Show JEWS AT JERUSALEI i Returning to Palestine and Tali iug the Holy City QUEER DRESS AND CUSTOMS A Real Estate Boom in the Holy CityTh Jewish Quarter Curious Colony of Americans JBKUSAICM July 11 1SS9 Special Correspondence Cor-respondence of TUE HEltIIIThirty thousand out of the forty thousand people in Jerusalem are Jews and the Israelites bid fair to again become the predominant people in Palestine The Turkish government govern-ment which has for ages prohibited them from living longer than three weeks at a time in the holy laud is under the influence flf the foreign government relaxing its restrictions and at present the JtiWS APE COMING HERE IIV THE IlUNDKnUS They are engaging in business and they now control a great part of the trade of Jerusalem Some of them feel that the day when the prophecy of the Bible that they shall again inhabit their land shall be fulfilled is at hand and one curious tribe from Southern Arabia claims to have received re-ceived revelation that they must leave their desert country and come back to < Palestine The Jews have lived in Yemen Arabia for the past 2500 years They are of the tribe of Gad and they left Palestine 700 years before Christ was born They are bringing with them many valuable old documents which prove their origin and not a few of them are engaged in agriculture agri-culture near Jerusalem The persecution of the Jews in Russia and Austria is driving driv-ing many of them here and there are large numbers of Polish and Spanish Jews it Jerusalem Our American consul Mr Gilman tells me that there are about TWO HUNDRED AMERICAN JEWS IX JERUSALEM JERU-SALEM and he says that the great number of Jewish Jew-ish immigrants is the wonder of the people of this part of the east He says that the removal of the restrictions on Jewish immigration im-migration has taken place during the past three or four years and that when he came < hero it was the policy of the foreign governments gov-ernments represented at Jerusalem to aid the Turks in expelling the Jews He was advised shortly after his arrival that some American Jews were overstaying their three weeks time in Palestine and was requested re-quested to direct them to leave He replied re-plied that such action was entirely contrary to the spirit of our government which is founded on religious and race freedom and after some negotiations the American Jews were allowed to remain Shortly after this the British consul under instructions instruc-tions from the British minister at Constantinople Constan-tinople took the same grounds and I am told that the German and the French governments gov-ernments have followed suit The time of Jews remaining m Jralestino has been extended ex-tended and the restrictions upon their residence resi-dence in Jerusalem have been practically removed A half century ago there were only thirtytwo Jewish families in all Jerusalem Jeru-salem and the number in Palestine was only 3000 Now there are nearly fifty thousand in the holy land and threciourths of the population or Jerusalem is made up of them A CURIOUS PEOPLE THEY AKE Like no other Jews on the face of the earth They are nearer the type which existed herein here-in the past and they have a prescribed dress and their appearance is like that ono o-no other people of the orient The boys and men wear long coat likegowns which reach without belts from the neck to the feet and which show other gowns beneath them at the front Their heads are covered with cloth or velvet caps bordered with long brown fur which stands straight out forming form-ing a wide fringe about the head None shave and all who can wear beards Each face is framed in two long curly locks of hair which come out just in front of the ears and in many cases reach down to the breasts in accordance with an injunction of the scriptures stating that thou must not mar the corners of thy beard The Jews here never cut their hair in front of the ears and I have seen boys with the whole of the rest of the head shaved and these two locks left THE JERUSALEM JEWS have fine faces with the olive complexion which are common to their race the world over They have hair of all colors from black and white to a fiery red and there Are many among them with beards of silvery sil-very whiteness Jerusalem is to the elderly Jew of Europe what Benares is to the Hindoo Ho hopes to come here to die and I am told that many of the Jews here have a belief that if they die in other lands they will be dragged under the earth through tho globe from whence they are laid until they come out upon the Mount of I Olives The side of this mountain is covered cov-ered with Jewish tombstones and soil from it is sent to Jews in many parts of the world in order that it may be put into their I coffins at burial Quito a number of the American Jews hero are old men Few of I them however are of American birth and very few speak English They have acquit ac-quit in some way a citizenship in Amer it1 i nut they are not of the high class of of their race in our country Among them ur some old men who have gore out of business or have given their business over to their sons and who live here upon an allowance from them ONE OF THESE MEN came to our consul the other day and asked if there was not some way in which he could let ve the property which he had in Jerusalem to found a synagogue He was A very dirty ragged looking old man and tho consul was surprised at the question Upon inquiry he said that he owned six good houses in Jerusalem and that he had laved enough to buy these out of an allowance allow-ance of 1000 a year which his sons in New York had been sending him The Jews of Jerusalem have many paupers among them and their condition is worse than that of any of their race the world over Tho numbers who have been forced here by persecution are supported l almost entirely by the different Jewish churches over the world and the numbers of different denominations of Jews and Christians who are so supported has made Jerusalem a city of mendicants At certain cer-tain hours of the day bread is given away at certain places and the people come to these in crowds The Jews themselves in the fewest of cases change their religion but the different denominations of begging Christians move about from church to church as the supplies rise or fall just as the bad boy changes his Sunday school according ac-cording to the prospects of presents at time of Christmas Such giving has made Jerusalem A HOTBED FOR THE FROPAGATIOX OF BKGOAKS and this is truo of other people than the Jews The number of alms takers among them has made the Jerusalem Jews as a class regardless of their personal appearance ap-pearance and tney live in dirt and squalor I have visited a great number of their houses whole famllies live in one cavelike room the size of a hall bed room with no windows and lighted only by tho door at the front both walls and floor are of stone There is little furniture to speak of There is only a bed or two for tho grown people and the rest of the family must bunk on the floor The kitchen is in most cases a littlo box just high enough for the woman of the house to stand upright in and not more than three feet wide and four feet deep At tho back of this there is a rudo l stove of stone for tho burning of charcoal and some were in the catacombs which makes up tho tenements of a score of lamilics there is a well which is the common com-mon property of all On the door post of each dwelling whether it be of only one room or more there is tacked a rolled up strip of white parchment six inches long on which is written 1 THE NAME JEHOVAH and the ten commandments and every one of these Palestine Jews wears the com I uumdiucnts tied upon his arm under his coat They have in some cases philactenes l for their foreheads at the time of worship and the most of them are very devout I They do not approve of wearing any other I than the Jewish dress de most Jews who come here adopt the dress which I have described Our consul says there are 150 Jewish synagogues in Jerusalem but these as > a i rule are small and they are not so fine as the other churches of the city The service ser-vice is different from that which is observed in America and the women worship indifferent a in-different room from the men I was in Jerusalem at the time of the celebration of the Passover and I was told that the feast is now celebrated much the same as it was in the days of the past save that a piece of burnt bone takes the place of the lamb At this time the Jews turned out in holiday attire and I was surprised to see mCII DOWNS OF VELVET AXD SILK of blue yellow and green on some of the men whom I had seen before in little more than rags I attended the synagogues on the following day and found them nil full i The Rabbis wero gorgeously clad and I have seldom seen more devout congregations congrega-tions The men were all reading Hebrew out loud and in the rooms adjoining I found women talking over the scriptures or listening listen-ing to the elder women among them WhO were reading The Rabbis of Jerusalem are nOtengaged in business Some of them act as judges in quarrels among the Jews and the suits are always settled by them The chief Rabbi is now more than ninety years old and he has I am told lately taken a new wife aged twentyfive He is a very intelligent and bright old man and is highly respected in Jerusalem One of the great sights of Jerusalem is the Jews wailing place where every Friday Fri-day certain sects meet on the outside of the < walls of the Mosque of Omar which occupies occu-pies THE SITE OF SOLOMONS TEMPLE and with their heads bent against the stones sorrow over the loss of Jerusalem and pray God to give the land back to his chosen people This custom has been observed ob-served since tho days of the middle ages and it is one of the saddest of sights I J visited it last week In a narrow alley surrounded by miserable houseson stone flags which have been worn with the bare feet of thousands of Jewsagainst a wall of great blocks of marble which reached for fifty feet or more above them a long line of men in long gowns and of women with shawls over their heads stood with their heads bowed praying and weeping Many of the men had white beards and the long curly locks which fell down in front of their ears were of silver Others were just in their prime and I could not but wonder won-der when I saw the forms of these at times almost convulsed with emotion Each had a well thumbed Hebrew Bible in his hand and from time to time the party broke out into a kind of chant an old grayhaired man acting as leader ana tho rest coming in on the refrain The chant was in a strange tongue but as translated it is as follows LeaderFor the palace that lies desolate Response We sit in solitude and mourn LeaderFor the walls that are destroyed de-stroyed Response Wo sit in solitude and mourn LeaderFor our Majesty that is departed de-parted Response Wo sit in solitude and mourn LeaderFor our great men who lie dead Response Wo sit in solitude and mourn LeaderFor our priests who have stumbled Response We sit in solitude and mourn Leader For our kings who have despised himThe The effect of this chant can not be appreciated appre-ciated without hearing it The old menthe men-the weeping women who kiss the stones of the wall that separates them from what was once the site of Solomons temple and which is even now the holiest spot on earth to the Jew the genuine feeling expressed ex-pressed by all and the faith that they show in thus coming here week after week and year after year is wonderfnlly impressive It is indeed one of the strange sights of this strangest of cities A nation is mourned for and other chants which they utter contain expressions such as the following lowing We pray thee have mercy 011 Zion gather the children of Jerusalem together to-gether may the kingdom soon return to Zion comfort those who mourn over Jerusalem Jeru-salem may peace and joy abide with Zion and the branch of Jesse spring up a Jerusalem Jeru-salem THE JEWISH CHARITABLE IN Sat S-at Jerusalem are many I have visited several among which are the schools which have been established here by the Roths childs These are very large and they teach the young Jews the industrial arts as well as give them good educations in other ways I visited the carpenter shops and saw Palestine Jews working away quite as skillfully as our American carpenters I saw brighteyed boys working in the tin shops and foundries making models of work which are to eo to the exposition at Paris and I was taken through art schools and drafting rooms where these boys were sketching and modelling figures out of clay into very fair pieces of sculpture There is also a girls school connected with the Rothschilds fund and this contains more than one hundred girls The establishments are known as those of the Israelitish alliance alli-ance and they are supported by Jewish churches over the world as well as by tho Rothschilds Among the curious features of this alliance alli-ance are a number of agricultural colonies in different parts of Palestine There is an agricultural school near Jaffa which has MORE THAN SEVEN HUNDRED PUPILS and there are eight of these agricultural colonies One of their farms near Jaffa has twentyeight thousand acres It is situated on the plains of Sharon where the Philistines lived and it has tens of thousands thou-sands of vines and olive trees The Turks are very much averse to selling land to the Jews but the latter show themselves to be as good farmers as they are business men and the terraced condition of the hills about Jerusalem shows that the holy land was far better cultivated under them than it has been under their conquerors A large amount of land just outside of the city of Jerusalem is now either in the hands of tho Jews or of their charitable institutions Mr Behar the head of the Rothschilds schools tells me they have just bought > the Jerusalem hotel and will add it to their school Sir Moses De Montefiore who managed the fund left by a rich New Orleans Israelite built many good houses for Jews on the road between Bethlehem and Jerusalem and there are a number of Jewish hospitals Among tho people who confidently believe be-lieve that TilE JEWS WILL SOON AGAIN OWN PALESTINE is a colony of fifteen persons who live in a fine house built on the very walls of Jerusalem and who are known as the Americans These people are not Jews at all They are Christians who have come here from different parts of the United States and more especially from Chicago to await the fulfillment of the prophecy that God will regenerate the world beginning at Jerusalem They bo here that this day is close at hand and they say that it has begun in the Jews coming com-ing back to Palestine They see its fulfillment fulfill-ment in the improvements that are going on in Jerusalem and cite the new roads that have been built over the country as one of the evidences of it They are evidently evi-dently people of means as well as of refinement refine-ment and culture When I visited them the other day I talked with several of them and found them intelligent and well educated edu-cated I asked one as to their belief and was answered that they took the Bible as their guide and that they had come to Jerusalem to endeavor to follow its prompts pro-mpts while living upon its walls They have no particular creed and one of them said when asked as to this that there is too much preaching and too little good living They do no missionary work and say that they have not yet felt called upon to preach They spend much of their time in Bible study and singing and are much respected re-spected among the foreigners who reside in Jerusalem There is no doubt however that JERUSALEM IS IMPROVING The most of its streets are now well paved and the sanitary condition of the city has been greatly improved There is stillroom still-room however for further advance in this direction and the side streets are filled with garbage and slop and you now and then find a dead dog or cat in a state of putrid decomposition Tho Jerusalem outside out-side the walls is now almostas large as the city within and I am told that land has risen to such an extent that the holy city I nay he said to have real estate boom In the Mediterranean hotel where I am stop ping there is a card advertising a fine farm for sale between Bethlehem and Jerusalem and I learn that along tho Jaffa road just outside the gate property has gone up within a year or so several hundred percent per-cent Ono piece which belongs to a charitable chari-table institution was bought a short time ago for S500 It is now worth 8000 and cannot be bought for that amount A telegraph tele-graph line now runs for hero to the seacoast sea-coast and a railroad company has been organized or-ganized to build a line from Jaffa to Jerusalem Jeru-salem I DROVE OUT TO BETHLEHEM which lies an hours drive from here yesterday yes-terday and I found telegraph poles planted on the plains where King David fought the Philistines and running up the hills where the shepherds watched their flocks when they saw the wonderful star On tho same ground today tho turbanned Bethlehem Bethle-hem shepherds of the nineteenth century are minding their sheep and as I looked at their rough forms clad in sheeps skin coats I wondered whether the bright star of the electric light might not some time appear in their own little town and on the tower of David which looks down upon them from the Jerusalem of today Bethlehem has many new houses There is a good road now to Hebron and the day will probably soon be when you can travel over the holy land in a carnage Jerusalem for the first time in its history has a police force and its order is now as good as that of New York It has fairly good hotels and the town is awakened every morning by the bugle call of the modern Turkish band The American Ameri-can flag floats from the roof of the consular building on the top of Mount Zion and you find on its streets travelers from all parts of the world FRVXK G CARPENTER |