On the other, there are the more recent immigrants, consisting mainly of agricultural colonists introduced into the country by Zionist influence or other philanthropic agencies. The attitude of the two classes to political questions generally and to the Zionist movement in particular, is widely divergent.[1]
In Jerusalem the Jews form the majority of the population, outnumbering all the Christians and Moslems combined. In Hebron they are a small minority. The Jerusalem Jews include a minority of Zionists, composed of the artisan and shop-keeping classes; but the bulk of Jerusalem Jewry consists of the orthodox Jews, either devoted entirely to the religious life or dependent upon the religious devotees. This class of Jews (the Halukah) produces no wealth, and depends on charity, being supported by contributions from Jews all over the world. It does not participate in the political life of the country or in the common work of organization of the colonists. The religious devotees, who are emigrants or the children of emigrants from the ghettoes of Russia, Hungary, Galicia, and Rumania, spend their whole lives in the study of religious books; and their lives are regulated by the closest observance of the Judaic ritual. Some of them are undoubtedly " religious," but many of them live on alms in a condition of dirt, poverty, and idleness, which is almost indescribable. They, however, regard themselves as a caste above the other Jews of Jerusalem. The children begin at an early age to study the Talmud in the Talmud Torah schools, after which they continue their study for the remainder of their lives in the Yeshivoth. There they read or intone aloud from Hebrew books daily from sunrise to sunset, or are cross-examined by the rabbis regarding the most abstruse points of scholastic interpretation of the Mishnah in German Yiddish. All this takes place in conditions so insanitary that periodical ravages of typhus and malaria carry off numbers of the popula-
- ↑ For the Zionist Movement, see Zionism, No. 162 of this series.
