Showing posts with label Schneller Compound. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Schneller Compound. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Bibelausstellung

.
A wandering biblical exhibition has wandered from Linz and other European cities all the way to Jerusalem.
"Die Wanderausstellung 'Expedition Bibel' des Katholischen Bibelwerks Linz" opened last month at Augusta Victoria on the Mount of Olives.
.
If my translation is right, the banner says "Bible Exhibition -- Discover our Bible with all the senses."
.
The cutest part of it was this game for children.
I think they are supposed to stick the correct animal through the little doors, depending on what OT or NT passage is quoted.

They even had the tfillin that observant Jewish men put on their arm and head when praying.
.
I was at the church for the Schneller Symposium that day. The lights were out in the Bible Exhibition and I think it was not officially open just then, but I just had to duck in quickly and snap a few furtive photos.
.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Pioneering Protestants in Jerusalem

.
For today's That's My World let's look at a disappearing world.
.

The Israeli army guard would not let me in the gate to photograph back in November 2008.
.
Written in stone on the building are the Arabic and the German for "Syrian Orphanage."
The place is popularly known as the Schneller School or Schneller Compound.
.
I could only get pictures through the perimeter fence and the barbed wire.
.
Some of the buildings are roofless.
.
Some are gone.
.
The army, which had used the compound since 1948, moved out two years ago.
The plan is to build 600 apartments for the neighboring haredim (ultra-orthodox Jews).
The Jerusalem municipality talks of preserving some of the beautiful old European-style buildings and using them as public buildings or a museum.
.
By chance, a wooden crate was recently found inside the old church.
In it was the original stone altar from 1860!
.
Last night, at the symposium I showed in yesterday's post, the altar was brought to the Church of the Ascension on Mount of Olives to be installed and rededicated there, at Augusta Victoria.
.
You can get an idea of the history and the great meaning of the Schneller School(s) for the German Protestants (and also see old photos of the orphanage and Johann Schneller and the kids) by looking at the PDF program of the international symposium, "Schneller--a living heritage in the Middle East."
.
The history in brief:
Schneller was sent to Jerusalem as a missionary from a Swiss village in 1854.
From the Arabs of Lifta he bought plots of land and started building.
He and his wife and 4 apprentices became the first Europeans to live outside the protective Old City walls.
They rescued orphans following the 1860 Druze and Muslim massacre of 30,000 Maronite Christians in Lebanon.
The children (up to 180 orphans at its peak) found a new home and a fine school in Schneller's Syrian Orphanage.
Schneller's son and then his grandson carried on his work.
.
In World War II all Germans and Austrians were deported from Palestine; many were sent to Australia.
The British Army took over the compound.
When the British Mandate ended in 1948, they handed the compound to the IDF.
.
To read the whole fascinating story, please see this good Jerusalem Post article.
.
Today the Schneller tradition of holistic education for peace and for future leaders continues at their two schools, in Lebanon and in Jordan.
And they still teach German.
.
UPDATE Oct. 2020:  https://www.israel21c.org/landmark-building-to-house-new-museum-celebrating-jewish-heritage/
.
.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Schneller Symposium today

.
Another strange view from above.
.
The chairs had taken a new twist in the sanctuary of the Church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives.
.
The altar and the wreath for Advent season.

I attended the International Schneller Symposium this afternoon in the "Kaisersalle" of the church.
Here is the panel discussion of the first lecturers.
.
The subject was the Syrian Orphanage and the Schneller schools. More about that in the coming days.
The 100-year-old church in the Augusta Victoria compound was named after Kaiser Wilhelm II's wife.
.