In a message dated 8/23/2006 3:37:23 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Tom Klein
(jewishgen@...) cites my posting:

==According to the Encyc.Jud., A Jewish community is mentioned in Nablus as
far back as 1522; its fortunes varied throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.
It completely abandoned the city shortly after 1900.>
==After World War I, Jews again tried to live there. The town suffered severe
damage in the 1927 earthquake and was largely destroyed. Nablus was a center
of Muslim fanaticism and the 1929 Arab riots ended the attempts of Jewish
settlers.

and disputes it by writing:

< The 1913 (pre-British Mandate) Jewish Encyclopedia article on "modern
Hebron" (available online at http://tinyurl.com/mle6k ), paints a completely
different picture.
< According to the article, the Jewish community of Hebron had, at that time,
4 synagogues, 4 batei midrash, 3 yeshivot, and 5 talmud torahs, located both
inside and outside the "ghetto" (i.e. jewish quarter of the old city). and
of course, it was divided between Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities,
including separate chief rabbis.
< it makes no mention of the place being "abandoned shortly after 1900".

==Indeed not. This is absolutely true of Hebron. To quote >from my own book,
"The Time of the Burning Sun:Six Days of War, Twelve Weeks of Hope," p 183,
(you can check it out at amazon.com by "looking inside the book"):

<< . . .there were 1500 pious Jews in Hebron in 1890. Thirty Jewish
families returned after the 1929 massacre, but they left again during the 1936 Arab
riots. "Only one Jew, Yakov Ezra, remained, ostensibly to manage a cheese
factory, secretly to act as the Hagannah's eyes and ears . . . In 1947, even
Yakov Ezra left." >> [I own the copyright; jewishgen may print this]

==I made a mistake saying in an earlier response on this topic that Yakov
Ezra was a member of the Bavli Kabbalistic Ben-Eliahu family; in truth, one of
his female relatives married into the Ben-Eliahu family.

==Nablus is approx 60 miles north of Jerusalem; Hebron is approx 18 miles
ssw by s of Jerusalem. Historically, they are light years apart.

Michael Bernet, New York