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Jerusalemites as the ‘Wallach Hospital,’ was based on Jewish custom, in accordance with its
director’s devout beliefs. Wallach was involved in the community and though a respected
and admired public figure, he was not immune to criticism. He was involved in an affair that
caused an outrage in Jerusalem in 1913 and revealed the political and ideological divisions
among the city’s Jewish population. The incident, which came to be known as the “Berger-
Wallach affair,” began when Dr Wallach refused to admit a sick young man to the hospital,
who had come with his father from Jaffa on the Sabbath, and who subsequently passed
away the following day. The Zionist press launched a harsh attack against the doctor, and
the affair was investigated by a committee of the Hebrew-Speaking Physicians’ Society,
which determined, “While it can be proved that, in this case, Dr Wallach unjustly introduced
religious issues that are unrelated to medical matters, we nevertheless do not believe that
this affected the outcome of the disease.”9

Jerusalem’s location and importance have made it a scene of conflicts and wars for
generations. A sixth-century BCE stone toilet bowl exposed in the City of David yielded
evidence of an intestinal disease that struck the population of the city while it was being
ruthlessly besieged by the Babylonians (see p. 208). In 1883, Dr Schwartz, a physician at the
Rothschild Hospital, testified to the medical impact of past ills, stating that “The inhabitants
of Jerusalem, who are well-acquainted with disease, acknowledge that the city’s houses are
built on the ruins of ancient Jerusalem, beneath which are buried thousands of victims of
the sword in the many wars that have befallen the city.”10

The twentieth century brought with it modern, no less ruthless, wars together with the
epidemics that are the constant and deadly companions of the battles that have made the
population’s life a misery, regardless of religion or sect. Residents of the worldly Jerusalem
have always been the victims of holy wars, but at the same time still inspired and waged
with the promise of the Heavenly Jerusalem.

Endnotes

1 Exhibition design: Studio ‘Design Mill’
2 Z. Montener, Introduction to Asaph Harofe, Jerusalem, 1958, p. 147 (in Hebrew).
3 Ibid., p. 149.
4 Ibid., p. 168.
5 Mishnah, tractate Kiddushin, chapter 4, paragraph 14.
6 Margosian, Medical Advice for All, Jerusalem, 1873.
7 Selma Lagerlöf, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 1921, p. 252.
8 M. Eliav, Under Imperial Austrian Protection 1849-1917, Jerusalem, 1985, p. 97 (in Hebrew).
9 Protocol of the Hebrew-Speaking Physicians’ Society Committee, September 1, 1913, archives of
Dr Moshe Wallach, Dr Yosef Wallach.
10 D. Margalit, The Way of Israel in Medicine, Jerusalem, 1970, p. 268.

Jerusalem: A Medical Diagnosis ■ 21e