Leonhard Bauer (1865 - 1964)

The picture was taken on May 9th 1957, his 92nd birthday

Leonhard Bauer was born 9.5.1865 in Niederstetten close to Bad Mergentheim in Hohenlohe-Franken. When he left school, his father, a farmer and weaver, arranged for a place in a teacher training college in nearby Künzelsau/Württemberg. After graduation, Leonhard Bauer worked for some time as a teacher and private tutor. But soon he realized that he wanted to join the protestant mission, and so he traveled to Basle to a missionary society, where he would prepare for his duty. There, to his disappointment, he was considered to be not fit for the tropics and had to leave without having achieved anything. When he arrived back at home he learned the Syriac Orphanage in Jerusalem was looking for a lecturer for its teacher training college. He applied at once. On his 25th birthday in 1890, he was appointed lecturer there. Without losing any time he arrived in late May to early June 1890 in Jerusalem.

Excursus: The Syriac Orphanage in Jerusalem
The Syriac Orphanage in Jerusalem, also well-known as "Schneller-School", was founded by the protestant missionary Johann Ludwig Schneller. It is located in a huge building surrounded by a vast wall, which is situated on a hill in the north-west part of the historic center of Jerusalem, a distance of about 3 km to the Jaffa-Gate. It was declared open in 1860, at first as a shelter for Lebanese orphans who were victims of the prosecution of the Christian population that took place at this time, then for all Christian orphans and later on for children who survived the genocide of the Armenian people. Besides this duty in the Syriac Orphanage native teachers were also trained, who wished to join the missionary schools in Palestine. The institution was not only equipped with bedrooms and other facilities as classrooms, but also training workshops, e.g. a bakery, printer's and bookbinder's shop, a carpenter's workshop with a turnery, a tailor's and a potter's shop, a brickyard, a locksmith's and a shoemaker's workshop, as well as a church, a shop, a canteen, a home and workshop for the blind, a girl's building with a workshop, a playground, a vineyard, an apiary, stables, and a garden where vegetables and flowers were grown. In addition the institution also owned numerous houses and farms in the vicinity, and a agricultural training workshop near Ramleh.
The Syriac Orphanage was closed down in 1940 by the British occupying power. In 1948 it was captured by Israeli forces and functions as the headquarter of the military secret service since. The archway bears up to these days the inscription "Syriac Orphanage" in both German and Arabic.
Having lost all its estates in Palestine, the "Society for the Syriac Orphanage" focused on the foundation of schools in Lebanon and Jordan; some of these schools are still extent. And, as I learned, many elderly people from the Jerusalem area still remember the "Schneller-School".

Having arrived, Leonhard Bauer taught German and French in the teacher training college. It was also his duty to get familiar with the Arabic language as fast as he could, for on the one hand there were lacking teachers for the obligatory Arabic classes, and on the other hand, the mission attached great importance to preach the gospel in the native language - this was of great value for linguistics in general.

In 1891 he married Maria Schneller, the founder's daughter. They had three children; one boy died at an early age, and one of the two daughters, Irmela, took over the direction of the girl's school in the Syriac Orphanage.

Leonhard Bauer took his duties seriously and published (in the workshops of the Syriac Orphanage) by 1895 his "Lehrbuch zur praktischen Erlernung der arabischen Sprache (Schrift- und Vulgärarabisch)", a manual for standard and dialect Arabic, to provide his successors with a basic compendium to make first steps in Arabic. In this first book he describes standard and colloquial Arabic, later he concentrates on the dialect spoken in his neighbourhood. In 1898 the first edition of "Das Palästinensische Arabisch (Die Dialekte des Städters und des Fellachen)" was published, a grammar and chrestomathy of the urban and rural dialects of Palestine. This book, as for later editions, bears the name of the publisher's J.C. Hinrichs'sche in Leipzig, but was produced in Jerusalem. In the preface to the second edition, Gustav Dalman writes (1910): "Up to my knowledge no living Arabic dialect and the details of its use has been described in such a diligent and comprehensive way". For the next decades until Cantineau it remained the only manual, and up to these days, almost 100 years later, it is indispensable to any study of the dialects on Palestine. Some parts of it may seem outdated or vague, but the more one concentrates on the immense amount of material, the more precise and detailed and apt for use the book grows. It leaves you wondering how a complete beginner could compose such an immense work; this is the more astonishing, when you consider that Leonhard Bauer dedicated most of the short period of time he spent there to lecturing, as we can conclude from many reports of his pupils. He also had other duties; first of all he played the organ and preached at the church service twice a day in Arabic.

In 1898 the "Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins" (ZDPV 21, S. 129-148) published his collection "Arabische Sprichwörter", Arabic proverbs. In 1899, he was appointed chief lecturer and therefore head of the teacher training college. In 1903 his book "Volksleben im Land der Bibel", everyday life in the land of the bible, was published, that contains not only the description of customs, but also proverbs, riddles, poems and folk-songs. Then he wrote numerous ethnological papers for the periodicals "Vereins des Syrischen Waisenhauses" and "Boten aus Zion". Some of them were also published in the "Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins".

During the First World War, the Syriac Orphanage was temporarily seized by the British forces, and Leonhard Bauer settled in Germany, where he found work as a teacher in Metzingen/Württ. When the institution was given back to the mission in 1921, he returned to Jerusalem straight away to rearrange for the school. During this period the "Wörterbuch der arabischen Umgangssprache", a dictionary of colloquial Arabic, was composed. It was published in 1930 by the Syriac Orphanage and to the present day is the only German-Arabic dictionary of the local dialect.

In 1939, when war broke out, many German employees left the institution and returned to Germany. Leonhard Bauer decided to stay in Jerusalem with his family, for he did not expect an 75 year old man to be interned. However in September 1939, he was brought to a detention camp near Akko, where he lost sight of one eye due to the bad conditions there. In November 1939, he was allowed to return to Jerusalem and worked as a teacher for a short period, until the Syriac Orphanage was closed down in spring 1940 by the British government. Until 1948, he and his family stayed in various detention camps. In 1946 his wife died at the age of 86. When he was released in April 1948, the political situation was very tense. Leonhard Bauer and his daughter Irmela found a shelter in Ramalla, where the Christian family of a former employee of the Syriac Orphanage lived - up to these days there is a small protestant parish in Ramalla. As the situation deteriorated due to the stream of refugees from Jaffa, Lyd and Ramleh and bomb attacks by the Israeli air force, he decided to flee to Lebanon along with thousands of others. In August 1948, at an age of 83, he arrived with his daughter Irmela in Shamlan, that is situated on the foothills of the Lebanon east of Beirut. Here he could spend, for the first time in the past ten years, some time in leisure to take up his studies again. In 1955 Anton Spitaler visited him and encouraged him to revise his dictionary, for Leonhard Bauer had collected new evidence in the meantime. Together with his daughter Irmela he finished his work which was published in 1957 by Harrasowitz, Wiesbaden; he was 93 years old.

Leonhard Bauer died 19.11.1964 in Shamlan and was buried in Beirut. His life bears witness of humility, diligence and faith.

This sketch is based in large parts on various articles published in the "Bote aus Zion" the periodical of the "Verein des Syrischen Waisenhauses", especially of Hermann Schneller's obituary in 80. Jg. (1965), H. 1, S. 6-16, and on several articles of the same author on the history of the Syriac Orphanage, "Geschichte des Syrischen Waisenhauses" in 77. Jg. (1962), H. 3ff., and talks with Leonhard Bauer's grand-daughter, Doris Leibfried.

I herewith make the text available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.