author
James Finn
d. 1872
A British diplomat and scholar whose years in Jerusalem shaped a body of writing on Jewish history and communities in Palestine and China. His books mix close observation, religious interest, and a strong sense of nineteenth-century reform.
1 Audiobook
Byeways in Palestine
by James Finn
About the author
Born in 1806, James Finn was a British consul, scholar, and author who is best remembered for serving in Jerusalem in the mid-nineteenth century. He had a strong knowledge of Hebrew and a deep interest in Jewish history and life, interests that fed directly into his writing.
His time in Palestine gave him firsthand material for books about the region and its people, while his wider research led him to write about Jewish communities beyond the Middle East as well. Among the works linked with him are books on the Jews in China and on Jewish history in Spain and Portugal.
Finn died in 1872. Today he is often noted both as a diplomatic figure and as a writer whose work reflects the religious ideas, politics, and cross-cultural encounters of his era.