LEADING MINORITIES: ACHIEVEMENTS; ASPIRATIONS 95

expelled from Portugal, Spain, and Italy, a new concep-
tion came to prevail in the minds of the Jewish people.
It was the scheme for the formation of a Jewish religions
nnity in the historic land of Palestine. As early as the
sixteenth century, the idea of forming a religions council
in Jerusalem, after the style of the Great Sanhedrin, in-
spired many rabbis of Spain, who soon obtained the sup-
port of a large number of their colleagues of Constan-
tinople and Salonika. Don Joseph Nassi gave to this
religious movement a modern outlook. He obtained from
the Sultan a concession of all rights to the lake of
Tiberias for the purpose of forming there a modern Jew-
ish colony. The Great Selim, who had a special sym-
pathy for Nassi, gave orders to the governor of Syria
to help this enterprise in every way possible. Within a
period of one year, a city was built there with the help of
Arabian workmen. New colonies surrounded it. It was
Nassi's plan to make Tiberias an industrial center. To
this end he planted mulberry trees and began the manu-
facture of silk. But this work required perseverance and
the most widespread cooperation. The good will and
the work of a single person were not sufficient, and the
plans had to be dropped. After the death of Joseph
Nassi no one could be found to carry on his activities for
the general good.

Until the nineteenth century Palestine was made up
of a conglomeration of Jews, both natives and those
coming from the outside for the purpose of continuing
their religious studies. This entire colony lived on char-
ity provided by their coreligionists of other countries,
giving rise to the evils of pauperism which have survived
up to this day. But toward the year 1860 newcomers
from Russia began to devote themselves to agriculture.
European Jewry looked with favor upon this movement.
Mr. Montefiore of London purchased, in the year 1866, a
large tract of land for the purpose of trying out the prac-