Schneller Orphanage

View of the onion-dome tower and other buildings of the Schneller Orphanage from Malkhei Yisrael Street

In the mid-19th century, English and German Protestant missions were operating in the Old City of Jerusalem. In 1854 Johann Ludwig Schneller (1820–1896), a German Lutheran missionary, came to Jerusalem from Württemberg together with his wife Magdalene Böhringer and six other members of the Brudergemeinde of Saint Chrischona, Basel, Switzerland, in order to manage the German Protestant mission.[9][10] On 11 October 1855 Schneller bought from the people of Lifta a parcel of land outside their village, approximately 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) northwest of Jaffa Gate, with the intention of living among and missionising to the local Arab population, and drew up plans for the construction of a home for his family.[11] The house was constructed from 1855–56.[10] After Schneller and his family took occupancy, the house was attacked several times by Arab robbers from the village of Beit Sorek, forcing them to retreat to the safety of the Old City.[10][11] At the end of the decade, after the Turks had erected outposts and dispatched armed guards on horseback to patrol Jaffa Road (the route between Jerusalem and the port city of Jaffa, which lay near the Schneller compound), Schneller and his family were able to return to their home.[2][12]

In 1860 Lebanese Druze massacred thousands of Maronite Christians in Lebanon and Syria. Schneller travelled to Beirut with the intention of rescuing battle-orphaned children. He was rebuffed by the local community, which did not trust foreign Protestant missionaries, but managed to bring back nine orphaned boys to Jerusalem in October 1860.[2] He decided to open an orphanage for them in his home, and by the end of 1861 had enrolled 41 boys[10][13] in what became known as the Syrian Orphanage (German: Syrisches Waisenhaus). Over the next four years Schneller expanded his property to 13.6 acres (55 dunam) and erected a 3.5 metres (11 ft)-high stone wall around it.[2] Through 1867 Schneller expanded and added new infrastructure, creating a kitchen, dining room, storage cellar, bedrooms and living areas.[10] In 1867 the orphanage began accepting girls.[2]

Funds for construction and expansion, together with clothing and blankets, were solicited from Protestant communities in Germany and Switzerland. Between 1861 and 1885 Schneller collected a total of 550,000 francs in donations.[2]

Schneller was determined to give orphaned and abandoned Arab children a complete education, including teaching them a trade. To that end, he employed both academic and vocational teachers, primarily from Germany. The latter led professional workshops in tailoring, shoemaking, engraving, carpentry, metalworking, pottery, painting, printing, farming, and gardening.[7]

Children stayed at the orphanage for up to 10 years, graduating at the age of 18. They came from all parts of Palestine as well as Syria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Armenia, Turkey, Russia, Iran, and Germany.[7] They were also of differing religious denominations, including Protestant, Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Coptic, and Maronite.[2] Notwithstanding the ethnic diversity of the student body, the language of instruction was German and Arabic.[2] Most of the teachers employed during the orphanage's first 50 years were German, with some Armenians and Arabs.[7]

In 1876 the orphanage had an enrollment of 70 students aged 4 to 17.[2] By 1898 enrollment stood at 200 students. By the time of Schneller's death on 18 October 1896, 1500 students had passed through the orphanage's doors.[13] The actual number of graduates totaled 425 in 1885 and 1169 at the 50th anniversary of the orphanage in 1910.[14]

Blindenheim, the school for the blind, erected in 1903

In 1901 a German noble bequeathed his entire fortune of 700,000 marks toward the establishment of a school for the blind at the orphanage. It opened in 1903 with space for 40 to 50 children, plus workshops to teach the blind weaving and spinning.[7]

Besides classes and vocational workshops, the orphanage operated its own printing press and bindery where it produced its own textbooks, Braille books, and German-language newspapers. It also operated a flour mill and bakery that produced 35,000 loaves of bread a year, a laundry and clothing-repair service, a carpentry, a pottery factory that produced all the clay utensils used in the orphanage, and a tree and plant nursery. At the beginning of the 20th century, a large brick and tile factory was erected on the premises, which produced one million bricks and 250,000 tiles annually.[15]

In 1889 Schneller acquired 1,235 acres (5,000 dunam) in Bir Salem (today Kibbutz Netzer Sereni) in order to develop an agricultural school and land for settlement for his students and graduates. In 1906 another 890 acres (3,600 dunam) was added to the original parcel. Although the agricultural school did not materialise, the grain, fruits and vegetables produced by the farm supplemented the orphanage diet during the food shortages of World War I.[16]

In 1889 Schneller gave over the operation of the orphanage to a consortium based in Stuttgart, while his eldest son, Theodor (1856–1935), became manager of the institution.[17] In 1927 Theodor's youngest son, Ernst, took over the management of the institution until its confiscation by the British in 1940.[17]

One of the orphanage buildings, behind a high stone wall and protective fencing

When World War II broke out, the British shut down the orphanage and deported its German teachers. The British turned the compound into a closed military camp known as the Schneller Barracks,[12] installing about 50 watchtowers and huts.[6] The camp housed the largest ammunition stockpile in the Middle East, as well as grain storehouses.[6] The Royal Army Pay Corps 90th Battalion occupied the barracks in the late 1940s.[26]

The British camp was targeted for attack by the Irgun on two occasions. On 27 June 1939, the paramilitary group placed a letter bomb in the mailbox attached to the outside wall; the subsequent explosion collapsed part of the wall and injured five Arabs in the vicinity.[6] On 12 March 1947, the Irgun penetrated the camp itself in a pre-dawn operation and detonated explosives in one of the buildings to protest the imposition of martial law on Jerusalem. One British soldier was killed and eight injured in the blasts; martial law was lifted four days later.[27]

Schneller Orphanage after occupation by Palmach

Harel Brigade stationed in the orphanage, 1948

On 17 March 1948, the British abandoned the camp and the Etzioni Brigade of the Haganah used it as a home base during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence.[12] For the next 60 years, the compound served as a training base for the Israel Defense Forces and an army clinic; at one point, it also served as headquarters for the Home Front Command.[6][12]

In 1951 the Israeli army summoned representatives of the World Lutheran Church to remove religious artifacts from the orphanage church; church representatives removed bells, windows and a pipe organ, but left the heavy marble altar encased in a wooden chest. The church was then converted into a basketball arena for the soldiers. In October 2009, on a tour of the facility after the army had vacated the grounds, the provost of the Evangelical German Lutheran Church of the Redeemer noticed the chest and asked for it to be opened, exposing the altar. The Lutherans negotiated for it to be moved to the Lutheran church at Augusta Victoria Hospital, where it was inaugurated in November 2010.[20][28]

During the 60 years of occupancy by the Israeli army, the base was served by an army synagogue in one of the halls of the main building, including a Torah ark, bookcase, and a balcony door set with 12 stained-glass windows depicting the Twelve Tribes of Israel.[6]