Haifa : Or Life in Modern Palestine : Illustrated Edition

by Laurence Oliphant

The deep interest which the land of Palestine possesses for every thoughtful mind makes us all greedy for fresh and truthful information, alike concerning its present condition and the discoveries which new researches add to our knowledge of the past. From this point of view, many of the pages which follow are of exceeding importance. Every Christian will read with deep attention the author's description of the present state of places connected with momentous events of New-Testament history; and when, as in the present instance, the traveller and investigator is one whose judgment and whose accuracy may be entirely relied upon, the value of the report surpasses every careless estimate.
It is with this feeling that I have urged my friend to complete his work for publication, and with this feeling I earnestly commend it to the reader. Nor is its interest confined to historical and Biblical questions alone; the ethnologist examining the races of modern Syria, and the philosopher contemplating the marvellous processes of Asiatic transformation, will also find here material which will repay their most careful study.

366 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1887

About the author

Laurence Oliphant, M.P. (Stirling Burghs), diplomat, British intelligence agent, Christian mystic, and Christian Zionist.

Lawrence was the only child of Sir Anthony Oliphant (1793–1859), Cape Colony Attorney General and a member of the Scottish landed gentry, who was appointed Chief Justice in Ceylon shortly after the birth. Sir Anthony and his son have been credited with bringing tea to Ceylon and growing 30 tea plants brought over from China on the Oliphant Estate in Nuwara Eliya.

Following his Diplomatic Service and election to Parliament, he left after only 2 years to join the utopian Brotherhood of the New Life in Brocton, New York. His later falling out with the founder Harris forced the latter to sell the property and move the bulk of the community to Santa Rosa, California.

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laurence Oliphant, a former British diplomat, and his wife, Alice, settled in Palestine in 1879-87, dividing their time between a house in the German Colony near Haifa, and another in the Druze village of Daliyat al-Karmel on Mount Carmel. He hoped to promote Jewish agricultural settlement. Later, he saw these settlements as a means of alleviating Jewish suffering in Eastern Europe. He visited Constantinople in the hopes of obtaining a lease on the northern half of the Land of Israel and settling large numbers of Jews there (this was prior to the first wave of Jewish settlement by Zionists in 1882). Oliphant's memoirs of his time in Palestine, which are actually a series of letters to an American newspaper, are a vivid portrait of conditions in the Land of Israel late in the Ottoman Era and is required reading for those who study the history of the Land. Oliphant spent much of his time traveling about the country in search of antiquities, or just looking around and observing with a objective and sympathetic eye. Engagingly written and refreshingly politically incorrect, Oliphant's Haifa is well worth the time taken to read and enjoy.

[Amy Lloyd]

Interesting read.