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Updated: June 2, 2025
Then certain men set out with donkeys and carry the sweepings of the gutters beyond the gates. This work is taken seriously in the Madinah, but in the Mellah it is shamefully neglected, and I have ridden through whole streets in the last-named quarter searching vainly for a place clean enough to permit of dismounting.
These things lead to domestic tragedies at times, and yet neither son nor father is quite to blame. The best class of Jew in the Mellah has ideas and ideals, but outside the conduct of his business he lacks initiative. He believes most firmly in the future of the Jewish race, the ultimate return to Palestine, the advent of the Messiah.
So he set a supper fit for a king: the fore-leg of a sheep and the fore-leg of an ox, the egg roasted in ashes, the balls of Charoseth, the three Mitzvoth, and the wine, And by the time the supper was ready the midwife had been summoned, and it was the day of the night of the Seder. Then Israel sent messengers round the Mellah to summon his guests.
The idle women of the Mellah would sometimes stand outside in the street and look up at their house, knowing that the black camel of death was kneeling at their gate. Other company they had none.
At the gate of the Mellah, which was closed, he knocked, and demanded entrance in the name of the Kaid. The Moorish guards who kept it fell back at sight of him with looks of consternation. "Israel!" cried one, and dropped his lantern. Israel whispered, "Keep your tongue between your teeth!" and hurried on. At the door of his own house, which was also closed, he knocked again, but more fearfully.
The poorest Moor in Tetuan is a gentleman: the richest Jew is not. But he has his good points: a great sense of brotherhood, a strong bond of freemasonry among the Jewish nation, undaunted energy, and an unshaken faith in their religion are all admirable points in themselves. Energy in Tetuan was concentrated in the Mellah. The best workmen were all Jews.
At length Israel nerved himself to his bitter task; and one evening while Naomi sat with him on the roof while the sun was setting, and there were noises in the streets below of the Jewish people shuffling back into the Mellah, he told her that she was blind. The word made no impression upon her mind at first. She had heard it before, and it had passed her by like a sound that she did not know.
Over the walls of the Mellah, from the direction of the Spanish inn at the entrance to the little tortuous quarter of the shoemakers, there came at intervals a hubbub of voices, and occasionally wild shouts and cries.
As he walked through the Mellah, Israel thought of her again: how she had sung by the cradle to her babe that could not hear. Sung? Yes, he could almost fancy that he heard her singing yet. That voice so soft, so clear even in its whispers there had been nothing like it in all the world. And her songs! Israel could also fancy that he heard her favourite one.
It was late, very late, and far and near the town was still. With his innocent disguise, his Moorish jellab, hung over his arm, Israel had passed the Mellah gate, being the only Jew who was allowed to cross it after sunset. He was feeling happy as he walked home through the sleeping streets, with his black shadow going in front.
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