SAFED.

Haifa, July 10.—Next to Jerusalem, the city most highly venerated by the

Jews in Palestine is Safed. I had occasion to visit it a few weeks ago

on my way to a colony of Russian and Roumanian Jews which has been

established in the neighbourhood. Perched on the summit of a mountain

nearly three thousand feet high, it is one of the most picturesquely

situated towns in the country; and there is a tradition to the effect

that it was alluded to by Christ as “the city that is set on a hill, and

cannot be hid,” when he preached the Sermon on the Mount, the mount

being supposed to be one of the Horns of Hattin, a remarkably shaped

hill.

The whole of this district is indeed full of romantic scenery. It is a

country of wild gorges and huge precipices, which escape the attention

of the traveller following the beaten routes, and to most of them

associations are attached, investing them with an interest beyond that

of a mere scenic character. There is, for instance, the Wady Hammam,

where the bluffs are about twelve hundred feet high, perforated with

caves, communicating with each other by passages concealed in the rock,

once the abode of bands of robbers who lived like eagles in their

eyries. Looking up at these holes in the cliff some seven or eight

hundred feet above me, I tried to picture the terrible battle which was

once fought in mid-air between the denizens of these caves and the

soldiers whom Herod let down the face of the cliff in baskets to attack

them. The desperate nature of the struggle, as the soldiers strove to

make good their foothold on the edge of the caves, and the frenzy with

which the robbers, who had no loophole of escape, must have defended

themselves as they endeavoured to hurl their assailants from their

baskets, suggested a scene which was quite in keeping with the gloomy

character of the surroundings. Some of the more accessible of these

caves have been occupied at a later period by hermits, and they may have

been utilized for military purposes at the time of the crusades, but

they have never been thoroughly explored.

Just before reaching Safed there is a rock called Akhbera, which rises

five hundred feet sheer up from the path, and is also full of similar

caves. Josephus mentions having fortified it. However prepossessing

Safed may look from a distance, it does not bear a close acquaintance.

Down the centre of every street runs an open sewer, which renders it the

most odoriferous and pestiferous place that it has ever been my fate to

sleep in. The aspect of the population is in keeping with the general

smell. One seems transported into the ghetto of some Roumanian or

Russian town, with a few Eastern disagreeables added. The population

here have not adopted the Oriental costume as they have at Tiberias, but

wear the high hats, greasy gabardines, and ear-curls of the Jews of

Europe. Instead of Arabic, one hears nothing in the streets but

“jargon,” as the dialect used by the Jews in eastern Europe is called.

The total population of _Ashkenazim_, or German Jews, who are hived in

this unenviable locality, is between five and six thousand; besides

these there are about twelve hundred _Sephardim_, or Spanish Jews, who

wear Oriental costumes, and in the other quarter of the town from six to

seven thousand Moslems, making the total number of inhabitants about

fourteen thousand.

As there is nothing approaching to a hotel or boarding-house in the

place, I was of course dependent on the native hospitality for board and

lodging, and thus able to acquire an insight into the mode of life of

rather a curious section of the human family. The majority of the Jews

here are supported by a charitable fund called the Haluka, which is

subscribed to by pious Jews all over the world as a sacred duty, for the

purpose of providing support to those of their coreligionists who come

here or to Jerusalem to pass the last years of their lives in devotional

exercises, and to die on the sacred soil. The practical result of this

system is to maintain in idleness and mendicancy a set of useless

bigots, who combine superstitious observance with immoral practice, and

who, as a rule, are opposed to every project which has for its object

the real progress of the Jewish nation. Hence they regard with alarm the

establishment of agricultural colonies, or the inauguration of an era of

any kind of labour by Jews in Palestine. They are bitterly hostile to

schools in which any secular teaching is carried on, and agree with

those Western Jews who consider that any scheme for developing the

material resources of Palestine by means of Jewish industry is fantastic

and visionary. It is due to the Jewish population of Safed to say that

this spirit does not prevail among the younger members of it. There are

about a hundred young Safed Jews who actually work as day-labourers on

the farms of Moslems and Christians, and I was informed by one of the

most liberal of the rabbis, the only one, in fact, who was inclined to

promote Jewish agriculture, that about two hundred families in Safed

were desirous of being established on farms, while several had owned

land and cultivated it, and only abandoned it at last for want of

protection against the extortionate demands of Turkish tax-gatherers. It

is true that most of the Jews at Safed are under the protection of some

European power, but until lately no power has taken sufficient interest

in the race to raise a Jewish question with the Turkish government. Now

that important political interests are to be subserved by doing so, and

the destiny of Palestine is likely to become a crucial point in the

Eastern question, both Russia and France are seizing every excuse for

interference and complaint, and the questions which are constantly

arising in regard to their Jewish _protégés_, both in Tiberias and

Safed, are likely to furnish them with the pretexts they desire.

When I was in Safed, Russia was actively espousing the cause of a young

Jew who had accidentally shot a Moslem, and over whom the Turkish

government claimed jurisdiction, on the ground that, though a Russian,

he had repudiated his allegiance to Russia. As the youth was not of age

at the time, the Russian government still claimed the right to protect

him in Turkey, though it had not exercised this right in Russia itself,

from which country he had been compelled to flee for his life. As I rode

through the village where the accident had taken place, in company with

some Jews, we were pelted by the Moslem population, and, although the

release of the boy is now certain, he will probably be compelled to

leave the country, unless the relatives of the deceased Moslem can be

pacified with the blood-money that has been offered them.

Jauna, which was the name of the village to which I was bound, was

situated about three miles from Safed, in a gorge, from which, as we

descended it, a magnificent view was obtained over the Jordan valley,

with the Lake of Tiberias lying three thousand feet below us on the

right, and the waters of Merom, or the Lake of Huleh, on the left. The

intervening plain was a rich expanse of country, only waiting

development. The new colony had been established about eight months, the

land having been purchased from the Moslem villagers, of whom twenty

families remained, who lived on terms of perfect amity with the Jews.

These consisted of twenty-three Roumanian and four Russian families,

numbering in all one hundred and forty souls. The greater number were

hard at work on their potato-patches when I arrived, and I was pleased

to find evidences of thrift and industry. A row of sixteen neat little

houses had been built, and more were in process of erection. Altogether

this is the most hopeful attempt at a colony which I have seen in

Palestine. The colonists own about a thousand acres of excellent land,

which they were able to purchase at from three to four dollars an acre.

The Russians are establishing themselves about half a mile from the

Roumanians, as Jews of different nationalities easily get on well

together. They call the colony Rosch Pina, or “Head of the Corner,” the

word occurring in the verse, “The stone which the builders rejected, the

same is become the head of the corner.”