Jewish Counsel Shows Turkish Government Vetoed Ban on Use of Benches at Wailing Wall

The most important piece of evidence yet presented by the Jews to substantiate their claims to rights at the Wailing Wall was of fered at the week’s last session of the Wailing Wall Commission when counsel for the Jews showed that the Turkish government in Constantinople had ordered the withdrawal of the 1912 order of the Turkish authorities in Jerusalem prohibiting the use of benches at the Wailing Wall by the Jews.

This evidence is important because it undermines the argument of the Arabs that according to the status quo the Jews had on right to the use of benches at the Wall. Dr. Mordecai Eliash, chief of the Jewish counsel, offered in evidence a copy of a Hebrew paper from Jerusalem dated February 11, 1912 which reported that the Turkish government had directed that the prohibition of the benches be removed without delay. The same report also appeared in the “Laruore,” a Jewish paper, then published in Constantinople, but now issued in Cairo, which was also submitted as evidence.

Dr. Eliash pointed out that the Ottoman press law required that two copies of each issue of a paper published must be deposited at the government office. If what purported to be an official statement was an untrue report, Dr. Eliash argued, it would have been denied and the editor prosecuted. He also presented a letter from the district superintendent of police in Jerusalem dated October 1,1926, which granted the Jewish beadle at the Wall permission to bring campstools there.

Later in the session the first Arab witness took the stand. He was the chief clerk of the Moslem court and he produced a title deed showing that the Mughrabi quarter is part of the Wakf (Moslem trust) and the Wailing Wall is one of its boundaries. The Arab counsel, Auni Abdul Bey, asked him if the pavement in front of the Wall was included within the Wakf.

The witness also presented other documents purporting to cite that Abu Median had dedicated this property to charity but the Arab witness was unable to show whether other houses abutting the Wall were within the Wakf area.

In addition to the three Indian Moslems who joined the Arab counsel this morning, Mezah Bey Pachachi, former Iraqian minister to London, and Salah Din of the Moslem Supreme Council in Beirut, joined it this afternoon.