CHAPTER XXIII.

JEWS, RUSSIANS, AND GERMANS.

The Jews in Palestine inhabit only the larger towns, where they are engaged in trade and in money transactions. The greater number live in the four holy cities--Jerusalem, Tiberias, Safed, and Hebron; but many are found also in the coast towns of Gaza, Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Tyre, and Sidon. The number of Jews in Jerusalem was estimated by the Consular reports in 1872 to be 8000, but it has considerably increased since then, owing to the arrival of a large body of Russian and Polish Jews, who fled, it is said, from the conscription in those countries. Whatever be the cause, the fact is undisputed, that the Jews are steadily gathering in Palestine. In Jerusalem they have been encouraged by the munificence of Sir Moses Montefiore, and have formed a sort of building-club for the purpose of erecting houses to the west of the town.

The following facts relating to the Jews are obtained from the best authority--namely, from Dr. Chaplin, the physician of the Jewish hospital in Jerusalem.

The largest section of the Jews in Jerusalem is that of the Ashkenazim, which comprises the fair-haired sallow German Jews, with the Polish, and the gigantic Russian Jews. The Ashkenazim are subdivided into national communities, and also into religious sects, all of the “high church” order, including the Parushim (or Pharisees), the Chasidim (or Assideans of the Book of Maccabees), the Chabad, and the Varshi. These four sects agree in recognising, in various degrees, the authority of the Talmudic law, and the traditions of the elders.

Next in order come the Sephardim, or Spanish Jews, who still wear the black turban originally imposed on them by the laws of the mad Caliph Hâkem; they include also the Mughrabee Jews, who speak Arabic. In their physique, and the dignity of their appearance, the Sephardim are far superior to their European co-religionists; they also belong to the extreme party of the Chasidim and Varshi, in whose synagogues they will pray when not near to one of their own.

The old Sadducean party is now represented only by the Karaites, or “low church” Jews, who discard the authority of the Mishnic or Oral law, and do not admit the authority of the Talmudic commentators. In Jerusalem they have but one small synagogue, and their number in the city is probably not above a hundred; the greater part of the Karaites are now found in Baghdad, Arabia, and Russia.

Many of the Jews are shopkeepers, others are money-changers, and a few are craftsmen and farmers; but a great number live on the Halûkah, or alms, collected from their brethren in Europe to support the poor in Jerusalem. Many are under the protection of the foreign Consulates, and they have of late years gained considerable immunity from Moslem persecution.

The Jews always live in a distinct quarter. The Jewish quarter in Jerusalem in the middle ages was, however, that now occupied by the Moslems. Their streets are not remarkable for cleanliness; thus at Tiberias the “king of the fleas” is said to hold his court, and if one half the stories which have been related to me by trustworthy witnesses were admitted, the Ashkenazim must be the dirtiest people on the face of the earth.

The good qualities of the Jews are numerous: they are energetic and able, very courteous to strangers, and charitable to one another; but they are fanatical to the last degree, and Palestine under the government of Oriental Jews would probably be closed against outer influence even more effectually than it is under the Turks.

The Jewish costume is more curious than picturesque; their weedy figures are clad in the Kumbaz or striped cotton gown, under which they wear a shirt, and white drawers, with cotton stockings. On their feet they have low leather shoes, on their heads a soft felt hat. On feast-days they appear in a fur cap, just like that commonly represented in Rembrandt’s pictures--no doubt the Jewish dress of his own days; and their gabardines are also edged with fur. The Spanish Jews wear a dress not unlike that of the better class of Moslems, and are indeed often only distinguished by their black turbans. The Jewish women wear sometimes the native dress with the Izâr, sometimes European print gowns, with gaudy Manchester shawls over their heads. The men of the Pharisees and other high-church sects, are also distinguished by the love-lock, a long lank curl which hangs down in front of the ear beside the cheek, and is, to the eyes of an European, one of the ugliest and most unmanly fashions which could be invented.

The position of Jewish women is not enviable; they are divorced on the smallest pretext, even for cooking a dinner badly, and they live in constant anxiety. One Jew, whom I met at intervals, had three wives in the course of as many years, and this is, I believe, no uncommon occurrence. The women are extremely superstitious, and I have been told of their mixing their own nail-parings, or locks of hair, in their husband’s food in order to secure their affections.

The Jews venerate the tombs of many of their ancestors. Thus at Tiberias the tomb of the great Moses ben Maimon, or Rambam, commonly known as Maimonides, is shown together with several other sepulchres of famous Rabbis; at Meirûn in Galilee the sepulchre of Simeon bar Jochai, the builder of twenty-five synagogues, is yearly the scene of a curious festival; at Shechem the Jews visit Joseph’s tomb, and make sacrifices of gold-lace, shawls, and other articles, as they do also at Meirûn; in Jerusalem the sepulchre of Simon the Just is also the scene of an annual feast.

The Jewish attitude in prayer is one of the most extraordinary peculiarities of the nation. The prescribed key, for intonation of the prayers, is high and nasal, and they sway their bodies backwards and forwards with much energy, as they sing. The scene thus presented in a synagogue is almost ludicrous, and no one ignorant of the language, would give the worshippers credit for their beautiful and affecting liturgy, which has influenced our own far more than we are ourselves, as a rule, aware.

And now turning from the native population to the foreign element in the country, a few words may be devoted first to the Russian pilgrims.

The reasons which induce the Russian Government to promote pilgrimages to Palestine are best known to themselves; the fact remains that the pilgrims receive Government help. The great hospice on the west side of Jerusalem, capable of accommodating 1000 persons, was founded in 1860, and includes the Russian cathedral; at Easter this large building is quite full, and the town swarms with Russian men and women. The strength and endurance of these peasants is wonderful: old women of sixty or seventy trudge on foot from Jaffa to Jerusalem, a distance of thirty-five miles by road; they undergo the fatigues of the crowded Easter ceremonies, and then walk down again to the coast. The savings of a whole life are sometimes expended on such a pilgrimage, and the only reward is the bunch of wax candles which, together perhaps with a coarse lithograph of some saint, the pilgrim brings back to his native village, where he enjoys henceforth the reputation for sanctity which the pilgrimage ensures.

The scene in the Russian cathedral at Easter time, is striking and instructive. The building is of modern Byzantine architecture, with a fine peal of bells. The walls are painted salmon-colour, with an intricate arabesque in blue and red; the screen in front of the apses is of light oak, with pictures let in and brightly coloured on gold backgrounds; the central gate in this screen is of brass, with silver lamps and candlesticks placed in front.

The congregation generally consists principally of women, but to the right stand the men, unkempt and uncombed, their furrowed features peering out from shaggy locks and long beards, their clothes of dull colours and thickly padded, their feet and legs cased in huge knee-boots. The women wear the same neutral tints, and knee-boots; they have heavy shawls over their heads. The priests are also bearded, with hair down to their shoulders--truly a barbarous priesthood, with a barbarous congregation. The Saviour is represented in Russian pictures with a similar beard and hair.

The religious ecstasy of the congregation was always intense. They took no part in the service, but continued to cross themselves, and knelt at intervals to kiss the floor, many knocking their heads so hard against it as to be heard at the other end of the church. Small tapers were burnt on the great silver candlesticks, and those who stood near the door passed the taper to those in front, each person bowing to the one who handed it, until those near the screen received it; it was then lighted, and when half burnt was put out, and left for its owner to claim.

The ritual was impressive; six choristers in ordinary dress stood round a great lectern just outside the screen, at the top of the steps leading up to it. The bass voice was fine, and the tenor very sweet; the service is frequently attended by Europeans in Jerusalem for the sake of the music.

A tall priest in a rich robe of cloth-of-gold and dark red velvet, stood before the brass gates, a crown on his head, a censer in his hand. His intoned sentences were answered by the responses of the choir. Presently the gates opened, and three priests came out of the mysterious sanctuary, where the golden candlestick and reliquaries could be seen on the altar. The Archimandrite, in flowing robes of black satin, with a broad stole of cloth-of-gold, his head veiled, and his long grey beard covering his breast, swept down the steps; he was preceded by black-robed acolytes, and followed by two other priests scarcely less magnificently dressed. The Gospel was read at a lectern in the middle of the congregation, the censer was swung, and the great bells boomed out during the lesson.

I have attended many religious services, Christian, Jewish, and Moslem, but none more remarkable for barbaric grandeur and pomp. The songs of Latin monks, the shrill nasal clamour of the Armenians, the Jewish gesticulation, are all far less dignified than the solemn chants of the Russian cathedral. The fanaticism of the pilgrims, drawn from the lowest and most ignorant peasant class, surpasses anything in Christendom, and is only equalled by that of the Moslems.

Another large section of the Easter pilgrims in Jerusalem is formed by the wealthy and powerful Armenian sect, to whom the church of St. James on Zion belongs--a very interesting building, carpeted with rich rugs, and lined with tiles and tortoise-shell. The visitor is here sprinkled with rose-water, and valuable jewelled missals are presented for the congregation to kiss.

The remaining nationalities found in Palestine may be briefly dismissed. On Carmel, and in Upper Galilee, the Druses form a large percentage of the population; but their life and habits have been discussed by well-informed writers, and there is no space to enlarge here on their curious admixture of Aryan and Semitic ideas, or on their belief in the duality of the Divine nature, and in incarnations of the Deity. There are also gipsies in Palestine, who engage in the usual occupations of gipsies, and who are called Naury. They have almost forgotten their own language, and speak Arabic as a rule. At sea-side towns there is a curious mixture of mongrel nationalities--Maltese, Greeks, Slavs, and Levantines, with stray specimens of most European nations--a class as uninteresting as they are degraded.

We may now consider the history of the rise and progress of the two German colonies which have obtained a footing in Palestine; for without some account of these enterprises the sketch of the inhabitants of the Holy Land would be incomplete.

The German colonists belong to a religious society known as the “Temple,” which originated among the Pietists of Wurtemburg, who, without leaving the Lutheran Church, separated themselves from the world, and engaged in Sunday meetings for prayer and edification. The Pietists accept as their standard the explanation given by Dr. J. A. Bengel (in his Gnomon of the New Testament), of the prophecies in the Revelation. Among the friends and disciples of Bengel was a certain Dr. Hoffmann, who obtained from Frederick, the eccentric King of Wurtemburg, a tract of barren land at Kornthal, where his disciples established a Pietist colony, which he intended to transplant later to Palestine. Hoffmann, however, died, and his followers remained contentedly on their lands; but Hoffmann’s son was not forgetful of his father’s designs, and instituted a new colony at Kirschenhardthof, with a special view to its final removal to the Holy Land. Among his earliest disciples was Herr G. D. Hardegg, who became in time a leader among the Temple Pietists.

The younger Hoffmann (Christopher) visited Palestine about 1858, and, in 1867, a small trial expedition of twelve men was sent out. They settled in reed huts near Semûnieh, on the edge of the Plain of Esdraelon, west of Nazareth; and in spite of the warning of friends who knew the unhealthy climate of that place, they remained in the malarious atmosphere of the low ground near the springs, until they all died of fever.

On the 6th of August, 1868, Christopher Hoffmann and G. D. Hardegg left Kirschenhardthof, and in October they reached Palestine; after visiting various places, they resolved on settling at Haifa and Jaffa, and bought land in both places. The Haifa colony was the first founded, that at Jaffa being some six months younger. Hardegg became president of the former, and Hoffmann of the latter.

The religious views of the colonists are not easily understood, and I believe that most of them have rather vague ideas of their own intentions. Their main motive for establishing colonies in Palestine, is the promotion of conditions favourable to the fulfilment (which they expect to occur shortly) of the prophecies of the Revelation and of Zechariah. They suppose it to be a duty to separate themselves from the world, and to set an example of a community living, as closely as possible, on the model of the Apostolic age. The spread of infidelity in Germany appears to be the main cause of this separative tendency among the Pietists.

The tenets of the Temple Society are probably best summarised in the “Profession of Faith of the Temple,” published by Herr Hoffmann, and including five articles as below:

“First. To prepare for the great and terrible day of the second coming of Jesus Christ, which, from the signs of the times, is near. This preparation is made by the building of a spiritual temple in all lands, specially in Jerusalem.

“Secondly. This temple is composed of the gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor.