Kiryat Moshe was founded in 1923 with funding from the Moses Montefiore Testimonial Fund in London.[1] It was one of the garden suburbs established in Jerusalem in the 1920s, along with Beit Hakerem, Talpiot, Rehavia and Bayit VaGan. Designed by the German Jewish architect Richard Kauffmann, these neighborhoods were based on clusters of single family homes surrounded by gardens and greenery. One of the main features was a central landscaped island, as can be seen on Hameiri Boulevard in Kiryat Moshe.[2]
From the outset, Kiryat Moshe projected "Hebrew" pioneering, home to merchants and later teachers and bus drivers, both prestigious groups in the new Jewish society. Kiryat Moshe was designated as a national-religious neighborhood, and many rabbis and leaders of the Mizrachi movement settled there.[3]