barley, olive trees, vineyards, fruit trees, occasional revenues, goats and beehives; a total of 30,000 akçe. In 1697 Henry Maundrell passed Beit Jala, and noted that: "no Turk can live in it above two years. By virtue of this report, whether true or false, the Christians keep the Village to themselves without molestation; no Turk being willing to stake his life experimenting the truth of it." Beit Jala's inhabitants participated in the 1834 peasants' revolt in Palestine against Ibrahim Pasha, the Egyptian governor of Syria. Beit Jala's residents were believed to have taken part in the looting of Egyptian property and on 31 May, Egyptian troops assaulted the village. Ibrahim Pasha put a stop to the attack, but at least 33 men and women were killed in the attack. In addition, the village's livestock was seized. The attack on Beit Jala prompted rebels from the Ta'amira tribe, a local Bedouin tribe, to enter into Bethlehem to help bolster its defense. In 1838, it was noted as a Greek Christian village, located in the Beni Hasan area, west of Jerusalem. The population was estimated to be around 2000 people. By the mid-19th century, there were 10 Catholics living in Beit Jala. The Latin Patriarchate founded its first parish in Palestine in Beit Jala in 1853. The establishment of the parish faced fierce resistance by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and the inhabitants of Beit Jala, leading to several skirmishes and official complaints to the Ottoman authorities by both sides. A Latin church was built in Beit Jala and inaugurated on 18 April 1858. The Jerusalem Society, a Protestant movement struggled to maintain a presence in Beit Jala in the late 19th century. When a clash between Orthodox and Protestant residents ended with the death of an Orthodox girl, the village's Protestant community was evacuated to al-Karak in Transjordan for six months until compensation was paid to the family of the slain girl. In 1866, the Russian ambassador to the Ottoman Empire purchased land in Beit Jala and built a girls' school, the first Russian school to be built in Palestine. It had 60 pupils by 1880 and was assigned a Russian principal. In 1886, it became a teachers' training school and was under the administration of the Palestinian Orthodox Imperial Society. Albert Socin found from an official Ottoman village list from about 1870 that Beit Jala had 234 houses and a population