1830-1839 Islamic Murder, Mayhem, and Mutilation

Western Wall & Hebron

Mehmet Ali of Egypt Conquers Palestine

Arab peasants revolting in the 1830s against a military conscription imposed by Egyptian authorities took the occasion to ravage the Jewish communities of Safed and Jerusalem.  When Arab forces arrived from Egypt to quell the insurrection, the Jews of Hebron were slaughtered.  Jews could not even perform their religious observance in peace without paying bribes to their Muslim neighbors, while their religious sites and places of worship were regularly desecrated.

The Western Wall, remnant of King Solomon’s Temple and Judaism’s holiest shrine

“drew the spite and malice of the resident Arabs, who took every opportunity to harass the hapless worshippers, scattering broken glass through the alleys leading to the Wall, dumping their garbage and sewage against it, fouling it with urine and feces.”

Source: David Landes, “Palestine before the Zionists,” Commentary, February 1976, p.52.