The Negev Pharmacy

The story

The “Negev” pharmacy is located in the Old City of Beersheba, at 94 KKL pedestrian mall, on the corner of Mordei HaGetaot Street. The building was erected in 1901 on Twenty Meter Street, the main and wide street of the Turkish city, and was one of the few two-story private houses in it at a time when most of the city's houses were of one story. Because it was the first two-story house, in erecting it the Turks made use of engineers who came especially from Europe. The openings of the stone house are made of arches and its decorative ceilings are vaulted; on the front of the second floor is a balcony to which three arched openings lead, and its original floor is supported by railway rails. The second floor is built in the liwan style — a central reception hall whose ceiling is of thick wooden beams, and from which the living rooms branch off. The ground floor at first served as a shop for fuel products and the second floor for the dwelling of the owners' family. In 1914 the building became the first hotel in the Negev, and served as a hotel until the establishment of the state. In 1917, after the Battle of Beersheba in the First World War, the place was taken by the British army and converted into the headquarters of Edmund Allenby. In 1948 the pharmacist Isaac Kriegel, a native of Buchach, who had come to Beersheba with the British army, bought the house, and together with his partner Ben-Zion Bogen founded in it the first pharmacy in the Negev, which served the whole district. Members of the two families have worked at the place generation after generation. In 1986 the building was renovated with care for the preservation of its authenticity, and the Council for Conservation of Heritage Sites in Israel recognized it as one of the preserved buildings in the Negev.

• Ottoman
• 1917
• People
• Beersheba