The Jews are too well known in both ancient and modern history to
demand space here. While they are found in considerable numbers in
Syria, possibly as many as eighty thousand, they do not hold an
important position in relation to the government of that country, or in
the mission problems. While the Jews in Russia are always at the front,
in Turkey they seldom appear. The Turks seem to have no fear that they
will interfere in any way with the affairs of state.
They do not command the prominence commercially in Turkey that they
do in most other countries. In the city of Constantinople it is
estimated that there are seventy-five thousand Jews, and in the other
large cities of the empire they exist in smaller numbers. They are an
inoffensive people, attending to their own affairs and not interfering
with the other races, all of whom look down upon them as inferior. In
many places in the interior where they appear in small numbers they
are, for the most part, extremely poor.