19th century
The Beginning
Background
The Herzog Medical Center is the oldest Hebrew Medical Center operating in the State of Israel; it is considered the first and senior most psychiatric hospital in the Middle East, and amongst the pioneers in theory and policy of mental health in Israel. The beginning of this glorious history is in the late 19th century and is intertwined in the history of the “Old Yishuv” (the first settlement of the land of Israel in the modern ear) in general and of Jerusalem in particular.
As is written in the book of Prof’ Joseph Yoel Rivlin (the father of the former President Mr. Reuven Rivlin), the hospital began its way as a tiny one-room shelter in the Old City, housing only two mental patients collected by Mr. Asher Rivlin, the uncle of Prof’ Rivlin and the son of Joseph Rivlin. The situation of the two patients and the shelter assigned to them was so severe that Mr. Asher Rivlin turned to the “All-Kolelim Committee” seeking aid. Just then, a new women’s organization was founded called “Agudah Ezrat Nashim,” led by Haya Tzipa Pines (wife of Yehiel Pines, a leader in the Mazkeret Moshe Neighborhood) – an organization which took upon itself to manage the institution.
This was the starting point of the first mental health “hospital” in the land of Israel, and in fact in the entire Middle East.
Throughout the 19th century, despite the opposition of some of the Jewish community in Israel’s supporters, Jewish medical services began to develop in Jerusalem as a counterreaction to the extant missionary hospitals. The first Jewish hospital was established in the Old City of Jerusalem in 1854, called the Meir Rothschild Hospital, followed by several additional hospitals, until forty years later, in an attempt to provide a response to the extant lack in the field of mental health, which the general hospitals were ill-equipped or oriented to deal with, the hospital: “Ezrat Nashim” was founded in 1894 by Haya Tzipa Pines, her daughters Ita Yalin and Margalit Meyuhas and Rosa Feinstein. In Hanukkah of that year (1894), the “Ezrat Nashim Clalit” Association assumed responsibility for the tiny shelter in the Old City which housed a few mentally ill patients and was conspicuously neglected and ill-managed. The association renovated the facilities and changed its name to “Ezrat Nashim – hospital for the incurable.” That is how the Herzog Medical Center began – as the first psychiatric institute in the Middle East. The site housed, among other patients, women suffering from depression and other mental disturbances after giving birth. The documentation of the “shelter for mental patients” can be seen in the book of accounts for the Ezrat Nashim Clalit Association in Jerusalem whose original copy is still kept in the hospital archives to this day.
The men's building and the inner courtyard 1910
Women's building around 1908
Late 19th to early 20th century
1896 – 1904
In the first two years following its founding, the medical institution grew rapidly, migrating between various buildings in the Old City, until it burst out of the walls of Jerusalem to take up residence in the Mazkeret Moshe Neighborhood (which was established by, among others, Yehiel Pines). In order to meet the rising demand for its services, the bed capacity was raised to 54. In 1901, the young medical institution won a plot of land on Jaffa Street, and between 1902-1906 began the construction of two buildings, funded by the donation of Yeshayaa Baruch Neushtad of Moscow. These structures and others, built later on, served the hospital until the late 1960s, up until the hospital’s transition to its current location in Givat Shaul.
20th century
During the First World War, the Ottomans sought to commandeer the structure. According to the account given in the book of Rivlin Ita Yelin, the daughter of Haya Zipa Pines hurled the keys to the building at the feet of the Turkish officer who came to take possession of the building and told him he would have to take care of the patients, or else toss them out – and he withdrew!
The Hospital's Structure
A University Hospital
The Hospital's Solidification
A Hospital in Givat Shaul
Establishing a Community Health Center
Opening a Geriatric Department
An important historical landmark in the history of the Hospital: its name is changed to Herzog
Establishment of the Israeli Center for Treating Psychotrauma
Establishment of the Adult Chronic Respiratory Care Department
21st century
From 2000 to the present day
Establishing the Pediatric Chronic Respiratory Care Department
Inauguration of Two Departments in the New Samson Medical Pavilion
The Inauguration of the new Dr. Max and Jeanna Glassman Ambulatory Health Centre
An Ambitious Plan to Establish a Hospital Campus
Herzog Medical Center established the following services of the past few decades:
- A mental health center, a rehabilitation department, a chronic respiratory care department and a skilled nursing department.
- A clinical research center for brain sciences conducting multi-disciplinary research focusing on neurodegenerative and neurological diseases, motor function rehabilitation, brain damage stemming from lack of oxygen and psychiatric disturbances.
- A medical and para-medical professional training center.
- Community clinics and institutions.
Alongside medical responses for patients, the research division of the Medical Center has won international recognition due to knowledge and achievements, primarily in the fields of medicine associated with geriatrics, respiratory and mental illness and the field of psycho-trauma.