At the end of the '70s Israeli film Ani Yerushalmi, a gentle and loving tribute to the quiet grandeur of the Holy City, beloved, family-friendly star of sound and screen Yehoram Gaon gathers up a passel of tousle-haired children for a horse-drawn carriage tour of Jerusalem as they sing together "Hasar Montefiore," a song in praise of the great vision and largess of Sir Moses Montefiore, a towering figure who ranks only slightly below David in the annals of Jerusalem's history. More than inspiring the oeuvre of Yehoram Gaon, Montefiore is essentially singlehandedly responsible for every stone of modern west Jerusalem, for it was only at his urging that Jerusalem's Jewish community made its first tentative steps beyond the protective walls of the Old City and began to reestablish their ancient capital as the pearl of the Near East it once had been.
All mighty endeavors spring from a modest beginning, and west Jerusalem's wellspring is the combined neighborhood of Yemin Moshe and Mishkenot Sha'ananim, a humble quarter of stone houses and narrow alleyways perched on a hill a stone's throw away from the westernmost of the Old City's walls, established in 1891.
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