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For today's
That's My World let's look at a disappearing world.
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The Israeli army guard would not let me in the gate to photograph back in November 2008.
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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.
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I could only get pictures through the perimeter fence and the barbed wire.
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Some of the buildings are roofless.
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Some are gone.
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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.
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By chance, a wooden crate was recently found inside the old church.
In it was the original stone altar from 1860!
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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.
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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.
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UPDATE Oct. 2020: https://www.israel21c.org/landmark-building-to-house-new-museum-celebrating-jewish-heritage/
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The Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Ascension has a 60 meter tall bell tower.
Two stone eagles stand in the garden. 
What Kaiser Wilhelm II built in 1907-10 as a pilgrim hostel adjoining the church is today a hospital serving the Arab population of the Jerusalem area. (Photos will come soon.)
