The mysterious death that ignited Jerusalem's religious-secular rift
Did the head of a Jerusalem hospital 'sacrifice' a seriously ill youth on the altar of piety? A medical incident 101 years ago may shed light on the roots of the discord in Israeli society.
By Nir Hasson | Jan. 3, 2015 | 10:25 AM
At noon on Saturday, August 16, 1913, a train pulled into the station in Ottoman-controlled Jerusalem. Two passengers from Jaffa got off: Moshe Dov Berger, a construction worker, and his son, Shmuel, 16. Their destination was Shaare Zedek Hospital.
Shmuel needed emergency treatment for a throat ailment. Moshe had a letter of referral from the distinguished physician Dr. Haim Hissin. From the train station the two walked to Jaffa Gate and then took a horse-and-carriage to the hospital, located on Jaffa Road, not far from today’s Central Bus Station.
What transpired at the hospital’s entrance that day would quickly assume the dimensions of a major scandal, causing, perhaps, the first major rift between secular and Haredi, residents, and between the New Yishuv and the Old Yishuv – referring to the Zionist and the pre-Zionist Jewish communities, respectively, in pre-1948 Palestine.
The facts are not in dispute: Dr. Moshe Wallach, the hospital’s ultra-Orthodox founding director, refused to allow Berger and his son to enter the hospital, saying they would have to wait until after Shabbat ended that evening. The situation was not urgent, he said.
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