From the Caspari Center Media Review:
Segula, October 3, 2012
This eight-page feature article relates the history of the establishment of the first missionary hospital in Jerusalem, in 1842, by the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews. The conditions in Israel at the time were bleak: 80% of children born in the land did not survive past the age of five, and the average life expectancy was 22 years. The society, which had sent a delegation to the Holy Land, quickly recognized the dire need for medical services, and subsequently opened its first missionary hospital in 1842 with the dual intention of providing medical care and missionizing the local Jewish community. “In order to tempt the Jews, the hospital offered medical care of the highest standard – including medicine, clothing, and kosher food – free of charge.”
However, those who were hospitalized were subjected to missionary activity as part of their stay at the hospital. The Jewish community was scandalized, and fought back by opening a Jewish clinic. And yet the missionary hospital’s high-quality care continued to lure many Jews, especially the poorest of the community. As a result, in 1945 the leadership of the Jewish community in Jerusalem declared a general boycott on any individual who would “dare set foot in the doorway of the missionary hospital.” The leadership made clear that the boycott extended even to the grave, stating that anyone who died within the confines of the hospital would not receive a proper Jewish burial. Not long after this declaration, the leadership was given the opportunity to demonstrate how serious they were, when an old Jewish lady died inside the missionary hospital. The Kadisha group refused to bury her in a Jewish graveyard. Consequently, the missionaries arranged for her burial themselves, and though the Jewish leadership did nothing to prevent them from digging the woman’s grave in the Jewish cemetery, they opened her grave the following night and dumped the body outside of the graveyard.
This was the beginning of the “grave wars,” which lasted for many years, though to little effect on the Jewish community who continued to use the missionary hospital. Eventually, zealous youngsters from the Jewish community formed and stationed a permanent guard at the entrance to the hospital in order to prevent Jews from going in, using force if necessary. After a year, the guard was turned into an official anti-missionary organization (Agudat Bnei Yisrael) whose strategy was to supply medical services, food, and clothing to poor Jews in order to keep them away from the missionary hospital. The London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews continued its missionary activity in Israel until the middle of the 20th century, when it was finally closed down in 1951. Two buildings are the only remnants of the society in Jerusalem today – a house in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, and the Anglican School on Prophet’s Street, which mainly serves the children of diplomats.