Page 91 - ISRAEL'S CRADLE

Upon completion of the building, the masses began pouring to it, on almost every day of the year
Central Zionist Archive which had until then resided temporarily in the Keren Hayesod Wing. Afterwards, construction began on a third floor for the building, and for a reason that is difficult to explain, this was not done in coordination with the building's planner, Prof. Yohanan Ratner, with the explanation that he was far away from the Israel, in Moscow, serving as the IDF's first attaché to the Soviet Union. The works were supervised by the Jewish Agency's engineer. When Ratner returned to Israel and saw the changes and additions, he was quite angry, but took no actions whatsoever. Since 1950, the building has therefore been three stories.
During the same period, a special wing for the Prime Minister's office was built at the rear of the building, which faces Ibn Gabirol Street. The offices of the first and second prime ministers – David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Sharett – were there in the years 1950-1962. Cabinet meetings were also held in the Prime Minister's office during those years and a regular sight, which drew the attention of quite a few onlookers, was the arrival of the cabinet ministers for the weekly meeting of the government, or following the entire government as it made its way on foot, for some two hundred meters, from the Prime Minister's office to the residence of President Izhak Ben Zvi in Rehavia.
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