartments while the husbands study for up to three years at some of the nearby yeshivot. Many of these couples decide to remain and later purchase properties in the neighborhood. Since the yeshivas tudy period is long, the couples’ parents sometimes buy their children apartments.
