Shmuel HaNavi (neighborhood)

Mandelbaum chose the location at the eastern end of the street, facing Sheikh Jarrah, with a desire to expand the northern boundary of Jewish Jerusalem at that time.

[4][5] Houses built at the eastern end of the street before 1948 were largely inhabited by poor families and subject to sniper fire from Sheik Jarrah during the 1947 civil war.

[8] The 1949 Armistice Agreements put Shmuel HaNavi Street parallel to the Jordanian border, with a no man's land of barbed wire and minefields separating it from Ammunition Hill to the northeast.

[9][10] From 1949 to 1967 the official crossing point between Israeli- and Jordanian-held territory stood at the eastern end of Shmuel HaNavi Street at a checkpoint called the Mandelbaum Gate.

[13] Constructed in the early 1960s,[14] it was situated next to the 1949 armistice line that ran parallel to Shmuel HaNavi Street, in order to reinforce the city's hold on its northern border.

[15] The buildings were erected on a base of reinforced concrete and the walls were finished in rough stone, since this type of material could be handled by hundreds of unskilled workers.

[1] The Jewish Agency for Israel, a Project Renewal co-partner, paired cities in the United States with Israeli neighborhoods slated for rehabilitation;[27] Washington, D.C. was twinned with Shmuel HaNavi.

According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, the immense size of the stones suggests that they were destined for use in the construction projects of King Herod, including the Temple.