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» excerpts from the book
Times of Change: Chapters on Urban Jerusalem
(© 2002 Heike Zaun-Goshen)
JERUSALEM'S AMERICAN COLONY
Social Work and Business
(Condensed Version)
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Historically, and with good reason, the Jewish people always have
been highly sensitive to Christian missionary activity. It is therefore
quite significant that the Americans were not treated with hostility
following the Yemenite episode. Quite to the contrary, they were
accepted and appreciated by Jerusalem's Jews. Jewish community leader
David Yellin recorded:
...the Christian sect known here simply as the “Americans"...they
are Christians, but do not visit any place of worship, nor do
they have anything in common with the Christian denominations...
All the members of the sect live together and eat at the same
table... They have no missionary intent and in fact detest missionaries
in all respects... The whole of their time is devoted to giving
instructions in English, art and the sciences. Indeed, some of
them teach English in our own (Jewish) schools. (5)
At first, the colony members were quite poor. Often, they depended
on gifts received in return for their nursing and teaching, such
as loaves of bread, baskets of fruit and rice, fowl, and other foodstuffs.
Funds they had in the United State were withheld from them through
intervention by the same antagonistic church they had left behind.
Its officials also informed the American consul in Jerusalem, Dr.
Selah Merrill, about the assumed wickedness of the Spaffords. The
consul became one of the Americans' greatest enemies.
 In
1888, Horatio Spafford died, and the community's leadership passed
to Anna Spafford. Three years later, Mr. Spafford's grave and others
on Mount Zion were desecrated by Dr. Merrill. As so many of his
contemporaries, the consul fancied himself an archeologist and had
dug trenches across the cemetery, exposing the coffins. The consul's
wild actions went on. One of the colony's members was Mary Whiting,
a widow with two children, whose mother-in-law opposed the move
to Jerusalem. Initiating legal proceedings to strip the family of
their inheritance unless the children were returned to the United
States, she enlisted the help of Dr. Merrill.
The consul contrived to kidnap the Whiting family and - illegally
- held them prisoner at Jerusalem's New Grand Hotel near Jaffa Gate.
It took the intervention of the Turkish authorities in Constantinople
and the-then German consul in Jerusalem to set them free - the latter
incidentally being the father of the notorious Rudolf Hess, who,
decades later, became one of Hitler's aides.
The dispute escalated and had to be settled in a US court in 1894.
Mrs. Whiting could keep her children. Following the widespread newspaper
coverage, Anna Spafford was approached by a community of Swedes
recently immigrated to the United States. They begged to join the
colony, and thus the party returning to Jerusalem now consisted
of 75 people, among them 25 children.
If the new arrivals were a surprise for those who had remained
in Jerusalem, there was more to come. The Swedes still had familiy
in Sweden, and soon, another group arrived directly from there -
an additional 38 people, including 17 children, none of them speaking
English. The colony now comprised about 150 members - far too many
for the house in the Old City. Consequently, more spacious premises
outside the walls were rented, and later bought: a large and luxurious
villa a short distance northeast of Damascus Gate, built a few years
previously by a leading Arab dignitary, Rabbah Effendi al-Husseini,
where he had lived with his four wives.
 With
the new arrivals, there were a few cultural differences to overcome,
such as language or culinary problems: While the Americans preferred
white wheat bread, the Swedes were used to black rye bread. Yet
the colonists' fate changed to the better, and they now went into
business, too. The Swedes had brought with them looms and a knitting
machine which were put to good use by weaving cloth, linen, cotton,
and tweed for tablecloths, furniture coverings, underwear, and clothing.
What was not needed for direct use was sold in town. Other industries
evolved, such as shoemaking, carpentry, and a smithy.
On a plot to the north of the new premises, a farm was started
and cattle raised. A bakery was established, producing cakes, pastries,
and jam. Again, the surplus was sold outside the colony. Bertha's
future husband, Frederick Vester, the son of a Swiss-German missionary
family and who had joined the colony, later brought in his father's
business - the carving of olive wood objects for souvenirs. Soon,
a number of American Colony stores appeared in Jerusalem, and later,
an outlet in New York.
With their newfound productivity and business interests - at one
point the American Colony also was a car-dealership representing
Dodge in the Holy Land - the colony did not neglect its calling
for community service. Teaching and nursing continued. Their previous
residence in the Old City was turned into the Anna Spafford Nursing
Home, and in 1897, upon a request by the municipality's department
of education, Bertha Spafford, now 19 years of age, and Miss Brooke,
the colony's teacher, took over the newly opened girls' school -
the first Moslem girls' school in Jerusalem.
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Photos: The American Colony Hotel's Photo Archives,
courtesy of Mrs. Vester
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