THE JEWISH EXPOSITOR, AND FRIEND OF ISRAEL

October, 1824

Letter of the Rev. W. B. Lewis — Reproduced and Annotated by Rabbi Yair Hoffman. I am indepted to a friend, Professor Shaul Stampfer of Jerualem. for sending me a copy of the original article.

Introduction: Historical Background

The document below comes from The Jewish Expositor and Friend of Israel, a monthly magazine published by the London Society for rachmana litzlan- Promoting Christianity Among the Jews (known as the London Jews’ Society, founded 1809). It includes two parts: a short article about the Callenberg Institution — a German Protestant missionary organization founded in 1727 — and, far more historically important, an eyewitness letter from the Anglican missionary Rev. W. B. Lewis describing the desperate situation of Jews living in Jerusalem under Ottoman Turkish rule in 1824.

Lewis wrote his letter from Aintoura, a village in present-day Lebanon, on February 23, 1824. His account is one of the most detailed non-Jewish eyewitness reports of what life was really like for Jews in the Holy Land at that time.

He describes horrifying extortion, beatings, wrongful imprisonment, forced labor, and stolen property — all suffered by a community with no European diplomatic protection in Jerusalem. The letter also covers the long Jewish struggle to reclaim the ruined Hurva Synagogue, which had been destroyed by Arab creditors a century earlier.

This document is historically valuable precisely because Lewis was a non-Jewish outsider with nothing to gain by exaggerating. His testimony confirms what Jewish sources also describe about life under Ottoman rule in Jerusalem. His letter also mentions several specific rabbis by name — figures who can now be identified and whose stories are told in the research notes below (printed in italics).

Proceedings of the London Society — Palestine

Letter from the Rev. W. B. Lewis

 Rev. W. B. Lewis was an Anglican clergyman working for the London Jews’ Society in the early 1820s, traveling through Syria and Palestine. The Society’s own centenary history identifies Lewis as one of the first missionaries active in the region, mentioned alongside the more famous traveler Joseph Wolff. Lewis was writing from Aintoura, Lebanon, where he was based.

His letter shows he personally knew many of the Jewish rabbis in Jerusalem, had intervened on their behalf with local Ottoman officials, and felt deep anger at the injustice he witnessed. He is described in some sources as Irish. While his ultimate purpose was missionary, his letter stands as a powerful document of advocacy for Jewish rights.

The Rev. W. B. Lewis in a letter dated Aintoura, February 23d, 1824, gives the following statement of the present condition of the Jews at Jerusalem:

The General Condition of Jews in Jerusalem

Jerusalem is truly miserable, groaning under the tyranny of the oppressor. Jews as well as Christians, and especially a class of Jews who first began to assemble at Jerusalem about eighteen years ago, from foreign lands, who come to die in the land of their fathers, are subject to daily insults, and are shamefully and inhumanly oppressed. Their firmans are disregarded, and they know not where to apply for relief or protection, for the power of the consul does not extend to Jerusalem, and the European ministers at Constantinople are at too great a distance to protect them; but I will describe some of their grievances more particularly.

The Jews who began arriving in Jerusalem about eighteen years before Lewis wrote this letter — around 1806 onward — were mainly the Perushim, disciples of the Vilna Gaon who began making aliyah in organized waves from 1808 onward. These were Lithuanian Jews who came specifically to settle permanently in Eretz Yisroel. Lewis correctly identifies the central legal problem they faced: European Jews living in Ottoman territory were supposed to have firman-based protections, but European consuls had no power in Jerusalem, so the community had no one to enforce those rights.

Those Jews who endeavour to obtain a livelihood by the work of their hands, are frequently forced to give up their time, and to work for the ungrateful Turk without payment. Sometimes a mere trifle is thrown to the Jew, but in either case if he attempts to reason with the Turk, he is threatened with the bastinado, and I know not what.

The Case of Rabbi Solomon P**: Beaten in the Street

Rabbi Solomon P** is an engraver of seals. In the open street he was accosted by a Turk, who produced a large stone, and told him to cut out a seal. Solomon replied it was not in his power, for he only knew how to engrave, not to cut and prepare the stone; the Turk thereupon laid hold of him by his beard, drew his sword, kicked him, and cut and struck him unmercifully.

The poor man cried, but there was no one to assist him. Turks in the street passed by unconcerned, and the wounded Jew afterwards sought redress in vain from the officers of justice.

Rabbi Solomon P** cannot be identified with certainty. Lewis gave only his first initial to protect someone still living under Ottoman rule. The Ashkenazi community in Jerusalem at this time was very small, so this man was almost certainly known personally to the community’s leadership. This incident illustrates the everyday danger faced by Jews simply trying to earn a living — not from criminals or strangers, but from ordinary members of the dominant class who felt entitled to demand services from Jews at will.

The Case of Rabbi M. Balter: Thrown into Prison on False Charges

Rabbi M. Balter (now dead) with three or four of the Sephardim Jews, was thrown into a dungeon under pretence of their having sold wine to a Turk; for Jews and Christians are not allowed in Jerusalem to make wine for Turks, but only for their own private use. Although the charge could not be proved, instruments to bastinado and to torture him were produced, to force money out of him for the governor; the man in his fright, and not able to speak Arabic, made a sign with three fingers, meaning to signify, as he said afterwards, that he would give three hundred piastres to be released, but the governor [clearly falsely yh] interpreted the sign as a promise to give three burses (or fifteen hundred piastres,) and he demanded that sum accordingly from each of the other Jews in prison for the same pretended crime, and ordered the house of the foreign Jew to be rifled, and himself detained until the sum was paid.

The man was not in possession of half the money, and when he had been in confinement for some time, and dragged about the streets among his brethren as a criminal with a chain round his neck, an order was sent to the chief of the Askenasim Jews to appear before the governor.

The old Rabbi was ill in bed, but this was no excuse, he was compelled to rise, and was placed on the back of an ass, supported by two men; the governor told him that he should be considered responsible for the money due from the Jew in prison, and on the Rabbi’s remonstrating, he told him that he should likewise be sent to prison. The young man who accompanied the Rabbi as interpreter, said, that it was contrary to the Turkish laws, thus to imprison the chief Rabbi, upon which the young man himself was ordered to prison, put in chains, and kept with his brother Jew in a dark, dirty dungeon, until the avarice of the governor was satisfied.

The Jews at Jerusalem, (I speak even of European Jews) are liable to be stopped by the lowest fallaah of the country, who, if he pleases, may demand money of them as a right due to the mussulman; and this extortion may be practised on the same poor Jew over and over again in the space of ten minutes.

Rabbi M. Balter cannot be firmly identified. Lewis notes he was ‘now dead’ at the time of writing in early 1824. The scene Lewis describes — a man making a desperate hand gesture that was deliberately misread to extort five times what he offered — shows how the system worked. The language barrier left the Jewish community helpless. Even a sick, elderly rabbi was not safe from being dragged out of bed and held responsible for another person’s supposed debt.

Attacks at the Graves of the Forefathers

The Jews are fond of frequenting the tombs of their forefathers, especially on particular days, to read their prayers in remembrance of the dead. Here advantage is taken of them again. They are rudely accosted and pilfered, and if resistance is made, they are beat almost to death, and this not by common highwaymen or Bedouin Arabs, but by men they may have been in the habit of seeing and talking with every day. The Jew is always known by the manner in which he wears his hair.

Lewis’s Visit to Hebron and a Near-Kidnapping

In my visit to Hebron, I was accompanied by a Jew, the same now with me in Aintoura; I had the utmost difficulty in protecting him on the road, as well as in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem; the Turks would have forced from him the chaphar, though under the wing of an Englishman. This same young Rabbi on his way to me one morning in Jerusalem, was laid hold of by soldiers, who were going to yoke him with another Jew to one of the heavy cannons they were drawing out against Bethlehem. Had he not been fortunate enough to escape, 200 piastres which he was bringing to me for Hebrew Scriptures, would, in all probability, have been seized upon by the soldiers, as well as a gold watch which I had desired him to get repaired for me.

The ‘chaphar’ was an informal cash payment extorted from Jews and other non-Muslims as a kind of on-the-spot tax, distinct from the official poll tax. Even being in the company of a British subject offered no real protection. The threat to yoke Jews to heavy cannon as unpaid forced labor — with no warning and no recourse — illustrates just how vulnerable the community was.

The Case of Rabbi Israel of Safed: Animals Stolen

Rabbi Israel, also a foreign Jew, and chief Rabbi of the Parushim in Safet, was setting out for that place from Jerusalem, when the animals he had hired for the journey, and which he had actually paid for, were taken sans ceremonie, for the use of the Cadis of Mecca and Cairo, who were to proceed to Damascus in a few days. This is a common Turkish trick, and it may afford a good picture of despotism, united with fanaticism, and in full exercise. Horses, camels, mules, &c. are considered as made for the exclusive use of the haughty followers of Mahomed, as well as the inferior animals of the man kind, so that he may seize and use or torture them at his will.

But to add to the unpleasantness of the trick in the present instance, the Turkish muleteer refused to return the money paid by the Rabbi for the journey, and in vain the Jew asked for justice, until having applied to me, I interfered and succeeded in obtaining for the Rabbi his money through Omar Effendi.

I formed this man’s acquaintance through the means of Achmet Bey of Damascus, who gave me a letter of introduction to him, and he (Omar Effendi) made high professions of friendship. He desired me to apply to him as often as I stood in need of his services, and I was punctual in doing so as often as I wished to interfere in behalf of the European Jews.

This shews very strongly the necessity of an European resident protector in Jerusalem, and I am more and more confirmed in the persuasion that the residence there or in Damascus, as head quarters, of a person entrusted with the authority of consul, and who could feel for the suffering Jews as well as Gentiles, would be productive of great advantage.

The ‘Rabbi Israel’ mentioned here is almost certainly Rabbi Israel of Shklov (died 1839), one of the two great leaders of the Perushim community in the Land of Israel. He and Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Shklov — who appears later in this letter — were the two central figures of this historic movement.

The two men came from the same town: Shklov, a prosperous Jewish city in what is now Belarus, which was at the time one of the greatest centers of Torah learning in Eastern Europe. Shklov had a famous yeshiva, the first Hebrew printing press in all of Belarus, and was home to some of the most brilliant minds of the Lithuanian Jewish world. Some sources describe Rabbi Menachem Mendel and Rabbi Israel as brothers, though this is debated; what is certain is that they were the closest of colleagues and co-leaders, bound together by their shared devotion to the Vilna Gaon and to the dream of rebuilding Jewish life in the Holy Land.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Shklov (approximately 1740-1827) was one of the Vilna Gaon’s innermost disciples. He himself wrote that he ‘did not withdraw from his teacher’s presence; I held onto him and did not leave him; I remained in his tent day and night; I went where he went, slept where he slept, and my hand never left his hand.’ After the Gaon died in 1797, Rabbi Menachem Mendel spent years editing and publishing the Gaon’s writings. He then led the first organized wave of Perushim to the Land of Israel in 1808, settling first in Safed (Tzfat) in the Galilee. After a devastating plague struck Safed in 1812, he relocated to Jerusalem in 1816, where he made it his life’s mission to reclaim the ruins of the Hurva Synagogue and reestablish Ashkenazi Jewish life in the Holy City.

Rabbi Israel of Shklov (died 1839) led the third wave of Perushim to arrive in Israel in 1809. He remained as the leader of the Safed community while his colleague Menachem Mendel moved to Jerusalem. Rabbi Israel suffered devastating personal losses: during the cholera epidemic that struck Safed, his wife and all his children except one daughter died. That surviving daughter was later killed in an earthquake. Yet Rabbi Israel did not leave. He is best known today as the author of Pe’at HaShulchan, a landmark halachic work on the agricultural laws that apply specifically in the Land of Israel — laws that had been largely neglected for centuries because there were so few Jewish farmers living there. He was also beaten by Arab rioters during the peasant revolt of 1834. In 1837, while visiting Jerusalem, the great Safed earthquake destroyed his city, killing 4,000 Jews. He stayed in Jerusalem for the last two years of his life and died there in 1839.

Together, these two men — Rabbi Menachem Mendel leading Jerusalem, Rabbi Israel leading Safed — laid the groundwork for the entire modern Ashkenazi community in the Land of Israel. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin was among the many notable descendants of this early community. The network of communities they built, the fundraising systems they established in Europe, and the legal battles they fought with Ottoman authorities set the stage for the larger waves of Jewish immigration that would follow in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Case of Rabbi Mendel: Soldiers Break Down His Door

The facts I have mentioned may be substantiated, if necessary, by documents from the Jews themselves; and to shew more fully the nature of Jewish grievances in Jerusalem, I might accumulate many such instances of barbarity on the part of the Turks of all classes, towards this people. One instance more of shameless barbarity must suffice, and I will state it fully although I may be tedious, as it took place very lately, and will serve to shew how the governors and rulers in this part of the world manage their business without law, judge, or jury, and without respect to age, country, learning, or religion.

The name of Mendel is well known to the Committee through the journals of Mr. Wolf, he is chief Rabbi of the Askenasim Jews in Jerusalem, an European, and an inoffensive old man. He is considered the most learned of the Jews in Syria, and in his religion he lives in the strictest sense a Pharisee; he has a zeal for G-d, we must bear him record, though not according to knowledge.

The ‘Mendel’ referred to here is Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Shklov (approximately 1740-1827). Lewis’s description of him as ‘the most learned of the Jews in Syria’ gives us a sense of how he was regarded even by outsiders. This man, already in his mid-eighties, had given his entire life to rebuilding Jewish presence in Jerusalem. He had walked much of the way from Eastern Europe to the Land of Israel, buried colleagues lost to plague, fought bureaucratic battles with Ottoman officials in Constantinople, and worked for years to secure legal documents proving Jewish ownership of the Hurva ruins. And now, in the middle of the night, soldiers were breaking down his door. The reference to ‘Mr. Wolf’s journals’ is to Joseph Wolff (1795-1862), a well-known traveler and missionary whose published journals were widely read in England.

He was in bed, when, at a late hour of the night, he was disturbed by a loud knocking outside his door; he returned no answer, supposing robbers had entered. In a few moments the door was burst open, and in rushed a large party of soldiers. They approached the Rabbi with drawn swords, and seized and mal-treated the poor old man. His wife screamed, and the other Jews in the house came up.

Young Rabbi Isaac, who speaks Arabic, demanded the cause of their unexpected visit. It is because the street door was found open, replied the soldiers, and one of you must go down to the governor, who is below. The young man accompanied the soldiers to the passage, and the governor asked him why the door was left open. Isaac said that Rabbi Mendel’s daughter was near her confinement, that according to the custom of the country at this particular time, they had received company, and he supposed one of the visitors had forgotten to close the outward door.

This was a simple answer, and the governor affected to be satisfied, and the Rabbi concluded the affair was over, excepting that they might be expected to pay a few paras, (about one penny English money,) usually levied upon houses where the street door is found open at night. In the morning, however, they were surprised by the appearance of soldiers, who informed them that the governor desired to see both the old and young man at the palace: they went accordingly, and on the way were joined by two other Jews, Rabbi Nathan, a native of Austria, and Rabbi Jacob, of Prussia, but of English parentage or connexions, as I understood. These were likewise under an escort, and repairing to the palace, for they were also charged with the crime of leaving the out-door of their house open; but Nathan and others assured me this accusation was unfounded.

Rabbi Nathan (from Austria) and Rabbi Jacob (from Prussia, with English connections) cannot be identified with certainty. They were members of the small European Ashkenazi community in Jerusalem. That Rabbi Jacob had English connections may have been relevant because British subjects theoretically had better legal standing under Ottoman treaty rights — but as Lewis makes clear, even that offered little real protection in Jerusalem.

However, the four-Jews were ushered into the presence of the governor, and of Omar Effendi, &c., and being accused of the crime in question, they attempted to make a defence; but no defence would be taken; the governor said he heard the old Rabbi (Mendel) exclaim that he had a firman, and feared not the governor. It was answered that the Rabbi was unable to speak the Arabic. “Will you say then,” replied the governor, “that I tell you an untruth?” The Jews were therefore obliged to be silent, and after a short time were told to go away.

They thought to direct their steps homewards, but no, they were ordered to walk into another room, and were decoyed under various pretences from one chamber to another, until they found themselves at one of the dungeons. Here they were shut up in darkness, and told they must pay the governor ten burses, and that unless this money was forthcoming, hot irons would be applied to their heads the following day, and sharp nails driven through the palms of their hands, &c., modes of torture, amongst others, used, as I am told, in Jerusalem to extort money from these unhappy people.

I cannot help observing here, that the palace and dungeons of the governor are supposed to be built on the very spot where the palace and judgment seat of Pilate once stood.

The Jews without, soon heard the sentence which had been passed on their afflicted brethren in confinement; they lost no time therefore in doing every thing possible to hasten their deliverance, and though they succeeded with the governor in bargaining to pay four and a half burses instead of ten, still these poor people were obliged to strip even poverty itself to raise the sum required, and were even obliged to pledge their clothes.

This affair may give the Committee an idea of the indigent and oppressed state of the European Jews residing in Jerusalem. For the pretended offence of two doors having been left open at night, a sum little short of £60 sterling was wrung from a few miserable people, whose existence is supported by pittances sent to them chiefly by their brethren in foreign parts: and this is not a story made up by the Jews.

I went to Omar Effendi, and I waited on the governor myself the first opportunity, and I told them what I had heard of this business, and I represented to them the sensation it would excite if known in Europe, as the matter concerned Europeans, whose zeal only for their religion had brought them to Jerusalem. Omar Effendi replied that he thought these Jews were Muscovites, and not Franks, (Europeans).

The distinction between ‘Muscovites’ (Russian subjects) and ‘Franks’ (Western Europeans) was legally important under Ottoman law. Western Europeans had Capitulation rights — treaty protections granted by the Ottoman Empire to citizens of France, Britain, and other powers. Russian Jews had weaker standing. The governor’s claim that he thought the Jews were Russian was almost certainly a convenient excuse invented after the fact.

The Governor’s Response and Lewis’s Conclusions

The governor, however, said that different countries had different laws, and that these Jews must abide the consequences if they did not mind their duty. Their duty was to keep their doors shut at night, for if thieves should enter in, and rob their property, the Jews might come to him the next morning, and annoy him (the governor) with their complaints. Thus did the chief magistrate of Jerusalem defend his conduct towards these unprotected strangers, and this was all I could do; and neither the governor nor Omar Effendi pretended to give any other account of the matter than what I have related.

Before I took my leave, however, they made fair promises for the future, and Omar, in the Arabic style, swore by his head, (he is a head of the green turban,) that for my sake, on account of the great love he felt for me, the like occurrence should not again take place, and that he himself should not forget to speak to every future governor in favour of these Jews, and that if at any time anything unpleasant should happen to this class of the inhabitants, I need only apply to him, and immediate satisfaction will be obtained.

But I trust not the fair speeches or the oath of a Turk — he is faithless as he is proud, mean, and monster-like; and nought, I am persuaded, but an European flag hoisted in Jerusalem, (as in other places of the Turkish empire, for the protection of foreigners,) will ever have the effect of securing travellers and strangers from their wanton insults, exactions, and barbarities.

Alluding to their sufferings and miseries, one of the Rabbis of Jerusalem exclaimed with much feeling, “Oh when will the king of England come and deliver us!”

The Three Firmans and the Fight to Rebuild the Hurva Synagogue

Three special firmans for the protection of the Jews have been obtained, and this within the space of a very few years. One of these contains an order of the sultan that these foreigners are not to be insulted and ill-treated, &c. &c. The second desires, that no one is to compel these people (as the Turks were doing in spite of the first firman) to answer the demands made on them under pretence of debts said to be owing by the ancient possessors of a piece of ground, and a large building long since in ruins, who were Jews of the German or Askenasim congregation.

The building alluded to, was formerly a college and synagogue, &c., and belonged to some settlers from Germany; but on the death of their chief rabbi, the whole fraternity went away, and the Turks laid hands on the premises, and have ever since kept possession. The building was partly converted into shops, but the synagogue, &c. has remained a ruin for many years. The new settlers in Jerusalem, aware that the property was theirs, wished to regain the inheritance of their ancestors, and to rebuild the waste places.

But the Turks began to trespass further, and to carry off the stones of the fallen synagogue. This roused the rabbis, especially as it was intimated that the Turks intended to erect a mosque where the synagogue stood.

They were obliged, therefore, to apply for a third special firman, in the hope, at least of repurchasing their hereditary property. The sultan at first refused to grant it until it was certified by the great men in Jerusalem, who are in possession of the duplicates of the original papers respecting the same, that these premises belonged to their forefathers. The Jews, consequently, were obliged to pay five or six thousand piastres to induce the mufti, &c. to certify this truth. They have at length gained their object with regard to the firman, but they still anticipate many difficulties before the ground and premises are finally recovered, so that they may commence their building.

The ruined building Lewis describes is the Hurva Synagogue — in Hebrew, simply ‘hurva’ means ‘ruin.’ Its full name was Hurvat Rabbi Yehudah HeHasid, the Ruin of Rabbi Judah the Pious. In 1700, Rabbi Judah HeHasid led roughly 1,500 followers from Europe to Jerusalem in the hope of bringing the Messiah. The community borrowed heavily from Arab creditors. When Rabbi Judah HeHasid died suddenly shortly after arrival, the community fell apart and could not repay its debts. In 1720-1721, the creditors burned the synagogue and expelled every Ashkenazi Jew from Jerusalem. An Ottoman decree then barred all Ashkenazim from living in Jerusalem — the penalty for breaking this ban was death. For nearly a century, any Ashkenazi Jew who entered Jerusalem risked being thrown in prison as a guarantor for those ancient debts.

It was Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Shklov who made the recovery of this property his life’s mission. In 1819 — after years of sending emissaries all the way to Constantinople — his community finally obtained an imperial decree from the Ottoman sultan canceling the century-old debts. They then worked to get additional legal documents proving Jewish ownership of the ruins. Lewis’s letter finds the community at that exact moment: they had won the firman on paper, but Arab squatters refused to leave, and local authorities would not enforce their own decrees.

The Hurva was never rebuilt during this generation’s lifetime. A small prayer house — the Menachem Zion Synagogue — was built on the site in 1837. After Egypt’s Muhammad Ali briefly took control of Palestine in 1831, a new window of opportunity opened, and the community finally secured permission and enough funding to build a grand synagogue. Construction began in 1855, and the new Hurva was dedicated in 1864 — one of the most magnificent synagogues in the entire Jewish world. It stood for eighty-four years. On May 27, 1948, during Israel’s War of Independence, the Jordanian Arab Legion blew it up. The Hurva was rebuilt for the third time and rededicated on March 15, 2010. It stands today.

— End of Document —

Note: Italicized passages throughout this document are historical research notes added to the original text. They identify the individuals mentioned in the letter and provide context drawn from Jewish historical sources. All non-italicized text reproduces the original 1824 document.