חוות הלימוד, Educational farm in Jerusalem, Israel
Chavat HaLimud is a former agricultural training farm on a 50-dunam plot east of Talpiot, near the Governor's Palace in Jerusalem. Its first building was designed by architect Richard Kauffmann and occupied in 1931; a second, by Leopold Krakauer, was completed in 1936. The old farm buildings still stand among plots worked by students of the Ein Kerem boarding school.
Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi founded the farm in the 1920s initially in the Rehavia neighborhood as an agricultural training center. The operation was later moved to a location near the Governor's Palace.
The farm's name, Havat HaLimmud ("Learning Farm"), reflects its 1933 change into a study farm for girls aged 15 to 17, who followed a two-year course. Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi, who ran it, described the enterprise in her memoirs. The first building was designed by architect Richard Kauffmann and occupied in 1931; the second, by Leopold Krakauer, was finished in 1936.
The farm stood east of Talpiot, on the ridge facing the Governor's Palace, and its area grew from 70 to 700 dunams after 1949. The old buildings of the Workers' Farm still stand on the site, and some plots are still worked by youths from the Ein Kerem boarding school. The area is not a public visitor site; the hotel plan approved in 2002 was frozen after 2005.
On 5 June 1967, as Jordanian Legion troops entered the Governor's Palace, the farm came under shelling. Rachel Kaufman, wife of the farm manager, could not reach the army, so she handed the weapons kept on site to ten day labourers, taught them to fire, and sent them to a fortified position to give the impression the place was defended.
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