Nisan Bak


Nisan Bak was a leader of the Hasidic Jewish community of the Old Yishuv in Ottoman Palestine. He was the founder of two Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Kirya Ne'emana and a Yemenite neighborhood, and builder of the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue, also known as the Nisan Bak Shul.

Biography

Nisan Bak was born in Berdichev to a family of Sadigura Hasidim headed by Rabbi Yisrael Bak. The family immigrated to the Land of Israel in 1831. Yisrael Bak first owned a printing press in Safed and founded the first Hebrew press in Jerusalem. Nissan helped his father run the printing press. Yisrael Bak was also one of the developers of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem.
In the early 1840s, father and son established the first Hasidic community in Jerusalem.
Bak died in 1889 and was buried in the Mount of Olives Jewish cemetery.

Nisan Bak Synagogue

Although there were already Hasidim in Jerusalem by 1747, they had prayed in small, private synagogues and homes. In 1839 Bak began to draw up plans for a Hasidic synagogue. Until then,In 1843, Nissan Bak traveled from Jerusalem to visit the Ruzhiner Rebbe in Sadigura. He informed him that Czar Nikolai I intended to buy a plot of land near the Western Wall with the intention of building a church and monastery. The Ruzhiner Rebbe encouraged Bak to build a synagogue there. He bought the land from its Arab owners for an exorbitant sum a few days before the Czar ordered the Russian consul in Jerusalem to make the purchase. The Czar thus bought another plot of land for a church, today the Russian Compound.
The synagogue project, with Bak as architect and contractor, was plagued by constant delays. Over ten years were spent raising funds and building took six years, from 1866 to 1871. The imposing, three-story synagogue was inaugurated on 19 August 1872. For the next 75 years, it served as the centre for the Hasidic community in the city. It was considered one of the most beautiful synagogues of Jerusalem, with a commanding view of the Temple Mount, ornate decorations, and beautiful silver objects donated by Hasidim. It was destroyed by the Arab Legion during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
in 1925

Kiryat Ne'emana

In 1875 Bak, together with Rabbi Shmuel Mordechai Warshavsky and under the auspices of Kollel Volhin, founded the Jewish neighborhood of Kirya Ne'emana, popularly known as Batei Nissan Bak. The neighborhood was originally intended for Hasidic Jews, but due to lack of financing, only 30 of the planned 60 houses were constructed. The remainder of the land was apportioned to several other groups: Syrian, Iraqi, and Persian Jews. In the 1890s another neighborhood, Eshel Avraham, was erected next to Kirya Ne'emana for Georgian and Caucasian Jews. These neighborhoods were virtually abandoned during the 1929 Palestine riots and the homes taken over by Christians and Muslims. The remaining Jewish residents left with the Arab takeover of East Jerusalem after 1948.