The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993, 1885-10-03
THE JEWS IN PERSIA.
How They Are Tortured and Robbed
Tombs of Esther and MOrdecai.
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very painful one. Ihey are under
no protection. They are merely the
perquisite of some subordinate officer
of the local Governor. The principle
is very simple. The Jews of province
are assessed at a tax of q certain
amount. Some one pays this amount
to the local Governor, together with a
bride; and the wretched Jews are inn
mediately placed under his authority
for the financial year. 1t is a simple
speculation. If times are good, the
farmer of the Jews makes a good
profit; if they are bad, he gains moth
ing, or may fail to extract from them
as much as he has paid out of pocket
in that case, woe betide them! During
the Persian famine the Jews suffered
great straits before the receipt of the
subsidies sent from Europe by their CO.
religionists. The farmer of the jew
ish colony in great Persian city (of
course, Persian Mohammedan) hay
ing seized their goods and clothes, pro-
ceeded, in the cold of Persian winter,
to remove the doors and windows of
their novels and to wantonly burn
them. The farmer was losing money,
and sought thus to enforce what he
considered his rights. No Persian
pitied the unfortunates; they were
Jews, and so beyond the pale of pity.
Every street boy raises his hand
against the wretched Hebrew; he is
beaten and buileted in the streets, spat
upon in the bazaar. The only person
he can appeal to is the farmer of the
Jews. From him he will obtain GER
tain amount of protection if he be act
ually robbed of money or goods, not
from the farmers sense of justice, but
because the complainant, were his
wrong unredressed, might be unable
to pay his share of the tax. At every
public festival-even at the royal
SdIaGna, before the Kings face-the
Jews are collected, and number of
them are flung into the bGuz or tank,
that King and mob may be amused by
seeing them crawl out half drowned
and covered with mud. The same
kindly ceremony is witnessed when
ever provincial Governor holds high
festival; there are fireworks and Jews.
At every arrival of a new provincial
Governor the Jews are compelled to
sacrifice an OK in his honor upon the
high road at some distance from the
town. The head man of the Hebrew
community has to run with the bleed
ing head of the animal, imploring the
Governors countenance and protec-
ton, until he is beaten off by the far
rGSheS. No child is missing for few
hours but the Jews are accused of
stealing it for sacrifice, and on such &C.
casions they are shamefully beaten and
robbed. No respect is paid to their
wives and daughters. They are COM
PEELED to live in, a "Ghetto," crowded
together, where the houses resemble
the dens of animals rather than the
habitations of men. When Jew mar
ries a rabble of the Mohammedan ruff
fans of the town invite themselves to
the ceremony, and, after a scene of
riot and intoxication, not unfrequently
beat their host and his relations and in
suit the women of the community, only
leaving the Jewish quarter when they
have slept off the drink they have swal-
lowed at their unwilling hosts ex-
pense. Huddled together as they are,
and living on the poorest food is it to
be wondered at that the Jews of Persia
are pale and sickly racer The won
der rather is that they exist at all.
There are supposed to be nineteen
thousand Jews in Persia. There is
hdhGna-bGSbi, or priest, to each large
community. As rule, this man alone,
of all the Jews, is not prosecuted by
the Persians, though he is subject to i'll
treatment in the bazaars. Education is
absolutely denied to the Jews. OF
course, from their religion, the numer-
Gus colleges of Persia are closed to
them, as are the ordinary schools.
Even the school of the Church Mission
airy Society in Julia is to them unavail-
able, for they would not dare to send
their children there any more than
would the Mohammedans. Converts
to Mohammedanism from the Persian
Jews are very few. Generally they are
women or girls who have been decoyed
from their homes or married to Mussul-
mans under threats of violence. Such
conversion is of little worth, but the
fear of death would, even after it, pre-
vent relapse. The children of these
marriages arc termed Jedeeds. They
are not looked down on by the Per-
slams, but rather favored than other
wise.
The trades open to the Jews are
brokerage; working in the precious
metals, in which they are very expert;
dealing in precious stones; peddling;
the selling of leeches, for which there
is large demand; the making and
sale on their premises of wine and
arrack; music, singing and dancing
(three professions only practised for
hire in the East by the lowest of the
low; the manufacture of spurious an
eient coins; the practice of midwifery
by the women; and the cleaning of
drains, cesspools etc., by the men for
when any unclean or filthy job is to be
done Jews are sent for to do it.)
With all the disadvantages that they
labor under in Persia, the Jews are
fairly honorable. A jew will never
take false OATH A few of them can
read and write, and some possess a
knowledge of Hebrew. Like the rest
of their nation all over the world, they
are very intelligent. Even in Persia a
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