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On This Day — May 31, 1834
114 years before the modern State of Israel, 1000s of Arab fellahin (peasants) & Bedouins — enraged by Egyptian ruler Ibrahim Pasha’s conscription law — stormed Jerusalem & unleashed hell on its ancient, defenseless Jewish community.
No “occupation.” No “settlements.” No Israel. No modern political Zionism. Just Jews living as subjugated dhimmis under Muslim/Egyptian rule.
On the night of May 31, ~40 men from the Bethlehem Fawaghirah tribe crawled through the sewage canals of Silwan, overpowered guards, and opened the gates from inside. Thousands of armed Arabs poured in.
The small Egyptian garrison fled to the Tower of David. The mob then turned on the Jews.
Eyewitness Rabbi Jehoseph Schwarz:
“The savage victors, men, women and children surrounded the markets and the streets and cheered with their strange catcall ‘loo, loo, loo’… At dawn, we looked through our windows and saw that the city was full of wild and cruel Bedouins… several homes had been devastated.”
Jews hid in caves and crevices. Homes and shops were plundered. Many were murdered in the streets. Women and daughters were raped.
A contemporary Western report (Plymouth Herald - below) described Jews left with “not a bed to lie on ... many were murdered, their wives and daughters violated.”
The mob was preparing to storm the Tower of David when rumor of Ibrahim Pasha’s approach sent them fleeing.
But Jerusalem was only the beginning.
Two weeks later in Safed (then the largest Jewish community in the Land, ~2,000 households), the pogrom lasted 33 days. Armed Arab villagers and locals:
- Murdered ~500 Jews
- Raped women in front of husbands and children, sometimes on Torah scrolls
- Burned more than 500 Torah scrolls — using them for horse reins, blacksmith aprons, and shoes
- Tore tefillin and tallitot for sashes and sacks
- Beat rabbis mercilessly, gouged eyes, and drove survivors naked into fields “like wild animals,” left starving for weeks
- Destroyed the only Hebrew printing press in the Land
No army. No state. Just defenseless dhimmi Jews — convenient, powerless scapegoats for an Arab revolt against the Egyptians (in which the Jews had zero involvement).
Pattern recognition matters. Long before modern politics, when Arabs held power over Jews in the Land of Israel, the impulse to humiliate, plunder, rape, and massacre Jews was already deeply entrenched.
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