Widespread distress and abject poverty are not new stories in Transjordan, says the Amman correspondent of “Al Jamia Al Islamia,” but the people have until now taken no steps to ask for assistance in alleviating conditions, because they felt that any appeal might be constructed as a plea for Jewish immigration. Now, however, that the Emir Abdullah has definitely refused to let Transjordan land to prospective Jewish immigrants, the various tribal and political leaders have begun to protest against the restrictions placed on the admission of foreign capital to the other side of the Jordan, and are urging the Emir to take all steps necessary to remedy conditions.
That the situation is indeed distressing, that the circumstances of existence are more than precarious in Transjordan, can be judged from a communication of our own correspondent. He reports that throughout Transjordan, wherever one goes, in the towns and in the farming districts, the most dire need and privation can be observed.
ORANGE PEELS FOR FOOD
Groups of Bedouins constantly besiege restaurant doors, gathering scraps of food from the meals of diners, snatching hungrily at any refuse which may, by a stretch of imagination, be edible, avidly devouring orange rind to satisfy their gnawing hunger. Others cluster about the stalls of green-grocers, follow vendors of vegetables about from place to place, so that they may gather up the stringy leaves of radishes or the tough, fibrous leaves of cauliflower which are their only food.
Bakers, in order to meet the demands of impoverished customers, are now baking four kinds of bread, barley bread, which is still edible, bread made of durra, which would try the most hardy stomach, and lastly, the commodity which has the greatest sale, bread made of chaff, which fills the stomach, but provides no nourishment and serves only to stimulate already impatient appetites.
At the end of Ramadan, large numbers of Bedouins broke their fast, and began the three day Feast of Sweets, the Id al Fetr, by buying radishes to appease their hunger and celebrate the three day indulgence in the bounties of a holiday.
At night, these people, men, women and children, with no roof to shelter them, no fire to warm them, huddle together for warmth and sleep in the streets.
The last few months of drought have exacted a heavy toll. Large numbers of livestock have perished, and the lack
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
