The Social Dimension of Christian Missions in the Middle East. Historical Studies of the 19th and 20th Centuries 3515096566, 9783515096560

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The Social Dimension of Christian Missions in the Middle East Edited by Norbert Friedrich / Uwe Kaminsky / Roland Löffler

Missionsgeschichtliches Archiv Studien der Berliner Gesellschaft für Missionsgeschichte

---------------------------------Herausgegeben im Auftrag des Vorstandes von Andreas Feldtkeller Irving Hexham Ulrich van der Heyden Gunther Pakendorf Werner Ustorf Band 16

The Social Dimension of Christian Missions in the Middle East Historical Studies of the 19th and 20 th Centuries Edited by Norbert Friedrich / Uwe Kaminsky / Roland Löffler

Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart 2010

Gedruckt mit Unterstützung der Gerda-Henkel-Stiftung Düsseldorf

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek: Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über abrufbar. ISBN 978-3-515-09656-0 Jede Verwertung des Werkes außerhalb der Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist unzulässig und strafbar. Dies gilt insbesondere für Übersetzung, Nachdruck, Mikroverfilmung oder vergleichbare Verfahren sowie für die Speicherung in Datenverarbeitungsanlagen. © 2010 Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart Gedruckt auf säurefreiem, alterungsbeständigem Papier Druck: Laupp & Göbel, Nehren Printed in Germany

Contents

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CONTENTS

Preface .....................................................................................................................7 Roland Löffler Framing the social dimension of the German Protestant mission to Palestine. Methodological and theoretical remarks...............................11 Heleen Murre-van den Berg The study of western missions in the Middle East (1820–1920): an annotated bibliography..........................................................................35 Dominique Trimbur The Catholic Church in the concepts of French and German foreign cultural policies in the Middle East. From the end of the 19th century up to 1945...................................................................................................55 Charlotte van der Leest Educational principles and activities in the schools run by Bishop Gobat and the CMS in Palestine (1846–1879) .............................67 Haim Goren School- and mission-conceptions of the German Catholics in Palestine until the First World War........................................................87 Ruth Kark/Shlomit Langboim Missions and identity formation among the peoples of Palestine: the case of the Jewish population.............................................................101 Barbara Haider-Wilson The Catholic Jerusalem milieu of the Habsburg Monarchy and its contribution to the mission in the Holy Land...............................121

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Yaron Perry Medical treatment as a missionary instrument and its social consequences. Aspects of the work by the London Jews Society in Palestine up to 1914.............................................................................147 Michael Marten The theology and practice of Scottish medical missions: the study of missions in Palestine through a postcolonial lens................155 Jakob Eisler German Mission-Propaganda-Movies in Palestine: how to do missionary fundraising and motivate donors..........................179 Christine Pschichholz Considerations of the correlations between social welfare, missionary activities and foreign policy: German Protestant communities in Istanbul and Izmir and the diaspora care........................191 Gerhard Gronauer Attitudes in West German Protestantism towards the state of Israel 1948–1967..................................................................................205 Uwe Kaminsky The reconstruction of German Protestant institutions after the Second World War – the “Palaestinawerk”...............................231 Index.....................................................................................................................245 List of authors......................................................................................................249

PREFACE In recent years, the preoccupation with the 19 th and 20th centuries’ religious phenomena that enhanced our cultural history has experienced an unexpected revival. In addition, a contemporary “return of the religions” can be noted. Historians, geographers, folklorists and social scientists wanting to understand processes of cultural transfer have been rediscovering the significance of the histories of Catholicism, Protestantism and Judaism during the main era of missionary activity and in the period of the German Empire (1871–1918). In addition to the social, economic and political structures of social life, historical and cultural analysis have increased in importance. The “inner side of human existence”, i.e. values, norms, cultural ideas and imprints, are being examined more and more frequently. These developments can be traced in our book, which comprises mainly conference papers. In March 2006 an international conference dealing with questions of cultural history in the field of “The Social Dimension of Missions in the Orient” took place in Kaiserswerth, Düsseldorf. Missions in the Orient were, and still are, a delicate matter of religious politics, easily causing fear among Muslims, Jews and Orthodox Christians of domination, control or determinism of the East by the West. Nevertheless, dealing with missionary activities in the declining Ottoman Empire, especially in the Holy Land, demonstrates how complex and yet productive the encounter of missionaries in the Middle East was. It shows the changes that missionaries and followers of different faiths (those to be converted) experienced during in these processes of cultural encounter. As will be demonstrated here, missions to the Orient were a result of the Age of Romanticism and the revivalist movement, but also of European imperialism, which revived concepts such as the “peaceful crusade” and the “Restoration of the Jews”. In a period of nearly 100 years numerous German, English, Scottish, French, Russian and Italian projects of different denominations had an immense effect on the indigenous populations, especially concerning education and social work. Nevertheless, the Western bishops, priests, deacons, teachers and doctors seldom managed to achieve their original aims – to promote the gospel and achieve conversion. In Palestine, there were on average no more than ten converts per year, and frequently there were none at all. Still, the missions left their obvious mark on the region, often, not least, very visibly in terms of buildings. The missionaries built a social infrastructure that was hitherto unknown. This is why the editors of this book and others examine the “social dimension of missions” as a significant indicator of Western Christian activity in the Middle East. This is reason enough to ex-

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plore this thesis in a conference with acknowledged experts and to ask them to subject their research to this perspective. We concentrated in particular on topics that comprise social work, healthcare, religion, education and science, which basically encapsulates the entire field of ecclesiastical, welfare and social activities. Thirty-six representatives of church and mission history, general history, gender studies and postcolonial studies, examined the socio-cultural dimensions of impact from different points of view. In so doing, they represented the current state of the discipline in 2006, and also encouraged interdisciplinary exchange in the broad field of mission studies. It became obvious that the concepts of social Protestantism and Catholicism from the “mother countries” strongly influenced missions to the Orient, to the extent that it is justified to say that the “home missions in foreign countries” built the social infrastructure for overseas missions. Indirectly, the home missions also influenced the foreign cultural policy, or rather, the exercise of cultural imperial influence on the part of the Great Powers in the Middle East. This volume therefore not only contributes to the historiography of missions and to the development of theories for the history of Middle Eastern missions and churches, but also develops a transnational enhancement of the history of Christianity that has remained until now largely Eurocentric (a viewpoint that is developed by Martin Greschat and Kurt Nowak). The book starts with an instructive overview of research up to 2006 by Heleen Murre-van den Berg (Leiden), who shows how the exploration of Middle Eastern mission and church history has flourished in the last two decades. Following newer theories of mentality and milieu, Roland Löffler (Frankfurt) develops a new methodological instrument which helps to analyse the socio-religious interactions between Orient and Occident. This part is followed by three articles that deal with Catholic activity in the Holy Land: Dominique Trimbur (Paris/Jerusalem) explains the fundamental relationship between church and foreign policy, investigating the role that religious schools, parishes and research facilities played in the foreign cultural policy of the European Great Powers. Haim Goren (Tel Hai), a leading expert of German Catholic activity in Palestine, explains the school and cultural concepts of the German Association of the Holy Land, and Barbara Haider’s (Vienna) use of sources enables an understanding of the Catholic “Jerusalem-Milieu” in the Habsburg Monarchy. Four articles pay attention to Protestantism in Palestine: Charlotte van der Leest (Utrecht) examines the beginning of the Anglican school system under Bishop Gobat, who left his mark on the Anglo-Prussian Diocese in Jerusalem in the middle of the 19th century, and who focussed on educational work. Using the example of the Scottish missions to Jews, Michael Marten (Stirling) demonstrates how important healthcare was for a mission, practically as well as theoretically, and shows how postcolonial theories can be used to analyse complex historical phenomena. Yaron Perry (Haifa) deals with the medical work of the mission of Jews too, but he concentrates on the Anglican mission. He raises new questions regarding the reaction of the Arab population towards healthcare activities from missions to Jews and the motivation of medical missions. What was more import-

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ant – the desire for the improvement of patients’ health, or the desire for conversion? What role did the New Testament stories of healing play? After these concrete case-studies, Jakob Eisler (Stuttgart) concentrates on a different question: “How to do missionary fundraising and motivate donators: Mission – Propaganda – Movies as a factor for the stabilisation of mentality”. The analysis of advertising and propaganda for missions is a new area of research, whereby the author provides helpful insights. Finally, Ruth Kark (Jerusalem), the “Grande Dame” of the research field, connects the preceding considerations with the results of one of her more recent research projects and asks about the contribution of missions to the identity formation of indigenous populations in Palestine, an important question for church history, as well as for social and political history. Christine Pschicholz (Berlin/Kiel) concentrates on a geographically different field, as she deals with the German expatriate congregations in the centre of the Ottoman Empire, modern-day Turkey. The social dimension also played an important role in supporting German diaspora parishes, as seen in the work of the Kaiserwerth Deaconesses, for example. The political environment in Istanbul and Izmir was different from the environment in Jerusalem and Haifa, which is why this article reveals a very special, but nevertheless related perspective of ecclesiastical and social commitment as an example of transnational history. Whereas the preceding essays concentrate mainly on the 19th and the early 20th century, Uwe Kaminsky (Berlin/Bochum) and Gerhard Gronauer (Dinkelsbühl/ Erlangen) discuss the question of how German Protestant institutions developed after the Second World War (Kaminsky), and how the theological and politicaltheological discourse about Israel developed in German Protestantism (Gronauer). There were clear factions in West German Protestantism regarding Israel: both friendly and critical positions that competed with one another, depending on the context. Nevertheless, after the post-war appropriation and compulsory acquisition of all German institutions in Israel, the question arose as to whether German activity in the Holy Land had come to an end. However, due to the ecumenical initiative of the Lutheran World Federation and the creation of the “Palästinawerk” (combining a number of different missions), transnational political networks were formed which reanimated – at least partly – the social and educational activities of German Protestants in a new form. Nevertheless, at first this only happened beyond the borders of the new state of Israel. In the context of development cooperation, the social dimension of missions continues to leave its mark in the Middle East – in different form – throughout the late 20th century. Unfortunately, the printing of these essays took an unduly long time, other projects and delays making it impossible to publish the book any earlier. We are grateful to the authors and the sponsors, who have been very patient with us! Such a project can only be successful if one has help and support. In the first place, we want to thank the “Gerda Henkel Stiftung” for the generous support of the conference and the anthology.

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There could barely have been a better place for a conference like this than Kaiserswerth, since from the earliest days the “Kaiserswerther Diakonie” has been one of the most important bearers of German Protestant activity in the Middle East. In twelve places, from Alexandria to Jerusalem, from Beirut to Smyrna and Istanbul, Protestant hospitals, schools and community stations were founded under the leadership of deaconesses. The “Palästinawerk” was founded here too. With a mission historical conference that deals with the “social dimension of mission”, one might say that history has returned to its place of origin. This is the reason why the “Kaiserswerther Diakonie” and the “Fliedner-Kulturstiftung” support the project ideologically as well as materially. Annett Büttner M.A. from the “Fliedner-Kulturstiftung” Archives rendered outstanding services to the management of the conference, whereas Achim Hinz from the “FliednerKulturstiftung”, did the layout in his usual professional manner. Prof. Dr. JochenChristoph Kaiser (University of Marburg) gave important advice as a partner to the conference, accompanying the entire project. Norbert Friedrich, Uwe Kaminsky, Roland Löffler Düsseldorf, Berlin, Frankfurt June 2010

FRAMING THE SOCIAL DIMENSION OF THE GERMAN PROTESTANT MISSION TO PALESTINE. METHODOLOGICAL AND THEORETICAL REMARKS1 Roland Löffler 1. BASIC CONSIDERATIONS One of the most interesting developments in historiography of the past few years is the unexpected revival of interest in the religious phenomena of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as part of the growth in significance of cultural history. 2 This holds true for Catholicism, Protestantism, as well as Judaism in the German Empire in particular, but also for mission history. The latter has long been treated as a by-product of imperialism by historians, cultural anthropologists, and social scientists alike. However, owing to its importance for cultural transfer, it is slowly being rediscovered.3 For decades, historical scholarship had devoted itself to the investigation of the socio-economic structures of social life. In recent years, however, the focus has increasingly been on the “interior of human existence”, that is values, norms, cultural notions and conditions.4 These mental, ethical-cultural positions structure our social reality as more or less deliberated yet nevertheless internalised guiding principles. Among the new topics for inquiry are, for example, world views, symbols, and festivals along with their roles in creating community-forming spaces 1

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It is a pleasurable occassion to thank two colleagues, who helped me to realise this article in a period of my life where there was not much time for academia. First of all I owe Kerstin Pfeiffer (University of Sterling) a debt of gratitude for the translation of this text. And se condly, I would like to thank Barbara Haider (Austrian Academy of Science, Vienna) for her liberalism, and her sense of friendship to agree to publish this translation in my our book, while a related version of the text can be found in her book edited together with Dominique Trimbur, Europa und Palästina 1799-1948: Religion – Politik – Gesellschaft. Europe and Palestine 1799-1948: Religion – Politics – Society, Vienna 2010. Cf. e.g. W. Hardtwig/H.-U. Wehler (eds.), Kulturgeschichte Heute, Göttingen 1996; F.–M. Kuhlemann, “Die neue Kulturgeschichte und die kirchlichen Archive”, in: Der Archivar. Mitteilungsblatt für deutsches Archivwesen 53 (2000), 230–237; H.-U. Wehler, Die Herausforderung der Kulturgeschichte, München 1998. Cf. H. Rzepkowski, “Missionsgeschichte im Wandel der Motivationen und Perspektiven”, in: K. Müller/W. Ustorf (eds.), Einleitung in die Missionsgeschichte. Tradition, Situation und Dynamik des Christentums, Stuttgart-Berlin-Köln 1995, 272. Rzepkowski does not only focus on the missionary achievements of Western actors, but also on “the cultural history of the indigenous population” to whom the missionary work was addressed, including the interaction of cultural contact. Cf. Kuhlemann, „Die neue Kulturgeschichte“, 230–237, here: 231.

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for communication and cultures of memory. The difference between conventional intellectual history and the new cultural approach to history lies in subject matter. Cultural history examines practices, behaviour and formative attitudes in a particular social group.5 Combining social history and cultural history in a pragmatic way opens up neglected areas of research and allows us to gain a fuller historical understanding of reality.6 Cultural history can be made profitable for inquiries into ecclesiastical and religious phenomena if it is understood in such a way and informed by social history. Within a cultural-historical discourse, research on the religious history of Palestine may elucidate, for example, the forms of cultural contact and conflict, the fascinating and complex interactions between periphery and centre, between local people and Western settlers that existed in Palestine. The increasing interest in investigating the Christian contribution to the rebuilding of Palestine is one aspect of this cultural-historical turn. 7 It is noticeable though, that existing scholarship on the religious history of Palestine has so far rarely placed its results in larger theoretical and historiographic frameworks. This holds true even for the works of the discipline’s two doyens, Alex Carmel und Yehoshua Ben-Arieh.8 5 6

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Ibid. Cf. Th. Mergel, “Kulturgeschichte – die neue ‘große Erzählung’? Wissenschaftssoziologische Bemerkungen zur Konzeptualisierung sozialer Wirklichkeit in der Geschichtswissenschaft”, in: Hardtwig/Wehler (eds.), Kulturgeschichte heute, 41–77. Also cf. the overview of the results of three decades of social history, in: Wehler, Die Herausforderung der Kulturgeschichte, 142–153, esp. 153. For the various publications on the topic cf. the most instructive article including by H. Murre-van den Berg in this volume. Some studies, which are quoted in this paper, should also be mentioned: M. Raheb, Das reformatorische Erbe unter den Palästinensern. Zur Entstehung der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche in Jordanien, Gütersloh 1990; K.-H. Ronecker/J. Nieper/Th. Neubert-Preine (eds.), Dem Erlöser der Welt zur Ehre. Festschrift zum hundertjährigen Jubiläum der Einweihung der evangelischen Erlöserkirche in Jerusalem, Leipzig 1998; B. Haider, “Zwischen Anspruch und Wirklichkeit. Kirche und Staat in Österreich (-Ungarn) und das Heilige Land 1843/49–1917”, in: B.A. Böhler (ed.), Mit Szepter und Pilgerstab. Österreichische Präsenz im Heiligen Land seit den Tagen Kaiser Franz Josephs, Wien 2000, 55–74; A. Nothnagle/H.–J. Abromeit/F. Foerster (eds.), Seht, wir gehen hinauf nach Jerusalem. Festschrift zum 150jährigen Jubiläum von Talitha Kumi und des Jerusalems-Vereins, Leipzig 2001; D. Trimbur/R. Aaronsohn (eds.), De Bonaparte à Balfour. La France, l’Europe occidentale et la Palestine 1799–1917, Jerusalem-Paris 2001; E. J. Eisler/N. Haag/S. Holtz (eds.), Kultureller Wandel in Palästina im frühen 20. Jahrhundert. Eine Bilddokumentation. Zugleich ein Nachschlagewerk der deutschen Missionseinrichtungen von ihrer Gründung bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg, Epfendorf 2003; H. Goren (ed.), Germany and the Middle East. Past, Present and Future, Jerusalem 2003; D. Trimbur (ed.), Europäer in der Levante. Zwischen Politik, Wissenschaft und Religion (19.–20. Jahrhundert)/Des Européens au Levant. Entre politique, science et religion (XIX e-XXe siècles), München 2004; M. Marten, Attempting to bring the gospel home: Scottish missions to Palestine, 1839–1917, London 2006; U. Kaminsky, “German ‘Home Mission’ Abroad: The Orientarbeit of the Deaconesses Institution Kaiserswerth in the Ottoman Empire”, in: H. Murre-van den Berg (ed.), New Faith in Ancient Lands. Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century, Leiden-Boston 2006, 191–210; R. Löffler, Protestanten in Palästina. Religionspolitik, Sozialer Protestantismus und Mission in den deutschen evangelischen und anglikanischen Institutionen des Heilgen Landes 1917–1939, Stuttgart 2008.

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An integration into larger transnational9 processes of change is frequently missing, as is an integration into the discourses of social, cultural and religious history. Quite apart from that, integrating the history of the Templar communities in the history of Pietism10 or Revivalism respectively11, or relating the developments in the Protestant, Catholic or Anglican Diaspora congregations to developments in the histories of the Church12, politics13, architecture14, education, and science15 of their respective home countries has been pursued with differing degrees of intensity. Relevant literature in the field appears unaffected by the debate over Orientalism initiated by Edward Said.16 However, changes can be observed. The Norwegian historian Inger Marie Okkenhaug, for example, applies gender theory 8

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Cf. e.g. the publications by A. Carmel such as: Christen als Pioniere im Heiligen Land. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Pilgermission und des Wiederaufbaus Palästinas im 19. Jahrhundert, Basel 1981 and “Der deutsche-evangelische Beitrag zum Wiederaufbau Palästinas im 19. Jahrhundert”, in: U. van der Heyden/H. Liebau (ed.), Missionsgeschichte-Kirchengeschichte-Weltgeschichte. Christliche Mission im Kontext nationaler Entwicklungen in Afrika, Asien, Ozeanien, Stuttgart 1996, 249–257 and Y. Ben-Arieh, Jerusalem in the 19th century, 2 vols., Jerusalem 1984/86 and ibid., The rediscovery of the Holy Land in the 19th century, Jerusalem-Detroit 1979. In the recent years, historical research has distinguished between international as well as transnational phenomena. While the first term concentrates on the interaction between states, the second term characterises the interaction between individuals, groups, non-governmental organisation, and societies. Cf. H. Kaelble/M. Kirsch/A. Schmidt-Gernig (eds.), Transnationale Öffentlichkeiten und Identitäten im 20. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt/New York 2002, 9f. Cf. the interesting use of the history of mentalities by R. Föll, Sehnsucht nach Jerusalem. Zur Ostwanderung schwäbischer Pietisten, Tübingen 2002. P. Sauer worked without theoretical implications in Uns rief das Heilige Land. Die Tempelgesellschaft im Wandel der Zeit, Stuttgart 1985 as did A. Carmel, Die Siedlungen der württembergischen Templer in Palästina1868–1918. Ihre lokalpolitischen und internationalen Probleme, Stuttgart 32000. Cf. H. Lehmann, „Neupietismus und Säkularisation. Beobachtungen zum sozialen Umfeld und politischen Hintergrund von Erweckungsbewegung und Gemeinschaftsbewegung“, in: Pietismus und Neuzeit 15 (1989), 40–58. Cf. the insights in: K. Schmidt-Clausen, Vorweggenommene Einheit. Die Gründung des Bistums Jerusalem im Jahre 1841, Berlin-Hamburg 1965; M. Lückhoff, Anglikaner und Protestanten im Heiligen Land. Das gemeinsame Bistum Jerusalem (1841–1886), Wiesbaden 1998; R. N. Swanson (ed.), The Holy Land, Holy Lands, and Christian History, Woodbridge 2000; T. H. Benner, Die Strahlen der Krone. Die religiöse Dimension des Kaisertums unter Wilhelm II. vor dem Hintergrund der Orientreise 1898, Marburg 2001. A.-R. Sinno, Deutsche Interessen in Syrien und Palästina 1841–1898. Aktivitäten religiöser Institutionen, wirtschaftliche und politische Einflüsse, Berlin 1982; H. Gründer, Welteroberung und Christentum. Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, Gütersloh 1992, 339–367; D. Trimbur, « La politique culturelle extérieure de l’Allemagne, 1920-1939: le Cas de la Palestine, in: Francia 28/3 (2001), 35–73 , « L’ambition culturelle française en Palestine dans l’entre-deux-guerres », in: D. Trimbur (ed.), Entre rayonnement et réciprocité - contributions à l’histoire de la diplomatie culturelle, Paris 2002, 41–72. Both G. Krämer in Geschichte Palästinas. Von der osmanischen Eroberung bis zur Gründung des Staates Israel, München 3 2002 and B.Wasserstein in: Jerusalem. Der Kampf um die Heilige Stadt, München 2002 go the opposite way in integrating religous aspects into political history. The same is true for Alexander Schölch, Palästina im Umbruch 1856–1882. Untersuchungen zur wirtschaftlichen und sozio-politischen Entwicklung, Stuttgart 1986. Innovative: J. Krüger, Rom und Jerusalem: Kirchenbauvorstellungen der Hohenzollern im 19. Jahrhundert, Berlin 1995.

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to the investigation of Anglican schools for girls 17, while Ruth Kark, an Israeli geographical historian, combines the history of geography with theories of identity.18 The criticism of theoretical deficits in existing scholarship voiced above is not meant to diminish the academic achievements of individual researchers but rather to raise the question of how research findings can be linked or even transferred. Drawing on milieu theory and the history of mentalities as they are understood by Olaf Blaschke and Frank-Michael Kuhlemann, my article thus seeks to explain German Protestant activities in Palestine as part of the formation processes of German Protestantism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 19 In the context of church history, the point of the history of mentalities and milieu theory is to outline unexpressed as well as deliberated ideological, religious, and political (dis)positions and the processes engendering a sense of community which result from them. Simplifying somewhat, the point is – in my opinion – that milieu theory determines the form and the history of mentalities the content which shapes society. Given the complexity of the subject matter, I will concentrate on German Protestantism, which has enjoyed increasing scholarly attention of late but is harder to grasp than ultramontane Catholicism because of its manifold forms of social appearance. In addition to theological differences between Lutherans, and 15 Cf. H. Goren, “Zieht hin und erforscht das Land”: Die deutsche Palästinaforschung im 19. Jahrhundert, Göttingen 2003; S. Akel, Der Pädagoge und Missionar Johann Ludwig Schneller und seine Erziehungsanstalten, Typoscript of the PhD-thesis University of Bielefeld 1978. 16 Cf. E.W. Said, Orientalism. Western Conceptions of the Orient. Reprinted with a new afterword, London-New York 1995; the controversial reactions on Said’s book are collected in: A. L. Macfie (ed.), Orientalism. A Reader, New York 2001. Said’s thesis can be found in I. M. Okkenhaug, “Maternal Imperalism or Colonialism as a “Multi-Faced Experience”, in: Historisk Tidsskrift 1 (1998), 51–61 and R. Kark, “The Impact of Early Missionary Enterprises on Landscape and Identity in Palestine, 1820–1914”, in: Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 15/2 (2004), 209–235. 17 Cf. I.M. Okkenhaug, The Quality of Heroic Living, of High Endeavour, and Adventure. Anglican Mission, Women and Education in Palestine, 1888–1948, Leiden-Boston-Köln 2002. Without links to the gender-debate cf. R. Felgentreff, “Die Folgen einer ungewöhnlichen Begegnung. Kaiserswerther Diakonissen in Jerusalem und anderswo im Morgenland”, in: Ronecker/Nieper/Neubert-Preine (eds.), Dem Erlöser der Welt zur Ehre, 72–80 and E. J. Eisler, “Frauen im Dienste des Jerusalems-Vereins im Heiligen Land”, in: A. Feldtkeller/A. Nothnagle (eds.), Mission im Konfliktfeld von Islam, Judentum und Christentums. Eine Bestandsaufnahme zum 150jährigen Jubiläum des Jerusalems-Vereins, Frankfurt/Main 2003, 45–56; “Charlotte Pilz und die Anfänge der Kaiserswerther Orientarbeit”, in: Ronecker/Nieper/Neubert-Preine (eds.), Dem Erlöser der Welt zur Ehre, 78–95; Th. Neubert-Preine, “Fliedners Engagement in Jerusalem. Kaiserswerther Diakonie im Kontext der Orientmission“, in: Feldtkeller/Nothnagle (eds.), Mission im Konfliktfeld, 57–70. 18 Cf. R. Kark, “The Contributions of Nineteenth Century Protestant Missionary Societies to Historical Cartography”, in: Imago Mundi 45 (1993), 112–119; R. Kark/Y. Ariel, “Messianism, Holiness, and Community: A Protestant American-Swedish Sect in Jerusalem. 1881– 1933”, in: Church History 65 (1996), 641–657. 19 Cf. O. Blaschke/F.-M. Kuhlemann, “Religion in Geschichte und Gesellschaft. Sozialhistorische Perspektiven für die vergleichende Erforschung religiöser Mentalitäten und Milieus”, in: O. Blaschke/F.-M. Kuhlemann (eds.), Religion im Kaiserreich. Milieus – Mentalitäten – Krisen. Religiöse Kulturen der Moderne, Gütersloh 1996, 7–56.

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Calvinists, the development of parallel structures in Protestant societies (Verbandsprotestantismus) has formed Protestantism in the last two centuries. 20 Among these faith-based yet decidedly independent societies are large-scale social organisations such as the Gustav-Adolf-Werk, the Evangelische Bund, the institutions of Social Protestantism, e.g. the Innere Mission (Home Mission), but also mission societies. The organisations through which Germans were active in Palestine are essentially situated at the intersection between missionary work and Social Protestantism, as the other contributions to this volume also demonstrate. Scholarship has so far neglected missions to Palestine despite their importance for the emergence of Protestant milieus.21 I wish to close this gap by means of examples. The very blossoming of Verbandsprotestantismus shows that we cannot simply speak of a continuous de-Christianisation of Western societies and the decline of Protestantism with regard to the nineteenth century. On the contrary, the result is ambivalent. For approximately 200 years now, religion has experienced a crisis of relevance. Yet as part of the modernisation process, it has also undergone revivals, transformations, and re-definitions of its central beliefs and its social forms. Therefore, the problem of secularisation ought to be understood as a Janus-faced phenomenon22, just like the process of modernisation itself.23 In my view, this complex includes the dynamic and sweeping Protestant activities in Palestine. Before demonstrating that the mission to Palestine contributed to the stabilisation of a religiously and politically conservative Protestant partial-milieu in Germany, I will provide a brief outline of the history of mentalities and of milieu theory. 2. THE HISTORY OF MENTALITIES The history of mentalities has as its central theme all those “subtle matters of course” which determine human action as strong beliefs and as deeply rooted convictions, but which nevertheless differ from abstract philosophical ideas by their lesser degree of reflection. Mentalities encompass conscious or unconscious imperatives which dispose groups and individuals to action but do not determine the forms social action takes.24 Volker Sellin also characterises mentalities as socially 20 Cf. e.g. J.-Chr. Kaiser, Sozialer Protestantismus im 20. Jahrhundert. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Inneren Mission 1914–1945, München 1989 and “Freie Wohlfahrtsverbände im Kaiserreich und in der Weimarer Republik. Ein Überblick”, in: Westfälische Forschungen 43 (1993), 26–57. 21 Even in Blaschke/Kuhlemann’s opus, missions are hardly mentioned. Some aspects can be found in: J.-Chr. Kaiser, “Die Formierung des protestantischen Milieus. Konfessionelle Vergesellschaftung im 19. Jahrhundert”, in: Blaschke/Kuhlemann, Religion im Kaiserreich, 257–289. 22 Cf. Blaschke/Kuhlemann, “Religion in Geschichte und Gesellschaft”, 8f. On the debate on secularism cf. H. Lübbe, Säkularisierung. Geschichte eines ideenpolitischen Begriffs, Freiburg 3 2003; D. Pollack, Säkularisierung – ein moderner Mythos? Studien zum religiösen Wandel in Deutschland, Tübingen 2003; H. Lehmann, Säkularisierung: Der europäische Sonderweg in Sachen Religion, Göttingen 2004. 23 Cf. the ideas by D. J.K. Peukert, Die Weimarer Republik, Frankfurt/Main 1987, esp. 268. 24 Cf. Blaschke/Kuhlemann, “Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart”, 12–21.

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and historically determined states of consciousness which “curtail the range of ways in which a given situation can be perceived and the actions it can entail.”25 The history of mentalities is a helpful theoretical and methodological instrument for both church history and mission history as it appreciates the practice-oriented side of faith. It helps to elucidate the contribution of different theological traditions to the formation of discrete, denomination-based collective mentalities which, in addition, differ internally. 26 Mentalities are phenomena of the longue durée, yet they can adapt to changing historical, political, and social contexts. The yearning for Jerusalem which has been a powerful factor in Pietism over the past 200 years and which will be described below, confirms this.27 According to Kuhlemann, the history of mentalities focuses on the following systematic aspects: 1. mentalities and spaces for communication, 2. collectivisation and socialisation, 3. affectivisation and ritualisation, 4. commemoration and memory, as well as the symbolic representation of the world.28 These four dimensions can be employed as follows: 1. Information about mentalities may be extrapolated from serial sources such as the minutes of synods and diocesan meetings, visitation reports, sermons, church newspapers, parish gazettes and the like. The respective sources correspond to particular spheres of reality, allowing us to analyse the separate “spaces for communication” they create, and the duration as well as diffusion of fundamental convictions in a specific denominational context. The groups under investigation include ministers, priests, monks, nuns, church elders, congregations but also nonchurched groups from all walks of life. 2. When many individuals share a particular mentality, processes of communityformation follow. By analysing a mentality, we can draw conclusions about the socially creative powers of the various denominations – also in terms of a denominationally-determined milieu. Therefore, it seems appropriate to combine the history of mentalities and milieu theory. 3. The ways in which religion becomes a matter of affect and ritual within a given milieu may be illustrated by means of the emotional and habitual ties which believers form with their denominations. Popular images, treatises, song- and prayer 25 Cf. V. Sellin, “Mentalitäten in der Sozialgeschichte”, in: W. Schieder/V. Sellin (eds.), Sozialgeschichte in Deutschland Vol. 3, Göttingen 1987, 101–121, esp. 103. 26 Ibid., 192. 27 Cf. Föll, Sehnsucht nach Jerusalem, 232. 28 Cf. Kuhlemann, “Die neue Kulturgeschichte”, 233-237.

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books, devotional objects but also festivals and pilgrimages play a role in this. They aimed at tying the faithful closer to their denominational milieus. 29 The religious structuring of the year through services, prayer cycles, holy days, festivals, and bible readings served the same purpose. 4. Participation in certain cultural traditions encouraged the formation of denominational groups around a particular commemorative centre. Festivals, anniversaries, commemoration days and places of remembrance (memorial churches and monuments) played an equally important role in this. The ecclesiastical buildings in the Holy Land errected by the house of Hohenzollern constitute such places of remembrance. During the German Empire “veritable commemorative communities” evolved such as the Bonifazius-Verein, the St. Elisabeth-Verein, or Gustav-Adolf-Werk as well as the Verein für Reformationsgeschichte (Society for Reformation History), all of which were devoted to the memory of historical figures or events, albeit for different political or denominational reasons. In doing so, they played their part in the construction of a Catholic or a Protestant “imagined community”. Debates over the representational symbols of the Lebenswelt could support as well as hinder the process of identity formation.30 3. MILIEU THEORY In the 1960s, the Heidelberg sociologist M. Rainer Lepsius developed milieu theory as a heuristic model to describe the relative stability of the German political blocs between 1870 and 1920. Lepsius attributed the comparatively consistent voting behaviour in Germany to four socio-moral milieus – the socialist, the Catholic, the liberal, and the Protestant conservative milieus – whose “committees for political action” were the respective parties.31 This model has subsequently been employed particularly in psephology. The socialist and the Catholic milieus have been at the centre of scholarly interest due to their relative outward and inward cohesion. However, deficits with regard to the exploration of the emergence, trans29 Cf e.g. D. van Reeken, Kirchen im Umbruch zur Moderne. Milieubildungsprozesse im nordwestdeutschen Protestantismus 1849–1914, Gütersloh 1999. 30 In terms of a history of memory it is interesting to note that historical constructions are based in the relationship between a past full of respect and success and a part of collective suffering. In Imperial Germany the national-Protestant form of unity was, for example, celebrated at the “Day of Sedan“. Social Democrats as well as Catholics were excluded from those forms of feasts and political rituals, which is why Michael Foucault coins them the “microtechnique of power“. Cf. Kuhlemann, “Die neue Kulturgeschichte”, 236 and also M. Hettling/P. Nolte (ed.), Bürgerliche Feste. Symbolische Formen politischen Handelns im 19. Jahrhundert, Göttingen 1993. 31 Cf. the classic study by M. R. Lepsius, “Parteiensystem und Sozialstruktur. Zum Problem der Demokratisierung der deutschen Gesellschaft”, in: Wilhelm Abel et altera (eds.), Wirtschaft, Geschichte und Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Friedrich Lütge, Stuttgart 1966, 371–393 and a modern overview by K. Tennfelde, “Historische Milieus – Erblichkeit und Konkurrenz”, in: M. Hettling/P. Nolte (eds.), Nation und Gesellschaft in Deutschland. Historische Essays, München 1996, 247–268.

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mission, and erosion of milieus remained, which raised questions about how the term “milieu” can gainfully be assessed. 32 The term “milieu” has therefore been modified in recent years. Blaschke and Kuhlemann now conceive of a religious milieu as a system of concentric social circles in which numerous structural dimensions coincide. Every religious milieu has a denominational core. It sustains divergent socio-economic interests, and through socialisation processes and institutions it extends its validity from the core to many, ideally to all, spheres of life. Consequently, any milieu constitutes a social construct within modernity or opposed to it.33 Even though all milieus are necessarily ideal constructs, Dietmar van Reeken defines them as “imagined communities structured by the organisation of and communication about shared values and norms.”34 As “transition stages in the process of modernisation”, religious milieus are characterised by a mixture of traditional and modern elements. The four typical ones are: 1. a common system of values and norms, which allowed for a collective understanding of the world and for shared meanings; 2. a common organisational structure; 3. forms of socialisation which integrate people into a milieu and safeguard the survival of the milieu across generations as well as 4. the separation from other milieus; clear demarcation lines strengthened internal cohesion in a milieu but limitated its integration into the whole of society.35 For the sake of combining milieu theory and the history of mentalities it makes sense to understand shared values, norms, and meanings as a mentality, while processes of community building shape the milieu. Processes of milieu formation take place on different levels – they are reproduced regionally and nationally. With the emergence of modern communication technologies, these two levels could be combined organisationally and intellectually. In order to illustrate the spatial and social dimension of the processes through which milieus took shape, Blaschke and Kuhlemann distinguish between micro-, meso-, and macro-milieus. - A micro-milieu is characterised by geographical and personal proximity, and it comprises, for example, a congregation. - A meso-milieu encompasses a larger social segment such as a regional church (Landeskirche), a denominational society, or a religiously structured landscape. 32 33 34 35

Cf. e.g. van Reeken, Kirchen im Umbruch der Moderne, 17. Cf. Blaschke/Kuhlemann, “Religion in Geschichte und Gesellschaft”, 53. Van Reeken, Kirche im Umbruch zur Moderne, 18. Cf. van Reeken, Kirchen im Umbruch der Moderne, 18.

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- Macro-milieus include German Catholicism or Protestantism as a whole, and they exert the strongest influence on processes which concern the whole of society.36 Distinguishing between different milieus involves discerning varying degrees of complexity with regard to mentalities.37 Kuhlemann also advocates a model of concentric yet permeable circles for the history of mentalities. The innermost circle constitutes the mentality core to which other circles with different contents are attached.38 The cohesive force of the core mentality diminishes with increasing distance from the centre, causing intersections with other mentalities on the one hand and deformations of the original mentality on the other. Overlaps with other mentalities are harmless as long as the core content of a mentality remains intact. This model of concentric circles has the methodological advantage of permitting questions about the super-ordinate and subordinate factors of thought and behaviour as part of a “mentality analysis”. Kuhlemann illustrates this by means of the link between Protestantism and nationalism. The latter could only be found at the fringes of society in the eighteenth century but increasingly came to shape the core of the Protestant mentality in the nineteenth century, before World War I brought about a quasi-amalgamation of the two elements. The model of concentric circles can thus help to combine the history of mentalities and milieu theory because it allows for aligning each milieu level with a particular mentality circle. 4. APPLYING MILIEU THEORY AND THE HISTORY OF MENTALITIES TO MISSION HISTORY The following section seeks to demonstrate how the reflections on the history of mentalities and milieu theory presented above can be applied to the Protestant activities in Palestine. To begin with, I would like to postulate the existence of a mentality and of a milieu associated with it, which both emerged from a religious interest in the Holy Land. Due to the great importance of Jerusalem, I refer to them as the “Jerusalem milieu” and the “Jerusalem mentality”. In the aforementioned model of concentric circles, the Jerusalem mentality occupies neither a central nor a peripheral but a middling position. Closeness to the core is implied by the effect of religious convictions, religiously defined outlooks, and basic national-religious positions on the enthusiasm for Jerusalem which had initially been explained biblically in terms of eschatology, and culturally in terms of the history of religion. Palestine and Jerusalem assumed particular importance for the faith as the country is associated with the Bible and the place where Jesus lived and died respectively. For missionary work, the results were 36 G. Brakelmann expresses similar ideas in “Das kirchennahe protestantische Milieu im Ruhrgebiet 1890–1933”, in: Bericht über die 38. Versammlung deutscher Historiker in Bochum vom 26. bis 29. September 1990, Stuttgart 1991, 175–179. 37 Kuhlemann, “Mentalitätsgeschichte”, 193. 38 Cf. Kuhlemann, “Mentalitätsgeschichte”, 196.

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definite courses of action, particularly in terms of its social dimension but also in its religious-political aspects – in the sense of representing German Protestantism in the Holy Land. Thus, intense cultural and religious exchange between the Holy Land and its supporters in Germany developed, which in turn had an impact on the denominational mentality core. A quotation by Ludwig Schneller, perhaps the most influential Palestine-oriented author within German Protestantism from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century may stand paradigmatically for the glorification in salvific terms of the Holy Land. Schneller wrote: “No other country is loved as much in all parts of the world and by millions of people as if it were their second home, as it is Palestine. It is there that the readings of the Bible take us; it is there that God revealed himself, and Jesus died on the cross for us. The rule of the Holy Land has changed hands countless times since Jesus’ days, yet regardless of the external circumstances, the love of Christendom remained and shall always remain.”39 Schneller’s description aims at ritualising and emotionalising the perception of the Holy Land – entirely in accordance with Kuhlemann’s third characteristic focal point of the history of mentalities. As the scene of divine revelation and of the Passion, the Holy Land appears to be without comparison. Even though Protestantism did not divide the world into holy and profane places as such, this touches the mentality core of a particular form of piety, influenced by the Awakening movement. Reading the Bible daily or weekly, believers had the Holy Land in their minds. In terms of cultural memory, Christian devotion was ultimately directed at the Holy Land. Even if “Jerusalem” assumed greater importance during the nineteenth century, it would be an exaggeration to consider Jerusalem the dominant topic within German Protestantism. Therefore it should be located at a certain distance from the core of Protestant mentality. In my opinion, the Jerusalem-mentality is a variant of “geopiety”– a concept which Lester I. Vogel developed taking up a term coined by John Kirkland Wrights.40 Wright understood “geopiety” as an affective, yet reflective form of piety which arises from an “awareness of terrestial diversity”. 41 For Vogel, “geopiety” refers more generally to places, regions, or countries which are associated with specific forms of piety. This form of religiosity glorifies the past in salvific terms and has little reference to the present or to reality. A place designated as “holy“ acquires religious-historical and even moral-political qualities and can be clearly separated from other (less holy or entirely profane) regions. 42 A holy entity commands worship, commitment, and particular protection and care. As a quality which is at39 L. Schneller, Das Syrische Waisenhaus in Jerusalem. Seine Entstehung und seine Geschichte, Köln 1927, 3. On Schneller also cf. R. Löffler, “Apostelfahrten und Königserinnerungen. Ludwig Schneller als georeligiöser Reiseschriftsteller und politischer Prediger von der Kaiserzeit bis zum Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges”, in: ZKG 118 (2007), 213–245. 40 Cf. L. I. Vogel, To See a Promised Land: Americans and the Holy Land in the 19th Century, University Park 1993, 6–10 and J. K. Wright, Human Nature in Geography, Cambridge/Mass. 1965, 250–285. 41 Vogel, To See a Promised Land, 8. 42 Cf. Vogel, To See a Promised Land, xiii.

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tributed to an object and for which there is no empirical evidence, holiness is an intellectual as well as an emotional phenomenon. According to Vogel, image and reality meet in the “geo-piety” of the Holy Land, yet the image possesses greater formative force than reality. In other words: reality is perceived through the filter of biblical history and therefore through an image. 43 The powerful image of the “Holy Land” called to mind memories of Bible lessons, Sunday schools and services and thus occupied a particular niche in the collective memory. Going to the Holy Land, Western missionaries were often faced with disappointing realities: low standards of living; controversies between the different denominations over sacred places; the irritating piety of the Orthodox Church; the rigorous religious politics of the Ottomans. All of these caused tensions between image and reality. A historical analysis of these tensions is possible if we compare representations of Palestine in mission publications with the correspondence between missionaries and their head offices in Germany. While letters by missionaries speak openly about the problems “on the ground”, magazines usually preserved the pious image of the Holy Land and even modelled their language on the language of the Bible. Thus the publications continued to shape the Jerusalem mentality and consolidated the Jerusalem milieu. This also had practical implications: the representation of reality covered up by the image provided the strongest incentive for pious souls to donate money to the mission to Palestine. Despite differing historical circumstances, this holds true for both American and German Protestantism, in my view, too. 4.1. Returning Jerusalem to the Protestant history of mentalities Despite its significance within the biblical tradition, Jerusalem is a relatively new religious phenomenon in Protestantism.44 The Reformation rejected the worship of relics, of sacred places and of people on the grounds of its doctrine of “sola fide, sola gratia, sola scriptura, solus Christus”. Belief in God was immediate, the heavenly Jerusalem provided more of an interest than the actual city; Calvary came to life again in the Eucharist. Lutherans and the reformed churches were also sceptical about their brothers and sisters in the Orthodox Churches. The Eastern churches were considered corrupted because of their adherence to dogmas and rites that lacked a basis in scripture. Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign (1798) ushered in the rediscovery of the Orient. Around the same time, a new yearning for Jerusalem grew in and spread throughout German Protestantism. There were different lines of continuity that characterised the Jerusalem mentality and that led to the emergence of respective sub-milieus within the Protestant Palestine milieu.

43 Cf. Vogel, To See a Promised Land, 7. 44 Cf. G. Mehnert, “Jerusalem als religiöses Phänomen in neuerer Zeit”, in: G. Müller/W. Zeller (eds.), Glaube, Geist, Geschichte. Festschrift E. Benz, Leiden 1967, 160–174 as well as the short text-collection by U. Becker/U. Bohn/P. Löffler/P. von der Osten-Sacken (eds.), Jerusalem – Symbol und Wirklichkeit. Materialien zu einer Stadt, Berlin 31992.

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Initially, enthusiasm for Jerusalem arose from an essentially revivalist, chiliastic attitude,45 which aroused profound interest in the Bible, the Holy Land, the Islamic world, as well as in the developments in the Orient, and also entailed the foundation of new missionary, social and academic institutions. This trend stabilised conservative Protestant piety, encouraged missionary work, and added momentum to cultural and archaeological scholarship as well as to enquiries into the role of religion in history. Given the community-forming processes, we can certainly talk of the emergence of a Jerusalem milieu informed by a Jerusalem mentality. The longing for Jerusalem was accompanied by the desire for church reform in Prussia. Moreover, the gradual recovery of the Holy Land through and for the Gospel preoccupied pious minds. A “peaceful crusade” involving the continuous religious, cultural and philanthropic pénétration pacifique, was meant to help reclaim the land of Jesus for Christianity. Besides, nourished by the Revelation to John, the idea of the “Restoration of the Jews“ prevailed, according to which the revival of Christianity – torn apart by the Enlightenment and early modernity – could be achieved through the conversion of the Jews. “Christian Zionists”46 sought to gather Jews in the Holy Land to convert them to Christianity and thus to speed up the return of the Messiah. These ideas were well-received by the devout Prussian king Frederic William IV. Influenced by his friend and advisor, the scholar and diplomat Carl Josias Freiherr von Bunsen47, Frederic William IV envisioned the establishment of a joint Anglican and Protestant Prussian bishopric in the city of David. For England and Prussia, a joint bishopric ostensibly for protecting local Protestants, seemed expedient as the great European powers endeavoured to gain a foothold in the disintegrating Ottoman Empire. The Anglo-Prussian bishopric was founded in 1841.48 This first modern, ecumenical experiment continued for 45 years until theological, financial, and political differences between Prussia and England brought about its collapse in 1886.49 The new bishopric in Jerusalem increased people’s awareness of the city’s relevance for religion, and it triggered among different nations and denominations a competition for representation at the holy places. In 1847 already, the Latin Patriachate in Jerusalem, which had previously existed from 1099 to 1291, was re45 Cf. S. Holthaus, “Prämillenniarismus in Deutschland. Historische Anmerkungen zur Eschatologie der Erweckten im 19. und 20 Jahrhundert”, in: Pietismus und Neuzeit 20 (1994), 191– 211 or R. Bauckham, Art. “Chiliasmus IV: Reformation und Neuzeit”, in: Theologische Realenzyklopädie Vol. 7 (1981), 737–745. 46 M. Vereté, “The Restoration of the Jews in English Protestant Thought 1790–1840”, in: Middle Eastern Studies 8 (1972), 2–50 and F. Kobler, The Vision was There: A History of the Restoration of the Jews, London 1956 proved on broad source-basis the long tradition of the “restoration-idea” in the Anglican mind. 47 Cf. F. Foerster, Christian Carl Josias Bunsen. Diplomat, Mäzen und Vordenker in Wissenschaft, Kirche und Politik, Bad Arolsen 2001. 48 Cf. Mehnert, “Jerusalem als religiöses Phänomen”, 165 as well as Lückhoff, Anglikaner und Protestanten im Heiligen Land and Schmidt-Clausen, Vorweggenommene Einheit. 49 K. Hammer, Weltmission und Kolonialismus. Sendungsideen des 19. Jahrhunderts im Konflikt, München 1978, 215.

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opened, resulting in the construction of numerous churches, the foundation of monastic settlements, schools, and academic institutions. France also sought to secure the primacy of the Roman Catholic church, while Russia intensified its support for the Orthodox Church in Palestine. The political and religious rivalry between the European powers in the context of the “Oriental question” culminated in the Crimean War (1853–1856).50 Power-political interventions on the part of the great powers strongly affected the European public. The idea of a crusade to defend the sacred sites of Christianity and the status of the Holy City, as well as the protection of Jerusalem by Christian powers all stirred up the public. 51 During the second half of the nineteenth century, the Holy Land not only attracted the first Zionist settlers, but even before them, two chiliastic non-conformist Protestant communities: firstly, the SwedishAmerican “Spaffords”, who found a new home in the American Colony in Jerusalem and who have been immortalised in Selma Lagerlöf’s two-volume novel “Jerusalem”; and secondly, the Templar Community, which arose out of Pietism in Württemberg.52 About 200 years ago, the longing for Jerusalem in Pietism in Württemberg created a “precarious but explosive culture”(Martin Scharfe). Pietism turned explosive during the “Napoleonic upheavals” which altered the political and economic framework as well as mental dispositions in Württemberg. Becoming a kingdom in 1806, Württemberg turned into a kind of police state including surveillance measures such as censorship of the press, and an emigration ban (from 1807 onwards), and yet paved the way for calls for personal and social freedom. Theologically, chiliasm acted as a catalyst for the desire to practice religion freely and for dreams of a better world. Its explosiveness was a result of the hope for an early second advent of Christ. The chiliasts saw a direct correlation between contemporary political and social events and the apocalyptic texts of the Bible. Thus they looked for signs of God’s actions in the world and interpreted historical events as well as the present in the light of the Book of Revelations. The return of Christ would be preceded by times of anti-Christian terror to be endured by the devout so that they would then reign with Christ in the glorious kingdom on earth to come. Therefore, Renate Föll has interpreted chiliasm as a “time-limited opportunity for overcoming the contingent”.53 Trying to avoid the apocalyptic aberrations in politics, and within the church, the chiliasts sought a “place of refuge”. According to biblical tradition, Jerusalem was this very place of refuge. 54 Among the Pietist working and lower middle classes, the religious impulse to emigrate was, as Föll stresses, intensified by adverse socio-economic conditions. Jerusalem turned into a powerful image in which biblical prophecy merged with naïve, fairytale-like ideas of paradise. 50 51 52 53 54

Cf. Mehnert, “Jerusalem als religiöses Phänomen”, 164. Ibid. Cf. e.g. Kark/Ariel, “Messianism, Holiness, Charisma, and Community”. Föll, Sehnsucht nach Jerusalem, 233. Op. cit., 29.

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With the turbulent political situation blocking the way to the Holy Land, the Pietists turned their eye to Russia, then ruled by the religious tsar Alexander I who was interested in attracting German colonists. Thus the majority of pious Swabians emigrated to the Caucasus rather than to Palestine. For the Templar Community – founded in opposition to the established church – the longing for Jerusalem was eventually fulfilled. From 1869 onwards, the Templars set up successful farming colonies in Haifa, Jaffa, Sarona and Rephaim/Jerusalem 55, and thus shaped the free-church line in the Protestant Jerusalem milieu. The groundwork for a decidedly ecclesiastical orientation in the Jerusalem mentality was laid in Prussia with a travelogue entitled “Sinai und Golgotha”, written by the Berlin pastor Friedrich Adolf Strauß. The book was the most important publication of nineteenth-century’s Jerusalem mentality. 56 Strauß, who became court preacher in Potsdam, had found his calling while travelling in the East: to explain to his contemporaries the great significance of the Holy Land in biblical, historical, salvific as well as visionary-eschatological terms. In “Sinai und Golgatha”, the spirit of Romanticism and of the Awakening Movement met with “a renewed interest in Jerusalem and the land of the Bible.” 57 Strauß’s travelogues allowed those Prussian Christians who did not wish to emigrate but yearned for the return of Christ, to embark on a mental journey to the land of the Bible and to participate in his religious experiences. On his travels, Strauß had himself made “the ongoing experience of the truth of the divine word”, and drew profound inner “profit” from the immediate perception of “the holiest of places on earth”. 58 The fact that his book ran to eleven editions in the course of four decades proves that Strauß satisfied the needs of his readers. The same holds true for numerous other travelogues and for the often detailed descriptions of the geography, history, and culture of Palestine that were published in missionary magazines such as the “Bote aus Zion” of the Syrian Orphanage, the “Neuesten Nachrichten aus dem Morgenlande“ by the Jerusalems-Verein, the “Palästina” magazine issued by the Carmel Mission, or in “Jesushilfe”, the annual reports of the Moravian brethren’s

55 Cf. Carmel, Die Siedlungen der württembergischen Templer. 56 Cf. F. A. Strauß, Sinai und Golgatha. Reise in das Morgenland, Berlin 1847, 111883. 57 Cf. F. Foerster, “Berlin und Jerusalem. Das evangelische Bistum in Jerusalem und die Anfänge des Jerusalems-Vereins zu Berlin. Zum 175. Geburtstag Friedrich Adolf Strauß”, in: Berlin in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Jahrbuch des Landesarchivs Berlin 1992, 83-99, esp. 83 as well as F. Foerster, “Sinai und Golgatha – Die Heilsgeschichte als religiöses Erlebnis und die Gründung des Jerusalems-Vereins durch Friedrich David Strauss”, in: Nothnagle/Abromeit/Foerster (eds.), Seht wir gehen hinauf nach Jerusalem, 169–184. 58 Cf. Strauß, Sinai und Golgatha, I und IV.

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leper asylum.59 These publications provided spaces for communication in which the Jerusalem mentality was handed down. 4.2. Cultural memory and the politics of hegemony – William II and his journey to the Orient 1989 Emperor William II’s journey to the orient in 1898 added religious politics and spreading cultural Protestantism to the goals of the pietist-historical mentality described above.60 William’s journey provided the founding myth for the German Protestant mission to Palestine. It linked the house of Hohenzollern closely with the Holy Land and with the German emigrants who remained fiercely loyal to the Kaiser. The consecration of the Church of the Redeemer on the Muristan, right by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on Reformation Day in 1898 was a potent celebration of the “unity of throne and altar”, which was typical for Imperial days. The Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem assumed a key role in the church building programme of the house of Hohenzollern. The dedication to the Redeemer connects to early Christian church dedication practices, which aimed at symbolising the victory over the gods of antiquity in the Old Church, and was a distinctive feature of the Hohenzollern politics of religion.61 While the Prussian king Frederic William IV looked back mainly to the early Christian and apostolic church, William II modelled himself on Emperor Constantine as regards the foundation and building of churches, and therefore also as regards the formation of church policy. In contrast to Frederic William IV, he did not pursue a programme of church reform. For William II building memorial churches was a matter of cultivating the image of his dynasty. His intention to transfer medieval notions of imperial rule and lordship to his “Protestant” empire manifested itself in his preference of the late Romanesque style associated with the Hohenstaufen period for the most important buildings of his reign. These include the Churches of the Redeemer in Bad Homburg, Rummelsburg near Berlin, in Jerusalem, and the complex system of smaller churches affiliated with them. William II sought legitimacy from both, the Constantinian and the Hohenstaufen traditions. The late Romanesque style was meant to be a German national style. In terms of architectural history, the Kaiser thus worked with highly contemporary categories of thought and consequently did not have to fear aesthetically-motivated op59 Cf. P. Gradewitz (ed.), Das Heilige Land in Augenzeugenberichten. Aus Reiseberichten deutscher Pilger, Kaufleute und Abenteurer vom 10. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, München 1984. Cf. the missionary magazines: Der Bote aus Zion. Mitteilungen aus dem Syrischen Waisenhaus Jerusalem 1 (1885) – 54 (1938). 63 (1948)– 84 (1969); Neueste Nachrichten aus dem Morgenlande. Vereinsschrift des Jerusalems-Vereins 1 (1857) – 85 (1941); Palästina. Mitteilungen der Ev. Karmelmission Nr. 1.1912/13–28.1940, N.F. 38.1949–65.1977. Between 1868 and 1898 also appeared the Jahresbericht des Aussätzigen-Asyls zu Jerusalem, but the name was changed 1899–1900 to Das Aussätzigen-Asyl der Brüdergemeine in Jerusalem. Bericht vom Jahr, and continued in publication in the years 1901–1940 under the title Jahresberichte des Asyls “Jesushilfe” in Jerusalem. 60 Benner, Die Strahlen der Krone offers a penetrating analysis. 61 Krüger, Rom und Jerusalem, 256.

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position from the majority of the population.62 Churches founded by the Hohenzollerns were not modern but rather highly traditional buildings, and hence typical exponents of historicism.63 The Hohenzollerns did not only try to connect with the cultural memory of classical antiquity and the medieval period through their church buildings but also sought to build a bridge to the Reformation. It was no coincidence, that the laying of the foundation stone for the Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem took place on 31 October 1893, that is Reformation Day, exactly one year after the newlyrenovated Schlosskirche in Wittenberg had been re-opened as a national memorial for the Reformation. After the building of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, the Kaiserin-Auguste-Viktoria-Stiftung (Emperess Augusta Victoria Foundation) on the Mount of Olives, and the Benedictine Dormitio Beatae Maria Virginis abbey on Mount Zion, close to the Last Supper Room, David’s tomb, and the legendary place of Mary’s death, there were German churches in Christianity’s most important places. The venture for Protestant cultural hegemony had been achieved. The German subjects in Palestine in turn considered their status re-valued by the presence of imperial buildings as the latter stabilised their self-confidence as representatives of the Reformation in the Holy Land. The Protestant Jerusalem milieu felt called upon to preserve this heritage. Until 1918, all Germans and Swiss people living in Jerusalem gathered in the Prussian and later the German consulate on 22 March every year to celebrate the birthday of Emperor William. Reformation Day equally occupied a place of honour in German cultural memory in the Palestinian Diaspora. Germans in Palestine remained loyal to the Emperor even after 1918. Ludwig Schneller, whom we mentioned already, assumed the role of a quasicourt preacher to the exiled monarch in Haus Doorn in the Netherlands. Schneller fought in the press for the Kaiser’s return to the throne and defended him against any allegations of war mongering and war guilt.64 5. THE EMERGING JERUSALEM MILIEU 5.1. Formation processes: Mission societies in the German Empire As we have seen earlier, the pastor Friedrich Adolf Strauß provided the decisive impulse for the emergence of a Jerusalem milieu in Prussia. Convinced that “the biblical promise of the future glory of Jerusalem also bears on the earthly Zion” 65, he did not leave things at working as a travel writer. Strauß considered the Anglo62 Cf. op. cit., 259. 63 Cf. op. cit., 256. 64 Cf. L. Schneller, Holt doch den Kaiser wieder!, Leipzig 21933; Unser Kaiser. Achte Folge der “Weihnachts-Erinnerungen”, Leipzig 1927; Die Kaiserfahrt durchs Heilige Land, Leipzig 2 1899. 65 Foerster, “Berlin und Jerusalem”, 88.

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Prussian bishopric and the activities of German and English missionaries in Jerusalem as a sign of the promised reconstruction of the city of David, which he sought to promote to the best of his abilities. Using the slogan “Let Jerusalem come into your mind!” (Jeremiah 51, 50) he called into being an annual “Jerusalem festival” in Berlin on 21 January 1847. The festival gave rise to the Jerusalems-Verein (or Jerusalem Society) which was established in Berlin Cathedral on 21 January 1853 on the initiative of prominent Protestants from Berlin and with the approval of the Prussian court. The main purpose of the society was to support the emerging Protestant institutions in Jerusalem financially and intellectually. The third court preacher, Ludwig Friedrich Wilhelm Hoffmann (1806–1873) became the chairman of the society. He was the son of Gottlieb Wilhelm Hoffmann (1771–1846), one of the leading Pietists from Württemberg and the founder of the Korntal settlement, and the brother of the very Christoph Hoffmann (1815–1885), who was to be the founder of the Templar Community. As a “typically Prussian-Evangelical institution” 66, the newly established society tried to forge links with the Pietist friends of Palestine in Württemberg, while Strauß was in contact with the Christentumsgesellschaft (Society for Christianity) in Basel. In contrast to the established mission societies, the slowly-emerging Jerusalem milieu lacked precisely this financially important hinterland. However, in Prussia in particular, small, local Jerusalem societies formed gradually and aligned themselves with the main society in Berlin. By 1893, forty of these subsidiary societies and branches evolved. In Berlin, a “Jungfrauenverein für Jerusalem” (Virgins for Jerusalem), a “Frauen-Nähverein” (Women’s Sewing Circle), a “Tabeaverein junger Mädchen” (Tabatha Association for Young Girls) and a “Sonntagsverein weiblicher Dienstboten” (Female Servants’ Sunday Club) emerged. In other places, “Nähvereine für Bethlehem” (Bethlehem Sewing Circles) or “Frauenvereine für die Diakonissenhäuser im Orient” (Women’s Society for the Deaconesses in the Orient) were founded. The societies were led by the respective local ministers or their wives. They collected money and clothing for Jerusalem among their members. Thus the Jerusalems-Verein became the nucleus of the Prussian Protestant Jerusalem milieu, the community-forming effects of which are manifest not least in the establishment of these societies and church-affiliated groups.67 Initially, interest in Jerusalem was, however, limited.68 The membership numbers of the subsidiary societies, to which Thomas Mann’s description of a “Jerusalem evening with the consul’s wife” in his Buddenbrooks is a literary memorial, remained manageable. The Kaiser’s journey to the East in 1898 brought about a change. While the Jerusalems-Verein counted only 940 members in 1896, it recorded 2440 members at the beginning of 1898 and even 5200 by the end of the year. In the years leading up to the First World War, membership numbers rose continuously and reached a climax in 1914 with 19,096 members clustered in approximately 20 branches throughout the Empire.69 The budget of the Jerusalems-Ver66 67 68 69

Op. cit., 91. Cf. op. cit., 93. Cf. op. cit., 94. Cf. the statistics by Foerster, Mission im Heiligen Land, 222.

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ein reached 166,000 Reichsmark in 1914.70 Surprisingly, the society managed to maintain these levels until 1923 (still about 15,000 members). Yet the inflation year of 1923 left profound marks on the Jerusalems-Verein. Between 1923 and 1924 the society suddenly lost 12,000 members. Thanks to intense recruitment, the membership numbers increased again, reaching 5000 in 1928. In terms of social composition, the society drew people from all classes and walks of life. Placing the Jerusalem milieu on an intermediate level takes into account the intermediate social connectivity it created. The fact that the regional churches made their annual Christmas collections available to the mission to Palestine – within the Anglican Church it was the Good Friday collections – reveals the high value placed on the Jerusalem mentality within German Protestantism.71 The Christmas collections yielded between 60,000 and 80,000 Reichsmark every year. Alongside the Jerusalems-Verein, the “Evangelische Verein für das Syrische Waisenhaus” (Evangelical Society for the Syrian Orphanage), established in 1889 and based in Cologne, became the second important pillar of the Jerusalem milieu.72 Moreover, several other organisations in Germany were active in Palestine: the Moravian Brethren73, the Evangelical Carmel Mission in Schorndorf74, the Kaiserswerther Diakonie (Kaiserswerth Diaconate) as well as the Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation and the German Protestant Institute for Archaeology in the Holy Land (which were both under the administration of the Evangelical Consistory in Berlin), the Empress Augusta Victoria Foundation, based in Potsdam, and the Knights of St John of Jerusalem. The proliferation of Palestine-oriented organisations was one of the reasons why a large proportion of Protestant believers were inclined towards the Jerusalem milieu. Thus it was possible to lower the theological “disgust threshold” (Gangolf 70 Cf. the fifth chapter, fifth part in Thomas Mann’s masterly Buddenbrooks. Verfall einer Familie, Berlin 1901 as well as K. Gruhn, “Die Jerusalemabende der Frau Konsulin”, in: Im Lande der Bibel 4/29 (1984), 12–15. 71 For years, the Christmas collection was exclusively reserved for the Jerusalems-Verein, but was split between the main Protestant actors in the region after 1928: the JV, the Syrian Orphanage, Evangelische Jerusalem-Stiftung and the Kaiserswerth Diakonie. Cf. Foerster, Mission im Heiligen Land, 158. 72 Cf. on the Syrian Orphanage cf. the 5th chapter “Sozialer Protestantismus am Beispiel des Syrischen Waisenhauses der Familie Schneller 1860–1945”, in: Löffler, Protestanten in Palästina, 244–348. Cf. also aspects in Sinno, Deutsche Interessen in Syrien und Palästina 1841–1898: Raheb, Das reformatorische Erbe; Akel, Der Pädagoge und Missionar Johann Ludwig Schneller; K. Hammer, “Die christliche Jerusalemsehnsucht im 19. Jahrhundert. Der geistige und geschichtliche Hintergrund der Gründung Johann Ludwig Schnellers”, in: Theologische Zeitschrift 42 (1986), 255–266. 73 Cf. R. Löffler, “Das Aussätzigenasyl Jesushilfe. Zur Geschichte einer Herrnhuter Wohltätigkeitseinrichtung in Jerusalem”, in: Unitas Fratrum 59/60 (2007), 37–89. 74 Cf. R. Löffler, “Ein Kind der Gemeinschaftsbewegung in Palästina. Zur Arbeit der Evangelischen Karmelmission in Palästina 1904–1948”, in: E. J. Eisler (ed.), Deutsche in Palästina und ihr Anteil an der Modernisierung des Landes, Wiesbaden 2008, 71–87; see also K. Schäfer, Art. “Karmelmission, Evangelische”, in: Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 4 Vol. 4 (2001), 824 and W. Sziel, Zeugendienst im Heiligen Lande und Nahen Osten. Die Evangelische Karmelmission, ihr Werden und Wachsen, Schorndorf ²1956.

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Hübinger) between liberal cultural Protestants who were scientifically active or involved with the aforementioned foundations for Palestine, and revivalist Pietists. However, the plurality of organisations weakened the Jerusalem milieu. Despite numerous commonalities, the various societies represented differing theological and political positions and were rooted in different regions: the Jerusalems-Verein in Prussia; the Syrian Orphanage and the Carmel Mission in southern German Pietism. The lack of willingness to cooperate was reflected not only in the existence of parallel structures in Germany but also in the heterogeneous appearance of German Protestantism in Palestine, as the Provost of the Church of the Redeemer, Ernst Rhein, recorded in his annual report for 1933/34, not without a sorrowful undertone: “Our counterparts are not aware that we are a German Protestant Church: there are individual congregations, worthy individual missionary projects with highly idiosyncratic natures.”75 I take this as a further argument in support of characterising the Jerusalem milieu as meso-milieu. Quite apart from that, the Jerusalem milieu alternated between desires for more autonomy and drifting towards ecclesiaisation. The societies maintained a relatively emancipated relationship to the established church which was typical of Social Protestantism in Germany. Nevertheless, the Jerusalems-Verein and the Syrian Orphanage sought the proximity of both the ecclesiastical hierarchy as well as the Prussian Royal family. They accepted financial support and in turn readily took over the role of representatives in the Holy Land of the Reformation heritage. Examining the composition of the executive committees and the boards of trustees of the Jerusalems-Verein and the Syrian Orphange, an equally ambivalent ecclesialisation becomes apparent: the number of ministers, superintendents, Consistory-members, and even bishops was remarkable. At the same time both mission societies fought vehemently for their autonomy. A further argument speaks for an intermediate position of Jerusalem in terms of milieu theory and the history of mentalities. Owing to geographic distance, only a small number of people within the Jerusalem milieu were able to visit religious places of remembrance and to gather real impressions of the Holy Land. Even though professionally organised tourism in Palestine began with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, it only experienced a breakthrough into the mainstream after World War II. The tour operators Thomas Cook and Hugo Stangen (Berlin) were among the leading organisers of academic and religious study trips and were responsible for taking choirs and scouting groups to the Holy Land.76 It were usually members of the bourgeoisie who could afford the considerable costs of these

75 Cf. Provost Rhein’s annual report for 1933/34, Evangelisches Zentralarchiv Berlin 56/87. 76 T. Larsen, “Thomas Cook, The Holy Land Pilgrims, and the Dawn of the Modern Tourist Industry”, in: Swanson (ed.), The Holy Land, 329–342; cf. also the chapter on tourism and pilgrimage in: Eisler/Haag/Holtz (eds.), Kultureller Wandel in Palästina, 277–282 and H. Gollwitzer, “Deutsche Palästinafahrten des 19. Jahrhunderts als Glaubens- und Bildungserlebnis”, in: W. Stammler (ed.), Lebenskräfte in der abendländischen Geistesgeschichte. Festschrift Walter Goetz, Marburg 1948, 286–324.

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journeys.77 During the inter-war years, a “Komitee für die evangelischen Palästinafahrten” (Committee for Evangelical Journeys to Palestine) was set up in Wernigerode which offered tours to the Holy Land led by ministers. These tours did not only include exploring the Holy Places, but also visiting and supporting German Protestant institutions in Palestine. Journeys to the Holy Land stabilised the Jerusalem mentality. However occasionally they upset the balance between image and reality. For example, talking about a study trip to Egypt, Palestine and Syria in Spring 1933, Dr. H. Michaelsen of the “Reichsausschuss Deutscher Akademiker” (Imperial Committee of German Academics) acknowledges on the one hand that his fellow travellers were overcome with reverential feelings in “the land of the Saviour”78, but on the other hand, he criticises the alienating religious, economic, and social manifestations noticeable in Palestine that did not comply with the spirit of the Nazarene. Reality perturbed the image. Visits to the Templar Colonies and the “delightfully simple hour of reflection” in the Church of the Redeemer where the German Provost held a service for the group, provided a “ray of hope” for the German academics, illustrating the transfer achieved by the Jerusalem milieu. Thus the link between the denomination and the congruence of expectation and reality was (re)built. 5.2. The transnational formation of milieus through social networks and the transfer of educational – the example of the Syrian Orphanage The missionaries like those of the highly influencial Syrian Orphanage were no intellectuals, and therefore the institution was not founded with an elaborated academic programme. Still, it had a clear educational and theological agenda. The educational model was practically orientated and highly disciplinary, and had a clear missionary and ethical setting. The agenda of the Syrian Orphanage was an example of Pietistic milieu-pedagogy, in which ‘faith’ dominated all fields of education. The founding father of the institution Johann Ludwig Schneller (1820– 1896) himself was deeply influenced by Christian Heinrich Zeller (1779–1860) – one of the masterminds of the Basle-South German awakening movement that was marked by a very posi-tive attitude towards social reforms. Its most important and often copied institution is the South German ‘Freiwillige Armenschullehrerund Armenkinderanstalt’ (‘Voluntary School for the Poor’) at Castle Beuggen, close to Basle on the German side of the river Rhine.79 The director of this school 77 Cf. the advertisement for a nearly four-week-long Oriental journey in the journal “Reichsboten” No. 31 – 5th of February 1929, which was clearly aimed at the well-off circles of society. The costs for travelling varied from 1260–1560 Reichsmark in First Class, to 950–1225 Reichsmark in Second Class, and 570–985 Reichsmark in Third Class, Evangelisches Zentralarchiv Berlin 5/3123. 78 Cf. H. Michaelsens “Bericht über die Orientfahrt” (1933), Evangelisches Zentralarchiv Berlin 5/3123. 79 Cf. G. Hauss, “Die sozialpädagogische Arbeit in der Armenschullehrer-Anstalt in Beuggen (Baden). Ihr Profil im Vergleich zum Rauhen Haus in Hamburg,” Pietismus und Neuzeit 23 (1997), 27–38, esp. 27–29, and Chr. H. Zeller, Lehren der Erfahrung für christliche Landund Armen-Schullehrer. Eine Anleitung zunächst für die Zöglinge und Lehrschüler der

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for the education of the poor was Zeller himself. Schneller, who had been House Father of the St. Chrischona Pilgermission, came to know Zeller during his time in Basle. This is the reason why the spirit of Beuggen influenced the making of the Syrian Orphanage, which was part of a wider, transnational awakening network.80 In his research on religion and modernity, the German Church Historian Thomas K. Kuhn characterised the Basle Awakening Movement as an important player in the process of modernisation inside Protestantism and as an example of a decisive early modern religiosity. 81 In his eyes the awakening movement was attractive for many people because it offered – at a difficult and complex time of multifaceted social and political transformation – a broad mix of personal ethics, the ex-perience of transcendence and stability of living conditions. Zeller’s analysis of society combined eschatological, ethical and social-political motives. Theological interpretation was so dominant that it led to an inadequate view on contemporary economical and social challenges.82 He saw the privation and hardship of his times – quasi biologically – grounded in the guilt of the poor. Zeller regarded the philanthropic institutions of Social Protestantism as a forerunner of God’s peaceful millennium, which bridged the gap between the sinful present and the divine future. Christian Heinrich Zeller had a feudal, pre-modern vision of society. He thought the re-establishment of Christian families would be the best safety measure against the dangers of poverty and social dislocation. Zeller’s ‘Voluntary School for the Poor’ focused on the children at the lowest social level of the society. He wanted to get them out of the vicious circle of poverty by means of a religiously-based training as craftsmen. The social vision of Zeller focused therefore on the making of a lower middle-class with a Pietistic-Awakened personal spirituality. This can be also regarded as a milieu-formation-process on a micro-level in a pious dimension. Precisely, this concept was transferred by Johann Ludwig Schneller to Jerusalem. Interestingly, both Zeller and Schneller successfully implemented this agenda in two differently structured societies. freiwilligen Armen-Schullehrer-Anstalt in Beuggen, 3 vols., Basle 1827/1828. 80 Cf. S. Hanselmann, Deutsche Evangelische Palästinamission. Handbuch ihrer Motive, Geschichte und Ergebnisse, Erlangen 1971, 50, who mentions that J.L. Schneller in his first Syrian Orphanage annual report refers to Zeller’s pedagogy. For the connections between Zeller, Spittler and Schneller, cf. E. Geldbach, “The German Research Network in the Holy Land,” in M. Davies/Y. Ben-Arieh (eds.), With Eyes Toward Zion III. Western Societies and the Holy Land, New York/Westport/London 1991, 150–169. 81 Cf. Th. K. Kuhn, Religion und neuzeitliche Gesellschaft. Studien zum sozialen und diakonischen Handeln in Pietismus, Aufklärung und Erweckungsbewegung, Tübingen 2003; Th. K. Kuhn, “Pädagogik und Religion im ‘Frommen Basel’. Die Gründung des ‚Vereins der freiwilligen Armen-Schullehrer-Anstalt’ (1817),” in H. Klueting/J. Rohls (eds.), Reformierte Retrospektiven. Vorträge der zweiten Emdener Tagung zur Geschichte des reformierten Protestantismus, Wuppertal 2001, 203–217; Th. K. Kuhn, “Diakonie im Schatten des Chiliasmus. Christian Heinrich Zeller (1779–1860) in Beuggen,” in Th. K. Kuhn/M. Sallmann (eds.), “Das Fromme Basel.” Religion in einer Stadt des 19. Jahrhunderts, Basle 2002, 93–110. 82 Kuhn, “Diakone im Schatten des Chiliasmus”, 102.

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Still, Zeller was no revolutionary character of Marxist shape. Zeller accepted the different layers of society. His model of society was “implicitly conservative, if not reactionary.”83 His vision was not much focused on the material well-being of the poor, but on “primarily ethical prophylaxis, which implicated certain political and social aspirations.”84 Social equality was not among his three main goals of education (work discipline, acceptance of one’s own social position, and faith in the Lord).85 In a way, these social and religious convictions can also be found in the Schneller Schools in Palestine. Furthermore, the strong emphasis on piety in all branches of the Awakening Movement supported a very special pious consciousness, which tended to distance itself from the established Protestant Churches, but did melt together pupils and teachers inside those institutions – be it in Beuggen or Jerusalem or elsewhere. Again, this demonstrates mechanism of milieu-making. Through Zeller’s charisma an international network of Awakened schools was built up in which the Syrian Orphange in Jerusalem played an important role. The centre of communication, however, remained in ‘pious Basle’.86 The success and the failure of these sorts of institutions of Social Protestantism in Germany (and Palestine) can be interpreted with the help of late Bielefeld sociologist Niklas Luhmann’s theory on social systems. 87 Luhmann argues that society is constituted by many social subsystems, which bring about different, specialised benefits to the system as a whole. Religion as a social subsystem provides a benefit in such a way that it takes responsibility for “rest-problems, personal fates, sufferings, social problems,” which were generated in other subsystems of society. However, Social Protestantism in Germany could not penetrate far enough to re-christianise society, because the spiritual function and the theological agenda of the religious subsystem were not needed in society. The social subsystems only demanded social care, but ignored theological supply. The result was that the institutions of Social Protestantism lost the actual contact with the Church. The philanthropic success in the end provoked a self-secularisation process within those institutions. My argument now is that the same process can be used to illustrate the missionary field in the example of the Syrian Orphanage. The silent metamorphosis of the Schneller Schools in Jerusalem from a Pietistic Missionary Institution into a Social Services Enterprise is therefore part of a much larger process of transformation which took place in most of the institutions of the Awakening movement. 88 In other terms: 83 Cf. Kuhn, “Pädagogik und Religion”, 213 and Hanselmann, Deutsche evangelische Palästinamission, 52. 84 Cf. Kuhn, “Diakone im Schatten des Chiliasmus”, 103 85 Cf. Hanselmann, Deutsche evangelische Palästinamission, 52. 86 On the self-understanding of the “Pious Basle” cf. Kuhn, “Pädagogik und Religion”, 216f. 87 Cf. N. Luhmann, Funktion der Religion, Frankfurt/Main 51999 and Die Religion der Gesellschaft, ed. by A. Kieserling, Frankfurt 2002. For a new interpretation of Social Protestantism on the basis of Luhmann’s theories cf. J.-Chr. Kaiser, “Vorüberlegungen zur Neuinterpretation des sozialen Protestantismus im 19. Jahrhundert,” in M. Friedrich/N. Friedrich/T. Jähnichen/J.-Chr. Kaiser (eds.), Sozialer Protestantismus im Vormärz, Münster 2001, 11–19 and S. Sturm, “Soziale Reformation: J.H. Wicherns Sozialtheologie als christentumspolitisches Programm,” in: Friedrich/Friedrich et alt. (eds.), Sozialer Protestantismus, 67–93. 88 For a longer elaboration of those ideas cf. R. Löffler, Protestanten in Palästina, 244–348.

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The pious Awakening milieu came to its limits, when it tried to transcend its message beyond the boundaries of his own discourse-community. The Awakening social theology was able to transform itself in the missionary context, but in terms of penetrating the land of the Bible with the Gospel, the religious mentality of Islam and Judaism was not possible to change. 6. CONCLUSIONS AND PROSPECTS Having attracted only little interest for several centuries, Jerusalem regained significance for German Protestantism in the context of the Oriental Question, Romanticism, and the Awakening movement. Applying the aforementioned criteria described by Kuhlemann and Blaschke, we can analyse the emergence of a Jerusalem mentality and a Jerusalem milieu. The Jerusalem mentality is based on an image which drew on geopiety and salvation history. This image greatly helped to stabilise the confessional mentality core within German Protestantism but also encouraged diverse social and missionary activities for the reconstruction of the Holy Land. A broad spectrum of literature provided spaces for communication to which not only the ecclesiastical and political establishment but also the working and lower middle classes had access (through sewing circles and women’s societies, for example). The foundation of Jerusalem-orientated societies advanced the formation of “imagined communities” within the Jerusalem milieu. The ritualisiation and affectivisation of which was a product of, for example, annual festivals, mission magazines and collections. Seeing the places of remembrance proved more difficult until well into the twentieth century as Protestant-organised trips to Palestine were reserved for the well-off circles of society. For the majority of the members of the Jerusalem milieu, the image of the Holy Land continued to replace reality. Maintaining the places of remembrance remained a product of a devout imagination shaped by mission magazines and travel reports. Basically, a Jerusalem milieu of this kind seems to have existed in almost all churches. Different confessional and national starting points mean that the core of the mentality and the circles attached to it may have taken different shapes. However, this aspect requires further research as does the question whether Jerusalem may be understood as an integrative force for Christian ecumenism. In addition, I have tried to demonstrate that the emergence of a Jerusalem milieu entailed the revival of biblical piety. From this perspective, too, the developments in Protestantism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries cannot simply be interpreted in terms of the secularisation model. Rather, the processes through which the Jerusalem milieu took shape prove that there were both conservative as well as innovative sides inside the Churches and the missionary societies. The conservative, Awakened spirituality was strengthened by new geo-religious impulses. The theological, cultural, political, historical but also the historicist focus of the land of the Bible opened up new perspectives, internationalised German Protestantism, inspired an appreciation of the contextual forms of the Protestant faith which was – in sum – ecumenical, and promoted a global religious culture.

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The Awakening movement – as shown in the example of the Syrian Orphange – formed a transnational network, which was able to transfer theological, educational as well as social ideas to the Middle East – and communicated also the results of the missonary transformation process back to the home-centre (here: in and around Basles). This again, must have been a driving force for the formation of Protestant sub-milieus. To sum up, the Jerusalem-milieu can be located on the meso-level of analysis. The Arab-Protestant congregrations – as the outcome of missionary acitivities – should be regarded as a religious micro-milieu. The social institutions became the hallmark of Protestantism in the Holy Land. Thus, the social dimension of mission formed the reality “on the ground”, while a-historic, geo-religious perceptions of the Holy Land marked the essential elements of the image, which inspired the Jerusalem-mentality back home in Germany.

THE STUDY OF WESTERN MISSIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST (1820–1920): AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Heleen Murre-van den Berg Nothing illuminates the puzzles of modernity as effectively as cross-cultural studies of colonial encounters.1 INTRODUCTION The study of Christian missions in the Middle East has proved a fruitful and exciting field of research: whether it is ongoing tensions between the rival faiths of Islam and Christianity, Christianity’s uneasy relationship with Judaism, the influence of modernity on so-called traditional societies, the intrigues of colonialism, or the Christian fascination with the Holy Land: for any of these and many other reasons. The last fifteen years in particular have seen a significant increase in publications, and although this may be attributed partly to the rising number of academic publications in general, it also suggests that the themes connected to this field have lost nothing of their interest to modern scholarship. In the first half of this paper, I present a brief discussion of major publications on this subject, a list of which forms the second part of this article. 2 In my discussion and list, I have included monographs and (conference) volumes dedicated to the study of the history of missions in the Middle East, focusing on the research of the last fifty years. In addition, some volumes partly devoted to this theme are included as well as a small selection of single articles that cover themes not found in other studies and provide bibliographical references otherwise absent. Editions of primary sources have not been included.3 1 2

3

From Dipesh Chakrabarty’s praise of a study of Dutch missionary encounters in Indonesia: Webb Keane, Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter, Berkeley, 2007. I thank those who contributed to the recent volumes edited by M. Tamcke and M. Marten (2006) and myself (2006), as well as the participants to the conference to which the present volume testifies. These colleagues have greatly enhanced my understanding of the developments in the field and in that way contributed to this article. Inevitably, I have overlooked some important publications and I hope the authors will accept my apologies. Sources for Roman Catholic missions have been edited in connection to the history of orders and congregations, compare, e.g, G. Golubovich, Biblioteca bio-bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell’Oriente Francescano, Quaracchi, 1906ff. On the Protestant side, one might mention K. Salibi/Y. Khoury (eds.), The Missionary Herald. Reports from Northern Iraq, 1833– 1870, Amman–Beirut, 1997.

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History as the defining methodology for the study of this period has been taken in as broad an interpretation as possible, reflecting the various backgrounds of scholars interested in this field. Methodological and thematic influences vary from the fields of anthropology, sociology, religious studies, theology, history of literature and literary criticism to geography and biblical studies. 4 The “Middle East,” with all the ambiguities that this term implies, is taken in this article as covering most of the Ottoman Empire of the mid-nineteenth century (including Egypt but not Greece and the Balkans), as well as the Persian Empire. This paper is limited to studies that concern missions between 1820 and 1920: earlier Roman Catholic missions to the region constitute an independent field that deserves separate treatment, as do the missions of the twentieth century. For this reason neither of these periods have been included. 5 Secondly, Russian Orthodox missions, of major importance in nineteenth-century Middle East, are referred to only in so far as major studies in English or French have come to my attention. In general, the focus is on American, British and German missions, with more attention to Protestant than to Roman Catholic missions. 6 One should note that only studies in English, French and German have been included, which leaves the contribution of those historians in the Middle East who write in Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish or Persian, unaccounted for.7 The overview is organized chronologically and subdivided into four, increasingly short, periods, the boundaries of which more or less coincide with certain thematic trends: 1870–1960, 1961–1985, 1986– 4

5

6

7

For a general introduction to the writing of mission history and its pre-nineteenth-century roots, see Moritz and Ustorf in Van der Heyden (1996), as well as H.G. Frohnes/H.-W. Gensichen/G. Kretschmar (eds.), Kirchengeschichte als Missionsgeschichte, München, 1974– 1978 vol. 1, ix-xc, and J. A.B. Jongeneel, Philosophy, Science, and Theology of Mission in the 19th and 20th Centuries: a Missiological Encyclopedia, Frankfurt/Main, 1995. These three publications consider mission history in its relationship to what is often called “Church” history (rather than “History of Christianity”), in addition to which Jongeneel presents a basic bibliography on general mission history in Protestant and Roman Catholic circles. On mission history in relation to Middle Eastern studies, see Sharkey, 2005. On the recent bibliography of mission studies, including limited numbers of references to Middle Eastern missions, see N.E. Thomas, International Mission Bibliography, 1960–2000, Lanham, 2003. For two major overview works on the earlier periods of Roman Catholic missions, including many further references, compare J. Richard, La papauté et les mission d’orient au moyen age (XIIIe-XVe siècles), Rome, 21998; B. Heyberger, Les chrétiens du Proche Orient au temps de la réforme catholique, Rome, 1994. The missions of the Mandate period are sometimes taken into account in studies that address the late nineteenth-century. This period fully warrants the separate treatment that seems to be rapidly developing in the last few years. Missions of the second half of the twentieth century have so far hardly attracted scholarly attention. This one-sidedness is partly due to my own background in research on nineteenth-century Protestant missions, but also to the different tracks Roman Catholic historiography took: on the one side a focus on the history of congregations and orders, on the other establishment and further development of the Roman Catholic Church abroad. In both cases, mission history as a separate field of study is less likely to develop. For an introduction to studies of missions by Arabic-writing Muslims, see Sharkey, 2005. Many of these Arabic authors see close connections between Western colonialism and Western missions, and polemically focus on the negative aspects of missions on Islamic societies.

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1995, and 1996–2006. The bibliography follows this chronological order, listing authors alphabetically per year.8 EARLY BEGINNINGS OF MISSIONARY HISTORIOGRAPHY (1870–1960) Research on Middle Eastern missions seems to have started in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The works of both Jowett (1825) and Smith & Dwight (1833) carry the catchword Missionary Researches in their titles. However, as in the eighteenth-century Lettres Edifiantes of the Jesuits, the reflection offered in these works was not so much on missions as on the subjects and circumstances of missions, thus resembling ethnography, history, and geography rather than mission studies. What could be called proper mission history started in the second half of the nineteenth century, when Rufus Anderson, mission administrator of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions 9 started to collect and retell the story of the missions of the preceding fifty years (Anderson 1872), basing himself on the reports of the missionaries in the fields. His example was followed by many others, and the overviews by Stock (1899) of the Church Missionary Society (CMS), Speer (1901) of the American Presbyterian Missions, Gidney (1908) of the London Jews Society, Röbbelen (1909) of American and German Lutheran work, and Strong (1910) of the American Board. Despite their explicit organizational and denominational agendas, these reports are useful introductions to the activities of these organizations in the Middle East. In the post-war years, studies into single missionary organizations remained popular, leading, among others, to another overview of Presbyterian mission work (Brown 1936), much of it in the Middle East, and of that of the Reformed Churches in America in Arabia (Mason 1926). Another effort at gaining insight in the larger trends of missionary activities of the nineteenth century is reflected in the genre of missionary atlases that were produced for the German-speaking world, by Catholic and Protestant authors. Although none of these atlases are devoted solely to missions in the Middle East, they are important in presenting overviews of the geographical extension of mission work, including the early work of Grundemann in 1867 and the work of all Protestant organizations together and the locations of Roman Catholic mission stations. Many Catholic atlases were also produced e.g., by Werner in 1885 and Streit in 1906. In this same period, the Catholic missions began to find their own historiographers, of which Michel (1896) provides the first overview of missions in the Middle East, taking into account the variety of orders and congregations that worked in the Middle East, a work later expanded by Lübeck (1917) and Arens (1920). Also the single orders and congregations working in the Middle East began to be described in detail, a process in which the Revue d’histoire des mis8 9

The original draft of this overview was written early 2007; a few major publications that were published since have been included. This is usually abbreviated to ABCFM or American Board

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sions from 1924 onwards played a crucial role. This journal published the important overview by Chatelet (1933–1939) of the Lazarist mission in Persia. The first decades of the twentieth century saw the emergence of the first chairs of missiology, and historical mission studies were part of the range of topics that were taken on. The German scholar Julius Richter, who occupied the chair of missiology at Berlin University, was one of the first to be truly interested in the Middle Eastern developments. His interest was born out of his expectation of the imminent downfall of Islam coupled with a genuine interest in Anglo-Saxon as well as European missions. His work resulted in two overviews, published in 1910 and 1930, in which for the first time, all Protestant endeavors in the Middle East were brought together. It was the American scholar Kenneth Scott Latourette who first attempted to present an integral picture of Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox missionary work. His seven-volume work on the expansion of Christianity, from the earliest period to the contemporary period, documents what in his opinion was the unstoppable growth and expansion of Christianity, taking into account both organized and ‘spontaneous’ forms of numerical growth. The sections devoted to the Middle East are a starting point for further research, not only because Latourette’s organisation and presentation of the various missionary projects, but because, more than those preceding him, he was able to place these missions within political and economic contexts. Both Richter and Latourette, however, were largely dependent on the published overviews produced by the missionaries themselves, which not only tend to gloss over differences and conflicts within the missions, but also have little regard for the view points of local recipients of the missions. THE EMERGENCE OF INDEPENDENT MISSIONARY HISTORIOGRAPHY (1961–1985) In the 1960s, a number of major studies on missions were published that radically differ from earlier works. Latter works were usually written by former missionaries and missionary administrators who were directly or indirectly involved in the missionary movement. Although some works continued this earlier tradition, like Schmidt-Clausen’s study in 1965 and Hanselmann’s in 1971, which detailed German and British activities in the Holy Land, many works of this period took a different approach. Scholars with rather different backgrounds began to join the ranks of the student missionaries, and it is in this period that close connections existed between missions and the colonial venture. The groundbreaking studies of Tibawi on British (1961) and American (1966) mission work in Palestine and Syria are the most well known and widely used examples of this trend. Tibawi was the first to make extensive use of not only missionary archival sources but also of those of a political nature. The latter included those of the British Foreign Office and the relevant parts of Ottoman archives. In the same period, he emerged as a strong critic of English Orientalism, especially

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in its representations of Islam. 10 His work on the missionary enterprises in Syria and Palestine, however is still very much part of traditional historical scholarship, with its strong emphasis on methodological objectivity and institutional interests. Another author who made use of similar archival materials is Joseph, whose work described the variety of mission work among the Assyrian community in Northwestern Iran (1961, 2000) and pays much attention to the larger political context. Joseph’s second book (1983), on the Syrian Orthodox communities (the Jacobites) of Turkey and Syria, again focused on the political aspects of the religious encounter. Similar themes appear in Stavrou’s (1963) and Hopwood’s (1969) monographs on Russian interests in Syria and Palestine and, slightly later, Hajjar’s work on European, especially French involvement in the Middle East (1970, 1979). Towards the end of this period, Carmel (1981) and Sinno (1982) published on the German religious activities in Palestine. In many of these volumes, the educational work of the missionaries is analysed in much detail, not only because the sources usually provide ample information on schools and students, but also because the educational efforts of the missionaries implicitly or explicitly are seen as important venues for cultural and political influence. In this period, Israeli historians like Carmel began to recognize the importance of Christian missionary efforts for understanding the fundamental changes that occurred in nineteenth-century Palestine. The study of the American missions in the Middle East perhaps shows the greatest variety in perspectives. Kawerau (1958) focuses on the religious encounter between the missionaries and Eastern Christians through education and printing programs, themes taken up later by Lindsay (1965), Khoury (1966), Hanna (1979), Stone (1984) and Coakley (1985). Finnie (1967) and Grabill (1971), perhaps, saw the importance of earlier American missions by trying to understand the American cultural and religious awareness of the Middle East perhaps stimulated by similar developments in their own times. In addition, the 1960s and 1970s saw a growing interest in the American Board as a missionary organization, and many studies pay some attention to the specific issues of the Middle East, such as those done by Phillips (1969) and Perry (1974). Progress in research was made with the study of missions as part of the emerging or transforming Middle Eastern Churches (Lyko 1964, Chopourian 1972, Waterfield 1973), an approach that, in the early part of the 20th century, had been pioneered by Arpee (1909). Less attention was paid to the study of missions directed at Muslims, the only known scholarly undertaking was that by Vander Werff (1977). This work, while pioneering, cannot be taken as an entirely scholastic work since it was written with a personal missionary bias.

10 A.L. Tibawi, “English-speaking Orientalists,” Islamic Quarterly 8, 1–4, 1964, 25–45, 73–88.

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NEW DEBATES (1986–1995) In the 1980s and early 1990s, a number of thematic approaches were introduced that until today have dominated the debates on Christian missions in the Middle East. To some extent, these were influenced by scholarly discussions that followed the publication of Said’s Orientalism in 1979, but somewhat surprisingly the impact of post-colonial studies was slow to emerge. Two important themes that emerged in these years were, first, a growing interest in the missionary contribution to the history of Palestine/Israel, and, second, that of the wider religious pre-occupations of Germans, British and Americans with the Holy Land that motivated mission work as well as travel (whether seen as pilgrimage or as tourism) and colonial interests. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Israeli scholars Yehoshua Ben-Arieh and Alex Carmel laid the foundation for a series of publications by Israeli and German scholars that used missionary sources, archives as well as physical remains such as buildings, to study the history of nineteenth-century Palestine. Other important publications were Ben-Arieh (1986), the volume edited by Kark (1989), and the study into the Jerusalems-Verein by Foerster (1991). These historians thereby also explicitly intended to correct traditionalist Jewish historiography that narrowly focused on Jewish settlements in this early period. A similar venture was initiated in the field of American-Holy Land studies by Moshe Davis, with his series With Eyes toward Zion, of which the first volume was published in 1977. Further volumes were edited together with Ben-Arieh (II: 1986, III: 1991, IV: 1995) and many of these include articles relevant for mission studies. The theme of American geopiety was further developed by Vogel (1993) and Greenberg (1994). Another important theme is that of the religious encounter between the missionaries and the Middle Eastern populations. A few important works on this are the unpublished Ph.D.-thesis of Badr (1992) on the American missions in Beirut, Coakley’s monograph (1992) on the Anglican mission among the Assyrians, and numerous articles by Tamcke (among others: 1993, 1994, 1995) on the Lutheran missions in Persia and the Caucasus. All of these pay detailed attention to the discussions that arose from the encounter between various types of Protestant missionaries with local orthodox Christians. From a local perspective there is Raheb’s (1990) description of the emergence of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Jordan, whereas Cracknell’s study (1995) discusses the contributions of missionaries to the Western debates on inter-religious dialogue. This decade also saw the emergence of themes that would grow to fruition within the next decade. The first of these is the study of the tension between conversionist and civil aspects of the missions, especially those of the American Board. The general outlines of the debate were set by Hutchison (1987), whereas Merguerian (1990, 1992) applied the theme to the Armenian missions in Anatolia. The beginnings of gender-based analyses of mission history can also be traced to this decade, one of the earliest being Hill (1985) on American missionary women, whereas the theme of women and missions was put on the agenda by the

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volume edited by Bowie, Kirkwood and Ardener (1993). None of the contributions to that volume cover missions in the Middle East, but Merguerian (1990) testifies that the subject had been taken up in the study of Middle-Eastern missions. Melman’s work (1992) focused on British women in the Middle East and explicitly connected a gendered analysis with the Orientalism-debate. THE YEARS 1996–2006 The last decade has again seen a significant rise in numbers of publications, because of an increasing number of collective volumes devoted to themes connected to missions in the Middle East. This increase perhaps can be attributed to a new awareness of the importance of Middle-Eastern and Christian-Muslim affairs after September 11th 2001, but also coincides with mounting numbers of academic publications in general. Most of these recent volumes were borne out of academic conferences, of which at least ten were focused almost completely on aspects of the missions in the Middle East.11 These conference volumes suggest the subject has grown into a mature field and the number of interactions between the scholars in the field has greatly increased. More importantly, they show that researchers from different scholarly traditions increasingly make use of each other’s work and insights. Now, more than in previous periods, American, European and Middle Eastern traditions of scholarship are combined, as are Protestant and Roman-Catholic traditions – the nineteenth-century confessional and East-West distinctions having been matched for too long by separate twentieth-century scholarly traditions. Despite the wide variety in topics that are discussed, the editors of these volumes and the authors of the articles share the conviction that the nineteenthand early twentieth-century missionary activities are important topics of study for many reasons. According to these scholars, its relevance far transcends the objectives of the older mission studies that found its readers mostly among those with interest in Christian missions.12 The first of these reasons is that present-day discussions on the issue of modernity in the Middle East cannot ignore the missionary contribution. To what extent missions, and especially missionary educators, contributed to the introduction and translation of Middle Eastern modernity is a theme found in many publications from the last ten years. A strong example of this is the discussions about the missionary contribution to the changes in gender relations, one of the most exciting fields of the last years that also contributed significantly to gender studies in the Middle East in general. Important publications are those of Porterfield (1997), Abu-Lughod (1998), the collective issue of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 11 Ben-Arieh 1997, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 1998, Coakley 1998, Aaronsohn 2001, Nothnagle 2001, Doumato 2002, Feldtkeller 2003, Trimbur 2004, Tamcke 2006, Murre-van den Berg 2006 12 On research in this period, compare also the overview in Sharkey, 2005, 53ff.; she reaches si milar conclusions, especially in connection to the themes of modernity and imperial entanglements of missions.

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(1998), Felgentreff on the Kaiserswerth deaconesses (1998), Doumato’s work on women’s religion in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf (2000), and Stockdale’s on the missionary encounter in Palestine (2007). Other important works include the collective issue of Islam and Christian-Muslims Relations (Doumato 2002), Okkenhaug on the contribution of Anglican missionary women on education in Palestine (2002), and a number of articles on wide variety of topics concerning Anglican, Roman-Catholic, and German and American Protestant mission work for and by women (Francis-Dehqani in Ward 2000, Langlois in Aaronsohn 2001, Eisler and Felgentreff in Nothnagle 2001, Murre-van den Berg 2005, Fleischmann in Murrevan den Berg 2006, and Jansen and Stockdale in Tamcke 2006). In many of these gender-oriented studies, discussions of the social, medical and educational institutions occupy a key role. Work on these subjects has been considerably refined since the early works of Tibawi, in a range of articles by Neubert-Preine (Nothnagle 2001, Goren 2003), Löffler (Trimbur 2004, Murre-van den Berg 2006), Bourmaud, Kaminsky and Merguerian (Murre-van den Berg 2006), and Kark (Tamcke 2006), as well as in recent monographs such as those by Verdeil (2006, cf. also Verdeil 2001) on the Jesuit missions in Syria, and by Marten (2006) on the Scottish Presbyterian missions in Palestine. The study of missionary initiatives in the field of printing and publishing has also developed with works by Fiey (1993), Coakley (1998), and Murre-van den Berg (1999). Notably, the discussion of these themes is no longer a one-way description of the introduction of evangelical modernity, and takes into account complex relationships between missionaries, governments and local agents in the appropriation and transformation of aspects of the missionary message of modernity (Makdisi 1997 and 2008). Secondly, recent scholarship agrees that it is crucial to take the missionary presence into account when analyzing the political developments in the nineteenth-century Middle East. Many recent publications therefore pay attention to political entanglement of the missions, like the monographs by Lückhoff (1998, cf. also Ben-Arieh 1997) on the Anglo-Prussian bishopric in Jerusalem and by Buffon (2005) on the Franciscans in the Holy Land, with their international connections and longstanding presence in the Middle East. Kieser’s (2000, 2002) and Doumato’s (2002) work on the interplay of international politics, missionary modernity, rising nationalism and ethnic tensions and genocide in the Ottoman Empire (on this subject see also early works by Feigel 1989 and Abu Ghazaleh 1990, as well as Joseph 1961/2000, and Makdisi 2008), ties in with recent developments in the field of Ottoman studies, especially those on the Christian minorities. 13 Many articles have been published on related topics; compare the contributions in the volume edited by Aaronsohn and Trimbur (2001) on Europe (especially France) and Palestine, the Festschrift for Alex Carmel (Perry 2001), Goren’s volume (2003) on German relations with the Middle East, Carmel and Eisler’s documentation of Wilhelm II’s trip to Palestine (1999). Trimbur’s later volume (2004) fo13 See the work by U. Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon, Berkeley–London–Los Angeles, 2000 and B. Masters, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab world. The Roots of Sectarianism, Cambridge, 2001.

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cuses on Europeans in the Levant between politics, science and religion and Teule’s special issue of The Journal of Eastern Christian Studies focuses on migration of Eastern Christians (2002). In all these publications, the analysis has surpassed simple colonial or post-colonial schemes: researchers stress the intricate relationships between colonial powers, missionaries, local elites and imperial elites in Istanbul. Whether or not the missions were an essential part of the nineteenth-century Western advance (this differs from country to country and mission to mission), understanding the missionary contribution is important to understanding the imperial dynamics. Rivalry between missionary organizations, within Roman Catholic or Protestant circles, as well as between Roman Catholic and Protestant missions, was often connected to political and national interests, as much as to the targeting of the same possible converts and the same possible donors. So far, no monograph has been published on this, but this somewhat sensitive topic in an age of ecumenical efforts surfaces in a number of articles, such as those by Neubert-Preine and Stransky (Aaronsohn 2001), Buffon (Murre-van den Berg 2006), and Marten, Murre-van den Berg, Neubert-Preine, Van der Leest and Verdeil (Tamcke 2006). A third aspect of the missionary endeavor that has wider ramifications is that of the underlying religious concepts that motivated the missionaries. Although the theme appears to be slightly less present now than in the earlier period, scholars have put forward many new interesting and challenging analyses of the prevailing forms of geopiety. These are of interest not only because they work to understand missionary thought and practice, but also because these ideas are similar (albeit more pronounced and explicated) to those of colonial advocates and administrators. Davis’ 1996 work focuses primarily on art, and while it is not explicitly concerned with missionaries, it is the only book-length study in this decade that describes the American landscape of belief. The last volume of the series With Eyes toward Zion (Ben-Arieh 1997) includes many interesting topics, varying from the Holy Land in popular Brazilian Culture (Igel) to a study of the differences between French and British photography (Nir). The Jerusalemssehnsucht of Protestant German missionaries and settlers is given ample attention in the volume by Nothnagle, Abromeit and Foerster (2001, see especially the articles by Foerster on F.A. Straus), as well as in the one edited by Feldtkeller and Nothnagle (2003). The Bilddokumention initiated by Eisler (2003) richly illustrates many aspects of the German missions in the Holy Land. Very often, geopiety, especially when concerning pilgrimage, is not far from political ramifications and the articles by Haider-Wilson on the Austrian involvement in the Middle East (Trimbur 2004), Goren on German Catholic activities (Ben-Arieh 1997), as well as those by Astafieva (Trimbur 2004) and Kane (Tamcke 2006) on the Russian interplay between pilgrimage, mission and politics make this abundantly clear. Roman Catholic geopiety in its historical context, focusing on the situation in Syria, is further described by Heyberger and Verdeil (Murre-van den Berg 2006). Whether motivated by millennialist expectations (Ariel and Kark 1996, Geldbach and Kochav in Ben-Arieh 1997, Perry 2003), by forms of biblical literalism that attached special significance to the geography and history of the Holy Land

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and the wider Middle East (Murre-van den Berg 2006), or by traditions of devotion of the holy places (Heyberger and Verdeil, and Buffon in Murre-van den Berg 2006), the religious plus of the Holy Land over and above other mission fields (Merguerian in Murre-van den Berg 2006) formed an essential part of the motivation of the missionaries in the Middle East. This becomes even more important when one realizes that this missionary spirituality not only influenced their own practices, but also informed and transformed those of many others (Marten 2006), in the Middle East as well as at home. Perhaps this drive towards themes relevant to the larger academic world has also caused some of the more traditional missiological themes to be somewhat neglected. Scholarly studies focusing on the conversionist aspects of missions to the people of the Middle East are scarce and consist of a few articles here and there, especially in connection to missions among Muslims; see Tamcke (1996, 1998), various articles in the volume edited by Doumato (2002), and by Sharkey (2005) and Ryad (Murre-van den Berg 2006) on the reactions of Muslims to these missions. The wider field of inter-religious dialogue connects with the historical studies of missions in the works of Cragg on CMS missions among Muslims (Ward 2000), O’Mahony on Muslim-Christian relations (O’Mahony 2004), and by George (Tamcke 2006) on William Temple Gairdner. A missionary perspective is rarely brought into the study of the formation of new Protestant and Uniate churches, but articles by Löffler and Raheb (Feldtkeller 2003), Badr and O’Mahony (Murre-van den Berg 2006) and Jansen (Tamcke 2006) indicate that it is a fruitful area for further research. CONCLUSIONS In little over a hundred years of scholarship, the study of missions in the Middle East has expanded and developed more fully. In the early days, the study of missions was intimately connected with the development of a number of related fields: ethnology, linguistics, biblical scholarship, archeology and history of the Middle East. In the first half of the twentieth century, the focus was increasingly more on missions proper, and scholars appear to have written for an internal Christian and missionary-oriented readership. In the second half of the twentieth century, this began to change, primarily because those working in historical and literary fields, and later in the fields of anthropology and sociology, began to discover the rich possibilities of missionary sources, at a time when theologians and historians of Christianity shunned the subject. Today, scholars from a variety of scholarly traditions, from within and outside the missionary traditions, increasingly work together in a quest to understand the intricacies of the colonial encounter that took place in the Middle East and in which missionaries played a crucial role. The study of the missionary encounter in the Middle East has long been characterized by the triangle formed by the three interconnected themes of modernity, colonial politics and geopiety, be it by other names in other times. From the earli-

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est publications, starting with Anderson (1872), mission was described as a modernizing project, even if various authors, including Anderson himself, were wary of many aspects of missionary modernization. So too, the political ramifications of missions in the non-Western world were described early on, usually (but not always), with more enthusiasm than by today’s scholars. The special position of the Holy Land was an obvious factor in these missions, supplying extra funds and extra attention from the home audiences, and needs not be repeated: those writing the missions in the Middle East have always been very much aware of it. As suggested elsewhere (Gilley 2005), these three themes can be considered the defining characteristics of missions in the Middle East. Not surprisingly, these surface time and again in scholarly studies. However, as indicated above, there are also some themes that precisely because of the special characteristics of Middle Eastern missions, were popular in the early days but have recently disappeared largely out of sight. This is especially true for one theme that was important in the early phases of the writing of the history of missions: the reactions of the local populations to the message of religious change, reactions that varied from conversions and the formation of new communities to active opposition. It is likely the small numbers of converts led scholars to neglect this subject, thereby overlooking the possibility to find more less tangible influences than schools and hospitals. In this respect the study of the missions in the Middle East differs considerably from that on missions in other parts of the world where the emergence of new local Christian communities is one of the major visible results of the missionary impact and has elicited corresponding research efforts. Most of the volumes that were published in the last ten years implicitly or explicitly have had comparative aims. The editors have juxtaposed contributions on missions in most regions of the Middle East by a variety of Roman Catholic, Protestant and, to a limited amount, Russian Orthodox groups, and cover a period that varies from the early or mid-nineteenth century into the Mandate period. Insightful as many of these articles and volumes are (and very much part and parcel of present-day scholarly mores), they also show the limits of this type of scholarly work. On the one hand, it seems impossible to organize genuine comparative studies in this way: the collective efforts in conference volumes contribute to a certain level of comparability and cross-reference in the field, but they have not been able to reach a sufficiently high level of integration of the various topics on the table, especially not when the goal is to include Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox missions.14 The considerable numbers of scholars in the field and their increasing contacts gives hope that such integrative and comparative studies may not be long from appearing as a result of collective or single-handed efforts. On the other hand, the series of collective volumes also makes one appreciate the few studies that were published by individual authors (often in connection to Ph.D. research) on a single, coherent topic. These studies have visibly benefited from the larger 14 Recent overviews in the larger works by Hock, 2005 and Moffett, 2005, although useful as introductions, lack sufficient insight in the pertinent issues that have dominated research on missions in the Middle East in order to be counted as integrative studies on this subject.

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context supplied by the collective volumes and in this they differ fundamentally from the earlier denominational histories. Far from being an outdated form of research, such in-depth studies of a particular mission in its particular context over a longer period of time, contributes essential elements to further understanding of the larger field. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RESEARCH ON MIDDLE EASTERN MISSIONS 1825: W. Jowett, Christian researches in Syria and the Holy Land in 1823 and 1824, in furtherance of the objects of the Church Missionary Society, with an appendix containing the journal of Mr. Joseph Greaves, on a visit to the Regency of Tunis, London. 1833: E. Smith, Researches of the Rev. Eli Smith and the Rev. H.G.O. Dwight in Armenia (Including a Journey Through Asia Minor, and into Georgia and Persia with a Visit to the Nestorian and Chaldean Christians of Oormiah and Salmas), 2 vols., Boston. 1867: R. Grundemann, Allgemeiner Missions-Atlas; including II Abteilung: Missionen in Asien (1869), Gotha 1872: R. Anderson, History of the Missions of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign-Missions to the Oriental Churches, 2 vols., Boston. 1885: O. Werner, Katholischer Missions-Atlas, Freiburg. 1899: E. Stock, The History of the Church Missionary Society. Its Environment, its Men and its Work, 3 vols., London. 1896: P. Michel, “Les missions latines en Orient”, Revue de l’Orient chrétien 1/1, 1/2 (88–123, 91–136, 379–395, 94–119, 176–218). 1901: R.E. Speer, Presbyterian Foreign Missions: An Account of the Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., Philadelphia, 1901/1902. 1906: K. Streit, Katholischer Missionsatlas, enthaltend die gesamten Missionsgebiete des Erdkreises, Steyl. 1908: W.T. Gidney, The history of the London Society for promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, from 1809 to 1908, London. 1909: L. Arpee, The Armenian Awakening: A History of the Armenian Church, 1820–1860, Chicago/ London. 1909: K. Röbbelen, Die von den deutschen und amerikanischen Lutheranern betriebene Evangelisationsarbeit in Persien, Leipzig. 1910: J. Richter, A History of Protestant Missions in the Near East, New York; reprint New York 1970. 1910: W.E. Strong, The Story of the American Board: An Account of the First Hundred Years of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Boston. 1917: K. Lübeck, Die katholische Orientmission in ihrer Entwicklung dargestellt, Köln. 1920: B. Arens, Handbuch der katholischen Missionen, Freiburg im Breisgau (2nd ed. 1925). 1926: B. Mason/F.J.A. de Witt (eds.), History of the Arabian Mission, New York. 1930: J. Richter, Mission und Evangelisation im Orient, Gütersloh (2nd ed.). 1933: A. Chatelet, “La Mission Lazariste en Perse”, Revue d’histoire des missions 10–16 (1933–1939). 1936: A.J. Brown, One Hundred Years: A History of the Foreign Missionary Work of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., New York. 1944: K.S. Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity: The Great Century A.D. 1800– A. D. 1914 in Northern Africa and Asia (vol. 6) and Advance Through Storm (vol. 7, 1945), London.

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1958: P. Kawerau, Amerika und die orientalischen Kirchen. Ursprung und Anfang der amerikanischen Mission unter den Nationalkirchen Westasiens, Berlin. 1961: J. Joseph, The Nestorians and their Muslim Neighbors: A Study of Western Influence on their Relations, Princeton – see also Joseph 2000. 1961: A.L. Tibawi, British Interests in Palestine (1800–1901), London. 1963: T.G. Stavrou, Russian Interests in Palestine (1882–1914). A Study of Religious and Educational Enterprise, Thessaloniki. 1964: D. Lyko, Gründung, Wachstum und Leben der evangelischen christlichen Kirchen in Iran, Leiden. 1965: R.H. Lindsay, Nineteenth Century American Schools in the Levant: A Study of Purposes, Ann Arbor. 1965: K. Schmidt-Clausen, Vorweggenommene Einheit. Die Gründung des Bistums Jerusalem im Jahre 1841, Berlin. 1966: R.G. Khoury, Bibliographie raisonnée des traductions publiées au Liban à partir des langues étrangères de 1840 jusqu’aux environs de 1905, Thèse Paris. 1966: A.L. Tibawi, American Interests in Syria (1800–1901). A Study of Educational, Literary and Religious Work, Oxford. 1967: D.H. Finnie, Pioneers East, The Early American Experience in the Middle East, Cambridge, MA. 1969: D. Hopwood, The Russian presence in Syria and Palestine 1843–1914: Church and Politics in the near East, London. 1969: C.J. Phillips, Protestant America and the Pagan World: The First Half Century of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1810–1860), Cambridge, MA. 1970: J.N. Hajjar, L’Europe et les destinées du Proche-Orient (1815–1848), Paris. 1971: J.L. Grabill, Protestant Diplomacy and the Near East: Missionary Influence on American Policy, 1810–1927, Minneapolis. 1971: S. Hanselmann, Deutsche Evangelische Palästinamission. Handbuch ihrer Motive: Geschichte und Ergebnisse, Erlangen. 1972: G.H. Chopourian, The Armenian Evangelical Reformation: Causes and Effects, New York. 1973: R.E. Waterfield, Christians in Persia, London. 1974: A.F. Perry, “The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the London Missionary Society in the Nineteenth Century: A Study of Ideas”, Ph.D. Washington. 1977: M. Davis, With Eyes Toward Zion: Scholars Colloquium on America-Holy Land Studies, New York. 1977: L.L. Vander Werff, Christian Mission to Muslims: The Record, South Pasadena, CA. 1978: E. Said, Edward, Orientalism, New York. 1979: Y. Ben-Arieh, Yehoshua, The Rediscovery of the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century, Jerusalem. 1979: F.M. Hanna, An American Mission: the Role of the American University of Beirut, Boston. 1979: J.N. Hajjar, Le Vatican – la France et le catholicisme oriental, (1878–1914): diplomatie et histoire de l’eglise, Paris. 1981: A. Carmel, Christen als Pioniere im Heiligen Land. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Pilgermission und des Wiederaufbaus Palästinas im 19. Jahrhundert, Basel. 1982: A.-R. Sinno, Deutsche Interessen in Syrien und Palästina 1841–1898. Aktivitäten religiöser Institutionen, wirtschaftliche und politische Einflüsse, Berlin. 1983: J. Joseph, Muslim-Christian Relations and Inter-Christian Rivalries in the Middle-East: the Case of the Jacobites in an Age of Transition, Albany. 1984: F.A. Stone, Academies for Anatolia: A Study of the Rationale, Program and Impact of the Educational Institutions Sponsored by the American Board in Turkey: 1830–1980, Lanham. 1985: J.F. Coakley, “The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Assyrian Mission Press: a Bibliography”, Journal of Semitic Studies 30, 35–73.

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1985: P. Hill, The World Their Household: The American Women’s Foreign Mission Movement and Cultural Transformation: 1870–1920, Ann Arbor. 1986: Y. Ben-Arieh, Jerusalem in the 19th Century. Emergence of the New City, JerusalemNew York. 1986: M. Davis, Y. Ben-Arieh (eds), With Eyes toward Zion II, Westport, CT–London. 1986: K. Hammer, “Die christliche Jerusalemssehnsucht im 19. Jahrhundert. Der geistige und geschichtliche Hintergrund der Gründung Johann Ludwig Schnellers”, Theologische Zeitschrift 42, 255–266. 1987: W.R. Hutchison, Errand to the World: American Protestant Thought and Foreign Missions, Chicago. 1989: U. Feigel, Das evangelische Deutschland und Armenien. Die Armenierhilfe deutscher evangelischer Christen seit dem Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts im Kontext der deutsch-türkischen Beziehungen, Göttingen. 1989: R. Kark (ed.), The Land that became Israel, Jerusalem/New Haven; including: Shapir, S., “The Anglican missionary societies in Jerusalem: activities and impact”, 105–119. 1990: A. Abu Ghazaleh, American Missions in Syria: A Study of American Missionary Contribution to Nationalism in the Nineteenth Century Syria, Brattleboro. 1990: B. J. Merguerian, “The Beginnings of Secondary Education for Armenian Women: The Armenian Female Seminary in Constantinople”, Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 5, 103–124. 1990: M. Raheb, Das reformatorische Erbe unter den Palästinensern. Zur Entstehung der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche in Jordanien, Gütersloh. 1991: M. Davis/Y. Ben-Arieh (eds.), With Eyes toward Zion III, Westport, CT-London. 1991: F. Foerster, Mission im Heiligen Land. Der Jerusalems-Verein zu Berlin 1852–1945, Gütersloh. 1992: H. Badr, Mission to ‘Nominal Christians:’ The Policy and Practice of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and its Missionaries concerning Eastern Churches which led to the Organization of a Protestant Church in Beirut, 1819–1848, Ph.D. Princeton. 1992: J.F. Coakley, The Church of the East and the Church of England. A History of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Assyrian Mission, Oxford 1992: B. Melman, Women’s Orients. English Women and the Middle East, 1718–1918. Sexuality, Religion and Work, Ann Arbor, 2nd ed. 1995. 1992: B.J. Merguerian, “Saving Souls or Cultivating Minds? Missionary Crosby H. Wheeler in Kharpert, Turkey”, Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 6. 1993: F. Bowie/D. Kirkwood/S. Ardener (eds.), Women and Missions: Past and Present. Antropological and Historical Perceptions, Providence-Oxford. 1993: J.-M. Fiey, “L’Imprimerie des Dominicains de Mossoul 1860–1914”, Aram Periodical 5, 163–74. 1993: M. Tamcke, “Die Konfessionsfrage bei den lutherischen Nestorianern”. A Festschrift for Dr. Sebastian P. Brock, Aram 5, 521–536. 1993: L.I. Vogel, To see a Promised Land. Americans and the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century, Pennsylvania. 1994: G. Greenberg, The Holy Land in American Religious Thought, 1620–1948. The Symbiosis of American Religious Approaches to Scripture’s Sacred Territory, Lanham. 1994: M. Tamcke, “Pera Johannes”, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 247, 361–369. 1995: K. Cracknell, Justice, courtesy and love. Theologians and missionaries encountering world religions, 1846–1914, London. 1995: M. Davis/Y. Ben-Arieh (eds), With Eyes toward Zion IV, Westport, CT-London. 1995: M. Tamcke, “‘Eingeborener Helfer’ oder Missionar? Wege und Nöte des Lazarus Jaure im Dienst der Mission”, Studien zur Orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 1, Münster, 355–385.

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1996: Y.Ariel and R. Kark, “Messianism, Holiness, Charisma, and Community: The AmericanSwedish Colony in Jerusalem, 1881–1933”, Church History 65, 641–657. 1996: U. Van der Heyden/H. Liebau (eds), Missionsgeschichte, Kirchengeschichte, Weltgeschichte. Christliche Misisonen im Kontext nationaler Entwicklungen in Afrika, Asien und Ozeanien, Stuttgart; including A. Carmel, “Der Deutsch-Evangelische Beitrag zum Wiederaufbau Palästinas in 19. Jahrhundert”, 249–257; F. Foerster, “Frühe Missionsbriefe und Reiseberichte als Quellen der deutschen Palästina-Mission”, 89–104; N.P. Moritzen, “Warum und wie schreibt man heute Missionsgeschichte?”, 463–469; W. Ustorf., “Dornröschen, oder die Missionsgeschichte wird neu entdeckt”, 19–37. 1996: J. Davis, The Landscape of Belief. Encountering the Holy Land in Nineteenth-century American Art and Culture, Princeton. 1996: M. Tamcke, “Urmia und Hermannsburg, Luther Pera im Dienst der Hermannsburger Mission in Urmia 1910–1915”, Oriens Christianus 80, 43–65. 1997: Y. Ben-Arieh/M. Davis (eds), Jerusalem in the Mind of the Western World, 1800–1948 [With Eyes toward Zion, V], Westport, CT–London; including: Y. Ariel, “American Dispensationalists and Jerusalem, 1870–1918”, 123–134; Y. Ben-Arieh, “Jerusalem Travel Literature as Historical Source and Cultural Phenomenon”, 25–46; F. Foerster, “German Missions in the Holy Land”, 183–194; E. Geldbach, “Jerusalem and the Mind-Set of John Nelson Darby and his Fundamentalist Followers”, 109–122; H. Goren, “‘The German Catholic’ ‘Holy Sepulchre Society’: Activities in Palestine”, 155–172; R. Igel, “The Holy Land in Popular Brazilian Culture”, 75–88; D. Klatzker, “Sacred Journeys: Jerusalem in the Eyes of American Travelers before 1948”, 47–58; S. Kochav “‘Beginning at Jerusalem’: The Mission to the Jews and English Evangelical Eschatology”, 91–107; M. Lückhoff “Prussia and Jerusalem: Political and Religious Controversies Surrounding the Foundation of the Jerusalem Bishopric”, 173–182; Y. Nir, “Cultural Predispositions of the Holy Land”, 197–206; T. Stransky, “Origins of Western Christian Mission in Jerusalem and the Holy Land”, 137–154; R.J.Zwi Werblowsky, “The Meaning of Jerusalem to Jews, Christians, and Muslims”, 7–21. 1997: U. Makdisi, “Reclaiming the Land of the Bible: Missionaries, Secularism, and Evangelical Modernity”, American Historical Review 102, 680–713. 1997: A. Porterfield, Mary Lyon and the Mount Holyoke Missionaries, New York–Oxford. 1998: L. Abu-Lughod (ed.), Remaking Women. Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, Princeton; including A. Janjmabadi, “Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran”, 91–125; O. Shakry “Schooled Mothers and Structured Play: Child Rearing in Turn-of-the-Century Egypt”, 125–170. 1998: Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 9/3, including: F.H. Al-Sayegh, “American Women Missionaries in the Gulf: Agents for Cultural Change”, 339–56; E.A. Doumato, “Receiving the Promised Blessing: Missionary Reflections on ‘Ishmael’s (mostly Female) Descendants”, 325–37; E.L. Fleischmann, “‘Our Moslem Sisters’: Women of Greater Syria in the eyes of American Protestant Missionary Women”, 307–323. 1998: J.F. Coakley, (ed.), Printing in the Mission Field, Harvard Library Bulletin, 9,1; including: J.F. Coakley, “Printing Offices of the American Board of Commissioners for ForeignMissions, 1817–1900: A Synopsis”, 5–34; B.J. Merguerian, “The ABCFM Press and the Development of the Western Armenian Language”, 35–49; G. Roper “The Beginnings of Arabic Printing by the ABCFM, 1822-1841”, 50–68. 1998: R. Felgentreff, Das Diakoniewerk Kaiserswerth 1936–1998. Von der Diakonissenanstalt zum Diakoniewerk – ein Überblick, Kaiserswerth. 1998: M Lückhoff, Anglikaner und Protestanten im Heiligen Land. Das gemeinsame Bistum Jerusalem (1841–1886), Wiesbaden. 1998: K.-H.Ronecker, J. Nieper, T. Neubert-Preine (eds.), Dem Erlöser der Welt zur Ehre. Festschrift zum hunderjährigen Jubiläum der Einweihung der evangelischen Erlöserkirche in Jerusalem, Leipzig.

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1998: M. Tamcke, “Idee und Praxis der Islammission bei den ‘lutherischen Nestorianern’”, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 256, 315–322. 1999: A. Carmel/E.J. Eisler (eds.), Der Kaiser reist in Heilige Land. Die Palästinareise Wilhelms II. 1898. Eine illustrierte Dokumentation, Haifa–Stuttgart. 1999: H.L. Murre-van den Berg, From a Spoken to a Written Language. The Introduction and Development of Literary Urmia Aramaic in the Nineteenth Century, Leiden. 2000: E.A. Doumato, Getting God’s Ear. Women, Islam, and Healing in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, New York. 2000: E.J. Eisler, “Gewalt gegen die protestantische Mission in Nablus und die nachfolgende Versöhnung (1854–1901)”, in: U. Van der Heyden/J. Becher (eds), Mission und Gewalt: Der Umgang christlicher Missionen mit Gewalt und die Ausbreitung des Christentums in Afrika und Asien in der Zeit von 1792 bis 1918/19, Stuttgart. 2000: J. Joseph, The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: Encounters with Western Christian Missions, Archeologists, and Colonial Powers, Leiden – revised edition of Joseph 1961. 2000: H.L. Kieser, Der verpasste Friede. Mission, Ethnie und Staat in den Ostprovinzen der Türkei 1839–1938, Zürich. 2000: K. Ward/B. Stanley (eds.), The Church Mission Society, Grand Rapids–Cambridge; inclu ding: K. Cragg, “Being Made Disciples – The Middle East”, 120–143; G. Francis-Dehqani, “CMS Women Missionaries in Persia: Perceptions of Muslim Women and Islam, 1884– 1934”, 91–119. 2001: R. Aaronsohn, D. Trimbur (eds.), De Bonaparte à Balfour. La France, l’Europe occidentale et la Palestine, 1799–1917, Paris; partly devoted to missions: C. Langlois, “Les congrégations françaises en Terre sainte au XIXe siècle”, D. Trimbur “Religion et politique en Palestine: le cas de la France à Abou Gosh”, C. Nicault, “Foi et politique: les pèlerinages français en Terre sainte”, H. Goren, “Du ‘conflit des drapeaux’ à la ‘contestation des hospices’: l’Allemagne et la France, catholiques en Palestine à la fin du XIXe siècle ”; T. Stransky, “La concurrence des missions chrétiennes en Terre sainte (1840–1850)”; T. NeubertPreine, “La querelle du Muristan et la fondation de l’église du Rédempteur à Jérusalem”; Shilony, “Un mécène catholique: le comte de Piellat et les communautés françaises de Terre sainte”. 2001: A. Nothnagle, H.-J. Abromeit, F. Foerster (eds.), Seht, wir gehen hinauf nach Jerusalem. Festschrift zum 150jährigen Jubiläum von Talitha Kumi und des Jerusalemsvereins, Leipzig; including J.E. Eisler, “Charlotte Pilz und die Anfänge Kaiserswerther Orientarbeit”, 78–95; R. Felgentreff, “Bertha Harz, Nalja Moussa Sayeg: Zwei Diakonissen – eine Aufgabe, ein Dienst”, 96–121; F. Foerster, “Sinai und Golgatha – Die Heiliglandreise als religiöses Erlebnis und die Gründung des Jerusalemsvereins durch Friedrich Adolph Strauß”; Idem, “Ein Verein für Jerusalem – Der Jerusalemsverein in seinen ersten hundert Jahren”; T. Neubert-Preine, “Diakonie für das Heilige Land – Die Gründung der Kaiserswerther Orientarbeit durch Theodor Fliedner”. 2001: Y. Perry, E. Petry (eds.), Das Erwachen Palastinas im 19. Jahrhundert: Alex Carmel zum 70. Geburtstag, Stuttgart-Berlin-Köln; including E.J. Eisler, “‘Kirchler’ im Heiligen Land – die evangelischen Gemeinden in den wurttembergischen Siedlungen Palastinas (1886– 1914)”, 77–90; Y. Perry, “Die englisch-preussische Zusammenarbeit im Heiligen Land”, 31– 45. 2001: C. Verdeil, “Travailler à la renaissance de l’orient chrétien. Les missions latines en Syrie(1830–1945)”, Proche-Orient Chretien 51, 267–316. 2002: E.A. Doumato, “Missionary Transformations: Gender, Culture and Identity in the Middle East”, Introduction (373–376) to special volume of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations (13,4); including M. Booth, “‘She Herself was the Ultimate Rule’: Arabic Biographies of Missionary Teachers and their Pupils”, 427–448; E.A. Doumato, “An ‘Extra Legible Illus tration’ of the Christian Faith: Medicine, Medical Ethics and Missionaries in the Arabian Gulf”, 377–390; E.L. Fleischmann, “The Impact of American Protestant Missions in Leba-

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2002: 2002: 2002:

2003:

2003:

2003:

2003: 2004:

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non on the Construction of Female Identity, c. 1860–1950”, 411–26; H.-L. Kieser, “Mission as Factor of Change in Turkey (Nineteenth to First Half of Twentieth Century)”, 391– 410; I.M. Okkenhaug, “‘She Loves Books & Ideas, & Strides along in Low Shoes Like an Englishwoman’: British Models and Graduates from the Anglican Girls, Secondary Schools in Palestine, 1918–48”, 461–79. H.L. Kieser, D. Schaller (eds.), Der Völkermord an den Armeniern und die Shoah/ The Armenian Genocide and the Shoah, Zürich; including H.-W. Schmuhl, “Friedrich Naumann und die ‘armenische Frage’. Die deutsche Öffentlichkeit und die Verfolgung der Armenier 1915”, 503–516. Morgenländische Frauenmission (ed.), 160 Jahre Morgenländische Frauenmission 1842–2002, Berlin. I.M. Okkenhaug, The Quality of Heroic Living, of High Endeavor and Adventure. Anglican Mission, Women and Education in Palestine, 1888–1948, Leiden. H. Teule (ed.), special volume on migration of The Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 54, including: H.L. Murre-van den Berg, “Migration of Middle Eastern Christians to Western Countries and Protestant Missionary Activities in the Middle East. A Preliminary Investiga tion”, 39–49; M. Tamcke, “Nach Rußland, Deutschland, ‘Ja über den Ozean in das Land der Freiheit und des Dollars’”, Streiflichter aus den deutschen Akten zur ersten Migrations welle der Ost-syrer (Assyrer/ “Nestorianer”)”, 25–38. J. Eisler, N. Haag, S. Holtz (eds.), Kultureller Wandel in Palästina im frühen 20. Jahrhundert. Eine Bilddokumentation. Zugleich ein Nachschlagewerk der deutschen Missionseinrichtungen und Siedlungen von ihrer Gründung bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg, Epfendorf. A. Feldtkeller/A. Nothnagle (eds), Mission im Konfliktfeld von Islam, Judentum und Chris tentum. Eine Bestandsaufnahme zum 150-jährigen Jubiläum des Jerusalemsvereins (Frank furt/Main: Otto Lembeck); including E.J. Eisler, “Frauen im Dienste des Jerusalemsvereins im Heiligen Land”, 45–56; F. Foerster, “Reise in eine multireligiöse Welt. F.A. Strauss: S inai und Golgatha”, 19–33; R. Löffler, “Nationale und konfessionelle Identitätsbildungspro zesse in den arabisch-lutherischen und arabisch-anglikanischen Gemein-den Palästinas wäh rend der Mandatszeit”, 71–104; M. Lückhoff, “Die Wiederentdeckung des heiligen Landes – Anfänge der Jerusalemer Bistums im Spannungsfeld von Orient und Okzident”, 34–44; T. Neubert-Preine, “Fliedners Engagement in Jerusalem. Kaiserswerther Diakonie im Kontext der Orientmission”, 57–70; M. Raheb, “‘Die ELCJ, das Erbe und die Gegenwart’. Eine The se und fünf Beobachtungen zu einem Prozess”, 105–114. H. Goren (ed.), Germany and the Middle East. Past, Present, and Future, Jerusalem; including L. Hänsel, “Friedrich Wilhelm IV and Prussian Interests in the Middle East”; T. Neubert-Preine, “The Founding of German Protestant Institutions in Jerusalem during the Reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II”, 27–40. Y. Perry, British Mission to the Jews in Nineteenth-Century Palestine, London. D. Trimbur (ed.), Die Europäer in der Levante. Zwischen Politik, Wissenschaft und Religion (19.–20. Jahrhundert). Des Européens au Levant. Entre politique, science et religion (XIXe–XXe. siècles), München; including: E. Astafieva, “Imaginäre und wirkliche Präsenz Russlands im Nahen Osten in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts”, 161–186; J. Bocquet, “Mission-naires français et allemands au Levant: les Lazaristes français de Damas et l’Allemagne, du voyage de Guillaume II à l’instauration du Mandat”, 57–76; B. Haider-Wilson, “Das Generalkommissariat des Heiligen Landes in Wien – eine Wiederent deckung des 19. Jahrhunderts”, 123–160; M. Kirchhoff, “Deutsche Palästinawissenschaft im letzten Viertel des 19. Jahrhunderts. Die Anfänge und Programmatik des Deutschen Vereins zur Erforschung Palästinas”, 31–5; B. Lamure, “Les pèlerinages français en Palestine au XIXe siècle: croisade catholique et patriotique”, 107–122; R. Löffler, “Die langsame Metamorphose einer Missions- und Bildungseinrichtung zu einem sozialen Dienstleistungsbetrieb. Zur Geschichte des Syrischen Waisenhauses der Fa-

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2006:

Heleen Murre-van den Berg milie Schneller in Jerusalem 1860–1945”, 77–106; D. Trimbur, “Aperçue historique du Levant, 1840–1948”, 17–30. A. O’Mahony, World Christianity, London; including I.M. Okkenhaug, “Women in Christian mission: Protestant encounters from the 19th and 20th centuries”; A. O’Mahony, “Christianity, interreligious dialogue and Muslim-Christian relations”. G. Buffon, Les Franciscains en Terre Sainte (1869–1889). Religion et politique, une recherche institutionnelle, Paris. K. Hock, Das Christentum in Afrika und dem Nahen Osten, Leipzig. S.H. Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia: 1500–1900, Maryknoll, NY. H. Murre-van den Berg, “Nineteenth-century Protestant Missions and Middle Eastern Women: An Overview”, in I.M. Okkenhaug/I. Flaskerud, Gender, Religion and Change, Oxford–New York, 103–22. H. Sharkey, “Empire and Muslim Conversion: Historical Reflections on Christian Missions in Egypt”, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 16/1, 43–60. S. Gilley/B. Stanley (eds), World Christianities, c. 1815–1914, Cambridge; including: H. Murre-van den Berg, “The Middle East: Western Missions and the Eastern Churches, Islam and Judaism”, 458–472. M. Marten, Attempting to Bring the Gospel Home: Scottish Missions to Palestine, 1839–1917, London-New York. H.L. Murre-van den Berg (ed.), New Faith in Ancient Lands: Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Leiden; including H. Badr, American Protestant Missionary Beginnings in Beirut and Istanbul: Policy, Politics, Practice and Response”, 211–239; P. Bourmaud, “Public Space and Private Spheres: The Foundation of St Luke’s Hospital of Nablus by the CMS (1891–1914)”, 133–150; G: Buffon, “Les franciscains en Terre Sainte: de l’espace au territoire, entre opposition et adaption”, 65–91; E. Fleischmann, “Evangelization or Education: Protestant Missionaries, the Ameri can Board, and the Girls and Women of Syria (1830–1910)”, 263–280; B. Heyberger and C. Verdeil, “Spirituality and Scholarship: The Holy Land in Jesuit Eyes (17th to 19th Centuries)”, 19–41; U. Kaminsky, “German ‘Home Mission’ Abroad: The ‘Orientarbeit’ of the Deaconess Institution Kaiserswerth in the Ottoman Empire”, 191–209; R. Löffler, “The Metamorphosis of a Pietistic Missionary and Educational Institution into a Social Services Enterprise: The Case of the Syrian Orphanage (1860–1945)”, 151–174; B.J. Merguerian, “‘Missions in Eden’: Shaping an Educational and Social Program for the Armenians in Eastern Turkey (1855–1895)”, 241–261; H.L. Murre-van den Berg, “Introduction”, 1–17 and “William McClure Thomson’s The Land and the Book (1859): Pilgrimage and Mission in Palestine”, 43–63; A. O’Mahony, “The Coptic Catholic Church, the Apostolic Vicar Maximus Giuaid (1821–1831), the Propaganda Fide and the Franciscans in Early Nineteenthcentury Egypt”, 93–111; U. Ryad, “Muslim Response to Missionary Activities in Egypt: With a Special Reference to the Al-Azhar High Corps of ‘Ulamâ (1925–1935)”, 281–307; M. Tamcke, “Die deutschen Kurdenmissionen in Mahabad in ihrem Kontakt zu den orientalischen Christen”, 175–189. M. Tamcke/M. Marten (eds.), Christian Witness Between Continuity and New Beginnings: Modern Historical Missions to the Middle East, Berlin; including J.C. Burke, “The Founding of the American University in Cairo”, 1–10; G.K. George, “Early 20th century British missionaries and fulfulment theology: Comparion of the approaches of William Temple Gairdner to Islam in Egypt, and John Nicol Farquhar to Hinduism in India”, 11–22; F. Foerster, “The Journey of Friedrich Adolph Strauss to the Holy Land and the beginnings of German Missions in the Middle East”, 125–131; W. Jansen, “Arab Women with a Mission. The Sisters of the Rosary”, 41–61; R: Kark, D. Denecke, H. Goren, “The Impact of Early German Missionary Enterprise in Palestine on Modernization and Environmental and Technological Change, 1820–1914”, 145–176; E.M. Kane, “Pilgrims, Piety and Politics: The Founding of the First Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem”, 177–197; M. Mar-

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ten, “Communicating home: Scottish missionary publications in the 19th and early 20th centuries”, 81–98; H. Murre-van den Berg, “‘Simply by giving to them maccaroni…’ AntiRoman Catholic Polemics in Early Protestant Missions in the Middle East, 1820–1860”, 63–80; T. Neubert-Preine, “The Struggle over the Muristan in Jerusalem as an Example of National-Confessional Rivalry in the 19th Century Middle East”, 133–143; N.L. Stockdale, “An Imperialist Failure: English Missionary Women and Palestine Orphan Girls in Nazareth, 1864–1899”, 213–231; M. Tamcke, “Johann Wörrlein’s Book about his Travels through Palestine”, 233–246; C. Van der Leest, “The Protestant Bishopric of Jerusalem and the Missionary Activities in Nazareth: The Gobat Years, 1846–1879”, 199–211; C. Verdeil, “Between Rome and France, intransigent and anti-Protestant Jesuits in the Orient: The beginnings of the Jesuits’ mission of Syria, 1831–1864”, 23–32. 2006: C. Verdeil, Missionaries jésuites et chrétiens dÓrient dan lÉmpire Ottoman des réformes, Paris. 2007: N.L. Stockdale, Colonial Encounters Among English and Palestinian Women, 1800–1948 (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florday) [Ph.D. Santa Barbara: Ph.D. University of California, 2000]. 2008: U. Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven. American Missionaries and the Failed conversion of the Middle East (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press).

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE CONCEPTS OF FRENCH AND GERMAN FOREIGN CULTURAL POLICIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. FROM THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY UP TO 1945 Dominique Trimbur INTRODUCTION Palestine was the main centre for French and German Catholic activities from the middle of the 19th century. For France, Catholicism was the core of the French network throughout the Holy Land (and the Ottoman Empire). This involved a multicentred approach, regularly reiterated by its various actors and its various regimes in France; governing people or officials at the Foreign Ministry or in the field and diplomats in the various consulates or at the embassy in Constantinople. For Germany, Catholicism was a marginal aspect, since Berlin embodied Protestantism – the House of Hohenzollern was the Protestant monarchy1. Nevertheless, from the end of the 19th century, Catholicism was entirely integrated into Germany’s foreign policy in order to counter French monopolistic ambitions2 and as a way to prove the universal, geographical and spiritual aspirations of William II’s Weltpolitik. The following pages can only sketch a panorama of both countries’ foreign cultural-religious policies – religion was the most symbolic tool used to exert influence in the Orient – with analyses that should be integrated into a far larger study. GENERAL FRAMEWORK: PALESTINE BEFORE WWI What did the Holy Land mean for both countries? France and Germany took part in the renewed interest for the area felt by the European countries, described by the Israeli geo-historian Yeoshuah Ben Arieh as “rediscovery”, and the French historian Henry Laurens as the “invention” of the Holy Land. 3 This led to scientific exploration, deep religious concern, and strong political interest in the Holy Land, 1

2 3

Beyond the numerous studies by the late Israeli historian Alex Carmel, see the newest studyby Roland Löffler: Protestanten in Palästina: Religionspolitik, Sozialer Protestantismus und Mission in den deutschen evangelischen und anglikanischen Institutionen des Heiligen Landes 1917–1939, Stuttgart, Kohlammer, 2007. The French were also in competition with Italian ambitions. Y. Ben Arieh, The Rediscovery of the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century, Jerusalem-Detroit 1979; H. Laurens, La question de Palestine, Tome Premier 1799–1922, L’invention de la Terre Sainte, Paris 1999.

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which resulted in unrealised territorial aspirations that, generally speaking, remained limited to the establishment of spheres of influence. 4 In the field, after the founding of consular representations in Jerusalem and Jaffa, the interest in the Holy Land manifested itself through the creation and development of charitable religious institution networks from the middle of the 19 th century onwards5. As for France, there was the renewal of a commonly accepted idea: as the “elder daughter of the Church”,6 France was the Catholic power, with a specific responsibility towards the Holy Land. At the time there was, in a very open way and without any feelings of guilt, a straight line, beginning with the period of the Crusades, leading to a multicentred foreign policy based on an agreement sealed between François I and the Sultan concerning the protection of the Christians established in the Ottoman Empire. With time, the Catholic option became the expression of official policy. The German Catholic option derived first from a private initiative by German Catholics; a minority within the Reich, which was mainly Protestant and under the authority of the Protestant Hohenzollern dynasty. 7 What were the motives and methods? The main idea for the French was the continuation of a multi-centred tradition, in order to disseminate French influence through charity. Through a network of charitable institutions – like schools, hospitals or orphanages, among other institutions – it was possible to have genuine influence. For Germany, the main idea was the renewal of a custom, also originating in the time of the Crusades, to get rid of the French protectorate on Latins (Catholics), that put the German Catholics of the Ottoman Empire under the authority of French diplomats in terms of contact with the Ottoman administration. 8 From an innerpolitical point of view, Catholic activism was one more example at the end of the Kulturkampf of a full integration of German Catholics into their own society, which was strongly promoted during William II’s “pilgrimage” to the Orient in October-November 1898.9 The respective religious motivations achieved the development of networks for religious institutions, specifically in Palestine but also throughout 4 5

6 7 8

H. Goren, “Zieht aus und erforscht das Land”: Die deutsche Palästina-Forschung im 19. Jahrhundert, Göttingen, 2003; M. Kirchhoff, Text zu Land – Palästina im wissenschaftlichen Diskurs 1865–1920, Göttingen 2005. See D. Trimbur/R. Aaronsohn (eds.), De Bonaparte à Balfour – La France, l’Europe occidentale et la Palestine, 1799–1917, Paris, 2001 (new edition 2008) D. Trimbur (ed.), Europäer in der Levante – Zwischen Politik, Wissenschaft und Religion (19.–20. Jahrhundert) – Des Européens au Levant – Entre politique, science et religion (XIX e–XXe siècles), Munich, Oldenburg, 2004. Her official title since the early Middle Ages, which gave her a privileged rank among the Catholic powers. On the German Catholic aspect: O. Kohler, Zwischen Zionssehnsucht und kaiserlicher Politik – Die Entstehung von Kirche und Kloster Dormitio Beatae Mariae Virginis in Jerusalem, St. Ottilien, 2005. Following tradition, more than international law of the time, every dispute between a foreign Catholic based in the Orient and an Ottoman subject could only be settled through the mediation of the local French representative, in charge of negotiating with the Ottoman authorities (see, among others, G. Ferragu, “Eglise et diplomatie au Levant au temps des Capitulations”, in Rives nord-méditerranéennes, L’édifice religieux: lieu de pouvoir, pouvoir du lieu, 6– 2000; on the web: http://rives.revues.org/document67.html).

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the Ottoman Empire. For France, the constitution of the network was rather progressive, apparently without a real founding idea about the logic that should prevail regarding the installation of an institution or of a religious community; nevertheless, the resulting network appears to have been following a certain coherence, with a range of “useful” institutions. The network accumulated an official and an unofficial, an explicit and an implicit France, since although the French institutions received subsidies from the French Foreign Ministry, they were not dependent on it and did not officially represent France. In Germany’s case, the installation of the network seems to have been conducted in a more systematic way: the most efficient means were used, meaning the installation of religious institutions was also a way to hide openly-declared political intentions, especially after 1870–71 and the FrenchPrussian war, when German nationalism was on the rise. How were the policies organised? Following what has already been described, for France there was no combined initiative. Each request aiming at the establishment of a new institution was received and examined by the French Foreign Ministry, that evaluated it according to its own criteria. There was no central office deciding on the establishment of one or another order or congregation in the Holy Land: there were groups and lobbies connected to some traditional correlations, such as the link existing between the city of Lyon and the Levant. 10 There were also bulletins and periodicals, more or less long lasting and with more or less regular issues, emanating from organisations like the Œuvre de la Propagation de la Foi, the Œuvre des écoles d’Orient, the Comité des intérêts français en Orient, the Comité de l’Asie française; their main topics and interests were from time to time also disseminated by large newspapers – like the liberal Journal des Débats, the semi-official Le Temps, or the conservative Revue des deux Mondes. There were regular calls addressing the necessary creation of some central secretary aiming at the coordination of the French Catholic effort towards the Holy Land, emanating from officials or from self-nominated or semi-official heralds of the French cause. Many examples exist: the French Consul in Jerusalem, Charles de Ledoulx, in 1888; in 1898 the cardinal-archbishop of the city of Reims Langénieux, a strong defender of the French and Catholic cause; the Catholic member of Parliament Denys Cochin, in 1911; the journalist and emissary of the Comité des intérêts français en Orient, Maurice Pernot, in 1913. Despite the activism and the calls, nothing was achieved in the field, which underlines once more the lack of coherence of French involvement. Two examples can be given to show this: regarding both French national properties at Sainte-Anne (Jerusalem) and Abu Gosh (West of Jerusalem, on the way to Jaffa), a very long delay existed between the gift of the plots and/or the buildings by the Ottoman Empire to France, and the effective establishment of religious communities there (re9

See, among others, A. Meier, Die kaiserliche Palästinareise 1898: Theodor Herzl, Großherzog Friedrich I. von Baden und ein deutsches Protektorat in Palästina, Konstanz, 1998. 10 Since the Middle Ages there was a clear relationship between the silk industry based in and around the southern French metropole and the Levant. See M. Seurat: “Le rôle de Lyon dans l’installation du mandat français en Syrie, Intérêts économiques et culturels, luttes d’opinion (1915–1925)”, in L’État de barbarie, Paris, Le Seuil, collection Esprit, 1989, pp. 173–224.

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specti-vely 1856–1878 and 1873–1899).11 On the one hand, this might be regarded as inconsequential, but on the other hand, there were very pragmatic considerations, with a strong reluctance to support projects in which religious aspects seemed too prevalent.12 In Germany’s case, from the very beginning we have committees devoted to the coordination of the initiatives: Verein vom Heiligen Grabe zur Förderung katholischer Interessen im Heiligen Lande (1855, with religious aims) and Palästinaverein der Katholiken Deutschlands (1879, with more nationalistic aims), which united in 1895 and gave birth to the Deutscher Verein vom Heiligen Lande (DVHL).13 The efforts by Catholic Italy14 and Orthodox Russia,15 unified from early on, were envied by France. German Catholics interested in the Holy Land also published a periodical, Das Heilige Land, which had no equivalent in France. France and Germany never stopped observing each other’s activities: the action/reaction/interaction constellation was fundamental in the day-to-day activity of both countries. The use of certain clerics and their work for the benefit of one country systematically induced a response from the other.16 The stakes were important for each country, since both were interested in gaining direct or indirect influence on the area and its populations. Through their various and numerous activities (e.g. schools, orphanages, hospitals, archaeology, scientific exploration) the institutions covered a wide range of interested parties, such as middle or higher classes, representatives of the local élites, or even of the sovereign power; 17 furthermore, the clients of the Catholic institutions were not exclusively Christian, since Jewish and Muslim pupils also enrolled in their schools. The presence on the ground was also secured by pilgrims: such groups were perceived as a means to mark a French or German presence in the Holy Land, depending on their nationality. 11 See my contributions: “Religion et politique en Palestine: le cas de la France à Abou Gosh”, in Dominique Trimbur/Ran Aaronsohn (eds.), De Bonaparte à Balfour, 265–293; “Sainte-Anne: lieu de mémoire et lieu de vie français à Jérusalem”, in Chrétiens et sociétés XVIe-XXe siècles, Centre André Latreille, no. 7, 2000, 39–69 (available on the web: http://resea-ihc.univ-lyon3.fr/publicat/bulletin/2000/trimbur.pdf). 12 See, for example, the discussion relating to the installations of the sisters of St Claire in 1890: the contemplative vocation was not specifically interesting for official France; in the end the sisters went to Palestine, after having been supported by the bishop of Le Puy (in central France). 13 H. Goren, “The German Catholic ‘Holy Sepulchre Society’: Activities in Palestine”, in Y. Ben-Arieh/M. Davis (eds.), Jerusalem in the Mind of the Western World, Westport, CTLondon, 1997, 155–172. 14 D.J. Grange, L’Italie et la Méditerranée (1896–1911) – Les fondements d’une politique étrangère, Rome, 1994. 15 D. Hopwood, The Russian Presence in Syria and Palestine 1843–1914, Church and Politics in the Near East, Oxford, 1969. 16 For example, the installation of French Benedictine monks at Abu Gosh (1898), and of German ones at the Dormition (1906). 17 Such as the “effendis’ school”, French courses taught at the French Sainte-Anne institution by the White Fathers.

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Both countries’ foreign cultural policies in the Catholic field benefited from existing networks. In France or Germany, the Foreign Ministries took care of contacts to prelates, such as Cardinal Langénieux, requested by the Quai d’Orsay to counter William II’s offensive in 1898. The prelates were used in their respective countries, especially when they went to the Holy Land: this was the case with Cardinal Langénieux in 1893 as a pontifical legate participating in the International Eucharistic Congress; of Cardinal Dubois – archbishop of the city of Rouen, later Paris – in 1919–1920; and of Mgr. Baudrillart, head of the Catholic Institute, Paris, in 1923.18 Both countries could also use the good relations they had with high prelates based in Rome: here we have for instance Cardinal Rampolla, Secretary of the Vatican State, and Cardinal Tisserant throughout his long career at the Holy See, for France; on the German side, Cardinal Ledochowski, Prefect of Propagande Fide, should be mentioned. Both countries could benefit from French and German communities and Catholic organisations with an international vocation. Examples include the – very Italian – Franciscan Custodia di Terra Santa, pontifical institutions in Rome or institutions in the Holy Land, like the Pontifical Biblical Institute, headed by the Jesuits and perceived by France as a tool in German hands directed against the Dominican – and very French – Biblical School (the Ecole biblique et archéologique française); or prelates based in Jerusalem: the Latin Patriarchs – or Catholic bishops – of Jerusalem: Mgr Braco (1873– 1889), considered pro-French, and Mgr Piavi (1889–1905), known as pro-German. The clerics of the Eastern united churches – of Eastern rite, but obedient to Rome – could act as mediators to the benefit of one or another influence. This was mainly the case for France with the Oriental seminaries devoted to various Eastern Catholic Churches and headed by French monks: created in order to “regenerate” those Churches by educating their future clerics in a proper way, the seminaries were, to quote an official at the French Foreign Ministry, “our best propaganda centres”.19 Devoted to creating a French-speaking and francophile milieu capable of disseminating French values, these were real bridgeheads allowing contacts to other populations, such as Muslims in Palestine or elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire. For both countries, they were very practical and cheap means for gaining an influence: before WWI one has the impression that religion became a pretext, and one can see a growing distance to the genuine religious vocation of the Catholic institutions. What were the aims of the institutions? For France, it was the spiritual and/or material conquest of the Holy Land: embodied through French lieux de mémoire

18 See my contributions: “Une appropriation française du Levant: la mission en Orient du cardinal Dubois, 1919–1920”, in P. Cabanel (ed.), Une France en Méditerranée – Écoles, langue et culture française, XIXe-XXe siècles, Paris, 2006, 109–128; “L’Orient de Monseigneur Baudrillart”, in P. Christophe (ed.), Cardinal Alfred Baudrillart, Paris, 2006, 235–272. 19 Archives of the French Foreign Ministry, Nantes, série D: 172 Palestine 1924/1929, letter from the French Consulate General, Jerusalem (118) to the Foreign Ministry-Service des Œuvres Françaises à l’Étranger (SOFE, section in charge of the French foreign cultural policy), 25 November 1929, d’Aumale.

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(places of memory) and lieux de vie (places of life),20 with ambitions regarding the entire Holy Land, this was a mental appropriation before it was a concrete one. As put by one of the most active supporters of the Catholic communities, Maurice Barrès, France “owns the souls” of the local populations.21 In Germany’s case, the wish was to establish institutions no longer dependent on the French protectorate: the aim was to have institutions obedient to German direction, and not just Protestant ones, thereby demonstrating the universality of German aspirations. Jealous of her own prerogatives, France was willing to secure the continuity of her protectorate. Thus she had the possibility of imposing her point of view against German activism: just before WWI she had to accept the establishment in Jerusalem of an annex of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, perceived by France to be the result of a German plan, but Paris was able to avoid the designation of a German Jesuit as head of the Institute.22 France acted according to clear monopolistic ideas, despite the anticlerical measures the French government was undertaking at the same time.23 Due to this contradiction, French pretensions were disputed by the rival power on the Catholic field, namely by Germany. Generally speaking, both countries were interested in having in the Holy Land institutions respectively linked to their own countries: this was eloquently the case with the French Benedictines at Abu Gosh, and with the German Benedictines at the Dormition Abbey. What was the reception of the respective foreign cultural policies? Among the French Catholics, enthusiasm was felt primarily in terms of the continuity secured by republican and lay France with the most ancient traditions initiated by the Ancien régime. They idealised the French role (reflected by the cri de guerre “Gesta Dei per Francos”), and the French Catholics wanted to have a real France established in the Holy Land: embodied by the French institutions, it should incarnate a fidelity to a traditional conception that had been damaged by the anticlerical excesses of the Third Republic. Once established, the French Catholics thought that it could inspire France itself, as a return to formerly pre-vailing values. The German Catholics could not but support a patriotic policy that promoted national unity after the troubled times of the Kulturkampf.24

20 That is places created in modern times that existed beyond the evangelical places described by Maurice Halbwachs (La topographie légendaire des Evangiles en Terre Sainte: étude de mémoire collective, Paris, 1941) and the ones analysed by Jan Assmann (Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, Munich, 1992). 21 M. Barrès, Enquête aux pays du Levant, Paris, 1923; here vol. 2, 182. 22 Further details in my book: Une École française à Jérusalem – De l’École pratique d’Études bibliques des Dominicains à l’École Biblique et Archéologique Française de Jérusalem, in Mémoire dominicaine, V, Paris, 2002, 31–33. 23 J.-D. Durand/P. Cabanel (eds.), Le grand exil des congrégations françaises 1901–1914, Paris, 2005. 24 Valmar Cramer, Ein Jahrhundert deutscher katholischer Palästinamission, 1855–1955, Köln, JP Bachem, 1956, pp. 46–56; Erwin Gatz, “Katholische Auslandsarbeit und deutsche Weltpolitik unter Wilhelm II. – Zur Stiftung der Dormition in Jerusalem (1898)”, in Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Alterttumskunde und Kirchengeschichte, 73 (1978), pp. 23–46.

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The Holy See accepted France’s dominant role, considering the ancient tradition of the protectorate. It could not disregard France that was, at the time, the most fertile source of missionaries. Under these circumstances, the Vatican had to accept the situation as long as there was no alternative and the Holy Land remained under Ottoman domination. Regarding Germany, the Holy See admitted the existence of a de facto German protectorate over the German Catholic institutions; but the Vatican could not accept de jure such protection, as officially reiterated in 1898, following French pressure in this direction. Before and during WWI, the Ottomans, who were the local authorities, resigned themselves to a necessary acceptance of institutions whose charitable vocation was sincere: though they were tools benefiting foreign states and ideologies, they also had some practical aspects, since they catered for things the Ottoman infrastructures could not. Maurice Pernot observed how, of the total budget of Jerusalem’s education network of two millions Francs, the Ottomans only contributed 25,000.25 Regarding France, the crowning of the Catholic network took place in 1901 with the Mytilenes agreement, a customs arrangement reached (through pressure) that lead to the recognition by the Porte of all French institutions based in the Ottoman Empire. This excluded the network from the obligation to pay taxes, a conditio sine qua non to their continuation and survival;26 1901 was also the year the last French monks who settled in Palestine arrived, who in this way completed a very polyvalent network. For Germany, the cornerstones were constituted by William II’s pilgrimage through the Orient, which was the beginning of a symbolic presence, with institutions crowning various hills in Jerusalem, and creating envy from other powers, specifically France:27 from the start of the 20th century, Germany possessed a network, though more limited than the French one, that was very active and gave rise to concerns on the French side.28 The French concerns demonstrate an overestimated rivalry. Indeed, by the end of the 19th century, France possessed some 58 institutions in Palestine, and was in charge of some 100 protected institutions; the establishments were home to 178 French male clerics with 1,000 pupils, and 300 French female clerics with 2,200 pupils, as well as some 80,000 medical patients. Throughout the Ottoman Empire, the French network consisted of 300 institutions of all kinds, with 100,000 pupils belonging to all communities: 40% of Christian pupils, 12% of Jewish pupils, and 0,55% of Muslim pupils were registered at French schools; overall French schools 25 M. Pernot, Rapport sur un voyage d’étude à Constantinople, en Egypte et en Turquie d’Asie (janvier-août 1912), Comité de défense des intérêts français en Orient, Paris, 1913, 103–104. 26 Text of the agreement, with appendices, in: B. Collin, Le problème juridique des lieux-saints, Cairo-Paris, 1956 (pp. 162–172 of the second part); for an analysis, see M. Abou Ramadan, «Les accords de Mytilène de 1901 et l’agrément de Constantinople de 1913», in De Bonaparte à Balfour, op. cit., pp. 57–68 (second edition). 27 My article: “Intrusion of the ‘Erbfeind’ – French Views on Germans in Palestine 1898– 1910”, in T. Hummel/K. Hintlian/U. Carmesund (dir.), Patterns of the Past, Prospects for the Future. The Christian Heritage in the Holy Land, London, 1999. 28 J. Bocquet, “Missionnaires français et allemands au Levant: les lazaristes français de Damas et l’Allemagne, du voyage de Guillaume II à l’instauration du mandat”, in Europäer in der Levante, 57–75.

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included 50% of pupils registered at foreign schools. The figures shed light on the French focus on minorities. Compared to the other foreign institutions in Palestine, 70% of the men’s communities were French (and 10% Austrian, 10% Italian and 10% German), and French was the lingua franca of the establishments as well as day-to-day life in the Holy Land. The French figures illustrate the numerical weakness of Germany: in Jerusalem the German Catholics were in charge of the Paulushaus, the Schmidtschule, and the Benedictine Dormition institution; near the Holy City, German clerics ran Emmaus Kubeibe, a hospice for elderly people; and north of Lake Tiberias, in Tabgah, they had a Benedictine convent and a church. As one French diplomat put in 1906: “beside the 8 Benedictine fathers at the Dormition and the 82 Saint-Charles nuns who really are based at German institutions, only 33 clerics are disseminated throughout the various orders.”29 WWI AND THE FRENCH AND GERMAN CATHOLIC NETWORKS The First World War was a difficult time for the French Catholic network: the younger clerics left for Europe to enlist in the French army, while older clerics and pupils not enrolled were expelled by the Turks once the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers. However, the First Wold War constituted a real opportunity for Germany, that suddenly had free reign for her own activities and an understanding with her Austro-Hungarian ally. While strict measures were taken against the French establishments (and against the Italian ones from 1915), the DVHL girls’ school could reopen as early as 1915 (the boys’ school only in 1917); under the circumstances, some German Catholics wanted to seize the opportunity to replace French with German clerics in order to take charge of the institutions and the activities of their religious brethren – who had formerly been their rivals30. The Germans also secured a continuity of Catholic day-to-day life (despite what the French Catholics claimed at the time); furthermore, they wanted to seize the opportunity to show the validity of their own faith by proposing ambitious projects that could benefit the Holy See. 31 The German Catholics then contemplated encouraging perspectives for the post-war era, and thus felt the necessity to enlist new German speaking missionaries. 32 However, the projects were not feasible due to the activities of their Ottoman ally: under Jamal Pasha’s control, Palestine underwent a process of Turkisation and Islamisation; 29 Archives of the French Foreign Ministry, Paris, PAAP (Private Papers) 240 Doulcet, 3 Protectorat religieux, letter of the Foreign minister to the French embassies worldwide, 23 Febru ary 1906, about figures disseminated at the Reichstag on German religious institutions throughout the world. 30 My paper: “Le destin des institutions chrétiennes européennes de Jérusalem pendant la Première guerre mondiale”, in Mélanges de Science Religieuse, Université catholique de Lille, no. 4, octobre-décembre 2001, 3–29. 31 Initiative of the Zentrum-Member of Parliament, Matthias Erzberger, among others. 32 Das Heilige Land, 1. Heft, Januar 1916, “Aufgaben der deutschen Katholiken im türkischen Orient”, by K. Lübeck.

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the jihad launched by the Ottomans against the French and the British was actively supported by the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians.33 AFTER WWI The conflict and immediate aftermath did not allow German Catholic projects to come to fruition. In 1914, under new circumstances, France could contemplate a restored Latin Kingdom as the crowning glory of the involvement of Catholicism within French foreign cultural policy.34 Regularly expressed ideas, specifically during the San Remo Conference (April 1920), confirmed the French network, despite the respective of Palestine being placed under British authority. France was willing to combine her own efforts with the Holy See (with the new Congregation for the Eastern Church), and bring about a restoration of the previous order, meanwhile, the Holy See was willing to abandon its former dependence on France since the Holy Land was now placed under the authority of a Christian power. In order to reach her goals, France was relying on the Commission of the Holy Places to be part of the Mandatory Charta envisioned for Palestine; but the Commission never came to anything.35 Afterwards, the Holy See remained attached to the symbolic importance of the French position, which is apparent in the 1926 agreement on liturgical honours that preserved the appearance of a dominant position for France in the Catholic milieu of the Holy Land. France continued to demand the maintenance of a French monopoly: this included the seizing of the German Dormition and placing (Belgian) French-speaking monks there for a short period of time after the German monks had been expelled from Palestine. 36 At the beginning of the 1920s, German Catholic participation was temporarily excluded; afterwards Germany did not have the means to exert political demands, and was only able to act in the economic and cultural fields. After their expulsion, the German Benedictines returned from Egypt in 1921 and received the symbolic task of educating the local Latin-Catholic clergy.37 The Benedictine community at the Dormition erected an abbey in 1926: for both countries, the Catholic aspect was then integrated into institutionalised foreign cultural policies. From the beginning of the 1920s, both foreign ministries established a department for foreign cultural 33 A Catholic Austro-Hungarian priest from Bohemia, Alois Musil, was in charge of relating to the Arab populations that was comparable to the activities of Lawrence of Arabia: Theodore Prochazka, “Alois Musil vs. T.E. Lawrence?”, in Archiv Orientalny, 63, 1995, 435–439. As a matter of fact the jihad launched by the Turks, in cooperation with the Central powers, did not achieve anything, since the Arabs chose the alliance with the Entente powers, mainly the British (“Lawrence of Arabia”). 34 My paper: “Les Croisades dans la perception catholique française du Levant, 1880–1940 : entre mémoire et actualité ”, in Cristianesimo nella storia, 27, 2006, 909–934. 35 On this project (that never happened), see B. Collin, Le problème juridique des Lieux saints, op. cit., 93–96 of the first part. 36 N. Egender, osb, “Belgische Benediktiner in der Dormitio in Jerusalem 1918–1920”, in Erbe und Auftrag, 77, 2001, 155–164. 37 Up to 1932, when the task was transferred to the French Bétharram priests.

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policy. For France, this led to the creation of the Service des Œuvres françaises à l’étranger.38 In Paris the cultural policy towards Palestine was also described as a task for the “technical advisor for religious matters”, Louis Canet. For Germany, within the Foreign Ministry, Catholicism was the task of the Kulturabteilung. In both cases the new stability also meant rationalisation, with a focus on the most efficient institutions, since the Catholics had to claim a presence in the new Palestine. There were problems due to internal issues. In France, this was a drop in the number of religious members settling in the Holy Land as a result of the anticlerical measures undertaken at the beginning of the century; there were also economic difficulties and restructurings within the Catholic Church itself. France had to fight against the internationalisation and the denationalisation of religious communities and Catholic associations (like the Propagation de la Foi, until then based in Lyon, that was transferred to Rome), a change resulting from the policies of Pope Pius XI.39 On the other hand, local factors played a role: in the Palestinian context, especially at the end of the 1920s, growing affirmations coming from nonChristian populations resulted in a modified society. For Paris and Berlin, the prevailing necessity was to adapt to the new situation. France did this by encouraging the founding of lay institutions or of new structures more fitting to the growing Jewish population: generally speaking a new France was invented. Furthermore, with growing political tensions, serious consequences existed regarding day-to-day work: archaeological excavations were hindered by the political troubles and strikes, while barricades and checkpoints hindered pilgrims’ trips.40 In Germany the same obstacles appeared after the Nazis prevailed in 1933: from then on the foreign cultural policy concerned only the German settlers based in Palestine (namely the Protestant Templer). This affected the Catholics to a lesser extent, but it reduced, in a proportional way, the importance of their institutions in the general framework of German involvement. Furthermore, the Nazi authorities heavily reduced foreign currency exports, affecting the day-to-day activities of institutions greatly dependant on financial assistance coming from Germany.41 Finally, what were the attitudes of the locals? Administering Palestine since their 1917 conquest, the British accepted the terms of the San Remo Conference, admitting the continuation of the traditional privileges enjoyed by the French institutions. Nevertheless, the Mandatory administration wanted to control the education system in Palestine: in 1927 an ordinance on education was enacted, aim38 Section for French Works Abroad. 39 C. Prudhomme, Stratégie missionnaire du Saint-Siège sous Léon XIII (1878–1903) – Centralisation romaine et défis culturels, Rome, 1994. 40 For the German case: Dominique Trimbur, “La politique culturelle extérieure de l’Allemagne, 1920–1939, Le cas de la Palestine”, in Francia XIXe-XXe siècles, 28/3, 2001, pp. 35–73 (especially p. 65–66). For the French case: Dominique Trimbur, “L’ambition culturelle de la France en Palestine dans l’entre-deux-guerres” in Dominique Trimbur, e.a., Entre rayonnement et réciprocité – Contributions à l’histoire de la diplomatie culturelle, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2002, 41–72 (especially p. 67). 41 Dominique Trimbur, “La politique culturelle extérieure de l’Allemagne, 1920–1939”, op.cit.

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ing at its standardisation.42 In a field where the Catholic institutions dominated before 1914, the Zionists rejected any education system competing with their own (this was also the case of the schools headed by the very French Alliance Israélite Universelle). During the final stage of WWII, new arrests and expulsions damaged the German Catholic network, while their French colleagues were affected by financial embarrassments. Additional political difficulties dominated the French community in Palestine (shared between supporters of Vichy-France and of De Gaulle).43 CONCLUSION What was the situation in 1945? What was the result of the policies? After the end of WWII, as in 1918, France was willing to re-establish her network, in a period when it still seemed possible to reach a position of strength. The French Catholic institutions seemed to be able to establish a strong position within the corpus separatum, the entity that was intended for the Jerusalem area according to the partition plan voted on by the UN in November 1947. Nevertheless, shortly afterwards the French representatives, due to the tense local political situation, struggled against the French congregations determined to leave the Holy Land: some of them thought it was impossible to pursue their activities in a civil war context.44 For Germany, the difficult situation was due to the arrest and the expulsion of German citizens, considered enemies, in the years 1939–1945, and the Catholic institutions being placed under British custody. For both countries we have then a new acceleration of history, with an upheaval – the creation of the State of Israel and the resulting conflict – that had heavy consequences on both networks. With the situation created by the 1948 events, beyond material damages suffered by some of the Catholic institutions and political difficulties, it was time be more distanced from old colonial attitudes. The influence of education meant the French es42 See K. Sanchez-Sumer, “Langue(s) et religion(s) en Palestine mandataire au sein d’institutions éducatives catholiques – Établissements des Frères des Écoles chrétiennes et Sœurs de Saint Joseeph de l’Apparition 1922–1940”, in Documents pour l’histoire du français langue étrangère, décembre 2006, no. 37, pp. 93–132. 43 About the German aspect, see Stephan Mock, Michael Schäblitz, Das Heilige Land als Auftrag, 1855–2005, Cologne, Deutscher Verein vom Heiligen Lande, 2005 (p. 32). As for the French side, see, for instance, my case study: “Between Eastern and Western Christendom: The Benedictines, France and the Syrian Catholic Church in Jerusalem”, in Anthony O’Mahony (ed.), Christianity in the Middle East, Studies in Modern History, Theology and Politics, London, Melisende Press, 2007, pp. 375–421 (especially pp. 414–419). The French situation is particularly well illustrated through the case of a Dominican Father at the Ecole biblique, Perret: political attachment to Maréchal Pétain caused his expulsion by the British authorities (various documents at the archives of the French Foreign Ministry, Paris: Levant, 1944–1960, Palestine, 426, Questions religieuses, mosquée du Rocher, Abou Gosh, 31 août 1944–10 décembre 1952). 44 The Benedictine fathers, shared between Abu Gosh and Jerusalem, affected by the fights, withdrew from their Syrian-Catholic seminary; for similar reasons the White Fathers transferred their Greek-Catholic seminary to Lebanon.

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tablishments helped with the emancipation of local populations: this revealed the success of French culture, but also the weak situation of France’s political status in the area, when, based on their growing influence, the local populations finally rejected the European establishments. The buildings, institutions, and famous names – École des Frères de la Salle with French and Arabic, the Schmidtschule with German and Arabic – still exist today. Scientific, cultural and pedagogical values are also still appreciated by the local populations (especially of Arab origin, but not exclusively), based on traditions stemming from the original French and German networks, established from the middle of the 19th century onwards.

EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES AND ACTIVITIES IN THE SCHOOLS RUN BY BISHOP GOBAT AND THE CMS IN PALESTINE (1846–1879)1 Charlotte van der Leest INTRODUCTION In his autobiography, Samuel Gobat (1799–1879), the second incumbent of the Protestant bishopric in Jerusalem,2 describes his visit in 1823 to the school of the famous Swiss educational pioneer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) in Yverdon. At that time, Pestalozzi’s school was already in decline. It took Gobat only half an hour to see the lack of unity among the teachers in the establishment, and a few years later, the school collapsed. According to Gobat, its decline was the result of Pestalozzi basing his “otherwise excellent system” on a mistaken concept “that human nature in children is good, and only needs a sound development; wherefore it was impossible that in the long run he could realise his sanguine expectations.” Gobat adds that Pestalozzi had seen his “error”, when he visited the school run by Gobat’s future father-in-law, Christian Heinrich Zeller (1779–1860), one of the prominent personalities of the Erweckungsbewegung (Awakening movement), in Beuggen in 1826. Although Zeller’s teaching was based on the same educational system, his school was not founded on the idea that the nature of children is good, but on the opposite concept, that the depravity of human nature is already seen in young children. When Pestalozzi observed

1 2

This contribution is in substantial part identical to Chapter 7 of my PhD-thesis Conversionand Conflict in Palestine: The Missions of the Church Missionary Society and the ProtestantBishop Samuel Gobat, Leiden University, 2008. The Protestant bishopric was established by Prussia and Britain in 1841 as a joint enterprise. For more information about the bishopric, see for example: H. Smith, The Protestant Bishopric in Jerusalem: its Origins and Progress. From the Official Documents Published by Command of his Majesty the King of Prussia, and from other Authentic Sources, London 1847; W.H. Hechler, The Jerusalem Bishopric: Documents with Translations, London 1883; R.W. Greaves, “The Jerusalem Bishopric 1841” in: EHR 64 (1949), 328–352; P.J. Welch, “Anglican Churchmen and the Establishment of the Jerusalem Bishopric,” in: JEH 8 (1957), 193– 204; A.L. Tibawi, British Interests in Palestine, 1800–1901: A study of religious and educational enterprise, Oxford 1961; K. Schmidt-Clausen, Vorweggenommene Einheit: Die Gründung des Bistums Jerusalem im Jahre 1841, Berlin 1965; M. Lückhoff, Anglikaner und Protestanten im Heiligen Land: Das gemeinsame Bistum Jerusalem (1841–1886), Wiesbaden 1998.

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Zeller’s school for four days, he is said to have exclaimed: “This is what I have been seeking all my life!”3 In my opinion, Gobat’s account reflects the core of his pedagogical ideas; the strong central evangelical views that influenced his policy. In his criticism, we hear the doubts of a firm and traditionalist evangelical about the theological implications of Pestalozzi’s educational foundation.4 There was a central element of the evangelical faith that Pestalozzi (himself a Pietist as well as an adherent of Rousseau) did not share, namely the doctrine of justification by faith. He did not believe that humanity’s collective sin was taken away by Christ’s death on the cross.5 Consequently, although Zeller and others within the intercontinental Awakening movement had taken up Pestalozzi’s pedagogical ideas, some evangelicals had reservations with regard to his theological views.6 Though the objections to Pestalozzi’s educational principles were not restricted to the Evangelicals, Gobat’s criticism perfectly illustrated how much the bishop was concerned with the views and ideas of evangelicalism. One only has to read through Gobat’s letters to see that during his years as a bishop in Jerusalem, his evangelical background influenced his educational policy. 3

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“Bishop Gobat on Pestalozzi” in: Journal of Education: A Monthly Record and Review 7 (1885), 65. Cf. S. Gobat, Samuel Gobat Evangelischer Bischof in Jerusalem: Sein Leben und Wirken meist nach seinen eigenen Aufzeichnungen, Basel 1884 (hereafter: Gobat, Leben und Wirken), 50–51. The story about Pestalozzi’s visit to Zeller’s school and his conclusion that this was what he had wanted in the end also figures in other accounts about Zeller’s school in Beuggen. See for instance, J. de Liefde, Vruchten des geloofs: ingezameld op den akker van het Protestantisme 2, Amsterdam 1867, 47. Arnd Götzelmann concludes that in the story about Pestalozzi’s visit to Zeller’s school, Zeller was described as the “Testamentserfüller des pädagogischen Meisters” – cf. A. Götzelman, “Die Soziale Frage,” in: U. Gäbler (ed.), Geschichte des Pietismus 3: Der Pietismus im neunzehnten und zwanzigsten Jahrhundert, Göttingen 2000, 282. On this point I do not agree with A.L. Tibawi, who blames Gobat for just being arrogant and naive when he calls Pestalozzi’s educational system wrong and failing. Tibawi, British Interests, 155. Cf. T.C.F. Stunt, From Awakening to Secession: Radical Evangelicals in Switzerland and Britain 1815–35, Edinburgh 2000, 165. See also K. Silber, Pestalozzi: TheMan and his Work, London 1960, 291–292. Pestalozzi did not consider humanity to be guilty of original sin. For more information about Pestalozzi, his theological ideas and his view on the nature of humanity, see also F.P. Hager, “Stufen der religiösen Entwicklung bei Pestalozzi” in: Philosophie and Religion bei Pestalozzi: Pestalozzi Bibliographie 1977–1992, ed. by F.P. Hager and D. Tröhler, Bern – Stuttgart – Wien 1994, 7–45; A. Brühlmeier Wandlungen im Denken Pestalozzis: Von der ‘Abendstunde’ bis zu den ‘Nachforschungen’, Zürich 1976. See also Brühlmeier’s website: http://www.bruehlmeier.info/fundamental_ideas.htm. For Zeller the Erlösungsbedürftigkeit of people and their belief in the Saviour Jesus was the core of his anthropology, Götzelmann, “Die Soziale Frage”, 281. Cf. also T. K. Kuhn, “Diakonie im Schatten des Chiliasmus. Christian Heinrich Zeller (1779–1860) in Beuggen,” in: T. K. Kuhn /M. Sallmann (eds.), “Das Fromme Basel.” Religion in einer Stadt des 19. Jahrhunderts, Basel 2002, 93–110; T. K. Kuhn, Religion und neuzeitliche Gesellschaft. Studien zum sozialen und diakonischen Handeln in Pietismus, Aufklärung und Erweckungsbewegung, Tübingen 2003. A fervent evangelical follower of Pestalozzi’s teaching methods was John Synge (1788– 1845). Synge was very worried about the fact that some people objected to Pestalozzi’s principles. Silber, Pestalozzi, 291–292. Cf. Stunt, From Awakening to Secession, 156 and 165.

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In this article the influence of the evangelical religion on Gobat’s educational views will be discussed. Since Gobat closely collaborated with the Church Missionary Society (CMS),7 this article concentrates on the joint activities of Gobat and the CMS missionaries in the educational field in Palestine, mainly on the basis of their letters and reports to the CMS.8 The constitution of the CMS missionaries reflected the European Evangelical network, as the missionaries in its service came from Britain as well as the Continent. Although evangelicalism on the continent was not entirely similar to that in Britain, fundamental Evangelical characteristics are found in both the Evangelical movement in Britain, and the Awakening movement and the Réveil on the continent. David Bebbington has formulated four characteristics of evangelicalism, which, in my opinion, apply to the awakening movement both in Britain and on the continent: activism, conversionism, crucicentrism, and Biblicism.9 As to the characteristic of ‘activism’, if persons had genuinely been converted they felt a great desire to convert other people, because they wanted to share their salvation. Gobat’s and the CMS missionaries’ ‘activism’ is clearly reflected in their going to Palestine to spread the Gospel through their educational activities, Bible classes, prayer meetings and such.10 In this article, the primary schools run by Gobat and the CMS will be examined against the background of the other three characteristics of evangelicalism: biblicism, conversionism and crucicentrism. It intends to show in what way these three characteristics are reflected in the educational principles and activities of Gobat and the CMS missionaries. As will be shown, biblicism is a prominent feature in the schooling provided by Gobat and the CMS mis7

The CMS had been established in April 1799. In 1815 the CMS founded a ‘Mediterranean Mission’, with Malta as its centre, since the Committee regarded Malta as a “convenient base for extending operations in all directions.” The aim was to revive the Eastern Churches. It was believed that this revival would have an effect on the Muslims, who had to be evangelised by the Eastern Christians. E. Stock, The History of the Church Missionary Society: Its Environment, its Men and its Work 1, London 1899 (hereafter: The History of the CMS), 219, 222. Cf. J. Murray, Proclaim the Good News: A Short History of the Church Missionary Society, London 1985, 135; Tibawi, British Interests, 105. However, “it was not until the mid1870s that the deeper involvement of the CMS in mission to Muslims really began,” writes Murray, Proclaim the Good News, 136. 8 These documents can be found in the Church Missionary Archives, Original Papers of the Mediterranean and Palestine Mission 1811–1934, Special Collections Department, University Library, Birmingham (hereafter quoted as: C M/O, Birmingham/UL). The Original Papers contain (periodical) letters, reports, and papers sent to the home front by individual missionaries, catechists and others connected with the CMS. Abbreviations of other archival sources used in this article are: London/BL=Manuscript Collections, British Library, London (RP=Rose Papers); London/LPL=Archbishops of Canterbury Archives and Manuscripts, Lambeth Palace Library, London (WP=Wordsworth Papers, TP=Tait Papers). In this article the names of the German and French CMS missionaries will be Anglicized, as the missionaries themselves signed their letters with Anglicized names and they are also mentioned as such in the Register of Missionaries (Clerical, Lay, and Female), and Native Clergy, From 1804 to 1904 of the CMS, Birmingham/UL, CMS BV 2500. 9 D.W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Britain: A history from the 1730s to the 1980s, London 1989, 2–19. 10 Cf. Bebbington, Evangelicalism, 3.

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sionaries. Before examining this, I will sketch Gobat’s personal history in the European Awakening movement and his connection with the CMS, and provide a general survey of the schools run by Gobat and the CMS missionaries. GOBAT’S PERSONAL HISTORY IN THE AWAKENING MOVEMENT AND HIS CONNECTION WITH THE CMS Samuel Gobat was a French-speaking Swiss, born on 26 January 1799 in Crémines (Jura). He came from a devout Protestant family. At the age of nineteen Gobat experienced an overwhelming conversion, the memories of which he described in his autobiography.11 His conversion story contains all the typical elements of evangelical conversion narratives: reading the Bible, the awareness of being a sinner, prayer, and, finally, its culmination in the feeling that all sins are forgiven in the process of ‘justification’ founded on Christ’s atoning death. 12 For evangelical Christians it was very important that people should experience such a conversion. To quote David Bebbington: “The line between those who had undergone the experience and those who had not was the sharpest in the world. It marked the boundary between a Christian and a pagan.” 13 A person who experienced a recognizable conversion was, in the language of the Protestant missionaries, a ‘true Christian.’ As a student, Gobat was involved in the international network of the Evangelical movement. In 1821 he entered the Basel Mission Institute to be trained as a missionary,14 and four years later, in 1825, the Board of the Basel Mission sent him to Britain to work for the CMS. Just like the Basel Mission, the CMS had also been established under the influence of the religious revival in Europe. The Basel Mission was accustomed to sending its missionaries to England to join the CMS, because, in Gobat’s words, the CMS had more money than it had people, whereas 11 During the last years of his life Gobat started to write his autobiography, but he died before he could finish it. As a result the first part of this autobiography (pp. 3–267) was written by Gobat himself in English in Jerusalem (1864–1873) and was translated into German by his daughter. The second part (pp. 268–550) was edited by his family on the basis of the bishop’s (annual) letters. See Gobat, Leben und Wirken. T. Schölly wrote a new edition of Gobat’s biography, meant for a wider circle: T. Schölly, Samuel Gobat, evangelischer Bischof in Jerusalem: Ein Lebensbild, Basel, 1900. Modern accounts on Gobat can be found in: Tibawi, British Interests; A. Carmel, Christen als Pioniere im Heiligen Land: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Pilgermission und des Wiederaufbaus Palästinas im 19. Jahrhundert, Basel 1981; S.M. Jack, “No Heavenly Jerusalem: The Anglican Bishopric, 1841–83,” in: JRH 2.19 (1995), 181–203; Lückhoff, Anglikaner; Stunt, From Awakening to Secession. 12 Gobat, Leben und Wirken, 3–14. 13 Bebbington, Evangelicalism, 5. 14 The Basler Mission was founded on 25 September 1815. Its first intention was to train missionaries who would be sent overseas by other missionary societies and work for these. However, it very soon started to develop projects of its own. P. Jenkins, A Short History of the Basel Mission, Basel 1989, 4–5; K. Rennstich, “Mission-Geschichte der protestantischen Mission in Deutschland,” in: U. Gäbler (ed.), Der Pietismus im neunzehnten und zwanzigsten Jahrhundert, 308–310.

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with the Basel Mission the opposite was the case. 15 As a result, many CMS missionaries came from the continent, especially Germany and Switzerland. Before the CMS sent them overseas, a majority of the continental missionaries received a couple of months training in the Church Missionary College in Islington. The students were instructed not only in Latin and Greek, but also in the languages of the mission fields, such as Arabic. Furthermore, they received education in subjects such as divinity, logic and mathematics. 16 Gobat also followed this route.17 Before he left for the Church Missionary College, he received Lutheran orders on 25 February 1825.18 Gobat stayed in Islington for a few months and continued to study Hebrew and Arabic, while also learning Ethiopian. In his autobiography Gobat tells us that he went through an inner change during his stay in Britain. Until then he was very emotional, his mood alternating between the strong feeling of being a sinner on the one hand, and happiness because of Christ’s love on the other, although he did not think he deserved it. He was constantly aware of his condition before God: during his stay in Britain, his emotional life became more even-tempered.19 Late in 1825, Gobat was sent to Ethiopia.20 He first travelled via Malta and Alexandria to Cairo. Apart from a journey through Palestine, Gobat and his CMS colleague, Christian Kugler, remained in Egypt for three years. 21 On 20 October 1829, they finally went to Ethiopia, where they travelled and worked for another three years. Early in 1833 Gobat returned to London,22 and on 23 May 1834, he married Maria Zeller (1813–1879), a daughter of the above-mentioned prominent pastor and educator Christian Heinrich Zeller.23 They left for Egypt that summer with the intention of eventually returning to Ethiopia, however, the journey turned into a disastrous expedition when Gobat became very ill with cholera. He and his wife had to break their journey in the Ethiopian city of Adowa, where they stayed for twenty months. In September 1836, Gobat was brought back to Cairo, and in 15 Gobat, Leben und Wirken, 77–78. J. Pinnington, “Church Principles in the Early Years of the Church Missionary Society: the Problem of the ‘German’ Missionaries” in: The Journal of Theological Studies. New Series 20 (1969), 525 is quoting Theophilus Blumhardt when he states that the cooperation which developed between the CMS and the Basler Mission was “very much that between the ‘children of God in England’ and the ‘holy see’ on the Continent.” 16 Stock, The History of the CMS 1, 266. Cf. Stunt, From Awakening to Secession, 125. 17 Other examples of CMS missionaries in Palestine who followed this path are Frederick Klein (of Straßburg), William Krusé (of Elberfeld, Rhenish Prussia) and John Zeller (of Besigheim, Württemberg). See Register of Missionaries. 18 Gobat, Leben und Wirken, 78. 19 From then on he was only rarely subject to “extreme sorrow or excessive joy.” Gobat, Leben und Wirken, 84–85. Gobat’s inner change may indicate that he had started to move away from the more sentimental and devotional Pietism of the Continental awakening movement under the influence of his experiences in Britain, according to Stunt, From Awakening to Secession, 131–132. 20 Gobat, Leben und Wirken, 84; Tibawi, British Interests, 86. 21 Gobat, Leben und Wirken, 88–100. 22 Ibid., 123–187; Carmel, Christen als Pioniere, 61. 23 Gobat, Leben und Wirken, 191–195, 199.

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1837 Gobat and his family returned to Switzerland in order to regain their health.24 It took Gobat over a year to recover from his illness, but in 1839 the CMS sent him to Malta to work on the revision of the Arabic translation of the Bible, and to help edit the missionary literature printed by the CMS Malta Press. 25 When the CMS Station at Malta was closed, his expectations had not been fulfilled, 26 and Gobat returned to Switzerland, where he stayed for another two years. However, in 1845 Gobat returned to Malta because the mission station was being revived again by a committee of clergy and laity in London. This committee entrusted Gobat with the foundation and administration of a Protestant College, which opened on 3 February 1846. His work in Malta would not last long, as a few months later Gobat was asked to become the next bishop of the Protestant bishopric in Jerusalem.27 On 5 July 1846, Gobat was consecrated as bishop and on 30 December of the same year Gobat and his family arrived in Jerusalem. This was the start of almost thirty-five years in office as bishop of the Protestant bishopric in Jerusalem (1846–1879). Gobat invited the CMS to help him with his work due to his good relationship with his former society. The first CMS missionaries arrived in Palestine in 1851. Although the CMS mission was independent of Gobat, the society and bishop closely cooperated throughout Gobat’s episcopate. Gobat received financial support and manpower from the CMS, and he in turn was their guide in missionary efforts.28 Gobat chaired the conferences of the CMS Local Committee in Palestine and the CMS missionaries in Palestine, in which mission policies were decided and local missionary matters were discussed. Gobat and the CMS were on the same wavelength in their missionary activities and objective: both Gobat and the CMS missionaries directed their energies towards Christians from other churches. They wanted to reform the Eastern Churches, which Gobat and the CMS felt were in decline and full of misconceptions. In practice, however, they worked towards conversions rather than reformation. SURVEY OF PROTESTANT SCHOOLS When Gobat arrived in Palestine, there were no Protestant schools. Although his predecessor, Bishop Michael Solomon Alexander (1799–1845), had already appointed a schoolteacher in Jerusalem, this functionary had not been able to lay a firm foundation for a Protestant school. In 1847, Gobat opened the Diocesan 24 Ibid., 199–125; Carmel, Christen als Pioniere, 62. 25 Gobat, Leben und Wirken, 244; Tibawi, British Interests, 86; Carmel, Christen als Pioniere, 62. 26 However, the reason officially given was lack of money. Cf. Tibawi, British Interests, 104. 27 Smith, The Protestant Bishopric, 174; Tibawi, British Interests, 86–87; Carmel, Christen als Pioniere, 62–63. 28 With the CMS on his side “Gobat secured a powerful ally, and they a staunch supporter.” Cf. Tibawi, British Interests, 107.

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School in Jerusalem. In January of the following year, he wrote that the school was under the direction of Miss Lucy Harding (d. 1872) who had been sent out for this specific task by the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East (also named Female Education Society). The school started in 1847 with nine pupils, by January 1848 there were twelve children, and, according to Gobat, within three weeks this number had increased to seventeen.29 During Gobat’s episcopate many schools were established, a fact he loved to boast about. Two years before he died, he wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Archibald Campbell Tait (1811–1882), that when he started his career as a bishop there wasn’t a single Christian school in the whole of Palestine, but now, in 1877, there were 37 so-called Bible Schools in Judea, Samaria and Galilee.30 Although this statement was not completely true (there had already been schools of other denominations in Palestine for a long time), 31 this and similar quotes illustrate the importance of the foundation of schools in his eyes. 32 The majority of the Protestant schools were established by Gobat in cooperation with the CMS. From the moment the CMS missionaries arrived in Palestine in 1851, Gobat and the CMS missionaries closely collaborated in the educational field.33 It is difficult to give an overview of Protestant schools, numbers of pupils, years of establishment and towns because the missionary sources are inconsistent and often incomplete on this point. From the missionaries’ letters we learn that besides Jerusalem, over the years Protestant schools were founded in other towns and villages, such as Bethlehem, Fuhais, Gaza, Jaffa, Lydda, Nablus, Nazareth, Ramallah, Ramle, Salt, Shefa Amer, Taybeh, and Jaffa. In some towns Gobat or the CMS established more than one Protestant school. The numbers of pupils varied from a dozen in the small village schools to more than sixty in larger towns. The education in the schools run by Gobat and the CMS was free of charge. When in 1868 the question of school fees was discussed at a Conference of Missionaries of the CMS in Palestine, chaired by Gobat, it was decided that the train29 Gobat to Tait, Jerusalem, 21 November 1877, London/LPL, TP, 234, ff. 280–283; Gobat to Rose, Jerusalem, 26 January 1848, London/BL, RP, 27, Add. 42798, ff. 207–208; Gobat to Rose, Jerusalem, 15 February 1848, London/BL, RP, 27, Add. 42798, ff. 209–214. Lucy Harding was the first agent the Female Education Society sent to Palestine. She arrived in Jerusalem in October 1847. In May 1851 she returned to Britain because of a serious conflict with Gobat and his wife. See N.L. Stockdale, Colonial Encounters among English and Palestinian Women, 1800–1948, Gainesville/Florida 2007, 154–156. 30 Gobat to Tait, Jerusalem 1877, London/LPL, TP, 234, ff. 280–283. 31 In his annual report for 1871 Gobat also mentions that there were no Christian schools in Palestine when he arrived, but adds that there were Latin monks who instructed about twenty boys in Italian. Cf. Gobat’s Annual Report, Jerusalem, 10 November 1871, in Gobat, Leben und Wirken, 483. 32 For a discussion of Gobat’s claims to be an educational pioneer and the presence of schools run by other denominations in Palestine long before Gobat’s time, see Tibawi, British Interests, 156–158. 33 The evangelicals believed in ‘Social Christianity’ and the foundation of schools and hospitals among the local and often poor people fitted this principle. See also P. Sangster, Pity my Simplicity: The Evangelical Revival and the Religious Education of Children 1738–1800, London 1963, 20.

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ing offered in their schools would remain free of charge. This decision was made because the conference thought that the people’s knowledge of the value of education was “still very imperfect.” Moreover, the schools run by other denominations were also free. According to the conference, in some cases, parents were even paid for sending their children to these schools.34 Some promising pupils from the Protestant schools were trained as catechists or schoolmasters in a training institution or Preparandi Class, established especially for this purpose.35 This class aimed at providing the students with a “thorough knowledge of the Bible and of the chief doctrines of Christianity.” The students were also taught other subjects necessary for a schoolmaster, such as geography, history and mathematics. English and Arabic were also offered. 36 The young men sometimes went out to discuss the Bible in the streets. Ferdinand Palmer, who was attached to the Diocesan school and the Preparandi Class in Jerusalem, wrote that some of the preparandi went to a neighbouring village on Sunday to converse with the inhabitants and to preach the Gospel to them.37 From the letters to the CMS one gets the impression that to the missionaries and Gobat methods of teaching were of minor importance, especially in the smaller village schools.38 Some elements of the CMS schools are reminiscent of the British Charity Schools. In both the Mission and the Charity schools, education was centred on religious instruction. Just as the Charity Schools, the CMS schools were free of charge and aimed at teaching the poor children the principles of the Christian religion in order to let them grow into good people and faithful servants of God.39 The CMS missionary William Francis Locke Paddon compared the Protestant boys’ school in Nazareth with the Charity and Sunday schools in Britain and concluded that it would “not be found wanting tho’ examined with reference to” these schools. He considered the boys’ school the most hopeful, cheering and important part of the mission’s work and was convinced that the school’s results might be “inestimable.” 40 It seems that in some cases the schools had intro34 “Minutes of a Conference of the Missionaries of the C.M.S. in Palestine, held at Jerusalem under the Presidency of the Bishop, on the 28th day of October 1868.” C M/O 2/1. See also a report of Zeller from 1878, in which he stated that the pupils of the Diocesan School or orphanage at Jerusalem must be received free of charge, since the other “religious bodies” maintained “Free Schools.” Zeller, “Appeal for the Diocesan School, Jerusalem” [printed], Jerusalem, March 1878, C M/O 71/101B. Both documents: Birmingham/UL. 35 Gobat to the CMS, Jerusalem, 5 October 1876, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 28/104. 36 Proceedings of the C.M.S. (1876–7), 60–61, cited in Tibawi, British Interests, 165. See also Gobat to the CMS, Jerusalem, 5 October 1876, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 28/104. 37 Palmer to the CMS, “Annual report of the Diocesan School 1878.” Jerusalem Mount Zion Orphanage, 4 November 1878, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 8/124B. 38 Cf. Tibawi, British Interests, 155. 39 According to Holmes “at the beginning of the nineteenth century the English missionaries had rather few models from which to choose in establishing schools. Charity schools had been set up at home and abroad,” B. Holmes, “British Imperial Policy and the Mission Schools,” in Educational Policy and the Mission Schools: Case Studies from the British Empire, ed. by B. Holmes, London 1967, 25–26. Cf. H.C. Barnard, A Short History of English Education: From 1760–1944, London 1947, 6. 40 Paddon to the CMS, Nazareth, 28 December 1868, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 60/9.

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duced the monitorial system of teaching. In Shefa Amer, for instance, the eldest pupil replaced the schoolteacher Nicola Dabak when he went to Nazareth as a teacher.41 In Gobat’s Diocesan school reading classes were also partly supervised by “monitors,” i.e. the elder pupils.42 A difference between the Charity schools and the schools run by Gobat and the CMS, however, seems to be that the former combined religious instruction with training in manual labour, which was also the case in the abovementioned institution led by Christian Heinrich Zeller in Beuggen.43 In this way, the children would learn to work and had the opportunity to become labourers or domestic servants.44 As for the schools run by Gobat and the CMS missionaries, there is no mention in the CMS reports of such a combination of manual labour with religious instruction. The only exception seems to be the bishop’s Diocesan School in Jerusalem. John Zeller,45 in charge of the school in the late 1870s, wrote about Bishop Gobat’s school and the boy’s orphanage that outside school hours some of the boys were “initiated in trades, as shoemaking, tailoring, carpentry and bookbinding.” Others were “employed at the Printing Press of the mission.” Besides this, the children were also employed in domestic work.46 The difference between the Diocesan School in Jerusalem and the schools run by Gobat and the CMS in other villages and towns lay in that the former was an orphanage where the children stayed on after school hours. Furthermore, especially in the village schools, the children were needed by their parents to assist them in agricultural work. From time to time, the missionaries lamented the small number of pupils in their schools because of this.47 Another difference between the Diocesan school and the other schools run by Gobat and the CMS in Palestine was the level of education, in which the Diocesan School seemed to excel. According to John Zeller, the higher classes of the Dio41 Zeller to Fenn, Nazareth, December 1872, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 72/277. 42 Gobat to Rose, Jerusalem, 8 August 1848, London/BL, RP, 27, Add. 42798, ff. 215–216. 43 Götzelman, “Die Soziale Frage,” 281–282; S. Hanselmann, Deutsche Evangelische Palästinamission: Handbuch ihrer Motive, Geschichte und Ergebnisse, Erlangen 1971, 50–51, 91. 44 On the Charity schools, see Barnard, A Short History, 5–8; A. Digby and P. Searby, Children, School and Society in Nineteenth-Century England, London 1981, 75–77. 45 John Zeller might have been related to Gobat’s wife, Maria Gobat-Zeller, daughter of Christian Heinrich Zeller. However, I have not found any information about this. 46 Zeller, “Report of Bishop Gobat’s School on Zion.” Jerusalem, July 1880, C M/O 72/284. Cf. Zeller, “Appeal for the Diocesan School, Jerusalem,” Jerusalem, March 1878, C M/O 71/101B; Zeller, “Report of Bishop Gobat’s Orphanage on Mount Zion,” Jerusalem, June 1879, C M/O 72/282. This is a printed version of a letter from Zeller to Wright, “Report of the Diocesan School and Orphanage [to its subscribers],” Jerusalem, 4 June 1879, C M/O 72/283. All: Birmingham/UL. 47 When Huber, for instance, visited the Protestant school in Jaffa, he only found a small num ber of children, as many children were “still engaged in thrashing and other agricultural occupations.” Huber to Chapman, “Journal extracts for the Quarter ending September 30 th 1858,” Nazareth, 9 October 1858, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 34/74. See also Krusé to the secretaries of the CMS, “Journal of the Jaffa station for the month of August. 1855,” Jaffa, 4 September 1855, C M/O 45/169; Zeller to Fenn, Annual Letter, Nazareth, December 1872, C M/O 72/277. Both: Birmingham/UL.

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cesan School furnished the Protestant mission with “suitable candidates for the preparandi institution,” in which pupils were trained as teachers and evangelists. This was important, according to Zeller, because he believed that no other Protestant school in Palestine was able “to prepare such candidates for their [i.e. the Protestant or CMS mission’s, C.v.d.L.] future work.”48 Many wives of the CMS missionaries participated in the mission’s work as well and took the initiative to instruct girls. Gobat’s wife Maria, for instance, and the wives of the CMS missionaries Christian Fallscheer, James Huber, William Krusé, Samuel Muller and John Zeller were all very active in the mission field. 49 The CMS missionaries frequently underlined the importance of educating the girls with an eye on their future task as mothers. They wanted to teach the girls Evangelical Protestant Christianity and wanted them to be able to read the Bible, so that they could later read it to their children. Both male and female missionaries, however, combined a desire to raise good Christian housewives and mothers, with domestic training such as needlework and housekeeping. In this way the girls would be able to establish a ‘Christian home’ in the future.50 In view of the girls’ future as mothers, Gobat and the CMS missionaries also stressed the importance of teaching the girls the Bible in their vernacular. Therefore, Arabic had to be the main language in the Protestant schools. Missionaries such as Frederick Klein criticised schools and institutions in which this was not the case; they thought that after finishing their education, the girls would forget the foreign language they had learned in school and would not be able to read the Bible in Arabic.51 At the end of his episcopate, Gobat handed over many schools and mission stations to the CMS “with a view of securing that for the future the work which he [had] been carrying on for twenty-nine years, [should] be conducted in the same spirit as hitherto.”52 In 1876, Gobat mentioned that he had been able to transfer some of his schools to the CMS. 53 In November 1877, the Bishop stated that he had transferred nine schools to the CMS as well as Fallscheer, his missionary and cat48 Zeller, “Report of Bishop Gobat’s Orphanage on Mount Zion,” Jerusalem, June 1879, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 72/282. 49 Some of them, among whom Mrs. Krusé, the wife of the CMS missionary William Krusé, were in the service of the Female Education Society. Stockdale, Colonial Encounters, 123. 50 For the missionaries’ view on what constituted a ‘Christian home’ and a ‘good housewife,’ see for instance Stockdale, Colonial Encounters, 113–115. 51 Klein to the CMS, Annual Report 1857–1858, Jerusalem, 23 February 1858, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 41/283. One of the institutions sometimes criticised by the CMS missionaries was the school of the Deaconesses of Kaiserswerth in Jerusalem, in which, according to Theodore Wolters, German was the main language and Arabic was “treated as a secondary subject [sic].” Wolters to Fenn, Annual Letter, Jerusalem, December 1878, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 71/155. Cf. Kawar to the CMS, Annual Letter, Jerusalem, December 1879, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 40/12. 52 Zeller, “Appeal for the Diocesan School, Jerusalem,” Jerusalem, March 1878, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 71/101B. Cf. Gobat, Annual Letter, Jerusalem, November 1877, in Gobat, Leben und Wirken, 526. 53 Gobat to Wright, Jerusalem, 9 March 1876, C M/O 28/99; Gobat to Wright, Jerusalem, 29 June 1876, C M/O 28/100. Both: Birmingham/UL.

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echist at Nablus, which left him with his orphanage on Mount Zion. The CMS was now in charge of twelve ‘native’ Protestant congregations and 22 or 23 schools.54 BIBLICISM: THE PROTESTANT “BIBLE SCHOOLS” The first prominent characteristic of evangelicalism reflected in the schools run by Gobat and the CMS is Biblicism, because the Bible occupied a central position in Evangelical circles. Evangelicals held the Bible in the highest regard and were devoted to ‘searching’ the Scriptures. For Gobat and the CMS missionaries, the Bible was the guiding principle in their work, and their writings are full of Bible quotations. Furthermore, they considered it a significant element in the process of conversion. As “literacy was a precondition for reading the Bible”, the schools were very important.55 Shortly after his arrival as bishop in Jerusalem, Gobat wrote that he thought that the Word of God should be woven into all aspects of education as much as possible, and teaching it should proceed from a “lively conviction of the teacher.” What counted for him was the “simple reading of the Bible, with short observations in a free conversational or catechetical manner.” For Gobat, religious education did not consist of teaching the “creeds” or “catechisms” and “least of all the theoretical differences existing between different churches,” but of teaching “the positive, historical, dogmatical and moral truths of the Word of God.”56 Gobat’s emphasis on the centrality of reading the Bible, his desire to interweave it with all aspects of education, and the importance of a lively conviction on the part of the educator to create faith in the child is a reminder of the pedagogy of Christian Heinrich Zeller, since these were all elements of Zeller’s pedagogical principles.57 Referring to his own views on religious education, Gobat stated that, considering his dependence on the British public for funds, a system based on his educational views would “not meet with any supporter.” With this statement, Gobat referred to the school funding controversy in Britain at the time, adding that some people wanted to support a school in which only religion was taught, whereas other people preferred schools in which religion was not taught at all. 58 Nevertheless, reading the letters written by Gobat and the CMS missionaries, one cannot escape the impression that, especially in the small village schools, education was centred on the Bible, which was sometimes the only subject taught in the schools. It is not 54 Gobat to Tait, Jerusalem, 21 November 1877, London/LPL, TP, 234, ff. 280–283. Gobat also transferred two of his schools, those in Bethlehem and Beit Jala, to the Berlin JerusalemsVerein in 1871. Gobat, Annual Report, Jerusalem, 10 November 1981, in Gobat, Leben und Wirken, 483. 55 Bebbington, Evangelicalism, 12–14, 123. According to Bebbington, throughout Protestant Northern Europe reading skills had long been fostered primarily for the purpose of reading the Bible, often by informal methods outside the schools. 56 Gobat to Rose, Jerusalem, 13 October 1847, London/BL, RP, 27, Add. 42798, ff. 205–206. 57 Hanselmann, Deutsche Evangelische Palästinamission, 150–151, 191. 58 Gobat to Rose, Jerusalem, 13 October 1847, London/BL, RP, 27, Add. 42798 ff. 205–206.

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without reason that the Greek patriarch once characterised the schools as “Bible schools.”59 The Protestant school in Nablus, which Gobat had opened in 1848, demonstrates the central position of the Bible in education. For this school, the bishop appointed a teacher whose main task was to teach the children the Bible. It was the only religious book in the school and the focus of education. In one case, the teacher was a Greek Orthodox, and so it seems to be of negligible importance who the instructor was, as long as the Bible was taught. According to Gobat, the Bible lessons had been fruitful, as schoolmaster and boys, all Greek Orthodox, made rapid progress in the knowledge of the Bible. The children started to read the Bible to their parents, who began to see their own so-called ‘ignorance’ and desired instruction, as well.60 Gobat did the same in Salt as he had done in Nablus: he opened a Protestant school for which he had “appointed a Greek priest as teacher without making any important condition, but that he should teach the children to read the Bible.”61 In his annual report for 1853, Gobat explained why he sometimes appointed teachers from other denominations. In towns or villages where members of other churches asked him to open a school (as their clergy refused to open one), Gobat established a school and let the people choose a teacher of their own denomination in order not to offend their clergy. He had one condition: only the Bible was to be read to the children, no church doctrines were to be taught. Gobat’s demand to read the Bible seems innocent, however, in the same report he stated that people who read the Bible and wanted to live in accordance with it would feel obliged to leave their churches.62 This strongly suggests that Gobat was convinced that a deeper knowledge of the Bible would induce people to leave their original Orthodox or Catholic churches, which of course would greatly offend the clergy of these churches.63 The Bible formed a major part of the children’s education, especially in the smaller village schools. Reading lessons consisted of reading the Bible, but it was also taught by means of discussion. Furthermore, scriptural knowledge formed a major part of the children’s examinations. From the missionary reports it appears that attention was also given to learning the Scriptures by heart. In the school of Lydda, for instance, the children were examined on all the events described in the “books of Moses,” and on the New Testament: the birth, parables, miracles, crucifixion, appearance and ascension of Christ. According to the Protestant schoolteacher, Hannah Damishky, one of the schoolboys knew the first sixteen chapters of the Gospel of Matthew by heart. 64 Descriptions of the elementary curriculum suggest that in most CMS schools, aside from the Bible and Bible-related sub59 60 61 62 63 64

Gobat to Tait, Jerusalem, 21 November 1877, London/LPL, TP, 234, ff. 280–283. Gobat to Venn, Jerusalem, 9 January 1850, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 28/69. Gobat to Tait, Jerusalem, 17 July 1873, London/LPL, TP, 195, ff. 280–282. Gobat, Annual Letter, Jerusalem, 14 November 1853, in Gobat, Leben und Wirken, 362–363. Ibid. Damishky to the Committee of the CMS, Report, Lydda, 1 November 1879, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 22/5.

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jects, some attention was given to writing, arithmetic and sometimes also to geography and history. In the majority of schools the curriculum had probably been expanded during the Gobat years, and at the end of his episcopate, there may have been hardly any schools left in which only the Bible was read. 65 Nevertheless, in Gobat’s and the missionaries’ descriptions of Protestant education and examinations in the 1860s and 1870s, the Bible still held a prominent position. Someone who seemed to be very concerned with the centrality of the Scriptures in the CMS schools was Gobat’s son-in-law Theodore Wolters, from the CMS Jerusalem mission. As a result of his visits to several CMS schools in Palestine, he was worried about the education offered there. Although he thought that teaching subjects such as reading, writing and arithmetic were useful, he failed to see “any adequate efforts” of the schoolteachers “to make the boys acquainted with the Word of God in such a way that they might be attracted by the stories [therein?, C.v.d.L.] contained and especially by the picture of our Lord’s Life and Death there given and by all the teaching therewith connected, and led to Christ.” He added that the teachers had to be made aware of their responsibility: “they were directed to pay the greatest attention possible to the Scripture lessons, and to seek in every way to bring the children entrusted in their care, to Jesus as their Saviour”. On his suggestion, his brother-in-law, John Zeller, also stationed in Jerusalem at the time, made a school-concept in order to secure greater uniformity in teaching. According to Wolters, this plan specified “the number of hours which must be devoted to Scripture lessons and the way in which these lessons must be given.” When completed, and after other missionaries in Palestine had commented on it, Wolters intended to distribute the plan to all schoolmasters in the CMS schools in the country. 66 Whether he succeeded in implementing it is uncertain. EVANGELICAL EDUCATION: OPPORTUNITY FOR MAKING CONVERTS For evangelical Christians, a ‘true conversion of the heart’ was of the utmost importance. As the missionaries considered the Bible an important element in the process of conversion, biblicism and conversionism were closely connected. As is mentioned earlier, Gobat was convinced that people who read the Bible and accepted it as their guiding principle could not remain members of their initial churches. The reports by Gobat and the CMS missionaries all demonstrate that they considered their Bible schools in Zeller’s words, a “very valuable means of spreading the truth as it is in Christ.” 67 Bourazan even believed the mission schools the “only means the missionary can work upon,” as they were important 65 Francis Bourazan, however, in 1874 mentions a boys’ school in which the children were still used to reading only the Bible. Bourazan could not approve and started to teach arithmetic, geography and Bible history. Bourazan to the CMS, Salt, Jerusalem, 4 February 1874, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 8/96A. 66 Wolters to Fenn, Annual Letter, Jerusalem, December 1878, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 71/155.

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in teaching children the Word of God and bringing them up in the way of Christianity in order to make a new generation. The multi-denominational and multi-religious background of the pupils made the schools perfectly placed to spread the fundamentals of (Evangelical) Protestantism. The schools were attended by children from various denominations: only a small part of the parents had any fixed ties to Protestantism, and most of the children belonged to one of the other churches or religions. They came from Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Muslim or Jewish families.68 Converting the future generation to the Protestant Evangelical version of Christianity was considered of crucial importance for the future of Christianity in Palestine. Bourazan thought that preaching to the old generation was not effective at all.69 Besides the children’s various denominational backgrounds, the missionaries considered the Protestant schools an ideal opportunity to reach the children’s parents, families and other relations.70 One way in which parents came to know the Bible through their children seemed to be simply by attending some of the children’s classes. According to William Krusé, some mothers of pupils in the Protestant school of Jaffa took delight in stopping at the school whilst the children were being catechised. This led him to think that by educating the rising generation they influenced “the hearts of the parents” as well. He daily thanked God for the mission school, which led to so much real good.71 However, the most common way in which the children’s newly-acquired knowledge reached their parents and families were the children’s own stories about what they had learned in school, or their reading the Bible to their parents, as was the case in the Protestant school in Nablus. Gobat and the CMS missionaries loved to write about this effect of their schools. A girl from the Protestant school in Lydda, for example, had heard the story of Isaac in school. After school she went to her grandfather, who was a Greek Orthodox, and told him: “‘my Grandfather’ you are as Isaac […]. The master at school told us, that Isaac has blessed the children of Joseph.” According to the schoolmaster who told this story, the old man knew nothing of the Bible and was astonished to hear this little girl telling him such a religious story. He asked the girl to bring her Bible the next day and to read it to him and so she did. The old man promised to bless her before he died. The schoolmaster ended his story by expressing the hope that the “light of Christ” would enter the girl’s heart one day.72 67 Zeller to the Secretaries of the CMS in London, Annual Letter for 1874–75, Nazareth, January 1875, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 72/278. 68 To quote with William Paddon, the children of Muslims, Greeks and Latins in the Protestant schools were “brought under the daily sound of the Gospel.” Paddon to the CMS, Nazareth, August 1868, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 60/2. 69 Bourazan, 4 February 1874, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 8/96A. 70 See for instance Gobat’s annual letter for 1871, in Gobat, Leben und Wirken, 485. 71 Krusé to the Secretaries of the CMS, “Journal of the Jaffa Station, first quarter 1858,” Jaffa, 22 April 1858, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 45/175. 72 Damishky, “Abstracts of God’s vineyard at Lydda God’s providence May 30 th 1879,” Lydda, 15 August 1879, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 22/2.

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It seems that the CMS missionaries considered the school examinations another valuable tool for spreading the Gospel. From the missionaries’ stories about examinations in the mission schools it appears that these were open to the public, since they regularly mention the presence of other people. These others could be other Protestant missionaries, but also clergymen of the other denominations, and important people of the local community. 73 Probably the children’s parents were also present. Since an important part of the examinations consisted of testing the children’s scriptural knowledge and the catechism, this information would also reach those present. Occasionally, pupils of the Protestant schools were ‘spontaneously’ examined in school, or even in the streets, when a Protestant missionary visited their town or school.74 Although the Protestant missionaries considered their Bible schools a central means for evangelisation aimed at making converts, stories about children who were actually converted are generally lacking in the CMS documents. 75 In the success stories the missionaries wrote about their schools, they did mention the inner change of their pupils or their good or improved behaviour, sometimes mentioning several characteristics of typical evangelical conversion stories, i.e. inner struggle, prayer, a sense of sinfulness, complete surrender, and trust in Jesus as the Saviour. For instance, in the Protestant school of Salt the boys started their own prayer meetings and when the minister of Salt, Chalil Jamal, asked the boys what blessing they had found as a result of the prayer meetings, the boys told him that they realized they were sinners and that they felt the weight of sin more than before. On asking what they thought to be the remedy of sin, the boys answered Jamal that the remedy for sin was “the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.”76 The positive effect of their education on the children’s behaviour is a favourite theme in the letters written by Gobat and the CMS missionaries. They wrote about children who criticized and corrected the behaviour of their parents or fellow pupils, for instance by telling their parents not to swear or preventing their schoolmates from stealing, referring to the Ten Commandments. 77 With such stor73 For instance, in the Protestant school of Salt the pasha and mufti of nearby Nablus were invited, as was the judge of Salt. Jamal to the secretaries of the CMS, Annual letter, Salt, 29 November 1879, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 36/11. 74 When, for instance, the missionaries Henry Johnson, Chalil Jamal and Michael Kawar visited Fuhais, three boys of the CMS school were brought to them for an examination. After the Protestant schoolmaster had examined the boys on three catechisms, in which the children performed wonderfully well, Jamal continued by asking questions on Old Testament History. Johnson to Hutchinson, Jerusalem, November-December 1875, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 38/9. 75 In his annual report for 1871, Gobat mentions that of the women and men who were educated in the Protestant schools, some were truly converted. A larger number, however, had joined the Protestant church but were not ‘truly’ converted. The majority did know the truth, but had stayed in their own church under the pressure of their parents. Gobat, Annual Report, Jerusalem, 10 November 1871, in Gobat, Leben und Wirken, 484. 76 Jamal to the secretaries of the CMS, Annual Letter, Salt, November 1879, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 36/11. 77 For instance, a girl from the CMS school in Lydda told her mother not to swear, reminding her of the Commandment she had learned in school “Thou shalt not to swear or take the name

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ies the missionaries obviously wanted to convince the home public of the success and beneficial effect of their schooling, and prove that the children had adopted Protestant views. These positive effects of the Protestant schools on the children should probably be nuanced, as the missionaries might have exaggerated the results of their education in order to obtain the support of the home front. TEACHING DOCTRINES AND DISCUSSING THE BIBLE POLARIZATION THROUGH EDUCATION Conversionism is also closely linked to another characteristic of evangelicalism: crucicentrism. The doctrine of the cross was the heart of evangelical faith because it stressed the importance of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. With his atoning death Christ died as a substitute for sinful humanity. 78 The doctrine of the cross was bound up with two central Evangelical Protestant principles: Christ as the only mediator between God and humanity, and justification through faith instead of by good works. Through faith only, people could take part in the atonement and could attain salvation.79 George Nyland wrote in his “report about the outstations near Jerusalem” that his first aim in his work was always “to show [Catholic and Orthodox people, C.v.d.L.] the love of God through Jesus Christ to us sinners and then to teach them that we cannot of ourselves by our good works, fasting and praying, gain our salvation and reach heaven as they [members of other churches, C.v.d.L.] are taught by their priests to believe.”80 Rather than teaching the doctrine of the cross and other central evangelical doctrines as such, Gobat and the CMS missionaries taught the schoolchildren the Evangelical principles by reading and discussing the Bible; the Bible led them to the main Evangelical doctrines. Although reading and discussing the Bible was central to the curriculum of the Bible schools, in many Protestant schools the catechism was also part of the programme. John Robert Longley Hall insisted that all children in the schools of Jaffa and its outstations should learn the Church Catechism. He was very anxious that the children should clearly see and understand what the Protestants believed, because if the children did not know what the Protestants believed, they would “return as a rule to the Church of their infancy” after they had left school.81 This statement underlines the importance of doctrines in relation to the other Christian denominations.82

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of the Lord thy God in vain.” Damishky, “Abstracts of God’s vineyard at Lydda God’s Providence,” Lydda, August 1879, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 22/2. Bebbington, Evangelicalism, 14–17, here 15. Cf. Bebbington, Evangelicalism, 6. Nyland, “Report about the outstations near Jerusalem”, Ramallah, 25 March 1880, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 57/1. Hall to Fenn, Annual Letter for “Jaffa, Ramleh and Lydd stations”, Jaffa, 6 December 1877, Birmingham/UL, 31/36. John Gruhler was also convinced that the Christian pupils of other denominations would “be preserved from the superstitions of their church and learn the pure Word of God” as a result of the Protestant education. Gruhler to Sandreczki, Quarterly Report, Ramle, 24 December

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According to Paul Sangster, Evangelicals in general used all the methods they knew to install religious principles in children and catechizing was the most obvious and easiest way. In the eighteenth century the evangelicals ‘revived’ the oldfashioned method of catechizing by changing it into a “lively method of instruction which children would not merely endure, but enjoy.” The doctrines were taught not only by means of repetition, but by asking supplementary questions, “both to make the information more interesting and to ensure that there was real understanding.”83 From the missionaries’ correspondence it appears that their evangelical views and principles were transmitted in the same way: by means of discussing the catechism, but especially the Bible with the pupils, putting questions and answering them. These discussions were often punctuated with criticism of the doctrines and rituals of the other churches. John Zeller, for instance, wrote that in the school in Nazareth the story of Elisabeth and Zacharias was discussed. When the children were asked what Zacharias’ duty was in the temple, they answered “to burn incense.” To Zeller’s question what the duty of the priests in the churches of Nazareth was, the children gave the same answer. When he asked for what purpose they burned incense, a girl answered: “It is done for the pictures of Saints.” Zeller went on to ask why the Greeks and Latins burned incense and the Protestants did not. A seven-year old girl replied that Latins and Greeks still followed the Old Testament, whereas Protestants followed the New Testament. 84 This discussion is in line with the general missionary rejection of outward form and profession of the faith. By comparing these rituals with the Old Testament customs, the missionaries clearly relegated them to the past. They presented the New Testament as the Protestants’ guiding principle, which was about the truth as it is in Christ, a spiritual religion, rather than about outward appearance.85 In his catechizing Zeller not only taught a Protestant religious principle, but also contrasted Protestantism with the other denominations. Another example of such polarization comes from the Protestant school in a village near Nazareth. When the catechist Seraphim Boutaji entered the school, he heard the children 1858, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 29/7. 83 Sangster, Pity my Simplicity, 40. Sangster gives an example in which the teacher asks the children how they expected to be saved. The children answered: ‘By believing in the Lord Jesus Christ’. After that the master went on asking and the children answering. Sangster, Pity my Simplicity, 40–41. 84 Zeller to the Secretaries of the CMS in London, Annual Letter for 1874–1875, Nazareth, January 1875, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 72/278. 85 This view also appears in William McClure Thomson’s book The Land and the Book. In her discussion of this book, Heleen Murre-van den Berg states that the comparison of religious practices of other denominations and other denominations with Old Testament customs entitled “these religious practices to a certain amount of respect and understanding, but at the same time relegates them safely to the past.” H.L. Murre-van den Berg, “William McClure Thomson’s The Land and the Book (1859): Pilgrimage and Mission in Palestine,” in: H.L. Murre-van den Berg (ed.), New Faith in Ancient Lands: Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Leiden 2006, 53. The CMS missionaries in Palestine, however, so fiercely disapproved of all outward appearance that it is almost impossible to discover any respect for and understanding of these customs.

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reading a Psalm: “Thy word is clear teach me thy ways.” When Boutaji asked them what the word clear meant, one boy answered that it was easy to understand. At this answer, Boutaji responded: “If David declares the word of God to be clear, why do the priests say, that it was not clear and therefore had better not to be read by common people?” He went on to ask whose word had to be obeyed first, the word of God or the words of the priests, who are men. The boy answered Boutaji without hesitation that the order of the priests had to be obeyed first. 86 With this story, not only the use of Latin in church and people’s adherence to their priests were criticised, it also pointed to the so-called ignorance of the children and the need for Protestant education. The effect of the criticism of the other churches in the Protestant education is sometimes reflected in the CMS missionaries’ descriptions of discussions between their schoolchildren, and teachers and clergymen from other denominations. Such stories had to prove the success of Protestant schools, as they described children not only spreading Evangelical beliefs but also defending them. It seems that the pupils of the Protestant schools closely imitated their teachers in their discussions with people they wanted to convince of the Protestant viewpoint by quoting the Scriptures. In their eyes the clergy of the other denominations and their church members did not know the Bible. Just like the missionaries’ conversations, the children discussed traditional subjects of dispute: the worship of the Virgin Mary, justification through faith only versus good works, Christ as the only mediator between God and humanity instead of Mary and the saints, and similar matters. Jamal described such a discussion between a Greek Orthodox boy of the Protestant school in Salt, named Wakeem, and the Roman Catholic schoolmistress. Accused by the Latin priest that he had insulted the crucifix, Wakeem and his father went to the convent where they met the Latin schoolmistress. She asked Wakeem why he did not worship the Virgin Mary and the Cross. The boy answered: “Because it is written […] ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve, also the Angel said to St John Worship God’.” When the schoolmistress replied that the Virgin Mary was their advocate and intercessor, the boy denied, again quoting the Bible: “there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” The schoolmistress went on and told the boy that they [i.e. Mary and the Saints, C.v.d.L.] were the way to heaven. One last time the boy cited Jesus’ words from the Bible: “I am the way, the truth & the life. […] No man cometh unto the Father but by me.” The teacher turned aside angrily and told the boy’s father to take his son from the Protestant school before he was completely spoiled and corrupted. However, the father answered that if she called this corruption, he wanted his son to be corrupted and spoiled more than he was now.87 Thus Jamal wanted to show that the “young soldiers of the Cross,” as he called the schoolboys, were doing wonderfully well, they had an excellent knowledge of the Bible and knew central evangelical doctrines. The boys were even aware of the errors in the other churches. 86 Zeller, “Extracts from Journals”, Nazareth, August 1867, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 72/265. 87 Jamal to the secretaries of the CMS, Annual Letter, Salt, 29 November 1879, Birmingham/UL, C M/O 36/11.

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These examples indicate that Protestant missionaries liked to emphasize what they thought to be the errors of the other churches in their education. This suggests that Gobat’s and the CMS missionaries’ actions clashed with Gobat’s statement that controversial matters should be avoided in Protestant teaching, and with his claim he did not want the “theoretical differences existing between different churches” to be stressed in Protestant education.88 CONCLUDING REMARKS The letters written by Bishop Gobat and the CMS missionaries reveal how much their schools reflected their Evangelical beliefs. Of Bebbington’s characteristics of evangelicalism, biblicism is especially prominent in the educational principles and activities shown by Gobat and the missionaries. Although attention was given to other subjects, during Gobat’s entire episcopate the Bible was at the centre of the education in the schools. Reading the Bible was important to the process of conversion, and literacy was a precondition for reading the Bible. In some cases, the education chiefly consisted of reading the Bible. The importance of the Bible in education is also stressed by the fact that even a Greek Orthodox could be appointed as teacher, as long as the children read the Bible. For Gobat and the CMS missionaries, the schools were an important instrument for achieving conversions. The multi-religious backgrounds of the children made them ideal tools for evangelisation. Through their pupils the missionaries could also reach the children’s parents and families. It seems that the central Evangelical doctrines were taught especially by discussing the Bible. These discussions were interwoven with criticism of the other denominations, by which the missionaries contrasted Protestantism with the other churches. By stressing the so-called errors of these churches Gobat and the CMS missionaries in fact confirmed their own Evangelical Protestant identity; the errors of the other denominations were compared with their own superior Evangelical beliefs. By their accounts of the children’s good behaviour, the missionaries wanted to demonstrate the successes to the home public. However, this achievement should probably be qualified: the missionaries could not claim many truly converted children.

88 Gobat to Rose, Jerusalem, 13 October 1847, London/BL, RP, 27, Add. 42798 ff. 205–206; Gobat to Rose, Jerusalem, 15 February 1848, London/BL, RP, 27, Add. 42798 ff.209–214.

SCHOOL- AND MISSION-CONCEPTIONS OF THE GERMAN CATHOLICS IN PALESTINE UNTIL THE FIRST WORLD WAR Haim Goren INTRODUCTION “Die Schule ist das Hauptmittel, durch welches alle in Palästina und Syrien wirkenden christlichen Missionsgesellschaften ihr Ziel zu erreichen suchen.” (P. Karge, Die christlichen Missionsschulen in Palästina, Breslau 1916, 1.)

The first steps in the modern study of the European involvement in nineteenthcentury Palestine can be traced to the early works of Yehoshua Ben Arieh and Alex Carmel, dating from the 1970s.1 Subsequently, and for quite a long period, scholars published essentially positivistic studies, establishing and presenting the facts, leading to a continuous construction of the whole picture. Within this framework, much attention was devoted to Christian missions and missionaries in the country, their aims and activities, and their place as part of the entire European penetration, and as a tool in this penetration.2 It seems that only in the last fifteen 1

2

As examples: Y. Ben-Arieh, The Rediscovery of the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century, Jerusalem1979; first in Hebrew, 1970; idem, Jerusalem in the 19th Century, the Old City, Jerusalem 1984; Hebrew version 1977; idem, Jerusalem in the 19th Century: Energence of the new City, Jerusalem 1986; Hebrew Version 1979; Alex Carmel, Die Siedlungen der württembergischen Templer in Palästina 1868–1918: Ihre lokalpolitischen und internationalen Probleme Stuttgart 1973; idem, Palästina-Chronik 1853 bis 1882: Deutsche Zeitungsberichte vom Krimkrieg bis zur ersten jüdischen Einwanderungswelle, Ulm 1978. As examples: S. Akel, Der Pädagoge und Missionican Missionary Societies in Jerusalem: Activities and Impact”, in R. Kark (ed.), The Land that Became Israel. Studies in Historical Geography, New Haven–London 1989, 105–119; F. Foerster, Mar Johann Ludwig Schneller und seine Erziehungsanstalten, Bielfeld 1978; A. Carmel, “Der Missionar Theodor Fliedner als Pionier deutscher Palästina-Arbeit”, JIDG 14 (1985), 191–220; idem, “C.F. Spittler and the Activities of the Pilgrims Mission in Jerusalem”, in: G.G. Gilbar (ed.), Ottoman Palestine 1800–1914: Studies in Economic and Social History, Leiden 1990, 255–286; S. Sapir, “The Anglican Missionary Societies in Jerusalem: Activities and Impact”, in The Land that became Israel. Studies and Historical Geography, ed. Ruth Kark (New Haven and London, 1989, 105–119; F. Foerster, Mission im Heiligen Land: Der Jerusalems-Verein zu Berlin 1852– 1945, Gütersloh 1991; idem, Mission in der Stille: Die gewaltlose Missionskonzeption Christian Friedrich Spittlers für Jerusalem und Äthiopien”, in: U. van der Heyden/J. Becher (eds.), Mission und Gewalt: Der Umgang christlicher Missionen mit Gewalt und die Ausbreitung des Christentums in Afrika und Asien in der Zeit von 1792 bis 1918/19, Stuttgart 2000, 55–66; R. Felgentreff, “Kaiserswerther Diakonissen in Jerusalem und anderswo im Morgenland”, in: K.-H. Ronecker/J. Nieper/ T. Neubert-Preine (eds.), Dem Erlöser der Welt zur Ehre: Fest-

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or twenty years, scholars have also begun to try to answer questions concerning the impact of this missionary work, its cultural influence in the country, inter-relations between the different missions, and other similar issues.3 As for the German missionary involvement, modern studies have dealt almost solely with the variety of very active and highly influential Protestant missions, with and without their British partners and rivalries. 4 This paper aims at placing the missionary activity conducted in Palestine by the German Catholics within this framework, trying to establish its background and beginnings, basic conceptions and methods of activity, and reciprocal influence with other missions, as well as the local population. Naturally, the missionary activity originated out of a religious interest, but its effect spread widely over other, mainly social and cultural issues involving the local population, the people at whom the mission was aimed. All these issues will be dealt with in the following paper, which encompasses only the period prior to the First World War. THE GERMAN CATHOLICS: ACTIVITY The German Catholics formed one of the minor European-Christian groups involved in Palestine throughout the nineteenth century, whose activity in and for the Holy Land took a different path than those of other groups. 5 Their involvement in Palestine in the period prior to the First World War can be divided into three major sub-periods: 1838–1875, activity on behalf of general, not nationally identified Catholic Christians in the Holy Land; 1875–1895, the beginnings of practical activity; 1895–1910, institutionalized and widespread practical activity.

3

4 5

schrift zum hundertjährigen Jubiläum der Einweihung der evangelischen Erlöserkirche in Jerusalem, Leipzig 1998, 72–80; Y. Perry, British Mission to the Jews in nineteenth-century Palestine, London 2003; R. Kark, “Missionary Societies in the Holy Land in an International Context”, in J. Eisler/H. Ehmer/N. Haag (eds.), Württemberg in Palästina: Der Beitrag der deutschen Missions und Siedlungstätigkeit zur kulturrelen Entwicklung Palästina, (in press). C. Verdeil, “Travailler à la renaissance de l’Orient Chrétien: Les missions Latines en Syrie (1830–1945)”, in: Proche-Orient Chrétien 51 (2001), 267–316 (and further works of hers); R. Kark/D. Denecke/H. Goren, “The Impact of Early German Missionary Enterprize in Palestine on Modernization and Environmental and Technological Change, 1820–1914”, in: M. Tamcke/M. Marten (eds.), Christian Witness between Community and New Beginnings: Modern historical missions in the Middle East, Berlin 2006, 145–176; R. Löffler, “Aggravating circumstances: On the processes of national and religious identity within the Arab Lutheran and Anglican congregations of Palestine during the Mandate years”, loc. cit., 99–123. M. Lückhoff, Anglikaner und Protestanten im Heiligen Land: Das gemeinsame Bistum Jerusalem (1841–1886), Wiesbaden 1998. See also above, note 2. “Das katholische Deutschland und der Orient”, in: Die katholischen Missionen 32 (1903/4), 30–34, 76–82, 196–199, 217–223, 246–248; E. Schmitz, Das katholische Deutschtum in Palästina, Freiburg/ Breisgau 1913; V. Cramer, Ein Jahrhundert deutscher katholischer Palästinamission 1855–1955, Köln 1956; A.-R. Sinno, Deutsche Interessen in Syrien und Palästina 1841–1898: Aktivitäten religiöser Institutionen, wirtschaftliche und politische Einflüsse, Berlin 1982, 202–226; H. Goren, ‘Echt katholisch und gut deutsch’: Die deutschen Katholiken und Palästina 1838–1910, trsl. M. Lemke, Göttingen 2009.

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The first step in German Catholic activity in Palestine can be traced to 1838, with the pilgrimage of Duke Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria (1808–1888) to the Holy Land.6 The prince contributed a considerable sum of money to the Franciscans, which enabled them to complete the purchase of the Site of the Flagellation and to construct a chapel, which was the first modern Christian building in Jerusalem. The Duke also persuaded his king, Ludwig I, to head an association dedicated to the purpose of providing financial support for the activities of Catholic missions throughout the world, and, in particular, ensuring regular support for the Guards of the Holy Sepulchre.7 The Bavarian philanthropical initiatives were replaced in 1855 by the Association of the Holy Sepulchre for Promotion of Catholic Interests in the Holy Land (Der Verein vom Hl. Grabe zur Förderung katholischer Interessen im h. Lande), established in Köln and active mainly in Prussia, whose declared aims were to support the Franciscans and the Jerusalem Patriarchate, to support church organizations and orders which were already operating in Palestine, and to promote pilgrimages.8 A review of the many Catholic institutions that received contributions from the Verein depicts an undertaking of amazing scope and volume. In practice, these were the majority of Catholic associations, institutions, and orders that were set up and active in Palestine, Syria, and Egypt, including all Catholic institutions, regardless of their national tone. Many of them had, of course, been missionary stations, but there were no institutions that could be defined as particulary German Catholic among them. The Franciscan priest, Father Ladislaus Schneider (1833–1919), a native of Upper Silesia, was one of the clergymen who were exiled from their homeland as part of the Kulturkampf. Arriving in Jerusalem in 1875, he undertook the task of setting up German institutions, and purchased two plots, one in the vicinity of the Mamilla Pool in Jerusalem and the other in the village of Kubeibe, intending to create centers for his Catholic countrymen in Palestine at both locations.9 Due to pressure from the Franciscan Custos and the Latin Patriarch, who were justifiably afraid of losing their German donations, he was exiled to Alexandria in early 1879. Evidently Schneider had foreseen this measure, and initiated the establishment of a committee that would accept authority over the institutions, headed by 6

7

8 9

Maximilian, Herzog in Bayern, Wanderung nach dem Orient im Jahre 1838 ..., München 1839; V. Cramer, Der Ritterorden vom hl. Grabe von den Kreuzzugen bis zur Gegenwart, Köln 1952, 72–73; H. Gollwitzer, “Deutsche Palästinafahrten des 19. Jahrhunderts als Glaubens und Bildungserlebnis”, in: W. Stammler (ed)., Lebenskräfte in der Abendländischen Geistesgeschichte: Festschrift für Walter Goetz zum 80. Geburtstag, Marburg 1948, 18. J. Salzbacher, Erinnerungen an meiner Pilgerreise nach Rom und Jerusalem im Jahre 1837, Wien 1939, 40–43; L. Lemmens, Collectanea Terrae Sanctae ex Archivo Hierosolymitano deprompta, in Bibliotheca Bio-Bibliographica, ed. G. Golubovich, Firenze 1933, 220–221; Das katholische Deutschland (above, n. 5), 30–31; Schmitz, Das katholische Deutschland, 7–8. H. Goren, “The German Catholic Holy Sepulchre Society: Activities in Palestine”, in: Jerusalem in the Mind of the Western World. With Eyes Toward Zion, V, eds. Y. Ben-Arieh/M. Davis, Westport, CT– London 1997, 155–172. Cramer, Jahrhundert, 17–18. Cf.: Ein alter schlesischer Pionier im hl. Lande, Nicolai o.-S. 1911; J. Preisner, P. Ladislaus Schneider vom Kloster St. Annaberg in Oberschlesien: Deutscher Pionier im Hl. Land, Menden 2005.

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Landrat a.D. Wilhelm Leopold Janssen (1830–1900) from Burtscheid by Aachen.10 This committee developed in 1885 into the Palestine Association of German Catholics (Der Palästinaverein der Katholiken Deutschlands), located in Aachen, whose aims were formulated around three main principles: safeguard the interests of the German Catholics in the Holy Land; set up a hospice and next to it a church and a school in Jerusalem, where pilgrims of German nationality could stay, and where advice and assistance would be given to Germans wishing to settle in the city, and to spread the Catholic faith and true Christian culture in Palestine.11 Only in 1885 did the German Catholics officially declare a missionary aim for their involvement in Palestine, as this had also been the first indication of their intention to be actively involved in the country. Janssen later wrote to Emperor Wilhelm II., that “[The Association, H.G.] causes the name of Germany to gain respect in the East, also through Catholic work.”12 The German Catholics began their practical settlement activity, broadening the existing institutions as well as purchasing and setting up new ones, in Tabgha by the Sea of Galilee and Haifa. German nuns of the order of Charles Borromeo Sisters of Mercy (Barmherzigen Schwestern vom hl. Karl Borromäus) came to work in these institutions. In 1890, Janssen sent members of the German priesthood from the Lazarist order to handle the administration of all the association’s institutions. The arrival in Jerusalem of Father Wilhelm Schmidt (1833–1907), who had already served for sixteen years with the Maronites in Lebanon and was fluent in Arabic and Hebrew, marked the beginning of a new period of extensive activity in the history of the hospice, in particular, and of German Catholic activity, in general.13 The last stage in this process began in 1895. Those who held the funds (the Verein vom Hl. Grabe) merged with activists in the field (the Palästinaverein) to create the German Association for the Holy Land (Der Deutsche Verein vom Hl. Lande), which is active to this day from its center in Köln. In its regulations, the new association adopted the central aims of both its predecessors: maintenance of the holy places and promotion of the Catholic mission in the Holy Land, and to safeguard of the church and the social interests of the German Catholics in the Holy Land.14 The practical activity in Palestine increased and reached a climax in the twelve years following the visit of Emperor Wilhelm II., and his transfer of the Dormitio site to the authority of the Catholic association. 15 The St. Paulus Hos10 E. Gatz, “Katholische Auslandsarbeit und deutsche Weltpolitik unter Wilhelm II. Zur Stiftung der Dormition in Jerusalem (1898)”, RQ 73/1–2 (1978): 23–46; Schmitz, Das katholische Deutschland, 13–14; Goren, ‘Echt katholisch und gut deutsch’, 172–210. 11 For the detailed regulations, see: Israeli State Archives, Record Group 67 [hereafter: ISA], File 267. Cf. Schmitz, Das katholische Deutschland, 13. 12 Copy of Janssen’s letter to Wilhelm II, 30 April 1885, ISA, 267. 13 “P. Schmidt”, Das Heilige Land [hereafter: HL] 52 (1908): 1–9. 14 ISA, File 305; HL 48 (1896): 9–12; “Die erste Generalversammlung des Deutschen Vereins vom heiligen Lande”, in: HL 40 (1986): 89–112. 15 Contemporary description: E. von Mirbach, Die Reise des Kaisers und der Kaiserin nach Palästina, Berlin 1899. Recent description: A. Carmel/E.J. Eisler (eds.), Der Kaiser reist ins

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pice, built just outside the Damascus gate, followed the impressive church and monastery of the Dormition; both were consecrated on 10th April 1910.16 THE GERMAN CATHOLICS: MISSIONARY ACTIVITY AND REINFORCING THE GERMAN CATHOLIC PRESENCE ON THE SACRED SOIL It appears that Christian Friedrich Spittler (1782–1867), founder and manager of the Basler Missionshaus and the Pilgermission St. Chrischona and initiator of much of the German missionary activity in the Holy Land, had been the first to develop the idea of passive missionary activity in Jerusalem. This included settlements of Christian craftsmen who would practice their crafts amongst the target population.17 Spittler and his works preceded the Catholic initiatives by thirty to forty years, but it is still difficult to overlook the similarity between them. The Catholic aims, as described in 1882 in the Das heilige Land, the organ of the societies since 1857, are very similar to Spittler’s: “Das gute Beispiel eines echt christlichen Lebens, die Arbeitsamkeit nicht aus Eigennutz, sondern für einen höheren Zweck, die Anleitung junger Eingeborener zu solcher Tätigkeit, manche Hülfeleistung und der notwendige menchliche Verkehr – dies alles inmitten der armen verblendeten Nichtchristen und Muhamedaner ist unstreitig eine wirksame Vorbereitung zur Annährung der Ungläubigen an Christen, ein mächtiger Hebel zur Abschwächung des

Heilige Land: Die Palästinareise Wilhelms II. 1898: Eine illustrierte Dokumentation, Haifa– Stuttgart– Berlin–Köln 1999. Recent studies: J.S. Richter, Die Orientreise Kaiser Wilhelms II. 1898: Eine Studie zur deutschen Außenpolitik an der Wende zum 20. Jahrhundert, Hamburg 1997; A. Carmel, “Der Kaiser reist ins Heilige Land”, in: Ronecker/Nieper/NeubertPreine (eds.), Dem Erlöser der Welt zur Ehre, 116–135; T. H. Benner, Die Strahlen der Krone: Die religiöse Dimension des Kaisertums unter Wilhelm II. vor dem Hintergrund der Orientreise 1898, Marburg 2001. A study of the Catholic aspects of the visit: Gatz, “Katholische Auslandsarbeit”. The political background: H. Gründer, “Die Kaiserfahrt Wilhelms II. ins Heilige Land 1898. Aspekte deutscher Palästinapolitik im Zeitalter des Imperialismus”, in Weltpolitik, Europagedanke, Regionalismus: Festschrift für Heinz Gollwitzer zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. H. Dollinger/H. Gründer/A. Hanschmidt, Münster 1982, 363–388. 16 “Marienkirche und Kloster auf dem Sion in Jerusalem”, in: Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung 30 (1910), 153–158, 162–163, 165, 169–171; “Die neuen deutschen Bauten in Jerusalem”, in: Deutsche Bauzeitung 45 (1911): pp. 1–6, 13–17, 33–36; E. Meyer, “Die Dormition auf dem Berg Zion in Jerusalem, eine Denkmalskirche Kaiser Wilhelms II. im Heiligen Lande”, in: Architectura 14 (1984), 149–170; H. Renard, “Das neue deutsche Hospiz auf dem Sion in Jerusalem”, in: HL 50 (1906), 15–17. 17 Foerster, “Mission in der Stille”; K. Blaser, “Mission und Erweckungsbewegung”, in: PuN 7 (1981): 134–135. Cf. A. Carmel, Christen als Pioniere im Heiligen Land: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Pilgermission und des Wiederaufbaus Palästinas im 19. Jahrhundert, Basel 1981; idem, “C.F. Spittler and the Activities Spittler”; Sinno, Deutsche Interessen; E. Geldbach, “The German Protestant Network in the Holy Land”, in Western Societies and the Holy Land. With Eyes Toward Zion, III, eds. M. Davis/ Y. Ben-Arieh, New York 1991, 150–169; Lückhoff, Anglikaner und Protestanten, 165–190.

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The German Catholics, declared Schneider, faced special missionary tasks in the Holy Land. The other groups of Christians concentrated on mainly two fields: education for the youth and medical treatment for the sick. They also established sufficient institutions for both purposes. What was missing, what was still needed, were craftsmen and small industries, such as flour-mills, bakeries, locksmiths, carpenters, and binderies. The German Catholics, who were dependent on the Protestants in all these areas, could also enter other activities such as the establishment of exemplary settlements which would raise the level of local agriculture, and setting up shelters for widows and the elderly. Schneider tried to implement these ideas in his institute in Jerusalem which he hoped would lead to the realization of three aims: a uniting national focal-point for the German Catholics in Palestine, a cheaper source of supply for material and industrial products, and “überdies würde auch das gute Beispiel deutscher Arbeitsamkeit auf die Eingeborenen wirken und manche Knaben würden in die Lehre genommen.”19

As mentioned, Schneider could not claim great success in fulfilling his aims. It took Janssen five more years to publish a manifesto declaring the formal establishment of his Palästinaverein der Katholiken Deutschlands, urging Catholics throughout Germany to concentrate their efforts on the greatly needed strengthening of the existing institutions, primarily the one in Jerusalem.20 The new society aimed mainly at reinforcing the German Catholic presence on that sacred soil. One of its declared goals was the spread of the Catholic belief and “real Christian culture” within the non-Catholic Christian Arab communities. When referring to the missionary aim, German sources generally use the term Hebung (raise, lift) for what they think is needed for the cultural and social level of this population. Overcoming the present social obstacles, which prevent the development and advance of the country and its inhabitants, would enable the “right” Christian religion to return to its leading status within the local population. 21 At this stage, Janssen still believed in the ’love of work and the real live Christian culture’ as the preferred way to raise the local population from their retarded situation.22 He said, that 18 “Einiges über die Verhältniße der deutsche Katholiken in Jerusalem”, in: HL 26 (1882), 97– 98. Cf. C. Schick, Wie aus einem Mechaniker im Schwabenland ein königlicher Baurat in Jerusalem geworden ist, [n.p., n.d.], 16–20; A. Carmel, “Wie es zu Conrad Schicks Sendung nach Jerusalem kam”, ZDPV 99 (1983), 204–218; Sinno, Deutsche Interessen, 48-50. 19 Ladislaus Schneider, “Ein wohlgemeintes Wort an Katholiken deutscher Zunge für das hl. Land”, in: Leo: Sonntagsblatt für das katholische Volk 17 (1880), 130–134, esp. 134. 20 “Der neugegründete ‘Palästina-Verein der Katholiken Deutschlands’”, in: HL 28 (1884), 195–201; “Aufruf an die Katholiken Deutschlands”, HL 28 (1884), 201–203; “Statut des Palästina-Vereins der Katholiken Deutschlands”, in: HL 28 (1884), 204–205. 21 R. Pflanz, “Die Arbeit der Katholiken Deutschlands für das heilige Land”, in: Neueste Nachrichten aus dem Morgenlande 48 (1905), 151–165. 22 “Aufruf”, in: HL 28 (1884), 202.

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“Die Aufgabe: die orientalischen Völker von Trägheit mehr und mehr zu Arbeitsamkeit zu führen, das Vorurtheil, daß Arbeit entehrend fort zu brechen, ist für die Missionen eine große und nicht bald gelöste [Ziel, H.G.].”23

A major concern for Janssen had been the almost total absence of the German Catholics [hereafter: GC] from the Holy Land during the years of intensive competition between the European powers in the country, consequently losing out on the inheritance of the sick man on the Bosphorus, which had received the title the Eastern question.24 He saw missionary activity as the best way to participate in the competition, and to stabilize the status of the GC in Palestine. The new society was able to fulfill this role by establishing new institutions, as well as new communities all around the country, similar to those of the German Templers, whose four existing settlements in Palestine were established between 1868 and 1873.25 The success of these societies was minor, and the means and aims changed according to the advances and changes of German Christian activity in Palestine, which had to deal with a long list of difficulties and withstand numerous impediments and disappointments. Undoubtedly, Jerusalem was the focal point for GC missionary activity, at least until the establishment of the Galilean schools. In “The German Catholic establishment outside the Jaffa Gate”, as they called the hospice and school working within these premises, they could try to implement their missionary conceptions, which, in many aspects, were different than the ones accepted by other, rival organizations. For the work in his institution, Janssen managed to recruit German nuns from the mother-house in Teschen (Silesia) of the Sisters of St. Charles Borromaeus, who reached Jerusalem in 1886,26 as a German Catholic answer to the Protestant Kaiswerswerther Diakonissen and French Catholic St. Joseph de l’apparition nuns, who preceded the GC by thirty-five years. Four years later, he proudly announced the arrival in Jerusalem of German Lazarist fathers, headed by Schmidt, who from then on, managed all the activities and institutions of the society in the Holy Land.27 The Institute in Jerusalem developed according to Schmidt’s ideas. Schmidt, who served in Tripoli (Lebanon) for sixteen years before arriving in Jerusalem, had his own perceptions and beliefs concerning correct missionary activities in the 23 “Einiges über die Verhältniße der deutschen Katholiken in Jerusalem”, in: HL 26 (1882): 98. 24 W. Baumgart, “Die ‘Orientalische Frage’: Redivivus? Große Mächte und kleine Nationalitäten 1820–1923”, TAJB 28 (1999), 33–55. Cf. the “classic” studies: J.A.R. Marriott, The Eastern Question: An Historical Study in European Diplomacy, Oxford 1956; M. Smith Anderson, The Eastern Question, 1774–1923: A Study in International Relations, London 1966. 25 Carmel, Die Siedlungen; P. Sauer, Uns rief das Heilige Land: Die Tempelgesellschaft im Wandel der Zeit, Stuttgart 1985. 26 J.M.J.C., Vierzig Jahre im Orient: Bericht über die Missionstätigkeit der Barmherzigen Schwestern vom hl. Karl Borromäus im Orient von 1884 bis 1924, Trebnitz in Schlesien 1924, 19; Cramer, Jahrhundert, 31. 27 Janssen to the Consul, 15.6.1889, ISA 267, no. 982; Janssen to the Patriarch, 7.10.1890, Archive of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, J5, Q/68; F. Dunkel, “Die Berufung des deutschen Lazaristen nach Jerusalem durch den Palästinaverein der Katholiken Deutschlands”, in: HL 53 (1915), 143–149.

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Levant. The girls’ school operated and flourished under the direction of the Borromaeus Sisters, but Schmidt never lost an opportunity to express the need for a similar boys’ institution. As a means of raising interest and financial support, he published a booklet entitled The German Catholic Hospice in Jerusalem, which expresses all of his beliefs, intentions and plans.28 After dealing with the hospice, which had completely changed since Schneider’s days, he turned his attention to the school, the only place in Jerusalem teaching the German language, which had lately gained increasing importance due to the number of Germans living in Palestine and the warm connections between Germany and Turkey. But this should not be misleading: it was in no way a German school, as “one cannot and it is forbidden to force the natives to turn into Europeans, and those who implement this system are wrong”. The nature of people cannot be changed. The locals would appreciate an education for their own country, and, therefore, the aim of the German Christian school should be to educate and to raise the Oriental in their own language to build and strengthen the religious element in them, and to make them an Oriental-Catholic. Schmidt concluded that, “Only using this method of education, can we achieve the main aim of our mission, the glorification of the German name in the Orient.”29 Schmidt’s principles were strictly implemented in all German Christian educational institutions. The obvious fact that education formed the basis for any successful missionary work led them to accept the school as “the main tool, through which all missionary societies active in Syria and Palestine strive to reach their target.”30 According to the German Catholic Church, the main problem with the missionary schools that belonged to other groups in Palestine was they were not solely religious institutions, “but also means of propaganda for national and political aims of the different countries”.31 One of the best descriptions of Schmidt’s unique system, the combination of “real” and “soft” missionary activity for the benefit of the local children, with indirect national aims, was presented by a member of the committee of the Verein in the obituary issued after his unexpected death in November 1907: “Alles das kann ich nur vorübergehend streifen, um hinzuweisen auf das mit landeskundigem Blick und zäher Ausdauer, manchmal sogar mit überschwenglichem Eifer angestrebte Ziel, im Dienste des “Deutschen Vereins vom hl. Lande” an den hl. Stätten neben den anderen christlichen Nationen auch den deutschen Namen geachtet, deutsche Art bekannt, deutsche Kraft entfaltet, und deutschen Frommsinn zum wahren Wohle der nicht christlichen Eingeborenen betätigt zu sehen.”32

28 F.W. Schmidt, Das katholische deutsche Hospiz in Jerusalem, Freiburg/Breisgau 1897; cf. P.W. von Keppler, Wanderfahrten und Wallfahrten im Orient, Freiburg/Breisgau 1922, 302– 306. 29 Schmidt, Hospiz, 5, 12–13; Keppler, Wallfahrten, 304; J.P. Müller (ed.), Deutsche Schulen und deutscher Unterricht im Auslande, Leipzig 1901, 199; Das katholische Deutschland, 218. 30 P. Karge, Die christlichen Missionsschulen in Palästina, Breslau [1916], 1. 31 Loc. Cit., 2–11; citation: 2. 32 “Generalversammlung des Deutschen Vereins vom hl. Lande am 22. November 1908 in Paderborn”, in: HL 53 (1909), 56.

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The GC implemented their mission in Jerusalem, and their second big missionary project was a network of schools in various villages in the Galilee and Southern Lebanon, managed and directed from their base (Niederlassung) in Tabgha, on the northwestern shores of the Sea of Galilee.33 It was Father Zephyrin Biever (1849– 1915), who, in 1895, inaugurated the first two classes in the central Galilee villages Eilaboon and Deir Hana.34 The immediate motive for these classes was the fight against Russian and Greek-Orthodox influence, since they were also trying, relatively successfully, to develop a parallel educational system. Biever arrived in Palestine in 1876 and served with Ratisbonne, from 1888 as missionary in Madaba (Transjordan), and in 1891 he was posted as supervisor of the young German Christian establishment in Tabgha, where he served until 1907.35 Biever agreed with Schmidt’s perceptions concerning the education of local youth, the education that should and would attract them to the “real Catholicism”. Enumerating the advantages which the missionary work of the society should achieve from these schools, he talked about the education of illiterate children, their appropriate religious education, a direct influence through the chapels and the confessionals, a connection with the parents, and a long-term investment in the future generation of the local clergy.36 The lack of finance almost led to the closing of these classes, and only intensive support from the Greek-Catholic bishop in Acre, who wanted to fight the growing Russian influence, enabled Biever to continue and to enlarge his project, spreading it throughout the Galilee, as well as in Southern Lebanon as far north as the city of Saida. Although the initiative for the schools came from the villagers, its realization had to cope with many difficulties, external (financial, organizational) as well as internal (by the inhabitants themselves). There is a salient discrepancy between the calm, even enthusiastic reports, which Biever would send to the Society (which printed them in its periodical), and his bitter feelings, as revealed in his private letters to his friends at home. In these letters, he could not stop criticizing those he referred to as the “villagers.”37 The German Lazarist Friedrich Klinkenberg (1870–1910), who was fluent in Arabic, arrived in Tabgha in 1900 and took the management of the project upon 33 To its history: Goren, ‘Echt katholisch und gut deutsch’, 304–339; “Tabgha”, in: Nachrichten-Blatt für die Teilnehmer und Förderer des Deutschen Vereins vom hl. Lande 8 (1934), 73–82, 117–122, 159–170; 9 (1935), 44–52; [J. Täpper], “Tabgha, seine Entstehung und Entwicklung”, in: Das Palästinajahrbuch 1946, Köln 1947, 67–72; B. Pixner, “Tabgha on Lake Gennesareth: The Eremos of Jesus”, Christian News from Israel, Special Issue, June 1985, 18–26; and in all the other sources mentioned above, note 5. 34 “Fünfzig Jahre Tabgha”, in: Das Heilige Land in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, eds. V. Cramer/G. Meinerz, Köln 1939, 301–305; P. Medebielle, “Un missionnaire luxembourgeois D. Zéphyrin Biever (1849–1915)”, in: Le Moniteur Diocesain (January-February 1969), 27–28. 35 Les Amis de la Terre Sainte au Luxembourg, Un Luxembourgeois Prêtre en Terre-Sainte, L’Abbé Zéphyrin Biever, 1849–1915, Luxemburg, 1968; Medebielle, “Un missionnaire”; Goren, ‘Echt katholisch und gut deutsch’, 317–335. 36 F. Klinkenberg, “Die Katholiken Deutschlands am See Genesareth”, in: HL 45 (1901), 120; “Vereinsnachrichten”, in: HL 43 (1899), 53. 37 Les Amis, Un Luxembourgeois Prêtre en Terre-Sainte, 103–106

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himself. He periodically toured the schools to check on the teachers and pupils, and managed to open classes for girls as well. 38 It is important to add that the Germans used the term ’school’ to describe what was usually one, but sometimes two or three classes in a rented room in a village. A document from 1915 counts classes in fourteen villages, in which there were between 550 to 670 pupils, and three more for girls with eighty pupils. These schools employed 23 –24 teachers, most of them graduates of the seminary in the St. Paulus Hospice in Jerusalem which had opened in 1908.39 This was a money-consuming project: in order to justify the expense, and receive more donations, the Germans presented it as a philanthropic deed for the benefit of the locals, as well as the preferred way to succeed in missionary work. Georg Gatt (1843–1924), born in Austrian Tyrol and active in Palestine from 1869, started to construct a missionary station in Gaza as a private enterprise ten years later.40 As one of the most experienced missionaries in Palestine, in 1902, he published an important, highly informative and critical paper concerning the aims and the tasks of missionary activities in the Holy Land. 41 He argued there was no doubt that the Catholics, Russians and Protestants were doing much in order to raise the cultural, social and material levels of the local people; they had successes in the first two fields, but materially the situation had only worsened. Gatt made no effort to hide his disrespect for the locals, developed during many years of living and working amongst them, and included a long list, which is far from complimentary, of different characteristics, he observed in them. His main plea is against their endless demands to receive – with no intention of giving anything back, and therefore, “das Volk, welches dieses Land bewohnt, ist dieser Gabe nicht wert, wohl aber das heilige Land, in dem er wohnt. Aus Liebe zu heiligen Lande nehmen wir uns auch der Bewohner desselben an, denen wir sonst ohne bedauern den Rücken kehren würden.” 42

Gatt also dealt with the competition between the different missions, missionaries, and missionary organizations, intra muros (between the Catholics, themselves) et extra muros (facing missions of other churches). In order to justify its existence, each station must have a community, and medical and welfare institutions offer their services gratis, so one should not wonder the Arab does not know how to pay.43 Gatt was not isolated in these views: as mentioned above, Biever’s long 38 F. Klinkenberg, “Schulbesuch in Obergaliläa”, in: Der Deutsche in Palästina, ed. K. Götz, Berlin-Langensalza 1932, 56–59; idem, “Die Katholiken”; P. Linzen, “Eine Schulinspektionreise durch Nord-Galiläa”, in: HL 54 (1910), 84–92. cf. “P. Friedrich Klinkenberg, C. M.”, in: HL 54 (1910), 162–163. 39 F. Dunkel, Request concerning the schools of the Deutscher Verein vom hl. Lande, 26.4.1915, ISA 218, A XXVII 26ii; Dunkel to the Consul, ISA 682, J No. 6, 16. Cf. HL 53 (1909): 114; Cramer, Jahrhundert, 84–85; Linzen, “Eine Schulinspektionsreise”, 92. 40 M. Dumith and G. Gatt, “Bericht über die Eröffnung der Missions-Station zu Gaza in Palästina”, in: HL 23 (1879), 172–173; G. Gatt, “Bericht über die katholischen Mission in Gaza”, in: HL 40 (1896), 75–78; Goren, ‘Echt katholisch und gut deutsch’, 383–390. 41 G. Gatt, “Ziel und Aufgabe der Mission des heiligen Landes”, HL 46 (1902), 77–83. 42 Loc. cit., 79. 43 Loc. cit, 80.

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missionary service, and mainly his experiences with the missionary schools the priests from Tabgha opened and managed all over the Galilee and Southern Lebanon, developed similar feelings. In private letters to his friends at home, he repeatedly criticized the locals, who wanted to receive everything without giving anything of their own. Consequently, his system was to grant only the supplies needed for learning, while the villagers had to look for the necessary building, or to construct one if one did not already exist.44 Gatt had practical advice to solve and improve the situation. First, the stations had to be activated by the locals, who should get them from the missionaries. The local people should purchase and cultivate more land. The shortage of money would be solved through the establishment of a Catholic bank, following the example of the Jews, who had established the Anglo-Palestine Bank in 1902.45 As for Gatt and his missionary station in Gaza, he decided to change its direction. He claimed that if he had stayed with his preliminary aim of establishing schools and an orphanage, he would have spent all his money on this project, ‘until the last penny’. Consequently, he decided to continue with a non-conformist approach, and to establish a station for German clergy who would work as congregation-priests in the city. The missionary activity among the local population was only a secondary aim, never to be fulfilled. CONCLUSION: Karge and Lübeck. Paul Karge (1881–1922), an archaeologist from the University of Münster, was the first German scholar to manage the Oriental Institute of the Görres-Gesellschaft, established in 1909 on the premises of the St. Paulus Hospice, as a German Christian response to the existing French, American, English and German-Protestant research institutions in Jerusalem. Konrad Lübeck (1873–1952), a historian from Fulda, was his first Stipendiat.46 Both published the results of their scientific research in the Holy Land; Karge discussed archaeological matters, Lübeck wrote mostly about the history of the Oriental and Orthodox churches. 47 Both took the trouble to write about the Christian and mainly the German Christian missions in 44 Les Amis, Un Luxembourgeois Prêtre en Terre-Sainte, 103–106. 45 Gatt, “Ziel und Aufgabe der Mission”, 82–83. 46 “Professor Dr. Paul Karge”, in: HL 67 (1923): 6–7; G. Anger, “Lübeck, Konrad”, Biographisch-Biliographisches Kirchenlexikon, 24 (2005), 1027–1038 [http://www.bautz.de/bbk/l/ luebeck_k.shtml]; H. Goren, ‘Zieht hin und erforscht das Land’: Die deutsche Palästinaforschung im 19. Jahrhundert, Göttingen 2003, 345–354. 47 P. Karge, Die Resultate der neueren Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in Palästina, Münster in Westfalen 1910; idem, Prähistorische Denkmäler am Westufer des Gennesaretsees, Paderborn 1914; idem, Rephaim: die vorgeschichtliche Kultur Palästinas und Phöniziens; archäologische und religionsgeschichtliche Studien, Paderborn 1917; K. Lübeck, Die christlichen Kirchen des Orients, Kempten 1911. For Lübeck’s bibliography see Anger “Lübeck, Konrad”.

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the Holy Land. Karge, the archaeologist, published only a thin booklet of 22 pages that dealt mostly with the different Christian missionary schools in Palestine, and with the political and national elements which affected their growing competition.48 Lübeck’s book is more comprehensive and detailed, describing the history of the missions, as well as their contemporary situation, organized according to the country or region, including Egypt, Abyssinia, Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor and Constantinople, Mesopotamia and Persia, Armenia and Malabar.49 Both were published during the First World War, as both were intended to serve German national aims. Both publications include strong criticism of the nationalistic character of the Catholic missionary activity in Palestine, as demonstrated by other nations, mainly, of course, France. Lübeck’s work is more balanced: following historical descriptions of the origins of the missionary works, he provides a detailed list of the different organizations, mainly orders, and their deeds. The discussion of the German Catholic work is somehow minor, and it appears that Lübeck had been affected by the overwhelming superiority of the French missions. 50 Still, he adds, “so national German activity of missionaries entered the Orient, along the partly nationalistic biased activity of the French at the Orient.”51 In the emphasis, he hints at what he criticizes as the two big mistakes of the Oriental missions: the competition between the different organizations lead to an unlimited “giving policy”, which, in turn, not only minimized the locals’ will to work, but also damaged their character; and the nationalistic tendency adopted by the missionary organizations, mainly that of the French missions, in the educational and health fields. There is no doubt the French education system lead to neglect of the Oriental’s nationalism (Volksthum).52 Karge is much more aggressive in his attitude towards the French missions. No doubt, he wrote, the political tendencies had been the most serious mistake of the missionary schools, both the Russian and the Protestant, which are anti-Catholic in nature and aims, as well as those of the French. And here, he added, was the greatest achievement of the German missions, caused by the new geo-political facts. The emphasis is in the original: “Aber für die katholischen Missionsschulen bedeutet die Vertreibung der französischen, italienischen und internationalen religiösen Genossenschaften geradezu eine Katastrophe. Vorhanden sind augenblicklich nur noch die wenigen katholischen deutschen Schulen! [...]”53

We, he declares, the German Catholics, must give our people working in Palestine the means to fill the gap of all the other missions and missionaries, as we are now in the position, to make sure that we will get our right, well-deserved place, among the Catholics in Palestine and Syria.54 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

Karge, Die christlichen Missionsschulen in Palästina. K. Lübeck, Die katholische Orientmission in ihrer Entwicklung dargestellt, Köln 1917. Loc. cit., 57–59, 66–69. Loc. cit., 58. Loc. cit., 70–72. Karge, Die christlichen Missionsschulen in Palästina, 20. Loc. cit., 21.

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German Catholic missions did work in Palestine, among the Arab population, mostly during the last forty years of the Ottoman regime. They followed the ideas of the leading figures of the German Christian activity in the country, clergymen working in the field (Schneider, Gatt, Schmidt) as well as managers from Germany (Janssen, as well as other leading figures in the Vereine). Their activity was an important part of building the German Catholic presence in the Holy Land, influenced by the changes and trends affecting the Catholics in Germany, as well as by local developments in Palestine and the growing national competition among the European powers and their organizations in the country. Their first ideas were of “mission through personal example”, but later they adopted the classical methods: work through education, health-care and welfare. Being so critical of the nationalistic trend of the French missions, it is difficult to accept the GC justifications for their parallel trends, mainly after the 1890s.

MISSIONS AND IDENTITY FORMATION AMONG THE PEOPLES OF PALESTINE: THE CASE OF THE JEWISH POPULATION Ruth Kark / Shlomit Langboim 1. INTRODUCTION This paper reconstructs and examines the impact of missionary encounters and related community activity on identity formation among Jews in Palestine/Israel in the following periods: the last century of Ottoman rule (1820–1918), the British Mandate period (1918–1948), and the State of Israel (1948–1967). The missions’ positive and negative influences will be considered in a balanced manner, taking account of indigenous views, and taking issue with some of the prevailing revisionist literature.. Here we relate to selected aspects and examples of identity formation, and focus on the effects of opposition to missionary activity that served as a cohesive force within the Jewish community in Palestine in the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. This study combines theoretical and comparative macro-aspects with a detailed micro-perspective (revealed by archival searches, fieldwork and interviews). The findings are analyzed in the context of recent literature dealing with concepts, processes and impacts of imperialism, colonialism, Orientalism, post- and neo-colonialism, modernization, Westernization, and the reactions of indigenous people, as well as social identity and rational choice theories, in order to determine whether Palestine/Eretz-Israel/Israel is a special case or reflects more general patterns evident elsewhere in the Middle Eastern and the global reaches of missionary activity. According to recent studies undertaken by Shlomit Langboim,1 Lavi Shay and Ruth Kark,2 the Jewish community in nineteenth century Palestine, as one example, was profoundly affected by the modern Protestant missionary movement. Missionary activity had a significant impact on the indigenous Jewish society. The Jewish community faced a major dilemma. On one hand, the missionaries offered benefits that were absent from the Jewish community such as advanced health care, modern schools, and women’s education. On the other hand, close contact with the missionaries meant exposing the community to Christian influence and to the danger of conversion. 1 2

S. Langboim, The Jewish Response to the Missionary Activity in Eretz Israel, 1882–1917, Ph.D. Thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 2007 (Hebrew). L. Shay/R. Kark, “Jewish and Christian Women in Jerusalem: The First Women’s NGO in Palestine”, Unpublished paper presented at the Congress of the World Union of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, August 2005.

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This paper will show that missionary activity unintentionally unified the local Jewish society and strengthened its social and national identity. It inspired the establishment by societies and individuals of various Jewish public health, welfare, charitable, educational and other social institutions, intended to combat the mission. In the long run the missionary activity, by way of the response that it elicited, enhanced the solidarity and identity of the Jewish society in Palestine. 2. COMPARATIVE AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 Identity Formation To better understand the determinants of the diffusion of religion and the impact of missionary activity, sociologists in recent years have offered the use of two theories: rational choice theory, and social identity theory. 3 Montgomery, who related to both theories, found social identity theory to be more useful, particularly the proposition that “people will change one aspect of social identity (i.e. religious identity) in order to enhance another valued aspect of social identity (i.e. social status, ethnic, or national identity).” Social identity theory attempts to explain group formation by relating to questions such as rewards and benefits, cultural continuity (or identity), valued aspects of social identity and whether these are threatened (often ethnic or racial), patterns of choice and motives, inter-group relationships which may influence (structure) perceptions, and the overlapping of the meaning of culture and social identity. 4 Woodberry, in a recent comprehensive study, claims: “A greater focus on missionaries might also help bridge some of the divisions between ‘World Culture’ and ‘World Systems’ theories. World Culture theory focuses on the diffusion of ideas around the world, but often without sufficient attention to the carriers of these ideas or the power which influences which ideas predominate and influences systematic variation in the spread of these ideas. World Systems theory has the tendency to focus on undifferentiated domination by “Core” societies and exploitation of “Peripheral” countries [...] Integrat ing a more nuanced view of the role of missionaries into our analysis of colonialism might help scholars keep some of the insights from world culture theory about the influence of values and ideas with some of the insights from world systems theory about the importance of power and domination.”5

Woodberry also asserts that researchers have too easily ignored the impact of mission groups, and too readily lumped missionaries, settlers, business people, and colonial administrators together as merely different forms of the same colonial 3

4 5

R. Stark, The Rise of Christianity, San Francisco 1997. Cf. also R. Montgomery, “Indonesia: Many Islands – Multiple Responses, Using Social Identity Theory and Rational Choice Theory to Understand the Diffusion of Religion”, Unpublished paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Religious Research Association, Boston, Nov. 1999. R.D. Woodberry, The Shadow of Empire: Church State Relations, Colonial Policy and Democracy in Postcolonial Societies, Ph.D. Thesis, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 2003. Montgomery, “Indonesia”. Woodbury, “Shadow”, 81–82

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domination.6 He adds that we need to examine more carefully the competing interests of these different groups and how the struggle between them shaped the consequences colonialism had on nonwestern societies. Doing so may reformulate our understanding of a whole series of social processes, such as the spread of Western formal education, abolitionism, civil society, democracy, and so on.7 Tracey Byrne, examining anthropo-geographic representations of the indigenous peoples in New Zealand produced by the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in the mid-nineteenth century, suggests that: “it is essential to radically rethink and challenge prevailing perceptions concerning the relationship between Christian missions and imperialism.” She suggests that scholars rethink the “post-colonial voices which have emanated during the second half of the twentieth century”, which condemned and negatively interpreted the modern missionary movement. She does not intend to “exonerate Christian missionaries from all of the charges laid against them from their post-colonial critics, or to attempt to place them above the parapet of accountability […]”, but rather to adopt a more sophisticated and non-monolithic approach.8 According to Park, missionary endeavours are often most successful when they involve enculturation (the adaptation of a new religion into its proper cultural context) rather than the dogmatic transplant of a belief system from a source area to a new destination.9 Park asserts that Christian missions played a prominent part in shaping the initial development of many parts of Africa during the late nineteenth century, before colonial occupation. Although missionaries have been key players in religious diffusion throughout history, their role has not been confined to dispensing religion “because they have often represented the modern world in undeveloped nations.” He believes that: “The mythology of missionary work (that missionaries always damage and eventually destroy indigenous cultures) does not apply to the example of Venezuela, where the positive contributions introduced by missionaries include the consolidation of Indian settlements, the introduction of better hygiene and healthcare, attempts to preserve traditional ways of life, and provision of assistance in overcoming cultural problems.” 10 In contrast with the views of Woodbury, Byrne and Park, Beidelman, an anthropologist who studied the work of the Church Missionary Society in what is now Tanzania, East Africa, and representing the post-colonial revisionist approach, coined the expression “colonial evangelism”, viewing the mission solely as a colonial institution.11 These developments in research have yielded insights into internal dynamics and worldwide trends, rather than the traditional core theme of the impact of the 6 7 8

E. Said, Orientalism, New York (reprint of 1978 edition) 1979. Cf. Woodbury, “Shadow”. T. Byrne, “‘The Moral Soil of the Maori and the Wilderness of Nature’ [The Church Missionary Intelligencer 1852]: A contextual examination of the Victorian missionary movement and the production of anthropo-geographic representation of New Zealand”, in: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of Historical Geographers (Ireland 1998), 38. 9 C.C. Park, Sacred Worlds, an Introduction to Geography and Religion, London–New York 1994, 141. deleted period-dot 10 Ibid., 139–43. 11 T.O. Beidelman, Colonial Evangelism, Bloomington 1992.

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West. Thus, Western missionary activity and its role have been considered by the post-colonial revisionist historians (who view the missions in a predominantly negative light), to be marginal to the larger societies in which missions were operating. However, more recent studies of the missionary enterprise by historians, anthropologists, political scientists and historical geographers indicate that these presumptions are not well grounded.12 For example, Eleanor Doumato traced a tendency that developed with the rise of post-colonial and women’s studies to downgrade and dismiss the mission’s role as “the epitome of negative and inaccurate stereotyping of colonized people”.13 Some studies relating to missionary activities dealt with missions both as agents of the penetration of colonial powers on the one hand, and as conveyers of the Christian concepts of cultural and religious supremacy expressed in redemption of the heathen world, on the other. In the imperialistic rhetoric, religion was often used to justify domination over non-Europeans. Christian Western culture was, it was argued, “superior to non-Western, non-Christian ones. The heathen, the apostates (Muslims and Jews) and the non-regenerate, that is non-Protestant Christians, deserved to be reformed and converted like the poor.”14 2.2. Identity Formation and the Missionary Enterprise in the Middle East, and in Palestine The theme of identity formation and an attempt to consider the American-European Missionary enterprise as a factor in the construction of identity, either historically or in the contemporary era is, according to Doumato, absent from the literature on the Middle East.15 She asked in what ways has the missionary enterprise affected the molding of individual and group identities in the Middle East? Adverse effects also need to be considered. A body of recent scholarship, relying on sources generated within Middle Eastern societies in combination with the missionary record, recognizes the polarization in identities that came about with the missionary enterprise. Did the opening of Western-oriented schools and the study of foreign languages affect identity formation in such a way so as to encourage emigration of certain groups from the Middle East and Palestine with the ensuing loss of leadership, professional and business strata and skilled workers?16 Doumato, relating to her work on missionaries in the Gulf, suspects that the 12 B. Stanley, The Bible and the Flag: Protestant Missions and British Imperialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Leicester, U.K. 1990; E. H. Tejirian, and R. Simon, Altrusim and Imperialism: Western Cultural and Religious Missions in the Middle East, New York 2002; U. Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven, American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East, Ithaca & London, 2008. 13 E.A. Doumato, “Introduction” to the workshop: Identity Formation and the Missionary Enterprise in the Middle East, Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for international Studies, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, November 1999. 14 B. Melman, Women’s Orients, English Women and the Middle East, 1718–1918, Sexuality, Religion and Work, London 1995, 167. 15 E.A. Doumato, “Introduction”.

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“missionary enterprise on balance, whatever else it may have done, brought about positive and enduring cultural affinities with America and the West. This is important to recognize, because the current interest in problemetizing identity in the Middle Eastern societies ... has the effect of obfuscating the existence of important segments of the population whose western-learning identity is not (for them) a problem, but a source of strength and privilege. At the same time, it is clear that forging ties with one group, who receive certain benefits that made those ties attractive in the first place, has to have been a source of tension in relation to those who could not or would not avail themselves of the same benefits.”17

Doumato states that “by the end of World War I, missionary work in the Middle East began to decline along with Western enthusiasm for the missionary enterprise worldwide. In the 1930s and 1940s govern ments of the newly independent states in the Middle East placed increasing limitations on missionary activities, by nationalizing schools, for example, so that many missionary societies consolidated their efforts or ceased operations.”18

A.L. Tibawi took the position that when the missions embarked on ambitious schemes in the colonies, and in regions such as those in the Ottoman Empire; they participated in the expansion of Europe. The missions which were voluntary societies in Europe and America, represented, according to Tibawi “[…] sometimes the cultural aspect of the [colonialist RK] territorial, commercial and political expansion.”19 Edward Said concurred with Tibawi, that with regard to Islam and the Islamic territories, the British missions “openly joined the expansion of Europe.”20 Since the late 1970s, new or revisionist approaches to the study of Middle Eastern societies have been developed by scholars in various fields dealing with the history of the region. Their range includes work on the family, gender, and social and cultural minorities; production, distribution, and political economy; power relations and the state. Ruth Kark, in a review of recently published literature, emphasized that while the orientation of earlier studies was mainly to the point of view of the missions, more recently (‘revisionist’) historians have laudably investigated how the missions were perceived by the local societies.21 A central issue explored is identity formation in different population groups, including the Arab secular, educated, Western-oriented intellectual “awakening” category and its national aspirations. Zachs demonstrated how Western influence helped accelerate the process of local transformation, and that the educational activities of the American Presbyterian mission in Syria impacted on the emergence of Arabism, Arab nationalism, and the idea of Syria as an Arab national entity.22 Adawi Jamal and Adel Mann’a believe that cultural awakening developed 16 R. Kark, “The Impact of early Missionary Enterprises on Landscape and Identity Formation in Palestine, 1820–1914”, Islam & Christian-Muslim Relations 15, No. 2 (2004), 209–235. 17 E.A. Doumato, “Introduction”. 18 E.A. Doumato, “Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North AfricaProtestantism and Protestant Missions”, , 2004, in: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3424602200.html 19 A.L. Tibawi, British Interests in Palestine 1800–1901, London 1961, 5 20 Said, Orientalism, 100. 21 R. Kark, “The Impact of early Missionary Enterprises”, 209–235. 22 F. Zachs, “From the Mission to the Missionary: the Bliss Family and the Syrian Protestant College (1866–1920)”, Die Welt des Islam 45 (2005), 254–291.

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among Arab Christian youth in 19th century Palestine. The graduates of the foreign missionary schools that were established in the country in the second half of the nineteenth century were the conveyers of a literary-cultural awakening. They would assemble from time to time in private homes for a “literary and music evening.” Some became Syrian, Lebanese or Egyptian newspaper correspondents. At first most of them were Christians (Halil Sakakini, Halil Totah, Ashil Siyakli, Adel al-Gaber and Yusuf al-Issa), but they were joined gradually by Muslims (Muhammad al-Mughrabi, Ali ar-Rimawi, Is’af al-Nashashibi).23 According to Kark, the visible and persistent influences of the missionary enterprise on the development, infrastructure and cultural landscape of Palestine found expression in the following spheres, as shown by Denecke/Kark/Goren and Kark/Thalman, who take issue with the solely negativistic approach:24 – – – –

Infrastructure-transportation (wheelbarrow, carriages), and Communication (telegraph, telephone) Crafts and industry Land purchase and its impact in the urban and rural sectors the introduction of modern technology – Agricultural settlement, education (model-farms, agricultural schools), and the introduction of new methods, species, tools and machinery – Building and architecture, the changing of the urban and rural landscape – Health care and hospital services In this paper we relate to aspects of identity formation, mainly in terms of the effect of missionary activity in evoking opposition in the community and thereby serving as a cohesive force within the Jewish sectors of the population in Palestine in the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.

23 A. Jamal, American Quaker Activity in Palestine, 1869–1948, Ph.D. Thesis, Haifa University, November 2000. A. Manna, “Community and Society”, in: Y. Ben Arieh/I. Bartal (eds.), The History of Eretz Israel, the Last Phase of Ottoman Rule (1799–1917), Jerusalem 1983, 155– 193 (Hebrew); A. Mann’a, The Notables of Palestineat the end of the Ottoman Period (1800– 1918), Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies 1997 (Arabic). 24 R. Kark/D. Denecke/H. Goren, “The Impact of Early German Missionary Enterprise in Palestine on Modernization and Environmental and Technological Change, 1820–1914”, in: M. Tamcke/M. Marten (eds.), Christian Witness between Continuity and New Beginnings: Modern HistoricalMissions in the Middle East, Münster 2006, 145–176; R. Kark/N. Thalman, “Technological Innovation in Palestine: The Role of the German Templers”, in: H. Goren (ed.), Germany in the Middle-East, Past, Present, and Future, Jerusalem 2003, 201–224.

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3. THE IMPACT OF AND RESPONSE TO MISSIONARY ACTIVITY ON IDENTITY FORMATION AMONG JEWS IN PALESTINE 3.1. Missionary Activity in the Jewish community in Palestine A large number of missions operated in Palestine at the beginning of the twentieth century. The missionary societies established hospitals, schools, industrial institutions, welfare services, and were involved in other initiatives. There was a “division of labor” between those who worked among Arabs or Druze, and others who operated among the Jews. In the period under discussion those who worked amongst the Jewish community in Palestine were mainly the Protestant Missions (British, Scottish, American and German). Out of over 25 societies, at least 11 were active among the Jews. One of the methods used by the missionaries was to send Jewish converts who were versed in the Torah and knew the language of the local Jews to operate inside the Old and New Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine). The missionaries focused on low income and socially disadvantaged communities, including women and children. They operated in five areas: – formal and informal education (girls, boys, kindergarden, higher education and adult education); – health care and hospital services (dispensaries, hospitals, specialized hospitals); – workshops; – welfare and economic aid (including housing); – agricultural training and settlement initiatives. There were other visible and persistent impacts of the missionary enterprise on the development and infrastructure of the cultural landscape of Palestine which will not be discussed in this paper. These have been illustrated by Kark/Denecke/Goren.25 This impact found expression in the spheres of infrastructure including transportation, electricity, communication, crafts, industry, land purchase (which affected the urban and rural sectors), building and architecture (which transformed the urban and rural landscape), the introduction of modern technology, agricultural settlement, schools, and model farms, education and training, and the introduction of new agricultural methods, species, tools and machinery. We should also mention other important spheres, which require further research such as civil society, democracy, culture (museums, literature, music, dance); press and printing (newspapers, pamphlets, books), language (knowledge of foreign languages influencing identity, and enabling commercial and cultural contacts); food and dress (including women’s dress and the influence of the missionaries-sowing classes, materials and role models); furniture etc. All of these

25 Ibid.

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should be studied in the context of the creation of a Western identity or the making of a Westernized (Levantine) individual.26 A few examples of missionary activity will be presented below, before discussing the responses of the Jewish community to them. The Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews (also called the London Jews’ Society - LJS) was established in London in 1809, and opened a station in Palestine in 1833. It made the strongest efforts of all missionary groups in Palestine to access Jewish society and to affect it in order to convert Jews. The LJS opened the first missionary hospital in Jerusalem followed by hospitals in Safed and Hebron (2 of the 4 Holy Cities, the main centers of the Old Yishuv in Palestine at the time, which also included Jerusalem and Tiberias). These hospitals proved to be a temptation to Jews who did not have any other alternatives for adequate healthcare. The first medical assistance was provided in Jerusalem by the London Jews’ Society in 1838.27 A physician who was a Jewish convert was, according to a contemporary British source, sent to help the Jews in spite of the Rabbis’ threats that anyone who was in touch with the missionaries would be banished from the community.28 In 1842, Dr. McGowen was sent to Jerusalem by another British society, the Church Missionary Society (CMS founded in London in 1799). A house was equipped with 20 beds to serve as a hospital and pharmacy in 1844. Some travelers mention that medical treatment was not the sole aim of the hospital, but also the conversion of Jews.29 The CMS opened hospitals in Nablus, Jaffa and Gaza which catered to both Jews and Arabs.30 In the 1890s the LJS moved its hospital from the Old City to a new complex outside the city walls. The first Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, Michael Solomon Alexander, who was a Jewish convert, opened a small vocational boys’ elementary school for children of Jewish converts in Jerusalem in 1843. It was meant to encourage the Jews to lead economically productive lives instead of living on alms. Next to it a girls’ school was opened in Jerusalem in 1848 by Miss Caroline Cooper, a financially independent women who associated herself with various efforts to convert Jews to Anglican Chritianity, though she was not formally employed by the LJS. She also ran a missionary women’s workshop for sewing and knitting. About 100 women studied and worked there in the 1850s, and about the same number worked at home under the school’s guidance.31 In the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s several women’s missionary charitable organizations were established in Jerusalem: the Dorcas Society founded in 1849, the 26 Woodbury, “Shadow”; R. Kark, “Early Missionary Activity in Palestine 1820–1914, the Impact on Identity, Environment and Technology.” Invited paper, Program for Jewish Studies, Stanford University 2000. 27 Y. Ben-Arieh, Jerusalem in the 19th century. Vol. I, Jerusalem 1984–1986 (Hebrew). 28 W.H. Bartlett, Jerusalem Revisited, London 1866, 59–61. 29 Ben-Arieh, Jerusalem in the 19th century I, 292–293 30 A. Carmel, “Competition, Penetration and Presence: Christian Activity and its Influence in Palestine”, in: Y. Ben Arieh/I. Bartal (eds.), The History of Eretz Israel, the Last Phase of Ottoman Rule (1799–1917), Jerusalem 1983, 109–154 (Hebrew), esp. 124. 31 K. Crombie, A Jewish Bishop in Jerusalem: The Life Story of Michael Solomon Alexander, Jerusalem 2006, 201–202. Cf. also Ben-Arieh Jerusalem in the 19th century I, 293–297

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Sarah Society in 1854, and the Benevolent Society for the Relief of Poor Jewish Women in Child Birth in 1865. The Sarah Society (Bnot Sarah - literally Sara’s Daughters) was founded by Elizabeth Ann Finn, together with several other women of the Christ Church congregation, to aid indigenous Jewesses in their own homes and outside. Elizabeth was the wife of James Finn, the British consul in Jerusalem, and daughter of the prominent British missionary to the Jews of Eastern Europe, Alexander McCaul.32 Ludvig August Frankl (1810–1894), an Austrian Jewish poet, was sent by the philanthropist Aliza Hertz of the aristocratic Austrian Lamel House in 1856 to open the first modern Jewish school in Jerusalem, proposing to teach secular subjects side by side with religious ones. The conservative Orthodox circles in the Jewish community opposed this. In his book To Jerusalem, Frankl dedicated a chapter to the success of the British mission “delegation” in Jerusalem, to which he was antagonistic.33 He wrote that the delegation had the nature both of the desert and of the snowy hills: “[…] walking slowly forward in their circle, covering and swallowing minute by minute the green grass.” Frankl counted 130–171 converts, more than half of them of Russian origin. He appended a detailed table of 131 converts which included names, occupation, place of birth, number of women and children and place of conversion. He describes Jerusalem as a “gold net” spread by missionary man-hunters, who pay money to motivate conversion to capture those weak and lacking faith among the Jews. Some Jews came to Jerusalem for this purpose alone, and others converted several times for the compensation. The missionaries gave gifts and clothing to the Jews, and sent food and sweets to the sick and to women who gave birth at home. He blamed the mission for disturbing the morals and peace-of-mind of the Jewish families. When, for example, fathers spoke harshly to their sons, the latter threatened to turn to the mission. However, the families of the converts, although saddened, did not break off relations with the convert, and kept hosting them at home believing that deep inside they had not changed. Frankl also stated that conversion among Muslims was infrequent. After 13 years of work in Jerusalem, in 1856 the mission had a hospital with 36 beds open to all faiths, a sowing school for about 100 women, a craft school for 6 Jewish boys from Poland, and an agricultural operation which provided a living for 100 workers. The poor prefered to work although the pay was relatively low (4 piasters a day) and they were compelled to listen to preaching every evening.34 The increase of religious ferment among millenarian circles in England, Germany and the US in the first half of the nineteenth century, and the focus on the people of Israel and their attachment to their land, motivated clergymen and Christian sects to promote the diffusion of agriculture among the Jews. The British consul James Finn and his wife Elizabeth Anne were very much involved in such activities.35 32 Shai/Kark, “Jewish and Christian Women in Jerusalem” 33 L.A. Frankl, To Jerusalem, Viena 1859 (Hebrew). Cf. L.A. Frankl, Nach Jerusalem, Leipzig 1858–60. 34 Ibid, 88–191, 62–71 (in Hebrew ed.). 35 J. Finn, Stirring Times, London 1878; Kark, “Early Missionary”. Space between J. And Finn

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An industrial plantation, Abraham’s Vineyard, was established in Jerusalem in the 1850s by the British Consul James Finn and his wife Elizabeth Anne on behalf of the British mission. It aimed to employ about 100 poor Jews in agriculture. 36 They also hired Jews to work on their agricultural farm in the Arab village of Artas, and planned to settle them in other deserted sites in Faghur and Baqush, in which the land was bought by the Finns in the mid-nineteeth century. Christian Wilhelm Hanauer, a Jewish convert from Germany, was the first manager of the industrial plantation, and lived there with his family. His son Edward recalled that Jews were trained in rock breaking with explosives, stone cutting and building stone walls. Later olive trees were planted.37 Another agricultural missionary venture undertaken from the 1850s onwards was the Model Farm in Jaffa - the brainchild of an association of businessmen in England interested in agricultural development on the one hand, and in supporting the converted Jews of Palestine on the other. In 1856 Alfred Augustus Issacs, a clergyman from Leicester, bought a well-tended Bayara (a watered plantation) comprising about forty dunams (4 hectares) of land with several buildings from a Jaffa resident Manuel Kalis. Later the Model Farm was run by the LJS and by the Hebrew Christian Mutual Aid Society (founded in 1866 by a Jerusalem group of converts) as a center for Jewish converts.38 The Christian millenarian activity in the Jewish Old Yishuv was at its height between the 1840s and the 1880s. Thus the settlement of Artouf in the Judean Hills was founded in 1883 by the Zebi Hermann Friedlander for poor immigrants who arrived from Russia after the pogroms. He converted from Judaism as a young man in Prussia, became a LJS missionary, arrived in Jerusalem in 1872, and and served as the most important emissary of the LJS in Palestine. Even some of the early Jewish pioneers went to settle in settlements such as Artuf in 1883 which was under missionary management. Missionary Artuf proved to be a total failure. The Jewish settlers left after a very short stay and subsequently it served only as a weekend resort for the missionaries.39 The assistance of Sir Laurence Oliphant, the British South African born romanticist, lover of Zion and Jewish colonization enthusiast, to the first Moshavot (Jewish agricultural settlements) may be also viewed as an attempt at conversion.40 Rogel informs us that the Christadelphians funded Oliphant’s activities among the Jews. The Chritadelphians (Christ’s Bretheren) are a Christian group that developed in the UK and North America in the mid nineteenth century. Their founder Dr. John Thomas vowed to discover the truth about life through personal Biblical study. Oliphant extended Christadelphian aid to the settlers of Zamarin, 36 Frankl, To Jerusalem, 190–193 37 Y. Megron, “Youthful memoirs from Jaffa and Jerusalem: Chapters from the diary of Rev. James Edward Hanauer, 1850–1938”, in: Ariel 112–113, (1996), 89–119, here: 96. 38 R. Kark, Jaffa, a City in Evolution, 1799–1917, Jerualem 1990, 82–84. 39 Y. Ben-Bassat, Har-Tuv, An Isolated Colony in the Judean Mountains, Rehovot 2008 (Hebrew); Carmel, “Competition, Penetration and Presence”, 123. See also, Perry, British Mission, 127, 156–165. 40 I. Bartal, “Community and Society”, in: Y. Ben-Arieh/ I. Bartal (eds), The History of Eretz Israel: The Last Phase of Ottoman Rule (1799–1917), Jerusalem 1983, 228 f.

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Rosh Pina, Meron, Peki’in and Yesud HaMaale. Oliphant claimed that there was not a single Jewish organization that assisted Jews who came to Palestine, and that the mission alone dealt with Jewish newcomers who wished to settle the land (hoping to convert them by and by).41 The LJS intensified its work during the First Aliya (wave of Jewish immigration, 1882–1903) by opening new bureaus in Safed and Jaffa. The Anglican missionaries also tried to infiltrate the pioneer Jewish agricultural settlements, with offers of economic help as a tool for conversion.42 3.2 Jewish responses to Missionary Activity in Palestine 3.2.1 Cooperation and contacts with missionaries It appears that some members of both the Old and New Yishuv in Palestine were assisted by the missionary institutions throughout the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. Among the causes that brought the Jews (including even the orthodox religious Jews and the secular Zionists) to rely on the assistance of the missions were: lack of money, starvation, lack of work, a desire to get better medical treatment or an improved European-type education. One of the main reasons the pioneers of the New Yishuv had to accept assistance from the missions was the indifference of the members of the older established settlements in Jerusalem and the other holy cities, who did not help the immigrants and did not share with them the Haluka (division of charity money collected in the Jewish Diaspora for the Jews in Palestine, and distributed according to the community of origin) leaving them to their plight. The Zionist leadership in those days’ preferred that poor people would not come to Palestine at all. The lack of organizations willing to help receive and absorb the immigrants owards the missionaries who accepted them with care and warmth.43 Research into the history of the settling of the disciples of the Vilna Gaon in Palestine at the beginning of the nineteenth century revealed an extraordinary phenomenon: contacts between the community of Prushim (one of the two schools of Orthodox Judaism in Eastern Europe – Prushim/mitnagdim) in Jerusalem, and missionaries, emissaries of the London Jew’s Society. In contrast with the Sephardim who were afraid of the missionaries in the earlier period of their activity (this changed in the 2nd half of the nineteeth century), the disciples of the Gaon viewed them as emissaries of Divine Providence to protect them from the oppressive Ottoman authorities. Furthermore, they regarded the emissaries and their London Society as the gentiles referred to by Issaia the prophet: “For to Me the isles will be gathered together, and the boats of Tarshish to bring your sons from afar. And foreign people will build your walls […]” (Isaiah, 60, 9-10) The gentiles were playing a role in a Messianic plan, representing an interesting symmetry in per41 N. Rogel, In the Footsteps of Naftali Hertz Imber, Jerusalem 1999 (Hebrew). 42 Y. Perry, British Mission to the Jews in Nineteenth Century Palestine, London 2003, 126–174. 43 Langboim, The Jewish Response, 307–314

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ceptions. One of their leaders, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Shapira, as we learn from a letter written by him to the missionary Joseph Wolff in 1822, was ready to take upon himself the preparation of a revised traditional edition of the Bible in Hebrew for the British and Foreign Bible Society.44 Morgenstern considers that, paradoxically, this surprisingly positive relationship between the Prushim and the missionary society, both of whom awaited the expected messianic events of the year 1840, was what eventually led to the establishment of the permanent representation of the Anglican mission in Jerusalem in 1833, and a few years later to the opening of the British Consulate in Jerusalem.45 The Rabbi of Jaffa, Yehuda Halevi, whose chief motivation was to find a source of income for the members of his community who received no halukka, was prepared to cooperate with Christian missionary groups active in agriculture in the early 1850s.46 Members of the Jewish communities went to see doctors at the missionary hospitals, registered their sons and daughters in the missionary schools, and went to work for the missionaries. In Jerusalem alone 16,845 Jews were hospitalized in the missionary hospital of the LJS between 1899 to 1911, and about 800 – 1000 Jews per year studied in the missionary schools during this period.47 3.2.2 The Jewish responses and resistance Langboim reconstructed for the first time a systematic list of Jewish societies, unions, private individuals, rabbis, and media representatives in the new and old settlements who actively opposed and tried to minimize the impact of the missionaries. While the members of the older settlements were motivated by the desire to save Jewish souls and to defend the Jewish religion, the Zionists and non–religious people were motivated by national and Jewish dignity. In her study, Langboim reviewed 18 groups that were established specifically to combat the missionaries (most of them in Jerusalem and Safed). One of the most important groups was Ezrat Nidahim under the leadership of Israel Dov Frumkin who was willing to help the First Aliya refugees find employment and housing.48 The impression created among the local population in Palestine was that the missionary institutions, as competitive and rival as they were, were all English (schools, hospitals, churches). Pamphlet wars were waged in relation to the activ44 Bartlett, Ibid. 45 A. Morgenstern, “The ‘Prushim’, the London Missionary Society, and the Opening of the British Consulate in Jerusalem”, in: J. Haker (ed.), Shalem, Vol. V, Jerusalem 1987, 115–139 (Hebrew), 115–39; E. Greenberg, Creating the Newly Educated Arab Women and the World: Girl’s Education in Mandatory Palestine, Ph.D. Thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 2003, 113–137. Also cf. M. Verete, “Why was a British Consulate Established in Jerusalem?”, Zion 26 (1966), 215–237 (Hebrew). Regarding the establishment of the consulate see M. Tenenbaum, “The British Consulate in Jerusalem, 1858–1890”, Cathedra 5 (1977), 83–108. 46 Kark, Jaffa, 75–78 47 Langboim, The Jewish Response, 307–314 48 Ibid., 84–89

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ities of the English missions from the British consul James Finn’s time (1845) to World War I (1914), attributing their influence to the involvement of the British government, although in fact it was barely involved, having instructed its consuls to keep away from the business of the missions. 49 For example, among the Jews in Jerusalem the main work of one of the first Jewish printing presses in the 1840s (probably that of Rabbi Israel Back, a public figure and a pioneer Hebrew printer in the Old Yishuv in nineteenth century Jerusalem) was the publishing of antimissionary propaganda.50 Titus Tobler (Swiss explorer, physician and adventurer) and Dr. Berenhradt Neumann (who served for 8 years as head physician and director of the Meir de Rothchild hospital, founded in Jerusalem in 1854) attacked the misleading methods of the British mission which exploited the poverty of the community, offering material temptations to convert the Jews in Jerusalem in the 1840s and 1850s. Most sources relate to about 100 converts, a small number in light of the huge sums of money spent by the missions, and many of whom emmigrated to other countries.51 According to Bartlett (English painter and engraver who visited Jerusalem in 1854) the main thrust for conversion of Jews was their precarious economic condition but many of the converts, surreptitiously maintained being Jewish.52 The Jews were very suspicious of the British, Prussian and English missionary schools. The overwhelming majority was not prepared, even when facing illness and death, to forsake their father’s faith. Sir Moses Montefiore (a British Jewish philanthropist, financier, banker, philanthropist and Sheriff of London, who was one of the most famous British Jews of the 19th century, and visited Palestine 7 times) and Baron James de Rothschild (a French Jewish philanthropist) who opened Jewish Hospitals (including the first Jewish hospital in Jerusalem named after his father Meir) and schools to compete with the missions.53 Pinchas Grayevski (who was born in Jerusalem in 1873, served as secretary of the Bikur Cholim hospital for forty years, and became an important historical documentary source for the end of the Ottoman period and the Mandate period in Palestine) dedicated a whole pamphlet to the struggle of the Jews against the missions. One of the means used was the banning (herem) of those using the missionary schools and hospitals. People were excommunicated and were not allowed to pray in a minyan or be buried in a Jewish cemetery. 54 In 1845 the Chief Rabbi Avraham Gagin and additional Sephardi and Ashkenazi rabbis declared a ban on the hospital opened by MacGowen in 1844. Jews were not permitted to use it, and 49 Carmel, “Competition, Penetration and Presence”, 125 50 Ben-Arieh, Jerusalem in the 19th century I, 57 – quoting Straus & Bartlett. 51 T. Tobler, Topographie von Jerusalem und seinem Umgebungen, Vol.1, Berlin 1853–54, 380. B. Neumann, Die Heilige Stadt und deren Bewohner in ihren naturhistorischen, culturgeschichtlichen, socialen und medicinischen, Hamburg 1877, 284. 52 Bartlett, Jerusalem Revisited, 78–83 53 Ben-Arieh Jerusalem in the 19th century I, 57 – quoting Zimmerman; Frankl, To Jerusalem, 198 54 P. Ben-Zvi Grayevski, The Jews Struggle Against the Mission 1824–1935, Jerusalem 1935 (Hebrew).

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merchants were instructed not to supply the hospital with kosher meat. This was effective at first, but subsequently failed as hunger and epidemics led thousands of the Jerusalem poor to ignore the ban. The missionary settlement at Artuf (see above) was bitterly attacked by the Jewish press and public figures in Jerusalem. Although most of the 46 families who settled there did not convert, they were rejected by the Jerusalem Jewish Yishuv. Partially successful attempts were made to convince the settlers to desert the place, and most families left in 1885. A new attempt of the mission to cooperate with the Jews in the renewal of Artuf was again faced with strong opposition. Eliezer Ben Yehuda (a public figure in jerusalem and a key figure in the revival of the Hebrew language) in his newspaper HaOr, urges the Rabbis of Jerusalem to stand against this cooperation. Eventually, the land was sold to Jews.55 An interesting example of the work of the mission was the case of Naftali Herz Imber (1850–1909) who wrote the lyrics of HaTiqva, Israel’s national anthem. During Imber’s sojourn in Palestine (1882–1887) he spent some time with Laurence Oliphant and his wife at Haifa and Daliat el-Carmel. When ill in Jerusalem he was hospitalized at the Meir Rothschild Hospital, which he left in anger at the treatment and the lice, to make his way to the mission hospital. There he spent six months, deflecting Zebi Hermann Friedlander’s attempts to convert him. Imber conveyed his hesitations to Friedlander: “My heart is conquered by the Gospel [tidings], but my head does not agree with it.” 56 He stressed the good treatment he received at the mission’s hospital, and the fact that many of the notables of Jerusalem use its services.57 Rev. James Neil, a British missionary referred in his book to the response of the Jews to the missions. “These messengers of the Gospel were the first to furnish duly trained and able medical men, and to found an excellent hospital, so as in this particular also ‘to provoke to emulation’ the rabbis, whose medical institutions, subsequently founded in rivalry, are now also becoming very efficient, and no doubt a means of much temporal good for many.” The “most bigotry [sic] Jews in Jerusalem” rendered it necessary “to open schools for girls, in order to keep the young people away from the missionary establishments […] Let it be remembered, also, that the thousands of children who have passed through their [missionary] schools, and even of nominal converts who have joined their churches, have helped in their turn most materially to diffuse the light of Christian education throughout many parts of the land.”58 The Jewish Ezrat Nidahim Society was established in 1883 by Israel Dov Frumkin, the editor of the first Hebrew newspaper Habazeleth, together with central Jewish figures in Jerusalem such as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Yehiel Michel Pines 55 Grayevski, The Jews Struggle; Y. Ben-Artzi, “The Christian Chapter in the History of Hartuv”, Nofim Vol. 9–10 (1977), 140–143 (Hebrew); B. Bassat, Har-Tuv; E. Ben Yehuda, “The Week’s Chronicles”, in: Ha-Or, Vol. 7, No. 34 (1888), 1. 56 Rogel, In the Footsteps, I-VIII, 12–13 57 S. Laskov, “Tracing Imber’s Footsteps in Eretz Israel”, Cathedra 88 (1998), 145–149 (Hebrew). Rogel, In the Footsteps, 75 58 J. Neil, Palestine re-peopled; or Scattered Israel’s Gathering, London 1883, 22

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and Nissim Bechar in order to resist the missions and to assist poor Jews from all the ‘Edot (ethnic groups) in Jerusalem in finding housing and jobs. At first the Ezrat Nidahim Society planned to raise the funds locally, but soon it approached the Diaspora for help. The private archive of Gad Frumkin contains seven files of correspondence sent to his father Israel Dov Frumkin in Jerusalem in the 1880s. Some of the letters from Russia, Germany, Italy, England, and Palestine were written by renowned Rabbis and community leaders. The writers stressed the importance of opposing the missions and helping the poor with funds and housing.59 In its efforts to combat the missions the Ezrat Nidahim Society provided substantial support to the Yemenites who arrived in Jerusalem with the First Aliya and received no help from the Ashkenazi or Sephardic communities. This society raised money and built a neighborhood for them in Siloam (currently a focus of contention between Palestinians and Israelis in east Jerusalem), and established additional new neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Ezrat Nidachim and Knesset Israel, the central committee of the Prushim in Jerusalem, established employment projects in and around Jerusalem so that the population would have an alternative to asking for jobs from the missionary societies. One of the projects of Knesset Israel was the establishment of fishing groups which fished in the Jordan River. Ezrat Nidahim trained men as tailors, shoemakers, bookbinders etc. They even removed boys from the missionary settlement of Artuf and provided them with support to keep them away from the influence of the missionaries. In 1898 according to the Jerusalem resident Izhak Shirion another association (Agudat Bnei Yisrael) was founded in Jerusalem to combat the mission. It hired a physician to provide free care to poor patients, and distributed cheap medicines. However, this society operated only for several years.60 Some local societies such as Maskil El–Dal in Safed and Bikur Holim in Jaffa competed with the missions in the field of medical care. Similarly, well known groups such as Bnei Brit contributed substantially to the development of educational facilities in response to the missionary efforts.61 4. DISCUSSION: IDEOLOGY AND MODES OF RESPONSE Langboim dealt with the halakhic arguments surrounding the question of whether the Jews should or should not accept aid from the missionaries. Important issues such as saving a life were considered when weighing accepting help on one hand and the danger of the missionary influence on the other hand. Talmudic sources showed that it was permissible to approach the gentile so long as the Jews needed them for surviving. Another dilemma that was addressed was the use of printed bibles provided by the missionary groups since they sometimes contained the New Testament.62 59 60 61 62

Gad Frumkin’s Private Archive, Central Zioist Archive, Jerusalem, A199/56/1–7. Y. Shirion, Memoirs, Jerusalem 1943, 39-40. Langboim, The Jewish Response, 84–89. Ibid.

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A certain profile of the Jewish opponents to the missions is apparent as well as the connection among the various groups. Criteria such as gender, national origin and perception had an influence on the decision to resist the missionaries. Those who combated the missionaries resisted in other areas as well. They met the missionary threat and also had the means and ability to influence other people and to motivate them into action. Women who saw the damage caused by missionaries grew to take leadership roles in anti-missionary efforts.63 There were both negative and constructive reactions to missionary activity. The negative reaction included violence and economic sanctions such as withholding division money (haluka) from people who received aid from the missionaries. Another tool used was excommunication and ban ordered by some of the rabbis against people who turned to the missionaries. The cruelest of these was the denial of burial ordered against a woman who was hospitalized and died in a missionary hospital. Those activities were motivated by the Bnei Israel (Children of Israel) organization. Missionary and Jewish sources prove that the boycotts had limited effect.64 We offer a schematic diagram that illustrates the Jewish responses to the missions:

Jewish responses to missionary activity Jewishin responses to missionary in Palestine Palestine (1882activity - 1917) (1882–1917)

Competitive Combat

63 Ibid. 64 Ibid., 176–193

Banning

Polemists INDIFFERENT

Accept help

Converts

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Another type of response adopted was the constructive or alternative mode. Philanthropists such as Sir Moses Montefiore and Baron Meir Rothschild; local leaders and societies established schools; and orphanages, medical, and welfare institutions in cities where those institutions were not yet available. In Gaza, for example, most of the pupils left the missionary school once the community established a school to counter it. In Hebron and Safed, new Jewish hospitals were opened. Langboim’s study details the establishment of Jewish alternative health, welfare, education and adult educational facilities and employment opportunities in Jewish towns, neighborhoods and agricultural settlements. In all, 60 institutions and projects were created to compete with the missionary activities. Among these were 30 schools of which 12 were for girls, who until then had not been sent to school at all by the community (which is the reason that they were attracted to the missionary schools). Between 1882–1917, a number of Jewish welfare institutions were established in Palestine, including soup kitchens and the distribution of alms collection boxes. Eighteen healthcare facilities were opened including hospitals, clinics and dispensaries. Some of these, such as the Sha’arei Zedek, Bikur Holim and Misgav LaDach hospitals in Jerusalem, still exist and serve the population today.65 The following diagram summarizes the Jewish response to missionary activity during the First Aliya (1st wave of Jewish immigration): Jewish response to missionary activity during the first Aliya JEWISH RESPONSE MISSIONARY ACTIVITY DURING THE FIRST (1st Jewish wave TO of immigration) to Palestine 1882–1903 ALIYA [1st Jewish wave of immigration] TO PALESTINE 18821882-1903

Poverty of first aliya pogrom refugees

Missionary activity in first aliya

Selective attitude of veterans towards immigrants

Lack of economic infrastructure for immigrant absorption

Responses to the Mission

Uncertain halacha about accepting help from mission

Constructive response: establishment of schools, hospitals, work places, charitable institutions for aiding the Jewish community

Negative response: Bans etc

Conversion

Development of the Jewish settlement in Palestine

Leaving mission/ return to Jewish community/ leaving country

65 Ibid., 174–285; M. Magid, “Missionary Cure in Jerusalem: The Involvement of the Christian Mission in Misgav Ladach Hospital”, Seminar Paper, tutored by Ruth Kark, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2004 (Hebrew).

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5. CONCLUSION This paper discussed important spheres of missionary activity in Palestine and alternatives to the mission offered by Jewish philanthropists, individuals and societies. These focused mainly on health care and hospital services, formal and informal education, housing and agricultural settlement. Ben-Zion Gat, who belonged to an earlier generation of Israeli researchers of the history of the Jews in Palestine, considered both the negative and positive aspects of the missionary activity among the Jews in general, and that of the Protestant and British missions in particular.66 He highlights the mission’s humanitarian activities, its medical operation (assumed to have saved lives especially in times of frequent epidemics), its economic assistance, and the role of the mission schools in the first steps towards productivization of the Yishuv. Gat mentions a number of late nineteenth century Jewish sources, which commended the health, welfare and charity projects of the missionaries working among the Jews of Jerusalem.67 The Protestant missionary activities were important also because of the response they provoked amongst the communities they targeted. The Jewish community in Palestine was profoundly affected by the modern Protestant missionary movement, which inspired the establishment of competing Jewish public health, welfare, educational and community institutions.68 Kark, Shay and Langboim analyzed the responses in the Jewish community. The responses to the activity of the Sara Society, for example, and other missionary activities that included financial support, basic food supplies and jobs engendered opposition led by the Rabbinical establishment and their supporters. Their modes of action were both negative and positive. The negative responses included excommunication, haluka-cancellation, forbidding of circumcision and denying burial in Jewish cemeteries, forcing their removal from employment in missionary institutions, blocking access to the missions, and the disruption of talks about Christian theology. The positive responses included provision of alternative services that aimed at community development, self-help and identity formation. Among those was the establishment of Jewish hospitals, clinics, industrial schools, and modern schools for girls (such as Laemel), provision of training for work and productivization, handicraft and agricultural employment, charity (haluka), food and housing supply to the needy etc. as counter-measures. Their activities were supported both by Jewish philanthropists from abroad (Montefiore, Rothschild) and local societies set up to combat the influence of the mission. The new modes adopted sometimes emulated the organizational forms and tactics of missionary organizations.69 66 Gat, The Jewish Yishuv in Eretz Israel, 1840–1881, Jerusalem 1974 (Hebrew). 67 Gat, The Jewish Yishuv, 127–142 68 Ben-Arieh, Jerusalem in the 19th century II, 264, 332–46; Paul Schmidgal, American Holiness Churches in the Holy Land, 1890–1994, Mission to Jews, Arabs and Armenians, Ph.D.Dissertation, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 1996, 23. 69 Shai/Kark, “Jewish and Christian Women in Jerusalem”; Langboim, The Jewish Response, 307–314.

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Thus the missionaries both inadvertantly and partly by design contributed considerably to the development of Jewish society in Palestine during the period from 1830 to 1917. Jaffa, Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, Tiberias, Gaza and Peki’in were very different in 1917 than in 1882. They were more developed and more modern than they had been. At the end of the period the Jewish community became stronger and more stable in its opinions, identity and institutions. This conclusion coincides with a recent perception of the missionary activity as a motivating force rather than a negative influence.70

70 Langboim, The Jewish Response, 307–314.

THE CATHOLIC JERUSALEM MILIEU OF THE HABSBURG MONARCHY AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE MISSION IN THE HOLY LAND1 Barbara Haider-Wilson INTRODUCTION In 1983, Charles A. Frazee came to the following conclusion at the end of his study about the Catholic Church and the Ottoman Empire: “The Catholic experience in the Ottoman Empire was unique. No other region of the world presented the same kind of challenges or rewards. What made it so different was the fact that the Orient – the Balkans and the Near East region – was really the homeland of Christianity and hardly a stranger to Christ’s message. Churches of great antiquity were to be found here with thousands of members despite centuries of Muslim rule. However, it was not the centre of Latin Catholic Christianity and this meant that Western Christians considered it a mission field.”2

In the “Holy Land,”3 the inter-linkage of state, church, and society’s interests presents a particular challenge to historians involved in renewing international history in recent years.4 Until the end of the First World War, exclusive control of the Holy Land by one European power was believed to be unthinkable. The powers endeavoured through the exercise of religious-cultural influence and the “protection” of reli1 2

3 4

The author wishes to thank Dr. William D. Godsey and Dr. Edward Wilson for their assist ance with the translation, and Dr. Roland Löffler for his valuable criticism. C.A. Frazee, Catholics and Sultans. The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453–1923, Cambridge, 1983, 312. This situation was deeply regretted from the Catholic side and this dissatisfaction was expressed in many ways. For example, Friedrich Schwager wrote in his missionary history: “How sad that one must write of a mission in the Holy Land. In the home of the world’s Redeemer, it is not the cross, but the crescent, the sign of Mohammed, that rules!” F. Schwager, Die katholische Heidenmission der Gegenwart im Zusammenhang mit ihrer großen Vergangenheit 3: Die Orientmission, Steyl, 1908, 263. The expression “Holy Land”, like so many others, is a construction. For reasons of readability, though, quotation marks will not be used in the following. In an important volume on international history, Eckart Conze suggests that the oft-discussed globalization should “sharpen the perspective of the historian for the process of interlinking states and societies and for the manifold interaction of various players – state as well as nonstate – in international relations, and last but not least, also the social dimension of foreign political actions of states and governments.” E. Conze, “Zwischen Staatenwelt und Gesellschaftswelt. Die gesellschaftliche Dimension in der Internationalen Geschichte”, in: W. Loth/J. Osterhammel (eds.), Internationale Geschichte. Themen – Ergebnisse – Aussichten, München, 2000, 117–140, here 118.

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gious minorities to establish and extend their presence in Palestine. The late distinguished historian Alexander Schölch saw in this state of affairs the “basis of the European penetration of Palestine in the nineteenth century” and the “binding element of state and social interests in Palestine.” The powers indeed promoted, as far as possible, the relevant missionary, philanthropic, and cultural activities of their own citizens.5 Of course this support – as was the case with the Habsburg Monarchy, although it had always understood itself to be and was seen by others as a Catholic great power – was subject to fluctuations dependent upon political circumstances. Even though in the end, the Habsburg Monarchy’s Near Eastern policy was reduced to an almost exclusively Balkan policy, the Austro-Hungarian elites (and large segments of the population as well) were in no way immune to the prevalent European Zeitgeist. They also demanded spiritual expansion and spiritual possession of the Holy Land, which they were ready to support materially. From the beginning of the revived European interest in the Holy Land of the first half of the nineteenth century, 6 it was clear that conversions would not be the main focus of missionary work, since success and numbers were limited in a predominantly Muslim region.7 Johann Fahrngruber, who was a Lower Austrian and rector of the Austro-Hungarian Hospice in Jerusalem from 1876 to 1879, 8 wrote in 5

6

7

8

A. Schölch, Palästina im Umbruch 1856–1882. Untersuchungen zur wirtschaftlichen und sozio-politischen Entwicklung, Stuttgart, 1986, 48. The European powers confronted each other in Palestine “in a consciously ‘informal’, but also reciprocally ‘neutralizing’ form, namely within the framework of the active institutions located there – the church, missionary and charitable foundations, as well as the consulates; but colonial mindsets had also long set in.” M. Kirchhoff, “‘Unveränderlicher Orient’ und ‘Zukunft Palästinas’. Aspekte der Palästina-Ethnographie im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert”, in: B. Haider-Wilson/D. Trimbur (eds.), Europa und Palästina 1799–1948: Religion – Politik – Gesellschaft / Europe and Palestine 1799– 1948: Religion – Politics – Society (in preparation). In a so-called “Palästinakunde” which appeared in Vienna in the 1930s one can read: “Palestine is to be regarded as less isolated than any other country in the world. Its geographical position, its history, and the many strong ties which connect it to hundreds of millions of people around the world, does not allow it to lead a ‘private life’ and arrange its life to address its needs.” H. Herrmann, Palästinakunde. Ein Hand- und Nachschlagebuch, ein Leitfaden für Vortragende und Kurse, sowie für den Unterricht, Wien, 21935, 506. Herrmann further points out that Palestine was “always interwoven within the system of the great powers.” The publicized reports of the Franciscan Custody show the limitations of this missionary direction. For the Franciscan mission in the Holy Land, see, for instance, L. Iriarte, Der Franziskusorden. Handbuch der franziskanischen Ordensgeschichte, Altötting, 1984, 114; L. Lemmens, Geschichte der Franziskanermissionen, Münster in Westfalen, 1929, 61–78; H. Holzapfel, Handbuch der Geschichte des Franziskanerordens, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1909, 545–552. For other general problems confronted by mission work, including the resistence of Moslems to conversion, and the steps taken by the Catholic Church to solve these, see W. Reinhard, Globalisierung des Christentums? Vorgetragen am 9.12.2006, Heidelberg, 2007, 15, 20f.; for the Near East ibid., 26; further B. Stanley, Christian missions, antislavery and the claims of humanity, c. 1813–1873, in: S. Gilley/B. Stanley (eds.), World Christianities c. 1815–c. 1914, Cambridge, 2006, 443–457, here 443. See Denkblatt des österreichisch-ungarischen Pilgerhauses “zur heiligen Familie” in Jerusalem, ed. by Curatorium des Pilgerhauses, Wien, 1896, 27.

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his pilgrim and travel guide, which appeared in 1880, that the 11,000–12,000 souls who were in the diocese of Jerusalem under the jurisdiction of the Latin Patriarch “stood in an odd relationship” to European efforts: “The harvest is for the present not so fruitful, but in any case comforting.” 9 To come closer to their goal of “recovering” Palestine,10 the protagonists of the contemporary European-Catholic concept of a “peaceful crusade” consistently placed emphasis primarily on social and humanitarian commitments.11 The notion of a “peaceful crusade” refers to the idea of continuing the accomplishments of the Crusades with other, peaceful, “charitable” methods.12 The protagonists of this social movement, which stimulated the policy/ambitions of Church and state, were the carriers of a phenomenon that will here be called “longing for Jerusalem.” This phenomenon became popular with ever more people and laid the groundwork for the broad social support for missionary work in the Holy Land.

9

J. Fahrngruber, Nach Jerusalem. Ein Führer für Pilgerfahrten und Reisen nach und in dem Heiligen Lande, Würzburg – Wien, ca. 1880, 456f. In this work, Fahrngruber stated that the French acted with the greatest zeal for the missionary activities in the Holy Land. Fahrn gruber felt in Catholic Austria, in contrast, “a much too slow pulse beat […], even slower in apostolic Hungary.” He mentions as effective the General Commission for the Holy Land in Vienna and the Immaculate Conception Association. Ibid., 456. 10 The Franciscans prayed daily in their procession in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre “the prayer for the recovery of the Holy Land.” Cf. F. Zöhrer, Die Oberösterreicher im heiligen Lande. Gedenkbuch an den I. oberösterreichischen Männer-Pilgerzug nach Jerusalem in den Tagen vom 24. April bis 15. Mai im goldenen Jubiläumsjahre 1900, Linz, 1901, 163. 11 Compare this to the general appraisal of Jürgen Osterhammel, who among German historians is a bridge builder between European and non-European history. In relation to the old question of whether the mission of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries can be judged as a tool of colonialism, he does not regard this generalized judgment as being justified – it was closest to being true in the case of France. Following up on Wolfgang Reinhard, Osterhammel finds that the “dialect of colonialism,” being that unintentional side effects and repercussions took on a life of their own, was clearly recognizable in the mission: “Because its effectiveness was demonstrated not just, or even primarily, by success in conversions, but by its educational and charitable activities and in general by the transmission of secular, western cultural values: rather by-products of the principal intention to Christianize.” See J. Osterhammel, Kolonialismus. Geschichte – Formen – Folgen, München, 1995, 101f., citation 102. 12 Most recently, cf. B. Haider-Wilson, Die Habsburgermonarchie und das Heilige Land 1842– 1917. Schutzmachtproblematik, katholisches “Jerusalem-Milieu” und Volksfrömmigkeit, PhD dissertation, Wien, 2007, 12–22; further A. Schölch, Palästina im Umbruch, 48, 64–68; W. A. Neumann, “Der friedliche Kreuzzug nach Palästina”, in: Oesterreichische Monatsschrift für den Orient, ed. by Orientalischen Museum in Wien 3 (1877), 92–95; W.A. Neumann, “Der friedliche Kreuzzug nach Palästina II”, ibid., 3 (1877), 106–110.

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The missionary concept of the nineteenth century was a broad one, 13 especially in the then very important Oriental Mission. It was believed that the degree of concern about the Holy Places reflected the degree of Catholic belief in general. In addition to making the presence of Catholicism felt in competition with the Greek Orthodox Church in the land of the Holy Places, and therefore to also make an impression on the local population, the question of the Oriental churches became a central issue.14 Understood as a super-regional historical force, religion has always created interdependencies between European and non-European history. 15 Applied to the history of missions – a form of cultural encounter – this means that the mission country is ultimately itself the object of the mission. 16 Cultural contact is never a one-way street, but the intensity of the contact is configured in each case very differently.17 It should be emphasized in any case that the colonial imagination was 13 The Orient mission of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries made the Near East (Turkey and Persia) as well as Eastern and South Eastern Europe the focal point of its missionary field. They had in addition to the pastoral care for the believers of the Roman Catholic ordinance also the “elevation” of the united oriental Catholic ordinance, the reunification with the schismatic churches, and the conversion of Muslims as their goal. See F. Schwager, Die katholische Heidenmission im Schulunterricht. Hilfsbuch für Katecheten und Lehrer, Steyl, ²1913, 163f. The Jews were another goal for Catholic missionary conversion attempts in Palestine. Joseph Selbst formulated the following for the German Catholics in light of the mission in the Holy Land: “It is imperative to defend and preserve Catholic property within the Holy Land; it is necessary to promote the mission of the Catholic Church among both the dispersed Christians, as well as the unbelievers; it is necessary to work through increasing social and charity work for the liberation and development of this land, which is holy and also in other aspects extremely important for every Christian. It is necessary for us Catholics, especially for us German Catholics, to preserve our honor and not to let ourselves be shamed and outdone in the competition which has been ignited around the Holy Land, but to prove ourselves equal to the task.” Cf. J. Selbst, Die deutschen Katholiken und das heilige Land. Ein Vortrag (Sonder-Abdruck aus dem “Mainzer Journal”), Mainz, 1899, 27. 14 One should remember in this context that the Catholic Church, after a period of consideration lasting many years concerning the reconstitution of the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem, first became active as the zeal of the second Protestant bishop of Jerusalem, Samuel Gobat, began to be directed at Near Eastern Christians instead of Jews. See M. Kurz, “Reformen und Rivalitäten: Palästina in der frühen Tanzimatzeit”, in: B. Haider-Wilson/D. Trimbur (eds.), Europa und Palästina/Europe and Palestine (in preparation). 15 Jürgen Osterhammel clearly points out that international history can “in no way dispense in the long run with the idea of a world analytically divided in half: […]; here the history of Europe or the West, there that of ‘European expansion,’ which is often dealt with as if it had nothing to do with Europe.” J. Osterhammel, “Internationale Geschichte, Globalisierung und die Pluralität der Kulturen”, in: W. Loth/J. Osterhammel (eds.), Internationale Geschichte, 387–408, here 398. 16 C.A. Bayly makes the argument that a “less obvious point is that Christian religions them selves were irrevocably changed by the experience of proselytizing and propaganda wars outside Europe.” C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914. Global Connections and Comparisons, 11th print, Malden, MA–Oxford–Carlton, Victoria, 2007, 330f. I would like to thank Dr. Hans Peter Hye for bringing this book to my attention. 17 See U. Marzolph, “Der Orient in uns. Die Europa-Debatte aus Sicht der orientalistischen Erzählforschung”, in: R. Johler/B. Tschofen (eds.), Europäische Ethnologie (Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften 15/4 [2004]), 9–26, here 24.

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not limited either geographically or temporally to territorial possession – the exchanges with non-European cultures played a much more important role. 18 Jacob M. Landau, in a compilation of articles published by Avigdor Levy about a shared history of Jews, Turks, and Ottomans, states: “Of course, foreign impact and the ensuing Westernizing modernization of the empire varied in time, place, scope, and emphasis. In general, such developments were a function of a given area’s proximity to European sea routes, the number and character of Western migrants, merchants, missionaries, and other visitors attracted to it, and the nature of the local population’s relations with foreigners. Such relations generally involved members of the religious minorities to a much greater extent than the Muslim majority. Foreign influences impacted differently on various domains and seem to have been more evident in daily life, commercial contexts, and intellectual activity than in matters of community organization.” 19

In this regard, it was primarily the monastic clergy who sustained contact between the native population and Europe.20 Sebastian Conrad and Jürgen Osterhammel point out how important it is to know which individuals were involved in transnational relations. This circumstance is all the more significant given that “the attention of previous research has been focused, for too long, on phenomena of perception: in other words on pictures, impressions, and discursive constructions of the ‘other’.” Conrad and Osterhammel propose, therefore, that we know as precisely as possible who the carriers and actors of global history were beyond the small traditional circle of foreign political functionaries.21 STATE, CHURCH, AND SOCIETY THE CATHOLIC JERUSALEM MILIEU OF THE HABSBURG MONARCHY The identity of the Habsburg Monarchy as a Catholic great power and individual identities within it coincided. In the nineteenth century, the wishes and desires that circulated around and focused on “Jerusalem” led to the formation of a particular 18 Cf. A. Eckert, “Gefangen in der Alten Welt. Die deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft ist hoff nungslos provinziell: Themen jenseits der europäischen Grenzen interessieren die Historiker kaum. Eine Polemik”, in: Die Zeit v. 26. September 2002, 40, with reference to Sebastian Conrad. For the factors that “have decisively influenced the perception and form of what was defined as being European” – whereby the image of Europe appears much more closed from without than from within–, see H.-G. Haupt, “Erfahrungen mit Europa. Ansätze zu einer Geschichte Europas im langen 19. Jahrhundert”, in: H. Duchhardt/A. Kunz (eds.), “Europäische Geschichte” als historiographisches Problem, Mainz, 1997, 87–103, here 88f. 19 J.M. Landau, “Changing Patterns of Community Structures, with Special Reference to Ottoman Egypt”, in: A. Levy (ed.), Jews, Turks, Ottomans. A shared history, fifteenth through the twentieth century, Syracuse, 2002, 77–87, here 77f. 20 Cf. A. Schlicht, Frankreich und die syrischen Christen 1799–1861. Minoritäten und europä-ischer Imperialismus im Vorderen Orient, Berlin, 1981, 147. 21 S. Conrad/J. Osterhammel, “Einleitung”, in: S. Conrad/J. Osterhammel (eds.), Das Kaiserreich transnational. Deutschland in der Welt 1871–1914, Göttingen, 2004, 7–27, here 15f., citation 16. See also the remarks of Robert Frank concerning the dangers to be avoided by historians working on mentalités: R. Frank, “Mentalitäten, Vorstellungen und internationale Beziehungen”, in: W. Loth/J. Osterhammel (eds.), Internationale Geschichte, 159–185, here 185.

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milieu within Austrian Catholicism. 22 Catholic life then was more strongly concentrated on obedience. Nevertheless, one must take into consideration the assertion of Urs Altermatt, who has convincingly re-connected general history and church history: “to be Catholic […] had little to do with the Catholic belief and lifestyle which the institutional church dictates. It is something more societal with a certain social milieu.”23 In connection with “Jerusalem,” we can make out a specific segment of society in what the sources call “Catholic Austria.” Through this focus, a great difficulty in understanding Austrian Catholicism can be avoided. Long ago, Albert Fuchs formulated the problem in the following words: “The problem of portraying Catholicism in Austria with historical limits is exceeded only by the difficulty of defining its concerns.”24 Catholic milieus must thus be seen in any case as a multifaceted reality. They require analysis and interpretation, particularly when the focus is on the second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century.25 Sociologically, religion is regarded not as a given belief, “but as human experience interwoven with everyday life, condensed in rules of life and behaviour, in their relevance for individual and collective action.” 26 It would seem useful to employ – as Roland Löffler has done with respect to the Protestant-German Palestine Milieu27 – the theoretical model of concentric circles in which factors of thinking and behaviour of greater or lesser importance can be taken account of. Within this model, the Catholic Jerusalem mentality would be accorded neither a core nor a peripheral position, but rather one in the middle. In the cultural consciousness and collective memory of Catholics, however, the Holy Land was present and recallable over time. Especially at the heights of the “Jerusalem boom,” it was the background against which we can perceive processes of measurable social networking. The Catholic “Jerusalem Milieu” was heavily influenced through “the method of organization of bourgeois society: namely, associations.” 28 In this special case, 22 See especially the innovative considerations of Roland Löffler, based on the milieu-theory and the history of mentalités that were further developed by Olaf Blaschke and Frank-Michael Kuhlemann: R. Löffler, “Milieu und Mentalität. Überlegungen zur Anwendbarkeit europäischer Theoriemodelle auf die deutsche Palästina-Mission”, in: B. Haider-Wilson/D. Trimbur (eds.), Europa und Palästina/Europe and Palestine (in preparation). To differentiate between the Micro-, Meso- und Macromilieu according to Blaschke and Kuhlemann: ibid. 23 U. Altermatt, “Kirchengeschichte im Wandel: Von den kirchlichen Institutionen zum katholischen Alltag”, in: ZSKG 87 (1993), 9–31, here 22. 24 A. Fuchs, Geistige Strömungen in Österreich 1867–1918, reprint of the 1949 edition, Wien, 1984, 43. 25 Cf. K.-E. Lönne, “Katholizismus-Forschung. Literaturbericht”, in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft. Zeitschrift für Historische Sozialwissenschaft 26 (2000) 128–170, here 147f. 26 A. Heller, “Religion und Katholizismus in autobiographischen Aufzeichnungen”, in: Beiträge zur historischen Sozialkunde 4/89, 128–130, 132, here 129. 27 See footnote 22. 28 E. Hanisch, Der lange Schatten des Staates. Österreichische Gesellschaftsgeschichte im 20. Jahrhundert (Österreichische Geschichte 1890–1990), Wien, 1994, 217. Leonhard Lemmens, the Franciscan monastic historian, maintained that the missionaries could only be justified in

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it developed in missionary and pilgrim associations, and through modern means of communication such as popular pamphlets (one should especially point out the missionary magazines)29 as well as through the Pilgrim Movement. Among these mission associations,30 it is most important to mention the “Army of the Holy Cross” (Armee des Heiligen Kreuzes), which will be discussed further, and the “Immaculate Conception Association” (Maria-Empfängnis-Verein), which was founded in 1857 “to support the Catholics in the Turkish Empire and the Orient.” The international “Association for the Promotion of the Faith” (Société or Œuvre pour la Propagation de la foi), which was already founded in 1822 and had its headquarters in Lyon, ignited in the 1880s a Church-and-state discussion about the importance of the mission for national interests. The “Leo Society,” founded in 1892 and in which, for example, Hermann Zschokke and Karl Schnabl – both of them most influential within the “Jerusalem Milieu”31 – worked for the Holy Land, was an academic association and so far has been hardly researched. At the end of the nineteenth century, the mission priest Georg Gatt, who in his own words was “the only actual missionary in the Holy Land from Austria,” was one of many that protested against the divided organization of the system of missionary associations in Austria-Hungary, in which the associations were organized according to established fixed purposes.32 Thus in the Catholic circles of the Habsburg Monarchy, there was continually a desire for a centralized missionary association – a wish that was never realized. After the well-known events of the year 1840, the Habsburg Monarchy took part in the European competition for influence in the Holy Land to a varying degree, but always with a close cooperation between Church and state. The groups representing this commitment were recruited from the various segments of society. Among those leading the state at various times were Chancellor Metternich,

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their function “if they stay in an interrelation to the homeland, if this donates them its prayers and alms […].” He referred therefore to the “idea of a general duty to participate in missions,” to “the enthusiasm and promotion of the belief, which would be common to all circles” as well as the “numerous mission associations.” L. Lemmens, Die Franziskanermissionen der Gegenwart. Nach den letzten Jahresberichten der Missionsobern dargestellt, Düsseldorf, 1924, 3. However, even in the great Catholic newspapers (Das Vaterland and Reichspost) – which served as indicators for the entire Austrian Catholic Milieu – articles about the state of the mission in the Holy Land were continuously published. See the following details in B. Haider-Wilson, Die Habsburgermonarchie und das Heilige Land (footnote 12). Also see Zschokke und Schnabl further below. This also had the consequence that Gatt felt he was the only Austrian missionary in the Holy Land “who could not find any noteworthy support from the Austrian Mission associations. The collection for the Holy Land belongs to the Franciscans; the Association for the Promotion of the Faith sends its money to Lyon; the Leopoldinen-Association is appointed to North America with its population of millions, the Immaculate Conception Association for European Turkey […]”. Gatt to the Consul, Gaza, 1899 September 2, in: Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (henceforth: ÖStA), Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (henceforth: HHStA), Admi-nistrative Registratur, Fach 27, Karton 76.

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who saw himself as a politician interested in the Orient, Emperor Franz Joseph, 33 and Felix Prince Schwarzenberg (in his position as foreign minister). At the head of the Church, the archbishops and bishops34 acted on behalf of the mission in the Holy Land. Men from the church sphere, such as Joseph Salzbacher and Johann Mosetizh,35 constituted the engine of internal mobilization. The missionaries of all kinds who were active in the Holy Land included first only the monastic clergy and thereafter also the secular clergy. The Viennese General Commissioners for the Holy Land executed their function most of the time in the Habsburg Monarchy. Of course there was an intensive process of personnel exchange. In Vienna, the officials of the Foreign Ministry should also be taken into account, among whom, during the late period of the Dual Monarchy, was Alexander Baron Musulin.36 Consuls such as Josef (Guiseppe) Count Pizzamano and Bernhard Count CabogaCerva37 worked decisively in their state functions. Caboga, who represented both the Habsburg Monarchy and the Order of Malta, was confronted in the later 1860s and 1870s – as he often complained – by a Liberal government in Vienna for which the Holy Land in general was not a central issue. As is well-known, the nineteenth century brought a boom in pilgrimages at home and abroad, “and the authorities seeded with it a more uniform pattern of religious belief.”38 The pilgrim movement to the Holy Land first included individual travelers (with a very concentrated noble element), then small pilgrimage groups (with the ever greater participation of priests), and finally in the late nineteenth century the so-called peoples’ pilgrimages (Volkswallfahrten) which originated in Tyrol and included circa 500 participants.39 Through these peoples’ pilgrimages even the peasant class, which was known for its enduring piety, could actively take part in the movement and visibly mark the Austro-Hungarian presence in the Holy Land. Soon women were also allowed to participate in this tightly organized undertaking, mainly because they were responsible for the education of children 33

34 35 36 37 38 39

Except for the tradition in which his family stood, this long ruling Austrian emperor was influ enced by, among others, his teachers Mislin und Rauscher, who was later the archbishop of Vi enna. For Mislin, also see below. The concept of “Pietas Austriaca,” first investigated by Anna Coreth, has recently been further developed in W. Romberg, Erzherzog Carl von Österreich. Geistigkeit und Religiosität zwischen Aufklärung und Revolution, Wien, 2006, 221–306. The prince archbishops of Vienna took up a special position in this group as protectors of the General Comission for the Holy Land. More on both of these personalities can be found below. Musulin’s memoirs are published under the following title: A. Freiherr von Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz. Erinnerungen eines österreich-ungarischen Diplomaten, München, 1924. For information about the Austrian consuls, see M. Eliav in cooperation with B. Haider (eds.), Österreich und das Heilige Land. Ausgewählte Konsulatsdokumente aus Jerusalem 1849– 1917, Wien, 2000. Pizzamano was in office from 1849 to 1860, Caboga from 1867 to 1882. C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 334, also 351–357. See J. Krammer, Österreich-Ungarns Pilgerinnen und Pilger im Heiligen Land, in: B.A. Böhler (ed.), Mit Szepter und Pilgerstab. Österreichische Präsenz im Heiligen Land seit den Tagen Kaiser Franz Josephs, Wien, 2000, 225–234. With the members of the pilgrim groups, it is possible to show the close connections between the Catholic Jerusalem milieus of the German speaking countries of Central Europe.

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within the family. The peoples’ pilgrimages were called into being by the “pilgrimage commander,” Heinrich Himmel von Agisburg, who was born in 1843 in Moravia, and his “Palestinian Pilgrimage Association” in Brixen and made as affordable as possible. While the main branch of this association in Brixen was very successful for a longer period, the offshoot in Vienna existed for only a few years. This is, again, an indicator of the differences between the inhabitants of the capital Vienna and those of a crownland like Tyrol. The great variability of the source material left to us by all these groups presents an opportunity for working on newer research topics, which up until now have received little attention from historians. Aside from at the state level, the protagonists of the “Jerusalem-Milieu” emerged through their widely scattered journalistic activity and through lectures and speeches. The group of clerics also revealed themselves through their sermons. Membership lists and event calendars of the associations as well as the donation lists published in the missionary magazines make the interconnections among the personnel of the milieu especially clear. The number of editions which the travel reports of pilgrimages achieved points to the great amount of interest these received from the public. Thus, for example, the Journey of a Woman from Vienna to the Holy Land by the famous Ida Pfeiffer appeared in four editions between the years 1844 and 1856.40 This respectable amount of participation from within Catholic society stands in direct contrast to the lack of participation of the Habsburg Monarchy in the missionary work of the Holy Land. This was the case although it was a great power, at least in continental Europe, and already had a long history of connections with the Holy Land. Indeed for centuries, money had flowed from Austria to the Franciscan Custody – a designation referring to the responsibility of the Franciscan Order for the Holy Places – in the Holy Land. The secular priest Jacques Mislin, who has almost been forgotten in our time, was a man with excellent contacts. He had been a teacher of the young Franz Joseph. 41 In his comprehensive work The Holy Places, he made a survey that drew upon the registers of the Commission of the Terra Santa in Madrid and contains the figures for the financial support “the Missions in Palestine received from the Catholic nations during the course of two centuries, that is from the years between 1650 and 1850.” The first three contributors in this register are Spain with 146,362,880 Reals, Portugal with 39,685,480 Reals, and Austria with 18,371,680 Reals. 42 In addition to this, the 40 I. Pfeiffer, Reise einer Wienerin in das heilige Land, nämlich: von Wien nach Konstantinopel, Brussa, Beirut, Jaffa, Jerusalem, dem Jordan und todten Meere, nach Nazareth, Damaskus, Balbeck und dem Libanon, Alexandrien, Kairo, durch die Wüste an das rothe Meer, und zurück über Malta, Sicilien, Neapel, Rom u.s.w. Unternommen im März bis December 1842. Nach den Notaten ihrer sorgfältig geführten Tagebücher von ihr selbst beschrieben, 2 parts, Wien, four editions between 1844 and 1856. 41 See C. von Wurzbach, Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich, enthaltend die Lebensskizzen der denkwürdigen Personen, welche seit 1750 in den österreichischen Kronländern geboren wurden oder darin gelebt und gewirkt haben, part 17, Wien, 1867, 361f. 42 See J. Mislin, Die Heiligen Orte. Pilgerreise nach Jerusalem von Wien nach Marseille durch Ungarn, Slavonien, die Donaufürstenthümer, Constantinopel, den Archipelagus, den Libanon, Syrien, Alexandrien, Malta und Sicilien. Nach der 2. Aufl. des franz. Orig. umgearbeite-

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Habsburg Monarchy could exercise influence in the Custody through the Diskretus pro Germanis, a member of its supervisory committee.43 Beyond this network, the beginning of a new connection between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Holy Land was established in the fifth decade of the nineteenth century. AUSTRO (-HUNGARIAN) MISSION BASES In 1837 Joseph Salzbacher (1790–1867), a theologian and influential canon of St. Stephan’s, undertook a journey to Palestine, about which he later published a book.44 He was the first to make Chancellor Metternich aware of the problems of the Catholic Church in the region.45 In 1842, Emperor Ferdinand’s reauthorization of the “Good Friday Collection for the Holy Places” in the dioceses of the Monarchy was the earliest consequence of this. The Vienna General Commissioner’s Office for the Holy Land, which was founded in 1633 and abolished in 1784, was reactivated in 1843 as a financial and personnel link to the Custody. It still had its seat in the Viennese Franciscan monastery, but stood from then on under the protectorate of the Archbishop of Vienna. Almost immediately, a few Franciscans with various mother tongues were sent to Palestine to function as leaders and confessors to the pilgrims whose number rose continually in the following decades. 46 This branch of the mission, which te und vermehrte Ausg., vol. 2, Wien, 1860, 359. 43 Italians, French, and Spanish were more strongly represented in the direction of the Custody. 44 J. Salzbacher, Erinnerungen aus meiner Pilgerreise nach Rom und Jerusalem im Jahre 1837, 2 vols., Wien, 1839, 21840. Salzbacher undertook his pilgrimage on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination. He depicts the plight of the Franciscans in the Holy Land due to the absence of alms and support from Europe as well as their conflicts with the “Greeks.” The proceeds of his book, the appearance of which coincided with the European action against Mehmet Ali, were dedicated, with imperial permission, to the Holy Sepulchre. 45 Cf. M. Eliav/B. Haider (eds.), Österreich und das Heilige Land, 35; B. Haider, “Zwischen Anspruch und Wirklichkeit. Kirche und Staat in Österreich(-Ungarn) und das Heilige Land 1843/49–1917”, in: B.A. Böhler (ed.), Mit Szepter und Pilgerstab, 55–74, here 59. Salzbacher was also active in his later years for the Holy Land. 46 Cf. B. Haider-Wilson, “Das Generalkommissariat des Heiligen Landes in Wien – eine Wiederentdeckung des 19. Jahrhunderts”, in: D. Trimbur (ed.), Europäer in der Levante. Zwischen Politik, Wissenschaft und Religion (19.–20. Jahrhundert)/Des Européens au Levant. Entre politique, science et religion (XIXe–XXe siècles), München, 2004, 123–159. The popular Viennese priest Urban Loritz stated in his pilgrimage report: “The honorable sons of Saint Francis gather together from all the lands of Europe […] in various monasteries under a com mon highest director, who […] leads them under the title of Custos that is Guardian of the Holy Land. They have, as guardians of the most honorable Places of the faith, the holy duty or mission not only to accommodate in a friendly manner the pious pilgrims who come from far away to make a pilgrimage in the Holy Land, but also to ignite and nurture the flame of belief and love in them as well as in the residents of the Orient. Thus they can secure Christianity a permanent place in the land where it had its blessed beginning. It cannot be allowed then for that reason that German priests are absent. That is why the German mission from Austria in the Holy Land consists of some monks of the order of St. Francis who commit

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also encompassed the Austrian Hospice in Jerusalem, will be defined here as “the home mission abroad.”47 Not the native population of Palestine, but rather the home audience was the focus. The Church wanted to exploit the pilgrimage experiences of a few for the wider body of Austrian Catholics. And this strategy worked: “[…] the spiritual journey, self-sacrifice, and joy experienced gave the pilgrim a special form of individuality, which he or she could share with others. It became a form of self-expression and gave rise to printed accounts of travels in many languages.”48 One can observe successful activity in the public realm: not only in publishing, but also in a process of networking among the pilgrims and people who had a strong desire to take part in a pilgrimage. The general commissioners also prominently participated in the “home mission.” They issued magazines to inform and mobilize the interested public. First came the “Missionary notices from the Holy Land” (Missions-Notizen aus dem heiligen Lande) and later “The Trumpet of the Holy Cross” (Die Posaune des hl. Kreuzes), and “The Crusader” (Der Kreuzfahrer). The foundation of the “Army of the Holy Cross” in 1891 by P. Franz Sales Angeli (who was in office between 1881 and 1902) was completely tied to the idea of a “peaceful crusade.” Within it, groups of twelve members, presided over by a so-called Förderer, were formed. 40 groups appeared in the first list of the contributions from members of the “Army,” which was compiled by the General Commissioner’s Office.49 A few months later, at the end of the second year’s volume of the Trumpet of the Holy Cross, 397 groups were recorded.50

47

48 49 50

themselves for what was earlier a three-year, and recently has become a six year-period. They subject themselves to spiritual work in the various noteworthy Places of the Holy Land. During their stay they must keep watch at least once for three months in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We found in addition to the honorable P. Wolfgang, who at that time had the watch, the honorable P. Eduard as Guardian of Cyprus and the honorable P. Andreas, who provided with great success the press with multiple printing presses for the distribution of good devotional and narrative books in the Arabic language in the monastery of Sankt Salvator in Jerusalem, serving as German mission priests from our Austria.” Cf. U. Loritz, Blätter aus dem Tagebuche meiner Pilgerreise in das heilige Land im Jahre 1855, Wien, [1856], 64f. This definition is not to be understood in the same way as the identical Protestant term. Regarding the Protestant concept, cf. R. Löffler, “Die langsame Metamorphose einer Missionsund Bildungseinrichtung zu einem sozialen Dienstleistungsbetrieb. Zur Geschichte des Syrischen Waisenhauses der Familie Schneller in Jerusalem 1860–1945”, in: D. Trimbur (ed.), Die Europäer in der Levante, 77–106 and U. Kaminsky, “German ‘Home Mission’ Abroad: The Orientarbeit of the Deaconess Institution Kaiserswerth in the Ottoman Empire”, in: H. Murre-van den Berg (ed.), New Faith in Ancient Lands. Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Leiden, 2006, 191–210. C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 357. See Die Posaune des heiligen Kreuzes 2 (1891/92), 219–224. Ibid., 324–350. The (positive) balance of the accounts shows that the largest part of the expenditures went to the Franciscans in the Holy Land (including, for example, travel costs for five monks), followed by the monies used for the budget of the Hospice and the salaries of its rectors, and finally by the funds channelled to the editions arising from the General Commission (including the publication of the magazine “Trumpet of the Holy Cross”). The accounts were revised and found to be correct by Anton Horny (Dom-Custos, Syndicus of the General Commission for the Holy Land), General Commissioner Angeli, the two assistants of the

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In addition to Salzbacher, there is a second name worthy of mention: Johann Mosetizh (1797–1863), professor of Old Testament and oriental languages in Görz, who was commissioned by the Viennese Archbishop to make an information-gathering journey to Palestine and Egypt in 1845. He also passed on information about the “mournful” situation of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land to the heads of Church and state. He explained “that it is the main need of the mission in the Holy Land forcefully and energetically to represent its just interests to the Sublime Porte and against the overly powerful Greeks in Jerusalem itself.” 51 From the Austrian-Catholic viewpoint, Mosetizh was also one of the few who made the nature of the primary school system a theme. Influenced by the Custodian, he wrote the following in his report about the existing Catholic (monastery) schools of Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem: “One would wish that the needy libraries at the mission stations would be provided with good methods as well as educational and children’s texts so that the school system could be improved. However, in order to do this the mission of the Holy Land would need to possess a small press, but one sufficiently supplied with Arabic and Italian characters and located somewhere in Palestine, for example in Jerusalem. This would be necessary in order to increase the number of useful texts for instruction, education, and edification, to distribute them among the youth, and to guard them in this way against the temptation of the North American Presbyterian and English Protestant missionaries. Catholic missionaries armed with such religiously and intellectually forming texts could advantageously act against the presumptions of and the painful pressure from the arrogant Greeks, who are in religious matters extremely ignorant, if they set their religiously enlightened intellectual superiority against the wealth of the Greeks.”52

With the foundation of a printing press we come to a more narrow conception of mission. This suggestion by Mosetizh was taken up in Vienna so that P. Sebastian Frötschner, one of the first Austrian Franciscans in the Holy Land, 53 could set up a book press with a type foundry in the monastery of St. Salvator in 1846. According to the wish of the Custodian as related by the Custodial Vicar, this should “serve to provide works for school use, as well as others with Catholic religious content (primarily in Arabic), especially for the purpose of opposing the widely disseminated works of the Protestants, which appear in great numbers.” 54 The intention of “educating the people”55 was therefore the central focus of this venture,

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General Commission P. Clemens Engelhart and P. Sigismund Adler as well as P. Timotheus Heiß, the secretary of the General Commission. Ibid., 351f. M. Eliav/B. Haider (eds.), Österreich und das Heilige Land, 45; concerning Mosetizh, see also ibid., 46, 101. Die katholische Mission des heiligen Landes im Jahre 1845, in: ÖStA, HHStA, Handschrift Weiß 921, fol. 420r–439r, here fol. 436v–437v. A further (not identically worded) issue of this report can be found under the title “Katholische Mission des h. Landes im Jahre 1845”, undated, in: Diözesanarchiv, Wien (henceforth: DAW), Präsidialia I 6, Österr. Pilgerhaus in Jerusalem, Kassette 1. Frötschner later held the office of Viennese General Commissioner for the Holy Land during the years 1870 and 1881. Fr. Joseph Maria Rodal (Custodial-Vicar of the Holy Land) to Mosetizh, Jerusalem, 1845 October 22, in: DAW, Präsidialia I 6, Österr. Pilgerhaus in Jerusalem, Kassette 1.

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which also served as training and workplace for some natives and which was maintained until 1874 with money from the Habsburg Monarchy. Little attention has been paid by Austrian historiography to the printing press, which of course has to do with the problem of sources, particularly in comparison to other Austrian enterprises in the Holy Land. 56 More important, however, has been the fact that the significance of “print culture” for religion has, until recently, not been much of a subject of investigation. C.A. Bayly convincingly attempts to correct the problem by picking up on the insights of Benedict Anderson, whose arguments about such culture and nationalism have become well-known. Where the anthropological historian Anderson “popularized the view that rapidly developing techniques of printing and the proliferation of books and newspapers helped create new, imagined national communities,” Bayly has argued that “what was true for the nation was equally true for religion […].” 57 According to him, “[r]eligious literature was at the forefront of the print revolution […].” 58 The importance of printing presses for the “Empires of Religion,” as Bayly entitled the relevant chapter of his book, can therefore hardly be overestimated. The activities of the above-mentioned Salzbacher and Mosetizh coincided with those of Metternich, a statesman at the head of the Habsburg Monarchy who wished to exploit the military success of 1840 “politically and religiously.” 59 In 1849, which was a key moment, the Austrian (vice-)consulate in Jerusalem was finally established, also at the impetus of both of the above-mentioned protagonists of the “Jerusalem Milieu.” This was the sixth western consulate in the Holy City, following those of Great Britain, Prussia, France, Sardinia, and the USA. 60 The role that these offices played in all European activities in the region cannot be overemphasized. Already in 1854, Leopold Neumann stated in his Handbook of the Nature of the Consulate for the consuls in the Levant: “In every place where religious institutions are located, which enjoy the protection of the Austrian Empire, every type of assistance that should be needed to fulfill their holy duties is to be performed by the consuls for these, as well as for all the clerics which belong to them.”61 At this time, the capitulation-treaties from earlier centuries with the Ottoman Empire, in which the religious protectorate was laid down, should be mentioned. 62 55 S. Rosenberger, “Franz Josef I. Kaiser von Oesterreich und apost. König von Ungarn in Jerusalem 1869”, in: Missions-Notizen aus dem heiligen Lande, Wien, 1870, 31–55, here 51. 56 Most recently B. Haider-Wilson, Die Habsburgermonarchie und das Heilige Land, 169–182. 57 C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 68, 203f., 211, 333, 357 (citation). 58 Ibid., 333. 59 For this see the “Vortrag” Metternich to Kaiser Ferdinand of February 24, 1846, in: M. Eliav/B. Haider (eds.), Österreich und das Heilige Land, 101–103. 60 Ibid., 29. For the meaning of the western consulates for the Jewish population see the numerous pertinent works from Mordechai Eliav. The Austrian vice-consulate in Jerusalem was raised to a consulate under Felix Fürst Schwarzenberg in 1852. Ibid., 51, 138–144. 61 L. Neumann, Handbuch des Consulatwesens, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des österreichischen, und einem Anhange von Verordnungen, Wien, 1854, 380. 62 For the Austrian religious protectorate in the Ottoman Empire, see B. Haider-Wilson, “Das Kultusprotektorat der Habsburgermonarchie im Osmanischen Reich. Zu seinen Rechtsgrund-

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Without the protection of a European power, which was carried out primarily by the consulates, the Catholic missionaries would have stood without a foundation 63 and the missionary work would not have been able to develop as effectively within such a cramped area. Dominic Lieven stresses that the rights of the Europeans which were written down in the capitulations were at that time “in no sense a concession born of weakness but simply an extension (revocable at any time) of the principle that non-Muslims should manage their own affairs.” 64 This inherent principle of the Ottoman Empire also corresponded with the millet system: “Under that system, each major religious group had governed most of its important affairs. Welfare, schools, and most legal affairs had been left to the individual millets.”65 This explains why the Ottoman government objected little to the European confessional welfare establishments founded all over the Empire in the nineteenth century and why the Europeans could concentrate on this form of missionary influence. Further, it seems important to refer here to the meaning of denomination and nation, which was different from that in Europe. As late as the year 1895, Consul Theodor Ippen made the observation to Vienna that the grouping and division of the population in the Levant resulted “more from their religion than from their nationality.” More recently, however, he noted that the tendency had arisen “to give the national idea a higher position.” Up until that point, the Ottoman government had closed itself off from that tendency: “the nations – millet – that it recognizes are denominational, and not national groups.”66

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lagen und seiner Instrumentalisierung im 19. Jahrhundert (unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Jerusalems)”, in: M. Kurz/M. Scheutz/K. Vocelka/T. Winkelbauer (eds.), Das Osmanische Reich und die Habsburgermonarchie. Akten des internationalen Kongresses zum 150-jährigen Bestehen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Wien, 22.–25. September 2004, Wien, 2005, 121–147. How important the aid of the consulates was for the European mission can be seen in the following example: The first American missionaries, who were in the Levant since 1820, failed in Jerusalem and were forced to move their base to Beirut, because, among other reasons, they lacked at that time the protection of a consulate. See U. Makdisi, “Reclaiming the Land of the Bible: Missionaries, Secularism, and Evangelical Modernity”, in: AHR 102 (1997), 680–713, here 685. D. Lieven, Empire. The Russian Empire and Its Rivals, London, 2000, 154. J. McCarthy, The Ottoman Peoples and the End of Empire, London, 2001, 9. A survey of the recognized Christian “millets” at the end of the nineteenth century can be found in A. O’Mahony, “The Christian Communities of Jerusalem and the Holy Land: A Historical and Political Survey”, in: A. O’Mahony (ed.), The Christian Communities of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Studies in History, Religion and Politics, Cardiff, 2003, 1–37, here 7f. The Christian millets were thus organized by the Ottoman administration at the end of the nineteenth century into: 1. the Eastern Orthodox churches (the Greek Orthodox millet, the various Orthodox churches in the Balkans); 2. the Oriental Orthodox churches (the Armenian Orthodox, the Assyrians, the Syrian Orthodox); 3. Latin, Eastern and Oriental Catholic churches (Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, the Maronites, the Syrian Catholics, the Armenian Catholics, the Chaldeans); 4. the Protestants. “Arbeit über die politische u. oekonomische Lage Palästina’s” (Ippen to the Foreign Ministry), Jerusalem, June 4, 1895, in: ÖStA, HHStA, Konsulatsarchiv Jerusalem (henceforth: KA Jer.), Karton 142, fol. 417r–477v, here 426rv; parts of the document are printed in M. Eliav/B. Haider (eds.), Österreich und das Heilige Land, as doc. 112, 347–353.

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The Habsburg Monarchy visibly marked its presence in the Holy Land in the form of two welfare institutions: the Austrian Hospice in Jerusalem and the Hospital of the Order of the Knights of Malta in Tantur. For both of these, the AustroHungarian state acted consistently as a protector. The first had been administratively connected for a long time to the Viennese General Commissioner’s Office for the Holy Land. The Hospice was opened in 1863, in the terminology of the time as “a national endowment:”67 In 1852, Consul Pizzamano made the corresponding suggestion to the General Commissioner’s Office concerning what was then planned as a hospital for Austrian pilgrims under the direction of the Franciscans. The Viennese Archbishop, Cardinal Joseph Othmar von Rauscher, decided for the establishment of a national pilgrim house, which was to be ultimately run by secular clergy from the dioceses of the Monarchy because of the resistance from the Latin Patriarch Giuseppe Valerga. In 1895, the administration of the Hospice was transferred from the General Commissioner’s Office to a three-member committee in Vienna to which Hermann Zschokke was appointed as the first chairman. He then recommended Karl Schnabl, Imperial and Royal Court Chaplain and also rector for some years, as well as the secretary of the Archbishop, Msgr. Dr. Joseph Pfluger as councilors. Zschokke, who distinguished himself journalistically, was one of the most active and longtime spearheads of the Catholic Austrian movement towards the Holy Land. He worked between 1864 and 1866 as rector of the Hospice, was then court councilor in the Ministry of Religion and Education, professor of Old Testament Bible studies at the University of Vienna, canon and later suffragan of St. Stephen’s and honored with a lifetime membership to the upper chamber of parliament. Thus, he had at his disposal the right contacts and a perfect network for promoting the Hospice and Austrian(-Hungarian) engagement in the Holy Land in general.68 One statistic illustrates well the activity of the Hospice: between 19 March 1863 and 31 December 1906, 10,729 people were provided for in the Hospice. 69 The second Austrian institution in the Holy Land was the Hospital of the Order of the Knights of Malta in Tantur, which lies on the way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and was completely activated in 1877.70 One can clearly see the connection 67

K. Domanig, Nach Jerusalem. Eine Erinnerung an die Tyroler Volkswallfahrt des Jahres 1906, Brixen a. E., 1906, 102. Concerning the Hospice, see the work of H. Wohnout, Das österreichische Hospiz in Jerusalem. Geschichte des Pilgerhauses an der Via Dolorosa, Wien–Köln– Weimar, 2000; furthermore some documents about the Hospice are printed in M. Eliav/B. Haider (eds.), Österreich und das Heilige Land, 159–162, 176–178, 306f. (doc. 27, 33, 93). 68 Cf. H. Wohnout, Das österreichische Hospiz in Jerusalem, 68, 70. 69 Cf. H. Zschokke, Die österreichisch-ungarische Monarchie im Heiligen Lande (Separat-Abdruck aus „Das Vaterland“ vom 31. Jänner 1907), Wien, 1907, 19. 70 Regarding Tantur, see T.F. Stransky, “Das österreichische Hospital am Tantur”, in: B.A. Böhler (ed.), Mit Szepter und Pilgerstab, 267–279; T.F. Stransky, “The Austrian Hospital at Tantur (1869–1918)”, in: M. Wrba (ed.), Austrian Presence in the Holy Land in the nineteenth and early twentieth Century. Proceedings of the Symposium in the Austrian Hospice in Jerusalem on March 1–2, 1995, Tel Aviv, 1996, 98–121; M. Eliav/B. Haider (eds.), Öster-

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between Church and state in its foundation history: by the 1850s, aspirations had stirred within the Order of the Knights of Malta to “return” to the Holy Land; 71 Austria-Hungary was represented since 1867 in Jerusalem by Bernhard Count Caboga-Cerva, who in his person combined the office of consul and the dignity of a Knight of the Order of Malta;72 last, but not least, the project earned the personal support of Emperor Franz Joseph, who, with his trip in the year 1869, was in the Orient at just the right time.73 The main financing for Tantur was procured from the Order of the Knights of Malta, and above all from the Bohemian Grand Priory. The Emperor also participated financially and with the whole weight of his personality. In 1873, there finally occurred a decisive step for the further development of the house: Franz Joseph granted the request of the Order for the house to be placed under imperial protection. For this reason, the Foreign Ministry also participated actively in the events in and around Tantur. Nevertheless, there were also continuous personnel problems in Tantur, so that already in 1879 the first agreement between the Order of the Knights of Malta and the Order of St. John of God was concluded.74 Because of the constantly recurring fear that France would try to bring Tantur under its protection, the Viennese Foreign Ministry decided, appealing to article 62 of the Berlin Treaty of 1878, that only brothers of the Order of St. John who were either of Austrian or Hungarian nationality should be sent there. In the early years of the twentieth century, Dr. Ansgar (Alois) Hoenigmann, who since 1894 had worked as a doctor in Tantur, was prior of the house. According to a report by Consul Rudolf von Franceschi from the year 1913, the number of patients who were admitted to the Hospital and the number of outpatients consisted yearly of “on average 250, as well as 20.000 (outpatients) of reich und das Heilige Land, 71, 241–243, 265–268. 71 Originally, the Order of the Knights of Malta wanted to settle again in Jerusalem. The attempt, however, was not successful. The selection of a location in Tantur can be seen as a compromise at the suggestion of Caboga. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Georg Gatt wrote that since 1850 the number of newly-founded missionary institutions in Bethlehem and its surroundings reached 17. See G. Gatt, “Der Aufschwung der katholischen Missionsanstalten während der letzten 50 Jahre in Palästina, außerhalb Jerusalems”, in: Brixener Chronik. Zeitung für das katholische Volk v. 17. Jänner 1901, 1–3, here 3. 72 The Order of the Knights of Malta represented a model of a noble society which reached beyond national boundaries. 73 For more see B.A. Böhler, “Kaiser Franz Joseph im Heiligen Land. Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung seiner Orientreise im Jahr 1869”, in: B.A. Böhler (ed.), Mit Szepter und Pilgerstab, 161–202. This is primarily a repetition of the account by the travelling chaplain, Beda Dudík, which is part of court historiography. See [B. Dudík], Kurzgefaßte Schilderung der Reise Seiner k. u. k. Apost. Majestät nach dem Orient, Wien, 1870; B. Dudík, Kaiser-Reise nach dem Oriente, Wien, 1870. As a result of his trip, Emperor Franz Joseph dedicated substantial financial allowances to the churches of St. Salvator in Jerusalem and St. Katharina in Bethlehem and secured an improvement in the accommodations of the Franciscans in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. For carrying out these plans, the emperor used his diplomatic establishment extensively over a number of years. 74 A result of this cooperation were frequent disputes regarding competence.

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whom in recent years about 25 as well as 300 (outpatients) were Austrians and Hungarians, in proportion 10% and 1.5%.”75 Two further institutions represented, through the nationality of a large part of their personnel, the Austro-Hungarian mission. However, they lacked the official protection of the Habsburg Monarchy although they continuously applied for it. They failed in their desire because the Foreign Ministry did not accept these offers from the side of the Church. These institutions were firstly, the Hospital of the Order of St. John of God in Nazareth, and secondly, the missionary station in Gaza. The Hospital of the Order of St. John of God in Nazareth was the first Catholic hospital in Galilee.76 Its history began in Tantur with the first three brothers of the Order of St. John of God, who were only active there for a short time. There was no Austrian among them, but the Bavarian Othmar Mayer, the initiator of the Hospital in Nazareth, was a very controversial personality even within his own order. Crown Prince Rudolph, who visited the Holy Land in 1881, endowed 800 florins for the foundation of a hospital in Nazareth. Mayer was able to mobilize further sources of money in Europe. For that reason, a rented house could be opened in 1882 and a newly constructed building in 1884. Personnel continuity is documented beginning in 1893 with the priors Fr. Peter Damian Amschl and P. Athanasio Fiorioli. In 1905, the Hospital was definitively incorporated into the Styrian Province of the Order. A report on the Hospital was published in the magazine The Catholic Missions in the year 1895 with the assertion that, “Nothing makes a greater impression on the Orientals than the devoted love of our medical orders.” In Nazareth, “the ill of various nations and religions [have found] not only health of the body, but also at the same time not a few of them have found the way to the true Church. In the year 1894 alone, no less than 17,397 ill were treated, part of them in the Hospital and its pharmacy for the poor and part of them at home.” 77 The statistics mentioned 17 heathens, 13 Jews, 6,731 Muslims, 33 Copts, 341 Protestants, 5,258 Greek schismatics, 1,069 Greek Catholics, 1,077 Maronites, and 3,398 Latins. Besides the Orientals, there were various nationalities: 22 Germans, 21 Austrians, 62 French, 43 Italians, 11 Spaniards, and 4 Americans. In the following year, in connection with the announcement of the respective statistics, the conversion of a single Greek schismatic was celebrated.78 As the plan of the Order of St. John of God to found a new hospital in Gaza was being discussed in 1898, Consul Heinrich Jehlitschka wrote to Vienna endorsing this venture: 75 Franceschi to the Foreign Ministry/Graf Berchtold, Jerusalem, June 10, 1913, in: ÖStA, HHStA, KA Jer., Karton 126, fol. 480rv, 483r, here 480v. 76 Concerning the hospital in Nazareth, see N. Schwake, “Das österreichische Hospital in Nazareth”, in: B.A. Böhler (ed.), Mit Szepter und Pilgerstab, 281–291; N. Schwacke[!],“The Austrian Hospital in Nazareth”, in: M. Wrba (ed.), Austrian Presence in the Holy Land, 81–97. 77 Die katholischen Missionen 23 (1895), 230f. 78 Ibid., 24 (1896), 117f., here 118. “An entire family of the same confession is in preparation to convert, and a community of 280 persons, who had seceded from the Latin Patriarchate for 18 months, were brought back to obedience due to the influence of the charity of the Order of St. John of God and reconciled with the Church.”

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Despite the intercession of the consul, this project was never realized. The missionary station in Gaza of Georg Gatt (1843–1924), who was a Tyrolian secular cleric from the diocese of Brixen:80 Gatt was already active in Jerusalem, for instance having served as vice-rector of the Austro-Hungarian Hospice between 1871 and 1874. In 1879 he decided to found a “missionary station for the German speaking secular clergy.” The Latin Patriarch gave him permission for this, but not funds. Because of this, the missionary station was confronted with continuous financial problems,81 which can also partly explain Gatt’s intensive journalistic activity. He repeatedly undertook fund raising trips to Europe and principally received support from German mission associations,82 but in the end he had to turn over his lifework to the Latin Patriarchate. Only twice did Gatt receive financial support from the Foreign Ministry – the second time was in 1913 in the amount of 300 Francs, which was designated for the enlargement of the missionary station through the building of a girls’ school that was not only meant for the Catholic, but also for the entire Christian community in Gaza.83 With his participation in the school system in the Holy Land, Gatt can be seen as a great exception among the Austrians. In an extensive report about Palestine from the year 1880, Consul Caboga discussed, among other things, the educational system. He stated that the mass of the population enjoyed “no education at all.” With respect to the Christian confessions, he held the existing institutions, with the exception of the educational establishments of the Protestants (especially the Anglicans), for mediocre. Nevertheless, all of the educational institutions, including the seminaries for the development of priests (most of whom were natives) and the monastic schools for boys and girls, “are managed by the clergy absolutely and entirely according to their desires. They are meant foremost as nurseries for priests, nuns, or missionaries of both sexes. Therefore what is necessary for civic life comes up too short in these institutions. What would be so necessary here, namely agricultural, business, and similar trade schools, is almost entirely absent,” even though, for example, “a Catholic priest on his own” had already tried to introduce such a thing. One can only assume that Caboga here meant Gatt. The Consul remarked further that “the pious in Europe only contribute meagerly to purely phil79 Jehlitschka to Gołuchowski, Jerusalem, July 8, 1898, in: ÖStA, HHStA, Administrative Registratur, Fach 27, Karton 76. 80 See F. Sauer, Georg Gatt. Missionar in Gaza (1843–1924), Wien, 1983. 81 Gatt maintained as an economic safeguard a missionary branch in Asdud; this measure, however, also did not bring about the success he wished for. 82 One should mention the “Bavarian Ludwigs-Mission Association” and first and foremost the “Association of the Holy Sepulchre” in Cologne as examples, as well as the “Immaculate Conception Association” in Vienna. 83 See ÖStA, HHStA, KA Jer., Karton 126, fol. 90r–97v.

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anthropic causes – they think more about the churches and the strictly confessional – so that sufficient funds for such institutions cannot be collected.”84 The number of members of the Catholic Church in Gaza constantly changed (1879:30, 1881:70, 1887:57, 1900:100, 1909:60) and this also explains the small number of pupils, which, according to Medebiélle, rose from 9 to 25.85 In 1898, Consul Jehlitschka reported that the missionary station consisted of a building with a house chapel, school, and hospice, including a large property. In the consul’s opinion, the size of this complex sufficed to fill the needs of the approximately 70-member Catholic community there. 86 In a pilgrim book from 1906, Gatt is mentioned as having “ministered and taught his hundred Arabians (Latins and Maronites).”87 Gatt was the protagonist of the Catholic “Jerusalem Milieu” of the Habsburg Monarchy who most intensively tackled the entire problem of the nature of the missionary work in the Holy Land. Before the establishment of his own missionary station, he had already commented in a book that the missionary priests of the Patriarchate were almost comparable to the apostles in their poverty. At the same time, he did not hesitate to use disparaging words about the native populace: “[…] life under the dirty, crude, and obtrusive Arabs is extremely forbidding; the pastoral joys are minimal; only through the schools are lasting successes achieved; the adults are only good for the fire, as it is sometimes said. The missions in the Holy Land have to fight with more difficulties than any other missions. As a rule one mustn’t bother with the Turks. The Arabian Greeks are in religious things both ignorant and degenerate as well as unreliable and selfish. In addition, the Protestants creep about everywhere where a Catholic missionary treads. Nevertheless, one cannot give up on the missions in the Holy Land because one is at tempting to recapture the lost sanctuaries.”

The missionary’s chances of success in Jerusalem seemed very small to Gatt; in contrast, he made the assessment that the “Arabian Greeks in the countryside” were happy to convert to Catholicism, “because in regard to religion they have been entirely abandoned […].”88 Gatt also formulated points of criticism concerning the missionary work in Palestine, which were already often cited at that time. For example, Konrad Lübeck related the following criticisms: Firstly, many orders were only active in few places with comparatively small populations. Secondly, another problem consisted of the pronounced nationalism of the communities of the 84 M. Eliav/B. Haider (eds.), Österreich und das Heilige Land, doc. 67, Caboga to the Foreign Ministry, Jerusalem, 1880, 250–259, here 256f. 85 Cf. P. Médebielle, Gaza und seine christliche Geschichte, Jerusalem, 1982, ed. by Ritterorden vom Heiligen Grab zu Jerusalem Statthalterschaft für Österreich (übersetzt und ergänzt von J. Rupnik), Wien, 1985, 60f. In consideration of the constantly varying number of believers it is to be pointed out that lots of people came to Gaza just for a short time to trade goods. 86 Jehlitschka to Gołuchowski, Jerusalem, July 8, 1898, in: ÖStA, HHStA, Administrative Registratur, Fach 27, Karton 76. 87 K. Domanig, Nach Jerusalem, 104. 88 “That’s why the Arabian Greeks, namely those beyond the Jordan, accept the Catholic missionaries with willingness, and some Greek villages, even the inhabitants of Kerak and Gaza, have already asked for a missionary many times.” G. Gatt, Beschreibung über Jerusalem und seine Umgebung, Waldsee, 1877, 270f.

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monastic orders. Finally, the missions were lacking property for economic purposes in the region around Jerusalem “in order to secure their existence in the future and so release the missionary associations which they greatly depend on financially, for new purposes.”89 After its reestablishment in 1847, the Latin Patriarchate founded a seminary in Jerusalem as well as some missionary stations.90 In this setting, there were also a few Austrians active, for instance Georg Golubovich, who worked in the first decade of the twentieth century as “parish priest of the mission of the Latin Patriarchate in Nablus.”91 In addition, a small number of Austrians not mentioned here worked in a few monastic orders. On the eve of the First World War, the ambitions of Catholic circles in Vienna with respect to the Holy Land finally gained importance again. This culminated in two events. One was the Mission Conference held by the Cardinal Friedrich Gustav Piffl in November 1915 and the other was the so-called Orient Mission falling in Emperor Karl’s reign two years later. Concrete goals such as the takeover of the cultural protectorate from the powers expelled from Turkey were not realized, because, among other reasons, of the totally false estimation of the military situation. With the Mission Conference,92 Austrian Catholics followed the Catholics of Germany, who, with the abolition of the capitulations, had already concerned themselves in October with the pressing questions concerning the mission in Turkey. 93 The following persons were invited to this meeting in the palace of the prince-archbishop: the Austrian bishops and the provincial heads of the orders which were concerned with the mission, the heads of the mission associations which existed in Austria, representatives of the imperial and royal government and the Foreign Ministry as well as “some prominent personalities from Catholic Germany,” among whom was the representative Matthias Erzberger. Piffl envisioned the foundation 89 K. Lübeck, Die katholische Orientmission in ihrer Entwicklung dargestellt, Köln, 1917, 70f., 73. Lübeck adopted arguments of Gatt, which he had formulated in the text “Die Mission des Heiligen Landes”, in: Die katholischen Missionen 35 (1906/07), 172–176, 195–199, “Hindernisse und Schwierigkeiten”, ibid., 197–199. Gatt expressed his conviction that the expensive missionary work in the Holy Land could only be partially paid for by sources of income in Palestine itself in G. Gatt, “Der Aufschwung der katholischen Missionsanstalten während der letzten 50 Jahre in Palästina, außerhalb Jerusalems”, in: Brixener Chronik. Zeitung für das katholische Volk v. 31. Jänner 1901, 1–3, here 2f. 90 For the effectiveness of the first Patriarch Giuseppe Valerga (1847–1872), see, for instance, J. Selbst, Die deutschen Katholiken und das heilige Land, 8f. Selbst based this on a report about Palestine which is printed in: Die katholischen Missionen (1895), 22, as well as other sources. 91 See Zepharovich to Aehrenthal, Jerusalem, July 7, 1909, in: ÖStA, HHStA, KA Jer., Karton 5, fol. 659rv, 662rv, here fol. 659r. Franz Joseph imparted the Knight’s Cross of the Franz Joseph Order to Golubovich in 1908. 92 For more on this conference, see G. Ramhardter, “Propaganda und Außenpolitik”, in: A. Wandruszka/P. Urbanitsch (eds.), Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, vol. 6/1: Die Habsburgermonarchie im System der internationalen Beziehungen, Wien, 1989, 496–536, here 519; R.-T. Fischer, Österreich-Ungarns Kampf um das Heilige Land. Kaiserliche Palästinapolitik im Ersten Weltkrieg, Frankfurt am Main, 2004, 82f. 93 For the remarks of Piffl in the course of the opening of the conference, see: Archiv der Öster reichischen Bischofskonferenz, Wien, Karton “Bischofskonferenzen 1913–1915”.

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of an Austrian Palestine association following the pattern of the German one. The background of his action was a proposal of the Foreign Ministry handed down through the Ministry of Education “to ensure the best possible, most intensive form of cultural-religious propaganda in the Levant so that the Monarchy in the long run achieves the position of Catholic preeminence up until now exercised by France.” 94 Austria-Hungary could not, however, raise enough missionaries,95 and the cooperation with the German Catholics could not be settled. One can see the Orient Mission of the Imperial and Royal War Ministry in the year 1917 with its complex intentions as the last great cultural-political campaign of the Habsburg Monarchy in the region.96 Its figurehead would be the young Archduke Hubert Salvator, who was to inspect the Austro-Hungarian troops and establishments which lay in Turkish territory; Prelate Alois Musil was entrusted with the direction of the mission. The group returned to Constantinople on November 8. Only a month later, the British moved into Jerusalem. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS Behind the Austrian(-Hungarian) missions in the Holy Land stood a network of persons drawn from the Church in the widest sense, as well as from the state, that was present in many classes of the population and part of the public sphere in the Habsburg Monarchy. The “Jerusalem-Milieu” was mobilized time and again over the decades, but did not always appear in the same dimensions. The Holy Land did not touch the vital interests of the Austrian(-Hungarian) state, but nevertheless constituted a fascinating spiritual centre for a large part of the population. The findings of Gudrun Krämer with respect to Jews, Christians, and Muslims can be read in the following sense: “Through the centuries, Palestine was, to be sure, not the centre of the various communities, though always the point of reference and symbol of great emotional importance which could be returned to, even after long periods of la-tency in new and different ways: not constitutive, but vital.”97 What were the specifics in regards to the Austrian, later Austro-Hungarian “Jerusalem Milieu” and its engagement for the mission in the Holy Land? Firstly, this paper asserts that Tyrol was not Vienna. The individual crownlands, rural, and urban areas revealed various dimensions of the “Jerusalem Milieu.” This milieu influenced the decision-makers at the Ballhausplatz. They proved themselves, how94 Notiz, Wien, November 25, 1915, No. 1, in: ÖStA, HHStA, Politisches Archiv I, Karton 762. 95 Only the Capuchins took concrete action after the “Piffl-conference,” but soon came to regret it. See P. Norbert Hofer to Revmus P. Eligius, Vienna, December 1, 1915, in: ÖStA, HHStA, Botschaftsarchiv Vatikan V, Faszikel 10/11; Foreign Ministry to Count Moritz Pálffy, Bern, Vienna, December 9, 1915, ibid. 96 For more on the Orient Mission, see P. Jung, Der k. u. k. Wüstenkrieg. Österreich-Ungarn im Vorderen Orient 1915–1918, Graz–Wien–Köln 1992, 125–127; G. Ramhardter, “Propaganda und Außenpolitik”, 496–536, 519f.; R.-T. Fischer, Österreich-Ungarns Kampf um das Heilige Land, 121–132. 97 G. Krämer, Geschichte Palästinas. Von der osmanischen Eroberung bis zur Gründung des Staates Israel, München, 22002, 52.

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ever, to be surprisingly resistant, as power-political considerations were primary there. The religious protectorate in Albania and the special position of Austro-Hungary in the Balkans, already predetermined by its geographical situation, always had precedence over the “passion for Jerusalem.” One also did not want to create too many problems with France. Orders took part in the mission, which were strongly represented in the Habsburg Monarchy. Behind these projects there stood for the most part at least an Austrian-German and sometimes a European network. Long-lasting success could thereby only be secured if the state took charge of affairs.98 While the heads of Church and state did not discuss school-projects, the most distinct Austrian mission branch fell under the category of the so-called medical mission.99 The position of the state, which was often reserved as we have outlined, curtailed the “Jerusalem Milieu.” Especially at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, the milieu lamented what was, in its view, the small role played by the Habsburg Monarchy in international comparison in the European competition for the Holy Land.100 However, the policy of the state did not limit its dreams and desires. As outlined above, this proved itself again to be especially true on the eve of the First World War and into the year 1917. Therefore, the Habsburg Monarchy cannot be dealt with today simply as a nonimperial power, because there also existed expansive projects and ideas. 101 Like the Ottoman Empire, it was a multi-ethnic Empire and not the nation-state regarded by so many at the time as desirable. The Monarchy was racked by nationality conflicts; it waged and lost – with tremendous consequences – the wars of 1859 and 1866; and the short liberal era brought immense constitutional alterations. All of these circumstances imposed relative limitations in foreign affairs. This was also clear in the Holy Land, where the missions stood in the midst of interconfessional

98 Nevertheless, fears continuously arose concerning the existence of all Austrian institutions. These were founded on financial and personnel bottlenecks and also on the fear that France could take over their sovereignty. Various plans concerning a takeover by other “owners” were considered as possible ways out. 99 K. Lübeck, Die katholische Orientmission in ihrer Entwicklung dargestellt, 64; F. Schwager, Die katholische Heidenmission der Gegenwart, 276. 100 A typical example of this can be found in Friedrich Pesendorfer, the chronicler of the second and third Upper Austrian pilgrimage processions in the Holy Land. The Catholic “JerusalemMilieu” of the Habsburg Monarchy continuously tried to find comfort in the engagement, which the Austrian emperor exhibited. Pesendorfer wrote: “The influence of Austria in the Holy Land at this time is, practically speaking, minimal. But the fact is that Austria enjoys very great favor in the entire Orient, and especially in Syria and Palestine, especially among the common people. [...] We can primarily thank his Majesty, the Emperor, whose charities are praised everywhere in the Orient, for these general sympathies at this time.” F. Pesendorfer, Vom Donaustrand ins heilige Land. Gedenkbuch an den II. oberösterr. Pilgerzug nach Jerusalem vom 17. April bis 8. Mai 1904, Linz a. D., 1905, 418. 101 See especially E. Kolm, Die Ambitionen Österreich-Ungarns im Zeitalter des Hochimperialismus, Frankfurt am Main, 2001.

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political and inter-Catholic conflict.102 Consul Jehlitschka made the following complaints in an economic report at the end of the nineteenth century: “Likewise the strict confessional divisions result in an extremely regrettable fragmentation that inhibits progress, for example in the areas of the school and hospital systems. Theoretically, the whole world knows that a unified organization would achieve more with less funding; today some hospitals are overcrowded, while others on the other hand are almost empty, but here sufferers of tuberculoses and syphilis cannot get any care.”103

Finally, in view of the discernable upsurge in research on Missionary history, four points will be argued here: firstly, that missionary history as a theoretical approach to the issue of cultural encounter and as part of the history of European expansion can no longer survive without a historiographical examination of “Europe.”104 In contrast to the European contribution to the history of Palestine, which is the theme of the two pioneers, Yehoshua Ben-Arieh and Alex Carmel, the role that Palestine played in the cultural, intellectual, church, missionary, and political history of the European continent has not been sufficiently investigated. How Christian values at home were maintained by missionaries activities abroad, have “for a long time only found little attention in the depiction of secularization in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, because the history of the Empire was disconnected from that of the national histories of the European societies,” Sebastian Conrad and Shalini Randeria stated recently. 105 Here, missionary history plays a very important role as a history of interaction between missionary and mission land. By formulating such questions one places oneself, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, in the field of “international history.”106 This has been widely discussed in recent years and expands the narrow focus of diplomatic history. Secondly, in this connection, it must be reemphasized that, in general, not enough attention has been paid to the importance of religion and denomination in nineteenth century society. C.A. Bayly goes so far as to say that secularization was 102 Also related is the depiction of H. Zschokke, Die österreichisch-ungarische Monarchie im Heiligen Lande, 13–15. 103 Jehlitschka to Gołuchowski, Jerusalem, April 20, 1899, in: M. Eliav/B. Haider (eds.), Österreich und das Heilige Land, 375–388 (doc. 121), here 381. 104 “Europe arose in the context of its imperial projects, while the colonial confrontations were also at the same time influenced by inner European conflicts […].” S. Conrad/S. Randeria, “Einleitung. Geteilte Geschichten – Europa in einer postkolonialen Welt”, in: S. Conrad/S. Randeria (eds.), Jenseits des Eurozentrismus. Postkoloniale Perspektiven in den Geschichtsund Kulturwissenschaften. Unter Mitarbeit von B. Sutterlüty, Frankfurt–New York, 2002, 9–49, here 18, following A.L. Stoler/F. Cooper, “Between Metropole and Colony. Rethinking a Research Agenda”, in: A.L. Stoler/F. Cooper (eds.), Tensions of Empire. Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, Berkeley, 1997, 1–56, here 1. 105 S. Conrad/S. Randeria, “Einleitung”, in: S. Conrad/S. Randeria (eds.), Jenseits des Eurozentrismus, 9–49, here 32. This has changed for the first time since the 1990s – though certainly not to a large enough degree for Palestine. 106 This definition was first coined in the German-speaking realm in 1996 by Wilfried Loth, Anselm Doering-Manteuffel, Jost Dülffer, and Jürgen Osterhammel in their preface to the series Studien zur Internationalen Geschichte; a collection of key articles appeared in vol. 10 of the series: W. Loth/J. Osterhammel (eds.), Internationale Geschichte. Themen – Ergebnisse – Aussichten, München, 2000.

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“the fly in the wheel, not the wheel itself. Almost everywhere the world religions sharpened and clarified their identities, especially in the later nineteenth century.”107 One can see that for the Habsburg Monarchy, apart from the history of institutions and the relationship between Church and state as seen from the traditional perspective, there is still much work to be done.108 Thirdly, it is paradoxical that there is often a neglect of fundamental things, which concern the history of the Ottoman Empire, for example the millet policy. Especially the Tanzimat period, which has mistakenly been seen as having been inspired exclusively from abroad, should be considered a further fundamental impulse preconditioning European missionary activities in the Near East. All of those who work with the Oriental mission, though from varying viewpoints, should in the future shift perspective and see the picture of the “sick man of the Bosporus” for what it was: namely a diplomatic shibboleth of the nineteenth century. Fourthly, in her history of Palestine, Gudrun Krämer recommends certain changes of perspective, some of which, with respect to the history of missions in the Holy Land, are difficult given problems of sources and language. According to Krämer, historians have been working on a correction of our understanding of the Ottoman Empire, a correction “that understands itself as a new assessment, or even the rehabilitation of Ottoman rule, culture, and society.” At the same time, more and more historians have turned their attention to the local level. “The intention is to make the inhabitants of Palestine visible again as actors in their own history [...].”109 As far as the missions in this connection are concerned, Benedikt Stuchtey has argued, picking up on the work of Andrew Porter, that they fulfilled “their task very successfully […] in bringing about cultural change.” But they “surprisingly” counted among the “weakest representatives of cultural imperialism.” In contrast to cultural imperialism, “which is classically associated with violence and with passivity on the part of recipients, the effectiveness of the missions was dependent upon the collaboration and willingness to receive on the colonial side.” 110 As was 107 C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 330. “What can be said […] is that across a much vaster area of the globe, among the rich, the middle class and the poor, the claims of the great standardizing, world religions were much more widely known and acted on in 1914 than they had been in 1789.” Ibid., 364f. 108 For more on these deficits, also see P. Leisching, “Die römisch-katholische Kirche in Cislei thanien”, in: A. Wandruszka/P. Urbanitsch (eds.), Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, vol. 4: Die Konfessionen, Wien, 21995, 1–247, here 1f.; O. Weiß, “Zur Religiosität und Mentalität der österreichischen Katholiken im 19. Jahrhundert. Der Beitrag Hofbauers und der Redemptoristen”, in: Spicilegium Historicum Congregationis SSmi Redemptoris 43/2 (1995), 337–396, here 339–343; L. Cole, “Für Gott, Kaiser und Vaterland”. Nationale Identität der deutschsprachigen Bevölkerung Tirols 1860–1914, Frankfurt–New York, 2000, 142f. The current state of research is apparent in M. Liebmann, “Von der Dominanz der katholischen Kirche zu freien Kirchen im freien Staat – vom Wiener Kongreß 1815 bis zur Gegenwart”, in: R. Leeb/M. Liebmann/G. Scheibelreiter/P.G. Tropper, Geschichte des Christentums in Österreich. Von der Spätantike bis zur Gegenwart, Wien, 2003, 361–456. 109 G. Krämer, Geschichte Palästinas, 55. 110 B. Stuchtey, “Nation und Expansion: Das britische Empire in der neuesten Forschung”, in: HZ 274 (2002) 87–118, here 103. See A. Porter, “Missions and empire, c. 1873–1914”, in: S.

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pointed out above, the meagre numbers of conversions in Palestine speak for themselves. Also the shift to the “medical mission” can in part be traced to this circumstance. Keeping in mind what has repeatedly been said in recent years about the meeting of Occident and Orient, one should finally mention Anton Prokesch von Osten, who was an exceptional personality. With his appreciation for the Islamic culture and society, this Austro-Hungarian diplomat stood mostly as a lonely voice in the foreign policy arena of the Habsburg Monarchy. Prokesch, who was a cultural mediator and expert on the Orient, was also active as an author and scholar. 111 As an advocate of the status quo within the Ottoman Empire he acted as a defender of Islam and criticized – against the ruling spirit of his age – the repeated Christian mission attempts. These would, in his opinion, weaken the internal stability of the Ottoman Empire.112 In one letter to the Protestant minister and missionary, Gottlieb August Wimmer, in which he expressed his views concerning the presumption of European civilization as well as the mission, Prokesch wrote as early as 1833: “They believe that there is only one civilization, one way of thinking, one truth. I don’t believe that, but on the contrary, I think that the pear tree which has pears is just as right as the apple tree which has apples.”113

Gilley/B. Stanley (eds.), World Christianities, 560–575; further C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 335. 111 For more on him, see D. Bertsch, Anton Prokesch von Osten (1795–1876). Ein Diplomat Österreichs in Athen und an der Hohen Pforte. Beiträge zur Wahrnehmung des Orients im Europa des 19. Jahrhunderts, München, 2005; see for Prokesch’s time in office as Internuntius and Ambassador to Constantinople (1856–1872), ibid., 361–436. In the year 1829, Prokesch undertook a trip to Palestine and Syria. He composed a travel report about this, which found a broad audience. Concerning this, see ibid., 197–220. 112 Ibid., 537. 113 Ibid., 541f.

MEDICAL TREATMENT AS A MISSIONARY INSTRUMENT AND ITS SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES. ASPECTS OF THE WORK BY THE LONDON JEWS SOCIETY IN PALESTINE UP TO 1914 Yaron Perry INTRODUCTION This paper will only deal with certain aspects of a more comprehensive research study, which deals with the medical enterprise of the foreign powers and local inhabitants in Palestine. The research will look at the historical, social and missionary issues, and also for the first time at the outstanding medical aspects of its activities.1 The prominent scholars who have dealt with this field are Norbert Schwake and Nissim Levy.2 However, neither of them, as qualified physicians, dealt with the medical aspects of these institutions. This work is still incomplete with questions still remaining, which will be presented in a later work. In 1809 a converted German Jew founded the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews (or shorter: London Jews Society/LJS) that aimed to spread the Christian gospel among the Jews of the East End of London. 3 Between 1820 and 1840 the London Jews Society despatched a dozen missionaries to Palestine, but various obstacles prevented them from establishing a permanent settlement in Jerusalem at that time. It was only for a short time in the 1840s that the Society began to flourish and become the most significant foreign influence in Palestine. The mission’s work in Palestine resulted in around 600 Jewish converts in the th 19 century.4 Therefore, the initial objective, for which the London Jews Society was founded, was unsuccessful. The missionaries, however, assumed from the beginning that operations in Palestine would not be as easy and convenient as in Eng1 2 3 4

In the meantime the research has been published as: Y. Perry/E. Lev, Modern Medicine in the Holy Land. Pioneering British Medical Services in Late Ottoman Palestine, I.B.Tauris, London-New York 2007. N. Schwake, Die Entwicklung des Krankenhauswesens der Stadt Jerusalem vom Ende des 18. bis zum Beginn des 20.Jahrhunderts, Herzogenrath 1983; N. Levy, The History of Medicine in the Holy Land: 1799–1848, Tel-Aviv 1998 (Hebrew). On the London Jews Society see mainly: Y. Perry, British Mission to the Jews in NineteenthCentury Palestine, London 2003; W.T. Gidney, The History of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, from 1809 to 1908, London 1908. At that time, the Protestant mission had converted 72,740 Jews around the world. To this the Catholics added 57,300 Jews, and the Orthodox Church 74,500. See J. Hastings (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, VIII, New-York 1955, 743, and additional sources mentioned there.

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land and Europe, and that the number of converts would be lower. One of the society’s first emissaries had already alerted them to this fact in the mid-1820s, stating that the Society should not expect any openness towards the Christian faith from Palestinian Jews, unless “he be prepared for actual martyrdom in consequence, or that he can fly the country, or find here a protector [from his brethren]”.5 Aware of this situation, the heads of the London Jews Society increased their efforts in the Palestinian mission, much beyond the relative anticipated success rate. Their basic assumption was the saying “Cast thy bread upon the waters”. When missionaries had to find justification for their poor achievements in Palestine, they often blamed the hostility that these Jewish converts suffered at the hands of their brethren, which drove them to leave Palestine and to be baptised at a mission station in another country. A reasonable explanation was also furnished for the high desertion rate among those who had joined the society and had begun the conversion process. Although not all of them were actually baptised, the head of the Jerusalem mission nevertheless asserted that “for every one that I baptise, there are probably ten that leave us unbaptised, and yet having had the Gospel proclaimed to them.”6 The society, for the purpose of bringing Christian redemption closer to the Jewish population, used a variety of methods. Firstly, they established missionary centers for the distribution and sale of sacred texts, where discussions were conducted with the local Jews about the essence of both faiths. Another attempt to connect with the Jewish population was through setting up an advanced secular educational system, and by taking advantage of the fact that Jewish children received only religious education in their communities. The missionaries tried to influence the children first, and through them to reach their parents. But the most effective means for conversion were the London Jews Society’s hospitals. The heads of the society were well aware of the poor health conditions of the Jews in Palestine at the beginning of the 19 th century. Two main causes could be attributed to this state of affairs: firstly, the poor sanitary conditions in the cities, resulting primarily from miserable living quarters, the excessive amounts of garbage, sewage flowing through the streets, and neglect of personal hygiene. Secondly, the lack of adequate medical cares: no satisfactory system of public health was in place and diseases were considered as an inevitable part of life or as a decree from heaven. Those professionally engaged in medicine were untrained practitioners using a variety of popular cures. Most of the cures were based on ancient medical discourses and medicinal substances, as well as remedies, charms, prayers and superstitious beliefs. These healing methods were often applied with the assistance of minor religious clerics, who sent their faithful flocks on pilgrimages to the graves of saintly figures buried in the Holy Land.7 5 6

Jewish Expositor and the Friends of Israel, Containing Monthly Communication Respecting the Jews, and the Proceedings of the London Society, X (1825), 13–17. A. Hastings Kelk in: The Jewish Intelligence, and Monthly Record of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews (1890), 94.

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Accordingly, from the beginning of their activities, the heads of the London Jews Society sent a physician to Palestine. This first attempt failed due to the death of that physician in 18268 and modest medical services that were established in the late 1830s were abandoned during the war between the Egyptians and the Ottoman Empire in 1840.9 In 1842 another physician was sent to Jerusalem and soon after recommended the establishing of a hospital and dispensary in that city. In December 1844 the Jews’ Hospital in Jerusalem was opened on the eastern slopes of Mount Zion near the Jewish Quarter. 10 In April 1897 a new modern hospital was dedicated outside the city walls. Some additional components were built during the following years and in July 1901 the grand medical institution, which assumed a place of honour among the monumental 19th-century buildings in Jerusalem, was finally completed.11 SOCIAL ASPECTS The medical institutions of the London Jews Society provided the needs of Jewish patients in Jerusalem, but social apsects of this enterprise played alongside the institution’s medical importance. Some of the activities of the hospital were devoted to the welfare of the Jewish residents in the city: a good example of this can be found in the description of a typical day in the life of the hospital as written by its director a few years after the hospital was opened: “It has frequently been my wish during the last month, that our friends in England could get a peep at the hospital on one of my days for the admission of patients […] They would see the waiting-room full of patients, crowding the doors of the hospital […]. Every three or four minutes the door of the consultation-room opens, and out comes a patient with his prescription in his hand. This lasts for about two hours, during which the crowd of patients in the street are waiting. […] Some of them, naturally enough, lose patience, and, on the opening of the door, endeavor to force their way into the consulting room. […] Their turn comes at last, when it becomes necessary to discriminate between those who really require advance, and those who are suffering from want. To the most necessitous of the latter, a ticket is given for the matron of the hospital, who is in attendance in an adjoining room, and who, on receiving the ticket, gives out of her stores (which have been provided by the kind friends in England), some articles of clothing, flour, or relief in a little money, according to the wants of the applicant.” 12

Another less known social aspect, which concerns the activation of medical services by the Mission in Jerusalem, is the function of the hospital doctors: these British physicians were aware of the social aims and roles of their position. They were, of course, engaged in the practice of medicine, but at the same time they served as active missionaries. Nearly all of them were involved in medical reY. Perry/E. Lev, “Medical Activities of the London Jews Society in 19 th Century Palestine”, Medical History, 47/1 (2003), 67–88. 8 Perry, British Mission to the Jews, 20–21. 9 Ibid., 40–42. 10 Ibid. 71–77. 11 Ibid., 133–139. 12 Jewish Intelligence (January 1847), 21.

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search and the research of the Holy Land from its various aspects, archaeological, cartographical, geographical, linguistic, etc. The multiple roles they assumed led some of them to question the real purpose of their professional lives and the correct order of priorities for them. 13 A salient example of this kind of quandary can be found in the character of Thomas Chaplin, who served as the second director of the hospital for 25 years.14 Over the course of the years he spent in Jerusalem, Chaplin took part in many public activities and became a well-known figure in the city. He was unable to decide which role he should focus on: that of a physician, a scientist, a public figure or a missionary. In a lecture given in London, he laid out in great detail his fundamental conception of a medical mission on the basis of his personal experience in Jerusalem. He raised the question of the choice that lay before a physician who, on occasion, also serves as a missionary. In his opinion, the two functions should be kept separate since at the end of the 19th century, the public began to understand that the demands made on a doctor’s skills were too many to allow him to serve also as an active missionary. However, drawing on his experiences in Palestine, he felt the medical mission must take advantage of the status of the physician in times of distress, when the intervention of someone of prestige was needed to confront the authorities. In his opinion, an official would find it hard to refuse the doctor’s request because of his gratitude for medical treatment received in the past, and still more, because of the fear that he might need such treatment in the future.15 The most significant social implications of the medical activities of the London Jews Society in Palestine derived from the bitter opposition of the Jewish establishment. Because of their segregated character, the Jewish community in Palestine used a variety of methods to draw back into its folds anyone who appeared to be on the verge of converting to Christianity. Heavy social pressure was put upon on the candidate for conversion, going as far as the threat of divorce, the removal of children from the parent’s care, and finally a total ban or excommunication which implied the denial of the right to be buried in a Jewish cemetery and no hope of eternal bliss. But above all, the community took advantage of the basis for its economic survival – the charitable donations and their distribution – to deprive the convert of his source of survival. The missionaries in Jerusalem anticipated Jewish opposition to the hospitalisation of Jewish patients in a Christian establishment. But the Rabbis of Jerusalem usually took the gravest measure in their power and issued a ban saying that: “All Israel shall hear and fear […] from the affairs of the mission hospital, whose sole object, wish & desire, is to bring the souls of our brothers into their contamination. Therefore the chief, great, wise & learned man of the holy congregation […] agreed to proclaim as follows: We give notice that no man shall dare to enter the hospital above mentioned, whether a pa 13 Y. Perry/E. Lev, “Three Generations of British Physicians in Jerusalem – Internal Conflict Regarding their Professional Identity”, Korot. The Israel Journal of the History of Medicine and Science, 18 (2006), 67–90. 14 E. Lev/Y. Perry, “Dr Thomas Chaplin, Scientist and Scholar in nineteenth-century Palestine”, Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 136,2 (2004), 151–162. 15 Jewish Intelligence (May 1888), 65–69: Lecture dated March 21, 1888.

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tient for his recovery, or a healthy person to serve there. We also inform all our brethren of the house of Israel that whosoever shall enter the said hospital; their meat & drink shall be come, through a heavy excommunication as unlawful food - their bread and wine shall become as the bread & wine of idolaters, all their children will not be circumcised nor shall he have any part in the God of Israel, he will also not be purified by Jews after his decease, nor buried in our burial ground… All the above-mentioned curses shall be likewise upon every one, who will advise or induce any of the children of Israel, to enter the said hospital. Whosoever shall disobey this our edict, renders himself liable to all the penalties above mentioned; but good blessings & prosperity will come upon those that hear our words.”16

The implication of such a ban in those days meant the expulsion of the excommunicated person from the Jewish community or death by absolute deprivation. The publication of this ban frequently resulted in the complete desertion of the hospital. SAFED Things looked slightly different in the northern city of Safed. The city, one of the four sacred cities of the Jewish people in the Holy Land with a large Jewish population, was an obvious attraction for the London Jews Society from the beginning. Because of its isolated location, the Jews were prevented from being exposed to outside influences. The community obeyed whatever the Rabbis said to the letter, and was not open to the overtures of the Protestant missionaries. The local Jews, who said that if a missionary converts a Jew “he must dig a grave for him at the same time, since it would be impossible to protect his life in that city” expressed the antagonism, met by the missionaries in their contacts with the community leaders.17 Attempts to settle in Safed had already been made in the 1820s, but only at the height of the first wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine during the 1880s, did the society renew its activities in full scale.18 In years to come explicit instructions were sent to obtain permission for building “a small hospital”, and a British physician was appointed to head that medical institution. The miserable conditions of that building and the need for medical services on a larger scale led to the inauguration of a new hospital in Safed on May 1904. The four-storey building was equipped with the best medical modifications available and contained hospital wards for forty men and women, a modern operating theatre and a kosher kitchen. The medical institution soon gained a place of honour in the city and was crowded with Jewish patients. The value and importance of the institution in Jewish communal life can be measured from a notice affixed to the gate of the synagogue in Safed, expressing opposition to the Mission hospital. However, the language here was different from the one typically used in the proclamation of bans against missionary institutions in Jerusalem: 16 Israeli Trust of the Anglican Church (ITAC), Archive of the London Jews Society, Jerusalem: Collection of unclassified documents: Original letter of excommunication in Rashi script with a hand-written English translation alongside. 17 Gidney, William Thomas, Sites and Scenes: A Description of the Oriental Missions of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, I, London 1899, 55. 18 Perry, British Mission to the Jews, 78–80; 114–116.

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Yaron Perry “We are still very much under their power, as we are constantly in need of their help, because we have neither a hospital, nor any good doctors. The Mission Hospital is now filled with Jewish patients. Let us not deceive ourselves by declaring that their efforts are vain and fruitless. Unfortunately Satan is too active and souls are caught in their net. Thus last year a Ban was declared against those who should consult the Christian doctor. But were not the Rabbis themselves compelled to loose that, which they had bound? Could our brethren obey the ban? Would they not have died in their diseases? Therefore, dear brethren, if you are truly desirous to rescue the souls of our people from the missionary net, you ought to establish a Jewish hospital. Where there is a will there is a way! Only then we will see no more of the face of the missionary who lies in wait for our souls”.19

The proclamation proved the relative success of the hospital, as part of the welfare missionary activities in Safed. A ban was no longer imposed upon the hospital that served so many Jews. Instead, there was an independent Jewish initiative to emulate the British institution and act for themselves. During the summer of 1907 the head of the Safed hospital spoke at the annual session of the London Jews Society. In his speech on the situation at his Mission Station, he gave a clear analysis of the attitude of the Jewish community towards the missionaries in the city, characterized in one sentence: “A few years ago the difficulty with us was how to get at these fanatical people in Safed; now the difficulty is not how to get at them, but how to get away from them”.20 In Safed, the city in which the mission-hospital was the only medical option until after the First World War, positive relations were created between the missionaries and the Jewish community. In Jerusalem, on the other hand, at the end of the 19th century, and the beginning of the 20 th century, 15 other hospitals were in operation.21 Thus, because the Jews had medical options in Jerusalem, the ban on mission activities was activated throughout this period and limited the use of the Mission Hospital by the Jewish community. CONCLUSION The emissaries of the London Jews Society in Palestine performed their tasks faithfully, but had very little success, and managed to convert only a few individuals. Every year, only a handful of Jews were baptized as Christians. This was not overlooked by the heads of the LJS in Britain, who had invested huge sums to establish monumental hospitals that still stand today in Jerusalem and Safed. They therefore continued to dispatch the best men at their disposal, and in time a third of all their missionaries in the world were stationed in Palestine. 22 It was neither temporary blindness nor naïveté that induced the heads of the Mission to devote most of their resources to a country that produced such a low number of converts. 19 20 21 22

Jewish Missionary Intelligence (1905), 163. Ibid. (1907), 93. Perry and Lev, Modern Medicine in the Holy Land, 121–173. For example: in the year of 1900 the overall number of the LJS missionaries and spouses-around the world was 210, out of which 66 served in Palestine. See: Jewish Missionary Intelligence (1900), 2.

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They undoubtedly knew that they would not succeed in making the Jewish people dwelling in their own land to abandon their faith and were satisfied with the attempts to bring a few of them to accept the Christian gospel. These activities, with the medical enterprise foremost among them, also had profound social aspects that contributed to the ability of the Jewish people to maintain their hold on the Holy Land. The London Jews Society devoted most of its attention to its medical enterprise. This was not only because of the human dimension involved in such activities, but also because this enterprise was directed at the Jewish community in general and thus increased the potentials for conversion. But this was not the case in the institutions for the distribution of the holy books and in the Mission schools, in which the missionaries faced a very specific section of the Jewish population. There was an additional dimension to the choice made by the Mission to invest most of its efforts particularly in its medical institutions, which concerns the quality of these institutions. These modern hospitals, which were equipped with the most advanced medical improvements in the Western world, proved the technological superiority of Europe. It may be that, in the opinion of the missionaries, this technological superiority also indicated to some extent the ideological superiority of the Mission. Generally speaking, within the limited achievements of converting the Jews of Palestine, the highest percentage of success can be attributed to the hospital in Jerusalem. The bitter opposition expressed by the Jews towards this medical institution only testifies to its importance as a useful tool in the hands of the Mission. Therefore, against the hostile background that characterized the attitude of the Jewish community towards the missionaries in Jerusalem, the medical missionary activity in Safed is especially outstanding in moderating Jewish opposition. There, it was the basic human need of “health above all” that succeeded in bridging the abyss of hostility. This paper offers certain aspects of a research study that is on the point of completion. But a few questions still remain open: for instance, what were the reactions of the Arabs in Palestine to the fact that the hospitals were intended mainly for the welfare of the Jews? Were the leading priorities in the medical field, such as cataract operations to improve sight, or orthopaedic treatments and bone-setting to improve motor ability, intentional from the start? And if so, does the cause for such priorities derive from the fact that the improvement of sight and motor ability corresponds to descriptions given in the New Testament and so suited the needs of the missionaries? Other hospitals were established in Jerusalem by the British and Germans, which dealt with one specific medical field devoted to eye diseases and to leprosy (a disease that was also mentioned in connection with a miracle cure). Why there were no institutions devoted, for instance, to infectious diseases that were no less prevalent?

THE THEOLOGY AND PRACTICE OF SCOTTISH MEDICAL MISSIONS: THE STUDY OF MISSIONS IN PALESTINE THROUGH A POSTCOLONIAL LENS1 Michael Marten INTRODUCTION On 4. September 1962, the square by the entrance to the Church of Scotland’s Sea of Galilee Centre2 in Tiberias was the scene of a celebration of two Scottish doctors who worked there for many years: David Watt Torrance and his son, Herbert Torrance.3 Numerous dignitaries from the town were present, along with Torrance family members. It was particularly the medical work of the Torrance father and son that was being honoured on this occasion: the Scots’ hospital was the first such western facility created in the region, 4 and the Torrances’ medical work had a profound effect on the healthcare of the local population from 1884 until Herbert Torrance’s retirement in 1953. The mission was initiated by the Jewish Mission Committee of the Free Church of Scotland, and its explicit purpose was the conversion of Jews. 1

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This essay is based on a presentation given at a conference in Kaiserswerth in March 2006. I particularly wish to thank Dr Roland Löffler for the invitation to this immensely stimulating and enjoyable event. The comments and criticisms offered by the other participants were also much appreciated, though, of course, I alone am responsible for the contents of this essay. Dr Löffler is also to be thanked for his patience and encouragement in ensuring this essay was completed in time for the publication. - Note that in this paper I shall be dealing only with church-based missions, and not with independent individuals or organisations in Palestine. In addition, I shall focus primarily on the Sea of Galilee Mission hospital in Tiberias. As it was called from its inception; after it closed as a hospital, it became a guest house, and has operated as such ever since. However, it has recently been given the blander ahistorical name of the Scots Hotel. The rationale behind this 2003 decision is explained in the following terms by Walter Dunlop, the current Church of Scotland Assistant Secretary for Israel and Palestine: it was intended “simply to reflect the fact that the whole nature of the properties and what it is [sic] offering to visitors is different from that when the premises were being utilised as a ‘Guesthouse’. Following the investment and upgrading of the premises it was agreed to change the name to the ‘Scots Hotel’ to reflect the fact that the premises is now a ‘hotel’.” Email correspondence, February 2006. David Torrance worked almost continuously in Tiberias from 1884 until his death in 1923, and Herbert Torrance from 1921until his retirement in 1953: 71 years in total. The Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society had founded a hospital in the wake of the 1860 war in Nazareth, but there were no western medical facilities in the Sea of Galilee region.

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This celebration can be interpreted in several ways, but I want to focus on two interpretations that will offer insights into understanding more about the mission’s medical work: 1

the celebration of the social dimension of the mission work that David and Herbert Torrance carried out paralleled the response to their work at the time: their rationale for being in Tiberias in the first place – the conversion of Jews – was ignored, and the medical expertise they offered the local population was gratefully acknowledged and appreciated;

2

this was a form of recognition, of a link between the past and the present, but it also represents a classic colonial understanding of linear development and historicity along the lines that Dipesh Chakrabarty has described as a “first in Europe, then elsewhere” interpretation;5 in this reading, the bringing to Palestine of a western hospital was unquestioningly positive and an indicator of modernity, development and progress.6

The invitation to the Kaiserswerth conference at which an early version of this paper was first presented, suggested that we should move away from ‘the mostly euro-centric “Christentumsgeschichte”... towards a more trans-national perspective’. This partly happens when we try to assess the ways in which mission activity was received: for example, Heleen Murre-van den Berg suggests that we can start to do this by looking at “the communities of the converted”, “evangelical modernity”, education, changes in the understanding of gender roles, career paths taken, and so on.7 I want to use some of these themes here, but I want to view them through a postcolonial lens. Zachary Lockman’s description of the colonial mindset of the Zionist movement can also be applied to the Scots in Palestine in the era prior to World War One: whilst Palestine was not a formal colony of Britain, in terms of the behaviour and mentality of the missionary agents in the field, colonialism dominated their approach to the world around them, and I will therefore use this term here. 8 Of course, colonialism as such is about far more than just the encounter of modernity with a foreign culture – though even this is a deeply problematic paradigm, as Dror Ze’evi has shown. What marks colonialism as special is that “its history was extraordinary in its global dimension” in part because 5 6 7 8

Cited in D. Ze’evi, “Back to Napoleon? Thoughts on the Beginning of the Modern Era in the Middle East”, in Mediterranean Historical Review, vol. 19, no. 1, June 2004, 73–94; esp. 85. In other contexts, Rudolf Bultmann and Hans-Georg Gadamer have criticised this kind of thinking as being too dependent upon Cartesian models of historicity. H. Murre-van den Berg, “Nineteenth-century Protestant Missions and Middle Eastern Women: An Overview”, in I.M. Okkenhaug/I. Flaskerud (eds.), Gender, Religion and Change in the Middle East. Two Hundred Years of History, Oxford/New York 2005, 103–122: 111–113. I have expanded on this at some length elsewhere, e.g. Attempting to Bring the Gospel Home: Scottish Missions to Palestine, 1839–1917, London 2006: chapter 5.

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the effect of the globalization of western imperial power was to fuse many societies with dif ferent historical traditions into a history which [...] obliged them to follow the same general economic path [...] primarily developed and controlled by the west, and it is the continued dominance of the west, in terms of political, economic, military and cultural power, that gives this history a continuing significance. 9

Although westerners saw the expansion of their power as beneficial to the receiving peoples – and it is important to state that, although in different forms and perhaps with different motivations, this expansion happened as much by the scalpel of the medical missionary as by the sword of the colonial soldier – postcolonialism contests precisely this understanding. Of course, anti-colonial movements have always existed in parallel to colonial domination, but the post-World War Two growth of postcolonial theory is significant because it seeks not only to understand what it was that colonialism did in its particular historical context, but to examine the continuing ramifications of colonialism on the societies of both the coloniser and the colonised. In other words, this is more than the British Marxist tradition of ‘history from below’ as espoused by Eric Hobsbawm, Edward P. Thompson and others: it is about a “political analysis of the cultural history of colonialism” 10 that examines not only the land and economic exploitation, but the denial or replacement of the colonised people’s agency, voice and culture – and that, perhaps especially in the context of Palestine, is a tremendously complex issue. Lockman notes that one of the complicating factors for understanding the attitude of what he calls ‘labor-Zionism’ to the Palestinian working class, was that it was distinctive, and complicated, by being “couched in the language of socialism, class struggle, and international working-class solidarity.” 11 The complication lay in the inability of ‘labor-Zionism’ to reconcile exclusivist nationalist identities with socialist or workers’ identities. Interpreting mission history in Palestine perhaps represents something not totally dissimilar: when examining missionaries, we find on the one hand that there is an exclusivist religious and attitudinal element to their work, and on the other hand there is a genuine desire to provide relief and healthcare for those in need. What makes the Palestine situation more complex still is that a much stronger colonial understanding emerged in precisely this period in the form of Zionism. This ideology eviscerated the Scottish missionaries’ efforts at propagating their exclusivist agenda – in other words, a new agenda, exclusivist in other ways, began to dominate Palestine. In this essay I argue that what we need to do in thinking about ‘our’ missionaries and their work, and especially the social dimension of their engagement, is reflect more on the multiple layers of colonialist enterprise in the region and the resultant ways in which the missionaries failed to achieve their tasks. The emergence of a contesting ideology is one coherent reason for this general failure – ultimately, in the Scottish case, the Sea of Galilee hospital was closed down because Zionist ideo9

Robert J C Young, Postcolonialism: an historical introduction, Malden–Oxford–Carlton–Victoria 2001, 5. 10 Young, Postcolonialism, 6. 11 Z. Lockman, Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish workers in Palestine, 1906–1948, Berkeley–Los Angeles–London 1996, 364.

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logy, in the form of the new Israeli health service, had transformed the social and medical landscape of the area to such an extent that there was no longer a need for a Church of Scotland mission hospital. I therefore suggest that when we reflect on the social dimension of mission, we need to do that in the light of a broader understanding of the failures of purpose and the contestation of ideological paradigms. 2. THE THEOLOGICAL BASIS OF SCOTTISH MISSIONS IN PALESTINE Before proceeding to describe the Scots’ work in Palestine, it is important to outline some of the motivational factors in the missionaries’ desire to convert Jews: this will inform and elucidate the nuances of the missionary failures that are discussed below. Elements of the motivations involved were common to other global missions, such as the wider concept of Victorian philanthropy12 and various forms of millenarianism,13 which I will not elaborate on here. As my presumption of philanthropy and millenarianism suggests, there are a number of common themes between Scottish and other missionary activity in the Middle East. However, here I wish to address a specifically Scottish motivational factor, namely Scottish interpretations of the rationale for engaging with the conversion of Jews in the first place, which might also help with understanding the historicising of these missions. 12 I regard this as a well-established principle, that in this context requires little elaboration. It can be understood to be covered by the original invitation to the Kaiserswerth conference, which explicitly “presuppose[d] that concepts of Social Protestantism and Social Catholicism [...] deeply influenced the mission abroad”. The only additional comment I would make on this topic would be to note that Scottish understandings of philanthropy were perhaps more formally connected to an ecclesiological theology (especially in the Free Church of Scotland which carried out most of the work in Palestine that is discussed here) than was the case with e.g. English Anglicanism. The latter relied to a greater extent on mission organisations that were attached to the church, but not an integral part of its structures. More work remains to be done on the ways in which this kind of structure influenced the conduct and impact of missions in the Middle East; I have written briefly on this in the Palestine context: cf. “Angli can and Presbyterian Presence and Theology in the Holy Land”, in: International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, vol. 5, no. 2, July 2005, 182–199. For a further development of some of these themes see: “Indigenisation and contextualisation – the example of Anglican and Presbyterian churches in the Holy Land”, in Christianity and Jerusalem: Theology and Politics in the Holy Land, ed. A. O’Mahony, London–Leominister (forthcoming, 2010). 13 Again, although there were Scottish particularities in the interpretations of these wider 19th century themes, it would not be especially useful to develop them here. Initial further references could include: D. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain. A history from the 1730s to the 1980s, London–New York, 1989, who describes millenarianism, pre-millenarianism and post-millenarianism, linking these to pessimism and optimism in viewing world affairs (81–86, 60–63, 102–104 respectively; cf. 191–194 for the period around WWI); see also C. Binfield, “Jews in Evangelical Dissent: The British Society, The Herschell Connection and the Pre-Millenarian Thread”, in Prophecy and Eschatology, series: Subsidia vol. 10, ed. M. Wilks, Oxford 1994, 225–270: 233–237.

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Although Jews could easily be identified in Scotland, and there was an obvious medical need in Glasgow, for example, especially during the main period of Jewish immigration between 1860 and 1914,14 there was a strong sense that if it became possible to convert Jews in Palestine to Protestantism, then Jews elsewhere would more readily convert. The dominant element here was the ascendancy of the Evangelical movement. Whilst this can be characterised in a number of ways, two of the dominant features of interest here can be identified as Biblical literalism and hostility to liberalism (understood as “any philosophy of life not built on divine revelation” 15). Reflecting on the latter element, in a time when formerly-held truths were being questioned in all areas of life in terms of new scientific theories and philosophy, the need for an unwavering belief structure seemed paramount, represented most dramatically perhaps in the context of worship: “it seems strange that in a society which was so dynamic and a culture so optimistic, most hymn-writers should have remained wedded to a static Aristotelian view of God as the ‘unmoved mover’ and equated all change with corruption and decay.”16 Salvation in this context could be achieved only by a return to that which did not alter – the steadfastness of the Divine, the unchanging presence of God in the midst of human change. Furthermore, there was a clear sense that at a time when worldwide missionary activity was capturing the imagination of western churches, preaching “this conversion [of the Jews] is most of all to preach the gospel to the weary world”, as Andrew Bruce Davidson put it17 – in many ways, therefore, the most fundamental kind of missionary activity to engage in. The role – or rather, the perceived role – of ‘the Jews’18 in Palestine played a central role in Scottish missionary understanding. Palestine was seen as the natural home of ‘the Jews’, and the terms were at times almost used interchangeably. Furthermore, Palestine was felt to be known in some intimate way to believers in the Christian gospel: this imaginary map was felt to be both real and realistic, shaped by Biblical and fictional narratives, 19 e.g. the Arabian Nights.20 As Victori14 K. Collins has examined healthcare provision in Glasgow during this period: Be Well! Jewish Immigrant Health and Welfare in Glasgow, 1860–1914, East Linton, 2001. Collins notes that although some welfare mechanisms existed, because the community was relatively small – Jews in the city never numbered more than 15, 000 – it was difficult to create larger institutions, such as a Jewish hospital: 2. 15 Bebbington, Evangelicalism, 99; chapter 3 provides an excellent overview of Evangelical thinking in the early 19th century. 16 Ian Bradley, Abide with me. The world of Victorian hymns, London 1997, 120. 17 A.B. Davidson, Old Testament Prophecy, ed. J. A. Paterson, Edinburgh 1903, 483. 18 The first chapter of Marten, Attempting, offers an exposition of ‘the Jews’ as an essentialising construct in this time. In this essay, I will use inverted commas to signify the particularity of the term. 19 For a later example of similar sentiments cf. A. J. Sherman, Mandate Days. British Lives in Palestine 1918–1948, London, 1997, 16. Such thinking permeates all aspects of a culture and is reflected not just in an overtly religious context: B. Cheyette examines the literary links to Judaism in the context of race in Constructions of ‘the Jew’ in English literature and society: racial representations, 1875–1945, Cambridge 1993.

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an Britain saw itself as the ‘Protestant Israel’,21 there was felt to be a deep connection to – and fascination with – the land of Palestine and ‘the Jews’.22 The Bible was read in such a way that the expectation of a ‘new Israel’, the manifold prophecies of the Old Testament, the belief that God would act in relation to what was perceived to be the ‘chosen people’ all received prominence – for many who were aware of political events across Europe in connection with Jews, it seemed “to be prophecy which blended with politics and common humanity to fuel the motor of Protestant evangelism”.23 By the early 20th century this had developed into theories about restoration, which centred on the conversion of Jews and their being restored to the land – Canaan/Palestine. 24 This mode of thinking had obvious attendant effects on the motivation for missionary work. In Scottish thought, we can point to the example of the afore-mentioned Andrew Bruce Davidson, Professor of Hebrew in Edinburgh, who published Old Testament Prophecies in 1903; he was amongst the foremost scholars of his day, with works widely read in academic and non-academic contexts, reflecting many generally held views of the time.25 The chapters of this particular book are devoted 20 Staying overnight in Rosetta, the 1839 Scottish delegation sent to examine the prospects for Jewish missionary work in Palestine noted that “[a]ll was now truly oriental, and the scenery of the Arabian Nights occurred vividly to our mind”; A.A Bonar and R. Murray McCheyne, Narrative of a Visit to the Holy Land and Mission of Inquiry to the Jews, Edinburgh 1843, 55. On the confusion of “the real East with the East of the stories” Cf. R. Kabbani, Imperial Fictions. Europe’s Myths of Orient, Londo, 1986, 21994, 29, including an examination of the ‘alf layla wa layla and Galland’s text, see Kabbani’s section on the ‘Arabian Nights’, 23–36. 21 The term is used by L. Colley: Britons saw themselves as “a distinct and chosen people [...for] most Victorians, the massive overseas empire which was the fruit of so much successful warfare represented final and conclusive proof of Great Britain’s providential destiny. God had entrusted Britons with empire, they believed, so as to further the worldwide spread of the Gospel and as a testimony to their status as the Protestant Israel.” Cf. L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation. 1707–1837, London 1992, 388. 22 Binfield, “Jews in Evangelical Dissent”, 226. 23 Ibid, 226; the title of a publication from 1890, printed in Beirut, indicates general Evangelical thought at this time: The Everlasting Nation: An International Monthly Journal of History, Biography, Prophecy, Literature, Exegesis, and Passing Events Relating to the Jewish People. 24 A.B. Davidson, Old Testament Prophecy, gives an overview of the debate at the time around the extent to which “restoration” would happen literally in his chapter on “The Restoration of the Jews”. 25 Davidson was ‘Rabbi’ John Duncan’s successor in this post; I. Finestein, “British Opinion and the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century: Personalities and Further Themes”, in: M.Davids/Y. Ben-Arieh (eds.), With Eyes Toward Zion III – Western Societies and the Holy Land, New York, 1991, 227–238, esp. 228. These two, along with George Adam Smith (who taught at Glasgow and Aberdeen) had a profound influence on how the Old Testament, the land of Palestine, and the place of the Jews in the world and the divine economy was percei ved in Scotland. See also G. Auld, “Hebrew and Old Testament”, in: D.F: Wright/G.B. Badcock (eds.), Disruption to Diversity: Edinburgh Divinity 1846–1996, Edinburgh 1996, 53–71; 57–59. Alexander Paterson attended his services (W. Ewing, Paterson of Hebron:“The Hakim” Missionary Life in the Mountain of Judah, London, nd – 1925, 1930, 1931?: 27); he was also one of Robertson Smith’s teachers (Bebbington, Evangelicalism, 185). UFC-MR, 5.1917: 110 offers a review of a biography which points to the importance of Davidson’s

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to various aspects of biblical prophecy, the last being “The Restoration of the Jews”.26 It provides a rationale for engaging in missionary work among Jews as well as pointing to attitudes to Jews and the land, and is therefore worth examining a little more closely. Although it becomes clear by the end of the chapter that Davidson did not see restoration as a physical restoration to the land (instead he universalises the divine promises until they apply to the Church, i.e. the whole believing community), he does see Canaan, the biblical term for the land, as somehow belonging to ‘the Jews’.27 Davidson argues that although the biblical text speaks of the redemption of the people and the restoration to the land together, Scripture’s concern is with people and not with lands, making these texts difficult to understand. This is particularly so in the light of Rom 11, which he sees in terms of non-Jews coming to a position of belief, though this is not necessarily the means for this to happen.28 Jealousy on the part of Jews will enable their redemption to take place, which will only happen once the entire world believes the Christian gospel: “therefore to preach this conversion [of the Jews] is most of all to preach the gospel to the weary world”.29 However, this is a gradual process, and can begin before the world in its entirety is Christian, justifying present missions to Jews: The Jew is provoked to jealousy by them that were not a people, but whom he now sees to be the people of God. The sight disquiets him, and awakens memories within him. It fills his mind with the profoundest emotions, with regrets that cannot be stifled, and a longing that he cannot repress, with a sorrow over lost advantages and over a life thrown away, and with the thought of a blessedness lost to him, and now enjoyed by others. This is the jealousy which the sight of Gentile faith shall awaken.30

On the same page he explains that it is the “superficiality and insincerity” of contemporary Christianity that puts Jews off, since no “real godliness” can be found in it.31 Davidson proceeds to describe a restoration that will encompass the “Gentiles [...as, M.M.] fellow-heirs with Israel, and of the same body; but they do not thrust out Israel,”32 since although in “Jesus Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek;

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work and influence long after his death. He ‘sought to present ... the actors in the Hebrew Bible as participants in a live historical process ... [the Hebrew Bible influencing] private practice and public policy’; Finestein, “British Opinion”, 229. Davidson, Old Testament Prophecy; the work was edited by James Alexander Paterson, Davidson’s colleague and successor at New College, on the basis of lectures by Davidson (Da vidson died in January 1902). Davidson’s The Theology of the Old Testament, ed. S. D. F. Salmond, Edinburgh 1904 was also published posthumously, based on notes. I offer a much fuller exposition of Davidson’s thinking in the first chapter of Marten, Attempting. Davidson does not address practicalities such as present-day ownership and title deeds – his understanding of Jewish ‘ownership’ was not necessarily understood in these terms. Ibid., 478–9. Ibid., 483. Ibid., 485. This is a familiar view in the broader context of missionary activity, e.g. D. Clavero cites concerns about “the often unchristian behaviour of the Spanish laymen” in 17th century Peru: “The Discourse of the Newly-Converted Christian in the Work of the Andean Chronicler Guaman Poma de Ayala”, in, Christian Encounters with the Other, ed. J. C. Hawley, New York 1998, 44–55, esp. 51. Davidson, Old Testament Prophecy, 491.

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but there are both Jews and Greeks,– Jews first, and also Greeks”. 33 The restoration will be to Canaan but as noted above, Davidson universalises this, as well as making it something not contained within earthly time and space: “Canaan was the heritage of God to man, but over this heritage there pass such changes as necessarily accompany the changes in man’s spiritual relations. This heritage is transfigured and expanded; it becomes the world to come, the country which the patriarchs sought, the heav enly Jerusalem, the ‘all things’ which, according to Ps. 8, are destined to become subject to man, the kingdom that cannot be shaken,– whatever eternal realities remain, after the things that can be shaken have passed away.”34

In terms of missions, then, it is clear that Davidson sees missions to Jews as having two aspects: firstly, it is a part of the world’s conversion process and the move towards bringing Christianity to all people everywhere, and secondly, it is part of the promise of the ‘end-times’ and is necessary for the restoration to Canaan, though the physical restoration is not an important feature of the work. Another Scottish motivational factor for Jewish missions can be identified, developed mostly towards the beginning of the First World War. By Davidson’s time, though still present, the romantic attachment to the region itself as a motivator for mission activity had diminished somewhat, and the notion of missions to Jews had become much more integrated into a vision that encompassed the conversion of all peoples; increased links to other Jewish missions encouraged exchange among practitioners and additional, pragmatic, reasons for missions developed. A volume by John Hall (issued in 1914 by Authority of the Jewish Committee of the United Free Church35) has a concluding chapter arguing the case for Jewish missions; the very first sentence of this apologetic clearly states that “The Jew has rights in the Gospel equally with every other creature under heaven”. 36 That the Jew played a “tragic part [...] in the purposes of the grace of God’ does not mean ‘the Jew’ is to be excluded from the perceived benefits of the Christian message: this ‘ought to constitute an appeal of a peculiarly touching kind, and to fortify immeasurably the claim which he shares with the rest of humanity”, 37 even though the task might appear difficult. Christianity has a deep affinity with Jews: it is founded on a person who came as a Jew, and the immediate converts were Jews, furthermore, much of Christian heritage is Jewish (referring specifically to the Christian Old Testament): “We have literally come into the heritage of the Jew”.38 Christian hostility to Jews is seen by Hall as another reason for missionary activity: having condemned Jews and persecuted them over many centuries, Christians owe them the best they have to offer: belief in the (of course, Evangel-

33 Ibid., 492; cf. Rom. 1.16, 10.12, Gal. 3.28 etc.; the Pauline term Greek describes those who were not Jews. 34 Ibid., 500. 35 J. Hall, Israel in Europe, series: Our Jewish Missions II, Edinburgh 1914: cover page; Hall was a JMC member. 36 Ibid., 103. 37 Ibid., 103. 38 Ibid., 105.

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ical) Christian faith.39 The prospects for conversion are seen to be good, since their “spiritual qualities” mark them out and make them more receptive to the Christian message; recognition of Jesus’ importance is increasing amongst educated and informed Jews, so that the ‘Jew is becoming Christian at a much quicker rate than is the heathen, and the future is great with expectancy’. 40 That, allied with the “quality” of many of the converts, 41 makes for an incentive to continue and expand the missions’ work, for “one can see in imagination what a testimony to the power of Jesus Christ such a Hebrew Church would be, and what an effective instrument would lie to hand for the winning of the whole world to Christ”. 42 Hall therefore presents largely pragmatic reasons for Jewish missions, an addition to Davidson’s theological arguments and general geopiety. The place of Jews in the divine economy was therefore part of the process of worldwide missionary endeavour: only once the entire world, including Jews, had converted, would Christ return, enabling some form of restoration of ‘the Jews’ to take place. For many, therefore, engaging in missionary activity whilst ignoring ‘the Jews’ (and their potential conversion) made no sense at all. These thought patterns help to explain the desire to engage in missionary activity amongst Jews, and also point to the connection to Palestine. It is important to note that although the conversion of Jews was a focal point for Scottish and some other missions, certain Anglican mission bodies, for example, had wider ambitions: William Jowett, the first Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionary in the Mediterranean area was commissioned to work with “Jews, Mahometans, and pagans”.43 Their methods and thinking on this front were severely tested by the circumstances they found themselves in, since proselytising Muslims was strictly forbidden. However, they were open to the possibility and even desirability of converting Muslims, whereas essentially, the Scots simply saw any Muslims that might convert as an incidental bonus to the main purpose of their missionary work – the conversion of Jews.44 39 Ibid., 106–9. 40 Ibid., 109–113, this quotation from p.113 reflects the ever-present understanding that numerous conversions were always imminent, an understanding referred to constantly by the missionaries, who had only few converts to show for their labours. On p.115, having offered various statistics on the conversion of Jews (which cannot now be treated as having any degree of reliability), Hall explains the various reasons many Jews would not openly profess Christian faith but would nonetheless be believers – another theme that the missionaries often returned to. The JMC, who issued this book, clearly had a financial interest here: promises of imminent conversion would generate income. 41 Ibid., 115–117; i.e. the intellectual ability and/or involvement in missions by the converts; examples are given. 42 Ibid., 118; this aim of converting ‘the whole world’ has distinct nineteenth century origins: S. Thorne, “‘The Conversion of Englishmen and the Conversion of the World Inseparable’: Missionary Imperialism and the Language of Class in Early Industrial Britain”, in: F. Cooper/A.L. Stoler (eds.), Tensions of Empire. Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, Berkeley–Los Angeles–London1997: 245. 43 CMS records cited by A. L. Tibawi, British Interests in Palestine, 1800–1901, Oxford 1961, 21. 44 It is worth pointing out that there are no records of Muslims converting as a result of the Scottish missions.

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3. SCOTTISH INVOLVEMENT IN PALESTINE 3.1 General activities Although Scottish involvement in Palestine stretches back to the Crusades, 45 in modern times involvement began in 1839 when a delegation to Palestine recommended a mission be established in Tiberias and Safad. This did not materialise, partly to do with wariness over the political environment of 1840s Syria, and partly to do with internal Scottish ecclesial divisions. 46 But by the beginning of the 20th century, two main Scottish medical missions existed in Palestine, one in the Galilee (Tiberias/Safad), and one in Hebron. The Galilee mission, founded in Tiberias in 1884, arose from an exploratory trip made by David Watt Torrance, a newly graduated medic who was to spend almost all of the rest of his life at the mission, and James Wells, a minister who spent much of his working life heavily involved in the Jewish Mission Committee, the body which oversaw the work of the Sea of Galilee Mission (as it was known) and similar institutions across Europe and the Middle East. The mission began as a small clinic operated by Torrance and gradually expanded with additional Scottish and local staff, with a hospital opening ten years after Torrance began work in Tiberias. By this time, there were a number of additional aspects to the mission, including boys’ and girls’ schools, direct evangelisation efforts, and so on, though the medical work was always the main focus of the mission in terms of commitment of staffing, resources, reflection and development. From 1900 the Scots also operated a hospital in Hebron, though this mission was not expressly created by the Scottish churches. It originated with the Mildmay Mission, which in 1900 passed it on to the Free Church of Scotland. This was primarily because a very substantial donation had been made to it, attached to the person of the lead missionary there, a Scot by the name of Alexander Paterson. It seems the Mildmay Mission did not want the responsibility of developing such a substantial mission as the donor envisaged, and they were therefore keen to dispose of the mission altogether. This work was entirely medical in orientation, since the educational and evangelisation projects connected to it were to be run by the German Jerusalems-Verein zu Berlin in a form of partnership with the Scots. This petered out after some time, and the Scots made no effort to continue this aspect of the work. Eventually, the Hebron mission hospital was passed on to the CMS.47 45 Cf. e.g. A. Macquarrie, Scotland and the Crusades 1095–1560, Edinburgh 1997. 46 The ‘Ten Years Conflict’ in the Church of Scotland, resulting in the 1843 Disruption which split the church along ‘Moderate’ and ‘Evangelical’ lines is the primary factor here. Numerous accounts of this period exist, for example: J. H. S. Burleigh, A Church History of Scotland, Oxford 1960, Edinburgh 21988: esp. 334–369; and for a wider social and political perspective, M. Lynch, Scotland: A New History, London 1991, esp. 397–405, but also other parts of this chapter. 47 More details about the Sea of Galilee Mission and the Hebron Mission during the time period under consideration here can be found in Marten, Attempting cf. esp. 63–99 and 99–109 respectively.

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Both of these missions came under the auspices of the Jewish Mission Committee and were run with the express purpose of seeking the conversion of Palestinian Jews to (Presbyterian) Christianity. As already indicated, like so many other similar missions of this era, they did not achieve many converts. In fact, records for the period 1884–1917 show that at the very most about a dozen Jews were converted through the efforts of the Sea of Galilee Mission, and there are no records at all of any conversions by the Hebron Mission in the period it was run by the Scottish church (i.e. from 1900). Therefore, in terms of their stated aim of achieving Jewish conversions, the missions can justifiably be regarded as an unqualified failure. Naturally, this is not to deny achievements in other areas, to which I will turn in a moment, but their failure to achieve their ostensible goal of Jewish conversions, and their inability to understand why they were unable to achieve it, also play a part in understanding their achievements in these other areas. The 1962 celebration of the Torrances’ achievements could clearly not have been about marking achievements if that is taken to mean conversions of Jews. 3.2 Medicine in the context of Scottish missionary practice From the very beginning, the mission in Tiberias was conceived of as a medical mission. This fits into the missionary context of Scotland, and indeed Britain as a whole, at this time. When Tiberias was founded, medical missions were only beginning to be integral parts of the missionary enterprise, though medical missions were not new:48 the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society (EMMS) is the great exemplar of early medical missions. The EMMS came about through the influence of Rev. Peter Parker, a medical and theology graduate from Yale, who in 1841 addressed a group of medical and ministerial practitioners in Edinburgh about his work in China; his speeches resulted in groups in various British and American cities supporting his work and exploring their own place in the new field of medical missions. But it was only during the latter part of the 19th century that an unprecedented expansion in medical missions had taken place around the globe, “fostered by the Victorian period’s stability, medical capabilities, and personal availability”, as well as a social concern for the poor arising out of a deep sense of personal piety that led to a desire to help those in need regardless of personal cost. 49 The 1858 Medical Act resulted in clear regulation and professionalisation of medical practice, and with the development of “scientific medicine, especially surgery, epidemiology, and pharmacology” and the manifest ability to cure once-fatal diseases, the medical profession gained in acceptability not only with mission boards, but also with their supporting public – so medical missions grew along48 There had been a suggestion in the JMC for a medical mission in Damascus in the 1840s. This was not pursued. 49 C.H. Grundmann, “The Contribution of Medical Missions: The Intercultural Transfer of Standards and Values”, in: Academic Medicine, December 1991, Vol 66, No. 12, 731–733, esp. 731.

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side the growth and establishment of the medical profession itself. 50 It was easy to define and describe what a medical missionary might achieve, which was not always the case with an ordained missionary. From the perspective of missionary organisations, medical missions therefore served (at least) two clear purposes: 1

they were a way of straightforwardly assisting people in need; and

2

they resonated with the donating public who could easily comprehend the direct benefit to the target population.

A further explanation for the growth of medical missions is that they provided a kind of lever with which to gain access to a target population that might otherwise be reticent to allow access to missionaries – Andrew Walls quotes Herbert Lankaster of the CMS: “It was as heavy artillery that medical missions were used above all: in the less responsive fields, in Islamic societies, and above all in China”.51 Walls’ analysis of the development of medical missions highlights four distinct factors, all of which can be identified in the Scots’ work in Palestine: the imitative (obediency to Jesus, who healed people and commanded his disciples to do likewise), the humanitarian/philanthropic (as discussed above), the utilitarian (preserving the health of the missionaries themselves), and the strategic (“the acceptability of medical missions when no other form of mission could gain a hearing”).52 By the time the missions in Tiberias and Safad, and later in Hebron, were being developed, health care in Britain had come on a long way from the early EMMS days: the shocking state of Britain’s inner cities (which had undergone a huge population explosion with the advent of industrialisation) and the high death rate from infectious diseases such as cholera, had spurred great advances in public health. This, coupled with technical advances in medical practice and the regulation of the profession in 1858, meant medicine became a much more obvious missionary tool. Using Walls’ categories, it is easy to understand the place of Palestinian missions in such a model: firstly, healing the sick, particularly in the very region that Jesus is supposed to have carried out most of his healing ministry, would have had great geopious attractions.53 Secondly, providing a service to those in need: the Jews of Tiberias, Safad and Hebron, regularly described as poor and without significant material support, would have been an obvious target for social concern.54 50 A.F. Walls, ‘‘‘The heavy artillery of the missionary army’: the domestic importance of the nineteenth-century medical missionary”, in W. J. Shiels (ed.), The Church and Healing, Oxford 1982, 287–297, esp. 287. 51 Ibid., 290. 52 Ibid., 288. 53 L.I. Vogel defines ‘geopiety’ as “the expression of dutiful devotion and habitual reverence for a territory, land, or space”; To See a Promised Land. Americans and the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century, Pennsylvania 1993, 8. 54 The Christian and Muslim population barely registered in the planning stages (these were Jewish Mission Committees), though a substantial number of the patients were Christian or

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Thirdly, concern for the health of the missionaries was felt to be a real issue,55 with numerous descriptions of the “unhealthiness of the place”: the missionary doctors regularly treated each other.56 Finally, the strategic concern was repeatedly referred to as a demonstration of the mission’s success in reaching people: for example, in 1895 Torrance wrote: […] for a time the mission was boycotted by the Jews [..., but] gradually the opposition was overcome ... One of the rabbis had been specially bitter and stubborn in his opposition [... but he] fell ill [... and] would not [...] send for me; but one morning [...] his son [...] frantically besought me to come to his father. I was able to give him immediate relief, for which he has never ceased to be grateful, and, as far as I know, he has never since opposed the medical mission.57

Torrance was aware of this strategic factor early on: shortly after arriving, Torrance wrote about a need for quality medicines, stating that, amongst other things, he was “anxious to make a good impression from the beginning, so as to gain the confidence of my patients at least”.58 4. PRACTICE OF MISSION – THEOLOGICAL ISSUES From examining the practice of the missionaries, further theological positions can be adduced. I want to focus here on two particular aspects, namely the professionalisation and the so-called civilisational role of medical missionary work, both of which intersect with the theological understandings outlined above.

Muslim. 55 This became less of a concern in the later years of the 19th century; the short life of Ion Keith -Falconer at the Sheikh Othman mission in what is now Yemen (and many similar examples) demonstrate that this was a very real issue earlier in the 19th century, or when regions were not so accessible or well known. Keith-Falconer’s death in 1887 led to a great upsurge in volunteers for overseas mission, including to Sheikh Othman; N.R.P. Houghton, Pioneering with the Gospel in South-West Arabia: The Keith-Falconer Mission between 1885 and 1906, unpublished MTh thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1997, 37–41. A comprehensive account of the Aden mission, written by a long-serving former missionary there, is J. McLaren Ritchie, The Church of Scotland South Arabia Mission 1885–1978, Stoke-on-Trent 2006. Alexander Paterson, the main medical missionary at the Scottish mission in Hebron, worked in Sheikh Othman from 1887–1891. 56 Torrance’s essay “The Planting of the Mission in 1885” in J. Wilson/J. Wells (eds.), The Sea of Galilee Mission of the Free Church of Scotland, Edinburgh 1895, 40-55: 40. For example, Vartan of the EMMS in Nazareth treated Torrance; ibid., 42; W.P. Livingstone, A Galilee Doctor. Being a Sketch of the Career of Dr. D. W. Torrance of Tiberias, London 1923, 74; Torrance treated a London Jews Society colleague in Safad shortly after he arrived in Palestine: FC-MMR 1.3.1885: 77 57 Torrance, “Planting”, 42–43. 58 FC-MMR 1.4.1886: 105.

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4.1 Professionalisation Increasing professionalisation marked the work of the Scottish medical missions in Palestine. Whilst this can be seen in other ways too, there is a clear sense of the need for quality work – Torrance’s desire for good medicines noted above is but one example of this – and this manifested itself in various ways. Here I want to briefly discuss training, premises and facilities, and the place of patients in the work. 4.1.1 Training, premises and facilities In September 1885 Torrance started work in Tiberias, working from his own house, with a small stock of medicines and basic instruments. This house was rented from the chief rabbi of Tiberias, an arrangement apparently come to with help from Dr Kaloost Vartan of the EMMS in Nazareth. Within three years, by April 1888, there were three Scots employed in Tiberias, and a site for a future hospital in Tiberias had been identified and purchased. It would be somewhat tedious in this context to describe at length the growth of the medical mission in detail, but some key factors that point to the general approach are noteworthy: 1

2

3

4

several of the staff from Scotland were sent to the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum in Leipzig prior to going to Palestine. The Institutum Judaicum was one of the only institutions in Europe that enabled missionaries to engage in concentrated periods of study of Judaism and missionary methods for relating to Jews. Of course, from today’s perspective, the essentialist nature of such a programme can be questioned, but at the time this was seen as an excellent form of preparation for future missionaries;59 in 1894, the year the hospital opened, an annual investment of £740 was estimated by Torrance, with substantial increases in costs as the years went by. Torrance’s initial estimate involved the payment of an assistant surgeon, two Scottish and two local nurses, a dispenser and assistant, and various housekeeping staff;60 over the years, a continual growth in bed numbers can be recorded. Although these were often sponsored by private individuals rather than paid for by the Jewish Mission Committee, it was through the promotional work of the JMC that the possibility of sponsorship was enabled – this was a way of raising awareness and engagement with the mission’s work;61 promotional work in Scotland developed and became more important over the years. This is especially notable during World War One: there was a strong awareness of the implications of the fighting in Palestine for the facilities the Scottish church owned. It was clear that substantial repairs and maintenance

59 For a brief account of the Leipzig Institutum, see Marten, Attempting, 67–68. 60 For full details, cf. ibid., 77. 61 This was possibly one of the most significant ways of engaging the donating public, e.g. ibid., 89.

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costs would arise, but also that the range of treatments available would need to increase after the war;62 there is evidence that before World War One stopped all planning and work on the hospital, Torrance had plans to create additional facilities, including a maternity ward and a “ward for sick tourists”;63 both Torrance and Paterson appear to have maintained up-to-date medical skills through the subscription to appropriate journals and involvement in medical work in Scotland.64 During World War One, neither could continue working in Palestine (though Paterson initially appears to have attempted to do so). But they worked in Glasgow and for the British military in the field, clearly indicating a level of ability of at least a similar level to that of homedoctors.65

It is perhaps Torrance’s continual desire to expand and develop the Galilee mission that is the most apposite indication of the seriousness with which the Scots engaged with their work.66 As will be shown in the next section, there were to be no expedient shortcuts in the quality of the work offered. 4.1.2 Patients Of course, the patients were welcomed not only in order to be healed, but also to be converted. In the context of the Tiberias hospital, each morning, the medical staff would welcome the new patients, and the day would begin with Christian teaching. A Bible text would be read, and an exposition of the text would be given, prayers would be offered, and hymns sung – Torrance records Arabic translations of Moody and Sankey revivalist hymns being used – and patients were not permitted to escape these morning services. In addition, all patients needing to stay in the hospital were more or less obliged to be present for regular services of worship. Medical staff would take opportunities as they saw fit to speak to anyone on the wards about their faith, and there were also Evangelists appointed who were directly responsible for speaking to the patients about Christianity. 67 Despite these efforts, of course, very few actually converted. The tremendous growth in the work, paralleled in other similar missions, also gave rise to occasional concern about the amount of medical work, and the potential problems this might create to the detriment of the missionary work as a whole.68 Seen in this way, the strategic angle to medical missionary work men62 63 64 65

The context to this is explained more fully in ibid., 89. Ibid., 94. Cf. e.g. the debate on infant circumcision; ibid., 167–169. In fact, colonial medics were generally held in high regard for the breadth of their knowledge and experience. 66 Similar moves can be identified in Hebron under Alexander Paterson. 67 cf. e.g. ibid.: 79. 68 Walls, “The heavy artillery of the missionary army”, 292–4 expounds on the ever-expanding investment required once a medical facility or mission had been initiated. Even though in the 1840s, when a medical mission was first discussed by the Jewish Mission Committee, there

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tioned above became self-defeating, as the means (medical care) took up so much time that the ends (preaching the gospel and creating converts) became difficult, if not impossible, to implement. Gustav Dalman, intimately connected to the Institutum Judaicum for many years and who knew the Scots’ work in Galilee (indeed, he had once even applied to work for the Scottish mission but had been turned down as a Scot was preferred over a German), described this problem in speeches he held in Edinburgh and Glasgow, which were summarised in a Scottish church journal in the following terms: The value of medical missions is unquestionable, but perhaps their methods might be improved. The multitudes in the dispensary, to be seen and prescribed for by the doctor within certain hours, make spiritual work for him practically impossible. This is left, therefore, mainly to assistants [... which] is not quite satisfactory. A Christian physician dwelling among the Jews, visiting their sick, the friend of their homes, the help of their poor, would find many doors open to him, and splendid openings for individual spiritual work. The annual number of cases might be less, but numbers here are of little importance. It would surely be a good principle for medical missions – fewer cases, more visiting of the sick, more individual work, not only by assistants, but by the medical missionary himself.69

However, the Scottish missionaries saw this differently. Whilst Torrance might have complained of overwork in the hospital (in 1908 2,000 patients were being treated each month by Torrance and his staff70), there are no records of him turning patients away. In fact, quite the contrary: he appears to have attempted to resolve every medical case he came across, as his biographer/hagiographer notes, quoting from an address he gave: “If the work is worth doing, it is worth doing well. No quack work in medical work.” But when faced with the tragedy of suffering in the mass [...] what course could he adopt? He either had to [...] turn away, or do what he could [...] to ease their pain. He was too sympathetic to take the sterner course.”71 Whilst he was unhappy about the lack of opportunity afforded him to engage more with the population – a problem that Dalman noted – he argued that this highlighted the need for additional staff to share the medical cases and make more time for teaching and preaching.72 In addition, Dalman’s argument, notable for its division between the “spiritual” and the “material”, would not have been persuasive for Torrance and the like, who argued that missionary work consisted of a way of life as well as what was taught. By caring unreservedly for the sick, they saw themselves as living witnesses to their faith, exactly as the instructions to Torrance had stated when he first went to Palestine and he committed to seek “the enlightenment of their [i.e. Jews’] minds, [and] the salvation of their souls” in the following terms:

69 70 71 72

may only have been a few examples on which to base such an assumption, it would have been obvious to them that the ongoing cost of medicines and equipment would be a financial burden. UFC-MR 1902: 125. Livingstone, A Galilee Doctor, 208. Ibid., 217. Overwhelmed by patients from both sides of the Jordan, he also (in 1908/9) suggested opening an additional mission station elsewhere, but the funds for this were not available; ibid., 218.

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“It should ever be kept in view that these results will be most effectively secured when, to the religious instruction communicated, is added the example of a holy and consistent life”.73 This kind of holistic approach was typical of 19th century Scottish Evangelicalism, which laid great stress on living a “godly life”. Another example of this can be found with Alexander Paterson in Hebron. Like Torrance, Paterson is regularly recorded as being overwhelmed by the number of patients coming to see him, and he complained at various times of suffering “overwork and anxiety as to immediate developments”. 74 Although he wrote that he regarded tiredness as a valid reason for his assistants to turn down work, he himself did not do this, embodying a 19th century middle-class Scottish value system that would tend to emphasise the need for hard work and not look favourably on apparent idleness, as this anecdote indicates: “Found Miss Bellamy rather sulky after yesterday’s incident when she practically set my authority at defiance. I had asked her to go to town and dress ‘A. Alttalin [spelling not clear], A Sumaineh’s [spelling not clear] leg and she declined to go on the score of being tired – which was ample excuse, but immediately added ‘Besides the work closed yesterday (Friday) and you have no right to ask me to do it’ or words to that effect. I got warm & said that if I gave an order I expected it to be done [… she left], with a gesture of defiance. I added, If you ask to be excused on the score of tiredness that is a matter of humanity but you have no case or right to take up the position you have done, and reminded her how many times I had gone to town to do her dressing cases simply to relieve her, […] sometimes because Miss Macpherson point blank refused to go for her. With this I left her.”75

What these examples show is an understanding of the missionary work and work ethos that can be directly traced to Scottish middle-class and philosophical values.76 The argument advanced by Dalman in particular was one that the Scots rejected wholeheartedly. One can justifiably speculate on the notion that Dalman’s predominantly academic career in terms of Biblical studies and historical geography was not seen as offering an adequate basis for commenting on the practicalities of mission work in the field: Scottish values were increasingly directed towards the practical implementation of theoretical work, something that they would not necessarily have been able to discern in Dalman’s career. 77 Dalman could well be understood to be more of a theoretician or idealist, at a time when Scottish thought was tending towards establishing the clear links between the perceived and experienced worlds in pragmatic terms (perhaps this can be understood in terms of philosophical realism over against idealism, or Thomas Reid and James Frederick Ferrier over against René Descartes and David Hume). 73 74 75 76 77

FC-JMC 16.12.1884. UFC-MR 11.1909: 490. NLS Acc 4499 (9): Paterson diary 9.9.1900. I have described this in more detail in Marten, Attempting: chapter 4. For more on Dalman, cf. e.g. A. H. Baumann, “Gustav Dalman (1855–1941)”, in A.H. Baumann (ed.), Auf dem Wege zum christlich-jüdischen Gespräch. 125 Jahre Evagelisch-lutherischer Zentralverein für Zeugnis und Dienst unter Juden und Christen, Münster 1998, 60–69. Regarding the increasing sense in Scotland of the need for ‘grounded’ approaches to church work, cf. e.g. the brief discussion in O. and S. Checkland, Industry and Ethos. Scotland 1832–1914, Edinburgh 1984, 21989: 130–132, but also previous sections in this chapter.

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4.2 The civilisational role of medical missionary work Christoffer Grundmann discusses educational aspects of medical missionary work, both formal and informal, arguing they played a significant role beyond just medical practice. The Scottish missions fit elements of his description of the role of such work. These are firstly, the search for “scientific truth”, which emerged as a by-product of the practice of scientific medicine; secondly, a moral position on the sanctity of life which Grundmann contrasts with the cultures the missionaries were in;78 and thirdly, the faith position that motivated such work: “In addition to transferring medical skill and know-how they wanted to impart to their students a consciousness of the values implied in the exercise of the art, values of intercultural validity: the authentic commitment of those missions’ doctors to help others, even at the ex pense of tremendous personal, career, and financial gain. They themselves were telling examples who showed that the power to do this work lay in a strong personal faith and commitment.”79

Peter Williams argues that particularly in Scottish Presbyterianism, the desire to educate was as much a part of the medical mission as the physical healing itself, and that this confluence of Christianity and civilisation was an element of evangelisation: in other words, the desire “for the erection of a christian civilization”. 80 Towards the end of the 19th century, in which Grundmann sees “Victorian stability”, Williams sees clear links to imperialism and the communication of Western cultural models: an “impetus to benevolence [...] came from the puritan, and often Scottish, concern to relate christianity and civilization and it became more convincing as an imperialistic cast of mind became dominant”.81 The communication of “standards and values” (to borrow from the title of Grundmann’s article) clearly played a role in the Scots’ work, as the description of the hospital as a “real Bethel” shows. Bethel refers to e.g. Gen 35,15, meaning “house of God”82 – in itself a powerful claim of divine involvement – and the comparison between the “squalid huts and tents” and the “sweetness”, “cleanness” and “abundance” of the hospital represented not only the “civilised European” to the “semi-demi-semi-European and civilised” Palestinians, as Torrance once described them,83 but was a metaphor for personal redemption suggested by Christian readings of Biblical texts: the imagery of uncleanliness as a mark of evil and sin, and cleanliness as a mark of redemption and forgiveness, would have been 78 Grundmann, “The Contribution of Medical Missions”, 733 displays levels of essentialism and prejudice on this issue that are clearly problematic. His orientalist perspective fails to allow for other cultures’ understanding of the sanctity of life. 79 Ibid., 733. 80 P. C. Williams, “Healing and evangelism: the place of medicine in later Victorian missionary thinking”, in: W J Shiels (ed.), The Church and Healing, Oxford 1982, 271–285, esp. 281. 81 Ibid., 277. 82 Similarly, Torrance refers to his hospital (the rented premises) as “a very Bethesda to many a poor sufferer” – using Biblical place names to signify a purpose or a state of mind was a useful way of relating to the church membership in Scotland, the people who ultimately were needed in order to support the mission; FC-MMR 1.9.1892: 212. 83 FC-MMR 1.3.1887: 75; cf. Marten, Attempting: 240 n. 136.

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known to many who used the hospital. 84 We can observe something similar in other non-medical Scottish contexts in the region: at the Tabeetha School in Jaffa, the director, Jane Walker-Arnott, ensured that the emphasis of the school’s work was on “domestic training to prepare the girls to make “good” marriages and on encouraging the more capable girls to train as teachers in their turn”, 85 this, of course, in the context of the overall purpose of the institution: “first and foremost, to teach the scholars to read the Bible, and to show them the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord”.86 This understanding had clear Scottish roots. Medical missionary work in Britain had its strongest incarnation in Edinburgh, derived from some of its practitioners, such as James Miller (1812–64). Miller was Professor of Surgery at Edinburgh University from 1842 and became a director of the EMMS in 1847, being so closely involved in its work that after his death, the EMMS missionary training institution was named after him.87 It was Evangelical Presbyterianism of the kind espoused by the Free Church of Scotland that pursued a wholesale attempt to cater not only to the souls of the target population and each individual’s immediate physical well-being in the form of direct healthcare, but also to a social engagement that was to lead indigenous populations from “primitive culture” through western domination and on to “self-determination and Christianization”. This was particularly the case after David Livingstone’s work in Africa.88 Engagement in trade was welcomed by Livingstone as a way for development to take place, even if he was not always at one with the methods of commercial traders. His views were widely disseminated in Scotland, and his mixture of capitalism and Christianity was seen by many as representing the ideal mix of the Presbyterian work ethic and the desire for personal salvation. These understandings are apparent in the plans of the Sea of Galilee missionaries for a so-called “Industrial Mission” that would give converts employment as well as encourage their self-sufficiency in a capitalist economic context. There are clear parallels between the proposed “Industrial Mission” and the new Zionist agricultural colonies, upon which the missionaries lavished praise in church publications, highlighting their “efficient” 84 E.g. Is. 1,16, Jer. 2,22, 4,14, Heb. 10,22. 85 I. Goodwin, May You Live to be 120! The Story of Tabeetha School, Jaffa 1863–1983, Edinburgh 2000, 32; N.L. Stockdale cites Jane Walker-Arnott, the director of Tabeetha School in Jaffa, writing in 1880, before her school became part of the Scottish churches’ missions, describing a pupil ‘actively altering her home environment as a result of her mission education’; Colonial Encounters among English and Palestinian Women, 1800–1948, Gainsville 2007, 118. The children, it was hoped, would become an active influence on the parents, ultimately leading them to Christian belief through the communication of values of home-making imparted by the missionaries; note that in connection with Anglican schools, “education work tended to foster a desire to join the church of the teachers [and this] led to complications later in relations with the Orthodox Church”; similar issues arose in relation to the Scots, of course; A. O’Mahony, ‘Church, State and the Christian Communities and the Holy Places of Palestine’ in: M. Prior/W. Taylor (eds.), Christians in the Holy Land, London, 1994, 11–27, esp. 17. 86 CS-LW 5.1912: 159. See also Murre-van den Berg, 112. 87 J. Wilkinson, The Coogate Doctors. A History of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society 1841–1991, Edinburgh 1991, 16–17. 88 Checkland, Industry and Ethos, 162.

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agricultural methods and similar such concepts. 89 This is not unproblematic, of course: as Lockman has shown, it was precisely the ideological proponents of Zionism that encouraged divisions between Jews and Arabs in Palestine that, in labour and workers’ movements terms, related to one another and engaged in mutually formative interactions. Lockman demonstrates that although divisions between the communities existed, they were less clear-cut than many have made them out to be, and where they did occur, they were the result of ideology rather than straightforward economic imperatives.90 Lockman makes it clear that even at this stage the Zionist-Arab conflict was not a conflict of equals, and draws clear parallels to colonial attitudes, noting, for example, that much of labor-Zionist discourse echoes themes found in colonial discourse generally: the denial of rational agency to the indigenous population, the definition of that population as lacking the characteristics of a nation and therefore as not entitled to self-determination, the attribution of anticolonial and nationalist sentiment and action to the malign influence of a small minority of self-interested “inciters,” the conception of the land as empty because not settled or utilized in familiar ways, the sense of European civilizing mission, and so forth. 91

The attitudes of many in the Free Church of Scotland could be described in very similar terms. 5. SEEING THE MISSIONS THROUGH A POSTCOLONIAL LENS However, a statement such as Lockman’s is in itself merely a starting point in trying to understand these issues in the context of missionary activity. I want to offer an example of the development of understanding here that relates to a specific movement in the context of postcolonialism, based on the approach of the writers of Subaltern Studies, the journal created by Indian intellectuals wanting to understand why Indian peasants failed to engage actively with national liberation in the context of the movement for independence. The Subaltern Studies project started from a Marxist understanding of history and moved on to develop a Gramscian view of the subaltern: from being the lieutenant of the ruling class, the subaltern became virtually any subordinate or individual not belonging to the elite. This exclusion could be based on any factor: class, caste, age, economic standing, and, as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and others later demonstrated, gender. Allowing the subaltern to speak, as Spivak famously put it, gave an alternative understanding to interpretations of history, one that centred on acts of resistance and challenges to authority. For example, what had appeared to many to be the quiescent mass of peasantry that failed to engage 89 For a more detailed analysis of this, cf. e.g. Marten, Attempting, 139. 90 Others have also worked in this area. For example, Deborah Bernstein has shown, using the town of Haifa as an example, that the boundaries that did emerge in the labour market were primarily a result of Jewish organised labour movements, and not Jewish or Arab elites or workers. D.S. Bernstein, Constructing Boundaries: Jewish and Arab Workers in Mandatory Palestine, Albany 2000: 207. 91 Lockman, Comrades and Enemies, 364.

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with Gandhian moves towards independence was shown to be a collection of actors in their own right, who challenged the elites on numerous levels and in a multiplicity of ways, whether British or Indian. This understanding of power and subordination, and the subaltern’s resistance to it, is intimately linked to the idea of representation. Despite the insistence of the missionaries on offering their understanding of religion to the local population, we see thousands of patients attending the hospital, hundreds of children being sent to the mission schools – and virtually no converts. This in itself is the voice of the subaltern, even though we cannot provide the classic documentation of the Cartesian historian: actional individuals who reject the dominant paradigm offered by the missionaries, and yet take what it is that they decide they want. They suffer the proselytising activity if they must, but make full use of the educational and medical services according to their own perceptions of their needs.92 This is not to say that the missionaries’ ambitions were not in some ways perhaps noble or even commendable, nor that they did not achieve a tremendous amount, but that the chasm between what they set out to achieve in terms of conversions and the results of these efforts was vast. Returning to the 1962 ceremony honouring David and Herbert Torrance in Tiberias, we might now ask: who was representing which part of whose history? Members of the family who were present have described the ceremony to me, and records I have seen about this event show that the Jewish notables present were clearly not honouring the Torrance father and son for their desire to convert Jews to Christianity. Four decades after David Torrance’s death, the 1962 commemoration shows the descendants of a distinct group of the former subalterns – Jewish recipients of healthcare – restating the understanding of the mission as a medical welfare provider, ignoring the religious factors that motivated the missionaries to offer their medical services in the first place. Of course, that these subalterns did not remain subalterns is not due to the missionaries, but due to the strength of Zionist ideology. 93 This provides an additional layer of meaning and circumstance that influences our historicising of missions. David (and later Herbert) Torrance was sent to Palestine by a Jewish Mission Com92 Remembering the rabbi Torrance mentioned – “I was able to give him immediate relief, for which he has never ceased to be grateful, and, as far as I know, he has never since opposed the medical mission” – we can still say that even if the desire to provide healthcare can be interpreted as Andrew Walls’ heavy artillery, it does not necessarily detract from its effects. 93 In the same way, others who appear to be the passive recipients of Scottish medical care – the thousands of Muslims and Christians who came to Torrance to be treated – need to be given their voice. This is a particularly complex task when bearing in mind the political upheavals that have occurred in the region in the last 100 years: quite aside from the fact that few of the recipients of Torrance’s work will still be alive, many of the Muslims and Christians that had a connection to the mission hospital will probably have been killed or scattered across the Middle East to live as refugees. Jews may well also have been displaced; for example, I know that some Jews also moved from Tiberias during 1948/9 and did not return. Written records such as personal diaries, if they exist after all that has happened, are almost impossible to track down, and yet it is still possible to read agency on the part of the local population – though perhaps not in forms that traditional western historians would normally recognise.

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mittee to convert Jews to Protestantism, and attempted to do this by employing British medical practice, presenting it as a mantle for the church’s understanding of religious commitment – in so doing, Torrance was seeking to communicate a form of western modernity to those he encountered in Palestine. Zionists brought other forms of western modernity with them to Palestine, such as industrialised agricultural methods and European nationalist ideology. In other words, in 1962, the dominant, (some would say, colonial) power, was perhaps honouring someone who was almost one of its own, but doing so in the context of a paradox, for these Jews would at one time have been seen as targets for missionary activity. Furthermore, the 1962 commemoration took place in a town that had – in the context of the Zionist colonisation of the Galilee that began during the time David Torrance was there – in 1948 witnessed the forcible expulsion of virtually all its non-Jewish Palestinian inhabitants:94 the former subaltern Jews had now become overt agents of their own fate. Clearly, there are many complex layers to be unpicked in re-historicising missions in Palestine if examined in this framework.95 In terms of concepts of modernity, it is the fusing of the two histories – the dominant and the subaltern – that re-makes the colonial history of the period, that re-historicises it. Indeed, understanding this fusing of history does justice to a principle of coevalness in understanding processes and developments in 19th and 20th century Palestine, and takes us away from a European-oriented essentialisation of modernity.96 In such an understanding, missions – part of a process of modernity that in historical writing is often linked to the West – become far more complex than traditional historicisms have made them out to be, especially since these have often taken a predominantly teleological approach. In seeing each encounter between the missionaries and local populations in such a teleological framework, a causal relationship is developed that denies full agency to both groups, but especially to Palestinian Jews, Muslims and Christians. Each decision – for example, the acceptance or non-acceptance of the three main thrusts of Scottish missionary activity: evangelisation, education and medicine – could have resulted in a myriad of further decisions that were not foreseeable, and that were not determined solely by Western paradigms or individuals. It might help to note a parallel example that has gained widespread acceptance when thinking about modernity in the Middle East. I am referring here to the portrayal of Ottoman notables, as described by Albert Hourani and others.97 Hourani’s famous essay on “Ottoman Reform and the Politics of Notables” 98 highlights what he terms “the beginnings of modernization”,99 pointing out that 94 See I. Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oxford 2006, 92. 95 There is, of course, also an issue related to the ‘authentication’ of subaltern voices by western scholarship, but this is not something that I can develop in any detail here. 96 Cf. “first in Europe, then elsewhere” – Chakrabarty, as cited in Ze’evi, “Back to Napoleon?”, 85. 97 This exposition is motivated partly from Ze’evi’s outline, but develops the argument there; Ze’evi, “Back to Napoleon?”, 87–88. 98 Cited here from A. Hourani/P.S. Khoury/M.C. Wilson (eds.) The Modern Middle East. A Reader, London–New York 1993, 83–109. 99 Ibid., 86.

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“[…] the voice of an important part of the population is scarcely heard in [… most of the sources historians have access to, M.M.], or heard only in a muted, indirect or even distorted form: that of the Muslim town-dwellers and their traditional and ‘natural’ leaders, the urban notables [...] This is an important gap in our knowledge, for the urban politics of the Ottoman provinces (at least of the Muslim provinces) cannot be understood unless we see them in terms of a ‘politics of notables’ or, to use Max Weber’s phrase, a ‘patriciate’. 100

Hourani’s exploration of the “politics of notables” in the context of the Ottoman tanzimat period shows a pattern of change and development that did not depend upon western involvement. Instead, the notables, to some extent perhaps understanding that the logical conclusion to the tanzimat reforms was the destruction of their own power,101 explored to the fullest extent possible their room for manoeuvre,102 including, in the nineteenth century, increasing trade and relations with European powers.103 These were actors who made choices to further what they perceived to be their own interests, coeval with European involvement, but not necessarily dependent upon it. Modernity in this context is about the way in which trade and political interests were appropriated, and though the apparent failure of the tanzimat did not lead to a capitalist system in the model of western economies, this does not detract from the position of the notables as part of an emerging capitalist class. Their development was different in context and method to that of western capitalist classes, but made use of the political and economic fields of action in a way that the previous economic and political order did not allow. In a similar way, I am arguing that mission history needs to see all the actors involved in the fusing of histories, as well as the coeval nature of the creation and development of modernities in relation to, and apart from, mission enterprises. Analysing the social dimension of missions can allow this to happen: the local actors were agents in their own right, often accepting the welfare opportunities made available to them but rejecting attempts at replacing their Weltanschauung by submitting to western normative understandings of religion. Although in writing new histories of this era we cannot, should not, ignore previous historicisms of missions, our re-historicising needs to move away from what are essentially western-oriented understandings of modernity’s development. We need to develop a wider and more complex imagining, one that relates the past to the potential presents that there might have been, as a way of perhaps appreciating the futures that there might now be.104

100 101 102 103 104

Ibid., 86–87. Ibid., 95. Ibid., 103. Ibid., 105–108. This is part of a process of moving away from the form of purity that the Guyanese writer Wilson Harris seeks to overcome, in favour of an understanding of hybridity that seeks to develop understandings away from western conceptions of modernity and monoculturalism towards a dismantling of received assumptions and western theory; B. Ashcroft/G. Griffiths/H. Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back. Theory and Practice in Postcolonial Literatures, London–New York 1989, 22002, 34, 152 respectively.

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6. CONCLUSION It is notable that mission historians have begun to use postcolonial theory to understand their subjects in geographically diverse contexts such as India, the Caribbean, or Latin America. It seems that this is happening to a far lesser extent in mission research on the wider Middle East. One reason for this might be the contemporary political pitfalls involved: postcolonialism is about linking the past and the present, partly in order to understand potential futures that might have been, and that may yet be. For example, as mentioned above, the Subaltern Studies movement began by reflecting on the failure of Indian social revolution in the context of a general liberation struggle from British oppression, but from that developed into an understanding of contemporary and future Indian society. Analogous thinking in the context of missionaries in Palestine is deeply complex: whether one regards the contemporary situation as one of colonial oppression by Israel of Palestinians, or one of perennial Arab threat to a soi-disant ‘Jewish state’, if mission history is not only to relate to the past, but to help interpret the present and even the future, there are pitfalls everywhere, and it becomes almost impossible to avoid sensibilities about the current political situation in Israel/Palestine. However, although re-historicising mission history in a postcolonial world is not necessarily a straightforward task, it offers rewards not only in terms of a far wider trans-national perspective – to refer back to the invitation to the Kaiserswerth conference – but also a trans-era perspective. This is something that much of our present teologically-oriented historicising seems to lack, being so often dependent on western readings and authentication of missionary work and interpretations of modernity. This kind of re-assessment of the place of missions in the colonial enterprise in the Middle East is what this volume and others are increasingly addressing. This has potential consequences for our relations with the present circumstances in the region, an issue that is often sidestepped. In India, national liberation, initially seen as linked to national independence, is now understood to be something that is continual and on-going: there are clear connections to specific events such as national independence, but the focus is on the movement rather than the moment, the process rather than the individual events. In examining mission history in Palestine through the postcolonial lens (as I have described it) we might ask ourselves: what are the movements that relate to specific moments of missionary involvement, and what are the consequences for us as scholars and as human beings? PRIMARY SOURCE ABBREVIATIONS CS-LW: Church of Scotland Life and Work FC-MMR: Free Church of Scotland Monthly and Missionary Record FC-JMC: Free Church of Scotland Jewish Mission Committee NLS Acc: National Library of Scotland Accession records UFC-MR: United Free Church of Scotland Missionary Record

GERMAN MISSION-PROPAGANDA-MOVIES IN PALESTINE: HOW TO DO MISSIONARY FUNDRAISING AND MOTIVATE DONORS Jakob Eisler INTRODUCTION When the book of Jakob & Natan Gross about the “Hebrew Film” was published in 1991, Israeli scientists did not know how many, if any, German Christian films about Palestine and the Holy Land were being produced. 1 It was only in the last few years that it was discovered that the development of Palestine in modern times was documented in film, as was supposed by the Gross authors, or if this happened also from the Christian side. Research over the last thirty years shows that Christians were producing the majority of photographs of the Holy Land in 19th century Palestine. Already a few months after the invention of photography in 1839, the French photographer Frederic Goupil Fesquet (1806–1893) took the first pictures of the city of Jerusalem. Englishmen, Scotsmen, Americans, Germans, Austrians, Swiss, Italians and local Armenians followed him. About 150 photographers were active until the First World War, leaving a legacy of their documentation, which are now important sources for research on Palestine.2 During the time of the British mandate from 1918–1948 the records increased significantly. The French Lumiere Brothers made some their first films in Palestine, employing photographer Alexandre Eugene Promio (1868–1926) to make the first short films there in 1896/97. One of these films is titled “The Railway Line from Jaffa to Jerusalem”. Other short films deal with the cities of Jaffa, Jerusalem and Bethlehem.3 1 2

3

Gross Jakob und Natan, The Hebrew Film, Jerusalem, 1991 (Heb.). One of the first important books about the photography in 19th century Palestine is: Eyal Onne, Photographic Heritage of the Holy Land 1839–1914, Manchester, 1980. Afterwards there were dozens of books with photographs from the 19th century on the market especially books by Mordechai Naor. In Hebrew one can find books of Ely Schiller. [For the 50 th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, countless picture books consisting of historic al photographs between 1839 and 1948 were published. For example, From then to Eternity. Early Photographs of the Holy Land, Jaffa 1998, and Gösta Flemming/Mia Gröndahl, The Dream of Jerusalem: Lewis Larsson and the American Colonie photographers, Stockholm 2005.] Tryster Hillel, Israel Before Israel. Silent Cinema in the Holy Land, Jerusalem, 1995, p. 6; On the Lumiere Brothers and their films: Jaques Rittaud-Hutinet, Le Cinema des Origines. Les Frères Lumiere et leurs Operateurs, Seyssel, 1985. There one can find the description of the

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Since the beginning of the 20th century, European and American production companies produced films of distant, exotic countries to keep their enthusiastic cinemagoers. Up to the First World War several short films were made dealing with the holy places of Christianity, such as the port city of Jaffa, the cities of Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Jericho, the valley of the River Jordan and the Dead Sea.4 German film producers like the photographer Wilhelm Dachwitz, Ernst A. Kaufmann who later called himself Selman (1892–1956) in the USA, and Paul Hommel (1880–1957), among others, filmed over a dozen films up to the end of the British mandate government. In this article two films produced by the Bodelschwingh Institution near Bielefeld, Germany, will be analysed. These two films typify German Christian missionary and documentary films of Palestine of this time. FILMS OF THE BODELSCHWINGH INSTITUTION Martin Luther can be regarded as one of the greatest propagandist of his time for his use of the press. He felt the press and “all the arts and sciences have reached the highest point, although they are highly despised at the same time. Printery is the last and at the same time the greatest gift, for god wanted that through it true religion was made known throughout the world unto the ends of the earth…It is indeed the last indissoluble flame of the world”. 5 If Luther had lived during the time of the invention of film he would have no doubt acknowledged film as the next step for reaching a wider group. Germany was hesitant with utilising film at the end of the 19th century. While the Catholic Church used this medium for publicity before the First World War, the Lutheran Church in Germany approached this topic only after the First World War.6 German missionary films were used in missionary work for the first time in the 1920s. Before the First World War the Bethel Mission equipped a missionary in Africa with a film camera, but his efforts to film in Rwanda failed. After the war, the Herrnhut director Hermann Steinberg turned to the Bethel Mission for this new medium: “We steer towards the goal to put the moving picture in the service of mission publicity …” 7 In 1922, Bethel established its own

4 5 6 7

year 1896, p. 32–58. On the work of Promio ibid. p. 140–149 and S. 236. In the Lumiere Brother’s catalogue Near East are found between nos. 394–417. The film mentioned here is no. 400. Tryster 1995, p. 7-9. Gross 1991, p. 14–16. All films known to him from this period are des cribed here. Timm Hermann, ‘Mit der Schrift allein. Medienprotestantismus ? Eine Apologie des Buchzeitalters,’ p. 70–85 especially p. 74–75 in: Klaas Huizing and Horst Rupp (eds.) Medientheorie und Medientheologie, Münster, 2003. Heiner Schmitt, Kirche und Film. Kirchliche Filmarbeit in Deutschland von ihren Anfängen bis 1945, Schriften des Bundesarchivs, Vol. 26, Boppard, 1979, p. 64–87 (henceforth: Schmitt 1979). Bethel Missions-Archiv. Letter from 26. August 1925.

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film centre. The leader of this film centre was the former Gossner missionary Rudolf Friedrich Poppinga (1881–1931). After Poppinga’s death Gerhard Jasper took up this position. His goal was to use films as popular missionary media, as well as media for the collection of donations alongside traditional forms of information like missionary newsletters, tracts, lectures, pictures and transparencies. Bethel, the Berlin Mission, the Leipzig Mission and the Herrnhut Mission combined their efforts to start filming missionary films in Africa. 8 By 1933 sixteen mission films for the internal and external missions were produced by the film centre of Bethel. Two of them dealt with German Christian activity in the Holy Land.9 THE PALESTINE FILM OF THE SYRIAN ORPHANAGE OF “SCHNELLER” IN JERUSALEM Up to the beginning of the 19th century, Palestine was a province of the farstretched Ottoman Empire and in the periphery of European interest. Only the traditional protective powers of Latin and Orthodox Christianity, like France and Russia, were present in the country. Not until the reform period, from 1839 to 1878, did Palestine open up and the “century of the mission” start.10 During this time, numerous American, English and German mission societies moved into the country. In 1846, the first German Lutheran missionaries from the pilgrim mission of St.Chrishona near Basle were sent to Palestine. In 1851 the Kaiserswerth Deaconesses Institution established a hospital and later a school in Jerusalem. From 1868 German settlers arrived in the country, many of whom belonged to the Temple Society developed from Wuerttemberg Pietism. This began the far-reaching and effective long-term activities of the Wuerttemberg missionaries and settlers. Their involvement extended mainly to education and social welfare, as well as town planning, agriculture and trade that would become a formative influence for the country. The importance of the German Lutheran missions and settlements receded during the time of the mandate and by the Second World War, their work had ceased.11 8

On the “Filmstelle”of Bethel: Gustav Menzel, Die Bethel-Mission – Aus 100 Jahren Missionsgeschichte, Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1986, p. 273–274. On the importance of evangelical films cf.: Gerhard Jasper, Die Aufgabe des evangelischen Christen am Film und die Frage nach dem evangelischen Film, in: Beth-El, Vol. 26, no. 6, 1936, p. 189–192. 9 Calwer Kirchenlexikon, Vol. I, 1937, p. 581–582. 10 About the changes in Palestine and the opening of the Levant to western powers see: Moshe Ma’oz (ed.), Studies on Palestine during Ottoman Period, Jerusalem 1975; Alex Carmel, ‘The Activities of the European Powers in Palestine 1799–1914: AAS 19 (1985),’ p. 43–91; Alexander Schölch, Palästina im Umbruch 1856–1882. Untersuchung zur wirtschaftlichen und sozio-politischen Entwicklung, Stuttgart, 1986. 11 Siegfried Hanselmann, Deutsche evangelische Palästinamission. Handbuch ihrer Motive, Geschichte und Ergebnisse, Erlangen 1971; Abdel-Raouf, Sinno, Deutsche Interessen in Syrien und Palästina 1841–1898, Berlin, 1982; Alex Carmel, Die Siedlungen der württembergi-

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Of the German missions that were working since the middle of the 19 th century, it was mainly the Syrian Orphanage that ran trade operations. Established in 1860 in Jerusalem by the Wuerttemberg citizen Johann Ludwig Schneller (1820– 1896), who was under instruction of the pilgrim mission of St. Chrishona, it was an orphanage with a school for Christian orphans from Lebanon and Syria. Soon after it opened, workshops in metal-work, tailoring and shoemaking were added. Schneller followed the example of the Rescue Institutions that had come into being in Wuerttemberg in the 19th century. The idea was to help pupils get to a position where they could earn their own living after completion of their studies through a qualifying education. At the height of its success, the institution had at its disposal a wood-turner’s workshop, metal workshop, joiner’s workshop, brickworks, pottery, a mechanical workshop, print shop and many more. The pupils were educated to the highest standard of the newest technology. Thus the Syrian Orphanage developed into the largest educational institution in the entire Near East at the end of the 19th century.12 Johann Ludwig Schneller and especially his son Ludwig Schneller (1858– 1953) realized from an early stage the importance of the printed word for the collection of donations from abroad. The printing operation of the Syrian Orphanage in Jerusalem, established in 1883, was the first German printer in Palestine. The main idea was to produce a magazine “The Messenger from Zion” about the Holy Land and about the Institution to send to friends of the mission and potential financial backers. Even before the First World War, the Syrian Orphanage produced brochures in Arabic, English, French, Hebrew and Turkish. From 1928 the “News from the Syrian Orphanage. Greetings from the old homeland to all former pupils” was printed in German and Arabic and sent around the world. The founder’s son, Ludwig Schneller, published hundreds of articles, dozens of books and brochures that aimed to bring the Holy Land and the bible closer to the people. This proactive approach to contemporary technology lead to Schneller’s Syrian Orphanage playing a pioneering role in the area of missionary films.13 In the 1920’s Ludwig Schneller was president of the Association of the Syrian Orphanage in Cologne and was often asked to produce a film about the work of the “Syrian Orphanage” in the Holy Land. At the beginning of 1926 negotiations were initiated with the film centre in Bethel near Bielefeld. The minutes of the presidency meeting dated 24 November 1926 state that the negotiations with Bethel were not yet finalized. Pastor Hans Niemann (1902–1935) was appointed schen Templer in Palästina 1868–1918, 3rd ed. Stuttgart, 2000; Jakob Eisler/Norbert Haag/Sabine Holtz, Kultureller Wandel in Palästina im frühen 20. Jahrhundert. Eine Bilddokumentation, Epfendorf, 2003. 12 Samir Akel, Der Pädagoge und Missionar Johann Ludwig Schneller und seine Erziehungsanstalten, Bielefeld 1978; Eisler/Haag/Holtz 2003, especially p. 81–110. 13 Cf. Jakob Eisler/Arno G. Krauß, Bibliographie der Familie Schneller. Das Syrische Waisenhaus in Jerusalem: Kleine Schriften des Vereins für württembergische Kirchengeschichte, 4, Stuttgart, 2006, p. 36–60. On Ludwig Schneller as a geo-religios poet and writer cf. Roland Löffler; ‘Apostelfahrten und Königserinnerungen’; Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, Vol. 118, no. 2 2007, p. 213–245.

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to continue the negotiations with the leader of the film centre. Poppinga and a committee was appointed by members of the board, to include Messrs, Richard Otto, Gustav Braun and Ludwig Schneller, who were entitled to make a final decision with regard to the film production. 14 The negotiations continued for another month until the contract was signed on 11 December 1926. It was agreed that the Institution of Bethel would shoot a film titled “The Work of Love of the Syrian Orphanage in the Holy Land” that would also include other Lutheran missions in the Holy Land. The start of production was planned for February/March 1927. The costs would be borne by the film centre of Bethel, whereby they would receive the rights of the film. Further, the question of the income from the film was contractually agreed upon.15 In March 1927 the photographer Wilhelm Dachwitz travelled to Palestine to shoot the aforementioned film. The director of the Bethel Institutions, Pastor Friedrich von Bodelschwingh jr. (1877–1946) and his wife joined Dachwitz to follow the film’s progress. The Lutheran Newsletter for Palestine reported: the film is not “in the first instance only intended for propaganda uses but should be put in the service of the people’s mission at home and so should help to serve the kingdom of God.”16 The magazine of the Orphanage “The Messenger from Zion” reports: “A special filming master from Bethel travelled to Jerusalem for that and has captured the pictures through the ages. He lived in the Syrian Orphanage for almost a month. A whole troop of our people travelled along to help him, our experienced Pastor Hermann Schneller at the front. The whole caravan travelled with the artist through the country, to Jerusalem, to North and South Judea, to Galilee, to Jericho and into the desert. Only through this were the pictures possible as I had planned.”17 In the presidency meeting of May 1927 in Cologne it was reported that the film of the Syrian Orphanage, with the constant help of Pastor Hermann Schneller and many friends of the institution, was an excellent success. 18 The almost two kilometre long film shows the Syrian Orphanage and places of the life of Jesus and scenes of the stories of the Passion, Easter and Ascension of Christ. “These will surely be a great attraction for an audience”. In the second last week of August 1927 the first screening of the film took place in Bethel, even before the release by the censor in September 1927. The magazine “Upwards” reported about the content: 14 Landeskirchliches Archiv Stuttgart (henceforth: LKA Stuttgart), K8, no. 8, Vertrauliche Sitzung des Vorstandes des Syrischen Waisenhauses in Jerusalem, Protokoll vom 24. November 1926, Nr. 172, § 7. 15 LKA Suttgart, K8, Handakten Pastor Niemann, contract of 11. December 1926 between the Syrian Orphanage and the Filmstelle Bethel. 16 Evangelisches Gemeindeblatt für Palästina (henceforth: E.G.f.P.), Vol. 3, no. 4, April 1927, p. 15. 17 Bote aus Zion (im folgenden: BaZ), Vol. 43 no. 2, Sep. 1927, p. 246. 18 LKA Stuttgart, K8, Nr. 8, Vertrauliche Sitzung des Vorstandes des Syrischen Waisenhauses in Jerusalem, Protokoll vom 4. Mai 1927, Nr. 174, § 2. Bundesarchiv Filmabteilung (Berlin). (henceforth: BA Filmstelle) The censor’s record indicates that the film was in five parts and had a length of 1793 m.

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Jakob Eisler “With a few deacons of Bethel who were called to Jerusalem by the leader of the Syrian Orphanage director [THEODOR] SCHNELLER we land in the port of Jaffa, ride on camels to Bir Salem, the first station of the Syrian Orphanage, get acquainted with the harvesting of oranges in Bir Salem, travel on to Jerusalem… to the Syrian Orphanage, a little Bethel in the middle of the Holy Land. When in 1860 numberless Syrian children were robbed of their parents through the massacres of Christians, “Father Schneller” [Johann Ludwig Schneller] fetched the first nine orphans and founded with them the Syrian Orphanage that has grown in the meantime into a large institution catering now not only for orphans, but also the blind who find merciful admission. The film shows us the orphans in classes, at sport and play, at work in the yard. We attend a confirmation class and wander with the confirmands to a small wood where director Sheller tells them stories and admonishes them to hold on to their vow that they made in church today. We go on an excursion to Bethany, pass by the grave of Rachel, go through Samaria past the well of Jacob of Galilee. We greet Dschenin, where Jesus healed the ten lepers and – Nazareth! In front of us lies in beauty the closer home of the little Jesus child. In Nazareth we rest at the well of Maria,… visit the senior civil servant of Nazareth who used to be a pupil of the Syrian Orphanage…”19

The film won a large audience in Germany. According to the contract the orders of the parishes were sent to Bethel, and the film centre assigned a deacon and a film projectionist to each function. One third of the income went to Bethel, one third went to the Association of the Syrian Orphanage (Cologne), and one third went to the host parish, after the deductions of the running costs (like hall hire, transport and accommodation). Every three months the respective amount was transferred to the Association of the Syrian Orphanage.20 To maximise profit for the society, printed pamphlets about the Syrian Orphanage were offered for sale: the brochure “Tour Through the Syrian Orphanage” with 44 pages of articles and pictures gave one third of the income to Bethel and the rest to the Association of the Orphanage. Through this, both media could be combined: the printed work and the film in the parish hall.21 Advertising for orders of the film was done in the magazine of the Syrian Orphanage: “The film of the Syrian Orphanage…offers some uplifting and edifying hours to every parish…The words of the songs to be sung are included in the printed program, and with a suitable closing statement by the pastor, the whole wins the character of a beautiful evening for the parishioners.”22 Some committee members and supporting parishes were openly critical about the film during the first year. They felt the film did not fulfil the promise of a strong view of Father Schneller’s work in the Holy Land. With so many scenes about Palestine and the work of other missions, many thought the film was not in accordance with the agreement of the presidency.23 In spite of this negativ criticism the reports from most parishes were positive, which allowed the film to continue to be shown.24 19 Archiv des Diakonischen Werkes der EKD (henceforth: ADW), Records CA/PD 303 of 21. August 1927. 20 LKA, K8, no. 39, Berichte aus dem Jahre 1928. 21 Ibid. Of correspondance between Ludwig Schneller and Missionary Poppinga from 10.7.1928; 7.9.1928 etc. 22 BaZ, Vol. 43 no. 3., Dez, 1927, p. 286. 23 LKA Stuttgart, K8, no. 39, cf. eg. letter from 28. January 1929.

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On 23 January 1928 Dean Brandenburger drew up a report in Dillenburg and wrote, “It was hours of celebration in the truest sense of the word, not only hours of enrichment of our knowledge of the Holy Land, but hours in which the passing pictures under the interpreting and deepening word of a warm conviction helped us to experience a piece of holy history, so that it surely was for many more than a song of the lips, but a confession of their hearts as the whole presentation concluded with the vow of [Nicolaus] Zinzendorf: “as we all meet here holding hands together…”25

In an example from Herborn, criticism of the film is evident: “The works of love of Father Schneller shows the love activity of the Syrian Orphanage through the showing of present living most clearly. However, the parts of the film depicting the Holy Land are mainly of an archaeological nature, showing past life in present-day remains … The archaeological parts move too quickly past the eyes … All thoughts are pointed to the building up of the film … To show this film and to explain it is a very difficult task …”26

While Dachwitz directed and shot the film, it was edited into its final version by the Gervid Film Firm in Berlin. Dachwitz worked without a script and filmed only the locations in Palestine to which he was led, which allowed artistic freedom for Gertrud David to adept the film to more closely follow the work of Father Schneller.27 There were difficulties with the film screenings in Bavaria. The Country Association for the Internal Mission in Nuremberg threatened Bethel to withhold screening permission in Bavaria if Bethel tried to screen the film in Bavaria without the assistance of the Bavarian Picture Chamber. The Picture Chamber intended to run the film with its own presenter, and without a speaker and projectionist from Bethel. Bethel refused this on grounds of their contract with the Association of the Syrian Orphanage. In addition to the aforementioned stipulations, the Bavarian Picture Chamber demanded 66% of the income, instead of the 33% the other screenings offered. Bethel, who wanted to present the film in Bavaria, finally allowed the Bavarians 60% of the profits.28 The film was shown in Bavaria by the Country Association for Internal Mission, but Bethel and the Association of the Syrian Orphanage lost all their income, as the expenses amounted to more than 40%.29 Within one year the cost of production of the film was recovered. The film, which cost about 15,000 RM to make, brought in more than 47,000 RM in the first year. The Association of the Syrian Orphanage earned over 20,000 RM in the first five years, as seen in the following table:

24 ibid. The file contains a list of responses from about 100 congregations from 1927–1930. All of these reports serve to recommend the Palestine film of the Schnellers most warmly. 25 ibid. Report of 23 January, 1928. 26 ibid. Report of Prof. Lic. Dell of Herbron on 1. February, 1928. 27 Schmitt 1979, p. 340, BA Filmstelle, Zensurkarte no. 16549 from 6. September 1927. 28 LKA Stuttgart, K8, Nr. 39, a letter of Poppinga to Ludwig Schneller from 20.6.1928. 29 ibid; Fränkischer Kurier, Nürnberg, no. 73, 14 March, 1929 “Der Palästina-Film des Landesvereins für Innere Mission.”

186 1927/1928 1928/1929 1929/1930 1930/1931 1931/1932

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11,918 RM 1,735 RM 5,738 RM 587 RM 145 RM30

After 1933 the number of screenings decreased. The difficulties that appeared in 1935 can be seen in Gerhard Jasper’s writing: “… because of the many difficulties in advertising … the film had to be totally cancelled due to pronouncements [of the NSDAP] …31 After 1935 the Palestine film was not to be shown in the German Reich at all. According to a source of the archive in Berlin, no further censor release was received, in contrast to the Kaiserswerth film detailed below. In 1935 the Association of the Syrian Orphanage received 89 RM as final payment from Bethel.32 Ludwig Schneller requested that Bethel leave a copy of the film to the Association. This copy survived the war of 1939–45 but was destroyed for fear of explosion in the early 1950s. THE FILM OF THE KAISERSWERTH DEACONESSES IN THE HOLY LAND The Kaiserswerth Deaconesses were active in the Holy Land from 1851. Theodor Fliedner initiated diverse actions to procure donations: creating an institution for the education of girls, and a hospital in Jerusalem. The special commitment of Kaiserswerth to the women of the Orient is valued as a pioneering achievement of extraordinary significance for the whole country.33 The film about the Kaiserswerth Deaconesses was filmed by Bethel at the same time as the Syrian Orphanage film. As was the case with Schneller and his film, the leader of the Bethel film centre, Rudolf Poppinga, contacted Kaiserswerth to inquire whether or not Kaiserswerth would be interested in a film made about their work. In contrast to the Schneller film, this film was published in the Kaiserswerth magazine only after the filming was completed. In August 1927 it reported: “We have been repeatedly requested to vividly display the work of the Kaiserswerth Mother House of the Lutheran parish in a film. We have resisted for a long time …”34 The managing director Deodat Disselhoff (1869–1952) eventually gave permission to begin filming. The film “Serving 30 LKA Stuttgart, K8, Nr. 39, cf. Quarterly accounts of Poppinga und Ludwig Schneller in the file. 31 ibid. Letter from Gerhard Jasper to Ludwig Schneller from 27 May, 1935. 32 BA Filmstelle cf. Censor’s record no. 16549. 33 Thorsten Neubert-Preine, ‘Diakonie für das Heilige Land – Die Gründung der Kaiserswerther Orientarbeit durch Theodor Fliedner’, in: Nothnagle et al. (ed.), Seht wir gehen hinauf nach Jerusalem, Leipzig 2001; Uwe Kaminsky, ‘German Home Mission Abroad: The Orientarbeit of the Deaconess Institution Kaiserswerth in the Ottoman Empire’; in: Mure-van den Berg (ed.), New Faith in Ancient Lands, Leiden, 2006, p. 191–210. 34 Armen und Krankenfreund (henceforth: AKF), Vol. 79, no. 8, August, 1927, p. 251.

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Love – Kaiserswerth Deaconesses at home and in the Orient” intended to depict the beginnings of the work and its development in Germany and also overseas in the Orient, with two main focuses: firstly, scenes filmed in Kaiserswerth in Germany, and secondly, scenes of the Orient filmed by Wilhelm Dachwitz. Since Dachwitz was experienced with this subject matter through his work with the Schneller film, during a visit in March 1927, he filmed in the Kaiserswerth girls’ school Talitha Kumi, the Kaiserswerth hospital in Jerusalem, as well as in the leper asylum “Jesus Help” in Jerusalem and in Bethlehem. Dachwitz filmed these scenes under the supervision of the president of the Kaiserswerth Deaconesses Institution Count Siegfried von Luettichau (1877–1965), who came to Jerusalem especially for this purpose on 14 March 1927.35 In April 1927 Dachwitz filmed the scenes of the Deaconesses Institution in Cairo and at the same time filmed the “Sudan Pioneer Mission” in Egypt. 36 Although von Luettichau followed the filming in Jerusalem and was present during some of the filming, he did not mention it in his writings about his travels in the Orient (published in Kaiserswerth in 1928).37 Only after the completion of filming was it decided to make two Kaiserswerth films from the existing material. The first one does not contain any pictures of the Holy Land, but exclusively pictures of Germany and Egypt. After receipt of confirmation by the censor on 29 June 1927, the content of the film was described in the magazine “Friend of the Poor and Sick” in the August edition. 38 In September 1927 the film was shown for the first time in the Kaiserswerth Mother House. “The Pigeon of Kaiserswerth” reports: “… now we are happy that everything was so successful. In this way we can now offer our many dear friends an even deeper insight into our work than is possible in a short one-day visit.” 39 Gertrud David (1872–1936), who had also edited the aforementioned film on the Syrian Orphanage in Berlin in 1927, was in charge of post-production. When the Kaiserswerth people saw the success of their first film and the even greater success of the Schneller film, they decided to produce another film about “Kaiserswerth Deaconesses in the Holy Land” from the unused film material. The aim of the second film was to show a broad view of all the Kaiserswerth activities in Palestine. The film was 1577 metres in length, to be shown in four parts: Part I showed the first Kaiserswerth Deaconess House from which the first four deaconesses went to the Holy Land; Part II introduced the girls’ institution Talitha Kumi and shows the work of the deaconesses in Palestine, e.g. the regular visits of former Talitha pupils, visits to the Church of the Redeemer and the services. Part III is devoted to the care of the sick in the German hospital in Jerusalem. Part IV shows 35 36 37 38 39

EGfP, Vol. 3 no. 4, April, 1927, p. 15. Schmitt 1979, p. 123. Siegfried von Lüttichau, Meine Reise ins Morgenland, Kaiserswerth, 1928. AKF, Vol. 79, no. 8, August, 1927, p. 251–254. Die Taube von Kaiserswerth, Mitteilungen no. 272, December, 1927, p.3–5. On Kaiserswerther Film cf also: ADW, CA/PD, in the newspaper Germania, 4.3.1928, no. 108 “Ein Diakonissenfilm”.

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the dedication of the Kaiserswerth sisters in the service of the Jerusalem Association in Bethlehem and the joint work with the Herrnhut sisters in the Leper Asylum “Jesus Help”. The work of the sisters in the Mount of Olives Foundation (the Church of the Ascension) is also shown. The film ends at the cemetery of Mount Zion in which seven Kaiserswerth Deaconesses and several other assistants are buried. Special mention was made of the grave of Charlotte Pils who was active in Jerusalem for over 50 years.40 Dachwitz’s film documented the activities of the Jerusalem Association of Berlin, since the Kaiserswerth Deaconesses served the Jerusalem Association in Bethlehem and the activities of the Herrnhuter. The pictures in the Augusta Victoria Foundation on the Mount of Olives depict a different dimension of German work. Unfortunately “The Pigeon of Kaiserswerth” did not publish a description of this film about the Holy Land. In its September/October issue it simply stated: “Next to the film ‘Helping Love – from the work of the Kaiserswerth Deaconesses at home and in Egypt’ we have now published a quite new film: ‘Kaiserswerth Deaconesses in the Holy Land’”.41 Like the film of the Syrian Orphanage, this film could be ordered from Kaiserswerth or Bethel for a screening. Kaiserswerth also tried to achieve an additional income from its presentation in parishes. The Institution ordered two postcards from the Stuttgart photographer Paul Hommel, in which buildings and activities in the Orient can be seen.42 An accompanying brochure for 40 Pf. could also be bought, which showed how these presentations were to be held as an evening for parishioners. Along with the film presentations, parishioners would sing, read poems and recite passages from the bible.43 Unfortunately, no archival documentation about this film could be obtained from Kaiserswerth, and no report about income and numbers of visitors can be read. It can be assumed that these are comparable with those of the film about the Syrian Orphanage. CONCLUSION The film centre of the Bodelschwingh Institutions documented the German Christian activity in the Orient vividly through its film work. The effect of the Lutheran mission activity, that had its beginnings in the 19 th century and reached its peak before the First World War, can be seen in the films of the 1920s. In this respect the Bethel films were made during the decline of the mission. The buildings and 40 BA, Filmstelle, Censor’s record no. 20946. On Sister Charlotte Pilz cf.: Jakob Eisler, ‘Charlotte Pilz 1819–1903’, in: Adelheid von Hauff (Hg.) Frauen Gestalten Diakonie, Vol. II, Stuttgart, 2006, S: 251–263. 41 Die Taube von Kaiserswerth, Mitteilungen no. 281/282, September/October, 1928, p.19. 42 Archiv des Jerusalemvereins zu Berlin, File with no record number, correspondance with Hommel. 43 Archiv der Kaiserswerther Diakonie, Pamphlet Kaiserswerther Film Part II “Kaiserswerther Diakonissen im Heiligen Lande”.

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the creative educational work portrayed the situation that these institutions held around 1900. Further Christian German film versions, like those of the Stuttgart photographer Paul Hommel, or Ernst A. Selman, were inspired by these films, and their work during 1929 and the 1930’s continued the work of previous missionary filmmakers.

CONSIDERATIONS OF THE CORRELATIONS BETWEEN SOCIAL WELFARE, MISSIONARY ACTIVITIES AND FOREIGN POLICY: GERMAN PROTESTANT COMMUNITIES IN ISTANBUL AND IZMIR AND THE DIASPORA CARE Christin Pschichholz 1. INTRODUCTION Newer research already called for closer inspections of the little-noticed correlations between the Innere Mission and missionary activities. At the annual Historikertag 2006, Rebecca Habermas observed close interdependence between “religiöse Sozialarbeit” (in place of using Wichern’s term Innere Mission) and missionary activities abroad. She pointed out the involvement of clergymen like Johann Hinrich Wichern and Friedrich von Bodelschwingh in both religious welfare work and Protestant missions as well as the exchange of ideas and practices between these two movements. Various “synergistic effects”, Habermas argued, emerged from this interface.1 Uwe Kaminsky and Roland Löffler both described the interaction between the concepts of the Social Protestantism movement and missionary activities, in the context of missionary institutions like the Bethel-Mission in German East Africa, the Syrische Waisenhaus and the Kaiserswerther Anstalten in the Arabic provinces of the Ottoman Empire. 2 In this regard, Löffler criticized the generalization of interconnections between mission developments and colonialism, such as Horst Gründer’s conclusions that described church and missionary institutions as a constitutive part of colonial expansionism of the West. 3

1

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Conference proceeding HT 2006: Von der “teilnehmenden Beobachtung” zur “Entwicklungspolitik”: Anthropologie, Sozialwissenschaften und der Kolonialismus (1800–1960). 19.09.2006–22.09.2006, Konstanz. In: H-Soz-u-Kult, 18.10.2006, http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id=1186. U. Kaminsky, “Die innere Mission Kaiserswerths im Ausland – Von der Evangelisation zum Bemühen um die Dritte Welt,” in: N. Friedrich/T. Jähnichen (eds.), Sozialer Protestantismus im Kaiserreich: Problemkonstellationen – Lösungsperspektiven – Handlungsprofile, Münster 2005, 355; R. Löffler, “Sozialer Protestantismus in Übersee – Ein Plädoyer für die Integration der Äußeren in die Historiographie der Inneren Mission”, in: N. Friedrich/ T. Jähnichen (eds.), Sozialer Protestantismus im Kaiserreich: Problemkonstellationen – Lösungsperspektiven – Handlungsprofile, Münster 2005, 323. H. Gründer, Welteroberung und Christentum. Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, Gütersloh 1992, 597.

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Instead he proposed an entanglement between the historiography of mission and Innere Mission in the nineteenth and twentieth century.4 In the following considerations, we will keep these perspectives in mind, but not in terms of the classical missionary institutions in the Ottoman Empire but rather the German Protestant communities. By focusing on the small German Protestant communities in Istanbul and Izmir, and the founding of their first institutions, this paper will add some additional observations about the correlations between social welfare work and missionary activities. A micro-historical survey of the communities’ first decades and the communication of the involved churchand governmental institutions leads us to a closer inspection of the German Protestant activities’ dynamic in the Ottoman lands and the interlocking between migration, Social Protestantism, missionary objectives, European colonial ambitions and last, but not least – the particular situation of the multiethnic society in the Ottoman port cities during the Tanzimat period.5 More specifically: The interrelation between Social Protestantism and mission had a strong effect on the development of the German cultural and educational policy abroad (auswärtige Kulturpolitik). Beside the initiation of domiciled German-speaking immigrants, the interaction between the state support, the aid of the Gustav-Adolf-Verein and the Kaiserswerth commitment assured the extended existence of the Protestant church in the Ottoman cities. But also the reasons and the motivation given regarding aid to these communities reveals the framework of Protestant activities in the Ottoman Empire. After a brief, general overview of European migration into Ottoman lands and basic information about the German Protestant communities in Istanbul and Izmir, I will describe the network involving these communities as well as analyze the various motives of the so-called Auslandsdiasporafürsorge. 2. EUROPEAN MIGRATION INTO THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE FOUNDING OF GERMAN PROTESTANT COMMUNITIES The Ottoman Empire, throughout history, received various migration movements. Migration occurred for economic and political reasons, and it affected the demographic structure of the population in the Ottoman lands. 6 The lenient nature of Ottoman policy facilitated migration and outsiders had easy access. One aspect of 4 5

6

Löffler, “Sozialer Protestantismus”, 321–322, 344; Kaminsky, “Die innere Mission”, 355–359. The records of the German Protestant communities, who settled in areas that belong to modern-day Turkey, provide the core sources for the following considerations. These include the correspondence between the communities, the German ministries and church authorities in Germany. Citations can be found in Evangelisches Zentralarchiv Berlin (EZA), Geheimes Staatarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz Berlin (GStA PK) and the archive of the Fliedner Kulturstiftung in Düsseldorf (FKSK). The church register of the community in Istanbul is archived at the still-existing Evangelische Gemeinde deutscher Sprache. F. Adanir and H. Kaiser, “Migration, Deportation, and Nation-Building: The Case of the Ottoman Empire”, in: R. Leboutte (ed.), Migration and Migrants in Historical Perspective. Permanenciens and Innovations, Bruxelles 2000, 273.

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the complex migration-processes in the nineteenth century was the immigration from European countries into the commercial centers such as Beirut, Aleppo, Izmir, Istanbul, and Salonika. The embassies, mercantile activity, and long-time inhabitants of European-origin, who were engaged in trade with Ottoman subjects, all confirm the presence of European communities in the Istanbul districts of Galata and Pera (Beyoğlu). The capitulations formed the basis of foreign trade and were general amnesties that guaranteed residence, travel, and trade as well as judicial, political, and religious rights in the Ottoman territories. These capitulations were formally granted by the head of the Islamic community in return for the pledge of friendship by non-Muslims.7 First rights were given to France. However, until the second half of the sixteenth century even Western nations lacking capitulations could be active in the Levant trade by traveling under the flag of a nation having capitulations, or through a go-between role played by the Genoese, Venetian and Ragusans.8 Against this background, European migration mainly took place within commercial centers and generally increased or declined depending on economical and political situations. In the nineteenth century, the number of European migrants considerably enlarged, due to the Tanzimat reforms, the increasing economical impact of England and France from the 1830s, and the Crimean War. 9 The rise of commerce in the Levantine during the 1830s and 1840s, increased, as well the number of German merchants and artisans. Instead of financial distress forcing artisans to migrate, the economic exchanges and commercial appeal of the Ottoman port cities motivated merchants to settle in the Ottoman port cities. 10 Artisans, in particular, wandered in search of employment across the Balkans and areas of Russia until they arrived at Ottoman ports, such as Istanbul and Izmir. While some often stayed for long periods, or even their whole lives, others chose to continue their journeys after a short sojourn. The annual report of 1863 of the deutsche evangelische Gemeinde indicated that immigrants had come to Istanbul after temporarily settling and/or traveling in areas of Hungary, Moldova, Wallachia, Greece, Russia or the European parts of the Ottoman Empire. In 1850, the number of German-speaking people in Istanbul was around 1.000, and increased up to 3.000 by the First World War. By contrast, in Izmir, the number of artisans, workers, and merchants was considerably less. In the same period, from around the middle of the nineteenth century until 1914, the number in Izmir increased from approximately 150 to 350 people. In Istanbul, Jewish and Catholic German-speaking immigrants simply joined other already established communities for religious life and services as did the Prot7

These given privileges belonged to the category of documents known as ahdnames and were given unilaterally. 8 H. İnalcık, “The Ottoman State: Economy and Society, 1300–1600”, in: H. İnalcık with D. Quataert (eds), An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, Cambridge 1994, 189. 9 S.T. Rosenthal, The Politics of Dependency. Urban Reform in Istanbul, Westport, CT 1980, 11. Oliver J. Schmitt, Levantiner. Lebenswelten und Identitäten einer ethnokonfessionellen Gruppe im osmanischen Reich im “langen 19. Jahrhundert”, München 2005, 93 10 A limited number of small business men, coachmen, and medical professionals also complemented the German-speaking settlement in the middle of nineteenth century.

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estants. In the 1820s and 1830s, Protestant immigrants attended the services of the Swedish and Dutch communities. Thereafter, a German missionary organized services until 1843. An informal Protestant community thus was formed. Together, with this missionary, some German-speaking Protestants petitioned the Prussian church and Prussian King for rectorate.11 The reason for this application was due to the wish for regular services, religious ceremonies in the German language, and a more formally-organised community. Moreover, a pastor could represent the interests of the German immigrants by founding their own school and a welfare association. In the same year, Frederick William IV. and the Prussian ministries decided to set up a Gesandtschaftspredigerstelle, as they had previously done at other embassies.12 The delegated pastor and the German Protestant community were integrated into the Prussian church, and put under the protection of the Prussian king. Through the employment at the Prussian embassy these Gesandtschaftsprediger were not only a part of the Prussian officialdom like their colleagues in the German states, but moreover subordinated to the ministry for foreign affairs and thereby involved in foreign policy and German-Ottoman relations. 3. DIASPORA CARE, NATIONALIZATION AND GERMANESS The capitulations declared the foreign, as well as the German communities – whatever the member’s religious denomination – as autonomous groups under a deputy or consul. The Germans therefore found themselves in a different situation from the Greek-Orthodox, Armenian and Jewish communities, which had a semiautonomous status as Millet, but were the subjects of the Ottoman sultan. The capitulations specifically linked the German community to the Prussian/German embassy until their abrogation in 1914 and thereby with German legislation, foreign policy, and German-Ottoman relations. In addition, German authorities kept contact with the immigrants through the so called Auslandsdiasporafürsorge – the Diaspora care of Germans abroad. In the case of the German Protestant communities in Istanbul and Izmir, different institutions were involved: At first the Prussian protestant church and the Prussian king as summus episcopus assumed this obligation. In many cases, Prussian ministries of culture and foreign affairs were involved in decisions. As the Diaspora care was an inherent part of the social Protestantism movement religious institutions, established during the vormärzliche Vereinsbewegung, guaranteed additionally organizational and financial aid.13 11 Because of the capitulations it was a logical step to address the petition to Prussia. Moreover Prussian Kings had a long tradition in supporting protestant communities in the Diaspora as well as the Prussian church united the different inner protestant denomination, which was valuable for the different migration backgrounds, B. Wellnitz, Deutsche evangelische Gemeinden im Ausland. Ihre Entstehungsgeschichte und die Entwicklung ihrer Rechtsbeziehung zur Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland, Tübingen 2003, 60. 12 Ibid, 52. 13 T.Nipperdey, “Verein als soziale Struktur im späten 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhundert”, in: H. Bockmann (ed.), Geschichtswissenschaft und Vereinswesen im 19. Jahrhundert. Beiträge zur

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One institution of the Istanbul community exemplifies the multilayer involvement of Diaspora care: On the initiative of Carl Forsyth Major, the first delegated Prussian Gesandtschaftsprediger, resident community members set up a charity association in 1844. Serving the many immigrant workers and seamen who arrived at the Ottoman capital impecunious and often diseased, the aim was to provide simple lodging as well as medical care, and finally opening a hospital. 14 Thereupon, Frederick William IV. authorised an appeal for funds and the GustavAdolf-Verein assured financial support for the Protestant hospital.15 Additionally, Andreas Mordtmann, member of the community committee, contacted Johann Hinrich Wichern in 1847, in the endeavour to recruit the Kaiserswerth deaconess for nursing staff. The founder of the Rauhe Haus accordingly suggested Theodor Fliedner that Istanbul might be a place for an expansion of the Kaiserswerther Orientarbeit. Despite Fliedner’s interest, the revolutionary events in 1848 have had the proceeding postponed the plan. In 1850, Moritz August von Bethmann-Hollweg, president of the Centralausschuss der Inneren Mission and the future Prussian minister for education resumed the negotiations. Secondary the long-time resident carpenter and committed committee member Heinrich Jacob Stoll visited Kaiserswerth, in order to contact the administration directly. After three deaconesses had arrived in Istanbul and Frederick William IV. donated a pharmacy, the hospital provided a continuous service.16 Each institution which was involved with Diaspora care associated specific aims with the dedication for the small Protestant communities and their institutions. One aspect, however, connected them all: The communities abroad were regarded as ethnic outposts of Germanness that deserved protection, financial support, diplomatic representation, and religious commitment from Germans living in Central Europe. In particular, the increasing number of Aus-landsdeutsche and Auslandsgemeinden, combined with national consciousness, formed the foundation for a newly-defined theological orientation.17 This outlook combined the in-

14

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Geschichte historischer Forschung in Deutschland, Göttingen 1971, 1–44; K. Tenfelde, “Die Entfaltung des Vereinswesens während der Industriellen Revolution in Deutschland (1850– 1873)”, in: Otto Dann (ed.), Vereinswesen und bürgerliche Gesellschaft in Deutschland, München 1984, S. 55–114. M. Kriebel, Die Geschichte der deutschen evangelischen Gemeinde in Konstantinopel Istanbul von 1843 bis 1932, (unpublished manuscript), 23–24. Martin Kriebel filled the position as Gesandtschaftsprediger from 1932. He authored the German Protestant community’s chronicle, which was only partly published in Jahresheft der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirchengemeinde zu Istanbul. The entire manuscript is preserved at the Evangelische Gemeinde deutscher Sprache in Istanbul. The Gustav-Adolf Verein was formed of members of the Evangelical Protestant churches of Germany in 1832. The original idea was to raise a Gustav Adolf monument celebrating the battle of Liitzen (November 1832). Soon the charter has been extended to a foundation of Diaspora aid, especially in Roman Catholic countries. In this field of the Gustav.Adolf-Verein became the most important institution. For more information see: H. Riess (ed.), In der Liebe liegt die Hoffnung.150 Jahre Gustav-Adolf-Werk, Kassel 1982. Bericht der Diakonissen-Stationen im Morgenlande 1852–55, 33. About the term Auslandsdeutsche and the correlation between fantasies of colonial conquest and contemporaneous debates over mass emigration in precolonial Germany see B. D.

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terest of the religious Diaspora with nationalism and partly German Volk-ideology.18 Within the Auslandsdiasporafürsorge church as well as national responsibilities and interests were brought into contact. Even in the middle of the nineteenth century, neither a colonial empire nor a German nation state had yet emerged, German-speaking communities in Europe and overseas were considered as nonassimilated groups and the starting point for informal impact on the host society. 4. THE DREAM OF A GERMAN ‘COLONY’ IN ISTANBUL The economist Friedrich List (1789–1846) described the Drang nach Osten related with the economic future of Germany. In this context, he pleaded for selective measures regarding German migration, also to Asia Minor. German colonial settlements among the territories of Ottoman Empire were already the subject of a lively discussion in first half of the nineteenth century, according to publications about the organization and economic utility of migration. Hans Christoph von Gagern, at the end of the eighteenth century, alluded to the joint mission of Germans, Swiss, and French, which included the expulsion of Turks out of the Levant, by means of strong migration from European countries. Ferdinand Lassalles and Carl Rodbertus shaped a dream of a German Constantinopel in their correspondence. German travelogues from the first half of nineteenth century, as well, confirmed this aspiration by declaring areas in the Ottoman Empire as convenient territory of German settlements. Also, articles by the young Helmuth von Moltke in the Augsburger Allgemeinen Zeitung, requesting more German activities in the Ottoman lands, stirred wide interest.19 The aspiration was to enlarge the impact of German economic as well as religious and cultural influence through a homogeneous colony. German-speaking immigrants and their institutions were seen as an instrument of foreign policy; the long-term objective was the development of markets and investment opportunities. These debates about influence capability within the Ottoman Empire were, of course, by no means a specifically German discussion. In general, the revolutionary events of 1848 newly defined the European Powers’ political fields of interest in Southeast Europe and Asia Minor. European immigrants and their descendants were seen as an instrument of political impact. Especially French and Italian institutions were provided to facilitate the (re)nationalisation of the long-time resident group of Catholic Levantines. Owing to the imperialistic aims and national com“Naranch, Inventing the Auslandsdeutsche. Emigration, Colonial Fantasy, and German National Identity 1848–71”, in: E. Ames, M. Klotz, L. Wildenthal (ed.), Germany’s Colonial Pasts, Lincoln, London 2005, 21–40. 18 Wellnitz, Gemeinden, 6; H.-J. Röhrig, Diaspora-Kirche in der Minderheit: eine Untersuchung zum Wandel des Diasporaproblems in der evangelischen Theologie unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Zeitschrift “Die evangelische Diaspora”, Leipzig 1991, 39. 19 H. Fenske, “Ungeduldige Zuschauer. Die Deutschen und die europäische Expansion 1815– 1880”, in: W. Reinhard (ed.), Imperialistische Kontinuität und nationale Ungeduld im 19. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt/Main 1991, 93, 96; M. Fuhrmann, Der Traum vom deutschen Orient. Zwei deutsche Kolonien im Osmanischen Reich (1851–1918), Frankfurt 2006, 43.

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petition between the European powers, the development of schools, welfare organizations and church institutions became a question of national prestige.20 Against this background of national ambitions the Prussian ambassador Hans Karl Albrecht Graf von Königsmarck21 optimistically contemplated in 1846 the increase in German-speaking immigrants into the Ottoman capital city. He forecast a constant rise in immigration to the Ottoman territory, because of the many opportunities for artisans and attractive revenues for merchants. Therefore, he advised a plan for action to the ministries to provide the basis for the enlargement of German settlements and at the same time to prevent the assimilation of the German-speaking immigrants into the multi-ethnic society of the Ottoman cities. The migration movement offered rewarding aspects also from a military perspective. The ambassador advised the Kabinetts- and Staatsminister of a suitable territory between Danube and Edirne for settling German colonists to strengthen the Prussian element.22 Rather, the commitment of the Prussian ambassador took place during a period, which has been summarized by various scholars of the diplomatic-historical aspects of the Ottoman-German relations, as of only ‘marginal interest’ of Prussia.23 But more recent research has suggested a different interpretation: Compared to the classical perspective and often reviewed period of the Wilhelmine times, Malte Fuhrmann and Nina Bermann extended the period under consideration in the context of the postcolonial approach and pointed out the grow in popularity of German colonial imaginations concerning the territory of the Ottoman Empire already in the middle of the 19th century.24 As the German Protestant community in Istanbul was the first institution set up by German immigrants, Prussian diplomats and ministries watched its development with high interest. Albrecht von Königsmarcks demanded organizational and financial aid for the church community. He pointed out that a Protestant community with a Prussian priest and German immigrants should create a center, which must spread Gospel and Civilisation and at the same time be a magnet for other scattered German “elements”.25 Influenced by the economist Friedrich List, he suggested that a stable group of German colonists could provide a hegemonic influence on the Otto20 Schmitt, Levantiner, 115. For the italian and french endeavors see: D. Grange, L’Italie et la Méditerranée (1896–1911). Vol. 2, Rom 1994, 643; L. Biskupski, L’origine et l’historie de la représentation officielle du Saint-Siège en Turquie 1204–1967, Istanbul 1968. 21 Hans Karl Albrecht Graf von Königsmarck represented Prussia in Istanbul until 1842. 22 “[…] um das preußische Element voranzutreiben […]”, Königsmarck to Staats- und Kabinettsminister von Canitz (20.1.1846), GStA PK, III. HA MdA I, Nr. 12563, n.s. 23 E.g. K. Pröhl, Die Bedeutung preußischer Politik in den Phasen der orientalischen Frage. Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklung deutsch-türkischer Beziehungen von 1606 bis 1871, Frankfurt a. M. 1986, 141–185; F. Scherer, Adler und Halbmond. Bismarck und der Orient 1878–1890, Paderborn u. a. 2001, 8. 24 See footnote 19. N. Berman, “Orientalism, Imperialism, and Nationalism: Karl May’s Orientzyklus” in: S. Friedrichsmeyer/S. Lennox/S. Zantop (eds.), The Imperialist Imagination. German Colonialism and its Legacy (Social history, popular culture, and politics in Germany), Ann Arbor 1998, 51–53. 25 Königsmarck to Staats- und Kabinettsminister von Canitz (20.1.1846), GStA PK, III. HA MdA I, Nr. 12563, n.s.

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man lands. The Prussian ministries, as a result, attached great importance to the incorporation of the communities into the Prussian church and the Prussian embassy. 5. KAISERSWERTH AND THE GERMAN PROTESTANT COMMUNITY IN IZMIR Even though the number of German inhabitants in Izmir was considerable less, a similar alliance between migration movements, Protestant communities and a colony as a national centre was created. Furthermore, in this Aegean port city Kaiserswerth was a driving force for an own rectorate. In the first half of the nineteenth century the small number of German-speaking immigrants in Izmir could join the church service of the Dutch community, which were held in French.26 From around 1850 a Prussian originated missionary of the Scottish Mission gave sermons in the English church. These regular services accumulate an informal group of German-speaking Protestants. But in contrast to the community in Istanbul, there was no initiative for their own pastoral care. Instead, a group of Protestant merchants and their families, including American, British, Swiss, Dutch and German, aspired to overcome the lack of Protestant education for their daughters.27 In 1852, the Prussian ambassador Ludwig Peter Spiegelthal, acted on this desire and recommended Izmir as new location of deaconess school to Theodor Fliedner.28 Due to the fact that each religious group supported their own educational institutions the number of educational establishments in Izmir was remarkable high. In particular, the number of Jesuit schools increased in the 1830s and 1840s.29 In contrast, Spiegelthal noted the loss of Protestant schools and religious influence in the city. In 1853, Kaiserswerth opened a girls’ secondary school and in 1866 an orphanage.30 The basis of the Kaiserswerth work in Izmir was the same as in the Ottoman lands in general: the conjunction between evangelical doctrine and social work,31 including implied missionary aims concerning the nonProtestant population.32 Because of the strong Catholic presence, Fliedner insisted on establishing an own rectorate, despite only about forty, or including temporary settlers and travel26 2. Bericht Diakonissenhaus in Jerusalem 1851/52, 45. 27 Ernst Steinwald, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen evangelischen Gemeinde zu Smyrna 1759–1904, Berlin 1904, 43 28 Steinwald, Beiträge, 43. 29 D. Goffman, “Izmir: from village to colonial port city”, in: E. Eldem/D. Goffmann/B.Masters (eds.), The Ottoman City between East and West. Aleppo, Izmir, and Istanbul, Cambridge 1999, 128. 30 Konsulat Smyrna to Auswärtiges Amt (24.8.1853), GStA PK, III. HA MdA I, Nr.12556, n.s. 31 Kaminsky, “Mission”, 358. 32 T. Neubert-Preine, “Fliedners Engagement in Jerusalem. Kaiserswether Diakonie im Kontext der Orientmission”, in: A. Feldtkeller/A. Nothnagle (eds.), Mission im Konfliktfeld von Islam, Judentum und Christentum. Eine Bestandsaufnahme zum 150-jährigen Jubiläum des Jerusalemsvereins, Frankfurt/Main 2003, 68.

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lers, approximately one hundred members joined the German Protestant community.33 An organized community with its own priest was, according to his account, indispensable to protect against the “Angriffe und Verunglimpfungen” on the part of the “Jesuiten-Propaganda”.34 With this line of attack, which was influenced by the increasing Protestant and Catholic polemics in the German lands 35 Fliedners arguments including the anti-Catholic sentiments, persuaded the Gustav-Adolf-Verein to fund a part of the pastor’s stipend.36 The denominational dichotomy was only one part of Fliedner’s vision of a rectorate alongside the deaconess institutions. Requesting more financial support from the Gustav-Adolf-Verein in Leipzig, he wrote to Superintendent Christian Gottlob Leberecht Großmann that synergistic effects between the German Protestant communities and the deaconess work would result: “Was auf der letzten Generalversammlung Herr Appellations-Rath [Ludwig] Jonas als eine Erfahrung in Bezug auf den Orient aussprach, daß da um Krankenhäuser und Schulen sich oft Kirchengemeinden als um einen Kern bilden, das wird sich auch unter des Herrn Segen, wie wir zuversichtlich hoffen, bald in Smyrna bewähren.”37

Continuing these observations of correlations between Kaiserswerth institutions and stable Protestant communities, ambassador Spiegelthal likewise referred to the prospect of German Protestantism influencing the Orient: “Würde daher angenommen, daß die Anzahl der Deutschen-Evangelischen zu Smyrna nicht ausreichend zur Hersendung eines Geistlichen sei, so würde doch auf der anderen Seite das dringendste Bedürfnis zur immer weitern Ausbildung der hiesigen Schule sich heraus stellen. Im Fall, daß man hierauf Rücksicht nimmt, die Abordnung eines Predigers in Erwägung zöge, erscheint auch die Bewegung, welche seit mehr wie Jahresfrist unter den Griechen und Armeniern zu Kaßaba, Thyatira und Philadelphia stattfindet, höchst beachtenswerth. In diesen nahe gelegenen Städten haben sich, hauptsächlich in Folge der Bemühungen des Missionars Wolters, Anfänge von evangelischen Gemeinden gebildet, die von hier aus mit Leichtigkeit geschützt und erweitert werden könnten. Die Schulen würden alsdann theilweise und in der Stille sich mit großem Erfolg in Missions-Schulen verwandeln lassen.”38

33 Unterstützungsauszug GAV 1853, EZA 200/1/6315, p. 12 v. 34 GStA PK, III. HA MdA I, Nr. 12556, n.s. 35 O. Blaschke, “Der ‘Dämon des Konfessionalismus’. Einführende Überlegungen”, in: O. Blaschke (ed.), Konfessionen im Konflikt. Deutschland zwischen 1800 und 1970: ein zweites konfessionelles Zeitalter, Göttingen 2002, 13–69; A.-H. Leugners, “Latente Kulturkampfstimmung im Wilhelminischen Kaiserreich. Konfessionelle Polemik als Konfessions- und innenpolitisches Kampfmittel” in: J. Horstmann (ed.), Die Verschränkung von Innen-, Konfessions- und Kolonialpolitik im Deutschen Reich von 1914, Schwerte 1987, 13–37. 36 Unterstützungsauszug GAV 1855, EZA 200/1/6315, p. 39; Unterstützungsauszug GAV 1856, EZA 200/1/6315, p. 54.; Unterstützungsauszug GAV 1859, EZA 200/1/6315, p. 92. 37 Fliedner to Superintendant Großmann (18.8.1853), FKSK, AKD 288. 38 Spiegelthal to Flieder (16.8.1854), quoted in: M. Kriebel, “Die Arbeit der Kaiserswerther Diakonissen in Smyrna-Izmir vom Jahre 1853–1919 und die Neugründung der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirchengemeinde”, in: Jahresheft der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirchengemeinde zu Istanbul (1940/41), 58.

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In 1855, Fliedner and Spiegelthal also accomplished the extension of the Kaiserswerth engagement with a pastor, whose stipend was guaranteed by the Prussian state and the Gustav-Adolf-Verein. The close intersection between social and missionary work, within the growing German Protestant communities was seen not only in the German Protestant peripheral in Izmir. Both Frederick William IV., the Prussian ministries, and organisations such as the Gustav-Adolf-Verein, supported these ideas and furthermore claimed that the Diaspora care should have an additional positive effect on the Protestant mission in the Ottoman Empire. The Gustav-Adolf-Verein saw the communities in a more general role as the interface between Germany’s missionary interest and the Armenian Protestant communities in Ottoman territories. The slowly-initiated contacts between the German and the Armenian communities in Istanbul, as well as in cities like Bursa and Amasya were supported under the aspect to providing a basis of protestant communities, which convince more Armenians to convert.39 Against this background church organisations as well as the Prussian ministries kept an eye on activities started by Protestant missions in territories of the Ottoman Empire, which during the 1820s and 1830s were organized by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.40 The small upsurge of these missionary activities around the middle of nineteenth century coincided with delegations of pastors to the cities of Izmir and Istanbul. The small Armenian-protestant communities symbolised a religious denomination within the Ottoman society. Although the rectories and German communities were not connected institutionally to mission activities they were seen as organizations which might operate in this field. Another example within the Protestant community illustrates how blended Diaspora care for immigrants and the missionary activities became in Izmir: In 1865 the Prussian pastor of the German community, Julius Axenfeld, succeeded in opening a boys’ school, which provided education for German-speaking Protestant pupils but basically was constructed for missionary influence among the Greek-orthodox population.41 Moreover, this project won support from the leader of the Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft, Friedrich Fabri, often regarded as a found3ing father of the German colonial movement. 42 Fabri, and the Protestant missionary society that he headed, were actively engaged in overseas evangelization in Southwest Africa, China, and the Dutch East Indies, as well as in parts of 39 E.g. Unterstützungsauszug 1858, EZA 200/1/4079, p. 90. 40 V. Artınıan, Osmanlı Devleti’nde Ermeni Anayasası’nın Doğuşu 1839–1863, Istanbul 2004, 54–56; D. Sahagian, “Die evangelische armenische Kirche”, in: F. Heyer (ed.), Die Kirche Armeniens. Eine Volkskirche zwischen Ost und West, Stuttgart 1978, 204. 41 Jahresbericht Smyrna 1866/67, EZA 200/1/6315, p .258. After his return, Axenfelds was engaged in various projects for social welfare and Diaspora care, see S. Bitter, U. Rumpler, Art. “Axenfeld, Julius Heinrich” in: Biographisch-Bibliographischen Kirchenlexikon, Vol. 23, Nordhausen 2004, 38–52. 42 Biographical overview see K. J. Bade, Friedrich Fabri und der Imperialismus in der Bismarckzeit. Revolution – Depression – Expansion, Freiburg/Breisgau 1975, 30–33.

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the Ottoman Empire – a compelling link between German overseas colonial activism and continental expansionism. 6. DEACONRY, DIASPORA CARE AND FOREIGN CULTURAL POLICY At first sight these movements to extend the support and desire for an influential colony within the Ottoman Empire, with a relatively small number of immigrants might appear astonishing. But this religious and national impetus occurred alongside the founding of the Anglo-Prussian Bishopric in Jerusalem in 1841. Political reasons obliged the Ottoman sultan to open the Arab provinces for European embassies and religious institutions. Also, Prussia was involved in extensive missionary activities. The Anglo-Prussian Bishopric was the beginning of a long-time vision of the Prussian government to secure a greater presence in the Ottoman Empire, because of the value of these territories for economical, imperial and religious expansion. For example, diplomats and statesmen such as Helmuth von Moltke, Christian Karl Josias Freiherr von Bunsen, Johann Albrecht Friedrich Eichhorn as well as Gerlach and Joseph Maria von Radowitz already submitted proposals in case of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and any changed status of the Holy Land.43 Numerous colonisation plans arose and included the settlement of German immigrants in Palestine. Also, the Kaiserswerther Orientarbeit in Jerusalem was part of a wide range of colonial and missionary projects. However, a settlement of European Protestants did not exist there until that time. Although Germans settlements were already planned before 1841, they were not feasible before the 1860s. Accordingly, the political ambitions were similar for the Protestant Diocese and the communities in Istanbul and Izmir. The significant difference was the absence of a graduallygrowing community of immigrants in Jerusalem. It is probably not a coincidence that those who encouraged the Anglo–Prussian Bishopric now paid attention to the German immigrants and their communities in the Ottoman port cities. For Heinrich von Bülow, Johann Albrecht Friedrich Eichhorn and Fredrick William IV., supporting the small communities was just an enlargement of the already-established developments in the Arab provinces. Fredrick William IV. described the connection between economic utilization, migration, and missionary success as follows: “Die reichen Provinzen des Osmanischen Reiches bieten dem Handel und der Industrie Deutschlands noch große Ausbeute, und bei der immer leichter werdenden Communikation ziehen alljährlich mehr deutsche Protestanten nach jenen Gegenden. Wie sich aus diesen Ankömmlingen von selbst künftig kleine evangelische Gemeinden bilden können, so darf man auch hoffen, dass die ausharrenden Bemühungen der deutschen Missionare, welche in Kleinasien und Syrien wirken unter der einheimischen Bevölkerung nicht ohne Erfolg bleiben werden.”44 43 J. E. Eisler, Der deutsche Beitrag zum Aufstieg Jaffas 1850–1914. Zur Geschichte Palästinas im 19. Jahrhundert, Wiesbaden 1997, S. 9; L. Hänsel, “Friedrich Wilhelm IV and Prussian Interests in the Middle East”, in: H. Goren (ed.), Germany and the Middle East. Past, Present and Future, Jerusalem 2003, 17–18. 44 GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 89 Geheimes Zivilkabinett, jüngere Periode, Nr. 21859, p. 11.

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Moreover, the migration process enticed Fredrick William IV. to enlarge this development. He considered, for example, agrarian settlements in Bulgarian regions and mandated the ambassador in Istanbul to accomplish an agreement with Sultan Abdülmecîd I on this issue.45 The attempt to exploit the migration to Ottoman cities represents the Prussian desire to become more than just a witness to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The commitment of Fredrick William IV. in Palestine, as well as in Istanbul and Izmir, illustrates concrete political, economic and religious interest in combination with colonial aspirations. Although these attempts were out of touch with the reality of the pluralistic immigrant community and incompatible with immigrant involvement in the Ottoman society, the church historical perspective shows that during the years from the foundation of the Anglo-Prussian Bishopric, and continuing with the engagements for the immigrants can be seen as a pioneering phase before German ambitions in the Ottoman Empire became apparent through the politics of pénétration pacifique. Even though community members and delegated pastors organized institutions like schools and welfare associations, it is evident that the Prussian ministries regarded the communities’ institutions as an augmentation of national presence along with the diplomatic instruments of foreign policy. As the educational and medical facilities were open to all population groups, and in particular charitable institutions provided the predominant missionary influence in the Ottoman lands, the development of the German Protestant communities sensitized the Prussian authorities to the opportunities to influence the Ottoman Empire through a prestage German cultural and educational policy abroad (auswärtige Kulturpolitik). The entanglement between aims of Social Protestantism and Protestant missionary work within the Diaspora care entailed in conjunction with the contemporary perception of migration an impact on German foreign policy. And in turn objectives of the German foreign policy affected missionary work and Diaspora care. This connection between migration, Diaspora charity, missionary goals, and colonial as well as political ambitions was not confined to discussions inside the Prussian ministries but rather infiltrated the Protestant communities, through Prussian pastors influenced by national Protestantism. In an appeal for funds to Protestants in Germany the committee in Izmir declared in 1865: “In den Verhältnissen des Landes ist ein mächtiger Umschwung eingetreten. Dieses Land, welches eine große Vergangenheit gehabt, dieses Land, welches die Stätte der ersten blühenden Christengemeinden, die Heimath der größten Kirchenväter, der Schauplatz der großen ökumenischen Concilien gewesen und dann viele Jahrhunderte lang im Unglaube und Unwissenhait versunken, unter der eisernen Faust des Eroberers schmachtete – dieses Land geht jetzt mit mächtigen Schritten einer besseren Zukunft entgegen. Kräftigung des christlichen Elements und Herstellung von Verkehrsmitteln – das ist die Losung, unter welcher Kleinasien den Platz zurückerobern wird, welcher ihm aufgrund seiner geographischen Lage und seiner natürlichen Bodenreichthums von Rechts wegen zukommt.”46

45 Fuhrmann, Traum, 45; GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 89 Geheimes Zivilkabinett, jüngere Periode, Nr. 13346, p. 1–6. 46 GStA PK, III. HA MdA I, Nr. 12557, p. 121.

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The committee members felt involved in this Christian Eroberung. They described how the Turkish population had abandoned their farmlands and receded inland. On the other hand, they described themselves as a part of the Christian recapture of Asia Minor, in which religious and national elements played a role. In the context of the Zeitgeist, migration processes and colonialism were linked and therefore the demographical changes were interpreted from restricted national and religious denomination perspectives. European commentators, furthermore, allegorized the Ottoman economy as a continuous collapse. Indeed, as a result of the Tanzimat reforms and the economic revival in the port cities, the Christian population grew. The Greek population increased especially in cities like Izmir between 1830 and 1860. At the same time it was a disregarded fact that this demographical changes were concentrated on only special regions but not on the whole west coast not to mention Anatolian regions. Moreover, the Muslim population was deeply involved in the economy of the Ottoman port cities, which did not comprise of the constant decline but, as numerous research on the Ottoman economy has shown, implied a prosperous domestic trade through the nineteenth century.47 But the image of the Ottoman Empire as the Sick man at the Bosphorus was omnipresent and compounded colonial ideas and missionary aspirations. In terms of the different motives of the Diaspora care, the religious denominations as well as national antagonisms inside Central Europe were more significant than the exact and detailed social, economic and demographic conditions. This rivalry between the European Powers’ within the Ottoman cities created an important impetus for the many educational, religious, social and medical facilities. Due to the fact that immense missionary endeavours, at least in part, occurred because non-Ottomans brought their competing religious and national ideas to the Ottoman lands, does not reflect the divers conditions and developments inside the mission institutions or among the missionaries themselves. But it might give a partial answer to the question as why the immense activity of mission resulted in such a small number of Ottoman converts.

47 Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire 1700–1922, Cambridge 2003, 126. More information about the economy, demographic and social characteristics in the 19th and beginning of 20th century see: D. Quataert, “The Age of Reforms, 1812–1914”, in: H. İnalcık with D. Quataert (eds.), An economic and social History of the Ottoman Empire, 759–943; K.H Karpat, Ottoman Population 1830–1914. Demographic and Social Characteristics, Madison 1985.

ATTITUDES IN WEST GERMAN PROTESTANTISM TOWARDS THE STATE OF ISRAEL 1948–1967 Gerhard Gronauer INTRODUCTION1 The opinion is widespread that Christians in the Federal Republic of Germany only began to deal with the existence of the State of Israel from the 1960s onward. This opinion may well be the case biographically, as, for example, Rolf Rendtorff (born 1925) remembers: “The State of Israel only entered the consciousness of my generation at a late stage. When it was founded, we were fully concerned with other issues.”2 This opinion is also correct quantitatively, as the number of people who were interested in events in the Middle East and published on the subject progressively grew in the course of time. In particular, the discovery of Israel as a travel destination at the end of the 1950s led to a heightened perception of events in the Middle East. Nevertheless, German Protestantism never ignored the State of Israel, even in the first years of Israel’s existence. Even in 1948, one can read in the Evangelisch -Lutherische Kirchenzeitung that the “events since May 14 of this year in Palestine ... have, in a special way, drawn the attention of Christendom” and have raised theological questions.3 The State of Israel was an enduring topic in Protestantism since 1948, not so much from a quantitative as a qualitative perspective – i.e. as regards content, not frequency. This essay will present Protestant individuals, groups and committees who, between 1948 and 1967, dealt with the significance of a Jewish state in various perspectives: theological (do Jews have a biblical right to the land?), moral (as a result of the Shoah, how much solidarity with Israel is required?), and political (what consequences do these implications have for an evaluation of the Middle East conflict?). This study is primarily concerned with the State of Israel. The Arab side will be incorporated to the degree that it interacts with the Jewish state. A glance through the most important church periodicals shows that independent of the actu1

2 3

This essay contains parts of the second chapter of my dissertation, which was accepted on May 14, 2008, by the Faculty of Theology at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität ErlangenNürnberg. The title is: “Die Wahrnehmung des Staates Israel im westdeutschen Protestantismus von 1948 bis 1972 unter Berücksichtigung der evangelischen Publizistik.” R. Rendtorff, “Identifikation mit Israel?”, in Kirche und Israel/KuI 7 (2/1992), 136–144, here 136. M. Wittenberg, “Zur geistigen Lage der gegenwärtigen Judenheit” in Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirchenzeitung/ELKZ 2 (1948), 179–185, here 179.

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al emergence of the Palestinian national movement, the now common category Palestinian was not generally used in Germany until the Six Day War. 4 As a result, I use categories of the time, which spoke not of Palestinians, but rather of the Arab population of Palestine. The word Israel refers, within Christian theology, to the Jewish people according to their status as a chosen people. This is manifested in the fact that the phrase ‘mission to the Jews’ had been synonymously interchanged with ‘Ministry to Israel’ or ‘Mission amongst Israel’. In this essay, however, I use the term Israel only in connection with the state of the same name. By the term West Germany I mean the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany and of West Berlin. Even though the Protestant regional churches of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) did not separate themselves from the Protestant Church in Germany (the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, EKD)5 until 1969, it is nevertheless appropriate to focus exclusively on West Germany, as the Protestant perception of Israel developed in interaction with the politics of the Federal Government and the possibility of travelling abroad. The German term ‘Protestantismus’6 (Protestantism) is more comprehensive than the expression ‘Evangelische Kirche’ (Protestant Church), as the latter rather seems to be limited to the church leadership (after all, the German word ‘evangelisch’ does not have the same meaning as ‘evangelical’). The nineteen years between May 14, 1948 (the establishment of the State of Israel) and June 5, 1967 (the beginning of the Six Day War) can be divided into two time periods, according to how Israeli statehood was perceived. It is relevant to ask at what point the break between the two periods occurs: according to many accounts of Jewish-Christian dialogue, the most important break occurred in the year 1961, in which the Working Group ‘Christians and Jews’ at the German Protestant Church Convention was founded.7 Even though the activities of this Working Group contributed to a popularizing of dialogue issues, as far as my topic is concerned this date does not function as an unambiguous threshold-year. This is due to the fact that Judaism and the State of Israel had already been dealt with at a Church Convention before, in Munich in 1959.

4 5 6 7

As evidenced in my dissertation. The EKD is a federation of all Protestant churches in Germany except the Free Churches. Regarding the confession, some territorial churches within the EKD are Lutheran, some are Reformed, others are ‘United’. Cf. N. Friedrich, “Die Erforschung des Protestantismus nach 1945. Von der Bekenntnisliteratur zur kritischen Aufarbeitung,” in N. Friedrich/ (ed.), Gesellschaftspolitische Neuorientierungen des Protestantismus in der Nachkriegszeit, Münster (2002), 9–35, here 9. Cf. G. Kammerer, In die Haare, in die Arme. 40 Jahre Arbeitsgemeinschaft ‘Juden und Christen’ beim Deutschen Evangelischen Kirchentag. Gütersloh 2001.

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Neither the Suez Crisis of 1956,8 nor the German-Israeli exchange of ambassadors in 1965,9 nor any political event in the meantime in the Middle East, led to a new phase in the evaluation of Israeli statehood by West German Protestantism. Far more decisive were the social and political developments that took place in West Germany during the transformations between the 1950s and 1960s. Historians argue that the modernization tendencies of the 1960s began in the late 1950s.10 The cultural upheavals of this period also had an effect on the German perception of the Jewish state: tourism expanded. Prosperity and leisure time led to interests beyond that of mere survival. The spread of the media (more radio and more newspapers subscriptions) brought about a growth in political knowledge. There was also a strong desire for political reform. Failures in the post-war period to come to terms with the Nazi past were increasingly criticized. 11 For my topic, the first caesura can be placed between 1957 and 1958, for the decennial Israeli State jubilee gave cause for reflection on the existence of the Jewish polity. Furthermore, the first wave of trips to Israel began in 1958.

8

Tensions between Israel and its neighbours exploded in the Suez War between October 29 and November 6, 1956, under the influence of the colonial powers Britain and France. Amongst the triggers for the war was Egypt’s nationalization of the Suez Canal, Egyptian denial of access for Israeli ships to the Gulf of Akaba, massive arms build-up of the Egyptian army through the Warsaw Pact and finally the numerous Fedajin, who again and again infiltrated Israel from Egypt. The Israeli surprise attack on Egypt and the pact between Israel and the former ‘imperialistic’ world powers damaged Israel’s image in the eyes of the world. France and Britain lost their influence in the Levant to the new world powers, the USA and the Soviet Union. As a result, the Cold War was extended into the Middle East. 9 Until 1965, apart from Spain and Portugal, Germany was alone in Western Europe for not recognizing the State of Israel. The Federal Government felt itself bound to the so-called Hallstein Doctrine. This inevitably implied a more distant relationship to the State of Israel, as “every convergence with the Jewish state ... has the risk that the Arab states would recognize the GDR” (M. Weingardt, Deutsche Israel- und Nahostpolitik. Die Geschichte einer Gratwanderung seit 1949, Frankfurt am Main/New York [2002], 108). The attempt of the Adenauer administration until 1963 to compensate Israel for a renunciation of diplomatic recognition with credit and arms aid, could not be sustained in the long run. Pressure from West German and Israeli public became too great. After the head of state of the GDR, Walter Ulbricht, was received by Egyptian President Nasser in February 1965, the Hallstein Doctrine seemed to be no longer valid. Thus Federal Chancellor Ludwig Erhard (CDU), without consulting other members of government, offered diplomatic relations to the State of Israel, which became official on May 12. – See Y.A. Jelinek, Deutschland und Israel 1945–1965. Ein neurotisches Verhältnis, München 2004, 431ff. – M. Weingardt, Nahostpolitik, 2002, 147–179. – M. Wolffsohn, Ewige Schuld? 40 Jahre deutsch-jüdisch-israelische Beziehungen. München/Zürich 1988, 29–37. – For Walter Hallstein see S.O. Berggötz, Nahostpolitik in der Ära Adenauer. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen 1949–63, Düsseldorf 1998, 89–95. 10 See various authors in the volume A. Schildt /D. Siegfried/K.C. Lammers (ed.), Dynamische Zeiten. Die 60er Jahre in den beiden deutschen Gesellschaften, Hamburg 2000. 11 See A. Schildt, “Materieller Wohlstand – pragmatische Politik – kulturelle Umbrüche. Die 60er Jahre in der Bundesrepublik,” in A. Schildt /D. Siegfried/K.C. Lammers (ed.), Dynamische Zeiten, 2000, 21–53.

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The June 1967 Six Day War12 presents us with a further caesura and ends the second period. From 1967, with the capture of new territories, Israel lost the image it had amongst segments of West German society as the weak ‘David’, who was pitted against an overpowering Arab ‘Goliath’. The pro-Israel left, who had been visiting the Jewish state since 1958, were irritated that the younger generation from the environment of the Student Christian Movement had diverged from their theological mentors and took a decidedly more distanced stance towards Israeli government policy. 1948–1957: THE STATE OF ISRAEL AS IRRITATION FOR MISSIONARY WORK Whereas one can follow the sociologist Gerhard Schulze in characterizing the 1960s as an ‘experience-oriented’ or even ‘thrill seeking society’, West Germany in the period before this is to be characterised as a ‘society of survival’. 13 After the Second World War, Germans were primarily occupied with their own existential and economic problems as well as coming to terms with the 1949 partition of their country. Nevertheless, a few Protestants took note of the creation of the State of Israel in May 1948. According to Martin Greschat, in the post-war period the Protestant Church found itself in a situation between innovation and traditionalism, and between awakening and continuation.14 On the one hand, the Church got involved in the new Western democratic political situation. On the other hand, many Protestants sought to find a foothold in the new beginnings of this period by holding on to traditional, preferably confessional, theology and church life. This fluctuation between innovation and traditionalism, between new beginnings and restoration, also characterized the relationship of Protestantism to Judaism and the new State of Israel. 12 Prior to the Six Day War from June 5–10, 1967, there were various arguments between Israel and its neighbouring countries. The Egyptian blocking of the Gulf of Aqaba on May 22, 1967, disrupted Israeli access to the sea to the south. Cairo took into account the fact that such a move was a casus belli for Israel. Israel believed it was being confronted with a coordinated Arab attack from all sides and reacted with a pre-emptive strike. By the time the UN ceasefire came into effect on June 10, Israel had conquered the whole of Sinai as well as the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. – See T. Segev, 1967. Israel, the War and the Year That Transformed the Middle East, London 2007. 13 ‘Erlebnisgesellschaft’ and ‘Überlebensgesellschaft’; see A. Schildt, “Materieller Wohlstand – pragmatische Politik – kulturelle Umbrüche. Die 60er Jahre in der Bundesrepublik”, in: A. Schildt /D. Siegfried/K.C. Lammers (ed.), Dynamische Zeiten, 2000, 21–53, here 30. – See also G. Schulze, Die Erlebnisgesellschaft. Kultursoziologie der Gegenwart, Frankfurt am Main/New York 31993. 14 M. Greschat, “Zwischen Aufbruch und Beharrung. Die evangelische Kirche nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg”, in: V. Conzemius (ed.), Die Zeit nach 1945. Referate der internationalen Tagung in Hünigen/CH, Göttingen (1988), 99–125.

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THE TRADITIONAL MISSION TO JEWS Mission to Jews or Jewish mission (‘Judenmission’) are historical terms: they describe missionary activity toward the Jews and include those church groups which, since the 19th century, intended to win Jews for Christ and to integrate them into the church.15 In 1948, several Jewish missionary societies including the Evangelical-Lutheran Central Association for Mission to Israel, the German branch of the Basel based Association of the Friends of Israel, and the Prussian Society for Promoting the Gospel among the Jews – some more Lutheran, some more Reformed – founded an umbrella organization called German Protestant Committee for Ministry to Israel. I am focusing on the Evangelical-Lutheran Central Association for Mission to Israel, which was the most important Jewish missionary society in Germany since its founding in 1871 and by itself a parent organization of smaller associations. Within the spectrum of the various ecclesiastical groupings, it must be conceded that the exponents of Jewish mission had a more philo-Semitic, pro-Jewish direction.16 Despite their missionary aims, they cultivated a love for Jews, which was orientated towards the role models of the 19 th century revivals. Although this love was not free of pejorative judgments, it was different to the traditional anti-Semitism, including that found in the church. After 1945, these groups were not only interested in simply re-establishing their pre-war activities. It was because of the Nazi crimes and their racist attempt to exclude Jewish Christians from the church that they legitimated their witness to Jews.17 For this reason, the founding of the State of Israel was followed by a debate concerning the significance that this event had for Jewish mission. The representatives of these missionary groups – for instance Karl Heinrich Rengstorf, becoming chairman of both the German Protestant Committee for Ministry to Israel and the Evangelical-Lutheran Central Association for Mission to Israel – were not focused solely on the German context. Rather, they saw themselves as part of an international community, which recorded its agenda in a de15 For the history of Jewish mission in Germany during the 19th and 20th century, see A.H. Baumann (ed.), Auf dem Wege zum christlich-jüdischen Gespräch. 125 Jahre Evangelisch-lutherischer Zentralverein für Zeugnis und Dienst unter Juden und Christen, Münster 1998. – R. Dobbert (ed.), Zeugnis für Zion. Festschrift zur 100-Jahrfeier des Evang.-Luth. Zentralvereins für Mission unter Israel e.V. Erlangen 1971. – S. Hermle, Evangelische Kirche und Judentum – Stationen nach 1945, Göttingen 1990. – J.-Chr. Kaiser, “Der deutsche Protestantismus und die ‘Mission unter Israel’ zwischen Weltkrieg und NS-Machtergreifung,” in: K. Nowak /G. Raulet (ed.), Protestantismus und Antisemitismus in der Weimarer Republik, Frankfurt am Main/New York/Paris (1994), 199–217. 16 Cf. W. Kinzig, “Philosemitismus. Zur Geschichte des Begriffs”, in: Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte/ZKG 105 (1994), 202–228.361–383. 17 See, for example, H. Meyer, “Wir Deutschen und die Juden” [1960], in: Friede über Israel/FÜI 47 (1964), 19–20, here 20: “The church will once again do the Jews an injustice if it does not say to them simply and clearly: Brother, you will only be at home once you have found the Messiah your God has sent you. The church in Germany is obliged to say this to the Jews, not despite the fact that, but precisely because we Germans have done the Jews such injustice.”

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claration announced at the inaugural meeting of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in August 1948. This declaration sought to place Jewish mission on a new foundation. The establishment of the Israeli state was not greeted with overwhelming joy; rather it gave grounds for a new worry: “The establishment of the state ‘Israel’ adds a political dimension to the Christian approach to the Jews and threatens to complicate anti-semitism with political fears and enmities.”18 The State of Israel, therefore, presented an irritation to Jewish mission because it posed a political question to theology which was unwillingly faced: would God create a Jewish state, since the Old Testament promise of a future territory possessed by Jews would be fulfilled in the saving work of Jesus Christ? Mission expert Karl Hartenstein, member of the council of the EKD, summarized this attitude in words which could have been shared by missionaries working among Jews and Arabs likewise: “God will bring this [Jewish] nation home, not to the earthly Palestine but to the heavenly Jerusalem.”19 This and similar positions regarding the Jews dominated several church periodicals of the time.20 Authors with Jewish missionary background intended to encounter Judaism positively by perceiving the Jews as the biblical people of God (who only were expected to accept Jesus Christ as their saviour), and learn to appreciate the State of Israel as a hiding place for the persecuted. Differing from Hartenstein’s harsh opinions, exponents of Jewish missionary societies could also toy cautiously with the theological concepts of promise and prophecy, though apocalyptic and nationalistic interpretations were always rejected. For example, one leading member of the Bavarian branch of the Evangelical-Lutheran Central Association for Mission to Israel, Martin Wittenberg, warned Israelis against overestimating their statehood religiously. It could lead to a development “like in Germany before and after 1933”, and thus lead to a new National Socialism (NS), this time in a Jewish form.21 Gerhard Jasper, another leading member of the Evangelical-Lutheran Central Association for Mission to Israel caught a glimpse of the commonality between NS ideology and contemporary Zionism in a religious “bloodand-soil ideology”, according to which God has bound a particular people to a particular land.22 Jewish authors, for whom Zionism was an ambivalent phenomenon, were held up as chief witnesses. Margarete Susman, for example, despite her hopes 18 Printed in R. Rendtorff/H. H. Henrix (ed.), Die Kirchen und das Judentum. Dokumente von 1945–1985. Gemeinsame Veröffentlichung der Studienkommission Kirche und Judentum der EKD und der Arbeitsgruppe für Fragen des Judentums der Ökumene-Kommission der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, Paderborn/München (21989), E.I.2. – English text according to The First Assembly of the World Council of Churches, report of Committee IV “Concerns of the Churches” with its chapter 3, “The Christian Approach to the Jews,” http://www.jcrelations.net/en/?item=1489 (accessed July 15, 2008). 19 K. Hartenstein, Israel im Heilsplan Gottes. Eine biblische Besinnung, Stuttgart 1952, 66. 20 For instance, Evangelische Welt (EvW), Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirchenzeitung (ELKZ), and Reformierte Kirchenzeitung (RKZ). 21 M. Wittenberg, “Zur Bedeutung des Staates Israel für die Christenheit. Erwägungen zum 10. Sonntag nach Trinitatis”, in ELKZ 4 (1950), 213–215, here 213. 22 G. Jasper, Wandlungen im Judentum. Die gegenwärtige geistige Situation des Judentums im Blickfeld der Kirche, Stuttgart 1954, 33.

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for the imminent creation of a Zionist state in 1946, warned against the “danger”, “which exists for the Jewish people, today as always, in the creation of a nation.” 23 Yet despite her criticism of an exaggerated nationalism, it would not have occurred to an author such as Susman to associate Zionist enthusiasm with NS ideology. The Christians’ attack on the political life of the young State of Israel exceeded the criticism of their Jewish witnesses. Behind this attack was not only a concern about the moral failure of the Zionist project, but also the question of how Jews would relate to Christ in a modern Jewish state. Thus, the missiological newsletter of the Bavarian church, Blick in die Welt, regretted in July 1949 that a “nationalistic wave” would strengthen the Israelis in their Jewishness: “A turn to Christ will thereby seem to be more than ever pushed into the distance.”24 With the same verve exponents of Jewish mission societies felt themselves called to campaign against pietistic-apocalyptic options. During this period, an outstanding apocalypticism manifested itself in the person of the Jewish Christian Abram Poljak, who, from 1951 on, proclaimed the imminently pending Millennium. Poljak saw in the State of Israel the seed of the millennial Kingdom of Christ, in which converted Jews would rule the world.25 This assumption was based on the salvation-historical theory of Dispensationalism,26 popularized since the 19th century. Dispensationalism disconnects the promises to the Jewish people from the Church. It was held that after Christendom had been raptured, the Jewish Christians would constitute the religious and political congregation of the messianic Prince of Peace, who would rule for 1000 years. Otto von Harling, official in the EKD church office and leading member of the Zentralverein, warned the territorial churches as well as various church institutions of Poljak’s apocalyptic message prior to the latter’s first lecture tour through South Germany. Von Harling also mentioned that even the Jewish mission societies belonging to the International Missionary Council were critical of Poljak’s path.27 Von Harling’s effort was flanked by an array of apologetic publications which attempted to refute Poljak’s teachings more comprehensively. 28 In doing so, 23 M. Susman, Das Buch Hiob und das Schicksal des jüdischen Volkes [1946]. Mit einem Vorwort von Hermann Levin Goldschmidt, Frankfurt am Main 21996, 116. 24 T. Burgstahler, “Israel auf dem Weg zu Christus”, in Blick in die Welt. Monatliche Beilage zu den Nachrichten für die evangelisch-lutherischen Geistlichen in Bayern (July, 1949), no pages. 25 See A. Poljak, Krieg und Frieden. Predigten und Briefe aus der Gefangenschaft, Neckargemünd, no date [about 1955]. – A. Poljak, Der Oelzweig, Neckargemünd, no date [about 1970]. 26 Cf. P. Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More. Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture, Cambridge, Massachusetts/London 1992, 87ff. 27 See the letters of EKD Church Office (v. Harling) to regional church governing boards and other church institutions from 16.5. and 5.7.1951 (Evangelisches Zentralarchiv Berlin [Protestant Central Archives Berlin, EZA], 2/5250). 28 See, for example, W. Grillenberger, “Was hat uns Abram Poljak zu sagen?”, in: FÜI 35 (1952), 47–54. – G. Jasper, “Die Frage nach dem Judenchristentum heute. Was will Abram Poljak?”, in Kirche in der Zeit/KiZ 7 (1952), 124f. – H. Schroth, “Der messianische ‘Reichsvortrupp Christi’. Abram Poljaks judenchristlicher Kongreß in Basel”, in: Messiasbote (8/1951), 7–13.

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the critics were less interested in the political implications of Poljak’s eschatology (the State of Israel as the fulfilment of biblical prophecy and as precursor of the new kingdom in the Millennium), although this resulted in a religious overemphasis of the contemporary Israeli state as well as a violation of the 17 th article of the Confessio Augustana. Poljak’s critics were far more vehement in their complaint that his apocalyptic interest in Israel led to a neglect of mission to individual Jews. Poljak was fixated with a collective conversion of the Jews during Christ’s Parousia. An additional problem was Poljak’s demand that Jewish Christians gather in their own congregations, detached from those of the Church. This stood in contrast to traditional universal ecclesiology. The debate about Poljak’s apocalyptic teachings demonstrated that the Jewish mission societies were hardly prepared for the theological implications of political Zionism and the creation of the State of Israel. They couldn’t convince their contemporaries in opposing both the apocalyptic expectations concerning Israel and the soon-to-appear ‘progressive’ enthusiasm for Israel (see below). THE TRADITIONAL PALESTINE MISSION Church groups orientated towards Jewish missions were not alone in their interest in events in the Middle East. This interest was shared above all by the institutions and societies which had been in charge of the local Arab mission or which had represented Palestinian Germans since the 19th century. These were above all the organizations that were united in the Palestine institution:29 Kaiserswerth Deaconess Institution,30 Syrian Orphanage,31 Jerusalem Society,32 and Protestant Jerusalem Foundation. Besides, also the German Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem,33 and the Office for Foreign Relations of the EKD were occupied with proceedings concerning the Holy Land. Whereas all non-Jewish Germans had to 29 See Uwe Kaminsky’s essay in this volume. 30 See U. Kaminsky, “Die innere Mission Kaiserswerths im Ausland. Von der Evangelisation zum Bemühen um die Dritte Welt”, in N. Friedrich/T. Jähnichen (ed.), Sozialer Protestantismus im Kaiserreich. Problemkonstellationen – Lösungsperspektiven – Handlungsprofile, Münster (2005), 355–385. 31 See R. Löffler, “Die langsame Metamorphose einer Missions- und Bildungseinrichtung zu einem sozialen Dienstleistungsbetrieb. Zur Geschichte des Syrischen Waisenhauses der Familie Schneller in Jerusalem 1860–1945”, in D. Trimbur, (ed.), Europäer in der Levante. Zwischen Politik, Wissenschaft und Religion (19.-20.Jahrhundert), München (2004), 77–106. – M. Waiblinger, “Johann Ludwig Schneller und das Syrische Waisenhaus in Jerusalem”, in Evangelisches Missionswerk in Deutschland [Association of Protestant Churches and Missions in Germany] (ed.), Jerusalem. Stadt des Friedens – Jahrbuch Mission 2000, Hamburg (2000), 102–109. 32 See A. Nothnagle/H.-J. Abromeit/F. Foerster (ed.), Seht, wir gehen hinauf nach Jerusalem. Festschrift zum 150jährigen Jubiläum von Talitha Kumi und des Jerusalemsvereins, Leipzig 2001. 33 See K.-H. Ronecker/J. Nieper/Th. Neubert-Preine (ed.), Dem Erlöser der Welt zur Ehre. Festschrift zum hundertjährigen Jubiläum der Einweihung der Erlöserkirche in Jerusalem, Leipzig 1998.

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leave the future territory of the State of Israel even before the state was founded, having their private and church property confiscated, the Protestant organizations in what became the trans-Jordanian part of the Holy Land were able to resume their work. First of all, the Protestant institutions saw the new Jewish State from the perspective of those who were materially harmed. Edwin Moll was sent by the US National Lutheran Council to Israel in order to take care of the ‘orphaned’ German mission property (this work was later incorporated in the Lutheran World Federation). His reports were sent to church institutions in Germany, along with the comments of the East Jerusalem provost Johannes Döring. On the day of the creation of the State of Israel, Döring praised the Americans with the following words: “In the past few months Dr. Moll has battled with great energy and personal courage against all attempts of Jewish authorities to take possession of our buildings.”34 In this way, the newly formed state acquired the reputation of a predatory enemy power. In addition to this, the Protestant institutions looked at the young Jewish state from the perspective of social aid agencies, which took care of Arab refugees. This perspective can be seen in the report of the long-time chairman of the Jerusalem Society and executive director of the Protestant Jerusalem Foundation, Bernhard Karnatz, who travelled through the Jordanian part of Palestine in 1952. Both he and other representatives of the Palestinian institution looked from the tower of the Church of the Redeemer into the now inaccessible western part of Jerusalem, seeing with nostalgia and sorrow the former house of the German Protestant provost as well as the buildings of the Syrian Orphanage, and they were inevitably reminded of divided Berlin. The comparison with German reality also imposed itself in relation to another issue, namely the fate of the displaced Arabs: “Already on the journey we repeatedly passed by extended refugee camps, where thousands of Arab families were dwelling miserably in tents. These Arabs had fled from the territories assigned to Israel out of fear of Jewish terror. We Germans experienced this misery with deep sympathy, fully aware of the hardship in our own country.”35 If one consistently followed this train of thought, the comparison Germany-Palestine led to a parallel between the State of Israel and Stalin’s Soviet Union. The latter had displaced innumerable Germans and occupied one part of the capital city. Karnatz’s remarks also contributed to Israel’s hostile image. The reservation of the Palestine institution representatives concerning Israel brought them into opposition with those groups orientated to Jewish mission and thus tending more towards philo-Semitism. Martin Wittenberg, for example, 34 J. Döring’s letter to the Office for Foreign Relations of the EKD and some mission societies from 14.5.1948 (EZA, 6/1610). – Cf. the report about Ethnic Germans abroad from 18.3.1949, printed in K.-H. Fix (ed.), Die Protokolle des Rates der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland. vol. 3: 1949, Göttingen 2006, 118f. 35 B. Karnatz, “Missionarisch-diakonische Arbeit im Heiligen Lande. Ein Reisebericht für die Freunde des Jerusalemsvereins von Juni 1952” (EZA, 6/1579). – Cf. R. Frick, “Deutsche evangelische Missionsarbeit in Palästina. Ein Reisebericht”, in KiZ 7 (1952), 122f.

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warned in 1957 against the “philo-Arab pastorate,” according to whom “Israeli Palestine has lost all connection with history” (by which is meant biblical salvation history).36 In this way Wittenberg alludes to the fact that those individuals from the context of the German institutions in Palestine were less ready to make a positive connection – however one understands that connection – between Jewish life in the Holy Land and biblical promises than many of the exponents of Jewish missionary societies. The perception of Israel as the cause of the material damage incurred influenced the negotiations of the Palestine institution and the Lutheran World Federation with the Israeli government concerning payment of compensation to the Palestine-oriented church institutions. That does not mean, however, that one can infer from the objectively written negotiation documents anti-Jewish prejudices against Israel. Overall, the creation of a Jewish state in the Middle East meant the end of German missionary work on Israeli territory and presented at the least an obvious disruption for the activities in the Jordanian part of Palestine. ‘PROGRESSIVE’ VOICES In the years following 1948 there were also evaluations of the founding of the Israeli state, which deviated from those attitudes outlined above, and which anticipated those positions, which would become more popular from 1958 on. For this reason these voices can be designated as ‘progressive,’ even though their representatives did not all belong to the left wing of the political spectrum. Provost Kurt Scharf, at the time leader of the Brandenburg department in the consistory of the Protestant Church in Berlin-Brandenburg, declared his position on the creation of the Israeli state as one of the few to later occupy a leading function within the EKD. As a result of the struggle between church and state in the Nazi era (the so-called Kirchenkampf) Scharf’s theology had acquired an apocalyptic and Biblicist note, even though he did not deny the legitimacy of historicalcritical exegesis.37 This Biblicist-eschatological exegesis of Scripture not only generated his theological interpretation of the State of Israel. It was also the source of his involvement in left-wing politics, so that in the 1970’s he was called the “red bishop.”38 He admitted that the salvation-historical role of “modern Israel” had already interested him as a school pupil.39 In Scharf’s personal estate are 36 M. Wittenberg, “Hermann Maas‚ ‘und will Rachels Kinder wieder bringen in das Land’”, in ELKZ 11 (1957), 318. 37 See W.-D. Zimmermann, Kurt Scharf. Ein Leben zwischen Vision und Wirklichkeit, Göttingen 1992, 40f. 38 R. v. Wedel, “‘Mord beginnt beim bösen Wort’”, in Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste [Sign of Reconciliation] (ed.), Mit streitbarem Glauben und leidenschaftlicher Zuversicht. Kurt Scharf – Ein Leben für Gerechtigkeit und Frieden, Berlin, no date [2002], 58–61, here 60. 39 K. Scharf, “Eindrücke in Israel”, in: Messiasbote 31 (2/1963), 3–4, here 3: “I ought to say that the problem of modern Israel as a problem of the salvation history [Heilsgeschichte] of God and as a question to theology and church has interested me more than many other questions since my time at school.” – In reference to Scharf’s time at school, “modern Israel” can only

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a number of pietistic brochures and booklets from the period of the 1950’s, which show that he was familiar with the notion of the State of Israel as a sign of the end times.40 In summer of 1948 Scharf attempted to interpret the “rebirth of the nation of God” – in line with the title of the journal Zeichen der Zeit – as “the most obvious ‘sign of the times’.” He came to the following conclusion: “There remains only one interpretation: the apocalyptic-prophetic one of Holy Scripture itself.” 41 Scharf’s comments show that he considered Israeli statehood to be “evidence” against the classical interpretation, according to which the promises of land and return had been annulled. By speaking in this context of the return of Christ, Scharf joined the ranks of those for whom the foundation of the state was a sign of the end times. In addition to this, the Berlin provost’s essay contained a theological-historical attempt to come to terms with the Third Reich: God had brought about the renewed ingathering of his people by means of the “minions of the hostile power”– a reference to the National Socialists as a part of God’s salvation plan.42 During the Israeli-Arab conflict of 1967 – from the Israeli perspective the so-called Six Day War – Scharf remained faithful to his views and thus became the most decisive supporter of Israel of all the leading churchmen. In addition to Scharf’s advance, it is worth mentioning the activities of the Heidelberg district dean Hermann Maas, who labelled himself a Zionist.43 Just as Martin Niemöller44 had become a symbolic figure of resistance during the Naziera Kirchenkampf, so Maas together with Berlin provost Heinrich Grüber45 personified moral integrity in their relationship to Jews during the NS regime. In a similar manner to Grüber, Maas took care both of Jews and of Christians with a Jewish background during the NS period and attempted to stir the hesitant Confessing Church to a more unambiguous, positive attitude towards Jews. 46 As a result, in 1950 Maas became the first German to be invited by the Israeli government to visit the country. The account of this journey along with a book written during

40 41 42 43

44 45

46

mean contemporary Jewry. According to the context, however, the reader thinks of the State of Israel, so Scharf’s choice of words vacillates between both meanings. See Landeskirchliches Archiv Berlin-Brandenburg (Archives of the Protestant Church in Berlin Brandenburg/LABB, 38/401). K. Scharf, “Israel und Palästina – heute. Zu den Ereignissen im Nahen Osten”, in Zeichen der Zeit/ZdZ 2 (1948), 275–278, here 278. Ibid. Maas took part in the 6th Zionist congress in Basel in 1903, i.e. in the meeting where Theodor Herzl appeared for the last time and where the idea of establishing a Jewish state in Uganda and not in Palestine was rejected. “There I became a Zionist”, wrote Maas with regard to Basel (H. Maas, “Anwalt der Verfolgten – Rückblick eines 75jährigen”, in W. Keller/A. Lohrbächer/E. Marggraf et al, Leben für Versöhnung. Hermann Maas – Wegbereiter des christlich-jüdischen Dialoges. Karlsruhe [21997], 12–28, here 26). See J. Bentley, Martin Niemöller. 1892–1984, New York 1984. See G. Besier, “Heinrich Grüber – Pastor, Ökumeniker, Kirchenpolitiker”, in I. Mager (ed.), Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für Niedersächsische Kirchengeschichte 89. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Professor Dr. Dr. Hans-Walter Krumwiede, Blomberg/Lippe (1991), 363384. See the various contributions in W. Keller/A. Lohrbächer/E. Marggraf, Versöhnung, 1997.

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the next visit to Israel in 1953 became typical of a large portion of Christian literature about Israel well into the 1960s. 47 It is important to realize that Maas’ visit to Israel was not a private tourist trip but rather a guided tour by governmental delegates. They assumed that Maas would present the construction of the Israeli community positively at home and thus contribute to a positive pro-Jewish atmosphere in West German society. In his travelogue Maas describes the Israeli as an industrious worker and farmer, who drains marshes and brings deserts back to life. In the same way the kibbutzes were presented as having developed the ideal social and economic structure. This was an attempt to counteract the traditional anti-Semitic clichés, according to which the Jew is a parasitic huckster incapable of gainful employment. For Maas, there was also the salvation-historical interpretation. Maas recognized at least an anticipation of the fulfilment of messianic promises in the founding of the Israeli state as well as in the booming cities and productive fields. The return of the Jews to Palestine “precedes the far greater return. This is something which we cannot grasp today ..., yet which is to be grasped with the words ‘redemption’ and ‘fulfilment’, behind which stands the Messiah, great and living.” 48 It is clear that Kurt Scharf and Hermann Maas are far more ready to interpret the events in the Middle East with regard to salvation history or even eschatology than those from the context of Jewish mission societies or Palestine aid agencies. THE GERMAN-ISRAELI REPARATIONS AGREEMENT OF 1952 The German-Israeli Reparations Agreement of September 10, 1952 (also called the Luxembourg Agreement), which ended the Israeli-German reparation negotiations, was the most outstanding event after 1948 concerning the German-Israeli relationship.49 The text of the agreement established that the Federal Republic of Germany would pay the State of Israel 3.45 billion DM (823 million US Dollars), of which 450 million DM would be for the Claims Conference (Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany). For self-evident reasons, the prevalent term “reparation” has been often criticized along with the German word Wiedergutmachung (literally meaning “making damages well again”). Both terms are often replaced by the Hebrew expression shilumim, which can be neutrally trans47 See H. Maas, Skizzen von einer Fahrt nach Israel, Karlsruhe 1950. – H. Maas, Und will Rachels Kinder wieder bringen in das Land. Reiseeindrücke aus dem heutigen Israel, Heilbronn 1955. 48 H. Maas, Skizzen, 1950, 22. 49 Cf. N. Hansen, Aus dem Schatten der Katastrophe. Die deutsch-israelischen Beziehungen in der Ära Konrad Adenauer und David Ben Gurion. Ein dokumentierter Bericht. Mit einem Geleitwort von Shimon Peres. Düsseldorf 2002, 155–366. – Y.A. Jelinek, Deutschland, 2004, 75–250. – D. Trimbur, “American Influence on the Federal Republic of Germany’s Israel Policy, 1951–1956”, in: H. Goren (Hg.), Germany and the Middle East. Past, Present, and Future. Ed. by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung u. Harry S. Truman Institute. Jerusalem (2003), 263– 290. – M. Weingardt, Nahostpolitik, 2002, 72–105.

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lated as “payment.”50 The background for this agreement was the idea that the Federal Republic, as legal successor of the German Reich, should pay compensation for Jewish property that had been expropriated during the NS period. Because the Shoah made it impossible for much Jewish property to be claimed by an heir, this ‘ownerless’ capital was designated to benefit the State of Israel as an aid for construction. The Finance Minister Fritz Schäffer (Christian Social Union/CSU) and the banker Hermann Josef Abs, who had led the German delegation in the debt conference in London in May 1952, were critics of the German payments to Israel. 51 Before that conference began, Schäffer had held that the Jewish target compensation sum had been wrongly calculated and was too high. Abs wanted to make the compensation benefits dependent on the amount of the German reparation payments to the Western powers, in order to not unduly burden the Federal Republic’s economy. Nevertheless, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (Christian Democratic Union/CDU), who as a practical politician was concerned about the impact on foreign policy, with the moral support of Franz Böhm, the German group leader at the negotiations, enforced the shilumim both in the Cabinet as well as in Bundesrat and Bundestag (upper and lower houses of the German parliament respectively). In the Bundestag vote, the SPD (Social Democratic Party) voted decisively for the Luxembourg Agreement, whereas of Adenauer’s own coalition parties (CDU/CSU, FDP (Free Democratic Party), and DP (German Party)), less than half approved the reparation agreement.52 What also spoke for the ratification of the Luxembourg Agreement was the political pressure – albeit very moderate – built up by journalists, writers, artists and church people beforehand, amongst them Hermann Maas and Heinrich Grüber as well as the Deutscher Evangelischer Ausschuss für Dienst an Israel (German Protestant Committee for Service to Israel). These church people and groups thought of the individual first and not of a collective compensation for those who suffered from the Nuremberg Laws. As soon as the Israeli agenda was on the table, however, they also advocated the shilumim. They believed, as stated in an article from the journal Evangelische Welt, that: “It is not only about a Western responsibility, but about an eminently Christian obligation.” 53 Exponents of Jewish mission from the Deutscher Evangelischer Ausschuss für Dienst an Israel and the people associated with Maas and Grüber pulled together for once during the shilumim negotiations. In the public domain, however, the activities of the Organizations for Christian-Jewish Cooperation, in which mainly liberal Protestants were active, were better known. One member was the Hamburg senate director Erich Lüth, who in the late summer of 1951 launched a series of prominent newspaper announcements in which he called for German-Israeli reconciliation. 54 Prot50 51 52 53 54

See Y.A. Jelinek, Deutschland, 2004, 91. See M. Weingardt, Nahostpolitik, 2002, 83f. See ibid., 92. N.N., “Kirche und Israel”, in: EvW 6 (1952), 564–566, here 565. See E. Lüth, “Wir suchen Frieden mit Israel”, in: JungeKirche/JK 12 (1951), 598–599. – A. Sywottek, “Zur Vorgeschichte der ‘Friedensbitte an Israel’. Zur Erinnerung an Erich Lüth”, in

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estantism in general, rather than executive church bodies, contributed to a political climate, which made the Agreement of 1952 possible. The EKD officially held back from public discussions about the shilumim. Otto von Harling justified this behaviour by claiming that the Church “had to consider the spiritual and economic situation of the people to whom she spoke.”55 The church boards did not perceive themselves to be progressive trendsetters; rather they wanted the church to be a counsellor for the population. Therefore the church leaders avoided the promotion of an issue that was not approved by the majority of the people. According to a questionnaire 44% of the population still rejected the reparation payments and another 24% felt that the total compensation sum was too high.56 At the beginning of the 1950s, political positions did not belong to the self-understanding of the executive EKD institutions to the degree that they would from the 1960s onward. 1958–1966: THE STATE OF ISRAEL AS ‘MOTOR’ OF CHRISTIAN-JEWISH DIALOGUE Around the 1960s, the Protestant perceptions of Israel went through a generational change of a theological-political nature, rather than an age-related nature. A glance at the church periodicals57 shows that around 1960, the most important authors who had explained Judaism and Israel to their readers until now gradually disappeared from the scene, even though they continued to live for decades. This is especially true for the theologians associated to the Evangelisch-Lutherischer Zentralverein für Mission unter Israel (Evangelical-Lutheran Central Committee for Mission amongst Israel), such as Gerhard Jasper, Karl-Heinrich Rengstorf, and Martin Wittenberg: the latter lived until 2001. In their place, other authors appeared with a different orientation. ISRAEL TOURS AS THEOLOGICAL “EXPERIENCE” The sociological category of an ‘experience-orientated society’ (the ‘Erlebnisgesellschaft’) is relevant to our topic in the sense that the State of Israel was increasingly perceived according to its own outlook. Between 1958 and 1961 influential church people travelled to Israel, in parallel to the general rise in West German tourism: Heinrich Grüber (see above), Pastor Adolf Freudenberg (central-European representative of the Committee on the Christian Approach to the Jews within the International Missionary Council), his son-in-law Helmut GollA. Eder, Angelika/G. Gorschenek (ed.), Israel und Deutschland. Voraussetzungen und Anfänge einer komplizierten Partnerschaft, Hamburg (2002), 116–127. 55 O. v. Harling, “Kirche und Israel”, in Kirchliches Jahrbuch/KJ 80 (1953), 285–335, here 307. 56 See M. Weingardt, Nahostpolitik, 2002, 85. 57 For this interpretation the following periodicals were consulted: Reformierte Kirchenzeitung (RKZ), Junge Kirche (JK), Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirchenzeitung (ELKZ), Evangelische Welt (EvW), and Lutherische Monatshefte (LM).

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witzer (who was at first professor in Bonn, then in West Berlin), the West Berlin student chaplain Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt (Gollwitzer’s assistant and later, a theology professor himself), as well as Rudolf Weckerling (also a student chaplain in West Berlin and later overseas pastor in Beirut). From 1958 on, these individuals travelled to Israel, sometimes alone, sometimes with church or student tour groups. The theology professors Rolf Rendtorff and Günther Harder (both from West Berlin), while taking part in a scientific course in 1959 at the German Palestine Institute situated in East Jerusalem, were allowed to glance out of the old city of Jerusalem into Israel, which had been designated by the institute’s administration “as virtually taboo” and thus a “foreign world.”58 The descriptions of Israel tours59 around the 1960s display parallels to the publications of Hermann Maas: the developments in the country are brought into connection with biblical promises. The Israeli build-up is described as incredibly fascinating. The experiences in the kibbutzes demonstrated that socialism was the better way to structure society. For many pilgrims into the Jewish part of the Holy Land, a left-wing political orientation and a love for Israel were seen to be two sides of the same coin. It is no surprise, then, that Rolf Rendtorff, who had visited the State of Israel for the first time in 1963 and who would become one of the leading advocates of Jewish-Christian rapprochement, felt more at home in the SPD than in the CDU or FDP.60 In addition to this, a characteristic of all travelogues was the awareness that a German was confronting the survivors of the greatest of German crimes. Thus, in 1959 the West Berlin student pastor Rudolf Weckerling impressed the following words upon the minds of his co-travellers: “The heaviest baggage which you are carrying with you is our guilt to the Jews.” 61 An increase in trips to Israel led to an increased awareness of German guilt – and vice versa. 1958 was also the year in which Lother Kreyssig, president of the synod of the Protestant Church of the Union, made an appeal for the creation of a Sign of Reconciliation at the EKD synod in Berlin-Spandau. 62 Young Germans were to be 58 R. Rendtorff, Kontinuität im Widerspruch. Autobiographische Reflexionen, Göttingen (2007), 71. – The Palästinainstitut was engaged in Biblical Studies and Archaeology. See V. Fritz, “Hundert Jahre Deutsches Evangelisches Institut für Altertumswissenschaft des Heiligen Landes”, in K.-H. Ronecker/J. Nieper/Th. Neubert-Preine (ed.), Dem Erlöser der Welt zur Ehre. Festschrift zum hundertjährigen Jubiläum der Einweihung der Erlöserkirche in Jerusalem, Leipzig (1998), 201–208. 59 See A. Freudenberg, “Israel. Bilder und Gedanken einer Reise”, in Stimme der Gemeinde zum kirchlichen Leben/SGKL 10 (1958), 581–586. – H. Gollwitzer, „Israel, das aufregendste Land der Erde”, in KiZ 13 (1958), 160–162. – R. Weckerling, “Studentengemeinde unterwegs”, in JK 21 (1960), 408–413. – R. Weckerling, Le Chaim – Zum Leben. Eine Reise nach Israel – Junge Deutsche berichten. Eingeleitet von Heinrich Grüber, Berlin 1962. 60 As long as the CDU held the positions of the Federal Republic’s Foreign Office, a large proportion of the CDU followed the Hallstein Doctrine. This inevitably implied a reserved relationship to the State of Israel (see also note 9). – For R. Rendtorff’s political involvement in the SPD see Kontinuität, 2007, 128ff. 61 R. Weckerling, “Studentengemeinde unterwegs”, in JK 21 (1960), 408–413, here 408. 62 See J. Böhme, “Die Arbeit der ‘Aktion Sühnezeichen/Friedensdienste’ in Israel – Geschichte und Entwicklung”, in K. Schneider (ed.): 20 Jahre deutsch-israelische Beziehungen, Berlin

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given the opportunity to go on voluntary assignments in order to ask the victims of the Second World War for forgiveness and to make a contribution towards reconciliation. In his initial appeal, Kreyssig envisioned Poland, Russia and Israel to be the intended locations for such work. The first voluntary group, however, did not reach Israel until 1961 due to anti-German resentment (as had been feared), not least because of the Israeli trial of the war criminal Adolf Eichmann. In this way, the existence of the State of Israel, along with the Shoah, became a starting point for a kind of ‘experience theology’ (‘Erfahrungstheologie’), a specific ‘contextualized’ theology. This orientation towards the living Israel was the positive side of a ‘theology after Auschwitz’, oriented as it was towards a negative event in history. This ‘experience theology’ was expressed most clearly by the West Berlin theology professor and former student chaplain Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt: “Ever since my dissertation, the motive for my entire theological activity is due to a trip to Israel,” namely the trip of 1959, which became “my second baptism.”63 This talk of ‘second baptism’ attributes a quasi-sacramental character to the first encounter with the Israeli community, making it constitutive for one’s own Christian existence and theology. The awe over Eretz Israel as an abstract entity and the impression left through concrete Israelis, with whom friendly relations were to develop, interacted with each other. Practically everyone who was or is active in Christian-Jewish dialogue portrays in his or her life one (or more) trips to Israel as being a special experience. The 10th Kirchentag—the large Protestant Church Convention meeting in Berlin, July 1961—made it possible for those who had no yet visited Israel to have insights into the kinds of experiences they would encounter there. This was done by means of the events of the Working Group VI, out of which the Arbeitsgemeinschaft ‘Juden und Christen’ auf dem Deutschen Evangelischen Kirchentag (‘Working Group on Jews and Christians at the Kirchentag’) developed (see below). The events organized by the Working Group were led especially by those who had visited Israel since 1958, e.g. Helmut Gollwitzer and Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt. This Church Convention also demonstrates how the experiences made on the soil of the Israeli state functioned as a ‘motor’ which accelerated rapprochement between Jews and Christians and contributed to a modification of Protestant theology, including the relationship to the notion of Jewish mission. From a theological perspective, in the eyes of the organizers of the working group at the Berlin Church Convention a “breakthrough” occurred in which there was a (1985), 137–150. – Chr. Eckern, Die Straße nach Jerusalem. Ein Mitglied der “Aktion Sühnezeichen” berichtet über Leben und Arbeit in Israel, Essen 1962. – G. Kammerer, “50 Jahre Aktion Sühnezeichen. Recherchen zu Geschichte und Selbstverständnis der Organisation”, in Mitteilungen zur Kirchlichen Zeitgeschichte/MKiZ (1/2007), 139–147. – K. Weiß, Lothar Kreyssig. Prophet der Versöhnung. Gerlingen 1998. 63 F. W. Marquardt in an interview in Amsterdam on 25.9.1996. quoted in A. Pangritz, “‘Wendung nach Jerusalem’. Zu Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardts Arbeit an der Dogmatik”, in: Evangelische Theologie/EvTh 65 (2005), 8–23, here 8. – R. Rendtorff, in a less lofty language, said that his first trip to Israel had “strongly influenced and, seen in the long term, had deeply transformed” him (Kontinuität, 2007, 78).

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renunciation of a Christian “consciousness of superiority” in relation to Judaism: 64 “The time of Jewish mission in the pietistic sense of the word is now over.” 65 The exponents of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft certainly held on to their Christian ‘witness’ (Zeugnis) to the Jews, but they distanced themselves from a concept of mission, which had as its goal the conversion of Jews to Christianity. What was intended by groups such as the Evangelisch-Lutherische Zentralverein für Mission unter Israel was rejected as “pietistic”, although the Zentralverein, for instance, regarded itself as confessional, not as pietistic. THE ‘OFFICIAL TRIP’ OF THE EKD 1962 It was only a matter of time until the impetus created by the first Israel tours would have an effect on representatives of the church boards. Heinrich Grüber (see above), member of the Berlin-Brandenburg church governing body and representative of the EKD council to the government of the GDR until 1959, managed to persuade members of the EKD council along with others to travel to Israel from November 1 to 12, 1962. The climate for such a venture was particularly favourable as the pro-Israeli Kurt Scharf (see above) was at the time not only bishop of the Berlin-Brandenburg Church, but also the chairman of the EKD council and therefore the highest representative of German Protestantism. This was to be his first visit to Israel. Other members of the EKD council who went on this trip were Ernst Wilm, president of the Westphalian Church, as well as Wilhelm Niesel, the moderator (chairman) of the Alliance of Reformed Churches in Germany. As far as Grüber was concerned, the purpose of the tour was to awaken an appreciation for the Israeli state in the churchmen and to convince them of the importance of opening up diplomatic relations between Israel and the Federal Republic.66 It should be admitted, however, that the 31-member travel group consisted only of those who had decisively stood on the side of the Confessing Church during the Nazi period and thus had already begun to move theologically towards Judaism before this trip took place. It was therefore not difficult to convince the participants of the importance of taking up such a diplomatic relationship. An irritation for the tour group was the fact that the press spoke of “a delegation from the Protestant Church in Germany,” which had the ring of something official.67 For this reason the bishop of the Württemberg Church, Martin Haug, com64 D. Goldschmidt/H.-J. Kraus, “Einführung der Herausgeber”, in D. Goldschmidt/H.-J. Kraus (ed.), Der ungekündigte Bund. Neue Begegnung von Juden und christlicher Gemeinde, Stuttgart (1963), 9–15, here 13. 65 G. Harder, “Aus der Podiumsdiskussion am 22. Juli 1961”, in: Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag Berlin 1961. Dokumente, Stuttgart (1961), 485–505, here 501. 66 See H. Grüber, Erinnerungen aus sieben Jahrzehnten, Köln 1968, 411. – For the journey, cf. H. Seeger/G. Heidtmann, “Mit Propst D. Grüber in Israel. Ein Reisebericht”, in: KiZ 17 (1962), 498–501. 67 N.N., “Reise nach Israel. Im Zeichen der Versöhnung”, in: EvW 16 (1962), 700–701, here 700.

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plained after the event that not all the members of the council of the EKD had been either made aware of the trip or invited to take part. It was therefore wrong for the venture to be presented in the press as an official visit.68 Kurt Scharf made it plain that the trip was a purely “private affair,” made at the instigation of Grüber. This qualification, however, contradicted the self-understanding of the tour group, who had presented themselves to the German and Israeli public as if they were representatives of German Protestantism. Perhaps Grüber and Scharf did not want to be thwarted in their moral and political concerns by confessional Lutherans, who tended towards scepticism and reservation concerning the issue of Israel. In any case, the question ultimately remained open as to whether certain council members were consciously excluded from the trip. On November 9th, the tour group took part in a memorial ceremony on the occasion of the 24th anniversary of the Nazi Pogrom Night in Yad Vashem and laid a wreath. At the reception held by Leon Kubovi, director of the memorial, Niesel stated that the Confessing Church, out of which the contemporary EKD has developed, had had a good relationship to Jews, as manifested in its struggle against the Arian Paragraphs, the offer of personal help and the public condemnation of the mass murder of the Jews.69 This self-estimation is undoubtedly somewhat too positive.70 By appealing to the contemporary EKD the group gave the impression that it was an official delegation. Scharf concluded his address, which directly followed Niesel’s, with a reference to the salvation-historical role of the Jewish people: “The nation of Israel is unique in its suffering. It is unique in its achievements, in its return and reconstruction of its land [...] It will be unique in its future, and this future – and this is a specific feature of Christian belief – will be closely bound to the future of the Church.”71 Scharf’s words stood in continuity with his previous interpretation of Israeli statehood in that he extended the present “uniqueness” of the “nation of Israel” – he did not distinguish between Jews and Israeli citizens – into the eschatological. COOPERATION BETWEEN ‘PROGRESSIVES’ AND PIETISTS Whereas representatives of Jewish missionary societies attempted to rebut the teaching popular amongst Pietists, that the events in the Middle East were signs of the end times,72 ‘progressive’ friends of Israel worked together with certain Piet68 Protocol of the 15th EKD-Council Meeting in Berlin of 29./30.11.1962 (EZA Berlin, 2/5253). 69 See N.N., “Reise nach Israel. Im Zeichen der Versöhnung”, in: EvW 16 (1962), 700–701, here 700. 70 Cf. K. Meier, Kreuz und Hakenkreuz. Die evangelische Kirche im Dritten Reich, München 1992, 152–174. 71 Printed in N.N., Heinrich Grüber. Zeuge pro Israel, Berlin 1963, 96–100, here 100. 72 Cf. G. Gronauer, “Der Staat Israel in der pietistisch-evangelikalen Endzeitfrömmigkeit nach 1945”, in G. Litz/H. Munzert/R. Liebenberg (ed.), Frömmigkeit – Theologie – Frömmigkeitstheologie. Contributions to European Church History – Festschrift für Berndt Hamm zum 60. Geburtstag, Leiden/Boston (2005), 797–810.

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ists for a while. The term ‘progressive’ refers to those Christians who pushed for Jewish-Christian reconciliation and who, at least in the 1960’s, tended to belong to the left of the political spectrum. The term ‘Pietists’ refers to those Protestants who, on the basis of an inward faith, lived in a self-chosen distance to the established churches, despite the fact that they were often members of these churches (such as, for example, the members of the Gnadau Fellowship Association; there are, however, also Pietists who are organized as Free Churches). In contrast to confessional Lutherans, who ground the certainty of their faith in the sacraments of baptism and communion, understood objectively, Pietists ground their faith in the subjective appropriation of the salvific events through conversion and ‘new birth’. Towards the end of the 1960’s the term ‘Pietists’ was increasingly supplemented with the term ‘Evangelicals’ (Evangelikale). Both terms more or less characterize the same spectrum within German Protestantism.73 Even before the Berlin Kirchentag of 1961, the Kirchentag in Munich in 1959 had dealt with the existence of the Jewish state. Students who had participated in the trip to Israel led by Marquardt and Weckerling reported, along with Gollwitzer, their experiences. Even the Darmstadt Sisterhood of Mary, which was considered to be evangelical, took part in several Kirchentags from 1959 and impressed supporters of Jewish-Christian dialogue with the so-called Israel-Ruferspiel, a drama thematizing German guilt to the Jews. In addition to this, in Munich Gollwitzer recounted with moving words how he had met Mother Basilea (alias Klara Schlink), sister of theology professor Edmund Schlink and leader of the Darmstadt Sisterhood of Mary, on the Mount of the Beatitudes in the previous year, and had been deeply moved by her dedicated commitment.74 In addition to Gollwitzer the Reformed Johan Hendrik Grolle, who was associated with the Arbeitsgemeinschaft ‘Juden und Christen’ auf dem Deutschen Evangelischen Kirchentag, cultivated relationships with Pietistic Israel fans, notably the Norwegian Per Faye-Hansen, director of the Haifa-based Carmel Institute and reference person of a German supporter group, which was led by Friedrich Brode. Faye-Hansen’s moral integrity was already attested to by Hermann Maas in the 1950s, who had met the Norwegian several times and who especially appreciated the fact that, out of a sense of solidarity with the persecuted Jews, he had travelled with them out of German-occupied Norway to Palestine. 75 In August 1963 German friends of the Carmel Institute took part in a ‘Carmel Conference’ in Nyborg/Denmark and passed a declaration, written by Faye-Hansen, in which 73 For Pietism and Evangelicalism in Germany, see various contributions in the volume G.A. Benrath/U. Gäbler (ed.), Der Pietismus im neunzehnten und zwanzigsten Jahrhundert. Göttingen 2000; especially E. Busch, “Der Pietismus in Deutschland seit 1945”, in ibid., 533–562. 74 H. Gollwitzer, “Israel und wir Deutschen”, in Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag München 1959. Dokumente, Stuttgart (1959), 713–719, here 717: “Mother Basilea recounted how she ... was gripped and shaken by the realization of our guilt to Israel and how since then the State of Israel and its inhabitants have been prayed for nightly, one hour long, during the continual prayer of the Marienschwestern in Darmstadt.” 75 See H. Maas’ letter to the Office for Foreign Relations of the EKD (Krüger-Wittmack) from 10.9.1956 (EZA, 6/1581).

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“Israel’s re-establishment as an independent state” was characterized as a special event in salvation history towards the second coming of Jesus Christ.76 In the optimistic spirit of the 1960s ‘progressives’ and Pietists managed to cooperate on the basis of common convictions concerning salvation history. The differences between these two Protestant movements were at first of little significance. In the course of time, however, these differences became ever more apparent. On the one hand, this was due to the fact that the ‘progressives’ were not able to accept the Pietists’ religious enthusiasm of the Israeli victory in the Six Day War 1967. On the other hand, the representatives of Jewish-Christian dialogue gradually distanced themselves, not only practically but also theoretically, from the idea that Jews – even in an eschatological perspective – need Christ for their salvation. This development led to a split with the Pietists, who justified their abandonment of mission to individual Jews only on the basis of their belief in a collective Jewish conversion at the imminent return of Christ. In sum, it was the debate concerning Jewish mission as well as the new evaluation of the Middle East conflict post-1967 that undid the possibility of cooperation between evangelicals and those of the ‘left.’ INNER-PROTESTANT DEBATES Pietists had also been initially involved in another initiative instigated by ‘progressives,’ the founding of the German branch of the Nes Ammim project. Waldemar Brenner, for example, editor of The Gardener, the journal of the Free Evangelical Church, was one of the founders of the German Nes Ammim Association when it was brought into being in Velbert/Rhineland in 1963. Pastor Paul Deitenbeck, the long-time chairman of the German Evangelical Alliance, even belonged to the board of trustees of Nes Ammim Association at the beginning of the 1970s.77 The goal of the project was the establishment of a Christian settlement in Israel by the name of Nes Ammim, as a place of reconciliation between Jews and Christians, Israelis and Germans. In 1964 the first inhabitants settled on the plain between Nahariya and Akko. Due to Israeli restrictions, Germans were only accepted from 1970 on. For the supporters of the settlement the category of experience played a significant role, just as with the other travellers in Israel. It was important to have seen with one’s own eyes that a large number of Jews had once again made themselves at home in their biblical land. The theologian Heinz Kre76 See “Botschaft an die theol. Fakultäten, Kirchenleitungen, Missions-Gesellschaften, Bischöfe, Pröpste, Pfarrer, Prediger, Missionare und alle Mitchristen in den Kirchen, Freikirchen und Gemeinschaften” from 5.-9.8.1963 (Landeskirchliches Archiv der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche in Bayern Nürnberg [Church Archives of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Bavaria/LAELKB], III/51/34). 77 Cf. Newsletter from J. Bernath from 22.3.1963 (EZA, 6/1583). – Cf. the lists of the members of the board from ca. 1972 (EZA, 81/3/102). – For further discussion about Nes Ammim, see N. Becker/G.E.H. Koch (ed.), Bewahren und Erneuern. Die christliche Siedlung NES AMMIM in Israel, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1993.

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mers, originally of Pietistic roots,78 was influenced by this experience. Kremer’s “Memorandum”, as much as the eschatological-messianic context of Isaiah 11 from which the name Nes Ammim was taken (translated as “A Sign for the Nations”), demonstrates that this work in Israel was based on a decidedly salvation-historical theology. With this “Memorandum” the Nes Ammim project was presented to representatives of the Israeli government. Kremers openly spoke of the fact that in 1948 God had fulfilled his promise of return from exile for the second time after the return from Babylon. The second Jewish homecoming was described as a “sign of the faithfulness of God,” anticipating the formulation of the 1980 Rhineland Synodal Declaration, where the “homecoming in the land of promise as well as the establishment of the State of Israel” are characterized as a “sign of God’s faithfulness towards his people.”79 In light of this theology Lutherans, who were bound to the notion of Jewish mission, feared that the eschatological teachings of an Abram Poljak or a Per Faye-Hansen had also influenced the initiators of Nes Ammim. Otto von Harling, EKD church official and at the same time second chairman of the Zentralverein, commented on the founding of Nes Ammim in the following way: “One can already recognize in the composition of the planned ’board of trustees’ [...] a certain theological and ecclesiastical-political orientation (no members of Lutheran churches!). I therefore recommend caution and reserve.” 80 Those representatives of the EKD who distanced themselves from Nes Ammim felt confirmed in their position after even the pro-Israeli Heinrich Grüber rejected getting involved in Nes Ammim and spoke of a flawed financial investment which would develop into a scandal: “I can only strongly warn against the so-called Christian settlement Nes Ammim.”81 Similar to Karl Heinrich Rengstorf,82 Grüber criticised the categorical renunciation of mission to the Jews, as it was concretely expressed in the fact that Jewish Christians were not permitted to become inhabitants of Nes Ammim Settlement. This exclusion of Jewish Christian members was an attempt to counteract the Israeli concern that the Christian settlement was nothing more than a concealed missionary outpost. In the light of such criticism it was no surprise that the settlement was not able to receive support from Bread for the World, an 78 See H. Kremers, “Mission an Israel in heilsgeschichtlicher Sicht”, in H. Kremers/Erich Lubahn (ed.), Mission an Israel in heilsgeschichtlicher Sicht, Neukirchen-Vluyn (1985), 65–91, here 69: “My parents, who stood in the tradition of Reformed Pietism, awoke in me [...] a love for the Jewish people.” 79 Printed in R. Rendtorff/H. H. Henrix, Dokumente, 1989, E.III.29. – For further discussion, see K. Kriener/M. Schmidt, “…um Seines Namens willen”. Christen und Juden vor dem Einen Gott Israels —25 Jahre Synodalbeschluss der Evangelischen Kirche im Rheinland “Zur Erneuerung des Verhältnisses von Christen und Juden”, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2005. 80 Handwritten addendum by O.v. Harling to a letter of the Bremen Church Office (Bergemann) to the EKD from 16.9.1963 (EZA Berlin, 2/5253). 81 Letter of H. Grüber to the Office for Foreign Relations of the EKD (Schaeder) from 1.3.1963 (EZA, 6/1583). 82 See Rengstorf’s letter to the Interior Mission and Relief Organisation of the EKD (Wolckenaar) from 28.10.1963 (EZA, 6/1582): “The entire project is based upon pure fanaticism, whose ultimate roots are not clear to me. I can only advise that we do not invest a single pen ny in this venture.”

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aid agency linked with the EKD. As justification it was claimed that Nes Ammim did not fit into Bread for the World’s development aid profile. Heinz Kremers surmised that hostility to Israel was the real reason for the decision, which was consistently denied by official sources, however. Another dispute developed over an alleged statement made by Provost Carl Malsch, who represented the German Protestant congregation in East Jerusalem (Church of the Redeemer) and presided over the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Jordan.83 ‘Progressive’ Christians and Jews observed closely what was happening in the Jerusalem Redeemer Church, because they were aware of its Arab context and the resulting distance towards the State of Israel. An important Jewish contributor at the events of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft ‘Juden und Christen’ auf dem Deutschen Evangelischen Kirchentag was West Jerusalem journalist Shalom Ben-Chorin. On September 21, 1962, Ben-Chorin reported in the newspaper Yedioth Chadashoth that Israel-hostile comments were made by the provost. Public interest in such a matter was naturally due to the political explosiveness implied when a German representative of a church in Jerusalem made an anti-Israeli or even anti-Jewish statement. Ben-Chorin referred to an unnamed pastor who asked the provost for support in trying to cross the border from Jordan to Israel at the Mandelbaum Gate. In response the provost, full of rage, snarled: “What have you lost in Israel after all? The entire land has been stolen and 90% of the population are atheists.”84 This article created a furore in the pro-Jewish part of Protestantism, notably in the Deutscher Evangelischer Ausschuss für Dienst an Israel and in the Arbeitsgemeinschaft. The Office for Foreign Relations of the EKD and Bernhard Karnatz, chairman of the Jerusalemsverein, received letters of complaint, some measured and some fierce. Karnatz demanded that Malsch make a statement, and included in his letter the following words: “Given the active relationship between Germany and Israel it is to be feared that this phrase will be widely discussed, not only damaging your personal reputation but also bringing our work in the Holy Land into disrepute.” 85 Malsch responded: “I never used the sentence, ‘What do you want in Israel?’ in such an isolated manner. It was used in closest connection with the request to spend more time in Jordan instead, in order to be able to relate to the problems here more objectively.”86 In the face of supposedly one-sided pro-Israeli articles in German journals, Malsch saw it as his responsibility to explain the Arab position to German tour83 For Malsch, see C. Malsch, “Propst an der Erlöserkirche 1960–1965. Besondere Aufgaben und Erlebnisse”, in K.-H. Ronecker/J. Nieper/Th. Neubert-Preine, Dem Erlöser der Welt zur Ehre, 1998, 229–245. – For the Jordanian Church, see M. Raheb, Das reformatorische Erbe unter den Palästinensern. Zur Entstehung der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche in Jordanien, Gütersloh 1990. 84 N.N. [Sh. Ben-Chorin], “Auch ein Seelsorger!”, in Yedioth Chadashoth from 21.9.1962 (quote according to the German translation in EZA, 612/22). 85 Letter from B. Karnatz to C. Malsch from 25.11.1962 (EZA, 612/22). 86 Letter from C. Malsch to the Office for Foreign Relations of the EKD (Wischmann/Stratenwerth) from 12.12.1962 (EZA, 612/22).

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ists. After the request that Malsch should be more careful in public statements for the future, the affair was closed down in January 1963. The debate concerning the German-Israeli ambassador exchange,87 which was realized in 1965, became more well known. ‘Progressive’ church groups considered the fact that the Federal Government had hesitated for so long in recognizing Israel as a scandal. They regarded this as an expression of a fatal anti-communism. Protestant theologians such as Freudenberg, Gollwitzer, Marquardt, Rendtorff and representatives of the Student Christian Movement/ESG, 88 along with the participants of the EKD ‘delegation’ of 1962 (see above), belonged to an ecclesiastical-political network which had called for the recognition of Israel from about 1960. The question of mutual recognition between the Federal Republic and Israel was discussed within the EKD council from July 1964 onwards, since several petitions had been addressed to the council in this matter. Kurt Scharf had received a pro-Israeli statement from the Württemberg Church Brotherhood, which consisted of pastors. Grüber and Freudenberg had also turned to Niesel and the president of the EKD synod, Hans Puttfarcken, in the name of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft. During the council meeting of July 2–3, 1964, Wilhelm Niesel, moderator of the Reformierte Bund (Reformed Council) and member of the council of the EKD, emphatically lobbied for the EKD to write an official letter to the Federal Government, calling for the establishment of official diplomatic relations with the State of Israel.89 Niesel was in full agreement with the chairman of the council, Kurt Scharf. Niesel was an example of a tendency in which those of Reformed tradition were far more able to integrate Judaism and the State of Israel into their own Christian belief in a positive way than strict Lutherans were (Pietistic eschatological scenarios can also often be traced back to the Reformed tradition – often via the Anglo-Saxon world – rather than to the Lutheran). In spite of the pro-Israeli petitions, Hermann Kunst, council representative to the Federal Government, raised objections, which he had developed out of a conversation with the foreign secretary Gerhard Schröder (CDU). 90 The main objection was that one should hinder the Arabs from recognizing the GDR, because this would consolidate German partition. This goal suited Kunst, who was interested in the (at the time still existing) all-German EKD. Kunst hoped that he could influence the imminent vote in this direction and therefore turned to the councillors of the Lutheran churches, who tended towards political neutrality in relation to the Israeli state.91 In the end, Kunst did not have the influence he had hoped for, since Lutherans also shared Niesel’s concerns. 87 See note 9. 88 For the attitudes of the ESG during the 1970s, cf. G. Gronauer, “‘Politik eines faschistischen Staates’. Die Diskussion um einen israelfeindlichen Text der ESG vom 26. Mai 1973”, in Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste (ed.), Israelsonntag 2008. Predigthilfe und Materialien für die Gemeinde, Berlin (2008), 47–51. 89 See protocol of the council meeting of 2./3.7.1964 (EZA, 2/1810, 2/5253 and 87/850). 90 See the letter from H. Kunst to K. Scharf from 6.11.1964 (EZA, 87/850). 91 See H. Kunst’s letter to Th. Riedel from 2.10.1964 (EZA, 87/850).

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The letter written by Niesel emphasized that the normalization of German-Israeli relations should have the highest priority, “after everything that we Germans have brought upon ourselves in relation to the Jews.” Furthermore, Bonn should do everything to ensure that German scientists no longer take part in the production of Egyptian offensive weapons. Only when the German nation takes care of these “moral requirements of the first order” it may “hope that its own future would also be healed.”92 The argumentation of the letter hereby gave priority to ethics over realpolitik. The letter was signed by Scharf on October 26, 1964 and was personally handed to Federal President Heinrich Lübke (CDU) by Kunst on November 6. At the turn of the year 1964/65, West German church synods, among them Hanover and the Rhineland, voted explicitly for an exchange of ambassadors, too. Regarding the so-called Memorandum on Relations with Eastern European Countries93 of 1965 which argued for the recognition of the Oder-Neiße-Line as Germany’s eastern border, and regarding the German-Israeli ambassador exchange, the EKD acted in a manner which at the time was considered to be politically progressive. Therefore German Protestantism increased the public pressure that was to force Chancellor Ludwig Erhard (CDU), against the will of his Foreign Secretary, to bring about an official recognition of Israel. CONCLUSION In this essay I have traced the perception of the State of Israel in West German Protestantism from 1948 to 1967. Various Protestant notions of the State of Israel were not developed at the level of church boards, but rather at a lower level: theologians and journalists, groups and individuals introduced the issues by means of books, bulletins, and journal articles. Ultimately, members of the church leadership either adopted these issues or were forced by them to take action. Also in relation to the general public, Protestantism helped create an atmosphere in which the Federal Government could open itself to Israel. One thinks, for example, of the shilumim Agreement or the exchange of ambassadors. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until the 1960s that the EKD council took a public stance on the issue and demanded, for example, German-Israeli recognition. The background for such a hesitant approach was the concern to preserve the church against being politicized in a one-sided way. Neither the EKD council nor any other church body was a monolithic block: their members were to some extent determined by conflicting interests. It is a basic fact that the Protestant church was 92 Protocol of the EKD council, meeting from 15./16.10.1964, appendix 2 (EZA, 2/1810). – Conforms to K. Scharf’s letter to H. Lübke from 26.10.1964 (EZA, 2/5254). 93 See EKD, “Die Lage der Vertriebenen und das Verhältnis des deutschen Volkes zu seinen östlichen Nachbarn”, in EKD (ed.), Die Denkschriften der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland – Band 1/1: Frieden, Versöhnung und Menschenrechte, Gütersloh (21981), 77–126. – Cf. M. Greschat, “Protestantismus und Evangelische Kirche in den 60er Jahren”, in: A. Schildt /D. Siegfried/K.C. Lammers (ed.), Dynamische Zeiten, 2000, 544–581, here 559ff.

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characterized by a plurality of opinions in which protagonists of both a pro-Israeli and an Israel-critical attitude struggled to gain influence. Despite this fact, there are still distinctions that can be made concerning the reception of the State of Israel in the 1950s and 60s. Initially there were primarily theological assumptions, which determined the opinions concerning the Jewish state (salvation-historical agendas or commitment to certain confessions). Eventually secular categories gained in significance (awareness of German guilt, the question of moral obligation). In period I (1948–1957), pro-Israeli voices were a definite minority. The majority view was supported by a theology which could not imagine a fulfilment of biblical promises concerning the Jews as long as they rejected Christ as their Messiah. In period II (1958–1967) far more Protestants were willing to support the State of Israel as a consequence of the Shoah. This era can therefore be called the ‘golden period’ of pro-Israeli engagement within the church. Political opinions were accompanied by a theological change of mind: actual encounters with Israelis promoted a form of Jewish-Christian dialogue in which the question of Christ, while never disappearing, was either pushed into the background or relocated into mere eschatology. Protestants could increasingly affirm the bond between Jews and Eretz Israel, even in theological perspective. Gerhard Gronauer, born 1972, is a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria, currently in Rehau/Upper Franconia.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF GERMAN PROTESTANT INSTITUTIONS AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR – THE “PALAESTINAWERK” Uwe Kaminsky INTRODUCTION Most of the research that has been done on the German Protestant institutions in the Holy Land deals with the 19th century. According to the descriptions written by the institutions, their work reached its full flowering around the time of the First World War. Little research has been done on the history of these institutions following the First World War or even after the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. One of the explanations for this may be the wars and political erruptions in the conflict between Arabs and Jews. Another reason is the complicated history of Israeli confiscations of German Protestant Property and German reparations in the aftermath of the Holocaust. This compensation from Israel to Germany and from Germany to Israel helped to restart and establish German Protestant education work in the Jordan part of Palestine. This research looks for the end of the so-called Orientarbeit of the deaconess institution of Kaiserswerth.1 The deaconess institution, which was founded in Kaiserswerth near Duesseldorf (Germany) by Reverend Theodor Fliedner (1800– 1864) and his wife Friederike née Muenster (1800–1842) in 1836, was the first German institution to establish a hospital and a school (in 1851) as a social infrastructure for the building of parishes in Palestine. So the missionary, social and cultural engagement started the “friend-enemy-like encounter” in the Orient.2 Social Protestantism combined social work and Christian mission especially in medical and educational fields.3 This worked not only in the German national frame but in the international one as well. The Kaiserswerth work is an example

1

2 3

For details: Uwe Kaminsky, Innere Mission im Ausland. Der Aufbau religiöser und sozialer Infrastruktur am Beispiel der Kaiserswerther Diakonie (1851–1975), Stuttgart 2010 and Uwe Kaminsky, “German ‘Home Mission’ abroad: The ‘Orientarbeit’ of the Deaconess Institution Kaiserswerth in the Ottoman Empire”, in: Heleen Murre-van den Berg (ed.), New Faith in Ancient Lands. Western Mission in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Leiden, 2006, 191–209. Karl Hammer, Weltmission und Kolonialismus. Sendungsideen des 19. Jahrhunderts im Konflikt, München, 1978, 12. Jochen-Christoph Kaiser, Sozialer Protestantismus im 20. Jahrhundert. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Inneren Mission 1914–1945, München, 1989.

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of an “agent for the expansion of infrastructure” 4 and therefore worth doing research on. The economies of the European powers impacted on the economic nationbuilding processes in the Middle East (as did the social models of the European welfare state) in the form of social and religous infrastructure. The hospitals, schools, social services and churches brought education, science, hygiene and disciplinary action. Their impact was more integration than disintegration, but they played a role in the political field as well. The term “infrastructure” stems from the technical history of the military and described e.g. fortresses etc. In the context of a “peaceful crusade”, as some of the actors in mission matters in Palestine called it,5 it is not surprising that these hospitals and schools became strategic objects. These informal media of social, cultural and religious penetration were important agents between political power and everyday life. They served the needs of the population and of the Christian mission. First I will outline the diversity of German Protestant missions in Palestine, and then comment on the German mission institutions under the rule of the British Custodian of Enemy Property after the Second World War. The new international and ecumenical context made it possible to restart the German social and missionary work in the form of the Palaestinawerk. But the coordinates for mission and social work changed in these years. This process of transformation of the German missionary institutions deserves historical interest. The following focusses on this.

THE DIVERSITY OF GERMAN PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN THE HOLY LAND From the mid-19th century until World War II, German Protestant missionary activities were comprised of a broad variety of political, social and religious programmes in the Holy Land. The Kaiserswerth deaconess-house in Jerusalem, which dates back to 1851, was one of the first medical and educational institutions. Further examples include the Syrian Orphanage (established in 1860) and the private leper home Jesus Hilfe (founded in 1867). There were also the Jerusalemsverein (founded in 1852) which supported the founding of parishes in Palestine, and most significantly were the settlements of the Templers of Wurttemberg, who were the biggest German group in Palestine and set up branches e.g. in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa.6 4

5 6

The history of infrastructure is described by: Dirk van Laak, “Infra-Strukturgeschichte”, in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 27. 2001, 367–393, 389; van Laak, “Der Begriff ‘Infrastruktur’ und was er vor seiner Erfindung besagte”, in: Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 41. 1999, 280– 299; concerning the theory of infrastructure in economic science: Reimut Jochimsen, Theorie der Infrastruktur. Grundlagen der marktwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, Tübingen, 1966. Haim Goren, “Debating the Jews of Palestine – German Discourses of Colonization, 1840– 1883”, in: Leipziger Beiträge zur jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur 1. 2003, 217–238. Roland Löffler, Protestanten in Palästina. Religionspolitik, Sozialer Protestantismus und Mission in den deutschen evangelischen und anglikanischen Institutionen des Heiligen Lan-

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The many different German Protestant missionary activities in Palestine were not unified. The German Protestant Church made some attempts to coordinate them, beginning in 1896, in the form of annual Missionstage (missionary workshops), but these attempts did not result in a unified organisation.7 The competition for the Holy Land was extraordinary. Social infrastructure in Jerusalem, as it was established by the deaconess institution of Kaiserswerth and in form of the service of the deaconesses as human resources, became a useful means to gain influence on the people living in Palestine. The German Protestant institutions became very important until the First World War and became a promotion for the deaconess institution itself. But WWI put an end to the “flowering” of the German houses and services in Palestine. Following WWI the British mandate administration and the American mission took over the German missionary institutions. Between 1923 and 1925, however, they were returned to the German proprietors who reestablished them and helped them become bigger than they had been before WWI.8 WWII put an end to the German institutions. In the spring of 1940 all German citizens living in Palestine were interned in the Templer colonies of Haifa and Waldheim, which the British called German perimeter settlements. Some of the interned deaconesses were exchanged during WWII, but most of them remained

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des 1917–1939, Stuttgart 2008, 36–103; Heleen Murre-van den Berg (Ed.), New Faith in Ancient Lands. Western Mission in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Leiden 2006; Ulrich Hübner (ed.), Palaestina exploranda. Studien zur Erforschung Palästinas im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert anläßlich des 125jährigen Bestehens des Deutschen Vereins zur Erforschung Palästinas, Wiesbaden 2006; Dominique Trimbur (ed.), Die Europäer in der Levante. Zwischen Politik, Wissenschaft und Religion (19.–20. Jahrhundert). Des Européens au Levant. Entre politique, science et religion (19.–20. siècle), München 2004; Haim Goren (ed.), Germany and the Middle East. Past, Present, and Future, Jerusalem 2003; Jakob Eisler/Norbert Haag/Sabine Holtz, Kultureller Wandel in Palästina im frühen 20. Jahrhundert. Eine Bilddokumentation. Zugleich ein Nachschlagewerk der deutschen Missionseinrichtungen und Siedlungen von ihrer Gründung bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg, Epfendorf 2003; Martin Lückhoff, Anglikaner und Protestanten im Heiligen Land. Das gemeinsame Bistum Jerusalem (1841–1886), Wiesbaden 1998; Moshe Davis (ed.), Western societies and the Holy Land, New York u.a. 1991; Antonie Wessels, “Christians in the Arab World and European/American Colonialism in the late 19 th and early 20th Century”, in: Klaus Koschorke (ed.), “Christen und Gewürze”. Konfrontation und Interaktion kolonialer und indigener Christentumsvarianten, Göttingen 1998, S. 171–190; Yehoshua Ben-Arieh/Moshe Davies (eds), Jerusalem in the Mind of the Western World, 1800–1948 [With Eyes toward Zion, V], Westport/London 1997; Frank Foerster, Mission im Heiligen Land. Der Jerusalems-Verein zu Berlin 1852–1945, Gütersloh 1991; Mitri Raheb, Das reformatorische Erbe unter den Palästinensern. Zur Entstehung der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche in Jordanien, Gütersloh 1990; Abdel-Raouf Sinno, Deutsche Interessen in Syrien und Palästina 1841–1898. Aktivitäten religiöser Institutionen, wirtschaftliche und politische Einflüsse, Berlin 1982; Erwin Roth, Preußens Gloria im Heiligen Land. Die Deutschen und Jerusalem, München 1973; Siegfried Hanselmann, Deutsche Evangelische Palästinamission. Handbuch ihrer Motive, Geschichte und Ergebnisse, Erlangen 1971. Furthermore the contributions to this volume. Foerster, Mission im Heiligen Land, 94 f.; Raheb, Das reformatorische Erbe unter den Palästinensern, 107–109. Löffler, Protestanten in Palästina, 122–243.

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in the camps until 1948. The missionary institutions themselves were confiscated as military hospitals or became schools and orphanages, run by non-German heads and personnel, and overseen by the Committee for the Supervision of German Educational Institutions. GERMAN MISSION INSTITUTIONS UNDER THE BRITISH CUSTODIAN OF ENEMY PROPERTY After the end of WWII those Germans who were still in Palestine remained internees and the German institutions were still under the control of the British Custodian of Enemy Property. These institutions were used as military hospitals (e.g. the Kaiserswerth Deaconess-hospital, the Auguste Victoria Foundation) or as dwellings (such as Talitha Kumi in Jerusalem). Attempts to get the Germans, including e.g. the deaconesses of Kaiserswerth, out of the camps were not successful. Upon receiving a request to release the detainees, J.V.W. Shaw of the Chief Secretary’s Office in Jerusalem responded in July 1946: “As I informed you orally [...] I am afraid there can be no question of the Reverend Hermann Schneller [the director of the Syrian Orphanage, U.K.] being allowed to return to Palestine either permanently or temporarily. Nor whilst appreciating your anxiety in regard to the Talitha Kumi School, can I agree to your suggestion that Sister Bertha Harz should resume charge there. Apart from other considerations which make it undesirable on general grounds that German interests should be allowed to resume their pre-war activities in Palestine, political repercussions and indeed their own personal safety in the present state of tension in this country would preclude this. If, therefore, the United Lutheran Church of America is preparing to take over institutions previously run by the German missions, I hope that it will be made clear to them that they will not have at their disposal the services of the German missionaries.”9

The British contended that German lives would be in danger because of the postwar anti-German mood in Palestine. In addition to his charity work Hermann Schneller, for instance, was one of the founders of the local Nazi Party in Jerusalem.10 The American Lutheran Church prepared to take over the German institutions in 1946. As a representative of the United Lutheran Churches of America (ULCA) and so of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), Edwin Moll arrived in Palestine in November 1946. He began organising the existing Christian-Arab parishes and attended to the needs of the German institutions. The National Lutheran Council in America had empowered him to act on their behalf. As a result, in a first meeting in Palestine at the end of 1946, all the representatives of the German missions and Arab parishes identified themselves as Lutherans although they had roots in reformed traditions too. This self-identification was, then, not a theological question, but a practical one. Moll solicited declarations that the German institutions were of Lutheran origin and denomination, which would signify 9

J.V.W. Shaw (Chief Secretary’s Office Jerusalem) to Archdeacon Ac. Mac Innes 5.7.1946, in: EZA 6/1609, Bl. 61. 10 Syrisches Waisenhaus (Großjann) to Niemöller 21.7.1947, in: Evangelisches Zentralarchiv, Berlin (=EZA) 6/1609, Bl. 156; Löffler, Protestanten in Palästina, S. 326–336.

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that the property was not simply German but that it belonged to the Lutheran World Federation. This kind of argument was similar to the Catholic position. Although some Catholic institutions in Jerusalem were run by German Catholics they were not nationally identified. The international and ultramontane character of the Catholic Church helped in dealing with the state of Israel. The leaders of the German institutions and especially the Reverend Martin Niemöller, chief of the foreign office of the Protestant church in Germany, were suspicious of Moll’s actions and especially of his efforts to obtain power of attorney to act on behalf of the German proprietors. In September 1947, Niemöller tried to prevent Moll from assuming responsibility for the German institutions because he suspected that the Americans’ motivation for taking over the institution was self-interest. He thought that the American Lutherans wished to use their activity to compensate for the pro-Nazi positions taken during the war.11 Still, the German proprietors saw clearly that no one else could better serve the interests of the houses and real estate in Palestine. Moll, who acted not only in the name of the American Lutherans, but since the official founding of the LWF in 1947 in the name of this international organisation, was simply the only representative available to them. The LWF also underlined that it wished only to implement a trusteeship over the German institutions. These assurances notwithstanding, negotiations concerning these powers of attorney were not resolved until after the war of 1948/49. The LWF argued that the institutions in the Israeli part of Palestine would be lost for missonary purposes if the German boards did not transfer them to the LWF. The Germans hesitated, not realising the gravity of the political situation. THE GERMAN PROPERTY LAW OF 1950 AND THE FOUNDING OF THE PALAESTINAWERK In July 1950 the Israeli parliament, Knesset, passed the German Property Law: “This Law aims at the concentration and realisation of German property, in order that such property, or its equivalent, may serve as security for the satisfaction of claims of persons residing in Israel, or who may yet settle in Israel, against the German State [...]”12 Most of the German mission property lay in Israel. As a result, the Germans recognised that reliance on the LWF was the only way to retain property rights to the missionary institutions. So the LWF started to negotiate with the state of Israel for compensation for the confiscated houses. Israel conceded in the form of a paragraph in the German Property Law that it would be possible to return property to those institutions either:

11 Niemöller to Doering 14.7.1947, in: EZA 6/1609, Bl. 133–134. 12 German Property Law (passed by the Knesset on 26th July 1950), in: National Archives (=NA), FO 371/91745.

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The LWF appointed a number of prominent lawyers and representatives to negotiate with the Israelis. Fredric A. Schiotz, the executive secretary of the Commission on Younger Churches and Orphaned Missions of the National Lutheran Council (CYCOM) and later the president of the LWF, and international lawyers such as the Quaker and world federalist Max Habicht (1899–1986), took part in the negotiations. Another interesting participant was the former Swiss consul Charles Lutz (1895–1975), who had served in Palestine from 1935 to 1940 and had tried to help German internees and the Syrian Orphanage.13 In addition he had been the Swiss consul in Budapest from 1942 to 1945, and had saved more than 30,000 Jews from deportation.14 He was an acknowledged negotiator of the LWF by the Israeli representatives. Even though the LWF was running the show, the German boards were kept informed and had a voice in every step of the process. For instance they had to agree to the estimated value of the property in question. They did not give the Lutheran World Federation the documents to act as proprietor until an agreement about the compensation amount was reached. The negotiations between the LWF and the state of Israel were the first ones concerning compensation between Israel and churches in general. So they were a preliminary model for subsequent negotiations in the coming years. 15 The meetings of the representatives took place without much publicity, in New York, Geneva or Israel. Each party in the negotiations had its own reasons for maintaining this low profile: the Israelis were afraid that too much publicity would cause problems within Israel, where the public was opposed to any compensation for former German property whatsoever, because, at that time, the German government had yet to offer any sign of regret or recognition of Jewish suffering. The LWF was trying to avoid questions about the nature of its exact role as proprietor of the former German Property in Israel: the Germans feared the possible revelation of the camouflage-function represented by the LWF’s role, and in addition to 13 As an example: Swiss Legation, Special Division for the Safeguarding of German Interests to Foreign Office 1.12.1939, in: NA (former PRO), CO 323/1779/12. 14 Alexander Grossman, Nur das Gewissen: Carl Lutz und seine Budapester Aktion. Geschichte und Porträt, Wald 1986; “Israel’s Church Agreements” (Jerusalem Post 17.9.1951 and additional report on November 1951), in: Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts (=PAAA), B 92/13. In a copy of a telegram (in Israeli files) Lutz also reports about objections against him: Telegrams of Lutz (Tutzingen) to P. Hermann Schneller (Bethlehem) 7.8.1950 (ISA, RG 130 1860/1). About Lutz see http://www.yadvashem.org/exhibitions/from_our_photo_archive/ data/camera.html. 15 Zwischenbericht Habicht 6.10.1952, in: FKSK, DA 196.

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this, the German mission boards had to consolidate their interests so that they spoke with one voice to the LWF. A first meeting of the German representatives from Kaiserswerth (Rev. Robert Frick, Hans von Cossel and Theodore Barkhausen), from the Syrian Orphanage (Dipl. Ing. Ernst Schneller), and from the Jerusalemstiftung and Jerusalemverein (Geheimrat D. Dr. Karnatz) took place on 28 July 1950 in Kaiserswerth.16 They founded a community of interests called, from then on, Palaestinawerk. The first chairman (until 1954 and again from 1966 to 1969), was the head of Kaiserswerth, Rev. Robert Frick. THE 1951 AGREEMENT BETWEEN LWF AND ISRAEL After many difficult rounds of bargaining, the negotiations between the LWF/Palaestinawerk and the State of Israel resulted in an agreement on 29 August 1951 according to which the state of Israel was expected to pay 50,000 US-dollars in support of the work of the LWF with Palestinian refugees, and 550,000 Israeli Pounds as compensation for the former German property of the Syrian Orphanage, the deaconess-institution of Kaiserswerth, the Karmel-Mission and the Jerusalem Foundation.17 The property in Jaffa and Haifa was returned to the LWF. More than half of the money was to be paid in annual installments from 1955 to 1960 unless Germany should decide to pay relevant reparations to Israel. Both this linkage and the devaluation of the Israeli Pound in the early 1950s ultimately prevented the treaty from coming into effect. At nearly the same time, however, the first meeting between the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and an Israeli representative took place in Paris in April 1951. In September 1951, Adenauer acknowledged – for the first time – German guilt for the Holocaust in a momentous speech in the German parliament (Bundestag). Official negotiations between Germany and Israel started at the end of 1951 and led to the Luxemburg treaty, also known as the German-Israeli Reparations Agreement, in September 1952.18 In the wake of this agreement, German mission organisations and the LWF significantly altered their position on the status of former German mission prop16 Besprechung über die Palästinaarbeit am 28.7.1950 in Kaiserswerth (Vertraulich; P. Frick, 31.7.1950), in: Fliedner Kulturstiftung Kaiserswerth (=FKSK), DA 251; Berliner Missionswerk (=BMW), Jerusalemsverein R I, 4. 42. 17 Lutherischer Weltbund: Text des Übereinkommens zwischen dem Lutherischen Weltbund und der Regierung von Israel betreffend die ehemaligen deutschen protestantischen Missionen in Israel, Genf 29.8.1951 (Abschrift), in: PAAA, B 92/13 (auch in: BMW, Jerusalemsverein R I, 4. 41 Bd. 6; FKSK, DA 243). 18 Dominique Trimbur, De la Shoah á la réconciliation? La question des relations RFA-Israël (1949–1956), Paris, 2000, esp. 93–108, 227–280; Niels Hansen, Aus dem Schatten der Katastrophe. Die deutsch-israelischen Beziehungen in der Ära Konrad Adenauer und David Ben Gurion. Ein dokumentarischer Bericht, Düsseldorf 2002, esp. 85– 96, 119–139; Yeshayahu A. Jelinek, Deutschland und Israel 1945–1965. Ein neurotisches Verhältnis, München, 2004, 75 115.

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erty. Prior to the autumn of 1952 it had been important for all negotiators to emphasise that the former German mission property belonged to the international Lutheran organisation. After the signing of the German-Israeli Reparations Agreement it became important to stress the fact that it was formerly German property. This new emphasis stemmed from the fact that lawyers of the LWF and the German boards sought a way to set off their compensations against the transfer agreements between Israel and Germany, known as Shilumin. Finally they succeeded in obtaining a deduction of the 3.585 million DM, stated in the agreement between the LWF and Israel, against the 3.45 billion DM reparations agreed upon in the German-Israeli Reparations Agreement in Luxemburg. Following the Israeli-LWF reprarations agreement, influential representatives of the German boards, like Hans von Cossel, the chairman of Kaiserswerth, who had been chief of Deutsche Bank in Duesseldorf, or Bernhard Karnatz, the director of the Jerusalemsverein, intervened in the German Foreign Office and some German ministries to set off the agreed compensation against the German-Israeli reparations.19 They achieved this in November 1953: the Israel Mission (in Cologne), an unofficial Israeli consulate, issued an Irrevocable Assignment for the payments and the German Ministry of Finance agreed. According to the Irrevocable Assignment the equivalent value of these payments would be allotted to the LWF in instalments from 1953 to 1963.20 The sum was divided amongst the different German boards as follows: the Jerusalemsverein received 1%, the Jerusalem-Stiftung 4%, the Karmel-Mission 6%, the deaconess institution in Kaiserswerth 26%, and the Syrian Orphanage 63%. These allocations were intended to finance the rebuilding of houses and institutions in Jordan and Lebanon. The State of Israel made this stipulation in its negotiations with the LWF in order to prevent the money from finding its way back to Germany. Although the German boards – e.g. Kaiserswerth – preferred to have more flexibility in their use of the money (such as for the pensions of the deaconesses), they agreed to continue their work in Palestine. 21 This was the material side of rebuilding German Protestant institutions in Palestine.

19 Habicht to Bundesministerium der Finanzen 2.9.1952, in: FKSK, DA 196. The banker Robert Pferdmenges had been a friend of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and took part in the negotiations with the German Ministry of Finance (Dr. h.c. Robert Pferdmenges an v. Cossel 19.2.1953, in: ibid.); Hans-Peter Mensing, “Adenauer und der Protestantismus”, in: Ulrich von Hehl (ed.), Adenauer und die Kirchen, Bonn 1999, 43–60. Karnatz had negotiated in the German State department in October 1952 (Vermerk v. 4.11.1952, Dr. Schlegelberger, in: PAAA, B 92/13). 20 Walb to Berliner Missionswerk 12.11.1953 (mit Anlage: “Irrevocable Assignment” der IsraelMission), Berliner Missionswerk to Minister Dr. F.E. Shinnar (Israel-Mission) 20.11.1953 and Niederschrift der Verhandlungen des Palästinawerks in Düsseldorf-Kaiserwerth am 28.11.1953, in: FKSK, DA 196. 21 Niederschrift der Verhandlungen des Palästinawerks in Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth am 28.11.1953, in: FKSK, DA 196.

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THE CONTINUATION OF THE GERMAN MISSION INSTITUTIONS IN JORDAN AND THE FOUNDING OF THE EVANGELICAL-LUTHERAN CHURCH OF JORDAN The involvement of the LWF provided new opportunities for future Protestant work in Palestine. Protestant work in the Holy Land was divided between the LWF and the former German mission boards. The LWF served as an umbrella organisation spanning all the different institutions and engaged itself in work with Arab refugees. The Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives was the centre of this activity. The LWF took over this former German institution (founded in 1910) from the Red Cross in 1950. In the following years, the LWF concentrated on medical services while the former German missions built up the educational branch of relief work in the Middle East. The head of the deaconess institution Kaiserswerth, Robert Frick, acknowledged the longterm role of the LWF after a conference with representatives of the LWF in August 1950: “The idea that as if the LWF is only temporarilly filling in a gap is fiction.” It was clear to him that in the future “the LWF would be the rich and we would be the poor partner”.22 The vice president of the foreign office of the German Protestant Church, Gerhard Stratenwerth (1898–1988),23 considered the LWF’s plan to establish an Arab church organisation the logical outgrowth of ecumenical development since the World Missionary Conference in Jerusalem in 1927: he thought that the German boards should not expect to be able to continue where they had left off in 1939. He viewed the new situation as similar to the position of an “entrepreneur who is forced by the economic development to join a trust,”24 the trust being the LWF. While Frick understood the LWF would play a dominant role for a long time, he did not want to give up the “traditional uniqueness” of the different German boards. His wish was not only nostalgic but also pragmatic. He considered this a strategy to encourage parishes in Germany, which had historical ties to specific institutions, to continue their donations to and involvement in German mission work in Palestine.25 For this reason the different German boards should continue to exist rather than being abolished in favour of the all-encompassing Palaestinawerk. In their declaration of August 1951 the German societies and institutions wrote: The Palestine Work will be responsible for all missionary and diaconal work of its members in the Holy Land. Each member will try to contribute to the work out of its individual historical heritage. The principles and policy to be pursued by all members will be set up by the Palestine Work while matters of finance and property rest with the individual member organisation.”26 22 Frick to Schwester Theodore Barkhausen 19.8.1950, in: FKSK, DA 249. 23 Georg Stratenwerth (*1898) had been the vicepresident of the “Kirchliches Außenamt” of the German Protestant Churches 1948-1966. 24 Stratenwerth to Frick 21.8.1950, in: EZA 6/1579, Bl. 101-104. 25 Frick to Stratenwerth 23.8.1950, in: EZA 6/1579, Bl. 125. 26 Frick to Schiotz 29.8.1951 (declaration), in: FKSK, DA 251

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In the following years the Palaestinawerk became a conference, which met approximately twice a year, and then in 1954 the German boards gave the Palaestinawerk a statute.27 Some of the German boards did not want to be dominated by the LWF, however. Firstly, the Karmel-Mission asked its Swiss branch to take over its work in 1951. Secondly, Hermann Schneller, who had been deported during the war, returned from internment in Australia in 1949. Schneller went to Palestine to become the leader of the missionary educational work until 1951. He must have been a very strong and charismatic man, coming into conflict with Edwin Moll, the LWF representative.28 The conflict between Schneller and the LWF had nothing to do with whether or not the missonary work would have a Lutheran identity – this is the official view – but rather with who would determine the direction of future work: the LWF or the German boards. Schneller therefore refused to cooperate with the LWF and favoured a new beginning of the work of the Syrian Orphanage in Lebanon (Kirbeth Kanafar 1952) and Jordan (Amman 1966). 29 In the aftermath, the deaconess institution of Kaiserswerth and the Jerusalemsverein were the only organisations to stay in the Palaestinean part of Jordan. They established a new school called Talitha Kumi in Beit Jala in 1950 and supported the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan (ELCJ) beginning in 1959. Despite their different paths of development and the overall goal to do their Christian mission work, the German institutions had one interest in common: the distribution of the compensation payments to rebuild their institutions in Palestine. The Syrian Orphanage and the deaconess-institution Kaiserswerth, for example, were to receive nearly 90 percent of the compensation payments and found new houses for continuating their traditional work. But they had no money to run these institutions in the first years. The LWF therefore supported a very relevant dimension of this work during the 1950s (formally until 1966). It was only in the beginning of the 1960s that the German institutions received Protestant funding for development aid (from such organisations as Brot fuer die Welt, Evangelische Zentralstelle fuer Entwicklungshilfe) and they were able to become more independent from LWF. A good example is the founding of the new Talitha Kumi in Beit Jala in 1959/61.30 Here the reasons for missionary work were connected with the new idea of development aid against hunger and hardship by the improvement of education.

27 EZA 6/1579. Ernst Rhein, “Das Palästina-Werk”, in: Im Lande der Bibel 1957, H. 2, 3–6. 28 Raheb, Das reformatorische Erbe, 202–204. For instance Hermann Schneller refused the “committee business” in LWF according to a letter of his brother Dipl.Ing. Ernst Schneller (13.2.1950), quoted in: Ernst Schneller an Frick 24.2.1950, in: Landeskirchliches Archiv Stuttgart, K 8 Nr. 295. 29 Aktennotiz (Frick, 27.9.1950), in: FKSK, DA 251; Hanselmann, Deutsche evangelische Palästinamission, 168–172. 30 Uwe Kaminsky, “... eine wesentliche Hilfe gegen Hunger und Not in den unterentwickelten Ländern. Die Aktion ‘Brot für die Welt’ am Beispiel der Kaiserswerther Schule ‘Talitha Kumi’ in Palästina”, in: Monatshefte für Evangelische Kirchengeschichte des Rheinlandes 55. 2006, 179–198.

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THE PALAESTINAWERK AND THE FOUNDING OF THE EVANGELICAL-LUTHERAN CHURCH OF JORDAN From its beginnings the LWF had the goal of founding an independent Arab Church in Jordan. The German missionary organisations agreed at a meeting in 1952 to support this development even though it had not been one of their traditional aims. The German boards wished to dominate the Arab parishes, which they considered products of their missionary work. This resulted in a number of conflicts. The Arab nationalism of the time, for instance, included antisemitism as one of its basic tenets. When, in 1956, the oldest minister of the Arab parishes and the soon-to-be head of the synod of the new church, Shdid Baz Haddad, wrote an antisemitic letter, this was discussed critically in the Palaestinawerk. Representative Eitel-Friedrich von Rabenau, who had been persecuted in Berlin during the Nazi period and had helped Jews in his parish in these years, said: “If the Arabs see us as friends because of our antisemitism, we will have to answer them: We are not that kind of Germans.”31 After a longer discussion process over constitutional questions, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan (ELCJ) was founded in 1957. The German Provost was elected the head of the new church. The German Protestant institutions (e.g. the Syrian Orphanage or Talitha Kumi) did not become part of the ELCJ but maintained a distance to it during the 1960s. For instance, Hermann Schneller (Syrian Orphanage) and Deaconess Bertha Harz (Talitha Kumi) refused the building of an Arab church in May 1956.32 The antisemitism of the Arab Christians was a welcome argument for the German institutions to remain independant and not to become subordinate to the ELCJ. Although the way into independence would not have been possible without international support, it was also the clear wish of the local ministers, Church Councils, as well as the parishioners to establish their own independent church. It was a church with around 1500 members, four pastors, and four schools (with 750 students). However, it was the German Provost of the Church of the Redeemer who was elected as the spiritual leader of the new church – and until 1979 there was no Arab bishop.33 In the 1960s the Palaestinawerk began to loose its relevance. The compensation payments were distributed, the houses rebuilt and a native church established. The organisational focus of German Protestant engagement in Palestine did not dissolve completely, however. One reason was that the central collection for the Palaestinawerk in most of the regional churches was very effective. Secondly the Palaestinawerk continued to serve the function of managing the central budget for the institutions that had originally been established by the LWF. This was required even though an increasing proportion of the funds were designated for the new Arab Protestant church. 31 Sitzung des Palästinawerkes in Kaiserswerth, 8.6.1956, in: FKSK, DA 197. 32 Sitzung der Vertreter des Palästinawerkes auf dem Feld, 16.5.1956 in Jerusalem, in: FKSK, DA 197. 33 Raheb, Das reformatorische Erbe unter den Palästinensern, 189–212.

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DISSOLUTION OF THE PALÄSTINAWERK IN 1969 Due to the gradual integration of missionary organisations into the Protestant Church in Germany, the Palaestinawerk was replaced in 1969 by the Near-EastCommission (Nah-Ost-Kommission) of the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD). In addition to the original German mission boards, a number of new organisations were represented by this commission. Following the establishment of the German-Israeli diplomatic relationship in 1965, which had furthered the opening of the Israeli part of Palestine for German activities, some of these new members came from Christian groups within the German Protestant Church whose focus was reconciliation with survivors of the Holocaust. The Evangelische Marienschwesternschaft e.V. founded the Abraham-Haus as a hospice for former concentration camp inmates in 1960, the international Christian organisation Nes Ammim founded a Christian village as a sign of reconciliation north of Haifa in 1962, and Aktion Suehnezeichen/Friedensdienste e.V. founded a European youth center, Haus Pax, in 1966.34 The old German Protestant organisations were no longer the only players in the field. All the groups were looking for funds, and the German Protestant Church tried to coordinate their future work. This gave birth to the idea that one should unify the different mission organisations. The new director of Brot fuer die Welt, the biggest German Protestant organisation for collecting funds, Hans-Otto Hahn, described Palestine as a market place of different groups looking for a presence in the Holy Land.35 This desire is still present in relation to the Holy Land today. The Kaiserswerth diaconesses looked for an opportunity to give Talitha Kumi away, which by the end of the 1960s had become a problem. The long-serving deaconesses, Bertha Harz and Najla Moussa, resisted basic reforms and were unable to let their life’s work pass into other hands. At the same time there were financial difficulties and a lack of new recruits as deaconesses. Therefore Kaiserswerth, which had cooperated with the Jerusalemsverein in the past, gave Talitha Kumi to the Jerusalemsverein. In 1975 Talitha Kumi was incorperated into the Berliner Missionswerk, a regional mission institution associated with the Protestant Church in Berlin.36 A more unified organisation was the result, and the Palaestinawerk was no longer needed.

34 Compare the list of German Protestant organisations in Israel/Jordan (Vorlage für den Rat der EKD (K.A. 9673/70; 16.7.1970, in: EZA 6/1588). See also Gronauer’s article in this volume. 35 “Eindrücke von einer Nah-Ost-Reise” (Hahn, 18.10.1971), in: EZA 56/206. 36 Kaminsky, “... eine wesentliche Hilfe ...”

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CONCLUSION A conclusion to this history of the Palaestinawerk is not easy. The Palaestinawerk was the latest line of the German religious and social infrastructure in Palestine. It worked from 1950 to 1969 as a loose and temporary association of the German boards. The reasons for its end are various, and they hint at the change of missionary concepts which included religious, cultural and social development aid. During the Second World War the very different German Protestant institutions were confiscated and most were used by the British administration and military forces until the end of the British mandate in Palestine in 1948. From the end of 1946 the LWF assumed responsibility for these institutions. The original scepticism of the German boards towards LWF-involvement dissipated following the confiscation of the institutions in the new state of Israel, following the German Property Law of 1950. The German boards then formed the Palaestinawerk to foster their interests. The LWF succeeded in 1951 in negotiating compensation for the confiscated German institutions in Israel. In the years after 1953, Israeli compensation payments provided the financial basis for the rebuilding of houses and institutions of the Syrian Orphanage and the deaconess institution of Kaiserswerth. While the LWF assumed responsibility for relief work and medical care, the German institutions continued their traditional education work in the Jordanian part of Palestine, and in Lebanon. The German Protestant development aid funds from 1960 provided the new financial resources for the work of the German Protestant institutions in Palestine. The aid funds and collections made it possible for the Palaestinawerk – even though loosely organised – to coordinate the national and organisational reconstruction of the German institutions. It was not until the integration of the German mission into the German Protestant Church during the 1960s and 1970s that a unification of certain branches became necessary (e.g. Talitha Kumi into the Jerusalemsverein). Furthermore, traditional missionary work had to modernise when faced with an independant Arab Protestant church in Palestine. Not all institutions could follow their example, which became popular in the 1960s. The Palaestinawerk was therefore a first attempt to integrate German missionary activities in Palestine but it was a product of historical circumstances and, as such, its time was limited.

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INDEX Aachen 90 Abdülmecîd I (Ottoman Sultan) 202 Abu-Lughod, Lila 41, 49 Abyssinia 98 Acre 95 Adenauer, Konrad 217, 237 al-Gaber, Adel 106 al-Issa, Yusuf 106 al-Mughrabi, Muhammad 106 al-Nashashibi, Is’af 106 Alexander I (Russian Tsar) 24 Alexander, Michael Solomon 24, 72, 108, 109, 122, 128, 164, 171 Alexandria 89 Anderson, Benedict 45, 133 ar-Rimawi, Ali 106 Arabia 98 Armenia 98 Arpee, Leon 39 Asia Minor 98 Back, Israel 113 Barkhausen, Theodore 237 Barrès, Maurice 57, 60, 61 Bartlett, William Henry 113 Baudrillart (Mgr.) 59 Bebbington, David 69, 70, 85 Becher, Nissim 50 Beidelman, Thomas O. 103 Ben Arieh, Yehoshua 55, 87 Bermann, Nina 197 Bethmann-Hollweg, Moritz August von 195 Biever, Zephyrin 95, 96 Blaschke, Olaf 14, 18, 33 Bnot Sarah 109 Bodelschwingh, )ULHGULFK von 180, 183, 188, 191 Borromäus, Karl 90 Borromeo, Charles 90 Bosphorus 93 Bourazan, Francis 79, 80 Braco, Mgr. 59 Brandenburge, Dean 185 Braun, Gustav 183 Bülow, Heinrich von 201

Bunsen, Christian Karl Josias Freiherr von 22, 201 Burtscheid 90 Byrne, Tracey 103 Campbell, Archibald 73 Canet, Louis 64 Carmel, Alex 12, 24, 28, 29, 39, 40, 42, 47, 49, 50, 87, 114, 143, 223 Chaplin, Thomas 150 Chatelet, Aristide 38 Cochin, Denys 57 Constantinople 98 Cook, Thomas 29 Cooper, Caroline 108 Cossel, Hans von 237, 238 Dabak, Nicola 75 Dachwitz, Wilhelm 180, 183, 185, 187, 188 Damishky, Hannah 78 David, Gertrud 22, 26, 27, 69, 70, 84, 155, 156, 164, 171, 173, 175, 176, 185, 187, 208 Davidson, Bruce 159, 160, 161, 162, 163 Deir Hana 95 Disselhoff, Deodat 186 Doumato, Eleonor Abdella 44 Doumato, Eleanor 42, 44, 49, 50, 104, 105 Dubois (Cardinal) 59 Dwight, Harrison Gray Otis 37 Egypt 89, 98 Eichhorn, Johann Albrecht Friedrich 201 Eilaboon 95 Eisler, Jakob 42, 43, 50, 51, 179 Erhard, Ludwig 228 Fabri, Friedrich 200 Fallscheer, Christian 76 Finn, Elizabeth Ann 109, 110, 113 Finn, James 109, 110, 113 Finnie, David H. 39, 47 Fiorioli, P. Athanasio 137 Fleischmann, Ellen 42, 49, 50, 52 Fliedner, Theodor . 50, 186, 195, 198, 199, 200, 231 Foerster, Frank 40, 43, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52 Frank, Robert 14, 51 Frankl, Ludvig August 109

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Frederick William IV 22, 25, 194, 195, 200, 201, 202 Frick, Robert 237, 239 Friedlander, Herman 110, 114 Frumkin, Dov 112, 114, 115 Frumkin, Gad 112, 114, 115 Fuchs, Albert 126 Fuhrmann, Malte 197 Gagern, Hans Christoph von 196 Gagin, Avraham 113 Galilee 90, 95, 97 Gatt, Georg 96, 97, 99, 127, 138, 139 Gaza 96, 97 Germany 90, 92, 94, 99 Gidney, William Thomas 37 Gobat, Samuel 53, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 85 Goren, Haim 42, 43, 49, 50, 51, 52, 87, 106, 107 Grayevski, Pinchas 113 Greschat, Martin 208 Gross, Jakob 179 Gross, Natan 179 Großmann, Christian Gottlob Leberecht 199 Grundmann, Christoffer 172 Habermas, Rebecca 191 Habicht, Max 236 Hahn, Hans-Otto 242 Haifa 90 Halevi, Yehuda 112 Hanauer, Christian Wilhelm 110 Hanna, Faith M. 39 Harding, Lucy 73 Hartenstein, Karl 210 Harz, Bertha 234, 241, 242 Herz Imber, Naftali 114 Herz, Aliza 114 Hobsbawm, Eric 157 Hoffmann, Christoph 27 Hoffmann, Gottlieb Wilhelm 27 Hoffmann, Ludwig Friedrich 27 Hohenzollern 17, 25, 55, 56 Holim, Bikur 115, 117 Hommel, Paul 180, 188, 189 Hourani, Albert 176, 177 Huber, James 76, 141 Hübinger, Gangolf 29 Israel 231, 235, 236, 237, 238, 243 Issacs, Alfred Augustus 110 Jaffa 93 Janssen, Wilhelm Leopold 90, 92, 93, 99 Jasper, Gerhard 181, 186, 210, 218

Jerusalem 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97 Kalis, Manuel 110 Karge, Paul 87, 97, 98 Kark, Ruth 14, 40, 42, 43, 48, 49, 52, 101, 105, 106, 107, 118 Karnatz, Bernhard 237, 238 Kaufmann, Ernst A 180 Kirkland, John 20 Klein, Frederick 76, 201, 202 Klinkenberg, Friedrich 95 Köln 89, 90 Königsmarck, Hans Karl Albrecht Graf von 97 Krämer, Gudrun 141, 144 Krusé, William 76, 80 Kubeibe 62, 89 Kugler, Christian 71 Kuhn, Thomas K. 31 Kunst, Hermann 227, 228 LaDach, Misgav 117 Langboim, Shlomit 101, 112, 115, 117, 118 Langénieux (Cardinal) 57, 59 Lebanon 90, 93, 95, 97 Ledochowski (Cardinal) 59 Ledoulx, Charles de 57 Lepsius, M. Rainer 17 Levy, Nissim 115, 147 Lockman, Zachary 156, 157, 174 Löffler, Roland 42 Lübeck, Konrad 37, 46, 97, 98, 139 Lübke, Heinrich 228 Lückhoff, Martin 42 Ludwig I. 89 Luettichau, Siegfried von 187 Luther, Martin 49, 180 Lutz, Charles 236 Madaba 95 Major, Carl Forsyth 195 Malabar 98 Marquardt, Friedrich-Wilhelm 219, 220, 223, 227 Maximilian Joseph 89 McCaul, Alexander 109 McGowen, Dr. 108 Meir Rothschild, Barron 114, 117 Mesopotamia 98 Michel, Pierre 37, 114 Miller, James 173 Moll, Edwin 213, 234, 235, 240 Moltke, Helmuth von 196, 201 Montefiore, Moses 113, 117, 118 Montgomery, R. 102 Mordtmann, Andreas 195

Appendix Morgenstern, A. 112 Muenster, Friederike 231 Muller, Samuel 76 Münster 97 Neil, James 114 Neumann, Bernhard 113, 133 Neumann, Leopold 133 Nidahim, Ezrat 112, 114, 115 Niemann, Hans 182 Niemöller, Martin 235 Nothnagle, Almuth 43, 51 Okkenhaug, Marie 13, 42, 51, 52 Oliphant, Laurence 110, 111, 114 Paddon, William Francis Locke 74 Palestine 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99 Palmer, Ferdinand 74 Paterson, Alexander 164, 169, 171 Persia 98 Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich 67, 68 Peter, Dr. Hans 137, 165, 172, 198 Pils, Charlotte 188 Pines, Yhiel Michael 114 Poppinga, Rudolf Friedrich 181, 183, 186 Porter, Andrew 144 Promio, Alexandre Eugene 179 Prussia 89 Radowitz, Joseph Maria von 201 Raheb, Mitri 40, 44, 48, 51 Rampolla (Cardinal) 59 Randeria, Shalini 143 Rendtorff, Rolf 205, 219, 227 Rogel, Nakdimon 110 Ryad, Umar 44, 52 Said, Edward 13, 40, 47, 105 Saida 95 Sakakini, Halil 106 Schäffer, Fritz 217 Schlink, Edmund 223 Schmidt, Wilhelm 38, 47, 90, 93, 94, 95, 99 Schnabl, Karl 127 Schneider, Ladislaus 89, 92, 94, 99 Schneller, Ernst 20, 26, 30, 31, 32, 52, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 234, 237, 240, 241 Schneller, Hermann 20, 26, 30, 31, 32, 52, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 234, 237, 240, 241 Schneller, Johann Ludwig 20, 26, 30, 31, 32, 52, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 234, 237, 240, 241

24

Schulze, Gerhard 208 Schwake, Norbert 147 Sellin, Volker 15 Selman, Ernst A. 180, 189 Shirion, Izhak 115 Silesia 89, 93 Siyakli, Ashil 106 Smith, Eli 37 Spiegelthal, Ludwig Peter 198, 199, 200 Spittler, Christian Friedrich 91 Steinberg, Hermann 180 Stoll, Heinrich Jacob 195 Stone, Frank A. 39 Stratenwerth 239 Stratenwerth, Gerhard 239 Syria 89, 94, 98 Tamcke, Martin 40, 44 Teschen 93 Teule, Herman 51 Thompson, Edward P. 157 Tibawi, A.L. 38, 42, 47, 105 Tibawi, Abdul Latif 105 Tisserant (Cardinal) 59 Tobler, Titus 113 Torrance, David 155, 156, 164, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 175, 176 Torrance, Herbert 155, 156, 164, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 175, 176 Totah, Halil 106 Transjordan 95 Tripoli 93 Turkey 94 Tyrol 96 Upper Silesia 89 Werff, Lyle L. Van der 39 Wichern, Johann Hinrich 191, 195 Wilhelm II 42, 51, 90 Wilson, Dr. Edward 121 Wittenberg, Martin 26, 210, 213, 214, 218 Wolff, Joseph 112 Wolters, Theodore 79, 199 Woodberry, R. D. 102 Yehuda, Ben 112, 114 Zachs, Fruma 105 Zalman Shapira, Shlomo 112 Zedek, Sha'arey 117 Zeller, Christian Heinrich 30, 67, 71 Zeller, John 30, 31, 32, 67, 68, 71, 75, 76, 77, 79, 83 Zeller, Maria 30, 67, 71

LIST OF AUTHORS

Eisler, Jakob, PhD, Historian and Archivist, works at the Landeskirchliches Archiv Stuttgart and teaches at the Pädagogische Hochschule Ludwigsburg. He has studied at the University of Haifa, where his teacher was the late Prof. Alex Carmel, finished his PhD-Thesis at the University of Tübingen on: Der deutsche Beitrag zum Aufstieg Jaffas 1850–1914: Zur Geschichte Palästinas im 19. Jahrhundert, Wiesbaden 1997. Among many other books relating to the topic of this volume are: together with Sabine Holtz/Norbert Hagg, Kultureller Wandel in Palästina im frühen 20. Jahrhundert. Eine Bilddokumentation, Epfendorf 2003, and together with Hans Hermann Frutiger, Johannes Frutiger (1836–1899): Ein Schweizer Bankier in Jerusalem, Köln-Weimar-Wien 2008. Friedrich, Norbert, PhD, Theologian and Historian with specialisation in 19th and 20th German Church and social history. Director of the Fliedner-Kulturstiftung Kulturstiftung. Co-organiser of “Bochumer Forum zur Geschichte des Sozialen Protestantismus”. His PhD thesis was dedicated to ‘Die christlich-soziale Fahne empor!’ Reinhard Mumm und die christlich-soziale Bewegung, Stuttgart 1997. Recent publication together with Martin Wolff/Christine-Ruth Müller Diakonie pragmatisch. Der Kaiserswerther Verband und Theodor Fliedner, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2007. Goren, Haim, Professor for Historical Geography, Department of Multidisciplinary Studies, Tel-Hai College, Israel. Main fields of interest: Holy Land pilgrims’ and travellers’ literature, European activity in Ottoman Palestine, history of the modern scientific study of Palestine. Author of: ‘Zieht hin und Erforscht das Land’: Die deutsche Palästina-Forschung im 19. Jahrhundert, Göttingen, 2003; ‘Echt Katholisch und gut Deutsch’: Die Katholiken Deutschlands und das Heilige Land, 1838-1910, Göttingen 2008; Dead Sea Level: Science, Exploration and Imperial Interests in the Near East, London 2010. Gronauer, Gerhard, theologian, researches for his PhD at the University of Erlangen and is an ordained minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. He serves in the parish of Dinkelsbühl. His PhD thesis deals with the reactions of the German Pietist movement to the foundation of the State of Israel in and after 1948, which includes also questions of Christian Zionism, theological and political history. Among his publiscations are: Der Staat Israel in der pietistisch-endzeitlichen Endzeitfrömmigkeit nach 1945, in: Gudrun Litz/Heidrun Munzert/Roland Liebenberg (eds.), Frömmigkeit - Theologie - Frömmigkeitstheologie. Contributions to European Church History. Festschrift Berndt Hamm,

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Leiden-Boston 2005, 797–810; “Die Wahrnehmung des Staates Israel in der evangelischen Publizistik zwischen 1948 und 1972”, in: Heiliges Land: Jahrbuch für Biblische Theologie 23 (2008), 263–272; “‘To love the Jews’: William H. Hechler (1845–1931), der christliche Förderer des politischen Zionismus”, in: Berthold Schwarz (ed.), Christen, Juden und die Zukunft Israels: Beiträge zur Israellehre aus Geschichte und Theologie, Frankfurt am Main 2009, 213–234. Haider-Wilson, Barbara, PhD, Research Associate, Centre for Research on Modern and Contemporary History/Historical Commission, Austrian Academy of Sciences (Vienna). Selected publications: together with Mordechai Eliav (ed.), Österreich und das Heilige Land. Ausgewählte Konsulatsdokumente aus Jerusalem 1849–1917, Wien 2000; ibid., Die Habsburgermonarchie und das Heilige Land 1842–1917. Schutzmachtproblematik, katholisches “Jerusalem-Milieu” und Volksfrömmigkeit, PhD thesis, Vienna 2007; ibid./Dominique Trimbur (eds.), Europa und Palästina 1799–1948: Religion – Politik – Gesellschaft / Europe and Palestine 1799–1948: Religion – Politics – Society, Wien 2010. Kaminsky, Uwe, PhD, historian with a specialisation in 19th and 20th century social and religious history. PhD thesis on Zwangssterilisation und ‘Euthanasie’ im Rheinland. Evangelische Erziehungsanstalten sowie Heil- und Pflegeanstalten 1933 bis 1945, Köln 1995.Research Associate at Ruhr University Bochum, member of the research group “Transformation of Religion in modern society”; 2004– 2006 project about the Kaiserswerth Deaconess Institution as home mission abroad at the Fliedner Cultural Foundation in Duesseldorf; publication: Innere Mission im Ausland. Der Aufbau religiöser und sozialer Infrastruktur am Beispiel der Kaiserswerther Diakonie (1851–1975), Stuttgart 2010. Kark, Ruth, Professor of Geography at the Hebrew Univerity of Jerusalem, 1999/2000 also Visiting Scholar Harvard University and Stanford University. She has written and edited twenty books and over 200 articles on the history and historical geography of Palestine and Israel. Her special interest is focused on settlement in the Land of Israel in the 19th-century and Western influences on the Holy Land. More recently, she has written about women and land ownership in traditional and modern cultures. Among her main monographs are: Frontier Jewish Settlement in the Negev, 1880–1948. Tel Aviv 1974 (Hebrew); The Land that became Israel: Studies in historical geography, Jerusalem 1989; Jerusalem neighborhoods: planning and by-laws, 1855–1930, Jerusalem 1991; together with Yehoshua Ben-Arieh (eds.), Israel Studies in Historical Geography. A Book Series. Five volumes, Jerusalem 1989–1997 (four of the volumes in press); together with Helga Dudman, The American Colony. Scenes from a Jerusalem Saga. Jerusalem 1998; togeher with Margalit Shilo/Galit. Hasan-Rokem (eds.), Jewish Women in the Yishuv and Zionism: A Gender Perspective, Jerusalem 2001 (Hebrew); together Joseph Glass (eds.), Sephardi Entrepreneurs in Eretz Israel: The Valero-Family, 1800–1948, Jerusalem-New York 2007.

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Langboim, Shlomit, PhD, studied and reseached at the Hebrew University under the supervision of Professor Ruth Kark in the field of Historical Geography. She now teaches there in the Geography Teacher’s Certification Programm as well as at Beir Berl Academic College, and is also an educational cousellor. Her PhD thesis focused on The Jewish response to the missionary activity in Eretz Israel/Palestine 1882–1917. Van der Leest, Charlotte, PhD, studied, worked, researched and taught at Leiden University, before she became Executive Secretary, Netherlands School for Advanced Studies in Theology and Religion, University of Utrecht. Main publication, Conversion and Conflict in Palestine: The Missions of the Church Missionary Society and the Protestant Bishop Samuel Gobat, Leiden 2008. Löffler, Roland, PhD, Studied theology and philosophy in Tübingen, Berlin, Cambridge and Marburg. Since 1997 free-lance journalist for newspapers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland; 2005/2006: Research Associate at the University of Marburg; 2006 Visiting professor at the Université de Montreal. Since 1 January 2007 Programme Director of Trialogue of Cultures at the Herbert Quandt-Stiftung, Bad Homburg. His PhD was recently published under the title: Protestanten in Palästina. Religionspolitik, Diasporamentalität und Missionsverständnis in den deutschen evangelischen und den anglikanischen Gemeinden des Heiligen Landes 1917–1939, Stuttgart 2008 Marten, Michael, PhD, historian and theologian, Lecturer in Postcolonial Studies. University of Stirling, works on the European interaction with the Middle East from the early 19th century onwards. He has a particular interest in issues of identity creation, gender, the communication of social norms, and local interaction. He is also the initiator and one of the editors of the “Christians in the Middle East”Network - an international scholarly community working on any aspect of Christians in the Middle East. Finally, he is associated to and writes occasionally for Ekklesia - Britain’s premier think-tank on religion and public affairs. Among his recent publications are: Attempting to Bring the Gospel Home – Scottish Missions to Palestine, 1839–1917, London 2006; together with Martin Tamcke, Christian witness between continuity and new beginnings: modern historical missions in the Middle East, Berlin 2006. Murre-van den Berg, Heleen, Professor for the Modern History of World Christianity, especially in the Middle East, at the Leiden Institute for Religious Studies, Faculty of Humanties, Leiden University. She has published extensively on Syriac Christianity as well as on Protestant and Catholic missions in the Middle East. Among her work are two edited volumes: Redefining Christian Identity. Cultural Interaction in the Middle East since the Rise of Islam – together with J.J. van Ginkel and T.M. van Lint; Louvain 2005 and New Faith in Ancient Lands. Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Leiden 2006.

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Appendix

Perry, Yaron, PhD Head, Department of the Land of Israel Studies, University of Haifa; Head, Gottlieb Schumacher Institute and Chair, University of Haifa. Main publication: British Mission to the Jews in Nineteenth Century Palestine, Frank Cass, London 2003; Modern Medicine in the Holy Land. Pioneering British Medical Services in Late Ottoman Palestine, IB.Tauris, London and New-York 2007 (with Efraim Lev); “Das Ende der ersten deutschen Siedlung in Palästina 1858”, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins (ZDPV), Vol. 119 (2003) No. 1, pp. 59–73. Pschichholz, Christin, PhD, historian, works at the Deutsche Historische Museum Berlin. Her PhD thesis (University of Kiel) related to the German Protestant congregations in the mainlands of the Ottoman Empire and will be published by Kohlhammer with the title: Zwischen Diaspora, Diakonie und deutscher Orientpolitik. Die deutschen evangelischen Gemeinden in Istanbul und Kleinasien (1843–1918). Further publications: “Die ‘armenische Frage’ im kolonialen Kontext. Nationalprotestantische Sichtweisen zwischen konfessionellem Antagonismus, Rassismus und theologischer Überhöhung”, in: Zeitschrift für Genozidforschung 9(2009) 68– 92; “Immigration of German-Speaking People to the Territory of Modern-Day Turkey (1850–1918)”, in: Mathias Schulze u.a. (ed.), German Diasporic Experiences: Identity, Migration, and Loss, Waterloo 2008, 231–243. Trimbur, Dominique, PhD, historian with a special interest in the Middle East, Research Fellow at the Centre de Recherche français de Jérusalem, CNRS; Among his many publications are De la Shoah à la réconciliation? - La question des relations RFA/Israël (1949–1956), Paris 2000; Europäer in der Levante – Zwischen Politik, Wissenschaft und Religion (19.–20. Jahrhundert) - Des Européens au Levant - Entre politique, science et religion (XIXe–XXe siècles), Munich 2004; together with Ran Aaronsohn (eds.), De Bonaparte à Balfour – Les puissances européennes et la Palestine, 1799–1917, Paris 2001, ²2008; together with Ran Aaronsohn (eds.), De Balfour à Ben Gourion – Les puissances européennes et la Palestine, 1917–1948, Paris 2008; together with Barbara Haider-Wilson (eds.), Europa und Palästina 1799–1948: Religion – Politik – Gesellschaft - Europe and Palestine 1799–1948: Religion – Politics – Society, Wien 2010.

M I S S I O N S G E S C H I C H T L I C H E S A RC H I V Studien der Berliner Gesellschaft für Missionsgeschichte

Herausgegeben im Auftrag des Vorstandes von Andreas Feldtkeller, Irving Hexham, Ulrich van der Heyden, Gunther Pakendorf und Werner Ustorf.

Franz Steiner Verlag

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ISSN 1430–1016

Jürgen Becher Dar es Salaam, Tanga und Tabora Stadtentwicklung in Tansania unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft (1888–1914) 1997. 194 S. mit 13 Ktn. und 11 Abb., geb. ISBN 978-3-515-06735-5 Elfriede Höckner Die Lobedu Südafrikas Mythos und Realität der Regenkönigin Modjadji 1998. 260 S. mit 17 Abb. und 12 Taf., kt. ISBN 978-3-515-06794-2 Nils Ole Oermann Mission, Church and State Relations in South West Africa under German rule (1884–1915) 1999. 267 S., geb. ISBN 978-3-515-07578-7 Ulrich van der Heyden / Jürgen Becher (Hg.) Mission und Gewalt Der Umgang christlicher Missionen mit Gewalt und die Ausbreitung des Christentums in Afrika und Asien in der Zeit von 1792 bis 1918/19 2000. 557 S., geb. ISBN 978-3-515-07624-1 Tanja Hemme Streifzüge durch eine fremde Welt Untersuchung ausgewählter schriftlicher Zeugnisse deutscher Reisender im südlichen Afrika unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der kulturellen Fremderfahrung 2000. 250 S., kt. ISBN 978-3-515-07563-3 Chun-Shik Kim Deutscher Kulturimperialismus in China Deutsches Kolonialschulwesen in Kiautschou (China) 1898–1914 2004. 272 S. mit 23 Abb., geb. ISBN 978-3-515-08570-0 Andrea Schultze „In Gottes Namen Hütten bauen“ Kirchlicher Landbesitz in Südafrika:

die Berliner Mission und die EvangelischLutherische Kirche Südafrikas zwischen 1834 und 2005 2005. 619 S. mit 17 Abb., geb. ISBN 978-3-515-08276-1 10. Ulrich van der Heyden / Holger Stoecker (Hg.) Mission und Macht im Wandel politischer Orientierungen Europäische Missionsgesellschaften in politischen Spannungsfeldern in Afrika und Asien zwischen 1800 und 1945 2005. 700 S., geb. ISBN 978-3-515-08423-9 11. Vera Boetzinger „Den Chinesen ein Chinese werden“ Die deutsche protestantische Frauenmission in China 1842–1952 2004. 305 S. mit 15 Abb. und 1 Kte., kt. ISBN 978-3-515-08611-0 12. Ulrich van der Heyden / Andreas Feldtkeller (Hg.) Border Crossings Explorations of an Interdisciplinary Historian. Festschrift für Irving Hexham 2008. 496 S. mit farb. Frontisp., geb. ISBN 978-3-515-09145-9 13. Lize Kriel The ‘Malaboch’ books Kgaluši in the “civilization of the written word” 2009. 377 S. mit 15 Abb., 3 Tab. und 1 Kte., kt. ISBN 978-3-515-09243-2 14. Kokou Azamede Transkulturationen? Ewe-Christen zwischen Deutschland und Westafrika, 1884-1939 2010. 278 S., kt. ISBN 978-3-515-09669-0 15. Uwe Kaminsky Innere Mission im Ausland Der Aufbau religiöser und sozialer Infrastruktur am Beispiel der Kaiserswerther Diakonie (1851–1975) 2010. 280 S., kt. ISBN 978-3-515-09687-4