1836: A Campaign to Convert Jews in Jerusalem

JEWISH MOMENTS IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL

1836
Missionaries in Jerusalem:
The Campaign to Convert the Jews

In the 19th century, Protestant missionaries, backed by European governments, launched a determined effort to convert Jews in the Land of Israel. Through hospitals, schools, and social services, they sought both to aid and to evangelize, believing Jewish conversion was key to Christian redemption. Despite significant investments, the primary goal of converting Jews met with very limited success. It nonetheless stands as a testimony to the importance of the Jewish presence in the region during this period.

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The early 19th century marked a new era in the Land of Israel, as Protestant missionary activity became increasingly visible and organized. While Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox communities had long maintained a presence in the Land of Israel, it was the Protestant efforts, especially those of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews (LSPCJ), that most directly targeted the Jewish population.

The LSPCJ was founded in 1809 by Joseph Frey, a Bavarian Jewish convert, with the specific purpose of “relieving the temporal distress of the Jews and the promotion of their welfare.”The LSPCJ’s work began among the recent, mostly impoverished Jewish Ashkenazi immigrants in the East End of London. It was of the highest relevance the patronage of the Duke of Kent, the fourth son of King George III and father of Queen Victoria, from the inner circle of the Hanoverian royal family.

The foundation stone for their main complex at Palestine Place was laid by the Duke of Kent in 1813 in the presence of nearly 20,000 spectators, demonstrating the significant public interest in their mission. Palestine Place was the society’s headquarters complex on a five‑acre site on Cambridge Road in Bethnal Green, leased in 1811 as a central hub for its Jewish mission. On this campus, they built a training college for missionaries, a school, and a chapel specifically for Jews who had converted. From this base, the society then expanded its activities to Jewish communities in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and eventually the Land of Israel.

In 1820, the society sent a representative to Palestine to investigate the conditions of the Jewish communities there, marking the beginning of their systematic engagement with the region. This investigative mission would lead to more sustained efforts: in 1836, the LSPCJ dispatched two missionaries to Jerusalem. This period also saw the arrival of British, German, and Scottish Protestant missionaries, who cooperated closely across denominational lines. Their shared goal was to convert local Jews, not necessarily expecting mass conversions but seeking enough individual cases to demonstrate the truth of their message and fulfill their theological vision that Jewish recognition of the Christian messiah was a necessary step toward Christian redemption.

The LSPCJ intensified its work during the Egyptian occupation of the region in 1831–1841, when Egypt’s control created political conditions more favorable to missionary activity. The work was institutionalized in 1841 with the appointment of Michael Solomon Alexander, a former rabbi who had converted to Christianity in 1825 and was ordained a priest in 1827, as the first Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem. This position, established by British and Prussian initiative through a unique agreement between the Church of England and the Evangelical Church in Prussia, symbolized the seriousness of the Protestant mission.

Missionaries deployed a multifaceted strategy centered on practical assistance. They offered economic and medical aid, establishing hospitals that became crucial healthcare providers in a region with minimal public medical services. In 1844, the LSPCJ opened its Jerusalem hospital. It was one of the city’s first modern medical institutions and, within days, was filled. The hospital served both Jews and non-Jews, with separate floors for men and women, and included a wing for pilgrims and British tourists. To make their services more palatable to Jewish patients, missionaries installed Torah scrolls and supplied kosher food, aiming to ease the transition for observant Jews.

The medical work extended beyond Jerusalem. By the 1890s, practically all large towns in the region had well-appointed medical missions, including hospitals in Tiberias, Nazareth, Nablus, Haifa, Jaffa, and Hebron. The LSPCJ also established a new, more modern hospital in Jerusalem in 1897, featuring innovative features such as maximum ventilation and isolation wings to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

Education was another powerful tool in the missionary arsenal. The Anglican mission opened a School of Industry in 1843, followed in 1847 by the influential Gobat School. By the late 19th century, Protestant missions maintained dozens of schools throughout the region, including Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Lod, Ramla, Jaffa, Nablus, and Shafamer. Catholic orders also established significant educational institutions, with the Sisters of St. Joseph founding the first Catholic girls’ school in Palestine in 1847, followed by the Sisters of Sion, who opened their doors in 1862. The Quakers established a school in Ramallah in 1889. These missionary schools were often the first to offer girls’ education and served students across religious lines.

The missionary campaign faced significant obstacles despite substantial investment and organization. Ultimately, the actual number of conversions in the Land of Israel remained, by their own reckoning, disappointingly small. Naturally, these missionary efforts faced a wide array of strong Jewish responses, but they also encountered political complications as various European powers competed for influence. The Damascus blood libel of 1840, which falsely accused the city’s Jews of ritual murder, further complicated the missionary environment, as LSPCJ personnel and British evangelicals joined Jewish leaders in publicly denouncing the charges, turning the society into a visible Protestant defender of Jews even as it continued to seek their conversion.