A wide booth?

As the city celebrates the festival of temporary housing, ‘In Jerusalem’ takes a look at the stories behind some of the city’s more permanent structures, many with suspicious pasts.

By PEGGY CIDOR
Feminist feline? The Generali lion was said to roar when a virtuous woman passed by. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Feminist feline? The Generali lion was said to roar when a virtuous woman passed by.
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
For thousands of years, Jerusalem has seen an endless number of houses built, destroyed and reconstructed – some the modest houses of the poor, others luxurious palaces. To - day, as in the biblical prophecy, Jerusalem has expanded far beyond its original boundaries.
It has even added some towers to its skyline, giving the city a more modern character.
But there are still old houses that hold secret stories, remembered only by a few old Jerusalemites – from ancient tenants gone with the winds of the country’s wars or with the sighs of betrayed love, to dark secrets kept amid families. On the eve of Succot – when the Children of Israel are commanded to leave behind the warm comfort of a well- furnished house and to move, out of faith, to a decorated outdoor hut in the chilly and often rainy autumn evenings – In Jerusalem takes a look at some of the city’s distinctive buildings.
THE EINI BUILDING
Among other things, Jerusalem contains a number of houses that have purportedly been cursed, or that are surrounded by rumors that have become urban legends passed from one generation to another.
One of the most famous such tales is the one relating to the supposedly bewitched structure known as the Eini Building, which sits on Agrippas Street opposite the entrance to the Mahaneh Yehuda market.
The story, as told by veteran Jerusalemites, begins in the early ’60s, when Rabbi Shalom Shar’abi, head of the Nahar Shalom Yeshiva in the Nahlaot neighborhood, woke up with the sunrise as usual – only to realize that there was no sunlight entering his house. A brief glance out the window told him why: A building that had been under construction for a while nearby had suddenly reached its final height, preventing the sun’s rays from getting into his house. Shar’abi cursed the building, which has since been the site of a long series of failures (depending, of course, on whom you ask).
A casino – the first and apparently last one in the city – opened there, bringing in a lot of income for the owners but causing gamblers heavy monetary losses. Tenants in the apartments changed continually; for different reasons, people could not remain there for long. Businesses that opened on the first floor were unsuccessful (among them the casino, which finally shut down). And to add to the building’s misfortune, the authorities came and shut down the Kach movement’s headquarters, which were located there as well, following the Knesset’s decision to outlaw the party.
Avraham Eini, the owner of the building, has sworn all these years that there was never such a curse, and has even tried to prove that the building never hid the sun from any of the surrounding houses, but that hasn’t helped him much – the Eini Building is still known as “the cursed building.”
BUILDING 13
Urban legends like these have touched even the municipality: Safra Square’s Building 13, which houses the department dealing with parking, has a dubious reputation as well. Built in 1860 as part of the Russian Compound, it was a hospital for Russian pilgrims and the needy of Jerusalem, and it had its own morgue. After the War of Independence, it became a military hospital and was renamed Avihayil, but that didn’t help improve its reputation among Jerusalemites, who continued to view it as haunted by the spirits of the dead. In fact, when the building was renovated, municipality employees refused to work there for a while, and to this day, there are some who feel uncomfortable there – especially in the basement, where the morgue was located.
THE GENERALI BUILDING
The Generali Building, at the junction of Jaffa Road and Shlomzion Street, is another of Jerusalem’s legends. The carved lion that sits on top of it, overlooking the city to the West, was – and perhaps still is – believed to be a reliable indicator of the virtue of Jerusalem’s women.
The building itself was constructed in 1935 as one of the branches of an Italian insurance firm called Assicurazioni Generali, and the winged lion is in fact the symbol of Venice, the city from which the company operated. Inside the building are the offices of the Jerusalem branch of the Interior Ministry, and on the roof, beside the lion, is a small meteorologists’ station installed in 1949.
As for the legend about women’s virtue, older Jerusalemites say the winged lion used to roar whenever a virtuous young woman passed by the building – which made it a perfect location for dating in those days.
THE JERUSALEM HEALTH OFFICE
The beautiful building at 86 Jaffa Road that houses the Jerusalem district health office is home to another of the city’s dramatic stories.
A rich Christian Palestinian family built the structure toward the end of the 19th century. But due to the drama that took place inside it once it was finished, it was known for many years – and still is, among the city’s older residents – as the “House of Spirits.” The family had just found the best match possible for their beautiful, wealthy heiress daughter.
Soon after they held the engagement, however, the groom died. The girl’s parents refused to accept the tragedy and held the wedding ceremony anyway – with the dead body of the groom seated beside the bride.