Attempts at a Biography: The Discrete Life of Vera Salomons

During World War I a wealthy British woman, having already published three books, trains as a nurse and while serving in France meets a soldier whom she marries in 1919. After some time she comes to the realization that her marriage is not working. By 1932 she is divorced.
Her name is Vera Frances Bryce Salomons. She was born into a Jewish family in England in 1888, at a time when religious freedom and women’s rights could not be taken for granted. She was a cosmopolitan, a well-versed traveler to destinations such as Italy, Switzerland, France and the British Mandate for Palestine/Israel. In Jerusalem she met Leon A. Mayer, a professor of archaeology and Islamic art. She soon developed a passion for Islamic art. Years later she decided to build a museum in the heart of Jerusalem, the L. A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art.
Vera Salomons undertook philanthropic work among Arabs and Jews and strove for mutual understanding and tolerance in the region. She was an intensely private, self-effacing woman who left very few documents or photos of herself to posterity. Attempts at a Biography: The Discrete Life of Vera Salomons was written to keep Vera Salomons’ work and mission alive as a source of inspiration for future generations.