Part VI
Palestinian Jews suffered discrimination and persecution from both Muslims and Christians. In a May 25, 1839 letter to Viscount Palmerston, British State Secretary for Foreign Affairs William Tanner Young, the first British vice consul in Jerusalem (1838-1841 and consul from 1841-1845), explained the situation of the Jews in the city. Although they enjoy “more peace and tranquility” than ever before, he noted, “scarcely a day passes” that he does not hear “of some act of tyranny and oppression against a Jew—chiefly by [Turkish] soldiers, who enter their Houses and borrow whatever they require without asking any permission—sometimes they return the article, but more frequently not.”
Young described the behavior of the Turkish governor toward the Jews as “savage” after hearing an account of how his punishment of an innocent Jew led to the Jew’s death. He thought the governor was “superior to such wanton inhumanity—but it was a Jew without friends or protection…”
Local Muslims forced Jews to pay taxes to enable them to pray at their holy sites, notes James Finn, the British Consul in Jerusalem from 1846 to 1863. For the privilege of praying at the Western Wall, for example, Jews had to provide a yearly payment to the Effendi, whose house was next to the Wall; the villagers of Siloam were paid a stipend for not vandalizing the graves on the slopes of the Mount of Olives; the Ta’amra Arabs were bribed so they would not damage Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem; and Sheikh Abu Gosh received money each year for “not molesting” travelers on the road to Jaffa, even though he received a significant yearly sum from the Turkish government as “Warden of the road.”
With regard to Christians, Young reported that “… if a Jew … were to attempt to pass the door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, it would in all probability cost him his life—this is not very Christian like, considering Christ Himself was a Jew. And were a Jew to fly for safety, he would seek it sooner in a Mussulman’s house than in that of a Christian.
“What the Jew has to endure, at all hands, is not to be told. Like the miserable dog without an owner he is kicked by one because he crosses his path, and cuffed by another because he cried out—to seek redress he is afraid, lest it bring worse upon him; he thinks it better to endure than to live in the expectation of his complaint being revenged upon him. Brought up from infancy to look upon his civil disabilities everywhere as a mark of degradation, his heart becomes the cradle of fear and suspicion—he finds he is trusted by none—and therefore he lives himself without confidence in any.”
Finn asserted: “Until the English Consulate was established in Jerusalem, there was 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.”
Historian Tudor Parfitt said the relationship between the local churches and the Jews was described by H.H. Jessup, a leading personality in the American Presbyterian church in Beirut: “They are hated intensely by all sects, but more especially by the Greeks and the Latins. In the gradations of Oriental cursing, it is tolerably reasonable to call a man a donkey, somewhat more severe to call him a dog, contemptuous to call him a swine, but withering to the last degree to call him a Jew. The animosity of the nominal Christian sects against the Jews is most relentless and unreasoning.”
Local Christian attitudes toward Jews thus provided fertile ground for European antisemitism, according to historian Neville J. Mandel. The Russian Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, which began operating in 1882, barred Jews from their medical clinics, reflecting the negative views of the Tsarist government in Russia. All other segments of the local population were admitted.
Another source of anti-Jewish sentiment, Mandel said, emanated from members of the consular corps, especially those from the Austrian and Russian Consulates. Economic competition concerned the Deutsches Palastina Bank, Credit Lyonnais and other foreign banks and merchants. The thousand or so Protestants (“Templars”) from Germany who lived in Palestine shared this fear and the possibility that they might be included in the restraints placed on the Jews. In 1890, Jerusalem already had a German antisemitic club.
In 1897, Père Henri Lammens, a Belgium scholar who taught at the Jesuit University in Beirut, authored an article entitled “Zionism and the Jewish Colonies,” in the anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist Jesuit journal Etudes. Mandel notes that Lammens described the Jews of Jerusalem as easily “recognizable … by their repulsive grubbiness and above all that famous Semitic nose, which is not, like the Greek nose, a pure myth.”
Condition of Jews in Palestine: Early Zionist Era
During the 1880s, Sultan Abdul Hamid saw Zionism as another national movement endangering his empire, but not the most threatening when compared to nationalistic fervor in Armenia and the Balkans, asserts historian Efraim Karsh. The Jews were a tolerated and inferior community that he would not allow to possess Islamic lands, especially Jerusalem, Islam’s holy city. “Why should we accept Jews whom the civilized European nations do not want in their countries and whom they had expelled?” he asked. “It is not expedient to do so, especially at a time when we are dealing with the Armenian subversion.”
Though not outwardly worried about Zionism, Karsh said the sultan did not want a large number of foreigners, particularly with nationalistic interests, settling in his territory. Jews were specifically banned from immigrating, and new laws were enacted whenever ambiguities were detected in enforcing them. Yet between 1881-1882 and 1890, the Yishuv population doubled to 50,000 people, mostly due to immigration.
Relations with Jews improved after the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) took control of Turkey in 1909, explains historian Isiaah Friedman, but there was no government consensus on how to proceed. Following the Balkan wars of 1912-1913, Pasha Talaat, the de facto leader of the Ottoman Empire, turned to the Zionists for financial aid. Talaat expected that the Zionists would be able to influence worldwide Jewry to provide loans to Turkey in exchange for eliminating restrictions on immigration and property ownership in Palestine. As a sign of friendship, the Young Turks in September 1914 abolished the “Red Slip,” the temporary residence permit that had been in effect since 1901, as well as restrictions on Jewish settlement.
Dr. Alex Grobman, a Hebrew University-trained historian, is senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society and a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.
