of full citizenship which Alexander had granted them. He increased
also the number of Jewish inhabitants, for following his conquest of
Palestine (or Coele-Syria, as it was then called), he brought back to
his capital a large number of Jewish families and settled thirty
thousand Jewish soldiers in garrisons. For the next hundred years the
Palestinian and Egyptian Jews were under the same rule, and for the
most part the Ptolemies treated them well. They were easy-going and
tolerant, and while they encouraged the higher forms of Greek culture,
art, letters, and philosophy, both at their own court and through
their dominions, they made no attempt to impose on their subjects the
Greek religion and ceremonial. Under their tolerant sway the Jewish
community thrived, and became distinguished in the handicrafts as well
as in commerce. Two of the five sections into which Alexandria was
divided were almost exclusively occupied by them; these lay in the
north-east along the shore and near the royal palace--a favorable
situation for the large commercial enterprises in which they were
engaged. The Jews had full permission to carry on their religious
observances, and besides many smaller places of worship, each marked
by its surrounding plantation of trees, they built a great synagogue,
of which it is said in the Talmud, "He who has not seen it has not
seen the glory of Israel."[3] It was in the form of a basilica, with a
double row of columns, and so vast that an official standing upon a
platform had to wave his head-cloth or veil to inform the people at
the back of the edifice when to say "Amen" in response to the Reader.
The congregation was seated according to trade-guilds, as was also
customary during the Middle Ages; the goldsmiths, silversmiths,
coppersmiths, and weavers had their own places, for the Alexandrian
Jews seem to have partially adopted the Egyptian caste-system. The
Jews enjoyed a large amount of self-government, having their own
governor, the ethnarch, and in Roman times their own council