Jerusalem's Ottoman Modernity

Jawhariyyeh introduces us to a rich social milieu of Jerusalem in the post-war period and the early 1920s that can only be described as hedonistic. Nightly episodes of drinking, dance and—occasionally—hashish smoking that recur throughout the manuscript. The family made a significant contribution to this milieu with the opening of Café Jawhariyyeh in 1918 near the Russian compound at the southern entrance of Jaffa Road. Wasif's brother Khalil brought to this café/bar skills he had acquired in Beirut while serving in the Turkish army. These included serving a special mazza menu with araq orders and iced-water, which was a new innovation for Jerusalem and made possible with the introduction of electric power. Within months after its opening the café became a major attraction for pleasure-seekers all over the city and became renowned for bringing the best singers in the country including Sheikh Ahmad Tarifi, Muhammad al-'Asheq, Zaki Afandi Murad, and not least—Masabni. Wasif's association with the Syrian Lebanese cabaret dancer Badi'a Masabni and her husband Najib al-Rihani goes back to this period. Masabni used to visit Jaffa periodically in the summer en route from Cairo to Beirut and would occasionally come to Jerusalem. Wasif met her initially in the summer of 1920 when she performed at the al-Ma'aref theatre/café just outside Jaffa Gate.^[35] He lists several of her risqué song/dance sketches, which she used to perform in what he terms "transparent costume." She also did several Sayyid Darwish songs—which were very popular—especially her social satire of the rich, "Il Haq 'al Aghniya." One stanza which often moved her popular audience to ask for encores was the following:

Later on Wasif would meet privately with Badi'a in intimate parties either in the mansions of Jerusalem notables such as Fakhri al-Nashashibi, and Mustafa al-Jabsheh, or in the Hotel St. John, which belonged to his father-in-law. Heavy drinking and cannabis enhanced the atmosphere of these evenings, and we are told that cocaine was also used habitually by both Masabni and Rihani. On one occasion Wasif himself accompanied Badi'a on his 'oud in an all night party which started in the Jawhariyyeh café and continued in his father's house—a night of which he fondly kept a photographic record. Badi'a was one of several Egyptian and Lebanese performers with whom Wasif associated, including Salameh Hijazi, Dawood Husni, and Sheikh Yusif al-Minyalawi. Many of these singers became popular in Palestine with the importation of the new music machines: first the cylindrical wax record machine and then the hand propelled gramophone using 78rpm vinyl records, which he refers to as Edison Phonographs. At the beginning of World War I there were only ten such gadgets in Jerusalem, costing about twenty-five French pounds each—a small fortune in those days—making it accessible only to an exclusive number of owners.^[36] During the war several Jerusalem cafés began to attract customers by purchasing phonographs and playing selected pieces on demand.

Wasif was blessed with an exquisite voice which even as a teenager placed him in high demand for performances at weddings. But his eternal love was the 'oud—which by 1918 he had mastered enough to make him one of the most sought after players in Palestine—or so he claims. He played the 'oud mainly for members of the city elites—usually in special homes kept for their mistresses. Several members of Jerusalem patrician families (including the Husseinis and the Nashashibis) kept special apartments for their mistresses in suburban areas of the new city; many of them were Greeks, Armenians, and Jews. The most famous of these concubines was Persephone, a Greek-Albanian seamstress who in 1895 became the mistress of Hussein Effendi al-Husseini (and possibly before him, his brother Musa Kadhem Pasha—see. p. 321). She lived in a special apartment on Jaffa road and used her clout with Hussein Effendi to trade in cattle in Beit Suseen and Deir 'Amro—both Husseini estates. Wasif became her musical companion and helped her in marketing za'tar (thyme) oil, which she successfully processed and marketed as medicinal oil. When Hussein Effendi became mayor of Jerusalem in 1909, he distanced himself from her and gave her permission to marry Khawaja Yenni, a Greek confectioner. During the war Persephone became sick and—deserted by her husband—was brought to the Jawhariyyeh household where Wasif took care of her until her death. The Jawhariyyeh diaries relate numerous episodes of festive events spent in the company of members of the social elites and their concubines. Muslim, Christian and Jewish entertainers catered to these events.

Another feature of cultural life in Ottoman Jerusalem recounted here is the "odah"—a bachelor's apartment equivalent to the French garconierre. It was customary for single men in established families from the Old City to rent a furnished one-room apartment where they would spend their evening playing cards, smoking, drinking and—in the long winter nights—having 'oud sessions. The apartments were also used to conduct love affairs or to bring in the occasional prostitute. The odah did not necessarily have a negative reputation, although it is clear from Wasif's narrative that elder family members, and certainly the female ones, were not privy to what went on. Jawhariyyeh lists a number of well known odahs in the Old City and in Sheikh Jarrah where he used to perform his music. For several years he himself had the key to Hussein Hashem's odah behind Mamilla Cemetery where he used to entertain "Russian and Greek ladies" in the company of Ragheb Bey al-Nashashibi (later the mayor of Jerusalem) and Isma'il al-Husseini.

These episodes compel us to rethink the image of Jerusalem at the turn of the century, which is often—and falsely—characterized as a grim, conservative and joyless city—by visitors and natives alike.^[37] ("The only thing he ever said about it [Jerusalem] was that it reminded him of death," Edward Said quotes his father, recalling his early life in the city).^[38] How do we account for this incongruity_ We have to remember that Jerusalem was a city of religion, but not an excessively religious city; meaning that its religious status generated a large number of industries and services that catered to a visiting population of pilgrims, but its native population was not necessarily more religious than other urban centres in the hill country. Nablus, Hebron, and Nazareth, for example, had a decidedly more religious reputation than Jerusalem.

But I believe that the explanation for this toleration of what seems to be a libertine atmosphere lies elsewhere. Jawhariyyeh's narrative comes from an earlier era of the city's history when class boundaries and seigniorial privilege created an atmosphere in which the upper crust felt relatively insulated in their behavioral patterns from the moral encroachments of the public eye. In many cases they even flaunted this behavior without fear of retribution—such was the case with public drinking and the keeping of concubines. Another source of protection for these latitudes was that Jerusalem was still a reasonably closed city, exhibiting limited influx from the surrounding villages, or from Mount Hebron, of peasant migrants, who later exercised the conservative influence on the city's norms for which it became renowned.

Syncretic Religiosity_

The Jawhariyyeh diaries invite the reader to share a world of ceremonial syncretism and cultural hybridity that is difficult to trace in today's prevailing atmosphere of ethnic exclusivity and religious fundamentalism. It was a pre-nationalist era in which religious identity embraced the Other in its festivals and rituals. Jawhariyyeh narrates the feast of Easter/Pessah as an occasion for Muslim-Christian-Jewish celebrations. He details the Muslim processions of Palm Sunday (which proceeded from the Abrahamic Mosque in Hebron towards Jerusalem). The festival of al-Nabi Musa is recalled here as a Muslim popular celebration that merges with the Christian Orthodox Easter. The fantasia of Sabt al-Nur (Fire Saturday, commemorating the resurrection of Christ) is seen as the greatest popular Christian celebration in Palestine—closely coordinated with Muslim folk festivals. Purim was celebrated by Christian and Muslim youth in Jewish neighborhoods. Wasif describes in detail the costumes they wore on this occasion. Twice a year Muslim and Christian families—including the Jawhariyyeh family—joined the Jewish celebrations at the shrine of Simon the Just in Sheikh Jarrah (at the event known as 'shathat al-Yahudiyya), where "Haim the 'oud player and Zaki the tambourine player would sing to the accompaniment of Andalusian melodies."

But the greatest celebrations of all happened during Ramadan. Wasif devotes a substantial section of his diaries to introduce the street festivals, the foods, and the dramatic displays of Qara Koz (shadow theater) and magic lanterns. Many shadow plays were performed in a mixture of Ottoman Turkish and Aleppo dialects that are reproduced faithfully by the author. Although he does not explicitly say it, some of the plays performed included daring social satire and veiled political criticism of the regime. Several manufacturers of goods and confectionery establishments (like Zalatimo) used the performances to introduce commercial presentations sung by the shadow players to enhance their sales.

The city also celebrated seasonal occasions that were not tied to religious feasts. Wasif identifies two such "secular" occasions: the summer outings (shat-hat) of Sa'ed wa Sa'eed and the spring visits to Bi'r Ayyub. In the pre-World War I period Sa'ed wa Sa'eed became the choice location for Old City Christian and Muslim families to picnic in the hot summer afternoons. They were especially encouraged by the growth of the new mansions around Musrara and the American Colony area. Large quantities of araq and food were consumed on these outings, usually lasting until the late evening hours when revelers had to go back before the city gates were closed. In the spring these outings were directed at Bi'r Ayyub in the springs of Lower Silwan, where Jerusalem families found an outlet from the severe winters of the Old City.

With the implementation of the terms of the Balfour declaration in the British Mandate this era of ceremonial syncretism came to a close. Palestinian nationalism—though basically a secular movement so far—began to be infused with religious fervor. The new colonial authority began to interpret the protocols of religious control and access in terms of confessional exclusivity. Christians were banned from entering Islamic holy places, and Muslims from Christian churches and monasteries by military edict. It was customary in those days for young Jerusalemites—of all religions—to picnic in the green meadows within the Haram area. Now the area was off-limits. Wasif describes an adventure on a spring day in April of 1919, during the early days of the British Military Government, when he posed as a "Musilman" to the Indian Guards of the Haram area, while his blue-eyed companion Muhammad al-Zardaq was barred because Wasif explained to them that he was Jewish.

Serving in the Ottoman Navy at the Dead Sea

The onset of World War I brought to an end five centuries of Ottoman rule of Jerusalem and Palestine. With the war years Wasif undergoes the most dramatic period of his life: the death of his father, his entry into adulthood, his move to Jericho, and his conscription into the Ottoman Navy—in the Dead Sea!

The war saw the conscription of thousands of Jerusalem youth into the Ottoman army, including many Jerusalemite Christian men. With the introduction of the Tanzimat reforms in 1839, and particularly after the enactment of Qanun al-Wilayat (Provincial Administrative Regulations) in 1864, members of minority religions were no longer exempt from service. Wasif witnessed many members of his immediate family and most of his acquaintances sent to the Syrian front: these included Tawfiq, his younger brother, who, after a short period of playing for the Turkish military band in Jerusalem, was taken to Damascus, where he suffered severe injuries in battle; and his older brother, Khalil, who served in Beirut. With the intensification of the allied encirclement of the Ottoman army, its general command under Jamal Pasha turned against the Arab nationalists in greater Syria. Khalil himself was witness to the public hanging of scores of Arab patriots in what later became Beirut's Martyrs' Square.

But for Wasif the war meant Jericho, the Dead Sea and the flourishing of his musical career. In 1917 he received his first substantial job working for his patron, Hussein Bey al-Husseini, administering his grain trade between Palestine and Trans-Jordan. He had just been relieved by the Ottomans from serving as mayor of Jerusalem in favor of a Turkish officer (Wasif sees in this step the beginning of the Turkification of the Ottoman administrative system). In the absence of an effective bridge over the Jordan, trade was carried across the Dead Sea in barges owned by the Husseinis. With the commencement of the war this strategic route was taken over by the Ottoman navy, and Wasif was conscripted into the navy at the age of seventeen (although he should be twenty by now—he seems to subtract three years from his age for reasons unexplained). Unlike his brother, and thanks to his musical skills, Wasif spent most of the war years entertaining Turkish naval officers and their mistresses.^[39] Soon a naval port was established on the Western bank of the lake and Jawhariyyeh became a quntarji—deputy officer in charge of weighing imported grain, which was bought from Bedouin tribes in the Karak region and shipped, across the sea to the Palestinian side. He spent the remaining war years as a "grain soldier" by day and "'oud officer" by night, as he calls himself—until he was relieved from his duties with the Ottoman defeat at the hands of the allies.

The grain trade was the lifeline of the Ottoman army and a source of enrichment for the Husseinis. To ensure steady supplies from Trans-Jordan and to consolidate the Palestinian front against the allied command in Egypt, the Turks constructed a harbor on the Western Bank of the Dead Sea. Jawhariyyeh's patron, Hussein Bey, and Wasif himself were directly involved in the building of this harbor. The process involved the mobilization of scores of Arab sailors from Jaffa, who brought their seafaring traditions (and families) with them to Jericho, as well as the transport overland of several sailing ships and barges from the Mediterranean. The presence of the sailors created an exhilarating coastal atmosphere of drinking, singing and merriment (including nightly hashish parties) which sustained Jawhariyyeh through the war years.^[40]

Because of his proximity to the Husseinis, and possibly by the accident of his placement in Jericho's naval garrison—Wasif was an eyewitness to visits made by Anwar and Jamal Pashas to Palestine in 1916. He even mentions a comic episode in which he tried to serve tobacco to Jamal Pasha, who did not smoke. His attitude to the leader of the new Ottoman regime is mixed. In the 1916 episodes, he describes the enthusiasm and affections expressed by the local Palestinian population in Jericho and Jerusalem to Jamal and other members of the Committee of Union and Progress.^[41] Later he describes the cruelty of the Ottoman leaders in their attempt to crush the nationalist movement. No doubt this seeming contradiction reflected the ambivalence towards Ottomanism that prevailed in wartime Palestine and the uncertain attitude towards the future, an ambivalence which one encounters in a more articulate manner in another diary—parallel to that of Jawhariyyeh—that of Khalil Sakakini.^[42]

The complexity of Jerusalem's Ottoman identity is revealed in the formation of the Red Crescent Society in 1915, ostensibly to garner local support in Palestine for the Ottoman armed forces against the allies.^[43] Despite his several references to the brutality of Jamal Pasha and the Triumvirate, Wasif himself was an active supporter of the society and acted as a secretary to one of its leading members, Hamadeh al-Afifi.^[44] The society, prominently based in the Russian Compound, was headed by Hussein Effendi, who by now was forced out of his position as mayor, and also included several prominent Christian and Jewish citizens among its founders: Ibrahim (Abraham) Entaibi, Izhaq Elishar, Salim Khoury, and Wadie Kittaneh as well as two leading Ottoman army officers. Through its public musical events and through direct solicitations, the Red Crescent Society was able to raise substantial funds for the war effort against the British and French enemy. Jawhariyyeh, however, sees the society as also aiming at creating a bridge between the interests of the Jewish community in Palestine and the Ottoman government before the appearance of Zionism as an active force. Both Ibrahim Entaibi, the director of the Alliance Israelite school system in Jerusalem, and a Miss Landau—described as "the liaison between the Jewish community in Jerusalem and the Ottoman military leaderhip"—were pivotal in cementing those ties. With this objective they mobilized a large number of young Jerusalem women, who wore ceremonial Ottoman military uniforms with Red Crescent insignia and solicited donations and money for the army. Wasif identifies several of these as "attractive ladies" who developed intimate relations with the top Ottoman power holders: Miss Tenanbaum ("one of the most beautiful Jewish women in Palestine"^[45]) became the mistress of Jamal Pasha, commander of the Fourth Army (after the war she married Abcarus, the famous Jerusalem attorney); Miss Sima al-Maghribiyyah became the mistress of Sa'd Allah Bey, the commander of the Jerusalem garrison, and Miss Cobb became the mistress of Majid Bey, the mutasarrif (governor) of the city.

Perhaps because of his own personal involvement in those events, Wasif exaggerates both the significance and scope of the war effort in the proximity of Jerusalem. This is particularly true of his references to Jericho and the Dead Sea events. For example, he refers to the construction of a port, not a harbor, on the Dead Sea and calls it "a great military outpost." This also applies to the spectacles of the Ottoman retreat and British entry to Palestine under General Allenby. But through his literary and enormously entertaining narrative of the events, he reveals the radical transformations that were encompassing Palestinian and Syrian society in that period: the emergence of secular Arab nationalism, the separation of Palestinian national identity from its Syrian context, and the enhancement of Jerusalem as a capital city.

The first volume of the Jawhariyyeh diaries ends with the chaotic retreat of the Ottoman army from Jerusalem and its environs. Turkish and German saboteurs were blowing up the Jerusalem rail lines while British planes bombarded military installations. Wasif himself was preparing to go to Jericho to his naval assignment after reading a public pronouncement threatening court-martial and execution for AWOLS. Then on 8 December 1919 the whole southern front collapsed. Young men in hiding came out into the streets, burning their Ottoman uniforms. The Turkish Governor of Jerusalem, Izzat Bey, signed an order transferring civil authority of the city to the deposed Mayor Hussein Effendi and a council of the city's 'ayan. Ten days later General Allenby officially entered the city from Jaffa gate.

Salim Tamari is research director at the Institute of Jerusalem Studies and the chair of the Advisory Board of the Jerusalem Quarterly File.

Endnotes

³⁵Ibid., p. 361. return
³⁶The author makes the calculation that this was the annual equivalent of a judge's salary for the same period. return
³⁷For popular impressions about the nineteenth century by European visitors to Jerusalem (and Palestine), see Naomi Shepher, The Zealous Intruders: The Western Rediscovery of Palestine (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), especially pp. 170-93; for surprisingly positive, and contrary, impressions of the social life in Jerusalem during the Mandate period, see Thomas Hodgkin, Letters from Palestine: 1932-1936 (London: Quartet Book, 1986). This exceptional account is written by a communist secretary to the High Commissioner. return
³⁸Out of Place: A Memoir (New York: Knopf, 1999), p. 6. return
³⁹Jawhariyyeh MS, p. 241ff. return
⁴⁰Of the hashish parties, Wasif is careful to tell the reader that he partook of the substance to enhance his experience and knowledge only (Jawhariyyeh MS, p. 253). return
⁴¹Ibid., p. 255. return
⁴²See Kadha Ana ya Dunia (Jerusalem: Habash Press, 1954). return
⁴³For a discussion of these contested loyalties, see Rashid Khalidi, "Competing and Overlapping Loyalties in Ottoman Jerusalem," in Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), pp. 63-88; see also James Gevin, Divided Loyalties: Nationalism and Mass Politics in Syria at the Close of Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 141-195; and for a "revisionist" perspective, see Hasan Kayali, Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1918 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 81-115. return
⁴⁴Jawhariyyeh MS, p. 225. return
⁴⁵Ibid., p. 226. return

Jerusalem Quarterly File

Issue 9, 2000