Preserving the Catholics of the Holy Land or Integrating Them into the Palestine Nation (1920–1950)?

To British officials, Jerusalem appeared to be a divided city, with its different ethnic and religious groups, they saw it as a vivid image of ‘Babel alive.’¹ Ronald Storrs, the governor of Jerusalem, underlined the multilingualism of pupils when he visited the French Catholic school of the Collège des Frères, and the ‘harmony’ between the pupils of different religions studying together.² This diversity presented a challenge for the British administrators who, from the early years of the Mandate, sought to expand and separate the educational system along linguistic lines; as a consequence, the division of public space became more prominent.³