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Shvoong Home>Arts & Humanities>History>Jerusalem in the 19th Century; the Emergence of the New City Summary

Jerusalem in the 19th Century; the Emergence of the New City

Book Summary   by:BenUriel     Original Author: Yehoshua Ben Arieh
  • Summary rating: 4 stars (2 Ratings)
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The book Jerusalem in the 19th Century, The Emergence of the New City is a description by professor Yehoshua Ben Arieh of the history of Jerusalem between the invasion of the French under Napoleon in at the end of the 18th century and World War I and the advent of the Zionist movement. He briefly describes the decline of Jerusalem from the damage done by the Mongol Invasions after the end of the Crusader Kingdom and how the entire region degenerated under the weight of benign neglect by the Ottoman Pashas and Bedouin Raids. The population of what was to become British Mandatorial Palestine was at that time (1800) about 150,000 of whom less than 10,000 lived in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was initially divided between Muslims, Christian sects and Jews with Muslims making up the largest group in the population. The Jewish community was almost entirely Sephardic having lived there in the centuries following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in the Middle Ages. There had allegedly been Ashkenazic Jews in Jerusalem but according to local legend at the time, they were involved in a dispute over payment of rent (only Muslims could own property in the area at the time) and for the most part had relocated and were living at Sefad in Galilee. Napoleon’s invasion brought a few improvements in civic works, chief among them surveys, which the Ottoman Pasha on driving the French out again, saw fit to leave intact. Things continued on in the traditional way until the area was conquered by Muhammad Ali, the French influenced Egyptian leader who rebelled against the Ottomans. He ruled the area for 8 years and brought about many modernizing reforms including improvements in rights of non-Muslim minority groups. About this time, increased interest in Jerusalem by the Ashkenazic communities in Europe and a devastating earthquake in Sefad led to a large number of Jews resettling in Jerusalem’s old city Jewish Quarter. Muhammad Ali was driven from Jerusalem after 8 years but his defeat coincided with the Tanzimat reforms of the Ottoman Empire meaning that the reforms he instituted in were largely left in place by the victorious Turks. From this time the Jewish community in Jerusalem began to increase rapidly, supported largely by “Halukah” funds from European Jewish congregations. Additionally, as the Ottoman Empire weakened, different European Powers began to take an interest in the Holy Land and Jerusalem in Particular. Several nations, among them, England, Russia, France, Prussia, Austria and the US established “consulates” in Jerusalem. The Russian and French consulates largely served the interests of Russian and French client populations, the Greeks and Armenians and the Roman Catholics respectively. The Prussians and English largely looked after the interests of Christian Pilgrims and in addition, desiring a permanent client population to shore up their legitimacy, took an interest in the Jewish community. The Jewish community appreciated the support which augmented the Halukah funds they were receiving but were concerned about missionary activities these consulates carried out among the Jews.
These factors, together with new and extensive support from backers like English Sir Moses Montefiore meant that the Jewish population of Jerusalem began to increase rapidly in mid century quickly becoming the largest group and then by the 1860’s or so the clear majority population. With the increase in foreign consular activity and investments, the Ottomans gained control of the Bedouin raiding situation and Jews who had filled the Jewish Quarter and were expanding into the Muslim and Armenian Quarters of the Old City began to settle outside the walls in what has become the New City. Christian governments quickly followed suit with building projects and even the leading Muslim the families began to build outside the walls. The New City was organized into neighborhoods and regions by community and ethnicity with Muslims tending to the North, Jews to the West and Christians to the south. A very large Jewish community (the Old Yishuv) with its own characteristics thus existed as a result in Jerusalem before the advent of the agrarian Aliyah of the late 19th century and later of the Zionist movement. The book does not treat in detail the internal politics of each community. It does mention some of the leading Arab clans by name but does not discuss the politics between them or between them and the other communities. There is a certain amount of discussion about Christian and Jewish personalities of the era but largely in the context of the role they played in promoting development of the new city (The Arabs did not build unitary neighborhoods as such but tended to build houses in the New City on a family by family basis). Details of municipal politics and history would have been interesting but were clearly not within the scope of the original lectures that were consolidated to make this book. Another area that would have perhaps benefited by a closer look would have been how the manner in which relations between the Jewish (and other) communities in Jerusalem were conducted with the foreign consulates may have been related to the manner in which the British government eventually dealt with the international Jewish community to issue the Balfour Declaration. Again however that speaks to matters that diverge from the historical development of the Jerusalem which was Ben Arieh’s chief interest in giving the lectures that form the basis of this book.
Published: February 08, 2008   
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