"Michener, James - The Source (uc) (txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Michener James A)

agreement already totaled more than seventeen hundred pounds
And still the Turkish government would announce no decision.
Yet Hacohen did not lose faith in Kaimakam Tabari, for in a
curious manner the thieving Arab had demonstrated an unques-
tioned friendship for the Russian Jew. One night, as Shinuel sat in
his filthy room wondering whether or not to abandon Tubariyeh,
he heard muffled footsteps on the cobblestones and intuitively
checked to see that the places where he had hidden his money
were secure. He had barely done so when his door burst open and
eight Jews in fur caps, side curls and long coats rushed at him,
pinioned his arms and dragged him off to a rabbinical court con-
vened in the Ashkenazi section of town.
It was a gloomy, portentous scene, with three rabbis waiting to
judge the prisoner. In Yiddish the charges against Hacohen were
read: "He is not a part of our community. He does not observe
our laws strictly nor does he study at the synagogue. He has been






heard speaking against Lipschitz, who knew him as a suspicious
one in Vodzh, and he disturbs the district with his folly about land
purchases and Jews working as farmers." As the preposterous
phrases rolled forth Shmuel thought: The real charge they don't
make. That I endanger their way of life.
Then came the sentence, incredible for the year 1880, but made
possible by the Turkish custom of allowing each religious com-
munity to govern itself: "Shmuel Hacohen is to be fined to the
amount of his possessions. He is to be stripped, stoned and
banished from Tubariyeh, and may he leave Eretz Israel without
further disturbing the ways of Judaism." Before Shmuel could
protest, the first provisions of the sentence were carried out.
Jewish men who had come to fear the little Russian who lived
outside their narrow world laid hands on him and stripped away
his clothing until he stood naked. Pockets in his tom garments
were searched for money, which was handed to the court, after
which he was hauled to a comer of the wall, where the general
population began hurling rocks at him, not caring whether they
blinded him or killed him, and he might have died except that one
of the rabbinical judges interceded and the bleeding prisoner was
dragged to the main gate of town and thrown outside the walls.
The mob then proceeded. to his hovel, where they started digging
up the floor to find any gold he might have hidden.
It was at this point that Kaimakarn Tabari interfered. His gen-
darmerie, hearing that a Jewish punishment was under way,
had paid no attention, for this was a matter concerning one of the
religious communities, and how they disciplined their people was
not a governmental concern; but word of the unusually harsh