Paul Calvert spoke with Dr Garth Gilmour, the Executive Director of CMJ, about their work pioneering modern medical treatment in Jerusalem, and Christian education.

Anglican school

So we had this tremendous privilege of doing that.

These two schools continued through into the 20th century, on into the British Mandate. Eventually in the 1950's they combined at the hospital as was then. They had an area of hospital that was reserved for the school.

In 1948 during the War of Independence here in Israel, the Hadassah Hospital Organization, which was the Jewish hospital group in what became Israel, took over our hospital and turned it into a war hospital, a military hospital.

After the war it became the main maternity hospital in Jerusalem until 1962, when we received it back from the Hadassah Organization. At that time the Anglican school was founded in 1962, as a formal institution occupying the whole of the premises.

Paul: Is it important to have a Christian presence and a Christian school here today in Jerusalem?

Dr Gilmour: It's interesting. I think that the reason the school was founded was, we were approached by the Israeli Government in the 1950's, because there were a number of Christian organisations that wanted to send people to work with the new State of Israel. But these families that were coming wanted to know if there would be a Christian education, as opposed to an Israeli Jewish education, for their children. We were approached by the Israeli Government to ask if we could provide that education. So that was one of the reasons we decided to start the school as it is today.

So yes it is absolutely, because in Jerusalem inevitably, there will always be a Christian population to serve.

But today the school stands as an institution that serves a wide variety of different communities in Jerusalem, who don't find a home in the countries own national education system. We serve church people, missionary kids, Christian kids, priests' kids and we also serve NGO's who are based in Jerusalem, diplomatic corps. There are children based in Jerusalem and other gentiles that are based in and around Jerusalem. A significant proportion of our children come from the Arab community, both the Christian and Muslim Arab community. We have Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, and Jerusalem Arabs, so we cover the full swathe of Jerusalem society. We have some local Israeli Jewish students as well.

Paul: So it really is diversity and people coming together in the school.

Dr Gilmour: We have over 40 different nations represented.

Paul: With such a rich history you must have seen things like the Six Day War, Yom Kippur as well?

Dr Gilmour: We did and not good for business.

I was actually here back in 1991 during the first Gulf War, but we were here at the time that the scuds were falling from Iraq.

I was loosely associated with the school at that time, in a completely different capacity to today. Teachers, especially foreign teachers, who formed the majority in those days, were faced with a choice, do you stay? We are committed to this country, we're committed to supporting the people who live here, and at the first sign of trouble do you get up and leave like everybody else, or do you stand by your commitment? Is it a real commitment, or is it only a good times commitment?