Ora Colony

Ora is a moshav (agricultural settlement) located in central occupied Palestine, southwest of Jerusalem. It was established in 1950 by Zionist settlers from Yemen on land that had belonged to the depopulated Palestinian village of al-Jura, and near the village of al-Walaja.

The initial settlers lived in tents, and by 1954 only thirteen families remained. In 1953, Percy Newmann, a British Jewish industrialist, donated funds to the Jewish National Fund (JNF) for the purchase of 3,000 dunums of land for the moshav. Later, many North African Jews joined the settlement.

Residents were allocated plots of land designated for poultry farming and continued to live in tents without running water or electricity until 1957. Before the establishment of Kiryat HaYovel, the nearest neighborhood was Beit VeGan, which was accessible only on foot or by donkey.

In the 1990s, following the wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union to occupied Palestine, the moshav significantly increased its egg production — from 300 million to 500 million eggs annually. As of 2022, the settlement had a population of 1,295 settlers.