“Aside from a question of faith in some immediate restoration of their Jews to their former land, this wholesale system of pensioning paupers upon the country to hold a footing in it, is of most doubtful propriety. Nor is it even true charity. For the knowledge of the, in the aggregate, considerable sums of money that are each year forwarded to Jerusalem by benevolent Jews in Europe, leads to the idle, the improvident, and perhaps dishonest, to rush to the Holy Land, with the view of leading there and easy life at the expense of others. The poor population remain in excess of there funds for their support, and much hardship and misery are the natural result. It is quite certain that the Jews of Jerusalem, as a class, are much the most wretched of any there.”
The above from “Going to Jericho- Sketches of Travel” byJohn Franklin Swift, published in 1874 recounting events encountered in his travels of 1868!!!
He goes on to detail some of the abuses of Arab Palestinians by Europeans, that is “accepted practice”, like beating them if they don’t move out of your way in a narrow street, in front of THEIR business!
“Aside from a question of faith in some immediate restoration of their Jews to their former land, this wholesale system of pensioning paupers upon the country to hold a footing in it, is of most doubtful propriety. Nor is it even true charity. For the knowledge of the, in the aggregate, considerable sums of money that are each year forwarded to Jerusalem by benevolent Jews in Europe, leads to the idle, the improvident, and perhaps dishonest, to rush to the Holy Land, with the view of leading there and easy life at the expense of others. The poor population remain in excess of there funds for their support, and much hardship and misery are the natural result. It is quite certain that the Jews of Jerusalem, as a class, are much the most wretched of any there.”
The above from “Going to Jericho- Sketches of Travel” byJohn Franklin Swift, published in 1874 recounting events encountered in his travels of 1868!!!
He goes on to detail some of the abuses of Arab Palestinians by Europeans, that is “accepted practice”, like beating them if they don’t move out of your way in a narrow street, in front of THEIR business!