Bikur Cholim Hospital

Bikur Cholim neonatal unit by Moti Bodek Architects

Ziv maternity wing in the former German Hospital

Bikur Cholim opened in a rented building in the Old City around 1826. In 1843, it had three rooms for patients. It was run by the Bikur Cholim society. After the Mission established a medical facility in the Old City, hoping to attract Jews, the society intensified its activity.[4] In 1854, a building was purchased which soon grew overcrowded. In 1864, another complex of buildings was acquired incorporating treatment rooms, a pharmacy, a hospice for the terminally ill and administrative offices. The Ashkenazi Perushim Hospital, as it was known, became the favorite charity of the British Jewish philanthropist Moses Montefiore, who described the facility in his diary in 1875. The general ward consisted of two rooms, each with eight beds. One room was reserved for men, and the other for women. In 1893, the hospital cared for 781 patients and treated 12,347 people in its out-patient clinics.[5]

In 1898, during his visit to Jerusalem, German emperor Wilhelm II donated a large amount of money used for purchasing the plot of land on which the new hospital was built, on what is now Nathan Straus Street.[6]

By 1907, hospitalizations exceeded 1,000 per annum. A decision was reached to build a new hospital outside the walls of the Old City. The cornerstone of the new building was laid in 1912, but construction work was delayed by the outbreak of World War I.

The building on Chancellor Avenue (now Strauss Street), just off Jaffa Road, was completed in 1925 and opened its doors to all residents of Jerusalem, Jews and non-Jews. The hospital in the Old City continued to treat the chronically ill until 1947.[5]

Many of the wounded from the 1929 Palestine riots and 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine were brought to Bikur Holim. Jewish underground fighters were hospitalized under fictitious names to keep the British mandatory police from finding them. During the War of Independence in 1948, the hospital came under artillery fire from Jordanian guns. Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus was evacuated, and many patients were transferred to Bikur Holim.[5]

The former German Deaconesses Hospital [German] at the corner of Straus and Prophets Street is now the eastern wing of Bikur Holim Hospital.[7] The German Hospital opened in 1894 and used the building until c. 1937.[8] After 1948 it was taken over by Israel as the "Ziv Hospital".[9] Today, as part of Bikur Cholim Hospital which is being operated as a branch of Shaare Zedek Medical Center, it houses the maternity ward,[10] with the department for gynecological and obstetric endocrinology.[11]

In 2007, the Russian-Israeli tycoon Arkadi Gaydamak saved the hospital from bankruptcy, taking it over from receivership. In 2010, Gaydamak stopped funding the hospital and returned to Russia.[1]