Motza

Motza (or Motsa) (Hebrew: מוֹצָא‎) is a neighbourhood on the western edge of Jerusalem, Israel. It is located in the Judean Hills, 600 metres above sea level, connected to Jerusalem by the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway and the winding mountain road to Har Nof. Established in 1854, Motza was the first Jewish farm founded outside the walls of the Old City in the modern era. It is believed to be located on the site of a Biblical village of the same name mentioned in Joshua 18:26.

In 1854, farmland was purchased from the nearby Arab village of Qalunya (Colonia) by a Baghdadi Jew, Shaul Yehuda, with the aid of British consul James Finn. A B'nai B'rith official signed a contract with the residents of Motza residents that enabled them to pay for the land in long-term payments.Four Jewish families settled there. One family established a tile factory which was one of the earliest industries in the region. In 1871, while plowing his fields, one of the residents, Yehoshua Yellin, discovered a large subterranean hall from the Byzantine period that he turned into a traveller's inn which provided overnight shelter for pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem.

When Theodor Herzl visited Palestine in 1898, he passed through Motza, which then had a population of 200. Captivated by the landscape, he planted a cypress tree on the hill. After he died in 1904 at the ago of 44, it became an annual pilgrimage site by Zionist youth, who planted more trees around Herzl's tree.

David Remez named the sanatorium opened in the village Arza, or cedar.Arza, established in the 1920s, was the first Jewish "health resort" in the country. During World War I, Herzl's tree was cut down by the Turks who were leveling forests for firewood and supplies. Motza was violently attacked in the 1929 Palestine riots.

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