place

Kadima House

1940s in Israel20th century in JerusalemBuildings and structures in Jerusalem
Beit Kedima
Beit Kedima

Kadima House, known locally in Hebrew as Beit Kadima, is a residential building complex in Jerusalem, Israel located on the west side of Kiryat Shmuel. The British Mandatory authorities built it in 1945 to house the families of British officers. In the end, it was used by UNSCOP Commission, whose members lived there while drafting the UN Partition Plan prior to the establishment of the state.The building was designed by German architect Otto Hoffmann during the mid-1940s and constructed by an Egyptian housing company. Hoffmann's plans provided the building with 21 apartments, parking garages and storage rooms. It was built in the International Style along with traditional Jerusalem motifs such as half arcs over the entrances and outside staircases. The building stood empty for several years until the British authorities chose the secluded compound to house the members of the UNSCOP Commission, who were sent by the UN to determine the future status of Palestine/the land of Israel. For several weeks the Commission members lived in Beit Kadima and it can be assumed that it was there where they drafted the recommendation which led to the decision on partition of Palestine and the establishment of two states, a Jewish one (the future State of Israel) and an Arab one. The isolated position of the building at the margin of Rehavia meant that the commission members were easy to protect, but also that they could hardly have any contact with locals during their stay there.Shortly after the UN decision on November 29, 1947, violence erupted in region and the compound became a refuge for Jewish families living in the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Katamon. The building served as a Haganah military post during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.Today some of the original families still live in the compound, which retains its elegant character. In 2007 there was only one lady living there from among those who had moved in in 1947, the other initial tenants having died or moved out in the meantime. Her husband had fought from the house by manning the only available machine gun.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Kadima House (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Kadima House
HaRav Berlin, Jerusalem Kiryat Shmuel

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 31.768327777778 ° E 35.209227777778 °
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HaRav Berlin 30
9218812 Jerusalem, Kiryat Shmuel
Jerusalem District, Israel
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Beit Kedima
Beit Kedima
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Semiramis Hotel bombing
Semiramis Hotel bombing

A terrorist attack was carried out by the Jewish paramilitary group Haganah on the Christian-owned Semiramis Hotel in the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine. After suspecting that the Semiramis hotel was one of two Arab headquarters in Katamon, the Haganah planted a bomb there on the night of 5–6 January 1948. The mission was carried out by a team consisting of four men supported by ten riflemen. The explosion killed 24 or 26 civilians including at least one child. Among the dead were seven members of the Aboussouan family and Hubert Lorenzo, the 23-year-old son of the proprietor. The Spanish vice-consul, Manuel Allende Salazar, was also killed in the attack. According to Associated Press reports at the time a Haganah spokesman said that the Jerusalem hotel attack was executed because "the building was an important meeting place of Arab gangs, where arms were distributed to villages in the Jerusalem area." He continued, "Unfortunately, we cannot hit at the Arab band's (main) headquarters as it is secreted in a mosque." The attack was harshly condemned by the British authorities, and David Ben-Gurion sacked Mishael Shaham, the Haganah officer responsible for the Jerusalem sector, replacing him with David Shaltiel. According to John B. Quigley, the hotel was not a military headquarters and the British authorities denounced the attack as the "wholesale murder of innocent people." Ilan Pappé and J. Bowyer Bell attribute the bombing to the Irgun.Prior to the bombing, the distinctive white jeep of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni, commander of Jerusalem's Arab forces, had been seen in the hotel driveway.In O Jerusalem!, Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins write that Mishael Shaham, the Haganah leader who organised the bombing, had been sent to Jerusalem to stop the flow of beleaguered Jews retreating from mixed areas of Jerusalem to the Jewish areas. It was thought that 'a major blow in Arab Katamon ... might force the Arabs out of the quarter and change the psychological climate in the city'. Shaham asked "Where is the main Arab headquarters?".