page_title: Straus Street
section_title: Secular/religious divide
hierarchical_section_title: Straus Street / History / Secular/religious divide
caption_attribution_description: English: Sign outside the Premiere School of the Arts on 17 Strauss
context_page_description: Straus Street is a north-south road in north-central Jerusalem. It starts at Jaffa Road and extends to Kikar HaShabbat, which marks the intersection of five streets: Straus Street, Yeshayahu Street, Malkhei Yisrael Street, Yehezkel Street, and Mea Shearim Road. The street was named for Nathan Straus, a prominent American merchant and Jewish philanthropist in the early twentieth century.
context_section_description: After the establishment of the state of Israel, Straus Street became the dividing line between the secular culture of Jaffa Road and points south, and the Haredi culture of Mea Shearim and Geula to the north. In the early 1950s, the street was selected as the site for the new Histadrut building in order to block Haredi expansion southward. The original Histadrut building had been located on Histadrut Street in the city center. The imposing, seven-story building was designed by Fritz Shlezinger and completed in 1953. Like other Histadrut buildings around the country, the large, rectangular structure symbolized the power and influence of the Mapai left-wing political party. Erected at the highest point of the street, its rooftop held a commanding view of Mount Scopus and the Mount of Olives; during the Six-Day War, this rooftop served as the Jerusalem regimental headquarters for fighters attempting to liberate the Old City. Besides offices, the Histadrut building housed a movie theater and a hall that became the home court for the Jerusalem Hapoel Basketball Club beginning in the mid-1950s, as it was the only roofed facility in the country. More than 500 fans filled the hall every Friday night for home games. For many years, the presence of the Histadrut building effectively halted Haredi expansion south of Geula and Mea Shearim.
  The first move toward Orthodoxy south of the Histadrut building was the 1979 opening of the Orthodox Union Israel Center at the corner of Straus and Street of the Prophets. Originally geared to Anglo students learning in Israel, the Israel Center expanded its services to provide aliyah services, shiurim (Torah lectures), Shabbatons, concerts, outings, a newsletter, and other programs for Jews of all ages and backgrounds. Rabbi Zev Leff began delivering his popular morning parashah shiur in 1982. In 2000 the Israel Center relocated to its current location on King George Street.
  By the end of the twentieth century, the Histadrut building stood out as a secular anomaly amidst the predominantly Haredi occupancy of Straus Street. Eventually it, too, yielded to Haredi occupancy. In the 1990s a Haredi institute for professional training, Lomda, opened in the basement of the building. It was joined in 2003 by a Haredi fitness center; there is also a martial arts center in the building basement. In 2007 three unused floors of the building were rented out to a Haredi girl’s seminary, and a Haredi wedding hall opened on another floor in 2008, using the small parking lot in the back for chuppahs. In 2012, the Premiere School of the Arts, offering dance, voice, theater, and auxiliary fitness for religious, English-speaking women and girls, opened in the Histadrut building.
caption: Entrance to the Haredi Premiere School of the Arts in the Histadrut building.
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