The Talitha Kumi Building, 1890.

Another Once upon a time in Jerusalem,
and this time – the Talitha Kumi House, 1890, at King George Street and today’s Mashbir Square.

Talitha Kumi was established as an orphanage for Christian girls, founded at what felt like the very edge of the world back then, far beyond the Old City walls. It was meant to provide orphaned girls an education for a life as nuns, safely away from the temptations of the city.

The name Talitha Kumi is taken from a New Testament story about Jesus raising to life the daughter of Jairus, the head of the synagogue.

The meaning of the word “Talitha” is “little girl” in Syriac Aramaic, and in Hebrew the building’s name means “Wake up, little girl.” It could easily be the title of a modern Mizrachi pop song.

The building was designed by the renowned architect Conrad Schick, a German missionary who arrived in the Land of Israel in 1846. He also later designed, among other notable neighborhoods, Mea Shearim and Zikhron Tuvia in Nahlaot.

Talitha Kumi’s structure was designed in an Arab style, with round domes, and verses from the New Testament written in German adorned its walls. Among the visitors was also the wife of Emperor Wilhelm II, Yarom Hoda, during her journey to the Holy Land.

In 1940, Germany was belatedly declared an enemy state, and during World War II the building was evacuated and taken over by employees of the British Mandate administration.

In March 1948, after an explosion at the offices on Ben Yehuda Street, businesses affected by the blast were temporarily relocated to Talitha Kumi. Later, after the State of Israel was established, the building was filled with law offices, various artists, and evacuees from the damaged center on Ben Yehuda.

At the end of 1951, the state purchased this magnificent building and its courtyard from the Lutheran Church. Then in 1962, the state sold it without tender and at a low price to the Company for Settlement Training.

By late 1965, the local committee approved a construction plan for the site that included demolishing the existing building and erecting the Migdal Ha’ir tower the first tower in the heart of the city center, rising with its ugliness in all directions and constructing the Mashbir department store.

In 1980, the splendid orphanage was demolished amid public protests, and atop its ruins was built Beit Rajwan a gray, boxy commercial and office building, the opposite in spirit to the former magnificent structure.

As a memorial, a small part of the historic façade was preserved, including a balcony, the building’s iconic clock, and the inscription “Talitha Kumi” in Latin letters.

For the new and young generation renewing the city, the restored façade became a popular meeting point. The phrase “Meet at Talitha Kumi at eight in the evening” became a secret code for a rendezvous spot.

To the youth among us, it should be clarified that long before the age of mobile phones and obsessive communication, scheduling a meeting and coming down to the city with other high school friends arriving by buses from all parts of town required an agreed meeting spot.

If you arranged with friends to meet in the evening after school, you would simply arrive at the place and wait patiently on the bench for the others to arrive on the old, rattling Egged buses, embodying the patience of the Bedouin.

You just sat quietly and waited for your friends.

No mobile phones, no calls, no obsessive WhatsApp messages, no sending of locations or notifications of delays or no-shows. Simply sitting silently and waiting for the others to come, each arriving in their own time, with no parent chauffeuring them around, just according to each bus arrival schedule. A system that seems totally illogical to today’s generation, but that was how things worked. A stranger wouldn’t understand it.

This is our Jerusalem-the orphanage for nuns established at the edge of the world, beyond the dark hills of the Old City walls, designed by a German missionary, visited by the Emperor’s wife, sold cheaply without tender to a private company in a prime downtown location, replaced by an ugly office tower looming over the historic city and seen from everywhere, the Mashbir store at a winter-windy crossroads, and silent committees preserving the glorious past in the form of a restored façade, an obligation towards one of the city’s most precious gems from its glorious past.

A peaceful Shabbat to the far and near from Jerusalem ❤
And may we merit, by Simchat Torah, to see all our captured and missing return to the embrace of their families.

Photo credit: Archive of American Colony photographers.