Rehov HaNeviim — the Street of the Prophets — is one of the most beautiful and historically significant streets in Jerusalem outside the Old City walls. Running east-west through what was the heart of 19th-century Jerusalem, it served as the main artery of the European quarter during the final decades of the Ottoman Empire: the street where foreign powers competed for influence through hospitals, consulates, churches, and schools, and where some of the most remarkable characters in Jerusalem’s modern history lived and worked.
The Name
The street was known informally as the “Street of the Hospitals” and the “Street of the Consuls” before the British Mandate governor Ronald Storrs gave it the name it bears today. Why “Prophets”? One explanation links it to the prophets of Israel who prophesied in Jerusalem. Another connects it to the tomb of Nebi Akasha in the nearby Zikhron Moshe neighborhood, traditionally regarded as a burial site of prophets revered by all three monotheistic faiths.
The European Competition
In the mid-19th century, the European powers — Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia — were locked in an intense competition for influence in the declining Ottoman Empire. This competition played out architecturally along Prophets Street. Each nation built hospitals, consulates, churches, and schools to project its presence, win the loyalty of local communities, and stake a claim to political influence in the Holy Land. The hospitals were not just medical institutions: they were tools of diplomacy. By treating the sick — regardless of religion — each nation demonstrated its benevolence and built goodwill. The result was a street lined with some of the finest examples of Ottoman, European, and eclectic architecture in Jerusalem.
The Italian Hospital
The most striking building on the street is the Italian Hospital, a Renaissance-style compound with a bell tower that could be transplanted from Tuscany. It was designed by Antonio Barluzzi — the same architect who built the Church of All Nations at Gethsemane, Dominus Flevit, and the Church of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor. Completed in 1919, the hospital was Italy’s flagship medical and cultural presence in Jerusalem. During World War II it served as headquarters for the British Royal Air Force. Today the compound houses the Israel Ministry of Education, but Barluzzi’s magnificent facade and bell tower remain among the most recognizable landmarks on the street.
The Hospitals
The French built St. Louis Hospital in 1851 — one of the earliest hospitals outside the walls, run by the Sisters of St. Joseph, serving patients regardless of religion. The Rothschild Hospital (number 37), funded by Baron James de Rothschild and opened in 1888, was the first Jewish hospital outside the Old City — a landmark in Jewish communal independence. Each hospital told a story of power and compassion, and the concentration of medical institutions on a single street was not coincidental: it was medical diplomacy at its most literal.
Conrad Schick
Conrad Schick (1822–1901) was a German Protestant missionary, architect, archaeologist, and model-maker who lived in Jerusalem for over 50 years and left his mark all over Prophets Street. He designed the Ethiopian Church, built his own home (Tabor House, at number 58 — now the Swedish Theological Institute), and produced detailed maps and architectural models of Jerusalem, including famous models of the Temple Mount that scholars still study. Schick was one of those extraordinary 19th-century polymaths who combined religious devotion with scientific curiosity, and his buildings on Prophets Street are his most visible legacy.
William Holman Hunt
One of the most surprising stories on the street involves the English painter William Holman Hunt (1827–1910), a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Hunt believed that to paint biblical scenes authentically, he had to work in the Holy Land itself. He first visited Palestine in the 1850s and returned multiple times, spending nearly seven years in Jerusalem. Conrad Schick purchased land at number 64 for Hunt to build a house and studio. Part of Hunt’s motivation for staying in Jerusalem was personal: he had married his late wife’s sister, which was illegal under English law, and in Jerusalem he could work in peace. He painted some of his most famous works here, including “The Scapegoat” (painted at the Dead Sea) and “The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple.” Years later, the Hebrew poet Rachel Bluwstein lived in a small white house in the courtyard of Hunt’s compound and wrote a poem inspired by a pear tree he had planted decades earlier.
The Ethiopian Presence
The Ethiopian Church on Prophets Street, designed by Conrad Schick, reflects the ancient connection between Ethiopia and Jerusalem. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has maintained a community in the Holy City for centuries, with monks living in the monastery on the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The buildings on Prophets Street — including a consulate constructed by Empress Zewditu in 1928 — represent a more modern chapter of this long relationship.
The Street Today
Prophets Street sits at the boundary between ultra-Orthodox and secular Jerusalem, giving it a complex contemporary character. Many of the grand buildings have been repurposed — the Italian Hospital is government offices, Tabor House is a theological institute, others have become apartments. But the architectural heritage remains remarkably intact: stone facades, arched windows, courtyards, towers, and gardens that have survived a century of neglect and change. Walking Prophets Street is walking through the Jerusalem of European consuls and missionaries, of Rothschild hospitals and Pre-Raphaelite painters, of German polymaths and Ethiopian empresses — a world that existed for barely 70 years but left buildings that will stand for centuries.
Visit with Hoshen Tours
Prophets Street is one of the finest walking tours in Jerusalem. Hoshen Tours walks the full length of the street, from the Italian Hospital to Tabor House, telling the stories of the European powers, the hospitals, Conrad Schick, William Holman Hunt, and the competition for the Holy Land that played out in stone and mortar on this single road.