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בס"ד

Descriptive Geography and Brief Historical Sketch of Palestine

By Rabbi Joseph Schwarz, 1850

The Tender Feeling of a Tyrant.

Through Achmad Djizer’s unexampled severity and fearful cruelty, which he exercised everywhere, in all relations, and for the smallest trifle, such fear and anxiety were excited among the Arabs, that the whole country was quiet and secure, and the robber Arabs and Bedouins conducted themselves as peaceably as lambs. You could travel by night through the whole country without being molested by any one. A respectable citizen of Akko went one evening to take a walk outside the town, and met at a great distance from it, an Arab woman, who was pursuing her way quite alone. He asked her, whether she had no fear to walk alone at so great a distance from the town; to which she replied, “Thanks be to Alla, so long as he keeps alive our Efendi (Lord), one is safe everywhere.” The citizen had the next day some business at the Pacha’s, and anxious to compliment him upon his being so generally feared throughout the country, he related to him the answer of the Arab woman. “What!” he exclaimed, in a rage, “thou venturest to terrify the poor woman to ask her whether she has any fear to walk alone! since she must have felt some little fear in the moment when thou didst put the question to her.” And he had him executed on the spot, out of a tender compassion and pity for the poor Arab woman, who must have experienced some fear.

Jews and Muslims in Palestine