Persecution of Jews in Muslim countries, 1841

From The History of the Hebrew Nation: From Its First Origin to the Present Time By Rev. Joshua William Brooks, 1841:

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As regards the present political condition of the Jews, notwithstanding the decrees in their behalf which have been passed, the Christian reader will be deceived if he concludes that the reproach of Israel is yet “rolled away from off all the earth.” The public mind has recently been startled by the report of cruelties and injustice to which the Jews of Damascus and Rhodes have been subjected, as if such instances of persecution and oppression were a novelty in these times. But in the East the Jews have all along been exposed to them, though their wrongs have failed until now in arresting particular attention. In the year 1823, at the same Damascus, all the Jews suspected of having property were thrown into prison, and compelled to pay forty thousand purses or lose their heads. At Safet, in 1834, their houses were stripped, and great personal cruelties inflicted upon them, for the like purpose of extorting money; and generally in Syria they were compelled to work for the Turks without payment, being bastinadoed if they remonstrated. The lowest fallaah would stop them when travelling, and demand money as a right due to the Musselman; which robbery was liable to be repeated several times a day upon the same Jew. Throughout the East they are obliged to affect poverty in order to conceal their wealth ; the rulers in those countries making no scruple of seizing what they can discover. And though not interdicted from holding land, yet the enormous taxes demanded of them (equal to one-third of the produce, whilst the Mahometans pay only one-tenth), effectually exclude them from agriculture.

The occupation of Syria by the Egyptians did not mitigate the hard condition of the Jews of Palestine' They were still defrauded and insulted; the commonest soldier would seize the most respectable Israelite, and compel him by blows to sweep the streets, and to perform the most degrading offices. The contempt indeed in which they are held by Mahometans, however difficult to be accounted for, exceeds that which they have experienced in Christian lands. In the East they are truly become a proverb, the term Jew being applied despitefully, as the most reproachful and degrading known.

Even the Christians of Syria manifest a degree of malignity and contempt for the Jews, not witnessed in other places: the Nestorians in particular entertain a bitter hatred toward them; and were a Jew to set his foot within the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, he would be stoned by the Christians of all denominations. ...

In Persia the condition of the Jews is worse even than in Syria. Often whilst they are assembled in their synagogues, a soldier enters with an order from the Shah for money; they are compelled to work without payment; and their women are unceremoniously taken from them, without their daring to murmur. Their poverty and wretchedness may be best understood by the following graphic description given to Dr. Wolff, before he visited Shiraz, by a Mahometan: “Every house in Shiraz with a low, narrow entrance is a Jew's. Every coat much torn and mended is a Jew's. Every man with a dirty camelhair turban is a Jew. Every one picking up broken glass and asking for old shoes and sandals is a Jew." This description was afterwards confirmed by the doctor's own observation, who found old and young in the street of their quarter sitting and crying to every stranger, with outstretched hand and feeble voice, “Only one pool (penny) for poor Israale !”

In Morocco they are equally ground down by a barbarous despotism. The Moors consider that the object of a Jew's birth is to serve Musselmen, and he is consequently subject to the most wanton insults. The boys for their pastime beat and torment the Jewish children: the men kick and buffet the adults. They walk into their houses at all hours, and take the grossest freedoms with their wives and daughters, the Jews invariably coming off with a sound beating if they venture to resist. In 1804 those of Algiers were subjected to horrible tortures, being suspended from the walls by long ropes with hooked nails at the ends, merely because they had unsuspectingly lent money to persons who were secretly conspiring against the Dey; nor were they released without the payment of a large sum. In 1827 the Dey threw a rich Jew into prison for no other purpose than to extort from him 500,000 Spanish dollars.  At Tripoli the bashaw extorted a large sum from them on account of the drought, which he declared them to be the cause of.  Mr. Ewald, after describing the beauty, fertility, and prosperity of the island of Gerba in Morocco, “where, if any where, (he says) every one lives quietly beneath his own vine and fig-tree,” next speaks of the Jews as the only exception, among whom he nowhere witnessed greater poverty and oppression; insomuch that he could have imagined he was beholding the Israelites of Egypt in Pharaoh's time, under their taskmasters. They were the quarrymen, hewers of wood, and drawers of water; their food consisted entirely of barley flour with salt and water; and they were altogether in an abject state of slavery. Since the occupation of Algiers by the French, the political condition of the Jews in that part of Morocco is improved; but their religious state, from their having imbibed the French infidelity, is more hopeless.

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Gustav Bauernfeind's painting of the Temple Mount entrance, 1886

From Israel HaYom:

In one of the rooms of the Jordanian royal palace in Amman hangs a famous painting from 128 years ago by the artist Gustav Bauernfeind. This breathtaking piece of art depicts a group of Jews standing at the Cotton Merchant's Gate, one of the entrances to the Temple Mount.

The artist wrote of the painting: "A group of Jews stand at the gate, their heads thrust slightly forward as they peer into the paradisiacal sun-drenched precinct within, with its gleaming domes and coloured tiles and marbled walls, which once had formed their most sacred national shrine; whereas now, seated before that very portal, sword in hand, the gatekeeper (I nearly called him the Temple watchman) bars their way. Within, Mohammedans dressed in vivid costumes stroll, sit, loll about, and the like. A fine contrast, don't you think?"

King Hussein, the late father of the current monarch, Abdullah, noticed the painting during a visit to Germany more than two decades ago. He fell in love with it immediately. His emissaries paid a fortune to buy it. Through his deft use of the paintbrush, Bauernfeind unwittingly provided the snapshot image that reflects the manner in which the Hashemite kingdom views itself -- the guardian at the gate and legal custodian of the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem.

The piece sold for $533,755 in 1999*.

The rest of the article is very good as well, but this painting encapsulates how Muslims want the Temple Mount to look today: smilingly holding spears to prevent the hated, wretched Jews from visiting while Muslims use the holy place as a park.

(h/t YMedad)

*UPDATE: There was a similar painting by Bauernfiend that is the one that was sold in 1999, but the description Christie's quotes gave doesn't quite match it, I cannot find a Muslim guard with a sword. (h/t Irene)

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How Muslims persecuted the Jews of Shiraz (Persia), 1893

You know how Iranians like to pretend that they have always treated their Jewish subjects with respect?

Well, not so much.

From "Jewish Missionary Intelligence," July, 1893:

Shiraz has the largest Jewish population in the south. Their number is 5,000, and they occupy 430 houses in their own quarter, called Mahale Yahoodian i.e., "the quarter of the Jews." They have ten large synagogues, two chief Rabbis, and five schools, where the children study Hebrew. No one knows the Talmud except the Rabbis. They read Hebrew in order to be able to say their prayers in the synagogue. Not one Jew in Shiraz can read the Persian language, or speak it properly. They speak a jargon Persian, quite different from the Jews of other parts of Persia.

All the Jews are very anxious to have a proper school in which to learn the Persian and European languages. By occupation they are goldsmiths and silversmiths, and have their shops on the back streets of the Mohammedan quarter. There are a good many petty merchants, who go to Fessa and Jahroom to buy opium, and return to Shiraz where they sell it to the Mohammedans on credit.

...Nowhere in Persia are the Jews so badly persecuted as in Shiraz. The chief Mollah has promulgated the following laws with regards to them:

1st. "They must not wear ordinary clothes like the Mohammedans." This law is carried to such an extent that no Jew dare put on a black hat like the Moslems.

2nd. "The Jews must not ride on horse, mule, or donkey to the towns." (I did not see one Jew acting contrary to this law.)

3rd. "A pervert to the Mohammedan religion has a right to claim the whole property of his deceased relative." At the present time the perverts have not so much power as before, and dare not claim the whole of the property, but they trouble their relatives, and get about 500 kerans from them, and then leave them in peace.

4th. "If a Mohammedan is in debt to a Jew, the Jew must not force him to pay, but the Moslem may pay his debt at his own pleasure; but if a Jew owes to a Mohammedan he must pay him on the first notice."

5th "If a Mollah or priest beats a Jew in the street or abuses him, that Jew must not return the abuse, but must pass on quietly."

These laws are in some respects similar to those enacted by the Mollahs of Ispahan for the Jews of that town. (See Jewish Intelligence, November, 1889, page 116.) About six years ago, when Prince Zel-El Sultan was the Chief Governor of the whole of the South of Persia, he ordered the Chief Mollah of Shiraz to be brought to Ispahan, because he used to trouble the Jews. He obeyed the order, and come to Ispahan, where he was kept until June, 1888, when the Prince was deposed. He then returned to Shiraz^ and commenced his enmity against the Jews.

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That age old respect Islam had for Christians and Jews

I just read another ignorant article in OnIslam.com, this one describing the Muslim view of anti-semitism. (Hint: it is very similar to Helen Thomas'.)

The article ends off with

This is indeed our call to Christians and Jews. As people who believe in God and follow His revelations, let us rally to a common formula - faith. History proves that when we all return to the true altruistic teaching of our religions, harmony and a successful civilization will follow.

Whenever I see any Muslim group telling us that Islam was historically tolerant towards Christians and Jews, I feel compelled to dig up a new counterexample.

Today's comes from The encyclopædia of missions: descriptive, historical, biographical, statistical, Volume 1, published in 1891, meant as a reference for Christian missionaries in far-flung places.

It says, in the entry on Alexandria, Egypt:

The Mohammedans have acquired a very bitter feeling toward the Christians and the Jews, and are ever ready to join in any demonstration or insurrection against them, if they have any reason to suppose such a movement agreeable to the rulers of the city. Given a chief of police like the one in office in 1882, and another scene like that of June llth of that year, with all its barbaric horrors and cruelty, would be enacted, for the elements suitable for such an act are ever ready.

Here's what happened then:

On 11 June 1882 a row over a fare between an Egyptian donkey boy and a Maltese man triggered a riot in the city in which several hundred people were killed, including about 50 foreigners.

Must have been those Zionists.

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New book on Jews in Maghreb

Silke points to an interesting article:

An important new book in French drawing on original archive material by the Sorbonne professor Paul Fenton and the historian and human rights campaigner David Littman demolishes the myth that Jews and Muslims lived as equals in the Maghreb. Indeed, it was the collective memory of pre-colonial Jewish suffering which caused the mass Jewish exodus from Algeria and Morocco. Veronique Chemla interviews both authors for her blog.

David G. Littman: We have released documents showing that some Muslim authorities were able to demonstrate an understanding favourable to the Jews at different times. Without the protection ("dhimma") of the Sultan, the fate of the Jews would have been even worse.

The publication of these hundreds of emotionally-charged testimonies does not intend to have a political objective. We do not want to stir up old grudges or stymie attempts at interfaith dialogue.

We believe - as Bat Ye'or has stated in her writings - that any dialogue between Jews and Muslims which does not recognize the historical reality of dhimmitude, is fated to be fruitless guff and breaks away from a future based on the acceptance of an equal Other.

As for the allegation that we are pushing an agenda, these 720 pages show the emptiness and futility of polemical and "political" allegations.

Our book does not pretend to be exhaustive, but we challenge those who challenge us to collect as many texts that show that Jews have lived happily and equal to Muslims in North Africa during the period studied.

Magna veritas, and praevalebit / The truth is powerful, and will triumph.

Paul B. Fenton: Some people want us to believe that the Jewish experience in North Africa was a serene idyll disturbed only by the advent of Zionism in the 20th century.

The evidence gathered in our book, from Jewish and non-Jewish sources, is overwhelming: they reveal an uninterrupted catalogue of suffering through the centuries.

We must extinguish once and for all the myth of the "Golden Age". There has never been happy interfaith coexistence and equality under Islam.

Only under the French and Spanish protectorates did Judaism in the Maghreb experience calm and happiness. "The guest only remembers the night before," says the Jewish-Arab proverb. Memories of good times have distorted our historical vision.

However, a collective Jewish memory kicked in the aftermath of decolonization, otherwise one cannot understand why North African Jewry has opted almost entirely to leave its ancestral homeland.

This does not preclude, at the individual level, strong friendships between Jews and Muslims, when they were not troubled by collective hostility.

Since this is a topic I never really looked at, I went to my favorite avenue for research - Google Books - and found a few supporting items.

Letter from Rev. Joseph Wolff, 1839:

I remained the greater part of 1834, and a part of 1835, at Malta, with my wife and child, occupying myself in preparing the journals of 1831 to 1834, for the press; and beside this, in preaching every Sunday evening the Gospel of Christ, in the Church Missionary House, where divine service was celebrated according to the Church of England. I was also much interested in the frequent arrivals of Jews from Morocco, who were on their journey to Jerusalem, where they intended to end their days; they sometimes visited me. Poor people! whenever they entered my house at Malta, they put off their slippers, as they are accustomed, or, rather, compelled to do, when they enter in Morocco the house of a Muhammedan. They informed me, that among the Mnhammedan tribes in Africa, the following came originally from Palestine:

Beraber, who are called Felishtim by the Jews of Morocco; and Yooshe, called Jebusim (Jebusites) by the Jews.

According to the account of the Jews of Morocco there are in the empire of Morocco, and throughout Africa, one million of Jews. In spite of the oppression they are subject to, they have colleges and synagogues.

When the Jews in Morocco are too much oppressed they fly to Tefilaleth, where they are protected by the Bedooeens, and hospitality afforded to them. They informed me that the time of the election of a new Emperor is always a time of trouble to the poor Jews, for every Emperor imposes a new tribute upon them. It is remarkable that several European Christians, who were captured by pirates, sought asylum among the Jews of Morocco, Fez and Mihnas, and embraced Judaism; so that there are several thousands of such Gerim (Strangers) among them. There are also a great many Jews upon Mount Atlas, which mountain is called Szalaw by the Jews of Morocco. The black slaves of Morocco are called by them "The children of Canaan."

The Church of England Magazine, 1844:

The population daily increases, chiefly in consequence of a peculiar and despotic law of the emperor, which does not permit a Jewess to leave the country without the payment of a hundred dollars; six dollars only being paid by n Jew. The reason assigned for the anxiety of the emperor to prevent Jews from emigrating is, that the Jews are the principal artisans, tradesmen, merchants, £c., and the finances of the country are almost solely dependant upon the pecuniary transactions of the ricli Jews, of whom there are not a few....

The Jews of Tangier (2,000 in number) pay the emperor a poll-tax of 1,200 Spanish dollars. This is collected by the chiefs of the Israelites, and is exacted very "fairly, according to the means of each family. The Moorish government employs the Jews in many distinguished posts ; for instance, as commissioners of finance, and commissary-generals ; but all this service performed by them is honorary.

However, the Jews are suffering many humiliating thines. When they pass a mosque, a maraboot, or a dwelling of a saint, and even a Moorish school, in which the koran is usually read, they are obliged to take off their shoes. They are compelled to wear black turbans or caps, and black shoes. The women, however, are allowed to dress in all colours. A Jew cannot ride on a horse, and in a town he cannot ride at all. If a Moor curses, or calls a Jew ill names, the Jewmust not retort ; he may, however, report the case to the cadi, or Moorish judge, and then the Jew generally obtains justice. The emperor never employs a Jew as a soldier. European Jews, however, are treated like Christians ; they are, in fact, subjects of the different consular representatives of Christian powers in this city. I should also mention that the Moors respect the religion of the Jews, their burying places, &c., like those of the Christians. If a Jewish criminal professes Islamism, he is immediately pardoned by government, whatever his crimes may be....

As to the enjoyments of the Jews in this country, you can form no conception. During the month 1 have been here, Jewish society, Doth native and European, has been a succession of feasts. What with weddings and circumcisions, and other minor feasts, there is no end to luxurious living amongst these Mogadore Jews ; and it is surprising to observe how the native Jew is advancing in the luxuries (what some would call the civilization) of European society, a hundred times more rapidly than the Moors.

With all this gaiety and splendour, these people suft'er, nevertheless, many and great humiliations, as I have already mentioned. Even the British Jews, both from London and Gibraltar, find great difficulty in riding a horse or a mule through the streets of Mogadore, the Moors making all native Jews dismount before they enter the gates of the city. It is singular, however, that, because European Jews dress like Christians, the Moors call them Christians, "Ensara." An English Jewess, who had married a Jew of this country, was one day insulted in the street by a Moorish boy. She resented it by striking the boy. The Moors flocked around her, and demanded how she dare to flog a true believer. She replied, she would strike them also if they touched her. The Moors complained to her husband, who defended himself by saying, "My wife, you see, is an Englishwoman !"

Morocco of To-day, 1906:

Mohammedanism is so profoundly impressed on Morocco, with its purely Arab or Berber population, that the Jews, the sole racial element living outside Islamism, are compelled, by force of circumstances, to lead an entirely separate existence.

In Mohammedan law no one who is not a Mohammedan can live in the territory of Islam without paying a capitation tax, called djezlya. It is under this principle of common law that the Jews have lived and still live in the Maghreb. But this Mohammedan principle of the tax imposed on non-Mussulmans is complicated for them by an idea peculiar to the country, arising from the feudal system, which persists to the present day—the idea, namely, of placing the Jewish population under the rule and protection of the territorial lords.

The Sultans, who have almost succeeded in destroying the feudal system in submissive regions, have been led to substitute, in the case of the Jews of the Blad tl-Makhzen, their sovereign protection for the ancient protection of the feudal lords. The result is that the Moroccan Jews are looked upon as placed under the itmma—that is, the protection, the guarantee of the Sultan. They are supposed to have concluded a dtmma contract with the Sultan, in virtue of which, in exchange for certain obligations, the chief of which is the payment of the djrziya, they are guaranteed the enjoyment of their possessions and their liberty.

The obligations imposed on the Moroccan Jews have been added one after the other. Their centralisation in special quarters, termed Mellahs, was a measure adopted in the thirteenth century to safeguard them from the persecutions of the populace. In the sixteenth century, after the Mohammedan revival which brought the Shcreefian dynasties to power, they were naturally the first to be exposed to the reaction of the religious enthusiasm excited by the progress of Portuguese and Spanish settlements. They were then subjected to a whole series of restrictive measures and vexatious regulations; notably, they were compelled to wear black clothes and black shoes, walk on foot in the streets of the city, and take off their babouchts when they passed in front of a mosque.

The Moroccan Jew assumes, then, a double character. He is a tributary, in virtue of Mohammedan law, whilst he can, at the same time, claim protection in accordance with the feudal principles of the Maghreb. He lives in a quarter which is completely separated from the Medina, and clings to the walls of the Kasbah. In this quarter, which the popular contempt designates by the name of Mellah (Place of Salt), the houses are often the property of the Makhzen, or even of the Habout. In the imperial cities the Pasha of the guich, and not the Governor of the city, is responsible for their security. This security is complete so long as the Sultan's authority rests intact, but is at the mercy of every oscillation of the central power, so that the Mellahs are always the first to suffer in Moroccan agitations. Single Jews are often assassinated in the country, and sometimes a few Mellahs are actually sacked.

...In Morocco the position of the Jewish population is uniformly wretched. Among the Berbers, where it is subject to the most rigorous exactions, it is reduced to the small trades and menial occupations imposed on it by the lords on whom it is dependent. In Arab territory it has had more chance of development, and, at all times, certain individuals have succeeded in raising themselves from the misery of the Mellahs, and in reaching wealth, and even power. None the less, the great mass of the Jewish population continues to live in poverty and squalor. The Mellahs are overpopulated and are devastated by constant epidemics. The majority of the Jews gain a painful living. However, the number of well-to-do merchants, the agents of firms on the coast, is increasing every day. In certain towns, such as Marrakech and Mekinez, the European post-offices are situated in the Mcllah. Several large capitalists have already begun to think of entering into business relations with the Mahkzen, and there is no tribal Kald who does not have at the neighbouring village a Jew whom he calls his chkara (money-bag), who performs the various functions of banker, commissioner, and agent.

This debasing environment naturally produces a debased type of character. The marks of servility abound among the Jews, especially in the small towns of the Haouz, where their very existence is at the mercy of the caprice of local Kai'ds. It is most distressing to see passing Jews on the highways make a profound inclination and kiss the hand of one's servants, showering Ya sidisj(my lord) upon them, and the most obsequious formula.

Relative to, say, Czarist russia, the Jews did not have it too bad in the Maghreb. But to say that they had full equality is not close to being true.

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Rachel's Tomb was never a mosque (Nadav Shragai)

JCPA published a nice paper by Nadav Shragai in reaction to the UNESCO debacle where that august organization declared Rachel's Tomb to be a "historic mosque."

For hundreds of years, the shape of Rachel's Tomb resembled the grave of a vali (a Muslim saint). The building received its distinctive shape in 1622 when the Turkish governor of Jerusalem, Mohammad Pasha, permitted the Jews to wall off the four pillars that supported the dome and for the first time Rachel's Tomb became a closed building.9 This was allowed by the Turkish governor to prevent Arab shepherds from grazing their flocks at the site.10 Yet according to one report, an English traveler claims this was done "to make access to it more difficult for the Jews."11

For centuries, Rachel's Tomb was considered only a Jewish holy place. The sixteenth-century Arab historian Mujir al-Din regarded Rachel's Tomb as a Jewish holy place.12 Beginning in 1841, the keys to the place were deposited exclusively with Jewish caretakers who managed the site until it fell into Jordanian hands in 1948.13 In contravention of the armistice agreement, Jordan prevented Jews from accessing the site during all the years of its rule (1948-1967).14 Following the Six-Day War, Jews returned to Rachel's Tomb, with millions of Jews from around the world having visited the site. According to Jewish tradition, Rachel died on the 11th day of the Hebrew month of Heshvan (October 19); in 2010, some 100,000 Jews visited Rachel's Tomb on that day.15


For many centuries, Jews were compelled to pay protection money and ransom to the Arabs who lived in the area so they wouldn't harm Rachel's Tomb and the Jews who visited it. In 1796, Rabbi Moshe Yerushalmi, an Ashkenazi Jew from central Europe who immigrated to Israel, related that a non-Jew sits at Rachel's Tomb and collects money from Jews seeking to visit the site.16 Other sources attest to Jews who paid taxes, levies, and presented gifts to the Arab residents of the region.

Dr. Ludwig August Frankl of Vienna, a poet and author, related that the Sephardi community in Jerusalem was compelled to pay 5,000 piastres to an Arab from Bethlehem at the start of the nineteenth century for the right to visit Rachel's Tomb.17 Other testimonies relate that in order to prevent damage to Rachel's Tomb, payment was transferred to Bedouin members of the Taamra tribe who lived in the region, who had also begun to bury their dead near the tomb during that era.18 There is a Muslim cemetery on three sides of the compound that mainly belongs to the Taamra tribe and the entire attitude of the Muslims to Rachel's Tomb derives to a large extent from this tribe, which began burying its dead at the site during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries due to its proximity to Rachel's Tomb. The origins of the practice, as the Land of Israel researcher Eli Schiller writes, is the popular Muslim belief that "the closer that the deceased is buried to the tomb of a sainted personality, the greater will be his rewards in the world to come."19

Taxes were also collected from the Sephardi Jewish community in Jerusalem to pay the authorities for various "rights," such as passage to the Western Wall, passage of funerals to the Mount of Olives, and for the protection of gravestones there, as well as payment to the Arabs of Bethlehem for safeguarding Rachel's Tomb.20

One of the scribes who managed the accounts of the Sephardi Kolel during the eighteenth century reported on the protection money that the Jewish community at that time had to transfer to the "non-Jews and lords of the lands who are called toeffendis...(15,000) Turkish grush...and these are the people who patrol the ways of Jaffa Road, Kiryat Yearim, the people of the Rama, the site of Samuel the Prophet, the people of Nablus Road, the people of the Efrat Road, the tomb of our matriarch Rachel...so they would not come to grave-robbing, heaven forbid. And sometimes they complain to us that we have fallen behind on their routine payments and they come scrabbling on the gravestones in the dead of night, and they did their things in stealth because their home is there. Therefore, we are compelled against our will to propitiate them."21

Rabbi David d'Beth Hillel, a resident of Vilna who visited Syria and the Land of Israel in 1824, testified about a Muslim cemetery in the region of Rachel's Tomb. "No person is living there, but there was a cemetery. On the opposite hill there is a village whose residents are Arabs and they are most evil. A stranger who comes to visit Rachel's Tomb is robbed by them."22

In 1856, fifteen years after Montefiore had built another room to Rachel's Tomb, James Finn, the British consul who served in Palestine during the days of Turkish rule, spoke about the payments that the Jews were forced to pay to Muslim extortionists at some holy places including Rachel's Tomb: "300 lira per annum to the effendi whose house is adjacent to the site of crying" (the Western Wall) for the right to pray there and "100 lira a year to the Taamra Arabs for not wrecking Rachel's Tomb near Bethlehem."23

In 1841 Moses Montefiore obtained a license from the Turkish authorities to refurbish Rachel's Tomb and add another room to it, which changed its appearance and improved its formerly neglected status. A door to the domed room was installed and keys were given to two Jewish caretakers, one Sephardi and the other Ashkenazi. Fourteen years previously, an official of the Sephardi Kolelim (religious study centers) in Jerusalem, Avraham Behar Avraham, laid the groundwork for Montefiore's activity at Rachel's Tomb when he obtained recognition from the Turkish authorities for the status and rights of Jews at the site. This was, in practice, the original firman (royal decree)24 issued by the Ottoman authorities in Turkey recognizing Jewish rights at Rachel's Tomb.

The firman was necessary since the Muslims disputed ownership by the Jews of Rachel's Tomb and even tried by brute force to prevent Jewish visits to the site. From time to time Jews were robbed or beaten by Arab residents of the vicinity, and even the protection money that was paid did not always prevail. Avraham Behar Avraham approached the authorities in Istanbul on this matter and in 1830 the Turks issued the firman that gave legal force to Rachel's Tomb being recognized as a Jewish holy site.25 Additionally, the governor of Damascus sent a written order to the Mufti of Jerusalem to fulfill the Sultan's order.

This is our order to you: (the following matter) was submitted to us by the subject of our order, the sage representative of honored Jerusalem's Jewry and his translator that the tomb of esteemed Rachel, the mother of our Lord Joseph...they (the Jews) are accustomed to visit it from ancient days; and no one is permitted to prevent them or oppose them (from doing) this....It turned out that at this holy site, they have been visiting since ancient times, without any person preventing them or trespassing on their property and they (have it) as was their custom. In accordance with the respected judgment, I order that our commandment be issued to you so you will treat them accordingly without addition or without subtraction, without hindrance and without opposition to them by anyone in any way whatsoever - written August 10, 1830.26


An additional firman from April 1831, eight months later, determined inter alia:27

To inform and demonstrate to all interested parties and the appointed officials, the right of the Jews who are residents of holy Jerusalem to visit the grave of Rachel, the mother of the Prophet Joseph, peace be upon him, without hindrance....The deputy translator and other public functionaries, members of the Jewish community of Jerusalem, approached me with many requests regarding the tomb of Rachel, may peace be upon her, the mother of the Prophet Joseph, peace be upon him, and it is known that this grave is located outside the city of Jerusalem opposite the town of Bethlehem, on the highway...and that since ancient times the Jews have tended to visit this holy grave without anybody preventing them from doing so, as an inviolable law. And now people have emerged who have begun to hinder them, although as aforesaid and as proven the Jews have a right to visit the grave according to the Sultan's order. Hence I approach his honor the governor, may he be exalted, reminding him of the contents of the existing order. I also order him to attempt to remove the obstacles from the Jews, residents of Holy Jerusalem and others, so they can visit the aforementioned holy grave unhindered. Rendered in Istanbul at the end of the month of Shawwal in the year 1246 to the Hejira. Signed: The Sublime Porte.

Ironically, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, whose government has been described as "neo-Ottoman" in outlook, told the Saudi paper al-Watan (March 7, 2010) that the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb "were not and never will be Jewish sites, but Islamic sites

There's lots more, read the whole thing.

From reading accounts written by Christian pilgrims visiting the site, I thought that there was a mosque there. For example, from 1796:

A league further on we entered the plain of Rama, where y»u meet with Rachel's tomb. It is a square edifice, surmounted with a small dome: it enjoys the privileges of a mosque, for the Turks, as well as the Arabs, honor the families of the patriarchs.

Also:

About half-way between Jerusalem and Bethlehem is Rachel's tomb, one of the few places regarding the identity of which all antiquarians seem disposed to agree. A small Turkish mosque covers the cave, and here the wife of Israel has slept for nearly four thousand years.

But from reading these and other accounts, I get the impression that the pilgrims assumed that a Turkish-style building on the tomb would be a mosque. Even so, Muslims did pray there.

Wikipedia adds:

In 1841 Montefiore purchased the site and obtained for the Jews the key of the tomb. To conciliate Muslem susceptibility, he added a square vestibule with a mihrab to be used as a place of prayer for Muslims

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 1915, says:

The present tomb, which, apparently, is not older than the 15th century, is built in the style of the small-domed buildings raised by Moslems in honor of their saints. It is a rough structure of four square walls, each about 23 ft. long and 20 ft. high; the dome rising 10 ft. higher is used by Mohammedans for prayer, while on Fridays the Jews make supplication before the empty tomb within.

So it appears that while Muslims prayed there on occasion, it was not a mosque. If it was it is doubtful that they would have allowed Jews to have the privileges they had on the site.

I emailed Nadav Shragai to clarify.

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The Stockholm Syndrome of Hebron, 1929

We are almost at the 80th anniversary of the bloodthirsty Arab massacre of the Jews of Hebron that took place on August 23, 1929.

A recent book about the Jews of Hebron by Jerold Auerbach goes into detail of not only that horrible day but the entire history of Hebron Jews. The details of the slaughter itself are chilling to the point of disbelief, and are summarized in this Tablet column today by Seth Lipsky.

By August, trouble was sensed by the one British police officer in the town, Raymond Cafferata. He was told by both Arabs and Jews in Hebron that “any trouble” was “out of the question.”
Yet that same week a Jewish teacher named Haim Bagayo was warned, “This time we are going to butcher you all.” Earlier that day, there had been clashes in Jerusalem, in which three Arabs and three Jews died. The Jews of Hebron, Auerbach writes, “refused to believe that their Arab neighbors, with whom they had lived in relatively peaceful coexistence for four centuries, meant them harm.” Cafferata noted that in Hebron “everything appeared normal.” But before the day was out, Arabs began to attack Jews with clubs, and Jewish shops were quickly shuttered.
The first to die was a student, Shmuel Rosenhaltz, who was set upon as he studied, alone, in the main yeshiva. The Jews were warned to stay inside their homes. Early the next morning, Arabs, screaming “Allah akbar” and “Itbach al Yahud,” or “kill the Jews,” began surging through the streets. Two Jewish youths were stoned to death outside the house of the Heichel family. Some 70 Jews sought refuge inside a relatively large house, owned by Eliezer Dan Slonim. Almost the whole family of Slonim—his wife, Hannah, and their son, his father-in-law, who was the chief rabbi of Zichron Yaakov, and his wife—were among 22 persons who were clubbed or stabbed to death and, in some cases, disemboweled. The Slonim’s one-year son survived, having been hidden under dying Jews.
Rabbi Hanoch Hasson was murdered, along with his family. A pharmacist, Ben-Zion Gershon, who’d served both Arabs and Jews, “had his eyes gouged out before he was stabbed to death,” Auerbach relates. His wife’s hands were cut off before she and their daughter were killed. Mr. Goldshmidt was tortured, his head held over a kerosene flame, before he, his wife, and one of their daughters were killed. Twenty-three corpses were discovered in the Anglo Palestine Bank, where women were raped on a floor covered with thick pools of congealing blood. Rabbis Meir Kastel and Tzvi Dabkin and five of their students were tortured and castrated before being murdered. The killings went on for two hours, and the final death toll reached 67.

Were the Arabs of Hebron as tolerant of Jews before the massacre as the Jews there claimed? Or was this a psychological defense mechanism that the Jews employed to shut their eyes to the truth?

The truth may very well be the latter. A book written in 1905 called The Jews of Many Lands, by Elkan Nathan Adler, describes Hebron Arabs as being the most intolerant of all:

Hebron, or Khalil, the "City of Friendship," is perhaps the oldest city of the Holy Land, and in interest it vies with Jerusalem itself. Among us Jews it is reverently described as " the Burial Ground of our Fathers," and a pilgrimage thither is highly esteemed. The Mohammedans regard it with even more reverence as a sacred place than Jerusalem, for is it not the last resting-place of Abraham—el Khalil Allah—the friend of God and His great prophet? Their regard, although flattering to the founder of our race, carries with it the disadvantage that it makes the Hebronites the most fanatical of the followers of Islam, and the most intolerant. Christians cannot live at Hebron, and Jews there are treated as dogs. Curses both loud and deep greeted us as we walked round the Great Mosque, which encloses the Cave of Machpelah; but, as we did not understand the meaning of the imprecations or appreciate the delicacy or appropriateness of the choice epithets applied to us, and, as the missiles thrown at us were not well aimed, we could afford to treat our reception with amused nonchalance. Nowhere in the East did I meet with such bigotry as at Hebron, and it did not surprise me to learn that Dr. Stein, the medical man whom we sent out there some time ago, has no Mohammedans among his clientele, because the Hebronites, unlike the Mohammedans who live in Jerusalem and elsewhere are too utter fatalists to believe that medicine can arrest the progress of disease or the angel of death.

The 1948 war also had many examples of Arabs, considered friendly neighbors of Jews for generations, "suddenly" turning on them and butchering them, or cheering on those who tried.

If there are to be any lessons for Jews from the past hundred years, it is that being slightly paranoid is probably a much more accurate posture than feeling overly secure, and that it may be a fatal mistake to believe otherwise.

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Arab and Muslim attacks against Jews, 1907-1915

I recently posted events from the American Jewish Yearbook of 1914-15 showing that the frequent claim that Jews and Arabs lived together in peace before Israel is a lie.

It turns out that the American Jewish Committee has all their yearbooks archived on-line, and they are an exceptional resource for historical research. Here are the major events I found in those yearbooks of the friction between Arabs/Muslims and Jews in the years before the Balfour Declaration.

1907:
The Kabyles near Casablanca, Morocco, revolted,because the harbor works were in the hands of the French and because a Frenchman was appointed Director of Customs. A French battleship bombarded the town to oppose the attacks of the Moors upon the town, and the Arab tribes in turn attacked the 6000 Jews in the Mellah, killing 30, wounding 60, violating many women, carrying off 250 young women and girls. The Jewish quarter was ruined, and more than half the Jewish population fled to Tangier, Ceuta, Gibraltar, and elsewhere.

1908:
On the representation of the Consistory of Jerusalem the Grand Vizier of Turkey promised the Jews of Sanaa, in Yemen, full protection against attacks by Arabs to which they were subjected.

1909:
February: In Hebron, where out of a total population of 18,000 about 2000 are Jews, the Arabs decide to boycott Jewish merchants.

1910:
Community fearing attack by Arabs, telegraphs to Chief Rabbi in Constantinople, who makes representations to Minister of Interior. Latter sends energetic instructions to Governor at Haifa to prevent any disorders.

June 10: Jewish community, Haifa, brings action against editor of Arab newspaper El Carmel for continued anti-Semitic attacks. Defendant acquitted.

September 22: Jews forced to leave Yemen (Arabia) to avoid conversion to Mohammedanism.

1911:
April 28: Bedouins set fire to synagogue at Tschebel (Tripoli, Barbary), entirely destroying building, which contained valuable old manuscripts and books.

June 2: "Blood accusation" agitation in Turkey. Damascus paper El Muktaber charges abduction of Mohammedan child and publishes alleged confession by Jews. Chief Rabbi appeals to Government, which institutes criminal proceedings against editor of that paper.

June 4: Chief Rabbi, Turkey, receives telegrams from several places in Arabia and Syria, giving particulars of attacks made on Jews. Government takes precaution.

June 9: Report of attack by Bedouins on Jewish colonies, in vicinity of Nazareth and elsewhere; Chief Rabbi complains to Grand Vizier and Minister of Interior.

September 23: Arabs assault about sixty worshippers at religious service on Rosh Hashanah at Wailing Wall.

September 25: Forty-two Jews flee from Tripoli to Malta.

1912:
Feb. 2: Serious conflict between Jewish colonists in Palestine and the Arabs reported. Three colonists said to have been killed and seven wounded.

May 3: Anti-Jewish disturbances in Yemen. Several Jews murdered.

1913:
December: At Smyrna, two young Jewesses of seventeen and nineteen years abducted from their homes, to be converted to Mohammedan faith. Authorities refuse to restore them despite protests of Haham Bashi.

AUGUST (Yemen): Government permits organization of judicial tribunals exclusively of Arabs; this action victimizes Jews who may be falsely accused, as testimony of two Arab witnesses suffices to secure condemnation. --Jew ill-treated and left half dead in roadway because he submitted successful bid when invited to exchange large sum of money for Government. Complaint of Jew unavailing. — Heads of Jewish community imprisoned for disobeying edict ordering them to clean streets, no matter what their social status.

October (Yemen): Further cruelties of the Imam, spiritual head of Yemen, toward Jews reported. Jews denounced for alleged trading in intoxicating drinks promptly punished without investigation of the charges.

August. Bedouins attack colony of Rehobot, killing one colonist and wounding several others. --Rehobot vineyards penetrated by villagers from Zernuka, who kill Jewish student.

November. At colony of Kinneret two Jewish watchmen murdered by Arabs.

December. Near Tiberias, two colonists killed and several injured by Arabs.

1914:
January. At Hebron, Jewish storekeepers are boycotted by Mohammedan women.

April. Minister of Interior removes Governor of Tiberias on complaint of Chief Rabbi of his laxity in protecting the Jews against Arab attacks.

May. Minister of Interior orders officiais in Palestine to repress all anti-Jewish manifestations.—Chief Rabbi waits on Minister of Interior and reads to him two violent articles in Arab journal Palestine, and warns him that any disorders that might result therefrom would create bad impression abroad.

1915:
April: Merchavia, colony near Tiberias: Conflict between Jews and Arabs; two Jews killed.

Athlit: Klein, an American Jew, killed.

It should be noted that the Ottoman leaders generally took Jewish complaints seriously and would, for example, close down anti-semitic newspapers (temporarily) or arrest people who were inciting against Jews. But the Arabs throughout their lands were always antipathetic towards their Jewish neighbors.

It is also important to note that the Arab attacks against Jews, while numerous, did not come close to those happening in Europe at this time.

(Also, for those who want to check it out themselves: a Yearbook is for the previous year, so the events of the 1914-1915 yearbook are from 1913-1914. I think I got them all right but might be off by a year in some of the events listed above.)

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Jews and Arabs living peacefully together

One often hears claims such as this one, printed as a letter to the editor in a Dallas newspaper:

Muslims and Jews were living in peace in Palestine until the Zionists established Israel and started driving Arabs from their ancestral homes...

I just came upon the American Jewish Yearbook for 1914-1915, describing events of the year. Here are some of the events in Palestine at the time:

August. Bedouins attack colony of Rehobot, killing one colonist and wounding several others. --Rehobot vineyards penetrated by villagers from Zernuka, who kill Jewish student.

November. At colony of Kinneret two Jewish watchmen murdered by Arabs.

December. Near Tiberias, two colonists killed and several injured by Arabs.

January. At Hebron, Jewish storekeepers are boycotted by Mohammedan women.

April. Minister of Interior removes Governor of Tiberias on complaint of Chief Rabbi of his laxity in protecting the Jews against Arab attacks.

May. Minister of Interior orders officiais in Palestine to repress all anti-Jewish manifestations.—Chief Rabbi waits on Minister of Interior and reads to him two violent articles in Arab journal Palestine, and warns him that any disorders that might result therefrom would create bad impression abroad.

There were constant attacks by Arabs against the tiny Jewish community even then, as well as incitement against Jews in the Arab media and economic boycotts.

Pointedly, these attacks and incitement were not against Zionists, but Jews. And the Jews didn't attack any Arabs.

These are the idyllic, peaceful days that the Arab world wants to return to, when the Jews were defenseless and the Arabs could attack them with impunity.

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The richest Jew in Damascus, 1816

James Silk Buckingham wrote a diary of his travels in the early part of the nineteenth century, called "Travels Among the Arab Tribes Inhabiting the Countries East of Syria and Palestine."

He mentions the richest Jew in Damascus, Mallim Yusef, who was a very important member of the Damascus branch of the Ottoman government, "directing all the financial operations" there.

Buckingham then describes a visit to the "kihyah bey," or local prime minister, temporarily taking the duties of the late Governor of Damascus after the latter's untimely death returning from the Haj in Mecca:

[We] found the venerable Turk seated in a small but richly furnished apartment, guarded and attended by at least fifty handsome officers, all armed with sabres and dirks, and all superbly dressed. We were desired to seat ourselves on the sofa beside these chiefs, before whom stood in groups an equal number of armed attendants, and were treated with great respect and attention.

The rich Jew, Mallim Yusef, who conducted us to the presence of the kihyah bey, seated himself with the greatest possible humility on the floor beneath us, at the feet of his superiors who occupied the sofa, first kneeling, and then sitting back while kneeling, on the heels and soles of his feet, with these and his hands completely covered, in an attitude and with an air of the most abject and unqualified humiliation. Mr. Bankes was dressed as a Turkish effendi, or private and unmilitary person : I still continued to wear the less showy garments of the Christian merchant, with which I had replaced my Bedouin garb. The rich Jew was dressed in the most costly garments, including Cashmere shawls, Russian furs, Indian silks, and English broad-cloth : all, however, being of dark colours, since none but the orthodox Mohammedans are allowed to wear either green, red, yellow, azure, or white, in any of their garments, which are therefore, however costly in material, almost restricted to dark browns, blacks, and blues. Among the party was also a Moslem dervish, with a patchwork and party-coloured bonnet of a sugar loaf shape, and his body scarcely half covered with rags and tattered garments ; his naked limbs obtruding themselves most offensively, and his general appearance being indecent and disgusting.

It was impossible not to be struck forcibly with the different modes of reception and treatment adopted towards us, more particularly as contrasted with our real and apparent conditions. The Jew, who was by far the wealthiest and the most powerful of all present, who lived in the most splendid house in Damascus, and fed from his table more than a hundred poor families every day, who literally managed the great machine of government, and had influence enough, both here and at Constantinople, to procure the removal of the present bey from his post if he desired it, was obliged to kneel in the presence of those who could not have carried on the affairs of government without his aid, while the dervish, contemptible alike for his ignorance and arrogant assumption of superiority, was admitted to the seat of honour, and, with ourselves, who were of a faith as far removed from their own as the Jew's, was served with coffee, sherbet, and perfumes, and treated by the attendants with all the marks of submission and respect.

Here we have the very definition of dhimmitude: a Jew could reach great political heights and wield enormous power in the Muslim world, yet must always act with deference and abject humiliation to any Muslim. We see that in 1816 Damascus, every Muslim was considered higher in the social milieu than the richest Jew in the city.

UPDATE: I made a mistake in my last paragraph that Kashmiri Nomad takes me to task for; see here. Corrected here.

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Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews in Palestine in the 1850s

(Part 1 here, part 2 here.)

Some other fascinating details are uncovered in James Finn's "Stirring Times: Or, Records from Jerusalem Consular Chronicles of 1853 to 1856".

Here is an overview of the Sephardic and Ashkenanic Jews, and their relations:

At the period of this history (1853-6), there were about 10,000 Jews in Jerusalem. The modern Jews within their ancient land cannot fail to present an interesting field for contemplation.

In 1853 the Hebrew population was, as now, almost entirely congregated within their four holy cities : — Jerusalem, sacred to them on account of the Temple and its sacrifices ; Hebron, on account of Machpelah, in which are laid the three Patriarchs and their wives, excepting Rachel ; Tiberias and Safed, as cradles of the Talmud and homes of venerated Rabbis of ancient generations.

The people are to be classed as :

1. The Orientals, called ' Sephardim,' who are almost exclusively subjects of Turkey, and speak Spanish in their family intercourse, being mainly descendants of the refugees from Spain and Portugal, when banished thence in the fifteenth century : their very dialect of the Spanish language is antique in its peculiarities. These people are but few in Safed and Tiberias ; but in Jerusalem and Hebron are more numerous. In Jerusalem they more than double the number of other Jews, and are regarded by the Turkish authorities as the Jews par excellence. Their representative to the government is styled the ' Chacham Bashi ' in Turkish, but among his own people he enjoys the honoured appellation of ' First in Zion.' His secretary is also recognised as a public officer, having a seat in the Common Council of the city. This Chief Rabbi administered civil and religious law under penalties of fine, imprisonment, and bastinado, to the extent allowed by the Pentateuch. He is assisted by a council of seven Rabbis, called the ' Seven Seals,' each of whom is a judge in an inferior court of his own. Besides these, there are officials in sufficient variety among themselves, superintending different departments of administration.

The Chief Rabbi and his council affect the outward forms of supremacy in dealing with Rabbis or synagogues of foreign countries, based on the text of Isaiah ii. 3 : ' For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem ; ' but in the present state of the Hebrew nation, the Rabbis of other lands concede to him no pre-eminence in authority. The chief at Amsterdam or Wilna considers himself no more bound to submit to the chief at Jerusalem than he would be to the chief of Paris or London, notwithstanding that a certain degree of sanctity and deference would anywhere be attributed to the ruler of the people in the Holy City — at least such was the case till of late years.

In times gone by these native Jews had their full share of suffering from the general tyrannical conduct of the Moslems, and, having no resources for maintenance in the Holy Land, they were sustained, though barely, by contributions from synagogues all over the world. This mode of supply being understood by the Moslems, they were subjected to exactions and plunder on its account from generation to generation (individuals among them, however, holding occasionally lucrative offices for a tune). This oppression proved one of the causes which have entailed on the community a frightful incubus of debt, the payment of interest on which is a heavy charge upon the income derived from abroad.

In Jerusalem their synagogues are four, and all collected under one roof, so that they may pass from each into the others, and they are but meanly furnished. They are named— 1. The Great; 2. The Medium; 3. The Talmud Torah ; 4. The Stambouli. The people believe the first of these to have remained undisturbed since the fall of the second Temple.

Such is the outward framework of their society. The small community of Arabic-speaking Morocco Jews of similar origin with these are subject to the Sultan.

2. There is a distinct community of Jews called the 'Ashkenazim,' who are an aggregate of various religious sections. They are mostly natives of Germany, Bussia, and the Danubian principalities ; their common language is in substance German, but modified by Russiau, Polish, or Wallachian, according to their native places. As subjects of European Powers, they are, equally with Christians from the same respective countries, placed uuder consular protection and magistrature, according to the capitulations with the Porte. Their children, though born in Palestine, retain the nationality of the parents. These, however, are not numerous, and the Ashkenaz population is kept up by fresh arrivals from abroad of persons in old age, who come for the privilege of dying and being buried in holy ground. Each sect of the Ashkcuazira ( Perushim, Ghabad, Anshe Hod, &c.) is independent of the rest, and has its separate ' House of Judgment ' and synagogue. The Chorbah synagogue of the Perushim, recently restored from a ruin of ancient date, is believed to have existed from the days of Rabbi Judah han-Nasi, the compiler of the Talmud Mishnah.

Upon the internal government of both divisions of Judaism, in the Holy Land, with all its abuses of irresponsible Rabbinical domination, the observations that might be made do not seem to belong to the character of this work. They are well understood — alas ! too well — in the country itself; and the Israelites of Europe, who are aware of the same, while despairing of a remedy, have little desire to see the evils divulged, as they are fearful of the foundations of Rabbinism itself becoming consequently undermined.

Until the English Consulate was established in Jerusalem, there was, of course, no other jurisprudence in the country than that of the old-fashioned corruption and self-will of the Mohammedans, and for many ages but • very few (often none) of the European Jews ventured to make an abode in Palestine. A man is now l living, who, as a child, was brought there by his father on a venture, as there was then no Ashkenaz congregation in Jerusalem — the father just made up the minyan, or number of ten, required by Jewish canon law to form a congregation for public worship. According to our ideas it is scarcely praiseworthy, in the ' Sephardim,' that they have always placed obstacles in the way of European Jews forming settlements together with them in the Holy Land, declaring to the Turkish authorities that there are difficulties in the way of recognising these people as genuine Israelites, and much of that feeling still remains, as I have reason to know ; indeed, it is upon this ground that the ' Sephardim ' hold their monopoly from the government for legal slaughtering of animals for food to be used by all the Jews in Jerusalem.

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Jewish relations with Muslims in Palestine in the 1850s

I just found an intriguing book called "Stirring Times: Or, Records from Jerusalem Consular Chronicles of 1853 to 1856" written by the British consul to Jerusalem at the time. While there are many travelogues from that time period, all of those are necessarily dependent on information from guides and others. This book, however, is really source material on how things were at that time.

The author, James Finn, devoted a chapter on the Jews of Jerusalem and other towns, and it is fascinating in its detail and uncovering facts that are little known today. This post will focus on what Finn has to say about Jewish/Muslim relations at the time.

It is hardly the harmonious pre-Zionist existence that Muslims will have you believe.

In times gone by these native Jews had their full share of suffering from the general tyrannical conduct of the Moslems, and, having no resources for maintenance in the Holy Land, they were sustained, though barely, by contributions from synagogues all over the world. This mode of supply being understood by the Moslems, they were subjected to exactions and plunder on its account from generation to generation (individuals among them, however, holding occasionally lucrative offices for a tune). This oppression proved one of the causes which have entailed on the community a frightful incubus of debt, the payment of interest on which is a heavy charge upon the income derived from abroad.

...In the same year I was again obliged to interfere on behalf of the Jews. Solomon Aglai, a Jew, was on his way to Jaffa by night, accompanied by a Moslem muleteer, and both were robbed and murdered on the highway ; both were Turkish subjects, and a considerable stir was made in the matter. A report from some malicious quarter reached the Pasha that the Chief Rabbi had instigated the crime for reasons of his own ; in consequence the Jewish official dragoman was seized and imprisoned for some hours till further particulars should come to light. This caused a great panic among the Jews, who implored my help, and considerable excitement among the Moslems. Having satisfied myself that it must be a false accusation, and aware that it was dangerous to let the idea gain ground that the Jews had had a Moslem murdered, I applied to His Excellency, representing my instructions from home. The charge against the Chief Rabbi was then dropped, and no more was heard of it. The excitement subsided as quickly as it had arisen.

...Notwithstanding these glimpses of honorary distinction the Jews are humiliated by the payment, through the Chief Rabbi, of pensions to Moslem local exactors, for instance the sum of 300£. a year to the Effendi whose house adjoins the ' wailing place,' or fragment of the western wall of the Temple enclosure, for permission to pray there; 100£. a year to the villagers of Siloam for not disturbing the graves on the slope of the Mount of Olives ; 50£ a year to the Ta'amra Arabs for not injuring the Sepulchre of Rachel near Bethlehem, and about 10£ a year to Sheikh Abu Gosh for not molesting their people on the high road to Jaffa, although he was highly paid by the Turkish Government as Warden of that road. All these are mere exactions made upon their excessive timidity, which it is disgraceful to the Turkish Government to allow to be practised. The figures are copied from their humble appeals occasionally made to the synagogues in Europe. Other minor impositions were laid upon them which they were afraid to discontinue to pay, such as, to one man (Moslem) for superintending the slaughtering of cattle by themselves for food, to see that it is performed by the Sephardi Eabbi who has purchased his license to do it. Periodical presents likewise of sugar, etc., to the principal Moslems at their festivals.

Besides the Jewish British subjects and proteges already described, there were some of both these classes in Hebron and in the other Holy cities ; there were also in Hebron a few Tuscans and Dutch subjects, who had by permission of their own Consular authorities in Beyroot placed themselves under British protection. Thus the British Consulate was always kept busy in transacting the business brought before it by the Jews ; not only by the Jews in Jerusalem, but by those from Safed, Tiberias, Caifa, Nablus, and Hebron. It was distressing to behold the timidity which long ages of oppression had engendered. Many times a poor Jew would come for redress against a native, and when he had substantiated his case, and it had been brought by the Consulate before the Turkish authorities, he would, in mere terror of future possible vengeance, withdraw from the prosecution, and even deny that any harm had been done him ; or if that was too manifest, declare that he could not identify the criminal, or that the witnesses could not be produced. Still, even then, the bare fact that some notice had been taken had a deterrent effect upon criminals who had hitherto regarded the defenceless Jews as their special prey.

The Hebron Jews were more exposed than even those in Jerusalem to rough usage from the natives, and they had suffered greatly from the tyrannies of the brutal ' Abderrahhman el 'Amer.

Those living in Safed, in Galilee, however, were of a different stamp, and much better able to hold their own. There was, on one occasion, an affair in that town of some rioters breaking for plunder into the houses of some Jews who were British proteges, and we had caused five of the offenders to be imprisoned. They were soon, however, allowed by the Governor to be at liberty again, and my protege's went down at once to demand justice from the Pasha in Acre, at the same time writing to acquaint me with the circumstances. This was not the only occasion in which I had to observe the manly spirit of the Jews in that mountain town, compared with all others of their nation throughout Palestine. Yet, whenever their independence was shown in an unjust cause, as sometimes happened, their behaviour had to be treated accordingly. The Galileans of Josephus's wars were a hardy and a stubborn people.

Not that things were better between Jews and Christians in Palestine, as we shall see.

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Sir Moses Montefiore's visit to Morocco, 1863

In October of 1863, a Spaniard in Morocco died, and naturally the community found a Jewish scapegoat(from Sir Moses Montefiore: a centennial biography, published in 1884):

At Saffi, a seaport on the West coast of Morocco, a
Spaniard had died suddenly, and suspicions of foul
play, probably poisoning, had been aroused in the
mind of the Spanish Consul. In his official capacity
he called upon the Moorish authorities to investigate
the case, and they, in great trepidation, cast about for
a convenient scapegoat. The procedure was singular.
No steps were taken to ascertain whether there were
any facts to establish the cause of death, or to show
that it had a connection with crime; but the most
convenient person was forthwith arrested and examined
under the scourge and other kinds of torture.
Israelites being the least protected of the population,
the culprit was sought among their body, and it being
discovered that a Jewish lad, about fourteen years of
age, Jacob Wizeman by name, had resided in the
family of the deceased, he was seized and "examined."

The fourteen year old boy was tortured and finally confessed to this "crime" and he gave the names of eleven other Jews as co-conspirators.

The lad, when released, re-asserted his innocence ; this, however, did not save him. His confession being on record, he was condemned to death by the Moorish authorities and publicly executed, the Spanish Consul acquiescing in the sentence, notwithstanding the irregular manner in which the conviction had been obtained.

Eight of the other eleven were sentenced to prison and one other was tortured and executed.

Anti-Jewish riots broke out, described here in Appletons' Annual Cyclopædia and Register of Important Events of the Year, 1863:

The most notahle case of persecution of Jews occurred, in 1863, in Morocco, a country in which as in Mohammedan countries in general they have often been taxed, fined, beaten with " khoorbashes," bastinadoed with maize canes; in which they have been torn from their shops by agas and emirs to work for nothing, laughed at in the law courts, derided in public, oppressed in private, their complaints disregarded, their rights ignored, and their adopted home made for.them a place of misery and shame.

The account of their sufferings induced that celebrated Jewish philanthropist, Sir Moses Montefiore, to undertake a journey to the sultan of Morocco, to implore justice for his co-religionists.

Sir Moses was resolved to sec the sultan, and ask justice in the name of God and man. He pushed up the country by marches of fifteen miles a day, in the horse litter used by women «nd the sick—his name and the nature of his errand going before him....[The sultan] welcomed his generous visitor; admired the spirit and fortitude which had brought his silver hairs so far at such a season ; praised the well-known exertions of the baronet for others, not of his race only, but of all creeds in other countries; finally, he received very graciously the petition for justice. A few days afterward a firman appeared:

"In the name of God the merciful and gracious," granting to his Jewish subjects perfect equality of right and of protection under the law. " For," says the sultan, with truth, not the less sound or welcome because it is tardy, " injustice here is injustice in Heaven, and we cannot countenance it in any matter affecting either the Jews' rights or the rights of others, our own dignity being itself opposed to such a course. All persons in our regard have an equal claim to justice, and, if any person should wrong or injure one of the Jews, we will, with the help of God, punish him."

Montefiore not only managed to get this proclamation to protect the Jewish minority in Morocco, but he got the sultan to extend similar protection to Christians. In addition, he got the prisoners released. He also interceded for a Moorish man who was unjustly accused of killing two Jews:

Sir Moses did not confine his attention to the Jews.
During his stay at Tangier he was one day visited by
a large deputation of Moors, about fifty in number,
who, with their chiefs, had come from a distant part
of the country to appeal to him. to intercede for the
release of one of their tribe, who had been imprisoned
during two years and a half on suspicion of having
murdered two Israelties, but had not been brought to
trial. Gratified at this display of confidence in his
sense of justice on the part of the native population,
generally so hostile to Jews, Sir Moses made careful
inquiries into the case, and, finding that the man's
guilt had not been proved, promptly interceded with
the authorities. In a few hours the prisoner's chains
were removed, and he was brought by the members of
his tribe to return thanks to his deliverer. Sir Moses
availed himself of the opportunity to urge the grateful
Moors to show kindness and afford protection to his
co-religionists; and they readily gave their solemn
promise that all Jews travelling in their district should
be safe.

And finally he donated money to establish a Jewish girls' school in Tangiers.

He accomplished all of this in eight days, traveling throughout Morocco on camel, covering sixteen miles a day.

Montefiore was eighty years old.

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