Two Views of Palestine in 1897: What a Difference a Century Makes
By Davis Bitton

Events in Israel and among the Palestinians fill the newspapers. Murderous attacks by terrorists are followed by military retaliation. The hope of two peaceful countries living side by side and having good relations with each other is pursued, but today such a solution seems easier to imagine than to achieve.

Talking heads and guest authorities discuss the issues on radio and television, news and feature articles proliferate in the newspapers and magazines, and books analyze and describe different aspects of the problem. One thing is sure: there is no shortage of information.

A little more than a century ago, with no radio and no television, with no historians and political scientists claiming expertise in Middle East affairs, the situation was patently different. Those in Utah who were interested in the subject could read articles in the national newspapers. They could also attend lectures delivered by those who had been to what was then called simply Palestine.

One such lecturer was Madame Mountford. On April 6, 1897, she lectured in the Tabernacle on "Village Life in Palestine." The next night her subject was "The Bedouins of the Desert," and the third night she spoke on "The Life of Jacob." Who was this imposing lady? I use the adjective after looking at a photograph of the lecturer decked out in costume.

Lydia Mary Olive Mamreoff von Finkelstein was born and reared in Jerusalem. She claimed descent from Melchizedek and the Davidic line on her mother's side and from Ephraim on her father's. Officially the family was Episcopalian, but they associated with Muslims and Jews as well as Christians. Lydia attended an English-speaking Catholic school.

Riding the crest of a wave of public interest, she took to the lecture circuit and, dressed in native costume, lectured on the customs and history of Palestine. Her lecture tours took her to England, Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was then called), and India. In India she met and married Charles E. Mountford. Continuing her triumphal tour, she lectured at various cities in the United States. Among the places booked to hear her in 1897 was Salt Lake City.

A side drama not known to the public was the close friendship that developed between Madame Mountford and Church president Wilford Woodruff. Rumor had it that she was secretly sealed to President Woodruff. That seems farfetched. Thomas Alexander, Woodruff's biographer, after examining the evidence, concludes that the relationship was one of friendship and mutual admiration. But she was invited to speak at general conference, and it is a matter of record that in 1920, three years after her death, she was vicariously sealed to Wilford Woodruff.

About two months after Madame Mountford's lectures, on June 4, 1897, Andrew Jenson returned to Salt Lake City after a two-year absence. He had traveled 60,000 miles, visiting British Columbia, Hawaii, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, the Society Island, Australia, Ceylon, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Italy, France, Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, and Holland. After sailing north through the Red Sea and continuing through the Suez Canal, Jenson arrived in Beirut and there made contact with the American consul. Jenson arranged with a muleteer for a 25-day guided tour through Syria and Palestine, but the muleteer backed out because of having to cross a corner where a Druze rebellion was taking place.

Jenson was not to be stopped. After taking a train to Damascus and back, he sailed along the coast from Beirut to Haifa. In Haifa he discovered a family of Latter-day Saints living with a colony of German immigrants. Twenty-five people had been baptized in Palestine since 1886, but of these, ten had emigrated and four died. Some of the others had scattered to live in places like Jaffa, Alexandria, and Malta. In the German cemetery, Andrew Jenson visited the graves of Utah elders John A. Clark and Adolph Haag.

Jenson took a 28-mile carriage ride to Nazareth and there found lodging in a hotel kept by a German. With Baedeker's guide in his hand, he walked six miles to Mount Tabor and then continued by foot to Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee-another 25 miles. Although he was in good physical condition, Jenson decided against further walking.

There were constant demands for bakshish (money). In making hotel arrangements, when he explained that he was a missionary without much money, the Arab host responded: "A missionary without much money, that certainly sounds strange, for missionaries in this country are always supposed to have plenty of money." "Had I told him that I was a banker or merchant without much money I believe he would have been less surprised," Jenson wrote.

"And who can blame him," Jensen added, "for the priests and pastors, missionaries and colporters of the various so-called Christian denominations in Palestine are considered the best paid people in the land. They generally live in pompous style and in elegant houses, having lots of native servants to wait on them — all on the strength of the liberal donations which pious Christians in Europe and America are contributing toward the relief of the 'poor, suffering Jews.'" When Jenson explained to the hotel owner that he was a missionary traveling at his own expense, he was given a reduced charge.

At Tiberias, sitting alone atop the ruined walls of an ancient city, Jenson tried to imagine the days of Jesus. "There are no Prophets and Apostles in this land now," he wrote. "The voice of inspired men has not been heard for many generations, save on a few occasions when Elders of  the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have visited Palestine, and then they have had no real opportunity of teaching the people the gospel in its purity."

Jenson's mind drifted back to Utah. "I felt truly thankful to the God of Israel that I could think of some other country, where another Jordan connects a living lake with a dead sea, far away beyond the broad expanse of the 'great sea' and the Atlantic Ocean, where the inspired teachings of Prophets and Apostles are now heard, and where the ordinances of the everlasting gospel are being taught and administered in the same manner and by the same divine authority as they were eighteen hundred years ago, around the beautiful waters of Galilee."

Continuing on to Jerusalem, Jenson found a city of some 60,000, about half of whom were Jews. Their number had recently risen following persecutions of Jews in Romania and Russia. Jenson met with a group of religious Americans, mostly from Chicago, who were trying to live the perfect life, and he met poverty-stricken William T. Brown, who identified himself as a Whitmerite Mormon.

The years ahead witnessed important landmarks. In January 1898, Georges Clemenceau published a long article by Emile Zola entitled "J'accuse!" Zola was defending the Jewish military officer Dreyfus, who had been falsely accused of spying for Germany, convicted on forged evidence, and sent to Devil's Island.

The Dreyfus Affair kept France in turmoil for several years. Zola's influential article, reprinted as a pamphlet, led to anti-Semitic riots in Nantes, Nancy, Rennes, Bordeaux, Tournon, Montpellier, Marseilles, Toulouse, Angers, Le Havre, and Orleans. Not confined to France by any means, toxic anti-Semitism reached its climax in Germany during the Holocaust. Sadly, we receive almost daily reminders that the virus of intolerance is alive and well.

The first Zionist Congress met at Basel in 1897. At the second Zionist Congress, in 1898, the delegates, dressed in fashionable evening clothes paid for by Theodore Herzl, gathered in an opening plenary session while a full orchestra played the stirring tones of Wagner's Tannhauser overture. Ironically, Wagner was an outspoken anti-Semite. The world's Jews were by no means united on the idea of establishing a national homeland. In fact, many were in strident opposition. But the idea persisted.

In 1917, the Balfour Declaration promised a homeland in Palestine for Europe's Jews. In 1948, the State of Israel was created and almost immediately granted recognition by the United Nations — thanks in large part to the energetic efforts of a modern Cyrus, U.S. President Harry S. Truman. (The Cyrus comparison was spelled out in a BYU Studies article by Michael Benson.) In 1989, the Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center was dedicated by President Howard W. Hunter.

Much has happened since 1897. What the future holds historians cannot tell us, but the scriptural prophecies leave no doubt that momentous events lie ahead.