>>23856792
Fear of "Anti-Semitism," is to keep eyes off the ROOTS of the issue. Muhjoo laser focused hatred, also HIDES THE ROOTS. Tis not what most think…
MASONS
Freemasonry In Israel
Leon Zddis, MPS
Israel is privileged by having in its capital city the site of Freemasonry's legendary cradle: the Temple built in Jerusalem by King Solomon almost exactly three thousand years ago. It is rather surprising, then, that historically our craft was introduced in this part of the world only in relatively recent times. Its full development had to await the consecration of the Grand Lodge of the State of Israel, in 1953. Individual Masons may have visited the country, even stayed for some time (among Napoleon's officers, for example, many were Freemasons), but there was no organized Masonic activity until the second half of the nineteenth century.
What is not generally known is the involvement of American Masons in the first stirrings of Masonic activity in this country.
Indeed, the first recorded Masonic ceremony in Israel (then part of the Ottoman Empire) was performed by M.W. Bro. Robert Morris, past Grand Master (1859) of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky.[1] The event took place on Wednesday, 13 May 1868, in the Cave of Zedekiah, better known as King Solomon's Quarries, deep under the walls of the old city of Jerusalem. Morris was then on a Masonic pilgrimage to the Holy Land, looking for traces of Ancient Freemasonry.[2 The men who joined Morris in a Secret Monitor ceremony were the few Freemasons he had found in Palestine: Charles Warren, then on an archeological mission for the Palestine Exploration Fund of London,[3] and later first W.M. of the premier Lodge of Research, Quatuor Coronati No. 2076; the Turkish governor of Jaffa, Noureddin Effendi, member of Lodge Amitie Clemente of Paris, who held the 28 degree in the A.A.S.R.; Henry Petermann, Consul of Prussia in Jerusalem; R. Beardsley, of Elkhart, Indiana, then serving as American Vice-Consul in Jerusalem; and several officers from the British vessel Lord Clyde, then at anchor in Jaffa.
The "American Connection" in the development of Freemasonry in Israel did not stop here, for Robert Morris's untiring efforts brought about the creation of the first regular Masonic Lodge in Palestine. Royal Solomon Mother Lodge No. 293 was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Canada (Ontario) on 17 February 1873. Most, if not all its founding members were American settlers living in Jaffa, who belonged to a Christian sect, the Church of the Messiah. In 1866, they had left Jonesport, Maine, for the Holy Land, with the avowed intention of founding an agricultural settlement and preparing for the Second Coming.[4] Robert Morris was supposed to be the Lodge's first Master, but it appears that he could not arrive, and Bro. Rolla Floyd, one of the leaders of the American group (called "The Palestine Emigration Society"), took his place. Other lodge members whose names have been preserved are John Sheville, C.E Tyrwhilt Drake, George May Powell, Sam Bergheim, James Hilpern and Peter Bergheim. The lodge had a fitful existence. It initiated a number of Arab and Jewish members, but the group met with hard times, some died, others went back to the United States, and the whole enterprise disintegrated among bitter mutual recriminations and accusations of financial irregularities. This situation naturally affected the lodge, which stopped reporting to the Grand Lodge of Canada and was eventually erased in 1907.
The next Masonic lodge to be formed in Israel was officially established in Jaffa (The Royal Solomon Mother Lodge was supposed to meet "at the City of Jerusalem or adjacent places in Palestine," though there can be little doubt that its meeting place was in Jaffa). Around 1890, a group of Arab and Jewish Brethren petitioned the Misraim Rite,[5] based in Paris, and founded the Lodge "Le Port du Temple de Salomon" (The Port of Solomon's Temple), working in French. Not long after its creation, the Lodge received a large number of affiliate members, French engineers who had come to build the Jaffa-Jerusalem railway, the first in Palestine. One of the financial backers and promoters for this pioneering effort was Haim Amzalak,[6] father of Joseph.
WAY MORE
https://skirret.com/papers/freemasonry_in_israel.html