German Colony, Haifa

[1][2] The Templers, a religious Protestant sect formed in southern Germany in the 19th century, settled in Palestine at the urging of their leader, Christoph Hoffmann, in the belief that living in the Holy Land would hasten the second coming of Christ.

The Templers built a colony in keeping with strict urban planning principles and introduced local industries that brought modernity to Palestine, which had long been neglected by the Ottomans.

[citation needed] In 1874 the Christian denomination of the Temple Society underwent a schism and later envoys of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces successfully proselytised among the schismatics, making up about a third of the colonists.

In 1891 the Jerusalemsverein (English: Association of Jerusalem), a Berlin-based Evangelical charitable organisation to subsidize Protestant activities in the Holy Land, decided to support the new Haifa congregation.

[3] In September 1892 the constructions started and pastor Carl Schlicht (Jerusalem) inaugurated the community centre, including a prayer hall and two school rooms, on July 2, 1893.

Sixty of the colonists were American citizens and their leader, Jacob Schumacher served as the U.S. consular agent for Haifa and northern Palestine.

[5] Due to their population increase and the ongoing urbanisation of Haifa, the colonists searched to buy lands in order to found new settlements.

[9] The colony was the first model of urban planning in Palestine, with a main street running from north to south (today, Ben-Gurion Boulevard), leading down to the harbor.

[12] After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, all colonists with German citizenship were detained by the British authorities and sent, together with Italian and Hungarian citizens in Palestine, to internment camps in Waldheim and Bethlehem of Galilee.

Starting in particular during the 1990s, the area witnessed a "growing number of Palestinian-owned cafés and bars opened to offer spaces for small performances and exhibitions by Palestinian artists.