There are at Salonica thirty synagogues, and about
twenty-five thousand professed Jews; and a body of Israelites have been
lately discovered there, who, really adhering to the faith of their
fathers, have externally embraced Mahomedanism.
The Barbary Jews are a very fine people; but the handsomest Jews are
said to be those of Mesopotamia. That province may also boast of an Arab
chief who bears the name of the Patriarch Job, is rich in sheep, and
camels, and oxen, and asses, abounds in hospitality, and believes that
he descends from him; he is also famed for his justice. The Jews at
Constantinople, forty thousand in number, and in the parts of European
Turkey on and near the Mediterranean, speak Spanish, and appear to
descend from Israelites driven from Spain by persecution. The Bible
Society are now printing at Corfu the New Testament, in Jewish-Spanish,
for their benefit.
In truth, little appears to be known of the state of the Jews during
some hundreds of years after the destruction of Jerusalem. The first
body of learned Jews which drew attention after that disastrous event
was that settled in Spain; and from it all Jewish learning descends.
As in accomplishment of the prophecy, the Jew is found over the whole
surface of the globe; he has been long established in China, which
abhors the foreigner; and in Abyssinia, which it is almost as difficult
to reach as to quit.
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