The high school's initial name was the Hebrew Gymnasium in Jerusalem.

[2] Gymnasia Rehavia was Jerusalem's first and the country’s second modern Jewish high school or gymnasium, after the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv.

[4][5] The building on Keren Kayemet Street in the Rehavia neighborhood was built in 1928.

Among the founders were Dr. Naftali and Hannah Weitz, Yehoshua Barzilay, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, later the second president of Israel, his wife Rachel Yanait and the artist Ira Jan.

[6][7] In July 2009, the high school celebrated its centennial at an event attended by generations of alumni, many of whom are leading figures in Israeli society today.