King David Hotel
The King David Hotel (Hebrew: מלון המלך דוד, romanized: Malon ha-Melekh David; Arabic: فندق الملك داود, romanized: Funduq al-Malik Dāwūd) is a 5-star hotel in Jerusalem and a member of The Leading Hotels of the World. Opened in 1931, it was built with locally quarried pink limestone and was founded by Ezra Mosseri, a wealthy Egyptian Jewish banker. It is located on King David Street in the centre of Jerusalem, overlooking the Old City and Mount Zion, and is named after the Biblical King David.The hotel, owned and operated by the Dan Hotels group, has traditionally been the chosen venue for hosting heads of state, dignitaries, politicians and celebrities during their visits to Jerusalem.
It is also famous for the 1946 King David Hotel Bombing, when an attack by the Zionist organization Irgun targeted the hotel's southern wing, which contained offices for the British authorities during Mandatory Palestine, killing 91 people of various nationalities and injuring 45.
== History ==
=== British Mandate of Palestine ===
In 1929, Palestine Hotels Ltd. purchased 4.5 acres (18,000 m2) on Jerusalem's Julian's Way, today King David Street. Half the construction costs were paid by Ezra Mosseri, an affluent Egyptian Jewish banker and director of the National Bank of Egypt, and another 46% by the Goldschmidt family and other wealthy Cairo Jews. The approximately 4% remaining was paid by the National Bank of Egypt, which purchased 693 shares of the company between 1934 and 1943.
From its earliest days, the King David Hotel hosted royalty: the dowager empress of Pahlavi dynasty, Tadj ol-Molouk, queen consort Nazli of Egypt, and King Abdullah I of Jordan stayed at the hotel, and three heads of state forced to flee their countries took up residence there: King Alfonso XIII of Spain, forced to abdicate in 1931, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, driven out by the Italians in 1936, and King George II of Greece, who set up his government in exile at the hotel after the Nazi occupation of his country in 1942.