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===Late Ottoman period=== [[File:Hebron glass finished products - Joff Williams.jpg|thumb|upright|A display of [[Hebron glass]]]] By 1850, the Jewish population consisted of 45–60 Sephardic families, some 40 born in the town, and a 30-year-old Ashkenazic community of 50 families, mainly Polish and Russian,<ref>{{harvnb|Schwarz|1850|p=401}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Wilson|1847|pp=355–381, 372}}:The rabbi of the Ashkenazi community, who said they numbered 60 mainly Polish and Russian emigrants, professed no knowledge of the Sephardim in Hebron (p. 377).</ref> the [[Chabad|Lubavitch Hasidic]] movement having established a community in 1823.<ref>{{harvnb|Sicker|1999|p=6}}.</ref> The ascendency of Ibrahim Pasha led to a decline in the local glass industry. His plan to build a Mediterranean fleet led to severe logging in Hebron's forests, making firewood for the kilns scarce. At the same time, Egypt began importing cheap European glass. The rerouting of the hajj from Damascus through Transjordan reduced traffic to Hebron, and the [[Suez canal|Suez Canal]] (1869) precipitated a drop in caravan trade. The consequence was a steady deterioration of the local economy.<ref>{{harvnb|Büssow|2011|pp=198–99}}.</ref> At the time, the town was divided into four quarters: the Ancient Quarter (''Harat al-Kadim'') near the Cave of Machpelah; to its south, the Quarter of the Silk Merchant (''Harat al-Kazaz''), inhabited by Jews; the Mamluk-era Sheikh's Quarter (''Harat ash Sheikh'') to the north-west; and further north, the Dense Quarter (''Harat al-Harbah'').<ref>{{harvnb|Wilson|1847|p=379}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Wilson|1881|p=195}} mentions a different set of names, the Quarter of the Cloister Gate (''Harat Bab ez Zawiyeh'');the Quarter of the Sanctuary (''Haret el Haram''), to the south-east.</ref>[[File:Jewish ghetto in hebron, 1921.jpg|thumb|Jews in Hebron, 1921|left|284x284px]]In 1855, the newly appointed Ottoman ''[[pasha]]'' ("governor") of the ''[[sanjak]]'' ("district") of Jerusalem, [[Kıbrıslı Mehmed Kamil Pasha|Kamil Pasha]], attempted to put down a rebellion in the Hebron region. Kamil and his army marched towards Hebron in July 1855, a scene witnessed by representatives of the English, French and other Western consulates. After crushing all opposition, Kamil appointed Salama Amr, brother and rival of Abd al Rachman, as ''[[nāẓir|nazir]]'' of the Hebron region. Relative quiet reigned in the town for the next 4 years.<ref>{{harvnb|Schölch|1993|pp=236–37}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Finn|1878|pp=305–308}}.</ref> In 1866, Hungarian Jews of the [[Karlin (Hasidic Dynasty)|Karlin Hasidic court]] settled in Hebron.<ref name="Shragai 2008">{{harvnb|Shragai|2008}}.</ref> According to [[Nadav Shragai]], Arab-Jewish relations were good, and Alter Rivlin, who spoke Arabic and Syrian-Aramaic, was appointed Jewish representative to the city council.<ref name="Shragai 2008" /> During a severe drought in 1869–1871, food in Hebron sold for ten times the normal amount.<ref>Isaac Samuel Emmanuel, Suzanne A. Emmanuel. [https://books.google.com/books?id=e7xrAAAAMAAJ ''History of the Jews of the Netherlands Antilles'', Volume 2]. American Jewish Archives. 1970. p. 754: "Between 1869 and 1871 Hebron was plagued with a severe drought. Food was so scarce that the little available sold for ten times the normal value. Although the rains came in 1871, there was no easing of the famine, for the farmers had no seed to sow. The [Jewish] community was obliged to borrow money from non-Jews at exorbitant interest rates in order to buy wheat for their fold. Their leaders finally decided to send their eminent Chief Rabbi Eliau [Soliman] Mani to Egypt to obtain relief."</ref> From 1874, the Hebron district was administered directly from [[Istanbul]] as part of the Sanjak of Jerusalem.<ref>{{harvnb|Khalidi|1998|p=218}}.</ref> By 1874, when [[C. R. Conder|C.R. Conder]] visited Hebron under the auspices of the [[Palestine Exploration Fund]], the Jewish community numbered 600 in an overall population of 17,000.<ref name="ConderCR1879">{{harvnb|Conder|1879|p=[https://archive.org/stream/tentworkinpalest02conduoft#page/79/mode/1up 79]}}</ref> The Jews lived in the Quarter of the Corner Gate.<ref name="ConderCR1879" /> In the late 19th century the production of [[Hebron glass]] declined due to competition from imported European glassware, although it continued to be popular among those who could not afford luxury goods and was sold by Jewish merchants.<ref>{{harvnb|Schölch|1993|pp=161–62}} quoting David Delpuget ''Les Juifs d'Alexandrie, de Jaffa et de Jérusalem en 1865'', Bordeaux, 1866, p. 26.</ref> Glass ornaments from Hebron were exhibited at the [[Weltausstellung 1873 Wien|World Fair of 1873 in Vienna]]. A report from the [[Consulate General of France, Jerusalem|consul]] of the [[Consulate General of France, Jerusalem|French Consulate in Jerusalem]] in 1886 suggests that glass-making remained an important source of income for Hebron, with four factories earning 60,000 francs yearly.<ref>{{harvnb|Schölch|1993|pp=161–62}}.</ref> While the economy of other cities in Palestine was based on solely on trade, the economy of Hebron was more diverse, including agriculture and livestock herding, along with glassware manufacturing and processing of hides. This was because the most fertile lands were situated within the city limits.<ref name="Taraki Giacaman">{{harvnb| Tarākī|2006|pp=12–14}}</ref> Even so, Hebron had an image of being unproductive and an "asylum for the poor and the spiritual".<ref name="Taraki Giacaman2">{{harvnb|Tarākī|2006|pp=12–14}}: "Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and well into the twentieth, Hebron was a peripheral, "borderline" community, attracting poor itinerant peasants and those with Sufi inclinations from its environs. The tradition of ''shorabat Sayyidna Ibrahim'', a soup kitchen surviving into the present day and supervised by the ''awqaf'', and that of the Sufi ''zawaya'' gave the city a reputation for being an asylum for the poor and the spiritual. (Ju'beh 2003).</ref> While the wealthy merchants of Nablus built fine mansions, housing in Hebron consisted of semi-peasant dwellings.<ref name="Taraki Giacaman" /> Hebron was described as 'deeply Bedouin and Islamic',<ref>{{harvnb|Kimmerling|Migdal|2003|p=41}}</ref> and 'bleakly conservative' in its religious outlook,<ref>{{harvnb|Gorenberg|2007|p=145}}.</ref> with a strong tradition of hostility to Jews.<ref>{{harvnb|Laurens|1999|p=508}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Renan|1864|p=93}} remarked of the town that it was "one of the bulwarks of Semitic ideas, in their most austere form".</ref> It had a reputation for religious zeal in jealously protecting its sites from Jews and Christians, although the Jewish and Christian communities seem to have been an integral part of the local economy.<ref name="Büssow 2011 195"/> As income from commerce declined and tax revenues diminished significantly, the Ottoman government left Hebron to manage its own affairs for the most part, making it "one of the most autonomous regions in late Ottoman Palestine."<ref>{{harvnb|Büssow|2011|p=199}}.</ref> The Jewish community was under French protection until 1914. The Jewish presence itself was divided between the traditional Sephardi community, whose members spoke Arabic and adopted Arab dress, and the more recent influx of [[Ashkenazi Jews]]. They prayed in different synagogs, sent their children to different schools, lived in different quarters and did not intermarry. The community was largely Orthodox and anti-Zionist.<ref>{{harvnb|Kimmerling|Migdal|2003|p=92}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Campos|2007|pp=55–56}}</ref>
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