Harry Luke

“ The influx of Moslems from North Africa into Syria and Palestine began in the early years of the eighteenth century, when the mercenary infantry of the pashas was composed in part of these people. Some had, indeed, been established in Jerusalem from religious motives from a yet earlier period ; while others followed in the nineteenth century in consequence of the French conquest of Algeria. ”

“ The settled Arabs are of more mixed descent than the Beduin, and form the link between these and the Syrians, by whom we understand the descendants of all those peoples, other than the Jews, who spoke Aramaic at the beginning of the Christian era. ”

“ The community traces its origin to a Companion of the Prophet, Abu Darr Ghifari, who is supposed to have first taught his doctrines in the villages of Sarafend and Meis. Others regard the Meta- wileh as immigrants from Persia who entered Syria and Palestine during one of the Persian invasions. Their religion is a form of the Shiah division of Islam, and they still maintain contact with the shrine of Kerbela. Most of the Metawileh dwell in Syria, where, in the eighteenth century, they were a powerful political force ; there are only about 160 in Palestine, partly in Galilee, partly in Acre. ”

“ The dignity of Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem then became a purely titular one, accorded to prelates of the Roman Curia, and so remained until the de facto revival of the see in 1847.
Custodia of Terra Santa. — During the five and a half centuries in which the Patriarchate was in abeyance the Latin Holy Places in Palestine were in the charge of the Franciscan Order under the ' Most Reverend Father Custodian of Terra Santa,' who was and is the Superior of the Franciscan establishments in Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Cyprus. ”

“ The largest element of the population is composed of Arabs and Syrians, [1] both separately and in every degree of combination. The language of this element is Arabic ; its religions are Islam and Christianity. Next in numerical strength are the Jews, whose languages will be referred to below. Immigration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has contributed the bulk of the present Jewish population of Palestine ; the sole representatives of ancient Israel continuously inhabiting the country are to be found in the small remnant of the Samaritans {cf. ”

“ Population. No census has been taken in Palestine since the country has come under British administration, and it is therefore impossible to give in this edition of the Handbook anything more than approximate estimates of the population. ”

“ The ' American Colony.' A characteristic community of Jerusalem is that known as the ' American Colony.* This community was estab- lished in Jerusalem in 1881 by a lawyer of Chicago, Horatio Spafford, and his wife, and at that time consisted of 14 adults. Its membership is now 90, drawn from 10 different nationalities, among which citizens of the United States and Swedes preponderate. The aims of the colony are religious, and are based on non-dogmatic Christianity. ”

“ Many of the refugees were men of wealth, and more were men of learning. Little more than a generation saw the Jewish community in Palestine
THE JEWS 51
some ten thousand in number, with the influence and leadership in the hands of Sephardim, as the Jews from Spain were called. A strong rival to Jerusalem quickly grew up in the north Galilean town of Safed. The Jews of Spain had brought with them that mystical method of thought and Biblical interpretation known as Kabhdld, and in Safed Kabbalistic literature was studied and its professors acquired fame throughout the whole of Jewry. ”

“ The Druses, of whom 7,000 inhabit Palestine, principally Galilee and Phoenicia, are both a race and a religion. Their original home is the Lebanon, over which, for centuries, they disputed authority with the Maronites. After the events of i860, however, the Druses migrated in large numbers to the Jebel Hauran, which now contains a greater Druse population than the Lebanon itself. ”

“ There is little or no cohesion between the various tribes. Their watering places are springs, standing pools of rain water, and cisterns roughly cut in the rock in the valley bottoms. On the border between ' the desert and the sown ' the people tend to change their mode of life ; the nomads become partly or wholly sedentary, the sedentary become semi-nomadic. ”

“ The Jacobites take their name from Jacob Baradai, who built up a Mono- physite Church in Syria in the sixth century. They are in communion with the Copts. Their rite is a Syriac form of the ancient rite of Antioch, with the liturgy attributed to S. James the Less. We first hear of a Jacobite Bishop of Jerusalem at the end of the sixth century (Severus) , and from 11 40 onwards the succession is regularly maintained. For centuries the office of Bishop of Jerusalem was combined with that of ' Mafrian,' .who was the principal auxiliary of the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch. ”

“ The method of election is by adult suffrage, but women have not the right to be elected as members of the Council. The original assembly was elected in the autumn of 1920 and appointed an executive committee, which deals with the Government, in respect of internal matters of the Jewish community. ”

“ The Russian conquest of the Caucasus in the sixties of the last century caused many Moslem tribes- men of the Caucasus range and adjacent provinces, unwilling to live under Christian rule, to seek refuge in a Moslem land. ”

“ The camps of the different tribes vary in form : some, such as those of the Ta'amireh, are as a rule rect- angular, others are circular, others oval. Small in numbers, the tribes generally avoid open places for their camps, not only for shelter but in order not to be conspicuous ”

“ It is a chaotic mixture of Islam, Christianity, and yet older elements, and it regards both the Gospel and the Quran as inspired books, although it gives to them a peculiar interpretation. The word ' Druse ' is commonly derived from one Isma'il Darazi, the first missionary to the Druses ”

“ The Moslem total includes not only Arabs and Syrians, but a number of Circassian, Magharbeh (North African) and Bosnian immigrants and a few Turkoman nomads.
The Christian total includes adherents of the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Greek Uniate (Melchite) , Anglican, Armenian (Gregorian) , Armenian Uniate, Jacobite, Jacobite Uniate (Syrian) , Coptic, Abyssinian, Abyssinian Uniate, Maronite, Chaldaean (Nestorian Uniate) , Lutheran and other Churches.
The British population (exclusive of the garrison) is estimated at 1,100 souls.
The density of the population is about 80 to the square mile. ”

“ Theodosius abolished the ' Sanhedrin ' (425 a.d.) , and Palestine became a Christian country. Tiberias, how- ever, still continued for some centuries to be a centre of Hebrew learning, and it was here, in the ninth century, that the system of vocalization now in use in Hebrew Bibles received its final shape.
Throughout the Middle Ages the Jewish population in Palestine remained a negligible quantity. Benjamin of Tudela visited the country in 11 70-1 and found only about 1440 Jews. Moses ben Nahman Girondi in 1267 reports the existence of only two Jewish families in Jerusalem, engaged as dyers ”

“ Their first colony was founded at Haifa in 1868, the second immediately afterwards in Jaffa; and they also have colonies in Jerusalem, Sarona and Wilhelma (near Jaffa) , and Beit-Lahm, near Nazareth. They are excellent agriculturists.
§ 14. The Jews. Judaism in Palestine after 70 a.d. — The destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple at the hands of the Romans in 70 A.D. marked the material ruin of the Jewish nation in Palestine. But it survived spiritually. The Jews no longer had a national territory to govern ”

“ Thus the people on the western edge of the Judaean Desert, as, for example, the Ta'amireh, who were ovigimWy fellahin, take their cattle out into the desert and live a nomadic life ; on the other hand, genuine Beduin in the desert regions, such as the Rasha'iden of 'Ain Jidi, remain so long in certain places as to become almost sedentary. ”