The initiators and founders of the neighborhood were the heads of the General Gemach organization, which served as a charitable organization since 1870, under the leadership of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Porush.
In 1908, the heads of the organization, headed by Naftali Zvi Porush-Glickman (the son of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Porush) and Shmuel Zanvil Spitzer, founded the “Sha’arei Hesed Company for Building Houses in Jerusalem”, which was designed to help ultra-Orthodox Jews purchase a modest apartment in Jerusalem in huge installments without interest.
The neighborhood was designated for Ashkenazi families only, and most of the residents were yeshiva students and Avrechim.
On Lag Ba’Omer, 1909, the cornerstone ceremony was held for the first thirty houses, in the presence of Rabbi Shmuel Salant, Rabbi of Jerusalem.
