Two Property Ownership Contracts - New Jerusalem Neighborhood Built Outside the Old City Walls - Jerusalem ...

Two Property Ownership Contracts - New Jerusalem Neighborhood Built Outside the Old City Walls - Jerusalem, 1871-1873 - Signed by Leading Rabbis and the Neighborhood Founders
Two contracts dealing with partnership in property ownership and transfer of ownership of property in the new Jerusalem neighborhood built outside the walls of the Old City. Handsome calligraphic script, with many signatures of leading settlers, community leaders and Jerusalem rabbis.
· A contract for dividing property among the group of founders of the new Jerusalem neighborhood outside the walls, west of the path which rises from Jaffa Gate to the Nachlat Shiva neighborhood, purchased from Arab owners. Signed by witnesses and the buyers: R. Yochanan Hirsh Schlank [disciple of the Chatam Sofer], R. Moshe Yitzchak Goldsmith and R. Shalom son of R. Ya'akov HaCohen. Jerusalem, Kislev 1870. A Beit Din authorization appears on the margins dated Adar 1871, with signatures of R. Meir Auerbach [author of Imrei Binah], R. Avraham Eisenstein and of R. Ya'akov Yehuda Levy. Another Beit Din authorization from 1873, signed by the aforementioned rabbis.
On the verso of the leaf is another contract: "The second certificate" of that same property, dated Tamuz 1873, signed by the witnesses R. Avraham son of R. Asher Lemel and R. Aharon son of R. Gedalya, signatures of the settlers R. Yitzchak son of R. Hillel and R. Menachem Mendel HaCohen. Signatures of the dayanim, R. Binyamin son of R. Shmuel, R. Ya'akov Yehuda Levy, R. Meir Margalit and the community rabbi, R. Meir Auerbach.
· Another contract of sale of property, of those same properties. Various signatures of property owners and witnesses. Jerusalem, Elul 1873. Further in the leaf and on the verso are more contracts dealing with construction and sale of those same properties, with many signatures of witnesses and property owners. Jerusalem, Kislev 1875.
Unknown historical document from the beginning of the Jewish settlements built in Jerusalem outside the Old City walls. The lands of the Nachalat Shiva neighborhood were clandestinely purchased in 1867, and the construction of the neighborhood was only publicized in c. 1872. The properties of the neighborhood mentioned in these documents were purchased about two-three years after the founding of Nachalat Shiva, and its construction just began in 1875. Stated explicitly in these documents is that due to legal obstacles to purchasing property in the Land of Israel, the property was first registered only in the name of R. Yochanan Hirsh Schlank who was an Austrian citizen and this document is the primary ownership document of the property recording the true owners of the property until the beginning of the construction of the neighborhood in 1875. [We have not identified precisely to which land the documents refer and its current name. However, clearly the property is west of Jaffa St. in the section between Jaffa Gate and Nachalat Shiva].
2 leaves, 46-56 cm. Fair condition. Tears and gluing, slightly affecting text.