The best place to begin your walk down King David Street is where all of modern Jerusalem started – at the Montefiori windmill. As you enjoy the view of old and new Jerusalem, it might be hard to imagine that, as late as 1860, this was the only structure standing outside the walled city. And stand it did, surviving the time the Arabs hired a sorcerer to get the wind to knock it down, to the British blowing the top off it in 1948. While the impressive structure lives on as a testament to its builders, the windmill was actually outmoded within a few years of its construction, thanks to steam power.
The windmill was named for the British Jewish philanthropist Moses Montefiori, although the money for the purchase came from an American Jew, Judah Touro, who left $50,000 in his will to be used for the good of the Jews of Jerusalem. Montefiori was the executor of Touro’s estate. Touro did get the main street of the adjoining gentrified neighbourhood of Yemin Moshe named after him, which you’ll discover if you wander down that way.
Before returning to the busy King David, enjoy a saunter through the strip of public park that parallels the street. You’ll get a magnificent view of the Old City walls, from Jaffa Gate to Mount Zion. On a clear day, you can look eastward into the Judean Desert, and even the Mountains of Moab across the Dead Sea.
The park is home to the usual assortment of trees and flowers, and there are benches on which to sit and admire the view. But there’s also something you don’t find in every park: 2,000-year-old tombs. The grouping, known as Herod’s family tomb, looks like a cave cut into the into the rock in a way typical to multi-generational burial chambers of the wealthy at the time of the Second Temple, right down to the rolling stone that covered the entrance. Why a rolling stone? So it could be easily moved when it was time to lay Uncle Haim to eternal rest, closed up, and then rolled away again when Aunt Sarah’s time came. Don’t expect to find any bones inside though – the grave robbers knew rich tombs when they saw them, and plundered them centuries ago. And, poor Herod: While the great builder of Jerusalem had this tomb named after him – as well as many other things having nothing to do with him – none of his great projects, including the Temple, bear his name.
Walk through the park until it connects with Emile Botta Street, which will lead you back to King David. First, you’ll pass the Pontifical Biblical Institute, built in 1927 in neo-Renaissance style. The institute has a small museum, where, for an equally small fee, you can view a real Egyptian mummy.
Emile Botta Street is named after one of Jerusalem’s more colourful 19th century diplomatic consuls. The Frenchman’s extracurricular activities leave one wondering what his office hours were like. In Naomi Shepherd’s book “The Zealous Intruders,” this is how a friend describes Christmas Eve at the Botta residence in 1850: “Dinner with Botta, hashish binge, delicious, and effects of music. At ten-thirty we all go home drunk as lords, night full of agreeable dreams.”
Banishing thoughts of Botta’s nights, we turn left King David Street, and head to the entrance of the King David Hotel. Built between 1929 and 1931 by the Egyptian Jewish Mouseri family, its architects – Emile Woodjet and Benjamin Chaiken – created a marvelous monument to colonial architecture. Every one of its public rooms is done in a different style imitating how the architects thought ancient near-Eastern palaces must have looked. In 1938, the southern part of the hotel became an administrative centre for the British Mandate. You’ll see nary a hint of the trauma that struck the building July 22, 1946, when it was blown up by the underground army the Etzl, killing 91 people, in protest over British anti-Zionist policy. The King David, synonymous with lap-of-luxury accommodations, attracts a global who’s-who, and their pictures adorn the walls in some of the rooms.
By the way, the street was named by the British, inspired as they were by the scripture, after they found themselves the latest of Jerusalem’s rulers after World War I. The British biblical naming spree extended to other parts of Jerusalem, as well -- Prophets Street, Jeremiah Street and Habbakuk Street, to name a few.
Across the street is a YMCA that is like none other in the world. And with good reason – its architect was Arthur Louis Harmon, who also designed the Empire State Building in New York City. If the King David is a near-Eastern festival, the “Y” is no less of a party, to which 2,000 years’ worth of architectural styles have been invited – from the Herodian-style masonry, to the red-and-beige interlocking stones typical of the 13th century Mamelukes, down to the Art-Deco angel that graces the main entry.
Harmon is not the only world-famous architect with a building on King David Street. Its contemporary claim to fame is a campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) at 13 King David Street, designed by Moshe Safdie (who most recently created the capital’s new Yad Vashem Museum). When the municipality first accorded the U.S. Reform Jewish rabbinical seminary a small plot of land facing the Jordanian cease-fire lines in a divided Jerusalem, little did it know the campus would grow to become the landmark it is today, At the heart of the college is that quintessential Jerusalem element, the courtyard. In addition to its classes for future rabbis, cantors, educators and community workers, and its school of archaeology, the college contains a library that is open to the public, and an archeological museum exhibiting, among other things, the finds from Tel Dan, an HUC-JIR dig.
Continuing to walk down King David Street toward its junction with Agron Street, you’ll reach David’s Citadel, another luxurious Jerusalem hotel that has been giving the King David some stiff competition in recent years. Before you get to David’s Citadel, however, bear left on to Ben Shimon Street.
Another left past the Gesher Center (a seminar centre specializing in programming that bridges the Orthodox-secular divide) will lead you to a parking lot, at the far end of which is the World Center for the Heritage of North African Jewry. The centre is located in one of the few remaining houses of a charming old 19th century neighbourhood, Mahane Israel. The interior has been renovated in Spanish-Moorish style, and the building’s piece-de-resistance is a magnificent clerestory, adorned with intricate wood and bas-relief plaster work, and mosaic baseboards and walls executed by builders who came from Morocco especially for the project. Rooms surrounding the clerestory are used for lectures and study sessions, as well as art and folklore exhibits, to honour the long and glorious history of North African Jewry, and educate future generations about it.
Where to next? Depending on time and inclination, you can cross Agron Street and walk though Independence Park to Solomon Street, and the restored Nahalat Shiva area of downtown Jerusalem, where fun shopping, good eating, and countless opportunities for people watching await. Or, you could turn right at Agron, and head toward the Jaffa Gate to explore the Old City markets.
