The best of neighbors

Yad Ben-Zvi is everything Rachel Yannait Ben-Zvi dreamed of, a little university in the heart of Rehavia.

By ALEXANDER ZVIELLI
Kuzari Garden (photo credit: Reuters (illustrative))
Kuzari Garden
(photo credit: Reuters (illustrative))
One bright morning, a few months ago, all vehicular traffic was banned from Rehavia, one of the quieter quarters of Jerusalem, and armed policemen started patrolling the neighborhood streets of Ibn Gvirol, Alharizi and Ramban. This instant curfew lasted only a few hours and vanished just as it came – unannounced and unexplained.
I understood from one of the more obliging policewomen that an unusual cabinet meeting had taken place at the nearby renovated Yad Ben-Zvi Institute, and that these were only the most ordinary safety precautions. A cabinet may meet wherever it wishes to, and usually such a visit carries a message. Yad Ben-Zvi had, a few years ago, purchased the former Beit Hahalutzot and done extensive renovations.
It cut a huge underground amphitheater out of Jerusalem’s bare rocks, and completely remodeled the entire building. This was the reason the cabinet members had been invited to see Yad Ben-Zvi’s achievements, spirit and initiative, and perhaps to provide some more funding. No doubt the authorities had great respect for the Yad Ben-Zvi undertaking.
Since my good neighbor, Rachel Yannait Ben-Zvi (1886-1979) – wife of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (1883-1963), the second president of Israel – was one of the first halutzot, arriving in Palestine over 100 years ago to start pioneering that for her never ended, I was a little upset by the closing of Beit Hahalutzot. But I was reassured that Yad Ben-Zvi, a historical and educational institution on a university level, would preserve the memory of all those young women who contributed to the strength and welfare of the country during the past century.
Rachel had been our neighbor since we lived in the same new building at 10 Ibn Gvirol Street in the 1950s. The Ben-Zvis offered the shack that they lived in before the new building was constructed, which had great historical value, to Kibbutz Beit Keshet as a youth center in memory of their son Eli, a member of the kibbutz who had fallen during the War of Independence. The newly elected president moved to the nearby Beit Valero, but his wife, a Mapai member, retained a flat in our building which she dedicated with a plaque, after the Six Day War, to Greater Israel.
Rachel became friendly with my late wife, Danka, as she used to call her. She was under tremendous stress during the first days of the Six Day War, when she gave everything she had to soldiers, and Danka spent many hours with her. However, as soon as the fighting was over, Rachel asked me to take her in my car to Mount Gerizim, just freed from Jordanian occupation, where she wished to visit her husband’s old Samaritan friends from before 1948. (Yitzhak had conducted thorough research on the non-Arab and secret Jewish minorities in the Middle East, and was particularly interested in the Samaritan Bible). We were feted there and blessed by the entire Samaritan leadership and congregation, which apparently enjoyed and celebrated the Israeli victory, while the huge portrait of King Hussein was quickly taken off the wall of the secretariat.
It was on our way back to Jerusalem that Rachel told me about her plans for the future establishment and development of both the Ben-Zvi Institute for Research of Jewish Minorities and an enlarged Yad Ben-Zvi Institute dedicated to the memory of her husband. She said that there was a dire need in Jerusalem to establish such a united educational and historical independent body.
Naïve as I was, I dared to suggest that the entire project could be part of a separate faculty at the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University, where there were large areas available for development at the time. Rachel listened carefully, and then she gave me the hard look of a veteran pioneer who happened to meet someone of limited understanding.
“We were the first to come to Rehavia,” she explained patiently, “and we will stay here, and we will preserve our independence.”
An experienced politician who had assisted her husband in national affairs for years, Rachel knew precisely what she wanted and how to get it. “We will establish our own body, an independent research and educational institution, and will never rely on others,” she concluded.
Our mutual relations somewhat soured after this trip, but I still received books from her that she and her husband had written, marked, “To our dear Alexander,” on the front page.
OF COURSE Rachel was right and I was wrong. Today Yad Ben-Zvi is a formidable establishment, true to her planning and desire. It is an independent non-profit organization, perpetuating the legacy of the country’s second president, chartered by a special law of the Knesset to work in the public interest. It encourages the study of Oriental Jewish and other communities, and of events in the Middle East.
It arranges educational courses, excursions, cultural events, conferences and seminars.
Yad Ben-Zvi Press publishes books and studies ranging from the history of ancient Jerusalem to the Holocaust. There is a huge library with many valuable books and documents. It is what Rachel wanted, a little huge university in the very heart of Rehavia.
There is, however, a small fly in this ointment – an important social and neighborly responsibility that the current management of Yad Ben-Zvi had so far failed to follow through. Yad Ben-Zvi’s garden occupies a piece of municipal land that actually belongs to the Kuzari Garden, which originally stretched, at its full width, from Ramban Street to Keren Kayemet Street.
The Kuzari Garden, which was supposed to serve Rehavia with one wide, green avenue, is cut down the middle by this garden, which is separated and protected by an ugly, high wall that leaves passersby with a small, narrow, dark and uncomfortable passage. This change in municipal plans was once justified, as a safety precaution for protecting the newly elected second president. There might have been few objections, due to Ben-Zvi’s widespread popularity. But today it serves no one – on the contrary, the entire Kuzari Garden should be restored to its original proportions, renovated and replanted, as its name deserves.
THERE IS an urgent need for such restoration, especially because the entire demographic status of Rehavia has changed lately beyond recognition. While there were only a few children enjoying the Kuzari Garden a decade ago, the situation is entirely different today. Many former villas have added floors, and hundreds of new residents have settled in, including scores of new English- and French-speaking immigrants. One need only visit the Kuzari Garden in the early afternoon to see a new generation of Jerusalemites greatly enjoying themselves there. It is therefore time to remove that ugly wall and restore the Kuzari to its former character.
All over Europe, former gardens protecting palaces have been opened to the public.
This garden, stretching uninterruptedly in all its planned width from Rambam to Keren Kayemet, must be restored to its original size. The ugly wall ought to be taken down immediately. The Jerusalem Municipality must assume its responsibility toward the people of Rehavia. Yad Ben-Zvi ought to become what both Yitzhak and Rachel always wanted to be – the best of neighbors.