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Contents 1 Location 2 History 3 1948 4 Templars 5 Mandate remains 6 Current development pressures 7 Crossing Streets

Emek Refaim (Hebrew: עמק רפאים‎, literally valley of the ghosts) is the name of a street located in the German Colony neighborhood in westJerusalem (Heb. מושבה גרמנית). Emek Refaiam is also used as a general name for the area.

It is named for the biblical valley which begins its descent from Jerusalem here. In Arabic, was referred to as Beka or Beqa'a (Arabic: البقاع, lit. "valley"), though this term also including the Gonen neighbourhood. Gonen is most commonly known by its Hebrew name, Katamonim derived from the Greek kata tōi monastēriōi, "below the Monastery"). Emek Refaim street is approximately 1.5 kilometers long, and today, is known for its variety of coffee shops and up-scale restaurants, which attract tourists and native Jerusalemites alike. At the start of Emek Refaim on a hillock at the edge of the Himmon Valley lie the art deco Scots Hospice and St Andrew's church , built in 1927, with magnificent local Armenian tile-work. Similar tiling, though damaged, can be seen on the external walls of some buildings in Emek Refaim.

Many of its buildings date from Turkish and British mandate times, including important examples of well-to-do Palestinian residential homes in side streets and lanes and business buildings on the main road.Styles range from late provincial Ottoman to deco. German Templars also built houses in the area (see below)

As with many Jerusalem neighbourhoods, the physical build of the area, as well as district and street names reveals that the neighbourhood has a complex history. The street and its neighbourhood are interesting from a historical and sociological perspective because of its ultimately disputed cultural and historical ownership in the context of the War of Independence/Naqba. The legitimization of residence from the Israeli perspective (and its disputed nature in Palestinian eyes) is a microcosm of the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Homes in the area were abandoned by local Palestinians or expropriated after 1948[[1]]. How reconciliation between communities is to be achieved over the property issue and the displacement of owners is a controversial issue between Israel and Palestinians. The pain of of 1948 can be found in the accounts by a former resident of the 'Bauerle' House at no. 10 Emek Refaim who revisted her home after 1967[[2]] [[3]]. This account is also valuable because it describes the various shops which existed along Emek Refaim before the 1948 war.

The neighbourhood is also famous for its village-like atmosphere created by the 19th century homes of German Templars, some of which have biblical inscriptions over the lintels inscribed in German Fraktur script. The Templars were a protestant community that settled in the holy land. As German aliens, Templars were deported by the British during World War 2 to Australia, because of Nazi sympathies . They built in stone, not wood or brick, one and two storey houses similar to their place of origin in Baden-Württemberg. There was also a 'Greek colony' in the area to the south of the German Colony, though this suffered with the division of the city between 1948 and 1967. However, a Greek community centre still exists [[4]]

Remnants of the British mandate can be found on some buildings, for example on a commercial art centre on Hebron Road in adjacent Geulim, opposite the Ariel Hotel where the royal coat of arms carved in stone can be seen high up on the wall of a deco building. The well-known deco Smedar movie theatre, further along Emek Refaim down Lloyd George street goes back to at least Mandate times, when it was called the Regent. ^[1].

There is a Hebrew Wikipedia entry for this neighbourhood which gives more architectural detail about the sources of Templar architecture in southern Germany.

Notwithstanding this change of populations, since the 1970s, the area has been increasingly attractive to middle-class Jewish Jerusalemites because of what are called 'Arab' houses. The area now considered to be under threat from developers (as of later 2006). Local residents have been hanging protest banners on many of the historic houses. Developers wish to build residential towers over the derelict Armenian church (formerly the [|Templar meeting house ])and the nearby Omariya compound that abuts the Talbieh neighbourhood as well[[5]].

• Derech Bet Lehem
• Rachel Imenu

1. ^ The Hebrew version of this article calls it the 'Orient' theatre, but a 1948/9 Steimatzsky map of Jerusalem refers to it as the 'Regent' theatre