Givat Ram

Givat Ram brings together the legislative, administrative, scientific, and cultural functions of Israel’s capital in a concentrated institutional landscape.[2][7] The Hebrew University campus, Knesset, and Israel Museum became pivotal points around which a major governmental and cultural center was laid out after the War of Independence.[7] The university and associated cultural institutions lie south of the government ministries and Knesset, between older Jerusalem quarters to the east and residential suburbs to the west and southwest.[7]

The neighborhood occupies a hill between Rehavia and Beit ha-Kerem, and the university campus stands on a ridge of the Judean Hills in western Jerusalem.[7][8] The campus is adjacent to the Knesset and other government buildings.[1] The university’s Givat Ram campus is also known as the Edmond J. Safra Campus.[9]

The broader institutional area has been described as a one-square-kilometer national campus in which scientific, cultural, academic, and government institutions are within walking distance of one another.[10] Its institutions include the Israel Museum, Bloomfield Science Museum, Hebrew Language Academy, National Archaeology Campus, Knesset, and government complex, while nearby open spaces include Rupin Park, the Rose Garden, and the Jerusalem Bird Observatory.[10] The National Library’s newer building is across from the Knesset rather than on the university campus, distinguishing its present location from its long-standing Givat Ram campus home.[3]

Archaeological occupation on the Givat Ram spur extends back to Iron Age II, with excavated remains dated from the late eighth century BCE through the Byzantine period in the early seventh century CE.[5] Before modern roads and buildings covered the area, the ancient site occupied an estimated 4.5 hectares, chiefly around the summit and upper slopes of an elongated spur approximately 825 meters above sea level.[5] Its position at the top of the ascent from the coastal plain, or at the beginning of the descent toward Jerusalem, has been proposed as a reason for its long habitation.[5]

Sparse remains from the late Iron Age, Persian, and Early Hellenistic periods suggest that settlement during those periods was concentrated on the summit.[6] Its commanding position above Jerusalem’s principal western approach may have made it part of a network of military or administrative outposts surrounding the ancient city.[6] The site reached its greatest extent during the Hasmonean and Herodian periods.[6] It may then have functioned as a private estate belonging to a member of the ruling class, possibly a high-priestly family, before developing into a production center for ordinary pottery used by Jerusalem’s growing population and Jewish pilgrims.[6]

After the suppression of the Jewish revolt against Rome, the summit was reoccupied by a military outpost of the Tenth Legion, with a central kilnworks established nearby.[6] Its products supplied construction of legionary facilities in Aelia Capitolina and elsewhere, and production appears to have ended during the first half of the third century CE.[6] Kilns and other remains associated with the legion have been found in the Givat Ram and Binyanei Ha’uma area.[7] A Roman road from Joppa, or Jaffa, through Nicopolis, or Emmaus, passed through a saddle north of the site before descending along the course of present-day Jaffa Road toward Jerusalem, approximately 1.5 Roman miles to the east.[5]

The site’s character during the third and fourth centuries, following the legion’s departure, is unclear.[6] A later large monastery and related facilities may have served Christian pilgrims; the monastery ceased to exist in violent circumstances sometime in the seventh century.[6] Small quantities of Early Islamic material may relate to a way-station in a postal network based in Jerusalem.[6] Finds from the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Mamluk periods were meager and do not provide evidence of permanent occupation after the mid-seventh century in the detailed excavation account.[5]

The archaeological site was previously known as Sheikh Badr, the name used for its 1949 excavation.[5] A nearby excavation in 1968 used Givat Ram, identified as the new name applied to the whole area after 1949.[5] Its ancient name has not been firmly established; Iasonis Pagus has been proposed as an identification for the later complex, rather than Deir Yasin, associated by the researchers with modern Givat Shaul approximately one kilometer west.[5][6]

The modern institutional development of Givat Ram followed the War of Independence and the division of Jerusalem.[2][11] The Hebrew University’s Mount Scopus campus and Hadassah hospital remained in an Israeli-held enclave surrounded by Jordanian territory, while the university dispersed its departments among buildings elsewhere in Jerusalem.[11] Because the Mount Scopus campus was inaccessible to teachers and students from 1949 to 1967, classes were initially held at scattered locations in western Jerusalem and a replacement campus was developed at Givat Ram.[12][8]

In December 1949, the Israeli government and Knesset named Jerusalem the capital and decided to transfer governmental institutions there.[2] Givat Ram subsequently became a focus for construction of the government campus, Knesset, Israel Museum, and new university campus.[2] Preparation of the university campus plan began in 1953, with a vision combining higher education, government, and culture through the university, Knesset and ministries, and Israel Museum.[13] Construction developed during the early 1950s, and the university laid the campus cornerstone in 1954.[7][11]

The new campus opened in 1958, and the university was granted land at Givat Ram on June 2 that year as its student body and range of programs expanded.[12][1] Development transformed 150 acres of eroded limestone into a campus containing more than 50 buildings.[8] Financial assistance came from the state, Jewish communities, and individuals abroad; government and Jewish Agency grants covered nearly two-thirds of the university’s maintenance budget in the period described by the institutional history.[8] The campus included a stadium, synagogue, planetarium, and new National Library building.[7]

Following the Six-Day War in 1967, Mount Scopus became accessible again and the university rebuilt and expanded that campus while retaining multiple campuses in Jerusalem.[12][9] During the 1970s, plans were made to transfer the Social Sciences and Humanities faculties from Givat Ram to Mount Scopus, a process completed in summer 1981.[8] Consolidation in the early 1980s made Givat Ram primarily the university’s science campus, bringing lecture rooms and laboratories together there and adding the Avraham Harman Science Library.[8] University units remaining at Givat Ram included the Einstein Institute of Mathematics and the Israel Institute of Advanced Studies.[1] The campus was subsequently renamed the Safra Campus following a donation.[9]

Givat Ram was identified as sub-quarter 102 in Jerusalem’s 2021 population statistics, with an end-of-year population of 3,590.[14] Of these residents, 98 percent were classified as “Jews and others” and 2 percent as Arabs, while 8 percent were listed as ultra-Orthodox.[14]

The campus also accommodates a substantial student population: in 2019, approximately 5,000 students studied at Givat Ram, out of 40,000 students studying in Jerusalem as a whole.[15] These figures describe different populations—the statistical sub-quarter’s residents and the campus’s students—and refer to different years.[14][15]

Givat Ram Hi-Tech Village was established as a joint initiative of the Jerusalem Development Authority and Hebrew University, providing an initial home base for technology startups alongside academic knowledge and research infrastructure.[16] The former student residential complex known as the Thousand Dormitories was abandoned and later adapted into a high-tech campus.[9] By 2021, the university campus also accommodated non-university occupants, and a new technology park was planned for its western edge.[9]

The campus’s occupants have included organizations beyond the university itself: a September 2018 IMPACT-se report gave the organization’s address as Suite 15, Belgium House, Givat Ram Campus, Hebrew University Jerusalem.[17] Scientific research, startup accommodation, and such organizational uses accompany the campus’s continuing academic role.[1][16][17]

Givat Ram’s public cultural landscape combines museums, library facilities, gardens, and national institutions.[10] Jerusalem’s Museum Row, opposite the Knesset, encompasses the Israel Museum, Bible Lands Museum, Bloomfield Science Museum, and National Library.[18] The adjacent park in the National Precinct was originally used for official government gatherings, but was opened to the public following a public outcry in the early 1960s.[4] The botanical garden developed as a public facility displaying plants from around the world, adding a horticultural dimension to the area’s educational institutions.[8]

The Knesset’s permanent building was dedicated at Givat Ram on August 30, 1966, and parliament held its first meeting there the next day.[19] The dedication was attended by heads of 44 parliaments and approximately 6,000 Israelis.[20] Before settling at Givat Ram, the Knesset had met in the Jewish Agency building in Jerusalem, the Kessem Cinema building in Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem’s Froumine House.[20] Froumine House served as its temporary home from 1950 for 16 years while planning and construction of the permanent building were delayed.[19]

Architect Ossip Klarwein won the 1957 design competition, but the completed structure differed substantially from his proposal after nine years of planning and construction involving several architects.[19] Its modern, functional architecture evokes Classical forms, and a Rothschild family contribution made construction possible.[12] Military concerns about possible Jordanian shelling of the southern side led planners to return the entrance to the north.[21] Bare concrete and reddish Galilee stone were used in the building, while Dora Gad decorated its interior and Marc Chagall’s mosaics and tapestries were installed in the Chagall State Hall.[21] The building contains the parliamentary chamber, State Hall, offices, and committee rooms; an office wing was added in 1982.[12]

The government complex, known as Kiryat Ben-Gurion, was built in stages beginning in the 1950s near the university campus and Israel Museum.[22] In 2011, its institutions included the Knesset, Prime Minister’s Office, Finance and Foreign Affairs ministries, other ministries, Bank of Israel, and Supreme Court.[22] The National Precinct had been developed soon after Israel’s establishment to accommodate such major state institutions.[4]

The Foreign Ministry initially occupied a complex of one-story bungalows in Givat Ram, built for its planned transfer from Tel Aviv in summer 1953.[23] The move addressed practical difficulties caused by commuting between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and by the ministry’s separation from centers of decision-making.[23] It remained in the hut complex for 50 years before moving to new headquarters in Givat Ram in 2003.[23] The Supreme Court moved to its present Givat Ram courthouse in 1992 from a nineteenth-century hospice in the Russian Compound.[4] Designed by Ram Karmi and Ada Karmi-Melamede, its architecture employs straight lines and circles associated with ideas of law and justice.[4]

The National Library was housed on Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus from 1960 until its collections moved to its new Jerusalem building in 2023.[3] During much of that period, it combined three roles: Israel’s national library, the national library of the Jewish people, and a central research library for the Hebrew University.[24] Its campus building stood at the center of the main lawn opposite the university administration building, a location deliberately chosen in the campus plan.[13]

Planning the library involved an architectural competition launched in 1955, with Ziva Armoni and Hanan Haber’s winning proposal announced in February 1956.[25] Construction began in 1957.[25] The designers had to accommodate sloping terrain and the varied requirements of storage, manuscript and book preservation, public reading rooms, and other library activities.[25] Columns and International Style principles shaped the design, while a large opening above the reading-hall level admitted natural light from the roof.[25] Installation of the roof’s air-conditioning systems required an Israeli Air Force helicopter.[25]

When access to Mount Scopus was severed in 1948, most of the library’s collection was relocated among temporary locations and storerooms in Jerusalem.[3] From 1960 the library operated on the Givat Ram campus, and in 2023 its collections were transferred to the new building between the Knesset and Israel Museum.[3]

Mordecai Ardon’s stained-glass windows in the campus library were dedicated in 1984 and visualize the prophet Isaiah’s vision of peace.[8] The Avraham Harman Science Library, opened during the early-1980s consolidation of the science campus, formed another major library facility at Givat Ram.[8]

The botanical gardens originated in a plot of native Israeli plants intended to assist the university’s botany professors.[26] In 1962, botanist Michael Zohary asked Michael Avishai to establish a second garden on a 65-acre site near the future Knesset and Israel Museum, before either building had been constructed.[26] Initially intended to test cultivated species for their potential in the Israeli market, the garden later developed geographic sections, outdoor exhibits, a tropical conservatory, and ponds for aquatic plants.[26] During the 1980s, the Jerusalem and University Botanical Garden developed as a publicly accessible facility displaying plants from around the world.[8]

A 2017 account identified parts of Givat Ram, including some land beneath the Knesset building, as property of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate subject to a long-term lease arrangement.[27] The arrangement, made in 1952, gave the Jewish National Fund rights to use and develop the Patriarchate’s Jerusalem land under a 99-year lease running until 2051.[27] The account described the land and properties as due to revert to the Patriarchate when the lease expired; this is a dated account of a legally and politically sensitive ownership issue, rather than a statement of a subsequent legal outcome.[27]