Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

captivity

so their families were also prohibited from using it. There might well have been something to it, though, because the water in those lead pipes left a grayish scum on the children’s skin, who turned out slower and dimmer than the others. Lepers, incidentally, were treated decently; they were not expelled from the community but had a fairly spacious pen designated as their dwelling place, minimal rations were provided, and they counted on tzedakah, or charitable funds, or at least on a charity bowl of victuals for immediate relief, which even the most destitute and needy visitors can count on from a Jewish community anywhere. But because lepers were impure, their family was not allowed direct contact and could only shout

to them from a distance, and the afflicted were obliged to smash to pieces the single- use clay vessels provided to them by the community, and, to the great delight of pottery merchants, to bury the pieces three feet underground. That aside, they were free to move around, even go beyond the walls of the Jewish quarter to beg like any other sick person. They too were obliged to go to the house of prayer, but not only were priests forbidden to touch them, they were not even supposed to see them, lest they become unclean themselves, so the lepers had to stand throughout the services in a dark corner that was walled off by planks; they arrived earlier than the priest and left well after. Because there were so few priests, their cleanliness was safeguarded by the

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