Great Synagogue of Oran Algeria, 1880-1963

During the later 19th, Jewish communities liked to build large, confident syn­agogues. The buildings had to be big enough to handle all the congregants AND they also had to show that Jews were modern, educated citizens. So the synagogues needed to be architecturally impressive. By mid C19th, the Moorish mudejar style was adopted by the Jews everythere, reminding people of the golden age of Jewry in medieval Spain. Moorish Revival style was quickly adopted as a preferred style of synagogue architecture.

The Great Synagogue of Oran, Algeria

There were 17 synagogues in Oran, a port city on the Mediterranean coast of Algeria, by mid C19th. The biggest of them all, The Great Synagogue, was built and consecrated in 1880, although its in­auguration had to wait until World War One was finishing. Designed in the Orientalist style, it was one of the largest and loveliest synagogues in North Africa. This style was of course in keeping with the rest of the Jewish world.

Oran Synagogue, nave

I have no coloured photos from inside the building so I am totally grateful to the blog Une belle histoire for the post La Synagogue d'Oran - C. He wrote of the multi-coloured stained glass window which lit up the interior. On each side of the main building, the archit­ects created a tower 20 ms high. Three large doors, surmounted by windows, opened onto the nave. Inside, the aisles were separated from the nave by arches that supported columns of red marble. 960 solid oak seats occupied the ground floor.

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The Great Synagogue of Timisoara in Romania, completed in 1899, was one of the larg­est synagogues in Europe. This reform synagogue, built in the Oriental style in 1865, was said to resemble the Great Synagogue in Oran.

The Algerian war against French colonial rule placed the Algerian Jewish community in great jeopardy. Sleevez blog showed how the city's Jewish community of 30,000 people continued as best they could in regular life, but from 1954 on, the situation of the Jews deter­iorated. Samuel Gruber's blog and Point Of No Return blog discuss the utter destruction of the lovely synagogue in Algiers by a mob in 1960, but the Oran synagogue seems to have simply been confiscated.

France finally granted Algeria nat­ional independence in July 1962, but worse was to come for the country's Jewish citizens - the Algerian Nationality Code of 1963 granted citizenship in the new state only to Muslims. The end of this ancient community was near. Once the huge community had left, the synagogue was later seized by the government (in 1975) and converted into a mosque, the Mosque Abdellah Ben Salem. At least this wonderful architecture is being used again.

Mosque Abdellah ben Salem

Read: Haim Zeev Hirschberg et al A History of the Jews in North Africa

French Colonial Architecture in Algiers

Charles Célestin Jonnart became the French governor in Algeria in 1903. For him, the authority of French colonisation needed to be reflected in the architecture of Algier’s most important buildings, places with which the French administrators, business people and Pieds Noirs ex-pats could identify.

Architects J Voinot and M Tondoire were asked to design a public postal and telephonic institution that would serve this part of the French empire. Normally I suppose a post office would not thrill the hearts of citizens and tourists, but this building really was the centre of turn-of-the-century modernity. And to show you how central to the French empire this building was to be, you could have once found a Joan of Arc statue near by (although it was later moved to France).

Grand Post Office, Algiers

I cannot find anything about Voinot and Tondoire, but I can see what remains of their taste. The massive building, monumental and glist­ening white from the outside, took eight years to complete. It has a large cupola, two imitation minarets, the principal frontage which included three arches, a gallery on high, broad marble staircase, stalactites and engraved stucco. The ceiling of the prin­cipal room was and remains an architectural jewel. Even the main mailbox, used since people starting mailing letters here 100 years ago, retains its lovely floral mosaics.

Mailbox with mosaic surrounds

Was this French architecture or Algerian? What are we to make of the original inscription: “God is victorious”? This neo-Moorish taste was definitely intended to appeal to the Muslim community, with the added hope of bringing the two communities closer together at the turn of the century. Presumably Charles Jonnart had no inkling of the bitterness Algerians would increasingly feel about French control of their country.

Grand Post Office, central hall

In the interwar period, néo-Moorish designs became somewhat obsolete. But the Grand Post Office remained the dominant monument in Algiers' landscape, a symbol of early French colonial control. The most useful blog I found was Algeria Travel, for example the post on Algiers.

Of Gods and Men - monks and Islamists

The film “Of Gods and Men” (2010) is a true story set in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria.

The Algerian Civil War was an ongoing and tragic conflict that continued throughout the 1990s, fought out between the Algerian government and various Islamic military groups. The conflict began in December 1991 when the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) party was gaining popularity. The National Liberation Front (FLN) party, fearing a FIS victory, cancelled elections after the first round. As a result, the country's military took control of the government in a 1992 coup. The guerrillas had initially targeted the nation’s army and police, but by the time of this story, 1996, some groups had started shooting civilians as well. A truce of sorts was eventually declared in 1999, but by then some 200,000 citizens had been murdered.

I wish the director Xavier Beauvois had written something about the year and geographic location at the beginning of the film, to set the scene. Before seeing Of Gods and Men, I thought that the film was set in the 1950s and that it described the conflict between France and the Algerian independence movements. And since there were constant references to French colonial power in the power, it seemed to this viewer that Algeria was still trying to gain its independence from France. [Trappists live an ahistorical life, so it wasn't until I noticed a flat screen tv and attack helicopters in the film that I realised the 1950s War of Independence was not the setting]. Needless to say the setting looked totally authentic - the film was created in the very old, long-deserted Benedictine monastery of Tioumliline Morocco.

Eight Roman Catholic French Trappist monks lived quietly in their monastery in mountainous country, serving God and the people who lived in the impoverished villages beyond the monastery walls. Life was quiet, predictable and religious. They spent endless hours praying, reading spiritually uplifting stories, cooking, gardening, washing dishes, chopping wood and singing. The film opens with Psalm 82 being read: "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes."

The monks being faced by soldiers, inside their monastery

The monks were ordinary human beings, of course. They missed their families back in France and they were fearful of the future; they may even have been keen to taste fine food, wine and classical music again. But led by the abbot Brother Christian (Lambert Wilson), they were committed to poverty, simplicity and living the life of Christ. David Stratton called their approach to life almost mystical.

The monks were not out of contact with the real world. They looked after the sick from the local villages, gave out clothing to needy families, sold their food products in open markets and helped with agricultural tasks in the villages. In return the Muslim locals seemed to have a true love for these elderly gents in their funny Christian uniforms, especially the doctor Brother Luc (Michael Lonsdale) who was superb.

Peace continued in its normal way until the monks and villagers heard about the murder of Croatian labourers on a nearby construction site. Why were the Croatian men murdered? Who would be next? The Algerian government certainly made it clear to the Trappists that their own lives could not be protected and that they should rush back to France on the first ship. Yet even when rebel soldiers invaded the monastery itself, armed to the teeth, the monks were reluctant to leave.

The most telling part of the film came, quietly, towards the end. The monks sat at their normal refectory table, enjoying a last bottle of wine and a last session of Tchaikovsky music. Despite the inevitable catastrophe about to befall them, the viewer could see their outer joy and could start to understand their inner peace. If it were me, I wouldn’t have been smiling. But then I wouldn't have stayed in Algeria during the Civil War, had there been an opportunity to escape back to France.

Monks voting whether to stay or leave

Richard Brody believed that at the end, the monks didn’t just salute the worldly in the abstract sense; they affirmed that their faith was that of secular European ideals of individual liberty and self-expression. As the monks were marched off to their death, they presented their readiness for sacrifice with not a thought of vengeance. Perhaps their monastic meekness might even be seen as a symbolic purging of the sins of colonialism. I disagree. I thought at the very end, we learn that bad men with guns will destroy good people who are pacifists.

But what is the take-home message to historically minded viewers? Not whether the tension between the monks is well shown, nor the relationships between the monks and the outsiders - the film is indeed filled with faith, austerity and the responsibility of the men to God and to other humans. My interest would be how accurately the film  engages itself in this modern tragedy, the Algerian civil war.

Would it have made any difference if Beames On Film is correct. At the time, 1996, the killings were claimed by The Armed Islamic Group of Algeria. But Beames wrote French secret service documents now suggest it was the Algerian army who had really killed the monks, as a result of some ghastly error. Would film reviewers have been talking about the nightmare of religious fundamentalism if they had known the national army did the murders?

Pera Palace Istanbul and the Orient Express

I had stayed in Istanbul in the past, but had not heard of Pera Palace Hotel back then.  So for this post, I've had to depend on the history that came from the hotel itself.

"The sun that suddenly rises behind the hills of Pera, over the minarets of the city and the Golden Horn, fills your heart with a crimson joy.” This is how Knut Hamsun, Norwegian Nobel laureate in literature who visited Istanbul late in the C19th, described his mornings. Like other western intellectuals - from Alphonse de Lamartine to Gérard de Nerval, from Pierre Loti to Theophile Gaultier, Hamsun delighted in visits to this imperial city, a city which changed the course of history forever.

Pera Palace Hotel opened, 1895

As Istanbul became more accessible via C19th developments in transportation, the capital to three ancient empires began to reveal itself to the modern European world. At first, only humble board and lodgings opened up for visitors coming to Istanbul, whether they were coming to see the stunning Bosphorus, the works of world famous Ottoman architect Sinan or the narrow, stone paved, multi-lingual streets.

But when the worldwide famous Orient Express train chose Istanbul as its last stop in the East in 1883, Istanbul began to attract a new crowd: the ennobled and the monied classes of Europe. Unfortunately there were no hotels in the city that could meet the high standards of these Orient Express passengers.

terminus of the Orient Express train in Istanbul

So Compagnie Internationale de Wagon Lits, owners of the Orient Express Train, bought Pera Palace Hotel. The Compagnie picked guests up from the train terminus in Istanbul, then used the hotel to accommodate guests during their stay in the city.  The company welcomed guests with the one symbol – on the train and on the hotel.

Soon the Pera Palace Hotel in Tepebasi, which was founded in 1892 and celebrated with its grand opening ball in 1895, emerged. Designed by local architect Alexander Vallaury, the hotel had neo-classical, art nouveau and oriental tastes. Apart from the royal palaces, Pera Palace Hotel was the first building to have electricity, including an electric elevator made of cast iron and wood. Bathrooms, that provided the only running hot water in the city, were a privilege that was exclusive to the hotel’s guests. Tall spacious rooms lit by magnificent chandeliers witnessed unforgettable tea and dance parties.

This was a tumultuous time for Istanbul – consider World War I, the Occupation of Istanbul, the Turkish War of Independence and the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923. Leader and founder of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, stayed at the Pera Palace Hotel for the first time during WW1, then many times after that. Room 101, where he stayed each time, is now kept as a museum; the original furniture and memorabilia are carefully maintained.

Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express", apparently inspired by the author's stays at the Pera Palace Hotel, was published in 1934. Room 411, where she stayed and wrote, is now preserved in her honour.

Pera Palace's main hall, after the renovations

A major restoration project was started in 2008, and the hotel reopened to its guests two years later.

World Tourist Attraction blog described the renovated version of the hotel: white marble steps from the foyer lead to the Kubbeli Saloon, a soaring room at the heart of the hotel, with parquet floor, banded columns of Carrara marble and six domes pierced with discs of turquoise glass. This is the setting for the English tea ritual, a traditional speciality that is accompanied by music on the Schiedmayer grand piano. The Orient Bar and enchanting dining rooms are described as some of the most atmospheric in Turkey, redolent of turn-of-the-century taste.

Room 411. Agatha Christie's portrait, desk and papers are still in place

To see how beautiful the Orient Express train still looks today, visit Objects Not Paintings blog. Christie’s in Paris held a large sale of Orient-Express items in Sep 2011, including a collection of architectural fittings from the train such as the original Morison African mahogany marquetry panels. Alas, as Bella has shown, the train only goes on the Paris-Istanbul route once a year.

William Abdullah Quilliam, Islam and the British Empire

I was examining the first synagogue in Liverpool, an existing building which was adapted for synagogue use in 1753. Then I accidentally came across the first mosque in Liverpool and saw a story that had to be told.

William Quilliam, on the cover of Ron Geaves' book, Islam in Victorian Britain

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William Quilliam (1856 – 1932) was the son of a successful watch-maker, and became a solicitor after training at the Liverpool Institute. But he was a politically radical solicitor. And even though many Victorian men felt free enough to be eccentric, Quilliam was more eccentric than most. For example, he reportedly appeared in court wearing Turkish ceremonial dress.

Quilliam also had a very serious side and saw Liverpool's social ills 'poverty, prostitution, alcoholism' as a sign that Christian culture had failed.

I don’t suppose life was easy for a concerned professional so in 1882 Quilliam travelled to the south of France to recover from stress. Then he decided to cross the Mediterranean to North Africa, to visit Morocco and Algeria. Perhaps he had nurtured a quiet interest in Islam beforehand, but it was in North Africa that his fascination with Islam manifested itself publicly. He converted to the religion and started using the name Abdullah.

In the years after his return to Liverpool, William Abdullah Quilliam gathered around him 150 Muslims, almost entirely made up of British converts, including his own family members. He first began holding lectures on his new religion and then, in 1889, Quilliam founded the Liverpool Mosque and Institute at 8 Brougham Terrace in West Derby Street. The architect, Joseph McGovern, made adjustments to the building eg a prayer room was built as an extension at the back of the building. Fortunately most of the Saracenic style renovations Quilliam made to the terrace were paid for by the son of the Emir of Afghanistan. Finally Quilliam also bought #9-12 Brougham Terrace, turning them into a boarding school and lecture rooms.

This social activist set out to help ease Liverpool's social ills, founding the Medina Home, which cared for illegitimate children and found them foster parents. He set up a weekly Debating and Literary Society, and a Muslim college which offered courses for both Muslims and non-Muslims. His Temperance speeches introduced audiences to a religion that banned alcohol.

mosque, 8 Brougham Terrace in West Derby St Liverpool, opened 1889

Quilliam burned with the fervour of a man who had found his true calling. He produced two very important and successful journals, The Crescent and The Islamic Review, on a printing press in the mosque's cellar. In 1897 a map of the British Empire included Nigeria, Egypt, India and Malaya, all large territories with very significant Muslim populations! Muslim lands provided the manpower and material resources that contributed to the prosperity of Victorian Britain and there were so many Muslims in the British Empire that whatever he wrote inside Britain was eagerly read across the Empire.

Quilliam became a regular contributor to the letters pages of Liverpool’s daily newspapers, attempting to right what he saw as the incorrect popular view of Islam. And he wrote an important book. The Faith of Islam was published in 1899 by a small local printer and was translated into many foreign languages, all around the British Empire. Quilliam proudly said that it had been read by Queen Victoria who ordered several copies. Clearly he was still establishment enough for the Queen to keep up with his writings.

All this action came at a price. Liverpool thugs were not very pleased with Quilliam’s mosque, his publishing or his Islamic social welfare work. Soon after he converted to Islam, he was evicted from his house by his landlord, who disliked Quilliam’s views on Christianity. The mosque was vandalised many times by nasty local lads and his book on Islam stirred up more hatred from the local community. Sometimes huge crowds of protesters gathered outside the building, attacked those leaving the prayer hall and threatened to burn Quilliam alive.

But there were two even more substantial problems. Mostly, I believe, Quilliam’s critique of Christian theology distressed sincere Christians who would have otherwise ignored the eccentric solicitor. And his views on British foreign policy were loud and antagonistic. He attacked the Prime Minister, William Gladstone, who was giving a speech in Liverpool urging action against the Ottoman Empire for its treatment of Armenians. Quilliam accused Gladstone of wilfully ignoring Christian atrocities against Muslims.

Fortunately this brave Briton received support from his Islamic leaders abroad. He was made the Sheikh of Britain, leader of British Muslims, by the last Ottoman emperor and was honoured by the Sultan of Morocco, the Shah of Persia and the Sultan of Afghanistan. But in the end, religious harassment of the tiny Muslim community of Liverpool forced the faithful to move to other parts of Britain. In 1908, the Liverpool mosque closed down and the centre of British-born Islam moved, largely to Woking in Surrey.

It is not clear what happened to Quilliam in 1908, just before he was absurdly struck off as a solicitor. One view is that he left Britain, mysteriously heading to Turkey and not returning until shortly before his death in 1932. The other more probable view is that he morphed into an academic called Professor Henri Marcel Leon who moved to Britain in December 1914, participating in functions at the Woking Mosque and writing in The Islamic Review .

Woking, first purpose built mosque in Britain

Most historians believe he died in 1932 and was buried in Brookwood Cemetery, near Woking, although a specific grave has never been identified. He was never a model for imported Islam; rather Quilliam was important as the founder of a unique, home-grown British form of Islam.

Today the remains of the oldest mosque in Britain are still on the ground floor of that C19th grade II-listed Liverpool building established in 1889 by William Abdullah Quilliam. But the elegant old Georgian terrace is a bit tragic today and desperately needs restoration work. There is a modern Abdullah Quilliam Society that wants to buy the building and renovate it as a Muslim heritage centre. The terrace is currently under consideration for listing by English Heritage.

The most useful book on the subject is Ron Geaves' Islam in Victorian Britain: The Life and Times of Abdullah Quilliam, published by Kube Publishing Ltd in 2010.

59 Brick Lane Spitalfields: Christian, Jewish, Muslim

By the mid-late C17th, the long street in the East End of London called Brick Lane was being built up from the south. The Huguenots were fleeing religious persecution by the Catholic Church and Catholic government in France. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, tens of thousands of Huguenots sought sanctuary in Britain and brought with them their weaving and silver-making skills.

Traders and weavers lived next to, but not necessarily in Spitalfields. Their late 17th and C18th domestic buildings were well appointed terraced houses, perfect for housing the French weaver families once they became successful; fine city mansions were built around the newly created Spital Square.

substantial  houses, built since 1700

59 Brick Lane, on the corner of Fournier Street, was a plain but quite elegant, rectangular dark brick building with tall arched windows. Even in a heavily built up street like Brick Lane, natural light could flood into the spaces inside.  The building was described as having 2 storeys with a plain band between floors, 6 windows with red brick gauged arches and stone keys, recessed windows, a Palladian window in centre with semi-circular headed windows at sides (1st floor) and 4 segmental headed windows (2 blank in centre) on ground floor.

How was this building used over the centuries?
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today 59 Brick Lane is an elegant mosque

The first community to use 59 Brick Lane were the recently arrived Frenchmen. The Huguenot community built La Neuve Eglise as a Protestant Church in 1743, along with a small school. As these Calvinists worked hard and prospered, some of them could afford to build large and handsome Georgian houses around Brick Lane, with glass-ceilinged workshops in the attics, where they set up their weaving looms. They didn’t forget their religious values either. In 1700, there were nine French churches in Spitalfields, although by the end of two generations of English born Huguenots, the French-speaking community was clearly being assimilated through inter-marriage.

Interior of 59 Brick Lane, when used as a Methodist chapel  (above)

Interior of 59 Brick Lane, when used as a Jewish synagogue (below)

The next group to use 59 Brick Lane were a different people. The London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews used The Jews’ Chapel, as they called the building in 1809, to encourage the physical restoration of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and to encourage the Hebrew Christian Messianic movement. The Society only lasted for one decade in Brick Lane.

John Wesley himself had lived not far away on City Road and preached his first covenant sermon at a chapel, just off Brick Lane. The simplicity and plainness of The Methodist Chapel, as the Wesleyans called it in 1819, would no doubt have suited them well.

When the local silk-weaving trades went into decline, the abandoned properties in this suburb were sublet and in the C19th the East End became a cheap place to live. Waves of impoverished and rather desperate immigrants arrived over the decades, slowly prospered and then moved out of Spitalfields as soon as they could. So as Icons Of England has shown, the building changed a number of times as each community established its own place of worship here.

With the huge influx of Yiddish-speaking Jews from Eastern Europe flooding into the East End in the 1880s and 1890s, our Methodist Chapel was converted into The Spitalfields Great Synagogue in 1897. Brick Lane was the heart of London’s Jewish community and this was the principal synagogue of the area. Plus there were schoolrooms under the roof for children of the masses of impoverished, hard working refugees. From the 1960s, the Jewish community in the East End dwindled, many moving into more salubrious north London. The building eventually closed.

Since 1976 this building, Brick Lane Jamme Masjid, has been one of the largest mosques in London; 4,000 worshippers can fit into the prayer hall. The mosque has particularly served the religious needs of the large Bengali community which arrived after World War Two. The non-structural fittings like pews were removed, the opening in the centre of the gallery was reduced in size, made octagonal and moved eastwards, while retaining the columns on the ground floor supporting the gallery. A partition wall was inserted around the western end of the ground floor, and a qibla was constructed on the ground floor under the SE corner or the gallery. The northern and central vaults were also converted to prayer halls. Rooms adjacent to the prayer halls were adapted for washing.

Once again there is an school for religious instruction here, on the first floor, but this time it is an Islamic school. The former Huguenot chapel and former Great Synagogue in Fournier St and the adjacent former school buildings, now used as ancillary spaces for the mosque, are Grade II listed buildings.

Princelet St Synagogue, behind this Huguenot house

Another of the handsome Georgian houses in Spitalfields that were built by the Huguenots eventually became the Princelet St Synagogue. The front of the building is a former Huguenot house built in 1722, but at the rear was a synagogue, built in 1862. Like the other 38 synagogues in the City and the East End, Princelet St Synagogue lost its Jewish population in the two decades after WW2 ended.

Sandy's Row Synagogue, men on the ground floor, women section in the balcony

Sandy's Row Synagogue is fascinating for two reasons.  Firstly the synagogue was established in 1870 by a society of Dutch Jews, not Russians, Ukranians and Lithuanians. Secondly the synagogue, formerly a French Chapel, is the only extant, functioning synagogue in the East End today.

Two projects based on Spitalfields have recently come to my attention. Firstly a BBC programme called Saving Britain's Past was shown in Dec 2009. It did not ask whether the old Huguenot chapel cum synagogue should now be a mosque - that is beyond dispute. Rather it asked how today’s Bengali families could make the area their own, while not destroying the heritage value of old Spitalfields.

Georgian home in 27 Fournier St, restored by the Spitalfields Trust

Secondly The Spitalfields Trust bought crumbling Regency (1809-15) houses in Whitechapel, selling them on to Londoners who then let the Trust rebuild them observing strict conservation rules. For six years, Homes & Property has followed the story of the horseshoe of homes in a run-down part of East London. In this year’s Georgian Awards, presented by the Duke of Gloucester, the restoration work was highly commended. Plus The Spitalfields Trust project won first prize in Country Life’s national restoration competition.

One renovation stands out in particular. Fournier Street was the last street to be laid out on the Wood-Michell Estate and was originally known as Church St. 27 Fournier Street was built by Peter Bourdon of Spitalfields, who was granted a 98 year lease in 1725, the date that appears on the rainwater head on the front of the building. The weaver Mr Bourdon was believed to have been a prominent member of Spitalfields society. I assume from his surname that Mr Bourdon was a Huguenot. He would be delighted with how 27 Fournier St looks today.

The Tired of London, Tired of Life blog recommends visiting London's Museum of Immigration at 19 Princelet Street. The museum's home page says that 19 Princelet Street is a magical unrestored Huguenot master silk weaver's home, whose shabby frontage conceals a rare surviving synagogue built over its garden. The staff are working to save the building and to create a permanent exhibition documenting the history of the Huguenots, Irish, Jews, Bengalis, Somalis and others who shaped this Spitalfields.

Red Cross, Red Crescent, Red Star of David

The founder of Red Cross, Henry Dunant, was a Swiss citizen who had accidentally found himself in Italy at a time when French and Austrian victims from the Battle of Solferino (in 1859) were lying around uncared for.  He quickly organised the women of the town to provide medical and transport assistance to the wounded. Dunant himself built temporary hospitals and arranged for decent medical supplies to be brought in.

Very soon after, Dunant wrote A Memory of Solferino and had it published in 1862. Its effect was quite a surprise in that many Europeans were interested. He described the carnage he had found in Soferino and described the efforts his team of volunteers had made, trying to help the wounded. Would it be possible to get an agreement between governments to give medical attention to the injured, wherever they fell (in battle or from natural disasters)?

The answer was a resounding yes! The International Committee of the Red Cross is a humanitarian institution that was formally founded in 1863 in Geneva. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva holds the original document of that first Geneva Convention:

Agreements reached at the first Conference, 1863.

Somehow, at that moment in time, all the nations of the world agreed to give the Red Cross authority under international humanitarian law to protect the victims of all wars! I cannot imagine the nations of the world ever agreeing to an organisation with international rights again.

In order to not force their Islamic citizens to be carried in ambulances with Christian symbols on the side, Ottoman officials in 1876 requested that a red crescent be used to mark their ambulances and that the Christian cross would be removed. Thus the red crescent emblem was first used on Islamic ambulances during the war between the Ottoman Turks and Russia (1877–8). It took a while before the crescent symbol was accepted by the Red Cross Society, but it was formally adopted in 1929, and so far 33 Islamic states have taken it up.

British women driving ambulances in France, World War I.

“National” Red Cross and Red Crescent societies have always concentrated on natural disasters within their own borders. The “International” Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society, on the other hand, tended to concentrate on situations of warfare across borders. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies was founded in 1919 and still coordinates activities between the all the individual national societies. The Federation Secretariat is well located in neutral, central Geneva.

Ambulance and nurses, Palestine, 1940s

Jewish patients were probably not prepared to travel in ambulances marked with Christian crosses either, but they had a bigger problem than mere symbolism. There was a concern that the Jewish Legion of Palestine, a Battalion of the British Army who were fighting to liberate Israel from Turkish rule during WWI, needed medical help. A Jewish ambulance service, called Magen David Adom/Red Star of David, was organised to aid both the Jewish Legion and the ordinary citizens. It was disbanded at the end of WW1.

Magen David Adom (MDA) was not officially chartered until the vicious riots of 1929 against the Jewish citizens who had no access to professional first aid services. While still under the British Mandate, the organisation was founded in Tel Aviv in June 1930 under the care of nurse Karen Tenenbaum, seven Israeli doctors, one hut and one ambulance. They added a branch in Haifa (1931) and in Jerusalem (1934), then a nation-wide network of services was slowly introduced for Jews, Muslims and Christians, reaching a total of 600 ambulances.

During World War Two, only two MDA services were recognised by the British Authorities. It wasn’t until after the state was established that the new parliament passed a law, giving MDA the formal title of Israel's National Emergency Service. From July 1950, Magen David Adom provided services in Israel regarding:

1. emergency medical care,
2. disaster care,
3. ambulances and
4. blood bank service.
5. a tracing service, to locate the children and grandchildren of families lost in the Holocaust.

MDA currently funds c1,200 emergency medical technicians, paramedics and emergency physicians. But in Israel (as in other nations?), Magen David Adom is mainly staffed by volunteers; 10,000+ of them. Today all volunteers complete  a 60-hour course that covers a wide range of topics ranging from common medical conditions and trauma situations... to mass casualty events. Those who pass the course are then sent out across the country and work with local volunteers in ambulances.

MDA headquarters and its blood bank are located at the Tel Hashomer hospital, a place I know very well since I lived there back in 1971 and 1972. The organisation operates 95 stations over the country, with a fleet of over 700 ambulances nationwide. Air ambulance service is provided by Israeli Air Force 669 unit with MEDEVAC helicopters.

Carrying wounded civilians in the 1948 war (Life)

Naturally Magen David Adom applied for membership in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, as soon as it was founded and fully operational. But it was too late. The "Red Star of David" symbol was not submitted to the ICRC until 1931 and membership for new organisations and symbols was closed at the 1929 conference. The conference decided that if they allowed the Jews to have a red star, instead of a cross or crescent, the Buddhists would want a symbol of their own, the Hindus might request something different etc etc. The Soviet Union avoided the problem by accepting the Red Cross as their official emblem, in order to gain entry.

Every attempt in the decades since 1931 to have Magen David Adom included in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement failed. Until the American Red Cross became involved. The Americans stated that unless Jews, Christians and Muslims could all use their own symbol for their own citizens, they would withhold all administrative funding from the international organisation. From May 2000, the Americans did indeed withhold millions of dollars.... until the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies caved in. In June 2006, MDA was recognised by the ICRC and admitted as a full member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. It had taken from 1931 to 2006, 75 long long years.

Middle East Affairs Information Centre has a wonderful MDA poster from 1918 and a photo of the first modern ambulance being launched in 1931.

19th 20th Century History Images has a fine photo of Red Cross women running an ambulance service in 1928.