The Talpiot neighborhood in Jerusalem was established immediately after World War I. Its planners' intention was to make it into the capital city of the nascent State of Israel. The first synagogue in the neighbourhood was in a hut, which was established to serve as a structure for the builders of the neighbourhood and after the completion of the construction was converted into a mixed Ashkenazi and Sephardic synagogue. Among the first worshipers of the minyan in the hut was the writer Shmuel Yosef Agnon, who lived in the neighbourhood. He described the hut and how the prayer was conducted in it in the short story "The Symbol" (), Tel Aviv Press 1961. The cornerstone of the current building was laid in Chanukah 1934, in the presence of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook. With the outbreak of the 1936–1939 riots, the construction of the synagogue was delayed and the structure remained neglected. After the outbreak of World War II in 1939 the British confiscated the building and established in it a police station and a warehouse.