In 1852, James Finn, the second British Consul in Ottoman Jerusalem (1846-1863), together with his wife Elisabeth Anne purchased about 50 dunams of rocky agrarian land, situated 2.5 km (1.55 miles) west of the city’s Jaffa Gate. This piece of land was known by the Arabic name ‘Kerm El-Khalil,‘ namely Abraham’s Vineyard. In Islam, the biblical patriarch Abraham is known as ‘El-Khalil,’ the friend, meaning God’s beloved companion. Although in those years Europeans were not allowed by Turkish law to purchase land in the Ottoman Empire, Elisabeth Anne did become the legal buyer and holder of Avraham’s Vineyard. In her memoirs she wrote: “Being only a woman and therefore ‘nobody,’ I was considered as a lawful purchaser… Scores of European ladies had in this way bought and owned land at Constantinople and Smyrna and other towns.”

Finn’s vision and practice

At the very outset, this piece of land was “set apart for-ever” as a private benevolent property (dedicated to public purposes), similar...

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