French Hill, is an Israeli settlement in northern East Jerusalem. It is located on territory that has been occupied since the Six-Day War in 1967 and later unilaterally annexed by Israel under the Jerusalem Law, in a move internationally condemned as illegal, “null and void” under international law, in 1980. The international community considers Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, such as French Hill, illegal under international law, which the Israeli government disputes.
The source of the name French Hill is the fact that the land belonged to the Catholic Monastery of St Anne, whose monks hailed mainly from France. In 1926 the Monastery donated a plot of land to build a reservoir to store water that was pumped from Ein Farah, to supply the city of Jerusalem. An opening ceremony was held on 15 July 1926 and the location was reported in the newspapers as “the French Hill” (at the time in Hebrew in plural – Giv’at Ha’Zorfatim).
According to local legend, it was named after a British general, John French, 1st Earl of Ypres who is said to have had his headquarters on this hill. According to this legend there was a mistake with the translation to Hebrew that named the place after the country France (in Hebrew: Tzarfat). However, French never served in this region. Had the neighborhood been named for General French, the correct name in Hebrew would have been Giv’at French.
French Hill has 9 synagogues. One of them, Kehillat Ramot Zion, is a Masorti congregation. The first elementary school in Israel run by the movement, the Frankel School, was established in Givat Shapira (French Hill).
The Dan Jerusalem Hotel, originally the Hyatt Regency, has 502 guestrooms and suites, making it Jerusalem’s largest hotel. The terraced structure was designed by Israel Prize-winning architect David Reznik.
