The Holy Land and Syria

by Frank G. Carpenter

Indeed many of the Jews of the Holy City are old men and old women who have come here to die. Jerusalem is to many of the Jews what Benares is to the Hindu. They have a superstition that this city is on the direct road to heaven and that they must come here in order to attain paradise. I am told that many of the Jews of this city believe that if they should die in other lands they will be dragged under the earth through the globe to the Mount of Olives, where the Resurrection is to take place. The Jewish cemetery on the side of the mountain contains thousands of tombs. It is said that soil from that spot is sent all over the world to be put in Jewish coffins. Not a few of the old men who live here have left their business to come. Some have given their estates to their sons and relatives, and receive allowances from them. Not long ago one such came to the American consul, and said that he would like to leave some money to found a synagogue in Jerusalem. He looked dirty and ragged, and the consul asked what he had to leave. He replied that he owned under other names six good houses in Jerusalem and that the money to buy them had been saved out of an allowance of a thousand dollars a year which his sons in New York had been sending him.

The Jews of Jerusalem are far more particular as to the observances of their religion than the Jews of America. There are more than one hundred synagogues in this city, in all of which worship is held on the Sabbath. I have attended many of the services and have generally found the synagogues full. The men read Hebrew aloud. They come in their best clothing, and some of the old men are gorgeous in their rich gowns of velvet and silk.

The Sabbath here begins Friday night and does not end until six o’clock Saturday. It begins just as soon as the stars can be seen Friday, after which no work of any kind must be done. Neither fire nor lamp may be lighted, so most of the people light their lamps before the dark comes and hire Gentiles to come in at bedtime to blow them out. The meals for the Sabbath are all cooked beforehand, and if there are any hot dishes they must be cooked by the Gentiles.

The orthodox Jew here will not carry a bucket, an umbrella, or even a baby on the Sabbath day. I have just heard of a boy who was given a new suit of clothes on Saturday, his Sabbath. The gift was made by one of the American colony outside the walls, and the people there watched to see how the boy could stick to his religion and still carry his new clothes home. After pondering some time, he finally put the clothes on and wore them, thus escaping the sin of carrying them on God’s holy day.

The Jews here have a slaughter house of their own. Indeed, they kill all of the cattle of Jerusalem, serving the Gentiles free of charge, in order that there may be no danger of sinning by eating animals improperly killed. The city abattoirs are on the road to Jericho across the valley of Jehoshaphat, on the southern slope of the Mount of Olives. The cattle and sheep are brought there and passed upon by the Jewish rabbis. They are then killed and skinned according to the Mosaic law, and the meat is stamped by the rabbis before it is offered for sale in the cities. A special stamp is placed on all that supplied to the Jews, and such meat, strange to say, brings about twice as much per pound as that sold to the Gentiles.

If the meat is good to eat it is known as kosher. If not killed according to the regulations, it is called tarif, and no Jew will touch it. The killing is done by the rabbinical butcher, who cuts the animal’s throat with one stroke of the knife, going just deep enough not to touch the bones. The law provides not only that the meat must be healthy, but that no bone must be scratched, cut, or broken, and if the butcher’s knife slips and cuts off a bit of bone, even though it be no thicker than a sheet of paper, the whole carcass is regarded as bad and fit only for the Gentiles. The Jews eat cattle and sheep, but they will not touch the meat of pigs or game. Said one of the sportsmen of Palestine to me:

“If the Jews ate game they would clean out our partridges and other birds in a season. But as it is, there is always good shooting.”

Most of the Jews here will not eat the hind quarters of any animal, and the hind legs and loins are sold to the Gentiles. The Spanish Jews say that those who eat pork will be damned, but they get around eating rump steak by pulling out the white sinews or scraping off the red particles of the meat and making what we know as Salisbury steaks from them.

The Jewish quarter of Jerusalem is confined to the southeastern part of the city. It is near the great platform on which Solomon’s Temple stood and inside the Dung Gate. It is a dirty, squalid, poverty-stricken section. Many of the Jews here are mendicants, who live on the alms sent in by the Jews from the outside. At fixed hours of the day bread is given away at certain places and the people come for it in crowds. There are funds which are supplied at regular intervals to those who need them, and much of the population is supported this way. They might be called educated paupers. Many of these people are desperately poor. I visited a number of the houses, finding family after family each living in cave-like rooms no larger than a hall bedroom and lighted only by a door at the front. In such dwellings the floors and walls are of stone, and about the only furniture is the beds, which are for the grown-ups only. The children sleep on the floor. The kitchen is often on a porch outside the house, and the water comes from a court in which is a well or cistern. This well may be used by a half-dozen different families, and its surroundings are unsanitary to an extreme.

On the doorposts of each of these dwellings, whether it be of one room or more, is tacked up a roll of white parchment six inches long. This contains the name of Jehovah and the Ten Commandments. Every Jew here wears the Commandments tied upon his arm under his coat, and some have phylacteries, or strips of parchment with texts upon them, about their foreheads.