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Kiryat HaMemshala (Hebrew: קריית הממשלה, lit. Government complex), also known as Kiryat Ben-Gurion, (lit. Ben-Gurion complex) is the government precinct of the State of Israel. It is located in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem.
Contents
Map of Governmental Campus, Jerusalem, Israel
History
Before 1948, Maps of the area drawn by the Survey of Palestine team tagged it as Karam es Sila,
the name indicates it was a Karam (grape field) belonging to Sala (שלה might be originally סלע or سلع) family or the grape field near stone quarries.
In December 1949, soon after the establishment of the state, the Israeli cabinet, then headed by David Ben-Gurion, voted to move most of the country's official government institutions from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem. The Knesset is located in Kiryat HamMemshala, as are the Supreme Court of Israel, the Prime Minister's Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Interior. The Bank of Israel is also located in Kiryat HaMemshala.
Construction work began in 1950. The original plans were drawn up by the architectural firms of Monio Gitay-Weinrauw and Al Mansfeld, but they were not implemented.