Forms applicable to synagogues, colleges, schools, and various other institutions were also circulated, requesting particulars as to situation, the names of the ecclesiastical and lay heads, and other officials. The purpose of each organization, its income and expenditure, and a number of other minor details.
This information—collected for thirty-six years 5599–5635 = 1839–1875—was compiled and arranged by Dr. Louis Loewe (the life-long friend of Sir Moses, whom he accompanied on thirteen of his missions abroad) and transcribed in fifteen imperial folio volumes, a model of Hebrew calligraphy.
In addition to these particulars of a personal nature, this invaluable thesaurus contains information dealing with land, agriculture, buildings, industries, cotton, oil, fruit-trees, and the condition of the country in general. The volumes are now deposited at the Jews’ College, Queen Square House, London, but form part of the Library of the Judith, Lady Montefiore Theological College of Ramsgate.
A wealth of material lies at the disposal of future historians and statisticians, and it is devoutly to be hoped, that this great work will find its proper resting-place in the Archives of Jerusalem.
LXV.
An Open Letter of Rabbi Chayyim Zebi Sneersohn of Jerusalem (1863)
“There were hundreds of Jews, preferring labour to starvation, to be seen working for their daily bread at one shilling per day in the fields of the so-called ‘Industrial Plantations for Jews,’ then under the auspices of Mr. Finn, late English Consul for Palestine, and up to the present time there are many Jews engaged in performing even the most menial offices and doing their best to provide food for their families. The other day a meeting was held by the Chief Rabbi, Haim David Hassan, and many other notabilities of the different congregations, at which I also attended. The subject proposed was an enquiry to ascertain the number of those who are likely to devote themselves to agricultural pursuits and to draw up a plan in which way they could be helped in order to attain the object desired. The result was that up to the present about one hundred heads of families declared their readiness to go and till the ground of their fathers. The result of the preliminary discussion on the plan to be adopted was to get a hodjet, or secure possession from the Government or possession of cultivated ground, consisting of gardens, olive trees, vineyards and fields.”
Palestinian Rabbis were quick to recognize the activity of the British Consul. James Finn was indeed an English pioneer of the idea of colonization of Palestine and of Britain’s protection of Palestinian Jews. He was appointed Consul before the death of Bishop Alexander (who was a converted Jew and the first Bishop appointed by the British Government in Jerusalem), in 1848, and the chief reason for his appointment was his known love of the Jewish cause. He was at the time a member of the London Society’s Committee, had published an interesting and learned work on the History of the Spanish Jews, as well as a tract upon the Chinese Jews, had devoted himself with great zeal and rare success to the study of Hebrew, which he spoke and wrote with fluency, and was considered on this account to be particularly well qualified for the post of Consul at Jerusalem (another proof of the great appreciation of the national Jewish character of Palestine on the part of the British Government at that time). Finn went out as a devoted friend to the Jewish cause, and such he proved himself throughout. Though an ardent Christian, he won the sympathy of the most orthodox Jerusalem Rabbis, and their moral support for the colonization of Palestine.
Palestinian Jews themselves advocated the establishment of Jewish agricultural colonies in 1863:—