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Before coming to the Beit Hadassah settlement in Hebron, we passed a street with an Israeli checkpoint leading to the Palestinian side of the Old City. Just as on al-Shuhada Street, all the shops were closed, the awnings rusted, and the street sat a virtual ghost town.
Beit Romano
Next to the checkpoint is the Beit Romano settlement, which we didn’t have a chance to visit. Beit Romano was built in 1876 by Yisrael Avraham Romano of Constantinople (now Istanbul). It served Sephardi Jews from Turkey and contained residential and study facilities. During the British Mandate period, it served as a British police headquarters.
Under Jordanian rule, the Osama Ben Munqez School was established at Beit Romano and the surrounding land was converted to a bus station. In 1982, Israel turned the school into a settlement and the bus station into a military base.
Beit Hadassah
Beit Hadassah sat just a few steps further up al-Shuhada Street. It was originally a hospital named Hesed l’Avraham built in 1893 with donations by Jewish families from Baghdad. At that time, it was the only modern medical facility in Hebron.
In 1909, the hospital was taken over by the Hadassah Women’s Zionist Organization of America and renamed Beit Hadassah. They provided free medical care to all residents of Hebron, regardless of religion.
During the 1929 Hebron Massacre, two rabbis, a pharmacist, and their families who lived in the buildings surrounding the hospital were brutally murdered. Later, under Jordanian rule in 1948, a school was established in the building.
Beit Hadassah was the start of the Israeli settlement movement in Hebron. In 1979, 15 settler women and their 35 children squatted in the building and managed to camp out for a year. The Israeli government was undecided on the matter at the time because they were involved in peace negotiations with Egypt over the return of the Sinai Peninsula. In February 1980, the government legitimized the settlement and Israeli residency in the Old City of Hebron, under military protection.
Our guide, Eliyahu, invited us into a lecture hall at Beit Hadassah to speak to the group for a few minutes. In 10 minutes, he summed up Jewish history in Hebron, stressing that Jews and Muslims lived together relatively peacefully until the 20th century.
Next…
Next, we continued down al-Shuhada Street, then walked uphill to the Tel Rumeida settlement before returning and passing through a checkpoint to the Palestinian side of the Old City.
Note: Beit Romano and Beit Hadassah are both included in the UNESCO World Heritage listed Old City of Hebron.
