Sublets in Katamon, Jerusalem

Katamon grew from the early 1900s beside the Greek Orthodox San Simon monastery of 1881, and the most common reading of the name is Greek for “by the monastery”. Jerusalemites say Old Katamon to tell it apart from the Katamonim, officially the Gonenim: housing estates built to its south and south-west in the 1950s and 60s, Gonen Aleph to Tet. Gonen Heh is known as San Simon, and Gonen Zayin is the Pat neighbourhood, which isn't counted among the Katamonim.

The borders: Talbiya, Rehavia and Kiryat Shmuel to the north, the Greek and German Colonies to the east, the Katamonim to the south and south-west, and the San Simon monastery and Rasco to the west. The main streets are Rachel Imenu, which leads to Emek Refaim, and Kovshei Katamon, which carries on to HaPalmach. In the middle sits Recha Freier Square, a six-street junction where most of the neighbourhood's consulates clustered. Two are still open: the Greek consulate on Rachel Imenu and the Italian one on Kaf-Tet BeNovember.

Secular, traditional and religious Jerusalemites share the same streets here, alongside Erlau Hasidim and their Ohel Shimon yeshiva. Since the 1970s Katamon has drawn well-off families, many of them olim from the US, Canada, the UK and France, and most of the congregation at Yakar, a synagogue open since 1992, is Anglo. From the 1990s on, many young national-religious singles have rented here, the scene known as “the Jerusalem Bitza” (the swamp) that inspired the TV series Srugim. Coming for a few months with children? Schools and synagogues are in the neighbourhood itself, and its green lung is San Simon Park.

The catches? The old houses generally have no mamad (in-apartment safe room). After decades of splitting and rejoining, two apartments two streets apart can be completely different. And it isn't cheap: “one of the priciest neighbourhoods in the city” is how a November 2025 TheMarker headline on Old Katamon opens.

Most of the houses built in Katamon before 1948 were put up by Christian Arab families, and about half date from 1927–1937, in eclectic and International styles, with arches and patterned floors. After 1948 many were split into small flats and public housing went up between them in the 1950s; from the 1970s some apartments were rejoined, and many houses gained extra floors. Newer building is in Ganei Katamon, on Hapoel Jerusalem's old football ground. The Katamonim look different again: Amidar and Prazot public housing, including long blocks on pillars, and in parts of Gonen Chet and Tet some buildings are clad in red brick instead of Jerusalem stone.

Safe rooms in Katamon? Most buildings put up since the mid-1990s have a mamad. The stone houses and 1950s blocks generally don't. Before you commit, ask the host whether there is one and, if not, where the nearest protected space is (on the floor or in the shelter) and how long it takes to get there.

Train Track Park, a walking and cycling path on the old Jaffa–Jerusalem railway line, was built between 2010 and 2013 and leads from the First Station to Malha. It runs between the German Colony and Baka and then along the Katamonim, crossing Oranim junction, where Emek Refaim ends, about 700 metres as the crow flies from Recha Freier Square. Other straight-line distances from the square: the First Station about 1.2 km, Zion Square about 2 km, the Hebrew University's Givat Ram campus under 2 km, the Central Bus Station and Yitzhak Navon station about 3 km, and Mount Scopus about 4.5 km.

Work on the light rail's Blue Line has been under way on Emek Refaim since 7 July 2025. Since 28 June 2026, for about six months as announced, the stretch between Martin Luther King and Rachel Imenu has been closed to through traffic, and some southbound routes that used it now run along HaPalmach and Kovshei Katamon. Closures shift, so you won't find bus numbers here: check your route in the week you move in.

The German Colony, founded by the Templers in 1873, is above all Emek Refaim and its cafés, reached from Katamon along Rachel Imenu. Baka lies beyond it, and Train Track Park runs along the border between the two.

To the north, on the way into the city centre, is Rehavia, closer to Zion Square. No Katamon sublet for your dates? Look in these three neighbourhoods.