Nissan Beck

Nissan Beck, also spelled Nisan Bak (Hebrew: ניסן בק‎‎) (1815–1889) was a leader of the Hasidic Jewish community of the Old Yishuv in Ottoman Palestine. He was the founder of two Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Kirya Ne'emana (better known as Batei Nissan Bak) and a Yemenite neighborhood, and builder of the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue, also known as the Nissan Beck Shul.

Beck was born in Berdichev to a family of Sadigura Hasidim headed by Rabbi Israel Beck. The family immigrated to the Land of Israel in 1831. Israel Beck first owned a printing press in Safed and founded the first Hebrew press in Jerusalem. Nissan helped his father run the printing press. Israel Beck was also one of the developers of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem.

In the early 1840s, father and son established the first Hasidic community in Jerusalem.

Although Hasidim had arrived in Jerusalem by 1747, it was only in 1839 that Nissan Beck began plans for a Hasidic synagogue. Until then, they had prayed in small, private locations like his father's home. In 1843, Nissan Beck traveled from Jerusalem to visit the Ruzhiner Rebbe in Sadigura. He informed him that Czar Nikolai I intended to buy a plot of land near the Western Wall with the intention of building a church and monastery there. The Ruzhiner Rebbe, who was very involved in assisting the Yishuv, gave Beck the task to thwart the Czar's attempt. Beck managed to buy the land from its Arab owners for an exorbitant sum mere days before the Czar ordered the Russian consul in Jerusalem to make the purchase for him. The Czar was forced to buy a different plot of land for a church, which is known today as the Russian Compound.

...
Wikipedia