Photograph by Maynard Owen Williams 



TOURISTS IN THE HOME LAND OE THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 



No other region of equal size on the face of the earth has exercised so potent an influence 

 on civilization as Palestine, the geographical cradle of the Children of Israel. 



aries, and they thus brought down on 

 their heads persecutions which were di- 

 rected nominally against both Jews and 

 Christians, but the severities of which 

 the Jews were able to escape. 



The result of this situation in Rome 

 and elsewhere placed the Jews at a great 

 disadvantage when the Roman Empire 

 became Christian under Constantine, and 

 from that time on, in one form or an- 

 other, we find constant Christian perse- 

 cution of the Jews. 



In the long, dark Jewish night, after 

 Christianity became the creed of the Ro- 

 man emperors, down to the nineteenth 

 century, there were only two or three 

 countries and comparatively short periods 

 in which the Jews enjoyed tolerance, 

 prosperity, and power and were able to 

 develop the genius of their race. 



In the eighth century Charlemagne, 

 correctly estimating their value as sub- 

 jects of his empire, granted them toler- 

 ance in religion and encouraged them in 

 the development of a trade which greatly 

 helped his empire and made many of 



them rich merchants. The fact that 

 there were Jewish communities in every 

 great commercial center, even of the 

 most distant parts, gave them a marked 

 facility in conducting international trade. 

 Charlemagne's son and successor, Louis 

 the Pious, continued his father's wise and 

 kindly treatment of them. 



THE JEWS FLOURISHED IN SPAIN 



A little earlier than Charlemagne the 

 Moslem invasion of Spain in 711 estab- 

 lished the Crescent in the peninsula 

 Arabian and African Jews, who. after 

 the persecution of them by Mahomet and 

 Omar, had ingratiated themselves with 

 their successors and had been given op- 

 portunity for education and development, 

 accompanied the Saracens into Spain and 

 there met their brethren, who had been 

 greatly abused by the Visigoths and who 

 were only too glad to unite in aiding the 

 following of the Prophet to establish a 

 kingdom. 



There they developed trade, poetry, 

 philosophy, science, and literature and 



