Of a land where every stone has its story, it can hardly be asserted that
any one place has a fuller tale to tell than another. But Hebron has a
peculiar old-world charm as the home of the founder of the Hebrew race.
Moreover, one's youthful imagination associates Hebron with the giants, the
sons of Anak, sons, that is, of the long neck; men of Arba, with broad,
square shoulders. A sight of the place itself revives this memory. Ancient
Hebron stood higher than the present city, but as things now are, though
the hills of Judea reach their greatest elevation in the neighborhood,
Hebron itself rests in a valley. Most towns in Palestine are built on
hills, but Hebron lies low. Yet the surrounding hills are thirty-two
hundred feet above the level of the Mediterranean, and five hundred feet
higher than Mount Olivet. For this reason Hebron is ideally placed for
conveying an impression of the mountainous character of Judea. In Jerusalem
you are twenty-six hundred feet above the sea, but, being high up, you
scarcely realize that you are in a mountain city. The hills about Hebron
tower loftily above you, and seem a fitting abode for the giants whom
Joshua and Caleb overthrew.
Hebron, from yet another point of view, recalls its old-world associations.
Not only is Hebron one of the oldest cities in the world still inhabited,
but it has been far less changed by Western influences than other famous
places. Hebron is almost entirely unaffected by Christian influence. In the
East, Christian influence more or less means European influence, but Hebron
is still completely Oriental. It is a pity that modern travellers no longer
follow the ancient route which passed from Egypt along the coast to Gaza,
and then struck eastwards to Hebron. By this route, the traveller would
come upon Judea in its least modernized aspect. He would find in Hebron a
city without a hotel, and unblessed by an office of the Monarch of the
East, Mr. Cook. There are no modern schools in Hebron; the only institution
of the kind, the Mildmay Mission School, had scarcely any pupils at the
time of my visit. This is but another indication of the slight effect that
European forces are producing; the most useful, so far, has been the
medical mission of the United Free Church of Scotland. But Hebron has been
little receptive of the educational and sanitary boons that are the chief
good--and it is a great good--derived from the European missions in the
East. I am almost reluctant to tell the truth, as I must, of Hebron, and
point out the pitiful plight of our brethren there, lest, perchance, some
philanthropists set about mending the evil, to the loss of the
primitiveness in which Hebron at present revels. This is the pity of it.
When you employ a modern broom to sweep away the dirt of an ancient city,
your are apt to remove something else as well as the dirt.
Besides its low situation and its primitiveness, Hebron has a third
peculiarity. Go where one may in Judea, the ancient places, even when still
inhabited, wear a ruined look. Zion itself is scarcely an exception.
Despite its fifty thousand inhabitants, Jerusalem has a decayed appearance,
for the newest buildings often look like ruins. The cause of this is that
many structures are planned on a bigger scale than can be executed, and
thus are left permanently unfinished, or like the windmill of Sir Moses are
disused from their very birth. Hebron, in this respect again, is unlike the
other cities of Judea. It had few big buildings, hence it has few big
ruins. There are some houses of two stories in which the upper part has
never been completed, but the houses are mostly of one story, with
partially flat and partially domed roofs. The domes are the result both of
necessity and design; of necessity, because of the scarcity of large beams
for rafters; of design, because the dome enables the rain to collect in a
groove, or channel, whence it sinks into a reservoir.
Hebron, then, produces a favorable impression on the whole. It is green and
living, its hills are clad with vines, with plantations of olives,
pomegranates, figs, quinces, and apricots. Nowhere in Judea, except in the
Jordan valley, is there such an abundance of water. In the neighborhood of
Hebron, there are twenty-five springs, ten large perennial wells, and
several splendid pools. Still, as when the huge cluster was borne on two
men's shoulders from Eshkol, the best vines of Palestine grow in and around
Hebron. The only large structure in the city, the mosque which surmounts
the Cave of Machpelah, is in excellent repair, especially since 1894-5,
when the Jewish lads from the _Alliance_ school of Jerusalem renewed the
iron gates within, and supplied fresh rails to the so-called sarcophagi of
the Patriarchs. The ancient masonry built round the cave by King Herod, the
stones of which exactly resemble the masonry of the Wailing Place in
Jerusalem, still stands in its massive strength.
I have said that Hebron ought to be approached from the South or West. The
modern traveller, however, reaches it from the North. You leave Jerusalem
by the Jaffa gate, called by the Mohammedans Bab el-Khalil, _i.e._ Hebron
gate. The Mohammedans call Hebron el-Khalil, City of the Friend of God, a
title applied to Abraham both in Jewish and Mohammedan tradition. Some,
indeed, derive the name Hebron from Chaber, comrade or friend; but Hebron
may mean "confederation of cities," just as its other name, Kiriath-arba,
may possibly mean Tetrapolis. The distance from Jerusalem to Hebron depends
upon the views of the traveller. You can easily get to Hebron in four hours
and a half by the new carriage road, but the distance, though less than
twenty miles, took me fourteen hours, from five in the morning till seven
at night. Most travellers turn aside to the left to see the Pools of
Solomon, and the grave of Rachel lies on the right of the highroad itself.
It is a modern building with a dome, and the most affecting thing is the
rough-hewn block of stone worn smooth by the lips of weeping women. On the
opposite side of the road is Tekoah, the birthplace of Amos; before you
reach it, five miles more to the north, you get a fine glimpse also of
Bethlehem, the White City, cleanest of Judean settlements. Travellers tell
you that the rest of the road is uninteresting. I did not find it so. For
the motive of my journey was just to see those "uninteresting" sites,
Beth-zur, where Judas Maccabeus won such a victory that he was able to
rededicate the Temple, and Beth-zacharias, through whose broad valley-roads
the Syrian elephants wound their heavy way, to drive Judas back on his
precarious base at the capital.
It is somewhat curious that this indifference to the Maccabean sites is not
restricted to Christian tourists. For, though several Jewish travellers
passed from Jerusalem to Hebron in the Middle Ages, none of them mentions
the Maccabean sites, none of them spares a tear or a cheer for Judas
Maccabeus. They were probably absorbed in the memory of the Patriarchs and
of King David, the other and older names identified with this district.
Medieval fancy, besides, was too busy with peopling Hebron with myths to
waste itself on sober facts. Hebron, according to a very old notion, was
the place where Adam and Eve lived after their expulsion from Eden; it was
from Hebron's red earth that the first man was made. The _Pirke di Rabbi
Eliezer_ relate, that when the three angels visited Abraham, and he went to
get a lamb for their meal, the animal fled into a cave. Abraham followed
it, and saw Adam and Eve lying asleep, with lamps burning by their tombs,
and a sweet savor, as of incense, emanating from the dead father and mother
of human-kind. Abraham conceived a love for the Cave, and hence desired it
for Sarah's resting-place.
I suppose that some will hold, that we are not on surer historical ground
when we come to the Biblical statement that connects Abraham with Hebron.
Before arguing whether Abraham lived in Hebron, and was buried in
Machpelah, one ought to prove that Abraham ever lived at all, to be buried
anywhere. But I shall venture to take Abraham's real existence for granted,
as I am not one of those who think that a statement must be false because
it is made in the Book of Genesis. That there was a very ancient shrine in
Hebron, that the great Tree of Mamre was the abode of a local deity, may be
conceded, but to my mind there is no more real figure in history than
Abraham. Especially when one compares the modern legends with the Biblical
story does the substantial truth of the narrative in Genesis manifest
itself. The narrative may contain elements of folk poetry, but the hero
Abraham is a genuine personality.
As I have mentioned the tree, it may be as well to add at once that
Abraham's Oak is still shown at Hebron, and one can well imagine how it was
thought that this magnificent terebinth dated from Bible times. A few years
ago it was a fresh, vigorous giant, but now it is quite decayed. The ruin
began in 1853, when a large branch was broken off by the weight of the
snow. Twelve years ago the Russian Archimandrite of Jerusalem purchased the
land on which the tree stands, and naturally he took much care of the
relic. In fact, he took too much care, for some people think that the low
wall which the Russians erected as a safeguard round the Oak, has been the
cause of the rapid decay that has since set in. Year by year the branches
have dropped off, the snow and the lightning have had their victims. It is
said that only two or three years ago one branch towards the East was still
living, but when I saw it, the trunk was bare and bark-less, full of little
worm-holes, and quite without a spark of vitality. The last remaining
fragment has since fallen, and now the site of the tree is only marked by
the row of young cypresses which have been planted in a circle round the
base of the Oak of Mamre. But who shall prophesy that, a century hence, a
tree will not have acquired sufficient size and antiquity to be foisted
upon uncritical pilgrims as the veritable tree under which Father Abraham
dwelt!
The Jewish tradition does not quite agree with the view that identified
this old tree with Mamre. According to Jewish tradition, the Tree is at the
ruins of Ramet el-Khalil, the High Place of the Friend, _i.e._ of Abraham,
about two miles nearer Jerusalem. Mr. Shaw Caldecott has propounded the
theory that this site is Samuel's Ramah, and that the vast ruins of a
stone-walled enclosure here represent the enclosure within which Samuel's
altar stood. The Talmud has it that Abraham erected a guest-house for the
entertainment of strangers near the Grove of Mamre. There were doors on
every side, so that the traveller found a welcome from whichever direction
he came. There our father made the name of God proclaimed at the mouth of
all wayfarers. How? After they had eaten and refreshed themselves, they
rose to thank him. Abraham answered, "Was the food mine? It is the bounty
of the Creator of the Universe." Then they praised, glorified, and blessed
Him who spake and the world was.
We are on the road now near Hebron, but, before entering, let us recall a
few incidents in its history. After the Patriarchal age, Hebron was noted
as the possession of Caleb. It also figures as a priestly city and as one
of the cities of refuge. David passed much of his life here, and, after
Saul's death, Hebron was the seat of David's rule over Judea. Abner was
slain here by Joab, and was buried here--they still show Abner's tomb in
the garden of a large house within the city. By the pool at Hebron were
slain the murderers of Ishbosheth, and here Absalom assumed the throne.
After his time we hear less of Hebron. Jerusalem overshadowed it in
importance, yet we have one or two mentions. Rehoboam strengthened the
town, and from a stray reference in Nehemiah, we gather that the place long
continued to be called by its older name of Kiriath Arba. For a long period
after the return from the Exile Hebron belonged to the Idumeans. It was the
scene of warfare in the Maccabean period, and also during the rebellion
against Rome. In the market-place at Hebron, Hadrian sold numbers of Jewish
slaves after the fall of Bar-Cochba, in 135 C.E. In the twelfth century
Hebron was in the hands of the Christian Crusaders. The fief of Hebron, or,
as it was called, of Saint Abraham, extended southwards to Beer-sheba. A
bishopric was founded there in 1169, but was abandoned twenty years later.
We hear of many pilgrims in the Middle Ages. The Christians used to eat
some of the red earth of Hebron, the earth from which Adam was made. On
Sunday the seventeenth of October, 1165, Maimonides was in Hebron, passing
the city on his way from Jerusalem to Cairo. Obadiah of Bertinoro, in 1488,
took Hebron on the reverse route. He went from Egypt across the desert to
Gaza, and, though he travelled all day, did not reach Hebron from Gaza till
the second morning. If the text is correct, David Reubeni was four days in
traversing the same road, a distance of about thirty-three miles. To revert
to an earlier time, Nachmanides very probably visited Hebron. Indeed, his
grave is shown to the visitor. But this report is inaccurate. He wrote to
his son, in 1267, from Jerusalem, "Now I intend to go to Hebron, to the
sepulchre of our ancestors, to prostrate myself, and there to dig my
grave." But he must have altered his mind in the last-named particular, for
his tomb is most probably in Acre.
I need not go through the list of distinguished visitors to Hebron. Suffice
it to say that in the fourteenth century there was a large and flourishing
community of Jews in the town; they were weavers and dyers of cotton stuffs
and glass-makers, and the Rabbi was often himself a shepherd in the literal
sense, teaching the Torah while at work in the fields. He must have felt
embarrassed sometimes between his devotion to his metaphorical and to his
literal flock. When I was at Moza, I was talking over some Biblical texts
with Mr. David Yellin, who was with me. The colonists endured this for a
while, but at last they broke into open complaint. One of the colonists
said to me: "It is true that the Mishnah forbids you to turn aside from the
Torah to admire a tree, but you have come all the way from Europe to admire
my trees. Leave the Torah alone for the present." I felt that he was right,
and wondered how the Shepherd Rabbis of Hebron managed in similar
circumstances.
In the century of which I am speaking, the Hebron community consisted
entirely of Sefardim, and it was not till the sixteenth century that
Ashkenazim settled there in large numbers. I have already mentioned the
visit of David Reubeni. He was in Hebron in 1523, when he entered the Cave
of Machpelah on March tenth, at noon. It is of interest to note that his
account of the Cave agrees fully with that of Conder. It is now quite
certain that he was really there in person, and his narrative was not made
up at second hand. The visit of Reubeni, as well as Sabbatai Zebi's, gave
new vogue to the place. When Sabbatai was there, a little before the year
1666, the Jews were awake and up all night, so as not to lose an instant of
the sacred intercourse with the Messiah. But the journey to Hebron was not
popular till our own days. It was too dangerous, the Hebron natives
enjoying a fine reputation for ferocity and brigandage. An anonymous Hebrew
writer writes from Jerusalem in 1495, that a few days before a Jew from
Hebron had been waylaid and robbed. But he adds: "I hear that on Passover
some Jews are coming here from Egypt and Damascus, with the intention of
also visiting Hebron. I shall go with them, if I am still alive."
In Baedeker, Hebron is still given a bad character, the Muslims of the
place being called fanatical and violent. I cannot confirm this verdict.
The children throw stones at you, but they take good care not to hit. As I
have already pointed out, Hebron is completely non-Christian, just as
Bethlehem is completely non-Mohammedan. The Crescent is very disinclined to
admit the Cross into Hebron, the abode of Abraham, a name far more honored
by Jews and Mohammedans than by Christians.
It is not quite just to call the Hebronites fanatical and sullen; they
really only desire to hold Hebron as their own. "Hebron for the Hebronites"
is their cry. The road, at all events, is quite safe. One of the surprises
of Palestine is the huge traffic along the main roads. Orientals not only
make a great bustle about what they do, but they really are very busy
people. Along the roads you meet masses of passengers, people on foot, on
mules and horses, on camels, in wheeled vehicles. You come across groups of
pilgrims, with one mule to the party, carrying the party's goods, the
children always barefooted and bareheaded--the latter fact making you
realize how the little boy in the Bible story falling sick in the field
exclaimed "My head, my head!" Besides the pilgrims, there are the bearers
of goods and produce. You see donkeys carrying large stones for building,
one stone over each saddle. If you are as lucky as I was, you may see a
runaway camel along the Hebron road, scouring alone at break-neck speed,
with laughter-producing gait.
Of Hebron itself I saw little as I entered, because I arrived towards
sunset, and only had time to notice that everyone in the streets carried a
lantern. In Jerusalem only the women carry lights, but in Hebron men had
them as well. I wondered where I was to pass the night. Three friends had
accompanied me from Jerusalem, and they told me not to worry, as we could
stay at the Jewish doctor's. It seemed to me a cool piece of impudence to
billet a party on a man whose name had been previously unknown to me, but
the result proved that they were right. The doctor welcomed us right
heartily; he said that it was a joy to entertain us. Now it was that one
saw the advantages of the Oriental architecture. The chief room in an
Eastern house is surrounded on three sides by a wide stone or wooden divan,
which, in wealthy houses, is richly upholstered. The Hebron doctor was not
rich, but there was the same divan covered with a bit of chintz. On it one
made one's bed, hard, it is true, but yet a bed. You always take your rugs
with you for covering at night, you put your portmanteau under your head as
a pillow, and there you are! You may rely upon one thing. People who, on
their return from Palestine, tell you that they had a comfortable trip,
have seen nothing of the real life of the country. To do that you must
rough it, as I did both at Modin and at Hebron. To return to the latter.
The rooms have stone floors and vaulted roofs, the children walk about with
wooden shoes, and the pitter-patter makes a pleasant music. They throw off
the shoes as they enter the room. My host had been in Hebron for six years,
and he told me overnight what I observed for myself next day, that,
considering the fearful conditions under which the children live, there is
comparatively little sickness. As for providing meals, a genuine communism
prevails. You produce your food, your host adds his store, and you partake
in common of the feast to which both sides contribute. After a good long
talk, I got to sleep easily, thinking, as I dozed off, that I should pass a
pleasant night. I had become impervious to the mosquitoes, but there was
something else which I had forgotten. Was it a dream, an awful nightmare,
or had a sudden descent of Bedouins occurred? Gradually I was awakened by a
noise as of wild beasts let loose, howls of rage and calls to battle. It
was only the dogs. In Jerusalem I had never heard them, as the Jewish hotel
was then well out of the town; it has since been moved nearer in. It is
impossible to convey a sense of the terrifying effect produced by one's
first experience of the night orgies of Oriental dogs, it curdles your
blood to recall it. Seen by daytime, the dogs are harmless enough, as they
go about their scavenger work among the heaps of refuse and filth. But by
night they are howling demons, stampeding about the streets in mad groups,
barking to and at each other, whining piteously one moment, roaring
hoarsely and snapping fiercely another.
The dogs did me one service, they made me get up early. I walked through a
bluish-gray atmosphere. Colors in Judea are bright, yet there is always an
effect as of a thin gauze veil over them. I went, then, into the streets,
and at five o'clock the sun was high, and the bustle of the place had
begun. The air was keen and fresh, and many were already abroad. I saw some
camels start for Jerusalem, laden with straw mats made in Hebron.
Next went some asses carrying poultry for the Holy City, then a family
caravan with its inevitable harem of closely veiled women. Then I saw a man
with tools for hewing stone, camels coming into Hebron, a boy with a large
petroleum can going to fetch water,--they are abandoning the use of the
olden picturesque stone pitchers,--then I saw asses loaded with vine twigs,
one with lime, women with black dresses and long white veils, boys with
bent backs carrying iron stones. I saw, too, some Bethlehemite Christians
hurrying home to the traditional site of the nativity. You can always
distinguish these, for they are the only Christians in Palestine that wear
turbans habitually. And all over the landscape dominated the beautiful
green hills, fresh with the morning dew, a dew so thick that I had what I
had not expected, a real morning bath. I was soaked quite wet by the time I
returned from my solitary stroll. I had a capital breakfast, for which we
supplied the solids, and our host the coffee. Butter is a luxury which we
neither expected nor got. Hebron, none the less, seemed to me a Paradise,
and I applauded the legend that locates Adam and Eve in this spot.
Alas! I had not yet seen Hebron. The doctor lived on the outskirts near the
highroad, where there are many fine and beautiful residences. I was soon to
enter the streets and receive a rude awakening, when I saw the manner in
which the fifteen hundred Jews of Hebron live. Hebron is a ghetto in a
garden; it is worse than even Jerusalem, Jerusalem being clean in
comparison. Dirty, dark, narrow, vaulted, unevenly paved, running with
liquid slime--such are the streets of Hebron. You are constantly in danger
of slipping, unless you wear the flat, heel-less Eastern shoes, and, if you
once fell, not all the perfumes of Araby could make you sweet again.
I should say that, before starting on my round, I had to secure the
attendance of soldiers. Not that it was necessary, but they utilize
Baedeker's assertion, that the people are savage, to get fees out of
visitors--a cunning manner of turning the enemy's libels to profitable
account. I hired two soldiers, but one by one others joined my train, so
that by the time my tour was over, I had a whole regiment of guardians, all
demanding baksheesh. I would only deal with the leader, a ragged warrior
with two daggers, a sword, and a rifle. "How much?" I asked. "We usually
ask a napoleon (_i.e._ 20 francs) for an escort, but we will charge you
only ten francs." I turned to the doctor and asked him, "How much?" "Give
them a beslik between them," he said. A beslik is only five pence. I
offered it in trepidation, but the sum satisfied the whole gang, who
thanked me profusely.
First I visited the prison, a sort of open air cage, in which about a dozen
men were smoking cigarettes. The prison was much nicer than the Mohammedan
school close by. This was a small overcrowded room, with no window in it,
the little boys sitting on the ground, swaying with a sleepy chant. The
teacher's only function was represented by his huge cane, which he plied
often and skilfully. Outside the door was a barber shaving a pilgrim's
head. The pilgrim was a Muslim, going on the Haj to Mecca. These pilgrims
are looked on with mingled feelings; their piety is admired, but also
distrusted. A local saying is, "If thy neighbor has been on the Haj, beware
of him; if he has been twice, have no dealings with him; if he has been
thrice, move into another street." After the pilgrim, I passed a number of
blind weavers, working before large wooden frames.
But now for the Jewish quarter. This is entered by a low wooden door, at
which we had to knock and then stoop to get in. The Jews are no longer
forced to have this door, but they retain it voluntarily. Having got in, we
were in a street so dark that we could not see a foot before us, but we
kept moving, and soon came to a slightly better place, where the sun crept
through in fitful gleams. The oldest synagogue was entered first. Its
flooring was of marble squares, its roof vaulted, and its Ark looked north
towards Jerusalem. There were, as so often in the East, two Arks; when one
is too small, they do not enlarge it, but build another. The Sefardic
Talmud Torah is a small room without window or ventilation, the only light
and air enter by the door. The children were huddled together on an
elevated wooden platform. They could read Hebrew fluently, and most of them
spoke Arabic. The German children speak Yiddish; the custom of using Hebrew
as a living language has not spread here so much as in Jaffa and the
colonies. The Beth ha-Midrash for older children was a little better
equipped; it had a stone floor, but the pupils reclined on couches round
the walls. They learn very little of what we should call secular subjects.
I examined the store of manuscripts, but Professor Schechter had been
before me, and there was nothing left but modern Cabbalistic literature.
The other synagogue is small, and very bare of ornament. The Rabbi was
seated there, "learning," with great Tefillin and Tallith on--a fine,
simple, benevolent soul. To my surprise he spoke English, and turned out to
be none other than Rachmim Joseph Franco, who, as long ago as 1851, when
the earthquake devastated the Jewish quarter, had been sent from Rhodes to
collect relief funds. He was very ailing, and I could not have a long
conversation with him, but he told me that he had known my father, who was
then a boy, in London. Then I entered a typical Jewish dwelling of the
poor. It consisted of a single room, opening on to the dark street, and had
a tiny barred window at the other side. On the left was a broad bed, on the
right a rude cooking stove and a big water pitcher. There was nothing else
in the room, except a deep stagnant mud pool, which filled the centre of
the floor.
Next door they were baking Matzoth in an oven fed by a wood fire. It was a
few days before Passover. The Matzoth were coarse, and had none of the
little holes with which we are familiar. So through streets within streets,
dirt within dirt, room over room, in hopeless intricacy. Then we were
brought to a standstill, a man was coming down the street with a bundle of
wood, and we had to wait till he had gone by, the streets being too narrow
for two persons to pass each other. Another street was impassable for a
different reason, there was quite a river of flowing mud, knee deep. I
asked for a boat, but a man standing by hoisted me on his shoulders, and
carried me across, himself wading through it with the same unconcern as the
boys and girls were wallowing in it, playing and amusing themselves. How
alike children are all the world over!
And yet, with it all, Hebron is a healthy place. There is little of the
intermittent fever prevalent in other parts of Palestine; illness is
common, but not in a bad form. Jerusalem is far more unhealthy, because of
the lack of water. But the Jews of Hebron are miserably poor. How they live
is a mystery. They are not allowed to own land, even if they could acquire
it. There was once a little business to be done in lending money to the
Arabs, but as the Government refuses to help in the collection of debts,
this trade is not flourishing, and a good thing, too. There are, of course,
some industries. First there is the wine. I saw nothing of the vintage, as
my visit was in the spring, but I tasted the product and found it good. The
Arab vine-owners sell the grapes to Jews, who extract the juice. Still
there is room for enterprise here, and it is regrettable that few seem to
think of Hebron when planning the regeneration of Judea. True, I should
regret the loss of primitiveness here, as I said at the outset, but when
the lives of men are concerned, esthetics must go to the wall. The Jewish
quarter was enlarged in 1875, but it is still inadequate. The Society
Lemaan Zion has done a little to introduce modern education, but neither
the Alliance nor the Anglo-Jewish Association has a school here. Lack of
means prevents the necessary efforts from being made. Most deplorable is
the fact connected with the hospital. In a beautiful sunlit road above the
mosque, amid olive groves, is the Jewish hospital, ready for use,
well-built, but though the very beds were there when T saw it, no patients
could be received, as there were no funds. The Jewish doctor was doing a
wonderful work. He had exiled himself from civilized life, as we Westerns
understand it; his children had no school to which to go; he felt himself
stagnating, without intellectual intercourse with his equals, yet active,
kindly, uncomplaining--one of those everyday martyrs whom one meets so
often among the Jews of Judea, men who day by day see their ambitions
vanishing under the weight of a crushing duty. It was sad to see how he
lingered over the farewell when I left him. I said that his house had
seemed an oasis in the desert to me, that I could never forget the time
spent with him. "And what of me?" he answered. "Your visit has been an
oasis in the desert to me, but you go and the desert remains." Surely, the
saddest thing in life is this feeling that one's own uninteresting,
commonplace self should mean so much to others. I call it sad, because so
few of us realize what we may mean to others, being so absorbed in our
selfish thought of what others mean to us.
There are two industries in Hebron besides the vintage. It supplies most of
the skin-bottles used in Judea, and a good deal of glassware, including
lamps, is manufactured there. The Hebron tannery is a picturesque place,
but no Jews are employed in it. Each bottle is made from an entire
goat-skin, from which only the head and feet are removed. The lower
extremities are sewn up, and the neck is drawn together to form the neck of
the water bottle. Some trade is also done here in wool, which the Arabs
bring in and sell at the market held every Friday. In ancient times the
sheep used in the Temple sacrifices were obtained from Hebron. Besides the
tannery, the glass factories are worth a visit. The one which I saw was in
a cavern, lit only by the glow of the central furnace. Seated round the
hearth (I am following Gautier's faithful description of the scene) and
served by two or three boys, were about ten workmen, making many-colored
bracelets and glass rings, which varied in size from small finger rings to
circlets through which you could easily put your arm. The workmen are
provided with two metal rods and a pair of small tongs, and they ply these
primitive instruments with wonderful dexterity. They work very hard, at
least fifteen hours a day, for five days a week.
This is one of the curiosities of the East. Either the men there are
loafers, or they work with extraordinary vigor. There is nothing between
doing too much and doing nothing. The same thing strikes one at Jaffa. The
porters who carry your baggage from the landing stage to the steamer do
more work than three English dock laborers. They carry terrific weights.
When a family moves, a porter carries all the furniture on his back. Yet
side by side with these overworked men, Jaffa is crowded with idlers, who
do absolutely nothing. Such are the contrasts of the surprising Orient.
Many of the beads and rosaries taken to Europe by pious pilgrims are made
in Hebron, just as the mother of pearl relics come chiefly from Bethlehem,
where are made also the tobacco-jars of Dead Sea stone. Hebron does a fair
trade with the Bedouins, but on the whole it is quite unprogressive. At
first sight this may seem rather an unpleasant fact for lovers of peace.
Hebron has for many centuries been absolutely free from the ravages of war,
yet it stagnates. Peace is clearly not enough for progress. As the
Rabbinical phrase well puts it, "Peace is the vessel which holds all other
good"--without peace this other good is spilt, but peace is after all the
containing vessel, not the content of happiness.
I have left out, in the preceding narrative, the visit paid to the Haram
erected over the Cave of Machpelah. The mosque is an imposing structure,
and rises above the houses on the hill to the left as you enter from
Jerusalem. The walls of the enclosure and of the mosque are from time to
time whitewashed, so that the general appearance is somewhat dazzling. It
has already been mentioned that certain repairs were effected in 1894-5.
The work was done by the lads of the Technical School in Jerusalem; they
made an iron gate for Joseph's tomb,--the Moslems believe that Joseph is
buried in Hebron,--and they made one gate for Abraham's tomb, one gate and
three window gratings for Isaac's tomb, and one gate and two window
gratings for Rebekah's tomb. This iron work, it is satisfactory to
remember, was rendered possible by the splendid machinery sent out to the
school from London by the Anglo-Jewish Association. The ordinary Jewish
visitor is not allowed to enter the enclosure at all. I was stopped at the
steps, where the custodian audaciously demanded a tip for not letting me
in. The tombs within are not the real tombs of the Patriarchs; they are
merely late erections over the spots where the Patriarchs lie buried.
No one has ever doubted that Machpelah is actually at this site, but the
building is, of course, not Patriarchal in age. The enclosure is as old as
the Wailing Wall at Jerusalem. It belongs to the age of Herod; we see the
same cyclopean stones, with the same surface draftings as at Jerusalem. Why
Herod built this edifice seems clear. Hebron was the centre of Idumean
influence, and Herod was an Idumean. He had a family interest in the place,
and hence sought to beautify it. No Jew or Christian can enter the
enclosure except by special iradé; even Sir Moses Montefiore was refused
the privilege. Rather, one should say, the Moslem authorities wished to let
Sir Moses in, but they were prevented by the mob from carrying out their
amiable intentions. The late English King Edward VII and the present King
George V were privileged to enter the structure. Mr. Elkan Adler got in at
the time when the _Alliance_ workmen were repairing the gates, but there is
nothing to see of any interest. No one within historical times has
penetrated below the mosque, to the cavern itself. We still do not know
whether it is called Machpelah because the Cave is double vertically or
double horizontally.
The outside is much more interesting than the inside. Half way up the steps
leading into the mosque, there is a small hole or window at which many Jews
pray, and into which, it is said, all sorts of things, including letters to
the Patriarchs, are thrown, especially by women. In the Middle Ages, they
spread at this hole a tender calf, some venison pasties, and some red
pottage, every day, in honor of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the food was
eaten by the poor. It is commonly reported, though I failed to obtain any
local confirmation of the assertion, that the Jews still write their names
and their requests on strips of paper and thrust them into this hole. The
Moslems let down a lamp through the hole, and also cast money into it,
which is afterwards picked up by little boys as it is required for the
purposes of the mosque and for repairing the numerous tombs of prophets and
saints with which Hebron abounds. If you were to believe the local
traditions, no corpses were left for other cemeteries. The truth is that
much obscurity exists as to the identity even of modern tombs, for Hebron
preserves its old custom, and none of the Jewish tombs to this day bear
epitaphs. What a mass of posthumous hypocrisy would the world be spared if
the Hebron custom were prevalent everywhere! But it is obvious that the
method lends itself to inventiveness, and as the tombs are unnamed, local
guides tell you anything they choose about them, and you do not believe
them even when they are speaking the truth.
There is only one other fact to tell about the Cave. The Moslems have a
curious dread of Isaac and Rebekah, they regard the other Patriarchs as
kindly disposed, but Isaac is irritable, and Rebekah malicious. It is told
of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, he who "feared neither man nor devil," that when
he was let down into the Cave by a rope, he surprised Rebekah in the act of
combing her hair. She resented the intrusion, and gave him so severe a box
on the ears that he fell down in a fit, and could be rescued alive only
with much difficulty. It is with equal difficulty that one can depart, with
any reverence left, from the mass of legend and childishness with which one
is crushed in such places. One escapes with the thought of the real
Abraham, his glorious service to humanity, his lifelong devotion to the
making of souls, to the spread of the knowledge of God. One recalls the
Abraham who, in the Jewish tradition, is the type of unselfishness, of
watchfulness on behalf of his descendants, the marks of whose genuine
relationship to the Patriarch are a generous eye and a humble spirit. As
one turns from Hebron, full of such happy memories, one forms the resolve
not to rely solely on an appeal to the Patriarch's merits, but to strive to
do something oneself for the Jewish cause, and thus fulfil the poet's
lines,
Thus shalt thou plant a garden round the tomb,
Where golden hopes may flower, and fruits immortal bloom.