In the center of the photo, to the left, you can see the intersection of Ussishkin Street and Ramban On the left, at the intersection between 46 Ben Maimon Boulevard and Ussishkin, you can see the House of Jacobs – a senior official of the British Mandate and Deputy Governor of Jerusalem.
On July 22, 1946, he was killed by a bomb blast that occurred at the King David Hotel. In 1950, the Israeli government decided to convert the building into the Israeli Prime Minister’s home. The government had other options after The 6 day War, but Ben-Gurion refused to live in houses defined as “abandoned property.”
Nechama, Jacobs’ widow, received an apartment in the Talbiyeh neighborhood as compensation, and the house was bought by the Israeli government for 20,000 pounds. Today, the house is worth a little more.
The building was the residence of the Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion for two mandates. Levy Eshkol lived there as well during two mandates. Then, Golda Meir lived in it too, with the famous “Security Kitchen” that convened in the house.
The house served as the home of the Prime Ministers until the Election of Yitzhak Rabin in 1974. After this date, the Prime Minister’s house moved to Balfour Street (“Beit Agion”).
Then, the house was renovated. After many delays and financing problems in the renovation process, it was finally opened to the general public in 2016 as Beit Levy Eshkol. It is now a residence for Yad Levy Eshkol activities.
Today Ussishkin Street no longer looks like the picture. The dirt road has been replaced by asphalt, and there are new sidewalks that have been under construction for a year and a half without a break and with no end-date in the horizon. The small houses and pastoral neighborhood have been replaced by multi-story buildings.
At the King David Hotel, they no longer bring milk in aluminum buckets.
This is Jerusalem – a history constantly writing itself, old versus new, the British mandate and the resistance of the nobility, a house in Rehavia sold for 20,000 pounds.
Shabbat Shalom to far and near from Jerusalem.
Photo by – KLUGER ZOLTAN from the National Photo Collection of Israel |
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