Masaryk was a religious and highly educated man.  Because of his lifelong interest in Jewish issues, and his sympathy for the Zionist movement, he decided to visit and discover Jerusalem and the Holy Land in person. The country of the world's three major monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

 The President arrived in Jerusalem by train from Kantara, Egypt, on a rainy morning on 8 April 1927. He and his entire entourage, including his daughter Alice, his secretary, chief inspectors, and Czechoslovak diplomats, stayed at the Franciscan Hospice of Notre Dame. Masaryk entered the city through the Jaffa Gate. He was greeted by the Mayor of Jerusalem and the Deputy British High Commissioner to Palestine. He visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Temple Mount. Looking at the east, from where the Messiah would come. He visited as well the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque and was received by representatives of the Supreme Muslim Council.

During the afternoon, the president toured the Czechoslovak Jewish community in Jerusalem's Mea Sharim district, where he was warmly greeted by people on the street. A flag with Czech and Hebrew inscriptions in the national colours,  with "We welcome you," flew on the community building. The Chief Rabbi of Czechoslovak origin, Josef Chaim Sonnefeld, was there to receive him. During the meeting, the rabbi prayed for Czechoslovakia and gave the prayer text on parchment to Masaryk. The president was honoured by 500 students of the Talmud-Torah School and Yeshiva Chaye Olam. Leaving the Orthodox Jewish Quarter, Masaryk made his way to the Great Synagogue, where he was personally greeted by Jerusalem's Chief Rabbi and prominent thinker and Kabbalist Abraham Isaac Kook.

 

The Delegation's visit continued the following day with a tour of the National and University Library in Jerusalem's New City, where the President was familiarised with several Arabic and Hebrew manuscripts. He was also invited to read a letter from the poet Heine addressed to his friend Moses Moser. Having visited the library, he headed to Mount Scopus, where he visited the Hebrew University. Welcomed by the university's rector, he toured the Department of Chemistry and Microbiology as well as the Institute of Judaic Studies and the Wolffsohn Library and admired the view of the Dead Sea. 

 

The following afternoon president headed towards Bethlehem, visiting the Basilica of the Nativity accompanied by a Franciscan friar of Polish origin, the Milky Way and the Shepherd's Field. Returning to Jerusalem, he proceeded to the Solomon's Ponds and the tomb of Rachel, one of Judaism's holiest monuments.

 

On the next day, he explored Christian sites in Jerusalem, such as the Church of the Ascension, the Russian Orthodox Church, and Mary Magdalene Monastery on the Mount of Olives, speaking Russian with the abbess of the monastery.

After receiving a warm welcome at Rishon LeZion the following day, Masaryk arrived in Tel Aviv. He was hosted by the mayor at the town hall and held discussions with him about unemployment, welfare, school fees and the spiritual life of the city. At the Palatin Hotel, he subsequently met with about 40 compatriots and Dr. Grünwald, the Czechoslovak consul in Tel Aviv. While talking to his compatriots, Masaryk expressed his pleasure at the fact that the city had a theatre and an opera house.  Next, he laid a wreath on the grave of the Jewish essayist and Zionism's leading spiritual and cultural figure, Ahad HaAm. 

 

Having visited Tel Aviv, the delegation proceeded via Shechem and Afula to Kibbutz Beit Alfa, founded by Czech and German members of the Tchelet Lavan and Blau-Weiss movements. President Masaryk was greeted at the kibbutz by the Secretary General of the Basic Fund, Leo Hermann from Czechoslovakia where Masaryk inspected the children's department in detail and asked questions about the school. Then traveled via Beit Shean to Kibbutz Degania Alef, where he had a chance meeting with the president of the Jewish National Fund. Having toured the kibbutz, he held a conversation with Irma Singer, a poet who came from the circle of Franz Kafka's Prague friends. Witnesses claimed that the meeting with her was extremely informative and inspiring for Masaryk.

 

During his stay in Haifa, the President met with Shlomo Kaplansky, responsible for the development and transformation of the Haifa Technion into a world-renowned European-type university. Impressions of President Tomáš G. Masaryk's experience during his visit to the Holy Land in 1927 were profound and highly positive. The President seemed to have found more than he expected in the Holy Land. His visit became an important impulse for the development of Czech-Israeli relations. In honour of Masaryk's 80th birthday, the Masaryk Forest was inaugurated at Kibbutz Sarid. On the occasion of his 85th birthday in 1935, Mayor Dizengoff awarded Masaryk honorary citizenship of Tel Aviv. Squares in Tel Aviv and Haifa, streets in Jerusalem and even a kibbutz - Kfar Masaryk - were named after him. The Author of the article is Robert Rehak, Special Envoy for Holocaust, Interfaith Dialogue and Freedom of Religion, MFA of the Czech Republic.

 

Based on publications by Hugo Bergmann (Masaryk in Palestine, in: Masaryk in Palestine: Rychnovsky, Ernst, ed. Masaryk and Judaism. Prague 1931, p. 304), the first post-revolutionary Czechoslovak ambassador to Israel, Milos Pojar (Masaryk's visit to Palestine in 1927, in: Masaryk and Judaism), archives of the Office of the President of the Republic and of the MFA of the Czech Republic.

Photographs provided by the Masaryk Institute and the Archives of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.