Palestine · West Bank · East Jerusalem
Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Sheikh Jarrah is a Palestinian neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, two kilometres north of the Old City on the road to Mount Scopus.
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Where to stay in Sheikh Jarrah
Each area has its own feel; here's who each one suits.
Sheikh Jarrah stands close enough to the Old City that the Western Wall, Masjid Al-Aqsa and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are a walk downhill rather than a ride across town. The road to Mount Scopus passes through. Its 19th-century houses were raised for the al-Husayni family and the rest of Jerusalem's Muslim elite, never for travellers.
If you want East Jerusalem's own streets around you and the Old City gates within reach, this is the address that answers.
Few places to stay in Sheikh Jarrah — most visitors book in East Jerusalem nearby.
About Sheikh Jarrah
What are the main landmarks in Sheikh Jarrah?
The name belongs to Saladin's physician. Hussam al-Din al-Jarrahi was buried near this ground in the 13th century, and the quarter that grew up around the grave took his title for its own. The great monuments sit two kilometres south, inside the Old City walls, the Western Wall, Masjid Al-Aqsa, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Tower of David.
Between the two stands the Palestine Archaeological Museum.
What is the history of Sheikh Jarrah?
The modern neighbourhood was founded in 1865. Stone houses rose along the road to Mount Scopus for Jerusalem's Muslim elite, the al-Husayni family foremost among them, so the quarter grew into a residential centre rather than a market or a trade street. 1948 put it on a border. Sheikh Jarrah lay inside Jordanian-held East Jerusalem, pressed against the no-man's land that separated it from Israeli-held West Jerusalem, and families expelled from Talbiya that year settled into its streets.
Israel occupied the neighbourhood in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Where is Sheikh Jarrah?
Sheikh Jarrah covers the ground two kilometres north of the Old City, along the road that carries on through East Jerusalem to Mount Scopus.
Common questions
What is the best area to stay in Sheikh Jarrah?
East Jerusalem: visitors who came for the whole of East Jerusalem, not for one street off the Mount Scopus road.
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More areas in East Jerusalem
Updated September 2026