Kiryat Ye'arim, also known as Telz-Stone, is a strictly Orthodox town in the Jerusalem District of Israel. It is located in the approximate area of an ancient place mentioned in the Bible, from which it takes its name. It is bordered on one side by the Muslim Arab village of Abu Ghosh, and on the other side by the secular Jewish community of Neve Ilan. In it had a population of.

Names

Kiryat Ye'arim

For the official name, see Biblical connection section.

Telz-Stone

Despite the official name of "Kiryat Ye'arim", the town is widely known as Telz-Stone, after the Telshe or Telz yeshiva, who had a branch there between 1977–79, and American Greetings founder-chairman Irving I. Stone, who helped to finance the community's early development.

Geography

Kiryat Ye'arim is located approximately 10 km west of Jerusalem, just north of the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem highway. Neighboring Kiryat Ye'arim to the northeast is the Arab town of Abu Ghosh. Kiryat Ye'arim is between 661.8 and 749.5 m above sea level.

Biblical connection

The modern town of Kiryat Ye'arim (Town of Forests) is named for the homonymous ancient city (common English spelling: Kiriath-Jearim), mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the site where the Ark of the Covenant has been kept for 20 years, according to the Book of Samuel. From here the Ark was taken to Jerusalem by King David.

History

Six hundred dunams of modern-day Kiryat Ye'arim were purchased before 1948 by Menashe Elissar, a businessman who was attracted to the site as the location of the biblical Kiryat Ye'arim. The modern community was established in 1973 by American ultra-Orthodox Jews. A group of students and teachers of the American Telshe Yeshiva (Yeshivat Telz in Hebrew) were active there in 1977-79.

Demography

According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), at the end of 2019 Kiryat Ye'arim had a population of 6,309 predominantly Jewish residents. Many of the residents are immigrants from North America, Europe and South Africa.

Institutions

Kiryat Ye'arim is home to three Orthodox post-high school yeshivas aimed at foreign students, particularly from the U.S.: Neveh Zion, Keser Dovid and Yishrei Lev. It is also home to a Sephardic Haredi yeshiva - Be'er Yitzhak and another yeshiva: Me'orot Hatorah.