Another “Once Upon a Time in Jerusalem”, and this time –
the Central Prison of Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem Prison operated during the British Mandate In the country.
The building was erected in the mid-1860’s as part of the Russian Compound complex built to serve the Russian pilgrims who came to the Holy Land during the reign of Czar Nicholas II, and was named after his mother Maria.
The building served at that time as part of the hostels for the pilgrims who came tired to tour Jerusalem, and served until World War I as a hostel for women, and I suppose that as in some families from Russia there was also of course a room for grandmothers, who usually arrive as part of a family package deal, with a wool blanket and as a permanent part of the living room couch.
In World War I, the Communist Revolution took place In Russia, the Czar and his family were executed, the Communists came to power and funding for religious services was discontinued. The Russian Compound was abandoned and left desolate.
Then came the British, who conquered the country and brought order and advanced the city’s planning. They moved the city center westward, from the Old City to the emerging new city center. The Russian Compound complex was converted into public buildings for the service of the British Empire, the men’s pilgrim hostel became the central police station, the women’s hostel became the city’s central prison, and the monk’s and priest’s hostel became the courthouse – it seems that even then the lawyers were considered saints.
Thus, the efficient British saved transportation and logistics services – from arrest at the police station to the nearby courthouse, and from there in brisk British steps directly to prison.
The building was built as a rectangular structure around two inner courtyards, and Its walls were so thick that the cells were cool all year round.
At the beginning of the Mandate, the prison held about 250 prisoners, a number that would double in the coming years. The prison operated without electricity or water.
Each cell had a water barrel and a hole for body waste disposal. In 1930, the prison corridors were connected to electricity, but the inmates were pampered with electricity in the cells only in 1937.
Its southern wing was called “Hell” – solitary confinement cells for exceptional prisoners, which included a tiny cell with a mat and a bucket for relieving themselves
Initially, all inmates were housed together in cells, but In the mid-1930s, the number of Jewish underground members rose, and they were housed In separate cells from the Arabs prisoners.
The prisoners were employed in various workshops set up Inside the prison such as a bakery, a tailor shop for prison uniforms, a small printing press and a carpentry shop where furniture was built alongside coffins for fallen British soldiers who were laid to rest and did not step out of the coffin.
On Shabbat, a synagogue operated in the prison where prayers were conducted by Rabbi Aryeh Levin, “the prisoner’s Rabbi”.
After the end of World War II and the rise of Jewish resistance movements in the country, the British surrounded the prison with barbed wire fences for fear of a raid on the compound and the underground’s release of prisoners.
An attempt by Etzel and Lehi to break into the compound and release prisoners did not go well, and one Etzel fighter was killed in the raid and four were wounded. Two British officers were killed and several soldiers were Injured.
About 100 Arab prisoners were hanged in the prison, and not one Jew.
Two underground fighters who were supposed to be the first to be hanged in the prison, Moshe Barazani and Meir Feinstein, committed suicide by a smuggled hand grenade on the eve of their execution.
During the War of Independence, the Russian Compound was conquered by Haganah forces with the help of Etzel and Lehi. After the establishment of the state, the building served as a warehouse for the Jewish Agency, and later part of the Russian Compound was purchased by the State of Israel in the “Orange Deal” –
A deal in which the state of Israel had to pay the Soviet Union for the use of buildings and as part of the gratitude for Its vote in favor of the establishment of the state at the UN the sum of $4.5 million American dollars.
Since the amount was an enormous sum for the born state in those days, a compromise was reached in which the state paid $3 million In cash, and the balance was paid In thousands of tons of oranges sent to the USSR from the citrus groves of Israel, in the days when we were one of the world’s largest orange exporters.
When you look today at the budgets of the endless ministries for Irrelevant matters, you understand the great economic progress made by the state. Today $4.5 million Is roughly the catering budget of the Ministry of Tradition for Citizens whose name begins with G’-H’.
The deal later became complicated and Israel was sued to make an additional payment to a group that presented Itself as the spiritual heirs of the Czar, claiming that the state had paid the communist revolutionaries and not the original owners of the building, a kind of murder and inherit claim, but we will expand on this at another opportunity, over a glass of orange juice.
In the late 1970s, the compound housed the Chamber of the Hero – a memorial hall for Etzel and Lehi prisoners until 1991, when the building was transferred to the Ministry of Defense, which renovated the building and restored the old prison, which became a museum for underground prisoners that stands there to this day.
Another story about a stone building that mutely testifies to the upheavals, changes and transformations that the city and our small country have undergone over the years.
And If the stones could talk..
Shabbat Shalom and B’sorot Tovot to those near and far from Jerusalem.
Photo by Yad ben Tzvi archive.
