The Technion was conceived in the early 1900s by the German-Jewish fund Ezrah as a school of engineering and sciences. It was to be the only institution of higher learning in the then Ottoman Palestine, other than the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem (founded in 1907). Its cornerstone was laid in 1912, and studies began 12 years later in 1924. The Technion witnessed Israel's "battle of the languages": an intense debate over the language of instruction.พ