He describes how the Jews of Turkey had their own independent justice system consisting of an apparent Beth Din of three led by a grand rabbi, and a senate of seven who determined the laws for the Jews intheir territory.
But he also discussed how the community maintained relations with Jerusalem, and how every year a shipload of Jews would travel from Constantinople to Israel.
Finally, there is a committee of four charged with keeping up the relations subsisting between the Jews of Palestine and those of Constantinople. The eastern Jews make it a point of duty at least to visit the Holy Land, if their affairs will not permit them to go there in their old age and die; and they send considerable sums to Jerusalem for the support of these devotees. A vessel leaves Constantinople every year, carrying from a hundred and fifty to two hundred pilgrims of both sexes. The rich pilgrims pay the passage of the poorer ones. Assembled in the valley of Jehoshaphat, they weep bitterly over the graves of their ancestors, and pray fervently for forgiveness of their own sins and those of the nation, both living and dead.It might have been decades before Herzl, but this is Zionism - Jews keeping connections with their Jewish brethren in Israel, sending money to them, and visiting every year, a remarkable achievement for the early 19th century.
The idea of Jews returning to Israel was not at all unusual in the 19th century. The New York National Advocate newspaper, November 9, 1824, discussed the potential practical and political problems with "The Restoration of the Jews" even when there were rumors that the Rothschild family might purchase the entire Palestine from the Ottomans. (This article was reproduced in various other American newspapers.)
There is no transfer of the land of Canaan that the sultan can make, that will be respected by the Turks. He may take a loan and give a deed, but its validity will never be recognized by the Mussulmen, they never will consent to allow these Jews to govern in the Holy Land, and any peaceable attempt of that nature, will be the signal of a general massacre of the chosen people. The land of Canaan is to be recovered by the sword, not acquired by the purse strings.
... Even admitting that the sultan did transfer the Holy Land to the Jews, the Egyptians, the Wechabites, the wandering Arabs, and the Tartar hordes, would be of more annoyance to them, than the Philistines and Amalekites were of old.
Jews might buy the land, but ultimately they will have to fight for it.
This, the author notes, it will definitely happen, in what sounds eerily prophetic:
That the Jews will be restored to their former country, and possess it in full sovereignty, cannot be doubted. All that has passed, and that which is to come, and will be, are types of confirmation of the promise held out to the race of Jacob. No reading, reflecting man can doubt it; but there is much to be done before the period of restoration arrives. It is not desirable at the present, that the children of Israel should possess the Holy Land. ...
The Jews, rendered capable of governing, from living under mild laws, and acquiring, as they will, strength, stability, character, wisdom and wealth, will be restored to the land of Canaan, by and with the consent and approbation of the Christian powers, not only in the fulfilment of the prophecies, but in atonement for the oppressions which the chosen people have unjustly encountered, from those who entirely mistook the mild character of the Christian faith.
It could not happen in November of 1824, but the author knew it will definitely happen.
