Immanuel Church (Tel Aviv-Yafo)
Encyclopedia
Immanuel Church is a Protestant church in the American–German Colony
in Tel Aviv
, Israel. Today it serves a Lutheran congregation of the Norwegian Church Ministry to Israel .
The church building dates back to 1904 and its first Protestant congregation to 1858.ʿAbd-ar-Raʿūf Sinnū (Abdel-Raouf Sinno, عبد الرؤوف سنّو), Deutsche Interessen in Syrien und Palästina, 1841 - 1898: Aktivitäten religiöser Institutionen, wirtschaftliche und politische Einflüsse, Berlin: Baalbek, 1982, (Studien zum modernen islamischen Orient; vol. 3), p. 53. ISBN 3-922876-32-3 The church building is located on Rechov Beer-Hofmann
#15. The first congregation formed a parish in 1889 and became a full-fledged member of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces in 1906.
sent out Peter Martin Metzler and his wife Dorothea, née Bauer (*1831-1870*) to establish a missionary outpost in Jaffa. Both earned their livelihood by several enterprises, such as a steam mill, a pilgrims' hostel and trading with European imported merchandise, besides their missionary activities. From mid-1861 till early 1862 Plato Ustinov stayed in their hostel and they won him as financial partner for their enterprises. Ustinov granted the Metzlers a considerable sum of money, in order to enable them to fulfill their dream of establishing a missionary school and an infirmary in Jaffa.
In May 1862 the Metzlers reported St. Chrischona, that they had opened an infirmary, and St. Chrischona - very pleased about this progress - announced the emission of two deaconess
es for the infirmary. In 1866 Peter Metzler entered into dispute with Samuel Gobat
, Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem, who subjected the Jaffa mission to Johannes Gruhler, the ordained Anglican pastor of Ramle, although Metzler had built up the Jaffa mission and used to be fulfill pastoral functions too. Most congregants disliked the Anglican Rite and preferred to attend Metzler's services.
George Adams
and Abraham McKenzie, and more colonists from Maine
had arrived on 22 September 1866 in Jaffa. They founded the American Colony, named Amelican in Arabic
, or Adams City in English
, between today's Rechov Eilat and Rechov haRabbi mi-Bacherach in Tel Aviv-Yafo. They erected their wooden houses from prefabricated pieces, which they had brought with them. Many settlers contracted Cholera
, and about a third of them died. Metzler treated many sick American colonists in his infirmary, meanwhile a little hospital.
However, the sickness, the climate, the insecure and arbitrary treatment by the Ottoman authorities, made many colonists willing to remigrate to Maine. But their leader Adams withheld their money, which they had earlier conveyed to him. So Metzler bought the land of five colonists, providing them the funds to leave. One of the houses Metzler resold later to the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews. Most settlers returned to America until 1867.
The colonists could sell much of their remaining real estate to newly arriving settlers from the Kingdom of Württemberg
in 1869. In 1861 these settlers, led by Georg David Hardegg (*1812-1879*) and Christoph Hoffmann
had seceded from the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg
and founded their own Christian denomination, the Temple Society. Thus they are called Templers
, and according to their faith the Holy Land
had to be redeemed by an active industrious lifestyle, understood by the Templers to be the symbolic reconstruction of the Temple
. On 5 March 1869 also Metzler, knowing Hoffmann from the times he still served as missionary for St. Chrischona, sold most of his real estate and enterprises to the new colonists, before he left Jaffa.
While Württembergian Lutherans condemned the Templers as apostates, the Prussian position was somewhat milder. Their settlement in the Holy Land found a warm support through Wilhelm Hoffmann (*1806-1873*), who was no apostate from the official church, like his younger brother Christoph. Wilhelm Hoffmann served as one of the royal Prussian
court preachers at the Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church in Berlin and was a co-founder and first president of Jerusalem's Association , a charitable organisation founded on 2 December 1852 to support Samuel Gobat
's effort as bishop of the Anglo-Prussian Bishopric of Jerusalem
.
However, in June 1874 the Temple denomination underwent a schism
. Temple leader Hardegg and about a third of the Templers seceded from the Temple Society, after personal and substantial quarrels with the other leader Christoph Hoffmann.
The schismatics around Hardegg searched to join another Christian denomination. To this end they addressed the Lutheran Church of Sweden
(1874) and the Anglican Church Missionary Society (1879), but both refused to take care of the schismatics. In 1878 Hardegg and most of the schismatics founded the Temple Association (Tempelverein), but after Hardegg's death in the following year the cohesion of its adherents faded.
Until 1886 the Anglican Church of England
and the united
Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces together ran the Anglo-Prussian Bishopric of Jerusalem
. As part of its effort Protestant pastor
s from Germany
and the United Kingdom
missioned among the non-Muslim population of the Holy Land.
- in forming Evangelical congregations with former Templers representing its parishioners. In 1889 former Templers, Protestant German and Swiss expatriates, and domestic and foreign proselytes gained earlier by the Metzlers' missionary efforts constituted the Evangelical congregation of Jaffa. Johann Georg Kappus sen. (*1826-1905*) became the first chairman of the congregation, seconded and later followed by his son Johann Georg Kappus jun. (1855–1928). Pastor Schlicht aimed at deepening the trench between the newly Evangelical congregants and the Templers.
After Prussia
had cancelled for its part the British-Prussian contract on the bishopric of Jerusalem on 3 November 1886, Prussia transferred its repaid share in the endowment fund of the bishopric to the Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation , newly founded on 22 June 1889. This foundation took on the task of the former bishopric, while the Church of England continued its work with the now purely Anglican bishopric of Jerusalem.
Among the parishioners were only few wealthy persons, such as Plato von Ustinov and Wilhelm Friedrich Faber (*1863-1923*), president of the Deutsche Palästina-Bank (est. 1897), and earlier partner in the banking company Frutiger & Co. (Jerusalem, disest. 1896) of his father-in-law Johannes Frutiger (*1836-1899*), financier of the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway
. Faber moved to Jaffa in 1899, when the Palästina-Bank opened its branch there, and joined the Evangelical congregation. Other parishioners were Moritz Hall (*1838-1914*), a Jewish-born convert to Protestantism, and his wife, the former Ethiopian court-lady Katharina Hall, also known as Welette-Iyesus, who moved altogether to Jaffa in 1868, after the British army had liberated them from Ethiopian captivity (Battle of Magdala
). Their daughter Magdalena Hall, born during the battle, married Ustinov in 1888.
Ustinov, since 1875 a Protestant convert, offered the new congregation the hall of his Hôtel du Parc in Jaffa for services (1889–1897). The services were usually held by Kappus sen., unless a pastor from Jerusalem or Haifa held them.
Starting in 1890 Jerusalem's Association granted Jaffa's Evangelical congregation financial subsidies. The pupils of apostate families had been excluded from the Templer school since 1874.ʿAbd-ar-Raʿūf Sinnū (Abdel-Raouf Sinno, عبد الرؤوف سنّو), Deutsche Interessen in Syrien und Palästina, 1841 - 1898: Aktivitäten religiöser Institutionen, wirtschaftliche und politische Einflüsse, Berlin: Baalbek, 1982, (Studien zum modernen islamischen Orient; vol. 3), p. 131. ISBN 3-922876-32-3 So the subsidies finally enabled to open an Evangelical school on 1 October 1890, though in the house of Kappus sen., who considered the school opening the actual foundation of the congregation. While the Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation played the role of the official provider, Jerusalem's Association paid for it and its teacher, starting in early 1891. In fact the German government generally co-financed the schools of German language in the Holy Land with about a quarter of their annual budgets since 1880. Thus the new Evangelical school became a recipient of these subsidies in 1892 for about a quarter of the salary of one teacher and that of a second teacher as of 1913.
In September 1894 the same year Dr. Friedrich Braun (*1850-1904*), Württembergian
royal court preacher (as of 1887) and Upper Consistorial Councillor
(as of 1896) of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg, founded the local group of Jerusalem's Association in Stuttgart
, concentrating especially on the support of the Jaffa congregation, comprising mostly former apostates of the Württembergian Lutheran state church and their offspring, who now had returned to an official Protestant church body
, albeit to the Prussia-based Evangelical Church of Prussia's older Provinces, which was a united church
of Calvinists and Lutherans.
In 1895 Pastor Schlicht returned as superintendent
of the deanery
Kölln
Land II (seat: Rudow, part of today's Berlin) to Germany, staying true to the Evangelical efforts in the Holy Land and thus becoming editor (1896–1910) with Jerusalem's Association for its journal Neueste Nachrichten aus dem Morgenlande (Latest News from the Levant). He modernised the journal, making it a widespread magazine.
The Stuttgart-based local group of Jerusalem's Association and the Lutheran Evangelical State Church in Württemberg agreed to finance the salary for a professional Evangelical pastor of the Jaffa congregation. Thus these financiers wanted a Württembergian pastor and found Albert Eugen Schlaich from Korntal. Schlaich was a studied theologist and paedagogue for primary schools. He and his wife Luise Wilhelmine Julie Schlaich arrived on 10 March 1897 in Jaffa, and Ustinov housed them in his hotel until they would have found an apartment of their own. After Schlaich had acceded his office as pastor and teacher the congregation rented the local chapel of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews for an annual payment of 100 francs of the Latin Monetary Union
for its services. Schlaich introduced for the Jaffa congregation the liturgical agenda
of the united Prussian church, extended for some Lutheran traditions from Württemberg's state church. In 1900 ca. 30-40 congregants attended the services on Sundays in the chapel of the London Jews Missionary Society.
Schlaich continued Schlicht's behaviour as to the Templers and further deepened the trench between them and the Evangelical Protestants. In 1905 Schlaich accused the German Vice Consul
Dr. Eugen Büge (*1859-1936*) in Jaffa to be breaking consular secrets in return for gifts. So Büge was transferred for disciplinary reasons to Aleppo
, however, the German Foreign Office
urged also Schlaich's transfer, since it considered Schlaich and not Büge to have damaged its reputation abroad. The Evangelical Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, the executive board of the Prussian state church, pressurised Jerusalem's Association to release Schlaich from his office in Jaffa, thus he was appointed for another pastorate in Germany. The Jaffa congregation gave Schlaich a farewell on 25 December 1905, and Georg Johannes Egger (*1842) thanked Schlaich and his wife for 9 years of successful pastoral work.
Between 1906 and 1912 the Stuttgart local group of Jerusalem's Association and the Lutheran Evangelical State Church of Württemberg financed Pastor Wilhelm Georg Albert Zeller. He considered the growing Jewish immigration a threat to the Gentile
German colonists, reporting their fears, that they could be expelled in the end, and thus recommended their emigration to a German, less populated colony in Africa. He was followed by the charismatic pastor Dr. Eitel-Friedrich Karl Balthasar von Rabenau, again supported by the same Stuttgart-based sponsors. Rabenau had studied theology in Tübingen
, Halle upon Saale and Berlin
, among other with Julius Kaftan and Adolf von Harnack
.
After the outbreak of World War I
the Sublime Porte de facto abolished the personal exterritoriality and consular jurisdiction for foreigners according to Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire
on 7 September 1914. In the same month many young male parishioners left Jaffa in order to join the German Imperial Army. Rabenau accompanied them - against the will of Jerusalem's Association and the congregation - in order to serve as military chaplain
. The Prussian Evangelical Supreme Ecclesiastical Council ordered his return, so Rabenau retook his office in October. His wife Elisabeth, née Riese (mar. 19 March 1912), and their two sons moved to Germany and weathered the war there.
The Ottoman authorities forced all enemy missionary institutions to close in October 1914 and many missionary pupils then joined the joint Evangelical-Templer school of Jaffa. Their premises were confiscated for military purposes. In November 1914 the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed V
declared in his function as Caliph
the Jihad
, which aroused fear for anti-Christian atrocities among the parishioners.
The war years were characterised by an increasing inflation of the Ottoman banknotes, causing Jerusalem's Association severe transfer losses at remitting salaries to its collaborators in the Holy Land, since the association had to purchase - in return for marks
- foreign exchange
denominated in inflationary Ottoman banknotes, which had to be sold again in Jaffa for less inflated Ottoman hard coins at a rate far below par. Since Ottoman banknotes had hardly purchasing power
anymore, this second exchange was necessary to provide the collaborators in the Holy Land with still accepted currency. Until 1916 the Ottoman banknotes had dropped to a ¼, later to of their pre-war rate in mark, which was inflated itself. The war-related scarcity (collapse of production and imports, war requisitions) of goods further caused a dearness of most products, even when priced in hard coins. So Jerusalem's Association had to increase its transfers to the Holy Land, partially refinanced by rising collections in German Protestant congregations.
On 17 November 1917 Britons captured Jaffa and most male parishioners of Austrian, German or Ottoman nationality from Jaffa and Sarona, including Rabenau, were interned in Wilhelma
as enemy nationals. In 1918 the interned men were deported to a camp south of Ghaza, while the parishioners remaining in Jaffa were subjected to strict police control. However, the remaining congregants, mostly women and children and only few men, succeeded to further maintain congregational life in Jaffa.
In August 1918 the internees were relocated from Ghaza to Sidi Bishr
and Helwan near Alexandria
in Egypt
. Rabenau and the internees built up congregational life in their Egyptian exile, lasting three years. With the Treaty of Versailes becoming effective on 10 January 1920 the Egyptian camps were dissolved and Rabenau became the internees' coordinator of the closedown. Most internees returned to the Holy Land, except of those banned by a British black list, such as D. Dr. Friedrich Jeremias, Provost of Jerusalem. Rabenau went to Germany to reunite with his family, the Britons refused his return to Jaffa in July 1920. In April 1921 the Prussian Evangelical Supreme Ecclesiastical Council then appointed Prof. D. Dr. Gustaf Dalman
, formerly leader of the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, per pro as Provost of Jerusalem at the then Evangelical Church of the Redeemer
, until the new Provost Albrecht Alt
did arrive by the end of the year. In this function Dalman held the stake of the Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation and of Jerusalem's Association.
Jerusalem's Association decided to send a new pastor to the Jaffa congregation, combining the efforts of the Prussian Evangelical Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, the Gustavus Adolphus Endowment , a charitable foundation for the support of Protestants living in Diaspora
, and the Deutsche Evangelische Kirchenausschuss (DEKA), the conference of German Protestant church bodies
. On 15 May 1921 Dalman introduced Detwig von Oertzen in Haifa, before pastor in Beirut
, as pastor for all Evangelical congregations in the Levant, Beirut, Jaffa, and Waldheim
, but seated with the Haifa congregation.
In 1922 Rabenau, back in Germany, made his Doctor of Philosophy
at the Westphalian William's University with a dissertation on the Templers, their work and history. Rabenau stayed true to the Evangelical efforts in the Holy Land and joined the executive board of Jerusalem's Association in 1924. The Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, since 1922 the new name of the former Prussian state church following the separation of state and religion by the Weimar constitution
of 1919, employed Rabenau as second pastor at the Evangelical Church of the Apostle Paul in Schöneberg
(Berlin, 6 May 1923 to 1954). Besides his pastorate Rabenau took care of the public relations of Jerusalem's Association between 1929 and 1935.
Starting in January 1925 the Evangelical Provostry of Jerusalem (est. 1898, comprising Mandatory Palestine, and at times Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Egypt) issued a periodical for all its congregations named "Evangelisches Gemeindeblatt für Palästina".
In April 1926 Jerusalem's Association appointed cand. Ernst Paetzold as new, however only auxiliary, pastor for Jaffa. In September 1928 he held a lecture at the annual conference of Levantine Protestant pastors titled "Our congregations in their position towards other groups of German culture". By 1930 the German Jews made up the biggest group of Germans in the Holy Land, however a minority among all Palestinians, the Templers amounted to 1,300, and the remaining 400 Germans were - except of few Catholics (mostly clergy) and few irreligionists - prevailingly Protestant, among them 160 parishioners (as of 1927) of the Jaffa congregation.
In April 1931 Paetzold returned to Germany, and the pastorate remained unstaffed due to financial constraints in the Great Depression
. When the Nazi party aimed at roughing up with the Protestant church bodies in Germany as of 1932, especially with the constitutional election of presbyter
s and synod
als of the old-Prussian church in November 1932, this did not play a role in the Holy Land. However, the newly founded Nazi Faith Movement of German Christians
gained an average of a third of the presbyters and synodals in Germany.
After Adolf Hitler
imposed on all German church bodies an unconstitutional reelection of all presbyters and synodals on 23 July 1933, the massive voter participation of Protestant Nazis, who had not shown up for years in services, let alone church elections, caused an extraordinarily high turnout, which yielded the German Christians a share of 70-80% of the presbyters and synodals, with some exceptions. However, this did not automatically mean the total takeover of the German Christians in all Protestant organisations, since due to the decentral and grassroot organisation of many Protestant groups, the official church bodies had no direct control, this was especially true for missionary endowments such as Jerusalem's Association.
In Germany the Protestant opposition first formed among pastors with the Emergency Covenant of Pastors
, founded to fight for pastors discriminated by the German Christians for their Jewish ancestry. This covenant helped to found the Protestant Confessing Church
es, which paralleled in all destroyed Protestant church bodies the official German Christian-subjected church bodies, which the Confessing Church considered to be schismatic for their abandonment of the universal sacrament of baptism
. Most pastors in the Holy Land sided with the Confessing Church as also did most members of the executive board of Jerusalem's Association, among them Rabenau, an opponent of Nazism since 1931. Jerusalem's Association appointed pastors, fired or furloughed by Nazi-submissive official church bodies, for congregations in the Holy Land.
On October 18–20, 1933 the German Protestant missionary endowments within Deutscher Evangelischer Missionsbund (DEMB) convened in Barmen
and rejected the attempt to subject the missionary societies - in the course of the pervasive Gleichschaltung
of all civic organisations - to the Nazi-submissive German Evangelical Church. Jerusalem's Association retained its legal independence, successfully rejected the application of the so-called Aryan paragraph
for its own employees and the new appointment of its executive board with a majority of two thirds for German Christians.
However, the Nazi-submissive German Christians, holding crucial positions in the bureaucracy of the official Protestant church bodies, found other ways to pressurise the missionary societies. Foreign exchange assigned at non-market rates was exclusively to be disbursed for salaries of German nationals, thus salaries of Palestinian citizens (e.g. Arab Protestants) became very difficult to organise, Jerusalem's Association had to incur debts in Palestinian pounds with Deutsche Palästina-Bank, which again had to be permitted by the Nazi government, which submitted any foreign indebtedness of German legal entities to its agreement as part of its austerity policy.
Since missions depended on transferring funds abroad the government rationing of foreign exchange became the means to blackmail their cooperation. Jerusalem's Association gained a certain support within the German Christian-streamlined old-Prussian Evangelical Supreme Ecclesiastical Council and the Confessing Church, which both collected and transferred funds for the efforts of Jerusalem's Association. Since February 1934 the new Ecclesiastical Foreign Department (Kirchliches Außenamt) under German Christian Theodor Heckel (*1894-1967*) of the new Nazi-submissive German Evangelical Church claimed the supervision of German Protestant missions. Heckel also presided the board of trustees of the Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation since 1933. Heckel decided on behalf of the Ecclesiastical Foreign Department to also subsidise salaries of ecclesiastical employees in Jaffa and Haifa earlier paid by Jerusalem's Association alone.
Unlike other missions Jerusalem's Association had only tiny revenues in foreign exchange out of Nazi control, namely the rent from the former Armenian Orphanage in Bethlehem, rented out to the British mandatory government for its insane asylum. Thus the foreign efforts of Jerusalem's Association mostly depended on transfers from Germany, now under Nazi government financial control. To get a ration of foreign exchange Jerusalem's Association needed the consent of the Evangelical Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, to cause the government rationing office allotting foreign exchange.
The Levantine Protestant pastors decided on their annual conference at Easter
1934 (1 April), to keep their congregations out of the German Nazi struggle of the churches
. The pastors of Jaffa and Haifa anyway reported, that their congregations felt more related to Jerusalem's Association than to the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union and its Provostry of Jerusalem.
In October 1934 the DEMB convened again in Tübingen, declaring its partisanship with the Confessing Church and its Barmen declaration
of May 1934, however, the actual policy depended - case to case - on the opinion of the respective responsible person. While in Germany ecclesiastical media were banned to report on the struggle of the churches, there was no censorship in British Palestine. So Provost Ernst Rhein, the responsible editor of the "Gemeindeblatt", let his then Vicar Georg Weiß (later deacon
in Nuremberg
) report on the German struggle of the churches, openly siding with the Confessing Church, in his article on the occasion of Harvest Festival
. German Christian Heckel, head of the Ecclesiastical Foreign Department, heftily criticised Rhein and Weiß for that article.
In February 1935 Rabenau, meanwhile a leading representative of the Confessing Church and opponent of Nazism, resigned from doing the German public relations of Jerusalem's Association. After the Brethren Council of the old-Prussian ecclesiastical province of Pomerania, the Pomeranian Confessing Church executive, had agreed to release its Vicar Felix Moderow, he moved to Jaffa to serve there as auxiliary pastor from 1935 to 1937. Also Provost Rhein demanded an opponent pastor as his new vicar and chose another Pomeranian theologist, Fritz Maass (*1910-2005*), as his vicar in Jerusalem.
However, in the German diplomatic service the so-called Aryan paragraph
caused the furlough of Consul-General Dr. Heinrich Wolff in summer 1935, since his Protestant wife, serving as presbyter of the Evangelical congregation of Jerusalem, counted by the Nazi racist categories as partially Jewish. "Among the German inhabitants in the country, only the [Jews and the] Lutherans expressed sorrow at Wolff's dismissal and their Jerusalem newspaper [Gemeindeblatt] published a warm article in praise of his activities. Similar sentiments were expressed in the Hebrew newspaper Doar Hayom, which lauded his consular activity and heralded his efforts not to hurt the feelings of those opposed to the Nazi regime."
In 1937 Pastor Christian Berg succeeded the retired Oertzen in Haifa. Berg had been furloughed by his employer, the German Christian-streamlined Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Mecklenburg
, after the Nazi government sued him in a political trial in Schwerin
in June 1934. For him Palestine became a safe exile from further Nazi stalking. After the Olympic close hunting season was over in Germany, the Nazi government increased again its persecution of opponents. The Gestapo arrested Rabenau and seven further leaders of the Confessing Church on 23 June 1937, when leaving Berlin's Friedrichswerder Church
. After interrogations and some time in detention he was released again.
The "Neueste Nachrichten aus dem Morgenland", the journal of Jerusalem's Association, complained about Jewish immigration to Palestine (1937) and Arab Nationalism (1939), which it regarded as being due to the infiltration by European decomposing ideologies.
After Moderow's return to Germany in 1937 the retired Oertzen served again as pastor in Jaffa until 1939. Jerusalem's Association in Germany experienced a growing hostility by anti-Semites to its name, referring to Jerusalem, and its journal, referring to the Levant. Thus on 27 February 1938 Jerusalem's Association adopted the name affix Jerusalemsverein/Versorgung deutscher evangelischer Gemeinden und Arabermission in Palästina (Jerusalem's Association/Maintenance of German Protestant congregations and missioning of Arabs in Palestine).
In July 1939 Oertzen left Jaffa for a summer holiday in Germany, but also to look after his salary, which had been withheld on a German account, for - in preparation of the war - the rationing office blocked most transfers abroad since early 1939. Jerusalem's Association used Haavara
Ltd. for its transfers to Palestine between 1937 and 1939.
With Germany
(September 1) and the Soviet Union
(September 17) invading Poland in 1939, the Second World War started, followed by the British internment of most male Jaffa parishioners of German or other enemy nationality as enemy alien
s. In May 1940 all remaining enemy aliens of Jaffa, Bir Salem, Sarona and Tel Aviv, not yet interned, such as Gentile
Germans, Hungarians, and Italians, were interned in Wilhelma
, which was converted into an internment camp. The congregation thus de facto terminated its existence in Jaffa. In 1941 many parishioners were released to Germany in the framework of a family unification. The remainder was evacuated to Cyprus in April 1948.
es from Riehen
deaconesses mother house and to provide charitable health care for all, who needed it. The physician was Dr. Gottlob Sandel, father of the engineer Theodor Sandel. In 1882 the Württembergian royal court preacher Dr. Friedrich Braun, however, defamed Templers in his "Protestantismus und Sekten" (Protestantism and sects) as bearing "the character of the morbidly abnormal." When in March 1897 Pastor Schlaich had arrived in Jaffa, the Templers offered him their fellowship hall for his first accession preach to the Evangelical congregation, and Schlaich accepted. However, in October the same year, travelling and fund-raising in Württemberg, Schlaich unveiled that his aim is proselytising among Muslims and Templers, who felt deeply insulted to be mentioned in the same breath with non-Christian Muslims. So the relations chilled down again.
In 1897 and 1898 Templers of Jaffa and Sarona intrigued with the Sublime Porte and the German Foreign Office against the plans to built a combined Evangelical school and community centre, financed by generous donations of Braun and others. So the laying of the cornerstone for the Evangelical community centre was delayed, for Templers argued the title to the construction site would be under dispute. So William II and Auguste Victoria could not attend it.
German Emperor William II
, his wife Auguste Victoria
, protectress of Jerusalem's Association, and their entourage stayed in Jaffa on 27 October 1898. Their travel agency Thomas Cook
accommodated the imperial guests in Ustinov's "Hôtel du Parc", the only establishment in Jaffa regarded suited for them, while the further entourage stayed in "Hotel Jerusalem" (then Seestraße, today's Rechov Auerbach
#6; רחוב אוארבך) of the Templer Ernst Hardegg. Thus William II, as summus episcopus (Supreme governor of the Evangelical State Church in Prussia's older Provinces) kept the balance between Templers and Evangelical Protestants at his visit.
All German citizens hoped after the visit for an improvement of their treatment by the Ottoman authorities, but in vain, the tiny community of Germans in the Holy Land only played a marginal role in the German-Ottoman reltionship, which was not to be obfuscated by quarrelling settlers in the Holy Land.
The hospital, founded by Metzler and run since 1869 by Templers and Protestant deaconesses, was financed by a health insurance, which provided for higher contributions by Protestants and lower ones for Templers, who considered themselves as the main providers of the hospital since its purchase in 1869. Generally the revenues of the health insurance also covered the cost caused by poor patients from the general Jaffa population, who were treated even though they could not pay for it. In 1901 the relations between Protestants and Templers had eased so far, that the Protestant contributions were lowered to 20 and 30 francs p.a., before both religious groups paid equal contributions as of 1906.
Pastor Zeller, who officiated in Jaffa since 1906, took his efforts to reconcile both groups. After ten years of negotiating the unification of the Evangelical and the Templer school, long rejected by the Provost of Jerusalem and Jerusalem's Association, due to their prejudices against Templers as sectarians, an agreement was achieved. On 27 October 1913 the Evangelical and the Templer school merged into a common school in the new school building of the Templers, completed in October 1912, until its demolition located in today's Rechov Pines, opposite to #44. It remained an oecumenical school until its closure by the Britons in November 1917. Jerusalem's Association spent 10% of its budget for schools in the Holy Land.
With the philosophy of the Temple Society, to reconstruct the Holy Land in order to gather the people of God, fading in view of the resurrection of the Holy Land by Jewish settlement, the Templers' faith lost binding power for many of its members and especially many younger discovered Nazism as a non-denominational replacement of the vacuum. Thus most Nazis in the Holy Land were from Templer background. This led to a complete turnaround in the Evangelical-Templers' relationship, because before 1933 the Evangelical Protestants had strong mental and financial support by German Protestant church bodies, while Templers were somewhat orphaned. After 1933 Templers increasingly usurped positions with influential connections to Nazi party and Nazi government bodies in Germany, while the German Protestant church bodies as partners of the Evangelical congregations in the Holy Land lost government support by the struggle of the churches and by Hitler's and Alfred Rosenberg
's general abandonment of Christianity, considered indissolubly Judaised with the Ten Commandments and the Old Testament. Cornelius Schwarz, a Templer from Jaffa, led the Palestinian faction (Landesgruppe) of the Nazi party, with him many young men gained influence over long established institutions as the Evangelical provostry and its congregations as well as the Temple Society itself. The German Foreign Office imposed on Gentile Germans of different denominational affiliations a stronger co-operation under influence of Palestinian Nazi officials of Temple background.
The belated firman, permitting the building, finally arrived on 27 October 1898, after attempts of Templers to baffle the planned constructions, however, too late for an imperial attendance in the laying of the cornerstone.
After Emperor William II's inauguration of the then Evangelical Church of the Redeemer
in Jerusalem on Reformation Day
, 31 October 1898, the bulk of the accompanying entourage was determined to return to Jaffa, to get their ship back. However, a train accident on the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway
, opened in 1892, interrupted their journey, so that they only arrived in Jaffa on November 2.
Thus the Protestant dignitaries among them participated in the laying of the cornerstone for the Evangelical church and community centre in Jaffa, among them Dr. Robert Bosse (*1832-1901*), Prussian minister of education, cult, culture and medicine, the executive board of Jerusalem's Association, D. Friedrich Wilhelm Barkhausen (*1831-1903*), president of the Evangelical Supreme Ecclesiastical Council and General Superintendents
of different ecclesiastical provinces within the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces, representatives of other German and Swiss Protestant church bodies
(Braun for Württemberg), of the Lutheran Church of Norway
and Church of Sweden
as well as of other Protestant churches in Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, and the USA, altogether 45 women and men of the imperial delegation. From the local notables Christoph Hoffmann II (jun.), president of the Temple Society, and representatives of the Evangelical congregations in Bethlehem in Judea
, Bir Salem, Haifa, and Jerusalem participated in the ceremony. Braun, court preacher of King William II of Württemberg
, held the speech at the ceremony and donated himself 10,000 marks. The actual cornerstone included the deed of foundation and seeds of grain and vegetables, symbolising the fertility of the Sharon plain.
The projected overall 30,000 marks were much too little, so some months later Jerusalem's Association withdrew from co-financing the project, it regarded to be nonserious. In 1899 Voigt declared the site to be too small for a community centre and a church, as was planned. The congregation then spent with Braun's consent his donation of 10,000 marks for Heilpern's house (today's Rechov Beer-Hofmann #9), to become the school and rectory
, for the latter of which it also serves today's congregation. However, then the German vice-consulate, still resided in that house and Consul Edmund Schmidt asked to be allowed to further stay there until the new, still-existing vice-consulate in today's Rechov Eilath # 59 would be completed. So the school stayed ad interim with Ustinov's "Hôtel du Parc". Metzler's former site in then Wilhelmstraße (today's Rechov Beer-Hofmann #15) was thus reserved for a future solitary church building.
In April 1900 Pastor Schlaich and his wife moved into Heilpern's house, as well as the school with its 30 pupils, among them Catholic and Jewish pupils, but no Templers, from Jaffa and neighbouring Neveh Tzedeq
and Neveh Shalom. In November 1917 the school had been closed by the Britons. All the property of the congregation, Jerusalem's Association and of parishioners of German and other enemy nationality was taken into public custodianship. With the establishment of a regular British administration in 1918 Edward Keith-Roach
became the Public Custodian of Enemy Property in Palestine, who rented out the property and collected the rents, until the property was finally returned to its actual proprietors in 1925.
On 14 April 1918 John Mott
and J. H. Oldham
, two oecumenists, founded the Emergency Committee of Cooperating Missions, Mott becoming the president and Oldham the secretary. Mott and Oldham succeeded to get Art. 438 into the Treaty of Versailles
, so that the property of German missions would be excepted from being expropriated for German reparations for World War I. Jerusalem's Association and the Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation had meanwhile appointed the Swedish Lutheran Archbishop Nathan Söderblom
their speaker at the Britons.
In May 1919 Jerusalem's Association informed the Reich's commissioner on Germans as enemy nationals abroad, that its loss of property in the Holy Land amounted to 891,785 marks at its pre-war rate (about £ 44,589.25 or $ 212,329.76). The Treaty of Versailles, signed on 28 June 1919, finally became effective on 10 January 1920 and thus legalised the existing British custodianship of the property of the congregation, the parishioners and Jerusalem's Association. The schools of Jerusalem's Association were reopened under British government management in 1920. In April 1920 the Allies convened at the Conference of San Remo and agreed on the British rule in Palestine, followed by the official establishment of the civil administration on 1 July 1920. From that date on Keith-Roach transferred the collected rents for property in custodianship to the actual proprietors. The League of Nations
legitimised this by granting a mandate to Britain in 1922 and Turkey
, the Ottoman successor, finally legalised the British Mandate by the Treaty of Lausanne
, signed on 24 July 1923 and becoming effective on 5 August 1925. Thus the public custodianship ended in the same year and the prior holders achieved the fully protected legal position as proprietors. Jerusalem's Association applied for registration as Palestinian legal entity, granted in 1928.
Jerusalem's Association resumed its own schools and its school in Jaffa, held in condominium with the Templers, however, Provost Rhein complained about the decline of pupils in the Evangelical schools, whose parents were German, Austrian or other German-speaking Jews, especially in the difficult years of 1931 and 1932.
Starting in 1933 the new German Nazi government tried to get the German schools in the Holy Land under its influence, using again the dependence of the school providers on transfers from Germany. Oertzen and Rhein fought the deconfessionalisation of the Evangelical schools. Provost Rhein succeeded to resist the merger of the remaining Evangelical schools with Templer schools until 1937, on which occasion they became paganised, teaching the pupils Nazi Weltanschauung. In order to regain influence on the curriculum, Rhein then tried to join the Palestinian section of the National Socialist Teachers League
(NSLB), but Palestinian NSLB president Dr. Kurt Hegele refused Rhein's membership. So by 1938 all Gentile teachers of German nationality had joined the NSLB, except of Rhein and some further Evangelical missionary teachers.
After the begin of the Second World War in September 1939 all property of the Jaffa congregation, of its parishioners of German or other enemy nationality and of Jerusalem's Association were submitted to the Custodian of Enemy Property, Keith-Roach again, and the schools were supervised by the Committee for Supervision of German Educational Institutions under the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, George Francis Graham Brown
. With the internment of all Jaffa parishioners of German or other enemy nationality in 1940 the premises and houses in Jaffa were confiscated by the Mandatory government. Later the Anglican Church's Ministry Among Jewish People
used the Immanuel Church for its services until 1947. The State of Israel, with Jaffa belonging to its state territory, succeeded the mandatory government in this custodianship in May 1948, however, excluding the building of Immanuel Church proper, since the new state did not seize places of worship.
). In 1906 the congregation of Jaffa included besides Sarona, also Isdud, and Ramla
, and became a fully fledged congregation within the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces, etablished according to its standards with full rights and bodies such as an elected presbytery . In December 1925 the Evangelical congregations of Jaffa, as well as that of Beirut (est. 1856), Haifa, Jerusalem and Waldheim joined the new umbrella German Federation of Protestant Churches , then led by President Hermann Kappler. With the internment of most of its parishioners in Wilhelma the congregation de facto ceased to exist in 1940.
The number of parishioners developed as follows:
In 1903 parishioners in Jaffa and Haifa amounted to 250 altogether.
, by the end of 1901 to design plans for the future solitary Immanuel Church.
Stuttgart's Court Preacher Braun started a fund-raising campaign, also attended by Grand Duchess Vera Constantinovna of Russia
, the niece and adoptee of the late Württembergian Queen Olga and King Charles I
, to collect the needed funds, with Braun and his wife themselves donating 25,000 marks. In 1902 the Ottoman authorities recognised the construction site in then Wilhelmstraße (today's Rechov Beer-Hofmann #15) as religious property, including its liberation from property tax
.
After Jerusalem's Association threatened to chose another architect, if Groth would not downsize his plans to a less costly project, Groth provided plans for a cheaper church at the begin of 1903. Jerusalem's Association then commissioned the architect and Templer Benjamin Sandel (*1877-1941*), then leading the constructions of the Hagia Maria Sion Abbey
in Jerusalem and son of the late Theodor Sandel, as supervisor, and the Templer Johannes Wennagel (*1846-1927*) from Sarona as building contractor, starting excavation on 11 May 1903, however, constructions progressed only slowly because Groth was late with sending the detailed plans, only completely arriving in February 1904. Groth then waived any honorary.
The walls are built from two kinds of natural stone, a yellowish-grey type of sandstone
exploited close to Jaffa and a limestone
, the so-called Meliki, from the mountains at Bir Nabala
. The roof is covered with tiles from Marseille
.
The interior of the approximately oriented
prayer hall is covered by cross vaults, on its northern side a pipe organ
was installed on a loft. The tower, housing a staircase, flanks the northern side aisle and the westernmost bay
of the main nave
.
Braun, the most prominent donator for the congregation and church, travelled on behalf of Jerusalem's Association from Stuttgart to Jaffa to attend the inauguration of Immanuel Church, scheduled for Pentecost
1904 (May 22). Unfortunately he contracted dysentery
after his arrival and died hospitalised in Jerusalem on 31 May 1904. He was buried on the Anglo-Prussian simultaneous Anglican-Evangelical Cemetery on Mount Zion
, close to Samuel Gobat
's grave.
The inauguration of Immanuel Church was then delayed to Monday June 6, held as a sober ceremony and attended by Büge and participants from other Evangelical congregations and Templers. A year later on June 6 Theodor Schneller celebrated a memorial service for Braun.
On 6 April 1910 Prince Eitel Friedrich of Prussia
and his wife Sophie Charlotte of Oldenburg visited Jaffa and Immanuel Church and were received by Pastor Zeller.
and Queen Charlotte
donated the church clock. In his function as summus episcopus of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces King William II of Prussia (also German Emperor) and his wife Auguste Victoria donated the main bell with the inscription "Gestiftet von S.M. d.K.u.K. Wilhelm II u. I.M. d.K.u.K. Auguste Victoria 1904/Zweifle nicht! Ap. Gesch. 10.20". The Evangelical Association for the Construction of Churches , with Auguste Victoria as its protectress, donated the small bells. She also donated the altar bible
with her handwritten dedicaton: "Ja kommet her zu mir alle, die ihr mühselig und beladen seid; ich will Euch erquicken."
Miss Neef from Stuttgart financed the altar and the pulpit, while Ustinov granted the congregation a great crucifix from olive tree wood. The parishioners collected 4,050 francs for the pipe organ, produced by Walcker Orgelbau
in Ludwigsburg
. The stained glass
windows were a product of Fa. Müller in Quedlinburg
. In 1906 a plaque commemorating Friedrich Braun was fixed on the walls of Immanuel Church.
In 1977 Immanuel Church underwent a renovation, replacing the old windows and the pipe organ. The Norwegian Victor Sparre
created the new windows of stained glass. Paul Ott (*1903-1991*) from Göttingen
created the new pipe organ in 1977. The apse
is decorated by an inscription of the Hebrew verse from the Gospel
of John the Evangelist
:
"כי כה אהב אלהים את העולם עד כי נתן את בנו יחידו למען לא יאבד כל המאמין בו, אלא ינחל חיי עולם."
, which took care of the formerly German Protestant missionary property in Israel, found an agreement on compensation for the lost missionary property and the future use of the actual places of worship. In consent with the Evangelical Church in Germany
, the new umbrella of German church bodies taking care of their foreign efforts, and Jerusalem's Association (with its vice-president Rabenau), the Lutheran World Federation handed over Immanuel Church to the Norwegian Church Ministry to Israel in 1955. Today a number of congregations besides the Lutheran are using the church.
American–Germany Colony
The American–German Colony is a residential neighborhood in the southern part of Tel Aviv, Israel. Founded in the 19th century by American protestants, it moved to the control of the German templers later. It is located between Florentin and old Jaffa...
in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
, Israel. Today it serves a Lutheran congregation of the Norwegian Church Ministry to Israel .
The church building dates back to 1904 and its first Protestant congregation to 1858.ʿAbd-ar-Raʿūf Sinnū (Abdel-Raouf Sinno, عبد الرؤوف سنّو), Deutsche Interessen in Syrien und Palästina, 1841 - 1898: Aktivitäten religiöser Institutionen, wirtschaftliche und politische Einflüsse, Berlin: Baalbek, 1982, (Studien zum modernen islamischen Orient; vol. 3), p. 53. ISBN 3-922876-32-3 The church building is located on Rechov Beer-Hofmann
Richard Beer-Hofmann
Richard Beer-Hofmann was an Austrian dramatist and poet.After the early death of his mother, Beer-Hofmann was raised by his aunt's family in Brno and Vienna. In the 1880s he studied law in Vienna, receiving his doctorate in 1890...
#15. The first congregation formed a parish in 1889 and became a full-fledged member of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces in 1906.
The Jaffa Protestant Mission and the antecedents of the first congregation
In 1858 the Protestant St. Chrischona Pilgrim Mission near BaselBasel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
sent out Peter Martin Metzler and his wife Dorothea, née Bauer (*1831-1870*) to establish a missionary outpost in Jaffa. Both earned their livelihood by several enterprises, such as a steam mill, a pilgrims' hostel and trading with European imported merchandise, besides their missionary activities. From mid-1861 till early 1862 Plato Ustinov stayed in their hostel and they won him as financial partner for their enterprises. Ustinov granted the Metzlers a considerable sum of money, in order to enable them to fulfill their dream of establishing a missionary school and an infirmary in Jaffa.
In May 1862 the Metzlers reported St. Chrischona, that they had opened an infirmary, and St. Chrischona - very pleased about this progress - announced the emission of two deaconess
Deaconess
Deaconess is a non-clerical order in some Christian denominations which sees to the care of women in the community. That word comes from a Greek word diakonos as well as deacon, which means a servant or helper and occurs frequently in the Christian New Testament of the Bible. Deaconesses trace...
es for the infirmary. In 1866 Peter Metzler entered into dispute with Samuel Gobat
Samuel Gobat
Samuel Gobat , was a Swiss Lutheran who became an Anglican missionary in Africa and was the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem from 1846 until his death....
, Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem, who subjected the Jaffa mission to Johannes Gruhler, the ordained Anglican pastor of Ramle, although Metzler had built up the Jaffa mission and used to be fulfill pastoral functions too. Most congregants disliked the Anglican Rite and preferred to attend Metzler's services.
George Adams
George J. Adams
George Jones Adams was the leader of a schismatic Latter Day Saint sect who led an ill-fated effort to establish a colony of Americans in Palestine. Adams was also briefly a member of the First Presidency in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints...
and Abraham McKenzie, and more colonists from Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
had arrived on 22 September 1866 in Jaffa. They founded the American Colony, named Amelican in Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, or Adams City in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, between today's Rechov Eilat and Rechov haRabbi mi-Bacherach in Tel Aviv-Yafo. They erected their wooden houses from prefabricated pieces, which they had brought with them. Many settlers contracted Cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, and about a third of them died. Metzler treated many sick American colonists in his infirmary, meanwhile a little hospital.
However, the sickness, the climate, the insecure and arbitrary treatment by the Ottoman authorities, made many colonists willing to remigrate to Maine. But their leader Adams withheld their money, which they had earlier conveyed to him. So Metzler bought the land of five colonists, providing them the funds to leave. One of the houses Metzler resold later to the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews. Most settlers returned to America until 1867.
The colonists could sell much of their remaining real estate to newly arriving settlers from the Kingdom of Württemberg
Kingdom of Württemberg
The Kingdom of Württemberg was a state that existed from 1806 to 1918, located in present-day Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was a continuation of the Duchy of Württemberg, which came into existence in 1495...
in 1869. In 1861 these settlers, led by Georg David Hardegg (*1812-1879*) and Christoph Hoffmann
Christoph Hoffmann
Gottlob Christoph Jonathan Hoffmann was born in Leonberg in the Kingdom of Württemberg, Germany. His parents were Beate Baumann and Gottieb Wilhelm Hoffmann , chairman of the Unitas Fratrum congregation in Korntal.Christoph Hoffmann had a Pietist-Christian background and enjoyed a Christian...
had seceded from the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg
Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg
The Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg is a Protestant church in the German former state of Württemberg, now the part of the state Baden-Württemberg. The seat of the church is in Stuttgart.It is a full member of the Evangelical Church in Germany , and is a Lutheran Church...
and founded their own Christian denomination, the Temple Society. Thus they are called Templers
Templers (religious believers)
Templers are members of the Temple Society , a German Protestant sect with roots in the Pietist movement of the Lutheran Church. The Templers were expelled from the church in 1858 because of their millennial beliefs. Their aim was to realize the apocalyptic visions of the prophets of Israel in the...
, and according to their faith the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
had to be redeemed by an active industrious lifestyle, understood by the Templers to be the symbolic reconstruction of the Temple
Temple in Jerusalem
The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to one of a series of structures which were historically located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. Historically, these successive temples stood at this location and functioned as the centre of...
. On 5 March 1869 also Metzler, knowing Hoffmann from the times he still served as missionary for St. Chrischona, sold most of his real estate and enterprises to the new colonists, before he left Jaffa.
While Württembergian Lutherans condemned the Templers as apostates, the Prussian position was somewhat milder. Their settlement in the Holy Land found a warm support through Wilhelm Hoffmann (*1806-1873*), who was no apostate from the official church, like his younger brother Christoph. Wilhelm Hoffmann served as one of the royal Prussian
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...
court preachers at the Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church in Berlin and was a co-founder and first president of Jerusalem's Association , a charitable organisation founded on 2 December 1852 to support Samuel Gobat
Samuel Gobat
Samuel Gobat , was a Swiss Lutheran who became an Anglican missionary in Africa and was the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem from 1846 until his death....
's effort as bishop of the Anglo-Prussian Bishopric of Jerusalem
Anglican-German Bishopric in Jerusalem
The Anglican-German Bishopric in Jerusalem was an episcopal see founded in Jerusalem in the nineteenth century by joint agreement of the Anglican Church of England and the united Evangelical Church in Prussia.-Background:...
.
However, in June 1874 the Temple denomination underwent a schism
Schism (religion)
A schism , from Greek σχίσμα, skhísma , is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization or movement religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a break of communion between two sections of Christianity that were previously a single body, or to a division within...
. Temple leader Hardegg and about a third of the Templers seceded from the Temple Society, after personal and substantial quarrels with the other leader Christoph Hoffmann.
The schismatics around Hardegg searched to join another Christian denomination. To this end they addressed the Lutheran Church of Sweden
Church of Sweden
The Church of Sweden is the largest Christian church in Sweden. The church professes the Lutheran faith and is a member of the Porvoo Communion. With 6,589,769 baptized members, it is the largest Lutheran church in the world, although combined, there are more Lutherans in the member churches of...
(1874) and the Anglican Church Missionary Society (1879), but both refused to take care of the schismatics. In 1878 Hardegg and most of the schismatics founded the Temple Association (Tempelverein), but after Hardegg's death in the following year the cohesion of its adherents faded.
Until 1886 the Anglican Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
and the united
United and uniting churches
United and uniting churches are churches formed from the merger or other form of union of two or more different Protestant denominations.Perhaps the oldest example of a united church is found in Germany, where the Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of Lutheran, United and Reformed...
Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces together ran the Anglo-Prussian Bishopric of Jerusalem
Anglican-German Bishopric in Jerusalem
The Anglican-German Bishopric in Jerusalem was an episcopal see founded in Jerusalem in the nineteenth century by joint agreement of the Anglican Church of England and the united Evangelical Church in Prussia.-Background:...
. As part of its effort Protestant pastor
Pastor
The word pastor usually refers to an ordained leader of a Christian congregation. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, this role may be abbreviated to "Pr." or often "Ps"....
s from Germany
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
missioned among the non-Muslim population of the Holy Land.
First congregation
In 1885 Pastor Carl Schlicht of the Jerusalem Evangelical congregation started to proselytise among the schismatics around the late Hardegg and succeeded - first in HaifaHaifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
- in forming Evangelical congregations with former Templers representing its parishioners. In 1889 former Templers, Protestant German and Swiss expatriates, and domestic and foreign proselytes gained earlier by the Metzlers' missionary efforts constituted the Evangelical congregation of Jaffa. Johann Georg Kappus sen. (*1826-1905*) became the first chairman of the congregation, seconded and later followed by his son Johann Georg Kappus jun. (1855–1928). Pastor Schlicht aimed at deepening the trench between the newly Evangelical congregants and the Templers.
After Prussia
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...
had cancelled for its part the British-Prussian contract on the bishopric of Jerusalem on 3 November 1886, Prussia transferred its repaid share in the endowment fund of the bishopric to the Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation , newly founded on 22 June 1889. This foundation took on the task of the former bishopric, while the Church of England continued its work with the now purely Anglican bishopric of Jerusalem.
Among the parishioners were only few wealthy persons, such as Plato von Ustinov and Wilhelm Friedrich Faber (*1863-1923*), president of the Deutsche Palästina-Bank (est. 1897), and earlier partner in the banking company Frutiger & Co. (Jerusalem, disest. 1896) of his father-in-law Johannes Frutiger (*1836-1899*), financier of the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway
Jaffa–Jerusalem railway
The Jaffa–Jerusalem railway is a railroad that connected Jaffa and Jerusalem. The line was built in Ottoman Palestine by the French company Société du Chemin de Fer Ottoman de Jaffa à Jérusalem et Prolongements and inaugurated in 1892, after previous attempts by the Jewish philanthropist Moses...
. Faber moved to Jaffa in 1899, when the Palästina-Bank opened its branch there, and joined the Evangelical congregation. Other parishioners were Moritz Hall (*1838-1914*), a Jewish-born convert to Protestantism, and his wife, the former Ethiopian court-lady Katharina Hall, also known as Welette-Iyesus, who moved altogether to Jaffa in 1868, after the British army had liberated them from Ethiopian captivity (Battle of Magdala
Battle of Magdala
The Battle of Magdala was fought in April 1868 between British and Abyssinian forces at Magdala, from the Red Sea coast, which at that time was the capital city of Abyssinia...
). Their daughter Magdalena Hall, born during the battle, married Ustinov in 1888.
Starting in 1890 Jerusalem's Association granted Jaffa's Evangelical congregation financial subsidies. The pupils of apostate families had been excluded from the Templer school since 1874.ʿAbd-ar-Raʿūf Sinnū (Abdel-Raouf Sinno, عبد الرؤوف سنّو), Deutsche Interessen in Syrien und Palästina, 1841 - 1898: Aktivitäten religiöser Institutionen, wirtschaftliche und politische Einflüsse, Berlin: Baalbek, 1982, (Studien zum modernen islamischen Orient; vol. 3), p. 131. ISBN 3-922876-32-3 So the subsidies finally enabled to open an Evangelical school on 1 October 1890, though in the house of Kappus sen., who considered the school opening the actual foundation of the congregation. While the Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation played the role of the official provider, Jerusalem's Association paid for it and its teacher, starting in early 1891. In fact the German government generally co-financed the schools of German language in the Holy Land with about a quarter of their annual budgets since 1880. Thus the new Evangelical school became a recipient of these subsidies in 1892 for about a quarter of the salary of one teacher and that of a second teacher as of 1913.
In September 1894 the same year Dr. Friedrich Braun (*1850-1904*), Württembergian
Kingdom of Württemberg
The Kingdom of Württemberg was a state that existed from 1806 to 1918, located in present-day Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was a continuation of the Duchy of Württemberg, which came into existence in 1495...
royal court preacher (as of 1887) and Upper Consistorial Councillor
Consistory
-Antiquity:Originally, the Latin word consistorium meant simply 'sitting together', just as the Greek synedrion ....
(as of 1896) of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg, founded the local group of Jerusalem's Association in Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, concentrating especially on the support of the Jaffa congregation, comprising mostly former apostates of the Württembergian Lutheran state church and their offspring, who now had returned to an official Protestant church body
Landeskirche
In Germany and Switzerland, a Landeskirche is the church of a region. They originated as the national churches of the independent states, States of Germany or Cantons of Switzerland , that later unified to form modern Germany or modern Switzerland , respectively.-Origins in the Holy Roman...
, albeit to the Prussia-based Evangelical Church of Prussia's older Provinces, which was a united church
United and uniting churches
United and uniting churches are churches formed from the merger or other form of union of two or more different Protestant denominations.Perhaps the oldest example of a united church is found in Germany, where the Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of Lutheran, United and Reformed...
of Calvinists and Lutherans.
In 1895 Pastor Schlicht returned as superintendent
Superintendent (ecclesiastical)
Superintendent is the head of an administrative division of a Protestant church, largely historical but still in use in Germany.- Superintendents in Sweden :...
of the deanery
Deanery
A Deanery is an ecclesiastical entity in both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residence of a Dean.- Catholic usage :...
Kölln
Cölln
In the 13th century Cölln was the sister town of Old Berlin , located on the southern Spree Island in the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Today the island is located in the historic core of the central Mitte locality of modern Berlin...
Land II (seat: Rudow, part of today's Berlin) to Germany, staying true to the Evangelical efforts in the Holy Land and thus becoming editor (1896–1910) with Jerusalem's Association for its journal Neueste Nachrichten aus dem Morgenlande (Latest News from the Levant). He modernised the journal, making it a widespread magazine.
The Stuttgart-based local group of Jerusalem's Association and the Lutheran Evangelical State Church in Württemberg agreed to finance the salary for a professional Evangelical pastor of the Jaffa congregation. Thus these financiers wanted a Württembergian pastor and found Albert Eugen Schlaich from Korntal. Schlaich was a studied theologist and paedagogue for primary schools. He and his wife Luise Wilhelmine Julie Schlaich arrived on 10 March 1897 in Jaffa, and Ustinov housed them in his hotel until they would have found an apartment of their own. After Schlaich had acceded his office as pastor and teacher the congregation rented the local chapel of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews for an annual payment of 100 francs of the Latin Monetary Union
Latin Monetary Union
The Latin Monetary Union was a 19th century attempt to unify several European currencies, at a time when most circulating coins were still made of gold and silver...
for its services. Schlaich introduced for the Jaffa congregation the liturgical agenda
Agenda (liturgy)
The name Agenda is given, particularly in the Lutheran Church, to the official books dealing with the forms andceremonies of divine service.- The Term; its Equivalents Before the Reformation :...
of the united Prussian church, extended for some Lutheran traditions from Württemberg's state church. In 1900 ca. 30-40 congregants attended the services on Sundays in the chapel of the London Jews Missionary Society.
Schlaich continued Schlicht's behaviour as to the Templers and further deepened the trench between them and the Evangelical Protestants. In 1905 Schlaich accused the German Vice Consul
Vice Consul
A vice consul is a subordinate officer, authorized to exercise consular functions in some particular part of a district controlled by a consulate....
Dr. Eugen Büge (*1859-1936*) in Jaffa to be breaking consular secrets in return for gifts. So Büge was transferred for disciplinary reasons to Aleppo
Aleppo
Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...
, however, the German Foreign Office
Foreign Office (Germany)
The Foreign Office is the foreign ministry of Germany, a federal agency responsible for both the country's foreign politics and its relationship with the European Union. From 1871 to 1919, it was led by a Foreign Secretary, and since 1919, it has been led by the Foreign Minister of Germany...
urged also Schlaich's transfer, since it considered Schlaich and not Büge to have damaged its reputation abroad. The Evangelical Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, the executive board of the Prussian state church, pressurised Jerusalem's Association to release Schlaich from his office in Jaffa, thus he was appointed for another pastorate in Germany. The Jaffa congregation gave Schlaich a farewell on 25 December 1905, and Georg Johannes Egger (*1842) thanked Schlaich and his wife for 9 years of successful pastoral work.
Between 1906 and 1912 the Stuttgart local group of Jerusalem's Association and the Lutheran Evangelical State Church of Württemberg financed Pastor Wilhelm Georg Albert Zeller. He considered the growing Jewish immigration a threat to the Gentile
Gentile
The term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....
German colonists, reporting their fears, that they could be expelled in the end, and thus recommended their emigration to a German, less populated colony in Africa. He was followed by the charismatic pastor Dr. Eitel-Friedrich Karl Balthasar von Rabenau, again supported by the same Stuttgart-based sponsors. Rabenau had studied theology in Tübingen
Tübingen
Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...
, Halle upon Saale and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, among other with Julius Kaftan and Adolf von Harnack
Adolf von Harnack
Adolf von Harnack , was a German theologian and prominent church historian.He produced many religious publications from 1873-1912....
.
After the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
the Sublime Porte de facto abolished the personal exterritoriality and consular jurisdiction for foreigners according to Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire
Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire
Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire were contracts between the Ottoman Empire and European powers, particularly France. Turkish capitulations, or ahdnames, were generally bilateral acts whereby definite arrangements were entered into by each contracting party towards the other, not mere...
on 7 September 1914. In the same month many young male parishioners left Jaffa in order to join the German Imperial Army. Rabenau accompanied them - against the will of Jerusalem's Association and the congregation - in order to serve as military chaplain
Military chaplain
A military chaplain is a chaplain who ministers to soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and other members of the military. In many countries, chaplains also minister to the family members of military personnel, to civilian noncombatants working for military organizations and to civilians within the...
. The Prussian Evangelical Supreme Ecclesiastical Council ordered his return, so Rabenau retook his office in October. His wife Elisabeth, née Riese (mar. 19 March 1912), and their two sons moved to Germany and weathered the war there.
The Ottoman authorities forced all enemy missionary institutions to close in October 1914 and many missionary pupils then joined the joint Evangelical-Templer school of Jaffa. Their premises were confiscated for military purposes. In November 1914 the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed V
Mehmed V
Mehmed V Reshad was the 35th Ottoman Sultan. He was the son of Sultan Abdülmecid I. He was succeeded by his half-brother Mehmed VI.-Birth:...
declared in his function as Caliph
Ottoman Caliphate
The Ottoman Caliphate, under the Ottoman Dynasty of the Ottoman Empire inherited the responsibility of the Caliphate from the Mamluks of Egypt....
the Jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
, which aroused fear for anti-Christian atrocities among the parishioners.
The war years were characterised by an increasing inflation of the Ottoman banknotes, causing Jerusalem's Association severe transfer losses at remitting salaries to its collaborators in the Holy Land, since the association had to purchase - in return for marks
German papiermark
The name Papiermark is applied to the German currency from the 4th August 1914 when the link between the Mark and gold was abandoned, due to the outbreak of World War I...
- foreign exchange
Foreign exchange market
The foreign exchange market is a global, worldwide decentralized financial market for trading currencies. Financial centers around the world function as anchors of trading between a wide range of different types of buyers and sellers around the clock, with the exception of weekends...
denominated in inflationary Ottoman banknotes, which had to be sold again in Jaffa for less inflated Ottoman hard coins at a rate far below par. Since Ottoman banknotes had hardly purchasing power
Purchasing power
Purchasing power is the number of goods/services that can be purchased with a unit of currency. For example, if you had taken one dollar to a store in the 1950s, you would have been able to buy a greater number of items than you would today, indicating that you would have had a greater purchasing...
anymore, this second exchange was necessary to provide the collaborators in the Holy Land with still accepted currency. Until 1916 the Ottoman banknotes had dropped to a ¼, later to of their pre-war rate in mark, which was inflated itself. The war-related scarcity (collapse of production and imports, war requisitions) of goods further caused a dearness of most products, even when priced in hard coins. So Jerusalem's Association had to increase its transfers to the Holy Land, partially refinanced by rising collections in German Protestant congregations.
On 17 November 1917 Britons captured Jaffa and most male parishioners of Austrian, German or Ottoman nationality from Jaffa and Sarona, including Rabenau, were interned in Wilhelma
Wilhelma, Palestine
Wilhelma was a German Templer colony in Palestine located southwest of al-'Abbasiyyah near Jaffa.Wilhelma-Hamîdije was named in honour of King William II of Württemberg, Emperor Wilhelm II and Sultan Abdul Hamid II, however, only the first half of the name prevailed...
as enemy nationals. In 1918 the interned men were deported to a camp south of Ghaza, while the parishioners remaining in Jaffa were subjected to strict police control. However, the remaining congregants, mostly women and children and only few men, succeeded to further maintain congregational life in Jaffa.
In August 1918 the internees were relocated from Ghaza to Sidi Bishr
Sidi Bishr
Sidi Bishr is a neighborhood in the Montaza District of Alexandria, Egypt. Established as a summering site by the Egyptian middle class before the Revolution of 1952, it has since become one of the largest neighborhoods of the city...
and Helwan near Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. Rabenau and the internees built up congregational life in their Egyptian exile, lasting three years. With the Treaty of Versailes becoming effective on 10 January 1920 the Egyptian camps were dissolved and Rabenau became the internees' coordinator of the closedown. Most internees returned to the Holy Land, except of those banned by a British black list, such as D. Dr. Friedrich Jeremias, Provost of Jerusalem. Rabenau went to Germany to reunite with his family, the Britons refused his return to Jaffa in July 1920. In April 1921 the Prussian Evangelical Supreme Ecclesiastical Council then appointed Prof. D. Dr. Gustaf Dalman
Gustaf Dalman
Gustaf Hermann Dalman was a German Lutheran theologian and orientalist. He did extensive field work in Palestine, collecting poetry and proverbs.-Works:...
, formerly leader of the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, per pro as Provost of Jerusalem at the then Evangelical Church of the Redeemer
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem
The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer is the second Protestant church in the Old City of Jerusalem . It is a property of the Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation, one of the three foundations of the Evangelical Church in Germany in the Holy Land...
, until the new Provost Albrecht Alt
Albrecht Alt
Albrecht Alt , was a leading German Protestant theologian.Eldest son of a Lutheran minister, he completed high school in Ansbach and studied theology at the Friedrich-Alexander-University in Erlangen and the University of Leipzig...
did arrive by the end of the year. In this function Dalman held the stake of the Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation and of Jerusalem's Association.
Jerusalem's Association decided to send a new pastor to the Jaffa congregation, combining the efforts of the Prussian Evangelical Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, the Gustavus Adolphus Endowment , a charitable foundation for the support of Protestants living in Diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
, and the Deutsche Evangelische Kirchenausschuss (DEKA), the conference of German Protestant church bodies
Landeskirche
In Germany and Switzerland, a Landeskirche is the church of a region. They originated as the national churches of the independent states, States of Germany or Cantons of Switzerland , that later unified to form modern Germany or modern Switzerland , respectively.-Origins in the Holy Roman...
. On 15 May 1921 Dalman introduced Detwig von Oertzen in Haifa, before pastor in Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
, as pastor for all Evangelical congregations in the Levant, Beirut, Jaffa, and Waldheim
Alonei Abba
Alonei Abba is a moshav shitufi, or semi-cooperative village, in northern Israel. It is located in the Lower Galilee near Bethlehem of Galilee and Alonim, in the hills east of Kiryat Tivon. Alonei Abba falls under the jurisdiction of the Jezreel Valley Regional Council...
, but seated with the Haifa congregation.
In 1922 Rabenau, back in Germany, made his Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
at the Westphalian William's University with a dissertation on the Templers, their work and history. Rabenau stayed true to the Evangelical efforts in the Holy Land and joined the executive board of Jerusalem's Association in 1924. The Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, since 1922 the new name of the former Prussian state church following the separation of state and religion by the Weimar constitution
Weimar constitution
The Constitution of the German Reich , usually known as the Weimar Constitution was the constitution that governed Germany during the Weimar Republic...
of 1919, employed Rabenau as second pastor at the Evangelical Church of the Apostle Paul in Schöneberg
Schöneberg
Schöneberg is a locality of Berlin, Germany. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was a separate borough including the locality of Friedenau. Together with the former borough of Tempelhof it is now part of the new borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg....
(Berlin, 6 May 1923 to 1954). Besides his pastorate Rabenau took care of the public relations of Jerusalem's Association between 1929 and 1935.
Starting in January 1925 the Evangelical Provostry of Jerusalem (est. 1898, comprising Mandatory Palestine, and at times Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Egypt) issued a periodical for all its congregations named "Evangelisches Gemeindeblatt für Palästina".
In April 1926 Jerusalem's Association appointed cand. Ernst Paetzold as new, however only auxiliary, pastor for Jaffa. In September 1928 he held a lecture at the annual conference of Levantine Protestant pastors titled "Our congregations in their position towards other groups of German culture". By 1930 the German Jews made up the biggest group of Germans in the Holy Land, however a minority among all Palestinians, the Templers amounted to 1,300, and the remaining 400 Germans were - except of few Catholics (mostly clergy) and few irreligionists - prevailingly Protestant, among them 160 parishioners (as of 1927) of the Jaffa congregation.
In April 1931 Paetzold returned to Germany, and the pastorate remained unstaffed due to financial constraints in the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. When the Nazi party aimed at roughing up with the Protestant church bodies in Germany as of 1932, especially with the constitutional election of presbyter
Presbyter
Presbyter in the New Testament refers to a leader in local Christian congregations, then a synonym of episkopos...
s and synod
Synod
A synod historically is a council of a church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not...
als of the old-Prussian church in November 1932, this did not play a role in the Holy Land. However, the newly founded Nazi Faith Movement of German Christians
German Christians
The Deutsche Christen were a pressure group and movement within German Protestantism aligned towards the antisemitic and Führerprinzip ideological principles of Nazism with the goal to align German Protestantism as a whole towards those principles...
gained an average of a third of the presbyters and synodals in Germany.
After Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
imposed on all German church bodies an unconstitutional reelection of all presbyters and synodals on 23 July 1933, the massive voter participation of Protestant Nazis, who had not shown up for years in services, let alone church elections, caused an extraordinarily high turnout, which yielded the German Christians a share of 70-80% of the presbyters and synodals, with some exceptions. However, this did not automatically mean the total takeover of the German Christians in all Protestant organisations, since due to the decentral and grassroot organisation of many Protestant groups, the official church bodies had no direct control, this was especially true for missionary endowments such as Jerusalem's Association.
In Germany the Protestant opposition first formed among pastors with the Emergency Covenant of Pastors
Pfarrernotbund
The Pfarrernotbund was an organisation founded on 11 September 1933 to unite German evangelical theologians, pastors and church office-holders against the introduction of the Aryan paragraph into the 28 Protestant regional church bodies and the Deutsche Evangelische Kirche and against the...
, founded to fight for pastors discriminated by the German Christians for their Jewish ancestry. This covenant helped to found the Protestant Confessing Church
Confessing Church
The Confessing Church was a Protestant schismatic church in Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to nazify the German Protestant church.-Demographics:...
es, which paralleled in all destroyed Protestant church bodies the official German Christian-subjected church bodies, which the Confessing Church considered to be schismatic for their abandonment of the universal sacrament of baptism
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
. Most pastors in the Holy Land sided with the Confessing Church as also did most members of the executive board of Jerusalem's Association, among them Rabenau, an opponent of Nazism since 1931. Jerusalem's Association appointed pastors, fired or furloughed by Nazi-submissive official church bodies, for congregations in the Holy Land.
On October 18–20, 1933 the German Protestant missionary endowments within Deutscher Evangelischer Missionsbund (DEMB) convened in Barmen
Barmen
Barmen is a former industrial metropolis of the region of Bergisches Land, Germany, which in 1929 with four other towns was merged with the city of Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia. Barmen was the birth-place of Friedrich Engels and together with the neighbouring town of Elberfeld founded the...
and rejected the attempt to subject the missionary societies - in the course of the pervasive Gleichschaltung
Gleichschaltung
Gleichschaltung , meaning "coordination", "making the same", "bringing into line", is a Nazi term for the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of totalitarian control and tight coordination over all aspects of society. The historian Richard J...
of all civic organisations - to the Nazi-submissive German Evangelical Church. Jerusalem's Association retained its legal independence, successfully rejected the application of the so-called Aryan paragraph
Aryan paragraph
An Aryan paragraph is a clause in the statutes of an organization, corporation, or real estate deed that reserves membership and/or right of residence solely for members of the Aryan race and excludes from such rights any non-Aryans, particularly Jews or those of Jewish descent, as well as to those...
for its own employees and the new appointment of its executive board with a majority of two thirds for German Christians.
However, the Nazi-submissive German Christians, holding crucial positions in the bureaucracy of the official Protestant church bodies, found other ways to pressurise the missionary societies. Foreign exchange assigned at non-market rates was exclusively to be disbursed for salaries of German nationals, thus salaries of Palestinian citizens (e.g. Arab Protestants) became very difficult to organise, Jerusalem's Association had to incur debts in Palestinian pounds with Deutsche Palästina-Bank, which again had to be permitted by the Nazi government, which submitted any foreign indebtedness of German legal entities to its agreement as part of its austerity policy.
Since missions depended on transferring funds abroad the government rationing of foreign exchange became the means to blackmail their cooperation. Jerusalem's Association gained a certain support within the German Christian-streamlined old-Prussian Evangelical Supreme Ecclesiastical Council and the Confessing Church, which both collected and transferred funds for the efforts of Jerusalem's Association. Since February 1934 the new Ecclesiastical Foreign Department (Kirchliches Außenamt) under German Christian Theodor Heckel (*1894-1967*) of the new Nazi-submissive German Evangelical Church claimed the supervision of German Protestant missions. Heckel also presided the board of trustees of the Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation since 1933. Heckel decided on behalf of the Ecclesiastical Foreign Department to also subsidise salaries of ecclesiastical employees in Jaffa and Haifa earlier paid by Jerusalem's Association alone.
Unlike other missions Jerusalem's Association had only tiny revenues in foreign exchange out of Nazi control, namely the rent from the former Armenian Orphanage in Bethlehem, rented out to the British mandatory government for its insane asylum. Thus the foreign efforts of Jerusalem's Association mostly depended on transfers from Germany, now under Nazi government financial control. To get a ration of foreign exchange Jerusalem's Association needed the consent of the Evangelical Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, to cause the government rationing office allotting foreign exchange.
The Levantine Protestant pastors decided on their annual conference at Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...
1934 (1 April), to keep their congregations out of the German Nazi struggle of the churches
Kirchenkampf
Kirchenkampf is a German term that translates as "struggle of the churches" or "church struggle" in English. The term is sometimes used ambiguously, and may refer to one or more of the following different church struggles:...
. The pastors of Jaffa and Haifa anyway reported, that their congregations felt more related to Jerusalem's Association than to the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union and its Provostry of Jerusalem.
In October 1934 the DEMB convened again in Tübingen, declaring its partisanship with the Confessing Church and its Barmen declaration
Barmen Declaration
The Barmen Declaration or The Theological Declaration of Barmen 1934 is a statement of the Confessing Church opposing the Nazi-supported "German Christians" movement known for its anti-Semitism and extreme nationalism...
of May 1934, however, the actual policy depended - case to case - on the opinion of the respective responsible person. While in Germany ecclesiastical media were banned to report on the struggle of the churches, there was no censorship in British Palestine. So Provost Ernst Rhein, the responsible editor of the "Gemeindeblatt", let his then Vicar Georg Weiß (later deacon
Deacon
Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...
in Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
) report on the German struggle of the churches, openly siding with the Confessing Church, in his article on the occasion of Harvest Festival
Harvest festival
A Harvest Festival is an annual celebration which occurs around the time of the main harvest of a given region. Given the differences in climate and crops around the world, harvest festivals can be found at various times throughout the world...
. German Christian Heckel, head of the Ecclesiastical Foreign Department, heftily criticised Rhein and Weiß for that article.
In February 1935 Rabenau, meanwhile a leading representative of the Confessing Church and opponent of Nazism, resigned from doing the German public relations of Jerusalem's Association. After the Brethren Council of the old-Prussian ecclesiastical province of Pomerania, the Pomeranian Confessing Church executive, had agreed to release its Vicar Felix Moderow, he moved to Jaffa to serve there as auxiliary pastor from 1935 to 1937. Also Provost Rhein demanded an opponent pastor as his new vicar and chose another Pomeranian theologist, Fritz Maass (*1910-2005*), as his vicar in Jerusalem.
However, in the German diplomatic service the so-called Aryan paragraph
Aryan paragraph
An Aryan paragraph is a clause in the statutes of an organization, corporation, or real estate deed that reserves membership and/or right of residence solely for members of the Aryan race and excludes from such rights any non-Aryans, particularly Jews or those of Jewish descent, as well as to those...
caused the furlough of Consul-General Dr. Heinrich Wolff in summer 1935, since his Protestant wife, serving as presbyter of the Evangelical congregation of Jerusalem, counted by the Nazi racist categories as partially Jewish. "Among the German inhabitants in the country, only the [Jews and the] Lutherans expressed sorrow at Wolff's dismissal and their Jerusalem newspaper [Gemeindeblatt] published a warm article in praise of his activities. Similar sentiments were expressed in the Hebrew newspaper Doar Hayom, which lauded his consular activity and heralded his efforts not to hurt the feelings of those opposed to the Nazi regime."
In 1937 Pastor Christian Berg succeeded the retired Oertzen in Haifa. Berg had been furloughed by his employer, the German Christian-streamlined Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Mecklenburg
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg is a Lutheran church in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, serving the citizens living in Mecklenburg. The seat of the Landesbischof is the state capital Schwerin with Schwerin Cathedral as the principal church...
, after the Nazi government sued him in a political trial in Schwerin
Schwerin
Schwerin is the capital and second-largest city of the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The population, as of end of 2009, was 95,041.-History:...
in June 1934. For him Palestine became a safe exile from further Nazi stalking. After the Olympic close hunting season was over in Germany, the Nazi government increased again its persecution of opponents. The Gestapo arrested Rabenau and seven further leaders of the Confessing Church on 23 June 1937, when leaving Berlin's Friedrichswerder Church
Friedrichswerder Church
The Friedrichswerder Church was the first Neo-Gothic church built in Berlin, Germany. It was designed by an architect better known for his Neoclassical architecture, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, and was built under his direction, 1824-1831....
. After interrogations and some time in detention he was released again.
The "Neueste Nachrichten aus dem Morgenland", the journal of Jerusalem's Association, complained about Jewish immigration to Palestine (1937) and Arab Nationalism (1939), which it regarded as being due to the infiltration by European decomposing ideologies.
After Moderow's return to Germany in 1937 the retired Oertzen served again as pastor in Jaffa until 1939. Jerusalem's Association in Germany experienced a growing hostility by anti-Semites to its name, referring to Jerusalem, and its journal, referring to the Levant. Thus on 27 February 1938 Jerusalem's Association adopted the name affix Jerusalemsverein/Versorgung deutscher evangelischer Gemeinden und Arabermission in Palästina (Jerusalem's Association/Maintenance of German Protestant congregations and missioning of Arabs in Palestine).
In July 1939 Oertzen left Jaffa for a summer holiday in Germany, but also to look after his salary, which had been withheld on a German account, for - in preparation of the war - the rationing office blocked most transfers abroad since early 1939. Jerusalem's Association used Haavara
Haavara
Haavara Ltd. was a company founded as a result of the Haavara Agreement made during the Nazi regime's control over Germany. The company facilitated the emigration of approximately 50,000 Jews from Germany to Palestine....
Ltd. for its transfers to Palestine between 1937 and 1939.
With Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
(September 1) and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
(September 17) invading Poland in 1939, the Second World War started, followed by the British internment of most male Jaffa parishioners of German or other enemy nationality as enemy alien
Enemy alien
In law, an enemy alien is a citizen of a country which is in a state of conflict with the land in which he or she is located. Usually, but not always, the countries are in a state of declared war.-United Kingdom:...
s. In May 1940 all remaining enemy aliens of Jaffa, Bir Salem, Sarona and Tel Aviv, not yet interned, such as Gentile
Gentile
The term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....
Germans, Hungarians, and Italians, were interned in Wilhelma
Wilhelma, Palestine
Wilhelma was a German Templer colony in Palestine located southwest of al-'Abbasiyyah near Jaffa.Wilhelma-Hamîdije was named in honour of King William II of Württemberg, Emperor Wilhelm II and Sultan Abdul Hamid II, however, only the first half of the name prevailed...
, which was converted into an internment camp. The congregation thus de facto terminated its existence in Jaffa. In 1941 many parishioners were released to Germany in the framework of a family unification. The remainder was evacuated to Cyprus in April 1948.
Relation to the Templers
The relations of the early Protestants of Jaffa were without major tensions. Metzler had sold other real estate and his hospital, which he had built up, to the Templers on 5 March 1869 under the proviso to further cooperate with Reformed (Calvinist) deaconessDeaconess
Deaconess is a non-clerical order in some Christian denominations which sees to the care of women in the community. That word comes from a Greek word diakonos as well as deacon, which means a servant or helper and occurs frequently in the Christian New Testament of the Bible. Deaconesses trace...
es from Riehen
Riehen
Riehen is a municipality in the canton of Basel-Stadt in Switzerland. Together with the city of Basel and Bettingen, Riehen is one of three municipalities in the canton....
deaconesses mother house and to provide charitable health care for all, who needed it. The physician was Dr. Gottlob Sandel, father of the engineer Theodor Sandel. In 1882 the Württembergian royal court preacher Dr. Friedrich Braun, however, defamed Templers in his "Protestantismus und Sekten" (Protestantism and sects) as bearing "the character of the morbidly abnormal." When in March 1897 Pastor Schlaich had arrived in Jaffa, the Templers offered him their fellowship hall for his first accession preach to the Evangelical congregation, and Schlaich accepted. However, in October the same year, travelling and fund-raising in Württemberg, Schlaich unveiled that his aim is proselytising among Muslims and Templers, who felt deeply insulted to be mentioned in the same breath with non-Christian Muslims. So the relations chilled down again.
In 1897 and 1898 Templers of Jaffa and Sarona intrigued with the Sublime Porte and the German Foreign Office against the plans to built a combined Evangelical school and community centre, financed by generous donations of Braun and others. So the laying of the cornerstone for the Evangelical community centre was delayed, for Templers argued the title to the construction site would be under dispute. So William II and Auguste Victoria could not attend it.
German Emperor William II
William II, German Emperor
Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was a grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe...
, his wife Auguste Victoria
Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein
Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein was the last German Empress and Queen of Prussia. Her full German name was Auguste Victoria Friederike Luise Feodora Jenny von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg.She was the eldest daughter of Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein and Princess...
, protectress of Jerusalem's Association, and their entourage stayed in Jaffa on 27 October 1898. Their travel agency Thomas Cook
Thomas Cook
Thomas Cook of Melbourne, Derbyshire, England founded the travel agency that is now Thomas Cook Group.- Early days :...
accommodated the imperial guests in Ustinov's "Hôtel du Parc", the only establishment in Jaffa regarded suited for them, while the further entourage stayed in "Hotel Jerusalem" (then Seestraße, today's Rechov Auerbach
Berthold Auerbach
Berthold Auerbach was a German-Jewish poet and author. He was the founder of the German “tendency novel,” in which fiction is used as a means of influencing public opinion on social, political, moral, and religious questions.-Biography:Moses Baruch Auerbach was born in Nordstetten in the Kingdom...
#6; רחוב אוארבך) of the Templer Ernst Hardegg. Thus William II, as summus episcopus (Supreme governor of the Evangelical State Church in Prussia's older Provinces) kept the balance between Templers and Evangelical Protestants at his visit.
All German citizens hoped after the visit for an improvement of their treatment by the Ottoman authorities, but in vain, the tiny community of Germans in the Holy Land only played a marginal role in the German-Ottoman reltionship, which was not to be obfuscated by quarrelling settlers in the Holy Land.
The hospital, founded by Metzler and run since 1869 by Templers and Protestant deaconesses, was financed by a health insurance, which provided for higher contributions by Protestants and lower ones for Templers, who considered themselves as the main providers of the hospital since its purchase in 1869. Generally the revenues of the health insurance also covered the cost caused by poor patients from the general Jaffa population, who were treated even though they could not pay for it. In 1901 the relations between Protestants and Templers had eased so far, that the Protestant contributions were lowered to 20 and 30 francs p.a., before both religious groups paid equal contributions as of 1906.
Pastor Zeller, who officiated in Jaffa since 1906, took his efforts to reconcile both groups. After ten years of negotiating the unification of the Evangelical and the Templer school, long rejected by the Provost of Jerusalem and Jerusalem's Association, due to their prejudices against Templers as sectarians, an agreement was achieved. On 27 October 1913 the Evangelical and the Templer school merged into a common school in the new school building of the Templers, completed in October 1912, until its demolition located in today's Rechov Pines, opposite to #44. It remained an oecumenical school until its closure by the Britons in November 1917. Jerusalem's Association spent 10% of its budget for schools in the Holy Land.
With the philosophy of the Temple Society, to reconstruct the Holy Land in order to gather the people of God, fading in view of the resurrection of the Holy Land by Jewish settlement, the Templers' faith lost binding power for many of its members and especially many younger discovered Nazism as a non-denominational replacement of the vacuum. Thus most Nazis in the Holy Land were from Templer background. This led to a complete turnaround in the Evangelical-Templers' relationship, because before 1933 the Evangelical Protestants had strong mental and financial support by German Protestant church bodies, while Templers were somewhat orphaned. After 1933 Templers increasingly usurped positions with influential connections to Nazi party and Nazi government bodies in Germany, while the German Protestant church bodies as partners of the Evangelical congregations in the Holy Land lost government support by the struggle of the churches and by Hitler's and Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
's general abandonment of Christianity, considered indissolubly Judaised with the Ten Commandments and the Old Testament. Cornelius Schwarz, a Templer from Jaffa, led the Palestinian faction (Landesgruppe) of the Nazi party, with him many young men gained influence over long established institutions as the Evangelical provostry and its congregations as well as the Temple Society itself. The German Foreign Office imposed on Gentile Germans of different denominational affiliations a stronger co-operation under influence of Palestinian Nazi officials of Temple background.
Congregational institutions
On 18 July 1898 Metzler, who then lived in Stuttgart, conveyed his last piece of real estate in Jaffa for the construction of an Evangelical church, community centre and pastor's apartment, to the congregation, while his friend and divorced son-in-law Ustinov rewarded Metzler with 10,000 francs two thirds of the site's estimated price. In August 1898 Ernst August Voigt, architect of Haifa, handed in his plans for a combined church, community centre, school and pastor's apartment.The belated firman, permitting the building, finally arrived on 27 October 1898, after attempts of Templers to baffle the planned constructions, however, too late for an imperial attendance in the laying of the cornerstone.
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem
The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer is the second Protestant church in the Old City of Jerusalem . It is a property of the Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation, one of the three foundations of the Evangelical Church in Germany in the Holy Land...
in Jerusalem on Reformation Day
Reformation Day
Reformation Day is a religious holiday celebrated on October 31 in remembrance of the Reformation, particularly by Lutheran and some Reformed church communities...
, 31 October 1898, the bulk of the accompanying entourage was determined to return to Jaffa, to get their ship back. However, a train accident on the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway
Jaffa–Jerusalem railway
The Jaffa–Jerusalem railway is a railroad that connected Jaffa and Jerusalem. The line was built in Ottoman Palestine by the French company Société du Chemin de Fer Ottoman de Jaffa à Jérusalem et Prolongements and inaugurated in 1892, after previous attempts by the Jewish philanthropist Moses...
, opened in 1892, interrupted their journey, so that they only arrived in Jaffa on November 2.
Thus the Protestant dignitaries among them participated in the laying of the cornerstone for the Evangelical church and community centre in Jaffa, among them Dr. Robert Bosse (*1832-1901*), Prussian minister of education, cult, culture and medicine, the executive board of Jerusalem's Association, D. Friedrich Wilhelm Barkhausen (*1831-1903*), president of the Evangelical Supreme Ecclesiastical Council and General Superintendents
Superintendent (ecclesiastical)
Superintendent is the head of an administrative division of a Protestant church, largely historical but still in use in Germany.- Superintendents in Sweden :...
of different ecclesiastical provinces within the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces, representatives of other German and Swiss Protestant church bodies
Landeskirche
In Germany and Switzerland, a Landeskirche is the church of a region. They originated as the national churches of the independent states, States of Germany or Cantons of Switzerland , that later unified to form modern Germany or modern Switzerland , respectively.-Origins in the Holy Roman...
(Braun for Württemberg), of the Lutheran Church of Norway
Church of Norway
The Church of Norway is the state church of Norway, established after the Lutheran reformation in Denmark-Norway in 1536-1537 broke the ties to the Holy See. The church confesses the Lutheran Christian faith...
and Church of Sweden
Church of Sweden
The Church of Sweden is the largest Christian church in Sweden. The church professes the Lutheran faith and is a member of the Porvoo Communion. With 6,589,769 baptized members, it is the largest Lutheran church in the world, although combined, there are more Lutherans in the member churches of...
as well as of other Protestant churches in Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, and the USA, altogether 45 women and men of the imperial delegation. From the local notables Christoph Hoffmann II (jun.), president of the Temple Society, and representatives of the Evangelical congregations in Bethlehem in Judea
Bethlehem
Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
, Bir Salem, Haifa, and Jerusalem participated in the ceremony. Braun, court preacher of King William II of Württemberg
William II of Württemberg
William II was the fourth King of Württemberg, from 6 October 1891 until the abolition of the kingdom on 30 November 1918...
, held the speech at the ceremony and donated himself 10,000 marks. The actual cornerstone included the deed of foundation and seeds of grain and vegetables, symbolising the fertility of the Sharon plain.
The projected overall 30,000 marks were much too little, so some months later Jerusalem's Association withdrew from co-financing the project, it regarded to be nonserious. In 1899 Voigt declared the site to be too small for a community centre and a church, as was planned. The congregation then spent with Braun's consent his donation of 10,000 marks for Heilpern's house (today's Rechov Beer-Hofmann #9), to become the school and rectory
Rectory
A rectory is the residence, or former residence, of a rector, most often a Christian cleric, but in some cases an academic rector or other person with that title...
, for the latter of which it also serves today's congregation. However, then the German vice-consulate, still resided in that house and Consul Edmund Schmidt asked to be allowed to further stay there until the new, still-existing vice-consulate in today's Rechov Eilath # 59 would be completed. So the school stayed ad interim with Ustinov's "Hôtel du Parc". Metzler's former site in then Wilhelmstraße (today's Rechov Beer-Hofmann #15) was thus reserved for a future solitary church building.
In April 1900 Pastor Schlaich and his wife moved into Heilpern's house, as well as the school with its 30 pupils, among them Catholic and Jewish pupils, but no Templers, from Jaffa and neighbouring Neveh Tzedeq
Neve Tzedek
Neve Tzedek is a neighborhood located in southwestern Tel Aviv, Israel. It was the first Jewish neighborhood to be built outside the walls of the ancient port of Jaffa. For years, the neighborhood prospered as Tel Aviv, the first modern Hebrew city, grew up around it...
and Neveh Shalom. In November 1917 the school had been closed by the Britons. All the property of the congregation, Jerusalem's Association and of parishioners of German and other enemy nationality was taken into public custodianship. With the establishment of a regular British administration in 1918 Edward Keith-Roach
Edward Keith-Roach
Edward Keith-Roach . British Colonial administrator during the British mandate on Palestine. served as the governor of Jerusalem from 1926 to 1945. Nicknamed "Pasha of Jerusalem"...
became the Public Custodian of Enemy Property in Palestine, who rented out the property and collected the rents, until the property was finally returned to its actual proprietors in 1925.
On 14 April 1918 John Mott
John Mott
John Raleigh Mott was a long-serving leader of the YMCA and the World Student Christian Federation...
and J. H. Oldham
J. H. Oldham
Joseph Houldsworth Oldham , known as J. H. or Joe, was a Scottish missionary in India, who became a significant figure in Christian ecumenism, though never ordained in the United Free Church as he had wished.-Life:...
, two oecumenists, founded the Emergency Committee of Cooperating Missions, Mott becoming the president and Oldham the secretary. Mott and Oldham succeeded to get Art. 438 into the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
, so that the property of German missions would be excepted from being expropriated for German reparations for World War I. Jerusalem's Association and the Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation had meanwhile appointed the Swedish Lutheran Archbishop Nathan Söderblom
Nathan Söderblom
Lars Olof Jonathan Söderblom was a Swedish clergyman, Archbishop of Uppsala in the Church of Sweden, and recipient of the 1930 Nobel Peace Prize...
their speaker at the Britons.
In May 1919 Jerusalem's Association informed the Reich's commissioner on Germans as enemy nationals abroad, that its loss of property in the Holy Land amounted to 891,785 marks at its pre-war rate (about £ 44,589.25 or $ 212,329.76). The Treaty of Versailles, signed on 28 June 1919, finally became effective on 10 January 1920 and thus legalised the existing British custodianship of the property of the congregation, the parishioners and Jerusalem's Association. The schools of Jerusalem's Association were reopened under British government management in 1920. In April 1920 the Allies convened at the Conference of San Remo and agreed on the British rule in Palestine, followed by the official establishment of the civil administration on 1 July 1920. From that date on Keith-Roach transferred the collected rents for property in custodianship to the actual proprietors. The League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
legitimised this by granting a mandate to Britain in 1922 and Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, the Ottoman successor, finally legalised the British Mandate by the Treaty of Lausanne
Treaty of Lausanne
The Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland on 24 July 1923, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. The treaty of Lausanne was ratified by the Greek government on 11 February 1924, by the Turkish government on 31...
, signed on 24 July 1923 and becoming effective on 5 August 1925. Thus the public custodianship ended in the same year and the prior holders achieved the fully protected legal position as proprietors. Jerusalem's Association applied for registration as Palestinian legal entity, granted in 1928.
Jerusalem's Association resumed its own schools and its school in Jaffa, held in condominium with the Templers, however, Provost Rhein complained about the decline of pupils in the Evangelical schools, whose parents were German, Austrian or other German-speaking Jews, especially in the difficult years of 1931 and 1932.
Starting in 1933 the new German Nazi government tried to get the German schools in the Holy Land under its influence, using again the dependence of the school providers on transfers from Germany. Oertzen and Rhein fought the deconfessionalisation of the Evangelical schools. Provost Rhein succeeded to resist the merger of the remaining Evangelical schools with Templer schools until 1937, on which occasion they became paganised, teaching the pupils Nazi Weltanschauung. In order to regain influence on the curriculum, Rhein then tried to join the Palestinian section of the National Socialist Teachers League
National Socialist Teachers League
The National Socialist Teachers League, Nationalsozialistische Lehrerbund , was established as a wing of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei in 1927. This organization lasted until 1943. Its seat was in Bayreuth. The founder and first "Reichswalter" of the organization was Hans Schemm...
(NSLB), but Palestinian NSLB president Dr. Kurt Hegele refused Rhein's membership. So by 1938 all Gentile teachers of German nationality had joined the NSLB, except of Rhein and some further Evangelical missionary teachers.
After the begin of the Second World War in September 1939 all property of the Jaffa congregation, of its parishioners of German or other enemy nationality and of Jerusalem's Association were submitted to the Custodian of Enemy Property, Keith-Roach again, and the schools were supervised by the Committee for Supervision of German Educational Institutions under the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, George Francis Graham Brown
George Francis Graham Brown
The Rt Rev George Francis Graham Brown OBE DD was an Anglican Bishop in the second quarter of the twentieth century.Graham-Brown was educated at Monkton Combe School and St Catharine's College, Cambridge...
. With the internment of all Jaffa parishioners of German or other enemy nationality in 1940 the premises and houses in Jaffa were confiscated by the Mandatory government. Later the Anglican Church's Ministry Among Jewish People
Church's Ministry Among Jewish People
Church's Ministry Among Jewish People is an Anglican missionary society founded in 1809.-History:...
used the Immanuel Church for its services until 1947. The State of Israel, with Jaffa belonging to its state territory, succeeded the mandatory government in this custodianship in May 1948, however, excluding the building of Immanuel Church proper, since the new state did not seize places of worship.
Status of the congregation and number of its parishioners
In 1889 the Evangelical congregation emerged. In 1890 it opened its school, its first permanent institution. Since 1894 the congregation comprised parishioners in Jaffa and Sarona (today's haQiriyaHaKirya
HaKirya, or The Kirya , is an area in central Tel Aviv, containing various government structures, including the major Israel Defense Forces base, Camp Rabin , named for Yitzhak Rabin...
). In 1906 the congregation of Jaffa included besides Sarona, also Isdud, and Ramla
Ramla
Ramla , is a city in central Israel. The city is predominantly Jewish with a significant Arab minority. Ramla was founded circa 705–715 AD by the Umayyad Caliph Suleiman ibn Abed al-Malik after the Arab conquest of the region...
, and became a fully fledged congregation within the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces, etablished according to its standards with full rights and bodies such as an elected presbytery . In December 1925 the Evangelical congregations of Jaffa, as well as that of Beirut (est. 1856), Haifa, Jerusalem and Waldheim joined the new umbrella German Federation of Protestant Churches , then led by President Hermann Kappler. With the internment of most of its parishioners in Wilhelma the congregation de facto ceased to exist in 1940.
The number of parishioners developed as follows:
- 1869: 18 persons
- 1889: 50 persons
- 1898: 75 persons
- 1900: 93 persons
- 1901: 104 persons
- 1904: 130 persons
- 1913: 136 persons
- 1920: Jaffa congregation had lost parishioners through emigration after 1918.
- 1927: 160 persons
- 1934: 80-90 persons
In 1903 parishioners in Jaffa and Haifa amounted to 250 altogether.
Church building
After in 1899 the first construction works of a combined Evangelical church, community centre and school ended, with the cornerstone having been laid in November 1898, Jerusalem's Association returned as partner and financier of the church and commissioned Paul Ferdinand Groth (*1859-1955*), architect of Jerusalem's Evangelical Church of the Redeemer and renovator of All Saints' Church, WittenbergAll Saints' Church, Wittenberg
All Saints' Church, commonly referred to as Schlosskirche, meaning "Castle Church" — to distinguish it from the "town church", the Stadtkirche of St. Mary — and sometimes known as the Reformation Memorial Church, is a Lutheran church in Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Germany...
, by the end of 1901 to design plans for the future solitary Immanuel Church.
Stuttgart's Court Preacher Braun started a fund-raising campaign, also attended by Grand Duchess Vera Constantinovna of Russia
Grand Duchess Vera Constantinovna of Russia
Grand Duchess Vera Constantinovna of Russia was a daughter of Grand Duke Konstantine Nicholaievich of Russia. She was a granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I and first cousin of Tsar Alexander III of Russia.-Early life:...
, the niece and adoptee of the late Württembergian Queen Olga and King Charles I
Charles I of Württemberg
Charles was the third King of Württemberg, from 25 June 1864 until his death in 1891.-Early life:He was born 6 March 1823 at Stuttgart, as HRH Charles Frederick Alexander, Crown Prince of Württemberg the son of William I, King of Württemberg and his third wife Pauline Therese of Württemberg .He...
, to collect the needed funds, with Braun and his wife themselves donating 25,000 marks. In 1902 the Ottoman authorities recognised the construction site in then Wilhelmstraße (today's Rechov Beer-Hofmann #15) as religious property, including its liberation from property tax
Property tax
A property tax is an ad valorem levy on the value of property that the owner is required to pay. The tax is levied by the governing authority of the jurisdiction in which the property is located; it may be paid to a national government, a federated state or a municipality...
.
After Jerusalem's Association threatened to chose another architect, if Groth would not downsize his plans to a less costly project, Groth provided plans for a cheaper church at the begin of 1903. Jerusalem's Association then commissioned the architect and Templer Benjamin Sandel (*1877-1941*), then leading the constructions of the Hagia Maria Sion Abbey
Hagia Maria Sion Abbey
Hagia Maria Sion Abbey is a Benedictine abbey in Jerusalem on Mt. Zion just outside the walls of the Old City near the Zion Gate.It was formerly known as the Abbey of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, but the name was changed in 1998 in reference to the church of Hagia Sion that formerly stood on...
in Jerusalem and son of the late Theodor Sandel, as supervisor, and the Templer Johannes Wennagel (*1846-1927*) from Sarona as building contractor, starting excavation on 11 May 1903, however, constructions progressed only slowly because Groth was late with sending the detailed plans, only completely arriving in February 1904. Groth then waived any honorary.
The walls are built from two kinds of natural stone, a yellowish-grey type of sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
exploited close to Jaffa and a limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
, the so-called Meliki, from the mountains at Bir Nabala
Bir Nabala
Bir Nabala is a Palestinian town in the West Bank located eight kilometers northeast of Jerusalem. In mid-year 2006, it had an estimated population of 6,100 residents...
. The roof is covered with tiles from Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
.
The interior of the approximately oriented
Orientation of Churches
The orientation of churches is the architectural feature of facing churches towards the east .The Jewish custom of fixing the direction of prayer and orienting synagogues influenced Christianity during its formative years. In early Christianity, it was customary to pray facing toward the Holy Land...
prayer hall is covered by cross vaults, on its northern side a pipe organ
Pipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
was installed on a loft. The tower, housing a staircase, flanks the northern side aisle and the westernmost bay
Bay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
of the main nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
.
Braun, the most prominent donator for the congregation and church, travelled on behalf of Jerusalem's Association from Stuttgart to Jaffa to attend the inauguration of Immanuel Church, scheduled for Pentecost
Pentecost
Pentecost is a prominent feast in the calendar of Ancient Israel celebrating the giving of the Law on Sinai, and also later in the Christian liturgical year commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Christ after the Resurrection of Jesus...
1904 (May 22). Unfortunately he contracted dysentery
Dysentery
Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
after his arrival and died hospitalised in Jerusalem on 31 May 1904. He was buried on the Anglo-Prussian simultaneous Anglican-Evangelical Cemetery on Mount Zion
Mount Zion
Mount Zion is a place name for a site in Jerusalem, the location of which has shifted several times in history. According to the Hebrew Bible's Book of Samuel, it was the site of the Jebusite fortress called the "stronghold of Zion" that was conquered by King David, becoming his palace in the City...
, close to Samuel Gobat
Samuel Gobat
Samuel Gobat , was a Swiss Lutheran who became an Anglican missionary in Africa and was the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem from 1846 until his death....
's grave.
The inauguration of Immanuel Church was then delayed to Monday June 6, held as a sober ceremony and attended by Büge and participants from other Evangelical congregations and Templers. A year later on June 6 Theodor Schneller celebrated a memorial service for Braun.
On 6 April 1910 Prince Eitel Friedrich of Prussia
Prince Eitel Friedrich of Prussia
Prince Eitel Friedrich was the second son of Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany by his first wife, Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein...
and his wife Sophie Charlotte of Oldenburg visited Jaffa and Immanuel Church and were received by Pastor Zeller.
Furnishings
The furnishings were mostly imported from Germany. King William II of WürttembergWilliam II of Württemberg
William II was the fourth King of Württemberg, from 6 October 1891 until the abolition of the kingdom on 30 November 1918...
and Queen Charlotte
Charlotte of Schaumburg-Lippe
Princess Charlotte of Schaumburg-Lippe was the daughter of Prince Wilhelm Karl August of Schaumburg-Lippe, and his wife, Princess Bathildis of Anhalt-Dessau. As the second wife of King William II of Württemberg she became Queen Charlotte of Württemberg...
donated the church clock. In his function as summus episcopus of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces King William II of Prussia (also German Emperor) and his wife Auguste Victoria donated the main bell with the inscription "Gestiftet von S.M. d.K.u.K. Wilhelm II u. I.M. d.K.u.K. Auguste Victoria 1904/Zweifle nicht! Ap. Gesch. 10.20". The Evangelical Association for the Construction of Churches , with Auguste Victoria as its protectress, donated the small bells. She also donated the altar bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
with her handwritten dedicaton: "Ja kommet her zu mir alle, die ihr mühselig und beladen seid; ich will Euch erquicken."
Miss Neef from Stuttgart financed the altar and the pulpit, while Ustinov granted the congregation a great crucifix from olive tree wood. The parishioners collected 4,050 francs for the pipe organ, produced by Walcker Orgelbau
Walcker Orgelbau
Walcker Orgelbau of Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, is a builder of pipe organs. It was founded in Cannstatt, a suburb of Stuttgart in 1780 by Johann Eberhard Walcker...
in Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, about north of Stuttgart city centre, near the river Neckar. It is the largest and primary city of the Ludwigsburg urban district with about 87,000 inhabitants...
. The stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
windows were a product of Fa. Müller in Quedlinburg
Quedlinburg
Quedlinburg is a town located north of the Harz mountains, in the district of Harz in the west of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. In 1994 the medieval court and the old town was set on the UNESCO world heritage list....
. In 1906 a plaque commemorating Friedrich Braun was fixed on the walls of Immanuel Church.
In 1977 Immanuel Church underwent a renovation, replacing the old windows and the pipe organ. The Norwegian Victor Sparre
Victor Sparre
Victor Sparre was a Norwegian painter, glass designer and non-fiction writer.-Personal life:...
created the new windows of stained glass. Paul Ott (*1903-1991*) from Göttingen
Göttingen
Göttingen is a university town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...
created the new pipe organ in 1977. The apse
Apse
In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...
is decorated by an inscription of the Hebrew verse from the Gospel
Gospel of John
The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...
of John the Evangelist
John the Evangelist
Saint John the Evangelist is the conventional name for the author of the Gospel of John...
:
"כי כה אהב אלהים את העולם עד כי נתן את בנו יחידו למען לא יאבד כל המאמין בו, אלא ינחל חיי עולם."
Today's congregation
On 29 August 1951 the State of Israel and the Lutheran World FederationLutheran World Federation
The Lutheran World Federation is a global communion of national and regional Lutheran churches headquartered in the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland. The federation was founded in the Swedish city of Lund in the aftermath of the Second World War in 1947 to coordinate the activities of the...
, which took care of the formerly German Protestant missionary property in Israel, found an agreement on compensation for the lost missionary property and the future use of the actual places of worship. In consent with the Evangelical Church in Germany
Evangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...
, the new umbrella of German church bodies taking care of their foreign efforts, and Jerusalem's Association (with its vice-president Rabenau), the Lutheran World Federation handed over Immanuel Church to the Norwegian Church Ministry to Israel in 1955. Today a number of congregations besides the Lutheran are using the church.
Missionary and Pastors
- 1858–1870: Missionary Peter Martin Metzler (*1824-1907*)
- 1866–1886?: Pastor Johannes Gruhler (*1833-1905*), only partially accepted due his Anglican Rite
- 1870/1886–1897: vacant
- 1885–1895: Pastor Carl Schlicht (*1855-1930*) in Jerusalem, per pro
- 1897–1906: Pastor Albert Eugen Schlaich (*1870-1954*)
- 1906–1912: Pastor Wilhelm Georg Albert Zeller (*1879-1929*)
- 1912–1917: Pastor Eitel-Friedrich Karl Balthasar von Rabenau (*1884-1959*)
- 1917–1920 (in Egyptian exile): Pastor von Rabenau continued to serve the interned parishioners
- 1917–1926 (for the parishioners remaining in Jaffa): vacant
- 1917–1918: D. Dr. Friedrich Jeremias (*1868-1945*), Provost of Jerusalem, per pro
- 1921: Prof. D. Dr. Gustaf DalmanGustaf DalmanGustaf Hermann Dalman was a German Lutheran theologian and orientalist. He did extensive field work in Palestine, collecting poetry and proverbs.-Works:...
, provost per pro - 1921–1926: Pastor Detwig von Oertzen (*1876-1950*) in Haifa, per pro
- 1926–1931: Cand. Ernst Paetzold (*1899-1957*)
- 1931–1935: vacant
- 1931–1935: Ernst Rhein (*1885-1969*), Provost of Jerusalem, and Pastor von Oertzen (Haifa) per pro
- 1935–1937: Vicar Felix Moderow (*?-?*)
- 1937–1939: Pastor Detwig von Oertzen rtrd.
- 1939–1940?: vacant
- 1940?–1947: A minister of the Anglican Church's Ministry Among Jewish PeopleChurch's Ministry Among Jewish PeopleChurch's Ministry Among Jewish People is an Anglican missionary society founded in 1809.-History:...
served at Immanuel Church - 1947–1955: vacant
- …
- 2004–2009: Pastor Jan H. Mortensen
- 2009–to date: Pastor Christian Rasmussen
Noteworthy Parishioners
- 1912–1917/1920: Eitel-Friedrich von Rabenau
- 1892–1913?: Jona von UstinovJona von UstinovJona Baron von Ustinov was a German journalist and diplomat who worked for MI5 during the time of the Nazi regime...
- 1878–1913: Plato von Ustinov