German Canons:
Already inserted:
O wie wohl ist mir
Not yet inserted:
a list of canons
as they appear
on the pages
of my hand-written song-block,
established in January 2000

See also:
Gott, der du gross bist

SongGame 2007_12_29
German&Hebrew Canons

I feel driven, on October 26-27, 2010,
to dive into the history of the Suabian Templers, nowadays based in Stuttgart
by copying most of the paper brochure
which Me'ir gave us about
"Footprints of the Templers,
The Wuerttemberg Templers in the Holy Land".
and (mostly in my mind) comparing the information
with what I once learnt, taught and applied:
the facts of the incredible accomplishments
of the first   incredibly   courageous   Zionist.


Moreover - I always had an inkling,
that I was around in the twenties
in the Yezreel Valley.
Now this inkling has become a pervasive fantasy about my connection to both:

a) the Jewish pioneers,
as exemplified in Alexander Zaid,
murdered 5 weeks before my birth in 1938,
His mother belonged to the "Sobbotniks",
another Christian sect, but tending to Judaism.

b) the Templers at Betlehem-in-the Galilee,
10 km from Sheikh Abreik Hill [Bet-Zaid & Giv'at Zaid]
where Alexander & Zippora found refuge in 1926 from their own companions in Kfar Gil'adi,
and where in winter 1963-64 Kfar Tikva,
a village for adults-with-special-needs
was installed,
realized by German pietists from the Black Forest, with "my" Rafael Rosenzweig as the administrator.
This was 3 months before we could marry,
dreaming about living and working together
where Alexander Zaid had worked and died.
But Rafael was expelled after 2 months,
as "not fitting" the Pietists' beliefs...
I saw "Kfar Tikva - Hope Village" only from afar.

In the twenties
there was nothing between Zaid's Sheikh Abreik
and the two Templer settlements in that area,
Betlehem and Waldheim [today Aloney-Abba]
[Ramat-Yishai was founded in 1925, Bet-Shearim in 1926,
Tivon, the nearby town, only in 1947!]
They were direct neighbors:
The Jewish Russian Zaids
and the Christian German Templers!
Why was I led to live for some days
at Betlehem and Waldheim in Febr. 1988?
Why is the composition of photos dated
February 20, 1988, my mother's death day?

From Me'irs brochure about the Wuerttemberg Templers:
[my few, accidental comments- comments often only by coloring a name or word that brings up emotions - are in brown or purple.. - the links are also mine]

Who are the Templers? ... they have nothing to do with the Knights Templar of the crusader era. That order was dissoved in 1312 AD.
Following the call of their faith, they began moving to the Holy Land in 1868.      They were the first to successfully drain swamps and make the land habitable for Europeans. To this day, many traces testify to their beneficial activity.
[Petah Tikva, the "Mother of the Settlements", was founded in 1878 by religious pioneers from Europe ]

The Christian community of the Templers evolved out of mid-nineteenth century Protestant Pietism. The Temple Society was brought into being by the theologian Christoph Hoffmann (1915-1885), who was the son of the founder of the Korntal [!] Pietist Community near Stuttgart and delegate to the 1848 National assembly in the Frankfurt Paulskirche.....

In view of the grave social ills of the time....they wanted ( - after the model of the early Christian Church) - through the establishment of communities of like-minded people... to gradually pervade and transform society...In these communities, where tolerance and love of neighbour were practised, individuals would see themselves as living components of a spiritual temple of God, as demanded in the New Testament - hence the name Templers.

They made the task of working towards the kingdom of God the centre of their lives and founded their first model community not far from Stuttgart, in Kirschenhardthof, in 1856.They understood the prophetic promise that God's kingdom would begin its victorious spread in Jerusalem as a call that they should also strive for it in the holy Land and from communities there. Thus, many of them sold all they had and emigrated from Wuerttemberg, from Saxony [the country of my mother and her ancestors...], from the USA and from the Caucasus [one of the areas to where the "Sobbotniks", were deported) to the Holy Land, then a desolate region of the Turkish Empire, and to Jerusalem.
The work of the Templers [see how similar it is to that of the Jewish settlers, and all this at the same time!]
"When the Templers began establishing their settlements in 1969, the country had not one decent seaport, its forests had been cut down, agriculture was primitive and there were more dilapdated townships than inhabitable ones. It was a country with no coach traffic, no hotels and no trained physicians."
So wrote the Israeli historian of the University of Haifa, Prof. Alex Carmel (died 2002), in his book "Die Siedlungen der wuerttembergischen Templer in Palaestina 1968-1918" (The Settlements of the Wuerttemberg Templers in Palestine 1868-1918).

After years of meticulous planning, the first four Templer settlements emerged in Haifa, in Jaffa, in Sarona near Jaffa and in Jerusalem. Initially the newcomers concentrated on getting established in agriculture. They laid out fields, vineyards and orchards and successfully employed modern working methods. Their steam-powered oil presses and flourmills were open for business to the local population also. Qualified tradesmen began operating workshops of every kind, and factories emerged, producing soap, machines, beer and cement, to name but a few; others opened shops, banks and hotels. A doctor set himself up in Haifa as early as 1870, and another one in Jaffa, and European-style pharmacies and infirmaries commenced operations in both towns.

"The Templers soon gained a reputation for their skills and their diligence. They built exemplary colonies and pretty houses surrounded by flower gardens - a piece of their homeland in the heart of Palestine" (Carmel)

The generously laid-out Haifa Templer settlement has meanwhile become the heart of the city. (It's where the families of Nimr Ismair and Ibrahim Sam'aan lived in the seventies, and where many of the sessions of the Partnership Committee took place...) Then Jerusalem consisted of only the Old City within its walls, as we still find that part today. It began to outgrow its walls only after the Templers founded their settlement on the Plain of Rephaim.
[why don't they mention "Mishkenot Sha'ananim"?

Wikipedia: Mishkenot Sha’ananim (lit. Tranquil Abode) [see also the version and images in Hebrew] Mishkenot Sha'ananim was the first Jewish neighborhood built outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, on a hill directly across from Mount Zion. It was built by Sir Moses Montefiore in 1869 as an almshouse, paid for by the estate of a wealthy Jew from New Orleans, Judah Touro. Since it was outside the walls and open to Bedouin raids, pillage and general banditry rampant in the region at the time, the Jews were reluctant to move in, even though the housing was luxurious compared to the derelict and overcrowded houses in the Old City. As an incentive, people were even paid to live there, and a gate was built around the compound with a heavy door that was locked at night. The name of the neighborhood was taken from Isaiah 32:18: "My people will abide in 'mishkenot sha'ananim' (peaceful habitation), in secure dwellings and in quiet resting places." See my experience in Mishkenot Sha'ananim [with my friend Lior] right after my morning visit in the Templers' graveyard and before my visit to the grave with my German family...

The Templers' decisive contributions to the country during these early years were the building of new roads and the improvement of the existing transport routes, because up to then there was only one road fit for vehicular traffic, namely the road the pildgrims travelled from Jaffa to Jerusalem.

Architects and engineers, including the perhaps best-known second-generation Templer, Gottlieb Schumacher (1857-1925, from Tuebingen and Ohio), realised these ambitious plans, together with Templer building firms such as Beilharz Brothers. In addition to his work in town planning, cartography and scientific publications, Schumacher led the first archaeological excavations at Megiddo from 1903-1905. The Haifa University's Institute for research into the Christian Contribution ot the Restoration of Palestine in the 19th Century bears his name.

The road from Haifa to Nazareth was the first to be built. The construction costs were largely carried by the members of the Haifa Templer Community. The new road made relatively convenient and safe pilgrim journeys to Galilee possible. Templer families built and ran hotels in Haifa, Tiberias and Nazareth. Regular coach services operated between Haifa and Acre, and between Jaffa and Jerusalem. Where previously goods transport and travel were only possible using beasts of burden, or boats along the coast of the Mediterranean, the face of the country was now changing. The groundwork for the development of a modern economy had been created.

In addition, the Jewish immigrants who began arriving in the late [?] 19th century were able to draw on the knowledge and experience of the Templers,
who not only were commissioned with building work in Zikhron-Ya'akov [founded 1882!] and Bath Shlomoh [1889], but also supplied the Jewish settlers with foodstuffs and household equipment. [What about the first Jewish settlement - Petach-Tikvah - founded 1878 ?]

Due to the increased volume in domestic markets and the development of trade links with Europe and the USA, some of the workshops and service industries of the Templers grew into sizeable enterprises.

New agricultural settlements (Sarona, Wilhelma, Betlehem and Waldheim) were founded. Even though the Temple Society in Palestine remained a small community of less than 1500 people, its contribution to the development of the country was fruitful in manyways.

The settlements were pushed to the brink of disintegration during World War I when the British, after occupying Palestine in 1918, deported a large number of Templers to internment in Egypt and denied them the return to their settlements after the war. Permission to re-enter Palestine was not forthcoming until international intermediaries intervened on behalf of the Templers, who then returned to restore their houses and farms, which had been badly damaged by the ravages of war. .

However, Great Britain's entry into World War II signalled the end of the Templers' work in Palestine. They were interned in their own settlements , and a large proportion, consisting mainly of younger families, was deported to Australia in 1941 [see their website]. The last of those remaining had to leave the country when the State of Israel was proclaimed in 1948.
[The brochure says nothing about the Nazi involvment of part (or all?) of the Templers....]

Footprints of the Templers:
Haifa, Jerusalem, Sarone, Wilhelma, Betlehem, Waldheim.

Haifa
The first Templers arrived in 1868. They bought land at the foot of Mt Carmel, to the west of the then Arabic town. .. it became a new economic centre in northern Palestine. "In those days, Haifa was still a miserable place, overshadowed by Acre [Acco], the district capital. Most of the 4000 inhabitants lived crowded within the city walls. If there was anything like a fresh breeze to be felt in the small town at that time, it was the German settlers who now provided a decisive impetus for its development" (Carmel).

Today, the "German Colony" is situated in the centre of the City of Haifa. The former has become a landmark of the city. It runs straight from the sea to Mt. Carmel. Jakob Schumacher from Tuebingen built it in 1869. What was then a vision in the wilderness is today Ben Gurion Ave, "one of the most beautiful streets in Israel". [How often did I walk this road up and down, as well as the parallel road with the Arab-Jewish center "Bet-HaGefen" at its corner, and had no idea about the Templers from my home-country, and what they did there one hundred years before!]

Many a doorway is still graced by a Bible quotation chiselled into its lintel. The old Templer neighbourhood extends along Ben Gurion Ave and across two roads running parallel to it, from the port facilities up to the foot of Mt. Carmel, along the former Weinstrasse (now HaGefen Rd) . ..
A new suburb with residential areas, a hotel and a sanatorium was developed around 1890 in a generously laid out pine grove on Mt Carmel. The memorial stone commemorating the visit to the Holy Land by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1898 can still be seen on Panorama Road (Yefe Nof). Looking down from this road over the Baha'i temple and across the red-tiled roofs of the Templer houses out to sea, the view is simply stunning (see cover page of the brochure, "google" for images about Templers in Haifa).

Jerusalem
The first Templers who moved to Jerusalem lived in the Old City but, in 1871, Matthaeus Frank from Neuffen near Stuttgart, bought a piece of land on which he built a steam-driven flourmill [how strange, that his pioneer of Jerusalem, too thought of a flourmill like Montefiore, except that Montefiore's was driven by wind and founded already in 1857...] and a home whose front door still features the Eben Ezer 1873 incription. This house, not far from Jerusalem's Jaffa Gate, was the start of the Templer community on the Plain of Rephaim, where businessmen, travel agents, hoteliers, tradesmen, architects, innkeepers, teachers and public servants soon settled. This is also where Christoph Hoffmann relocated the Templer head office and secondary school. The Templer president now lived in Jerusalem which quickly became the spiritual and cultural centre of the Temple Society.

The establishment of schools was among the most urgend community projects for the Templers in new settlements and was carried out at great financial cost. These schools were also open to students of other nationalities and religions.

A walk through the lanes of the settlement with its quite well-preserved houses and gardens is a rewarding experience. Situated along Rephaim Road, the "German colony" is bounded by Bethlehem Road in the east. Just were the two roads meet at an acute angle is the Saal, the Templer place of worship, which now serves the Armenian Patriarchate as a church. New constructions are now planned on the site of the two adjacent school buildings.

Betlehem and Waldheim and Wilhelma
The agricultural settlement of Betlehem was founded in 1906, not far from the Plain of Yezreel. ...Just a few kilometers away, the settlement of Waldheim was founded in 1907 by the descendants of the Haifa Templer families who had returned to the Protestant Church. - [now Aloney-Abba].
Wilhelma, now Bney-Atarot, the charm of rural Templer settlements is best preserved. Founded in 1902, its significance throughout the surrounding area was enhanced by the establishment of an agricultural school in 1909, by the introduction of artificial fertilisers and by effective animal husbandry. The products of its cooperatively managed dairy (which had an exemplary hygienic standard) were particularly in demand. The town, now a moshav, is situated not far north of Ben Gurion airport in the direction of Petah-Tiqvah.
Wilhelma was extensively damaged when the advancing British troops battled the Turks in World War I. In World War II, Wilhelma - like Sarona, Betlehen and Waldheim - was transformed by the British Mandate Authority into an internment camp for German nationals.

Jaffa
The first Christians who settled as a group in Jaffa in the 19th century were Adventists from the USA. They, too were well prepared for settlement in the disease and epidemic-ridden land, even bringing with them their disassembled prefabricated houses. But the undertaking, which was begun with such great expectations, failed after only one year. The Templers acquired the timber houses in 1869 and several of them exist to this day.

Most of the newcomers were engaged in a trade. Hotels were fitted out, a small pharmacy and an infirmary, both of which had been taken over from the Basler Pilgermission, were expanded and a doctor established his medical practice.
Regular coach services soon connected Jaffa and Jerusalem. Farmers concentrated on the cultivation of citrus fruits: Jaffa oranges soon became a household word.When this neighbourhood, nicknamed Amelikan, ran out of space, the Templers of Jaffa spread to a place called Walhalla [this name has a nauseating ring after the Nazi period] a little further north around 1892. A small, but by no means insignificant industrial area developed there, including the well-known iron foundry and machine workshop of the Wagner Brothers from Maegerkingen.

Sarona [See an impressive image of "Sarona among Skyscrapers"]
Since there was no space for sustained agriculture in Jaffa, the Temple Society bought land in the Plain of Sharon along the Yarkon (Audsche) Riffer in 1871. This plain, after which the new settlement was named, was full of swamps and malaria was rampant. A large number of settlers, including many children, fell victim to the disease. But the survivors did not give up; they drained the swampy ground and planted eucalypts in great numbers wherever possible. By 1873, malaria was largely defeated but, as late as 1902, Sarona still had to spend large sums of money on draining swamps.

Ten years after its founding, Sarona was a flourishing colony, not least through viticulture, which the farmers pursued as a specialty sideline to agriculture and animal breeding. Intensive orange cultivation was added in due course.
Today, Sarona (Ha-Kyria) is situated in the centre of Tel Aviv. The houses of the former settlers are seen on both sides of Kaplan Street. They were occupied by the Israeli military for many years. The houses vacated south of Kaplan Street have been restored and declared a Municipal Historical Park-Sarona Gardens .

        As an antidote to this brochure, obviously written by Templers,
      read the - painful - article Sarona, the Kirya in Tel Aviv was founded by the Templars

Naturally, not all Templers lived in the named compact settlements. As early as the 1870s, the wagner flourmill began operating in Nazareth; it is now the St Charles Hospice of the Rosary Sisters. Those days also saw the establishment of the Hotel Galilee. Traces also in Tiberias and Ramleh.

The Templer Cemeteries:
Life continues in the former Templer settlements: new people live in the houses, and the fields are tended by others. What has remained, however, are the Templer cemeteries in Haifa and in Jerusalem. Originally, each Templer settlement had its own burial ground but, in 1964, the cemeteries of Waldheim, Betlehem (Haglilit) and Wilhelma were closed and the mortal remains re-interred in the Haifa and Jerusalem. The deceased of Sarona/Jaffa had been transferred to Jerusalem in 1952.
... The Templers today: Following World War II and the loss of their Palestine settlements, the Templers reunited in new communities. After their liberation from internment, Australia offered the Templers the chance to stay... In Germany a new community centre was established in Stuttgart.
Their baisc concepts: "Set your mind on God's kingdom and his justice before everything else. ... trusting in God, loving their neighbour, acting responsibly towards the world and committed to furthering God's kingdom of love and kindness among humans." They feeel a bond with all those who also see their life's task as working towards these aims.