History of Ramallah

rthodox Church, the Christian denomination that prevailed in the Holy Land at the time. In the early 19th century, the first Arab Orthodox Christian church was built. Later in the 1850s, "The Church of Transfiguration", was built to replace it and is the sole Orthodox Church in Ramallah today. During that same decade, the Latin (Roman Catholic) Church established its presence in Ramallah, constituting the second largest Christian denomination in the city. The Roman Catholic Church established the St. Joseph's Girl's School runs by St. Joseph sisters, as well as the co-educational Al-Ahliyyah College high school runs by Rosary sisters. With the influx of Muslim and Christian refugees and internal migration, new mosques and churches were built.

In the 19th century, the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) established a presence in Ramallah and built the Ramallah Friends Schools, one for girls and later a boys school, to alleviate the dearth of education for women and girls. Eli and Sybil Jones opened “The Girls Training Home of Ramallah” in 1869. A medical clinic was established in 1883, with Dr. George Hassenauer serving as the first doctor in Ramallah. In 1889, the girls academy became the Friends Girls School (FGS). As the FGS was also a boarding school, it attracted a number of girls from surrounding communities, including Jerusalem, Lydda, Jaffa, and Beirut. The Friends Boys School (FBS) was founded in 1901 and opened in 1918. The Quakers opened a Friends Meeting House for worship in the city center in 1910. According to the schools' official website, most high school students choose to take the International Baccalaureate exams instead of the traditional "Tawjihi" university exams.

The activity of foreign churches in southern Ottoman Syria in the late 19th century increased awareness of prosperity in the West. In Ramallah and Bethlehem, a few miles south, local residents began to seek their fortunes overseas. In