BEIT TICHO

Tucked away in the very centre of downtown Jerusalem, just off the bustling Jaffa Road and overshadowed by a  block of flats in the process of construction is a small oasis in the form of a beautiful garden which belongs to one of the first buildings in Jerusalem to have been built outside the city’s walls.  Beit Ticho or Ticho House, has been for many years an excellent fish and dairy restaurant and the garden is a favourite venue  for summer parties Over the years, we have enjoyed many wedding, Bar and Bat mitzvah celebrations there.  On  summer evenings, the garden is the perfect place to eat, in cooler weather the dining room is always warm and cheerful, the excellent quality of the  fish and dairy menu never varies.

Ticho House was built in 1880 by an Arab dignitary, Aga Rashid Nahishibi who built it as a summer villa. Among the house’s first occupants was the family of a notorious antiquities forger by the name of Shapira whose daughter described the house in her memoires, La Petite Filles de Jerusalem. In 1924 the house was bought by the Ticho family, Dr Avraham Albert Ticho and his cousin, Anna, were born in Moravia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, at the end of the last century.  Dr. Ticho studied medicine in Vienna where he specialised in ophthalmology, Anna studied art, also in Vienna.  In 1912, Dr. Ticho came to Jerusalem to open an eye-clinic, Anna followed him and they married in the same year.  They converted the lower floor of the house into an eye-clinic which served the population of Jerusalem, rich and poor alike, until Dr. Ticho died in 1960.  At first, the then barren landscape of Jerusalem had such a negative impact on Anna that she was unable to draw or paint at all but during the time that her husband was stationed in Damascus in World War 1, she took up drawing again.  On their return, as well as serving as assistant to her husband in his clinic, she began going out into the Jerusalem landscape, using different mediums to record what she saw.  Her work became widely acclaimed and examples are displayed in many museums around the world.  Our particular favourites are her delicate paintings of spring time scenes in Jerusalem portraying almond blossom in full bloom.  She won many awards for her work, among them the Israel Prize which she received in 1980. She continued to live and work in the house after her husband’s death until her own death in 1980, when, as a token of her love for Jerusalem, she bequeathed it together with its library and collection of art of antique Chanukah lamps, collected by her husband, to the people of the city to serve as a public centre of art.

Now Ticho House, as well as being a restaurant, is the downtown section of the Israel Museum, part museum, part, art-gallery and also has an extensive library of books about Jerusalem, art and literature.  It is also the venue for concerts and varied cultural events. If you have not already visited it, both for a delicious meal or to enjoy Anna Ticho’s paintings and sketches and the various other collections, we strongly recommend that you do so.