Preface/Context
A nearly decade-long Vienna seminar gave birth to The Arab and Jewish Questions: Geographies of Engagement in Palestine and Beyond. Initiators and conveners of the seminar were the Secretary General of the Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue, Gertraud Auer Borea d’Olmo, and Bashir Bashir. As I mentioned at the book’s launching event (which led to the present CM symposium), my hope was that Gertraud and Bashir could find the time one day to detail in full the methodology behind the seminar and its political and thematic trajectories. For my purposes here it suffices to highlight that at the seminar’s inception two separate study groups were at work: one gathered Palestinian and non-Palestinian Arabs who discussed “Arab Engagement with the Jewish Question,” while the other brought together Israeli and non-Israeli Jews to discuss “Jewish Engagement with the Arab Question.” Due to the complexities surrounding Palestine/Israel, it took nearly three years before a joint gathering of all could be held.
The invitation to join the “Jewish group” was extended to me in 2013; my contribution to the group grew out of my work in two domains: (1) the modern sociopolitics and thought of Jews in the Ottoman/Arab Middle East, and (2) the comparative study of nationalism, Marxism, and binationalism. Since seminar participants could only include one chapter each in the book, my contribution in the former domain remained unpublished. It was delivered—to members of the “Jewish group” alone—on Friday, April 19, 2013 and is published here for the first time as a contribution to this symposium. This 2013 essay—and its 2021 afterthoughts—include thematic linkages to two of the book’s chapters: Ella Shohat’s “On Orientalist Genealogies: The Split Arab/Jew Figure Revisited” (89–121) and Hakem Al-Rustom’s “Returning to the Question of Europe: From the Standpoint of the Defeated” (122–47).
Were There–and Can There Be–Arab Jews? [April 2013]
This essay addresses two inter-dependent themes. The first is the collective sociopolitical existence of roughly 750,000 Jews who were an integral part of the post-Ottoman/Arab Middle East. This number reflects their presence in the region prior to their en masse dispersal in the 1950s, when two thirds went to Israel and the rest relocated to other places around the globe. The second theme is the possible relevance of this historical trajectory—part and parcel of what is after all modern Arab history—to the future of Palestine/Israel, and the Arab Middle East at large, in the twenty first century. I open with terminological clarification on what I define as “the Arab Question” in relation to this intervention.
Two “Arab Questions”
What is known as “The Arab Question” in Palestine/Israel studies is understood chiefly as the pre-1914 Zionist realization that the territory comprising Ottoman Palestine/Eretz-Yisrael was not “a land without people,” as some European Zionists have wishfully hoped; the territory was instead the home of an indigenous Arab society, numbering at the time half a million individuals. Understood as such, “The Arab Question” was then transformed terminologically (and otherwise) into the “Palestinian question” and—later still—to “The Question of Palestine” (as popularized by Edward Said’s 1979 book The Question of Palestine).[1]
In the context of these remarks I wish to assign a different meaning to the phrase “The Arab Question.” It will be understood here as a question concerning the following conundrum: how to materialize socio-politically an inclusive Arab identity capable of incorporating into itself members of different religious groups, sects, ethnicities, language groups (etc.) who live inside the territory that comprises the Arab Middle East (Palestine/Israel included). Understood as such, this is a considerably broader “Arab Question” than the one commonly discussed in Palestine/Israel studies. My view is that “The Arab Question” framed as such remains relevant to present and future relationships between Palestinians and Israelis.
It is in this context that it is most productive to pose my guiding question here, namely, were there—and can there be—Arab Jews? The simple answer is a resolute “yes, there were Arab Jews and yes there can be Arab Jews” (in the future that is). Yet a more detailed and critical discussion strikes me as necessary.
Trailblazers
The original and daring work of such activist authors as Abraham Serfati, Ilan Halevi, Abbas Shiblak, and Ella Habiba Shohat rendered the signifier “Arab Jews” meaningful and productive for scholarly analysis. As such, their work enabled the modern critical study of these communities and/or identities. Following these trailblazers, in 1997 (amidst my PhD studies) I too anchored the collective signifier “Arab Jews” via a three-fold justification:
- “Arab” is a linguistic and cultural marker rather than a racial or religious one.
- Pre-1950s Jews within the Ottoman and Arab Middle East have participated fully in the production and consumption of Arab culture.
- Distinctions in the Middle East were commonly drawn internally between “Jews,” “Muslims,” “Christians,” etc., rather than between “Jews” and “Arabs.”
Sixteen years later, I suggest that while this conceptualization is internally consistent and coherent, it still remains weak and insufficiently convincing. This is because the above three-fold justification unwittingly smokescreens what in my present reading is the single most important realm in the constitution of the post-1914 modern Arab identity, namely, the political realm. Put differently, the still most dominant conception behind “Arab Jews” does not acknowledge as lucidly as needed the absolute primacy of the political realm over the cultural, religious, intellectual, lingual and/or ideological realms vis-à-vis modern Arab identity generally and, even more particularly, in relation to the formation and consolidation of modern Arab nationalism since 1917.
The political realm must therefore be tightly woven into every historical and contemporary reflection on Arab Jews considerably more assertively than it has been during the preceding two decades. By saying political I do not have in mind such mundane issues as “party politics.” What I instead have in mind is the broadest substantive meaning of the political, that is, the collective, mass-based undertaking by members of local, national, or regional social groups to put in place a functioning institutional setting capable of facilitating their individual and collective well-being, whether political, economic, or cultural.
In this context, in 1946, the one-year-old League of Arab States stipulated that an Arab is a person whose language is Arabic, who lives in an Arabic speaking country, and who is in sympathy with the aspirations of the Arabic-speaking peoples. “Aspirations” here have chiefly meant political aspirations linked to the Arab struggle against foreign domination (previously Ottoman, and later colonial-European) to achieve some political form and societal configuration of Arab self-determination and self-rule.
The still most dominant conception behind ‘Arab Jews’ does not acknowledge as lucidly as needed the absolute primacy of the political realm over the cultural, religious, intellectual, lingual and/or ideological realms vis-à-vis modern Arab identity generally and, even more particularly, in relation to the formation and consolidation of modern Arab nationalism since 1917.
Scholars agree that there never was a singular political conception of the aspirations of the Arabic speaking peoples (irrespective of whether that was for better or worse). As I explained in 2005, across the Arab Middle East—certainly in the pre-1950s era when indigenous (non-European/non-white) Jews were still present—there have always been vigorously competing (sub-national) variants of anti-colonial nationalism at play. Those included, among others, a religiously informed one (think of the Muslim Brotherhood), a liberal one (such as that advanced by the Egyptian Wafd), a communist one, and a pan-Arab one (such as that of the Iraqi Istiqlāl).
If one generally accepts my proposition that the political dimension (or realm) is indeed very central to the constitution of modern Arab identity (including in Palestine), then the best and methodologically most logical step to undertake in order to examine the collective signifier “Arab Jews” meaningfully and non-trivially is this: turn the scholarly spotlight on politicized Jews across the Arab Middle East. Politicized Jews across the region have been affiliated disproportionally with liberal or Marxist sub-national currents. (Note: it is unnecessary to discuss here the minority of politicized Zionists among the Arabized-Jews since they have certainly prioritized Jewishness over Arabness and thus seldom view themselves as “Arab Jews”). Back now to those non/anti-Zionist liberal or Marxist Jews.
While Arab liberalism and Marxism in the pre-1950s era were both anti-colonial, the former placed its emphasis on (1) institutionalization of as strict a separation as possible between the Mosque/Synagogue and state, and (2) a political conception of equal citizenship. The latter meant that Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, etc. would constitute themselves as democratic states of their citizens, members of minority communities included. Liberal Jews in the Arab Middle East did not advocate for Jewish collective rights as a minority group, nor for cultural autonomy (or for that matter any other type of autonomy), nor institutionalization of consociational arrangements, nor did they view themselves as a national minority. Instead, the aim of politically active liberal Jews across the Arab Middle East was a political and civic one, and stood in some contradistinction to a religious or cultural one. Their aim was the constitution of an inclusive civic-democratic state of citizens.
Marxist Jews adhered to the host of modern liberal tenets I just listed, yet additionally emphasized (1) the dynamics and importance of class analysis; (2) the necessity of socialization, land redistribution, and equality within as classless of a society as possible; and (3) the conception of internationalism as one within which anti-colonial nationalism should be situated.
All of the above boils down to this: even politicized liberal and Marxist Jews in the Arab Middle East did not emphasize cultural nationalism, nor did they particularly care for it. They seldom placed the cultural elements of nationalism—be they informed by religion and/or by supra-state lingual and cultural “Arabness”—before the greyer and more mundane pressing political, economic, and institutional factors commonly understood to be pre-requisites for the constitution of functioning—essentially modern/secular—democracies irrespective of geographical area (see also Joel Beinin on this matter). Pre-1950s liberal/Marxist Jews considered the respective Iraqi, Egyptian, Moroccan, etc. civic-democratic national project daunting and complex enough even without the additional Arab (or pan-Arab) cultural, lingual, and supra-state layer. Iraqi-Jews thus tended to self-identify more as Iraqi rather than Arab, Egyptian Jews more as Egyptian rather than Arab (this also prevailed in the other Arab states).
All of this yields my core proposition: reintroducing the political realm more vigorously—while concurrently relaxing somewhat the focus on such realms as culture and language that scholars tend to place at the very fore in dominant conceptions of “Arab Jews” (and/or “Jewish Arabs’)—makes it more complex to speak meaningfully of these signifiers.
“Who is an Arab” [Non-Jew]?
Perhaps we ought to ponder the question, “Who is an Arab?” In many respects this entire intervention on Arab Jews here is a miniscule segment of its mammoth and more foundational conundrum “Who is an Arab?”
The single most elastic and socially inclusive answer to this question is this: an Arab is simply anyone who speaks (or, for our purposes, perhaps spoke) Arabic as his/her native language; a related conception is that pre-1950s Middle Eastern Jews were Arab in all but the dominant religion. My impression is that these twin conceptions reflect the wishful and ideational thinking of secular Arab nationalists more than the empirical Arab reality on the twentieth-century socio-political ground itself. This is all the more so when one essentially does not have in mind here the post-1952 Nasserist era, a period in which important Jewish communities were no longer present in the Arab world (including in Iraq, Yemen, Algeria, and Egypt).
There were, and remain, members of social groups in the Arab Middle East who spoke Arabic as their native language, yet contest their labeling as “Arab.” This is for a variety of reasons. In Lebanon, some Arabic-speaking Christians identify more as Phoenicians; in Egypt some Copts likewise avoid the signifier Arab; the Arab identity of Druze in Israel is a site of an intense communal wrestling. Iraq, the quintessential Arab country, has always been home to social communities— such as the Assyrians, Turcomans, and Chaldeans—whose native tongue is Arabic, yet who do not necessarily consider themselves Arab. And what sense should scholars make of groups/communities whose native language is Arabic because their ancestral ones have been snuffed out? These may include the Arabic-speaking Amazigh/Berber across North Africa or the Copts in Egypt. Similarly, what sense should scholars make of Kurds who have been gathering in public squares in Iraq or Syria declaring in their native Arabic, “We Are Not Arabs”? Iraq’s quintessential Arab party, the Baa’th, considered Kurds as Arab so long as they themselves refrained from speaking about the question (including in their native Arabic).
I have no pretense of having answers to these puzzles. This lack of an answer, however, has no significant bearing on the argument I attempt to make here: if the quest for “who is an Arab” is found elusive enough, the quest for “who is an Arab Jew” is even more so. The complexities with the signifier “Arab-Jew” springs more from the “Arab side” of the equation and a less from the “Jewish side” (this proposition will require an explanation that far exceeds this essay; please consult my other work on the matter here). For now, it suffices to underscore that the 1936 phrasing by the (obviously Iraqi) Jewish intellectual Ezra Haddād (1900–1972), “we are Arabs before we are Jews,” is invoked in the twenty-first century (Rejwan, 2004, Levy, 2005, 2008; Snir, 2005, 2008) ) somewhat nostalgically and sorrily to lament what was back in 1936 a sociopolitical path that ultimately was not taken. Hopeful as Haddād’s words were—and remain—they are best appreciated in the poetic/symbolic realm more than in the muddier matrix of the region’s post-1917 ethno-national politics (involving colonialism, Arab nationalism, and Euro-Zionism).
If the quest for “who is an Arab” is found elusive enough, the quest for “who is an Arab Jew” is even more so.
Even in the case of pre-1952 Iraq—the single easiest and friendliest case in which to employ “Arab-Jews”—it was primarily a minority of introspective members of the (Baghdadi) Jewish intellectual middle-class who defined themselves firstly as “Arab.” This included twenty-first-century luminaries such as Shimon Ballas, Samir Naqqash, Sami Michael, Nissim Rejwan, and Sasson Somekh. These intellectuals undoubtedly deserve the (disproportional) scholarly, literary, and cinematic attention that they have received in Israel/Palestine and globally.
Materialist, evidence-based scholars, however, cannot afford the luxury of ignoring the fact that such (Iraqi) Jews were, and alas remain, an exception to the rule across the Arab Middle East and North Africa. Constructing conceptual and ideational bypass roads around the majority of Jews in the Arab world who did not really self-define as Arab [Jews]—while concurrently focusing on (the above mentioned) few over the majority—is scholarly unjustified, and normatively unproductive, vis-à-vis efforts to induce positive dynamics into the Israel/Palestine matrix. In fact, such misrepresentations—coupled with a didactic tone lecturing Mizrahi Jews that they do not understand that they are “really” Arab—nearly always produce the opposite effects to those otherwise intended. That is, they antagonize “ordinary” Mizrahim outside academia and alienate everything “Arab” even more: Israel’s Mizrahim, irrespective of their class position, tend to detect such maneuvers easily and are on the whole hostile to them. This brings me to the very act of defining—or labeling or signifying—human beings.
Self-Defined vs. Other-Defined
An awareness of the differences between self-defined and other-defined procedures of signifying human collectivities is critical in the context of any “Jewish engagement with the Arab question” (both narrowly and broadly defined). Prevailing self-identifications among members of any worldwide group ought to be taken into account very seriously by scholars who seek to observe these groups as candidly, impartially, and respectfully as possible. Here, the signifier “Arab-Jews” springs more from an other-defined procedure of labeling than from a self-defined one.
As a collective signifier, “Arab-Jews” is super-imposed somewhat paternalistically on a social group that the majority of its members either feel uncomfortable with, or do not subscribe to (in both historical and contemporary terms). Whether or not this self-identifying tendency among Jews across the Arab world (Israel/Palestine included) is a consequence of ignorance, “false consciousness,” collective amnesia, Zionist manipulation—or of being “colonial compradors”—may well be in-themselves interesting questions to explore. Yet, such questions remain irrelevant in relation to the theme I highlight here, that is, the importance of scholars having the utmost respect for the prevailing self-identification and self-determination within the groups they observe and study. So don’t call 1948 Palestinians in Israel “Israeli Arab”; don’t call Moroccan Amazigh “Arab”; and be more hesitant and sensible when considering lecturing to working class Mizrahi Jews that they are Arab [Jews]. Socio-politics across the post-Ottoman Middle East are simply more complex.
Lastly, the conception “Arab Jews” reflects the identity of Jews in the Arab Middle East ambiguously since it has been nourished disproportionately by an Iraqi-centric outlook. North-African Jews during the first half of the twentieth century were not as “Arab” as were Jews in Iraq. Notwithstanding that Iraqi Jews comprised 14% of all Jews across the Arab Middle East, their experiences have persistently received disproportional attention compared to those of other Jewish communities in the Arab world.
As a collective signifier, ‘Arab-Jews’ is super-imposed somewhat paternalistically on a social group that the majority of its members either feel uncomfortable with, or do not subscribe to (in both historical and contemporary terms).
It is therefore a conceptual imperative to introduce collective signifiers that (1) can be reasonably applicable to as many of the 750,000 Jews who have lived across the whole Arab Middle East, and that (2) can capture comprehensively as many of their multi-lingual, cultural, social, and/or political experiences. I explained in detail elsewhere why the collective signifier “Arabized-Jews” is in my understanding a more capable and explanatory one than both “Arab-Jews” and “Jewish Arabs.” Because of this, it can help form a “bridge” between diverse minority Jews across ten states in the Arab Maghrib and Mashriq, as well as to unite them for the purposes of scholarly analysis, terminological clarity, and for other purposes as well. Such historical and conceptual enquiries and debates continue to maintain important relevance not only for contemporary Palestinian/Israeli affairs but also for broader Arab affairs and dynamics regionally, including in the complex Arab societies and states of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
Afterthoughts, August 2021: Were There—and Can There Be—Palestinian Jews?
Eight years after delivering this lecture in Vienna I can attest more emphatically that the twenty-first century has witnessed a great expansion of studies and discussions on Arab Jews. Yet The Arab and Jewish Questions: Geographies of Engagement in Palestine and Beyond does stand out. For starters, no collection integrated into itself as thoroughly, critically, and comprehensively the probing of non-European Jews and their experiences. I’m similarly unaware of any work whose editors afforded non-Ashkenazi/non-European Mizrahi scholars 45% of the total contributors’ space. Lastly, the book’s eight launching events during 2021—in Europe, the US, and Palestine/Israel—have been characterized by critical public debates of the highest quality on the question of Arab Jews.
This uplift notwithstanding, the discussion of Arab Jews has disappointingly remained imprisoned within the suffocating walls of academia. To date, the signifier “Arab Jews” has failed to migrate and spread into the broader, more crucial, domains of popular politics and civil society. This, alas, means that the hegemonically entrenched dichotomy separating “Arab” and “Jew”—which has been consolidated since the late 1930s as a consequence of dynamics running across Jewish and Arab national formations—has not fractured tangibly.
By way of illustration, recall that the PLO’s 1964 National Covenant stipulated that “Jews of Palestinian origin [and their descendants, such as myself] are considered Palestinians if they are willing to live peacefully and loyally in Palestine.” Following the Covenant’s 1968 revision this modified article read “the Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion [1917] will be considered Palestinians.” This inclusion notwithstanding, my three decades of scholarship and (non-Zionist) activism confirm that only a handful of Palestinians have considered me a Palestinian even after explaining that I (1) categorically self-define (also) as Palestinian, and (2) am in full sympathy with the democratic aspirations of the Palestinian people. (It has incidentally been a waste of time to attempt and communicate such Mizrahi matters to many pro-Palestinian Whites across Euro-America.)
Let me attempt a second illustration of the meagre materiality of “Arab Jews” and “Palestinian Jews.” The year 2020–21 not only witnessed expanding discussion on Arab Jews but also a Herculean struggle against the International Holocaust Remembrance Allliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. (I took part in this effort here and here for example). The most profound contribution to the global anti-IHRA struggle was a lengthy statement that “Palestinian and Arab academics, journalists and intellectuals” published in Arabic, Hebrew, and English (in The Guardian). Among other important claims, they contended:
Through ‘examples’ that it provides, the IHRA definition conflates Judaism with Zionism in assuming that all Jews are Zionists, and that the state of Israel in its current reality embodies the self-determination of all Jews. We profoundly disagree with this.
While doubtlessly a sensible proposition, as far as I was able to ascertain not a single (Arab or non-Arab) Jew can be found among the statement’s 122 prominent signatories (who reside worldwide). This de-facto omission or exclusion oddly encompasses (non-Israeli) Arab Jews who have been for decades public anti-Zionists (such as Magda Haroun, Sion Assidon, Robert Assaraf, Salim Nassib, etc.). Moreover, I did try—but failed—to find North African or Asian Jews who were approached to endorse this truly crucial statement. It is difficult to fathom why an invitation to add their names to the statement was not extended to such (non/anti-Zionist) Jews as the Israeli Black Panther Reuben Abergel; Professors Ella Shohat, Ammiel Alcalay, Avi Shlaim, Sami Shalom Chetrit, Zvi Ben Dor Benite, Gil Anidjar, Yehuda Shenhav, Smadar Lavie, Yigal S Nizri, or Almog Behar; artists Meir Gal, Rafram Chaddad, or Eliahou Eric Bokobza; filmmakers Osnat Trabelsi and Eyal Sagui Bizawe; author Massoud Hayoun, and many more like them (please do explore the twelve hyperlinks). Would inclusion of North African/Asian/Arab Jews as signatories “dilute” somehow the statement’s Palestinian and Arab “integrity,” “credentials,” or “purity”? Could such inclusion “harm” or “diminish” in some way the uncompromising anti-IHRA message it aimed to convey (to global public opinion mind you)?
I have no answers to such questions, yet I am still of the view that the statement’s anti-IHRA credentials are wanting—possibly even self-defeating—precisely due to the wholesale non-inclusion of (Arab) Jewish signatories. This inevitably plays into the hands of pro-IHRA adversaries and significantly bolsters their dichotomous and separatist case and worldview. Be that as it may, the anti-IHRA statement seems to exemplify paradigmatically that the signifier Arab Jews is plainly absent in the minds of many, and not taken seriously in the slightest. This is a testament to the entrenched logic of European colonialism and modernity that separated “the Jew” and “the Arab” and that underpins the impossibility of the political intelligibility and viability of the “Arab Jew.” After five decades of the (modern) employment of Arab Jews, the signifier appears to remain hollow, discursive, rhetorical, and unwelcome—while also hardly gaining any political purchase. While one would expect this to be the case among Christian and non-Christian Zionists, it bizarrely seems equally so among enough anti-Zionist Palestinian and Arab academics, journalists, and intellectuals.
For the time being, therefore, a Jew cannot really be an Arab or Palestinian in a manner that is non-theoretical or substantive sociopolitically. The Palestinian/Arab anti-colonial/Zionist struggle may well be in some need of broader inclusion and democratic refinement. The pre-1992 approach of the South African National Congress (ANC) seems worth studying.
[1] Consult also Isaiah Friedman,The Question of Palestine: British-Jewish-Arab Relations: 1914–1918.
Further Reading & Works Consulted
Al-Jazeera. Arab Jews – The Unheard Voices, 2006.
Behar, Moshe. “What’s in a Name? Socio-terminological Formations and the Case for Arabized Jews.” Social Identities 15, no. 6 (2009): 747–771.
Behar, Moshe. “Mizrahim, Abstracted: Action, Reflection and the Academization of the Mizrahi Cause.” Journal of Palestine Studies 37, no. 2 (2008): 89–100.
Behar, Moshe. “Palestine, Arabized-Jews and the Elusive Consequences of Jewish and Arab National formations.” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 13, no. 4 (2007): 581–612.
Behar, Moshe. “Do Comparative and Regional Studies of Nationalism Intersect?” International Journal of Middle East Studies 37, no. 4 (2005): 587–612.
Behar, Moshe. “Is the Mizrahi Question Relevant to the Future of the Entire Middle East?” News from Within 13, no. 1(1997): 68–85.
Beinin, Joel. “Jews as Native Iraqis: An Introduction.” Foreword to Nissim Rejwan’s The Last Jews in Baghdad, xi-xxii. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004.
Halevi, Ilan. A History of the Jews: Ancient and Modern. London: Zed Books, 1986 (1981).
Levy, Lital., “‘From Baghdad to Bialik with Love’: A Reappropriation of Modern Hebrew poetry, 1933.”Comparative Literature Studies 42, no. 3 (2005): 125–54.
Levy, Lital. “Historicizing the Concept of Arab Jews in the Mashriq.” Jewish Quarterly Review 98, no. 4 (2008): 452–469.
Palestine Liberation Organization. “The Right of Arab-Jews to Return.” PLO Information Bulletin 1, no. 2 (1975): 8.
Rejwan, Nissim. The Last Jews in Baghdad: Remembering a Lost Homeland. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004.
Serfati, Abraham. Lutte anti-sioniste et Révolution Arabe – Essai sur le judaïsme marocain et le sionisme [Anti-Zionist Struggle and Arab Revolution: Essay on Morrocan Judaism and Zionism]. Éditions Quatre-Vents, 1977.
Serfati, Abraham. Écrits de prison sur la Palestine [Prison Writings on Palestine]. Éditions Arcantère, 1992.
Shiblak, Abbas. The Lure of Zion. London: Saqi, 1986.
Shohat, Ella. “Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Jewish Victims.” Social Text 19/20 (1988): 1–35.
Shohat, Ella. “Dislocated Identities: Reflections of an Arab-Jew.” Movement Research Performance Journal 5 (1992): 8.
Shohat, Ella. “The Invention of the Mizrahim.” Journal of Palestine Studies 29/1 (1999): 5–20.
Shohat, Ella. “Rupture and Return: Zionist Discourse and the Study of Arab Jews.” Social Text 21/2 (2003): 52–53.
Snir, Reuven. ‘“Mosaic Arabs’ between Total and Conditioned Arabization: The Participation of Jews in Arabic Press and Journalism in Muslim Societies during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 27, no. 2 (2007): 261–95.
Snir, Reuven. “‘We Are Arabs Before We Are Jews’: The Emergence and Demise of Arab-Jewish Culture in Modern Times.” Electronic Journal of Oriental Studies VIII (2005): 1–47.
Tamari, Salim. “Ishaq al-Shami and the Predicament of the Arab Jew in Palestine.” The Jerusalem Quarterly 21 (2004): 46–60.
