In the photo – Ramban Street, in the early 1960s
In the background, you can see the wind station located on this street, about 200 meters from Paris Square and the Kings Hotel.
Many people believe there is only one wind station in Jerusalem, namely, Yamin Moshe and Mishcanot Shananim (on the right), but there is a smaller and lesser-known station too.
The station on Ramban Street no. 8 was established in 1882 by the Greek Orthodox Church to grind the wheat that grew in the nearby fields.
At that time, the church purchased thousands of dunams of land in the area located west of the Old City and used them for agricultural purposes to feed the Russian and Greek pilgrims who arrived in Jerusalem at Easter.
Most of the pilgrims lived in the Russian area, in the Alexander Hotel, which I mentioned a few weeks ago in another post you can find here: .
These people needed to be fed while in Israel … even long-bearded pilgrims need to eat.
In 1914, the First World War broke out. The Turkish government was expelled from the country by the British. In Russia, the Czar lost power, and the communist movement seized it. The new communist government in Russia was secular-atheistic. It stopped allocating funds to the Greek Orthodox Church, thus stopping at once the great flow of pilgrims that flooded Jerusalem before.
This led the church to bankruptcy, and the new British government forced it to sell the lands it had previously purchased to cover the large debts it had accumulated.
In 1922, the church sold the wheat fields and the wind station located there to the Yishuv Training Company.
The area started to be developed as the Rehavia neighborhood was built on the previous fields.
The station’s building was meant to be demolished, but in the end, the developer decided to leave it intact.
In 1935, the Jewish-German architect Erich Mendelsohn bought the station building for residential purposes.
Mendelssohn invested a lot of resources in the building. He added a new residential wing, and the building soon became a prestigious house and a magnet for the high society of the Jewish community in Jerusalem, as well as officials and high-ranking people from the British government who spent time there enjoying fancy cocktails spirit, salon parties, and entertaining in the typical Western European.
Back then, you could still find parking on the street and there were no endless traffic jams and the demonstrations in Paris square haven’t started yet either.
In 1942, with the advance of Hitler’s Nazi forces towards Israel, Mendelssohn left Jerusalem and immigrated to the United States, and has not returned to Israel ever since.
Thus, the station building remained abandoned and desolate.
In the 1970s, the district committee approved the complete demolition of the station and the construction of a commercial center in its place.
The project was halted due to protests organized by the neighborhood’s residents and preservationists, and it was decided to restore the wind station to its initial conditions.
The wind station was thus saved.
In 1987, the restoration works began, and the commercial center reduced its size and was moved next to the wind station, so the city regained a piece of history, tucked inside its center.
This is Jerusalem. Old next to new, pilgrims and a Russian czar. The redemption of land and the construction of a renewed Jewish settlement. Wheat fields turned into real estate fields. The development of a new city. German architecture, English tea time, cocktails, and salon parties. Greek debts and Turkish rule. Communism, a British colony, a Nazi army, and our God.
Shabbat shalom to the near and far
Photo by – British Mandate Jerusalemites Photo Library
