INSTITUTE OF JERUSALEM STUDIES - Jerusalem Quarterly

Scholars and Notables: 

18 th -Century Jerusalem Elite 

Adel Manna’ 

Autumn 2007 

Intercommunal Relations 

in Egyptian Jerusalem (1834-1841) 

Judith Mendelsohn Rood 

Jurji Habib Hanania 

Founder of the Earliest Jerusalem Press, 1908-1914 

Mary Hanania 

The Zionist Approach to Jerusalem 

from 1897-1937 

Sufian Abu Zaida 

Jerusalem and its Ancient Astral Gods 

Charmaine Seitz 

Totah and Ziadeh: Mentor and Student 

Joy Totah Hilden 

INSTITUTE OF JERUSALEM STUDIES

Autumn 2007 — Issue 32 

formerly the Jerusalem Quarterly File 

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Institute of Jerusalem Studies

Table of Contents 

EDITORIAL 

Al-Quds: 100 th Anniversary of a Pioneering Press and Newspaper .......................3 

HISTORICAL FEATURES 

Scholars and Notables................................................................................................5 

Tracing the Effendiya’s Hold on Power in 18 th -Century Jerusalem 

Adel Manna’ 

Intercommunal Relations in Jerusalem during Egyptian Rule (1834-1841)......32 


Jurji Habib Hanania ................................................................................................52 

History of the Earliest Press in Palestine, 1908-1914 

Mary Hanania 

‘A Miserable Provincial Town’: 

The Zionist Approach to Jerusalem from 1897-1937 ...........................................72 


Jerusalem and its Gods ............................................................................................92 

A Review of Ancient Astral Worship and ‘Jerusalem’ 


Totah and Ziadeh: Mentor and Student ...............................................................98 


Jerusalem’s Anata Out of Options .......................................................................107 

JERUSALEM DIARY .............................................................................................110

Al-Quds: 

100 th Anniversary 

of a Pioneering 

Press and 

Newspaper 

A masthead of Jurji Hanania’s 

al-Quds newspaper from 1911. 

Source: Mary Hanania 

This issue of the JQ celebrates the 100 th 

anniversary of the founding of Al-Quds 

newspaper. Established in Jerusalem in 

1908 by Jurji Habib Hanania (1864-1920), 

al-Quds became the first public daily 

newspaper in the country. It was soon 

followed by Falasteen in Jaffa (launched 

in 1911 by Issa al-Issa), and one year later 

in 1909 by al-Karmel in Haifa (launched as 

an anti-Zionist organ by the maverick Najib 

Nassar). On the other side of the ideological 

divide Nissim and Shimon Moyal published 

Sawt al-Uthmaniyya (Jaffa, 1913), as a 

propagator of Zionism in Arabic, and it was 

in response to this paper that Nassar turned 

his paper in the anti-Zionist direction. 

The significance of Jurgi Hanania’s 

paper, however, aside from being the 

first newspaper, was its timing. It both 

celebrated and tested the new freedom of 

Jerusalem Quarterly 32 [ 3 ]

publication proclaimed by the Ottoman Constitutional Revolution of 1908, with its 

promises for freedom of the press and assembly, including the rights of citizens and 

the formation of political parties. Hanania established a press that became a beacon 

for an Arabic literary renaissance in that period. 

Paradoxically, the coming of WWI and the military regime of Ahmad Jamal Pasha 

ushered a return to press censorship, and ultimately the closure of the three pioneering 

papers–Falastin, al-Karmil, and (not least) al-Quds. Jurgi Habib Hanania went 

into exile in Egypt and was never able to resume publication. But his work laid the 

foundations for an independent and combative press that had to face the tribulations 

of the Mandate period. JQ was fortunate enough to have Hanania’s granddaughter 

contribute this personal history of the man, his press, and his newspaper using unique 

family papers that have hitherto been unknown. 

[ 4 ] EDITORIAL Al-Quds: 100 th Anniversary of a Pioneering Press and Newspaperthe Gaze

FEATURES 

Scholars and 

Notables 

Tracing the Effendiya’s 

Hold on Power in 18 th - 

Century Jerusalem 

Adel Manna’ 

Ruhi al-Khalidi, Ottoman consul in 

Bordeaux in 1895, scion of the Khalidi 

family and deputy from Jerusalem to the 

Ottoman parliament (1908 & 1912). 

Source: IPS Beirut 

Scholars formed the social and cultural 

elite of Muslim urban life for numerous 

generations, and some were close to state 

officials through the important posts they 

held within the state apparatus. The ruling 

authority and its figures needed the social 

legitimization that scholars offered in order 

to augment the political and military skills 

that enabled them to hold on to the reins of 

power. Scholars, on the other hand, earned 

popular legitimacy through their own 

high standing, for they were considered 

representatives of Islam and its principles. 

This study includes sample cases of 

Jerusalem scholars who shored up 

their influence by holding important 

administrative posts in the state apparatus, 

or others that were close to it, such 

as those of assistant magistrates, the 

muftis of the Hanafi and Shafa’i schools 

of Islamic law, the naqib, or head, of 

the ashraaf syndicate (ashraaf are 

descendents of the Prophet Muhammad, 

singular sherif), and others. These kinds 

of positions allowed their holders a large 


degree of influence upon administrative and government officials in Jerusalem, 

Damascus, and Istanbul. 

This study will discuss the means by which Jerusalem’s effendiya (intellectual capital 

holders), including scholars and notables, bolstered their influence among the people 

and acted as intermediaries between them and the state and its agencies. This upper 

class of the city’s residents formed relations of cooperation and cultural exchange with 

Ottoman state officials on the one hand, while remaining an organic part of the local 

population and culture on the other. This special status allowed them to play the role of 

an intermediary and acclimatize to political changes, utilizing these changes to serve 

their own interests. 

Urban Ottoman society was a natural continuation of the structure of Islamic urban 

life, both socially and culturally. Most historians have divided such societies into 

two separate groups. 1 These two groups are the rulers, including military officials, 

administrators and scholars, who were responsible for governance; and subjects or 

taxpayers both Muslim and from the dhimma community who did not participate in 

governance or administration. 

Scholars, then, were close to state officials throughout Islamic history including the 

Ottoman period, when they held the respect of government authorities, foremost the 

sultan. In the empire’s golden age during the sixteenth century, the measure for the 

respectability of scholars and their positions was their acquisition of knowledge and 

humble lifestyles, ostensibly led in the custom of the pious forefathers. To encourage 

education and culture in the Ottoman state, the sultan and his most powerful ministers 

offered grants and awards to educational institutes and the top scholars running them. 

Religious endowments were allocated for schools and scholars were exempt from 

paying taxes. Their money and property was protected from seizure, contrary to 

conditions for military officers and government and administrative officials. 

Yet scholarly and judicial institutions were not spared when the Ottoman state and its 

administrative agencies began to decline in the seventeenth century. The corruption 

and bribery that spread throughout the government apparatus in the Ottoman capital 

also entered the offices of the Shaykh of Islam, judges, and other top scholars. Money 

and personal connections became the most important factors in making scholarly 

appointments. What was happening in Istanbul and major state capitals spread to 

the districts and fringe areas like Jerusalem: some families succeeded in controlling 

administrative and scholarly posts and in fact monopolized them, transferring them to 

family members through inheritance. 

In the eighteenth century, the monopolization of scholarly posts reached its apex 

in large and small cities, beginning with the Ottoman capital Istanbul. During that 

century, 24 individuals were appointed to the post of Shaykh of Islam, 17 of which 

[ 6 ] HISTORICAL FEATURES Scholars and Notables

were the children of previous appointees. Later, following 1839, during the Ottoman 

tanzimat period when the Janissary were done away with and the power of scholars 

was weakened, transferring the post of the Shaykh of Islam from father to son through 

inheritance was put to an end. 

As in the Ottoman capital, in major Arab cities local elites benefited from the 

declining fortunes of the Ottoman administration, which became less centralized and 

allowed greater participation and autonomy for these city’s scholars and notables. The 

geography, natural environment, and population characteristics of each city affected 

the extent to which state agencies could intervene in local struggles over scholarly 

posts. Such direct Ottoman influence was stronger in Aleppo, for example, than in 

Damascus, and less so in Cairo, so distant from Istanbul, as was also the case with 

the cities of the Hijaz, Mecca and Medina. One of the true measures of the extent of 

the local elites’ power and influence was the ability of the city’s scholars to select 

candidates for top posts (judges in the Islamic courts, muftis, and the naqib of the 

ashraaf) and to appoint them without major interference from state officials in the 

Ottoman capital. 

There was a direct relationship between the extent of the Ottoman state’s power and 

centrality and the degree of autonomy or influence enjoyed by the state capitals’ 

scholars and notables. Scholars were a major part of the local elite, alongside 

notables, top merchants, and others with money and influence. In his peerless study, 

Albert Hourani divided elites of the Ottoman period into three primary groups: 

scholars, who were the traditional representatives of the Islamic urban population’s 

interests; Janissary soldiers and others groups including local militias; and notables, 

including top officials, merchants, and those with social influence in cities and the 

countryside. 

The determining factor for class distinctions in Islamic urban society, particularly 

in the late Ottoman period, was the position people held within state institutions 

and the place they held within society. It was on this basis that top government 

and administrative officials occupied the peak of the socio-political pyramid. Jobs 

became the primary means for gaining material wealth and social status. Education, 

whether religious or vocational, was not a determining factor in itself unless it was 

connected to a post or had a direct relationship to state institutions. Only third in 

terms of importance was material wealth, which was not sufficient to secure a high 

socio-political position among the class of elites. Yet if the wealthy invested some 

of their money in acts of pious charity, on the one hand, and bought religious or 

administrative posts, on the other, this enabled them to join the elite of local scholars 

and notables. 

It is important to emphasize that the Islamic urban elite of scholars and notables, even 

after becoming the monopoly of certain families passed on through inheritance in the 


eighteenth century, did not fully close its doors in the face of those climbing the social 

ladder. Contrary to the European aristocracy of the Middle Ages, the Islamic urban 

elite remained in contact with the rest of society and did not close in on itself to the 

degree of preventing social mobility. 

Scholars and notables maintained open channels of communication with the members 

of society’s middle and lower classes in order to gain legitimacy for their elitism 

and to brandish their popularity if the state and its officials attempted to interfere 

with their interests and posts. One of the secrets of the success of the local elite was 

that even after its members assumed official administrative posts within the state 

apparatus, they continued to flaunt the social support they enjoyed and their ability 

to help the authorities apply their policies among the population with them acting as 

intermediaries. When they appeared before the public, however, despite an interest 

in pious charity and contact with local residents on special occasions and holidays, 

members of the elite always appeared wearing the prestigious apparel of important 

state officials. Scholars and notables thus became points of contact between rulers 

and subjects. The former needed them to gain legitimacy and to enforce their policies, 

while the latter supported them for reasons of self-interest and to gain protection from 

the state and its representatives. 

As for the composition of the local elites of scholars and notables, this differed from 

one city to the next, even within a single geographical area such as the Levant, or 

within Palestine. There were differences between the cities of the coast, some of 

which began growing in the eighteenth century (Akko and then Haifa and Jaffa), and 

the inland, including mountainous cities such as Nablus, Jerusalem, and Hebron, for 

example. Geographical distance from the Ottoman capital, the area’s economic base 

(rural or industrial), and the commercial position of these cities were all factors that 

also contributed to forming the character of local society and the features of its local 

elite of scholars and notables. With regard to the countries of the Levant and the Arab 

east in general, there was a great difference between state capitals such as Damascus 

and Aleppo and small cities whose population did not exceed 10,000 people. 

Although nationality or ethnicity was not essential in defining people’s identity or 

behavior in that period, the religious and ethnic composition of a city’s population was 

an important factor in the formation of its culture and the character of its local elite. 

Also important was its sectarian or religious composition. While the overwhelming 

majority of the elite were Muslims until the early nineteenth century, a percentage 

of Christians and Jews among the population also had important influence. Mount 

Lebanon, Mount Druze, and the Nassiriyya and Alawite areas offer various examples 

in terms of the character of their residents and local leaderships in contrast to the rest 

of the Levant, including Palestine. 


Returning to the intermediary position held by the elite of scholars and notables, 

some researchers argue that local scholars grew close to the Ottoman authorities in 

the eighteenth century. John Voll, for example, came to this conclusion in his study 

of the scholars of Damascus during that period, based on his observation of many 

having embraced the Hanafi school of law. Voll holds that this change of schools 

was an expression of local scholars growing closer to the Ottoman state, contrary 

to other elites who held onto their schools of law and did not try to integrate. Yet a 

conclusion of this kind demands other tools of assessment besides a change of schools. 

Despite the importance of distinguishing between scholars who held posts and were 

close to both state agencies and local ruling elite families, the latter were not any less 

connected to or integrated with state agencies or culture. Changing affiliation to a 

school of law was only a means to, or primary condition for, attaining some official 

scholarly posts, and not necessarily representative of a sense of affiliation with the 

state whose official school of law was Hanafi. 

If we take the Jerusalem district and the rest of Palestine as an example, we can see 

a gradual move by scholars’ families to the Hanafi school starting in the sixteenth 

century. The phenomenon of embracing the Hanafi school in Jerusalem and other 

Palestinian cities continued during the eighteenth century. Ottoman rule and its 

administration in the Levant, and Palestine in particular, underwent a clear decline 

during that period. Local scholars and notables advanced to fill this gap, acquiring an 

important role in the affairs of governance and administration. This transformation in 

the position of the local elite, and its’ becoming a real partner in governance, brought 

it closer to the people in terms of interests and culture, and not necessarily closer to 

the state. The reliance of some families on the Hanafi school rather than the Shafa’i 

school of law is not proof or a basis for conclusions connected to identity and a sense 

of affiliation. A matter such as this requires examining numerous factors, of which 

change in school affiliation may be only one. 

Scholars did not have a political and military base that would have allowed them to 

secede from the state and its institutions, as some administrative and government 

officials sometimes attempted to do. Maintaining good relations with Ottoman 

authorities was important for guaranteeing a post. Yet most of the scholars who 

monopolized official posts and transferred them by inheritance to their children and 

relatives were also in need of the public to protect them from attempts by the state to 

remove them. In this regard, there was not a great difference between the Jerusalem 

scholars who held on to the Shafa’i school and those who embraced the Hanafi school 

of the state and its judicial agencies. Even those who changed to the Hanafi school 

did not form a cohesive, homogenous group. Some exerted great efforts to obtain 

official posts, while others held themselves at a distance. Likewise, within the ranks of 

a single family, we find a range of official closeness: top scholars with official posts 

and others closer to the general populace and their mosques, Sufi hospices and local 

culture. 


Who Were Jerusalem’s Effendiya 

Jerusalem’s religious standing for the three Semitic religions was an essential factor 

in determining the status of its scholars and notables throughout the Islamic ages. 

After the city and entire region was reclaimed from the Crusaders, the Ayyubids and 

then the Mamluks strengthened the position of Jerusalem and its Islamic surrounds. 

As part of this policy, mosques, schools, Sufi hospices, and other public institutions 

were constructed and renovated. The religious endowments agency monitored these 

institutions to ensure that they were always functioning and kept independent from 

the rulers. These built-up institutions drew increasing numbers of scholars and 

Sufis who stayed in the city as visiting students in some cases and as permanent 

residents in others, and this increased its Muslim population. As for the Ottomans, 

they showed a special interest in the city and its residents in the sixteenth century, 

during which Jerusalem underwent an upswing in construction, population, and 

economic conditions. Even after the Ottoman state’s interest in Jerusalem dwindled in 

subsequent generations, the city remained a focus for both rulers on the one hand and 

visitors and pilgrims on the other. 

A collection of biographies of Jerusalem’s residents in the twelfth Islamic century 

serves as an important source of information on the city’s scholars and notables. Its 

author, Hassan bin Abdul Latif al-Husseini did not include a single biography of a 

government or administrative official or a top merchant. Everyone included in his 

book was from the class of scholars and prominent notables. 

With regards to the debate among researchers and historians over defining this class, 

this study, which focuses on Jerusalem’s history during a specific period, does not 

even try. Rather, it presents a picture of that class through manuscripts and printed 

sources, most specifically Islamic court records. This class, that I have called the 

‘effendiya’ of Jerusalem, mostly included scholars and notables for whom military 

and administrative posts were not a goal or primary source of influence, even if they 

occasionally held them. 

Some of Jerusalem’s scholars and notables have been mentioned in previous studies 

of mine–judiciary-related posts like that of the mufti and the naqib, or head, of the 

ashraaf syndicate. Sufis do not usually fall within the class definition of scholars, 

unless they were among the important shaykhs who graduated from well-known 

religious schools in Istanbul, Damascus and elsewhere. As for the notables in this 

study, they were the elite who assumed government posts or became prominent 

through their leading socio-political positions. These definitions are elastic, in that 

they might include certain people at one time and place who would not be included at 

another during the Ottoman era. And while the group ‘scholars and notables’ makes a 

distinction between the two groups, they are brought together by certain individuals 

who held both roles in society. Moreover, while distinguishing between scholars and 


notables in the Levant is extremely difficult in general, this is particularly true for 

Jerusalem during the period of this study, as will be explained below. 

No powerful group of notables dependent on military or administrative posts for 

its status and influence ever developed in Jerusalem. Moreover, the families of 

Jerusalemite scholars were behind the emergence and prominence of several notables 

who did not graduate from religious schools or hold scholarly posts. 

In some cases, sources have made reference to individuals who were assistant 

magistrates, muftis, or even shaykhs of Sufi orders as top notables. In his biographies 

of Jerusalemites, Hassan bin Abdel Latif attributed qualities of greatness to lowranking 

scholars, from the imams and preachers of mosques to unheard-of Sufis, who 

were usually members of old Jerusalemite families he described as “senior-ranking 

and notable”. At the same time, he referred to two of the top scholars in Jerusalem, 

Shaykh Muhammad al-Taflani (the Hanafi mufti) and the Sufi shaykh Muhammad 

Effendi al-Budairi only as scholars, withholding the characterization of notables. These 

two scholars migrated to Jerusalem from North Africa and lived in the city, becoming 

its most prominent scholars. Yet despite the great respect Hassan Abdel Latif and 

the people of Jerusalem had for them, they lacked the socio-economic class base 

appropriate to members of well-established Jerusalemite families. 

The Jerusalem elite of scholars and notables were given the title of effendiya (singular: 

effendi), a class of intellectual property holders. Contrary to the aghas and beys 

of Nablus who Ihsan al-Nimr sometimes called emirs, most of the effendiya held 

scholarly posts. In addition to posts within the Islamic courts, some of these scholars 

worked as imams and preachers in mosques, oversaw the religious endowments, 

and held other posts in public institutions. Despite the competition for these posts 

among Jerusalem’s effendiya during the late eighteenth century, they were for the 

most part permanently distributed in such a way that the majority were kept within 

certain families and passed on through inheritance. Even though competition for them 

sometimes grew fierce, for example for the post of the naqib of the ashraaf syndicate, 

this never led to the bloody struggles so deplored by the historian of Mount Nablus 

as a civil war within his city. Moreover, in contrast to the Nablus district, the shaykhs 

of Jerusalem and its villages were never party to competing with the Jerusalemite 

families over scholarly posts and political standing. In general, the effendiya of 

Jerusalem succeeded in securing their high positions and guaranteeing their holding of 

posts without resorting to arms. Instead, they used the power of money, standing, and 

a network of close relations with state officials in Damascus and the Ottoman capital. 

The first third of the nineteenth century saw a natural extension to the growing 

influence of Jerusalem’s effendiya throughout the district and those neighboring it 

in the Jerusalem governorate. The mutasallem and the muwalla khilafa (the Hanafi 

judge) who represented the Ottoman state were usually appointed from outside the 


anks of the Jerusalem elite and needed the cooperation of the effendiya to carry out 

their work. With the exception of these two posts in the district administration and 

Islamic judiciary, posts were held by Jerusalemites during that period. In addition to 

the Husseini, Khalidi, Abu Saud, and al-Ilmi families, other less famous Jerusalemite 

families also held important scholarly posts. The most important and prominent of 

them were the Jarallah (Abul Lutf), al-Dajani, al-Muqat, al-Imam, al-Jama’i (al- 

Khatib), al-Shihabi, al-Budairi, al-Fitiyani and al-Asili families. During the Ottoman 

period, across the span of generations, these families experienced ebbs and flow in 

their standing and influence. The following will attempt to present and explain the 

mechanisms by which posts and influence were maintained during the period of time 

in question. 

In his Introduction, Ibn Khaldun noted the importance of clan systems as a 

fundamental factor in building political greatness and establishing a state. He wrote 

that states died when their leaders grew lazy and the factors for cooperation between 

the state’s people were removed. As for established families in Islamic urban areas, 

they built their greatness upon scholarship and wealth, joining these together through 

leadership based on illustrious work and generosity. Scholarship alone without wealth, 

the status of an official post, and a close relationship with the state was not a solid 

inheritance. Likewise, wealth alone, without scholarship or status, was susceptible 

to decline and ruin. If the three were joined together, however, with scholarship and 

morals taking precedence, augmented by the status of an official post, and then wealth 

spent on educating children and grandchildren, this was the source of greatness and 

leadership. The effendiya of Jerusalem in the Ottoman era exemplify an urban elite 

that maintained its position, passing it on generation after generation. 

As sources do not assist us in discussing the circumstances of all the Jerusalemite 

families, and it is beyond the scope of this study to cover the entire Ottoman period, 

the rest of this article will suffice with offering examples of some of the effendiya 

families, the most important of whom were the Husseini and Khalidi families. 

The Husseini Family 

The Husseini family was the leading Jerusalemite family of scholars and notables 

starting from at least the end of the eighteenth century. During that period and 

subsequently, this family succeeded in controlling three important scholarly posts held 

by Jerusalem’s effendiya: the Hanafi mufti, the naqib of the ashraaf syndicate, and the 

head of the shaykhs of al-Haram al-Sharif. Moreover, the family held other important 

posts in teaching and oversaw public endowments such as that called ‘the Prophet 

Moses’ or Nabi Musa. It also organized visits to this shrine between Jerusalem and 

Jericho, and its annual festival. 


The Husseini family became 

prominent immediately following 

the revolt of the naqib of the ashraaf 

in Jerusalem that took place from 

1703 to 1705 and which ousted the 

al-Wafa’i Husseini family. The status 

of the new Husseini family (the 

branch of Abdel Latif via the Ghadya 

family) was bolstered starting in the 

mid-eighteenth century. The family 

reached the height of its influence 

during the period in which Abdullah 

Abdel Latif headed the ashraaf 

syndicate in the late eighteenth 

century and in which his brother 

Hassan was the Hanafi mufti until his 

death in 1224 H/1809 CE. 

The history of this family has 

preoccupied historians and researchers 

in recent generations and discussion 

of its origins is ongoing. Before 

discussing the status of the Husseini 

family in the early nineteenth century, 

it is worth briefly reviewing the 

various accounts and clarifying this 

author’s opinion in an attempt to put 

an end to the confusion concerning 

the family’s origins and history. 

Hussein Effendi Husseini, mayor of Jerusalem 

until 1915 when he was removed by the Ottomans 

from office and then reinstalled in December 

1917 to sign the city’s surrender to British troops. 

Source: IPS Beirut 

Researchers and historians have differed in their evaluations of the Husseini family’s 

lineage since the Mandate period, following a political struggle between Haj Amin 

Husseini and his parliamentarian supporters and the opposition led by the Nashashibi 

family. Haj Amin contributed to the spread of an account of the family stating that it 

was among the ashraaf, that its members had settled in Jerusalem and its suburbs since 

the thirteenth century CE, and that they had played an important role in Jerusalem’s 

history since the Mamluk period. The opposition to Haj Amin’s appointment as 

Palestine’s mufti and his political leadership in turn spread an account stating that 

the affiliation of the Husseini family to the ashraaf was false and that Haj Amin’s 

grandfather, Mustafa, had attained the post of mufti through lies and trickery. The 

opposition’s account found traction with Zionist researchers inimical to the Palestinian 

national movement, who then spread it in campaigns against Haj Amin intending to 

mar his family’s reputation and harm the national movement he led. Israeli researchers 


in recent decades have published studies casting doubt on the Nashashibi family’s 

account of its competitors. In fact, they have leaned towards accepting the Husseini 

account of their lineage and their historic role in Jerusalem, at least post-eighteenth 

century. Although these studies are important, have distanced themselves from 

propagandistic research, and have removed some of the confusion concerning the 

Husseini family history, they have not entirely uncovered the truth of this family’s 

origins or its role prior to the mid-eighteenth century. 

In previous studies, I have dealt at length with the subject of the naqib of the ashraaf 

syndicate’s revolt in Jerusalem led by Muhammad bin Mustafa al-Wafa’i Husseini. 

These events ended with his execution and, after the flames of the movement were 

doused, his succession by Muhibbeddin bin Abdel Samad, popularly named ‘Ibn 

Ghadiya’ for his family predecessor. Muhibbeddin led the Jerusalem ashraaf syndicate 

for two decades with near-ease. During that time he accumulated wealth and numerous 

buildings in the city that he transferred to his children and his wife Amina Khanun 

shortly before his death. In subsequent decades, the syndicate was passed on as 

inheritance from the sons and grandchildren of Muhibbeddin until it reached another 

branch of the Ghadiya family (the branch of Abdel Latif, the paternal first cousin of 

Muhibbeddin) on the first of the Islamic month of Muharram in 1158 H/3 February 

1745 CE. The appointment of Abdel Latif to the syndicate was renewed over three 

decades until his death in early Dhu al-Qaeda 1188 H/January 1775 CE. The syndicate 

was then passed on to his children and grandchildren. One of his children, Hassan bin 

Abdel Latif, succeeded in being appointed the Hanafi mufti. 

In my book, The History of Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period, I addressed the 

origins of the new Husseini family going back to the Ghadiya family, which included 

Muhibbeddin, naqib of the ashraaf mentioned above, and Abdel Latif bin Abdel 

Qader of the Ghadiya family. This surname was subsequently dropped, and from 

the nineteenth century they became known as the Husseini family. I discovered, by 

reading the records of the Islamic courts in Jerusalem, that the family tree with origins 

to the Husseini al-Wafa’i al-Badri family is not at all precise. In fact, the branch of 

Abdel Latif of the Ghadiya family that joins with the tree of the al-Wafa’i family 

through the persona of Abdel Qader is one of the sources of confusion over the origins 

of this family and the veracity of its affiliation to the ashraaf. 

It is useful here to add an important additional source that clearly supports my 

conclusions about the lineage of the new Husseini family (previously the Ghadiya 

family), which differs from the al-Wafa’i Husseini family. Scholars such as Hassan 

bin Abdel Latif from the twelfth Islamic century and author of the biographies of 

Jerusalem’s residents, and Khalil al-Muradi who authored A Chain of Pearls, were 

aware of the existence of these two separate families. In Murtada al-Zubaydi’s 

Dictionary of Shaykhs, he describes the biography of prominent scholars from the two 

families and clarified the confusion over their separate lineages. His biographies leave 


no doubt that both families’ lineage was among the ashraaf despite being different 

ancestral lines. It is thus useful to present al-Zubaydi’s research, garnered when he 

visited their homes in Jerusalem, staying as their guest. 

Al-Zubaydi mentioned Abdel Latif bin Abdullah, who inherited the ashraaf syndicate 

from his cousins via the branch of Muhibbeddin of the Ghadiya family in 1158 H/1745 

CE. He noted the lineage of Abdel Latif, who was named after his grandfather Abdel 

Latif bin Abdel Qader bin Abdel Rahman bin Musa bin Abdel Qader bin Musa bin ‘Ali 

bin Shemseddin Muhammad Ghadiya al-Aswadi al-Maqdadi al-Maqdasi. Al-Zubaydi 

further added to his description of Abdel Latif (father of Jerusalem’s mufti and author 

of biographies of Jerusalem’s residents) that he was “head of the sayyids (ashraaf), 

the grandson of the al-Hassan family, and a famous generous individual”. Al-Zubaydi 

had heard of him when he was in Medina in 1163 H/1750 CE and yearned to meet 

him. When al-Zubaydi reached Egypt, he traveled to Mansoura and then Damietta, 

and from there traveled by sea to Jaffa. When he reached the home of the naqib of 

Jerusalem’s ashraaf, he and his children were generous with him and paid him the 

utmost interest. He added in his description of the naqib of Jerusalem’s ashraaf that 

he had “a decent and reverent heart. Everyone visits him from near and afar. Strangers 

find refuge in his home, residing there as they like, respectable as though in their own 

homes.” 

When Emir al-Haj came to collect taxes from the district and its residents, he stayed in 

his home for a few days. When he left, “he was presented with luxurious gifts suitable 

for him,” reported al-Zubaydi, who stayed in the home of the naqib of Jerusalem’s 

ashraaf for 19 days. When he left, a group of Abdel Latif’s men escorted him on 

horseback “until we reached Ramla. He ordered me to stay in the home of their 

relative, Taj al-Huda, and so I stayed in their home, respected and blessed.” When al- 

Zubaydi arrived in Egypt, their relationship was sustained through correspondence and 

“gifts and greetings” sent by the naqib of Jerusalem’s ashraaf to this eminent scholar. 

The author closes his biography of Abdel Latif by saying that “he passed away on the 

third of Dhu al-Qaeda 1188 H., at the approximate age of 90.” 

Hassan Abdel Latif, biographer of Jerusalem’s residents, also recorded the life of his 

own father and mentioned that Muhammad Murtada al-Yamani, “orator of the age and 

intellectual of the period and time” had also written his father’s biography. Yet Hassan 

Abdel Latif’s biographies of his father and great-grandfather Abdel Latif bin Abdel 

Qader, “shaykh of al-Haram al-Sherif and naqib of the ashraaf of its pure surrounds” 

who died in 1107 H/1695-1696 CE, did not mention the lineage of the family 

mentioned by al-Zubaydi, that of the Ghadiya al-Aswadi al-Maqdadi family. Likewise, 

Khalil al-Muradi, the mufti of Damascus and author of A Chain of Pearls, did not 

mention this important fact about the lineage of Abdel Latif bin Abdel Qader in his 

biography of him. Yet Hassan Abdel Latif’s biography of his father is not completely 

free of reference to the lineage described by Murtada al-Zubaydi. A poem by Shaykh 


Muhammad al-Tafilani, who was the Hanafi mufti of Jerusalem, made one reference 

in the following lines: “From the Miqdad family is the son of the proud/ 

Time is truly pleased with him despite the deviant.” 

Thus the affiliation of Hassan bin Abdel Latif and his father and grandfathers to the 

Ghadiya family, or the Ghadiya al-Aswadi al-Miqdadi family, and not to the Husseini 

al-Wafa’i family, has become obvious. It is confirmed by the records of the Islamic 

courts and the books of biographies from that period that clearly distinguish between 

the members of each family. As for Murtada al-Zubaydi’s Dictionary of Shaykhs, it 

confirms these sources and leaves no room for doubt that his age featured prominent 

scholars and important notables from the Ghadiya family (the Abdel Latif branch) on 

the one hand, and from the al-Wafa’i Husseini family on the other (the most important 

of whom was ‘Ali bin Musa bin Mustafa bin Abi Wafa’, the nephew of Muhammad 

bin Mustafa, the Husseini al-Wafa’i naqib and leader of the naqib of the ashraaf revolt 

in Jerusalem). 

Al-Zubaydi also recorded the biography of Abdullah bin Abdel Latif, who inherited 

from his father leadership of Jerusalem’s ashraaf syndicate and the post of shaykh 

of al-Haram al-Sherif. In this biography, he confirmed that Hassan Abdel Latif’s 

biography reported the family’s affiliation to Ibn Ghadiya al-Aswadi al-Miqdadi. In 

his discussion of Abdullah bin Abdel Latif, al-Zubaydi added that he had met him 

in Jerusalem in 1167 H/1753-1754 CE when he stayed as the guest of his father. 

Abdullah was the oldest of Abdel Latif’s children, followed by Hassan, who became 

the mufti of Jerusalem and biographer of Jerusalem’s residents. When Abdel Latif 

passed away, his oldest son Abdullah inherited the leadership of the ashraaf. “The 

man’s blessing was in his faith and his kindness. He participated every year in 

negotiations that never end, may God Almighty reward him with goodness.” In the 

footnotes to this biography of Abdullah bin Abdel Latif, it was stated that he had 

followed the footsteps of his father in the way of generosity and the welcoming of 

guests and visitors. Yet some of Jerusalem’s notables “harmed him immensely and 

even caused his exile from his city with his oldest son al-Sayyid Abdel Latif and wrote 

petitions to the state against him and his son that they were innocent of.” After some 

time, Abdullah succeeded in overcoming this problem and a high decree was issued 

for his return to the city with his son, and for him to lead the ashraaf. Abdullah bin 

Abdel Latif remained the naqib of Jerusalem’s ashraaf until he passed away in 1208 

H/1793-1794 CE. He was buried in Bab al-Rahma next to Shaddad al-Sahabi, may 

God be pleased with him. 

Before al-Zubaydi arrived in Jerusalem for the first time in 1167 H/1753-1754 CE, 

he went to Egypt, where he met Shaykh ‘Ali bin Musa bin Mustafa bin Shemseddin 

al-Wafa’i, the Jerusalemite Hanafi Azharite known as the son of the naqib of the 

ashraaf “because his grandfathers had led the syndicate”. This ‘Ali bin Mustafa was 

born in Jerusalem in 1125 H/1713 CE (i.e. after the revolt of his uncle, the naqib of 


the ashraaf) and grew up there. He then traveled to Damascus before returning to 

Jerusalem, where he met Shaykh Abdel Ghani al-Nablusi and Mustafa al-Bikri. He 

joined his order and was encouraged to go to Egypt, which he did, and he studied 

under its shaykhs. ‘Ali bin Mustafa became well-known in al-Azhar and became 

one of Egypt’s leading scholars, “skilled in issuing fatwas. He taught the sciences of 

exegesis, Islamic law and prophetic sayings at the Hussein shrine.” When Murtada 

al-Zubaydi met him, he joined him in his lessons and “he introduced me to the shaykhs 

and pious men. I studied with him al-Bukhari, The Small Collection, The Forum, The 

Resemblances, and other books.” Murtada al-Zubaydi added in his biography of this 

Azharite scholar of Jerusalem: 

‘Ali bin Musa had a stable with horses, for he was skilled in horsemanship 

and shooting. He built a spacious home in Husseiniyya and then his debt 

grew and so he migrated to Istanbul, where he was welcomed. He responded 

harshly to owners of wealth, emirs, and kings of the age, whom he affiliated 

with injustice and enmity. Then he left the city [the Ottoman capital] and 

traveled to Egypt, where he died in 1186h/1772/1773 CE. 

Al-Jarbarti also mentioned the biography of ‘Ali bin Musa Husseini al-Wafa’i in 

a census of those who died in 1186 h/1772-1773 CE, and repeated much of what 

Murtada al-Zubaydi had said. Yet he added important information when he mentioned 

his teachers, for example, including al-Wafa’i’s mother’s paternal uncle, Shaykh 

Hussein al-Alami, who resided in Lod, Abu Bakr bin Ahmed al-Alami, the mufti of 

Jerusalem, and Shaykh al-Mu’ati al-Khalili. This famous chronicler also mentioned 

the generosity of ‘Ali bin Musa bin al-Naqib and his move from his home to a new, 

spacious house in Husseiniyya “on the city’s fringe, on the basis that the fringes are 

the residencies of the ashraaf.” Al-Jabarti also noted the incident of al-Naqib’s trip to 

Istanbul, which he departed after envious people slandered him, causing him to return 

to his home in Egypt in 1183 h/1770-1771 CE. He added another incident in which 

he met with Muhammad Bey Abul Dhahab, who asked him his opinion of the people 

of Istanbul, which he had recently visited. ‘Ali bin Musa replied, “There is no good 

remaining in Islambul or in Egypt, and no one is honored other than evil beings. As for 

those of scholarship and the ashraaf, they die of hunger.” Abul Dhahab understood this 

as an allusion towards the emirs and rulers, and he ordered that 100,000 silver halves 

be given to al-Naqib from the mint. He spent some of it on his debt and distributed the 

rest among the poor. ‘Ali bin Musa died on Sunday, 6 Shaaban 1186 h/ 2 November 

1772 CE. 

In Hassan bin Abdel Latif’s autobiography, he noted some of the teachers and shaykhs 

he had studied under, including “’Ali al-Qudsi, son of the late naqib of the ashraaf 

who resided in Egypt, when he graced Jerusalem to visit family”. In other words, the 

family of Abdel Latif of the Ghadiya family was joined in marriage to the children of 

the al-Wafa’i Husseini naqib of the ashraaf who lost the Jerusalem ashraaf syndicate 


following the 1703-1705 revolt. Following the death of his brother Abdullah, Hassan 

bin Abdel Latif played an important role in keeping the syndicate within the family 

until it was transferred to Omar bin Abdel Salaam. As for the post of the Hanafi mufti, 

following the death of Hassan bin Abdel Latif, it was transferred to his nephew Taher 

bin Mustafa. The position remained within the household until the days of Haj Amin 

Husseini in the British Mandate period. As Taher Effendi was a scholar, mufti, and 

teacher, he maintained the family’s relationship with the scholars of Cairo, Damascus 

and Istanbul. In contrast, Omar al-Naqib (Omar bin Abdel Salaam) inherited the political 

leadership and social standing of his forefathers and also upheld their tradition of hosting 

guests. He opened his home to guests, visitors, emirs, and rulers from around the world. 

In order to strengthen his leadership, Omar Effendi al-Naqib (Omar bin Abdel 

Salaam) married into a number of families of Jerusalemite scholars and notables. First 

he married the daughter of Shaykh Nijmeddin al-Jama’i, the head of the preachers 

(imams) at al-Aqsa mosque “and formerly the Hanafi mufti of Jerusalem”. Soon 

afterwards he married Ruqaya, the daughter of Musa Effendi Khalidi, “the bashkatib 

[head clerk] in the Islamic courts.” Yet Omar Effendi did not suffice with marrying 

into Jerusalemite families, for he also forged relations with the Tuqan family in 

Nablus. Musa Bey Tuqan, the mutasallem of the Nablus district, married Tarfanda, 

the daughter of Omar al-Naqib, whose oldest son, Abdel Salaam, also married one of 

the daughters of Musa Bey Tuqan in the common manner of marriage exchange. In 

addition, Muhammad Pasha Abu Maraq married one of the women from the Husseini 

family in Jerusalem. 

Omar al-Naqib was also able to strengthen his leadership and expand his family’s 

influence beyond Jerusalem by investing money in commerce and the purchase of 

real estate in Gaza, Jaffa, and elsewhere on the coast. And thus Omar Effendi al- 

Naqib added to his authority in appointing the naqibs of ashraaf syndicates in cities 

throughout the governorate–a socio-political standing that he strengthened at times 

through marriage and at times through the expansion of commercial and investment 

activities in Jerusalem and elsewhere. 

Omar Effendi al-Naqib followed the path of his forefathers in Jerusalem in the honor 

he extended to guests and visitors and in spending his wealth, and thus his influence 

also surpassed the boundaries of his official post as naqib of Jerusalem’s ashraaf and 

defender of their rights and privileges. Like his forefathers of the eighteenth century, 

Omar Effendi became a prominent notable of the Levant, in addition to playing an 

important role in all the affairs of governance and administration in Jerusalem and 

its environs. Whenever a mission proved difficult for the mutasallem of the district, 

the governors of Damascus and Akko would turn to Omar Effendi Husseini and seek 

his assistance in solving it or at least facilitating its solution. Like his forefathers, 

this naqib had many relations, extending as far as the important capitals of Istanbul, 

Damascus, Cairo, and Acre, on the one hand, and the shaykhs of villages and 


neighboring areas on the other. The family of Abu Ghosh, for example, which grew 

prominent as one of the most powerful families of shaykhs in Mount Jerusalem, was 

among his allies. Powerful Hebron-area families such as Badr al-Tamimi and the 

Amru family in the village of Doura rallied under his banner, an indication of his 

influence in various areas of the district. 

Like his forefather Abdel Latif bin Abdullah, whom Murtada al-Zubaydi and other 

scholars and emirs had visited, the home of Omar Effendi al-Naqib was famed for 

being a focal point for visitors to Jerusalem and its surrounding holy sites. While 

the scope of this article does not permit mention of everything that sources note 

about this, I will offer some examples of prominent visitors who stayed as guests 

with Omar Effendi. Shaykh Hassan al-Attar, one of Egypt’s renowned scholars who 

later became the shaykh of al-Azhar, visited Jerusalem in 1229 H/ 1814 CE. During 

his stay in the city, this Azharite scholar was the guest of Omar Effendi al-Naqib, 

about whom he stated that his home was the only one open to welcome guests and 

visitors. When al-Attar’s stay in Jerusalem lengthened, his friend, the chronicler Abdel 

Rahman al-Jabarti, wrote to the Mufti Taher Effendi Husseini asking for the guest 

to hasten and return to his home in Cairo. In explaining his stay of many months in 

Jerusalem, al-Attar noted that he had been waiting to participate in the Festival of 

the Prophet Moses. The naqib of the Jerusalem ashraaf was at that time responsible 

for organizing the annual festival and pilgrimage to the shrine, including the feeding 

of all those who traveled to take part. Like other guests of the naqib, Shaykh Hassan 

al-Attar generously praised Omar Effendi upon his return to Egypt for his hospitality, 

generosity, and lofty morals. 

Traveler Richardson, one of the few Europeans who visited Jerusalem in the early 

nineteenth century, he left a detailed description of his visit to the home of Omar 

Effendi and his encounters with his family and guests. The naqib sent an invitation for 

Richardson to visit him with a member of the Abu Ghosh family in the city and this 

tourist, a physician by profession, accepted. After his first visit and their acquaintance, 

Omar Effendi asked his guest to examine and treat his eyes. At that time, the naqib 

was suffering from an inflammation and Richardson provided him with the appropriate 

treatment. This traveler described his host, Omar Effendi, and his paternal cousin, Mufti 

Taher Effendi, as intelligent scholars with expansive knowledge of the world’s affairs. 

During the late nights they spent in each others’ company, conversation of local affairs, 

religion and the affairs of the Ottoman state went on for hours. Richardson noted that the 

mutasallem was often among the evening’s guests, in addition to a number of the city’s 

scholars and notables. Those who spent the evening conversing in the naqib’s home ate, 

drank coffee and other beverages, listened to music and singing, in addition to trading 

stories and information. Richardson, who visited the home of Omar Effendi several 

times, noted that it was a destination for travelers from around the world. He added 

that sometimes he ate in this house in the company of no less than 80 people, including 

guests, acquaintances, and the household members. 


In recording his trip to Jerusalem, Richardson addressed the topic of the household’s 

women, a matter rarely addressed by travelers, whether Muslim or European. The 

matter of feeding dozens of visitors and guests on a daily basis, as Richardson noted, 

was a difficult task that fell on the women of the house. Despite the presence of 

male and female servants and helpers, both peasants and urbanites, who helped to 

lighten the family’s work burden, the women complained to this doctor of exhaustion. 

Richardson noted that a significant portion of his visit to Jerusalem, which lasted three 

weeks, was spent in the home and diwan of the naqib, to the point that he did not 

find time to visit the district mutasallem, Abdel Karim Agha. The statements of this 

traveler, like the testimony of Hassan al-Attar and other letters and documents, make it 

clear that Omar Effendi al-Naqib was the most powerful and important personality in 

Jerusalem at that time. His home, always prepared to welcome guests and visitors, was 

an expression of his high standing and wide influence in a society based upon repute 

and personal and familial relations. 

The posts of the Hanafi mufti, the naqib of the ashraaf, and the head shaykh of al- 

Haram al-Sherif were among the most prominent positions for Jerusalem’s scholars 

and notables and were held by members of the Husseini family in the early nineteenth 

century. As for the remaining men of this family, they held other, more humble posts, 

such as overseeing religious endowments (like that of the Prophet Moses), teaching, 

the service of mosques, commerce, industry (mostly soap) and other professions. 

Mufti Hassan bin Abdel Latif summed up this family in his biographies when he 

wrote, “In general, they were at that time about 50 men, poor and rich, notables and 

common folk.” This description is applicable to the members of this family during 

this study’s timeframe, as well as most Jerusalemite families from which scholars 

and notables grew prominent but which also did not lack simple folk and the poor. 

The Husseini family maintained its status and influence in Jerusalem during the late 

Ottoman period, and this was a natural basis for it leading the Palestinian national 

movement in the days of Haj Amin Husseini during the British Mandate. 

The Khalidi family 

The Khalidi family, formally referred to as al-Deiri, occupied an important position 

among Jerusalem’s scholars and notables over successive generations, including 

the period of concern. The source of the family members’ significance was always 

their employment in the Islamic courts as clerks and head clerks (bashkatib), as well 

as assistant magistrates. Whereas the posts of mufti and naqib of the ashraaf were 

largely monopolized by members of the Husseini family and sometimes transferred 

to other scholars and notables of Jerusalem, the Khalidi family was not among their 

competitors. It succeeded, however, in maintaining posts within the Islamic courts 

for members of the family. Through their work in the judiciary, some succeeded in 

climbing the ladder of posts and being appointed assistant magistrates or even judges 


in Jerusalem and elsewhere. Despite the rise and fall of the Khalidi family’s status 

throughout the Ottoman era, the family maintained its role in the Islamic courts and, 

through it, commanded social influence. 

In the early Ottoman period, the Khalidi family was known by the name of al-Deiri, 

a reference to the village al-Deir in the Nablus district. Even prior to the Ottoman era, 

some of Khalidis who settled in Jerusalem grew prominent, including famous scholars 

such as Shamseddin Muhammad bin Abdullah al-Deiri. It appears that this judge was 

the first to reside in Jerusalem and that he started a family later known as ‘Khalidi’ 

in reference to Khalid bin al-Walid. The name ‘al-Deiri’ continued to be used for 

this family until the eighteenth century, when it was gradually dropped and the name 

‘Khalidi’ emphasized instead, highlighting lineage tracing back to Khalid bin al-Walid, 

the Islamic conqueror of the Levant under the first Caliph, Abu Bakr al-Sadiq. Some 

researchers who have carefully studied the family’s history have cast doubt on this 

lineage established by those of later generations as one more fitting to the family’s 

status and long history. In any case, the Khalidi family’s ancient lineage was accepted 

in the eighteenth century and confirmed by documents in the Islamic courts and 

biographies of that period’s scholars and notables. 

Unlike many of Jerusalem’s families, the Khalidi family did not descend from the 

Prophet Muhammad and remained distanced from competition over the ashraaf 

syndicate. And despite their affiliation to the Hanafi school of law starting in the 

early Ottoman period, they did not attempt to obtain the post of the Hanafi mufti 

in Jerusalem, remaining distanced from the power struggles over such important 

posts. Among the family’s members who grew prominent in the eighteenth century 

was Muhammad Sonallah Khalidi, who held the post of the bashkatib in the Islamic 

courts. Following his decease in 1140 H/1727-1728 CE, his children Khalil and then 

Ibrahim inherited his status and his post until their deaths, at which time the post was 

transferred to other members of the family. It seems that the family’s status began 

to decline in the late seventeenth century due to reforms and reorganization of the 

judiciary in the Ottoman state. The policy of appointing judges from among graduates 

of Ottoman schools in Istanbul apparently contributed to shrinking opportunities 

for judgeships for scholars in the Levant and the Arab provinces. Yet the family’s 

circumstances improved starting in the late eighteenth century and its influence grew 

with the rise of the status of the local elite and the decline of the central Ottoman 

authority. 

Three individuals from the Khalidi family played an important role in raising the 

family’s status beginning in the late eighteenth century. The first of these was ‘Ali 

Effendi, who was appointed the bashkatib in Jerusalem’s Islamic court beginning 

at least in 1782, following the death of his uncle, Ibrahim, the son of Muhammad 

Sonallah mentioned above. Initially, a struggle took place between him and his cousin, 

who attempted to inherit the post from his father as was customary at that time, and 


who obtained sanction from the Sultan to this end. Yet ‘Ali Effendi, who had been a 

clerk in the Islamic court for two decades, had gained the support of the city’s scholars 

and notables. And the judge, the muwalli khilafat al-shar’, was in charge of making 

a decision regarding competition for the post of bashkatib. It is worth noting that the 

position of the naqib of Jerusalem’s ashraaf at that time, Abdullah bin Abdel Latif, 

and the Hanafi mufti, Hassan bin Abdel Latif, had a decisive influence on the post 

being given to ‘Ali Effendi. 

The city’s scholars and notables, including the mufti and naqib of the ashraaf, held 

that Muhammad Effendi, son of the former bashkatib, was new to work in the Islamic 

court and considered unsuitable by its staff as well as by the people of Jerusalem. 

In contrast, they held that ‘Ali Effendi was suitable. On this basis, Jerusalem’s 

scholars and notables requested that the judge grant the post to ‘Ali Effendi and not 

accept the official appointment for Muhammad Effendi, son of the former bashkatib 

Ibrahim. They explained this position by arguing that the sultan’s sanction issued for 

Muhammad Effendi was issued on the basis of incorrect information regarding his 

qualifications and suitability for the post. And in fact, the judge decided to appoint 

‘Ali Effendi and the governor of Damascus announced this decision. He also agreed 

with the choice of Jerusalem’s scholars and ratified the judge’s choice. 

The incident of ‘Ali Effendi Khalidi’s appointment to the post of bashkatib of the 

Islamic courts illustrates the importance of the role of the local elite in appointments. 

Although Muhammad Effendi, son of the former bashkatib, had obtained the Sultan’s 

sanction for his appointment, the position of Jerusalem’s scholars and notables, 

led by members of the Husseini family, pushed the balance in the favor of ‘Ali 

Effendi. This position taken by the leaders of the Husseini family may have a role 

in explaining the friendly relations and cooperation that reigned between employees 

of the Islamic courts who were members of the Khalidi family and members of the 

Husseini family during that period. The Husseini and Khalidi families did not compete 

for the same posts, but rather maintained relations of coordination and cooperation. 

While Jerusalemite families such as the al-Ilmi, Jarallah, al-Jama’i, Abul Saud, and 

other families competed with the Husseini family for the posts of the Hanafi mufti 

and naqib of the ashraaf, the Khalidi family remained distant from these struggles. 

Relations between the two families were also strengthened through marriage in the 

early nineteenth century. 

The post of bashkatib was always a launching pad for becoming an assistant 

magistrate whenever the holder of this post was out of town or unable to fulfill the 

duties of his post for any reason. Working beside the muwali khilafa (judge), or in his 

place, put the Khalidi family in an important position of influence within Jerusalem 

and beyond. This reality, which was not overlooked by Ottoman authorities, was 

sufficient reason for releasing bashkatibs from their posts, despite incidents of 

complaints by competitors and the envious. In 1204 H/ 1789-1790 CE, for example, 


the empire released ‘Ali Effendi the bashkatib from his post on the charge of 

interfering in affairs of governance and administration outside of his jurisdiction. In his 

place, his brother Musa Effendi was appointed to the post and remained the bashkatib 

for several years. What is unusual about this case is that ‘Ali Effendi, removed from 

the post of bashkatib in the Islamic court, was appointed during that period as assistant 

magistrate in the Islamic courts of Gaza and Jaffa, indicating that the goal had only 

been to distance him from Jerusalem and its Islamic court. Musa Effendi, the new 

bashkatib, was appointed several times during the final decade of the nineteenth 

century, as an assistant magistrate and then as a judge in the Islamic courts during 

the French occupation in 1799. In 1216 H/ 1801 CE, ‘Ali Effendi returned from Jaffa 

where he became a judge (assistant magistrate) and was again appointed bashkatib in 

Jerusalem and assistant to its judge, just as he had been previously. 

There are several indications that the status of Jerusalem’s scholars and notables was 

strengthened following the French occupation, which shook faith in the ability of the 

sultan and his armies to protect sacred places from European invasion. Documents in 

the Islamic courts indicate that, starting in the early nineteenth century, the Ottoman 

state needed the assistance of local elites to resist the French and expel them from 

Palestine and Egypt, and then to fight the Wahhabis. It was during this period that 

Musa Effendi bolstered his status and climbed the judiciary ladder following his 

successful start in Jerusalem. It appears that some people were not pleased by 

this development and the success of Musa Effendi in bringing his brother back as 

Jerusalem’s bashkatib; they sought to limit his influence. A sultan’s order was issued, 

supported by a fatwa issued by the Shaykh of Islam, that required his removal from the 

city. And in fact this order was executed and Musa Effendi was exiled from Jerusalem 

and its judiciary, although not for long. He succeeded in climbing the ladder of the 

Ottoman judiciary and was appointed a judge in Medina, the second most holy Islamic 

site and one of the most important posts in the judiciary. Musa Effendi continued to 

advance until he was appointed the judge of the Anatolian army, the second most 

important scholarly post following that of the Shaykh of Islam. 

During the Ottoman period, government posts were a means of gathering wealth and 

bolstering social influence. As Musa Effendi climbed the ladder of the Islamic judicial 

system, he succeeded in accumulating immense wealth, some of which he invested in 

the purchase of property in Jerusalem. In 1828, this judge established an inheritance 

endowment that included homes, shops, vineyards, and legal rights to a coffee shop, 

a bakery, a mill, and other buildings. Musa Effendi Khalidi retained this endowment 

throughout his life and then limited it to his two sons Mustafa and Abdel Qader and 

his four daughters, Ruqaya, Mahbuba, Asma’, and Aisha. With regards to his son 

Abdel Qader, the sources available do not offer any information. It appears that he 

died at a young age without marrying or bearing any children. As for Mustafa Hamed, 

Musa Effendi Khalidi’s second son, he lived in Istanbul for a long time, studying and 

graduating from its schools. He was appointed judge of the Islamic courts in Jerusalem 


and indeed traveled there to take up this post. Shortly after his arrival in Jerusalem, 

he married the daughter of his paternal uncle, ‘Ali Effendi, mentioned above. Mustafa 

suddenly died a few months following his marriage and his inheritance was passed on 

to his wife and from her to her brother, Muhammad ‘Ali Effendi. 

As for Musa Effendi Khalidi’s daughters, three of them married the most prominent 

of Jerusalem’s scholars and notables. Ruqaya married Omar Effendi, naqib of the 

ashraaf, Asmaa’ married her cousin Muhammad ‘Ali Effendi the bashkatib and 

assistant magistrate, and Mahbuba married Muhammad Tajeddin Abul Saud, who was 

appointed the naqib of Jerusalem’s ashraaf from time to time. 

Musa Effendi spent the last years of his life in Istanbul and died in 1247 H/1832 

CE. Among the effendiya of his time, this Jerusalemite judge had held the most 

important and highest position in the Ottoman state apparatus. Shortly before his 

death, Musa Effendi played an important role in urging the people of Jerusalem to 

fight Muhammad ‘Ali’s army after its invasion, or at least not to cooperate with it. 

This Khalidi judge played an important role in bolstering the influence of members of 

his family in the Ottoman capital, for he forged close relations with reformers during 

the reign of Sultan Mahmoud II. Following his death, leadership of the family was 

transferred to Muhammad ‘Ali Effendi, his nephew and son-in-law. 

As for ‘Ali Effendi Khalidi, he remained in his Jerusalem post of bashkatib and 

assistant magistrate for an extended period. Like his brother Musa before him, this 

post helped him to gather immense wealth and bolster his influence and standing 

among Jerusalem’s effendiya. When Ahmed Pasha al-Jazzar died in 1804, ‘Ali Effendi 

was assistant magistrate in Jerusalem and in fact the acting judge. An indication of his 

influence and standing at that time is the fact that he sent a letter to Muhammad Agha, 

the mutasallem of Gaza and Ramla and the head of customs in Jaffa that retained him 

in this post until new orders were issued from Istanbul. The Ottoman authorities did 

not fail to note the extent of ‘Ali Effendi’s influence and attempted to remove him 

from his post shortly after this move. Yet this attempt failed because Jerusalem’s judge 

(al-muwalli khilafa) at that time re-appointed ‘Ali Effendi to the post of bashkatib, 

for in addition to his qualifications, suitability, and lengthy experience in that post, he 

enjoyed the support of Jerusalem’s scholars and notables. 

Another attempt was made to remove ‘Ali Effendi Khalidi from the post of bashkatib 

in 1228 H/ 1813 CE. He was summoned to Damascus, where the governor warned 

him not to interfere in affairs of governance and to adhere to the boundaries of his 

post in the Islamic court. He was charged with cooperating with some of Jerusalem’s 

scholars and notables in interfering in the affairs of the district’s administration 

that were the responsibility of the governor of Damascus and his mutasallem. The 

governor in Damascus sufficed that time with issuing a warning, but it appears that 

this warning did not affect the course of events or the power balances on the ground 


in Jerusalem and its surrounds. The Khalidi family, like the Husseini family and other 

members of local elites in the Levant and elsewhere in the provinces did not hesitate 

to exploit the weakness of the central authority and its representatives to increase their 

influence and interfere in the affairs of governance when it served their interests. The 

governors of Damascus overlooked this behavior among Jerusalem’s effendiya due to 

needing their cooperation in the administration of the district’s affairs. As for the few 

instances in which the governors intervened and attempted to contain the effendiya, led 

by the Husseini and Khalidi families, they were limited and sought to save face before 

the state and its officials. 

‘Ali Effendi Khalidi passed away in Jerusalem in 1231 H/1816 CE, and his post 

and high standing were inherited by his son Muhammad ‘Ali, who held the post of 

bashkatib of the court and assistant magistrate for many years. During the decades 

in which Muhammad Ali Effendi held these posts, the Khalidi family significantly 

expanded its circle of influence outside of Jerusalem, particularly in Gaza, Jaffa, 

and other cities of the governorate. Through its work in Islamic courts or by 

appointing assistant magistrates to these cities, the family succeeded in protecting 

its economic interests and increasing its investment in those cities and cantons. It is 

worth mentioning that Muhammad ‘Ali followed in the footsteps of his uncle Musa 

Effendi and was appointed judge of the Islamic court in Jerusalem and then judge in 

Adrum and Murash. When he was appointed to judicial posts outside of Jerusalem, 

he transferred his posts in the Islamic court to his sons, Khalil and Yassin. A quick 

comparison between the role and status of Khalidi family members in the first half of 

the nineteenth century with that of the previous century clearly shows that the family 

strengthened its influence and established itself as the second most powerful family of 

effendiya in Jerusalem following the Husseini family. 

Musa Khalidi, who climbed the ladder of posts in the Ottoman judiciary until the post 

of judge of the Anatolian army, played an important role in securing the foothold of 

the family and its status in Jerusalem and the cities and cantons of the governorate. It 

is noteworthy that, like the Husseini family, Musa Effendi and other members of the 

family formed close relations with top officials in the Ottoman state. Nevertheless, 

members of the Khalidi family were vocal supporters of reform and close to the 

leaders of the Ottoman tanzimat movement in the nineteenth century. This position of 

support for reform and change was particularly prominent during the time of Youssef 

Diya’ Khalidi (1842-1906). (However, that period is beyond the scope of this study 

and demands further research.) 


The Socio-political Approach to Maintaining Posts 

Jerusalem’s effendiya, as mentioned above, succeeded in bolstering their political 

standing and expanding their influence throughout the Jerusalem district and all the 

cities of the governorate from Nablus to the north to Gaza in the south beginning in 

the mid-eighteenth century. The means for securing and maintaining this standing 

was, as stated above, the cozying-up to the empire and its officials in Istanbul and the 

capitals of neighboring governorate, and creation of wealth and standing to protect 

and hold positions from one generation to the next. 

Documents from the registers of the Islamic courts in Jerusalem serve as the most 

important source for studying the city’s history in the Ottoman era. Yet another source 

no less important than these registers are the private collections of documents and 

correspondence preserved in a number of private and public libraries in Jerusalem. 

These collections include private letters exchanged between Jerusalem’s scholars and 

notables on the one hand and state officials and top scholars of the age in Istanbul, 

Damascus, Akko, Cairo, and other capitals on the other. This correspondence reveals 

some of the behind-the-scene machinations to secure letters of appointment for 

certain individuals, and to foil interference by enviers and competitors. Most of the 

correspondence that has been preserved concerns the Husseini family, and some of it 

the Khalidi, Abul Saud, al-Ilmi and other families. 

These personal documents, which were not written for history and historians, shed 

light on the political approach followed by the effendiya. They also reveal a complex 

web of relations that the Husseini and other families succeeded in establishing, whose 

threads stretch from Jerusalem to the Ottoman capital, sometimes passing through 

the capitals of neighboring states. The documents of the registers offer information 

on official positions and the final results of struggles over posts, but the personal 

correspondence reflects details about the efforts expended by Jerusalem’s effendiya to 

secure appointments and guarantee their transfer to relatives and allies. 

In a study published more than a quarter of a century ago, the historian Butrus Abu 

Minna presented correspondence disclosing aspects of the relationship between 

the Husseini family and top scholars and officials in the Ottoman state during the 

second half of the eighteenth century. The collection of personal documents shows a 

clear strategy for protecting the interests of the family. This approach fundamentally 

relied on a flow of gifts and bribes offered to state officials so as to secure letters 

of appointment to the posts held by the Husseini family, most importantly for the 

leadership of the ashraaf syndicate and the post of the Hanafi mufti. Members of 

this family continued to follow this approach during the first third of the nineteenth 

century because it had become a well-known and accepted rule for obtaining posts in 

the Ottoman state. 


The Husseini family’s agents 

and messengers to rulers and top 

scholars in the Ottoman capital were 

sometimes Jerusalemites residing in 

Istanbul, and at other times visitors 

and travelers between the two 

cities. In addition to maintaining 

relations with friends and admirers 

of the family, these agents and 

envoys sometimes had to pursue the 

messengers of competing families, 

find out their news, and convey it to 

Jerusalem. Agents in Istanbul also 

sent to the Husseini family news of 

new opportunities for investment in 

open positions or profitable trade and 

other such recommendations. 

On 25 Muharram 1206 H/ 24 

September 1791 CE, Abdullah 

Effendi, naqib of the ashraaf in 

Jerusalem, received a letter from 

an ‘Ibrahim’ in Istanbul which 

exemplifies the work performed by 

Faidallah Musa Alami, mayor of Jerusalem (1912) 

and deputy from the Jerusalem District to the Ottoman 

parliament (1915). Source: IPS Beiurt 

the Husseini family’s agents in the Ottoman capital. The letter opens by stating that 

elsewhere enclosed is a letter of appointment for the mufti, Hassan Effendi. Then 

the writer goes on to raise important information related to the family’s affairs and 

interests. He writes: 

On Wednesday, 22 Muharram, the Right Honorable Amin Bey, judge of 

Jerusalem, arrived in Islambul via Adaliya in the company of Shaykh Abul 

Saud and his son and the son of al-Ja’uni and the son of al-Salahi. We 

went to meet them all. When we met the mullah he mentioned you and your 

laudable characteristics to those in the sitting and praised with all goodness. 

We have still not learned anything concerning the arrival of Shaykh 

Abul Saud. But at the beginning of the sitting he said, ‘We have come to 

this country so as to appeal to the state.’...He stayed in the home of Amin 

Bey, although it seems to us that he will not continue there due to some 

observations I noted.” 

The writer then moved on to general affairs of the Ottoman state, mentioning the 

peace talks whose conditions would not be made clear for another eight months. He 

then conveyed news directly concerning the Husseini family, making reference to 


a “weak rumor” that Shamseddin Effendi, the former governor of Damascus, had 

died on the road. He then mentioned the “responses to gifts” that he would send to 

Jerusalem on the Armenian ship “that sails in a month.” The writer asked the naqib 

to support the return of the translator Yacoub “to his place in any way. . . because he 

is your protégé.” Then Ibrahim concluded his letter to Abdullah Effendi, the naqib 

of Jerusalem’s ashraaf “by kissing the hands of our shaykh and teacher Shaykh 

Muhammad Effendi al-Budairi”. He sent his warm greetings to Hassan Effendi, the 

Mufti, and to Abdel Latif Effendi and Abdel Salaam Effendi (the naqib’s children) and 

to ‘Ali Effendi Khalidi and Ismail “and to those who seek refuge in your presence and 

your bountiful home.” 

Four years after the date of this letter, Ibrahim sent another letter from Istanbul to 

the Hanafi mufti and naqib of the ashraaf of the time, Hassan Effendi, which has 

also been preserved. In it, Ibrahim mentioned the arrival of “your gracious letter 

accompanied by gifts. That which you graciously offered reached us, may God 

increase your bounty.” Then Ibrahim changed to another matter, writing, “news has 

spread in Istanbul about the occurrence of a tremor in Jerusalem that resulted in the 

collapse of some shops, and that has preoccupied me greatly.” He then went on to 

discuss the affairs of Istanbul, writing that there was “a plague and many fires and 

rising prices.” As usual, Ibrahim closed his letter to the mufti of Jerusalem, Hassan 

Effendi, by greeting and kissing the hands of “our respected Shaykh Muhammad 

Effendi al-Budairi; our master, the naqib effendi; our master Muhibbeddin Effendi” 

and Shaykh Nijmeddin Effendi and Muhammad Jarallah Effendi “and all those who 

seek refuge in your presence in the way of employers and servants.” And on his part, 

the writer in Istanbul added that Amin Jalabi and his son Muhammad and Haj ‘Ali al- 

Jandubi and the Jerusalemites “send you warm greetings and prayers. Ismail has still 

not arrived to us.” 

The judge of Jerusalem (al-muwali khilafa) served as an important connection 

between Jerusalem’s effendiya and state officials in the Ottoman capital because 

he held the position for only one year. In a letter written by Asaad al-Salahi from 

Istanbul to Shaykh Taher Effendi Husseini in 1224 H/1809 CE, he clearly indicated 

that the money and gifts had arrived “in the company of the mullah”. He then asked 

him to “send the rest of the effects with you” with the mullah of Jerusalem now with 

you, “for he is one of our dearest beloveds and there is a history between us.” If 

this particular judge of Jerusalem did not agree to bring that, however, “send it with 

whomever you rely upon among those coming here, whether Muslims, Christians or 

Jews.” As the judge of Jerusalem arrived once a year from Istanbul and then usually 

returned there following the end of his year’s service, he became an important means 

or channel for transporting news and money and for maintaining relations with top 

scholars and rulers. The Husseini family therefore always took interest in knowing 

the identity of the judge appointed to Jerusalem through its friends and agents in the 

Ottoman capital. The leaders of this family also always took care to greet these judges 


upon their arrival at the Jaffa port and to protect and accompany them on their return 

from Jerusalem to Istanbul following the end of their year’s service. 

In 1207 H/1792-1793 CE, for example, the mullah of Jerusalem was described as 

being among the “state’s top notables”. Abdullah Effendi, naqib of the ashraaf at that 

time, exerted great efforts to secure a ship befitting the status of this judge and his 

companions in order to take them to Istanbul. Such a ship was found in Alexandria, 

and Abdullah Effendi went to the effort of having it brought from there to Jaffa to 

transport the judge and his family members and entourage. This great effort made, or 

investment undertaken, by the naqib of Jerusalem’s ashraaf was rewarded. This judge 

and his likes were close to the Shaykh of Islam and the naqib of the ashraaf in the 

Ottoman capital and other top state officials who made decisions concerning important 

appointments for the Husseini family. 

Yet agents in Istanbul and judges coming and going between Istanbul and Jerusalem 

were not the only channels for communication with state officials. The heads of 

Christian sects and their monasteries also played an important role in the service of 

Jerusalem’s scholars and notables. Many heavy gifts including cases of soap, bottles of 

rose water, and skull caps, among others, were sent on the ships of religious pilgrims 

and with monastic leaders and others traveling by land and sea between Jerusalem and 

Istanbul. Money was usually not sent as cash but rather as transfers that church leaders 

cashed in the Ottoman capital. 

Just as the Husseini family was active in trying to hold on to the Jerusalem ashraaf 

syndicate and the post of the Hanafi mufti, other Jerusalemite families competed 

with it, trying to wrest those posts from the hands of those who had monopolized 

them generation after generation. A letter to Hassan Effendi, Jerusalem’s mufti 

and naqib of the ashraaf, notes that his adversaries attempted to take revenge on 

him a month following his official appointment as the Hanafi mufti. This letter 

stated that Shaykh Jarallah and Muhammad Khalil had joined with some Egyptians 

and the Damascene Abdel Rahman al-Ramihani and met the Shaykh of Islam and 

submitted to him a petition. They claimed in their petition that Hassan Effendi had 

issued a legal fatwa permitting the construction of two churches that were in fact 

built in Jerusalem on the basis of this fatwa. The mullah of Jerusalem had arrived 

in Istanbul at that time and went to greet the Shaykh of Islam. When he saw this 

petition submitted against Hassan Effendi he said, “I think the person who submitted 

this petition wants the post for himself. But in my opinion, were the syndicate and 

the post of mufti taken from the hands of the Husseini family, that would affect 

the calm and order of the city as in the days of Madhi Zada.” The judge added in 

his discussion with the Shaykh of Islam that following the death of Abdel Salaam 

Effendi, the son of Shaykh Abul Saud went came to the judge and paid 1,000 

piasters so that he would agree to grant him the syndicate. He refused for fear of 

inciting unrest and instability in Jerusalem, he said. According to the same narrative, 


the Husseini family gave the judge of Jerusalem only five skullcaps not exceeding a 

value of 100 piasters as a gift when he left the city. 

This episode confirms the success of the Husseini family in bolstering its position 

and strong relations with state officials, including top scholars including judges. After 

mentioning the position of the judge of Jerusalem during his meeting with the Shaykh 

of Islam, the letter writer added that he had sent envoys close to the state officials to 

support the testimony of the judge and to speak in the interests of the Husseini family. 

Then he closed his letter by attempting to calm Hassan Effendi and those close to him 

by saying that the trouble Shaykh Jarallah had gone to in traveling to Istanbul would 

be in vain for he “will not gain anything other than disappointment.” 

One of the Husseini family’s friends wrote in yet another letter preserved in private 

and public libraries in Jerusalem, this one seemingly from Damascus, that there was 

no use in intervening for low-ranking employees, for “interests, if employed by a 

big man, grow with him, and if employed by a small man, shrink with him.” This 

nameless letter writer added another important statement, “Demands of Islambul are 

met through giving, and nothing is taken from significant people’s hands.” Added to 

this important network of allies, the Husseini family was not stingy in its offers of 

money and gifts to state officials and their entourages so as to maintain their posts and 

undermine attempts by their competitors to wrest them from their hands. 

Just as the Husseini family benefited from the services of their agents in Istanbul, 

these agents also requested services and personal assistance from Jerusalem. Assad al- 

Salahi requested assistance of this kind in a letter to the naqib of Jerusalem’s ashraaf 

dated 23 () 1226 H/29 January 1811 CE. He received a letter from ‘Mustafa’ “resident 

in our shop, stating that the son of our paternal uncle Musa al-Salahi is a burden on 

him. And thus we have removed him from serving as an agent and transferred the job 

to you. It is requested that you impress upon him that he is never to employ Mustafa. 

Take the fee from him and include it in our income. We put our faith in you as you 

have accustomed us to your high morals. And thus we have been bold enough to write 

this letter to you.” Then he added on the same topic, writing, “We owe a sum of 37 

Egyptian akum to the person responsible. Have the tenant pay it and bring you the 

remainder; may God never deprive us of your high-mindedness. Whatever services 

you need in Istanbul, it will be our honor to fulfill them.” 

These relationships served the interests of all, as a result. The family’s agents in the 

Ottoman capital earned material income for their services in addition to influence 

gained through their interactions with state officials and by offering them and those 

close to them gifts and money. The members of their families in Jerusalem also gained 

the protection and sponsorship of the effendiya, led by the mufti and the naqib of the 

ashraaf. And just as the agents offered their services in Istanbul and gained material 

income through that, they sometimes asked for the sponsorship and protection of their 


masters for visitors and pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem and the holy sites. Indeed, 

collections of family documents include letters in which agents request the assistance 

of the Husseini family and their protection for scholars, notables, and heads of 

monasteries and churches visiting Jerusalem. 

Overall, the network of relations established by the naqibs of Jerusalem’s ashraaf 

syndicates and its muftis in the Ottoman capital reminds me of the methods employed 

by local rulers such as Zahir al-Omar and the al-Atham family and others who grew 

prominent in the Levant in the eighteenth century. The mutasallems of the district 

did not have such relations, for they answered directly to the governors of Damascus. 

Although the interests of the Husseini family were usually met in Istanbul, the 

governors and top scholars of neighboring states in Damascus, Akko, and Cairo 

were an important and indispensable connection utilized to reach the top of the 

administrative hierarchy. And thus the Husseini family also took care to establish close 

relations with state officials and their representatives in the capitals of these other Arab 

states. 

Adel Manna’ is a historian specializing in the history of Palestine during the Ottoman period. 

Two of his books have been published by the Institute for Palestine Studies (Beirut).This essay is 

a part of a new book in Arabic, The Jerusalem District during the Mid-Ottoman Period (1700- 

1831), forthcoming from IPS. Manna is also a senior research fellow at the Van Leer Institute 

and directs the Center for the Study of Arab Society in Israel. 

Endnotes 

1 

Extensive footnotes in Arabic are available for 

this article. They can be obtained from the author on 

request. 


Intercommunal 

Relations in 

Jerusalem during 

Egyptian Rule 

(1834-1841) 


Statue of Ibrahim Pasha in the Cairo 

Citadel on Muqattam Mountain, built to 

commemorate his military victories in Syria 

and Palestine (1831-1840). 

Source: S. Tamari 

In my book Sacred Law in the Holy 

City, published in 2004, I presented a 

detailed analysis of the relationships of 

Jerusalem’s traditional Muslim elite with 

the Khedival regime of Muhammad ‘Ali 

Pasha, the Albanian governor of Egypt 

who rebelled against the Ottoman Sultan 

and invaded present-day Israel, Jordan, 

Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria in 1831. 

Here, I present material drawn from that 

book pertaining to the relations of Jews 

and Europeans with the Muslim elite of 

Jerusalem during the period 1834-1841 

in order to more closely scrutinize the 

experiences of these Europeans as they 

began to make their presence felt in the 

city through the purchase of real estate. 

Readers familiar with European contact 

with Jerusalem in this period will be 

quite intrigued by the perspective that the 

Islamic court records give us about several 

well-known personalities and events. This 

evidence shows the great change that these 

foreigners brought to the holy city, change 

perceived as threatening by the local Muslim 

elite, despite the fact that both the Egyptian 

[ 32 ] HISTORICAL FEATURES Intercommunal Relations in Jerusalem during Egyptian Rule (1834-1841)

egime occupying the city and the Ottoman Empire itself permitted the ‘alienation of 

land from imperial Islamic foundations (known as ‘waqf’ in order to permit economic 

redevelopment and growth in the city and its environs and to provide for the needs of 

resident ‘aliens. In this article, readers will learn much about the Islamic political and 

socioeconomic context that Europeans encountered during a time of rapid political, 

economic, and social change in the city, but which they only imperfectly came to 

understand. 

Jews and Christians Living Under Islam 

The dynamics of the Khedival period resulted in the reorganization of the 

socioeconomic framework of the empire under the Tanzimat. During the 1830s, the 

presence of Western interests in Palestine was expanding at a time when the region in 

general was suffering from the decimation of the Muslim community by Muhammad 

‘Ali, who conscripted large numbers of men and boys into the Egyptian army and 

forced them into corvée labour. The depopulation of Muslim cities, towns, and villages 

that resulted from the Khedivial regime’s policies had created the need for new 

inhabitants, inhabitants who would be compliant and productive, unlike the rebellious 

elites and peasants who had rebelled against the Egyptian regime in 1834. One of the 

manifestations of that presence was the immigration of European Jews (Ashkenazis) 

into Jerusalem. Some of these immigrants came not as simple pilgrims, but as 

entrepreneurs interested in finding commercial opportunities in Syria. 

Thus, the identity of established and new social groups in Jerusalem emerged as a 

mutable concept transformed by changing political and economic circumstances 

throughout the region resulting from the policies of Muhammad ‘Ali. This is nowhere 

more clear than the use of the term ‘millet’ in the Jerusalem of the late 1830s. It was 

during this time that non-Muslims taxpayers were differentiated from Muslims in 

accordance with the classical Islamic distinction between the ahl al-milla and the 

ahl al-dhimma: the people of Islam and the people under the Islamic covenant of 

protection on the basis of religion. 1 As the privileges of Ottoman subjects and nonsubjects 

began to merge, the former social structure of the city began to be overturned 

and religious identifications became increasingly more important politically. 

The growing presence of foreigners (musta’minin), in the person of consular 

officials representing Western political interests and Western immigrants looking for 

commercial opportunities in Syria during the Muhammad ‘Ali period changed the 

dynamics that had regulated minority relations in Jerusalem since the beginning of 

Ottoman rule in 1517. Western observers in the nineteenth century, for both religious 

and political reasons, analyzed Syrian society along religious lines, focusing upon 

the position of religious communities as oppressed minorities. They misconstrued 

the Ottoman term ‘ri’aya’ to mean only the Christian and Jewish communities of 


the empire, obfuscating the Ottoman sense of the word, with its reference to all 

productive, tax-paying residents of the empire, Muslim, Jewish and Christian. 

By separating the Jewish and Christian minorities from the Muslim majority in this 

political sense, the Khedival regime adopted the same distinction. As the Western 

powers began to press for ‘equal rights’ for the communities that they sought to 

protect from Muslim despotism, they unintentionally sundered the organic connections 

of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews with the rest of the population. The Europeans did 

not notice that all of the ri’aya could have benefited from the extension of political 

rights: protection from over-taxation, preservation of property, and the right to have 

their interests represented in the government. Instead, they focused upon Jews and 

Christians, who were clearly treated as inferiors by the Muslims. The Ottoman 

reformers, who began their efforts to address this split between the Muslims and the 

‘people of the book’, initiated the long process of reform known as the Tanzimat 

with the 1839 Rescript of Gülhane, according all Ottoman subjects equal rights, 

abolishing both the ‘askari and the ri’aya classes, and including Jews and Christians 

with Muslims as equal citizens. Thus, the 1830s concept of ‘millet’ was rejected by 

the Tanzimat Ottoman government, since it was contributing to the political idea of 

corporate nationalism inspired by Napoleon throughout the Ottoman Empire, rather 

than developing a multi-ethnic concept of citizenship that disregarded religious 

affiliations in favour of strengthening a secular idea of government. 

Ultimately, Sultan Abdul Hamid overturned the Tanzimat reforms because they had 

failed to prevent the rise of independent Christian states in the Balkans forcing the 

Ottomans out of Europe. This process convinced him that the idea of a multiethnic 

empire was unworkable, and that Christian communities presented a continuing 

danger to the territorial integrity of the Anatolian territories of the Ottoman Empire; 

the perceived danger that the Arab Muslims also posed to the Porte only emerged 

with the First World War. European political ambitions and rivalries relating to the 

‘sick man of Europe’ exacerbated the political failure of the Tanzimat to channel 

ethnic identities away from political self-government, and led to increasingly anti- 

Christian Ottoman policies. These policies culminated in the genocide of the Turkish 

Armenians, under Abdul Hamid; after the abolition of the Caliphate, by the Young 

Turks; and even under Ataturk, in the context of Turkish wars with Greece and Russia 

before and during World War I. 

When the distinction between ‘askari and ri’aya was nullified by the Gülhane Rescript, 

the Ottomans in a sense were following the same logic that had propelled Muhammad 

‘Ali in his policies regarding Christians and Jews: increasing the economic resources 

and potential of the state by encouraging commercial expansion by strengthening the 

economic position of Christian and Jewish populations of the Levant. 


Jerusalem was both a small provincial city, and a place of great religious and symbolic 

importance in the 1830s. This was reflected in an order appointing the deputygovernor 

of Jerusalem, which stated: “This city is among the noble places, and is a 

destination for all the nations of the world.” 2 In 1831, Muhammad ‘Ali, the Ottoman 

governor-general (wali) of Egypt, had invaded and occupied all of Bilad al-Sham, or 

the territories comprised of today’s Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan, and 

Syria. In 1834, a major rebellion broke out against Muhammad ‘Ali. 

Muhammad ‘Ali did not merely overturn the political order of Ottoman administration 

in geographical Syria (Bilad al-Sham). Rather, he instituted policies that effectively cut 

the local Palestinian political elite off at the knees. The decrees and policies enacted 

by Muhammad ‘Ali were self-consciously styled as the laws of a new polity, at first 

called “the Just Egyptian State,” (al-dawla al-misriya al-’adala) or the “Just State” 

(al-dawla al-’adala) but which soon would be referred to as “Khedival”. 3 Muhammad 

‘Ali is often credited with beginning the modernization of Syria, and for that reason 

this historical period has received much scholarly attention. Moshe Ma’oz led a 

generation of scholars in seeing the years 1840-1860 as the beginning of the modern 

period of Palestinian history, a transitional period “with some of its roots in the short 

period of Egyptian rule during the 1830s” which “brought about an end to centuries 

of confusion and backwardness and opened a new age of stability and modernization. 

During these years local forces were destroyed, regional autonomies undermined, 

and a solid foundation of Ottoman direct rule was established.” 4 In a provocative 

essay Shimon Shamir proposed that it was during the period of Egyptian rule that the 

“Modern History” of Palestine began. 5 Within the broad lines of Palestinian history, 

Shamir identifies a number of policies adapted by the commander of Muhammad 

‘Ali’s armies and governor of his Syrian territories–which included Palestine and 

the administrative district of Jerusalem–his son, Ibrahim Pasha. These policies 

characterize ‘modernization’ in the Middle East, according to Shamir: the systematic 

attempt to integrate local elites into a centralized government; to separate civilian 

and military authority; to establish a stable regional subdivision under a centralized 

provincial governor; to recruit local people into the regional government; to supervise 

the integrity and efficiency of its functionaries; to frame a policy for the region as a 

“territorial state” [sic]; to establish representative assemblies; to improve the status 

of Christians and Jews; to increase population in towns and villages; and finally, to 

benefit from European expertise in the improvement of sanitation, transportation, 

communications, education, agricultural, industrial, and commercial relations. 6 Shamir 

concluded that “[i]n some ways, then, the Egyptian invasion is comparable to the 

expeditions of Napoleon to Egypt and Perry to Japan, for it opened the area to foreign, 

modernizing and disrupting influence on a scale not known before.” 7 

Certainly the ever-increasing influence and presence of Westerners in Palestine during 

this period contributed to the transformation of the social and political makeup of the 

area, but it must be emphasized here that these factors were only one dimension of 


the process. There were local, regional, and international pressures on the status quo 

of the early nineteenth century. Political struggles between local commanders and 

their followers in the Nablus region, struggles that were amplified as the different 

factions jockeyed for support from the region’s provincial governors-general, led to 

ongoing skirmishes in the region of Jerusalem through the 1820s. Napoleon’s invasion 

of Egypt and Syria, and the French occupation of Egypt, reminded everyone of the 

international significance of Jerusalem and Syria. Provincial militias challenged the 

command structures of the Ottoman state led by provincial governors-general who 

rivalled one another in their contests for wealth and power. Illegal and excessive taxes 

led to disturbances in villages, and the failure of the state to pay its clients led to the 

emergence of banditry by both village-based elites and nomadic tribes. In the 1820s, 

Ottoman control of Syria seemed tenuous at best. The imposition of Khedival control 

in Palestine irreversibly changed the nature of local politics in Jerusalem. 

Demography in Bilad al-Sham 

The greatest single impact that the Khedival government had in Bilad al-Sham, 

including Jerusalem, was demographic. Conscription, war, disarmament, and the 

economic policies of Muhammad ‘Ali caused enormous disruptions throughout the 

region. 

Indeed, one European estimated that the entire male population of the sanjaqs of 

Nablus, Jerusalem, Gaza, Jaffa, Lod, Ramla, and Hebron had either fled, or had 

been sent to Egypt to the factories or navy, or conscripted, reducing the whole male 

population and productive power of the area by one fifth. 8 Villagers fled their homes, 

abandoning their fields and joining the Bedouin as outlaws; urban dwellers, without 

their executed or exiled leadership, became the prey of both the government and its 

fragmented opposition. Ibrahim Pasha destroyed abandoned villages and those of 

rebellious peasants, preventing the return of their original inhabitants. 

The depopulation of south-western Bilad al-Sham following the rebellion against 

Ibrahim Pasha in 1834 alarmed the Khedival government as well as European 

observers. Two documents relate to the decision of the Khedival government to enact 

a policy to encourage the repopulation of the area. Khedival reaction to the serious 

demographic situation is reflected in an order from the Superior Consultative Council 

of Damascus (diwan al-shura [sic] al-Sham al-’ali) in the name of Ibrahim Pasha. 

The order, sent by the hikimdar, Muhammad Sharif Pasha, to Jabr Abu Ghush, the 

mutasallim of Jerusalem, was recorded in the court registers on 13 Shawwal 1250/12 

February 1835. 9 This important document represents Ibrahim Pasha’s response to 

a real problem, which, according to the order, went counter to Islam (al-sunna almar’iya–“the 

observed precedent,” based upon the sayings and practices of the 

Prophet Muhammad). 


The order was concerned with “the surplus of unmarried women and lack of men to 

marry them, resulting in decreased reproduction and a deficit of youth, . . . contrary 

to the wellsprings of civilization.” The cause of this problem according to this order, 

however, was not war, conscription, over-taxation, or flight. Rather, Ibrahim Pasha 

concluded that this phenomenon was the result of local practice among the peasants 

(fallahun)– “undesirable ways in some of the villages of the Province of Damascus”. 

That is, the rates for the dower given to brides were set so high that their payment 

amounted to nothing less than “bribes, payoffs, ‘gifts’ of clothing, and other illegal 

extortions” for the benefit of the brides’ guardians and the officials officiating over 

weddings. 

For these reasons, Ibrahim Pasha stated that he had decided to have the Superior 

Consultative Council issue an order “organizing a system [for the payment] of the 

dower to women and virgins.” The order nullified “all of those damaging customs 

completely” and forbade high rates “in all of the villages of Syria for the sake of the 

young men who will not be deterred from marriage, and in order to achieve natural 

increase through marital relations.” The order cites a hadith attributed to the Prophet 

as precedent for this policy: “Marry, reproduce, and multiply, and I will boast of you 

among the nations on the Day of Resurrection.” 10 

To reassure the peasants that they would not suffer losses as a result of this decision, 

Ibrahim Pasha abolished “the unjust and illegal customary costs associated with the 

dower” and enacted a new system. The order decreed three legal rates under “the Just 

Egyptian Laws” (al-a hkam al-’adila al-misriya) and “in accordance with Islamic 

law”: 1,000 qurush; 750 qurush; and 500 qurush. 11 

To insure compliance with his order, Ibrahim Pasha urged the leaders of the 

community to supervise the actions of grooms and their families and to hold them to 

these rates, and expressly forbade them to give “robes of honour” or other emoluments 

to the families of the bride. Those who ignored the law would face exemplary 

punishments, detailed in the second half of the decree, where it is stipulated that those 

persons permitted by Sultanic decree to charge a fee for conducting a marriage could 

accept only 10, 15, or 25 qurush for such service. The order forbade absolutely the 

sale of daughters among the peasants, a practice forbidden by Islamic law. It explains 

that these measures were undertaken not to diminish the value of the trousseau to be 

given to a bride, but to insure that young men could afford to marry. The decree was 

to be made known to all of the mutasallims and other officials in the region, who 

warned to heed the new regulations and to monitor those who conduct the wedding 

service: the ‘ulama’, marriage witnesses, and religious leaders (riyasat al-din) from 

other religious communities. 12 The order instructed the mutasallims to halt weddings 

and warn the offenders if they observed transgressions of this decree. If these officials 

persisted in disobedience and did not apologize, the mutasallims and other officials 

were authorized to punish whoever was at fault, be he suitor, member of the ‘ulama’, 


or anyone else who had taken anything exceeding the established rates for performing 

a wedding. If any official discovered that out of fear, evasion, or pride, such an act 

had been concealed by either a judge (hakim) or a mutasallim, such negligence was 

punishable by exile to Acre for one year; if, however, the groom paid in excess of the 

three established rates for bride prices, or if he resorted to bribes, payoffs, or other 

illegal emoluments, he was to receive 500 lashes of the bastinado (kirbaj), and the 

guardian of the bride who demanded more than the permitted amount was to receive 

1000 lashes, after it was proven that he had acted contrary to this order. 13 

Since this decree envisioned improvement “for all,” Ibrahim Pasha explained, it was to 

be applied in rural areas where, in his view, local customs were preventing population 

growth, namely, Nablus, the vicinity (dawahi) of Jaffa, Gaza, and the “Holy Land” 

(al-bilad al-qudsiya) a specific reference to the administrative district of Jerusalem. It 

also applied to the villages along the maritime coast of the Province of Sidon and other 

areas where these customs “were not unknown: the country of Safad, Tibnin, and the 

vicinity of Shaqif and Jaba’: it was also to be made known in Jabal Shuf, and the area 

of Kisrawan, as well as the country around Tripoli (Lebanon), the city of Ladaqiya, 

and as far away as the country of Aleppo, “wherever young men were hindered from 

getting married.” 

This order provides important evidence of the depopulation of geographical Syria as a 

result of the military policies of the Khedival regime and popular resistance to them, 

and the effort of the Khedival regime to encourage repopulation. Ibrahim Pasha’s use 

of the shari’a to legitimize a policy that he had enacted in the highest administrative 

council in Syria is striking. Everyone involved in the act of marriage, from the groom 

and his family to the officials who conducted the ceremonies, were held responsible 

for upholding a law aimed at benefitting the population of Syria. Although this 

decree was promulgated by the Consultative Council administered by the Khedival 

government, at the direction of the ser’asker, Ibrahim Pasha, and the punishments 

specified in the order were to be executed by the mutasallims of the Khedival 

government, it was the shari’a, and more importantly, the Prophet himself, to whom 

Ibrahim Pasha turned for legal sanction. The ‘ulama’ clearly had no role in the making 

and implementation of this new policy, and they themselves were addressed in the 

decree as liable for punishment if they failed to abide by it. 

This legislation aimed at ending rural customs at variance with the shari’a. At the 

direction of Ibrahim Pasha, the Consultative Assembly, overseen by the hikimdar, 

Muhammad Sharif Pasha, had assumed the Sultan’s prerogative to legislate 

administrative decrees. Although Ibrahim Pasha sought authority for the order in 

Islamic law, its enforcement did not rest with the ‘ulama’. Indeed, it was directed 

at them, warning them to abide by its stipulations or face corporal punishment and 

prison. Although the religious leaders of the various communities continued to conduct 

marriages, annulments, and divorces, the Khedival government assumed the power 


to legislate and uphold laws governing personal status, an area of law heretofore the 

exclusive domain of the ‘ulama’. 14 

Ibrahim Pasha ordered the leaders of all of the religious communities in Syria to 

obey this decree. The Khedival government thus encouraged the natural increase of 

Christians and Jews as well as Muslims to solve the demographic problems it had 

caused throughout Syria as it implemented its military and political policies, although 

Ibrahim Pasha and his regime never explicitly acknowledged responsibility for this. 

Following the withdrawal of the Khedival armies from Syria, the Ottomans did not 

have difficulties establishing control because Muhammad ‘Ali had transformed their 

role and position in society so completely. One result was the establishment of Western 

consulates in the city, which is linked to the improved station of Jews and Christians in 

the city, evidenced by their increasing population and prosperity. A thorough survey of 

Western consular records and travellers’ accounts reveals a singular disinterest in, and 

often antipathy to, the Muslim community of Jerusalem. This is unlike the situation 

with other cities such as Istanbul, Damascus, Cairo, and Aleppo, where Europeans 

could be found who were at least fascinated with, if not enchanted by, Muslim society. 

In Jerusalem, the situation was quite different. Christian and Jewish travellers alike, 

the majority of whom were unfamiliar with non-European cities and cultures, and who 

held romanticized ideals of Jerusalem, lamented the apparent ruin of the Holy Land by 

the “infidel Turk.” Their comments were often general and overwhelmingly negative, 

filled with misconceptions and misinformation. Even relatively unbiased observers 

had difficulties overcoming their distrust of the Muslims given the straitened political 

and economic conditions of the time. 

The first British Consul in Jerusalem, William T. Young, instructed by his superior 

Lord Palmerston to “make it your business to cultivate a friendly feeling toward 

Great Britain amongst the inhabitants of the Country ... “ was unable to develop good 

relations with Muslims. 15 He wrote, “hitherto I regret to say, that I have on every 

occasion been met by the local authorities, in the most unconciliating and often the 

most vexatious spirit [sic].” 16 He and his successor, James Finn, offer remarkably 

little detail on the individual personalities, traditions, institutions, and opinions of the 

Muslims living in the city. The little information that is related describes conflicts 

and misunderstandings between the newcoming Westerners and the Muslims, or 

between local Christians and Jews and the Muslim authorities, information pointedly 

emphasizing misrule and the need for extending ‘protection’ to non-Muslims. As for 

secondary sources concerning this period, many of the standard works on Palestinian 

history and society lack detailed information about the Muslim community of 

Jerusalem in the early nineteenth-century. Studies such as those by Ma’oz, Cohen, and 

Migdal contain little information on the Muslims of Jerusalem in the period before 

the Ottoman Tanzimat in 1841. 17 The plethora of recent works underscores both the 

renewed interest in nineteenth century Jerusalem and the acuteness of the need for 


a study balancing Muslim sources against Western travellers’ accounts and consular 

reports. 18 There were notable exceptions to this bias: Edward Robinson showed 

sensitivity to and interest in the Muslim community, as did the American missionaries 

William Thompson and John F. Lanneau. 19 Indeed the same misconceptions first 

penned by badly informed nineteenth-century observers constantly reappear in modern 

writings on the Middle East. 

Unfortunately we have no contemporary chronicles written about Jerusalem by a 

Muslim during this period, nor were there any journals or newspapers published in 

the region. 20 The availability of archival material in the Islamic Court of Jerusalem 

thus enabled me to make those records the backbone of my research. 21 This vast 

and stimulating corpus of evidence throws considerable light on the workings of 

the administration of the city and its institutions and the relationship of the city to 

Ottoman and regional centres of power. 

The Muslim Community of Jerusalem 

and its Relations with Jews and Christians 

Of all the issues pertaining to Ottoman Jerusalem, it is the status of the religious 

minorities that has drawn the most attention from Western observers and scholars. In 

this section, documents pertaining to the relations of these minorities with the Muslim 

majority will be analyzed within the context set out in this study. These documents 

serve to provide us with contemporary and indigenous materials that give us a new 

perspective from which to understand these relationships. It is clear that the very 

misunderstandings of the Europeans about Islamic government fuelled the changing 

relationship of Muslims and non-Muslims in the years following the 1834 rebellion. 

Throughout this discussion, the changing status of the Muslim community itself 

under the Khedival regime must be borne in mind. That once-dominant community 

was itself retrenching, adapting itself to a new fiscal regime and a new political and 

military order. Ottoman and European diplomatic pressure upon Mu hammad ‘Ali 

continued until war would once again flare up in 1840. The years 1834-1839, then, 

must be understood as exceptional ones, as Mu hammad ‘Ali attempted to strengthen 

his position in Syria and as the residents of Bilad al-Sham attempted to find their 

places in the new order. 

In this section, we will examine a number of court cases documented in the Islamic 

court archives which will give us windows into the life and times of Jews and 

Christians following the rioting in the city of Jerusalem in 1834. 


The Case of the Notebook: Isaac Makes an Accusation 

Before that rebellion was even suppressed, a remarkable case was brought to the 

Islamic Court concerning damages for the loss and destruction of property. Unlike an 

earlier case, which was resolved in favour of the plaintiffs, members of Jerusalem’s 

military elite against peasants from a nearby village, this case was not. In this case, 

dated 15 Rajab 1250/17 November 1834, Is haq ibn Ya’aqub al-Yahudi, Isaac the son 

of Jacob, the Jew, accused al-Hajj ‘Ali al-Ja’uni, al-Sayyid ‘Abdullah al-Ja’uni, and al- 

Sayyid ‘Uthman al-Ja’uni, three members of an important Jerusalem military family, 

of taking property from him, “when the peasants entered Jerusalem.” 22 Is haq brought 

with him to the court a notebook listing the items stolen from his house, which he 

presented as he made his accusation against the three. They were asked about the 

charge, and denied it. Witnesses “from among the Muslims and the Jews” testified 

that the accused had not taken anything listed in the notebook from the plaintiff. These 

witnesses were: Mu hammad Effendi Binbashi, a military officer; ‘Abdullah Bashi 

Agha al-Baghdadi Yuzbashi, another ranking officer; the Jewish community’s leader 

in Jerusalem, the official translator for the Jewish community in Jerusalem, the son of 

the community’s representative, “al-Khakham Shelbun,” (the only one whose given 

name is listed in the document), and “other Jews”. These witnesses all testified that 

the plaintiff, present in the court, had admitted that the three accused did not have any 

of the things listed in the notebook. The judge then asked the plaintiff for a statement, 

and he answered that he had no witness that any of the three accused had taken his 

belongings from the peasants who had entered Jerusalem; the judge then asked him 

to state if he had seen them take any of the things, and the plaintiff admitted he had 

not. So the judge made the plaintiff acknowledge that he had no right to make a claim 

against the three, and that no further action could be brought against them. 

This case, in which a single Jew accused three military officers, notable Jerusalemites 

all, of receiving stolen goods or actually stealing them themselves during the looting 

of the city, is remarkable. It is doubtful that he would have brought the case to court 

unless he had some reason to believe that he could win the suit, despite the fact that 

he had no witnesses to corroborate his claims. This, in accordance with Islamic laws 

of evidence, would have been enough to dismiss the case. However, some big guns 

were brought out to refute his case: reputable witnesses from the military and from 

the Jewish community itself testified that the plaintiff had no case against the three. 

The dispute was resolved in the defendants’ favour, and the looting victim received 

no compensation for the losses he had claimed. Without further evidence, we cannot 

speculate more about this case. Nevertheless, it is interesting that it was brought 

and that it was heard. No other cases stemming from the violence of the rebellion 

in Jerusalem were recorded in the sijillat. However, we can draw one conclusion: 

unsettled by the political struggle going on between Mu hammad ‘Ali and the Sultan, 

the Muslim residents (ahali) of Jerusalem and their neighbours, as we have seen, had 

lost their established prerogatives as a privileged, tax-exempted group. These Muslim 


esidents of Jerusalem now were forced to adapt themselves to the policies of Muhammad 

‘Ali’s regime, policies which aimed at changing the fundamental structures 

of law and government in Syria. It is in this context that we must understand the 

Western arrival in the city. 

Ashkenazi Entrepreneurs Arrive in Jerusalem 

Another area which the court records throw light upon is the growing interest of 

foreigners in taking part in the economy of the city. A key to understanding this issue 

is an important document recorded on 19 April, 1838. 23 It relates to an order issued on 

May 28, 1837 by the hikimdar to the mutasallim of Jerusalem, Mustafa Agha al-Sa’id. 

The majlis al-shura of Jerusalem had written to the mutasallim regarding a letter 

addressed to them by Ba hri Bey, the treasurer of the Khedival government, concerning 

a petition of complaint (jirnal) that the majlis had sent to him. 24 This petition was 

written in response to a request submitted to the majlis by the representative of the 

community of Ashkenazi Jews in Jerusalem (wakil çta’ifat al-skinaj b’il-quds alsharif). 

The majlis had sent its petition to Ba hri Bey with the intention of rejecting the 

Ashkenazi’s request, as musta’minin, to purchase private property and arable land, 

to pursue agricultural activities, to buy and sell, to trade sheep and cows, to produce 

soap and build buildings for oil presses (mu’asar bina) so long as they would pay the 

appropriate miri taxes, as did the ri’aya. In this context the use of the word ri’aya 

specifically concerned that group that paid the miri taxes, both Muslims and dhimmis. 

This request from the Ashenazis represented a problem that was similar to an issue 

that had arisen in 1832. In that case, dated 24 August 1832, permission was granted 

to ‘Senator’ Jasper Chasseaud, (sanatwir Shasun qunsulus dawlat al-amirkan) the 

American consul, to appoint ‘Senator’ David Darmon (santwir Dawid Darmun), 

a Jew of French nationality as his agent in Jerusalem. 25 Chasseaud had contacted 

the Khedival government to request that Darmon be given the right to serve as his 

consul by fulfilling the duties he was instructed to perform by order of the American 

government. The document that certified this permission instructed the mulla qa di, 

mufti, naqib al-ashraf, and the mutasallim to allow him to conduct his business “as 

the rest of our beloveds like him (i.e. other consuls in the Empire), as well as his 

relatives.” The officials were to protect and guard him and those seeking shelter with 

him, and to help him perform the rest of his duties according to his “right” ( haqq) as 

consul. Furthermore, they were instructed to make sure that his requests and pursuit 

of issues relating to his group (ta’ifa)–witnesses, visitors, and residents in Jerusalem– 

were unhindered. In these two cases, the people involved were categorized as “groups” 

of non-Ottoman residents. 


In the case concerning the Ashkenazis, there was understandable confusion 

regarding the question, as is clear from the continuation of the majlis’ petition to the 

mutasallim. 26 The majlis wrote that “we understand the directions” given in the answer 

to its questions by Ba hri Bey, but that the response was inadequate since 

the lands of this region are miri and waqf, and their request in this regard 

does not agree with the shari’a administration and goes beyond the practice 

of buying and selling and in trading what they bring with them from their 

countries for all manner of trade and governs their peers, the dhimmis, in 

the market. These agents (‘ummal) undertake these commercial practices 

now, and no one prevents them in this. 

The majlis’ response to Ba hri Bey’s order was summarized and sent to another 

unidentified Khedival official, and was then responded to from Egypt. The response 

was to reaffirm the original order even if the rights that they had requested went 

against the shari’a. The Ashkenazis were to be able to enter into trade along with their 

co-religionists, despite the legal distinction in their status in the Ottoman Empire. 

The order then informed the members of the majlis that there was to be no further 

opposition to the Khedival order which permitted the Ashkenazi musta’min, along 

with the dhimmis, to have the commercial rights that they had requested. This case 

illustrates the resistance to opening the society and economy to outsiders even by the 

members of the Khedival majlis al-shura itself, and the strong will of the Khedival 

government to have its decisions implemented nevertheless. The Muslim concern 

about threatened competition was articulated in a concern about the confusion of the 

rights of the subjects of the Ottoman Empire and those of the musta’min. 

A Juvenile Delinquent Makes Trouble for His People 

An example of the relations between the Muslim community of Jerusalem and the 

Khedival government is a case involving the Jewish community. On 11 July, 1833, 

in the period before the 1834 rebellion, a group of Khedival soldiers, along with a 

servant of the al-Aqsa Mosque escorted a Jewish youth, aged 15, to the shari’a court. 27 

They explained that some workers had found him in the draperies of the windows in 

the mosque. The mutasallim decided that the court should consider the case, and called 

for an investigation to be conducted by himself and a group of Muslims to ascertain 

what the “scoundrel,” who is not named in the document, did. The investigators found 

that the youth had broken most of the stained glass in a large window above the mihrab, 

as well as damaging the tops of some of the columns above the mi hrab which 

were found crushed and broken. They also found three broken windows to the right of 

the mi hrab above the school door. The stained glass in question “had been fashioned 

in an adroit way out of coloured gypsum in a strange and wonderful form long ago; 

this method is no longer used in this city.” They also found that the youth had come 


from the Maghariba quarter through a garden known as the Khatuniya and from there 

through the school known as Dar al-Aqsa, which is attached to the mi hrab. 

This alleged vandalism had caused chaos (balbala) and the document records that 

“it seemed proper to turn the case over to highest authority because such a thing had 

never before been encountered.” According to the document, “[a]ll of the people of 

Islam grieved over this, and everyone lamented the contempt that was shown for the 

al-Aqsa Mosque whose virtues cannot be counted.” The mosque “had to be restored, 

and the scoundrel detained.” The mutasallim would detain him until an order would be 

issued concerning the correct course of action had been determined. 

The next morning, another Jewish youth was found inside the mosque, and he too was 

arrested. The mutasallim asked what to do about this and the mulla qa di answered that 

Istanbul had to be contacted since this was a strange occurrence because the Jews did 

not “usually enter the Haram” (because of Rabbinical law concerning the holiness of 

the site and the danger that a Jew might inadvertently step upon the Holy of Holies, a 

law with the Muslim authorities were familiar) and because “they lived far from the 

place”. Therefore, the case was to be judged at the highest level. Unfortunately, neither 

the court registers nor other records reveal the outcome of these cases. However, it 

appears that the Khedival authorities, working with the Ottoman chief judge of the 

city, prevented any kind of mob action and maintained public order in the city, since 

there is no mention of an outbreak of violence during this incident in contemporary 

accounts of this period. 

In addition to revealing some interesting architectural details, and their appreciation by 

the Muslims of Jerusalem, this document also gives us a glimpse of the significance 

of the al-Aqsa mosque to the Muslims in Jerusalem. The Khedival authorities in 

Jerusalem clearly recognized the importance of this case to the Ottoman authorities, 

and referred the case to them, rather than to Ibrahim Pasha or the hikimdar. It was only 

on this symbolic level that the Khedival government conceded the authority of the 

Ottoman State. 

The rich documentary evidence available in the sijill of the law court of Jerusalem 

shows clearly that the shari’a was not the sole concern of the court under Ottoman 

and Khedival rule. The ma hkama during this period became an instrument of Khedival 

policy. It became the place of record, where Khedival policies of all types were 

announced and registered, where shari’a cases were heard by the qa di, where petitions 

and requests to the majlis al-shura were recorded, where cases of various types were 

heard and decided. It was here that the consequences of policies could be felt, and 

where men and women of all backgrounds came to find redress for grievances and 

to register agreements. And it was in the ma hkama that the full force of the meaning 

of the Khedival occupation could be understood. This was the time when new actors 

could attain political power, as the relations of urban and military elites with the 


countryside were altered by Khedival policies and actions. The increasing political 

power of Christian and Jewish merchants and the diminution of the influence of 

the traditional elites would be a process that would continue under the Ottomans 

following their restoration. 

The Other: On Muslim Outsiders in Jerusalem 

These cases occurred long before the rise of political Zionism or the establishment 

of the State of Israel. Yet we can see that American and European diplomats and 

missionaries arrived in Jerusalem along with an influx of Ashkenazi Jews who joined 

the ranks of other resident aliens in the city. They associated themselves closely 

with the long-established Christian and Jewish communities. The fact that the local 

Muslims viewed these developments with resistance and anxiety is clear, but it 

has not been as clear that the Ottoman and Khedival governments permitted these 

newcomers to purchase property in order to encourage economic redevelopment and 

investment. Motivated by the need for taxes and a compliant population to pay them, 

these governments facilitated the immigration of Jews and Christians in order to help 

rebuild the Palestinian economy. 

What also has not been clear is that the Muslims of Jerusalem were threatened even by 

Muslim newcomers to Jerusalem who were appointed to administer local institutions 

by the Islamic bureaucracy itself. In an echo of the change in the traditional 

appointment of custodians of Islamic institutions in this period, one document 

records the complaint of a Yusuf al-Khalili, a cousin of the deceased custodian (wali) 

and shaykh Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Hidmi of the sufi lodge, al-Adhamiya, also 

called the zawiya of Ibrahim ibn Adham, just outside of the walls of Jerusalem. He 

challenged the qadi’s appointment of his cousin Muhammad ‘Awda to the post. In the 

fatwa that was issued in response to al-Khalili’s query, al-Sayyid al-Hajj Muhammad 

Tahir al-Husayni, the mufti of Jerusalem, answered a query about this appointment that 

the appointment of the “foreigner” (al-rajul al-ajnabi) from “another place” (fi ghayri 

ma hallati) was in accordance with the law, so long as he was related to the uncle who 

had passed away leaving the post vacant. 28 

The two cousins appeared in court and Yusuf al-Khalili accepted the appointment of 

Muhammad ‘Awda before the judge, who forbade any further contest regarding the 

matter. Thus, even though his relative was not from the vicinity, and therefore was 

perhaps unfamiliar with the administration of the zawiya, the court ruled that the 

appointment remained acceptable because it remained within the family, according to 

Sultanic order. 

However, in a later case, dated 15 May, 1839, the same dispute concerning the 

appointment of a “foreigner” to the post of custodian of the Adhamiya order again 


arose in the court. 29 The qadi appointed Yusuf Afandi al-Khalili as the wali and shaykh 

of the zawiya of Ibrahim Ibn Adham, in accordance with a shari’a court document 

dated July 17, 1835. Yusuf, still dissatisfied with the previous decision, had rallied his 

resources to again contend with the qadi. The court then set upon a further review of 

the case. 

It found that in 1837 another individual, named Muhammad Agha al-Shamluji, had 

been appointed to the position by the court, but that this appointment had also been 

contested because he was not considered qualified for the post since “he was not from 

the people of Jerusalem” (laysa min ahali al-quds al-sharif). 

However, the post did not remain vacant, because Yusuf al-Khalili was apparently 

appointed internally to fill it. Since he was qualified for the post, he was not dismissed 

from it. Furthermore, if the judge did dismiss him, it would not be in accordance with 

two fatwas that had been issued supporting Yusuf regarding this matter. The first of the 

fatwas was issued by Muhammad Tahir al-Husayni, the Hanafi mufti of Jerusalem, and 

the second was from Husayn Salim Afandi al-Dajani, the Hanafi mufti of the Port of 

Jaffa. 

The first fatwa stated: 

The position goes to whom the qadi appoints because of the Sultanic order 

that when one dies leaving the position vacant, then it should go to his son, 

and if he has no son then to his brothers, and if he has no brothers then to 

his relatives, especially to he who is from the people of Jerusalem in honour 

of the Holy City and thus taking the opportunity to heed their pleas for their 

weak and the poor and not to bring in foreigners for this position. And as 

for the stranger to them, the court should expel him from that position. This 

is what is customary law (‘urf) in our noble city (baldatina al-sharif). 

The second fatwa cited the Shaykh al-Islam who had issued the legal opinion that 

such an expulsion is not valid and that there is no succession except on the basis of the 

shari’a. If such a basis could not be found then he should keep the position with no 

reservations, the fatwa continued, “as it is written in the opinions of Abu Yusuf in his 

book “Kitab al-Kharaj” where he wrote ‘it is not permissible to eliminate a position 

from its holder without his commission of an infraction (jun hah),’ and as he said in 

“al-Ba hr” that “if the qa di dismissed a guardian and stipulated that an infraction had 

been committed,” and proved that “there was another who would benefit the esteem of 

the guardianship without deception or lies,” then the appointment could be withdrawn. 

If the appointment was not a member of the Muslim community of Jerusalem (ghayr 

ahl) who was not from the people, then he should be expelled. The fatwa stated that “if 

there was revenue which the guardian controlled, then he must be trustworthy because 


the income of the waqf is dedicated to the destitute (masakin) and an unreliable person 

would not safeguard it from being wasted or sold.” 

However, the final decision was based upon the instructions sent in summary form 

(khulasa) to the qadi by the Consultative Council (Diwan al-shawara [sic]) in 

Jerusalem. The qadi acquiesced and gave permission confirming Yusuf al-Khalili’s 

right to retain the directorate (mubashira) of the affairs of the zawiya and to control 

whatever concerned it. 

The resolution of this dispute is interesting on many counts. Most importantly from 

the standpoint of understanding the values of the ‘ulama’ in Jerusalem were the fatwas 

issued by the muftis of Jerusalem and Jaffa. Their belief that only someone from 

Jerusalem would be able to answer the needs of the people who would benefit from 

the Adhamiya Waqf gives us a new perspective with which to view the attitude of the 

afandiyat to all outsiders, including Muslims from outside of Jerusalem. The Muslims 

of Jerusalem were part of a unique community that adhered to customary law–’urf–as 

well to the shari’a and the qanun. Al-Sayyid al-Shaykh Tahir Afandi al-Husayni, the 

Hanafi mufti of Jerusalem, and head of the majlis, had seen much during the past 

few years. He had been arrested and exiled following the rebellion in 1834, but had 

been allowed to return to Jerusalem after a short time. The last line in his fatwa is 

resonant: “This is what is customary law in our noble city.” A combination of pride 

and resolution can be heard in those words. The mufti wanted to assert the character of 

his community in the face of the erosion of the position of the ‘ulama’ and the ashraf 

in the past five years. His junior colleague in Jaffa sought to buttress al-Khalili’s 

position by finding support in the great Hanafi legist Abu Yusuf, upon whose works 

of jurisprudence the Ottoman legal structure was based. Both muftis underscored the 

function of the zawiya in providing for the poor. But it is Tahir Afandi’s statement 

that most aptly summed up the feelings of the Jerusalem Muslim establishment under 

Khedival occupation and asserted their determination to defend their role in the city. 30 

However, it was not the opinions of the muftis qua muftis which decided the matter. 

Indeed, the qadi was instructed to comply with the decision of the majlis al-shura, 

a decision that was made outside of the shari’a court. The authority of the ‘ulama’ 

within the political context had changed: their ability to function within the new 

administrative hierarchy is what would guarantee them influence in the Khedival 

system. Unfortunately we do not have a document illuminating the reasons that the 

majlis sided with Yusuf al-Khalili. 

Finally, this resistance to an outsider, even a Muslim outsider, taking over an Islamic 

institution is remarkable enough. How much more would the ‘ulama’ resist non- 

Muslims who sought to control the land and property that the afandiyat guarded 

for the sake of the Muslim community! However, at that time such an attitude was 


accepted as normal. Even the Ottoman Ministry for Imperial Religious Foundations 

had originally “hoped that by appointing local notables to the administration of evkaf 

in their district, sound management of evkaf would thereby be insured.” 31 Ultimately, 

however, the ministry deemed provincial notables unfit for this responsibility and 

turned to the Porte’s civil service for what they considered to be reliable candidates. 32 

Judith Mendelsohn Rood is Associate Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies and 

teaches courses in world civilizations, history, and Middle Eastern studies at Biola University 

in California. 

Endnotes 

1 

F. Buhl and C. E. Bosworth, “Milla,” 

Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2d ed., II:61. 

2 

“... hadhahi al-madina min al-amakani almusharifati 

wa-hiyya mauridan li-jamiya ajnasi al- 

’alam ...” Law Court Record of Jerusalem (hereafter 

LCRJ) Volume 321, page 5 (hereafter 321, 5). 5 

Ramadan 1252/15 December 1836. 

3 

LCRJ 317, 39, 49, 60; 318, 70, 110; 320, 34-5, 

82, 171; 321, 234; 323, 33, spanning the years 1832- 

9. 

4 

Ma’oz, v-vi. Khaled Fahmy’s All the Pasha’s 

Men (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 

1997) carefully treats Muhammad ‘Ali (Mehmed Ali) 

not as the “founder of Modern Egypt” but instead 

challenges the powerful nationalist discourse in 

Egyptian and European historiography by focusing 

upon the armies and their training under his regime 

as a way to understand the introduction of modern 

concepts and methods in Egypt. 

5 

Shimon Shamir, “Egyptian Rule (1832-1840) and 

the Beginning of the Modern History of Palestine”, 

in Cohen and Baer, eds., Egypt and Palestine:A 

Millennium of Association, 214-31. Butrus Abu- 

Manneh thought that instead, Jerusalem’s elevation 

to capital of the southern Syrian sanjaqs of Nablus, 

Gaza, and Jaffa in 1841 with the restoration of 

Ottoman rule could mark the beginning of the 

“modern history of Palestine.” Abu-Manneh, 1990, 

9. 

6 

Shamir, 219-29. For a more general treatment 

of this topic, see Immanuel Wallerstein, The 

Modern World-System (San Diego, 1989); Roger 

Owen, The Middle East and the World Economy 

1800-1914 (London: Methuen, 1981); William R. 

Polk and Richard Chambers, eds., Beginnings of 

Modernization in the Middle East: The Nineteenth 

Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 

1968); Michael C. Hudson, Arab Politics: The 

Search for Legitimacy (New Haven: Yale University 

Press, 1977); Huri Islamoglu-Inan, ed., The Ottoman 

Empire and the World-Economy (Cambridge: 

Cambridge University Press, 1987); R. Kasaba, 

The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy: 

The Nineteenth Century (New York, 1988); and 

Samir Amin, The Arab Nation (London: Zed Press, 

1978). 

7 

Shamir, xix. 

8 

F.O. 78/262 Damascus 30 January 1835 Farren to 

Palmerston. Farren also provided a useful breakdown 

of the “former male population of 14+ years, exclusive 

of the town of Jerusalem itself which being chiefly 

inhabited by devoted monks, Jews, and Christians 

and subsisting chiefly on the pilgrims it was omitted 

in the census” reproduced here as Table 2. 

Table 2 Farren’s table, entitled “Former Male 

Populations of Southern Sanjaqs, Excluding the City 

of Jerusalem” referring to the period immediately 

preceding the rebellions of 1834. 

Provinces Villages Males 

Nablous 202 15,795 

Jerusalem 121 7,319 

Gaza 62 6,916 

Jaffa 14 1,466 

Lyd 11 1,041 

Ramla 42 2,043 

Hebron 14 1,855 

466 36,435 


See also Beshara Doumani, “The Political Economy 

of Population Counts in Ottoman Palestine: Nablus, 

circa 1850,” International Journal of Middle Eastern 

Studies 26 (February 1994): 1-17. 

9 

LCRJ, 319, 80-1. Note that in this volume, there 

are two consecutive pages so numbered; please refer 

to the second. My thanks to David Powers for his 

assistance with this chapter. 

10 

This hadith is attributed to Al-Ghazali, Ihy’a 

Oulum el-Dine [sic] (Cairo, 1939) by Nawal el- 

Saadawi, The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the 

Arab World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1981), 66. 

11 

A qurush asadi, sometimes transliterated as 

grush, was a common silver coin valued at 120 

‘uthmaniyas or akces, and is sometimes called a 

piastre. I. Metin Kunt noted that in the sixteenth 

century Ottoman Empire, the rate for fines for various 

crimes and transgressions changed, sometimes 

conforming to the 1:2:4 ratio used in the cizye, but 

sometimes closer to 1:2:3. The first article of the 

criminal code, published by Heyd, specifies what is 

meant by these categories: “rich means possessing 

1,000 akce or more”, middle level is having “property 

amounting to 600 akce,” while a poor man has 

property amounting to 400 akce. There is a fourth 

category here, not employed for tax purposes, that 

might be called “destitute,” consisting of those in 

worse circumstances: the “official poor.” I. Metin 

Kunt, The Sultan’s Servants (New York: Columbia 

University Press, 1983), 52. 

12 

“baqi [sic for baqa’ or baqiya] al-çtawayifi [sic 

for tawa’if] w’al-milali.” Note the use of the plural of 

“millet.” Note that in these documents the “hamza” 

is often changed to a “ya.” 

13 

The corporal punishment by the Khedival 

government was renowned for its harshness. 

14 

J.C.B. Richmond, Modern Egypt: 1798-1952 

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), 62- 

3. 

15 

Great Britain, Public Record Office, Foreign 

Office Series, (hereafter FO) 78/340 Pt. 1. Palmerston 

to Young (draft) 19 September 1838. 

16 

FO 78/413 Young to Palmerston, Jerusalem, 30 

June 1840. 

17 

Moshe Ma’oz, Ottoman Reform in Syria and 

Palestine 1840-1861 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 

1968); Amnon Cohen, Palestine in the Eighteenth 

Century (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1973) and 

Economic Life in Ottoman Jerusalem (New York: 

Cambridge University Press, 1989); Joel Migdal, 

Palestinian Society and Politics (Princeton: 

Princeton University Press, 1980). 

18 

A. Scholch, “The Emergence of Modern Palestine 

(1856-1882)” in H. Nashabe (ed.), Studia Palestina, 

Studies in Honour of Constantine Zurayk (Beirut: 

1988), 69-82; Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, Jerusalem in 

the Nineteenth Century: The Old City (New York: 

St. Martin’s Press, 1984); Martin Gilbert, Jerusalem: 

Rebirth of a City (New York: Viking Press, 1985); 

Arnold Blumberg, Zion Before Zionism: 1838-1880 

(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1985); K. J. 

Asali, ed., Jerusalem in History (New York: Olive 

Branch Press, 1990); Donna Robinson Divine, 

Politics and Society in Ottoman Palestine: The Arab 

Struggle for Survival and Power (Boulder: Lynne 

Rienner Publishers, 1994); and Baruch Kimmerling 

and Joel S. Migdal, Palestinians: The Making of a 

People (New York: The Free Press, 1993). 

19 

Edward Robinson, Biblical Researches in 

Palestine, Mount Sinai, and Arabia Petraea (London: 

John Murray, 1841), and dispatches published by 

Thompson and Lanneau in The Missionary Herald 

during the 1820s and 30s. 

20 

It would not be until after 1908 that Arabic 

newspapers were published in Jerusalem–beginning 

with al-Quds and followed by the appearance of 

Filastin in 1911. There was a gazette published in 

Turkish and Arabic, but it was not a true newspaper. 

See Neville J. Mandel, The Arabs and Zionism Before 

World War I (Berkeley: University of California 

Press, 1976), 81, 128-9. However, a contemporary 

Lebanese chronicle of the period of Muhammad ‘Ali 

in Syria does exist: see below. 

21 

The original registers are located at the 

Islamic Court in East Jerusalem. Facsimiles of the 

court have been collected and are housed at the 

University of Jordan’s Documents and Manuscripts 

Centre (Markaz al-Watha’iq w’al-Makhtutat). This 

collection has been catalogued by Muhammad Adnan 

Bakhit et al., in Kashshaf i hâa’i zamani li-sijillat 

al-ma hakim al-shari’ya wa’l -awqaf al-islamiya fi 

Bilad al-Sham (Amman: University of Jordan, 1984). 

Facsimiles are reputedly housed at The Centre for 

the Revitalization of Islamic Studies (al-Markaz 

li-’i hiya’ al-dirasat al-Islamiya) at Abu Dis, but are 

generally inaccessible. My thanks to the centre’s 

librarian, Fahmi Ansari, for sharing his grandfather’s 

notebook of important Jerusalem court documents 

from the Mu hammad ‘Ali period with me–these 

were used by Asad Rustum for his collection of 


documents–Al-Uul al-’arabiya li-ta’rikh Suriya 

fi-’ahd Muhammad ‘Ali, 5 Vols. (Beirut: American 

Press, 1930-1934). Hereafter Uul. See Appendix A, 

“A Note on Transliterations” and Appendix C, “A 

Note on the Islamic Court Records as a Source.” 

22 

LCRJ 319, 48. 

23 

LCRJ 321, 96. 24 Mu harram 1254. Also found 

in Rustum, Uul, III, No. 315, 65 and Aref al-’Aref, 

Mufaal al-Quds, 291. The latter is an inaccurate copy. 

Rustum’s is far closer to the original, since he merely 

corrected improper grammar. These Ashkenazis 

unfortunately were not named in the document. 

24 

Jacob Landau pointed out the specific meaning 

of the term “jirnal” in Ottoman usage. 

25 

LCRJ 317, 109. 26 Rabi’ I 1248. See Kark, 81. 

Caeser Farah mentioned “James” Chasseaud in his 

article “Protestantism and Politics: The Nineteenth 

Century Dimension in Syria,” in David Kushner, 

ed., Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period: Political, 

Social and Economic Transformation (Leiden: E. 

J. Brill, 1986), 320-340, 322. Also Rustum, Uul. 

No further references to David Darmon have been 

located. 

26 

LCRJ 321, 96. 

27 

LCRJ 317, 123. 23 Safar 1249. 

28 

LCRJ 322, 66-7. 17 Jumada I 1254/8 August 

1838. 

29 

LCRJ 322, 206. beg. Rabi’ II 1255/14 June 

1839. 

30 

On the use of ‘urf to justify the continuation 

of practices considered desirable by the local elite 

in the face of demands by the central government 

for compliance with new laws governing economic 

activities in Nablus, see Doumani, 223-31, 241. 

31 

Barnes, 131. The same could be said for most 

organizations of the twentieth century–many a 

consultant has suffered the wrath of employees 

who resented the intrusion of an outsider into their 

affairs! 

32 

Ibid., 131-2. 


Jurji Habib Hanania 

History of the Earliest 

Press in Palestine, 

1908-1914 

Mary Hanania 

The Jurgi Hanania family. 

Source: Collection of the author 

When Jurji Hanania launched his 

newspaper al-Quds in Jerusalem almost a 

hundred years ago (1908), the only medium 

for the spread of information in the country 

was the printed word, and even that was 

limited to books and such occasional 

publications as pamphlets for tourists 

and tracts issued by government offices. 

For many years preceding, the Ottoman 

regime had exercised despotic control 

over its provinces (among them Palestine, 

the common name used for the Jerusalem 

governorship under the Ottoman Empire) 

and imposed strict censorship on anything 

that appeared in print. That period of 

repression ended in 1908 when the empire’s 

constitution was restored and, with it, its 

subjects’ freedom of expression. 

Jurji established his printing business in 

Jerusalem’s old city in 1894, for several 

years printing material in a number of 

languages before seeking a permit to publish 

a newspaper in Arabic. But it was only 

after the Ottoman regime’s constitutional 

reform in 1908 that the permit was granted 

and the paper started to appear. By then, 


he had had ample time to plan for its form and contents. By many accounts, not only 

was it the first Palestinian newspaper to appear that year, but also one viewed as a 

standard-bearer. Jurji himself considered his paper a national, rather than profitable, 

undertaking. 

The year 1908 is considered by many to be the point of departure for journalism in 

Palestine. While al-Quds was the first to appear, others followed, and it has been 

reported that there were as many as 15 permits issued to newspapers or magazines 

in 1908 alone. Not surprisingly, their coverage varied widely, as did their frequency 

of publication, and also their period of survival. In any case, all of these publications 

as well as later ones ceased to appear with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Jurji 

Hanania’s al-Quds never reappeared. 

As Jurji stood on the roof of his house in the old city of Jerusalem one day, his 

attention was grabbed by a beautiful rendition of the Muslim call to prayer from 

a nearby minaret. In those days, the ‘muezzins’ who were selected to chant the 

call had to have an excellent and powerful voice and had to repeat the call from 

several positions around the minaret balcony, so it could be heard by all people in 

the area–unlike the more recent practice of recording the call and broadcasting it 

simultaneously in all directions. The call to prayer was of course a familiar aspect 

of life in the city, but Jurji was so taken by the beauty of the muezzin’s voice that he 

eventually made his way to the street, greeted the man as he left the minaret, told him 

how much he enjoyed listening to his chanting and invited him into the house for a 

chat. There, over a cup of coffee, Jurji persuaded the muezzin to spend more time in 

the future making the call when he faced Jurji’s home than he did in other directions! 

A deal was struck. The muezzin was pleased to know that his call to prayer gave so 

much pleasure, particularly to a Christian, and Jurji was pleased to get his additional 

daily dose of the enchanting vocal solo. 

This anecdote, related by Jurji’s immediate family, says much about the man who 

pioneered the publication of newspapers in Jerusalem in the first decade of the 

twentieth century–about his spontaneity, originality, outgoing nature, appreciation for 

good music, and the confidence he had of his status in society. 

The Hananias of Jurji’s family trace their roots back many generations in Jerusalem, 

with reason to believe those roots run to the early days of Christianity there, though 

no records exist for that period–only inscriptions of the family name on oil and wine 

vats unearthed in various archaeological digs. For several generations, in order to 

distinguish themselves from the other Hanania families in Jerusalem and elsewhere, 

this family chose to use ‘Habib Hanania’ as a surname, ‘Habib’ being the given name 

of one of their ancestors. Jurji’s father used it, as did Jurji and his children, but later 

generations dropped ‘Habib’ from the name. 

[ 52 ] HISTORICAL FEATURES History of the Earliest Press in Palestine, 1908-1914

Jurji’s father, Issa Habib Hanania, 

was the only Christian member of 

the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, and 

his mother, Katingo, was a Greek 

from Istanbul, the daughter of a 

high-ranking officer in the Ottoman 

regime. It was an arranged marriage. 

The family relates that when 14-yearold 

Katingo was due to leave Istanbul 

for Jerusalem to marry Issa, she went 

with her father to visit the sultan. 

After they had paid their respects 

and as she bid the sultan goodbye, 

she was given a ring with a strikingly 

large diamond as a gift. That ring 

must have given the young teenager 

some comfort as she started a new life 

Yaqub (standing on right) with his Russian friends. 


far from home and as she adjusted to being a wife and a mother, but there is no trace 

of it among the family heirlooms. It was probably sold during the lean years that the 

family went through later. But the language that the Greek bride brought with her to 

Jerusalem remained with them a great deal longer. Greek became the family’s second 

language, and everyone spoke it fluently–not only her children but her grandchildren 

as well, including my father and his siblings. Greek was the language that the grownups 

used when they didn’t want us, the fourth generation, to understand what they 

were talking about. This led my brother and me on occasion to secretly jot down a 

transcript of some words and run off to our aunt’s house to ask her for the meaning. 

We too learned a little bit of Greek that way. 

Jurji had a younger brother, Yaqub, who studied at the Greek Orthodox Divinity 

School in Jerusalem. There he learned Latin and Hebrew in addition to the languages 

he was already familiar with. Upon completing his studies, he travelled to Russia 

where he was hired to tutor the tsar’s daughter in Hebrew. For years, the family would 

receive valuable gifts from Yacub (gold watches, precious jewellery, a samovar, 

specialty foods, etc.). Judging by a photograph in the family’s collection showing him 

with some Russian friends in Jerusalem, Yacub must have gone home for a visit at 

least once during his sojourn in St. Petersburg. However, all contact between Yaqub 

and the family ended with the outbreak of the Russian Revolution and the end of 

the tsar’s rule in 1917. He died in Russia during World War I (1914-18), according 

to his Russian widow who wrote to the family expressing her desire to visit them in 

Jerusalem. But, for unknown reasons, the visit did not materialize and they never 

heard from her again. 


Jurji also had a sister, Irene, nine years 

his junior, who married a member 

of another old Jerusalem family, the 

Zakarias, and who also died during 

World War I. 

Jurji himself undertook elementary 

and secondary education at the Bishop 

Gobat School in Jerusalem, but 

beyond that he was a self-educated 

man. He read extensively and ended 

up mastering what he referred to 

as his seven-and-a-half languages: 

Arabic, Turkish, Greek, French, 

English, German, Russian and “a little 

Hebrew”. 

Jurji was married to Aniseh Farradj, 

who also belonged to a prominent 

Jerusalem family. Of her siblings, her 

sister Marie married Jiryes Elissa, 

who became publisher of a newspaper 

in Jaffa and three of whose children 

later carried on with the newspaper 

business. Another of Marie’s sons, 

Said, became a well-known and 

highly respected poet in Jordan. 

Aniseh’s two brothers followed civic 

rather than literary careers–her brother 

Yaqub, a prominent leader of the 

Palestinian national movement in the 

1930s, rising to the post of deputy 

mayor of Jerusalem, and her brother 

Dimitri becoming the district governor 

of Hebron and later of Ramallah. 

Jurji and his family, with his Greek mother Katingo 

seated on the right (circa 1904). 


Jurji’s daughters, Futini (left) and Katherine (right), 

circa 1909. Source: Collection of the author 

Jurji and Aniseh lived in a house next to the printing press. Aniseh, a well-educated 

woman, was familiar with the daily running of the business and often lent a hand at the 

press when needed. They had four surviving children. The eldest was a girl, Katherine, 

followed by another girl, Futini, and two boys, Issa and Damian. Jurji was proud to 

send his daughters to the best available school for girls in Jerusalem and made sure 

they would be daily accompanied by an escort carrying their books there and back. 


Presumably, the boys did not need this kind of protection when it was time for them to 

attend school. 

It is clear from Jurji’s early acquisition of a printing press, and from his persistent and 

eventually successful efforts to publish a newspaper, that he was a man devoted to the 

written word. He was also passionate about the beneficial effects of the written word 

on society–something that is evident in the editorials of the few copies of al-Quds that 

I have seen. He and others felt, however, that little more could be done to promote 

education and culture in the country unless Palestine were to free itself from Ottoman 

rule. They formed a secret society that called itself ‘Palestine the Maiden’ (Falastin al- 

Fatat) with the intention of working towards a ‘young’, enlightened and free Palestine. 

Although the original motivation was one of education and literary pursuit, the society 

must have developed some political overtones as well. Juji’s membership in this group, 

when discovered, was of course severely frowned upon by the Ottoman authorities and 

that may have contributed to his precipitous departure from Palestine in 1914. 

By all accounts, Jurji was a pious man who attended church every Sunday and, having 

an exceptionally good voice, regularly sang in the choir in both Arabic and Greek. 

Music was part of his daily life as well. He loved to play the mandolin, although 

there were other musical instruments in the house. Over the years, and long after he 

was gone, the mandolin became the family instrument of choice for his children and 

grandchildren. My father and my aunt often played their mandolins together at family 

gatherings. I never learned to play it well myself, but my brothers and an older cousin 

did, and one of them later chose to take extensive lessons in classical mandolin music 

during his college days. 

Jurji paid particular attention to his appearance, for he was always seen well-dressed and 

well-groomed. He was also a jolly person, with a keen sense of humour. Though usually 

spontaneous in his actions, it seems that he also derived pleasure in observing certain 

formalities. One such occasion, I am told, was pay day at the press when the employees 

would line up to receive their weekly wages. As each worker received his share, Jurji 

would remind him to turn to the lady of the house, Aniseh, and thank her as well. 

The Final Years 

In 1914, with the newspaper in its sixth year, Jurji had an ambitious plan for expansion 

and improvement, and there was great excitement and anticipation among the workers. 

He ordered a large and more modern printing press, took out an insurance policy for 

it, and bought stacks of various types of paper to meet all his projected needs. He 

mortgaged the existing press equipment and materials against a loan to cover the 

cost. But the jittery political atmosphere at that time worked against him. Business 

slackened as the pre-war rumbles grew louder. As he failed to make one loan payment 


after another, a declaration of bankruptcy became inevitable. His daughters were 

already married and living away from the house, but there was Aniseh and the two 

young boys to provide for. Jurji quickly decided to leave for Alexandria, Egypt, where 

he might obtain some help from his friends. The deteriorating financial situation and 

Jurji’s departure were, of course, hard on the family. Aniseh took charge of the press 

and ran its business for a while, but that could not go on very long. In due course, 

the official gazette carried an announcement by the German Bank of Palestine to the 

effect that, since the owner of the press had defaulted on his payments on the loan, 

the equipment was being put up for public sale. Aniseh and her two boys packed their 

belongings and the various papers and documents that came from the press and moved 

to a smaller house near the home of her daughter Katherine. 

Some of the papers from the press came in handy in an unexpected way, according 

to my cousin Henrietta Siksek Farradj. They were a collection of blank cards with 

raised colourful borders of flowers (some with roses and some with forget-me-nots) 

meant to be used for printed greetings. The family offered them for sale, and the cards 

soon became a coveted shopping item for the scores of soldiers who went through 

the city during the war–so much so that Aniseh decided to put away a few of them 

as a souvenir from old times. Several years later, young Henrietta came upon this 

hidden batch and was fascinated by them. Although she doesn’t say so, those flowered 

cards must have been her inspiration for the beautiful greeting cards with pressed 

flowers from the Holy Land that she has been designing for many years, cards that are 

now sold for the benefit of the charity, The Four Homes of Mercy, that her mother, 

Katherine, founded in 1940 and that Henrietta still serves. 

At the time of the move to the smaller house, Issa was only a teenager and Damian a 

boy of 10 or 11 who entertained himself when he was home by playing with the boxes 

and stacks of paper that they had brought with them from the press. It was well into 

the war years when Damian’s playful progress through those stacks uncovered an 

envelope with two foreign words, “CREDIT FONCIE”, written on it in block letters. 

He had been learning French at school and decided to show off his knowledge to his 

mother by reading the words to her. As soon as Aniseh saw the envelope, she realized 

what it was. “Credit Foncie” was the name of the insurance company for the press, and 

the envelope contained the insurance documents! Before long, the proper claim was 

made and the insurance money paid, and life for Jurji’s family became a great deal 

easier. They had suffered through a couple of difficult years with very little income. 

One is tempted to wonder why Jurji did not remove the insurance documents from 

the press office before leaving and hand them to his wife for safekeeping, until one 

remembers how abrupt his departure was and, after his departure, how impossible it was 

for people to communicate between Ottoman-controlled Palestine and British-controlled 

Egypt while the war was raging. If Jurji had hoped to send money from Egypt to 

Palestine, he must have soon found that there was absolutely no way to proceed. 


In Alexandria, Jurji was welcomed and given all the support he needed by his friend, 

the Orthodox patriarch, who introduced him to several writers and scholars in the city. 

He settled there, participated in the various literary activities available and continued 

to pursue his own career. He published a yearly calendar called “The Jerusalem 

Outcome for the Sons of the Greek Orthodox Church” (a seemingly cumbersome title 

when translated into English, but which has a natural poetic rhythm in the Arabic). 

He worked with someone known as ‘Father Hazboun’ in compiling a dictionary and 

started to research the history of the Orthodox Church. He also remained active with 

the Palestine the Maiden reformist group, many of whose members also ended up in 

Alexandria. But this was a far cry from his pioneering work in Palestine, a country he 

dearly loved and where he had hoped his work would make a significant contribution 

towards a better and more educated society. That realization must have weighed 

heavily on his heart, and people who knew him previously could see that he had 

noticeably aged in only a couple of years. 

Jurji was cheered, however, by the knowledge that his beloved country was at last free 

of Ottoman rule. In a preface to the calendar he prepared in 1918, he welcomed the 

news that the war had ended and that Jerusalem had fallen into British hands. He also 

expressed the hope that the gates of the holy city would remain forever open and that 

there would be no world wars any more. Although he spoke of his intention to return to 

Jerusalem as soon as some of the work he had started in Egypt was completed and as 

soon as travel across the Sinai desert became easier, he never saw his family again. Two 

years later, at the age of 56, he died of a heart attack at his home in Alexandria, Egypt. 

The question naturally arises as to why Jurji did not return to Jerusalem immediately. 

There was the better part of two years after the war had ended when he presumably 

had the opportunity to do so. Part of the reason perhaps lies in the fact that, with the 

newspaper and printing press gone and with a new political order in Jerusalem, there 

was no business activity for him to resume and no government contacts to re-activate, 

whereas his scholarly activities in Alexandria were already in high gear. But that is not 

necessarily a complete explanation, for he was a proud man who may have wanted to 

avoid facing a society that once viewed him as a leader and that would now focus on 

his failures. One can easily imagine that he considered such an experience to be too 

humiliating for him and too awkward for his family, and that he chose another route. 

After four years in Alexandria as an active member of a literary community that he 

enjoyed being part of, and knowing that his family in Jerusalem had survived the war 

and were managing well without him, he may have decided to maintain the status quo. 

In the meantime, Aniseh lived comfortably with her sons and their families in 

Jerusalem’s old city, not far from where Katherine and her family lived, and she saw 

them all daily until her death in 1936. 


A Hanania wedding photo has the names and identities of family members scrawled in Arabic. 

Source: The author؛s collection 

I have a few faint memories of her: the piles of books by her bedside; the endless 

stream of stories, told slowly and with great dramatic effect, with which she 

entertained us kids as we sat around her in fascination; the frequent ringing of the 

doorbell as friends or relatives came to call on her; the overpowering smell of coffee 

and the large plate of cookies that materialized whenever visitors dropped in; the 

frequent visits of a bishop and other members of the clergy who stopped by to see her 

and who chatted with her in Greek for what seemed to us–not understanding what was 

being said–like hours; the plates of leftover food that she carefully put aside for the 

beggars she knew were expecting them; her favorite way of softening Halloumi cheese 

over a flame for her breakfast; her own little kitchen in the basement in which she 

prepared special meals for herself as she observed the weeks of fasting decreed by the 

Orthodox church, and so on. 

I am told that in her younger days Aniseh fancied beautiful clothes and expensive 

jewelry, but I doubt that she had any yearning in her heart for those things at the time 

I knew her. I remember her as a contented, capable, companionable person, with a 

loving family and lots of friends, who was in full command of a busy household. And 

I very clearly recall the sense of total emptiness that enveloped the house and the 

whole family when she died. 


The Hanania Press 

In the first issue of al-Quds, Jurji describes what prompted him to establish a printing 

service. At that time, there were several sizeable printing presses inside monasteries 

and missions that printed material of interest to their own communities. He says: 

Since our city Jerusalem, like many others, has thirsted for the information 

and knowledge whose flow had dried up for generations, and since 

such information and knowledge can be spread only via the printed word 

while all of Jerusalem’s presses–being purely faith-oriented–serve their 

own constituencies exclusively, it has become necessary to establish a 

press that plants the seeds of brotherhood and treats everyone equally and 

whose aim is to serve the entire nation rather than one particular group in 

preference to another. This turned out to be a difficult undertaking because 

of the many hindrances and obstacles that were placed in its way by the 

authorities. However, being one of those who have had some experience 

in such matters, I considered it my duty to try to fill the need in spite of all 

the hardships involved. 

It is clear from Jurji’s other writings that the “hindrances and obstacles” referred to 

here are the pre-1908 Ottoman regime’s utter disregard for proper procedure and its 

whimsical treatment of the people under its rule. 

I imagine that, in those days, a printing press would have been only a slightly more 

primitive version of a printing press I became familiar with in Beirut in the late 

1940s. As editor of an alumni magazine, I made several visits to the press and saw the 

workers in action. In case a young reader has no idea of the intensive and meticulous 

labor that was involved in producing a page of print in those days, I’m including a 

description of their work in the following paragraph. 

To produce a page of print, one must compose a mirror image of the text, one letter at 

a time, on a ‘printing plate’ (a shallow box having the dimensions of the desired page 

and subdivided into parallel rows for the desired lines). For any particular letter, a 

‘type’ (a tiny rectangular stamp of that letter) is selected from the appropriate container 

by the ‘typesetter’ and carefully placed in the proper alignment within the plate. When 

the page is completely set up, the plate is inked and its image is reproduced on paper. 

Selecting types for composing a page was one of the most arduous tasks possible. 

In the Hanania press, for instance, a typesetter would have to be familiar with the 

contents of 340 containers of type in order to make the right choice at each step in the 

process. Not surprisingly, typesetters were well paid. 


Before buying his own press, Jurji Hanania started out by importing what he calls 

“foreign letters of the latest style and attractive design” (most probably French and 

Russian type) and using them to print material by renting facilities at presses owned 

by others in town. Such material was aimed at the tourists who flooded the city around 

Easter time every year, and so those attractively designed ‘letters’ were used for no 

more than three months each year. He then imported Arabic type but was careful to use 

it only at presses where the Arabic language was not known and the type would not be 

recognized as Arabic but mistaken for Turkish (which, in those days, was written in 

the Arabic script), thus circumventing a ban imposed by the government on printing 

material in Arabic without a special permit. This went on for about a year before the 

authorities tracked him down and almost brought a halt to all his printing activities. 

But he had been serving the government by printing various forms and booklets for 

use in its offices and, as luck would have it, he had just finished printing a book for 

someone he describes as a “notable and influential” government official. This seems 

to have persuaded the authorities to take a more forgiving view of his activities, and he 

was allowed to continue with his work in anticipation of an official permit, which was 

issued to him three years later, in 1898. 

In the years preceding the official permit, Jurji worked at other people’s presses during 

the day and at home in the evening. With permit in hand, however, he bought an old 

printing machine, moved his collection of type and other material to new premises 

and became an independent publisher. The first machine was a small foot-operated 

printer but, with the expectation of obtaining a permit to publish a newspaper, he soon 

imported a full-sized fuel-powered European-made printing press. 

There were difficulties. Jurji refers to this period in the Ottoman rule as the “age 

of despotism”, when there were hardly any rules of governance and people were 

subject to the whims and fancies of those in authority. The sultan, after 20 years of 

rule in which he saw his empire lose its grip on many of its provinces, had dismissed 

parliament and declared an absolute monarchy. This was later reversed when, in 

1908 following a popular revolt, parliament was restored and the empire again had a 

constitutional government. Until that time (i.e. until 1908), dealing with government 

officials was an exercise in frustration. The fact that one of the government offices, 

the Ministry of Education, had jurisdiction over all printing presses and kept close 

control over material that went into print added a new–and unwelcome–dimension to 

the publisher’s daily efforts. Another obstacle arose from the fact that, as of 1903, Jurji 

Hanania’s press was asked to print the government’s weekly official gazette–in Arabic 

and Turkish–and that led to frequent unannounced visits by government officials to 

the premises, which in turn discouraged other writers from patronizing that press. 

Thus there were times when typesetters would work for two days to produce the 

official gazette and then sit idle until the next issue was brought to them the following 

week. Although he fully cooperated with the authorities, Jurji was also the victim of 

accusations about having “foreign inclinations”. 


In spite of these difficulties, the printing press managed to produce 281 books 

in various languages, including 83 in Arabic, between the years 1899 and 1908. 

Unfortunately, only the titles of these books are known and there is otherwise no trace 

of any of them, according to a recent article published by the Palestine Return Centre 

(a UK organization). In addition to books, the press published various forms and tracts 

for use in several government offices, as well as material for tourists. It was not until 

September 1908 that the first issue of the newspaper saw the light of day. 

Al-Quds, the Newspaper 

Jurji devotes a good part of his editorial in the first issue of the newspaper (18 

September, 1908) to relating his experience with the authorities in trying to obtain the 

permit to publish it. He says that, in 1899, he submitted an application to publish an 

Arabic newspaper that would “serve the country” (he carefully avoided using the word 

“nation” because that word–presumably implying an Arab nation–would “fall as a 

thunderbolt on the ears of the despotic Ottoman administration”). When he went to the 

local administration offices in Jerusalem to check on the progress of his application, 

he was told that it had been lost, so he submitted another one but it also somehow 

got lost, as did two others subsequently submitted! By then, he had decided to take 

another approach. He walked into the room where the local council, which represented 

the community, was about to meet, told his story to one of the members and said to 

him, “It seems that the government assumes that everyone in our community is dead. 

So, since you gentlemen represent people considered not to be among the living, there 

is no need for you to meet at all! Why don’t we all go and bury ourselves together” 

The council member, seemingly moved by the argument, promised to make immediate 

inquiries at the publications office and returned with the suggestion that yet another 

application be submitted. This was done, and the fifth application went as far as to be 

assigned a number, # 85. 

Months passed, then years, during which various branches of the “despotic” 

government (this was prior to Turkey’s adopting a constitution) repeatedly made 

inquiries about the applicant and kept sending inspectors to check on work at the 

printing press. Whenever Jurji asked about the progress of his case, he was told that 

the permit was forthcoming and that he should be patient. According to one of the 

sources, he also resorted to bribery in the hope that that would help speed up the 

process, dishing out a total of 200 ‘Napoleons’ (a napoleon was a gold coin equivalent 

to 20 French francs, and probably a great deal of money in those days) in bribes, but 

to no avail. All he says about this in his first editorial is: “I waited long after I had 

emptied my pockets, but all I got from the person I had relied on was that I should not 

rush them”. 


When the “age of despotism” ended with the introduction of a constitutional 

government in Turkey in 1908, Jurji quickly set the ball rolling. He telegraphed the 

appropriate department, quoting application # 85 that had been neglected for all of 

eight years, as well as other relevant documents. The permit was promptly issued 

and the newspaper began appearing soon after, all within months of the July 1908 

announcement of the new Ottoman government. Jurji started his first editorial with 

the words “Thank God”, and repeated his thanks to the Almighty several times in the 

course of that two-page editorial. 

The paper was allowed to appear twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, and 

consisted of four pages. Jurji was at the same time its owner, publisher and editor. It 

had an attractive logo made up of an artistic rendering of the word “al-Quds” in Arabic 

(Arabic for ‘Jerusalem’) over which floated three connected stars labeled “freedom”, 

“equality” and “brotherhood”–the motto of the popular revolt that had brought about 

the constitution’s restoration. The name of the paper was given in both French and 

Arabic, as was information about ownership (Georges I. Habib Hanania), annual 

subscription rates in Jerusalem, Turkey or “l’Etranger”, and advertising prices. Prices 

and rates for different purposes were stated in different currencies: Turkish mejidies, 

French francs and local piasters. No price was stated for single issues, implying that 

it was available only to subscribers, who were required to pay in advance. Each issue 

was printed in 1500 copies. 

As far as I can make out from all the sources that I have consulted, al-Quds was 

indeed the first privately owned Arabic newspaper in Palestine (something I know 

was taken for granted by the family). Suleiman’s 1987 book states that, before Jurji 

Hanania’s paper appeared, there was only an official monthly paper, al-Quds al- 

Sharif (The Noble Jerusalem), irregularly issued by the Ottoman regime as of 1876 

in Turkish and Arabic. Soon after Jurji’s al-Quds appeared, a rival paper called 

Bashir Falastin (Palestine Herald) was published for a brief period for the purpose 

of defending the Greek Orthodox Church against challenges to its authority from the 

Arab Orthodox community. But there was no mention of this paper in other sources, 

and I suspect that it had a very brief run or very limited circulation, or both. Yehoshua 

has found that, by the time the Ottoman regime ended in 1918, as many as 30 Arabic 

newspapers had appeared in Palestine (in Haifa and Jaffa, as well as Jerusalem) but 

many of them had lasted for only a few months or a year and no copies of them were 

to be found. In one of his editorials in 1913, Jurji himself mentions that four papers 

were forced to close down within a year or two of starting publication. 

Jurji described his paper as dealing with “science, literature and information”. Of 

particular interest to him, at least in the beginning and according to his editorial policy 

as stated in the first issue, was the question of how best to overcome the problems 

resulting from the Ottoman’s earlier style of rule. It is clear from that statement that he 

considered “science, literature and information” to have been badly neglected during 


the previous regime and needed an 

effective local effort to revive them. 

He invited his readers to send in 

“useful” contributions by way of 

letters or articles for publication in 

the paper. He also showed his loyalty 

to the sultan by calling the paper “an 

Ottoman publication that champions 

truth and aims to serve the country 

with the utmost sincerity”. 

In any case, the paper carried a 

good deal of government news 

Picture of a cushion embroidered by Jurji’s teenage 

and remained neutral in the face of 

daughter Katherine, congratulating her father on 

rivalries that inevitably sprang up receiving the newspaper permit (Date on embroidery: 

among the various political parties. 21 August, 1908). Source: Collection of the author 

The editor also managed to avoid 

taking sides in the disputes that raged 

between the Arab Orthodox community and the Greek elements in the Orthodox 

Church whom the Arabs accused of high-handedness in community matters, although 

as a church-going Orthodox layman he must have been tempted to get into the 

fray, particularly as he was considered by many members of the community to be 

a supporter of the Greek position. He actually agreed to publish whatever news or 

commentaries were sent to him from either ‘side’, provided the article was signed and 

was “within the acceptable bounds of civility and free of abuse and libel”. He further 

announced that he would follow the same policy with any group wishing to air their 

grievances on the pages of his newspaper. 

Al-Quds offered extensive news coverage of various aspects of life in Jerusalem, as 

well as reports from neighboring towns. Occasionally, there would also be a news 

report from Brazil (where some Palestinians had emigrated). But the editor was able 

at the same time to maintain a high literary standard for his paper by attracting articles 

from prominent writers of the day (among them Khalil Sakakini and Shaykh Ali 

Rimawi), as well as original poetry, and by publishing translations of some selected 

literary and social articles appearing in the foreign press. His command of several 

languages made it easy for him to make the selections and rewrite the articles in 

Arabic. It appears that he never succeeded in finding a suitable permanent editor for 

the paper and had to take on the entire responsibility for running it himself, while 

occasionally relying on a visiting editor to handle a particular issue. 

Although Jurji had hoped to make al-Quds a daily newspaper, it is doubtful that the 

Ottoman authorities would have allowed that. In any case, the facts of poor circulation 

did not warrant such an expansion. For one thing, some officials expected to receive 


the newspaper regularly without having to pay for it. For another, many of those who 

subscribed found themselves increasingly surrounded by friends who borrowed the 

paper on a regular basis and thus avoided becoming subscribers themselves! As a 

result, fewer copies of the paper were printed and distributed in its fifth year than in 

any of the previous four, according to its publisher. Even so, publication continued 

well into the sixth year, 1914. I have no record of when the last issue of al-Quds 

appeared but it is known that, at the start of the war, Jurji Hanania left Jerusalem and 

went to Alexandria, Egypt, where he died in 1920. 

A Selection of Items from al-Quds in its First Year (1908-9) 

The paper appeared in four pages. Columns, lines, squiggles or little patterns separated 

the different items, and there was an occasional design accompanying commercial ads, 

but there were no photographs. The flowery style, and the excessive use of honorific 

titles, were probably dictated by the customs of the day–and well-served by the 

richness of the Arabic language. 

The dates of the newspaper are at first confusing. Instead of one date, each issue of the 

paper carried three dates: the date according to the Julian calendar 1 (used throughout 

the Ottoman Empire and Russia), followed by the date according to the Gregorian 

calendar (used in most other countries), and followed by the Islamic date. All dates 

quoted in the selections below are Gregorian. 

Al-Quds on Ottoman Affairs 

The paper gave prominence to news about the Ottoman Empire and its rulers, 

particularly in the wake of the recently-introduced reforms. 

• (18 Sept., 1908) The restoration of the constitution was an occasion for widespread 

celebration. (25 Sept., 1908) More celebration took place on the arrival in 

Jerusalem of the new governor, Subhi Beyk, who was met by cheering crowds 

and a lavish ceremony. Speeches and poems written to mark the occasion are 

reproduced in the newspaper. 

• (29 Sept., 1908) The lead article announces the formation of a new society, the 

Arab-Ottoman Brotherhood, and goes on to argue for the utility of societies in 

“roaming around the government”, which is unable “by itself” to “mend the breaks 

and dress the wounds.” 

• (11 Oct., 1908) Five-hundred Ottoman fez (tarboush) are offered for sale to local 

citizens at the Jerusalem branch of the Committee for Union and Progress. The 

shipment had been requested from the committee’s leaders in Istanbul. 


• (29 Jan., 1909) The paper describes a banquet in Istanbul given in honour of a 

delegation from the Jerusalem Arab Orthodox community. The sultan attended 

the banquet and his speech was read (in Turkish) by a representative. The Arabic 

translation of the speech is printed in the newspaper, with mention of the numerous 

points at which the talk was intercepted with “prolonged and loud applause”. The 

paper reports that the reaction to his speech had such an effect on the sultan that he 

“broke into tears of joy”, and that many others in the hall wept with joy as well. 

On 13 April, 1909, there was another military revolt against Sultan Abdul-Hamid 

II, and he was subsequently dethroned by a parliamentary resolution (fetwa), ending 

his thirty-three years of rule. Two weeks later, his brother was declared Sultan 

Mohammed V. 

• (7 May, 1909) Al-Quds throws some light on the circumstances surrounding the 

1909 revolt. It seems that, for the Ottoman ruling family, the oldest living male 

was designated as successor to the throne. For years, Abdul-Hamid had kept his 

younger brother Mohammed a virtual prisoner in his palace, and encouraged 

rumours about Mohammed’s physical and mental illnesses, in order to preserve the 

throne for his own son. With the restoration of the constitution, it became more and 

more difficult for him to maintain that deception and he ended up being dismissed 

by the very parliament he had restored barely a year before. 

• (21 May, 1909) Al-Quds reports that Sultan Mohammed V was neither feebleminded 

nor sick, and that there were more celebrations on the occasion of his 

ascension to the throne. 

• (21 May, 1909) Arrangements were being made for Mohammed’s children to 

continue their education in west Europe–a first for Ottoman princes. 

• (11 June, 1909) Also for the first time, the Sultan’s palace was to be illuminated by 

electricity. 

Al-Quds and Jerusalem’s Religious Communities 

From time to time, the newspaper covered news of the conflict between the Greek 

Orthodox Church authorities in Jerusalem and the Arab Orthodox community, many 

of whose members were descendants of the earliest Christians in Jerusalem and so 

believed they had a right to participate in matters concerning the holy places in the 

city, as well as schools and other services provided by the church. The patriarch 

and high-ranking church officers were Greek and rarely saw eye-to-eye with the 

community leaders. Further complicating the situation was Russia’s avowed interest 

in ‘protecting’ the Christians of the Holy Land (most of whom were Orthodox), which 

brought about repeated confrontations between it and the Ottoman rulers. 


Topics of particular interest to the sizeable Muslim Arab community of Jerusalem 

were also covered, and the paper published opinion articles, poetry and other 

contributions from this group. In addition, there were frequent announcements about 

copies of the Friday sermon on al-Haram al-Sharif being available for a small fee at 

the newspaper’s office. 

• (12 Aug., 1908) In more than two pages of the four-page newspaper, the publisher 

takes to task an article that had appeared in an Arabic/Greek publication and was 

written by someone at the Greek Orthodox patriarchate in Jerusalem. He says that 

he, Hanania, had withheld publishing anything that would reveal the conflicts 

between the church and the Arab congregation, but henceforth would invite anyone 

to write on the subject (or on any other controversy) provided that what they 

write is “signed, and expressed in civil terms”. He analyzes the published article, 

pointing out errors in translation as well as fundamental factual errors in both 

versions. He also points out that some parts of the article that appeared in Greek 

were left out (deliberately) in the Arabic translation. 

• (25 Sept., 1908) During the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the sunrise and sunset 

times in hours and minutes, as well as the times set for prayer, are listed for the 

benefit of those who observe the month of fasting. 

• (5 Jan., 1909) The Orthodox community has elected a council of 40 members 

who will work with the Church on matters of mutual concern. At the same time, 

and against the community’s will, the Synod (including monks and heads of 

monasteries) has demanded the resignation of Patriarch Damianos on the basis of 

the patriarchate’s “mismanagement of the community’s wealth and properties”. 2 

The patriarch subsequently resigns but is reinstated through the intervention of a 

delegation from other Palestinian cities: Jaffa, Ramallah and Lod. 

International News 

The paper made brief mention of news from other countries, quoting Reuters, Agence 

Nationale, Havas, and various sources in the European press, with reports from 

Athens, Belgrade, Paris, Istanbul, Berlin, Aden, etc. Detailed coverage was given to 

Ottoman-related news. Examples: 

• (18 Sept., 1908) Ottoman forces have attacked the Kurdish rebels in Dersim and 

captured most of their leaders. The rest have surrendered, paid the taxes and 

returned the arms and possessions they had looted. The conditions in Cesme remain 

cause for concern. 

• (5 Jan., 1909) Austria claims sovereignty over Bosnia & Herzegovina and 

quotes Russian consent to this sovereignty. Russia denies any involvement and 


the Ottomans respond by confiscating Austrian goods throughout the lands. 

Intervention by other European countries, including monetary compensation, 

settles the conflict. (1/29/09) Ottoman/Austrian agreement contains clauses 

assuring the protection of Muslims’ rights (civil, religious and political) in Bosnia 

and Herzegovina, and free trade and travel. 

• (29 Jan., 1909) Conflict between the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria, cooling of 

relations between Italy and Austria. 

• (20 April, 1909) News of famine in Algeria. 

• (16 April, 1909) The “College of Chicago” has in this year received grants from 

“Mr. Rockefeller” totalling $ 1,176,000. 

• (25 May, 1909) A speech in the British parliament by Foreign Secretary Edward 

Gray decries the arms race and calls it wasteful and inciting other countries, like 

Germany, to spend on arms what it could use to better advantage. War is barbaric, 

he says. The speech is reproduced in the newspaper in full. 

• (11 June, 1909) A German and an American psychologist have invented the 

“electric psycho meter”, a gadget that can be used to judge if a person is telling the 

truth or lying, and the extent of his lies. 

On the Lighter Side 

Most issues of al-Quds contained items on the last page such as the following, 

reproduced without comment: 

• (25 Sept., 1908) English doctors who have been studying women’s heights have 

concluded that women will be taller than men 100 years from now. “European” 

research is also cited as having found that men have on the average lost two kirats 

(inches) during the past generation. 

• (25 Sept., 1908) While we are accustomed to fire insurance for our homes here, 

we never thought of insuring them against bed bugs. This is now common in 

Switzerland. 

• (11 Oct., 1908) Yesterday was the birthday of King Edward VII of England. In 

recognition of England’s friendship and support for the new Ottoman regime, 

a special delegation went to the British consulate to offer congratulations. The 

delegation gave its speech in French. (An Arabic translation of the speech is 

reproduced in al-Quds.) 

• (9 April, 1909) The chair that President Taft of the US sits on almost broke under 

his 240-pound weight. A stronger chair has been ordered for him. 


• (20 April, 1909) Authorities in Augusta, US, are considering introducing a new 

law that makes an unmarried man who is at least 30 years old pay an additional 

annual tax, whereupon the totality of these taxes would be used to pay annuities to 

unmarried women over 40–provided the man can prove that he was rejected at least 

three times and the woman can prove that she was never properly proposed to. 

• (7 May, 1909) On 1 April, a Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania, US) newspaper reported a 

Japanese attack on San Francisco that destroyed the American fleet and large parts 

of the city. Huge crowds mobbed the newspaper building before it was announced 

as an April fool. 

Local and Community Affairs 

The newspaper’s announcements of weddings, deaths, arrival or departure of 

prominent community members and such personal news were each accompanied by 

the appropriate expressions of congratulations or sympathy on the part of the editor. 

There were also ads for sale of musical instruments, furniture, etc. Other items: 

• (11 Oct., 1908) The address is given for a branch of Alcoholics Anonymous in 

Jerusalem. The society was established in Britain in 1900. 

• (11 Oct., 1908) A new form of entertainment, called the “cinematograph” (moving 

pictures) is advertised and the week’s schedule of the pictures to be shown is given, 

each labelled as drama, comedy, documentary, etc. The two-hour show is repeated 

every evening except on Fridays, and two shows are run on each of Saturday and 

Sunday. The program is changed on a weekly basis. 

• (1 May, 1909) French lessons offered by a lady from Paris. (11 June, 1909) Evening 

classes for learning Turkish offered at different locations for Arabic-speaking and 

Hebrew-speaking individuals. (29 June, 1909) Lessons in Arabic and English 

offered through the newspaper. 

• (4 Sept., 1909) From the Jerusalem Municipality: “All owners and drivers of 

carriages are hereby notified that they are now required to have a license to operate 

their vehicles and that every vehicle will have a license number to be attached to it. 

Permits to be obtained within 30 days.” 

• (6 Nov., 1909) With reference to a report that Catholics in Bethlehem were refusing 

to have their children baptized by local priests and were appealing to the Latin 

Patriarch in Jerusalem to send a special priest for the purpose, the editor writes: 

For how long do we bow before foreigners For how long must we rely on 

them for most of our needs Were we born to be forever under the care of 

foreigners Were foreigners born to be always in control over us materi- 


ally, culturally and spiritually Isn’t it time for us to be men who conduct 

their own business and their own lives In the past, we were poor, needing 

someone to help us. In the past, we were caught in the claws of a wild beast, 

the beast of our previous arbitrary rulers and that made us seek refuge in 

the protection of foreigners... Isn’t it our duty to live independently Should 

we not strive to make all our schools and our hospitals purely national If 

we don’t do that, we shall not succeed or advance and prosper but remain 

forever under the yolk of foreign domination. 

• (30 July, 1909) Telegraphic stations are being placed throughout the country for the 

first time. 

• (3 August, 1909) An article by ‘M’ (a pseudonym) chastises those who attribute 

selfish motives to the Jews vis-à-vis Palestine. According to him, they have no 

intention of claiming the country for themselves. ‘M’ argues that the Jews are in 

Palestine to build and improve and share the country, so we should treat them as 

brothers and welcome them. 

Mary Hanania is the granddaughter of Jurji Hanania. Raised in Jerusalem, she now lives abroad 

where she is retired from academia. 

Endnotes 

1 

The Julian calendar, adopted under Julius 

Caesar, was universally used until 1582 when Pope 

Gregory XIII introduced a new calendar to correct 

for the discrepancy between the length of the Julian 

calendar year (365.25 days) and the actual length 

of the solar year (365.2424). By 1908, most of the 

world had adopted the Gregorian calendar but Turkey 

did not do so until 1927. Russia did in 1918. To this 

day, however, the Russian church and many other 

Orthodox churches continue to observe the Julian 

calendar dates which are currently 13 days behind 

Gregorian calendar dates. 

2 

The Orthodox patriarch’s alleged mismanagement 

of the community’s properties in those early years 

of the twentieth century brings to mind the current, 

and more serious, crisis in Jerusalem, when the 

Jerusalem Arab community was shocked to learn that 

the Greek Orthodox patriarchate had sold, or allowed 

the sale of, prime property just outside Bab el-Khalil 

(Jaffa Gate) to the Israelis. The consequences of 

this particular ‘mismanagement’, which assists 

the Israeli government in carrying out its plan of 

encircling Jerusalem and cutting off the Arab part 

of the city from the rest of the Palestinian territories, 

can be enormous. The community was able to force 

this patriarch out and have him replaced. The new 

Patriarch, Theophilos III, may or may not be able to 

reverse the actions of his predecessor. 

Bibliography 

Al-Mausu’ah al-Filistiniya. vol. 2 (p 97) & vol. 3 

(p 8) (Damascus: 1984). 

Diab, Suhair & Walid Khleif (eds.), Muktatafat min 

al-Suhuf al-Filistiniya 1876-1948, 1995. 

Suleiman, Mohammad. Tarikh al-Sihafa al- 

Filistiniya, vol. I, 1876-1918 (Cyprus: 1987). 

The Palestinian National Information Centre, “The 

History of Press in Palestine,” www.pni.gov.ps 

The Palestinian Return Centre. 

Yehoshua, Jacob. Tarikh al-sihafa al-Arabiya fi 

Filastin ‘al-‘ahd al-Uthmani, vol. I, 1908-1918 

(Jerusalem, 1974). 


‘A Miserable 

Provincial Town’: 

The Zionist 

Approach to 

Jerusalem from 

1897-1937 


Singing and dancing in ‘New Jerusalem’ 

among the Zionist movement on the day the 

UN partition plan was announced in 1947. 

Source: Central Zionist Archives 

“When I remember thee in days to come, 

O Jerusalem, it will not be with pleasure,” 

Theodor Herzl wrote after his only visit 

to Palestine in 1898. He recorded that the 

musty deposits of 2,000 years of inhumanity, 

intolerance, and uncleanness lay in the 

city’s foul-smelling alleys, and that no 

deeper emotion came to him because of the 

superstition and fanaticism that he felt there. 

Herzl, in fact, dreamed of establishing the 

capital of Israel in northern Palestine. 1 

Despite the fact that the very name of the 

Zionist movement derives from one of 

Jerusalem’s, the issue of Jerusalem did not 

occupy an important place in the discussions 

and decisions of the movement and its 

leaders in 1897, when Jewish representatives 

from all over the world met to discuss 

Herzl’s idea to establish a state for the 

Jewish people as a practical solution to the 

‘Jewish problem’. Jerusalem was hardly 

mentioned: “The literal restoration of the 

glories of ancient Zion was not on their 

agenda, but they could not dispense with the 

older mystique.” 2 


This article will discuss the Zionist approach toward the city of Jerusalem from the 

movement’s early days until 1937, tracing the transformation of Zionist attitudes 

through the eyes of three Zionist leaders, and engaging the turning points of the 

establishment of the Hebrew University and the 1929 revolt. 

At the 1903 congress, when Herzl suggested the possibility of establishing a Jewish 

state in Uganda, he was supported by many of the more religious-minded Jews and 

opposed explicitly by secular Zionists such as Chaim Weizman and by the majority 

of the delegation from Tsarist Russia. Religious Jews seemed to think that it did not 

matter where Jews in trouble established themselves, because God had guaranteed 

that all Jews would ultimately be returned to the Promised Land. Ideologically, 

however, the Zionist settlement movement was not religious or traditional; it was 

practical, which put it in conflict with the religious and traditional Jewish population 

of Jerusalem. 

The Zionist organization pursued a broad aim of building an independent 

Jewish society in Palestine by establishing a widespread system of settlements 

based on developed, intensive agriculture to provide employment 

for the many workers who came with the second Aliyah (1904-1914). The 

class-conscious young workers in turn influenced the Zionist Organization, 

not only by realizing its aims, but also by leading it toward a more socialistic 

approach. The new settlement movement–at first, that of the second Aliyah, 

and later, also of the third Aliyah (1919-1923)–became increasingly permeated 

with principles of cooperation and social equity. 3 

The founders of the Zionist movement had consciously tilted toward secularism (and 

thus away from the revered city, Jerusalem), in order to transform the Jewish people 

as a whole into a modern secular national society. At the beginning of the immigration 

of the Lovers of Zion to Palestine, Zalman Levontin, who bought the land at Rishon 

LeZion as the first Jewish settlement, referred to “the conflict and the different 

opinions of our brothers in Jerusalem”. 4 Later, however, Levontin’s seeming lack of 

interest in Jerusalem appeared to change. He wrote in 1906 to the head of the Zionist 

movement, David Wolfson (Herzl’s successor): “We don’t know who will posses 

Jerusalem in the future; all the other religions built churches in Jerusalem, and the 

Zionists should build a home in order to develop belief in the way that they can affect 

Zionists practically, culturally and politically”. 5 

Zionist leaders and establishments were not enthusiastic about investing in Jerusalem 

in this early period. For instance, when Jerusalem leader David Yavin established 

the Institute for the Protection of Jewish Historic and Religious Places, he asked the 

Zionist office to help its cause by purchasing the sites of the Wailing Wall, David’s 

Tower, the Jewish cemetery in Nablus and the Grave of the Rabbis in Tiberius. The 

response of the Keren haYesod was negative, because of the low commercial value 


of the property. The question is whether this rejection was truly based on economic 

concerns, or rather reflected a lack of interest on the part of the Zionist movement in 

embracing icons of the past. 6 

Another example of the movement’s priorities can be found in the opening of the 

Zionist office in Jerusalem. The Palestine office, headed by Arthur Ruppin, opened 

in Jaffa in 1908. It moved to Jerusalem only in 1914, though the decision to move 

had been taken in 1913, because the Acting Committee delayed giving its permission 

for the move, 7 possibly because it wanted to avoid attracting the attention of the 

superpowers. Finally the office was moved after Jerusalem had already become the 

centre of events, the headquarters for the British Mandate, and for the Palestinian 

leadership. At least until the eve of the First World War, the Zionist leadership shied 

away from making Jerusalem the centre of their plans and projects in Palestine, due to 

the city’s importance for both Islamic and Christian states. 

Broadly, therefore, one can conclude that Zionist institutions initially neglected 

Jerusalem. Ruppin admitted: “Our mistake was that we didn’t engage enough of 

the Jewish population of the city, even though dealing with the issue of the halakha 

[monies donated by the Jewish Diaspora to Jews in Palestine in order to maintain their 

existence there, especially in Jerusalem], was the most difficult thing; despite that, we 

shouldn’t have neglected it.” 8 

Yossef Klauzner wrote in the Shiloah Journal: “Two big mistakes were committed by 

the Lovers of Zion, (and the first Zionists as well) that they pushed the Arab question 

under the rug, and [that they] abdicated the issue of Jerusalem. All our efforts must be 

focused on both issues.” 9 

Jerusalem vs. Tel Aviv 

In order to understand the Zionist movement’s approach toward the issue of Jerusalem, 

it is helpful to compare it with the approach toward Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv was founded 

in 1909 on sand dunes north of Jaffa. From its beginnings and even to this day, the 

city has represented ‘the new Israel’. In the eyes of wide segments of the Jewish 

population, Tel Aviv is contemporary and secular, while Jerusalem has remained 

profoundly marked by the many centuries of Jewish religious life that predate modern 

Zionism. 10 

At least until the First World War, the Zionist movement ignored Jerusalem and 

focused only on the new Yishuv centred in Jaffa because it assumed that it must do 

so in order to implement the national desires of the modern movement. As such, the 

Zionist Commission established its offices in Jaffa not Jerusalem. In addition, most of 

the Zionist leaders preferred to live in Tel Aviv. For instance, when Ahad Haam finally 


moved to Palestine in early 1922, he chose to reside in Tel Aviv and not in Jerusalem, 

even though his son was moving to Jerusalem because he had been appointed to a post 

in the education department of the British government under the Mandate. The major 

reason for Ahad Haam’s choice was that many of his personal friends were in Tel 

Aviv. 11 

Jaffa thus became the centre of the Zionist initiative and since the beginning of the 

twentieth century, has been the economic centre of the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine. 

Ruppin writes about the differences between Jerusalem and Jaffa, saying that Jaffa 

was not under the pressure of the Old Yishuv, which was anti-productive and against 

innovation. Therefore Jaffa became the centre of modern life in Palestine. 12 

The novelist Shai Agnon compared Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in his book Yesterday 

Before Yesterday: 

The nights of Jerusalem MISSING but the days are languid. The sun burns 

like a flame; the garbage exudes a stench and the city is suffused by sadness. 

The clods of hardened mud assault your legs and you skip over the rocks 

like those foul-smelling goats. At every turn you encounter either garbage 

and filth or a beard and side-curls, and when you approach one of them 

he flees from you as if he has seen a ghost. Whereas Jaffa …is chock-full 

of gardens, vineyards and orchards, it has the sea and coffee-houses and 

young people and every day one see new faces… 13 

The image of Jerusalem as a compared with that of Tel Aviv was only part of the 

problem. Another reason Jewish leaders were reluctant to devote more attention and to 

resources to Jerusalem was the nature of its Jewish population. Most of them had been 

living in Jerusalem from before the emergence of the new Zionism, and most were 

religious. 

Old Yishuv Jews in general were more religiously- rather than politically- or 

ideologically-minded. This difference created tension between the two Yishuvs, and 

marked by some ambivalence on the part of the Old Yishuv. On the one hand, Old 

Yishuv Jews were critical of the New Yishuv Jews’ behaviour and deterred by their 

ideology; on the other hand, they were glad for their numbers and the resources they 

brought to the city. 14 The population of Jerusalem on the eve of the First World War 

was 45,000 of the 85,000 Jews in Palestine; this number reduced by half after the war. 

The Jews living in Jerusalem were economically more vulnerable than were other 

Jews because of their dependence mainly on the money brought through halakha. 15 

The Old Yishuv rejected both the Zionist idea and cooperation with the secular 

Zionists. At the same time, the Zionists had little sympathy for the Jews who were 

already in the land because the community had long been supported by alms from 


abroad, as its members were waiting for the glories that God had promised for the End 

of Days. 16 

Also the average age of members of the Old Yishuv did not fit Zionist agricultural 

plans, and the fact that most of them were married with children made things more 

difficult. 17 Even when deputy director of the Zionist Palestine office Tahan tried in 

1913 to find people from the Old Yishuv to work in Bir Nabala near Jerusalem, he 

did not succeed. He concluded that the Jews in Jerusalem didn’t want to work in 

agriculture. 18 

Before the Zionist Commission headed by Weizman moved to Jerusalem, two separate 

committees were elected in the city, and both sought recognition from the British 

Mandate as representatives of the Jewish community. The first was the Committee 

for Jewish People Living in Jerusalem, which was supported by the city’s Zionist 

leaders. The second was the Ashkenazi Committee, which was elected by the Council 

committee, the committee of all the Kolelim representing the old Ashkenazi Yishuv. It 

is notable that when British Mandate representatives asked the Zionist Commission 

to solve the dispute, this was interpreted as the Mandate’s recognition of the special 

role of the Zionist Commission. This recognition politically and practically maintained 

Zionist leaders’ superior position over the traditional and religious leaders of the Old 

Yishuv. 19 

The reservations of the Old Yishuv about the Zionist leaders’ way of life included 

reservations about their urbanity, as well as their plan to create new and modern 

Jewish quarters, such as Jaffa. This idea was suggested by Arthur Ruppin as soon as 

he entered office in 1908, with the hopes of promoting not only a new neighbourhood, 

but a revitalized Jewish class and social life. 20 Meanwhile, the Zionists believed that 

the Old Yishuv in Jerusalem must undergo a lengthy re-education, to inspire a new 

spirit and mind. Their way of life must be changed, and they must be pushed to work, 

earning their bread with their own hands. 21 

Jerusalem and the Rural Settlements 

Ruppin’s plan and the approach of the Zionist movement to settlement in general 

(and settlement in the Jerusalem region in particular) raised conflicting ideas. Largescale 

settlement in mountainous regions based on intensive, modern agriculture was 

considered impractical by some. In the 1890s, Michel Pinnes wrote: “The land in 

the mountains will not be the basis for founding of settlements of people who expect 

to earn their daily bread from what will grow in the earth. 22 However, Menachem 

Sheinkin, the Lovers of Zion’s representative in Palestine, wrote later in 1913: 


The mountains are around Jerusalem, and all are fit for growing various fruit 

trees and forests; many of these hills have already passed into other hands 

that covered them with delightful gardens and shady groves. But there still 

remain thousands of dunams that can come into our possession. Hundreds 

of Hebrew workers will find employment and a livelihood in preparing the 

soil, building terraces, and planting trees, and we will surround Jerusalem 

with a glorious worth of farms and settlements full of labor and life… what 

more need be said about the value and necessity of this great project 23 

Ze’ev Tzahor, professor of the modern history of Israel, says that the priority given 

to settling in the Negev and rural areas in Palestine is not surprising. The concept of 

desolate or wild land was seized upon as a positive opportunity. The pioneer Jews 

were aware of the lack of water in the Negev and rural areas, but believed they could 

overcome the obstacles. 

The pioneer Zionist settlers built their houses far from Jerusalem and they 

gave to the settlements they built new names like Petah Tikva, Rishon LeZion, 

Yesod Hama’ala, and Rosh Pina. Berl Katzenlson was one of the prominent 

leaders of the Zionist movement before establishing the State; he came twice 

to the Galilee before coming for the first time to Jerusalem. 24 

In the early 1920s, a fierce debate arose within the Zionist Organization over where 

the Jewish National Fund (JNF) should invest its money. Should it purchase the 

lands of the Greek Orthodox patriarchate in Jerusalem, which were then offered for 

sale, or should it purchase the land of the Yizrael valley for co-operative agricultural 

settlement 25 The choice was clear, and the lands of the Yizrael Valley were obtained. 

Pioneering Zionism has been characterized by agricultural bias, stemming mainly 

from the belief that the country would be conquered through the conquest of the 

soil, and the society revived by creating a healthy Jewish peasantry. It seems that the 

Zionist pioneers agreed with Arthur Hantke, who said in 1923: 

[It is self-evident] that the national existence of a nation in a country depends 

upon the question whether it is successful in the cultivation of its soil. 

The city oriented itself by the country… If we are forced to decide between 

the amount of work to be devoted to the city and the countryside, we must 

always bear in our consciousness that the decision falls in the countryside 

and the city follows the country. 26 

The same sentiments were expressed by Bergman: “…the Jewish spirit sought to be 

rooted in the land. The villages were given the task of materializing this taking root. 

And from the village this spirit was supposed to spread out and influence the city”. 27 


The mainstream of the Zionist effort was thus directed toward the establishment 

of a series of agricultural communities, the best known among them the kibbutz, 

a collective agricultural settlement, and the moshav, a cooperative agricultural 

settlement. These, in particular the former, soon became known for their daring social 

innovations and the ability to take root and prosper under difficult conditions. 28 

Jerusalem as Polemical Tool and Heritage 

The various early Zionist attitudes towards Jerusalem can be found in the writings 

of its most prominent figures. For example, secular Herzl, with his background 

in international relations, felt that the issue of Jerusalem must be left out of the 

calculations of the Zionist movement, at least initially. What was most important 

was to solve the dilemma of the Jewish people, who were scattered across the world, 

economically, politically and socially by gathering them in their own territory 

supported through donations. Which territory they came to was a marginal issue; his 

vision was “secular, cosmopolitan and pluralist rather than distinctively Jewish”. 29 

Herzl believed, in fact, that Jerusalem would be one of the principal obstacles that the 

Zionist movement would confront on its way towards attaining political sovereignty 

in Palestine. For example, he obtained information that the Vatican would oppose any 

political entity in Jerusalem. He believed that the problem of ownership of the holy 

places could put his entire plan for Zionist settlement in danger. Therefore, from the 

outset in 1896, he preferred to give up Jerusalem in return for the hope of gaining 

recognition of Jewish sovereignty over the remaining portions of Palestine. It is not 

by accident that Jerusalem was mentioned for the first time in his book as a polemic 

tool: “All through the long night of their history the Jews have never ceased to dream 

this kingly dream. ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ is our old watch word. It’s now a matter of 

showing that dream can be converted into an effective thought for broad daylight.” 30 

In order to eliminate this obstacle, Herzl suggested a plan to declare old Jerusalem an 

international area. He was “prepared in 1902 to exclude Jerusalem and the entire south 

of the country from the domain of Jewish sovereignty in return for sovereignty over 

part of Palestine”. 31 

As Herzl became more involved in political activities, he became increasingly 

sensitive to the unique and complicated status of the city. As such, he distinguished 

between old Jerusalem and the ‘New Jerusalem’, between the ‘earthly Jerusalem’ and 

the ‘heavenly Jerusalem’. In the novel Alteneuland, Herzl proposed ‘exterritoriality’ 

for the Old City, which would belong to all nations as a centre for the institutions of 

“believers, love, and science”. 32 

The entire ancient, holy city should be free of daily traffic. All those unkempt, 

noisy peddlers should be banned from within these walls that are 


venerated by all creeds. Workers dwellings and inexpensive home should 

be built in the environs of the city. The markets should be moved from the 

city to suitable spots outside. Thus cleaned, the old city would be left to 

the charitable and religious institutions of the all creeds which then could 

amicably divide up this area among themselves. The entire old city could 

gradually be reconstructed in its present style. But under salubrious conditions 

it would then be a great jewel that could place into the rich setting of 

the modern, elegant city. 33 

By contrast, Menachem Usishkin began his Zionist activities far from Jerusalem only 

to become gradually interested in settling the city. Usishkin headed Hovevei Zion 

(Lovers of Zion), the most active organization, which sought to encourage Russian 

Jews to immigrate to Palestine at least 20 years before the establishment of the Zionist 

movement. He and his group played a crucial role in crystallizing the Zionist approach 

following the pogroms of the 1880s, which emphasized for him the necessity for 

Jewish emigration. 

Usishkin was a practical Zionist who viewed agricultural settlement in Palestine as 

the first and most important step toward attaining a Jewish state. Unlike the Zionist 

movement, however, Usishkin and the Lovers of Zion felt that the creation of Eretz 

Israel should comprise both rural and urban settlement. In practice, the focus was on 

the former. One impetus was that agricultural land was cheaper than urban land. 34 

Usishkin saw in the people of Jerusalem and their attitude toward the city neglect and 

ignorance. 35 He concluded that “Jerusalem is a hopeless case and there is no way to 

repair it.” 36 And until the end of 1912, Usishkin’s approach never differed from that 

of the Lovers of Zion. 37 Usishkin visited Jerusalem three times, in 1891, in 1903, and 

at the end of 1912 through the beginning of 1913. Only during the last visit did his 

attitudes about the city begin to change. He noticed changes in the city itself in the 

form of new institutions, and a different spirit among the new generation. Moreover, 

Usishkin recognized the importance of the city’s sacred places. He said that the 

Western Wall was the most contaminated place in the city, the most neglected, and 

surrounded by the worst of the Arabs. 38 “We committed a mistake,” he said afterwards, 

“regarding our metropolitan; we relinquished our Jerusalem, the heart of our nation’. 39 

In a lecture entitled “To Guard Jerusalem”, Usishkin said: 

The land of Israel without Jerusalem is Palestine. The people of Israel for 

hundreds of years didn’t say ‘Next Year in Israel’ they said ‘Next year in 

Jerusalem’. For them Jerusalem meant Ertz Israel. This sentiment saved the 

nation, and such sentiments should be taken in to our considerations. If we 

don’t understand that, if we take our steps only regarding our daily needs, we 

uproot the tree from its roots. We can create Jaffa and Tel Aviv, but we can 

not create new Jerusalem or new Zion. Behind all Zion is the old Jerusalem. 


Once they wanted to build the sacred Temple in Egypt but it didn’t work; in 

Bet Hakerm [a neighbourhood outside the Old City walls] it is impossible 

to find Zion. Zion is found inside the walls, not outside of them. 40 

Coming many years after Herzl, Chaim Weizman had a major effect both on the future 

of the Zionist movement, on its political enterprise and on its policy toward the city of 

Jerusalem. He contributed to issuing the Balfour Declaration, which indirectly affected 

the issue of Jerusalem, and he worked to establish the Hebrew University in his role as 

head of the Zionist Commission in Palestine after World War I. 

Like Herzl, Weizman wanted to find a special solution to the issue of Jerusalem. But 

unlike him, Weizman’s Zionism was rooted in ancient traditions, in Jewish ways 

and thoughts. He was conscious of the sensitivity of the subject of Jerusalem. But he 

believed – more so than Herzl and the other secular leaders of the Zionist Movement– 

in the special connection between Jews and Jerusalem and of the importance of 

strengthening this connection. He manoeuvred his policy between these practical 

political and spiritual demands, all the while expressing mixed feelings about Arab and 

Jewish Jerusalem, the value of religious Jerusalem and the problematic nature of the 

Old Yishuv. 

Weizman’s first direct experience of Jerusalem was in 1907 when he visited Palestine 

for the first time. Though he spent one full month in Palestine, he spent only one day in 

Jerusalem, and then only after first spending a week visiting Jaffa and the other colonies. 

His visit fell on Yom Kippur, and on this day he wrote to his wife “I spent a day here 

and am going back to Jaffa. A great many impressions.” And, on the next day, “Just 

returned from Jerusalem, where I spent only one day. It was extremely interesting.” 41 

In 1918, Weizman was appointed head of the Zionist Commission in Palestine, which 

as soon to move its headquarters to Jerusalem. When Weizman came to the city, he 

was shocked at its condition, especially for the Jewish people living there. He wrote in 

his diaries: 

It is sad, very sad in Jerusalem! There are very few of us there. Neither the 

heart nor eye perceives a single Jewish institution! On the contrary, there is 

so much of the foreign elements strong oppressive, threatening! The minarets 

and the bell-towers and the domes rising to the sky crying that Jerusalem is 

not a Jewish city! There are few young Jews there, and the old ones make a 

dreadful impression. They are all broken-off splinters, dusty, feeble, soft, and 

covered with age-old mould. The Jewish quarters in Jerusalem are nothing 

but filth and infection. The indescribable poverty, stubborn ignorance and 

fanaticism- the heart aches when one looks at it all!! To organize Jerusalem, 

to bring some order into that hell, it’s a job that is going to take a long time 

and require the strength of the giant and the patience of an angel! 42 


Weizman’s unsatisfactory impressions from the complication of the city in all aspects 

and regards, especially from the system of the Old Yishuv cast its shadow through all 

his doings. He wrote to Balfour: 

…As an instance of what I mean, let me mention the case of Jerusalem, 

which we have very carefully. What is Jerusalem It is two things: on the 

one hand a city of dirt and squalor, a home of physical and moral disease, 

the sorry domain of a corrupt Arab municipality, on the other hand, the 

centre of a nation’s traditions and hopes, a city whose name sends a thrill 

of reverence and of aspiration through millions of hearts. Is the capture of 

Jerusalem to mean the capture of a squalid oriental town, and only that, or 

is it to be the starting-point of an epoch in which the actual Jerusalem will 

make some approximation to the ideal 43 

Weizman’s attention to the spiritual Jerusalem was focused on the Wailing Wall, 

or the Western Wall, believed to have been part of the original walls of the Second 

Temple, held sacred by Jews. If Herzl had suggested, as a solution acceptable to the 

world community the ex-territorial idea and turning the Old City into a museum for all 

nations, Weizman wanted to see the Western Wall under Jewish control. He wrote in 

his diaries to the British Minister William Ormsby-Gore: 

The hope has long been cherished that someday the Wall and neighbouring 

land might pass into Jewish hands and the site be put into a condition not 

unworthy of the memories and aspirations which it symbolizes. We feel that 

at the present time, when the Jewry are looking forward to a revival of its 

national life, would be all times the most fitting for the carrying out of this 

project. We accordingly ask for permission to open investigations with a 

view to ascertaining how and on what terms the site can be transferred to 

Jewish control. If that permission is granted, we hope in due course to be 

able to but forward a proposal for its acquisition. 44 

Relations with the Old Yishuv also affected Weizman’s approach to Jerusalem. 

Like Herzl, he saw them as an obstacle to obtaining Jewish goals in Palestine and 

Jerusalem. He wrote to his wife: 

What you do find there in plenty are schnorrers [Yiddish for ‘sponger’]! Just 

imagine, some of the representatives of ‘Orthodoxy’ denounced us to the 

government as a dangerous lot, we intended to overthrow the king…tiresome 

people! Hardly any firm principles. Whatever there was before has been 

largely destroyed by the war. It will take a long time, and require many new 

elements to heal the wounds and inject fresh streams. 45 


Hebrew University and the New Jerusalem 

The foundation of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1925 was the outcome of 

intensive effort and arguments within the Zionist movement. This debate, however, 

encapsulates the debate over Jerusalem’s problematic nature for the early Zionists. 

When the Zionist movement laid the university’s foundation stone in 1918 on Mount 

Scopus, and when it established its first faculties in 1925, it was considered a great 

achievement in making the city both Jewish and secular and modern. Weizman 

said it was like establishing the Third Temple. 46 According to Hagit Lavsky, “The 

establishment of the modern spiritual national centre in the heart of the concrete 

and Orthodox Jerusalem, which was considered the core of resistance to secular 

Zionism, became a challenge. Through the ceremony of butting the corner stone of the 

University, Weizman wanted to bridge the gap between the existing Jerusalem and the 

future one.” 47 

The idea of establishing a Jewish college or university had arisen in the last decade 

of the nineteenth century. Like the idea of establishing a Jewish state for the Jewish 

people, the idea of establish a Jewish university was mainly in response to anti- 

Semitism directed at Jewish students in the universities of Europe, especially in 

Russia. At the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, Professor Herman Shapiro 

suggested the establishment of a Jewish university (without naming a location) as soon 

as possible. In general, the idea was positively received, although not a first priority. 

In 1902, Weizman, Martin Buber and Berthord Feiwel published a pamphlet called 

Eine Judische Hochschule (A Jewish College), in which they explained the need to 

found a Jewish institution. Their suggested locations included Palestine, England and 

Sweden. 

Real progress first came, however, on the eve of the 11 th Zionist Congress in 1911 

when the establishment of a Jewish university was put on the agenda. The issue was 

raised on the eight day of the congress by Usishkin, and Weizman followed, saying: 

It is superfluous to discuss at length before a Zionist congress the national 

necessity and importance of a Jewish university. We all feel the immense 

value of the intelligence centre, where Jews could learn, teach, and do 

research in sympathetic atmosphere free from hindrances, and inspired by 

the resolve to create new Jewish values and bring our great traditions into 

harmony with the modern world. Out of such a synthesis genuine Jewish 

education would arise, from which the Jewish nation as a whole would profit 

most. The influence of such a centre on the Diaspora would be profound; 

the self-esteem of the Jewish intellectuals would be greatly enhanced. 48 


He used essentially the same logic as he had in his 1902 pamphlet. But this time, 

Jerusalem was mentioned as a suitable site. His eloquent speech, however, did not 

silence the debate over this matter within the Zionist movement. Reservations came 

from all sides–religious and secular, practical and political, and from those who lived 

in Palestine and those who lived outside it. 

Max Nordau, for instance, a Zionist intellectual leader considered one of the founders 

of the Zionist movement and a member of the Small Action Committee, rejected the 

idea and accused Weizman and his colleagues of having squandered university funds. 49 

Nordau expressed the view that the Jewish people were a decade away from being 

ready for such a move, citing their lack of economic and employment stability. He 

described middle class Jews as inferior, and at the same time he described those who 

were looking to higher education, as doing so as a result of Jewish weakness. 50 

Ahad Haam, another leading Zionist thinker, was also not convinced by Weizman’s 

logic. He thought the idea of establishing a Jewish university was good in principle 

but the timing was not right. He believed the Jewish people still lacked real internal 

freedom, and the establishment of a higher educational institution as a Jewish cultural 

centre in Europe could only reinforce the tendency of imitation and self-denial. He 

believed that such an institution would not be a real national institution. 51 

Weizman saw another reason for Ahad Haam’s argument: “He considers the idea 

of the university dangerous in that the establishment of such a centre will arouse 

the suspicions of states whose eyes are turned to Jerusalem. It’s true that Hebrew 

University and the Holy Sepulchre in one and the same place are quite incompatible, 

but we certainly can’t give up Jerusalem.” 52 

The idea of the university also faced strong opposition from Zionist leaders and 

writers living in Palestine. Arthur Rupin, head of the Palestine Office, rejected the 

idea because he believed that such a move could adversely affect settlement activities, 

especially the agriculture settlements. He believed building new settlements was more 

important than building a university and calculated that it would be better to buy 

cheaper agriculture land than to purchase expensive urban land for a university. 53 

Yosef Aharonovich, editor of the journal Hashomer HaTsa’ir (The Young Guard), 

claimed that the Jewish people lack material capabilities, not spirit, and that the 

material is the basis of the nation. He remarked sardonically that the Jewish people 

were not persecuted because they hadn’t produced enough books or given the world 

enough scholars. 54 

But Weizman and his colleagues had strong support from other quarters, especially 

from Zeev Jabotinsky, who would later become the leader of the revisionist faction 

and then leader of the New Zionists, and one of Weizman’s stronger rivals within the 


Israeli right. Jabotinsky not only supported the establishment of Hebrew University, 

he pushed for it to happen as soon as possible. His motivation at this stage was not 

political or ideological, and the location was not important; the most important thing 

for him was the need for an independent Jewish academic institution in light of the 

treatment of Jewish students, especially in Russia. He suggested starting immediately 

by establishing an institute that would later on be developed into a university. 55 

Weizman rejected this plan and insisted on working carefully toward establishing a 

good university with a respected reputation. He wrote: 

They want a teaching institute straightaway because urgency exists in Russia. 

I stress with the greatest emphasis that this is a dangerous, deadly point 

of view….For us, from the national point of view, from the point of view 

of the conquest of the land, that part of the university to be realized in the 

research institute, which is, as it were, the higher, purely scientific part, is 

the most important part and not the teaching. 56 

The response of the religious factions could roughly be divided into two main streams, 

that of the Mizrahi movement and that of the ultra-orthodox Jews. The Mizrahi 

faction was not against the idea in principle. They had reservations about what would 

be taught in the university, and they wanted segregation between male and female 

students. 57 Rabbi Yehuda Lev Mimon, speaking at the 5th Congress of the Mizrahi 

movement held in Philadelphia in 1918, gave his view that there were more important 

things to do in Palestine than establish a university, and that the Mizrahim needed 

their own institution rather than a secular one. 58 Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan, another Mizrahi 

leader, held a similar position but refused to see the university’s establishment as an 

act of Torah miZion (literally: “Torah from Zion”, meaning God’s order). 59 Rabbi 

Abraham Kook thought, like Rabbi Bar-Ilan that, whether or not he was in favour of a 

university per se, it was more important to establish a religious centre as an alternative 

to the secular ones. 60 When the university finally opened, he was invited to lead a 

prayer at the opening ceremony. 

Other ultra-orthodox groups mostly opposed the idea and later on refused to 

participate in the opening ceremony. In their neighbourhoods, they displayed posters 

condemning the event, without explaining the reasons for the boycott. 61 

The debate over the Hebrew University in Jerusalem reflected to a certain extent the 

debate within the Jewish world regarding the direction of the future of the Jewish 

people, and the debate over how to deal with the issue of Jerusalem. The process of 

establishing the university was a gradual one and ran parallel with gradual recognition 

of the importance of the city. The other dimension to be evaluated in this discussion is 

the struggle between the Jews and the Palestinians over the city. How did the different 

groups and factions within the Zionist movement deal with issue of Jerusalem in times 

of conflict and confrontation 


The 1929 Disturbances, a Turning Point 

The bloody clashes of 1929 between Arabs and Jews in Palestine (the al-Buraq 

Revolt, as it was called by the Arabs) started in Jerusalem. In light of the clashes, in 

which a total of 133 Jews were killed and 339 wounded, with 116 Arabs killed and 

232 wounded, 62 a Royal Commission was appointed to investigate the causes of the 

violence and suggest solutions. A special committee was also appointed to find a 

solution to the issue of the Wailing Wall or al-Buraq Wall. 

The clashes had three dimensions to them: the Arab-Jewish struggle over Palestine; 

the Arab-Jewish struggle over Jerusalem; and Jewish/Zionist internal debate over 

the Jerusalem issue. Anita Shapira claims in her book, Land and Power, that the first 

change in the Zionist approach following these clashes was that its leaders no long 

thought it possible to solve their problems with the Arabs without confrontation. The 

concept of co-existence was pushed aside and those who pushed for extreme action 

prevailed. In addition, the issue of Jerusalem moved up the agenda relatively to its 

status before the riots. 63 

From the Revisionist point of view–especially that of Jabotinsky–the clashes were 

considered evidence that ‘achieving rights by force’ was the right approach. The 

Revisionists used the clashes to push the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine to adopt their 

policy of establishing a Jewish army, their argument being that Jews should protect 

themselves and not depend on external powers. For them, Jerusalem was the best place 

for these events to have taken place, 64 despite that Jabotinsky was more interested in 

national symbols than religious heritage. 65 Jabotinsky, wanted to emphasize the issue 

of the Wailing Wall because he thought it could revive the national spirit of the Jewish 

people. In June 1929, one month before the clashes, he wrote: 

Jerusalem is as yet a miserable provincial town, without cultural life, without 

inner cohesion, the various communities–the English, the Russians, and the 

Germans–are isolated from one another. The overwhelming majority among 

them hasn’t even any interest in Vaad Leumi, everybody is discontented. A 

great and interesting centre has degenerated into an obscure hole. It would 

take a lot of shaking to wake them up. 66 

Before and after the bloody disturbances, a heated debate was ongoing on the pages of 

various journals regarding the issue of the Wailing Wall. The journal of the Revisionist 

movement, Doar haYom (The Daily Post) was accused by the Show Commission and 

most of the other journals of kindling the clashes. They told the commission that Doar 

haYom was “trying to force the hand of the Zionist Executive through articles calling 

for action regarding the Wailing Wall”. 67 


Jabotinisky insisted in a letter to a friend that: “It was a psychological and practical 

necessity; and if I believed for a moment that that was the cause of the outbreak, I 

should heartily congratulate the promoters… It is the main thing in all strategy to force 

the enemy to attack before he is ready.” 68 

Unlike the Revisionists and Jabotinsky, and despite the pressure from part of the 

Jewish street, most Zionist leaders did not believe that the time was yet right to change 

their approach to Jerusalem, especially to the Wailing Wall–at least not through 

force. They wanted to improve the Jewish position and even tried to buy the plaza 

of the wall (the Kotel in Hebrew) with the consent of the Arabs and full co-operation 

and coordination with the British Mandate. One of the reasons that Weizman was 

interested in buying the Kotel was his belief that this act would bring the Zionist 

movement closer to the Jewish world and would establish its position as the leader of 

the Jews in Palestine. 69 The Labour faction, on the other hand, argued that what would 

revive the spirit of the people was alia (Jewish immigration), work and the land. 

I believe that one reason for the acceptance and welcome of the Kotel Committee by 

the Zionist movement, and their rather cold approach towards the Show Commission, 

was that while the results of the Show Commission were more or less known, the 

composition of the Kotel Committee was international and therefore held more 

promise for changing the status quo. Weizman, for instance, hoped that the Committee 

would succeed in solving the problem, because it suggested sending the rabbinate to 

negotiate the issue while leaving the Jewish Agency sitting on the sidelines without 

risk or responsibility. Meanwhile, direction was given to the representatives of the 

Jewish Agency on the Kotel Committee not to minimize or ignore the rights of the 

Arabs on the Kotel–they were just to claim the Jewish right to pray there. 70 That 

mirrored exactly the position of Weizman. In his letter to Oskar Wassermann, he 

wrote: 

As far as the question of the Kotel Ma’aravi [Western Wall] is concerned, 

I stand very close to your own thought; we i.e. the Executive have never 

demanded more than an arrangement by which the right of freedom to 

conduct prayers in a decent form appropriate to the dignity of our religion 

would be guaranteed. That is the minimum we must demand, but also, in 

my opinion, the maximum we should strive for. 71 

Two years later, in 1931 at the Zionist Congress held in London, Ben Gurion said that 

history would judge those who had caused the problem. He thought it was a mistake 

to revive the issue of prayer at the wall. 72 Yosef Aharonivich, the leader of haShomair 

haTsair (the Young Guard), an opposition faction to BEITAR, criticized Revisionist 

activities regarding the Wailing Wall and warned even before the disturbances that the 

provocation of the Revisionists might spark trouble. His colleague Moshe Beilinson 

wrote: 


We must not forget that the central thing in our life is to be engaged in 

different values; alia (immigration), work and land. If thousands of Jews 

come and live in this land, working their land, the Wailing Wall will belong 

to us. If we haven’t the people, even if they give us all of the Kotel we will 

not be able to protect it. 73 

Haim Arlozorov, head of the political committee of the Zionist Movement, (who was 

assassinated in 1933, apparently by an extremist Jew, while walking with his wife on 

the beach in Jaffa), sharply criticized what he called the ill-advised attempts of the 

Revisionists to focus attention on the explosive issue of the Wailing Wall. He wrote: 

What is all this excitement about What good does it do This damned 

entrance to the Wailing Wall is truly a cul-de-sac, which will cost us most 

dearly. Blood, quiet, nerves, good will, constructive ability, relations and 

contacts that are hard to maintain, the security of our brethren–all this will 

be the price we will have to pay for it 74 

On another occasion, Arlozorov continued in the same vein, describing the attempts of 

the Revisionists to play up the issue of the Wailing Wall as an act of provocation that 

was both immoral and imprudent. 75 

It is clear that there were at least two different Zionist approaches regarding the issue 

of Jerusalem in general, and particularly the issue of the Wailing Wall. The riots of 

1929 were a turning point in that they pushed the issue of Jerusalem to the top of the 

Zionist agenda, even if some Zionists were not convinced that this was the correct 

path, at least tactically. The events put the Zionist movement in a corner without a 

lot of options other than to take into account the trend of dealing with Jerusalem not 

just as a religious place, sacred to the Jewish people, but as a political, ideological 

and symbolic place. The riots gave yet more weight to the ‘earthly Jerusalem’ at the 

expense of the ‘heavenly Jerusalem’. All attempts to set aside the issue of Jerusalem, 

the issue of the sacred places, until the future had failed, and this was one reason for 

Weizman’s resignation as the leader of the Zionist movement. 

In sum, the ideological nature of the Zionist movement as a secular, modern and social 

movement originally clashed with traditional, religious and historical Jerusalem. The 

majority of the Jewish community who lived in Jerusalem was ultra-orthodox and had 

little interest in cooperating with the Zionist leadership. In additional, Zionist leaders 

felt that attempts to build in Jerusalem would be met with international opposition. 

The establishment of the Hebrew University, however, signalled a turning point in 

the struggle between the traditional and the modern Jerusalem, the spiritual heavenly 

Jerusalem and the new secular and earthly Jerusalem. Finally, the riots of 1929 pushed 

Jerusalem to the top of the agenda in the conflict between the Jews and Arabs in 

Palestine. The gradual change of the Zionist leadership’s approach towards the city 


can be traced only by examining these details. Its main feature, however, was to keep 

a low profile towards Jerusalem in order to avoid international anger, and at the same 

time avoid a split within the Jewish leadership and the Jewish community. 

Sufian Abu Zaida has served in several ministerial positions in the Palestinian Authority. This essay 

is a chapter from his unpublished doctoral dissertation, Conflict and Continuity in Zionist Policy 

Towards Jerusalem Before and After the Establishment of the State (2005, Exeter University). 

Endnotes 

1 

Amos Elon, Jerusalem: City of Mirrors (London: 

Fontana, 1991) 239. 

2 

Nitza Rosovsky (ed), City of Great Kings, 

Jerusalem from David to the Present (Cambridge: 

Harvard University Press, 1996) 152. 

3 

Ruth Kark & Michael Oren-Nordhein. Jerusalem 

and Its Environs: Quarters, Neighborhoods, Villages- 

1800-1948 (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes 

Press, 2001) 320. 

4 

Zalman Lavontin, To Lands of our fathers (Tel 

Aviv, 1924) 23. 

5 

Letter of Lavontin to Wolfson, dated 25 Oct., 

1906, Central Zionist Archive, Z2/632 ZA (hereafter 

CZA) 

6 

CZA, file No. KKL2/18 ZA. 

7 

Alix Peen, The History of the Zionist Settlement 

(Ramat Gan, 1970) 136. 

8 

Ruppin to the Executive Committee, 28 July, 

1912 , CZA, LZ/24IV. 

9 

Y. Klauzner, “al haMizva”, haOlam, Jerusalem, 

12 Feb., 1913. Also Usishkin wrote about the same 

thing in haOlam, 26 Dec., 1913, 11-12. 

10 

Rosovsky, 157. 

11 

Ibid. 

12 

H. Lavsky (ed), Jerusalem in Zionist Vision 

and Realization (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Centre, 

1989) 218 ( Hebrew). 

13 

S. Agnon, Yesterday before Yesterday, 155- 

157, as quoted in Katz Yossi, Jerusalem From 

Neighborhoods to a Divided City, Essays on the 

History of Jerusalem in Modern Times (Jerusalem: 

Ingeborg Rennert Center Publications, 1992) 68. 

14 

Ben Giora, “From the East and the West”, 

HaOlam, 28 Aug., 1913, 9. 

15 

H. Lavsky, The Basic of the Zionist Budget, 

Zionist Commission 1918-1921 (Jerusalem, 1981) 

40. 

16 

Rosovsky, 150. 

17 

Tahan letter to Wolfson, 11 Nov., 1910, CZA, 

Z2/652. 

18 

Tahan, letter to Rupin, CZA L1/272 Za. 

19 

Weizman, letter dated 25 April, 1918. 

20 

CZA, Files No, KKL2/61,and L1/132, L2/ 16. 

21 

CZA, file Nom Z4/483, 25 June, 1918. 

22 

Kark & Oren-Notheim, 140-151. 

23 

Letter from Sheinkin to the Lovers of Zion 

Committee, late summer 1913, CZA, A24/51/II. 

24 

Ze’ev Tzahor, Center and Periphery in Israel- 

History and Reality. Unpublished article, 1-2. 

25 

Peen, 215-221. 

26 

Quoted in Erik Cohen, The City in Zionist 

Ideology (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, Eleizer 

Kaplan School of Economic and Social Science, 

1970) 3. 

27 

Bergman, The Jewish Village in Eretz Israel, 

1946, as quoted in Cohen, 3. 

28 

Cohen, 4. 

29 

G. Shimoni, Zionist Ideology (Hanover: 

Brandeis University Press, 1995). 

30 

Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State: An Attempt at 

a Modern Solution of the Jewish Question (London: 

Central Office of the Zionist Organization, 1934) 

46. 

31 

Y. Katz, Jerusalem from Neighbourhood to 

Divided City, Essays on the History of Jerusalem in 

Modern Times (Jerusalem: Ingeborg Rennent Center 

Publications, 1992) 131. 

32 

Herzl, Ulteneuland (Haifa, 1962) 192. 

33 

Zionist Writings, Herzl, Vol. 2, 18904-1904 (New 

York: Herzl Press, 1975) “The Zionist deputation in 

Palestine”. 

34 

haOlam dated 22 Jan., 1913, 1 and 5 March, 

1914, 1. 

35 

Yossi Katz, “The change in Attitude of 

Usishkin and the Hovevei Zion to the Development 

of Jerusalem and the Founding of the Hebrew 

University Prior to the First World War”, in Hagit 

Lavsky (ed.), Jerusalem in Zionist Vision and 

Realization, op.cit., 108. 


36 

al-Hamitzbi, haOlam, dated 22 Jan. 1913, 1 

and 1 July, 1913, 2-3. Also see haOlam, “Earthly 

Jerusalem and Heavenly Jerusalem”, 28 Sept., 

1913. 

37 

M. Usishkin, Our Zionist Program (Warsaw, 

1905) 212 (Hebrew). 

38 

“haEretz haMuvtahat, haOlam, 31-32. 

39 

haOlam, dated 18 Sept., 1913, 20. 

40 

Usishkin, 223. 

41 

Leonard Stein (ed), The Letters and Papers of 

Chaim Weizman, vol. v (London: Oxford University 

Press, 1968) Jan. 1907 - Feb. 1913. 

42 

Weizman Diaries, 16 April, 1918. 

43 

Ibid., 30 May, 1918. 

44 

Ibid.,1 May, 1918. 

45 

Ibid, 9 Aug., 1918. 

46 

Weizman Letters, 13 March, 1913. 

47 

Hagit Lavsky, “Zionist commission”, in Hagit 

Lavsky, (ed.), Zionist Vision and Realization, 180. 

48 

XI Stenographisches Protokoll, 300-308 as 

quoted from Weizman, The Making of a Zionist 

Leader, op. cit., 387. 

49 

The Jewish Chronicle, dated 1 Aug., 1913, 22- 

23. 

50 

Max Nordau, Zionist Writing, Book 2, 57-74. 

Also see Shaul Katz and Michael Heyd (eds.), The 

History of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: 

Origins and Beginnings, ( Jerusalem: Magnes 

Press,1997) 26. 

51 

See Ahad Haam, Letters, n. 3, p. 136. 

52 

Weizman Letters, 13 March, 1913. 

53 

Shaul Katz and Michael Heyd, 50. 

54 

“The Spirit and the Material”, The Young Guard 

Journal, 13 July, 1913. 

55 

The Hebrew University, 66. 

56 

Weizman Letters, vol. 6, 335-339. 

57 

The Hebrew University, 57. 

58 

K. Caplan, Is This Not an Upside Down World 

The Lives, Sermons and Continuity and Change in 

Sermons of American Orthodox Rabbis, Hebrew 

University of Jerusalem, Department of Jewish 

Thought, PhD thesis, 1996, 143. 

59 

Ibid, 144. 

60 

Ibid, 155. 

61 

Ibid, 140. 

62 

Dinur B. Z., (ed)., History of the Hagana, 1954- 

72, vol. 2, 363 (Hebrew). 

63 

A. Shapira, Land and Power: The Zionist Resort 

to Force 1881-1948, (in Hebrew called haErev 

haYonah or Sword of the Dove, translated by William 

Templer (New York & Oxford: Oxford University 

Press, 1992). 

64 

In fact, the symbols of the Revisionist movement 

were the village of Tel Hai and Yosef Trumpeldor 

(The Jewish hero of the Revisionists who was killed 

in Tel Hai in the north of Palestine at the beginning 

of the 20th century). The name of BEITAR, the 

youth movement of the Revisionists also derived 

from the name of Trumpeldor and the ceremonies 

of BEITAR were held on the 21st of Marsh (the day 

that Trumpeldor was killed). Jabotinsky himself went 

to Tel Hai, not to Jerusalem, to celebrate national 

events. 

65 

H. Lavisky, 421. 

66 

Y. B. Schechman, Fighter and Prophet: The 

Last Years of Vladimir Jabotinsky (New York: T. 

Yosseloff, 1961) vol 2, 103. 

67 

Ibid., 118. 

68 

Ibid., 120. 

69 

Weizman Letters, 1 May, 1918 and 30 May, 

1918. 

70 

Yigal Eilam, 411. 

71 

Weizman Letters, 19 Sept., 1929. 

72 

Yigal Eilam, 412. 

73 

Ben Gurion Memories, vol 1, 342. 

74 

Shlomo Avineri, Arlozorov (London: P. 

Halban,1989) 67. 

75 

Ibid, 68. 


Jerusalem 

and its Gods 

A Review of Ancient 

Astral Worship 

and ‘Jerusalem’ 


The crescent moon shape and twin spheres 

in this bust are echoed in physical creations 

all over the ancient Near East and Arabia 

and appear to reflect early astral worship. 

Here, they also connote a woman’s body. 

This Bronze Age bust can be viewed at the 

Amman Archeological Museum. 

Source: Voyage en Jordanie, p. 66. 

In modern discourse, the ‘holy city’ 

of Jerusalem is understood as a 

precious commodity, ‘owned’ by the 

major monotheistic traditions. These 

understandings are derived from the 

religious texts of Judaism, Christianity 

and Islam. For many years, however, those 

same texts have also been the focus of 

academic study. How did they come into 

being Who ‘wrote’ them or recorded their 

oral narratives, and why How were they 

edited, and for what purpose And finally, 

what are their relationships to ‘history’ as 

it can be uncovered in archeology and texts 

that were not canonized These studies 

suggest that the history of ‘Jerusalem’ as a 

concept appears to have roots much older 

than the known physical history of the city. 

In the ancient world as today, ideas passed 

from culture to culture, being shaped by 

their transmitter/s. ‘Jerusalem’, too–as a 

[ 88 ] HISTORICAL FEATURES Jerusalem and its Gods

word, a phrase, a concept–seems to have been part of the broad milieu of traditions, 

among them the worship of the sun, moon and stars, that shaped the ancient Near 

East and Arabia. This essay will review those traditions and the connections between 

them through a variety of sources, including the canonized texts of the monotheistic 

religions. 

Volumes of academic writings have accumulated describing how the Hebrew Bible 

references the past, rewriting traditions evidenced in earlier written works and 

circulating in antiquity. A body of work exists describing how the various redactors 

of the Bible drew on what their readers knew about a host of deities to establish the 

primacy of one god. Scholars continue to dig beneath this textual polemic, looking 

at word forms, borrowed names and echoes of earlier traditions to try to gain better 

understanding of what came before the Bible. 

An example of how this textual “un-reading” is carried out can be demonstrated 

through the text of Joshua 10:10-16. Here the Lord (Hebrew: ‘Yahweh’) assists Joshua 

in routing the Amorites. But in the course of battle, Joshua does something peculiar 

for a mortal. “Stand still, O sun, at Gibeon, O moon, in the Valley of Aijalon!” he 

demands. 

And the sun [Hebrew: ‘shams’] stood still and the moon halted. While a 

nation wreaked judgment on its foes – as is written in the book of Jashar. 

Thus the sun halted in mid-heaven, and did not press on to set for a whole 

day; Neither before nor since has there ever been such a day when the Lord 

acted on words spoken by a man: for the Lord fought for Israel. 1 

It is clear that a special connection exists between Joshua and the sun. Joshua retires in 

Timnath-serah, according to the text; the latter part of this place name is another word 

for ‘sun’ used by redactor/s to avoid using the Hebrew ‘heras’, which seems to have 

been related to traditions of astral worship that the redactor wanted to edit out. 2 (One 

can see ‘heras’ used in Judges 14:18, in a segment related to Samson – i.e., Hebrew: 

‘shamson’, related to ‘shams’ or ‘sun’.) 

Read again, the passage cited above suggests at first that Joshua is more powerful than 

the forces of the sun or moon. Was he a deity in an astral cosmology that also existed 

before or at the time of worship of Yahweh Quickly, a voice loyal to Yahweh steps 

in to tell us (rather untruthfully, if one looks at other accounts in the Bible) that this 

encounter was the only time in history that God/Yahweh acted on the commandments 

of a human. In other words, while an ancient audience might have known of a tradition 

surrounding Joshua and the sun, here that reference is put to work in a powerful 

narrative defending new traditions about Yahweh. 


In the spirit of this type of literary examination, this essay will briefly review literature 

indicating that Jerusalem was a center for astral worship in the ancient world. Here, 

we cannot speak of a physical city of Jerusalem, in the location it exists today. Instead, 

we are speaking of the word ‘Jerusalem’ and its synonyms as they appear in ancient 

texts. 

One such ancient textual resource was the Ugaritic library found in Ras Shamra, Syria, 

believed to date to approximately 1200 BCE. These tablets detail the ‘Baal cycle’, 

or the belief system dominated by the god Baal that was prevalent at that time in the 

northern Levant. John Gray, in his 1949 discussion of the Ras Shamra text, “The Birth 

of the Gracious and Beautiful Gods,” posited that the personal names of the Solomon 

and his brother Absalom, as well as the name of Jerusalem, signaled that the biblical 

David and his city were at one time dedicated to the worship of the Ugaritic god 

Shalem. 3 The text in question, KTU 1:23, describes how twins Shahar and Shalem 

were born from El and ‘Athtarte; Gray provides evidence that the brothers were paired 

expressions of the Venus star, the deity ‘Athtar. Since then, Gray’s ideas have been 

cited in numerous works, 4 but with little further elaboration. 

The Ugaritic cosmology was complex and in flux. Heiser refers to competition 

between the deities Baal and ‘Athtar which results in ‘Athtar’s subsequent loss of 

his throne and descent to rule the earth. He argues that this sequence of events was 

not a loss of status for ‘Athtar, but rather an affirmation of the strength of Baal. 5 It is 

plausible, then, that a subsequent tradition developed about ‘Athtar’s reign on earth, 

expressed through the hypostasis Shalem (or ŠLM without vowels). 6 Jerusalem was 

clearly linked to the tradition; perhaps Shalem’s temple was located in the settlement. 

Genesis 14:18, Hebrew 7:1 and 8 describe ‘Salem’ as the place where Melchizedek 

ruled; later Jewish texts written by Josephus and the Targum alternatively refer to this 

place as Jerusalem. 7 Other local place names like Jericho (named after the moon god 

Yriach) and Beit-Yriach also reflect an astral cosmology. 

Heiser goes on to attempt to link problematic sections of the biblical text to Ugaritic 

source material. 8 He argues that Isaiah 14:12-15 (“How you are fallen from heaven, 

O Day Star, son of Dawn!...”) appears to tie Absalom to the rise and descent of 

‘Athtar. Significantly, Absalom is the brother of Solomon, the builder of the temple 

in Jerusalem that becomes so important to the Israelites. It is surely not a coincidence 

that the names ‘Absalom’ and ‘Jerusalem’ share the same consonants in Hebrew, nor 

that ‘Solomon’ in Hebrew has near-identical pronunciation but for the first consonant. 

Such references hold meaning, despite the long periods of time that separate the 

various written texts. 

Historians have generally agreed that the Deuteronomist history that relates the earliest 

account of Solomon was compiled no earlier than the late seventh century BCE and 

possibly even after the attested temple destruction and subsequent exile in 587/586. 9 


But fragments of a tradition can persist for thousands of years. Knauf uses the 

Masoretic text 10 to propose that the Qedarites mentioned in the Song of Songs were 

Nabateans, a community crucial to the spice trade route from South Arabia in the 

third century BCE. “Black I am, but beautiful, ye daughters of Jerusalem / As tents 

of Qedar, as tentcloth of Salam black” reads the Song. 11 The tribe of Salam was 

located just south of the Nabateans, in Madain Salih. In the course of his presentation, 

Knauf mentions that the Masoretic text records this line as “tentcloths of Solomon.” 

He prefers the reading of ‘Salam’, which requires no change in consonants, but the 

Masoretic tradition shows the possibility of linking Solomon (ŠLMH in unvoweled 

Hebrew) with the worship of SLM in northeastern Arabia. 

North Arabians worshipped (among other deities) the god SLM, whose name 

is related to the word for ‘image’ in South Arabic and Hebrew. (Again, ancient 

texts often appear without vowels, hence the names’ appearance here as groups of 

consonants.) Dalley discusses two stelae found in Teima, one which refers by name to 

the installation of the god SLM with the approval of SLM of MHRM, and the other 

a stone pedestal retrieved from Teima and inscribed with an Aramaic text recording 

an offering to “SLM of RB.” 12 Her rendering of the unvoweled SLM as ‘Salmu’ is 

generated vis-à-vis the Akkadian god Salmu mentioned in list AN=Anum, from mid-to 

late second millennium tablets, who was synonymous with the sun god Shamash. The 

same god name is found in a mid-Babylonian text from the Hittite capital Hatusas, 

and Dalley also refers to the Midianite king Salmunnu in the book of Judges. Her 

conclusion is that the god Salmu enters Mesopotamia in the first half of the second 

millennium, presumably as a Semitic but foreign deity. 13 A god called Salmu-sarri 

is introduced as a legal witness on three late Assyrian legal documents (two from 

Tel Khalaf, which was biblical Gozan, and one from Nimrod, where he appears next 

to Shamash). 14 Finally, SLM occurs in a Latin inscription from Dumat al-Jandal 

(‘sulmus’) which further suggests that his worship was not limited to Teima. 15 

Therefore, Salmu in North Arabia was believed to be the deity of the sun, and it is 

likely that ŠLM in Jerusalem was also a sun god. We know that a historical connection 

existed between Solomon and ŠLM through the Mesoratic text, which simultaneously 

refers to the north Arabian tribe of Salem where Salmu was worshipped. 

One of the most obvious issues raised here in relating the Mesopotamian Salmu, 

Ugaritic god ŠLM, the biblical ŠLMH and finally North Arabian SLM is the 

orthographic problem posed by the transformation of originally South Arabian 

sibilants. South Arabian script in antiquity had three sibilants, while Ugaritic and 

Hebrew have only two. In addition, it appears that many of the earlier South Arabian 

texts available show signs of a language in transition; as a result there are a number of 

anomalies in correspondence. 16 It is quite plausible, considering this transition phase 

and confusion about foreign spellings, that “S” (like Solomon) or “Š” (like Shaher) 


could have traveled from South Arabia, and become a North Semitic “Š”, and at the 

same time be rendered in North Arabia as “S” (as in SLM) or even “S” (as in the tribe 

Salem). 17 It is clear, however, that the most orthographically sound progression begins 

in South Arabia and from there extends into the Levant, and into North Arabia. One 

indication that the tradition could have passed from the Levant into North Arabia 

is the record stored in the Masoretic text where “S” is read as “Š”, and confusion is 

expressed between Salem and Solomon. 

These relationships continue to echo today. In South Arabia, today’s Yemen, the sun 

deity was associated with oversight and protection and the moon deity with wisdom. 

Modern Arabic maintains this relationship in the word “Salaam,” which means 

“safety” and thus “peace.” The Quran says of Laylat al-Qadr [The Night of Power], 

when the new moon is sighted marking the end of Ramadan, “It is salvation [salaam] 

until the coming of the dawn.” 

If the final Solomon compilation in the Hebrew Bible does reflect an earlier tradition, 

its editor (editors) has greatly altered and embellished it to suit his purposes. As such 

the above description can only be used to establish that a cluster of elements of the 

Baal cycle are present in the Solomon narrative (which relates in turn to Jerusalem), as 

compared with other areas of the Deuteronomistic compilation. 

For bible scholars, Gray’s argument that ancient Levantine kings worshipped the 

local god Shalem enriches rather than challenges ongoing literary scholarship on 

competition between Yahweh and the deity El within the biblical narrative. For 

historians, however, the position is more intriguing. The questions that it raises–at 

what point did any historical Solomon abandon his namesake, and construct the 

Temple of Yahweh, and why did the city of Jerusalem divorce its patron deity–have 

not been explored. Likely those answers remain tied to the yet unresolved question of 

Solomon’s historicity. 

Endnotes 

1 

Joshua 10:12-14. 

2 

“Timnath-Heres”, New Bible Dictionary, Third 

Edition, ed. I. Howard Marshall, Millard, Packer, 

and Wiseman (Leicester: Intervarsity Press, 1996), 

p. 1188. 

3 

John Gray, “The Desert God ATTR in the 

Literature and Religion of Canaan,” Journal of Near- 

Eastern Studies, Vol 8 No 2, April 1949 (University 

of Chicago Press), 72-83. 

4 

See for example, Michael S. Heiser, “The 

Mythological Provenance of Isa. XIV 12-15: A 

Reconsideration of the Ugaritic Material,” VT 51 

(2001) 354-69 and Gosta W. Ahlstron, The History 

of Ancient Palestine (Mineapolis, 1993), 504-5. 

5 

Mark S. Smith, “The God Athtar in the Ancient 

Near East and His Place in KTU 1.6 I,” Solving 

Riddles and Untying Knots, Eds. Ziony Zevitt, 

Seymour Gitin, Michael Sokoloff (Eisenbrauns, 

Indiana: 1995), 355. 

6 

Wiggins’ proposal that the biblical Absalom is 

modeled after Athtar due to his short reign is equally 

plausible. Steve A Wiggins, “Between Heaven and 

Earth: Absalom’s Dilemma,” Journal of Northwest 

Semitic Languages 1: 23 (Nashotah House). 

7 

“Salem”, New Bible Dictionary, Third Edition, 

ed. I. Howard Marshall, Millard, Packer, and 


Wiseman (Leicester: Intervarsity Press, 1996) and 

“Jerusalem”, Jewish Encyclopedia, http://www. 

jewishencyclopedia.com. 

8 

Heiser, 354-69. 

9 

Nadav Na’aman, “Sources and composition 

in the history of Solomon”, The Age of Solomon: 

Scholarship at the Turn of the Century, ed. by Lowell 

K. Handy, (Brill: New York, 1997), 58. 

10 

The Hebrew text of the Jewish canon primarily 

copied, edited and distributed by a group of Jews 

known as the Masoretes between the seventh and 

tenth centuries CE. It has numerous differences 

compared to (extant 4th century) manuscripts of the 

Septuagint, a Greek translation (made in the 3rd to 

2nd centuries BCE) of the Hebrew Scriptures. See 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masoretic_text 

11 

Ernst Axel Knauf, “Nabatean Origins,” Arabian 

Studies in Honour of Mahmoud Ghul (Symposium 

at Yarmouk University, Dec, 8-11, 1984, Vol. II.) 

59-60. 

12 

Stephanie Dalley, “Stelae from Teima and the 

God SLM (SALMU),” Proceedings of the Seminar 

for Arabian Studies Vol 15 (1985) 27-33. 

13 

Dalley, 28-29. 

14 

Ibid, 29. 

15 

A. Livingstone, “Arabians in Babylonia/ 

Babylonians in Arabia: Some reflections a Propos 

New and Old Evidence,” L’Arabie Preislamique et 

son Environment Historique et Culturel (Actes du 

Colloque de Strasbourg, 24-27 June 1987) 104. 

16 

See Dorothy Stehle, “Sibilants and emphatics 

in South Arabic,” Journal of the American Oriental 

Society, Vol 60 No 4 (Dec. 1940) 507-543. 

17 

Ibid. 


Totah and Ziadeh: 

Mentor and 

Student 


Khalil Totah, centre in bottom row, with 

Ramallah students at American University 

of Beirut, 1935. 

Khalil Totah was born and raised in 

Ramallah by parents newly followers of 

Quakerism after being raised in the Greek 

Orthodox Church. His father, a weaver and 

trader, saw to it that his son got the best 

education possible, enrolling his son in the 

Quaker Friends School. Khalil went on to 

study for a year at the Friends School in 

Brummana, Lebanon, and then to the United 

States in 1906 at the age of 20. He earned 

a BA from Clark College and continued in 

graduate school at Columbia University, 

receiving his Ph.D. in 1926. Khalil married 

his high school sweetheart, Ermina in 1916, 

and together they served at the Jerusalem 

Men’s Training College from 1919 to 1925. 

In 1927, Khalil became principal of the 

Friends Schools where he studied as a boy. 

His beloved Ermina died in 1928, and a year 

later, he married Eva Marshall Totah, an 

American teacher at the Friends Schools. 

Khalil was also involved with the politics 

[ 94 ] HISTORICAL FEATURES Totah and Ziadeh: Mentor and Student

of Palestinian rights, testifying before the Peel Commission, and the Anglo-American 

Commission in Washington D.C. In 1944, the Totah family returned to the United 

States. For five years, Khalil served as director of The Institute for Arab American 

Affairs in New York. He died in California in 1955. 

The Search For Khalil Totah, My Father 

My father died when I was nineteen years old, too early in my life for me to have 

learned to know him fully as an adult. He died with a heart broken by the crisis in his 

homeland. I felt that a man so loved by his people and so influential in shaping their 

lives should have his life recorded–and I needed to get to know him more deeply. 

Letters, diaries, journals and other writings, and photographs surfaced like 

archaeological finds. As friends and relatives learned of my work on a biography, 

they passed on information that bridged time and place. The story of Nicola Ziadeh 

is one such find. In April of 2003, I flew to Beirut to interview the historian, author 

and bon vivant, Nicola Ziadeh. He was a student of my father’s at the Men’s 

Training College (Dar al-Muallimin) for teachers in Jerusalem (renamed the Arab 

College, Kulliat al-Arabia in 1927) and subsequently a colleague and a friend until 

the end of my father’s life. 

When I met Nicola in Beirut, he was 92 years old. He had complete recall and carried 

on a full social life. He gladly allowed our conversations to be taped over a five-day 


period, never lacking stories about himself, his life and times, and about how his life 

and my father’s intersected. Nicola died three years later, just after the assassination of 

Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, his neighbour. 

The Early Years 

Nicola was a student of my father from 1921 to 1924, shortly after Khalil became 

principal of the Mens’ Training College late in 1919. He described his entrance exams. 

On the fifth of July, 1921, I was interviewed by the principal of the Men’s 

Training College in Jerusalem, Dr. Khalil Totah. The following morning, 

we started our examination. I was at that time exactly 13 years and seven 

months old. 

Dr. Totah was one of the examiners in Arabic, History and Geography... 

[F]or the composition in Arabic, we were asked to write a letter to the 

principal of the college, explaining why we wanted to be teachers. And it 

was to be all ‘mshakal’, that is with ‘harakat’ [vowels] put at the end of all 

the words. So that was a very important thing. And it wasn’t to be a long 

letter, just one page. 

For reading, they produced an old book and gave it to me, and said, “Open 

this book.” I opened it; it was one of the old issues of al-Muqtatha, a magazine 

... and the article I was supposed to read was concerned with Mt. Ararat 

in Armenia, which is supposed to be the end of the ship of Noah, after the 

flood [in the biblical book of Genesis]. I read that, and I was asked a few 

questions by him and the others, which I could answer. I wrote the letter 

that same evening. 

The examination lasted for two and a half days, after which the results were 

announced and Nicola was selected. He was then given a physical. 

[T]hat same afternoon, I was telling my friends from Nazareth, because my 

family originally comes from Nazareth....“I succeeded, I succeeded! I’m admitted.” 

And they were all very happy with me. And all of a sudden, I felt two 

heavy hands on my shoulder. I turned around, and it was Dr. Khalil Totah. 

And he said, “Nicola, you are not fifteen years old, that was conditional 

on your being allowed to sit for the examination. Although you have the 

certificate, I knew you were not that old from the minute I saw you. But we 

had to accept you.” Now I thought at first he was going to say, “Pack and 

go back home.” And I was frightened. He said, “We accepted you, because 

you were first among the 87 candidates, and many of them had come from 


secondary schools and higher classes. He said, “We had to accept you. But 

now, there’s one condition: when you come back from vacation, you must 

be at least this much taller, otherwise we’ll kick you out!” 

Students entered Dar al-Muallimin at age 15 and studied for three years, at the 

end of which they were obligated to teach for four years in exchange for the free 

tuition, room and board. In three years, the school would educate the boys in basic 

subjects, such as mathematics, history, geography and language, as well as education, 

psychology and sports. Under Khalil’s direction, the boys emerged as accomplished 

and resourceful teachers. His students and teachers made a positive and lasting 

contribution to Palestinian life and culture. Relationships that developed between 

students and teachers lasted the rest of their lives. 

The Teacher Training College was formed soon after World War I at the start of the 

British occupation, when the educational system in Palestine was developed from the 

ground up. Khalil Totah expected the British occupation to bring an era of hope and 

prosperity. 

Though the school was called a college, it was in fact barely a high school. The 

boys were boarders at the school, and during Khalil and Ermina Totah’s stay there, 

they both taught, and Ermina served as housemother and housekeeper. Khalil was 

immersed in the boys’ lives. He taught and supervised their learning; he played sports 

with them, ate with them, took them on picnics and historical hikes, took them to 

plays in Jerusalem, and taught them by example about punctuality, trustworthiness and 

critical thinking. 

In students’ third year, they did student teaching, coached and counselled by the 

principal. The college had one big problem, which Khalil dealt with admirably. There 

were no textbooks, and so he wrote them himself (The History of Jerusalem, History 

of Palestine, Geography of Palestine) with respective co-authors Boulus Shihadeh, 

Omar Saleh Barghouti, and Habib Khoury. These humble little books continued to 

be used for decades; many people recognize the name of Khalil Totah because they 

studied from the texts. Ziadeh said: 

I helped copy some of the book on the Geography of Palestine, pages on 

end, to be sent to the press. My handwriting was especially good, and I was 

very careful about things. I must have written at least 100 pages, out of a 

small book which was hardly 250 pages. 

For Education class, we had no books, so we took notes. If we were interested 

enough, we could read articles in magazines. I was interested and I 

read. As a matter of fact, during my stay at that school, three years, I read 


every book we had in the library of the school. This doesn’t mean much; we 

began with about 350 books. But by the time we ended we had about 550. 

But this helped me in many things. 

For lessons in the Geography of the World, Dr. Totah brought us the only 

available copy of the book of geography, a very thick book printed in Egypt 

for schools of high learning. 

Khalil also taught them critical thinking. He designated a little room as a periodical 

reading room. Newspapers were available, and he would go around and see if anyone 

needed help. 

One day in 1922, I was reading the paper, al-Sharq, which was edited by his 

friend Boulus Shihadeh, and Boulus Shihadeh had written on the front page, 

“The fall of the ministry of Lloyd George. This may mean the end of the 

Balfour Declaration.” I was reading it [and] I would have believed it, why 

not All of a sudden, Khalil Totah was behind me, looking, and said ... “Boys, 

listen, this is the wrong thing. This is wrong. The fall of a ministry or cabinet 

in England doesn’t change the policy of the state. The Balfour Declaration 

was not the policy of the cabinet of Lloyd George. It’s a state policy. There’s 

nothing changed.” 

Nicola told stories about Khalil’s character and personal example: 

In teaching you can learn from anyone, if you are talented enough. But Khalil Totah 

taught me, and taught me at a very early age, when he said four o’clock, he meant four 

o’clock, not five minutes to four, not five minutes after four. And I say four o’clock 

especially, because one of his habits was on a Friday afternoon (Friday and Sunday 

were our holidays), the bell would ring at four o’clock, and there would be Khalil 

Totah, standing there, saying, “Look, I’m going for a walk to Mt. Olives, anybody 

would like to join me” I don’t think I missed any of his trips; it was most educative. 

Khalil took students on hikes to visit historic holy places around Jerusalem, such as 

the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dome of the Rock, and Bethlehem. He took 

the new students to visit the walls of Jerusalem. Nicola was accustomed to walking 

long distances from the age of ten, walking from town to town, into the mountains and 

valleys. So these hikes and tours were natural for him. He talked about other athletic 

activities at the college: “Another thing about Dr. Totah: he played tennis, and as a 

result of that, we built a tennis court at the college. Our students did it, all of it, with 

one man to guide us. Then we played tennis... He was very keen on doing athletics.” 

Khalil loved poetry, and recited it daily. A poem he taught the boys influenced Nicola 

for the rest of his life: 


I remember, one day, Khalil Totah quoting a verse of Arabic poetry: “Itha 

marra bi yowmun wallam aska ma’ yadan willam ashkaf il-’ilman wa hathak 

al ‘umr’.” “If a day passes that I do not do a good thing, or learn a new 

thing it is not part of my life.” That one line of poetry was so helpful for 

me, it became one of my motives in life. . . The things that come to a young 

boy. They become imprinted. They just go and seek and remain. How often 

I remember this verse. 

Unlike other teachers or administrators, Khalil would sit with the students at meals when 

he was on duty. Other staff would do their duty by looking in and then go back to sit 

with the faculty. Khalil would eat with the boys and engage them in conversation. Since 

students’ food was not as high quality as the instructors’ food, the boys took note and 

appreciated the fact that he ate with them. This was not the norm at the time. Nicola also 

appreciated Khalil’s exposing the students to the cultural life of the city. 

In Jerusalem, from at least when I was in Jerusalem in 1920, there was the 

theatre group for British employees and their wives. They always formed 

a group, called the British Theatre Group. The first play I saw in, I think, 

1922 was Macbeth. And of all things, to go and attend a play by Shakespeare 

when I could hardly understand the English! But Khalil Totah told us about 

it in advance. The price for the ticket was one shilling, five piasters. 

When he knew who wanted to go, he collected us one evening, gave us 

a summary of the story, told us who Shakespeare was, and Macbeth. At 

least I, for one, knew what I was seeing. And this he did many a time. The 

YMCA in Jerusalem was active in giving lectures. He would arrange for us 

to go and attend those lectures when he felt they were good. I remember a 

series of lectures given at the YMCA by a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian and 

a Bahai, each about his own faith. . . . But they were in Arabic. Even the 

Jewish one was given in Arabic. The one who spoke on Christianity was 

Elias Marmoura, the priest of the Anglican Church in Jerusalem, but he 

originally comes from Nazareth, from my town. Sain Ruhi, in the Department 

of Education, spoke on Bahais. And a Muslim, Sheikh Medin Millah, 

gave a talk about Islam. 

The first year I was at the school, football was compulsory. . . . We had a 

teacher from Egypt called Shaykh Mahmoud Ahmad Nasif. He was a shaykh 

wearing a proper shaykh outfit. He wanted to play football but as a shaykh, 

he couldn’t expose his knees. So he kept on his long underwear, and put on 

shorts and long socks. 

Nicola told a long story about inspirational songs that Khalil created with the help of 

the famous Iraqi poet, Marouf al-Rasafi, in 1920-21. Rasafi would compose the lyrics 


to go with European music, which Khalil chose. He described my father and his wife 

Ermina playing the tunes on the piano. Rasafi wrote the following lyrics to Santa 

Lucia, which Nicola could still recite in its entirety: 

Sama’itu sha’ran 

Il’am dalibi 

Talahu fog al us il ratif 

Wa gal nafsi, nafs il wadi’a 

La tahwa ila tabi’a 

Fa in aratum, an tasma’uni 

F’il atfal si la tahbisuni 

Wen aratum an tasmau in shadi 

Fa ini bi huq bil izhari radi 

A nationalistic song that caused him trouble later on used the music of the 

Marseillaise, the French national anthem. In the school in Acre where Nicola later 

taught, he and the headmaster taught the students to stand in formation in the yard 

and sing before going to class. A British officer was told about the singing of the 

Marseillaise in the school yard. He reported it to the chief of police, who began to 

make inquiries. After Nicola came in and explained, the officer laughed and the matter 

was dropped. Nicola remembered the lyrics: 

Awtan an al wahial ‘awali 

Al waha.ma.laha taman 

Inna ma.hil.in ma’ali 

Unna.ma uz il.watan 

A song book was created that included all the specially-composed songs and sold for 

one shilling. Nicola kept this book and took it with him everywhere he went. Then, 

in 1948 when he was in England, his home was taken over by Jewish Zionist forces, 

and everything was lost, including this song book, his academic books, and family 

photographs. 

In 1924, the official relationship between Khalil Totah and me came 

to an end, in the sense that he signed my certificate, and I went out to 

teach. And then I did not see him for some time. I taught in a village in 

the neighbourhood of Acre and at that time the only way of knowing what 

was happening in the country was to wait for a stray newspaper, maybe 

three weeks old, to come to the village. And this didn’t happen very often. 

Sometimes the police, with whom I was very friendly because one of them 

came from Nazareth, received this paper and I could read it. 


But I had no idea what was happening in Jerusalem in the spring of 1925. The Jews 

had established a university in Jerusalem, called Hebrew University. The inauguration 

was to be conducted under the auspices of Lord Balfour. 

Training College was part of the educational system, so the students went 

on strike [to protest Balfour’s presence]…. The director of education, Humphrey 

Bowman never had a liking for Khalil Totah, I knew that. . . . He was 

this type of man: military background, probably limited in concepts, and 

he felt this was disobedience for some of the students of one of the government 

schools to go on strike. Khalil Totah was blamed for that, although 

Khalil Totah couldn’t do anything [about it]. . . . So Bowman decided to 

transfer Khalil Totah from the directorship of the school to be an inspector 

at the Department of Education. Khalil Totah, being confident and slightly 

obstinate, said, “No, I won’t leave the post.” So he was dismissed. 

All this I did not know in my stronghold in Tarshiha until some time in June. 

This took place in the spring. We knew there were troubles in Jerusalem, 

but about what, nobody could tell. Nobody understood the meaning of the 

opening of a university. It was far beyond their imagination. 

While Nicola taught in Tarshiha he corresponded with Khalil and Ermina. He was trying 

to learn English “with the help of a dictionary” and teaching English at the same time. 

He studied Lectures to Teachers, by William James, because Ermina recommended it. 

Nicola went to England to study at the University of London at age 28. Khalil had 

returned to complete his PhD at Columbia University in New York and came home 

to Palestine with Ermina in 1926 to become principal of the Friends Schools in 

Ramallah. Nicola did not know about the death of Ermina in 1928 and my father’s remarriage 

to my mother until later. He wrote to Khalil from London, asking his advice 

about an English girl he wanted to marry. “Nicola, you asked me about this and you 

know I’ve been twice married to American ladies. I certainly approve of marriage to 

foreign girls.” But Nicola chose not to marry the English girl. He taught in Acre until 

1935 and at Dar al-Muallimin from 1939 to 1945. 

There were many visits, parties and other events shared by Nicola and my parents in 

Ramallah and Jerusalem. My mother, Eva Marshall Totah, mentions those frequent 

get-togethers in her diaries. Khalil and Eva visited Nicola in Jerusalem. Several times, 

he brought his fiancée and then wife, Margaret, to visit. In August of 1943, Eva says 

that Nicola “brought his fiancée for us to look [her] over.” On April 18 of the next 

year, she speaks of attending their wedding at Terra Sancta in Jerusalem. Nicola 

remembered that my parents gave them a tablecloth as a wedding gift. In August of 

1943, my parents met Nicola in Lod, on their way back from the family orange grove 

in Gaza. He drove them to Ramallah and spent the night. 


Our family left Palestine in 1944, but my father’s friendship with Nicola continued 

through correspondence. They visited one another for the last time when Khalil 

toured the Middle East in 1952, three years before Khalil died. My father mentioned 

in the book Dynamite in the Middle East that the two had lunch in Beirut with Hanna 

Bisharat at Ajami Restaurant. 

Nicola knew that my father had a book published posthumously that was based 

on that trip, but he had not seen it. He was upset to learn that his friend, publisher 

Munir Baalbaki of Beirut, had translated Dynamite in the Middle East into Arabic 

in an abbreviated version, without Nicola’s knowing, and without the permission or 

knowledge of my mother. Nicola admonished Munir and told him, “If you’d have 

given me the book, I’d have translated it all.” 

Joy Totah Hilden is a teacher, writer and artist living in California. She conducted 12 years of research on 

Bedouin weaving in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, and has lectured and written numerous articles 

and papers, including a forthcoming book on the subject. 


Jerusalem’s Anata 

Out of Options 

The sole entrance to Anata town is marked only 

by this road sign in Hebrew. The Arabic script 

seen here spells out the name of the nearby Israeli 

settlement, Almon. Source: C. Seitz 

There are a lot of things one notes about 

Anata, but few are as striking as this: 

the town of some 15,000 is completely 

unmarked on the Jerusalem-Jericho 

highway that provides its only entryway. 

Like most Palestinian destinations 

in the West Bank, Anata has disappeared 

from official Israeli road signs otherwise 

pointing to nearby settlements. While 

Arabic remains a state language in Israel, 

on many official road signs, the Arabic 

letters sound out Hebrew consonants, in 

this case, Arabic-speakers are pointed away 

from Anata to the relatively luxurious but 

off-limits settlement of Almon. 

A wish or a fact, this official sleight of hand 

is effectively ‘disappearing’ nearly every 

Palestinian community in the West Bank, 

save the largest towns. The future of these 

locales is, in truth, a slow economic death 

forced by the growth of settlements around 

them. 


[ 104 ] HISTORICAL FEATURES Jerusalem’s Anata Out of Options 

West Bank 2007. Source: UN OCHA.

Prior to 1967, the village of Anata boasted 35,000 dunams, stretching from the 

outskirts of Jerusalem down into the valleys near Jericho. Anata was a major 

thoroughfare, and its wheat fields and olive trees an agricultural heartland. 

But Anata’s estimated 15,000 residents are today being surrounded on three sides by 

the wall Israel has built around them, cutting them off from the economic center of 

Jerusalem, and the lands they once planted and quarried. Beyond the wall lie Israeli 

settlements Kfar Adumim, Almon/Anatot military camp, Alon, and Nofei Prat. 

The area inside the wall is approximately 1,400 dunams, but not even all of this 

land is open for development; swathes of land are considered part of the expanded 

Jerusalem municipality, boundaries drawn unilaterally by Israel but now in effect 

abandoned by the city. Still, homes constructed without building permits are 

threatened with demolition, and dozens have been demolished. Some of the houses 

with demolition warnings are the homes of the Jahalin Bedouin who were forced 

out of the area of Maale Adumim, where they previously resided, to the outskirts of 

the built-up area of Anata. Accustomed to herding livestock for a living, the Jahalin 

have been forced to sell off most of their sheep and goats, which have no place to 

graze in the urban areas around Anata. The Jahalin in this area now number over 

1,000 people, some 10-15 families. 

The other areas inside the wall are mostly built-up, having been the focus of 

investment after the Oslo accords in 1993 that designated them area B, or under 

Palestinian Authority civil control. 

The future of this semi-enclave is dire, predict residents. Anata Land Defense 

Committee engineer Hussein Rifaai looks out over the nearby Shufat refugee 

camp, also technically within the city boundaries, and sees a tragedy waiting to 

happen. “The houses are only a meter apart. If there is, God forbid, any disaster, no 

ambulances will be able to get inside.” 

The Shufat refugee camp is home to 20,000-30,000 people, among them some 

11,000 United Nations Relief Works Agency-registered refugees who generally hold 

Jerusalem ID cards (meaning they can move and work in Jerusalem, and have access 

to Israeli health and other services). The camp has grown increasingly crowded with 

an additional 10,000-20,000 people who moved here in the 1990s in an attempt 

to protect their Jerusalem residency rights (because Palestinian Jerusalemites are 

forced to prove that their center of life is within the municipal boundaries or risk 

being stripped of health and travel benefits). Although the camp is located within the 

Israeli-defined municipal boundaries, it receives only minimal Israeli services. 

Rifaai estimates that the completion of the wall will enclose some 70,000 people 

into an area less than three kilometers square. No one authority offers services here, 


while the UN, the Palestinian Authority and the city of Jerusalem offer limited 

infrastructure. 

Nearly half of Anata’s population is under the age of 15. In order to meet their 

needs, Anata must build three to five classrooms a year. But there is nowhere left to 

build, and classrooms have as many as 50 students each. The wall has cut off access 

to Jerusalem’s six hospitals, and unemployment is climbing. In every way possible, 

Anata has become a non-destination. 

C.S. 

[ 106 ] HISTORICAL FEATURES Jerusalem’s Anata Out of Options

Jerusalem Diary 

December 2007 – January 2008 

Following late November Israeli- 

Palestinian talks in Annapolis, Maryland, 

teams returned home with hopes of 

restarting substantial negotiations. 

Almost immediately, however, Israel 

opened bids for the construction of 

307 new housing units in Har Homa, 

an Israeli settlement in annexed East 

Jerusalem. 

The announcement was met with anger 

from Palestinians, and the Quartet 

(comprised of representatives of the 

United States, United Nations, European 

Union and Russia) issued a statement of 

concern on 17 December. 

“The quartet expressed concern over the 

announcement of new housing tenders 

for Har Homa/Jabal Abu Ghneim,” 

the statement said. “Principals called 

for all sides to refrain from steps that 

undermine confidence and underscored 

the importance of avoiding any actions 

that could prejudice the outcome of 

permanent status negotiations,” it said. 

Har Homa was extremely controversial 

when it was first built after the Oslo 

negotiations commenced in 1993, as it 

closed the empty area between south 

Jerusalem and the Palestinian town of 

Bethlehem, thereby disconnecting Arab 

Jerusalem from the West Bank. 

Today, the settlement neighbourhood 

has 2,100 homes and 8,500 residents, 

according to figures from the Jerusalem 

municipality. 

Meanwhile, East Jerusalem elementary 

school classrooms average 36 

students, compared with 24 in Jewish 

neighbourhoods, according to the 

organization Ir Amim. 

The dropout rate in Palestinian high 

schools has soared to ten percent, 

according to Ir Amim. Dropping out is 

nearly nonexistent in Jewish schools, the 

city says. 

Overcrowding has forced some schools 

to teach in two shifts, shortening classes 

from 45 minutes to 35 minutes, said 

Fares Hales, chairman of the parents’ 

committee in Silwan. 

City officials report a shortage of almost 

of 1,400 classrooms in the eastern sector. 

Suhayla Abu Ghosh, deputy manager 

of the government authority that 

oversees Jerusalem’s public schools, told 

Canadian Press that plans to build 400 

classrooms over the next five years are 

delayed by the bureaucracy necessary 

to expropriate land in crowded East 

Jerusalem, and construction won’t begin 

for at least two years. 


Palestinian birth rates are high, but the 

comparative amount of public investment 

in East Jerusalem is low. 

Some Israeli officials have recently 

suggested Israel would cede sovereignty 

of some areas of Jerusalem in 

negotiations. 

“These 200,000 people cost us millions 

of shekels (dollars) every year,” Vice- 

Premier Haim Ramon told Israel’s Army 

Radio in an interview. “Just this year 

we have to invest dozens of millions 

of shekels to build classrooms in East 

Jerusalem.” 

In other news, Israeli authorities finally 

approved the appointment of Greek 

Orthodox Patriarch in the Holy Land 

Theofilos III on 16 December after a 

more than a two-year delay, reported 

the Associated Press. His predecessor, 

Irineos I, was ousted through pressure 

from the local parish in May 2005 after 

allegations that he leased church land 

in East Jerusalem to Jewish groups 

interested in expanding their presence in 

the Arab section. 

Theofilos petitioned Israel’s Supreme 

Court to get the state to recognize 

him, since under church rules he 

must be approved by Israel, Jordan 

and the Palestinian Authority. The 

latter two immediately approved, but 

Israel deferred, awaiting word from a 

committee it established to examine the 

appointment. 

Over the past two years, Israel neither 

recognized the naming of Theofilos, nor 

the removal of Irineos, who still resides 

in the same Jerusalem old city compound 

as his replacement while openly 

challenging his authority. Irineos never 

officially resigned and continued to enjoy 

the support of Israel – who invited him 

to official events and provided him with 

police protection. 

[ 108 ] JERUSALEM DIARY [December 2007 – January 2008]

INSTITUTE OF JERUSALEM STUDIES - Jerusalem Quarterly

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