Monday, April 10, 2023
Elder of Ziyon
The Jawhariyyeh diaries invite the reader to share a world of ceremonial syncretism and cultural hybridity that is difficult to trace in today‘s prevailing atmosphere of ethnic exclusivity and religious fundamentalism. It was a pre-nationalist era in which religious identity embraced the Other in its festivals and rituals. Jawhariyyeh narrates the feast of Easter/Pessah as an occasion for Muslim-Christian-Jewish celebrations. He details the Muslim processions of Palm Sunday (which proceeded from the Abrahamic Mosque in Hebron towards Jerusalem). The festival of al-Nabi Musa is recalled here as a Muslim popular celebration that merges with the Christian Orthodox Easter. The fantasia of Sabt al-Nur (Fire Saturday, commemorating the resurrection of Christ) is seen as the greatest popular Christian celebration in Palestine—closely coordinated with Muslim folk festivals. Purim was celebrated by Christian and Muslim youth in Jewish neighborhoods. Wasif describes in detail the costumes they wore on this occasion. Twice a year Muslim and Christian families—including the Jawhariyyeh family—joined the Jewish celebrations at the shrine of Simon the Just in Sheikh Jarrah (at the event known as ‘shathat al-Yahudiyya), where "Haim the ‘oud player and Zaki the tambourine player would sing to the accompaniment of Andalusian melodies."
The Jews at Jerusalem, (I speak even of European Jews) are liable to be stopped by the lowest of the country, who, if he pleases, may demand money of them as a right due to the mussulman ; and this extortion may be practised on the same poor Jew over and over again in the space of ten minutes.The Jews are fond of frequenting the tombs of their forefathers, especially on particular days, to read their prayers of remembrance of the dead. Here advantage is taken of them again. They are rudely accosted and pilfered, and if resistance is made, they are beat almost to death, and this not by common highwaymen or Bedouin Arabs, but by men they may have been in the habit of seeing and talking with every day.
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.…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...
From Remarks on the present condition and future prospects of the Jews in Palestine, by Arthur George Harper Hollingsworth, 1852:
This Jewish population is poor beyond any adequate word ; it is degraded in its social and political condition, to a state of misery, so great, that it possesses no rights. It can shew no wealth even if possessed of it, because to display riches would secure robbery from the Mahometan population, the Turkish officials, or the Bedouin Arab. ... He creeps along that soil, where his forefathers proudly strode in the fulness of a wonderful prosperity, as an alien, an outcast, a creature less than a dog, and below the oppressed Christian beggar in his own ancestral plains and cities. No harvest ripens for his hand, for he cannot tell whether he will be permitted to gather it. Land occupied by a Jew is exposed to robbery and waste. A most peevish jealousy exists against the landed prosperity, or commercial wealth, or trading advancement of the Jew. Hindrances exist to the settlement of a British Christian in that country, but a thousand petty obstructions are created to prevent the establishment of a Jew on waste land, or to the purchase and rental of land by a Jew. “
...What security exists, that a Jewish emigrant settling in Palestine, could receive a fair remuneration for his capital and labour? None whatever. He might toil, but his harvests would be reaped by others; the Arab robber can rush in and carry off his flocks and herds. If he appeals for redress to the nearest Pasha, the taint of his Jewish blood fills the air, and darkens the brows of his oppressors ; if he turns to his neighbour Christian, he encounters prejudice and spite ; if he claims a Turkish guard, he is insolently repulsed and scorned.
,,,Now, how is this poor, despised, and powerless child of Abraham to obtain redress, or make his voice heard at the Sublime Porte? The more numerous the cases of oppression, (and they are many), the more clamorous their appeals for justice, the more unwillingly will the government of the Sultan,—partly from inherent and increasing weakness, partly from disinclination,—act on the side of the Jew. They despise them as an execrated race ; they hate them as the literal descendants of the original possessors of the country. ...
From "Sir Moses Montefiore's Report to the Board of Deputies of British Jews," 1867:
On Saturday, April 14th [1866], after the morning service, I took a walk round the garden, and was much pleased with the improvement of the place since my last visit to Jerusalem.
I regret, however, not being able to report the same of the land at Jaffa, which has been unfortunately let to persons who, being unable to resist the threatened attacks of the neighboring Arabs, deserted the place altogether. The consequence is, that the houses are completely demolished and the trees destroyed.
From the book The Rob Roy on the Jordan, Nile, Red sea, & Gennesareth, published in 1870 by John MacGregor:
From Narrative of a Modern Pilgrimage Through Palestine on Horseback, and with Tents By Alfred Charles Smith, 1871:
The Jews at Jerusalem were singularly forbearing with strangers, and—considering their general antipathy to all Gentiles—were almost civil and obliging. This unnatural good-will might perhaps be due in part to my escort, the well-known Yakoob ; perhaps, too, in part to their own despised condition, for, scarcely tolerated and often persecuted as they are by their Muslim rulers, they dare not show an illiberal spirit, or display any tokens of religious hostility or rancour through fear of retaliation
I list other examples of attacks on Jews, including pogroms, here.
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.
