Page 22 - ISRAEL'S CRADLE

In his opinion, the building was supposed to primarily serve, first and foremost, the people using it. It was not supposed to serve as a place for architects to express their pretensions and whims.
The building was erected in stages, in accordance with the financial abilities of the entities that resided within it. First the KKL-JNF Wing was built, on the right side (when viewed from King George Street). The Keren Hayesod Wing was built afterwards on the left side. Only in the third stage was the Jewish Agency Wing built – in the center. The location indicated the importance of the Jewish Agency among the National Institutions.
In those days the construction of a special structure, in the rear of the building, for the Jewish National Council, was contemplated on, but eventually this wing was not built and the Jewish National Council became a sub-tenant in the Keren Hayesod Wing. After the establishment of the state, a special structure was built for the Prime Minister's office, in the place intended for the Jewish National Council. The offices of the Prime Ministers David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Sharett operated there in the years 1950-1962, until the Prime Minister's Office moved to Givat Ram, and one can see it as continuity: Before the establishment of the state, for about 15 years, David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Shertok (Sharett) fulfilled their duties in the National Institutions Building as Chairman and the Head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency, respectively. Sharett returned to the building for "a third round" in the early Sixties, after having been elected to the position of Chairman of the Jewish Agency, a position he held until his death in 1965.
Since the mid-Thirties (and even before to some extent), the National Institutions Building was the heart and mind of the Jewish sovereignty that was being built in the Land of Israel. All the important decisions up until the establishment of the state – and many additional decisions over the following years – were made between its walls. In the office of Chairman David Ben-Gurion, in the Aliya, Settlement and Finances Departments, in the offices of the Jewish National Council, in the KKL-JNF and Keren Hayesod Wings, discussions were held and historical decisions were made in all of them, which led to the revolution that would eventually bring about the establishment of the State of Israel.
The building knew quite a few dramas and they are described extensively in the book. Three of them are mentioned below (and there are others).
A. The collective fasting of a large portion of the Yishuv leadership in the Spring of 1946, as a sign of solidarity with over a thousand Ma'apilim (illegal immigrants) – Holocaust survivors who were captured by the British before boarding a ship in the port of La Spezia in Northern Italy – and declared a lengthy hunger strike. The leaders of the Yishuv joined them and while the Ma'apilim's hunger strike lasted 84 hours, the Yishuv leaders' hunger strike lasted 101 hours – until the British made entry visas into the Land of Israel available to the Ma'apilim. During the
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