Women, Philanthropy and Nationalism in Mandate Palestine. The Greek Ladies' Union of Jerusalem, 1924–1948

ABSTRACT

The point of departure for this article is an unexploited source: the minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union covering the last ten years of the British mandate period. For this period in Jerusalem, women’s voices are rare. By creating this Union along ethnic and national lines in 1924, the ladies also formed a place for philanthropy, social gatherings and the exchange of views on communal and other issues. The minutes of their gatherings bring to us unheard voices of Jerusalem and the Greek community of the city in particular. An analysis of these minutes gives us the opportunity to understand the reasons behind the creation of this association, the different strategies women developed to make their views known within their community, to examine their philanthropic activities within the charitable universe of Jerusalem and, most importantly, to deal with multiple political developments at different levels during a period which is sensitive regarding the future of the Middle East, the Christian communities of Jerusalem and the Greek presence in the region.

KEYWORDS:

• Jerusalem
• women
• Greek diaspora
• philanthropy
• nationalism

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to His Beatitude, the Patriarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem and all Palestine, Syria, Arabia, beyond the Jordan River, Cana of Galilee, and Holy Zion, Theofilos III, who gave me permission to consult the records of the Greek-Orthodox patriarchate. I conducted this research while working for the ERC research project ‘Open Jerusalem’. I would like to thank Leyla Dakhli for inciting me to work on the minutes of the Ladies’ Union and her excellent feedback on the development of the article. Many thanks also to Karène Sanchez Summerer and Konstantinos Papastathis for their wonderful editorial work, but also to Maria Chiara Rioli and Dimitra Vassiliadou for their insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The Union’s name refers to the Virgin Mary. Archives of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem (AEPI), Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’, Celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Greek Ladies’ Union of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, 6/24 August 1944.

2 The Koinotita (literally translated ‘community’) was an association of Greek nationals or of people of Greek origin established in cities or villages of the diaspora and constituted the secular political, cultural and social institutional pole of the Greek population.

3 Asia Minor or Anatolia (Turkish: Anadolu) is the peninsula that today constitutes the Asian part of Turkey.

4 In 1922, 1230 persons who habitually spoke the Greek language lived in Palestine, out of whom 760 were in Jerusalem. By 1931, their number in Palestine increased to 1684, most probably because of refugees from Asia Minor who arrived there (McCarthy 1990, pp. 82–84). According to Papastathis (2021), at the end of the Second World War, 2,000 Greek speakers lived in Palestine, out of which 1500 resided in Jerusalem. The 3000 Jewish Greeks who migrated to Palestine are not included in this number.

5 The Great Idea was an irredentist doctrine advocating the expansion of the Greek state so as to encompass all ethnic Greeks settled in the territory of the Ottoman Empire.

6 Greek Foreign Ministry Archive (AYE)/Central Service (CS)/1925/B/49/3, General review regarding the creation, the cause and the activities of the Greek Association in Jerusalem, Nikolaos Spyridonos, 7 July, 1923.

7 AYE/CS/1925/B/49/3, Note. Koinotites and associations of Palestine (n.p.–n.d).

8 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’.

9 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’. Board meeting of 13/26 October 1938.

10 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’. Board meeting of 4/17 October 1938.

11 AEPI, Baptism and wedding registers.

12 AYE/CS/1925/B/49/3, Note. Koinotita and Associations of Palestine (n.p.-n.d.).

13 AEPI/VIII B 76, Jerusalem, 28 April 1946. From the Secretary of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate to Spyridonos.

14 AEPI, Baptism and wedding registers.

15 I am grateful to Maria Chiara Rioli for these images, taken from an album containing around 1,500 visiting cards printed by the Franciscan Printing Press. See (Rioli 2018).

16 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’. Board meetings of March 1938 and 29 September 1950.

17 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’. Board meeting of March 1938.

18 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’. Balance sheet of the Greek Ladies’ Union from 1 October 1938 to 15 June 1939.

19 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’. Board meeting of 10 March 1950.

20 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’. Board meeting of 17 November 1944.

21 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’. Board meeting of 11/24 November 1938.

22 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’, 26 March 1943.

23 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’. Board meeting of 9 February 1945.

24 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’. Board meeting of 8 August 1944.

25 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’. Board meeting of 29 December 1945.

26 It was established in the 1920s and it is still active under the name The Spafford Children’s Center. It is located between Damascus and Herod’s Gates. See Shatz 2018.

27 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’, 7 November 1940.

28 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’, 9 November 1940.

29 Israeli State Archives, M 116/13, Government of Palestine, Complaints by Greek refugees. I thank Maria Chiara Rioli for this reference and for putting at my disposal this document.

30 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’. Board meeting of 13 June 1941.

31 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’, 27 May 1942.

32 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’. Board meeting of 15 September 1949.

33 AEPI, Minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union ‘Odigitria’, 4 August 1950.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Angelos Dalachanis

Angelos Dalachanis is a researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). He is based at the Institute of Early Modern and Modern History (IHMC – UMR 8066) in Paris.