Landmark
Russian Compound
Russian Compound, Jerusalem
Nineteenth-century pilgrims' compound whose British-era prison held Jewish underground fighters before their war for independence.
This guide to the Russian Compound in Jerusalem centers on April 1947, when a basket of oranges was smuggled into the British Mandate prison here, its peel hiding two homemade grenades meant for two young condemned men, Meir Feinstein of the Irgun and Moshe Barazani of Lehi. Built decades earlier by Imperial Russia as a pilgrims' hostel, the compound had by then become the British administration's prison and gallows. A rabbi sat with the two men on their last night and left struck by how calm they seemed.
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