“These tasks would be profitable and preparatory. Upon such tasks we had already in 1850 to 1853 employed as many poor Jews as the small funds at our disposal had permitted. Now in 1854 we applied to friends in England, and elsewhere, to send us the means of relieving some of the vast amount of misery around us, by means of employment in the open air. The appeal was responded to and funds were sent from England, from India, and also one or two contributions from America. By the month of April money had arrived, and we were able to set the people to work.... Notice was given to the Jews that employment on the land might be obtained for wages on the ground above-mentioned; the Arabic name which it bore among the peasants, of its former owners, was Ker’m el Khaleel—the vineyard of the Friend—i.e. Abraham (1948–2123 a.m.), by which epithet Abraham is always known. The very name of the ground was attractive, and the effect of the announcement fulfilled our best expectations.”
“The foreman in charge of the work was a Polish Jew who had been in the Russian Army.”[¹] “The idea of labouring in the open air for daily bread had taken root among the Jews in Jerusalem—the hope of cultivating the desolate soil of their own Promised Land was kindled. These objects were never again lost sight of. The Jews themselves took them up.”[²]
[¹] Ibid., pp. 64–66.
[²] Ibid., p. 76.
Sir Moses Montefiore was one of the first Jews who took up these objects. On his second visit to Jerusalem he was received by Colonel Gawler, the ardent Christian Zionist. After this visit the impression was left upon the public mind that the Jews, hitherto so despised, had, in England at least, powerful representatives, through whom their grievances might make themselves heard in Europe.
At the same time England’s interest in Palestine was growing in all directions. In 1849 an English Literary Society was founded by the Consul, for the investigation of all subjects of literary and scientific interest in the Holy Land. English artists were also the first European artists who started serious work in Palestine. Two English artists of note, William Holman Hunt, O.M. (1827–1910) and Thomas Seddon (1821–1856), came to reside in the Holy City in 1852, in order to study Bible scenes and Eastern customs. Hunt was the first painter who attempted to depict the true colours of the mountains of Moab. He began in Jerusalem his great picture of “The Scapegoat in the Wilderness.” Seddon pitched a tent among the pomegranate trees in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and his picture of “Olivet and Siloam,” now in the South Kensington Museum Gallery, was taken from that spot.
In English literature we find another appeal made by an anonymous political writer in 1856 in a lofty moral tone, which is at the same time a high appreciation of Judaism.
“To do justice at once to a people approved of God as ‘His Inheritance,’ ... a simple course is open to us—to the nations. Let us prevail upon the Porte to allow the Jews facilities to return to their own land; to appoint Palestine as a place of refuge for them, from the anarchy and confusion from which they suffer, but in which they have no share....
“If the allies are sincere in their professions towards the Porte, and its eyes are open to its own interests and safety; if Christians really believe in a Just and Holy God, and that the Bible is His Word; if Mohammedans feel that God is great, who hath appointed them the keepers of his holy place against this time, while their elder brother has been in exile;... If then, we say, integrity in belief or duty has any place at all with the parties concerned; this matter of a refuge for the Jews—has only to be mentioned to be accomplished....
“Britons, let us at least be true to the position which the integrity and foresight of our fathers have, in the providence of God, earned for us; true to the mission of our faith, ... seek at once to wash our hands of this monstrous rebellion against Judgment and Righteousness—the peace of the world and the progress of the human race—and do an act of tardy justice to a people to whom mankind owe all their higher privileges and better civilization.”[¹]