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Jerusalem's Empire State? The Context and Symbolism of a Twentieth-Century Building*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
My theme is religious encounter in the crucible of three faiths. Its focus is a building and its impact. The encounter as yet has no conclusion. The faiths are Christianity, Islam and Judaism. The building is one of two belonging to the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) now in Jerusalem. It expresses the personalities who shaped it and the events which surrounded it. It is an essay in imperial Christian mission, inter-faith dialogue and the chemistry of human personality. Religious pluralism is the name of its game, community its watchword, as caught in a streamlined and golden expression of Bible-Land Deco. It is rich in the symbolism of faith, integrated in stone; but what does such pluralism signify?
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2015
Footnotes
*
I must acknowledge the unfailing help of Andrea Hinding and Dagmar K. Getz, archivists of theYMCA of the USA Archives (now the YMCA/Kautz Archive) at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus, St Paul, and of Claude Alain Danthe, archivist of the World Alliance of YMCAs, Clos Belmont, Geneva, during my visits to their collections.The YMCA/Kautz Archive was accumulated by the International Committee of the YMCAs of the USA and Canada.
References
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3 The official Catholic position with regard to the YMCA had in fact been formulated by Cardinal Merry Del Val, Secretary of the Holy Office, in a warning dated November 1920. Its subsequent modification can be followed in Binfield, Clyde, '“An Artisan of Christian Unity“: Sir Frank Willis, Rome and the YMCA', in Swanson, R. N., ed., Unity and Diversity in the Church, SCH 32 (Oxford, 1996), 489–505.Google Scholar
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6 YMCA/Kautz Archive, Waldo H. Heinrichs to Wilbert B. Smith, 7 November 1933.
7 Ibid. This letter and related correspondence give no indication as to what ‘best Germans’ might mean in November 1933.
8 YMCA/Kautz Archive,'Extracts from Diary ofWaldo H. Heinrichs, Referring to the Political Situation in Palestine', 13, 14,27-31 October, 1-3 November 1933.
9 The Jerusalem Young Men's Christian Association (Jerusalem, 1933), 23, 25, 47.
10 Ibid. 19-22.
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15 The Shelton, much altered, became the Marriott East Side in 1990.
16 This and subsequent paragraphs are drawn from the exhaustive correspondence about the evolution of the Jerusalem YMCA building in the YMCA/Kautz Archive.
17 Anon., ‘James Newbegin Jarvie’, Tower Views International: A Quarterly Bulletin published by the Jerusalem International YMCA, April-June 1992, 2.
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19 Thomas Cook's headquarters on Ludgate Circus and George Williams's in St Paul's Churchyard were within ten minutes’ walk. For Holy Land connections, see Larsen, Timothy, ‘Thomas Cook, Holy Land Pilgrims and the Dawn of the Modern Tourist Industry', in Swanson, R. N., ed., The Holy Land, Holy Lands and Christian History, SCH 36 (Woodbridge, 2000), 329–42.Google Scholar
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21 YMCA/Kautz Archive; this covers especially the years 1914-33, and is voluminous from 1925.
22 Jerusalem YMCA, 25-6; the following paragraphs are drawn from this source, esp. 25–46.
23 Ibid. 48.
24 See the brochure/itinerary in the YMCA/Kautz Archive, Pilgrimage to Palestine to attend Dedication Services, New YMCA Building, Easter, April 16th 1933 (New York, 1933).Google Scholar
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