The Holy Land and SyriaCarpenter, Frank G. (Frank George)
Religion
The Holy Land and Syria
Carpenter, Frank G. (Frank George)
Palestine -- Description and travel; Syria -- Description and travel
The Jews have taken this land, have cleared it of the loose rocks, and
are making it bloom like a garden. They have some quite large fields
on top of Mount Carmel, which is now covered with wheat waving in the
wind. They are raising luxuriant crops of oats and beans and they have
vineyards as thrifty as those of south France or the Rhine. Their olive
orchards would be a credit to any part of Italy; and their English
walnut trees bear like those of southern California. They are raising
fine cattle, which they graze on the hills in the daytime and bring in
at night. The milk is excellent, and the meat as tender and sweet as the
corn-fed beef of Chicago. I am told that the land produces abundantly and
that the colony does well.
Zammarin is far different from the squalid Arab towns of Palestine. Its
houses are of German architecture and many of its people speak German. It
has a hotel run by an American Jew and planned upon Jewish lines. Outside
the door of my room is fastened a tube of olive wood containing the Ten
Commandments, and similar tubes are to be found at every door of the
hotel, as well as on the doors of every house in the place. The Jews kiss
these tubes as they go in and out.
Zammarin has sidewalks, and there is a tower into which water is pumped
to supply every house. There is a synagogue, which is well attended,
and a town hall, where the officials of the colony meet and decide all
matters of local government.
Indeed, the colony is a little republic with a president and other
officials elected by its members. It settles its own disputes, and makes
assessments for special taxes for such things as schools and village
improvements. When Zammarin was started it was supported by Rothschild.
Later on it was turned over to the Anglo-Israelite Colonization Society
founded by Baron Hirsch. It was then supported from Europe, but this did
not work and it is now running itself. Every family works for itself and
has its own property. As a result the people are becoming independent.
The standard of self-respect has risen, and all seem to be prospering.
[Illustration: We cross the Sea of Galilee where Christ stilled the
sudden tempest and walked on the waters. On its shores He spoke many of
His parables and wrought a number of His miracles]
[Illustration: Through the arched Gate we catch a glimpse of the ruins of
ancient Tiberias, the once proud city of Herod, in the neighbourhood of
which Christ spent much of his active life. For years Tiberias was the
seat of Jewish learning]
CHAPTER XXII
WHERE OUR SAVIOUR SPENT HIS BOYHOOD
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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