The Golden Gate | Jewish Endowments in Jerusalem

My great-great-grandfather dedicated his land in Jerusalem — not to his children, but to a Yeshiva and to charity. His act was part of a broader phenomenon in late Ottoman Jerusalem, in which many Jews endowed properties for public, religious and welfare purposes — tracing the Muslim waqf system. Today, many of these buildings, once integral to Jerusalem’s urban and social fabric, face varied and often conflicting fates: neglect, rapid development, or quiet appropriation. Those forms and sites have become, over time, white elephants or skyscrapers. In this project, I explore my family’s story, and the history of Jewish endowments in Jerusalem. I propose an alternative future for the architecture and community who once preserved the Hekdesh and were in turn preserved by it.