According to the sages, if a man’s wife did not wish to accompany him on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem it was sufficient grounds for divorce—so holy was the road to Zion. Long before the birth of modem Zionism, Jews had voyaged to Jerusalem to partake of its sanctity. But the Holy City, it would seem, has always been more a symbol of man’s troubled existence on earth than an actual foretaste of the blessed time to come. If nothing else, the sheer difficulty of getting there—and living there—has testified to this. Gedaliah of Siemiatycze here records these difficulties in their 17th-century variants.

Gedaliah belonged to the circle of Rabbi Judah the Pious, who in 669 departed with his disciples from the Grodno district in Poland in order to lead a holier life in Jerusalem. The entire company consisted of more than thirteen hundred persons, several hundred of whom died on the way. Rabbi Judah himself died immediately on their arrival in Jerusalem, as Gedaliah relates.

Gedaliah’s description of the voyage, and of life in Jerusalem at the time, is contained in Shaaru Shelom Yerushalaim (“Seek Ye the Peace of Jerusalem”), a small volume published in 1716. The present translation appears in Roads to Zion, an anthology of the reports of travelers to Palestine which is to be published in September by Schocken Books (as number 14 in the Schocken Library). The volume is edited by Kurt Wilhelm and translated by I. M. Lask. This selection appears here by courtesy of the publisher.—ED.

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Our master, Rabbi Judah the Pious, arrived together with his followers in Jerusalem on the New Year’s Day of Marheshvan 5461 [1700]. He at once acquired a house in the Synagogue Court of the Ashkenazim, rented dwellings for his faithful ones and distributed money for them to live on. Most of them were sick after the great exertions of the journey. Conditions on the ship had been bad, and the space allowed for all of us together was far too small. On the day before the Sabbath our master went to the ritual bath, and then suddenly became sick. He prayed the Evening Prayer, but when he came home from the synagogue, he fell in a faint. Then he spoke deliriously, repeating verses from the Morning Prayer, and always repeating the same verses without regaining consciousness. Finally his son-in-law Rabbi Isaiah recited the Kiddush and then a physician was sent for.

In Jerusalem there was a wealthy Sephardic physician, who was as familiar with learning as with the science of healing. It is dangerous to go out into the streets of Jerusalem at night, even if it is only half an hour after sunset. The Turks do not permit it, and throw every Jew whom they find in the street at night into prison; and in addition they impose a money fine on him. Only in order to summon a doctor to a patient or a midwife to a woman in childbirth may a Jew enter the street at night. When the doctor came, he said that at the moment he could do but little, and that it would be necessary to wait another day.

On the Sabbath our master rose in the morning, washed himself, and conducted the Morning Prayer. Then he begged pardon of all for having disturbed their night’s rest. He did not know what had happened to him in the evening. He only supposed that he had a sickness, but he already felt almost well. However, then came another fit of fainting.

This time his speech was paralyzed, and he could not utter another word. He passed away on Monday evening, without expressing a last wish. But there must be a last will and testament among his papers, for he often wrote of it.

He was buried on the same day, and many men and women of Jerusalem showed him the last honor and kindness. In the Synagogue Court the cantor of the Sephardim chanted Sephardic songs of mourning; and all those assembled wept bitterly at the sudden death of our master, and because they had not been accounted worthy to look upon his holy visage. After each verse of a song of mourning they smote themselves on the head and cried: Alas, alas! It was enough to melt a heart of stone.

Then the leading men among the Sephardim carried the bier to the graveyard on the Mount of Olives, where he was buried after the fashion of the Diaspora, not in a sepulchral chamber, as was formerly the custom here. After a year had elapsed, his wife passed away too and then his beloved little son. Both rest near him. They have gone on to eternity and have left us behind to sighing and sorrow.

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In the late summer of the year, shortly I before our arrival, a beginning was made at the building of the new synagogue and of forty dwellings for the poor. A magnificent House of Study containing many books was likewise built. In the courtyard are four plaster cisterns which do not lose a single drop of water, and in addition to providing the residents with water, provide also for the ritual bath. The cisterns hold the rain water, for there is no running water in Jerusalem. All the houses within the Synagogue Court, including the synagogue and the House of Study, are built of solid hewn stone, as well as the four cisterns which have a small opening on top through which the bucket is let down. The water in the cisterns keeps as fresh as in a glass vessel.

These buildings consumed a great deal of money. The Turks in Jerusalem had to be heavily bribed before they permitted the building. Then the Jews of Jerusalem wished to construct the new synagogue on a larger scale than the old one, but the Turkish government permitted them to build it only as high as the previous building. So then they had to bribe the pashas heavily again, in order that they might approve a larger building.

Now there is a law in Jerusalem that while building is going on the pasha has to be paid five hundred lion thalers a year for three years. But as the synagogue had been built higher than the old one without the permission of the Sultan, another pasha came and wished to stop the building. So he also received five hundred lion thalers. Finally, a new pasha came from Constantinople to whom five hundred lion thalers had to be given. Thus the Jews were compelled to borrow money from the Turks at a high rate of interest.

The Jews pay, two red gulden for every male person above the age of fifteen years. A poor man must pay at least one gulden. Every year a pasha from the Sultan appears in Jerusalem at the Passover season in order to collect the taxes. Anybody who does not pay is put in prison and the community chest must redeem him. This pasha usually remains in Jerusalem until the Feast of Weeks. Hence the poor folk hide in their houses as best as they can; but if the pasha catches them, the community head must pay for them. The pasha has his henchmen going about the street all day long to smell out the people who have not yet paid any tax. Anybody who has paid is given a receipt. If an official meets a man who has no receipt with him, he drags him off to the office of the pasha, where he must pay. That applies to the Ashkenazim the same as the Sephardim.

There are also many Christians dwelling in Jerusalem, almost more than Turks and Arabs. They also suffer greatly and must also pay taxes. Only the poor, the blind and the lame are exempt. Nevertheless the Turks demand it from them as well, and nothing much can be done about it, for it is a harsh galut. However, on Sabbaths and festivals the tax collector may not press us. So on those days we walk the street without fear. But on weekdays it is different. The official may not enter a house to demand money, or make his way into the synagogue. But the villains place themselves at the synagogue entrance and woe to the man who leaves the synagogue and has no receipt with him! Sometimes the officials bribe the chief pasha of the Holy City, and in return receive permission to conduct their searches even in houses for two or three days. What do the poor folk do? Say the official searches in the houses of one street on Sunday, they hide themselves in the houses of the other street, and next day they hide themselves in the houses of the street in which the official made his search the day before.

At the time of the Feast of Weeks the pasha departs from Jerusalem in order to collect his taxes elsewhere. Hebron is the only place he does not go to, for that holy city enjoys tax redemption from the Sultan because the patriarchs are buried there in the cave of Machpelah. Neither Jews nor Christians pay taxes in Hebron. When the pasha arrives at Passover, the Jews bring him presents and bribes, but he receives even more than he would ordinarily; and next year another pasha arrives. In the Turkish empire the officials change from year to year, and the same tax collector is never sent to the same district for two consecutive years.

But let us return to our great worries, which the synagogue building brought about. Our debts press like a heavy yoke on our necks. We are continually taken into custody and before one debtor can be redeemed, another has already been detained. One scarcely dares to go out in the street, where to cap it all, the tax collectors lie in wait like wolves and lions to devour us.

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When we journeyed with our master to Jerusalem we passed through the whole of Germany, and were promised everywhere that we would receive regular support. At that time we believed that we could maintain ourselves in worthy fashion. But now we are oppressed with debts, and we have to give the money meant for our sustenance to the Turks, so that they should not fling us into prison, for the prison is worst of all.

My family can allow itself only four lamb or goat feet for the Sabbath meal. These cost one Turkish para, which is about five Polish groschen. We cook the feet with peas or groats, but often enough we do not even have that for the Sabbath meal. We take the Sabbath hot-dish to be kept warm in the baker’s oven, where there are between a hundred and two hundred pots usually standing together. On the Sabbath morning each one takes his own dish, for you recognize your property. Most people cook in copper pots. We poor folk from the Society of Rabbi Judah are the only ones who have iron vessels.

It is hard for us Ashkenazim to begin to trade here, for we lack knowledge of the languages. The Sephardic Jews talk Ladino, the Arabs talk Aramaic [sic] and the Turks Turkish. None of them understands German. And what should we deal with? There is indeed much wine in the Land of Israel, but Turks and Arabs drink neither wine nor brandy. If a Jew sells an Arab even a little wine or brandy and the Arab is seen drunk, then the Jew is imprisoned and beaten and has to pay a money fine. The Jews prepare wine and brandy for their own requirements, only we poor people of the Society of Rabbi Judah do not have enough money for this, and must buy wine from dealers. Often enough we must rest satisfied with the cheaper raisin wine. Brandy does not past our lips even on the Sabbath, save when well-to-do Jews send us brandy as the tithe of the poor, in accordance with the law of Moses. The Sephardic Jews also engage but little in trade.

The roads of the country are endangered by brigands and the Turks themselves always travel in great caravans. Indeed, “the ways of Zion do mourn.” Nobody comes in and nobody goes out. A caravan to Egypt is thirteen or fourteen days on the way, and the Jews must travel with the caravans even on the Sabbath, since they would not rest in order to wait for one Jew. For that reason the Sabbath law is abrogated on account of the danger to life, unless one can arrange with the ass driver to halt on the Sabbath. Mostly he does not do so in any case, and therefore Jews go down to Egypt only in the most urgent of cases. In order to establish trade connections with Constantinople, one must cross the Great Sea, and the journey takes between two and three weeks. The company of Rabbi Judah was on the way for seventeen days, and when I departed from Jerusalem I was on the sea for fourteen weeks, since a storm was raging. Therefore only few merchants travel by sea.

A few Jews have grocery shops here. Some of them take a Turk as a partner in order to protect themselves against unfair treatment. There are also a couple of Jewish spice dealers in the non-Jewish markets. There are Jews here who are called Moghrabians [Moroccans], or “Moriscos” in their own tongue. They have a language of their own, but also understand Aramaic [i.e. Arabic]. They go dressed like the Arabs and it is scarcely possible to distinguish them, as the Arabs likewise follow the practice of leaving the beard uncut. These Moghrabians travel on their asses from place to place with spices and other things, and in return bring wheat and barley to Jerusalem. From this they make a meager living. If they, who know the languages of the country, live in poverty, what shall we poor Ashkenazim do here when we have to pass to and fro among the non-Jews as though we were dumb? If we buy something from an Arab, he shows us the price on his fingers and we have to answer on our fingers; so we become a laughingstock in their sight and cannot make a living.

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Jerusalem has two Jewish cemeteries, one from ancient times lying at a distance south of the town, and a new one to the east, on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. No gravestone can be recognized any more in the old cemetery, and there are many caves to be found there. There are no caves in the new graveyard, and the graves are dug out after our European fashion. Burial may not take place without the written authorization of the Turkish Kadi [Moslem religious judge] who is paid for this according to the wealth of the dead person. He gives permission for the burial of a poor man immediately and free of charge.

The earth in the cemetery is white, but the Mount is very stony and the grave must often be hewn out. Anybody who goes abroad from Jerusalem takes a little earth from the Mount of Olives with him. I too did the same in keeping with the words of the Psalm, “For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and love her dust” [Ps. 102:15].

The garments of the Turks are long like those of the Poles, but are multi-colored. Round the turban they wrap a cloth of cotton or silk. The Sephardim wear the same garb, but may not wrap their turbans round with green or white. The Jews may wear a white garment. The Sephardim wear a white undergarment, and wear over it a black or colored coat even on the Sabbath. The Ashkenazim go in gleaming white on the Sabbath, but the Sephardim wear white only on the Sabbath before the Ninth Day of Av. The Christians dress as in the kingdom of Poland. For the Turkish law prescribes that each nation should go in its own costume, in order to make the differences clear to see. There are also differences in footwear. The Jews wear blue and dark blue shoes, the Christians red, and yellow is reserved for the Turks.

The Arabs often wrong the Jews publicly. But if the Arab is a respectable man he will cause no injury to the Jew whom he meets in the street. The meeting with common people is often unpleasant for the Jews. We may not raise a hand against a Turk, nor against an Arab either, who has the same religion as the other. If one of them gives a Jew a blow, the Jew goes away cowering and does not dare to open his mouth, lest he receive worse blows.

That is the way the Sephardim behave who have grown accustomed to the situation. But the Ashkenazic Jews, for whom it is not yet customary to receive blows from Arabs, curse them if they know the language or leap upon them in fury, and then receive even more blows. But if a respectable Turk comes along, he scolds the Arab thoroughly and drives him away; or else he waits until the Jew has gone his way. The Christians must also suffer such indignities. If a Jew makes a Turk angry, then the latter beats him shamefully and dreadfully with his shoe, and nobody delivers the Jew from his hand. Nor is it otherwise with the Christians. They find themselves under the same oppression, but they have a great deal of money which is sent to them from all over, and they bribe the Turks with it and keep them away. The Jews do not have much money, and it is much worse for them.

The bath in Jerusalem can be recommended. It has hot rooms and some that are less hot, and everybody can sit where he desires, the Jew as well. The furnace with which the bath is heated is in the cellar under the bathhouse. For fuel they use dry animal droppings and refuse.

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We have seen something very evil. There are some new-fangled fools who came to the Land only a short time ago, and who wish to revive the old disease of the year 5426 [1661].1 For these fools declare that the Divine Presence is no longer in exile since then, and that there is therefore no reason to mourn its homelessness any longer.

The hands of many worthy men have already been weakened by reason of our sins. Among them are pious folk and men of godly deeds who no longer lament the Exile of the Divine Presence. Must their conclusions once more be disproved, after it has become obvious to all how treacherous that movement was? Therefore we say in the words of King Solomon in the Book of Proverbs: “Answer not a fool, according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him” [Prov. 26:4]. For who does not know that we also shall return home with the return of the Divine Presence? Yet the Arabs will walk about our Holy Place and we are called the strangers to whom entry is forbidden. Even if it were true that the Divine Presence has forsaken our Exile, that fact does not help us and our wounds are not yet healed.

Yet it is a rare delight to dwell in the Land of Israel, and “he who walks only four ells in the Land of Israel has a share in the everlasting life.” When a scholar here goes to a place which he has never before visited, it is the custom for him to say: “I have gone a fresh four ells.” Likewise the commandments which are only valid in the Land, as for example the provision that the priests shall be given the shoulder and the cheeks and the maw of all that is slaughtered, are still observed in the Land. I myself once slaughtered a lamb, and with God’s aid I delivered his portion to a priest. We give heave-offerings and tithes of wine and brandy. One Friday I bought grapes in order to press out the juice for the Kiddush and then I was able to fulfil one commandment through fulfilling another—namely by giving a heave-offering and a tithe of the grapes. The prescriptions of the sabbatical year are likewise observed. The year before our arrival was such a sabbatical year. But I must refrain from describing in detail how we observed all these commandments. That would be too much for this little book, and when you come to the Land you will see it all, and do likewise.

Here we have no other occupation than to study and to pray by day and night. And as a reward may the words of the prophet Isaiah be fulfilled for us all speedily and in our days: “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” [Isa. 35:10].

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1 Referring to the messianic movement of Sabbatai Zevi which reached its apogee in 1666.

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