Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 92, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1919 — Strange Corners of Jerusalem [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

St range Corners of Jerusalem

JERUSALEM is full of strange and interesting nooks and corners that are almost unknown to the outside world and that most of the tourists never see. In New Age Ph. J. Baldensperger writes entertainingly of some of them. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher and Its surrounding honeycomb of cloisters may be said approximately to have separated the Christian and the Moslem quarters of the city. Two gates, closed at night, shut off the church from the town —one below Christian i street, beside the Jami’el Omari, and the other, a small one, leading to the Maurlstan. The Jami’el Omari is the real Mosque of Omar. It was built In A. D. 637 to commemorate the first prayer said by the Caliph Omar ibn elKhattab after his entry into the conquered city. The small gate opposite across the court leads straight into the ’Moslem quarter. No Jew is ever allowed to pass In front of the church or through either of the two gates. Once or twice an Inquisitive son of Judah has tried the experiment, but he has not lived to tell the tale of his adventure, so roughly was he handled by the mob. Outside the small gate, in the Moslem quarter, are shops for the sale of glass beads and bracelets, kept by men of Hebron, and soon you come into the street of shoemakers. The trade was established here in old days, when 5 the abattoir was in the Maurlstan, among the ruins of the ancient hospital of the Knights of St. John. The Maurlstan was given by Sultan Abdul Aziz as a present to Frederick William, crown prince of Prussia, when he visited Jerusalem in 1869. The German Church of the Redeemer (Erloserkirche) was built here after the war of 1870. The slaughter house had previously been removed to waste land just inside the walls up by the Zion gate. The hides of beasts were thrown upon the road, and people walked on them till they were tanned enough for shoemaking. European boots and shoes were then unknown to the majority. The Moslem and Christian men wore soft red shoes of sheepskin; the worncn yellow slippers of the same. The mission schools and convents had cobblers of their own, who had been taught the ways of Europe in such matters.

Round the corner to the left, below the Abyssinian convent, were the sweets shops. Great was our delight when at the New Year every boy In the school received a cake enriched with clarified butter and sweetened with honey and sugar. But Halaweh, sweetstuff made of sesame meal and honey, was our perennial joy. Butchers, Spicers and Dyers. All along behind the Maurlstan run three streets parallel to one another, appropriated by the butchers, the spicers and the dyers, respectively. In the butchers’ street, the dealers, all Moslems, sold nothing but mutton and goat’s flesh. As the streets are arched over, semidarkness reigned, and often we have tumbled over fat and lazy dogs which were attached to almost every meat shop. These dogs not only kept good watch at night, but also kept the greasy street in a tolerable condition by licking up the blood and eating benes. But for the 'presence of the spicers’ street at hand the shoemakers' with its old skins; the butchers’ street, with all its offal, and the dyers’ street, with blue colored stuffs hanging from the roof, Would- have made the whole region smell as foul as the town slaughter yard. Once or twice a week we were sent to fetch meat needed for the kitchen on our donkey. The butchers’ street, I forgot to say, hardly measured three yards across, but with the carcasses hanging out before the shops there was hardly room in the butchers’ street for two to pass abreast. The spicers’ street resembled it in this

respect, and there the merchants hung such things as cords, nets and girdles out into the street, and often sat in front of their shops. The Suk el Bizar (grain market) is a broader street, and lighter, since it is not vaulted in, but, as many more people congregated there, progress was as difficult as in the butchers’ street. This was the busy part; in every other region of the Moslem quarter hardly a soul was to be seen at some hours of the day, except in Harat Bab el’Amud (the street of the Damascus Gate), and Harat Bab Sitti Mirifin (street of Our Lady Mary’s Gate), where grocers did an active trade, the fellahin from the eastern country buying necessaries there just before leaving the town. A conventional thin veil or net was dropped over the shop entrance, and projecting baskets of rice, nuts, lentils, etc., from 11 a. m. to 1. p. m., signifying that the owner was away, presumably at prayers in the adjacent Haram. The protection was more real than any police measures could have secured. In the Crowded Grain Market In the Suk el Bizar the throng was sometimes so great that it was Impossible to advance a step; especially was this the case when a long string of camels loaded with grain made Its way to the wheat bazaar, the small square underneath a vault which gives the street its name. Wheat and barley, lentils and dhurra, or maize, are here poured on big heaps and sold to the public. The official appointed to measure out the grain in the Tabbeh (about eight rotis) or Sa’ (half a Tabbeh) is quite a serious and important personage. Filling his measure, he will begin by announcing Allahu Ahad (God is One), and continues saying this till the first tabbeh is in the sack. “Two," “three,” he says at every measure, till he comes to seven, when he says sameha (pardon), instead of saba (seven). The number seven, being that of the princes of the Jann (genis), must not be named while handling grain for fear the Jann should carry off the blessing. Taman leh (eight), ya Rabb, el Amaneh (Lord, give me honesty). The crowd is exasperating at times, though comical incidents occur occasionally. As I slowly pushed my way forward one day, stopping to avoid huge sacks, a European snob, anxious to escape being crushed, stood in a corner, wearing a new straw hat. Hats are, as a rule, disliked by orientals. The European, in derision, is often called abu ’l-baranit (father of hats). A durneytah (hat) attracts unpleant notice in a crowd. A camel, waiting to pass, looked round casually, put out his huge lips, seized the strange straw basket, and in one bite ate half the hat, to the distress of Mr. Snob and the delight of the by-standers. The north and northeast portion as far as the Temple Area was most exclusively Moslem. Like the butchers and the spicers, the gold and silversmiths, the blacksmiths and the coppersmiths and other workers had their separate streets, the last named near the dyers; but many began to feel the influence of a new period and left their old quarters, bidding farewell to the ancient oriental tradition.

Street of the Damascus Gate.