(haipo) – The Haifa Municipality Conservation Committee made a precedent-setting decision and halted a plan to add residential floors above the historic "Beit Rav" at 26 Horev Street, a unique architectural structure identified with the Ahuza neighborhood and with the late Rabbi Shear Yishuv Cohen. The committee's chairman, Avihu Hahn, emphasized that "we will not allow harm to the city's heritage assets."
The decision: strict conservation instead of massive construction
After a heated discussion, by a majority of three committee members, it was decided to oppose the developer's plan and define the building as a site for strict conservation at Grade A. The significance of the decision: the building will be preserved in its original form, without any construction additions on its roof.
An architectural structure of historical importance
"Beit Ha-Rab" (Beit Ha-Yam), designed in the 30s by architect Oscar Kaufman, who also designed the Habima Theater, was built as a boarding house for nurses who immigrated from Germany. During the Mandate, it was called "Ha-Migdalor" (The Lighthouse), due to its location on the front line of the then isolated neighborhood and the electronic system that connected it directly to the police.
Later, the house became a public and spiritual center, serving as the residence of the Chief Rabbi of Haifa, Rabbi Shear Yeshov Cohen, and his wife, Dr. Naomi Cohen.
Committee: "Haifa's soul comes before real estate interests"
The preservation committee explained that the decision was intended to protect Haifa's heritage values: "Beit Hayam reflects a significant chapter in the city's development. Its preservation is part of our commitment to local identity and urban memory."
The committee instructed the city engineer's team to formulate an alternative design solution, one that would not physically or visually harm the historic structure.
The original article: "The Rape of the 'Rabbi's House' (Horev 26) – On the Rights of the Individual and the Public in the Preservation of Built Heritage Sites" was published on 2/22/26
(haipo) – Discussion in the Haifa Municipal Preservation Committee on a zoning plan submitted for a building for preservation at 26 Horev Street:
The visualization of the future configuration of a building of high conservation value at 26 Horev Street, mistakenly called 'Beit Rav', shows A 7-story urban monster leaning on the historic building, symbolizes a coercive act of exhausting supposedly granted building rights, as opposed to the public's right to preserve Haifa's built heritage assets. This is what the proposed structure looks like, which tilts/threatens/subdues the historic structure:
The original building at 26 Horev Street – photos from the Haifa Municipality's conservation file:
The loss of built heritage
The book The Rape of Britain, which appeared as early as 1975, presented to the British public the cost of the loss of Britain's built heritage in the modernist construction process, which bulldozed buildings, neighborhoods, and sites of architectural and cultural heritage. The book tackles the issue of the public's right to cultural assets and how to balance them with the needs of adapting to changes in transportation, for the purpose of public spaces, and especially with the individual rights granted through planning and building laws.
The authors chose a rather harsh word in order to shock public opinion even slightly, and to bring to account the planners, entrepreneurs, and politicians who enabled the "rape" of Britain, as they defined it.
The full plan submitted to the Preservation Committee – Horev 26 "Beit Rabbi":
A powerful architectural solution
It is difficult not to be freed from this expression when looking at the forceful architectural solution found by the building's planners and those in the municipality who approved its presentation to the conservation committee. It seems that there are no limits to the desire to exhaust the rights supposedly granted to build on lots in this area. All rights are concentrated in a bulky structure that bends, subdues, occupies, ['rapes'?] the iconic historic building that is mistakenly called the 'Rabbi's House.'
So there you have it. This is not the Rabbi's House, which has already tried its hand at obtaining excessive building rights in the past and was rejected by the planning authorities. This building is one of the most unique from any 'conservation' point of view and is not without reason classified as worthy of preservation at the highest level. The proper name is 'Hayyam House'
Established in 1936 for the sisters Carrie, Ada and Rachel nee Hyam [HYAM], loyal Zionists from Britain. They immigrated to Israel and built themselves a summer home for the hot days in the extreme neighborhood of Haifa on the Carmel Mountains, Sir Herbert Samuel's Mansion, is a modern-day 'mansion'. Their personal story and the story of the building have already been written down in several sources, such as in the book by Amira Kehat, a historian of the mansion, and it is also appropriate that the documentation file of the building made in the office of Uri Padan be exposed to the public eye and not remain buried in the files of the municipal committees.
One of the original and most prominent architects of the Land of Israel
The architect Oskar Kaufmann, [who designed the Volksbienna in Berlin, the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv and our 'Ora' cinema in Haifa] and was one of the original and prominent architects of the Land of Israel, designed an iconic and pioneering building for his time here. The western slope of the lot faces the sea, and therefore there was a need for columns, stairs and a ground floor to level the main surface. Towards the view overlooking the sea, Kaufmann created a spacious balcony and towards the upper street a flat floor was created that does not stand out ostentatiously but is integrated into the built landscape. The interior design elements, including fireplaces, bookcases, doors and lintels, were all designed in dark colors that blend into the light interior plaster.
The exterior of the building is plastered in pink, which gives it a decorative uniqueness. The house is a distinct relic and worthy of preservation from an important historical period in the design of the Jewish space on Mount Carmel. The building is worthy of preservation from both an architectural and historical perspective and is a cultural asset in the building heritage of the city of Haifa. Only a few of its kind that are comparable in uniqueness have been left to be discarded in the race for development and the exhaustion of building rights in the area, and therefore it is especially appropriate to take care to preserve and design it in the original spirit. It would be a historical injustice to turn a summer house that reflects a historical period, a special spirit of the times, and a rare architectural design by a renowned architect into a 'cubic' structure of 14 residential units.
And where did the nickname 'Beit Rav' come from?
So the Hayam sisters donated the house to the JNF in what is known as a 'living will', meaning that they will be able to live in their house until the end of their lives, and then it will be registered in the name of the nation. In a puzzling and not fully investigated process, the building was registered in the name of 'Hamanuta', a subsidiary of the JNF, which, unlike the mother, which is prohibited from selling land to the nation, can trade in the properties it owns. During the tenure of Rabbi Shear Yeshov HaCohen, the late, as the Ashkenazi rabbi of Haifa, some kind of deal was apparently made, which is also difficult to trace, and the building was leased or actually purchased by the rabbi. His high-ranking tenure did not prevent him or his associates from also capitalizing on the property he owned, and as early as 2002, a request was submitted to demolish the building and erect a similar seven-story monster in its place. A public struggle that was conducted at the time ended with the rejection of the submitted plans.
A terrifying sight of a submissive and hidden original structure
Now, it appears that the late Rabbi's successors are returning with a renewed initiative, this time while waiving the destruction of the historic structure, and creating a formidable monument of an original structure, submissive and hidden under the bow of the giant that towers above it.
This is not the place to go into the myriad of reasons for preserving the building, since it is supposedly 'preserved'... but woe to such aggressive preservation. Buildings with architectural, design, historical and environmental values - should be preserved and minimal changes proposed to adapt them to protection requirements.
The rights granted must be copied through a process known as "transfer of building rights" [TDR], which is common worldwide, and Tel Aviv has also made frequent use of it in the preservation of the "White City" and in general. In her study on transfer of building rights as a means of preserving heritage sites, Ruth Ben-Ari, who wrote a study on this at the University of Haifa, analyzed the possibilities and many advantages of this method. It is true that the Haifa Municipality does not have much land to offer to developers, but it still has areas where high-rise construction fits into the urban fabric, and there it can find the percentages of construction that can replace the sites that are particularly suitable for preservation, such as the structure at Horeb 26.
The Higham House should be taken away and the owners given land in the Memorial Garden opposite the city hall in its place. They will be able to build the rights they are entitled to on the alternative land. It will be less disruptive.
This is not the first property that religious figures have accepted for their use as public property, turning it into their own property and taking ownership of it through fraud and schemes.
Hallelujah, and the Jerusalem municipality would learn from this.
Why does a house that is intended to be a national asset become the property of one person?
Where is the responsibility of the municipality, the committee, and the state for carrying out the sisters' will to the letter and not allowing the heirs of the rabbi who passed on property that was not theirs to make a fortune at the public's expense?
Beyond harming heritage, this is theft.
The people of Haifa need to stop this move, if the preservation committee that is supposed to represent it is on the side of the developers.
What they left of the Carmel's front gardens were parking lots and concrete flower beds.
Congratulations to Yossi Ben Artzi for making his voice heard.
The destruction of Haifa's beautiful and historic buildings is so painful. In all the city's neighborhoods there are magnificent buildings from different periods and different architectural movements, all of which have fascinating historical stories. Preservation should preserve the building and the style of the period in which it was built, and above it a taller building (please not a tower) can be built that will connect the old and the new in a pleasing way to the eye. Preservation, by the way, should also be done by investing in the surrounding area of the property. Please stop destroying the Carmel, the Ahuza neighborhood, nurture and restore the beautiful houses in the Hadar neighborhood of Karin, Sarakbi, and more.
The power and uniqueness of an iconic building for preservation is not contained in the architecture of its envelope alone, but also in the way it stands on the lot and the volume it occupies in the space around it. The spatial solitude, the breathing spaces, and the open lines of sight – all of these are an inherent component of the conservation value. The space that the building occupies, and the space that surrounds it, form an inseparable part of the whole worthy of preservation.
Building above and adjacent to it, while engulfing it in a new mass, deprives it of that essential spatial quality and empties the act of preservation of its content. This is similar to swallowing the Brandenburg Gate within a high-rise commercial envelope. In both cases, the monument is physically preserved, but it is stripped of its status, scale, and spatial context by virtue of which it is a monument.
Such a result is not preservation, but rather an architectural caricature: formal preservation devoid of substance, in which the symbol remains as a shell, while its spatial and cultural value is effectively nullified.
See solutions like Noga 8, or Beit Hamavi at Margolin Wharf 39.
In all of them, the resulting composition is more ironic than harmonious – a kind of architectural bear hug, which, due to its “closeness,” suffocates the poor thing that was supposed to be protected. “Beauty and the Beast.”
Thank you for the comprehensive and professional explanation.
interesting!
For the "preservation of historical buildings" in "beautiful Haifa" we need "expert architects" in the subject, with extensive experience...; only in this way can we ensure not only desire, but seriousness & responsibility!!!@ 😭😭😭
The chairwoman of the Haifa Planning and Building Subcommittee should be fired immediately - she caused and continues to cause the destruction of the Carmel with the uncontrolled distribution of the destructive TAMA 38.
The construction approved by her leadership endangers people's lives!
You're right!! We must stop destroying the urbanity of the neighborhoods, Tama 38 is a disaster!
Enough, I'm fed up, what's happening makes no sense.
You are very right.
Every passing day increases the congestion at Carmel, permits issued with the approval of the subcommittee chairman
They cause irreversible damage to the public, while the main beneficiaries are the contractors and developers.
Tenants are usually full of complaints and grievances against the new construction, which was built of poor quality.
And over all of this, the chairwoman of the subcommittee "wins" while seemingly ignoring the damage she is causing.
In her signatures on the permits. She should release us Haifa residents from her appointment as chair of the subcommittee.
Where are all the "preservation" fighters facing a decision to do something for the common good at the crazy Horev/Freud intersection? Who would dare to talk about Building 42 at the intersection where there is parking that could easily ease a lot of congestion at the 24/7 intersection? And it would be nice if someone from the system would take it a step further and give free travel space and right turns to Dalit El Carmel/Dania/Ramatbegin/Ramatgolda.
Ahhh!
Ahhh?
Yossi Ben-Artzi is right, of course. Today, apart from one faction and a lone chairman of the municipal preservation committee, none of the elected officials cares about preserving Haifa's architectural heritage! Every such voracious real estate plan requires preservationists to re-enlist in a stubborn and difficult struggle against a real estate front in the local committee that only sees the good of the developers and their immediate profits and not the city's enormous loss to future generations... Here is another issue that is worth learning how to manage properly from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem... Shame on Haifa!
The conservation plan proposed only 5 apartments, not 14.
It is interesting how and where 10 parking spaces will be installed in the lot, based on a ratio of 2 spaces for each new apartment. Without standard parking, no new construction should be approved at all.
Besides, who said that a chief rabbi is forbidden from making real estate transactions? Our forefather Abraham already made such transactions.
Preservation is a good and beautiful thing. The problem is that no one bothers to preserve the original houses and they all turn into ruins over time.