Once upon a time in Jerusalem,
And this time the House of National Institutions in Jerusalem –
Rehavia neighborhood, King George Street, corner of the Keren Kayemet Street, in a photo from the mid-1930s.
The National Institutions House was built by Richard Kaufman, a Rehavia neighborhood planner who initially planned the area for the Rehavia neighborhood’s main school – the Hebrew Gymnasium.
The residents of the Rehavia neighborhood preferred that the school building not be at the edge of the neighborhood but in the center of it, so the gymnasium was built on the lot originally intended for the main synagogue of Rehavia, and the lot on King George Street at the edge of the neighborhood, at the corner of Keren Kemayet Street, was dedicated to the house of the national institutions.
For the design of the building, a lottery was held between 37 architects, among them the leading architects of that period, and the construction budget was 30,000 pounds sterling.
The architect Yohanan Ratner won the competition.
In April 1929 the cornerstone was laid for the building and the building was inaugurated in May
1930.
If the building were built today, the timelines for the inauguration of the house would probably be much longer –
Form 4 was delayed because Shushi from the Gihon is on vacation, Menashe from the Shimur is busy, and Yankale from the electric company is at a sporting event.
The Keren Kayemet building was the first building built.
The next building built after it was the Keren Hayesod building, the Jewish Agency building was inaugurated in October 1935.
After the election of David Ben-Gurion as head of the agency’s management, the Jewish Agency became stronger and the center of its power moved from London to Jerusalem.
The building became the residence of the leadership of the Zionist institutions.
The leaders of the national institutions lived in the Rehavia neighborhood and tried to give the institutions an image of the national building of the Jewish people living in Zion.
On Black Sabbath in June 1946, British soldiers raided the building in search of documents related to the Haganah organization that was working to expel them from the country.
In March 1948, a serious attack took place in the building.
The attack was carried out by Anton Daoud, a Christian Arab, the driver of the American consulate who was a familiar figure to the compound’s guards.
Daoud regularly drove 2 known women to the compound and even carried out a marginal trade in weapons and guns with the guards for the Haganah organization.
After gaining the guards’ trust, Daoud said that he had a large arms deal, and after the deal was approved, Daoud came with his car to the courtyard of the buildings claiming that he did not want to move the weapons outside the building.
He drove his car into the building and while the guards went to get money for the deal, the car bomb exploded, inside instead of guns there was a large amount of explosives.
The car exploded and the building was severely damaged.
In the explosion, an entire floor of the Keren Hayesod wing collapsed and 12 of the building’s workers were killed and 44 injured.
The proclamation of the state was supposed to take place in the building of the national institutions, but Jerusalem was under siege.
The members of the People’s Directorate who were in the city could not come to Tel Aviv and the statement was held at the Tel Aviv Museum without the members of the People’s Directorate.
The members of the People’s Directorate besieged in Jerusalem held an alternative ceremony for the declaration of independence for the residents of the city in the courtyard of the House of National Institutions.
Today, the building is used for the offices of the Zionist Organization’s management, the Jewish Agency, Keren Kayemet, and Keren Hayesod.
This is our Jerusalem-
A building of institutions built on an area designated for the Hebrew gymnasium,
The members of the people’s administration who lived in the area and arrived at work within a 2-minute walk,
£30,000 to build a building, fast construction without bureaucracy and delays,
and an Arab driver who gained the trust of the guards, and rewarded them with 12 deaths
and 44 wounded.
Shabbat Shalom to all, far and near, from Jerusalem.
