id="Page_16"/>UNCLE'S LETTER

"How do you know this, Father?" said Benjamin.

By this time all in the room had dropped their papers and books, and were listening to their father.

"Well, this is how I know: nearly thirty years ago my uncle and his family went to live in Jerusalem, and for many years one of my cousins used to write to me about once a month. His letters were most interesting. When his letters came I could almost imagine, when reading them, that I was living in Bible times.

"Have you any of his letters still, Father?" they all exclaimed.

"Yes," said the father, "I have many of them."

"Oh, do read some of them to us!" they pleaded. "All right, I will; and I will first try to find the one about the tsitsith."

The father went up to his bedroom, and soon came down with a bundle of letters wrapped in a newspaper. He started looking through them while all the family stood around him, watching as eagerly as if he were searching for an heirloom.

"I will choose a very short one," said the father, "for it is on the subject I have spoken to Benjamin about; but if you like I will make it a rule every Friday evening, after our Sabbath meal, to read some of the letters to you."

THE HOLY CITY

When all were quietly and comfortably seated, their father started reading:

"My dear Cousin,—After a great many adventures and suffering (which I will write to you about another time) we arrived safely in Jerusalem. To me, it seemed rather dull after London, but both father and mother shed tears of joy when they at last arrived in the Holy City. Some people met us a little way out, for father had written telling them we were coming. We were almost royally received and heartily welcomed, for very few Jews come here with their young families.

"We must have looked a sight—you in London could not imagine anything like our cavalcade! First went Father riding on a mule, with Mother following on another mule. Mother's saddle was made with pillows, for it is impossible for a woman to ride for sixteen or eighteen hours without a soft, comfortable seat.

"You go up high hills, and then down again, imagining every time you go down that you will topple over and fall over the precipice and be killed. In fact, your heart is in your mouth every five minutes, so that by the time you arrive in Jerusalem (which is surrounded by hills) you are almost too weak to rejoice at the beauty that greets your sight, for nowhere in the world can, I think, anything be seen more beautiful than a sunrise over the mountains around Jerusalem.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you that we youngsters were put into baskets on a camel's back, and how we were shaken! I felt as if I were praying and shaking all the time, for it seemed as if we could never get to Jerusalem alive in this way."

THE PROUD BOYS OF JERUSALEM

"At last we entered the Holy City, and arrived at Father's friend's house, where we were made very welcome and treated most kindly. I soon made friends with the boys, for, you know, I can speak yiddish quite well.

"They are funny little chaps. They look like old men, with long kaftans (coats) and side ear-locks of hair, carrying their prayer book or Bible to Shule. The first thing I noticed was the tsitsith. They wear really long ones, with long fringes hanging down about a quarter of a yard or more. They wear them as we do a waistcoat, so that they can be seen by everyone, not as we wear them in England, tucked away out of sight. Here young and old, even little boys who can only just walk and lisp their prayers, wear them, and, what is more, take a real pleasure in wearing them. I asked some of them why they wore them so openly, and they answered: 'Because when we look at them we always remember that our chief duty in life is to try to obey God's commands, and if we had them tucked away out of sight we should forget to be obedient.' 'Besides,' they said, 'we are commanded in the Torah to do so openly.' Then I told them if we wore them so openly in Europe we should perhaps be laughed at by some people and made fun of. They said: 'Why should doing so make us be laughed at by other nations? Do we laugh at the symbols and charms that many of them wear? Every nation,' they said, 'has its tokens and symbols, and we Jews have ours, and we should rejoice in wearing ours when they are to help us to feel that God is near us when we think and act rightly.' All this made me think very seriously, and in a way I had never thought before. I began to realize that they were more in the right than we Jews are in England.

"So now I have decided to wear my tsitsith, too, on the outside, as the Jerusalem boys do. The boys never play except on the quiet, just now and then, for their parents think that their only duty in life is to study and do as many Mitzvoth as they can. Really, the boys are as full of fun and pranks as we English boys, and they just love a bit of play and larking when they can get it.

"I must now end this letter, but I have a lot more to tell you, and I will keep my promise and write you by degrees of all I see. Meanwhile, I send you the greeting of Zion and Sabbath. Rachael wanted to put a letter into my envelope to your sister, but she says she has not finished it yet, although she has already written ten pages. So I will wait no longer, in case I miss the post, as it goes only once a week from here, and sometimes only once a month."

Thus ended the first letter, and Benjamin's brothers and sisters were so pleased with it that they were delighted that one of the bundle of letters should be read aloud after the Sabbath meal on every Friday evening.

Benjamin was quite happy now, for, although he had done a thing which was not right, now that he had repented good would come out of it, for there was a chance of their now having pleasanter and more instructive Sabbath evenings than they had ever had before. Besides, he now made up his mind always to wear his tsitsith.

THE WELCOME

On the following Friday, after the Sabbath evening meal, the boys asked their father to read them another letter from his cousin in Jerusalem. He was pleased at their eagerness, and, while Upstairs getting the letter, some of the boys' friends came in and settled comfortably down, for all were eager to hear the letter read.

Mr Jacob said: "This time I will read a letter from your Cousin Dora to my sister which will certainly interest you, my dear," turning to his daughter, "but at the same time, I think it will interest you all."

"My dear Milly,—Isaac must have written to Jacob all about our arrival, so I will begin by giving you some idea of our life here and my impressions. The people, who so kindly asked us to stay with them till Father finds a dwelling, have a few rooms in a house, which has a marble paved courtyard. Six other families also have two or three rooms each. All the work is done in the courtyard, even the cooking; for each family uses tiny stoves, made of mud, into which they put a little lighted charcoal and cook just outside or near their own doors; for there are no kitchens or fireplaces in any of the rooms, and thus we see what each family cooks. The Sephardim (Jews who have lived here for years) eat their meals in the courtyard. They lay a mat on the marble tiles, on which they place a small low table, and they sit on the mat and eat. Two Sephardim families have rooms in the house and they speak Arabic and Spanish, and their ways of living are more like those of the Turks, just as the Jews in England live more like the English.

"Everyone seems most interested in us. Many people have come to visit us, to see the new arrivals!

"The evening of the day on which we arrived was Friday; there was a clear moonlight such as you would not often see in England, and it was very warm, too; so we and our visitors sat