Another “Once Upon a Time in Jerusalem”,
And this time – the Anglo-Palestine Bank building, Jaffa Street, 1940.
The Anglo-Palestine Bank, called Bank Ape”k until 1931, was the central financial institution of the Jewish community in Eretz Israel, from the period of Ottoman rule, throughout the British Mandate and even after the establishment of the Jewish State in its early years.
The bank was founded in 1902 in London under the name “Anglo-Palestine Company”, with the purpose of developing and promoting business initiative in industry, infrastructure, construction and agriculture in Eretz Israel in line with Theodor Herzl’s vision. It was founded by the Dutch banker Jacobus Kann.
The word “bank” was deliberately absent due to the desire to avoid special requirements from the British government in London for establishing a commercial bank.
Its first offices opened in July 1903 on Yefet Street in Jaffa, which was the important port city of early 20th century Eretz Israel, providing financial services to farmers of the colonies, and Jewish and Arab merchants of Jaffa.
In 1904, the Jerusalem branch pictured here opened on Jaffa Street, adjacent to the post office building seen to its right, and opposite Zion Square and today’s City Hall, designed by architect Erich Mendelsohn who designed Hadassah Hospital and Rambam Hospital among others.
At that time, Jerusalem was the center of the local Ottoman administration where sat the Turkish Pasha and his officials and assistants, long before the current hipster mustache trend.
The Jerusalem branch also served as the financial center for the funds of donations coming from the Jewish Diaspora.
Three additional banks operated in Eretz Israel at that time:
Deutsche Palestine Bank, Imperial Ottoman Bank, Credit Lyonnais Bank and another private bank operating in Jerusalem called the Valero Family Bank.
In the banking crisis that erupted in Eretz Israel in 1933, Bank Ape”k was the only one that survived and even provided assistance to the other banks.
Later, additional branches of the bank opened in Hebron, Haifa, Safed, Tiberias and before World War I another branch opened in Gaza, serving mainly to finance the wheat trade that grew in the south of the country and the establishment of the settlement Ruhama, 90 years before the money to Gaza passed in cash suitcases every month.
Key positions at the bank incorporated members of the wealthy families in Eretz Israel at that time who held status and influence over the Jewish community then (and in fact until today) – the Alyashar, Mani, Rivlin, Ben Tovim, Salonim, Shloosh, Horvitz and Hasson families, to ensure high quality and reliable employees.
It was determined that the spoken and written language of the bank would be Hebrew, which was then a revolutionary and innovative idea. A Hebrew glossary of banking terms was compiled at the bank for routine work operations.
The bank functioned as a Zionist institution and its director Zalman David Levontin was also one of the heads of the Jewish community in Eretz Israel. A prominent area of the bank’s activities was purchasing large tracts of land in Eretz Israel.
In 1933 the Nazis rose to power in Germany and the bank worked to quickly and efficiently extricate the finances of German Jewry that deposited their money in Germany in trusts of a company that purchased raw materials and goods in Germany sold in Europe, bypassing the commercial boycott imposed on Nazi Germany.
Depositors fleeing the Nazi regime that rose to power lost large sums of money due to unrealistic exchange rates that eroded their capital. Some of the depositors did not get to receive their money and deposits after perishing in the Holocaust.
After the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel, a department was set up at the bank for the establishment of the Israeli currency, state bonds and more.
Anglo-Palestine Bank quickly established a special department to issue and print new money for the state-to-be.
The banknotes were quickly printed in New York on matrices originally prepared for China, and therefore the first banknotes printed for the young state were without the name Israel, because at the time of printing the money, the name of the state had not yet been determined, and the banknotes bore the Hebrew name Anglo-Palestine Bank Ltd.
In 1951, Anglo-Palestine Bank changed its name to “Bank Leumi” and its base of operations was transferred from London to Israel. The veteran branches of Anglo-Palestine Bank became the first branches of Bank Leumi, chief among them the head office located in Jerusalem, pictured here.
It seemed that the new bank could succeed and had potential for future development.
Some of Anglo-Palestine Bank’s additional branches in Eretz Israel still serve as active Bank Leumi branches today.
Only in 1954 was Bank of Israel established as the central bank of the State of Israel.
Bank Leumi is currently valued at over 42 billion NIS, with 2022 net profit of 7.7 billion NIS.
Much water has flowed since then, and bursting rivers of fees and interest have streamed from the small bank whose main Jerusalem branch served mustached Turks, British gentlemen, Jewish merchants, German Jewish refugees and assisted in establishing the Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel at a time when the Jewish State was a distant dream and vision of just a few madmen.
Shabbat Shalom and good news for the near and far from Jerusalem.
Photographer unknown.
