German Colony, Haifa
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The German Colony (Hamoshava Hagermanit) (Hebrew: המושבה הגרמנית) in Haifa was built by the Tempelgesellschaft, it was established in 1868 and was the first colony to be established by the Templers in the Holy Land. Other colonies were established near Yaffo, Galilee and Jerusalem.
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[edit] History
The templers, a religious Protestant organization established in south Germany in the 19th century by the Protestant theolog Christoff Hoffman, came to Palestine after they were persecuted in their homeland because of their religious beliefs. They came with a belief that by living in the Holy Land they can promote the second coming of Christ.
They came to Haifa in 1868 and saw the potential of the city and its newly built dock which they used to bring building materials from Europe for the colony and for exporting of goods from the colony to Europe.
The Templers designed the colony in a very precise way and started developing the colony and the city by building a local industry (for the first time in the city). They established Passenger lines to Jaffa, Acre and Nazareth which also permitted organized mail transfer between the cities.
The population fluctuated between 300-400 settlers between 1870 and 1914. During that time 60 of the colony's members were American citizens and the leader of the colony, Jacob Schumacher was the U.S consular agent for Haifa and northern Palestine.[1]
At first the Templers tried to earn a living by farming, their former profession in Germany and the United States, using modern European farming methods. The local Arab farmers were jealous of their developed farming methods, and started burning and destroying their farms.[2] The Templers abandoned farming and started working in industry and tourism: they built modern hotels, mechanical workshops and an olive oil soap factory.
The German colony was actually a modern German town- which was a very extraordinary thing in its surrounding - a poor desolate place at the end of the Ottoman Empire age. The colony had a doctor and a construction engineer who were both the only ones in the area. The colony prospered and got bigger, at the end of the Turkish governing in the area it had 750 residents, 150 houses and tens of economy buildings.
The Templers in the German colony supported Germany in the World War I and suffered its defeat especially after General Allenby conquered the land. Because of the British occupation the Templers changed their relations with the local authorities and in the 1930's most of them supported the Nazi regime in Germany. When World War II started the residents were interned and between 1944 and 1950 most were repatriated to Germany while some settled in Australia. The land of the colony was given to Israel as part of the Claims conference on German reparations for the Holocaust.
The houses of the colony became part of Haifa's historic district. Several attempts by Aba Hushi, mayor of Haifa, to renovate the colony did not succeed. Finally, in the 1990's the colony was renovated by the Bahá'í World Centre project[citation needed] and its buildings serve today as coffee shops and tourist attractions.
[edit] The Colony's Structure
The German colony was the first model of urban planning in Israel. The structure was pre-planned to have the main street in the middle (Ben Gurion today) which stretches from north to south while the dock was in its northern side (Where the Dagon lies today. On both sides of the street there were two parallel narrow streets and perpendicular streets (east to west) crossed the main one. on the southern side of the street on the footsteps of the mountain were the vineyards of the colony, these vineyards were all over the area where the Bahá'í World Centre stand today. The colony was built as a garden city which in it every house had a little garden around it and trees were planted along the main road to shadow the passers by.
