Sha’are Zedek Hospital on Jaffa Street, the first hospital founded and constructed outside the Old City walls, is one of the most impressive buildings of Jerusalem’s new city, and one of the most prestigious institutions in Israel’s medical history. The building had housed Sha’are Zedek Hospital until 1980, when the hospital was relocated to its new complex close to Mount Herzl. In 1994, the building was renovated in a meticulous conservation process by the Israel Broadcasting Authority, which was responsible for radio and television national public broadcasting and had set its headquarters there. In recent years, the building has been home to groups of artists, musicians, and dancers. As part of the Midtown Jerusalem complex, it will be extensively renovated and adapted into the IMAGINE Hotel, one of Israel’s most exclusive luxury hotels, with about 50 hotel rooms at the highest level of hospitality.
-
SHA’ARE ZEDEK – HISTORY IN A NUTSHELL
Dr. Moshe Wallach, sent to Jerusalem on behalf of the Frankfurt Jewish
Conference, founded the hospital with the assistance of the German Jewish
population. The design was entrusted to German architect Theodor Sandel,
who had created a main two-story building with two additional structures
alongside, one for nurses’ accommodation and one for patient quarantine.
The complex boasts an impressive entrance gate, decorated with a stone
lintel, carved wooden doors, and a stylized iron lattice with the building’s
inauguration date (5661 – 1901).The hospital was opened one year later in a formal ceremony attended by
the Ottoman Pasha, the German Consul, architect Sandel, and Jerusalem’s
dignitaries, and was the most advanced in Israel at the time, yet it suffered
from a shortage in personnel. The two nurses from Holland left in 1914, upon the outbreak of World War I, while support from the German Jewish population ceased. Dr. Wallach had to find funding for the hospital, and even purchased cows to provide milk and meat for the patients. In 1916, he finally got the assistance he sought with the arrival of Jewish nurse Selma Mayer from Hamburg. Mayer introduced German standards of nursing to the hospital, and like Dr. Wallach she resided at the hospital to her last days. She had also founded the Sha’are Zedek Nursing School in 1934, paving the way for the development of nursing in Israel.During World War II, the Hospital’s condition deteriorated. Nonetheless,
it played an important role in Israel’s War of Independence, treating those
injured in the battles in and around Jerusalem. It continued to do so in the
years following Israel’s Declaration of Independence and until 1980, when it relocated to its new campus near Mount Herzl. In 1994, the old building was renovated and preserved by the Israel Broadcasting Authority, which had set its headquarters there.
SHAARE ZEDEK HOSPITAL, EARLY 20TH CENTURY