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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Between Jew & Arab 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page ii

1 the tau ber in sti tute for the study of eu ro pean jewry ser ies 2 Je huda Re in harz, Gen eral Edi tor 3 Sylvia Fuks Fried, Asso ciate Editor 4 5 ;e Tauber Insti tute Series is dedicated to publish ing compel ling and inno - 6 vative approaches to the study of modern Euro pean Jewish history, thought, cul ture, and so ciety. ;e ser ies features scholarly works related to the En- 7 lightenment, modern Judaism and the struggle for emancipation, the rise of 8 nationalism and the spread of antisemitism, the Holocaust and its aftermath, 9 as well as the contemporary Jewish experience. ;e series is published under the auspices of the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry—estab- 10 lished by a gift to Brandeis University from Dr. Laszlo N. Tauber—and is sup- 11 ported, in part, by the Tauber Foundation and the Valya and Robert Shapiro 12 Endowment. 13 For the complete list of books that are available in this series, please see 14 www.upne.com. 15 David N. Myers 16 Between Jew and Arab: The Lost Voice of Simon Rawidowicz 17 Sara Bender 18 The Jews of Białystock during World War II and the Holocaust 19 Nili Scharf Gold 20 Yehuda Amichai: The Making of Israel’s National Poet 21 Hans Jonas 22 Memoirs 23 Itamar Rabinovich and Jehuda Reinharz, editors 24 Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics, and 25 Foreign Relations, Pre-1948 to the Present 26 Christian Wiese 27 The Life and Thought of Hans Jonas: Jewish Dimensions 28 Eugene R. Sheppard 29 Leo Strauss and the Politics of Exile: The Making of a Political Philosopher 30 Samuel Moyn 31 A Holocaust Controversy: The Treblinka Affair in Postwar France 32 Margalit Shilo 33 Princess or Prisoner? Jewish Women in Jerusalem, 1840–1914 34 Haim Be’er 35 Feathers 36 Immanuel Etkes 37 The Besht: Magician, Mystic, and Leader Myers: Between Jew and Arab page iii

1 2 3 4 5 DAVID N. MYERS 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 BETWEEN 13 14 15 JEW & ARAB 16 17 THE LOST VOICE OF 18 19 20 SIMON RAWI DOW ICZ 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 B R A ND E I S U N IV E RS I T Y P R E S S 33 WALT HAM, MAS SACHU SETTS 34 35 Pub lished by Uni ver sity Press of New En gland 36 Hanover and Lon don 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page iv

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Brandeis University Press 8 Published by University Press of New England, One Court Street, Lebanon, NH 03766 9 www.upne.com 10 11 © 2008 by Brandeis University Press Printed in the United States of America 12 5 4 3 2 1 13 14 ;is book was published with the generous 15 support of the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation. 16 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any 17 electronic or mechanical means, including storage and retrieval systems, without 18 permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Members of educational institutions and organizations wishing 19 to photocopy any of the work for classroom use, or authors and publishers who 20 would like to obtain permission for any of the material in the work, should contact 21 Permissions, University Press of New England, One Court Street, Lebanon, NH 03766. 22 library of congress cataloging-in-publication data 23 Myers, David N. 24 Between Jew and Arab : the lost voice of Simon Rawidowicz / David N. Myers. — 1st ed. 25 p. cm. — (;e Tauber Institute for the study of European Jewry series) 26 Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-58465-736-1 (cloth : alk. paper) 27 1. Rawidowicz, Simon, 1897-1957—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Rawidowicz, 28 Simon, 1897-1957. 3. Zionists—Biography. 4. Israel—Emigration and immigration. 5. Emigration and immigration—Moral and ethical aspects. 6. Arab-Israeli 29 confict. I. Title. 30 DS151.R375M94 2008 31 320.54095694092—dc22 [B] 2008037291 32 33 34 See page 303 for illustration credits. 35 36 University Press of New England is a member of the Green Press Initiative. The paper used in this book meets their minimum 37 requirement for recycled paper. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page v

1 2 3 4 5 6 ToAR NOLD J. BAND 7 Teacher, Col league, Friend 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab [blank] page vi

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1 2 3 CONTENTS 4 5 6 List of Illustrations ix 7 Introduction 1 8 PART I: THE JEWISH QUESTION 21 9 PART II: THE ARAB QUESTION 89 10 11 “BETWEEN JEW AND ARAB” 135 12 From Simon Rawidowicz, Bavel vi-Yerushalayim (1957) 13 English Translation by David N. Myers and Arnold J. Band 14 Epilogue 181 15 Appendixes 16 A. Historical Timeline: Relevant Dates in “Between Jew and Arab” 189 17 B. ;e Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel (1948) 191 18 C. ;e “Law of Return” (5710/1950) 194 19 D. ;e “Nationality Law” (5712/1952) 196 20 E. ;e “Land Acquisition (Validation of Acts and Compensation) 21 Law” (5713/1953) 202 22 F. United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 23 General Assembly Resolution 217 A (III) 207 24 G. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, November 29, 1947 214 25 H. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 (III): Palestine— 26 Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator 236 27 I. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 273 (III): Admission 28 of Israel to Membership in the United Nations 240 29 Notes 241 30 Bibliography 289 31 Acknowledgments 301 32 Index 305 33 34 35 36 37

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1 2 3 ILLUSTRATIONS 4 5 6 21 Fig. 1. Simon Rawidowicz (1897–1957). 7 22 Fig. 2. ;ank-you note from Esther Rawidowicz (wife) and Benjamin Ravid 8 (son) to condolence callers. 9 25 Fig. 3. Envelope from Rawidowicz to Jacob Fink in Paris indicating that the 10 manuscript of “Jew and Arab” should be returned. 11 26 Fig. 4. First page of the handwritten text of “Between Jew and Arab.” 12 27 Fig. 5. First page of the typed text of “Between Jew and Arab” with editorial 13 instructions in multiple languages. 14 34 Fig. 6. Letter of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion from 5 November 1958 to 15 William (Zev) Margolies expressing sadness over the death of Rawidowicz. 16 35 Fig. 7. Title page of one of Rawidowicz’s early Hebrew publications from 17 Berlin, Kitve RaNaK (1924). 18 37 Fig. 8. Map of Poland with Rawidowicz’s birthplace, Grayewo, highlighted. 19 38 Fig. 9. Chaim Yitzhak Rawidowicz (1863?–1936), father of Simon. 20 21 42 Fig. 10. Rawidowicz with a group of students in a Hebrew course, Białystok (20 May 1919). 22 23 43 Fig. 11. A young Rawidowicz (with moustache) in the company of friends. 24 45 Fig. 12. “Lebenslauf ”—brief autobiographical statement required for 25 acceptance of dissertation with incorrect year and place of birth. 26 46 Fig. 13. Announcement from 8 August 1926 of Rawidowicz’s dissertation 27 examination. 28 48 Fig. 14. Announcement of Rawidowicz’s Promotion on 27 May 1927 for his 29 dissertation on Feuerbach. 30 55 Fig. 15. Esther Klee Rawidowicz (1900–1980), wife of Simon Rawidowicz. 31 56 Fig. 16. Marriage of Esther Klee and Simon Rawidowicz (1926). 32 58 Fig. 17. Opening page of published version of Rawidowicz’s address at the 33 |rst conference of the Brit aIvrit aOlamit (World Hebrew Union) in Berlin on 34 21 June 1931. 35 65 Fig. 18. Minutes of a meeting at Jews’ College on 31 July 1933 in which 36 Rawidowicz is discussed as a possible lecturer. 37

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1 66 Fig. 19. Annual report of the activities of a}liated lecturers (including 2 Rawidowicz) of the School of Oriental Studies (later SOAS) in London. 3 67 Fig. 20. Letter of Rawidowicz from 8 February 1938 to Avraham Schwadron 4 (Sharon) on stationery of the Tarbuth Association in London, successor to a a 5 the Brit Ivrit Olamit. Rawidowicz Archives. 6 68 Fig. 21. Announcement of a series of lectures that Rawidowicz was giving in 7 England on Zionism (and his views of Jewish nationalism). 8 74 Fig. 22. Ode to martyrs of Nazism in Metsudah 2 (1943). 9 80 Fig. 23. Announcement of Rawidowicz’s appointment in 1948 to the College 10 of Jewish Studies in Chicago in the college newsletter, “Alon.” 11 83 Fig. 24. Rawidowicz (left) at Brandeis with Philip W. Lown (center), 12 philanthropist and Brandeis donor, and Abram L. Sachar (right), founding 13 president of Brandeis University. 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page xi

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1 2 3 INTRODUCTION 4 5 6 Unless there is very careful steering it is upon the Arab rock 7 that the Zionist ship may be wrecked. 8 —Herbert Samuel to Chaim Weizmann, 19211 9 10 11 I 12 n the seem ingly cease less strug gle between Jews and Arabs over the land 13 I known alter nately as Erets Yisrael and Pales tine, few notions inspire as 14 much passion and radi cal diver gence as “the right of return.” Most Jews re- 15 gard as his tori cally man dated the re turn of the Jew ish peo ple to the Land 16 of Israel after millen nia of disper sion; a fair number of them (and, for that 17 matter, of Christians as well) consider this act to be divinely ordained. Ac- 18 cord ingly, the long-desired realiza tion of the dream of return, as embod ied 19 in Israel’s Declara tion of Inde pen dence (1948) and Law of Return (1950), 20 has been seen by Jews as an event of monumen tal signifi cance—and, es- 21 pe cially after the Holo caust, of es sen tial res to ra tive jus tice.2 22 Con versely, Pa les tin ians re gard the dis place ment of some three-quarters 23 of a mil lion of their peo ple in the war time hos tilities of 1948 as the Nakba 24 (the Catas trophe), for which “return” is the most just and obvi ous remedy. 3 25 Whether or not millions of Pales tin ians would return to their or their an- 26 ces tors’ homes in the current State of Israel, if afforded the right, is un- 27 clear. Pa les tin ian poll ster Kha lil Shi kaki as serted in the sum mer of 2003 28 that while “almost all (Pales tin ian) refu gees viewed the right of return as 29 sacred,” he esti mated that “only 10 percent of the refu gees surveyed want 30 to exer cise the right of return in Israel.” 4 31 Shikaki’s methods and conclu sions quickly came under attack, prima- 32 rily from fel low Pa les tin ians who in sisted that he was deeply mis taken 33 about their will ing ness to sur render the right of re turn.5 In fact, Shi kaki 34 was attacked at a news confer ence announc ing the results of his survey in 35 Ramal lah in July 2003. The recep tion accorded him gives a fair indi ca tion of 36 the extraor di nary conten tion that the issue engen ders among Pales tin ians. 37

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1 And to be sure, if there are dif fer ent opin ions among Pa les tin ians on the 2 question, the gap is far wider between Jews and Arabs. Whereas the re- 3 nowned Pales tin ian intel lec tual Edward Said declared some years ago that 4 there was “a uni ver sal Pa les tin ian de mand heard all over the globe for the 5 right of return,” Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reit er ated the long- 6 standing po si tion of his pre de ces sors when he as serted in an inter view from 7 May 2007: “I’ll never ac cept a so lu tion that is based on (the re fu gees’) re turn 8 to Is rael, any num ber.”6 These com pet ing no tions under gird the tow er ing 9 walls that sep ar ate Zion ist and Pa les tin ian na tion al ism, as well as the com- 10 pet ing Israeli and Pales tin ian histori cal narra tives and public discourse. 11 For much of the past six decades, these narra tives have been almost en- 12 tirely ex clu sive of one another. Each side has tended to see its claim to the 13 land not only as su pe rior to, but ex clu sive of, the other’s. Moreover, each 14 side has seen the other as the chief aggres sor in the struggle over the land— 15 and, accord ingly, justi fied its own behavior in the name of self-defense and 16 national honor. For Pales tin ians, the Zionists were and remain colo nial 17 usurpers who succeeded in 1948 in their plan to supplant the native in- 18 habi tants of the land. For Jews, the Arabs were and remain unre lent ingly 19 hos tile to the Zion ist as pi ra tion of creat ing a Jew ish state. This hos tility 20 ne ces si tated a stead fast and un wa ver ing mili tary ef fort that reached its 21 suc cess ful cli max in the War of In de pen dence. These com pet ing per spec- 22 tives have be come ritu al ized in com memora tive days: In de pen dence Day 23 for Israe lis, marking the declara tion of the state on 5 Iyar (accord ing to the 24 Hebrew calen dar); and more recently, Nakba Day for Pales tin ians, usually 25 on 15 May (the date of the Arab states’ declara tion of war on the new Jew- 26 ish state), but in some places held to coin cide with Israel’s Inde pen dence 27 Day. This ritualiza tion of histori cal memory rein forces the atti tude of 28 many advo cates on both sides of the divide that to acknowl edge in any 29 way the va lidity of the other’s claim to the land is tan ta mount to na tional 30 betrayal. 31 The pro tago nist of this book, Simon Rawi dow icz (1897–1957), did not 32 subscribe to this belief. Neither a Pales tin ian nor an Israeli, Rawidow icz 33 was a Jewish thinker, ideologue, and scholar who followed a long and me- 34 an der ing car eer path from his na tive East ern Eu rope to Ger many and En - 35 gland before arriv ing in the United States at the age of fifty-one. A few years 36 after coming to American shores, Rawidow icz joined the faculty of the 37 newly founded Bran deis Uni ver sity as a pro fes sor of Jew ish thought. It was Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 3

introduction| 3 while at Brandeis that he arrived at the conclu sion that the most compel - 1 ling moral and politi cal challenge facing Jews after 1948 was the resolu - 2 tion of the “Arab Question,” the term he used to refer to the status of Arabs 3 resident in the new State of Israel, as well as to the Arab refu gees who left 4 Pales tine in 1948. Rawidow icz issued a plea to address the Arab Question, 5 cul mi nat ing in the bold call to re pa tri ate Arab re fu gees, in a chapter-length 6 coda to his lengthy Hebrew tome, Bavel vi-Yerushalayim (Babylon and Je- 7 ru sa lem). He worked on the large book, along with the small chap ter, over 8 the course of the early to mid-1950s and com pleted the over all proj ect in 9 the year of his death, 1957. It is his con tro ver sial and far-reaching pro po - 10 sal to redir ect the course of the nascent State of Israel—as well as of Jew- 11 ish po liti cal dis course—by con front ing the Arab Ques tion that stands at 12 the center of our concerns here. 13 Rawidow icz came to his views on the Arab Question rather late—only 14 after 1948—and not out of strident anti-Zionism. He was, in fact, a staunch 15 Jew ish na tion al ist who, from his youth, sup ported the Zion ist at tempt to 16 reset tle Pales tine. Where he departed from more conven tional Zionists 17 was in be liev ing that a vi brant Jew ish cen ter in Pa les tine was a ne ces sary 18 but not suf fi cient con di tion for a flour ish ing Jew ish na tion. Such a flour- 19 ish ing also re quired a vi brant Dia spora com mu nity that both stood on its 20 own and worked in close partner ship with the center based in the Land of 21 Is rael. Rawi dow icz sought to counter the view that “the Dia spora can not 22 sur vive and be crea tive” un less it de velop a de pen dent re la tion ship on the 23 new State of Israel. 7 On the con trary, he be lieved that the Dia spora ex pe- 24 ri ence of the Jews had much to teach Zion ists and the State of Is rael about 25 the nature of rela tions between a ruling majority and a minority in its 26 midst. The assump tion of sovereignty by the Jews in 1948 demanded hu- 27 mane treatment of the new state’s Arab minority, much as Jews in the Di- 28 a spora had de manded the right to such treat ment in the coun tries of their 29 resi dence. Moreover, sove reignty placed a weighty re spon sibility on the 30 State of Is rael’s lead ers to ad dress the status of hun dreds of thou sands of 31 Pales tin ian Arab refu gees. To make this point, Rawidow icz claimed, was 32 not starry-eyed utopian ism. Rather, the refusal to acknowl edge the refugee 33 problem was a danger ous exer cise in self-delusion. 34 A good part of the intrigue in our story stems from the fact that the 35 chap ter in which Rawi dow icz pre sented his views, en ti tled “Between Jew 36 and Arab,” never made its way into print, dwelling in obscurity for decades. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 4

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1 In deed, this thirty-three-page essay, which was in tended for pub li ca tion 2 in Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, is pre sented in full—in En glish trans la tion—for 3 the first time here. 4 It is not only the chap ter’s inimitable He brew style that catches our at- 5 ten tion. It is also that the sub ject mat ter both fol lows and de vi ates from 6 Rawidow icz’s tradi tional concerns. From the very begin nings of his pro- 7 fes sional car eer in Ber lin in the late 1920s, he sought to under stand, im- 8 prove, and pro vide a theo reti cal foun da tion for the status of the Jews as a 9 national minority in the Diaspora. After 1948 his concerns shifted to the 10 status of the Arab na tional mi nority in the new Jew ish state and the re fu - 11 gees beyond. This new focus on the Arab Question would seem to be a mir- 12 ror re flec tion of the cen tral place of the Jew ish Ques tion in Rawi dow icz’s 13 thought. At the same time, the sub ject mat ter of the un pub lished chap ter 14 de parts from the fa mil iar themes (for ex am ple, the need for a vi brant Di- 15 aspora Hebrew culture or a single Jewish nation with two centers) that 16 recur in the large body of He brew writ ing that Rawi dow icz as sem bled over 17 three decades. This depar ture highlights the extraor di nary nature of his 18 foray into terrain that he had pledged never to enter: namely, Israeli foreign 19 policy and the Arab Question. It may also help explain why he or someone 20 close to him ul ti mately de cided to leave the chap ter in a desk drawer 21 rather than publish it. 22 Of course, the main reason one might have chosen to suppress this chap- 23 ter was its call for the repa tria tion of refu gees, an explo sive sugges tion in the 24 Jewish world in the mid-1950s when the State of Israel faced the persis tent 25 hos tility of its Arab neigh bors. That said, the taboo that has often sur rounded 26 the refugee question in Israeli and Jewish circles was not univer sally pres- 27 ent. Dur ing and im me di ately after the 1948 war, Is raeli policymakers, jour- 28 nal ists, authors, and intel lec tu als discussed various aspects of the refugee 29 ques tion, in clud ing the pros pect of a par tial re turn of Pa les tin ian Arabs 30 to the new State of Israel. To be sure, this discus sion usually took place 31 sotto voce or at the margins of Israeli political discourse. Over the course 32 of the early 1950s, as the new state labored to confront its manifold prob - 33 lems ( for ex am ple, se curity, im mi gra tion, econ omy), dis cus sion of the re - 34 fu gees be came even more muted, yield ing to a pos ture of si lence that has 35 ob tained until quite re cently.8 36 Among those Jews who contem plated a return of refu gees in the after- 37 math of 1948, Simon Rawidow icz was one of the most distinc tive and Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 5

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impas sioned. For him, the refugee question was a matter of politi cal ur- 1 gency for the new state, as well as of compas sion for the well-being of the 2 displaced. But it was perhaps above all an impor tant test of Jewish moral- 3 ity. The crea tion of the State of Is rael in 1948, Rawi dow icz af firmed, 4 marked an epo chal turn ing point in the his tory of the Jews. It au gured new 5 pros pects for the rene wal of the Jew ish na tion, both in the home land and 6 abroad. But the as cent to po liti cal power by Jews also posed major chal- 7 lenges. Rawi dow icz ap proached this new de vel op ment not as a paci fist 8 opposed to the use of force, but as a skeptic wary of the misuse of power. 9 Would the sensi tivity that Jews had culti vated and internal ized over cen- 10 tu ries of exis tence as a national minority in the Diaspora vanish? Would 11 they adopt the ways of the Gen tiles—an es pe cially un ap peal ing pros pect 12 in the wake of the Holo caust—when re lat ing to the new na tional mi nority 13 in their midst? In raising these questions in “Between Jew and Arab,” Ra- 14 widow icz revealed his own unre con structed vision of Jewish excep tion al - 15 ism. He often framed this posture in the language of classi cal Jewish 16 sources and person alities, such as when he cast the Jews as the bibli cal 17 Jacob and the Gentile nations as Esau. 18 Rawidow icz’s concern was not only that Jacob would come to act like 19 his co ar ser older brother Esau, but that Esau would en thu sias ti cally wel- 20 come Jacob’s descent into the world of interne cine tribal struggle. More to 21 the point, he feared that the behavior of the Jews vis-à-vis Pales tin ians 22 Arabs would evince a knowing wink from the Western powers, as if to sig- 23 nal satis fac tion that the Jews at long last had come to understand the 24 true—which is to say, amoral—na ture of the world. Such a signal would 25 spell pro found dam age to the ethi cal in teg rity and re pu ta tion of the Jews, 26 an un for tu nate though not un ex pected con se quence of the ad vent of Jew- 27 ish po liti cal sove reignty. 28 As in the case of the Arab refu gee ques tion, a small cir cle of Jew ish in- 29 tel lec tu als had hesita tions about the celeb ra tory spirit that attended the 30 creation of the State of Israel. 9 It is interest ing, though perhaps not sur- 31 pris ing, that Rawidow icz, the Eastern Euro pean Jew, was in regular touch 32 with none of them. This co hort, which in cluded Han nah Arendt, Mar tin 33 Buber, Hans Kohn, Judah Magnes, and Akiva Ernst Simon, was pre domi - 34 nantly Ger man by lan guage and cul ture, and pos sessed a some what dif fer- 35 ent politi cal sensibility. Whereas the Germans (and the American of 36 Ger man ori gin, Magnes) won dered whether a Jew ish state—as dis tinct 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 6

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1 from a bi na tional state or a con fed era tion—was the op ti mal po liti cal ar - 2 rangement for Pales tine, Rawidow icz never articu lated any preferred alter- 3 na tive to the State of Is rael (as a Jew ish state). He did, how ever, share the 4 anx iety of these think ers that “nor maliza tion”—the long-standing Zion ist 5 goal to grant the Jews a state like other nations—might bring out the bas- 6 est of in stincts in the Jew ish peo ple. 7 To be sure, debate about the virtues of normaliza tion has not ceased 8 sixty years after the State of Israel was estab lished. A number of recent 9 Jew ish think ers (for ex am ple, Yoram Ha zony, Mi chael Oren, and Ruth 10 Wisse) con tinue to ad vo cate nor maliza tion, in the form of state power, as 11 the neces sary correc tive to the tortu ous path followed by Jews in the Dia - 12 spora prior to 1948.10 They tend to regard Jewish critics of normaliza - 13 tion—past and present—as beset by de lu sions and pos ing a dan ger to their 14 own people. Rawidow icz would surely have merited desig na tion as such 15 had he pub lished his chap ter. But it is im por tant to em pha size that his 16 criti cism did not amount to a re nun cia tion of Zion ism. Rather, it was re- 17 lated to his long-held desire to resist one particu lar tendency in Zionist 18 thought: that strain which favored dimin ish ing or “negat ing” the Diaspora. 19 Rawi dow icz re peat edly de clared through out his long car eer of schol arly 20 and pub lic ac tivity that the Dia spora was a cen ter of Jew ish na tional life 21 unto itself and need not be subser vi ent to the Jewish center in the Land of 22 Is rael. It was this propo si tion that stood at the core of his cap stone work, 23 Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, whose title evoked the two historic centers of Jew- 24 ish national life from antiquity. 25 Fol low ing the crea tion of the State of Is rael, Rawi dow icz feared that the 26 ne ga tion ist strand of Zion ism would gain con sid erable force and upend the 27 bal ance between Dia spora and Zion. He was es pe cially dis mayed by the rise 28 of “cruel Zion ism” (ha-Tsiyonut ha-akhzarit), a term invoked in the 1940s by 29 a Zion ist ac ti vist, Av ra ham Sharon (né Schwad ron), to ad vo cate in ten tional 30 disre gard for the fate of Diaspora Jewry in order to marshal all available re- 31 sources for the Jew ish com mu nity in Pa les tine.11 Ulti mately, the conse - 32 quences of such a “cruel Zion ism,” Rawi dow icz feared, would fall not only 33 upon the Dia spora. They would also be—in deed, al ready had been—vis - 34 ited upon the Arabs, now that the Jews had gained an upper hand in the 35 battle over Pales tine. In the course of analyz ing this process, Rawidow icz 36 came to believe that the problem that must now occupy world Jewry—as an 37 urgent moral and politi cal neces sity—was the fate of the Pales tin ian Arabs. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 7

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Rawidow icz’s assess ment of the Arab Question parallels that of a Jew- 1 ish figure whom he held in the highest esteem: the Israeli author, S. Yizhar 2 (né Yizhar Smi lan sky, 1916–2006). In 1949, Yizhar pub lished a well-known 3 short story, “Hir bet Hi zaah,” that described the expul sion of local Pales tin - 4 ian Arabs by a rather cal lous and in dif fer ent group of Jew ish sol diers dur- 5 ing the War of Inde pen dence. As we shall later see, the story gener ated a 6 consid erable amount of acclaim and contro versy. For Rawidow icz, Yizhar’s 7 boldness reflected a moral courage that was unique among Labor Zionists 8 of Eastern Euro pean origin—who, unlike the above-mentioned German 9 Jews, had abandoned by 1948 the rhetoric of brother hood and peaceful 10 c oe xi st e n c e w i t h A r a b s t h e y h a d e a rl i e r f av o r e d . 12 Through out his life, 11 Yizhar con tin ued to ad vo cate those val ues, all the while re main ing a com- 12 mit ted Zion ist who served six terms in the Is raeli par lia ment as a mem ber 13 of the ruling Mapai party. 14 Of par ticu lar rele vance are Yizhar’s words de liv ered at a me mo rial trib- 15 ute to Martin Buber in 1990. Although he never had a chance to see Raw- 16 idow icz’s chapter “Between Jew and Arab” (and most probably never knew 17 of its author’s views), there is a striking affinity in perspec tive between the 18 two. At the Buber tribute, Yizhar was no longer address ing the events of 19 1948, as he had in “Hirbet Hiz aah,” but rather the aftermath of the 1967 Six- 20 Day War. He called for an end to Is rael’s oc cu pa tion of the West Bank and 21 Gaza Strip, not the least on ethi cal grounds, which he de scribed as “the 22 pri mary con sid era tion, the strong est, and in the final analy sis, the most 23 deci sive.” He then pro ceeded to evoke the spirit and let ter of Rawi dow icz’s 24 “Between Jew and Arab”: “The Pa les tinian Ques tion is not an Arab Ques- 25 tion, but en tirely a Jew ish Ques tion. . . . It is a ques tion for the Jews and a 26 question for Juda ism. And instead of continu ing to run away from it, one 27 must stop and turn to face it, turn and look at it directly.” 13 28 The passage of forty years created a differ ent histori cal context in which 29 to voice moral concerns. Advo cat ing repa tria tion of refu gees in the early 30 1990s would have pushed Yizhar well beyond the bounds of legiti macy 31 within Israeli politi cal culture. Once acutely mindful of the wound of expul- 32 sion, Yizhar now declared that “our task as Jews and as Zionists is to put 33 an end to our ex is tence as con quer ors of another peo ple.”14 In this sense, 34 the simi larity of lan guage between Yizhar and Rawi dow icz be lies the im- 35 por tant dif fer ences between them as well: not only the dis tinct ver sions 36 of the Arab Question framed by the experi ence of 1948 and then again of 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 8

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1 1967, but the fact that Rawi dow icz was far more ra di cal, mar gi nal, and, 2 ulti mately, silent than Yizhar. 3 If si lent in his day, why re call the bur ied le gacy of Simon Rawi dow icz? 4 Was not Yizhar the more tem pered and realis tic moral voice? Did he not 5 under stand bet ter the harsh re alities of the Mid dle East that so readily 6 undo hopes of recon cilia tion? It is easy to imagine critics of Rawidow icz 7 de scrib ing his call for re pa tria tion as naïve, or even worse, sui ci dal for the 8 Jew ish state. They would point out that the twen ti eth cen tury wit nessed 9 many popula tion exchanges, transfers, and refugee crises involv ing tens 10 of millions of people. Reflect ing this kind of real ist stance, the scholar and 11 Revi sion ist Zionist Joseph Schechtman, who might well have been a critic 12 of Rawidow icz, declared at the outset of one of his lengthy studies on pop- 13 ula tion exchanges that he was “in favor of the transfer of ethnic groups as 14 a so lu tion to those na tion ality pro blems which have proved to be in solu - 15 ble in any other way.” In his more focused study, The Arab Refugee Problem 16 (1952), he contin ued by assert ing that never before “has repa tria tion 17 proved a so lu tion to the pro blems which arose from these move ments of 18 popu la tion.”15 Other poten tial critics of Rawidow icz, one might speculate, 19 would point out that the “right of return” was not granted, or even de- 20 manded, in many of these cases—and thus should not be ac corded to the 21 P al e st i ni a n s . 16 22 In fact, Rawi dow icz’s call for re pa tria tion did not rest on a de tailed 23 analy sis of inter na tional law nor of the lo gis ti cal or po liti cal risks it would 24 pose to the State of Israel. The force of his chapter did not lie then in its 25 prac ti cality, but rather in its unusual at ten tion to the quan dary that Raw- 26 i dow icz des ig nated as the “plight of the re fu gees.” His text stands out for its 27 ability to reach over the politi cal and rhetori cal chasm that separ ates Jews 28 and Arabs in the matter of their shared homeland. It gave power ful voice 29 to what has been so dis puted in the vio lent decades since the es tab lish - 30 ment of the State of Is rael: not only that the two sides have le giti mate 31 claims to Pales tine, but that the dispos ses sion of hundreds of thousands 32 of Pales tin ians in 1948, even as the result of a military conflict that the 33 Jews did not initiate, rep re sented a deep wound both for the dis placed and 34 for those who came in their place. 35 This sense of wound may well remain as true today as before. For the Pa - 36 lestin ians, the wound is a fester ing and open one, exac er bated by the ma- 37 lign neglect of Arab countries, their own inef fec tual and self-serving Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 9

introduction| 9 po liti cal lead ers, and Is rael’s on go ing oc cu pa tion of the West Bank. The 1 wound has become an orga niz ing princi ple of Pales tin ian national identity, 2 breed ing a state of sus pended re ality among the ex iled, brood ing re sent - 3 ment in refu gee camps, and at times mur der ous be havior. For many Pa les- 4 tin ians, the prin ci ple of re turn is the only ac ceptable salve to the in dig nity 5 of having been uprooted from their dwellings, property, and homeland in 6 the midst of the 1948 war. They as sert that the prin ci ple is rooted in inter - 7 national law (for exam ple, U.N. Resolu tion 194), but add that it is a “sacred” 8 right that can not be sur ren dered or modi fied in any way.17 All too often, 9 the professed sanctity of the Pales tin ian right of return allows for no rec- 10 og ni tion of com pet ing rights, par ticu larly, of the inter na tion ally rec og nized 11 right of Jews to national self-determination in Pales tine (U.N. Resolu tion 12 181). Thus, the normal politi cal, diplo matic, or legal work of adju di cat ing 13 between com pet ing claims falls vic tim to the un com prom is ing as ser tion 14 of ab so lute right.18 15 Meanwhile, for the Jews, the wound of the refu gees is a linger ing blem- 16 ish whose denial bespeaks a danger ous opacity. We recall that the Jewish 17 side was pre pared to ac cept the par ti tion of Pa les tine pro posed by the 18 United Nations on 29 Novem ber 1947 and did not initiate hostilities with 19 the Arab side, either in the wake of the Parti tion Plan or in the imme di ate 20 aftermath of the declara tion of the State of Israel. In fact, many Jews in 21 Palestine be lieved that they were fac ing a war of ex ter mina tion (an es pe- 22 cially terri fy ing prospect given the recent memory of the Holocaust). That 23 said, there is clear evidence that Jewish and Israeli forces engaged in the 24 ex pul sion of thou sands, and likely hun dreds of thou sands, of Pa les tin ian 25 Arabs from the country. 19 We also know that some Israeli govern ment of- 26 fi cials were more than happy to be rid of these hostile (or theoreti cally hos- 27 tile) residents in order to proceed with the goal of stabi liz ing the new 28 Jewish state. In fact, there were those who referred to the flight of Arabs, 29 either by force or choice, in the recur rent messianic language of the day: 30 as a “mira cle.”20 Moreover, the new Israeli govern ment often undertook to 31 erase traces of the physical presence of Arabs in parts of Pales tine that fell 32 under the juris dic tion of the State of Israel, a process chronicled by Meron 33 Ben ve nisti in Sacred Landscape. This ef fort was in tended not only to “Ju - 34 daize” the new state, but to set firmly in place the image of the mythic He- 35 brew re claim ing his land. One con se quence was that re min ders of 36 Pales tin ian Arab dispos ses sion were largely repressed from the early 1950s, 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 10

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1 soon to be supplanted in Israeli public conscious ness by an even larger 2 wound: the searing tale of Jewish victimiza tion in the Holocaust. 21 3 The con ti guity of these open (Pa les tin ian) and closed (Is raeli) wounds 4 stemming from the refugee crisis of 1948 adds an impor tant psycho logi cal 5 di men sion to the con flict.22 It is not the ambi tion of this book either to 6 heal these wounds or to pro vide a de fini tive an swer to what is an im- 7 mensely com pli cated ques tion. It is to sug gest that Israel-Palestine is a 8 cross road of over lap ping, com pet ing, and mul ti ple truths, of par allel his- 9 torical experi ences but for one detail: the vectors of change move in oppo - 10 site di rec tions—from home land to exile in the case of the Pa les tin ians, and 11 from exile to home land in the case of the Jews.23 The price of acknowl edg - 12 ing the mul ti plicity of his tori cal truths or the le giti macy of the other’s nar- 13 ra tive has often been perceived to be too high to pay. Undoubt edly, there 14 are those on both sides who are capable of pushing past the psycho logi cal 15 barriers and stale rhetoric to acknowl edge the other. But often times, such 16 in di vidu als seem to have an au di ence of lit tle more than one.24 17 It is in that tradi tion of isolated and solitary thinkers that we locate 18 Simon Rawidow icz, who at one point in his life assumed the pseudo nym 19 “Lonely Man.” Given that his views on the Arab Ques tion did not exert any 20 influ ence on others, it remains for us to explain further why his posi tion 21 de serves to be res cued from si lence. 22 The first set of reasons derives from Rawidow icz’s distinc tive stance as 23 a passion ate, empathic, and yet agitated critic of his own people. Neither 24 content to swim in the current of popular opinion nor ignore it alto gether, 25 Rawi dow icz felt an ob li ga tion to voice his views on mat ters af fect ing the 26 Jewish common weal. At times, these views took him well beyond the 27 mainstream, even making him seem what he desper ately sought to avoid 28 being: a dreamy uto pian. That he re fused to sur render his com mit ment to 29 write in the He brew lan guage while re main ing in the Dia spora—and hence 30 detached himself from the natural audi ence of Hebrew readers in Pales tine 31 (as well as the much larger English-reading audi ence in the United States 32 and elsewhere)—did little to discou rage this image. 33 And yet, we would be miss ing the force of Rawi dow icz’s plea and po si - 34 tion by con tinu ing to ne glect him. He was a prob ing critic of Zion ism with- 35 out being anti-Zionist. His im pulse to af flict the com fortable from among 36 his own compat ri ots was an act of devo tion to “Israel,” the transna tional 37 Jewish people. This devo tion was itself consciously grounded in ahavat Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 11

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Yisrael, love of the Jewish people. It is this quality that Gershom Scholem 1 famously accused Hannah Arendt of lacking in 1963, in the aftermath of 2 her report age on the Eichmann trial. Arendt responded by affirm ing that 3 “I have never in my life ‘loved’ any people or collec tive. . . . I indeed love 4 ‘only’ my friends and the only kind of love I know of and be lieve in is the 5 love of per sons.”25 6 In con trast to Arendt (and other Jew ish crit ics of Zion ism), Simon Raw- 7 idow icz resem bled earlier, nineteenth-century nation al ists, who were 8 proudly ca pable of lov ing their peo ple. But he was also will ing to adopt a 9 sharp tone of rebuke toward his people—and more specifi cally, toward the 10 Zionist project—even if it compelled him to become a “lonely man” of con- 11 sci ence. He knew well the an cient tra di tion into which he stepped. Like 12 the prophets Amos and Jeremiah, he beseeched his people to retain a mea- 13 sure of humility in its behavior and to acknowl edge, when neces sary, its 14 er rant ways. His call be came in creas ingly ur gent at the point when he rec- 15 og nized that the mil len nial ful fill ment of the Jews’ dream of re newed sov- 16 e reignty co in cided with—in deed, con trib uted to—the “ca tas trophe” of 17 P al e st i ni a n A r a b d i sp o ss e ss i o n . 18 R a w id o wi c z ’ s cri de coeur, born of love and moral in dig na tion, was not 19 heard in this pe riod, or later. Even if it had seen the light of day, it is highly 20 doubtful that it would have changed public atti tudes in the State of Israel 21 toward the Pales tin ian refugee question. A mix of fear, shame, indif fer ence, 22 and plain ignor ance largely consigned this question to the recesses of Is- 23 raeli collec tive memory. Misinformation and denial regard ing Pales tin ian 24 refu gees have been even more pronounced in the Diaspora, where the or- 25 ga nized Jewish commu nity prides itself on standing in lockstep with the 26 gov ern ment of the State of Is rael and de fend ing it from re proach by ex ter - 27 nal critics. 26 Rawidow icz lamented the fact that the Diaspora Jewish press 28 was less open and self-critical than the press in the State of Israel itself. We 29 should note that this tendency is not restricted to the journa lis tic sphere, 30 and surely not to the Jew ish case; dia spora com mu nities in gen eral are often 31 more conform ist (and conser va tive) in their politics than the public—and 32 at times, the govern ment—back in the homeland. 27 Well aware of this ten- 33 dency, Rawidow icz may have elected to remain silent over the refugee ques- 34 tion rather than face the wrath of his fel low Jews in America. 35 We cannot be alto gether certain about the circum stances in which his 36 chap ter was sup pressed. What is clear is that con for mity was and re mains 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 12

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1 a prominent value among Diaspora support ers of the State of Israel. It is 2 also clear that we know a good deal more about the cir cum stances in 3 which the actual plight unfolded, indeed, far more than Rawidow icz and 4 other con cerned Jews in the late 1940s and early 1950s could have known. 5 This greater aware ness is due largely to the work of the so-called New His- 6 to rians, a group of Israeli scholars who began to comb newly opened ar- 7 chives in Is rael more than two decades ago and, as a re sult of their 8 discov er ies, challenge histori cal myths that had accom pa nied the State of 9 Israel from its birth in 1948. One of the key findings of these histo rians was 10 that the Pales tin ian refugee problem did not arise solely as a result of vol- 11 un tary flight in the midst of war time. Rather, the Jew ish/Is raeli side was re- 12 spon sible for the forced removal of a signifi cant portion of the Arab 13 popu la tion from Pa les tine in 1948. While many Is rae lis today con tinue to 14 deny or ig nore this claim, a grow ing num ber, in clud ing the scholar who 15 most systemati cally unearthed evidence of the removal—Benny Morris— 16 affirm that expul sions by Jewish forces took place. But Morris, and some 17 who follow in his wake, have come to occupy a middle posi tion between 18 denial and acknowl edg ment of respon sibility. That is, they no longer ad- 19 here to the mythic view of the past, but they do re sist re dress for the Pa les- 20 tin ians, maintain ing that expul sions were neces sary and justi fied in the 21 midst of a pitched bat tle for na tional sur vi val.28 22 Other Israe lis are more remorse ful. Shlomo Ben-Ami, histo rian and 23 former Israeli foreign minister during the late phases of the Oslo peace 24 process, wrote recently, in a summary of the events of 1948, “of an Arab 25 commu nity in a state of terror facing a ruthless Israeli army whose path 26 to victory was paved not only by its exploits against the regular Arab ar- 27 mies, but also by the in timi da tion, and at times atrocities and mas sa cres, 28 it perpe trated against the civil ian Arab commu nity.” 29 A similar recog ni - 29 tion prompted the re nowned Is raeli au thor, Amos Oz, to de clare in a re- 30 cent opinion piece: “The time has come to acknowl edge openly that 31 Is rae lis had a part in the ca tas trophe of the Pa les tin ian re fu gees. We do 32 not bear sole respon sibility, and we are not solely to blame, but our hands 33 are not clean.”30 34 De spite this rec og ni tion, nei ther Oz nor Ben-Ami favor grant ing Pa les - 35 tinians the unlim ited right to return to their or their forebears’ old homes 36 in what is now the State of Is rael. In deed, Ben-Ami of fers a view of the refu - 37 gee pro blem that, while em pathic, is pre emi nently prag matic: “On moral Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 13

introduction| 13 grounds, one could of course con vinc ingly de fend the case for the re pa - 1 tria tion of re fu gees. But this was out of the ques tion in a histori cal and po- 2 liti cal con text, where a clash ex isted between an emer gent Jew ish state 3 and its de feated ene mies.”31 4 One could well ima gine such a re sponse by an Is raeli poli tician in dis- 5 miss ing the claims of Simon Rawi dow icz. And yet, it is im por tant to add 6 that Ben-Ami and the Is raeli side in the Camp David peace talks bro kered 7 by President Clinton were appar ently willing to consider a modest version 8 of the Pales tin ian right of return: not the full return of all refu gees to pre- 9 1967 Israel, but, among other features, a right of return to a new state of Pa- 10 les tine (in clud ing some swaths of Is raeli land that would be swapped), a 11 limited number of retur nees to Israel proper, and compen sa tion for those 12 who chose not to return (in accor dance with U.N. Resolu tion 194).32 In this 13 regard, it is germane to mention the various propo sals that have been ad- 14 vanced by Pales tin ians and Israe lis, politi cians and academ ics, to solve the 15 refugee question as part of a larger peace settle ment. 33 These in clude the 16 Bei lin–Abu Mazen docu ment of Oc to ber 31, 1995, and the 2003 Ge neva 17 Accord, which provides a detailed elaboration of the princi ples laid out in 18 the Clinton Parame ters. 34 19 It is far from certain whether these propo sals, and their call for a mod- 20 ified right of return, will ever succeed in regain ing politi cal and diplo matic 21 traction. Nor is it clear that the Israeli govern ment would ever agree to 22 issue an acknowl edg ment of respon sibility for the refugee problem à la 23 A m o s O z — o r t h a t p a rt i a l a ck n o w le d gm e n t w o u l d s u ff i c e f o r t h e P al e st i n- 24 ians. If, in fact, no such acknowl edg ment and accep tance ensue, it remains 25 an open question whether Pales tin ians will ever heal the wound of 1948, 26 at least enough to recog nize in meaning ful fashion the right of Jews to a 27 safe and stable col lec tive ex is tence. A lead ing Pa les tin ian in tel lec tual and 28 observer, Sari Nussei beh, has recently warned: “by denying all respon - 29 sibility, besides being his tori cally ab surd to the point of cra zi ness, you will 30 guaran tee eternal antago nism—a never-ending search for revenge.” 35 31 Fifty years be fore Nus sei beh, Simon Rawi dow icz ar rived at a simi lar 32 con clu sion, in sist ing that the refu sal to ad dress the “plight of the re fu gees” 33 would be an on go ing thorn in the side of the State of Is rael. Re read ing his 34 un pub lished chap ter today, in the midst of the cur rent (and per en nial) 35 impasse between Israe lis and Pales tin ians, is hardly a pana cea to all of 36 the conflict’s ills. But it is a bracing call to histori cal cogni zance and 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 14

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1 respon sibility regard ing a key feature of the Arab Question that has rou- 2 tinely been ig nored or dis missed as base less by Jews. 3 There is a sec ond rea son, apart from the dis tinc tive ness of his mes sage, 4 that we are prompted to re cover the lost voice of Rawi dow icz here. In gen- 5 eral, he has es caped seri ous and sus tained schol arly at ten tion. The lim- 6 ited scholar ship that is dedicated to him has dealt very briefly, if at all, with 7 his con cern for re fu gees. The most system atic treat ment of Rawi dow icz 8 and his thought comes from his son, the his to rian Ben ja min Ravid. Ravid 9 has written a pair of detailed studies on the life and thought of his father, 10 drawn from a large trove of corre spond ence with family members and 11 lead ing Jew ish lit er ary and cul tural ac ti vists, as well as from Rawi dow icz’s 12 published work. The first incar na tion, a lengthy intro duc tion to a volume 13 of Rawi dow icz’s writ ings in He brew, makes no men tion of “Between Jew 14 and Arab.” A shorter ver sion of Ravid’s bio graph i cal essay in tro duces a col- 15 lec tion of his fa ther’s es says trans lated into En glish. There Ravid pro duced 16 a one-page syn op sis of the chap ter in ques tion, con clud ing that Rawi - 17 dow icz him self chose not to pub lish it after con sult ing with the man in 18 Paris re spon sible for print ing Bavel vi-Yerushalayim.36 19 An even briefer ref er ence to the issue ap pears in Av ra ham Green baum’s 20 short study of the London-based Ararat Publish ing Society, of which Ra- 21 w id o wi c z w a s a f o u n d e r . I n a p e rs o n a l r e co ll e ct i o n , G r e e nb a u m r em e m- 22 bers Rawidow icz telling him that he had decided to suppress his views on 23 the Arab Ques tion so as not to draw at ten tion away from other mat ters of 24 greater impor tance to him (for exam ple, the rela tion ship between the 25 State of Israel and the Diaspora). 26 Nei ther Ravid nor Green baum was pri marily inter ested in Rawi do wicz’s 27 unpub lished chapter, but rather in shedding light on his interre lated goals 28 of creating a vibrant Hebrew culture in the Diaspora and advanc ing the 29 idea of a dual-centered Jew ish na tion al ism (based in the Dia spora and in 30 the Land of Israel). Indeed, it is this set of ideas—and espe cially Rawido - 31 wicz’s critique of the hegemonic instinct of the Zionist movement toward 32 the Diaspora—that has managed to attract the fleeting atten tion of Israeli 33 scholars (for exam ple, Yosef Gorny and Ehud Luz), as well as the scrutiny 34 of Gordon Tucker in a short book review. 37 35 The most exten sive analysis of Rawidow icz to date apart from Benja min 36 Ravid’s is provided by Noam Pianko in his fine 2004 disser ta tion. Pianko ex- 37 am ines Rawidow icz alongside the better-known Horace Kallen, Morde chai Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 15

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Kaplan, and Hans Kohn in an effort to trace the contours of nonstat ist 1 forms of Jew ish na tion al ism. This in quiry into Dia spora na tion al ism re- 2 minds us that, although it ulti mately emerged trium phant, Zionism was 3 hardly alone among Jewish nation al ist ideologies that competed in a 4 crowded mar ket place of ideas in the early (and to a lesser ex tent, mid-) 5 twenti eth century. Even more germane for us, the disser ta tion devotes sev- 6 eral pages to Rawi dow icz’s chap ter on the Arab Ques tion. Alone among 7 those who have written about the chapter, Pianko grasps that Rawido - 8 wicz’s engage ment with the Arab Question did not stand in isola tion, but 9 was part and parcel of his broader politi cal thought. It would be inac cu rate 10 to describe this thought as a fully devel oped or systematic politi cal the- 11 ory; indeed, the sprawling Bavel vi-Yerushalayim often has a hapha zard 12 feel to it, mix ing the his tori cal and con tem po rary, the phil o soph i cal and 13 the im pres sion is tic, the fa mil iar and the novel. 14 Nonethe less, Pianko is right to note that Rawidow icz succeeded in 15 stitching the threads of his politi cal thinking together in interest ing ways. 16 Thus, he ad vanced a con cep tion of Jew ish na tion al ism that “would apply 17 to both Jews in their own po liti cal state and those who would con tinue to 18 live as a dis tinct mi nority popu la tion within other po liti cal en tities.” Pi- 19 anko fol lows the logic of the ar gu ment by point ing out that, for Rawi do - 20 wicz, “Dia spora Jew ish na tion al ism would lose its ability to ad vo cate a more 21 tol er ant at ti tude to wards mi nority cul tural, eth nic or re li gious or ien ta tion 22 if its own politi cal homeland denied the rights of its Arab minorities.” 38 23 This insight returns us to a key feature of Rawidow icz’s engage ment 24 with the Arab Ques tion. To a great ex tent, it was the his tori cal ex am ple of 25 the Jews, a national minority dispersed throughout the world prior to 1948, 26 that prompted his concern for Pales tin ian Arabs: both for those who lived 27 as a minority in the State of Israel and for those who dwelt as refu gees be- 28 yond its borders (and whose fate Rawidow icz regarded as two pieces of a 29 sin gle puz zle). Not only did he hope that Jews would ex hibit po liti cal and 30 cultural sensi tivity toward other national minorities based on their past 31 ex peri ence. He also feared that if Jews did not mani fest such sen si tivity as 32 a majority in their homeland, they would be that much less likely to be 33 treated well as a minority in the Diaspora. The Arab Question became 34 then, for Rawidow icz, a mirror through which to reflect on Jewish power, 35 sovereignty, and national minority rights as he set out to write Bavel vi- 36 Yerushalayim. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 16

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1 The central axis around which Rawidow icz’s analysis revolved was 1948: 2 the year in which the State of Is rael was es tab lished and the year that al- 3 tered the course and nar ra tive of Jew ish his tory. He af firmed the right of 4 Jews to a place under the sun, but was concerned that 1948 had unleashed 5 a tor rent of uncontrollable forces. In par ticu lar, he feared that Jews had 6 become, in the words of the Proverbs, “the servant who has come to reign” 7 (Pro verbs 30:21–22). Han nah Arendt, for her part, de scribed this phe nom- 8 enon as “the tendency, only too common in history, to play the oppres sor 9 as soon as one is lib er ated.”39 Rawidow icz’s great trepida tion was that the 10 new po liti cal power ac corded Jews in their state would dull the ethi cal sen- 11 sors that had guided and pre served them through out his tory. The re sult, 12 he feared, would be a most Pyrrhic victory. 13 14 II 15 16 Telling the story of Simon Rawidow icz and his chapter here marks a certain 17 degree of closure. For more than two decades, from the time I can first re- 18 mem ber reading him, Rawidow icz has exerted a kind of hypnotic hold on 19 me. His thinking, espe cially (but not exclu sively) about a dual-centered Jew- 20 ish na tion, was so in tui tive, origi nal, and yet for got ten that I vowed to ex- 21 plore his life and work in greater detail at some point. Over the years, in the 22 midst of other re search proj ects that have di verted my at ten tion, I have 23 dipped into Rawi dow icz’s world, pen ning a few ar ti cles or de liv er ing a few 24 lec tures on him. The al lure to do more has been great, and regu larly stimu - 25 lated my visits to the wonder ful trove of archi val sources—manuscripts, or- 26 ganiza tional ma te ri als, and let ters to every im por tant Jew of the twen ti eth 27 cen tury (or so it seems)—that dwells in the base ment of Rawi dow icz’s son, 28 Ben ja min Ravid, in New ton, Mas sachu setts. Ben Ravid is the cus to dian not 29 only of this re markable trove, but of his fa ther’s memory as well. He has been 30 an excep tion ally gracious and welcom ing host to the world of his father, al- 31 low ing me and other scholars unfet tered access to the mate ri als in the base- 32 ment. To the lucky visi tor to New ton, Ben also of fers a wealth of anec dotes 33 that only a child can tell of his father, as well as contex tual insights that only 34 a fine his to rian can offer up. It has been a real pleas ure to get to know Ben 35 over the years that I have been mak ing pil grim ages to his base ment. With- 36 out his con stant as sis tance and en cour age ment, this book would not have 37 been possible. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 17

introduction| 17

Not with stand ing Ben’s gene rosity, this book sig nals a fail ing of sorts. I 1 had once har bored the hope of writ ing a full-fledged bi og ra phy of Simon 2 Rawi dow icz, one that relies even more fully on the ar chi val treas ures in 3 New ton to piece to gether his life and work. The book at hand is not that 4 full-length biog ra phy. Nor is it an analysis of his rich thought or scholarly 5 produc tion. Those books still remain to be written. 6 Rather, the present volume focuses on a much smaller aspect of his oeu- 7 vre. Initially conceived as an article-length intro duc tion to his chapter, it 8 has grown in size, and thus repre sents someth ing of a hybrid between a 9 brief pre face and a full bi og ra phy. One can cer tainly make the ar gu ment 10 that the subject matter of his chapter provides an illu mi nat ing vista from 11 which to reflect on the guiding princi ples that animate his thinking. But, 12 truth be told, the fact that this book focuses on Rawidow icz’s atten tion to 13 the Arab Ques tion stems as much as anyth ing from a more per sonal rea- 14 son: my own growing awareness of and unease over the rela tions between 15 Jews and Arabs in Israel/Pa les tine. Like Rawidow icz, I have become un- 16 set tled by the intoxi cat ing effects of politi cal power and sovereignty on the 17 Jews. And like him, I rec og nize that the ab sence of such power has had 18 even more dev as tat ing ef fects on the Jews (though its pres ence does not, 19 alas, guar an tee Jew ish sur vi val in the fu ture). Fac ing that co nun drum, 20 Rawidow icz sought to forge a path that permit ted both unvar nished crit- 21 icism of his people and a profound sense of ahavat Yisrael. 40 For much of 22 his career, he spoke openly and without apology, undaunted by the pros- 23 pect of being at tacked for his views. Rawi dow icz was aware that his words 24 in “Between Jew and Arab” would elicit stiff op po si tion from fel low Jews, 25 es pe cially in the Dia spora where the need to up hold the image of a noble 26 and invin cible Israel is often stronger than in Israel itself. And yet, at the 27 point of publish ing his most trenchant and provo ca tive challenge to his 28 peo ple, words failed him. 29 De spite (or per haps be cause of) this mys teri ous end to the story, I am 30 drawn to Rawidow icz’s project of self-criticism, which enabled him to see 31 that a major—if not the major—measure of Zionism’s success would be its 32 treat ment of the Arab Ques tion. It is pos sible that in re claim ing his self- 33 critical voice, we are violat ing Rawidow icz’s own judgment that his forgot- 34 ten text should rest in peace, never to upset the au di ence for which it had 35 been intended. While we cannot be sure about this, the ongo ing salience of 36 the is sues he raises, and the no velty of his per spec tive, make a com pel ling 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 18

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1 case for recov er ing and translat ing his text—all the more so in light of the 2 inability of most Is raeli Jews and Pa les tin ian Arabs to es cape their own 3 self-affirming narra tives. This is not to say that Rawidow icz’s call for the re- 4 patria tion of hundreds of thousands of Pales tin ian refu gees is practi cable 5 in the current politi cal climate. But his intui tion that the State of Israel 6 must ad dress the deep wound of Pa les tin ian dis pos ses sion strikes us as 7 pain ful, yet le giti mate and healthy. So too was his in tui tion that the sove - 8 reign Jew ish state has the power, re spon sibility, and, though not al ways 9 evident, self-interest to initiate a resolu tion to the wound of 1948. 10 At the end of the day, it is for the reader to decide whether Rawidow icz’s 11 idiosyn cratic views have relevance to the pressing issues of today. It is also 12 for the reader to de ter mine whether I have man aged to strike an ap pro pri - 13 ate balance between empa thy and distance. In dealing with such a charged 14 issue as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, some say, it is preferable to avoid 15 overin vest ment and passion. But dispas sion in this matter is well-nigh im- 16 pos sible. In fact, what seems the best anti dote to po liti cal and his to rio - 17 graphical small-mindedness is an empathic perspec tive that acknowl edges 18 the worth of both Arab and Jewish ambi tions as distinct from the usual 19 practice of privileg ing one set of claims over another.41 This book, though 20 surely not it alone, takes a step in that direc tion by exca vat ing a text that 21 frames the Pales tin ian refugee problem not only as an Arab question, but 22 as a Jewish one as well. 23 24 III 25 26 The final task of this in tro duc tion is to offer a brief road map to the book, 27 which is divided into two main sections: “The Jewish Question” and “The 28 Arab Question.” At the end of these two sections is a full English transla tion 29 of Rawidow icz’s chapter “Between Jew and Arab,” undertaken in collabo - 30 ration with Arnold J. Band. An epilogue follows and conclud ing the volume 31 is a collec tion of appen dixes, includ ing a timeline, highlight ing histori cal 32 events to which Rawidow icz made refer ence or of which he would have 33 been aware, and sev eral of fi cial Is raeli and inter na tional legal docu ments, 34 most of which are mentioned in his chapter. 35 Part I of this book intro duces us to the peripa tetic life, iconoclas tic 36 thought, and intel lec tual devel op ment of Simon Rawidow icz. Relying on 37 a wide range of published and archi val sources, it traces the career of a Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 19

introduction| 19 confirmed advo cate of Jewish cultural nation al ism who, for a mix of per- 1 sonal and ideologi cal reasons, chose to live his entire life in the Diaspora. 2 As we follow his manifold scholarly and public activ i ties, we shall begin to 3 see his distinc tive vision of a Jewish cultural nation take root. We shall also 4 no tice his evolv ing inter est in the legal and politi cal dis course of na tional 5 mi nority rights, as well as the sig nifi cant re think ing that 1948, the year of 6 Is raeli in de pen dence, caused in his in tel lec tual and po liti cal world view. 7 Ulti mately, this part aims to provide a clear and textured understand ing of 8 what Rawi dow icz re ferred to as “sheh e lat Yis rael,” the Jew ish Ques tion. 9 Those less inter ested in Rawi dow icz’s bi og ra phy and view of Jew ish pol- 10 i tics can turn di rectly to part II, which con cen trates on his au da cious chap- 11 ter, “Between Jew and Arab.” This part analyzes the structure, content, and 12 context of the chapter, paying particu lar atten tion to Rawidow icz’s calls for 13 an end to discrimi na tion against Arab citiz ens of Israel, on one hand, and 14 for the repa tria tion of those refu gees who left Pales tine in 1948, on the other. 15 It also seeks to place these calls within the context of Israeli atti tudes to- 16 ward the refugee question in the early 1950s. Throughout this part, we gain 17 a clearer sight of the compet ing vectors that made up Rawidow icz’s com- 18 plex charac ter: his deep Jewish pathos and decided rejec tion of received 19 Jewish commu nal wisdom, as well as his politi cal presci ence and conscious 20 dis en gage ment from the drama of Jew ish his tory un fold ing in his day. 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab [blank] page 20

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 21

1 2 3 PART I | THE JEWISH QUESTION 4 5 6 n 1957, Simon Rawidow icz (fig. 1) could look back on his sixty years with 7 I a new found sense of ful fill ment and pur pose. After a peri pa tetic car eer 8 as a Jew ish scholar writ ing in He brew in the Dia spora, Rawi dow icz joined 9 the fled gling fa culty of Bran deis Uni ver sity in 1951. Very quickly, he es tab - 10 lished himself as a central presence on the Waltham campus, earning wide 11 praise and admi ra tion among admin is tra tors, colleagues, and students 12 alike. Bran deis was pre cisely the kind of vi brant Jew ish uni ver sity of which 13 he had dreamt and which he had advo cated for years. 14 The year 1957 was also when Rawi dow icz neared com ple tion of the 15 summa sum marum of his life’s work, Bavel vi-Yerushalayim (Babylon and Je- 16 rusa lem). 1 After decades of research, thinking, and ideologi cal refine - 17 ment—fol lowed by five years of writ ing (1951–55)—Rawi dow icz was on 18 the brink of pub lish ing a nine-hundred-page He brew text that gave full 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Fig. 1. Simon Rawidowicz (1897–1957). 37

| 21 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 22

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Fig. 2. ;ank-you note from Esther Rawidowicz (wife) and Benjamin Ravid (son) to 36 condolence callers. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 23

the jewish question23| ex pres sion to his dis tinc tive vi sion of Jew ish na tion al ism.2 This vi sion 1 rested on the claim that there had been throughout Jewish history, and 2 should continue to be in the future, two main centers of Jewish national life 3 and culture: one in the Land of Israel (symboli cally desig nated Jeru sa lem) 4 and the other in the Dia spora (Baby lon). 5 As fate would have it, Rawidow icz did not live to see the publi ca tion of 6 the two vo lumes of Bavel vi-Yerushalayim. He died on 20 July 1957, index 7 cards with him in hos pi tal and page proofs at home in Walt ham (fig. 2).3 8 The two volumes were published a bit later in 1958 (although with a 1957 9 imprint) by the Hebrew publish ing house, Ararat, that Rawidow icz and a 10 number of collabo ra tors had estab lished in England fifteen years earlier. 11 If there is a cer tain poig nancy in the fact that Rawi dow icz did not live 12 to see the book’s pub li ca tion, there is also an ele ment of mys tery. At some 13 point in the prep ara tion of Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, a deci sion was made to 14 w i t hh o l d f r o m p u bl ic at i o n a c h a pt e r t h a t R a w id o wi c z h a d b e e n w o r ki n g 15 on through out the early and mid-1950s. The rest of the book en gaged 16 Rawidow icz’s usual concerns: the origins and devel op ment of the Jewish 17 nation over millen nia, the rela tions between the main centers of Jewish 18 culture in the Diaspora and the Land of Israel, and, as of 1948, the impact 19 of the crea tion of the State of Is rael on the Jew ish world. As we have seen 20 in the intro duc tion, the suppressed chapter departed from these concerns 21 to address the fate of the Arab popula tion of Pales tine during the 1948 22 war and thereafter. Rawidow icz argued in this chapter that the great tri- 23 umph of the Jews—the assump tion of statehood in their ances tral home- 24 land—spelled disaster for the Arabs. In the first place, he sought to 25 dem on strate that the Arabs who re mained within the bor ders of the new 26 state—156,000 in 1949—were subject to unac ceptable discrimi na tion by 27 the Knes set, the leg is la tive body of the Jew ish state. Even more dra mati- 28 cally, Rawidow icz argued that it was the respon sibility of the State of Is- 29 rael to attend to the plight of hundreds of thousands of Arabs displaced 30 dur ing the hos tilities that en sued in Pa les tine from late 1947 through the 31 armis tice agreements of 1949.4 32 Ac cus tomed to the charge of being an anti-Zionist,5 Rawidow icz pro- 33 ceeded with the drafting of his chapter, placing at its center the argu ment 34 that the Arab Question had become the most compel ling Jewish Question 35 of the day. We shall address this most unlikely of equations in part II; now, 36 however, we turn to the liter ary mystery of why the chapter “Between Jew 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 24

24 | between jew and arab

1 and Arab” never made it into the pub lished ver sion of Bavel vi-Yerusha- 2 layim, and in fact, has not seen the light of day until now. 3 4 e Disappearing Chapter: A Case of Self-Censorship? 5 6 Rawi dow icz en ti tled the thirty-three-page He brew text that has been 7 translated here “Ben aEver le-aArav.”6 We have rendered this title “Between 8 Jew and Arab,” though a more literal reading would be “Between Hebrew 9 and Arab.” This title clues us in to the unusual qualities of Rawidow icz’s 10 highly idio syn cratic He brew. In typi cal fash ion, he es chewed the mod ern 11 noun forms for Jew (yehudi) and Arab (ei ther aaravi oraarvi), choosing in- 12 stead terms remi nis cent of the clas si ciz ing style that en tered the He brew 13 lan guage in the late eighteenth-century Haska lah ( J e wi s h E nl i g ht e nm e n t ) 14 and contin ued through the late nineteenth-century era of national liter ary 15 and lingu is tic revi val. 7 16 There is indeed an inten tion ally archaic quality to Rawidow icz’s He- 17 brew. At once elegant and stilted, it followed many byways of the ancient 18 tongue, incor po rat ing a wide range of bibli cal, mishnaic, and medi eval 19 rab binic allu sions. It was a style bet ter read than spoken, a func tion of the 20 fact, we might sur mise, that Rawi dow icz lived in his own, some what iso- 21 lated, diasporic world of Hebrew letters rather than in a dynamic Hebrew- 22 speaking envi ron ment. 23 Rawidow icz wrote the bulk of the chapter in question in his new home 24 of Walt ham some time between 1951 and 1953. We can as sume this dat- 25 ing because he relates in a footnote that much of the text was completed 26 two years be fore the in fa mous epi sode at Kibya in Oc to ber 1953, when 27 scores of Pales tin ian civil ians were killed in a retalia tory strike by the Israel 28 De fense Forces fol low ing a ter ror ist at tack in the town of Yehud.8 We know 29 that Rawi dow icz con tin ued to work on the chap ter after the Kibya epi - 30 sode, because he relates in another note that he largely completed it two 31 years before the confer ence of nonaligned Afri can and Asian countries 32 held in Bandung, Indo ne sia, on 18–25 April 1955.9 The fact that he men- 33 tioned Bandung indi cates that he was still at work on the chapter, if only 34 in slight measure, at the time of the confer ence. 35 In fact, we have in our posses sion an envel ope sent to Rawidow icz’s 36 printer in Paris and labeled “aEver ve-aarav” (Hebrew and Arab) that is dated 37 15 April 1955, three days before the opening of the Bandung confer ence Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 25

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Fig. 3. Envelope from Rawidowicz to Jacob Fink in Paris indicating that the 34 manuscript of “Jew and Arab” should be returned. 35 36 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 26

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Fig. 4. First page of the handwritten text of “Between Jew and Arab.” 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 27

the jewish question27|

(see fig. 3). The en vel ope likely con tained a typed ver sion of the hand writ- 1 ten text, both of which have been preserved (figs. 4 and 5). The page 2 proofs of “Between Jew and Arab” that were produced in Paris made their 3 way back to Waltham sometime between the late spring of 1955 and Ra- 4 wido w icz’s death in the summer of 1957.10 This brief itiner ary begs the 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Fig. 5. First page of the typed text of “Between Jew and Arab” with editorial 36 instructions in multiple languages. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 28

28 | between jew and arab

1 question of why Rawidow icz sent his Hebrew manuscript to Paris, of all 2 places, to be published. 3 Paris, it turns out, was a minor cen ter of He brew pub lish ing, where Raw- 4 idow icz had had his Hebrew work printed for the better part of a decade. Is- 5 rael would have been a far more ob vi ous place to send a Hebrew-language 6 manu script to be printed, with the United States a dis tant sec ond. The Ara - 7 rat Publish ing Society, which Rawidow icz cofounded with two Jewish busi- 8 ness men from Ger many, Alex ander and Ben zion Mar gu lies, and which 9 pub lished Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, con si dered these two ve nues. But the cost 10 of He brew print ing in the United States was too high, and the ma te rial con- 11 di tions in Is rael a bit too un re liable in the im me di ate pre- and post-state 12 era. Indeed, when the Ararat Society did make use of a Jeru sa lem printer on 13 one occa sion, it was compelled to send along its own supply of paper, as 14 there was only a lim ited amount of paper available in Is rael until 1955.11 15 At the outset of its exis tence in 1943, the Ararat Society availed itself of 16 a printer in London named Israel Narodiczky, who was the publisher for a 17 host of Anglo-Jewish organiza tions and indi vidu als. 12 Fol low ing Naro - 18 diczky’s death in 1945, Ararat turned a year later to Jacob Fink (1894–1955), 19 a Ukrainian-born engi neer who had become a Zionist and Hebrew cul- 20 tural ac ti vist in Paris. It was Fink who over saw the print ing of Ara rat’s 21 largely Hebrew list until his death in the fall of 1955.13 His efforts earned 22 him a warm hom age at the end of the in tro duc tion to Bavel vi-Yerusha- 23 layim. Rawi dow icz re called that Fink had been ut terly dis en gaged from 24 He brew cul ture and li tera ture for two decades be fore his “re turn”—an act 25 stimulated by the appear ance of Rawidow icz’s Hebrew-language journal, 26 Met su dah, i n L o nd o n . R a w id o wi c z f u rt h e r a ck n o w le d g e d t h a t h e a n d F i n k 27 had differ ences of opinion, presumably over the nature of Zionism. 14 Non - 28 etheless, Fink became a contri bu tor to Metsu dah, as well as its printer. In 29 recip ro cal fashion, Rawidow icz appeared in the pages of Fink’s short-lived 30 Hebrew journal in Paris, Shevi vim, praising the journal as a latter-day 31 Noah’s ark that kept Hebrew culture alive in the wake of the deluge that 32 was the Holocaust. 15 In deed, Rawi dow icz saw Jacob Fink as a part ner in 33 the noble but Si sy phean task of en cour ag ing the spread of He brew 34 through out the Jew ish world, es pe cially out side of the Land of Is rael. 35 The ac knowl edg ment that he and Fink held dif fer ent views ges tures al- 36 lur ingly toward a solu tion to our liter ary mystery. Could it be the case, as 37 Benja min Ravid has proposed, that Rawidow icz’s comrade-in-arms in Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 29

the jewish question29|

Dia spora Hebrew letters persu aded him to suppress “Between Jew and 1 Arab?”16 If so, Fink did not have that much time to offer his criticism of the 2 text. He received the manuscript in April 1955 and wrote Rawidow icz in 3 Septem ber of that year, less than two months before his death, to say that 4 he had not yet had a chance to read the chap ter.17 5 We also have the opin ion of Av ra ham Green baum, au thor of a short vo l- 6 ume on the his tory of the Ara rat pub lish ing house. Green baum re ports 7 that Rawi dow icz de cided “to keep to him self his opin ion that the Arab re - 8 fu gees should be al lowed to re turn [to the State of Is rael] in order not to 9 dis tract at ten tion from what, in his eyes, was the main issue.” The main 10 issue, accord ing to Greenbaum, was Rawidow icz’s insis tence that the 11 name “Israel” could not and should not be applied to the terri to ri ally de- 12 m a rc a t e d S t a t e o f I sr a e l . 18 Rather, Israel—or the Hebrew Yisrael —was the 13 term that des ig nated the Jew ish peo ple in the grand est glo bal sense, 14 spread over time and space.19 15 This termino logi cal issue was the subject of an intense burst of corre - 16 spondence in 1954–55 between Rawidow icz and David Ben-Gurion, who 17 was between tenures as Israel’s prime minister. We shall return later to 18 the sub ject of this ex change, which sug gests that Rawi dow icz’s thoughts 19 were taken seri ously by at least one promi nent Jew ish leader. For now, 20 our concern remains the text of “Between Jew and Arab,” the proofs of 21 which were sent to Rawi dow icz from Paris.20 The ver sion Rawi dow icz re- 22 ceived back (and that re mains ex tant) was in need of a good bit of edi to - 23 rial work, con tain ing ty po graphi cal er rors, jum bled words, and in com plete 24 or garbled sentences. 25 Not with stand ing these de fects, the chap ter is ar rest ing. It bris tles with 26 the out rage of the Is rae lite proph ets, as Rawi dow icz in sisted that the moral 27 bal ance of the new State of Is rael hinged on “the plight of the re fu gees,” 28 those who fled or were ex pelled in the midst of the hos tilities of 1948. And 29 yet, the chapter is more than the jeremiad of a frustrated academic. It is in- 30 formed by, and atten tive to, the geopo liti cal situation of the State of Israel, 31 as well as to legal and social devel op ments within the fledgling country. 32 Few Jews of the day, either in the State of Israel or the Diaspora, followed 33 as care fully as Rawi dow icz the wide stream of Is raeli news pa pers, maga - 34 zines, and journals. In addi tion to what was available to him in Boston- 35 area librar ies, he received by mail regular packets of arti cle clippings from 36 his brother Av ra ham Ravid in Tel Aviv. Sit ting thou sands of miles away, he 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 30

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1 was consumed by this welter of mate rial, along with the pressing moral 2 and politi cal questions facing the State of Israel. 3 To a certain extent, Rawidow icz was a victim of his own unique brand of 4 Jew ish na tion al ism. His com mit ment to the ideal of a ge nuine shu ta fut (part- 5 nership) between Jeru sa lem and Babylon meant that, in physical and psycho - 6 logi cal terms, no where was truly home. Ideology and psy chology had be come 7 in ti mately en twined. In a re veal ing let ter to his brother Av ra ham from 1948, 8 Rawi dow icz wrote: “Over the course of time, I have lost the de sire to set tle 9 in this place or that, in any spe cific place. I live bey ond time and space.”21 10 In all like li hood, it is this sense of iso la tion that prompted Rawi dow icz 11 to adopt some years ear lier his nom de plume: Ish Boded (lonely, or soli- 12 tary, man). Avra ham Greenbaum suggests that this pen name was more sit- 13 uational than charac terologi cal, owing to Rawidow icz’s lonely exis tence as 14 an Hebraist in Leeds, England, after leaving London to assume a univer sity 15 post there in 1941.22 Here the term is under stood oth er wise, as an inter - 16 nalized measure of Rawidow icz’s own cultural, politi cal, and emotional— 17 not just geographic—iso la tion. This is not to deny that Rawidow icz often 18 found his way to a rich circle of friends, colleagues, and admir ers whether 19 in Berlin, London, Chicago, or Waltham. In each of those places, he led a 20 full and active life, stimulat ing interest in Hebrew and Jewish culture, and 21 gaining respect for his erudi tion and affability. And in each of those places, 22 his home was open to a steady stream of visi tors, who came to dis cuss 23 matters scholarly and ideologi cal in a convivial setting presided over by 24 his wife, Es ther. That said, Rawi dow icz’s dis tinc tive inter ests and ideas, as 25 well as his peri pa tetic life path, re in forced his own sense of uni que ness 26 and, by exten sion, isola tion. 27 It may well be these qualities that lent Rawi dow icz his pres ci ence. Ac- 28 cus tomed to swimming against the current of Jewish national politics (and 29 dwelling, by his own account, “beyond time and space”), he challenged 30 con ven tional ways of think ing. While other Jews re veled in the triumph of 31 Zionism, Rawidow icz decried the onset of Jewish hubris. While other Jews 32 ignored the condi tion of Pales tin ian Arabs inside and outside of the new 33 state, Rawidow icz believed this condi tion was a yardstick of Jewish moral 34 rec ti tude.23 35 Of course, Rawi dow icz’s con cerns were not unique to him. The inter - 36 national commu nity had begun to take an active interest in the fate of Pa- 37 les tin ian Arab re fu gees al ready in the midst—and cer tainly to ward the Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 31

the jewish question31| end—of hos tilities between Is rael and her Arab neigh bors. Sig nifi cantly, 1 the United Nations General Assem bly issued Resolu tion 194 on 11 Decem- 2 ber 1948 stating that “the refu gees wishing to return to their homes and 3 live at peace with their neigh bours should be per mit ted to do so at the ear- 4 li est prac ti cable date, and that com pen sa tion should be paid for the pro - 5 perty of those choos ing not to re turn and for loss of or dam age to 6 property.” 24 Since that time, the refugee issue has remained a central con- 7 cern, particu larly in the Arab and Muslim worlds. And yet, the State of Is- 8 rael has largely refused to discuss it. This refusal stems, in part, from the 9 fact that Is rael has found it self alone in the midst of a hos tile re gion, locked 10 in a state of war with its neighbors. Its own sense of fragility took root in 11 the midst of its fight for inde pen dence, in the imme di ate aftermath of the 12 Holo caust, when many Jews feared ex pul sions them selves and a pro por - 13 tion ately large num ber of Is rae lis (6,000) died in the war. The re sult ing 14 sense of siege has led to widespread anxiety among Israe lis that revis it ing 15 the charged his tory of 1948 might lend cre dence to calls for the right of re- 16 turn for Pa les tin ian re fu gees or their de scen dants; such a right, many Is- 17 rae lis have feared, would entail the end of the Jewish state by tipping the 18 demo graphic bal ance deci sively in favor of the Arab popu la tion. 19 Perhaps Simon Rawidow icz came to this conclu sion himself after he 20 wrote his chapter “Between Jew and Arab.” Perhaps he was nudged toward 21 this conclu sion by Jacob Fink, who urged him to avoid the risk to his repu - 22 ta tion and toss the page proofs of “Between Jew and Arab” into the gar bage. 23 Or per haps Rawi dow icz made a cal cu lated tac ti cal deci sion based on the 24 rec og ni tion that his main goal in life—to forge a ge nuine part ner ship be- 25 tween the Dia spora and the Land of Is rael—would be bur ied under the 26 weight of contro versy. He hinted in this direc tion when he noted at the end 27 of his chapter (sec. XVII) that he often discussed the Arab Question with fel- 28 low Jews, and was concerned that his perspec tive on the matter might “suff- 29 ice to dis qualify the en tire proj ect of ‘Baby lon and Je ru sa lem.’” We shall 30 explore some addi tional evidence in part II, but unfor tu nately, a defini tive 31 reso lu tion to the mys tery of the chap ter’s sup pres sion re mains elu sive. 32 33 34 e “Lonely Man” of Hebrew Letters 35 “Between Jew and Arab” came at the end of a long and varied career. Rawido - 36 wicz not only passed through a good number of physical and intel lec tual 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 32

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1 stations in his life; he engaged in substan tive conver sa tion and corre - 2 spond ence with many major Jew ish po liti cal, cul tural, and re li gious lead- 3 ers of the twen ti eth cen tury—from Chaim Nah man Bi alik to David 4 Ben-Gurion to Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik. Moreover, he was at once a keen 5 student of Jewish thought and an original thinker and expo nent of Jewish 6 nation al ism. Conse quently, it is somewhat surpris ing that Rawidow icz’s 7 renown was limited in its day and has dimin ished a good deal since. His 8 name has not entered the pantheon of lumi nar ies of modern Jewish schol- 9 ar ship and thought alongside such contem po rar ies as Abraham Joshua 10 Heschel, Saul Lieber man, and Gershom Scholem. In fact, he is less known 11 today than other Bran deis col leagues of the same era such as Nahum Glat - 12 zer and Alexander Altmann. 25 13 It is interest ing to speculate about his rela tive lack of renown. First, Ra- 14 wid ow icz’s peripa tetic exis tence, which took him from his native Grayewo 15 to Białystok and then in succes sion to Berlin, London, Leeds, and Chicago, 16 pre vented him from gain ing a solid in sti tu tional base from which to dis- 17 semi nate his views in any concerted fashion. Had he lived longer, it is con- 18 ceivable that Brandeis, which deeply satis fied his ideal of a Jewish univer sity, 19 would have offered such a founda tion. But he died an early death, before 20 the full ef fects of the stability af forded by Bran deis could be felt. 21 Second, the fact that he quite consciously blended scholar ship and ide- 22 o logi cal pro nounce ments left him dan gling between the pur ist poles of ei- 23 ther domain of activity. The Harvard soci olo gist Daniel Bell famously noted 24 that there was “at the end of the fif ties . . . a dis con cert ing cae sura,” a grow- 25 ing di vide between ideas and ac tion—and by ex ten sion, between research- 26 focused scholars and intel lec tu als intent on yoking thought to deed. This 27 new divi sion of labor led Bell to declare “the end of ideology.”26 Rawido - 28 wicz had come of age in an ear lier era, re plete with ideo logi cal en ergy and 29 contes ta tion, and he unapologeti cally fashioned himself as both a scholar 30 and an ideo logue for whom his tori cal and phil o soph i cal ideas were prods 31 to ac tion. This dual iden tity was an im por tant fea ture of his Bavel vi- 32 Yerushalayim, as well as of scores of arti cles and essays up to his death in 33 1957. 34 Such a blurring of scholarly and ideologi cal lines posed a challenge to 35 the antiquarian ideal of Wissens chaft des Judent ums (the Science of Juda - 36 ism), whose nineteenth-century prac ti tion ers often spoke of the su preme 37 impor tance of a pure scholarly endeavor. Owing to this influ ence, many Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 33

the jewish question33| modern Jewish scholars often regarded explicit “descent” into issues of 1 con tem po rary con cern à la Rawi dow icz as an ab di ca tion of the true schol- 2 arly vo ca tion. On the other hand, Rawi dow icz wrote in a lit er ary style and 3 with a con cep tual ar senal that made his writ ing less ac cessible to the large 4 popular audi ence that he hoped to attract. 5 A third reason for Rawidow icz’s rela tive neglect was the idiosyn crasy of 6 his ideologi cal vision. It was not simply that he advo cated two centers of 7 Jew ish na tional life (and thus al ien ated ad vo cates of either). It was that he 8 be lieved that He brew was and must con tinue to be the lan guage of Jew ish 9 national life—in New York and London, as well as in Tel Aviv and Jeru sa - 10 lem. This claim, which stimulated his efforts to estab lish a World Hebrew 11 Union, proved to be a rather signifi cant miscal cu la tion, although, in other 12 re spects, Rawi dow icz was far more cog ni zant of un com fortable re alities 13 than were more main stream Jew ish and Zion ist think ers. 14 Those who know to read Rawidow icz today are often struck by the orig- 15 i nality of his mind. A num ber of his es says—“Is rael: An Ever-Dying Peo- 16 ple” and “On Interpre ta tio,” to name two prominent exam ples—are minor 17 classics, admired by a devoted cadre of cognos centi for their acuity and 18 eru di tion. Moreover, a small num ber of seri ous stu dents of Jew ish thought 19 find his studies of Saadya Gaon, Moses Mendels sohn, and espe cially Mai- 20 mo nides and Nach man Kroch mal to be significant.27 Perhaps an even 21 smaller num ber re gard Bavel vi-Yerushalayim as a compel ling and under- 22 appre ciated work that merits far more atten tion than it has received. The 23 fact that the book was printed only once—and only frag ments were trans- 24 lated into English—made it unavailable to a wider audi ence of Diaspora 25 Jews. Mean while, in the State of Is rael, the book has failed to gain a large 26 au di ence of He brew read ers, for whom the book’s style and con tent are 27 rather alien. 28 Non ethe less, dis cern ing minds did rec og nize Rawi dow icz’s tal ents. Bran- 29 deis’ founding president, Abram Sachar, relates that he was once invited to 30 the White House by President Lyndon Johnson for a recep tion in honor of 31 Israeli President Zalman Shazar. When intro duced to Sachar, Shazar de- 32 clared: “Bran deis—that’s where Rawi dow icz was,” and then pro ceeded to 33 hold up the re ceiv ing line “to ex plain to Presi dent John son what a semi nal 34 scholar Rawidow icz was!”28 Some years earlier, Shazar insisted that, not- 35 with stand ing his po liti cal disagree ments with Rawi dow icz, the lat ter 36 should be recog nized as “one of the founders of the orga nized Hebrew 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 34

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1 movement” whose memory must be perpetu ated. 29 This opinion was 2 shared by Is raeli Prime Mini ster David Ben-Gurion, who lauded Ra wido - 3 wicz not only for his wide-ranging knowledge, but for his passion for every- 4 th ing Jew ish and He brew” (see fig. 6).30 For his part, Nahum Glatzer offered 5 a pow er ful en co mium to his Bran deis col league ten years after his death, 6 call ing him “a link in the long ser ies of lonely men, who, amid ruins, af- 7 firmed the idea of Is rael, men who, in the midst of a burn ing Je ru sa lem, 8 saw the vision of a new Jeru sa lem.” 31 9 The image of the solitary prophet that emerges from Glatzer’s recol lec - 10 tion com ports with Rawi dow icz’s self-description as an “Ish Boded” (lonely 11 man). It also leads us to conclude that Rawidow icz imagined his life’s work 12 in much the same vein that two of his Jew ish he roes ima gined theirs: the 13 twelfth-century Moses Mai mo nides and the nineteenth-century Nah man 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Fig. 6. Letter of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion from 5 November 1958 to William 37 (Zev) Margolies expressing sadness over the death of Rawidowicz. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 35

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Fig. 7. Title page of one of Rawidowicz’s early Hebrew publications from Berlin, Kitve RaNaK (1924). 19 20 Kroch mal. These two great schol ars saw con fu sion among Jews of their 21 day and re sponded by writ ing for the per plexed. Simon Rawi dow icz, as a 22 young scholar working in Berlin, researched these two figures exten sively. 23 In 1924, he produced a critical edition of Krochmal’s More nevukhe ha- 24 zeman (Guide for the Per plexed of the Time) that re mains va luable to this 25 day (fig. 7).32 He also devoted a good deal of research to Maimo nides 26 through the 1920s and 1930s, es pe cially on the Guide for the Perplexed and 27 t h e p h i lo s o p hi c a l i nt r od u ct i o n ( Sefer ha-madaa) to the great legal code, 28 Mish neh Torah.33 Not only did Rawidow icz feel a strong sense of identifi ca - 29 tion with the two guides for the perplexed of their time, but he also may 30 well have seen Bavel vi-Yerushalayim as a guide for the per plexed of his own 31 time, a call to those who, while transfixed on short-term politi cal goals (for 32 ex am ple, state hood), ne glected the larger strug gle for the soul of the Jew- 33 ish nation. And yet, self-styled prophecy rarely wins a wide audi ence, espe - 34 cially if announced in the 1950s in Waltham, Massachu setts, in the Hebrew 35 language—and not just in Hebrew, but in a Hebrew style more atten tive to 36 classi cal rabbinic phrasing than to modern Israeli neologisms. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 36

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1 From Grayewo to Berlin 2 3 As noted in the in tro duc tion, our best source of in for ma tion on Rawi do - 4 wicz is the work of his son, the his to rian Ben ja min Ravid, who has writ ten 5 a ser ies of ex cel lent sketches that draw on pub lished ma te ri als and un pub- 6 lished letters. 34 Ravid makes clear that any seri ous study of Rawi dow icz 7 must commence by discuss ing the forma tive envi ron ment of Grayewo, 8 where he was born on 2 Febru ary 1897. Grayewo is a town located about 9 sixty kil ome ters north west of Białys tok in north east ern Po land (see fig. 8). 10 Although refer ence to it in Polish sources extends back to the fifteenth 11 cen tury, the town did not boast, as a He brew writer who spent time there 12 observed, “one of the ancient Jewish commu nities in Poland, noted for its 13 long and glo ri ous chain of tra di tion.”35 By the standards of Jewish history, 14 Grayewo was rela tively new. Only eighty-three Jews dwelt in the town in 15 1765. Follow ing the final Parti tion of Poland in 1795, theł fell under tsarist 16 Russian control. Some 197 Jews lived there in 1827, account ing for nearly 17 40 per cent of the popu la tion. Sev enty years later, 4,336 Jews lived in Gra- 18 jewo, and in 1921, under Polish sovereignty, there were 2,384 Jews, who 19 con sti tuted 39 per cent of the en tire town.36 20 The rapid growth of the Jew ish com mu nity in Grayewo had much to do 21 with the town’s emergence as a regional commer cial center, espe cially after 22 a new railway line connect ing it to Białystok and Brest-Litovsk opened in 23 1873–74.37 The rail line forged new trade routes between Russia and east- 24 ern Prussia, the border of which was a mere four kilome ters from Grayewo. 25 The advent of rail service also promoted economic and, particu larly, in- 26 dus trial de vel op ment within Grayewo, at tract ing new set tlers and com- 27 merce to the town. 28 In fact, the bus tling na ture of Grayewo’s com mer cial life en cour aged more 29 than the ex change of goods and capi tal. There was also a no ticeable trade 30 in cul tures: Polish and Lithua nian (na tive to the re gion), Ger man (from 31 nearby Prus sia), and Rus sian (the im pe rial power of the area). The Jews of 32 the town, con di tioned to geo graphic, so cial, and cul tural mo bility, proved 33 par ticu larly adept at mov ing across bor ders, cul tures, and lan guages. 34 It was to this bustling commer cial and cultural ambi ence that Chaim 35 Yit zhak Rawi dow icz, Simon’s fa ther, came in 1883 (see fig. 9). Raised in Ty - 36 ko cin and trained in the yeshi vot of Łom˙za, Mir, and Volo zhin, Chaim Yit - 37 zhak made a liv ing in Grayewo as a pur veyor of leather and mush rooms. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 37

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Fig. 8. Map of Poland with Rawidowicz’s birthplace, Grayewo, highlighted. 35 36 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 38

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Fig. 9. Chaim Yitzhak Rawidowicz (1863?–1936), father of Simon. 26 27 But his great pas sion in life was Torah study, to which he de voted him self 28 at any free moment, particu larly in the wee hours of the morning. He even 29 received the keys to the local study hall so that he could commence learn- 30 ing before dawn, particu larly with his elder sons, Yahakov and Simon.38 31 Chaim Yitzhak Rawidow icz was hardly alone in his passion for Torah 32 study. Not only was a ma jority of the town’s resi dents Jew ish; the Jew ish 33 popu la tion was it self quite ob ser vant, of whom the larg est por tion be- 34 longed to the Lithua nian mitnag dic tra di tion re nowned for its in tel lec tual 35 and ritual rigor. Mean while, two houses of prayer (shti blekh) served the 36 town’s small popu la tion of Hasi dim, the erst while ri vals of the Mit nag dim. 37 It was, at least in part, the presence of these differ ent strands of reli gious ortho doxy—which together consti tuted the vast majority of the town’s

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Jews—that prompted Simon Rawi dow icz to note: “Jew ish life in Grayewo 1 was a totality . . . extend ing from ‘when thou liest down [to] when thou 2 risest up.’”39 3 There were also newer cur rents of Jew ish cul ture that added to the sense 4 of a Jew ish “to tality.” Es pe cially notable in the case of the Rawi dow icz fam- 5 ily was a trio of inter lac ing trends that emerged out of the nineteenth- 6 century Has ka lah in Eastern Europe: the revi val of the Hebrew language, 7 Jew ish set tle ment in the Land of Is rael, and Zion ism. Un like most Jew ish 8 residents of Grayewo, Chaim Rawidow icz was swept up by all of these cur- 9 rents. For ex am ple, he in sisted on speak ing He brew to his chil dren on the 10 Sab bath, in con trast to tra di tion al ists who re garded such an act as a prof- 11 a na tion of the holy tongue. And he was ac tively in volved in sup port ing Jew- 12 ish settle ment in the Land of Israel from the early 1890s, culmi nat ing in his 13 se lec tion as a dele gate to the Sev enth Zion ist Con gress in 1905 in which 14 the Brit ish offer to set tle Jews in East Af rica was for mally re jected.40 Within 15 his own commu nity of Grayewo, Chaim Rawidow icz’s unof fi cial status as 16 “head of the Zionists” placed him in a minority posi tion. 41 17 The Jewish causes that Rawidow icz père valued—Torah study, Zionism, 18 and Hebrew—were transmit ted to his seven sons and daughters. Simon 19 was the fourth child born to Chaim Yitzhak and Chana Batya in 1896. He 20 proved to be a gifted stu dent whom his fa ther saw as an ideal can di date for 21 the rab bi nate. But Simon was not des tined to ful fill this dream. As a young 22 teen, he stud ied regu larly under his fa ther’s tu tel age, and then in vari ous 23 yeshi vot, in clud ing those of Rabbi Y. Y. Reines in Lida and Rabbi M. A. 24 Amiel (later of Tel Aviv).42 He was more attracted, however, to the new 25 strains of Jewish culture that had begun to penetrate Grayewo. Rawido - 26 wicz penned his first Hebrew story, “Shene achim,” shortly after his return 27 to Grayewo from Lida in 1911. He sent the piece to the Zionist journal, Ha- 28 Olam, which re turned the manu script to him with out com ment. Ear lier, 29 while in Lida, he had asked his father to send him a copy of this journal, but 30 his father admon ished him to focus more on his Talmud studies. 31 This sug gests to us that Rawi dow icz’s ardor for He brew sur passed even 32 that of his Hebraist father. Indeed, love of Hebrew would become a corner - 33 stone, perhaps the founda tion, of his vision of a Jewish national culture. 34 From an early age, the ability to render the ancient tongue into a modern 35 lan guage was a point of pride. Rawi dow icz once re counted the great de- 36 light that he experi enced as a young man in Grayewo when he paid with his 37 own money to undergo a physical examina tion with a doctor who spoke

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1 He brew (even though he had no ail ment).43 Curi ously, he related this expe- 2 rience not in his beloved Hebrew, but in Yiddish—He brew’s sworn rival in 3 the fierce Jewish “language battle” of the early twenti eth century. 44 How 4 are we to understand this choice of language, given Rawidow icz’s un- 5 equivocal pref er ence for He brew as the me dium of Jew ish cul ture and com- 6 mu ni ca tion? We might surmise that it is a reflec tion of Rawidow icz’s 7 forma tive upbring ing in Grayewo, an envi ron ment in which he learned to 8 converse, write, and lecture in both Yiddish and Hebrew. 9 Per haps we are over read ing this Yid dish ret ro spec tive on the de lights of 10 speaking Hebrew. It came, after all, in the Yiddish-language memo rial book 11 (1950) for Grayewo, whose Jew ish com mu nity was de stroyed by the Nazi 12 as sault. Rawi dow icz must have felt com pelled to honor the lan guage of his 13 forebears on such an occa sion. On the other hand, we do know that, as a 14 young man, Rawidow icz deliv ered stirring speeches on behalf of Hebrew— 15 in Yiddish! 45 Moreover, he served as an edi tor of Yid dish jour nals and pub- 16 li ca tions at various points in his life, peri odi cally return ing to Yiddish 17 oratory and scholar ship later in his career. He also had a collec tion of his 18 writings published posthu mously in Yiddish in 1962. As early as 1937, Ra- 19 wi dow icz noted that his aim was “to create under stand ing and a modus vi- 20 vendi between Yiddish and Hebrew.” 46 21 This ambi tion compli cates a bit the image of Simon Rawidow icz as an 22 unyield ing Hebrew purist. It is also reminds us that it was not always easy 23 to mark out boundary lines in the swirling struggles over Jewish collec tive 24 iden tity that en gulfed turn-of-the-century East ern Eu rope. The bat tle 25 lines were not simply between Mit nag dim and Hasi dim, or between re li - 26 gious tra di tion al ists and en light ened mod ern iz ers. Major urban cen ters 27 like Odessa, Vilna, and Warsaw—and, for that matter, countless small 28 towns like Grayewo—were are nas of ideo logi cal con test in which He braists 29 battled Yiddish ists, Zionists were pitted against Diaspor ists, and advo - 30 cates of aliyah (immi gra tion to Pales tine) squared off against advo cates of 31 doikeyt (the ideo logi cal com mit ment to “here ness,” that is, to for ti fy ing 32 Jew ish life in the Dia spora), not to men tion the in tense in fight ing within 33 each of these groups. It would not be inac cu rate to describe this tension- 34 filled envi ron ment as a golden age of ideologi cal, and particu larly nation - 35 alist, ferment. 36 One of the most in tri guing char ac ter is tics of the era was the cen tral 37 place of culture in Jewish life. Culture was no longer understood, as in Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 41

the jewish question41| previ ous eras, as an in stru ment to achieve en ligh ten ment or eman ci pa tion. 1 Rather, it was appre ciated as an end in and of itself, as the heart and soul 2 of the Jewish nation. Indeed, if we might be permit ted to modify Heine’s 3 (and later George Steiner’s) well-known aphorism, culture became, for 4 many Jew ish na tion al ists, the “portable home land of the Jew ish peo ple.” It 5 is not sur pris ing then that Jew ish jour nals, or ganiza tions, and schools bear- 6 ing the name “culture” (e.g., Kul tura or Tarbut ) arose in the early decades of 7 the twen ti eth cen tury. What is sur pris ing is that de clared po liti cal ene - 8 mies—for ex am ple, Yid dish ists and Zion ists—shared a com mit ment to the 9 idea that culture was the most treasured property, embody ing the cher- 10 i s h e d Volksgeist of the Jewish nation. This commit ment translated into sup- 11 port for Jew ish cul tural in sti tu tions of vari ous kinds in the Dia spora (which 12 the Zion ists might have been ex pected to, but did not al ways, op pose). A 13 com pre hen sive study of this phe nome non—of a Jew ish cul tural na tion al ism 14 spanning the ideologi cal spectrum—still remains to be written. 47 15 To under stand Simon Rawi dow icz, one must rec og nize two im por tant 16 historical-biographical qualities: first, he came of age in the teem ing mar- 17 ket place of ideas that char ac ter ized fin de siècle East ern Eu rope; and sec- 18 ond, the devel op ment of Jewish national culture was his main life 19 ob jec tive. In his teen years, the closely linked pil lars of He brew and Zion - 20 ism anchored his emerging sense of that culture. He attended to both in 21 Grayewo, but even more in ten sively after his family moved to Białys tok in 22 1914. The move to the larger, heavily Jewish city was prompted by the out- 23 break of the First World War, which brought an end to some four decades 24 of eco nomic growth and pros perity in Grayewo. Białys tok had it self been 25 in the throes of tu mult for nearly a decade, fol low ing the vio lent pog rom 26 that broke out there in June 1906 that led to the death of sev enty Jews. 27 From the turn of the century, the city had also been a cauldron of Jewish 28 politi cal activity, espe cially among the social ist working class. This politi - 29 cal activity, in a time of instability, aroused claims of disloy alty that could 30 and did turn into lethal anti-Jewish action. 31 Claims of Jew ish dis loy alty were quite com mon dur ing the First World 32 War, as Jews in Eastern and Central Europe attempted to navigate among 33 the com pet ing com bat ants—and not merely the prin ci pals (Rus sia and 34 Ger many), but also smaller na tional groups like the Poles and the Ukrai - 35 nians. In 1915, Białystok came under German control, when the Central 36 Pow ers under took a major of fen sive that led to con sid erable ter ri to rial 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 42

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Fig. 10. Rawidowicz with a group of students in a Hebrew course, Białystok (20 May 19 1919). 20 21 conquest in Eastern Europe. The result ing German occu pa tion of Białys- 22 tok led not to a worsen ing, but rather to an amelio ra tion, of condi tions for 23 Jews. In particu lar, Jewish culture and language were less restricted than 24 they had been under Rus sian control. 25 It was in Białystok that Simon Rawidow icz was exposed to a richly mul- 26 ti cul tu ral set ting, as well as to the ef forts of na tional mi norities (vari ously 27 Poles, Germans, Russians, Ukrainians, as well as Jews) to preserve their 28 physi cal and cul tural well-being in the face of in dif fer ent or hos tile hosts. 29 Białystok was an incu ba tor of diverse ideologi cal strains, and Rawidow icz 30 devel oped a new degree of maturity, in addi tion to a host of organiza tional 31 and ora tori cal skills, in this am bi ence. Along with a friend, he initiated a 32 Hebrew-language course for adults that be came “a cen ter for cul tural and 33 Zion ist ac tivity.” As a teacher, Rawi dow icz was re mem bered with great en- 34 thu siasm by one of his students who recalled, forty years later, that “we 35 sat enchanted and saw come alive before us the idea of a ‘man floating in 36 t h e c el e st i a l h e a ve n s .’ ” 48 A picture from this era reveals the broad-faced 37 Rawidow icz, smartly attired in a suit, surrounded by his students whom he Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 43

the jewish question43| sought to guide down the path of Hebrew culture (see fig. 10). Meanwhile, 1 Rawi dow icz him self was drawn fur ther into Zion ist cir cles in Białys tok, 2 par ticu larly into the Tseaire Tsiyon, a youth movement made up of social - 3 ist and non so cial ist Zion ists (fig. 11). 4 Already at this stage, Rawidow icz was intent on placing culture at the 5 forefront of his Zionist activity. At a regional Zionist confer ence in 1918, he 6 was in vited to give a lec ture on Jew ish cul tural ac tiv i ties; he pro posed the 7 creation of a fund to support an expan sion of such activ i ties that was ac- 8 cepted by the confer ence partici pants. 49 Subse quently, a number of new 9 Jewish schools were estab lished out of this culture fund.50 10 The nexus between Zion ism and cul ture of course sum mons up the 11 memory of Ahad Ha-am (1856–1927), the renowned Hebrew author and 12 advo cate of the Land of Israel as the main site of Jewish cultural vibrancy. 13 Rawidow icz, who read and drew inspi ra tion from Ahad Ha-am as a young 14 man, shared a number of key tenets with the Hebrew essay ist, ranging 15 from their views on the pri macy of cul ture in the na tional proj ect to their 16 con cerns over Zion ist at ti tudes to Pa les tin ian Arabs. And yet, he would 17 come to reject out of hand Ahad Ha-am’s prescrip tion that the Land of 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Fig. 11. A young Rawidowicz (with moustache) in the company of friends. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 44

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1 Israel must become the primary “spiritual center” of the Jewish people, ra- 2 di at ing rays of vita lity to second-order Jewish commu nities in the Diaspora. 3 For Rawi dow icz, the pros pect of a vi brant Jew ish—and spe cifi cally Hebrew — 4 cul ture re quired a re la tion ship of equals, both in terms of pro fessed ideology 5 and fi nan cial in vest ment, between the Dia spora and Pa les tine.51 6 While the seeds of Rawidow icz’s views were sown in Białystok during 7 the First World War, they blossomed more fully in Berlin, where he moved 8 in 1919. When we think today of the vibrant cultural ambi ence of Weimar 9 Berlin, we tend to call to mind its extraor di nary cohort of German-Jewish 10 intel lec tu als: Buber, Rosenz weig, Benja min, Scholem, Bloch, and Strauss, 11 among oth ers. In fact, Ber lin also be came an im por tant cen ter of set tle - 12 ment for East ern Eu ro pean Jews, tens of thou sands of whom came in the 13 last years of the war and in its imme di ate aftermath. By exten sion, Berlin 14 was home to a substan tial amount of cultural activity and publish ing in 15 both Yid dish and He brew. In fact, the city was not merely one among many 16 cen ters of He brew cul ture in this pe riod, but rather, as Mi chael Bren ner 17 as serts, “the cen ter between 1920 and 1924.”52 18 19 Hebrew Culture in Berlin 20 21 It was not initially the al lures of He brew and Yid dish cul ture that at tracted 22 Simon Rawi dow icz to Ber lin in June of 1919. Rawi dow icz joined other 23 young Eastern Euro pean Jews in search of higher educa tion: both to avoid 24 long-standing restric tions in their native countries and to escape the 25 chaotic post war situa tion in East ern Europe (for ex am ple, the up hea val 26 of the Rus sian Revo lu tion and the anti-Jewish pog roms in Ukraine and Be- 27 lorus sia). Without the requi site German gymna sium educa tion, foreign 28 students—in this case, Jews from Eastern Europe—were required to pass 29 an exter nal exam to gain admis sion to univer sity. 30 R a w id o wi c z u n d e rt o o k s t u di e s f o r t h e Abitur at the Real gymn sium zu 31 Berlin-Reinickendorf and en tered the Friedrich-Wilhelms Uni ver sity of 32 Ber lin in the winter se mester of 1921–22 (see fig. 12).53 Simi lar to a num- 33 ber of other notable Jew ish fig ures from East ern Eu rope, per haps most 34 promi nently, Jo seph B. Solo veitchik and Abra ham Jo shua Hes chel, Ra wi do - 35 w icz de cided to em bark upon the study of phi lo so phy in Ber lin. It is worth- 36 while to consider briefly the allure of this field for these tradi tional Jews 37 from East ern Eu rope. Phi lo so phy, it would seem, was an ideal medium Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 45

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Fig. 12. “Lebenslauf ”—brief autobiographical statement required for acceptance of 35 dissertation with incorrect year and place of birth. 36 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 46

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Fig. 13. Announcement from 8 August 1926 of Rawidowicz’s dissertation 37 examination. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 47

the jewish question47| through which to medi ate between their tradi tional reli gious worldview 1 and the new in tel lec tual sen sibilities of the West that they had en coun - 2 tered and em braced.54 All three were super vised in their stud ies by two 3 m a i ns t a y s o f p h i lo s o p hi c a l s t u d y i n B e rl i n , t h e J e wi s h n e o - K a n t i a n 4 scholar of aes thet ics, Max Des soir, and the lo gi cian and clas si cist, Hein- 5 rich Maier.55 6 In ad di tion to work ing with Des soir and Maier, Rawi dow icz also stud- 7 ied with the well-known Jewish Oriental ist, Eugen Mittwoch; the histo rian 8 of Rus sia, Karl Stählin; and the young Jew ish phi los o pher, David Baum- 9 gardt. Rawidow icz credits Baumgardt with drawing his atten tion to the 10 Young Hege lian philos o pher, Ludwig Feuerbach (1802–72), who became 11 the sub ject of his doc to ral re search (see fig. 13).56 The disser ta tion that 12 Rawidow icz completed in 1926 (and for which he was “promoted” in the 13 fol low ing year; see fig. 14) was an in tel lec tual his tory of Feuer bach’s early 14 thought, fo cus ing in par ticu lar on the im pact of his en gage ment with 15 G. W. F. Hegel, whom Feuerbach met in Berlin in 1824. 16 We should recall that as Rawidow icz proceeded with his univer sity stud- 17 ies, he remained active in a variety of Hebrew liter ary and publish ing ac- 18 t i vi t i e s i n B e rl i n , i nc l u di n g w r i ti n g a l o n g i nt r od u ct i o n t o N a c hm a n 19 Kroch mal’s More ne vukhe ha-zeman. One of the key suppo si tions that Ra- 20 wi dow icz sought to in ves ti gate, and would ul ti mately challenge, was the 21 claim that Krochmal was a Hege lian. 57 In the very same period, he was en- 22 gaged in his dis ser ta tion re search on the na ture of Feuer bach’s debt to 23 Hegel. The common interest in Hegel—and his relationship to Feuerbach 24 and Kroch mal—re vealed the over lap ping, yet dis tinct, in tel lec tual cir cles 25 (for ex am ple, Ger man id eal ist and Jew ish En ligh ten ment) that Rawi dow - 26 icz was studying in this Berlin phase. 27 One wonders whether Rawidow icz, now at a remove from Grajewo and 28 his tradi tional upbring ing, felt a sense of identifi ca tion with Feuerbach, 29 who, to the conster na tion of his father a century earlier, had moved away 30 from his erstwhile theologi cal studies to become a sharp critic of Christi - 31 an ity and re li gion in gen eral. Rawi dow icz, in the midst of his own fer ment, 32 moved away from the personal ritual practice of his father’s home. But he 33 never be came a sharp critic of Jew ish Or tho doxy. Nor, for that mat ter, did 34 he find an ana logue to Feuer bach’s claim that just as “there was no Chris- 35 tian medicine or mathemat ics, so there was no Christian philo so phy.” 58 36 That is, he be lieved that there was a Jew ish phi lo so phy, a rich tra di tion of 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 48

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Fig. 14. Announcement of Rawidowicz’s Promotion on 27 May 1927 for his 24 dissertation on Feuerbach. 25 26 Jewish thought and interpre ta tion that spanned millen nia. More broadly, 27 he be longed to a gen era tion of young Jew ish in tel lec tu als and ac ti vists who 28 be lieved that there was a Jew ish li tera ture, music, art, and theater—all part 29 of an age-old and evolv ing Jew ish cul ture that stood at the brink of re ju - 30 vena tion in the age of nation al ism. 31 In Ber lin, Rawi dow icz made his way to an ex cep tion ally lively cir cle of 32 Jewish scholars, thinkers, and acti vists, mainly from Eastern Europe, that 33 in cluded the his to rian Simon Dub now, the writer Shaul Tcher ni chov sky, 34 the philos o pher Jacob Klatzkin, and the Hebrew poet Chaim Nahman Bi- 35 alik.59 The arri val of Bialik in Berlin in 1921 was greeted, Rawidow icz noted, 36 almost as a reli gious happen ing: “as an event on the order of a festive hol- 37 i day, an ele va tion of the soul.”60 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 49

the jewish question49|

Rawidow icz had admired Bialik from his youth, taught his poetry in Bi- 1 ałystok, and now came to develop a close rela tion ship with him in Berlin 2 based on their shared pas sion for He brew lan guage, li tera ture, and cul ture. 3 The older Bi alik be came a men tor to Rawi dow icz, and the two met and 4 corre sponded frequently. And yet, in the fractious and ideologi cally 5 charged world in which they dwelt, Bialik and Rawidow icz did not always 6 see eye to eye. To wit, the twenty-six-year-old Rawidow icz founded in the 7 same year in which he started his graduate studies—1922—a small He- 8 brew pub lish ing firm, Aya not, that put out more than a dozen He brew ti- 9 tles over the next three years, includ ing his study of Maimo nides’ Sefer 10 ha-madaa (1922) and his edition of Krochmal’s writings, Kitve RaNaK 11 (1924). As Rawidow icz records in his journal, Bialik, whom one might have 12 expected to be thrilled at the prospect, opposed the estab lish ment of Aya- 13 not. He, after all, was editor-in-chief of a com pet ing He brew pub lish ing 14 firm, Devir, and at one point asked Rawidow icz to close down Ayanot and 15 take over Devir.61 16 Aya not and Devir were not the only He brew pub lish ing houses in Ber - 17 lin. A number of others, includ ing the renowned Stybel firm from Warsaw, 18 made their home in Berlin. The pull was, first and foremost, the large as- 19 sem bly of Eastern Euro pean Jewish intel lec tu als in Berlin, who were the 20 natu ral read ers (and au thors) of He brew books. Another, rather coun ter - 21 in tui tive, fac tor was the stag ger ing in fla tion that af flicted Ger many, es pe - 22 cially in 1923, when the mark was re duced to less than a tril lionth of its 23 former value. The cheap cost of publish ing attracted those able to pay with 24 foreign currency. As a result, this period marked the peak of the flourish - 25 ing of Hebrew, as well as of Yiddish, letters in Berlin. 62 Al ready by 1924, the 26 ef flo res cence began to dim, ironi cally be cause of a stabi lized economy. In 27 that year, Bialik left Germany for Pales tine, as did the great Hebrew au- 28 thor, S. Y. Agnon. 29 R a w id o wi c z h i ms e l f w e n t t o P al e st i n e i n t h e f o ll o wi n g y e a r . H i s f at h e r 30 and five of his siblings had already immi grated there, acting upon their 31 lifelong Zionist creed. Despite his professed desire to join them and partic- 32 i pate in the vi brant He brew cul ture of the Land of Is rael, Rawi dow icz did 33 not set tle there. In a let ter to his brother Av ra ham in Tel Aviv in 1925, he 34 wrote what might well have been an epi taph for the rest of his life by in vok- 35 ing God’s ex pul sion of Cain in Gene sis 4:12: “A fu gi tive and a wan derer shalt 36 thou be in the earth. You will perforce emigrate to the Diaspora, for you 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 50

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1 will not strike roots in Pales tine. You will always have next to you a ticket 2 for travel and a wanderer’s staff.”63 3 This intui tion—that despite his love of Hebrew culture and a solid Zion- 4 ist back ground, he would not make his home in Pa les tine—points to a 5 pow er ful and life long am biva lence in Rawi dow icz. He strug gled to bal ance 6 his de sire to in habit a liv ing He brew cul ture with the de sire to ef fect a ge n - 7 uine part ner ship between Baby lon and Je ru sa lem. As a prac ti cal mat ter, 8 Rawidow icz could not yet abandon his philo soph i cal studies in Berlin for 9 the newly created Hebrew Univer sity in Jeru sa lem, which did not have a 10 scholar of Jewish or general Euro pean philo so phy on staff in 1925 (nor, for 11 that matter, did the Hebrew Univer sity offer degrees of any sort to students 12 at this time).64 13 And yet, Rawi dow icz main tained an ac tive inter est in an aca demic po- 14 si tion at the Hebrew Univer sity after earning his Ph.D. from Berlin. Such a 15 po si tion would, first of all, pro vide a mea sure of eco nomic stability to Ra - 16 widow icz, who worked at various part-time jobs in Berlin—edi tor, re- 17 searcher, and li brarian, among oth ers—in order to make ends meet.65 18 Rawi dow icz also tried to make the case to friends and po ten tial sup port - 19 ers in the late 1920s and early 1930s that Je ru sa lem suited him on in tel - 20 lectual and cultural grounds. We gain a glimpse of this effort in a series of 21 missives to the conser va tive Zionist thinker, writer, and Hebrew Univer - 22 sity pro fes sor Jo seph Klaus ner in which Rawi dow icz makes quite clear his 23 interest in a proposed job in Jewish philo so phy. In one of the first of these 24 let ters from 1928, Rawi dow icz re ports that the noted Ber lin rabbi and 25 scholar, Leo Baeck, had proposed his name to the univer sity’s board for 26 this job.66 Subse quent letters from 1930 to 1931 reveal a far more plaintive 27 tone. Rawi dow icz pleads with Klaus ner to take up his can di dacy with He- 28 brew Uni ver sity chan cel lor, Judah L. Magnes, as well as with pro fes sors of 29 the uni ver sity’s In sti tute for Jew ish Stud ies. In one of these let ters from 4 30 Febru ary 1931, Rawidow icz issues what amounts to a direc tive to Klaus- 31 ner: “After it be comes clear that Prof. Gutt mann will not set tle in Pa les - 32 tine, the gentle man [that is, Klausner] must propose my candi dacy. He 33 should speak of the mat ter with the Uni ver sity Coun cil, and we will see 34 how the matter ends up.”67 35 The “Prof. Guttmann” in question was Julius Guttmann, the doyen of 36 scholars of Jewish philo so phy in Berlin and the direc tor of the Akademie 37 für die Wissens chaft des Judent ums, a leading center of Jewish scholar ship Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 51

the jewish question51| where Rawidow icz was employed as a researcher and editor (for the bicen- 1 ten nial edition of Moses Mendels sohn’s writings). Guttmann was the pre- 2 ferred candi date of the Jeru sa lem faculty throughout most of its discus sions 3 about the job; he satis fied the ideal of scholarly respectability so impor tant 4 to the new uni ver sity. The chief ques tion was whether Gutt mann, who nei- 5 ther spoke He brew well nor was an es pe cially ar dent Zion ist, would agree 6 to come to Pales tine. As a result, other candi dates were mentioned in insti- 7 tute fa culty meet ings, in clud ing Rawi dow icz, his fel low Akade mie re- 8 searcher Leo Strauss, Zvi Diesen druck, Avra ham Tsifroni, and Max Wiener. 9 Rawidow icz did his best in letters to Klausner to assert both his supe rior 10 qualifica tions and his ideologi cal affinity with the univer sity. “Is there no 11 place in this univer sity,” he asked in 1930, “for young Hebrew scholars who 12 come from within?” How could it be, he contin ued, that the Hebrew Univer- 13 sity would invite a scholar like Guttmann who did not know Hebrew? 68 14 Rawidow icz posed similar questions to Klausner about Strauss, another 15 German-Jewish can di date who did not com mand spoken He brew.69 16 Rawidow icz sensed that he was at an ironic disad van tage both because 17 he was born in Eastern Europe and was a devoted Hebrew acti vist and au- 18 thor. It is the case that many fa culty as so ciated with the He brew Uni ver sity 19 at this nas cent stage con ceived of it as a bas tion of proper Ger man schol- 20 a rs h i p . 70 Accord ing to this standard, a figure such as Julius Guttmann, the 21 flag-bearer of Wissens chaft des Judent ums in his day, would be val ued more 22 than Rawidow icz, who divided his labors between scholar ship and ideo- 23 logical advo cacy. However, it is not true, as Rawidow icz suspected, that his 24 path was thwarted by the stead fast re sis tance of one par ticu larly sig nifi - 25 cant in sti tute fa culty mem ber, Ger shom Scho lem.71 Scholem was in fact 26 com mit ted to Ju lius Gutt mann’s can di dacy from the first until Gutt mann’s 27 arri val in Jeru sa lem in 1934; but so too were other members of the insti - 28 tute’s faculty, includ ing Rawidow icz’s puta tive ally, Joseph Klausner. 72 In 29 short, we may con clude that Rawi dow icz was never a front line con tender 30 for a posi tion that he consi dered, at least in this period, to be rightly his.73 31 Mean while, Rawi dow icz kept Klaus ner in formed of a num ber of other 32 teaching prospects that did or might come his way. He mentioned discus - 33 sions over an offer to teach Jew ish phi lo so phy at the He brew Union Col lege 34 in Cincin nati, whose president, Julian Morgen stern, had been in touch with 35 him from 1926 to 1928.74 He also noted that he was offered a posi tion 36 teaching Jewish philo so phy at the new insti tute for Jewish studies in Warsaw 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 52

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1 under the leader ship of Moses Schorr.75 When he later mentioned this offer 2 to Judah Magnes in 1930, he hastened to add that “if the oppor tu nity to 3 teach phi lo so phy at the Uni ver sity in Je ru sa lem came to me, I would ac cept 4 it with great pleas ure.”76 Around the same time, Rawi dow icz was also being 5 consi dered for Pri vat do zentur in phi lo so phy at the Uni ver sity of Ber lin. Fol- 6 low ing the publi ca tion of his thesis on Feuerbach in 1931, Rawidow icz re- 7 ported to Klausner that his docto ral adviser Heinrich Maier was interested 8 in advanc ing his cause within the univer sity. Rawidow icz was not opti - 9 mistic about this prospect given the rising tide of antisem it ism in German 10 aca demic cir cles in 1931 (which even in fected, Rawi dow icz sug gests, Maier 11 himself). 77 But the very fact that he would be consi dered for a posi tion 12 (even as an un sa lar ied Pri vat do zent) in Berlin, the world’s capital of philo - 13 soph i cal study, com pounded his bewild er ment over his fai lure to make 14 head way in Je ru sa lem. 15 We have dwelt on Rawidow icz’s largely unre quited interest in the He- 16 brew Univer sity because it helps us to understand better his frame of 17 mind and moti va tions at a crucial time in his life. On one level, he had 18 earned the im prima tur of the Ger man uni ver sity for his phil o soph i cal re- 19 search. On another level, he had de voted the bet ter part of the 1920s to 20 work ing on be half of a vi brant He brew cul ture, not only through his work at 21 the Aya not pub lish ing house, but also as co edi tor of the jour nal Ha-tekufah 22 and as one of the founders of the Hebrew cultural house, the Bet ha-aam 23 ha-aivri.78 At the very time that he was prodding Klausner and others 24 about his fate at the He brew Uni ver sity, he was busily pre par ing for the 25 first confer ence of an interna tional orga ni za tion for Hebrew culture, the 26 Brit aIvrit aOlamit, that he helped to create. To be sure, the desire to garner 27 an appoint ment in Jeru sa lem casts his efforts for a Diaspora Hebrew cul- 28 ture in a rather unusual light. Two weeks be fore the open ing of the Brit 29 con fer ence in 1931, Rawi dow icz con fided to Klaus ner that his en er gies 30 were wan ing: “This is my last at tempt to do so meth ing for the re vi val of 31 Hebrew in the Diaspora. If I come to the recog ni tion that the Hebrew pub- 32 lic does not want to orga nize itself, that this public does not want to carry 33 the burden of our culture in the Diaspora, then I will be forced to aban- 34 don that pub lic al to gether.”79 35 We might at trib ute this senti ment to the nor mal trepi da tion one feels 36 before undertak ing a major new initiative. But even after the confer ence, 37 as Rawi dow icz took steps to so lidify the Brit, he in di cated to Klaus ner that Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 53

the jewish question53| the time had come “to put an end to my wander ing.” In the fall of 1933, 1 Rawi dow icz went to Pa les tine a sec ond time to ex plore the pos sibility of 2 mov ing there. Writ ing shortly there after from Lon don, he de clared to 3 Klaus ner that “dur ing my time there, it be came clear to me that my place, 4 after all, is in Erets Yisrael.” 80 5 Need less to say, Adolf Hit ler’s as cent to power in 1933 made re fuge from 6 Ber lin both highly de sirable and ad visable. Rawi dow icz’s ap par ent inter est 7 in settling in Pales tine stood in sharp contrast to the letter to his brother 8 from 1925 in which he ad mit ted that he may not be able to “strike roots in 9 Pales tine.” It also poses an interest ing juxta po si tion to Rawidow icz’s dec- 10 lara tion from fif teen years later that “I have lost the de sire to set tle . . . in 11 any spe cific place.”81 No doubt, the fact that Rawi dow icz did not re ceive 12 an offer from the He brew Uni ver sity in 1933—or any other seri ous offer of 13 employ ment in Pales tine—was the source of frustra tion, weariness, and 14 even despera tion. 82 The inter est ing ques tion is whether this frus tra tion, 15 and the sub se quent physi cal wan der ing, be came for Rawi dow icz a kind of 16 meta physi cal state that he grew to ac cept and even mold into the per sona 17 of a self-conscious “lonely man.” Perhaps more to the point, did this frus- 18 tra tion fuel the for ma tion of his dual-centered vi sion of Jew ish na tion al ism, 19 as against the monocen tric approach of Zionism? 20 On one hand, it seems likely that Rawidow icz’s lack of accep tance by the 21 scholarly and liter ary estab lish ments in Pales tine played a substan tial role 22 in his re main ing in the Dia spora. It would be hard to ima gine oth er wise for 23 a scholarly acti vist so singu larly commit ted to the Hebrew language. On 24 the other hand, we should not fail to recall that his ideologi cal worldview 25 had taken shape well in ad vance of the pain ful ex peri ence with the uni ver - 26 sity in Jeru sa lem. Even as a young commit ted Zionist, Rawidow icz was un- 27 cer tain about his comrades’ dispar age ment of the Diaspora. 83 Later, to ward 28 the end of the 1920s, he sharp ened his cri tique of Ahad Ha-aam’s notion of 29 a sin gle spiri tual cen ter for the Jew ish na tion. It may well be that his un- 30 suc cess ful at tempts to find a home in Pa les tine so lidi fied this cri tique, but 31 clear traces of it were present and articu lated before 1933. 32 Indeed, it was in Weimar Berlin that Simon Rawidow icz crystal lized his 33 think ing around the goal of pre serv ing and en rich ing Jew ish life in the Di- 34 a spora—as long as there was a sig nifi cant Jew ish pres ence to war rant it. 35 Berlin proved to be fertile ground for this sensibility, in part because it dwelt 36 among other active diaspor ist agendas. The city was home to a substan tial 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 54

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1 Yiddish intel li gent sia that supported as many as seven teen Yiddish jour- 2 nals, as well as the publi ca tion of hundreds of Yiddish-language books.84 3 In fact, it was in Berlin that the first insti tu tional steps were taken in 1925 4 to create the great center of Yiddish scholar ship, YIVO, which arose in the 5 same pe riod as—and in com pe ti tion with—the Zionist-inspired He brew 6 Univer sity in Jeru sa lem. 7 Berlin was also home, as we noted, to the prominent Jewish histo rian 8 and dia spor ist thinker, Simon Dub now (1860–1941). Rawi dow icz got to 9 know him initially through Aya not, which pub lished Dub now’s edi tion of 10 the records of the Jew ish coun cil in the Grand Duchy of Lithua nia, Pin kas 11 medinat Lita; the two went on to de velop a close re la tion ship through ten 12 years of ac quain tance in Ber lin (1923–33).85 Dubnow’s well-known notion 13 of shifting centers of Diaspora influ ence was a theoreti cal pillar of his ten- 14 volume Weltges chichte des jüdischen Volkes published in Berlin between 15 1925 and 1929. It was also an in fluen tial doc trine in the de bates among 16 early twentieth-century Jew ish na tion al ists in Eu rope, and serv ed as the 17 foun da tion for Dub now’s po liti cal party in Rus sia, the Folk spar tay, which 18 advo cated national cultural autonomy for the world’s largest concen tra - 19 tion of Jews in Eastern Europe. Moreover, the impact of Dubnow’s diaspor - 20 ist views ex tended bey ond his na tive East ern Eu rope. We see traces of his 21 perspec tive in the name and work of the Jüdische Volkspar tei, a coalition 22 party of Ger mans and East ern Eu ro peans within the German-Jewish com- 23 mu nity that was com mit ted to ad vanc ing the inter ests of “Jews as a na- 24 tional minority that autono mously deter mines its cultural activ i ties.” 86 25 While notable as a re flec tion of the mi gra tion of East ern Eu ro pean po- 26 liti cal ideas to Ber lin, the Volk spar tei is per haps even more inter est ing to 27 us be cause of an in tri guing family con nec tion. Among the found ers of the 28 Volkspar tei was Alfred Klee, the father of Esther Klee, whom Simon Ra- 29 wi do w icz met in 1921 and mar ried five years later (figs. 15 and 16). Klee 30 was also ac tive in the Jew ish Co lo nial As so cia tion (ICA), the or ga ni za tion 31 of the “Ter ri to ri al ists” whose rai son d’être was to ame lio rate the con di - 32 tions of, and find refuge for, Jews in any available land. 33 De spite his in volve ment in or ganiza tions com mit ted to Jew ish life in 34 the Dia spora, Al fred Klee was also an ac tive Zion ist who fre quently spoke 35 on behalf of the movement and counted Theodor Herzl and Max Nordau 36 as personal friends. As a German Zionist of the first genera tion, Klee did 37 n o t c o nc e i v e o f h i s c o mm i tm e n t t o Z i o ni s m a s i nc o ns i st e n t w i t h h i s Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 55

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Fig. 15. Esther Klee Rawidowicz (1900–1980), wife of Simon Rawidowicz. 29 30 support for social and cultural work in the Diaspora. Indeed, there were 31 more than a few Zionists such as Klee who rejected the princi ple of “neg- 32 at ing the Exile” and saw Jew ish life out side of Pa les tine less as a per ma - 33 nent state of exile than as a venue re plete with crea tive pos sibilities. 34 In this regard, Simon Rawidow icz was quite similar to his father-in-law, 35 con tinu ally tra vers ing the bor der between Zion ism and dia spor ism. To 36 take a fur ther bio graph i cal step, we might say that the evo lu tion of his 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 56

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Fig. 16. Marriage of Esther Klee and Simon Rawidowicz (1926). 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 57

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distinc tive ver sion of Jew ish na tion al ism was an on go ing—in deed, life- 1 long—ef fort to nego tiate between two inspi ra tions and ideologi cal foils, 2 Ahad Ha-am and Simon Dub now. Both em pha sized the im por tance of a 3 na tional mis sion that pre served and nur tured Jew ish cul ture, though they 4 ad vo cated dif fer ent sites—the Land of Is rael and the Dia spora—as the 5 main locus of that mission. 87 Like his two elders, Rawidow icz’s vision of 6 Jew ish na tion al ism was an chored by the pri macy of Jew ish cul ture. But 7 rather than choose one venue over the other, he settled on his distinc tive 8 idea of two centers. 9 As we have seen, at various points in time, such as when he sought a 10 posi tion at the Hebrew Univer sity, Rawidow icz harbored doubts about the 11 viability of Jew ish cul ture in the Dia spora, es pe cially one that re volved 12 around the Hebrew language. Yet, from his time in Berlin until his last days 13 in Walt ham, he con tin ued to agi tate for rec og ni tion of a Jew ish na tion 14 rooted in “Babylon and Jeru sa lem.” A particu larly signifi cant moment 15 came at the open ing con fer ence of the World He brew Union (Brit aIvrit 16 aOlamit) in June 1931 (fig. 17). Lack ing any of the doubt he pri vately ex- 17 pressed a few weeks before, Rawidow icz gave an address to the confer - 18 ence, “Or ga niz ing the He brew Dia spora,” that spelled out a num ber of core 19 princi ples anchor ing his subse quent thought. The question at hand, he 20 proclaimed, was not simply the fate of Hebrew language. It was the fate of 21 “Is rael,” the Jew ish peo ple at large.88 22 In deed, the Land of Is rael was not the only home of “Is rael.” Tak ing di- 23 rect aim at Ahad Ha-am’s notion of Erets Yisrael as “the spiritual center” of 24 the Jewish people, he argued that “wherever there is a living Jewish com- 25 mu nity, there is a living center of Jewish creativity. The Land of Israel 26 should not fear these cen ters of crea tivity; rather, it re quires them.”89 27 R a w id o wi c z ’ s l a ng u a g e o f “ c e nt e r s o f c r e at i v i t y ” m a r k e d a s u bs t a nt i a l 28 revi sion of Ahad Ha-am’s notion of “imita tion” as a means of cultural en- 29 rich ment. 90 As Rawidow icz saw it, Ahad Ha-am funda men tally misunder - 30 stood the nature of Jewish cultural life, espe cially in the Diaspora. Jewish 31 culture did not come about through “imita tion” of Gentile culture (not 32 even from the more benign “competi tive” version of imita tion that Ahad 33 Ha-am dis tin guished from the self-negating form). Rather, Rawi dow icz 34 held to a differ ent, we might say, more insu lar, view predicated not on cul- 35 tural inter ac tion between Jews and Gen tiles, but on the inner cul tural 36 forces of the Jews them selves. Thus, he pro claimed that “the life that we 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 58

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Fig. 17. Opening page of published version of Rawidowicz’s address at the |rst 34 conference of the Brit aIvrit aOlamit (World Hebrew Union) in Berlin on 21 June 1931. 35 36 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 59

the jewish question59| live is the life that we create for ourselves; if we do not create, we do not 1 live.”91 The key to this creativity, he reit er ated, lay not primarily in the re- 2 la tion ship between a host society and its Jewish minority, but rather in the 3 “partner ship” between Babylon and Jeru sa lem: “Just as Diaspora Jewry 4 cannot solve the problem of Juda ism alone, neither can the Land of Israel 5 solve, today or in the fore seeable fu ture, the ques tion of a com plete Jew ish 6 cul ture.” “The two,” Rawi dow icz as serted in bor row ing from a well-known 7 Mish nah, “are cling ing to the same gar ment.” He con tin ued: “The ma te rial 8 from which they are made is the same, and their soul is the same.”92 9 As we shall see, Rawi dow icz would later em ploy the meta phor of “two 10 cling ing to the same gar ment” to refer to the strug gle between Jews and 11 Arabs over Pales tine. Already in 1931, though, Rawidow icz had fixed on 12 the language that would course throughout Bavel vi-Yerushalayim. Thus, 13 the idea of a “part ner ship” (shuta fut ) between the two main centers of Jew- 14 ish life fig ured promi nently in his Ber lin ad dress. This re la tion ship re- 15 quired, he con tin ued, re spect for the cul tural crea tions pro duced in both 16 centers: “This Union [the World Hebrew Union] must empha size the idea 17 that Baby lon can not re main with out its Tal mud as long as Is rael (i.e., the 18 Jewish people) is located in Babylon; as long as Babylon is part of the Jew- 19 ish world, then Is rael must study not only the Je ru sa lem Tal mud but the 20 Babylo nian Talmud. . . . Do not leave Babylon without its Talmud.” 93 Shorn 21 of his recent inse curity, Rawidow icz was now prepared to fight on behalf 22 of He brew cul ture and to af firm the ex is tence of the Dia spora. In this sense, 23 he felt it impor tant to keep the Union inde pen dent of the World Zionist Or- 24 ga ni za tion in order to serve as the rep re sen ta tive voice of “the He brew na- 25 tion in the Dia spora.”94 26 At the same time, Rawi dow icz was in tent on af firm ing his Zion ist cre- 27 den tials. As he told the delegates in Berlin in 1931, “my Zionism is no less 28 than those who discharge their obli ga tions by ‘negat ing the Diaspora’ or re - 29 cit ing ‘kad dish’ [the mourner’s prayer] for Dia spora Jewry.”95 In attempt ing 30 to ex plain his po si tion, Rawi dow icz relied on a pre stig ious, if rather sur- 31 pris ing, exam ple: Albert Einstein. Without mention ing the great scien tist 32 by name, Rawidow icz asserted that his own form of Jewish cultural na- 33 tion al ism was grounded in “a theory of rela tivity,” as dis tinct from “a the- 34 ory of the Ab so lute.” He ex plained that this theory of relativity did not en tail 35 a re treat into relati vism. It did mean, how ever, that one could no longer ana - 36 lyze a complex condi tion in simple-minded or monis tic fashion. Accord ing 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 60

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1 to Rawi dow icz’s oft-repeated for mula, “the Jew ish Ques tion had one so lu - 2 tion that was in fact two: one rela tive to the building up of Jewish life in Pa - 3 les tine and the other re la tive to Jew ish life in the Dia spora.”96 4 This attempt to craft an applied theory of relativity did not win over 5 many Zionists, whose sights were set on Pales tine. Nor did Rawidow icz 6 de velop a large fol low ing among his natu ral al lies, the de vot ees of He brew. 7 In the lively am bi ence of Wei mar Ber lin in the early 1920s, one could have 8 dreamt of a vi brant glo bal He brew cul ture in which the Dia spora was a full 9 partner. It was in this ambi ence, as Bialik put it in 1923, that “rela tives who 10 had been sep ar ated by force”—East ern Eu ro pean and Ger man Jews— 11 “hap pened onto the same inn.”97 But by the first years of the 1930s, the 12 bold spirit of inno va tion—and the vision of a rich Jewish culture—in Wei- 13 mar had waned. Leading Hebrew lumi nar ies such as Bialik and Agnon 14 had left for Erets Yisrael years earlier, convinced that only there could He- 15 brew have a meaning ful future. Meanwhile, massive economic and polit- 16 i cal in stability in the mid- to late 1920s se verely dis ab led the Wei mar 17 cultural experi ment. 18 Observ ers looking on from the Yishuv, the Jewish commu nity in Pales - 19 tine, expressed perplexity at the Berlin confer ence of the World Hebrew 20 Union. The editors of the journal of the Hebrew writers’ asso cia tion, Moz- 21 nayim, agreed to pub lish Rawi dow icz’s con fer ence ad dress. And yet, be- 22 fore the sec ond of two in stall ments of Rawi dow icz’s lec ture, one of the 23 co edi tors, the He brew au thor Fishel Lachover, took pointed aim at Rawi do - 24 wicz’s ideas. Diaspora Jews have only a “superfi cial knowledge” of devel - 25 op ments in Pa les tine, and im pose upon the coun try “ab stract theo ries” at 26 the ex pense of a more realis tic per spec tive.98 So as to leave no doubt, La- 27 chover then attacked a key claim of Rawidow icz mentioned above. “We 28 are of the view,” he declared, “that the greatest creation of the Diaspora, 29 the ‘Baby lo nian Tal mud,’ found its spiri tual cen ter in the crea tivity of the 30 Land [of Is rael], and is but the periphery of this cen ter, a kind of com men- 31 tary to the core text.” He proceeded to echo Ahad Ha-am’s doubts that He- 32 brew cul ture could sur vive as a crea tive force in the Dia spora with out the 33 spiri tual vi ta lity of Pa les tine. Per haps the final blow in Lachover’s edi to - 34 rial, consis tent with its gener ally dismis sive tone, was his praise for the 35 delegates of the Berlin confer ence who knew to distin guish between con- 36 struc tive prac ti cal steps and the over arch ing theory of “Dr. Rabi now icz” 37 (instead of Rawidow icz). 99 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 61

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This insult from the heart of the Hebrew liter ary estab lish ment must 1 have wounded Rawi dow icz, just as he was press ing friends and col leagues 2 in Je ru sa lem to se cure him a po si tion at the He brew Uni ver sity. But even 3 as he con tem plated leav ing the Dia spora, he pushed on with his agenda. 4 In the wake of the 1931 confer ence, he was chosen to lead the central com- 5 mit tee of the Union and began formu lat ing plans for a World Hebrew Con- 6 gress. Not long after, he sensed that his key role in the work of the Union 7 was being erased from memory, as “other peo ple are com ing and as sert ing 8 their pater nity.” 100 In fact, the problem was far more serious than deter - 9 min ing who de served credit for con ceiv ing the Union. The real issue was 10 that the moment of hope for a World Hebrew Union had passed. Just as 11 Zionism had defini tively moved from its Euro pean labora tory to Pales tine, 12 so, too, the critical mass of Hebrew speakers, and with them the Hebrew 13 culture movement, had defini tively settled in Erets Yisrael. 14 Simon Rawi dow icz’s vir tue was per haps also his vice: namely, his stub- 15 born refusal to surrender hope in a viable and robust Diaspora commu - 16 nity that dwelt as a na tional mi nority out side of the an ces tral home land. 17 In this belief, he could draw theoreti cal support not only from Simon Dub- 18 now and other Jew ish dia spor ists, but also from a longer tra di tion of “au - 19 tonomists” extend ing back to the late nineteenth century. The Austrian 20 so cial theo rist Karl Ren ner at tempted at the turn of the nine teenth cen tury 21 to articu late a vision of a multi eth nic state that recog nized discrete cul- 22 tural and lingu is tic groups as national corpo ra tions (Körperschaf ten ).101 23 Renner insisted, in a curi ous adum bra tion of the later Rawidow icz, that 24 his far-reaching propo sals were “the least utopian” of available politi cal 25 op tions, es pe cially for tot ter ing mul tina tional em pires. In ciden tally, nei- 26 ther Renner nor his fellow Austrian theorist of auto nom ism, Otto Bauer, 27 believed that Jews qualified as a national corpo ra tion possessed of its own 28 per son ality. Non ethe less, as Roni Gecht man has skill fully shown, a num- 29 ber of early twentieth-century Jewish politi cal acti vists in Eastern Europe, 30 espe cially those asso ciated with the Yiddish socialist-nationalist party, the 31 Bund, adapted Ren ner and Bauer to their cause. That is, they ad vo cated a 32 kind of national-cultural autonomy that depended on state recog ni tion 33 and sub ven tion, but not ter ri to rial sove reignty.102 34 The vari ous streams of Jew ish na tion al ists, in clud ing the au tono mists, 35 were shaken to the core by the Kishi nev pog roms (1903), in which the 36 physical vulnerability of Jews was baldly exposed. This vulnerability 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 62

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1 became even more ap par ent in the im me di ate after math of the First 2 World War. Not only were new states being carved out of eviscer ated em- 3 pires, but Jews, es pe cially in Ukraine, faced new tar geted threats ex ceed - 4 ing even those that had been directed at them in the Great War itself. 5 Advo cates for the defense of the Jews, who included staunch nation al ists 6 from East ern Eu rope and anti na tion al ist com mu nal lead ers from the 7 West (France, En gland, and the United States), looked to the Paris Peace 8 Confer ence and the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 as the oppor tu nity to set 9 in place lasting safeguards for physical, reli gious, and cultural protec - 10 tion.103 Strong pressure was placed, espe cially by President Woodrow Wil- 11 son, to insert into the founding Coven ant of the new League of Nations 12 clauses guar an tee ing to “all ra cial or na tional mi norities . . . ex actly the 13 same treat ment and se curity . . . that is ac corded to the ra cial or na tional 14 majority.” 104 When these clauses failed to be en shrined in the Cov en ant, 15 advo cates of Jewish rights turned their atten tion to the Minorities Treat- 16 ies of the newly emerging East Central and Southern Euro pean states. 17 Clauses were ac tu ally in cor po rated into the treat ies of new states (for ex- 18 am ple, Poland, Lithuania, Greece, Roma nia, Alba nia, Greece, Yugosla via, 19 and Iraq) that called for the rights of minorities to speak their own lan- 20 guage, estab lish reli gious, educa tional, and welfare insti tu tions under 21 their own control, and receive propor tional state funding for educa tional 22 in struc tion. De spite their in clu sion in the treat ies, these prin ci ples were 23 rarely imple mented. As one authori ta tive account declared: “Viola tions of 24 treaty obli ga tions never ceased; the founda tions of the Versailles system 25 began to be under mined even be fore the peace treat ies had been 26 signed.”105 27 With the rapid un rav el ing of the “Ver sailles system” and, with it, the 28 once-grand promise of interna tional recog ni tion of national minority 29 rights, the ar gu ment in favor of Dia spora au to nom ism es sen tially ran out 30 of steam. It is true that the Soviet Union estab lished a Jewish Autono mous 31 Re gion in Bi ro bid zhan in 1928. And it is also true that the Bund re mained 32 a central player in the commu nal politics of Jewish Poland up to 1939, but 33 this centrality owed less to its vision of Jewish cultural autonomy than to 34 its com mit ted fight against the ris ing tide of anti sem it ism. In deed, a com- 35 bi na tion of factors—re sur gent ethnic nation al ism in East Central Europe, 36 the chang ing at ti tude of the So viet Union to its Jew ish mi nority, and above 37 all, the specter of Naz ism—snuffed out much hope in the 1930s for a ro bust Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 63

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“na tional ex tra ter ri to rial au tonomy” (which, Ezra Men del sohn re calls, had 1 once been “cham pioned by all the mod ern Jewish par ties”).106 2 There were still calls in the period, of course, for protec tion of Jews as a 3 be lea guered na tional mi nority; it was this cause, after all, that led to the cre- 4 a tion of the World Jew ish Con gress in 1936.107 Simon Rawidow icz, for his 5 part, would stay on theme in sup port of a broader view of Jew ish col lec tive 6 rights than mere physi cal pro tec tion; he would con tinue to ad vo cate, in the 7 midst of the dark en ing clouds over Eu rope, for a vi brant Jew ish cul tural pres- 8 ence in the Diaspora. What made his mission even more Sisy phean than it 9 al ready was was his choice of lan guage. While Yid dish was spoken by mil- 10 lions in Europe (and celebrated as the leading national language by Diaspora 11 au tono mists), it was He brew, spoken by a small mi nority of Dia spora Jews, 12 that served as the uni fy ing agent in Rawi dow icz’s vi sion. 13 Notwith stand ing these ongo ing alle giances to Hebrew and the Dia- 14 spora, Rawidow icz must have sensed in the early 1930s that the tide of cur- 15 rent events was sweeping away the pillars of his vision. In the throes of 16 uncer tainty, he went, as we noted, for a second time to the heartland of 17 Hebrew culture, Pales tine. He arrived in the late summer of 1933, meeting 18 with family, friends, and col leagues and de liv er ing a lec ture at the He brew 19 Univer sity. He returned to Europe without a job offer several months later 20 and, hav ing de cided to leave Ger many be hind, made his way to an even 21 less sig nifi cant cen ter of He brew cul ture than Ber lin: Lon don. At the time, 22 he was of the be lief that his ten ure in En gland would be brief; he wrote his 23 father that “from London, the path to Jeru sa lem is short.”108 He also ad- 24 mit ted to Joseph Klausner in late 1933: “I have not yet discov ered the se- 25 cret and greatness of the ‘Babylon’ in which we live. I have no desire 26 whatsoever to inte grate here in London.” 109 27 One can only specu late what life would have been like for Rawi dow icz 28 had he found employ ment and moved to Pales tine. To be sure, he would 29 have found a large and ac tive Hebrew-speaking pub lic. And he would have 30 been able to devote more time to his research on Maimo nides and Kroch- 31 mal. But what was perhaps his main life mission—fos ter ing a dynamic 32 Hebrew culture in Zion and in the Diaspora—would have had very limited 33 resonance. Far more urgent tasks remained for the Zionist enter prise 34 such as for ti fy ing the eco nomic, po liti cal, and mili tary foun da tion of the 35 Yishuv, or at tend ing to the growth of local He brew cul ture in Pa les tine. 36 Few Jews there had the in cli na tion or pa tience to de vote them selves to 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 64

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1 Hebrew culture in the Diaspora. It was the mission of Simon Rawidow icz, 2 newly set tled in Lon don, to con tinue to pur sue that ob jec tive. 3 4 “ e Last Pillar of Hebrew Literature in Europe” 5 6 Upon ar ri val in Lon don, Rawi dow icz found that the quest for regu lar em- 7 ploy ment re mained elu sive there as well. As a refu gee scholar from Ger- 8 many, he was in vited to give a ser ies of lec tures on Mai mo nides at Jews’ 9 College, the main rabbini cal seminary of London (fig. 18). He also was 10 called upon to serve as an outside exam iner in philo so phy for students at 11 the col lege.110 In ad di tion, Rawi dow icz was a part-time in struc tor at the 12 School of Orien tal Stud ies (later SOAS) in London from the be ginning of 13 the aca demic year in fall 1934. While Rawi dow icz forged close re la tions at 14 both in sti tu tions, he landed a full-time job at nei ther. 15 The annual reports from the School of Oriental Studies (fig. 19) suggest 16 that Rawidow icz, although only a part-time instruc tor, was one of the most 17 pro lific lec tur ers and writ ers on the staff.111 He wrote exten sively in the 18 field of Jew ish thought, with par ticu lar em pha sis on the work of Saadya 19 Gaon, Maimo nides, and Moses Mendels sohn. True to form, Rawidow icz 20 paired his research and teaching at Jews’ College and SOAS with a busy 21 schedule of lectur ing and writing on behalf of Hebrew culture. He served 22 as head of the ex ecu tive of the Brit aIvrit aOlamit, whose work was soon in- 23 cor po rated into the local branch of the Hebrew cultural orga ni za tion, the 24 Tarbuth Asso cia tion (fig. 20) that oper ated under the auspices of the En - 25 g l i s h Z i o ni s t F e de r at i o n . 112 Rawidow icz, the tireless advo cate of Hebrew, 26 took pride in 1938 that it was now pos sible “to under take wide-ranging 27 and impor tant Hebrew cultural activ i ties” in the city. In fact, he noted in a 28 report from that year that the Tarbut Asso cia tion sponsored more than 29 sixty events in the pre ced ing year, many of which fea tured him as main 30 speaker.113 31 Rawidow icz was also a frequent speaker for other Jewish organiza tions 32 throughout England, offer ing single lectures and longer courses in English, 33 He brew, and even Yid dish (fig. 21). In the ab sence of a regu lar teach ing po- 34 si tion, this lectur ing became a source of much-needed remu nera tion. So 35 too was his writing for Jewish journals in London, includ ing the Jew ish 36 Chroni cle, the Zionist Review, and the Hebrew weekly, Ha-aolam, published 37 by the World Zionist Orga ni za tion. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 65

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Fig. 18. Minutes of a meeting at Jews’ College on 31 July 1933 in which Rawidowicz is 36 discussed as a possible lecturer. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 66

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Fig. 19. Annual report of the activities of a}liated lecturers (including Rawidowicz) 22 of the School of Oriental Studies (later SOAS) in London. 23 24 25 It was in the last jour nal that Rawi dow icz pub lished a stream of es says 26 on the theme of “affirm ing the Diaspora” (as one of the first of these arti - 27 cles was enti tled). 114 Zion ism erred in fo cus ing on Jew ish life in Pa lestine 28 to the ex clu sion of the Dia spora. The re sult was to di vide the Jew ish na tion. 29 To prevent this danger, Rawidow icz sounded a famil iar theme: “It is one 30 and the same nation that it is creating its own homeland and defend ing 31 the walls of its ex is tence in the Dia spora.”115 In imagin ing the rela tion ship 32 between the two cen ters, Rawi dow icz averred that “the idea of a part ner - 33 ship (that I have been dis cuss ing for ten years) can be visu al ized in the 34 form of an ellipse with two foci on which the enti rety of the ellipse must of 35 neces sity stand: and this is Israel.” 36 Rawidow icz’s oft-invoked image of an ellipse, in which the sum of the 37 distance from any point on it to two foci is constant, meant to convey the Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 67

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Fig. 20. Letter of Rawidowicz from 8 February 1938 to Avraham Schwadron (Sharon) 26 on stationery of the Tarbuth Association in London, successor to the Brit aIvrit aOlamit. Rawidowicz Archives. 27 28 idea that the two centers of Jewish national culture were both indis - 29 pensable founda tions of a single Jewish nation. The rela tion ship between 30 them was fluid, but each focal point had to be sup ported in sti tu tion ally 31 and ma te ri ally in order to as sure a healthy Jew ish na tion. If the World 32 Zionist Orga ni za tion was not up to the task of serving the “national” needs 33 of Dia spora Jewry, Rawi dow icz wrote, then a new fed era tion of Jew ish com- 34 mu nities should be created.116 35 It is surpris ing, to say the least, that views such as these would be wel- 36 come in the pages of Ha-aolam, the jour nal of the Zion ist move ment. Part 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 68

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Fig. 21. Announcement of a series of lectures that Rawidowicz was giving in England 34 on Zionism (and his views of Jewish nationalism). 35 36 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 69

the jewish question69| of the rea son may have had to do with Rawi dow icz’s stead fast al le giance 1 to He brew cul ture, which was often and easily as sumed to be equiv al ent to 2 support for Zionism. But perhaps the more impor tant reason was Rawi - 3 dow icz’s long-standing re la tion ship with the edi tor of Ha-aolam, Moshe 4 Kleinmann, whom he assisted and even tempo rarily replaced in 1936 5 when Klein mann moved from Lon don to Pa les tine. There was talk at the 6 time that Rawidow icz might be invited to join Kleinmann, but in the end, 7 he was not. He re mained in the Dia spora, per sist ing in his com mit ment 8 to He brew cul ture. 9 In deed, as the clouds dark ened over Eu ro pean Jewry, Rawi dow icz’s 10 sense of mis sion in ten si fied; cen tu ries of lit er ary pro duc tivity in the He- 11 brew language, he feared, were coming to a close. It was no longer the 12 threat of as simi la tion or Zion ism’s dis dain for the Dia spora, but Naz ism’s 13 as sault on Jew ish life and cul ture. Ne ces sarily, this threat pre oc cu pied Ra - 14 widow icz in much of his writing from the outbreak of the Second World 15 War. In 1940, he inau gu rated, with the finan cial support of the German- 16 born En glish Zion ist leader, Oskar Phil lip, a He brew monthly en ti tled Yal- 17 kut to serve as a sup ple ment to the Zionist Review of the En glish Zion ist 18 Federa tion. Rawidow icz opened the first number of the journal with the 19 follow ing warning: “The destruc tion [hurban ] of 1939/40, which threat ens 20 to reach the Brit ish Isles, may the Guar dian of Is rael pro tect them, is also 21 the destruc tion of the last pillars of Hebrew litera ture in Europe.” 117 In sub- 22 se quent issues, Rawidow icz argued that England had a unique task, to 23 serve as the “for tress” of free dom for Jews in Eu rope. Con comi tantly, it was 24 in cum bent upon Jews in En gland (and the broader An glo phone world) to 25 safe guard and en rich the pre cious na tional treas ure of He brew. This ef fort 26 did not require spurning English culture or language, as Rawidow icz elab- 27 orated via an in tri guing com pari son: 28

The Welsh, even after hundreds of years of coex is tence with the English, in- 29 termar ri age, wander ing, and uproot ing (although on their land, which is “one 30 land” with the En glish), pre served and con tinue to pre serve their lan guage. 31 The wealth of En glish li tera ture does not re quire an up root ing or weak en ing 32 of their de sire to have their own ve hi cle of ex pres sion. Ex cept for some ex- 33 treme fa nat ics who re fuse to speak En glish in a court of law, most speak and 34 under stand En glish with out giv ing up the Welsh lan guage.118 35 Rawidow icz urged the Jews of England to follow suit by creating “a 36 Hebrew-speaking world” along side their An glo phonic one. Such a call, 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 70

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1 echo ing simi lar ones he had made ear lier in Ber lin, was des tined to move 2 very few, perhaps no more than a hundred or so commit ted Hebraists that 3 he esti mated to be in London. 119 Not sur pris ingly, it was in this dark pe- 4 riod that Rawi dow icz’s lit er ary alter ego, Ish Boded, was born, hint ing at 5 the soli tary state of the ad vo cate of He brew cul ture writ ing as the last ves- 6 tiges of that culture in Europe were being extin guished. 120 7 8 “ e Right to be Di7erent” 9 10 Rawidow icz’s loneli ness was compounded by his move to Leeds in 1941, 11 which took him a step further away from the more vibrant (though, to his 12 mind, still lack ing) Jew ish com mu nity of Lon don. But the move did have 13 a salu tary side; his ap point ment in that year as lec turer in me di eval and 14 modern Hebrew in the Depart ment of Semitic Languages at the Univer - 15 sity of Leeds brought to an end Rawi dow icz’s long quest for a per ma nent 16 univer sity posi tion and provided him with a stable source of income. 121 His 17 col league from Lon don, the re nowned scholar of Arabic H. A. R. Gibb, 18 warmly congratu lated him: “I am so glad that you are to be estab lished at 19 Leeds, and the uni ver sity there is to be con gratu lated on se cur ing you for 20 the lecture ship. After the long and diffi cult days which you have had to go 21 through, you have earned the right to a secured posi tion and a steadier 22 horizon.” 122 Rawi dow icz’s po si tion, which was funded by the Jew ish in dus- 23 tri al ist and philan thro pist in Leeds, Montague Burton, was originally con- 24 ceived of as an as sist ant lec ture ship. But in light of his “high qualifi ca tions 25 and standing,” Rawidow icz was hired at Leeds at the level of lecturer. 123 At 26 the univer sity, he contin ued to research and publish, mainly in Hebrew, on 27 two of his main schol arly inter ests, Mai mo nides and Nach man Kroch mal. 28 He earned a repu ta tion as an active and well-appreciated member of the 29 faculty, and served as head of the depart ment from 1946 to 1948. One of his 30 col leagues, the Rev. Dr. John Bow man, de scribed Rawi dow icz in an obitu - 31 ary as “both a great and good scholar and a great and good man.” 32 This com ment points to a rather mys ti fiy ing fea ture in Rawi dow icz’s bi- 33 og ra phy. For an iconoclas tic thinker and ideologue, he seemed to have few 34 per sonal ene mies. And for a self-described “soli tary man,” he seemed to have 35 a rich social life. His rela tion ship with his wife, Esther Klee, was close and 36 sup por tive. Not with stand ing her own pro fes sional as pi ra tions (a Ph.D in bi- 37 ology from Ber lin), she fol lowed him on his wan der ing life course, al ways Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 71

the jewish question71| creat ing a hos pitable am bi ence for the many guests who vis ited the Ra- 1 wi dow icz home. He earned the re spect of col leagues in the academy in En - 2 gland (for exam ple, Bowman and Gibb), as he had in Germany and would in 3 America. He impressed Jewish leaders of varying stripes, from Ortho dox rab- 4 bis (Yehez kel Abram sky and Jo seph Hertz) to the Zion ist of fi cials at 77 Great 5 Rus sell Street in Lon don. But he felt most at home among fel low sup port ers 6 of Hebrew culture in London, figures such as Shlomo Auerbach, Joseph 7 Heller, and Alexander and Ben zion Mar gu lies. These men tended to be less 8 criti cal of Zion ism than he. But it was Rawi dow icz who crafted for them a vi- 9 sion and voca tion on behalf of Hebrew culture in England. 10 One of those who shared in the enter prise was a London Jew named 11 Bernard Lewis, the future scholar of Islam, who estab lished a group of 12 young Hebrew speakers in London called “Dovre aIv rit” (lit er ally, “He brew 13 speakers”). Lewis recalls Rawidow icz as an inspi ra tion to the group, as well 14 as a man of great erudi tion, deep curi osity, and charming and sardonic 15 wit.124 Follow ing their first meeting, the two devel oped a warm friendship. 16 In fact, Rawi dow icz stayed at Lewis’s apart ment when he visited Lon don 17 after leaving for Leeds in 1941. Moreover, he recruited Lewis to write an ar- 18 ti cle for another He brew jour nal that he ed ited, Met su dah. A ll u ri n g l y , t h i s 19 arti cle, which offered a wide-ranging histori cal synthe sis of Muslim-Jewish 20 re la tions up to the early mod ern pe riod, was en ti tled “aEver ve-aarav” (He- 21 brew and Arab)—a title nearly identi cal to that of the chapter we shall dis- 22 cuss in the latter half of this book. 23 Lewis also contrib uted to another Hebrew journal that appeared in 24 England in 1944 known as Me li lah. The two journals shared a number of 25 writ ers in clud ing Sa muel Krauss, I. D. Mar kon, Ar thur Mar mor stein, Na- 26 than Morris, Cecil Roth, and Isadore Wartski. Me li lah, for its part, was 27 published under the auspices of the Univer sity of Manches ter, where the 28 edi tors, Ed ward Ro bert son and Meir Wal len stein, were mem bers of the 29 Semitics Depart ment. In his opening editor’s note, Robert son observed, 30 with a bit of ex ag gera tion, that there was at present “a great and grow ing 31 eager ness to bring to life again the Hebrew tongue.” And he added that 32 “through the en thu siasm of Dr. Rawi dow icz, an out let for He brew li tera- 33 ture in Hebrew has been provided in his peri odi cal Yal qut [sic], later con- 34 verted into Met su dah.”125 35 While he was cor rect in point ing to Rawi dow icz’s lead ing role in He- 36 braist cir cles in En gland, it is not ac cu rate to see Metsu dah as the di rect 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 72

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1 heir of Yalkut. The lat ter was an organ of the En glish Zion ist move ment. 2 The former, which first appeared in Febru ary 1943, was not. Rather, it was 3 printed by the in de pen dent Ara rat pub lish ing house. 4 The name “Ara rat” evoked the sense of cri sis that Rawi dow icz and his 5 com rades felt at the time. Ara rat was the moun tain top where, ac cord ing to 6 the Bible, Noah’s ark came to rest after the floodwa ters had receded (Gene - 7 sis 8:4); it was also a symbolic place of refuge from a terri fy ing storm. The 8 latter-day Ara rat Pub lish ing So ciety was to pro vide a safe haven for He brew 9 language and culture in the face of the terri fy ing storm of Nazism. 126 Ironi- 10 cally, London had become Ararat: “the last city in Europe,” Rawidow icz ob- 11 served, “where it is possible to publish in the Holy Language.” 127 12 From this new Ara rat, Rawi dow icz aimed to erect a for tress—a metsu - 13 dah—in defense of Hebrew. The term recurs throughout his writing in this 14 period. In the first issue of Met su dah, for ex am ple, Rawi dow icz wrote of 15 the com bined force of Great Bri tain and the United States as “a for tress 16 that is a bastion of strength” in the battle against Hitler. He also expressed 17 the ex plicit hope that the new jour nal would serve as a “for tress” of 18 strength and en cour age ment in try ing times.128 19 This aspi ra tion was somewhat undercut by Rawidow icz’s plaintive tone. 20 Both he and his alter ego, Ish Boded, fre quently in veighed against the de- 21 fi cien cies of the contem po rary Jewish world, taking aim at a famil iar tar- 22 get: the “fatal Zionist tradi tion of ‘nega tion of the Diaspora.’” To the extent 23 that Zion ism could be of as sis tance to Jews in Eu rope, it was not in de- 24 mand ing their mass migra tion to Pales tine, but rather in amelio rat ing 25 their present condi tion and prepar ing for “the revi val of Euro pean Jewry in 26 the future days to come.”129 27 Rawidow icz did not reserve his criticism only for the Zionists. Writing 28 as Ish Boded, he found fault with those English Jews who offered no cred- 29 ible alter na tive either to Zionism or to synagogue-based Juda ism. He in- 30 cluded in this in dict ment his pu ta tive al lies: “Nei ther the national-Hebrew 31 camp nor the cir cles of so cial ists and Yid dish ists within Anglo Jewry, both 32 of which are pow er less and in ef fec tive, are en gaged in their own edu ca - 33 tional projects. Neither labors to mold the image of the coming genera - 34 tion.” Ish Boded expected more from these groups: “Don’t English Jews 35 have the ob li ga tion of Jew ish citi zen ship in cum bent upon them, full citi - 36 zenship in the House of Israel both in England and beyond, in the Land of 37 Israel and in the Diaspora.” 130 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 73

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As he had earlier in Yal kut, Rawi dow icz (writ ing as Ish Boded) again 1 looked to the experi ence of the Welsh. While “no less ‘British’ than Anglo 2 Jews,” the Welsh “did not surrender their language” or litera ture—even 3 though they failed to produce “a single author who can stand at the feet of 4 the most minor bibli cal authors.” 131 Quite by contrast, the Jews, authors of 5 li tera ture of world sig nifi cance, quaked with fear over the charge of dual 6 loy alty and, con se quently, chose to aban don their cul tural heri tage in En - 7 gland and elsewhere: “Who but the Jews, the people of the book, have be- 8 come il lit er ate strang ers?”132 9 The idea that the Jews of England had abdi cated “the obli ga tion of Jew- 10 ish citi zen ship in cum bent upon them” re minds us that Simon Rawi dow icz 11 had not sur ren dered the idea of a sin gle Jew ish na tion with both a ter ri to - 12 rial center and a substan tial extra ter ri to rial presence. He was not alto gether 13 alone in this view. Even though the promise of national minority rights at 14 Versailles was, to a large extent, stillborn, the Nazi assault on Euro pean Jews 15 once again ex posed the vul nerability of the Jew ish mi nority. Duly mind ful 16 of this, Hannah Arendt argued vigor ously for the creation of a Jewish army 17 in Pa les tine. “The de fense of Pa les tine,” she wrote in No vem ber 1941, “is 18 part of the struggle for the freedom of the Jewish people.” A month later, 19 she further clarified that “the solu tion to the Jewish question is not to be 20 found in one country, not even in Pales tine.” 133 In deed, her think ing in this 21 pe riod fo cused on the ideal of a Jew ish presence in Pa les tine along side the 22 right of Jews in Europe to be part of a common wealth of nations in which 23 “we could be recog nized as a nation and be repre sented in a Euro pean par- 24 lia ment.” Arendt’s sense of per sonal iden tifi ca tion with the fate of the Jews 25 was noticeably strong here—and in some tension with her later refuta tion 26 of the princi ple of “ahavat Yisrael.” Those Jews who seek to escape their fate 27 by con vert ing are, in her un for giv ing for mu la tion, “vir tual trai tors.”134 28 In similar fashion, anguish over the Nazi assault on Euro pean Jewry 29 weighed heavily on Simon Rawi dow icz, and fig ured in his edi to rial choices 30 at Metsu dah. We see this quite graphically in the dedica tion page with 31 which he opened the sec ond issue in 1943.135 The upper portion of this 32 page featured a striking visual image of resis tance drawn by London-based 33 art ist Wal ter Hertz: a pic ture of an arm hold ing a gun im posed upon an 34 open book, with de stroyed dwell ings in the back ground (fig. 22). The lower 35 portion consisted of an enco mium that evoked the tradi tional memo rial 36 prayer, “El Maleh Raha mim”: 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 74

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Fig. 22. Ode to martyrs of Nazism in Metsudah 2 (1943). Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 75

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To the memory 1 Of the hundreds of thousands of Jews, 2 Men, women, and children 3 Remnant of our great authors and guardians of our culture, 4 Martyrs of God and Israel in the ghettoes of Poland, 5 Who died a holy and pure death, 6 By the evil and dirty hands of Hitler’s army, 7 In the countries of occupied Europe 8 From the years 1939 to 1944. 9 O Earth, do not cover their blood. 10 11 136 If we forget thee, martyrs of 5700–5704 (1939–1944) . . . 12 Im me di ately after this dedi ca tion, Rawi dow icz di rected his criti cism in 13 a famil iar, but curi ous direc tion: Zionism. Although Zionists claimed Pa- 14 lestine by “right” and not “suffer ance,” they denied Diaspora Jews the same 15 right to a national exis tence outside of the homeland. 137 It was the unique 16 merit of the so cial ist Bund, with which Rawi dow icz did not nor mally sym- 17 pa thize, to insist on this right to a full national life in the Diaspora. The 18 Zionists, for their part, had abandoned this right and, by exten sion, their 19 Jewish brethren in Europe—all in keeping with the princi ple of “negat ing 20 the Diaspora.” 138 21 The criticism of Zionism would continue throughout the remain ing five 22 numbers of Metsu dah, which were published somewhat irregu larly in three 23 volumes (as 3–4, 5–6, and 7) from 1945 to 1954. Indeed, the crisis precipi - 24 tated by Nazism had the effect of deepen ing Rawidow icz’s disap point ment 25 over Zionism’s failings. At the same time, it pushed him to a new, and to a 26 great extent, more mature phase of theor iz ing his view of Jewish nation - 27 al ism. Prior to this point, his chief con cern was to forge a third path be- 28 tween Zion ism and Dia spor ism ac cord ing to the terms of ref er ence of 29 Jewish nation al ism. At this moment though, Rawidow icz felt compelled 30 to lay a founda tion for Jewish collec tive exis tence by engag ing the terms of 31 ref er ence of West ern po liti cal theory. 32 The first of his ef forts in this vein was a long essay, writ ten in the fall of 33 1944, enti tled “Uncon di tional Survi val.” Rawidow icz opened by noting that 34 “the Second World War of the twenti eth century did not make many waves 35 on politi cal thought, and the few waves that it did make do not address in 36 any way the mag ni tude of the de struc tion that the war brought upon the 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 76

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1 world.”139 He then went on to pro pose what he re garded as an in no va tion 2 in rights discourse that was urgently needed in the postwar world. He re- 3 called that Frank lin D. Roose velt had en un ciated four free doms in his 1941 4 State of the Union ad dress: free dom of speech, free dom of re li gion, free- 5 dom from want, and free dom from fear. Rawi dow icz added to this list a 6 fifth, which he called “the source of all free dom, the right of the in di vidual 7 and group to be dif fer ent: liber tas diffe rendi. ”140 Not surpris ingly, his main 8 inter est in ar ticu lat ing this fifth freedom was the right of the group to be 9 dif fer ent. It was this point that ena bled him to ar ticu late a com pan ion 10 prin ci ple: that in a world full of dif fer ence, the Jews were first among 11 equals. “Is rael,” Rawi dow icz an nounced, is “the most dif fer ent in the 12 world.”141 No other group, he argued, had sur vived for so long by “dwell ing 13 alone” (Numbers 23:9), preserv ing its own reli gion, culture, and language 14 in the midst of hosts who often re acted ne ga tively to Jew ish dif fer ence. 15 In forging his theory of li ber tas dif fe rendi, Rawidow icz attempted to 16 avoid two extremes: a totali tarian nation al ism, of which Nazism was the 17 most ob vi ous ex am ple, and the far lesser, but oft-concealed peril of West- 18 ern liber al ism. In the first case, Rawidow icz believed that the Second 19 World War “has taught us that a cer tain dimi nu tion of the sove reignty of 20 states, large and small, a de lim it ing of their au thority, is more likely to bring 21 about the blessing of peace to the world—and to the Jews—than an inten- 22 sifi ca tion of na tion al ism.” On the other hand, lib er al ism, with its con stant 23 focus on the rights of the in di vidual, pos sesses the po ten tial to under mine 24 the right to group differ ence. The reas ser tion of liberal values in a postwar 25 world should not come at the ex pense of rec og niz ing the right to cul tural 26 dif fer ences among groups, par ticu larly na tional mi norities with out states 27 of their own. In fact, Rawi dowicz be lieved that “the United Na tions must 28 fully and completely recog nize the right to be differ ent, insert it in every 29 peace treaty between one country and another, and root it in the consti - 30 tution of every state.” Evoking the legacy of Versailles, he contin ued by de- 31 mand ing that every nation-state per mit “a system of edu ca tion for every 32 national or lingu is tic group” in its midst.142 33 Rawi dow icz re mained on this theme in the next issue of Metsu dah 34 (num bers 5 and 6 com bined), which was pub lished in 1948. The open ing 35 arti cle, a book-length essay of 153 pages, was enti tled “Toward Destruc - 36 tion or Revi val?” Rawidow icz began writing the arti cle in the last months 37 of the war, and completed it in late Octo ber 1946. Despite the dramatic Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 77

the jewish question77| course of events since that time, par ticu larly the pas sage of United Na tions 1 Resolu tion 181 on 29 Novem ber 1947 calling for the parti tion of Pales tine 2 into “Inde pen dent Arab and Jewish States,” Rawidow icz left his long arti - 3 cle unchanged. His primary concern remained the affir ma tion of the right 4 to group dif fer ence. In a re veal ing foot note, he con fessed: 5

I am not among those who pray for the return of the crown of European- 6 American liber al ism to its glory. I doubt whether liber al ism has the where- 7 wi thal to re pair the total dev as ta tion of so ciety and the world. ;e world 8 needs a new political-social movement that can guaran tee the freedom of 9 in di vidual and so ciety—to gether and com pletely. ;is can not be merely a 10 formal legal freedom, but mate rial and economic so that it not fail to over- 11 come the obsta cles that wiped out earlier movements for freedom. 143 12 Rawidow icz hoped that, in the aftermath of the war, a more durable 13 frame work for na tional mi nority rights would emerge. This ex pec ta tion 14 was shared in a compan ion arti cle written by a colleague in London, Yaaa - 15 kov Fleis cher, in the same Met su dah. Fleis cher de tailed the fai lure of the in- 16 terna tional commu nity to set in place safeguards for national minorities 17 follow ing the First World War. The initial promise of Versailles, he argued, 18 was dashed when sig na tory states blithely re fused to im ple ment the mi- 19 nority rights clauses not long after the Paris Peace Confer ence con- 20 c l u d e d . 144 Now after the Second World War, Fleisher argued, another peace 21 confer ence was held in Paris (July–Octo ber 1946), once again to resolve 22 outstand ing terri to rial disputes, recog nize new national borders, and as- 23 sure the rights of minorities. He was disap pointed to discover that “the 24 names ‘Jew’ and “Jews’ do not ap pear in a sin gle peace treaty” emerg ing out 25 of Paris. The moral of the story was that the inter na tional com mu nity, fol- 26 low ing the two world wars and the fai lure of two Paris con fer ences, must 27 fi nally own up to its ob li ga tion to pro tect the na tional mi nority rights of 28 Jews and estab lish a viable mechan ism for imple men ta tion. 145 29 Rawidow icz shared Fleischer’s disap point ment over the failure to pro- 30 vide such protec tion. But apart from his earlier call on the United Nations 31 and in di vidual states to en shrine the “right to be dif fer ent,” he did not out- 32 line any specific steps that should be taken to provide guaran tees to the 33 Jews. Instead, he retreated to his famil iar posi tion that a solu tion to the 34 “Jew ish Ques tion” did not lie solely with the crea tion of a Jew ish state. In 35 fact, in a short edito rial in Metsu dah that was written just after the United 36 Na tions’ deci sion to par ti tion Pa les tine, he pointed to some po ten tial 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 78

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1 diffi cul ties. He won dered whether a new Jew ish state would be able to pro- 2 vide a stable economic and politi cal founda tion for Jews and manage to 3 live peaceably with its neigh bors. Ever present was his fear that Zion ism in 4 its stat ist form would ig nore “the ques tion of Is rael in the Dia spora (which) 5 is the question of the overwhelm ing majority of Jews.” As momen tum built 6 to ward the crea tion of a Jew ish state, the well-being of the Dia spora might 7 well be forgot ten. At that point, Rawidow icz surmised: “the gulf between 8 a ‘state peo ple’ (that sees it self as re deemed and ca pable of stand ing on its 9 own) and a ‘Diaspora people’ (that will not have the right of citizen ship 10 and all that is bound up with it in this state—such that its rights will be 11 fewer than those of the Arab, Chris tian, or other mi nority that dwells 12 within its borders) will widen greatly.”146 13 This con cern was the logi cal ex ten sion of Rawi dow icz’s long-standing 14 at tempt to dis tin guish between a stat ist form of na tion al ism grounded in 15 terri tory and a nonstat ist nation al ism grounded in a common culture. 16 While Rawidow icz may have been right in seeing the decisive triumph of 17 the former over the latter, he was wrong in at least one regard in his Mets- 18 udah edi to rial. With the en act ment in 1950 of the Law of Re turn by Is rael’s 19 parlia ment, the Knesset, Jews from all over the world were granted the op- 20 por tu nity to gain rights of citizen ship in the State of Israel that were equal 21 and often supe rior to those of Arabs who were native to Pales tine. In fact, 22 Rawi dow icz would soon be come keenly aware that Arab ci tiz ens were sub- 23 ject to dis cri mina tory leg is la tion by the Knes set in the early years of the 24 state. But in late 1947 the state had not yet been created, and Rawi do w icz’s 25 atten tion had not yet turned to the “Arab Question.” 26 That said, although he did not make an explicit connec tion yet, Rawi- 27 dow icz’s focus on the status of na tional mi nority rights and the dan gers of 28 a state-based na tion al ism—so evi dent in his Metsu dah essays during the 29 1940s—remained constant as he shifted his gaze from the Jewish Question 30 to the Arab Question in “Between Jew and Arab.” In fact, as we follow the de- 31 vel op ment of his thought, the two cases stand as mirror images. Both Dia- 32 spora Jews and Pales tin ian Arabs were national minorities that posed 33 dif fer ent kinds of ob sta cles to a Zion ist move ment in tent on build ing a Jew- 34 ish state. Both were deemed extra ne ous and even hostile to this statist 35 agenda. In deed, we can not make sense of Rawi dow icz’s sen si tivity to the 36 plight of Arab refu gees and the status of Arab citiz ens in Israel in isola tion 37 from his concern for Jews as a ravaged national minority. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 79

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1 “What’s in a Name?” e Question of “Israel” after 1948 2 Be fore mak ing his way to the Arab Ques tion, Rawi dow icz had to reckon 3 with the monumen tal new chapter in the history of the Jews that began in 4 1948. The creation of the State of Israel in that year triggered a mix of new 5 and old senti ments, ex pec ta tions and anx ie ties, in Rawi dow icz. But the 6 year 1948 also marked a major change in his per sonal life. After a life time 7 in Eu rope, and fif teen years of re la tive tran quil lity in En gland, Rawi dow icz 8 moved to the United States. 9 Initially, he was invited to teach for a half-year at the College of Jewish 10 Stud ies in Chi cago in the sec ond se mester of 1948. This in sti tu tion was 11 one of a hand ful of Jew ish col leges around the coun try—oth ers were lo- 12 cated in Boston, Balti more, Cleveland, and Philadel phia—whose mission 13 was to pro vide Jew ish teacher train ing, He brew in struc tion, adult edu ca - 14 tion, and, sig nifi cantly, em ploy ment to Jew ish schol ars at a time when few 15 other op por tu nities ex isted. Given the fact that he was head of the de part- 16 ment at a large univer sity in England, we can assume that it was not the 17 prestige of a small Jewish college in Chicago that attracted Rawidow icz. 18 Rather, it was the oppor tu nity to experi ence Jewish life in the United 19 States. And in this regard, he was not disap pointed. The match between 20 Chicago and Rawidow icz proved to be felici tous. In Rawidow icz, the Col- 21 lege of Jewish Studies found a first-rate scholar who attracted and left a 22 deep im print on stu dents in his lec tures and semi nars on Jew ish his tory 23 and philo so phy. In Chicago (and at the college), Rawidow icz found a bus- 24 tling Jewish commu nity that included, to his satis fac tion, a respectable 25 num ber of Jews who were “faith ful to He brew cul ture.”147 26 Upon later reflec tion, Rawidow icz came to see Jewish commu nal exis - 27 tence in his previ ous home, England, from a rather critical perspec tive: 28 “When the sun set on the Ger man dia spora fol low ing Hit ler’s revo lu tion, 29 it did not rise in the British Isles.” He noted that a long series of distin - 30 guished visitors, extend ing back to the twelfth-century Abraham ibn Ezra, 31 had spent time in En gland, but a vi brant na tive Jew ish cul ture never arose. 32 Not even the pres ence of the inter na tional Zion ist move ment and its in sti- 33 tu tions in London succeeded in invigo rat ing English Jewry.148 34 By con trast, America, though of far more re cent vint age, brimmed with 35 en ergy and hope for a Jew ish fu ture. To a great ex tent, it was this re aliza tion 36 that prompted him to write to the vice-chancellor of Leeds Univer sity on 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 80

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Fig. 23. Announcement of Rawidowicz’s appointment in 1948 to the College of Jewish 31 Studies in Chicago in the college newsletter, “Alon.” 32 33 June 12, 1948 to inform him that he had received an offer to teach full-time 34 at the College of Jewish Studies and that he intended to accept it (fig. 23).149 35 For all of his enthu siasm for Chicago, Rawidow icz was ener vated by the 36 cu mu la tive toll of his jour ney ing from Ber lin to Lon don to Leeds to the 37 United States over the course of fifteen years. It was not only the physical Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 81

the jewish question81| dis lo ca tion; it was also his con stant swim ming against the po liti cal and 1 lin gu is tic cur rent, along with re cur rent health pro blems (most sig nifi - 2 cantly, a heart con di tion that would ul ti mately prove fatal). A short while 3 after leaving Leeds for Chicago, Rawidow icz wrote to his brother that he 4 felt himself in a pecu liar state of exile. We recall this sentiment from ear- 5 lier, but can now situ ate it more fully in the con text of his life jour ney: “Over 6 the years, my heart has lost the desire to settle in this place or that, in a spe- 7 cific place. I live bey ond time and space. If only I could find a quiet cor ner 8 for some study and to complete a few projects. I fear that I will find it nei- 9 ther here nor in the State of Israel. It doesn’t exist for me.”150 10 To understand Rawidow icz, one must recog nize that such doubts con- 11 stantly plagued him. And yet, he never ceased to pursue goals large and 12 small. Rawidow icz often coupled—we might say, combated—his loneli - 13 ness with the lay ing of gran di ose plans. On the eve of his de par ture for the 14 United States, he issued a call in Met su dah, in the guise of Ish Boded, for a 15 major postwar enter prise: the creation of a “Euro pean Talmud” that would 16 capture the intel lec tual breadth and vibrancy of what was once the most 17 populous Jewish commu nity in the world. This sweeping project should 18 draw on “each and every Jewish thinker of Eastern Euro pean origin who 19 knew Juda ism from home, in the language of the home, in its inner most 20 cham bers, in deed, who drank from its well in the origi nal and not in trans- 21 la tion.” In con tem plat ing this under tak ing, Rawi dow icz posed a sharp 22 question that still echoes in contem po rary debates in the Jewish commu - 23 nity: “What do memo ri als, tombstones, monuments, museums, and doc- 24 umen tary reposi to ries do for us?” Whereas some were commit ted to 25 com memorat ing the death or per se cu tion of Eu ro pean Jews, he held out 26 hope that the past glories of Euro pean Jewish culture not only would be re- 27 mem bered, but would serve as a stimulus to renewed cultural activity. 151 28 The pro po sal for a “Eu ro pean Tal mud” re vealed both the strengths and 29 weaknesses of Rawidow icz as a thinker. As he imagined it, a new Talmud 30 could be come the cor ner stone of a strong and self-confident Dia spora Jew- 31 ish world. But the grand ness of this con cept was matched by a dearth of 32 speci ficity, both in con tent and form. Rawi dow icz gave lit tle in di ca tion of 33 what should be in the new Tal mud or how it should be com posed. Simi - 34 larly, his clarion call for a new “movement for Babylon and Jeru sa lem” 35 never de vel oped from the level of a slo gan to a de lib er ate plan to build an 36 in sti tu tional frame work that would house a true part ner ship between the 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 82

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1 Dia spora and the new State of Is rael. Nor, for that mat ter, did his in sis tence 2 that the West re spect the li ber tas dif fe rendi of the Jews ever yield a con crete 3 blueprint for national minority rights in a post–World War II world. 4 In this sense, Rawi dow icz failed to give his life proj ect the re qui site the- 5 o reti cal foun da tion and prac ti cal di rec tion to gen er ate mo men tum or gain 6 adher ents. One could imagine America as Rawidow icz’s new Babylon, a 7 venue in which his thinking about a dual-centered Jewish nation could be 8 advanced. But such was not the case: America inspired no major revi sion 9 or elaboration of his worldview, which remained rooted in an earlier, twen- 10 tieth-century Euro pean mold of Jewish nation al ism. 11 Still, at least one treasured ideal of Rawidow icz’s did reach fruition in 12 America. In a Metsu dah ar ti cle from 1948, Rawi dow icz ex pressed his sup- 13 port for the es tab lish ment of a major Jew ish uni ver sity in the Dia spora (in 14 New York, in fact), an in sti tu tion that would hark back to the great rab- 15 binic academies of Sura and Pumbe di tha in late antique Babylo nia. Why, 16 he asked in response to a speech given by Chaim Weizmann, should Jeru - 17 salem be the only home of “a Jewish univer sity . . . with a Hebrew spirit?”152 18 Little did Rawidow icz know at the time that he would soon make his way 19 to such an insti tu tion in the Diaspora. 20 Two years after arriv ing in the United States, he was approached by 21 Abram Sachar, president of the fledgling Brandeis Univer sity in Waltham, 22 Mas sachu setts, and in vited to join the fa culty there. Rawi dow icz had been 23 con tent and pro duc tive in Chi cago at the Col lege of Jew ish Stud ies.153 But 24 the temp ta tion of Bran deis was too great to re sist. That new in sti tu tion’s 25 twin commit ments to academic excel lence and the cen trality of Jew ish 26 learning came as close to his ideal of a Jewish univer sity “infused with a 27 He brew spirit” as anyth ing he had ex peri enced pre vi ously. Rawi dow icz ac- 28 cepted Sachar’s offer and, after a final year in Chicago, assumed his new 29 posi tion in Waltham in 1951 (fig. 24). 30 He took to the new insti tu tion with gusto, playing a leading role in es- 31 tab lish ing the gradu ate (1953) and then under gradu ate pro grams (1956) 32 of Bran deis’ De part ment of Near East ern and Ju daic Stud ies (NEJS). His 33 seminars on Jewish thought (in Hebrew) quickly became a rigor ous rite of 34 passage for aspir ing scholars. Likewise, NEJS quickly became a major cen- 35 ter of Jew ish stud ies, with other fine European-born schol ars such as 36 Nahum Glat zer and later Alex ander Alt mann also join ing as core fa culty 37 mem bers. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 83

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Fig. 24. Rawidowicz (left) at Brandeis with Philip W. Lown (center), philanthropist and Brandeis donor, and Abram L. Sachar (right), founding president of Brandeis 19 University. 20 21 N e w l y e ns c o n c e d a t B r a nd e i s , R a w id o wi c z c o nt i nu e d t o a dd r e s s h i s 22 long-standing ideo logi cal con cerns. For ex am ple, his ru mi na tions on the 23 im pact of the crea tion of the State of Is rael on the “Jew ish Ques tion” ani - 24 mated the seventh and final volume of Met su dah, published in 1954 and 25 enti tled “After 1948.” He welcomed to the pages of the journal the president 26 of the State of Israel at the time, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, who contrib uted a short 27 ar ti cle on con tem po rary fol low ers of Shab tai Zevi. Rawi dow icz of fered 28 “praise to that state whose president sets aside time for Torah—and who 29 partici pates in a Hebrew journal that is published ‘at the end of the West.’”154 30 But Rawidow icz’s long lead arti cle, “Israel,” struck a differ ent chord, res- 31 onat ing with his past critique of Zionism and foreshad ow ing what would 32 come in Bavel vi-Yerushalayim. The first and most impor tant issue he ad- 33 dressed was the very appel la tion of the new state: 34 ;ere are those who say: there is no pro blem at all. ;ey |nd sup port in 35 Shakes peare, who asked: What’s in a name? And there are those who say that 36 the severity of the problem has passed. Reality—or history—has deter mined 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 84

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1 (the name): Israel. . . . ;e claims of the former and those of the latter only 2 prove the point that the name “Is rael” for a state in Pa les tine com forts 3 them.... But I de clare in pub lic: the same name has dis turbed my peace from the outset. 155 4 5 Why, he won dered, does the Jew ish com mu nity in Pa les tine ar ro gate to 6 itself the right to decide the name of the new state? If the new state aimed 7 to be Jewish in the broadest sense, then it should share the respon sibility 8 for deter min ing its name with Jews throughout the world. Rawidow icz did 9 not be lieve that the state—which he here re ferred to rather dis mis sively as 10 “the partition-state of 1948,” hinting both at its trumped nature and recent 11 vint age—could or should call it self, for mally or col lo qui ally, “Is rael.” Rather, 12 the Jew ish peo ple the world over de served that name. 13 We should note that the question of the new entity’s name was the 14 subject of debate within the leader ship of the Zionist movement shortly 15 before the state was estab lished on 14 May 1948. A commit tee of the Pro- 16 vi sional Gov ern ment was charged with the mis sion of ex plor ing vari ous 17 names, includ ing “Zion.” Ironically, oppo nents of that name worried 18 about impos ing such a parti san appel la tion upon Arab residents of the 19 state, who could hardly be expected to be Zionists. “Israel” was deemed 20 less objec tionable to their ears, although Morde chai Nissan points out in 21 an ar ti cle on the sub ject that the name Is rael was not “any less Jew ish 22 than ‘Zion.’”156 23 David Ben-Gurion, as leader of the Provi sional Govern ment, decided 24 that the name of the new state should be “Is rael.” As we have noted, Simon 25 Rawi dow icz took ex cep tion. His con cern, as he out lined in an im pas sioned 26 exchange with Ben-Gurion in 1954–55 (during the latter’s brief retire ment 27 from govern ment service), had nothing to do with the sensi tivities of 28 Arabs.157 Rather, it had to do with the true his tori cal va lence of the term “Is - 29 rael.” To tie that name to a po liti cal state, Rawi dow icz wrote in Met su dah, 30 would be to under mine “the pu rity and in teg rity of a millennia-old tra di - 31 tion, a framework of thoughts and feelings hidden in the depths of the soul 32 of the na tion.”158 33 Ben-Gurion, for his part, disagreed sharply if re spect fully. He at tacked 34 a core propo si tion of Rawi dow icz’s: 35 I deny the unifor mity (not the unity) of the Jews in the Golah (Diaspora) and in 36 the Land. ;e Jew in the Golah, even a Jew like you who lives an en tirely Jew- 37 ish life, is not able to be a com plete Jew, and no Jew ish com mu nity in the Golah Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 85

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is able to live a com plete Jew ish life. Only in the State of Is rael is a full Jew ish 1 life pos sible. Only here will a Jew ish cul ture wor thy of that name four ish.159 2 As on previ ous occa sions, Rawidow icz argued that a Jewish culture wor- 3 thy of its name could—and must—flourish in the Diaspora, as it had in 4 the past. The very im pulse to cir cum scribe Jew ish iden tity to the physi cal 5 borders of the State of Israel almost by defini tion risked chauvin ism. With 6 grow ing trepi da tion, Rawi dow icz no ticed that some, in clud ing Ben- 7 Gurion, were giving voice to the hope of expand ing the borders of the state 8 bey ond the 1949 ar mis tice lines—to the point of re viv ing the Re vi sion ist 9 Zionist goal of a Jewish state on both banks of the Jordan River.160 10 Closely linked to this terri to rial appe tite, Rawidow icz identi fied an 11 ethos of mili tar ism that was pro pel ling the state down an er rant path.161 “If 12 the State of Israel,” Ish Boded asked to ward the end of the seventh Metsu - 13 dah, “had no gun sa lute in honor of its presi dents, would it lose much?” 14 What sense did it make, he wondered, to have an enfee bled old digni tary 15 board a ship, only to be rattled by a booming cannon? “Where is the 16 strength dem on strated here? Where is the spirit of Is rael here?”162 17 These ques tions, while vali dat ing some of his fears about Zion ism, 18 brought Rawidow icz little succor. Many fellow Jews heralded the sight of 19 the bronzed, gun-toting Sabra soldier; he, by con trast, la mented the tri- 20 umph of pre cisely that which he had warned against: a “cruel Zion ism” 21 that had lit tle con cern for or con nec tion to Jews who lived out side of the 22 homeland. Meanwhile, the Israeli soldier and his newly discov ered power 23 had replaced, as far as Rawidow icz could see, the Jewish author and his 24 pen as the embodi ment of the Jewish spirit. Raison d’état had become the 25 Jew ish rai son d’être. 26 The ef fects of this de vel op ment would be felt not only by Jews, but Arabs 27 as well. As we have seen, Rawi dow icz was chiefly con sumed by “the ques- 28 tion of Israel”—and demon strated few signs of interest in or empa thy for 29 Arabs—over the course of his career. In fact, one of the reasons that he op- 30 posed the name “Israel” for the state was because he found it utterly incon- 31 gru ous that an Arab citizen of the state could be labeled an Israeli, but a 32 Jew living in London or New York could not.163 33 Non ethe less, by the early 1950s (when Rawi dow icz wrote his ar ti cle “Is - 34 rael” and ed ited the final Metsu dah that appeared in 1954), he had begun 35 to apply the logic of his think ing to the status of Pa les tin ian Arabs in Is rael 36 and beyond. He obvi ously had this status in mind when he placed just after 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 86

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1 his opening arti cle an essay by the soci olo gist Aryeh Tarta kower that dealt 2 with the nature of democ racy in the State of Israel. Tarta kower devoted a 3 sec tion near the end of his ar ti cle to the ques tion of the Arab mi nority in 4 Is rael; some of its turns of phrase and ar gu ments would make their way to 5 Rawidow icz’s “Between Jew and Arab.” 6 Tar ta kower as serted that the meth ods used by re gimes, par ticu larly those 7 in mod ern Eu rope, to deal with na tional mi norities—rang ing from forced 8 assimi la tion to physical violence—were abso lutely unac ceptable. He won- 9 dered whether, if a neigh bor ing coun try were will ing, it might be “pos sible 10 to rid our selves of the [Arab] mi nority through peace ful means—for ex am - 11 ple, by a popula tion exchange.” But assum ing that this could and would not 12 occur, he asserted that “there is no alter na tive but to view its members as ci- 13 tiz ens equal to the rest, and to give them the pos sibility of pre serv ing their 14 language and culture so that they not become half-conversos.”164 15 Akin to Rawidow icz and Yaaakov Fleischer, Tarta kower was mindful of 16 the inability or unwill ing ness of previ ous govern ments to safeguard the 17 rights of national minorities, espe cially in the imme di ate aftermath of the 18 First World War. “There are few greater failures in modern history,” he 19 wrote, “than this failure to protect minorities.” 165 Meanwhile, he claimed— 20 a bit flip pantly—that the ques tion had largely dis ap peared in con tem po - 21 rary Eu rope, owing to the fact that na tional mi norities were killed, 22 expelled, or assimi lated during and after the Second World War.166 How- 23 ever, the problem, he insisted, was very much alive in the State of Israel, 24 where the native Arab popula tion had been displaced as the majority by 25 the Jews in 1948. As a result, Jews now had an obli ga tion—what Tarta - 26 kower called a “duty of the heart living in the soul of the nation from anti- 27 quity”—to provide for the “well-being of the stranger in our midst and not 28 to dis crimi nate between him and us.” Sig nifi cantly, this did not mean in sti- 29 tut ing a new re gime of in di vidual rights at the ex pense of group rights; to 30 d o s o m i g h t e v i sc e ra t e t h e d i sc r e t e l i ng ui st i c a n d c u lt u r a l p r op e rt i e s o f 31 the Arab mi nority within the state. And that would not only be a great loss 32 for the Arabs, but a signal failure for the State of Israel. 167 33 Tarta kower’s stance is worth mention ing because it both adum brates 34 and provides a founda tion for Simon Rawidow icz’s own mix of moral and 35 p r a gm a t i c c o ns i de r at i o n s i n a dd r e s si n g t h e A r a b Q u e st i o n . L i k e Ta rt a- 36 kower, Rawidow icz remem bered well the failed history of national minor- 37 ity rights in Europe after the First World War (and during and after the Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 87

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Second), with the Jews as major victims. Like Tarta kower, he was firmly 1 commit ted to preserv ing the cultural and lingu is tic distinc tive ness of na- 2 tional minorities, espe cially the Jews. And like Tarta kower, he believed that 3 the logic of such a princi pled commit ment mandated that the State of Is- 4 rael ex tend equal rights and re spect to the Arab na tional mi nority in its 5 midst. To fail to do so would be to succumb to the very policies and prac- 6 tices that had rendered the Jews one of the most vulnerable and perse - 7 cuted group in his tory. 8 Ever cog ni zant of this his tory, Simon Rawi dow icz penned a chapter- 9 length brief, full of per spi cacity and in dig na tion, and far more ex ten sive 10 than Tarta kower’s discus sion of the Arab national minority. It is this brief 11 that will occupy us in the next part. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab [blank] page 88

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1 2 3 PART II | THE ARAB QUESTION 4 5 6 e narrow line of justice runs between the Scylla of blind 7 revenge and the Charybdis of impotent cowardice. 8 —Hannah Arendt, 14 August 19421 9 10 “ et ween Jew and Arab”was planned as an ap pen dix to Rawi dow icz’s 11 B massive Bavel vi-Yerushalayim. From the time that he ar rived at Bran - 12 deis in 1951, he began to consoli date his thoughts on the Jewish past and 13 future that had been germi nat ing since the late 1920s into a single book.2 14 Ae English subti tle of Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, “Toward a Philoso phy of Is- 15 rael’s Whole ness,”gives a fair in di ca tion of the sweep of Rawi dow icz’s vi - 16 sion, as well as of his charac ter is tic nomen cla ture for the Jewish people. 17 In reGect ing on this book, we must recall the distinct, though related, 18 domains of Rawidow icz’s life at Brandeis. He was busy estab lish ing a grad- 19 u ate pro gram in Jew ish stud ies that would as sume a po si tion of promi- 20 nence in the American academy. He was also an active and well-respected 21 Hgure beyond his home depart ment of Near Eastern and Judaic studies, 22 partici pat ing in various intel lec tual and insti tu tional initiatives that 23 helped give shape to the young Brandeis campus. Moreover, he was at 24 work publish ing scholarly studies, mainly in Hebrew, on medie val and 25 modern Jewish thinkers (for exam ple, Saadya Gaon, Judah Ha-Levi, Mai- 26 mo nides, and Nach man Kroch mal). 27 At the same time, Rawi dow icz was writ ing the nine-hundred-page text 28 of Bavel vi-Yerushalayim. Un like his more nar row schol arly stud ies, this 29 text was not in tended for a small cir cle of aca demic re search ers. Rather, its 30 tar get au di ence was a wider, if some what mythic, learned laity that not 31 only could read He brew Gu ently, but was open to view points well out of 32 the Jewish mainstream. 33 34 Section numbers in parentheses refer to the translated English version (presented in 35 this volume) of “Between Jew and Arab.” 36 37

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1 As we have noted, Rawidow icz never held hard and fast to a boundary 2 line between scholarly and ideologi cal writing. In fact, in intro duc ing Bavel 3 vi-Yerushalayim, he consciously challenged the distinc tion between his- 4 tori cal schol ar ship and con tem po rary re Gec tion, between work dedi cated 5 solely to the past and work born of the present. He noted, in a gloss on Leo - 6 pold von Ranke’s famous call to understand the past “wie es eigent lich 7 gewe sen” (usu ally trans lated as “as it ac tu ally hap pened”), that the scholar 8 is a product of and informed by his own time. Aus, one should not prefer 9 “static re search, fro zen and al ready molded” over re search focused on dy - 10 namic change.3 A schol arly en deavor worth its weight must mix his tori - 11 cal and present-day concerns. 12 We gain here a glimpse of Rawidow icz’s penchant for travers ing bor- 13 ders in the name of overcom ing seeming oppo sites. Perhaps the most ob- 14 vious exam ple of this impulse was his unGag ging interest in the well-being 15 of both Babylon and Jeru sa lem, not of one to the exclu sion of the other. 16 Ais inter est was more than a mat ter of geo graphic focus. It was a me - 17 thodologi cal, even epistemo logi cal, stance. As Rawidow icz elaborated in 18 the in tro duc tion: “A Babylon-Jerusalem ap proach in Jew ish schol ar ship is 19 not simply a matter of place and time, of connect ing one place to another 20 or one time period to another time period, but rather a matter of meaning, 21 con tent, and form. It re quires a van tage point that em braces the whole ness 22 of Israel, both inside and out.”4 23 Rawidow icz’s tendency to break down estab lished boundar ies was evi- 24 dent bey ond his dis tinc tive focus on Baby lon and Je ru sa lem or his de sire 25 to efface the boundary between the voca tions of the scholar and the pub- 26 lic intel lec tual. It was present as well in his constant pairing of moral and 27 po liti cal con sid era tions. Mind ful of the dan ger of being branded a dreamy 28 uto pian, Rawi dow icz en deav ored to bal ance what he saw as the unique 29 ethical charge of “Israel” with a utilitarian impulse to justify that which 30 was in the best inter ests of the Jew ish peo ple. Ais mix of con sid era tions 31 was es pe cially evi dent in “Between Jew and Arab.” 32 Ae aim of this part of the book is to uncover and analyze Rawidow icz’s 33 pro vo ca tive un pub lished chap ter. We begin by situ at ing it in the charged era 34 of 1948, marked by the resto ra tion of politi cal sovereignty—and accom pa - 35 nied by great joy for many Jews, though also con sid erable trepi da tion for 36 Simon Rawidow icz. After explor ing the reasons for Rawidow icz’s restraint 37

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the arab question| 91 about 1948, we turn to his claim that the Jewish Question and Arab Ques- 1 tion were inex tri cably entwined, now that a previ ously oppressed national 2 minority had come to control an erstwhile majority. We follow his growing 3 alarm at the treat ment of Arab resi dents in the State of Is rael and his close 4 at ten tion to po liti cal and leg is la tive acts taken in the early 1950s. We then 5 de vote the re main der of this chap ter to the sub ject that oc cu pied most of 6 Rawi dow icz’s own at ten tion in “Between Jew and Arab”: the fate of the Pa - 7 les tin ian Arab re fu gees of 1948, for whom he pro posed a sweep ing and bold 8 so lu tion rooted in his dis tinc tive moral and po liti cal world view—re pa tria - 9 tion to the State of Is rael. 10 11 12 “A ird ‘Bayit’” 13 Ae eclectic, and at times self-consciously dialec ti cal, method of Bavel vi- 14 Yerushalayim belongs to a lost genre of writing. Unre strained by disci pli - 15 nary boundar ies or the taint of subjec tivity, this massive book recalls, in 16 scope and mis sion, works by two other lead ing Jew ish think ers that were 17 written in the midst of Rawidow icz’s own intel lec tual fermen ta tion: Yehez- 18 kel Kauf mann’s Golah ve- nekhar (Exile and aliena tion [1929–30]) and Mor- 19 de chai Ka plan’s J ud ai s m a s a C i vi l i z at i o n (1934). Kauf mann, the wide- 20 ranging bibli cal scholar, used a historical- sociological approach to 21 dem on strate that the threat of as simi la tion in the Dia spora could best be 22 blunted by the Zionist- led re turn to Pa les tine. For his part, Ka plan, the 23 American rabbi, undertook a lengthy histori cal and termino logi cal survey 24 that yielded the idea of a Jewish civiliza tion, all in the name of commenc - 25 ing “the re con struc tion of American- Jewish life” (as the sub ti tle of his 26 book read). 27 Kaplan shared an afHnity with Rawidow icz, believ ing that the creation 28 of the State of Is rael was not a pa na cea to the Jew ish Ques tion; he as serted 29 in 1949 that its emer gence “has raised more pro blems for us Jews than it 30 has solved.”5 Non ethe less, it is not ideo logi cal con so nance that links Rawi - 31 dow icz to Ka plan, nor for that mat ter to Kauf mann. Rather, it was their 32 shared willing ness to combine histori cal descrip tions of Juda ism and the 33 Jew ish peo ple with philo sophi cal medi ta tions and con tem po rary re Gec tions 34 on the Jew ish condition. All three under took monu men tal pro jects, ani- 35 mated by the con vic tion that en gage ment with the past was an es sen tial 36 37

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1 precon di tion to understand ing—and guiding action in—the present. Ra- 2 wi d ow icz grasped that this blend of meth ods and per spec tives was char - 3 ac ter is tic of ear lier eras: for ex am ple, the Hrst decades of the twen ti eth 4 century when he began to formu late his ideas. It was less charac ter is tic of 5 the time in which he wrote Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, that period in which Da- 6 niel Bell no ticed that ideas had be come the tools of pro fes sional schol ars 7 much more than of pub lic in tel lec tu als or po liti cal ac ti vists. Strain ing to 8 ward op “the end of ideology,” Rawi dow icz urged the rene wal of an en er - 9 getic and comba tive liter ary enter prise, what he called in Hebrew a sifrut 10 lo hemet. He la mented that “He brew li tera ture in our day seri ously lacks a 11 crea tive po lemi cal spirit. It has no manu als of bat tle, a bat tle for Is rael.”6 12 R a w id o wi c z ’ s o w n t o m e , Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, started op with a typi - 13 cally idio syn cratic in tel lec tual his tory. De scribed as a chap ter in “the phi - 14 loso phy of the his tory of Is rael,” the 110-page sec tion (part I) bore a num - 15 ber of telling titles. Ae title page to the section was called “Shaaar ha-bayit,” 16 which we can trans late lit er ally as “the gate to the house”—in deed, a gate 17 to the edi Hce of Baby lon and Je ru sa lem. An al ter na tive trans la tion, fo cused 18 on the He brew word bayit, re lates to another title that Rawi dow icz gave 19 this sec tion at the top of the Hrst page of the text: “Al para shat batim.” Ais 20 al ter na tive re fers un mis takably and po lemi cally to the title of Ahad Ha- 21 am’s collected essays (1913), Al para shat de rak him (At a cross road). Rawi - 22 dow icz’s play on Ahad Ha-am yields “On the Mat ter of Batim,” and thereby 23 begs the key ques tion of what is meant by the He brew word bayit or its 24 plu ral form, batim. 25 Al though it com monly con notes “house” or “home,” the word is also 26 used to des ig nate the First and Sec ond Tem ples in Je ru sa lem (known in 27 Hebrew as the bayit rishon and bayit sheni respec tively). Ae term is, on 28 one hand, a physical-spatial refer ent, identi fy ing the actual buildings that 29 con tained the Holy Tem ples. On the other, the term re fers to the time pe - 30 riods in Jewish history covered by the exis tence of the respec tive temples. 7 31 Rawidow icz made ample use in Bavel vi-Yerushalayim of the Hebrew 32 terms bayit rishon and bayit sheni, but not to refer to a physical ediHce of 33 any sort. Rather, the two batim re ferred to dis tinct and com pet ing phases 34 of Jewish national-cultural activity. 8 Because of this, it makes sense to re- 35 tain the He brew bayit over the less Ht ting Eng lish “tem ple” or “house.” 36 Ae Hrst bayit, in Rawi dow icz’s lexi con, was marked by a “primi tive” bib - 37 lical outlook, anchored by the desire to uproot the reigning myths of Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 93

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ancient Near Eastern culture and replace them with a new myth. Ae pre- 1 vail ing inter pre tive mode in this system of Jew ish life was a rather sim ple - 2 minded ex pli ca tion.9 By con trast, the sec ond bayit, for which Rawidow icz 3 ex pressed ad mi ra tion and in deed a clear pref er ence, em bod ied a new de - 4 gree of con cep tual so phis ti ca tion in Jew ish cul ture that he as so ciated with 5 the evolving Oral Law (as distinct from the Hxed Written Law). It signaled 6 the triumph of the cogni tive over the sensory, of reason over myth, and 7 particu larly of a creative and original interpre tive process over unimagina- 8 tive expli ca tion. 10 Ae spirit of the sec ond bayit was rooted in the Jews’ col - 9 l e ct i v e c r e at i v i t y , n o w l i be ra t e d f r o m a dh e re n c e t o a s i ng l e b u i l di n g o r t e x t 10 and, to a great extent, unfold ing in the Diaspora. In this way, Rawidow icz 11 upended the conven tional view of the Second Temple by using its Hebrew 12 name to refer not to the pe riod from 520 bce up to the de struc tion of the 13 second Holy Temple, but rather to the lengthy era of rabbinic culture that 14 contin ued long after the building’s demise in 70 ce. 15 At the end of this Hrst sec tion, Rawi dow icz in tro duced the no tion of a 16 third bayit, a term tradi tion ally used to denote the antici pated Aird Tem- 17 ple that would arise in the time of the Messiah. True to his unusual cast 18 of thought, Rawidow icz suggested that a third bayit had arisen in his own 19 day—in deed, in the year 1948 with the crea tion of the State of Is rael. But 20 he was loath to as cribe to this de vel op ment any trace of di vine inter ven - 21 tion, and re garded with sus pi cion the specter of mes sian ism in voked in 22 this period, includ ing by secular politi cians such as David Ben-Gurion.11 23 Rawi dow icz har bored the anx iety that 1948 would not her ald a new age 24 of na tional rene wal, but in stead would en tail a vio la tion of “the Hrst com - 25 mand ment of a peo ple from its ori gins to the end of days”; that is, the aban - 26 donment of its own culture for the world beyond. Translated into other 27 terms, he feared that the creation of the state might encour age a process 28 of nor maliza tion—as in Aeo dor Herzl’s de sire to over come the Jews’ “ab - 29 normal” Diaspora exis tence—that would dissolve the cultu ral distinc tive - 30 ness of the Jews.12 31 It was between the poles of dan ger ous mes sianic ex pec ta tion and the 32 pros pect of col lec tive Jew ish as simi la tion that the crea tion of the State of 33 Is rael stood in Rawi dow icz’s think ing. He en ti tled the nearly four-hundred- 34 page sec ond sec tion of Bavel vi-Yerushalayim “Shaaar Ta ShaH” (Ae Chap - 35 ter of 1948) indi cat ing the centrality of that year in Jewish history. 13 Many 36 of the units in this section were based on previ ously published reGec tions 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 94

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1 on the pro blem of an anti-Diaspora Zion ism, writ ten over the course of a 2 quar ter cen tury (but es pe cially those that ap peared in Metsu dah ). Aus, 3 the reader famil iar with Rawidow icz’s earlier writings will Hnd a good deal 4 of repe ti tion re gard ing the need to pre serve a vital re la tion ship “between 5 Is rael and Is rael,” as he often de scribed the re la tion ship between Jews in 6 the State of Israel and those outside of it. 7 But there was clearly a new ur gency in Rawi dow icz’s voice after 1948. 8 At the time of the state’s es tab lish ment, the over whelm ing ma jority of 9 world Jewry still lived in the Dia spora—slightly less than 11 mil lion out of 10 11.5 mil lion Jews. And yet, the crea tion of the state had not only in tro duced 11 a danger ous messianic idiom into Jewish public discourse; it had embold - 12 ened its lead ers to as sert them selves as the guar dians of the fate of all Jews. 13 Rawi dow icz of course re jected this self-assertion and con tin ued to in sist 14 on the equal partner ship of Jeru sa lem and Babylon. 14 15 Rawi dow icz was no more con tent with the lead er ship of Dia spora Jewry. 16 In gen eral, Dia spora Zion ists had lit tle sense of mis sion or am bi tion to play 17 an ac tive role in the col lec tive Jew ish fate. To com pli cate mat ters fur ther, 18 non-Zionist Jews, in clud ing the lead ers of major Jew ish or ganiza tions, 19 often op er ated with a di luted no tion of Jew ish iden tity that was teth ered 20 to a rather weak relig ious afHlia tion. Rawidow icz was wither ing in criti- 21 cizing this sort of leader ship, which he saw as “the reign of assimi la tion - 22 ism, a status quo regime of wealthy bosses.”15 23 Nonethe less, it was the prospect of rupture between Babylon and Jeru - 24 salem that most unset tled Rawidow icz. He struggled to stem the tide of 25 ex pec ta tions that 1948 would trans form col lec tive Jew ish ex is tence. He 26 asked pointedly at the outset of the Hnal chapter of part II, “1948: Does it 27 mark a new era?” His re sponse was telling:

28 At present, it does not have the ability to disman tle the era that preceded it. 29 If it is to es tab lish it self in the fu ture as a year that com menced a new and 30 deci sive pe riod for the en tire na tion—only a prophet can know. 1948 cap - 31 tured a new-old bat tle ground in the war of the mighty among Is rael, the war 32 between home land and Dia spora; and it did so right at the out set. It cast op 33 the re straint sur round ing the mes siah; in deed, it raised anew the ques tion of the mes sianic dream, but with out an swer ing it. . . . It opened a door to the in - 34 gather ing of exiles, but this closed just as quickly. Aose who laid the foun- 35 dation for the turning point that began in 1948 did not stand the test in terms 36 of the al li ance among (Jew ish) breth ren. Aey and their sup port ers in the 37 Diaspora still have not grasped the impera tive of eliminat ing the movement Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 95

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that brought Is rael to the gates of 1948—this in order to create a new na - 1 tional movement that will be able to capital ize upon 1948 in the Land of Is- 2 16 rael and the still present Dia spora as one. 3 Ais paragraph encap su lates much of Rawidow icz’s anxiety about the 4 new rhetoric—and actual condi tions on the ground—in the wake of the 5 crea tion of the State of Is rael. From mes sian ism to as simi la tion, from out - 6 right dis re gard to pa ter na lis tic con trol over the Dia spora, the new state 7 exposed, perhaps even induced, an array of dangers that could disable the 8 Jewish national body. Rawidow icz must have felt himself a truly “lonely 9 man” at this mo ment, not un like Ahad Haaam, who described himself as a 10 mourner at a wed ding feast while sit ting at the First Zion ist Con gress in 11 Basel in 1897. As we have sug gested at vari ous points, he found lit tle com - 12 mon cause with anti-Zionist Jewish critics of the State of Israel, who den- 13 ied the national charac ter of the Jews or the need for a vibrant Jewish cen- 14 ter in “Je ru salem” along side “Baby lon.”17 15 As noted in the in tro duc tion, it would seem natu ral for Rawi dow icz to 16 count as al lies the Cen tral Eu ro pean Zion ists who had formed the core of 17 the Brit Shalom movement and long advo cated a bina tional arrange ment 18 in which gov ern ance over Pa les tine would be shared by Jews and Arabs. 19 Fol low ing the de mise of Brit Shalom in 1933, a num ber of these in tel lec - 20 tuals contin ued to support the ideal of bina tion al ism through a series of 21 suc ceed ing or ganiza tions in clud ing Kedma Miz raha, the League for Arab- 22 Jewish Rapproche ment, and, Hnally, the Ihud Asso cia tion. 18 Under- 23 standably, 1948 posed a seri ous chal lenge to the worldview of these Hg ures 24 and or ganiza tions. A Jew ish state was now a fait ac com pli, thereby end ing 25 their dream of a bi na tional ar range ment. Ais new rec og ni tion, for ex am - 26 ple, in formed the He brew Uni ver sity phi loso pher, Shmuel Hugo Berg mann. 27 In March 1950, Berg mann wrote to the new organ of Ihud, Ner, to suggest 28 that it was time to sur render the op po si tional stance that had char ac ter - 29 ized the Jew ish bi na tion al ists hitherto and re turn to the fold, tak ing pride 30 in and respon sibility for the Zionist movement and the new state.19 Berg- 31 mann’s colleague in Jeru sa lem, Martin Buber, adopted a differ ent tack in 32 a pair of arti cles in 1949–50. In one devoted to the theme “Should the Ihud 33 Ac cept the De cree of His tory?” Buber argued that the suc cess of Zion ism 34 should not be measured either by the numbers of Jewish immi grants who 35 come to Israel nor even by the newly earned inde pen dence of the State of 36 Israel. Rather, it was to be real ized through the re genera tion of the Jewish 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 96

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1 nation (as distinct from the Jewish state), living in harmony with its neigh- 2 bors. For Buber, “the verse ‘Zion shall be redeemed in justice’ (Isaiah 1:27) 3 is not simply a poetic phrase . . . but a prophecy of truth.”20 Buber re af - 4 Hrmed the relevance of reclaim ing the prophetic impera tive in a second ar- 5 ti cle, “Ae Chil dren of Amos,” that ap peared in the open ing issue of Ner. 6 Aere, he asserted that the ethos of the prophets must guide the Jewish 7 nation “to estab lish justice both among its various parts—indi vidu als and 8 groups—and in its rela tions with other nations, for the sake of its salva - 9 tion and the sal va tion of hu manity in the mak ing.”21 10 Buber and the Ner group were among those Jews who feared that the 11 State of Is rael would aban don—in deed, had already begun to aban don— 12 this age-old Jewish impera tive. At a great remove from this Jeru sa lem cir- 13 cle, Simon Rawi dow icz sat in Walt ham, for mu lat ing simi lar thoughts and 14 ad dress ing simi lar is sues, though with no ap par ent con tact. Among the 15 many Jew ish think ers whom he men tioned, Buber’s name did not arise. 16 Likewise, among the many Israeli journals and newspa pers that he read, 17 Ner seems not to be among them.22 18 In fact, there were key dif fer ences between Rawi dow icz and Buber. Ae 19 former never advo cated bina tion al ism and was not espe cially interested in 20 the task of reju ve nat ing the Jewish relig ion. Moreover, while both critiqued 21 Zionism, they did so from their distinct vantage points in the Diaspora and 22 State of Is rael re spec tively. Un like Buber, who chose to make his life in what 23 he re garded as the site of Jew ish spiri tual rene wal, the land of Is rael, Rawido - 24 wicz never relented in his commit ment to the logic of “Babylon and Jeru sa - 25 lem.” He re af Hrmed this in a forum in New York in 1949 in which Is rael’s new 26 ambas sa dor to the United States, Eliahu Elath (né Epstein), also partici - 27 pated. Aere he argued that the idea of a ge nuine part ner ship between the 28 two cul tu ral cen ters was valid “when 94 per cent of all Jews live in the Dia - 29 spora, but it will apply equally when that per cent age will be 50 or 40.”23 30 In today’s world, in which there is re la tive demo graphic parity between 31 the two cen ters of Jews (and yet grow ing signs of al iena tion and mis under - 32 standing between them), Rawidow icz’s call for a shu ta fut, a close and sub- 33 stantive partner ship between Israel and Diaspora, seems as relevant as 34 ever.24 So, too, his be lief in a sin gle trans na tional Jew ish na tion, while ges - 35 turing to a past era of nation al ist discourse, also antici pates contem po - 36 rary dis cus sions about the re la tion ship between home land and dia spora 37 in the age of glo baliza tion.25 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 97

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Ais pre scient quality in Rawi dow icz is per haps no clearer than in 1 “Between Jew and Arab,” the un pub lished chap ter of Bavel vi-Yerushalayim. 2 From the no ta tion at the top of the Hrst page, it ap pears to have been in - 3 tended as ap pen dix I. a. to the sec ond vo lume of Bavel vi-Yerushalayim. 4 Ais volume, which consti tutes part III of the book, contains a series of 5 fourteen essays, the Hrst four of which oper obser va tions on the state of 6 mod ern He brew li tera ture.26 Ae latter ten essays provide elaboration on 7 vari ous points that Rawi dow icz dis cussed at length in the sec tion on 1948. 8 Nowhere in these fourteen chapters does Rawidow icz engage the Arab 9 Ques tion. But there can be no doubt that he was deeply pre oc cu pied by it 10 at the time of writing Bavel vi-Yerushalayim in the early to mid-1950s. Al- 11 though Rawi dow icz re lates in “Between Jew and Arab” that he was largely 12 Hn ished with the chap ter in 1953, he con tin ued to work on it through 1955. 13 It was in April of that year that he sent a parcel with the manuscript to his 14 Pa ri sian printer, Jacob Fink. Fink writes back on 5 Sep tem ber 1955—a mere 15 seven weeks before his death—that he has not yet had a chance to copy- 16 edit the piece. Presumably, he either did so in the follow ing weeks or the 17 task was left to another editor at the printing shop on 232, rue de Charen - 18 ton in Paris.27 19 It seems likely that Rawidow icz was still consi der ing publish ing the 20 chap ter in mid-1956. In May of that year, he wrote his brother Av ra ham in 21 Tel Aviv, respond ing to various obser va tions and criticisms that Avra ham 22 had made after read ing a draft of Bavel vi-Yerushalayim. R a w id o wi c z a c- 23 knowledged, appar ently in response, that it was not easy to write on the 24 question of the “Arab and Jew.” But he empha sized that “it is neces sary to 25 elimi nate the pro blem of the re fu gees.” Yes, it was a dan ger ous propo si tion 26 to contem plate their return, he averred. But “are not thousands of refu - 27 gees outside [of the State of Israel] also danger ous?” 28 Ais letter suggests 28 to us that Rawi dow icz had en coun tered criti cism on the chap ter, pre - 29 sumably from his brother among oth ers, but had not yet pulled the piece 30 from Bavel vi-Yerushalayim. Rawidow icz expli citly acknowl edges this criti- 31 cism in one, and only one, place in “Between Jew and Arab” in which he 32 re called that his views on the Arab Ques tion were known and might turn 33 read ers against the idea of a ro bust part ner ship between “Baby lon and Je - 34 ru sa lem.” Clearly then, Rawi dow icz was en gaged in con ver sa tion with at 35 least a small num ber of Jews about the Arab Ques tion up through 1956. 36 Why at that point might he have decided to withhold the chapter? 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 98

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1 We can only specu late, but it is worth not ing that ten sions were grow - 2 ing in that year between Israel and Egypt, leading up to the outbreak of 3 the Suez War in late Octo ber 1956. Egyptian President Gamel Abdul Nas- 4 ser’s threat en ing words and ac tions (in clud ing the block ade of the Straits 5 of Tiran and nation aliza tion of the Suez Canal) may have ampli Hed Rawido- 6 w icz’s own res er va tions about voic ing sharply criti cal views of the State of 7 Is rael. Among other ef fects, Rawi dow icz might well have sensed that voic - 8 ing criti cism, such as he did in “Between Jew and Arab,” would al ien ate fel - 9 low Jews in a moment of crisis—and defeat his larger goal.29 10 11 “When a Ser vant Comes to Reign” 12 13 Written in his typically rich and allu sive Hebrew style, “Between Jew and 14 Arab” adhered to the form of other chapters in Bavel vi-Yerushalayim. It 15 con tained a sum mary of top ics at the top of the Hrst page (twenty-Hve in 16 this case), and was divided into seven teen sections of several pages each. 17 It bore a particu lar resem blance to one of the last chapters of the second 18 volume (part III) of Bavel vi-Yerushalayim. In that chapter enti tled “Illu - 19 sions,” Rawi dow icz began the dis cus sion with a for mu la tion simi lar to that 20 found at the out set of “Between Jew and Arab.” In the former case, he wrote: 21 “From the day that I devel oped my own opinions, I made a vow not to use 22 the word ‘goy’ as a descrip tion of someone who is not a member of the 23 Cov en ant [that is, who is not a Jew].”30 24 Meanwhile, he opened “Between Jew and Arab” with the follow ing 25 claim: “From the day that I Hrst broached the subject of Israel and Dia- 26 spora, I made a vow not to discuss publi cly two issues: the foreign policy 27 of the Zionist movement and [of the State of Israel], and the Arab ques- 28 tion in Erets Yisrael. In both cases, he employed a most uncom mon He- 29 brew verb (from the root µnq) to indi cate his commit ment to avoid the 30 word or subjects in question. In the latter case, however, he now felt com- 31 pelled, in light of cir cum stances, to aban don his ear lier vow and ad dress 32 the Arab Question, which actu ally consisted of two entwined issues: (1) the 33 status of Arab residents in the new State of Israel and (2) the status of 34 Arabs re fu gees who ex ited the boun dar ies of what had be come the State 35 of Is rael. 36 Ae cata lyst for Rawi dow icz’s equa tion of the Jew ish Ques tion and the 37 Arab Ques tion was his view that, after 1948, “the na ture of the bat tle Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 99

the arab question| 99 between Jew and Arab in the Land of Is rael has been transformed” (sec. i). 1 Re sort ing to a fa mil iar rab binic image, he elaborated: “Ais is no longer 2 about ‘two people holding on to a garment,’ both of whom claim to the 3 mas ter watch ing over them that the gar ment is all theirs. Rather, one has 4 grabbed hold of it, dominates, and leads, while the other is lead. Ae Hrst 5 rules as a deci sive ma jority, as a nation-state. Ae other is domi nated as a 6 mi nority. And domi na tion is in the hands of ‘Is rael’” (sec. i). 7 In the Mish nah (Baba Met zia 1:1), the re medy in a case in which two par - 8 ties lay claim to the same object is equitable divi sion. But that princi ple, 9 Rawi dow icz sug gested, was not up held in the re cent bat tle between Jews 10 and Arabs over Pa les tine. Driven by the Zion ist in junc tion to over come 11 their centu ries of power less ness, the Jews had assumed power and, in the 12 process, displaced the Arabs. Ais did not mean that sovereignty was an il- 13 le giti mate goal. Rather, Rawi dow icz be lieved, in para phras ing the Book of 14 Pro verbs, that the risk was great when the “ser vant has come to reign.”31 15 Rawidow icz was not the Hrst modern Jew to use this phrase in describ - 16 ing the rela tions between Jews and Arabs in Pales tine. It surfaces at the 17 margins of Zionist discourse, when critical voices peri odi cally questioned 18 the behavior of Jews as they aspired to and then acquired politi cal power. 19 Rawi dow icz’s per en nial in tel lec tual in spi ra tion and foil, Ahad Ha-am, used 20 the ex pres sion in his essay, “Truth from Erets Yis rael,” writ ten after his trip 21 to Pales tine in 1891. Far from depart ing the homeland in a state of eu- 22 phoria, the future prophet of Cultu ral Zionism was demo ral ized and de - 23 pressed by what he saw of his fel low Jews, in clud ing their at ti tude to ward 24 the local Arab popu la tion. Ahad Ha-aam en joined them to learn from both 25 past and present experi ence: 26 27 how much we must be cau tious in our con duct to ward a gen tile peo ple in whose midst who now live, how we must walk together with that people in 28 love and honor and, needless to say, in justice and righteous ness. And what 29 do our broth ers in Erets Yis rah el do? Exactly the oppo site! Aey were slaves in 30 Exile, and suddenly they Hnd themselves in a state of unre strained freedom, 31 a wild free dom that can be found only in a coun try like Tur key. Ais sud den 32 change has planted in their hearts a tendency toward despot ism, as always 33 hap pens “when a servant comes to reign.”32 34 Ahad Haaam here was refer ring to the Jewish settlers of the First Aliyah, 35 the Hrst wave of modern Jewish immi grants who began to move to Pales - 36 tine in 1882. Seeking to estab lish self-suƒcient agri cul tu ral commu nities, 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 100

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1 the settlers frequently resorted to hiring Arab workers, who were cheaper 2 and more readily available than Jew ish work ers. Ais ar range ment set up 3 a dy namic of labor de pen dence that the suc ceeding wave of Jew ish im mi- 4 grants, the Second Aliyah, vowed to eliminate. But it also intro duced a co- 5 lonial dimen sion to the rela tion ship between Jews and Arabs in Pales tine 6 whereby the lat ter as sumed a po si tion of eco nomic and cul tu ral 7 superiority vis-à-vis the latter. Ahad Ha-am took aim at this stance, con- 8 demning the widespread percep tion that “Arabs are all wild desert beasts, 9 a people resem bling a donkey, who neither see nor understand what is 10 going on around them.”33 11 Ais im ag ery had later it era tions in the Yishuv. Fif teen years after Ahad 12 Ha-am’s Hrst re port, another Zion ist in Pa les tine, Yit zhak Ep stein, felt com- 13 pelled to dis pel the widely held im pres sion among Jews that Arabs were 14 unciv il ized and lazy. On the contrary, Epstein argued in 1907, the Arabs are 15 a “great na tion, pos sessed of physi cal and in tel lectual terms.” As a re sult, 16 he warned against the tendency to “suppress the national charac ter of our 17 neigh bors.”34 18 Ep stein be longed to a small group of early twen ti eth-cen tury Zion ists 19 (in clud ing Nis sim Malul, R. Bi nyo min, and Jo seph Lurie) who have been 20 called “in te gra tion ists” by his to rian Yosef Gorny. In te gra tion ists tended to 21 high light the neigh borly or even fa mil ial re la tions between Jews and 22 Arabs and/or advo cated for economic and social coopera tion between 23 the two com mu nities in Pa les tine. Some of the in te gra tion ists (for ex am- 24 ple, R. Bi nyo min, Ep stein, and Lurie) would later join forces with newly ar- 25 rived Central Euro pean Jews in the mid-1920s to found Brit Shalom and 26 work for coop era tion and bi na tional power–shar ing between Jews and 27 Arabs in Pa les tine.35 28 Although the idea of bina tion al ism stood at the edge of Zionist poli- 29 tics, the broader princi ple of coopera tion between Jews and Arabs, espe - 30 cially in the eco nomic realm, was part of the self-identity of the So cial ist 31 Zionists who came as part of the Second Aliyah from Eastern Europe be- 32 gin ning in 1906. None other than David Ben-Gurion stressed the im por - 33 tance of a shared class con scious ness when he called in 1921 for “friendly 34 rela tions between Jewish workers and the Arab working masses on the 35 basis of joint eco nomic, po liti cal and cul tu ral ac tivity.” He ad vanced spe - 36 ciHc propo sals for parallel Jewish and Arab labor unions to act in concert, 37 as well as for Jews and Arabs to maintain autonomy over their respec tive Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 101

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“cultu ral, economic, and social affairs.” 36 Over time, as enmity between 1 Arabs and Jews in Pales tine deepened, Ben-Gurion’s commit ment to coop- 2 eration with Arabs, not unlike his commit ment to social ist values, gave 3 way to the single-minded goal of creat ing a state with a Jew ish ma jority in 4 P al e st i n e . 37 A chasten ing moment came in 1929, the year in which distur - 5 bances broke out at the West ern Wall that trig gered mur der ous Arab at tacks 6 against Jews in Je ru sa lem and Heb ron. Re spond ing to the still con ci lia tory 7 stance of Brit Shalom, Ben-Gurion gave voice to what would become a re- 8 cur rent theme: Pa les tine did not have equal value to Jews and Arabs. In 9 contrast to that of the Jews, “(t)he economic, cultu ral, and admin is tra tive 10 exis tence of the Arab nation does not depend on Erets Yisra el.” 38 Rather, 11 it was spread over a wide array of countries throughout Asia. Jews, he 12 countered, had only Erets Yisrael as their homeland, which belonged to 13 them by his tori cal right.39 14 Still, Ben-Gurion, in the early 1930s, contin ued to hold out some hope 15 of dia logue with Pa les tin ian Arabs that could lead to a power-sharing ar - 16 range ment; he even sought out the young Pa les tin ian lawyer, Musa Alami, 17 as a po ten tial ne go tiat ing part ner with this goal in mind.40 How ever, by 18 the time of the Arab revolt of 1936, the earlier spirit of coopera tion had al- 19 most entirely faded among Labor Zionists of Ben-Gurion’s stripe.41 Aere 20 remained a minority strand among Eastern Euro pean social ist Zionists 21 that clung to the ideals of a shared Jewish-Arab class strug gle and of bi- 22 nation al ism throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Ais group was asso ciated 23 with the Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsaair move ment, whose mem bers popu lated the 24 collec tive settle ments of the Kibbutz Artsi union. In 1948, Hashomer Ha- 25 Tsaair joined forces with Ahdut Ha-Avodah and Poaale Tsiyon to form the 26 Mapam po liti cal party. Mean while, the more main stream “con struc ti vist” 27 social ists led by Ben-Gurion remained in the dominant Mapai party 28 (founded in 1930). 29 Ais di gres sion into Yishuv poli tics is not un con nected to Rawi dow icz 30 and his atten tion to the Arab Question. It is not merely that some of those 31 who made up the new Mapam party were long-standing support ers of bi- 32 nation al ism; some of the new party’s members were also distinctly con- 33 cerned about the fate of Arabs in 1948. Although recon ciled to a Jewish 34 rather than a bina tional state, Mapam leaders such as Meir Yahari, Moshe 35 Sneh, Yaakov Hazan, and Aharon Cohen expressed serious misgiv ings in 36 party councils, memoranda, and newspa pers about (1) the manner in 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 102

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1 which Pales tin ian Arabs left their homes (that is, via expul sions) in the 2 midst of the 1948 war; and (2) the refusal of the new Israeli state to consider 3 seri ously the return of the refu gees. 42 4 Mean while, Ben-Gurion’s Mapai party was much less open to these 5 ques tions; ac cord ing to Benny Mor ris, it “al most never dis cussed” them. An 6 impor tant excep tion was the debate that ensued in late July 1948 follow ing 7 the Gight of tens of thou sands of Arabs from the cities of Ramle and Lod 8 (Lydda) on 12–13 July. On the occa sion of that debate, at which Ben-Gurion 9 was present, disso nant and irate voices rose up to question the morality of 10 acts of ex pul sion and loot ing alleg edly under taken by Jew ish forces. Per - 11 haps most poig nant—and reso nant to us—was the view of vete ran ac ti - 12 vist Shmuel Yav neheli, who de clared that Jews, who them selves “were per - 13 se cuted and ex pelled, slaugh tered and de stroyed,” had now be come like 14 “ser vants who have come to reign.”43 15 Yavne heli’s state ment re veals that there were Jews in the newly es tab - 16 lished State of Israel—in deed, passion ate Zionists—who feared that the 17 tran si tion from pow er less ness to power would be trea cher ous and com - 18 prom is ing, es pe cially as it af fected Arabs. A small co hort of Is raeli jour - 19 nalists, authors, and scholars in the late 1940s and early 1950s took it 20 upon it self to ad dress the dif fi cult ques tions of how, when, and why the 21 P al e st i ni a n A r a b r e f ug e e p r ob l e m d ev e lo p e d . U nl i k e t h e g o ve r nm e n t a n d 22 army “Arab ex perts” re cently stud ied by Haya Sasportas-Bambaji and Gil 23 Eyal, this dispar ate group refused to accept the narra tive of total Arab 24 culpability for the flight of Pales tin ians. 44 W r i ti n g i n H eb r e w j o u rn a l s 25 such as Ner (Ihud), Kol ha-aam (Commu nist), and aAl ha-mishmar (Mapam), 26 they openly discussed the expul sions by Jewish forces of Pales tin ian 27 Arabs from their homes. For exam ple, Mapam leader Meir Yaaari took 28 note in aAl ha-mishmar in late July 1948 of the rec ol lec tion of some com - 29 rades who said: “We did not expel them [the Arabs]. Aey left of their own 30 ac cord.” He coun tered that while “it is true that hun dreds of thou sands 31 fled, they did not always do so of their own accord.” 45 We also notice in 32 this pe riod dis cus sion of whether and under what con di tions the re fu - 33 gees should be permit ted to return to their homes. Two days after Yaaari’s 34 remarks, Alexander Prag wrote in aAl ha-mishmar: “The vast ma jority of 35 the vil lagers did not col labo rate with the in vad ers [that is, the in vad ing 36 Arab ar mies], and we should ac cept these resi dents back into our state 37 as citiz ens with full rights.”46 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 103

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Moreover, the Ihud jour nal Ner, from its open ing issue in Feb ru ary 1950, 1 was Hlled with reports of expul sion, displace ment, and discrimi na tion 2 against Arabs. Ner’s editor, Rabbi Binyo min, used the journal to challenge 3 Is raeli so ciety to as sume re spon sibility for the ex pul sion of Arab resi dents 4 and to accept their right of return to the State of Israel. 47 In this context, 5 we no tice in an early issue of Ner the famil iar phrase, “a servant who has 6 come to reign,” along with the famous dictum asso ciated with the Hrst- 7 century sage Hillel: “Aat which is hateful to you, do not do unto your 8 neighbor.” 48 Ais kind of re lig iously in fused re Gec tion on the vir tue of the 9 Jew ish path char ac ter ized the per spec tive of Ner’s con tri bu tors, promi - 10 nent Hgures in the Ihud Asso cia tion such as Martin Buber, Ernst Simon, 11 Meir Plessner, and Rabbi Binyo min himself. 12 Unlike other leading members of Ihud, Rabbi Binyo min was not a yekke, 13 a German Jew, but rather an Eastern Euro pean Jew for whom tradi tional 14 Jewish learning and the Hebrew language came naturally. In this regard, he 15 and Simon Rawidow icz were alike. Ae two men were fellow travel ers in the 16 by ways of He brew cul ture, pro mot ing its growth through their pro liHc writ - 17 ing and edit ing. Both devel oped deep concerns about the State of Israel’s 18 treat ment of Arabs, re gard ing it as a press ing moral mat ter. And both drew 19 often from the font of classi cal Jewish sources—as when they compared 20 the trium phant Zionists after 1948 to “a servant who has come to reign.” 21 Aat said, the two had long-standing differ ences of opinion over how 22 neces sary or valid Jewish life in the Diaspora was. Some Hfteen years ear- 23 lier, Rabbi Bi nyo min sharply criti cized Rawi dow icz’s 1934 essay “Kiyum ha- 24 tefutsah” (AfHrm ing the Diaspora), arguing that “the duty is not to 25 strengthen the walls of the Diaspora, but to destroy its founda tion, to pre- 26 pare for its liq ui da tion while there is still time.”49 R a w id o wi c z , m e a nw h i l e , 27 responded to Rabbi Binyo min that “it was sinful to suppress the will to live 28 of . . . the masses in the Dia spora.”50 29 Whether or not there was linger ing animosity from a bygone era, Ra- 30 wid ow icz barely mentioned Rabbi Binyo min, a natural ally, in “Between 31 Jew and Arab.” When he did re call the name of the Ihud As so cia tion, of 32 which Rabbi Binyo min was a key member, he did so by noting that it was 33 not only this group or, for that matter, Arabs in the State of Israel, who 34 opposed discri mina tory legis la tion by the Knesset against Arabs. He was 35 imply ing that both groups, unlike more mainstream Jewish voices, were 36 mar gi nal in their views and lim ited in their im pact. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 104

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1 At various points in his chapter, Rawidow icz sought to tack away from 2 the po liti cal mar gins to ward the cen ter. For ex am ple, he averred that the 3 Jewish side was not solely, even princi pally, to blame for the hostilities with 4 the Arabs. “Of course, one can not es cape the fact,” Rawi dow icz stated with - 5 out qualiH ca tion, “that the Arab coun tries at tacked the State of Is rael in 6 1948, and that the deci sive ma jority of Arabs in the State—one can even 7 say all—prayed for the vic tory of the at tack ers” (sec. ii). But that, he added, 8 was not the central issue. Nor, for that matter, was it the question of what 9 caused the Gight of Pales tin ian Arabs: 10 It matters little whether they left because their Arab brothers and British 11 friends in cited them to do so by pro mis ing them a quick re turn to a Pa les tine 12 in which there would be no State of Is rael, or whether they Ged out of fear of 13 the Jews (and the Deir Yassin massa cre, for exam ple, certainly could have 14 fright ened the Arabs of that coun try), or out of the chaos of war which up - 15 roots people from their place of residence and sweeps them beyond the bor- 16 ders, or out of politi cal naïveté and “techni cal” ignor ance (it is told that a night rain storm once drove the Arabs from their homes in Safed, and they believed 17 that it was a “se cret wea pon” of the Jews that trig gered the storm). (sec. v) 18 19 Ais passage signals to us that Rawidow icz’s preoc cu pa tion with the 20 Arab Question was not informed by what he called “Arab-Oriental roman - 21 ti cism.” Rawi dow icz did not count him self among “those who bestow glory 22 on the Arabs ei ther in the past or the present.” (sec. xvi). Aere were a num - 23 ber of Jewish scholars, intel lec tu als, and public ofH cials in Pales tine—in - 24 cluding S. D. Goitein, L. A. Mayer, Judah Magnes, and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi— 25 who were either great admir ers of Islamic and Arab culture and/or 26 be liev ers in the pros pect of a his toric re con cilia tion between East and West 27 in the Land of Is rael. Rawi dow icz was not among them. His mo ti va tion in 28 writing “Between Jew and Arab” was much less rever ence, compas sion, 29 and re spect for Arabs than fear for the moral de cline of the Jews (and the 30 politi cal conse quences of such a decline for Diaspora Jewry). 31 To be sure, it was not only rela tively ignored Jewish intel lec tu als such as 32 Rawidow icz or Rabbi Binyo min—or oppo si tion Mapam party members— 33 who looked on with concern at the refugee question in the Hrst years of 34 the State of Israel. Debate over the refu gees reached the highest levels of 35 govern ment as well. As Benny Morris and others have shown, Prime Mini- 36 ster Ben-Gurion, Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett (né Shertok), and a host 37 of other ministers and advis ers were intent on devel op ing policy on the Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 105

the arab question| 105 refu gee pro blem in the late spring and sum mer of 1948, as the mili tary tide 1 was turn ing deci sively in Is rael’s favor—and the pace of Gight in gen eral, 2 and of ex pul sions in par ticu lar, was pick ing up.51 One of the govern ment’s 3 experts on Arab affairs, the Syrian-born diplo mat Eliahu Sasson, who was 4 then serving as direc tor of the Middle East Depart ment of the Israeli For- 5 eign Ministry, suggested in mid-August that it might be politi cally prudent 6 to consider “the return of a small part of them [that is, the refu gees], 40 to 7 50 thou sand, over a long pe riod.” Sas son’s opin ion was quickly drowned 8 out by a chorus of govern ment ofH cials who at a meeting of 18 August de- 9 termined that the State of Israel should not permit the return of any refu - 10 gees.52 Ais judgment was made in the face of growing pressure on Israel 11 from the United Na tions and the United States to make the kind of con ces - 12 sion that Sasson was propos ing. One of the most vocal advo cates of this 13 pres sure, the United Na tions’ me dia tor for Pa les tine, Count Folke Ber na - 14 dotte, issued a report on 16 Septem ber, the day before being assas si nated 15 by Jewish terror ists, in which he reit er ated his belief in the princi ple of the 16 right of return for Pales tin ian refu gees. Recog niz ing the likely oppo si tion 17 of the Israeli govern ment, however, his report requested that “without pre- 18 judice to the question of the ulti mate right of all Arab refu gees to return to 19 their homes in Jewish-controlled Pa les tine if they de sire, the prin ci ple be 20 ac cepted that, from among those who may de sire to so [sic], a limited num- 21 ber, to be deter mined in consul ta tion with the Media tor, and espe cially 22 those form erly liv ing in Japa and Haifa, be per mit ted to re turn to their 23 homes as from 15 August.” 53 24 Berna dotte’s propo sal was hardly received with open arms in Israel. Ae 25 gov ern ment, non ethe less, had to play a de li cate bal anc ing act between its 26 inter nal re solve to re ject the return of any re fugees and the de sire to pro - 27 ject the ap pear ance of being open and rea sonable in the dip lo matic sphere. 28 Aus, a week be fore Ber na dotte’s re port was is sued, Moshe Sha rett com - 29 muni cated to the chief American diplo mat in Israel, James McDonald, that 30 Israel was willing “to consider the return of indi vidual refu gees now, and 31 the return of part of the refu gees after the war, on condi tion that most of 32 the re fu gees would be set tled in Arab coun tries with our help.”54 33 We shall re turn at the end of this chap ter to the ques tion of the Is raeli 34 gov ern ment’s will ing ness to con sider a re turn of re fu gees in 1948–49. For 35 now, it is impor tant to bear in mind that the refugee question was raised, 36 and not infre quently, both in closed govern ment settings and in the press 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 106

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1 in Israel during and imme di ately after the war in 1948. Not surpris ingly, 2 this era of rela tive openness did not last long. Anita Shapira observes, in a 3 rich discus sion of the imme di ate postwar cultu ral climate, that “the ex- 4 pul sion [of Pa les tin ian Arabs], which at the be gin ning of the 1950s had been 5 ac knowl edged as an ob vi ous fact of the war, was now transformed into a 6 vir tual ‘state se cret’—of course, with many ‘con H dants.’”55 With a few 7 notable ex cep tions, this “state se cret” was preserved in Is raeli and Jew ish 8 col lec tive memory from the early 1950s until the 1980s. In that later pe - 9 riod, the group of schol ars known as the New His to rians (in clud ing Benny 10 Mor ris, Ilan Pappé, Tom Segev, and Avi Shlaim) began to make use of newly 11 available ar chi val sources and novel guid ing prin ci ples to ques tion long- 12 standing as sump tions about the Jewish-Arab con Gict over Pa les tine, in - 13 clud ing the re la tive size and strength of the com pet ing forces, the ex tent 14 of British animosity to the Zionist side, the exis tence and number of Pales - 15 tin ian re fugees, and the rea sons for their Gight. 16 Aere are a number of impor tant and oft-overlooked scholars whose 17 work adum brates some of the key issues raised by the New Histo rians. One 18 was the American politi cal scien tist Don Peretz, whose 1954 Colum bia dis- 19 ser ta tion—pub lished in 1958 as Is rael and the Pa les tine Arabs—offered a 20 careful and judi cious analysis of the stages of devel op ment in Israeli, Arab, 21 Ameri can, and inter na tional think ing about the Pa les tin ian refu gee pro - 22 blem. Per etz traces the shift in the late 1940s and early 1950s from a Hrst 23 phase of dis cus sions fo cused on the re pa tria tion of re fu gees to a sec ond 24 phase focused on their reset tle ment in Arab countries, as well as on the 25 pros pect of com pen sa tion from Is rael. Moreover, Per etz pro vides, through 26 his ex ten sive re view of Is raeli news pa pers, par lia men tary pro ceed ings, and 27 govern ment documents, an espe cially insight ful perspec tive on the range 28 of Israeli atti tudes toward the refu gees in the early 1950s.56 29 Another impor tant antici pa tion of later research was the work of the 30 Iraqi-born Israeli scholar, Rony Gabbay, who wrote a docto ral disser ta tion 31 in 1959 that ex am ined at great length the gene sis and un fold ing of the Arab 32 refu gee pro blem. Akin to the later New His to rians, Gab bay wrote his study 33 in English and beyond the envi rons of Israel (in his case, Paris), which per- 34 haps afforded him a greater sense of liberty in reaching his conclu sions. 35 In fact, his inten tion was not to issue a writ of indict ment against the State 36 of Israel. Gabbay felt that the onus of respon sibility for initiating the con - 37 Gict between Jews and Arabs in Pales tine lay squarely with the latter side. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 107

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But in his detailed analysis (based on govern ment documents, interviews, 1 and newspa per accounts), he noticed a shift both in the tide of the war 2 and the tac tics em ployed by the Is raeli side in the late spring and sum mer 3 of 1948. From that point forward, one could notice “the great use by the 4 Jews of psycho logi cal warfare” against Pales tin ian Arabs, as well as the fact 5 that “re luc tant Arabs were forced to Gee into Arab coun try [sic].”57 Gab bay 6 added that follow ing the evacuation of Arab villages, “looting and pillag - 7 ing of Arab proper ties, and the comman deer ing of goats, sheep and mules 8 by the Israe lis were not uncom mon features.” 58 9 Cu ri ously, Gab bay’s dis cus sion left few traces on Is raeli schol ar ship and 10 public recol lec tion. 59 Ae re search of the New His to rians in the late 1980s 11 and 1990s—for exam ple, Benny Morris’s study of the Pales tin ian refugee 12 problem—was seen as both new and corro sive of the fabric of Israeli col- 13 lec tive memory.60 Earlier and quite frontal discus sions of the refu gees were 14 largely forgot ten as Israeli public memory repressed the role of Jewish and 15 Is raeli forces in ex pel ling thou sands of re fu gees, rid ding the land scape of 16 traces of their presence, and denying them any prospect of return. Flick- 17 ers of the refu gee ques tion Gared up on rare oc ca sions. For ex am ple, in the 18 wake of Is rael’s wars in 1956 and 1967, the con quest of new ter ri tory with 19 large Arab popula tions both awakened some public awareness of the pres- 20 ence of re fu gees in the newly oc cu pied land and prompted ex ten sive, 21 though se cret, gov ern ment de bates about what to do with them.61 Aere 22 were other brief mo ments of rec og ni tion in Is rael in the 1960s and 1970s, 23 as Anita Shapira traces in her discus sion of the recep tion of S. Yizhar’s 24 short story “Hir bet Hi zaah” (to be dis cussed later).62 Nonethe less, it is fair 25 to say that “the plight of the refu gees” became a largely taboo subject in Is- 26 raeli pub lic dis course and po lite con ver sa tions alike from the early to mid- 27 1950s. The reasons relate to a complex of factors that together mandated 28 repres sion—apart, that is, from the natural passage of time. First, there 29 was a perva sive (and not ungrounded) sense among Israe lis that the 30 Arab side was not only unre lent ing in its oppo si tion to a Jewish state, 31 but had initiated the 1948 war and thereby had brought on its own de feat. 32 Israel’s just rewards, accord ing to this logic, meant not only reclaim ing 33 title to the an ces tral home land, but as sert ing ac tual pro perty rights over 34 land pre vi ously held by Arabs con sis tent with the common-law prin ci ple 35 of ad verse pos ses sion. The ac com pa ny ing be lief in their own vir tue did 36 not allow Israe lis much emotional room for sympa thy for the displaced 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 108

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1 Pales tin ians—es pe cially as they grew more tempo rally and spatially de- 2 tached. Nor, for that matter, did the very real struggles they faced to 3 achieve eco nomic and mili tary stability in the 1950s in cline Is rae lis to dwell 4 on the fate of their enemies—es pe cially consi der ing that the face of Israeli 5 society was constantly being remade as a result of major waves of Jewish 6 im mi gra tion. Ae new aolim—those from dev as tated Eu rope and from Arab 7 countries in the early 1950s, as well as those from the former Soviet Union 8 in the 1970s and 1990s—came to Israel with their own economic concerns 9 and cul tu ral norms, and with out a par ticu larly strong in cli na tion or in- 10 centive to take up the cause of displaced Pales tin ians. 11 Aere is another factor that strikes me as poten tially impor tant in ex- 12 plaining the evapora tion of public awareness and discus sion of the Arab re - 13 fu gees. As the new state took rise, its lead ers, es pe cially Ben-Gurion, 14 sought to set in place a col lec tive memory that rested on Is rael’s po si tion 15 both as the center of Jewish life and as the logical culmi na tion of Jewish 16 history. In this emerging narra tive, the State of Israel was not only the anti- 17 dote to the vul nerability of Jew ish life in exile, but also the cus to dian of the 18 accounts of woe and perse cu tion that had befal len the Jews prior to the 19 advent of statehood. Ae greatest of the tales of Jewish woe and perse cu - 20 tion was, of course, the Holo caust, which now be came an im por tant pil lar 21 of Israeli collec tive memory. Tom Segev has described in e Sev enth Mil - 22 lion how new rituals (Yom Ha-Shoah) and insti tu tions (Yad Vashem) were 23 created in the early to mid-1950s to com memorate the Shoah, whose oc - 24 currence afHrmed to many Israe lis—and certainly to their politi cal lead- 25 ers—that a Jew ish state was an ab so lute pre con di tion to Jew ish sur vi val.63 26 Ae new moral cal cu lus that ac com pa nied this com memora tive mo ment 27 did not allow for a compet ing, even if less devas tat ing, narra tive—that of 28 the Pales tin ians in the Nakba. As a result, the story of Pales tin ian dispos - 29 session, fragmen tary as it was to begin with in Israel just after the 1948 30 war, was pushed further in to the recesses of collec tive memory by the 31 story of Jewish victimiza tion in the Holocaust. In part, this dismis sal owed 32 to a rather natural human instinct: Israeli Jews proved far more able and 33 com mit ted to re call ing the trauma of their own family than that of their 34 nemesis—all the more so with a trauma on the previ ously unimaginable 35 scale of the Holocaust. But in part, this process was also the function of a 36 rather delib er ate strategy by Israeli politi cal leaders to shape the boundar - 37 ies of the national memory, a strategy that was pursued throughout the Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 109

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1950s and reached a peak in the planning and imple men ta tion of the Eich- 1 mann trial in 1961. Not only were the cap ture and trial of Adolf Eich mann 2 intended to demon strate that the State of Israel had boldly reversed the 3 course of an unre lent ingly lachry mose Jewish history once and for all. Aey 4 also provided an oppor tu nity, as Ben-Gurion declared in a Decem ber 1960 5 inter view, “to fer ret out other Nazis—for ex am ple, the con nec tion between 6 the Nazis and some Arab rulers.” 64 Ae link Ben-Gurion drew here was not 7 new, but be longed, as Idith Zer tal has shown, to a longer pat tern of equat - 8 ing Nazis and Arabs that pre dated the es tab lish ment of the State of Is rael. 9 Zertal notes that Ben-Gurion made use of this equation to justify various 10 state objec tives, such as accept ing repara tions from Germany in the early 11 1950s or de vel op ing a nu clear bomb.65 We might add that the equation of 12 Nazis and Arabs, which has been echoed by as sorted Is raeli pub lic of H cials 13 since Ben-Gurion, would seem to leave lit tle emo tional, rhe tori cal, or po - 14 litical space for a serious reckon ing with Pales tin ian dispos ses sion. 15 16 17 “By Right, Not Suffer ance” 18 As in so many other ways, Simon Rawi dow icz de parted from his fel low 19 Jews in focus ing on the painful conse quences of the Arab Question. His 20 fears were triggered by the Hrst legis la tive steps of the State of Israel in the 21 early 1950s. Ae Knesset enacted a number of laws that, to his mind, were 22 clearly directed against the remnant of the Arab popula tion—es ti mated 23 at 156,000 in 1949—that remained in the country after the hostilities of 24 1948.66 Such discrimi na tion was intol erable: “Ae Arabs dwell in the State 25 of Is rael by right, not suf fer ance” (sec. ii). 26 Ais for mu la tion has its own dis tinct pedi gree rele vant to our story. In 27 1922, a young Winston Churchill, serving then as British secre tary of state 28 for the co lo nies, up held and re Hned the Brit ish com mit ment to Zion ism as 29 spelled out in the Balfour Declara tion of 1917. While he labored to point 30 out that the British govern ment did not favor “a wholly Jewish Pales tine,” 31 Churchill did declare in his White Paper that “it is essen tial that it [that is, 32 the Jew ish peo ple] should know that it is in Pa les tine as of right and not on 33 t h e s u ff e ra n c e ” (em pha sis mine).67 34 Of course, this asser tion of Jewish rights to Pales tine was central to 35 Zionist thought (includ ing to the Brit Shalom circles that spoke of the “his- 36 tori cal right” of the Jews to Pa lestine). Rawi dow icz, for his part, made use 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 110

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1 of the “right, not suf fer ance” lan guage more often in the con text of Jews in 2 the Dia spora than of Jews in Pa les tine mainly by ar guing that Dia spora 3 Jews, and not Jews in Pa les tine, dwelt where they dwelt by right, not suf fer - 4 ance. He had long insisted that Diaspora Jews be treated as a cultu ral col- 5 lective with physical protec tion and dignity afforded them by their host 6 countries. On the basis of his defense of this collec tive right, he now urged 7 that the Arabs of Israel be treated “just like any minority in the world, in- 8 cluding a Jewish minority which dwells where it dwells by right, not suffer - 9 ance” (sec. ii). 10 Rawidow icz was hardly alone in insist ing on full and equal rights for 11 Arabs in the State of Israel. A long line of indi vidu als and organiza tions, 12 Jew ish and Arab, have ana lyzed and called for an end to dis crimi na tion 13 against Arabs in Israel, 68 in clud ing two promi nent Is raeli Jew ish in tel lec - 14 tuals who authored power ful accounts of the rela tion ship between Pales - 15 tin ian Arabs and the State of Is rael: Meron Ben ve nisti, the former de puty 16 mayor of Jeru sa lem, and David Grossman, a leading Israeli writer. Benve - 17 nisti’s Sa cred Land scape (2000) chronicles in detail the conscious effort by 18 the new State of Israel to erase traces of a large and vibrant Arab commu - 19 nity in pre-state Pales tine. Ae book opens by discuss ing the efforts of state 20 ofH cials to draw up new maps that replaced Arabic place names with He- 21 brew ones. Benve nisti then moves on to argue that Israeli actions in June– 22 July 1948 “came danger ously close to Htting the deHni tion of ‘ethnic cleans- 23 ing’” and chroni cles the dis ap pear ance of four hun dred Arab vil lages and 24 the rec la ma tion of 4.5 mil lion du nams of Arab land by the State of Is rael.69 25 Benve nisti’s book, which concludes with a chapter that raises the pros- 26 p e c t o f I s r a e l i a c k n o w l e d g m e n t o f “ h i s t o r i c a l i n j u s t i c e s ” c o m m i t t e d 27 against Pa les tin ians, is sig niHcant be cause it comes from a vete ran Is raeli 28 public ofH cial with deep ties to the land and exten sive experi ence in issues 29 of land and natural resource manage ment. 30 Meanwhile, David Grossman agitates in Sleep ing on a Wire (1991) for a 31 similar kind of histori cal reckon ing, drawing on his credibility not as a pub- 32 lic ofH cial or scholar, but as a keen observer of Israeli and Pales tin ian life. 33 Concerned in general by the state’s dismis sive atti tude toward Arabs, 34 Grossman is particu larly vexed by the status of the n o kh eh i m n i fk ad i m , 35 those Pales tin ian Arab residents of the State of Israel known in Orwel lian 36 lan guage as “present ab sen tees” (or, in the lan guage of inter na tional law, 37 as IDPs, internally displaced persons). Ais desig na tion refers to those who Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 111

the arab question| 111 exist in a kind of legal limbo either because their places of residence were 1 never ofH cially regis tered or because they did not squeeze through the nar - 2 row win dow of time af forded by the state to reg is ter as legal resi dents. 3 Gross man traces the diƒcult strug gles that the “present ab sen tees” wage 4 to re claim their con Hs cated pro perty or re turn to their na tive (often de - 5 stroyed) villages. 70 6 Aese strug gles in va riably lead to the ques tion of the na ture of citi zen - 7 ship for the “present ab sen tees”—and Pa les tin ian Arabs, more gen er ally— 8 in the State of Israel. On the one hand, the state’s Procla ma tion of Inde pen - 9 dence called for “full and equal citi zen ship . . . and due rep re sen ta tion” for 10 Arabs.71 On the other hand, the state’s self-deHnition as a Jew ish state, 11 along with its lead ers’ un ques tionable pref er ence for a sin gu larly Jew ish 12 so ciety, created a dis tinct brand of citi zen ship for the Arabs. Shira Ro bin - 13 son dem on strates in a re cent study that the very grant ing of citi zen ship to 14 Arab residents and Jewish immi grants in the 1950s was diffe ren tial, with a 15 much more compli cated and time-consuming process required of the 16 former. Her care ful ar chi val work points to a cate gory of citi zen ship for 17 Arabs in Israel that was inclu sive, in a formal sense, and yet exclu sive, given 18 the dif H cul ties in volved in pro cur ing it—and the large num ber of peo ple 19 who were ineli gible to receive it (that is, the former Arab residents of Pa - 20 les tine who had taken Gight bey ond Is rael’s bor ders).72 21 What com pli cated this no tion of citi zen ship even fur ther was the fact 22 that the areas of great est Arab popu la tion den sity in Is rael were, from the 23 es tab lish ment of the state in 1948 until 1966, sub ject to mili tary rather than 24 civ il ian au thority. Ae om ni pre sent con trol of a mili tary re gime over Arab 25 areas, justi Hed accord ing to “emergency regula tions” rooted in British 26 Manda tory times, seems to exem plify Carl Schmitt’s well-known obser va - 27 tion that the le giti macy of the mod ern state rests upon its ability to initiate 28 a state of emer gency.73 In the case of Arabs in Israel, the presence of the 29 military govern ment inva riably rendered their rights of citizen ship less 30 than full—not only by dis tin guish ing them from the rest of the popu la tion 31 under civil ian control, but by closely regulat ing travel (and hence eco- 32 nomic, so cial, and po liti cal ac tivity) through the re quired use of per mits for 33 move ment out side of one’s home dis trict.74 34 Scholars have noted that the friction in Israeli collec tive identity between 35 two com pet ing con cep tions, a par ti cu lar ist, Jewish-centered “eth no na tional 36 people hood” and a more univer sal “civic citizen ship,” reaches the point of 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 112

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1 great est ten sion in the status of Pa les tin ian Is rae lis.75 Ais tension was ap- 2 par ent shortly after the State of Is rael was es tab lished to an as sort ment of 3 intel lec tu als, journal ists, party acti vists, and even govern ment ofH cials (in- 4 clud ing Mar tin Buber, Mapam ac ti vist Aha ron Cohen, Com mu nist Party 5 leader Meir Vilner, Rabbi Binyo min, cabinet minister Bechor Shetreet, and 6 Eliahu Sasson), most of whom had also manifested awareness and concern 7 for the refu gees. In a variety of differ ent settings, ranging from Ner and aAl 8 ha-mishmar to govern ment meetings, they gave voice to their discom fort at 9 (and sought re dress for) the gap between the rhe toric of equal citi zen ship 10 and the actual status of Pales tin ian Arabs in Israel. 76 11 Simon Rawi dow icz was well-informed about the pub lic dis cus sions re - 12 garding Arabs in Israel. In addi tion to a regular diet of Israeli newspa pers 13 and jour nals, he read the pub lished pro ceed ings of Is rael’s par lia ment, 14 Divre ha-Keneset. Aere he noticed with interest, for exam ple, that there 15 was little protest among Arabs in Israel against the Law of Return, which 16 was unanimously approved by the Knesset on 5 July 1950. Ais law laid out 17 the special status of Jews in the State of Israel, proclaim ing that “every Jew 18 has the right to come to this country as an aoleh”; that is, as a new immi - 19 grant with full rights to settle in the state and became a citizen. 77 20 It was not the Law of Re turn, how ever, but the Na tion ality Law—passed 21 by the Knes set on 1 April 1952—that aroused Rawi dow icz’s grave con cern. 22 Ae Knesset debate over the passage of the law was stormy, and exposed 23 sharply diver gent visions of the State of Israel among the parlia men tarians. 24 For exam ple, the Commu nist deputy, Meir Vilner, proclaimed that “it is 25 better to call this Law, instead of the Nation ality Law, the Law of Denial of 26 Na tion ality to Arab Resi dents.” In re sponse, Mini ster of the Interior Hayim 27 Moshe Shapira insisted that there was complete equality between Jews 28 and Arabs in the state. If con di tions were so bad, Sha pira asked, why did 29 former residents keep attempt ing to steal back across the border into Is- 30 rael? In fact, he an swered, the status of Arabs has never been so good as in 31 the State of Israel in 1952.78 32 What was ac tu ally at stake in the Na tion ality Law? While the law con - 33 ferred auto matic national status upon all new Jewish immi grants, it estab - 34 lished a series of condi tions in Section 3 aimed at those residents who did 35 not qualify as aolim; that is to say, Arab resi dents of the new state. Ac cord - 36 ingly, they were eligible for citizen ship if, and only if, all of the follow ing 37 condi tions were met: Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 113

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1 . A e y w e r e s u bj e c t s o f M a nd at o r y P al e st i n e b ef o r e t h e e st a b- 1 lish ment of the State; 2 2. Aey were formally regis tered with the State as of 4 Adar 5712 3 (1 March 1952), pur su ant to the Reg is tra tion of In habi tants Or - 4 di nance (1949); 5 3. Aey were inhabi tants of the State of Israel on the day that the 6 Na tion ality Law came into ef fect (14 July 1952); 7 8 4. Aey were in Is rael con tinu ously from the es tab lish ment of the 9 State (May 15, 1948) to the day on which the Nation ality Law 10 took ef fect.79 11 Ae force of these clauses of the Na tion ality Law was two fold. First, they 12 paved dif fer ent legal paths to ward Is raeli citi zen ship for Jews and Arabs. 13 Second, they effec tively limited the number of Arabs eligible for citizen - 14 ship by re mov ing from con sid era tion those who were dis placed by the war 15 of 1948 and ei ther were un able to reg is ter with the state between 1948 and 16 1952 or sought to return to their homes from beyond the state’s borders. 17 Ais lat ter group, pri marily con sist ing of those who had Ged to a neigh - 18 bor ing coun try dur ing the hos tilities (Leba non, Jor dan, Egypt, or Gaza), 19 were known in Is raeli par lance as “in Hl tra tors” (mistane nim ). In all like li - 20 hood, a large majority of them were not intent on doing harm to the State 21 of Israel, but rather were trying to cross the border in order to retrieve 22 items from their homes, reunite with family members, or return to their 23 na tive vil lages.80 And yet, the threat posed by a smaller group of “inHl tra - 24 tors” with ter ror is tic in cli na tions, along side the state’s ap par ent de sire to 25 thin the ranks of Arab ci tiz ens in its midst, pro vided the ra tio nale for 26 clause 3 of the Na tion ality Law. 27 Simon Rawi dow icz took di rect aim at this law. “Mo rality it self,” he wrote, 28 “pro tests against these dis cri mina tory clauses.” Is rael was a sig na tory, he 29 observed, to the United Nations Charter and its Univer sal Declara tion of 30 Human Rights (1948) which guaran teed free and equal treatment to mem- 31 bers of ethnic minorities. 81 He was fa mil iar with the claims of ad vo cates of 32 the Na tion ality Law, who argued on both clas sic Zion ist and na tional se - 33 curity grounds. But he countered that 34 neither the ingath er ing of the exiles nor the security needs of the State re- 35 quire these dis cri mina tory clauses. Even if one were to argue that they were 36 re quired, they would not trump the ob li ga tion of the State of Is rael toward 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 114

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1 the Arab mi nority in its midst. Dis crimi na tion is dis crimi na tion, even when 2 it serves the se curity needs of a state. 3 A state, es pe cially one that claimed to em body Jew ish val ues, needed 4 to ground its power in a Hrm ethi cal foun da tion. Rawi dow icz looked on 5 with skepti cism at the asser tions of some repre sen ta tives of the State of Is- 6 rael that the Nation ality Law was “the most ‘liberal’ of Nation ality Laws in 7 the world” (sec. iii). He was more per su aded by “legal spe cial ists of our 8 own (that is, Jews) who . . . want to defend the govern ment but cannot hide 9 their con cerns” (sec. iii). He es pe cially fa vored the analy sis of an Is raeli 10 scholar, Yehoshua Freuden heim, who authored one of the Hrst major 11 systematic studies of the nascent Israeli politi cal system in 1953 (with a 12 sec ond edi tion in 1956). Freu den heim re jected the claim that the Na tion - 13 ality Law was “a clear case of ra cial dis crimi na tion.” He did be lieve, how - 14 ever, that “it is difH cult to claim that the legal arrange ment (in the Nation - 15 ality Law) is very suc cess ful or that so lu tions that bet ter Ht both the 16 problem and the demand for justice, and are less likely to mar our repu ta - 17 tion in the wide world, are bey ond the realm of pos sibility.”82 18 Rawidow icz quoted Freuden heim at length, endors ing his view that the 19 Na tion ality Law “re mands the mi nority to the mercy of the au thorities and 20 does not grant it any rights” (sec. iii). What made this pre dicament es pe - 21 cially distress ing to Rawidow icz was that the law aroused no signiH cant 22 and vocal pub lic protest. He was par ticu larly dis mayed by the si lence of 23 the Jewish press in the Diaspora, which took little note of the Nation ality 24 Law. Ais silence violated not only Rawidow icz’s sense of ethical respon - 25 sibility but, equally so, his ideal of an equal “part ner ship” between the two 26 cen ters of the Jew ish na tion. Pre sag ing more re cent and re cur rent ar gu - 27 ments about the le giti macy of criti cism from Jews out side of Is rael, he in - 28 sisted that a conH dent and self-respecting Diaspora should not abdi cate its 29 re spon sibility for the well-being and moral stand ing of the Jew ish peo ple 30 to the gov ern ing or gans of the State of Is rael, as it had in pass ing over the 31 Nation ality Law in silence. 83 To do so was to cast a blind eye to ward dis - 32 crimina tion against Arabs, as well as to surrender any say in the deter mi - 33 na tion of citi zen ship in the Jew ish state. 34 Ais latter point was memo ri al ized in the agreement reached by David 35 Ben-Gurion and Jacob Blaus tein, presi dent of the Ameri can Jew ish Com - 36 mit tee in 1950. In their ef forts to clarify the na ture of re la tions between the 37 new state and the largest Jewish commu nity in the world, the two leaders Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 115

the arab question| 115 set in place a num ber of key prin ci ples: Hrst, “the State of Is rael speaks only 1 on behalf of its citiz ens and in no way presumes to repre sent or speak in 2 the name of Jews who are ci tiz ens of any other coun try”; and sec ond, “the 3 Jews of the United States, as com mu nity and in di vidu als, have no po liti cal 4 at tach ment to Is rael.” Rawi dow icz under took a sub stan tial cri tique of the 5 agreement in Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, depict ing Blaustein and the Ameri- 6 can Jew ish Com mit tee as as simi la tion ists who were ill-suited to serve in 7 posi tions of commu nal leader ship, and even less suited to deHne the rela - 8 tion ship between the Dia spora and the State of Is rael.84 M o r e s i gn i Hc a n t , 9 he found arti H cial the divi sion of alle giances and respon sibilities outlined 10 in the agreement, which had the effect of segre gat ing, not unify ing, diverse 11 com mu nities of Jews who to gether con sti tuted, in his lexi con, “Is rael.” 12 Mem bers of this glo bal na tion not only had the right, but the ob li ga tion, to 13 express their views on matters affect ing its welfare. In this respect, Rawido - 14 w icz was dis ap pointed that Dia spora Jewry and its press did not weigh in 15 on the is sues of moral and po liti cal sig niH cance raised in the State of Is - 16 rael’s Nation ality Law. At work was a culture of conform ism in which criti- 17 cal or dissent ing voices were stiGed—and which, Rawidow icz lamented, 18 “brands as an out cast any one who doesn’t an swer ‘amen’ to the abun dance 19 of propa ganda that reg ur gi tates old tales” (sec. iv). 20 To a great ex tent, the situa tion was dif fer ent in the state it self, where 21 there was not the same need to com bat the ac cu sa tion of dual loy alty or 22 overcom pen sate for the guilt of not living in the homeland. Ais differ ence, 23 in ci den tally, is a typi cal diaspora-homeland dy namic that has ob tained up 24 to the present—and often prompts, in the Jew ish, as well as Cuban, Arm - 25 enian or Hindu cases, a more con ser va tive or con form ist sen sibility in dia - 26 spora com mu nities. Aware of this ten dency, Rawi dow icz looked on with 27 appre cia tion at the willing ness of Israeli newspa pers and journals to print 28 a wide range of opinions. “Blessed is the press in that country,” he afHrmed, 29 “that does not lock its gates to these [that is, criti cal] voices.” And yet, in 30 light of this general tendency, he was disap pointed that the Nation ality 31 Law did not gen er ate more op po sition in the State of Is rael it self. He was 32 even more vexed by the fact that among the few Is raeli crit ics of this law 33 were those who at trib uted the dis cri mina tory clauses of the Na tion ality 34 Law to the “Galut [ex ilic] com plexes” of the Jews (sec. iii). Ac cord ing to this 35 logic, the history of perse cu tion endured by Jews in the Diaspora led or 36 enabled Zionist immi grants to direct their wrath against others. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 116

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1 In re sponse, Rawi dow icz thundered: “No Jew ish mi nority in the Dia - 2 spora would dream of dis crimi nat ing in this fash ion.” In deed, “at what 3 point” he asked with in dig na tion, “do we learn from the vic tim how to vic - 4 ti mize?” (sec. iii). Ae clear, if un stated, an swer was: at the point of assum - 5 ing sovereignty. It was then that the Jews adopted a dif fer ent code of ethi - 6 cal be havior than the one that had ac com pa nied them through out their 7 long Dia spora jour ney. Rawi dow icz would later in ti mate that the roots of 8 this new code in fact ex tended back into the early decades of the Zion ist 9 experi ence in Pales tine. But 1948 was unmis takably the turning point, the 10 caesura that commanded so much of his atten tion—some four hundred 11 pages—in Bavel vi-Yerushalayim. 12 R a w i d o w i c z ’ s c r i t i q u e o f “ S t a t i s m ”— t h e i d e a t h a t s o v e r e i g n t y f u l H l l e d 13 the Zion ist dream—pre sented a strik ing con trast to Ben-Gurion’s grow ing 14 empha sis on the central politi cal and social function of the state (as ex- 15 pressed in the notion of mam lakh tiyut).85 At the core of the di vide between 16 Statism and its Jewish critics (includ ing Buber, Arendt, Rawidow icz) was 17 the status of Arabs. Ben-Gurion’s domi nant Mapai party fo cused its en er - 18 gies on the de mands of state-building: es tab lish ing a stable eco nomic and 19 mili tary foun da tion, ab sorb ing mil lions of new Jew ish im mi grants, and 20 forging a coher ent politi cal ideology around the notion of a Jewish state. 21 Almost by deHni tion, the party exhib ited much less interest in and sympa - 22 thy for the status and treatment of Pales tin ian Arabs in and outside of Is- 23 rael. By con trast, those Is raeli Jews who were keenly at tuned to the claims 24 of the Arab mi nority in Is rael and the re fu gees bey ond were often drawn 25 from the ranks of Mapam, Maki (the Israeli Commu nist Party), and the 26 Ihud. Ae Nation ality Law of 1952 was an ominous signal to this loose 27 assembly of the state’s evolv ing dis cri mina tory practices. 28 So too Simon Rawidow icz in America could barely conceal his dismay 29 over this law. In similar fashion, he took grave excep tion to the Land Acqui - 30 si tion (Vali da tion of Acts and Com pen sa tion) Law passed by the Knes set a 31 year later on 10 March 1953 (sec. iv). It was this law that ena bled the state to 32 claim for it self land that was not cur rently in the pos ses sion of its own ers 33 “for pur poses of es sen tial de vel op ment, set tle ment or se curity.”86 Together 34 with the earlier Absen tees’ Property Law (1950), it gave the state wide lati- 35 tude to deny tens of thou sands of Arabs who had been dis placed from their 36 homes by the war and yet remained in Israel—the so-called present absen - 37 tees—access to their property. 87 Ae effect was quite dramatic upon Arab Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 117

the arab question| 117 pro perty hold ings, en tail ing the ex pro pria tion of mil lions of du nams of 1 land. As David Kretzmer argued in his 1990 book, e Legal Status of the 2 Arabs in Is rael: “Ae issue of land expro pria tion is possibly the most pain- 3 ful in the re la tion ship between the Arabs in Is rael and the Jew ish state.”88 4 Rawi dow icz, for his part, saw the state’s ap pro pria tion of Arab land— 5 and its sub se quent leas ing of it to Jews, in clud ing in large quan tities to 6 “both re lig ious and so cial ist kib but zim”—as a moral blem ish.89 Aere was 7 a time, he maintained, when the Zionist movement attempted to “redeem 8 Zion with justice” (Isaiah 1:27) (sec. iv). But after 1948, he asserted, the 9 movement had entered a new era: “as a state, as a govern ment that brea- 10 ches boun dar ies with out any one rais ing a voice.” Full of pro phetic in dig- 11 nation, he declared that “it is forbid den for the Jewish people to adopt the 12 laws of the Gen tiles and ex pro pri ate the pro perty of an enemy or com bat - 13 ant who was van quished on the bat tle Held.” Ais kind of be havior was mo - 14 rally ob jec tionable on its own terms, but also dan ger ous given the fact that 15 Jews were little more than “a weak and poor people, weak and poor even 16 with the crown of state hood on its head” (sec. iv). 17 Rawi dow icz’s criti cal at ti tude to ward the state (or more ac cu rately, to - 18 ward the State as the telos of Jew ish his tory) went hand in hand with his 19 con cern for the ef fects of po liti cal power on mo rality. One could well point 20 out that it was easy for him to be high-minded in probing the moral limits 21 of state power from the con Hnes of his study in Walt ham. But Rawi dow icz’s 22 cal cu lus through out “Between Jew and Arab” was never purely moral. He 23 al ways mixed the de mand for ethi cal in teg rity with more self-interested 24 reGec tions on the physical well-being of Jews the world over. Would the 25 state’s actions invite a power ful response from its neighbors? Would its 26 adverse treatment of the Arab national minority harm the members of the 27 Jew ish na tion scat tered through out the Dia spora? 28 As be Ht ted his one-time lit er ary alter ego, Rawi dow icz felt him self a 29 “lonely man” in ask ing these ques tions. He had much rea son for iso la tion 30 and pessi mism in “Between Jew and Arab,” given the fact that there was 31 hardly a groundswell of concern for the Arab Question. Nonethe less, he 32 did believe that pressure from a variety of circles—Is raeli Jews, Arabs in 33 Israel, or regional and interna tional players—might one day lead to 34 change. “Rest as sured,” he vowed, “the State of Is rael, its gov ern ment, and 35 the Jews within it, will ulti mately rectify any wrong within its borders, ei- 36 ther by choice or co er cion” (sec. iv). 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 118

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1 “Mira cle” or “Val ley of Death” 2 3 This trace of sanguinity, if we could call it that, did not vanquish the anx- 4 iety that consumed Rawidow icz throughout much of “Between Jew and 5 Arab.” He ex pressed fear that the State of Is rael and its ci tiz ens would 6 suffer a fate far worse than that they had imposed on others. At the same 7 time, he worried that the most diffi cult compo nent of the Arab Ques- 8 tion—even more prob le matic than dis crimi na tion against Arab resi dents 9 of Is rael—would never be re solved. This com po nent was the “plight of 10 the refu gees” (geze rat ha-pelitim) in Rawi dow icz’s dis tinc tive phras ing.90 11 Everything that he had discussed previ ously paled in compari son to “one 12 major act of dis crimi na tion: the de nial of re pa tria tion that was im posed 13 upon the Arabs who left Pa les tine—or took flight from it” (sec. iv). He 14 contin ued: “Nothing stands before me—before Israel and the entire 15 world—ex cept this sim ple fact: hun dreds of thou sands of Arabs, man, 16 woman, and child, left this country, and the State of Israel will not per- 17 mit them to re turn to their homes and set tle on their land, the land of 18 their fathers, and of their father’s fathers. From 1948 on, I have spent 19 much time think ing about this fact, from all an gles, and to the best of 20 my ability. But it is impos sible for me to come to terms with it in any way, 21 shape, or form” (sec. v). 22 Rawidowicz’s eports to think through the consequences of the refugee 23 problem took up the better part of “Between Jew and Arab.” By chapter’s 24 end, he had called into question two entwined propositions that had 25 surfaced in the emerging collective memory of the State of Israel: (1) that 26 the Gight of Arab refugees was the appropriate concern of the international 27 community and the Arab world, but not of the State of Israel; and (2) that 28 repatriation of the refugees was diametrically opposed to its best interests. 29 Very few Jews in the early 1950s dared to write a text of such length, 30 passion, and focus on the Arab refu gees. Rawidow icz was prompted to 31 act when he heard “Jew ish lead ers, mini sters of the State of Is rael, Zion - 32 ist writ ers and even non-Zionists oper ful some praise to the mira cle, in - 33 deed, to the great est of all mira cles to hap pen to Is rael (in their words), 34 the fact that six, seven, or eight hundred thousand residents of Pales tine 35 . . . be came re fu gees.”91 To take one notable exam ple, Chaim Weizmann, 36 the state’s Hrst presi dent and an early ad vo cate of peace ful re la tions 37 between Arabs and Jews, is said to have re ferred in a con ver sa tion with Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 119

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U.S. Ambas sa dor James McDonald to the Gight of Pales tin ian Arabs as “the 1 miracu lous simpliH ca tion of Israel’s tasks.”92 2 While some have argued that this goal, to be ef fected via “trans fer,” was 3 a long-standing objec tive of Zionism, 93 Rawidow icz seemed dubi ous about 4 the ex is tence of such a pre medi tated plan to expel and deny re entry to the 5 Arabs of Pa les tine. “If,” he asked, “one had said to David Ben-Gurion, Chaim 6 Weiz mann, Yit zhak Ben-Zvi, and their friends be fore 1948 that they were 7 soon to stand as the leaders of a State of Israel that did not permit Arab ref- 8 u gees—men, women, and chil dren—to re turn to their pos ses sions, and 9 thus uprooted them and ren dered them home less—would they not see in 10 this claim a con temptible libel of the hat ers of Is rael and Zion who aimed 11 to dese crate the name of Is rael and besmirch Zion ism in the world?” (sec. 12 xiii). Had they not repeat edly spoken of the “path of peace and honor, 13 whose guiding princi ple is total equality rooted in a single law for Jew and 14 Arab in a fu ture state of Pa les tine?” (sec. xiii). Rawi dow icz ob served that 15 the lan guage of “broth er hood between Jew and Arab” is sued with par ticu - 16 lar frequency from the mouths of the social ist Labor Zionists. 17 But he also no ticed a dis turb ing gap between rhe toric and deed, and 18 not just in the aftermath of 1948. Decades earlier, the revered “prophet of 19 the re lig ion of labor,” A. D. Gor don (1856–1922) spoke of the “cos mic uni ver - 20 sal” re la tions between Jews and Arabs. (sec. xiii). Rawi dow icz won dered 21 whether this celes tial language could be recon ciled with the vision and 22 deeds of Zionism in his own day. He was not at all certain how Gordon 23 would have re acted to the fact that Jews lived in “ex pro pri ated and con - 24 quered homes” after 1948. Would he have “blurted out like his friends and 25 disci ples at Dega nia, Naha lal, and elsewhere that ‘we have no stain on our 26 hands, we are righ teous and have not sinned?’” (sec. xiii). 27 Rawidow icz did not answer directly. But one senses in “Between Jew 28 and Arab” a ten sion between two views of the his tory of Zion ism—one 29 that saw an intoxi cat ing self-assurance and moral satis fac tion take rise in 30 1948, and a second that regarded these qualities as more deeply rooted in 31 the Zionist past. Frequently, Rawidow icz Hxated on 1948 as a dramatic 32 rupture in Jewish history beyond which a once-moral movement lost its 33 inno cence. At other times, he seemed to believe that this inno cence van- 34 ished at a much ear lier stage, when Zion ism as serted its pri macy vis-à-vis 35 both Dia spora Jew ish and Arab foes. Ae reader of Rawi dow icz is left 36 unclear about which of these two views he fa vored, as well as when he 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 120

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1 be lieved that the gap between Zion ist rhe toric and deed had be come an 2 unbridgeable chasm. 3 What is beyond dispute is that 1948 created a new sense of moral ur- 4 gency for Rawi dow icz. It is at that point that he began to turn his at ten tion 5 to the Arab Ques tion. It is also at that point that he felt in tense sur prise 6 and dis ap point ment at Zion ists of a so cial ist stripe for their ab di ca tion of 7 moral re spon sibility by fail ing to ad dress this ques tion. He held up as a 8 ster ling coun ter ex am ple a per son men tioned at vari ous points in this 9 book, the Hebrew author, S. Yizhar. Rawidow icz described Yizhar as “the 10 one writer who sal vaged the honor of our He brew li tera ture in the State of 11 Israel when he protested in his stories (“Sipur Hirbet Hiz aah” and “Ha- 12 shavui”) the in jus tice done to the Arabs” (sec. xi). As we have noted, these 13 two stories created a great deal of atten tion and contro versy when Hrst 14 pub lished in Is rael in 1949.94 15 What struck Rawi dow icz and thou sands of other read ers was that, while 16 Hctional, these stories contained highly realistic accounts of the expul sion 17 of Pales tin ian Arabs by Israeli soldiers in 1948—and perhaps even more com- 18 pelling, descrip tions of the soldiers’ mix of cruelty and indif fer ence to the 19 suffer ing of the expelled Arabs. Ae narra tor of “Hirbet Hiz aah” be longs to a 20 unit en trusted with the task of re mov ing the eld erly, women, and chil dren 21 who had not already Ged from the Hctional village of Hirbet Hiz aah. He har- 22 bors qualms about this assign ment, to which he gives peri odic voice to his 23 fellow soldiers. But they dismiss him through a variety of argu ments, includ - 24 ing claims that the Arabs are not worth the con cern (“they are ani mals”) or 25 that they would slaugh ter the Jews if given the chance. Moreover, he hears 26 the fol low ing from his com mander, Moishe: “You lis ten to what I’m going to 27 tell you. New immi grants will come, you hear, to Hirbet what-ever-it’s-called, 28 they will take the land, and they will work it. And it will be just Hne here.”95 29 Con strained by his own ti midity, the nar ra tor can only won der to him self: 30 “Who will ever re call that there was once a Hir bet Hi zaah where we ex pelled 31 (others) and that we inher ited? We came, we shot, we burned, we blew up, 32 we pushed, we drove out, we exiled. . . . What the hell are we doing in this 33 place?” Ae re sult ing dis tress of the nar ra tor oc ca sioned an un var nished 34 anger that must have stunned Yizhar’s readers: “Colon iz ers, my guts 35 screamed out. A lie, my guts screamed out. Hirbet Hiz aah is not ours.”96 36 What adds particu lar force to the voice of Yizhar’s narra tor is that the 37 author, as Anita Shapira has pointed out, was not a predictable critic. He Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 121

the arab question| 121 was born and raised in Pales tine into an agri cul tu ral family wedded to 1 the ideals of Social ist Zionism. 97 His great-uncle, Moshe Smi lan sky (1874– 2 1953), was a well-known veteran of the First Aliyah, commit ted in word 3 and deed to Jewish settle ment of the Land of Israel. Ae older Smilan sky 4 (his ne phew’s given name, we re call, was Yizhar Smi lan sky) had come to 5 believe that the exclu sive insis tence of subse quent Zionist settlers on “He- 6 brew labor” in Jew ish set tle ments—to the ex clu sion of Arabs—was mis - 7 guided. Con se quently, he be come a vocal ad vo cate of Arab-Jewish co ex- 8 is tence, as well as the au thor of sym pa thetic, if highly ro man ti cized, 9 stories about Arabs in Pales tine. 10 Rawidow icz was drawn to what he saw as the humane Zionism of the 11 Smi lan skys, Moshe and Yizhar, and con trasted it to the more cal lous ver - 12 sion preval ent among other Labor Zionists. Indeed, he juxta posed the per- 13 spective of Moshe Smilan sky to that of a member of another well-known 14 family of Jewish settlers in the Yishuv, Shmuel Dayan (father of Israeli gen- 15 eral and politi cian Moshe Dayan). Accord ingly, Dayan, who was a founder 16 of the early coop era tive set tle ment of Na ha lal, based his vi sion of Zion ism 17 and the newly created State of Israel on the early Social ist Zionist doc- 18 trines of “the conquest of labor, the conquest of the land, and Hebrew 19 labor”98 (sec. xii). Aese doc trines were, for Dayan and many oth ers, the 20 foun da tion of the strug gle to create a Jew ish na tional so ciety in the Land 21 of Israel. Ae obsta cles to this goal were the Arabs of Pales tine; thus their 22 Gight in 1948 was hardly cause for tears or hand-wringing. On the con trary, 23 Rawi dow icz quoted at length Dayan’s sharply worded re joinder to the pro - 24 gres sive Ameri can Zion ist leader, Hayim Green berg, who had ex pressed 25 concern over the status of Pales tin ian Arabs in 1948: 26

Did we commit a wrong to the Arabs by taking their land, homes, and all 27 their posses sions? Arabs as indi vidu als surely suffered, but the Jewish people 28 commit ted no wrong to the Arab people. Aey waged a war against us, sought 29 to throw us into the sea. We de fended our lives, fought, and won. . . . We acted 30 like a man who is drown ing and does everyth ing in his power to save him self. 31 We pushed the Arabs from their homes to their neighbors and brothers by race, 32 and saved our selves.99 33 It is this perspec tive that Rawidow icz would asso ciate with “cruel Zion - 34 ism,” the term invoked by Avra ham Sharon in 1943. “Cruel Zionism,” we re- 35 call, origi nally re ferred to the im pulse to gain dis tance from, and even sever 36 ties with, Diaspora Jewry in order to real ize the Zionist dream in Pales tine. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 122

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1 But the con cept was also trans lated into a more local idiom by Sharon and 2 other Zion ists in Pa les tine, for whom the “exo dus of Arabs” was an es sen - 3 tial condi tion of the realiza tion of Zionism. 100 Sharon advo cated this po- 4 si tion in a pamph let from 1949 en ti tled “Chau vin is tic Re marks Re gard ing 5 the Mat ter of the Arabs,” in sist ing that “our ene mies of old”—the Arabs— 6 re main “the ene mies of today and to mor row.” Ac cord ingly, Jews should feel 7 little sympa thy for or guilt over those Pales tin ian Arabs who Ged in 1948. 8 Even an event such as the massa cre at Deir Yassin, which Sharon admit - 9 ted was worthy of condem na tion, had a salutary outcome: it hastened the 10 Gight of Arabs from Pa les tine, and thus fa cili tated the task of creat ing a 11 Jew ish state.101 Sharon was not content to recog nize the value of past Gight 12 alone. Both in “Chau vin is tic Re marks” and in another essay that Rawi do- 13 wicz quoted (“Dip lo matic Re marks of a Non-Diplomat”), he ex pressed sup - 14 port for the idea that those Pales tin ian Arabs who remained within the 15 cur rent State of Is rael should be en cour aged to leave the coun try. Con- 16 versely, he took sharp aim at those Jews who opposed his views, the weak- 17 kneed “mo ral iz ers” (mu sar ni kim) who were unwill ing to subscribe to his 18 view of power politics. 102 19 Although not mentioned by name, Rawidow icz would easily qualify as 20 one of the mo ral iz ers. So too would Moshe Smi lan sky, whose ver sion of 21 Zionism, Rawidow icz felt, looked beyond the exclu sive demands and tra- 22 vails of the Jews. Smilan sky was able to discern a pronounced and unset - 23 tling rhetori cal differ ence when Zionists spoke about their own and the 24 Arabs’ attach ment to Pales tine: the former believed that “they are national 25 he roes wor thy of the world’s sup port, whereas the Arabs who re turn to 26 their pro perty after two or three years of exile are in Hl tra tors, whose blood 27 it is not for bid den (to spill)” (sec. xii). 28 Rawi dow icz ob served a simi lar rhe tori cal dis tinc tion among his fel - 29 low Jews: whereas Arabs are “back ward ‘Asiat ics,’” Jews are “men of vi - 30 sion, her alds of a na tional re nais sance that has great value for the en tire 31 human race” (sec. xii). It was the ability to pierce through such sweep- 32 ing stereotypes, and indeed engage in a healthy measure of self- 33 criticism, that earned his ap pre cia tion for Moshe Smi lan sky—and even 34 more so for Smi lan sky’s ne phew, S. Yizhar. With bru tal can dor, Yizhar 35 chal lenged the self-righteous pre tense of fel low Zion ists. He at tacked 36 the faulty val ues and “phony edu ca tion” that, he be lieved, Zion ist lead - 37 ers had foisted on the Jewish youth of Pales tine (sec. xi). Rawidow icz Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 123

the arab question| 123 quoted at length a con ver sa tion that Yizhar con ducted with Zion ist 1 youth after the 1948 war. “They planted deep in the heart of every one,” 2 Yizhar said of Zionist leaders, “that there is place for two peoples in this 3 coun try—that one does not need to push the other out.” And yet now 4 they tell us that “there is no room for Arabs in this country. They are 5 not trust wor thy, they can be a fifth co lumn dur ing war time. This coun - 6 try is in deed only for Jews, since the Jew has no other place in the world 7 other than this country.” 103 8 Ais rhe tori cal shift re Gected so meth ing deeper, Yizhar as serted: “a psy - 9 chic wound and a breach of faith by those same lead ers who spoke in such 10 a way and in those po liti cal par ties that changed their Gag.” Rawi dow icz 11 pointed to Yizhar’s cri tique as an anti dote to the du plici tous “new na tional 12 mo rality” whose adepts ranged from the ex treme pole of Av ra ham Sharon 13 to the more centrist circles of Mapai acti vists. “When they [the Arabs] 14 com mit an out rage,” Rawi dow icz echoed, “it cries out to heaven.” But when 15 Jews commit a crime against Arabs, “it becomes an impera tive that cannot 16 be avoided. And if there is so meth ing about it that might as sist our na - 17 tional re vi val, then that is well and good, and should be praised a hun dred 18 times every day” (sec. xii). 19 It was pre cisely this kind of in stru men tal logic that led some Jews to re - 20 gard the Gight of the Arab re fu gees as a “mira cle.” Noth ing could be more 21 mis guided, Rawi dow icz de clared. Far from a mira cle, it was in deed “a trap 22 for Israel . . . a snare that history has set for us, and we have fallen into it” 23 (sec. v). As pain ful as the “plight of the re fu gees” was to the Pa les tinians, it 24 was also a terrible curse for the Jews. It marked, he observed with refer ence 25 to a famous image from the Psalms, their descent into the “valley of the 26 shadow of death” (Psalms 23:4) (sec. vi). 27 Ais stark bib li cal image re Gected Rawi dow icz’s un wa ver ing con vic tion 28 that the events of 1948 had exacted a very heavy price from the Jews. Ae 29 one-time “servant who came to reign” had assumed not only politi cal sove- 30 reignty, but with it, the moral order of the nations. As an unabashed, even 31 chau vin is tic, be liever in the ethi cal superiority of Is rael, Rawi dow icz could 32 barely con tain his dis ap point ment. For the Hrst time in two mil len nia, he 33 claimed in rather ex ag ger ated fash ion, the hat ers of Is rael had grounds to 34 complain about the behavior of the Jews.104 Even more worri some was the 35 fact that the Gen tile world had come to “under stand” the Jews, by vir tue 36 of their shared morality: 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 124

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1 “Ae world under stands”—this is what is ter ri fy ing. Ais world under stood 2 . . . what Hit ler did in Ger many, Cze chos lo vakia, and later in Po land and in 3 Eu rope. Many around the world “under stood” his deeds against us. Under - stood and understands—every evil under the sun. If the same world that ac- 4 cepted Hit ler and his ilk, ap peased him, made friend ship and non-aggression 5 treat ies with him, now under stands the State of Is rael when it locks its gates 6 to the refu gees—this is a bad sign for it, indeed for us. 7 R a w id o wi c z c o nt i nu e d b y r ef r a mi n g t h i s n e w u n d e rs t a n di n g i n t h e l a n- 8 guage of the bib li cal broth ers, Jacob and Esau, who in rab binic lore sym - 9 bolize Jews and Christians respec tively: 10 11 Jacob was “not understandable” to Esau his whole life. In this very “lack of under stand ing” lurks one of the sources of his ha tred for Jacob. When Esau 12 does not com pre hend the lan guage of Jacob—“have no fear, O Jacob my ser - 13 vant” (Jere miah 46:28). But when Esau be gins to com pre hend the lan guage 14 of Jacob, woe unto Jacob. . . . I fear that from 1948 on ward, Esau has been de - 15 Hl ing Jacob through this “under stand ing”—the two have be come alike. Ae 16 twins are no longer strug gling with one another. . . . 17 At present, it appears—so it seems—that Esau understands Jacob’s deed. And when it will no longer be worth his while to understand it, he will not 18 under stand it. He will surely say: I don’t under stand. He will de mand a full ac - 19 counting. Will the state of the Jews and the Jewish people be able to provide 20 such an account ing, to be exon er ated? Perhaps one day Esau and Ishmael 21 [that is, Chris tians and Mus lims] will join forces in a sin gle union to repay 22 Jacob for the act that he com mit ted in 1948. And when the av en gers are given 105 23 the authority to avenge, will they know any limit? 24 Rawidow icz was fearful of the conse quences of this new “understand - 25 ing” on mul ti ple lev els, though we might di vide his con cerns into two 26 broad and overlap ping catego ries. As always, he feared its ethical effects. 27 Is rael’s “de scent” into the moral uni verse of the Gen tiles grated against 28 R a w id o wi c z ’ s s e n s e o f J e wi s h e t h ic a l e xc e pt i o na li s m . I t i s n o t ew o rt h y t h a t 29 another impor tant critic of Israeli policy at the time—the scien tist and 30 philoso pher, Yeshayahu Leibo witz—ques tioned whether there was such a 31 thing as a Jew ish, as op posed to uni ver sal, mo rality. In re Gect ing on the 32 noto ri ous Kibya episode of Octo ber 1953 (in which sixty Jorda nian villag - 33 ers were killed by Israeli forces in a repri sal raid follow ing an Arab terror - 34 ist at tack that killed a Jew ish mother and her two chil dren in Yehud), Leib - 35 owitz placed the blame for the actions of Jewish soldiers not on a failure of 36 “Jew ish mo rality,” but on the mis ap pli ca tion of the Jew ish re lig ion, and par - 37 ticularly the core notion of holi ness, to the Zionist project. “For the sake of Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 125

the arab question| 125 that which is holy,” Lei bo witz warned in terms that echo pow er fully today, 1 “man is ca pable of act ing with out any re straint.” Ae dan ger ous con Ga tion 2 of the sacred and profane, he asserted, was anchored in the famously eu- 3 phe mis tic ref er ence to “the Rock of Is rael” (tsur Yis rah el) in Israel’s Procla - 4 m at i o n o f I nd ep e nd e n c e . 106 And it was this con Ga tion, he im plied, that 5 em pow ered Jew ish sol diers to act with im pu nity in Kibya. 6 Perhaps counter in tui tively, it was not the Ortho dox Leibo witz but 7 rather the non-Orthodox Rawi dow icz who be lieved that a spe ciH cally Jew- 8 ish morality was violated in instances such as Kibya. “Jacob,” he lamented, 9 had fallen precipi tously from the lofty moral plateau that Jews had inhab - 10 ited for cen tu ries as a na tional mi nority.107 A dif fer ent na tional char ac ter 11 was emerging, that of “a man who conquers and subdues, thus not like the 12 Jew ish mo rality of which the Jew ish peo ple has been proud from its in cep - 13 tion” (sec. xii). 14 Rawidow icz was not only arguing that Jews had neglected the moral 15 values that had long guided them; he seemed to be imply ing that morality 16 Gourishes in condi tions of power less ness. Ae Gip side of this proposi tion 17 was that politi cal power conduces all too frequently to amorality—or 18 worse.108 While evinc ing seri ous and re peated con cern about this pros - 19 pect, Rawidow icz strained to demon strate that he was not a naïve roman - 20 tic, con cerned only with the fate of the Arabs and not his own peo ple. Aus, 21 along side his moral rem on stra tions, he of fered, as in the ear lier case of Is - 22 rael’s Arab resi dents, a ser ies of prag matic po liti cal and eco nomicar gu - 23 ments intended to redress the refugee problem. 24 Ae elimi na tion of hun dreds of thou sands of Arab resi dents from Pa - 25 les tine in 1948 was, to his mind, hardly an eco nomic boon. Ae early years 26 of the new State of Israel were trying ones. “Reserves of food, fuel, and for- 27 eign cur rency,” one his to rian noted, “were down to zero.” Ae new state’s 28 gov ern ment quickly spon sored an aus terity pro gram, as well as a Min istry 29 of Sup ply and Ra tion ing, to pro vide a meas ure of con trol over the economy, 30 to stimu late growth, and, above all, to al lo cate the available re sources to 31 a rapidly growing, immigrant-driven popula tion. 109 Pre sag ing an ar gu ment 32 heard today about the economic utility of immi grants in Western societies, 33 Rawidow icz argued that the “rates of food and agri cul tu ral produc tion 34 would be much improved if the Arabs were able to return and perform 35 their work” (sec. vi). He noted that the Arab farm ers who had re mained 36 within the boundar ies of the state after 1948 suffered fewer shortages than 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 126

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1 Jewish farmers. Whether or not return ing refu gees would, in fact, in- 2 crease rates of pro duc tivity or off set the added re source drain is a ques - 3 tion that can not be an swered de fini tively. Rawi dow icz, with lit tle ex per - 4 tise in the mat ter and with out any spe cific de tails about the num ber or 5 ulti mate desti na tion of the refu gees within Israel, was inclined to think 6 that they would.110 7 It is inter est ing to jux ta pose Rawi dow icz’s views of the po ten tial eco - 8 nomic bene Hts of re pa tria tion of Pa les tin ian Arabs to the po ten tial so cial 9 costs of im mi gra tion of Jews from Arab coun tries. At one point in “Between 10 Jew and Arab,” he noted that the void left by the Arabs of Pa les tine had 11 “created an open ing to the East” that was being Hlled by the hun dreds of 12 thou sands of Jews (es ti mated at 850,000) who left their na tive Mid dle East - 13 ern coun tries, often under dur ess, after 1948 (sec. x). Of course, this was 14 nei ther the Hrst nor the last time that the fates of these two groups were 15 connected. Today, parallels between the two are often made by indi vidu - 16 als and groups who repre sent Jews from Arab lands and demand recog ni - 17 tion as (and compen sa tion for being) refu gees. 111 18 Al ready in the after math of the 1948 war, vari ous dip lo matic rep re sen - 19 tatives from Israel, Iraq, and Britain raised the prospect that, as part of an 20 overall peace settle ment, the Arab Gight from Pales tine and the Gight of 21 Jews from Arab lands to the State of Is rael be deemed a popu la tion ex - 22 change.112 Rawidow icz had his own distinc tive opinion on the question. 23 Ae arri val of large numbers of Jews via the “opening to the East” was not 24 neces sarily a positive devel op ment. It “placed upon the State an un- 25 bearable bur den and forced its policy in a num ber of eco nomic and po liti - 26 cal di rec tions that were not be ne H cial” (sec. x). In deed, it is quite clear that 27 the rate of annual immi gra tion to Israel between 1948 and 1951, reaching a 28 stag ger ing 22 per cent, placed heavy bur dens on the state in terms of hous - 29 ing, employ ment, and the provi sion of social services. But it is also the case 30 that the Is raeli economy grew at a blis ter ing pace through out the 1950s 31 and 1960s.113 What is strik ing here is Rawi dow icz’s ap par ent as sump tion 32 that repa tri ated Arabs would bring economic beneHt to the state, while 33 Jewish immi grants would be a burden on the system. 34 Beyond this somewhat unproven economic suppo si tion—and notwith - 35 standing his profes sion that he did not distin guish between Jews based on 36 country of origin—Rawi dow icz betrayed a strong Euro cen tric bias. One of 37 the ef fects of the “open ing to the East,” he as serted, was the clos ing of the Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 127

the arab question| 127 gates of a liyah to the West—that is, to Ash ke nazic Jews whom “the State 1 of Is rael so des per ately needed” (sec. x).114 Ae chain re ac tion he was de - 2 scrib ing—the Pa les tin ian exo dus that created an open ing to Jews from 3 Arab countries had in turn discou raged immi gra tion from Western Jews— 4 pushed to the fore his clear belief in the superiority of Euro pean Jews over 5 Mid dle East ern Jews. It also set in re lief his lack of em pa thy for the lat ter, 6 whose predica ment seemed to be of little concern to him. Ais is surpris - 7 ing not only in light of his preoc cu pa tion with the “plight of the [Pales tin - 8 ian] refu gees,” but also because of his oft-professed commit ment to the 9 ideal of a sin gle, trans na tional “Is rael” whose mem bers were found the 10 world over—in the East, as well as the West. 11 Rawidow icz’s curi ous Oriental ist logic exposed some of the Gaws in his 12 thinking about the practi cal conse quences of the Gight of Pales tin ians. He 13 marshaled no evidence for the claim that Western Jews shied away from 14 immi grat ing in larger numbers to the State of Israel because of the reset - 15 tlement there of large numbers of Middle Eastern Jews. In fact, there were 16 many other reasons—physi cal distance, ideologi cal disinter est, comfort 17 level at home, and the rough-hewn na ture of Ged gling Is raeli so ciety—that 18 explain equally well, if not better, the dearth of Jewish immi gra tion from 19 the West (apart, that is, from the hundreds of thousands of Holocaust sur- 20 vi vors from Eu rope who did im mi grate). 115 21 Also questionable is Rawidowicz’s assertion about the impact of the 22 refugee question on Jewish philanthropy to the new state. He feared that 23 as members of liberal democratic societies, Western Jews might be in- 24 clined to insist that “the closing of the gates of the state to Arab refugees 25 is an ‘undemocratic’ act, and tramples on the principles of individual and 26 collective freedom and rights” that they presumably hold dear (sec. x). As 27 a result, wealthy Jewish donors would be scared away from investing in Is- 28 rael, and a potentially large source of economic support for the state would 29 disappear. 30 Judging by the mag ni tude of Dia spora phil an thropic giv ing to Is rael, 31 Rawi dow icz’s con cern that the refu gee ques tion might have a chill ing ef - 32 fect was op-base. Or ganiza tions such as United Jew ish Com mu nities (and 33 the former United Jewish Appeal), the Jewish National Fund, and the State 34 of Israel Bonds have raised billions of dollars from Diaspora Jews since the 35 crea tion of the State of Is rael; Ameri can Jews alone sent nearly a half- 36 billion dollars in the Hrst Hve years of the new state.116 In fact, a deeply 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 128

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1 embed ded cul ture of giv ing to Is rael has taken root in the Dia spora. While 2 it is pos sible that some pros pec tive don ors failed to give be cause of the 3 “plight of the refu gees,” it seems far likelier that the oppo site was true. Aat 4 is, Jewish donors from abroad were and remain largely unaf fected by the 5 “plight of the refu gees”; some, in fact, are motivated to give precisely because 6 of the perceived danger that Israel’s Arab foes repre sent (includ ing the refu - 7 gees, whom they often fear as a poten tial “demographic time bomb”). 8 Rawidow icz was on Hrmer ground in claiming that the boycott imposed 9 by the Arab countries—pre sumably, he meant that of the newly founded 10 Arab League in 1945 regard ing Jewish products from Pales tine—would grow 11 more burden some with time unless the refugee problem was resolved. He 12 specu lated that if “the re fu gees were per mit ted to re turn home [the boy cott] 13 would surely weaken con sid erably, and even tu ally dis ap pear al to gether” (sec. 14 vi). He contin ued by ventur ing that the refu gees could serve as a bridge, both 15 eco nomic and po liti cal, between Is rael and her Arab neigh bors. 16 Indeed, it is in the sphere of politics that Rawidow icz saw the greatest 17 potential fall out from the “plight of the re fu gees.” Un like most Is raeli poli - 18 ti cians and dip lo mats, he in sisted that the re fu gees were “the source of all 19 ob sta cles to the for eign policy of the State of Is rael” (sec. vi). It is inter est - 20 ing to recall that the govern ment was struggling in the spring of 1948 to 21 for mu late a Hxed policy on the re fu gees. As late as 28 May 1948, the Is raeli 22 radio sta tion in Je ru sa lem, Kol Yeru sha layim, broad cast a mes sage that 23 “not only were we willing to allow [the refu gees] to return to their places, 24 but we would even pay repara tions [for damage] in certain cases.” Such 25 sig nals must have led U.N. me dia tor Count Ber na dotte to de clare, as he 26 did at that time, that the refugee problem was “perhaps the most amenable 27 to solu tion among the elements which made up the Arab-Israeli conGict.” 117 28 Nonethe less, the attack by Arab armies on Israel on 15 May 1948, com- 29 pounded by the increased pace of expul sions and Gight after April, 30 prompted a series of policy delib era tions among Israeli ofH cials that cul- 31 minated in a much clearer posi tion by summer. 118 Ae gist of this policy 32 was that the State of Israel would not counte nance a discus sion about the 33 re turn of the Arab re fu gees so long as hos tilities were under way. Ais 34 propo si tion went hand in hand with the re lated po si tion, often in voked in 35 the various multi lat eral nego tia tions involv ing Israel and the Arab coun- 36 tries, that Is rael would ad dress the refu gee pro blem only as part of a gen - 37 eral peace set tle ment.119 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 129

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Herein would lie a key source of dip lo matic con ten tion at the mul ti lat - 1 eral talks in Lau sanne in the spring and sum mer of 1949 con ducted 2 through the me dia tion of the United Na tions’ Pa les tine Con cilia tion Com - 3 mission. Ae main Arab parties to the conGict (Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, 4 and Syria) insisted that the refugee problem was the essen tial point of de- 5 parture for, and repa tria tion the key to, an overall settle ment (although 6 there is ample reason to doubt the sincerity of their concern for the Pales - 7 tin ian plight).120 By con trast, the State of Is rael pub li cly re jected the right 8 of return for refu gees at an early stage of nego tia tion, arguing, as Ben- 9 Gurion said in 1949, that “the key to peace in the Mid dle East [was] not a 10 so lu tion to the refu gee pro blem, but vice versa: the key to solv ing the refu - 11 gee pro blem [was] peace.”121 12 Nonethe less, the govern ment of Israel found itself in someth ing of a 13 bind and felt com pelled to adopt a pos ture of “con structed am bi guity” to - 14 ward the refu gees. 122 Intense politi cal pressure, includ ing increas ing im- 15 pa tience from Presi dent Tru man over Is rael’s lan guid pace in deal ing with 16 the refu gees, required that at least lip service be paid to the idea of repa - 17 triation. 123 Ae view of the inter na tional com mu nity had been clearly set 18 forth as of 11 Decem ber 1948, when the United Nations General Assem bly 19 passed Resolu tion 194. Ae oft-invoked eleventh clause of this resolu tion 20 af Hrmed that “the re fu gees wish ing to re turn to their homes and live at 21 peace with their neighbours should be permit ted to do so at the earli est 22 practi cable date, and that compen sa tion should be paid for the property 23 of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property 24 which, under princi ples of interna tional law or in equity, should be made 25 good by the Gov ern ments or au thorities re spon sible.”124 26 Ae State of Israel could not alto gether dismiss this resolu tion. To do so 27 was to incur the grow ing wrath of the United States, as well as that of the 28 broader inter na tional com mu nity—and at a time when Is rael was seek ing 29 admis sion to the United Nations as a member-state (granted on 11 May 30 1949).125 Seeking to alle vi ate this pressure, Israeli ofH cials enter tained a pair 31 of schemes in the spring and summer of 1949 that would entail a limited ver - 32 sion of re turn for Pa les tin ian Arab re fu gees. Ae Hrst of these, the “Gaza Plan,” 33 was an Is raeli pro po sal from April 1949 to ab sorb the Gaza Strip, which in - 34 cluded a substan tial number of refu gees (more than 200,000 accord ing to 35 American esti mates). Ais plan never succeeded in entic ing policy mak ers 36 in Egypt, which con trolled the Strip; they could ill af ford the ap pear ance of 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 130

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1 ceding terri tory to Israel. 126 Shortly after the Gaza Plan began to lose steam, 2 and under the per sis tent pres sure of the United States, Is raeli of H cials Goated 3 a pro po sal known as the “100,000 Oper.” Ae plan faced in tense criti cism at 4 home (includ ing within the ruling Mapai party), prompting Foreign Mini- 5 ster Moshe Sha rett, the gov ern ment’s point per son on the “Oper,” to clarify 6 that only 65,000–70,000 new retur nees would be permit ted back within the 7 state’s borders; the remain der of the 100,000 would include Arabs already in 8 Is rael as a re sult of in Hl tra tion or family uniH ca tion. Ae pro po sal was put 9 forward at the Lausanne talks in early August, but was rejected out of hand 10 by rep re sen ta tives of the Arab states.127 It is far from clear how Israel would 11 have re sponded had the Arabs sent a more af Hr ma tive sig nal.128 What is 12 clearer is that, al though con ver sa tions con tin ued in Tel Aviv, Wash ing ton, 13 and at the U.N. over the next couple of years, time was not on the side of the 14 Pa les tin ian re fu gees. As new Jew ish im mi grants streamed into the State of 15 Israel and the interna tional commu nity’s atten tion shifted away from the 16 Mid dle East in the Hrst years of the 1950s (in par ticu lar, to ward the brew ing 17 Korean War), the ques tion of Pa les tin ian re pa tria tion did not pre oc cupy Is - 18 raeli dip lo mats or poli ti cians as it had at Lau sanne.129 19 Simon Rawi dow icz, for his part, kept abreast of the vari ous dip lo matic 20 machi na tions. Writ ing a few years after Lau sanne (and the par allel ar mis - 21 tice ne go tia tions at Rhodes in 1949), he ex pressed con sid erable dis ap point - 22 ment at Israel’s tack in ne go tiations on the re fu gees, and par ticu larly on 23 the question of sequence. Adopting a Hrst-person voice that collapsed the 24 dis tance between Walt ham and Je ru salem, he as serted: “Ae as sump tion 25 in our stra te gies has been—Hrst a peace agree ment with the Arabs, and 26 then a resolu tion to the refugee question, or a resolu tion as part of an 27 agreement. From the outset, this posi tion was never practi cal. And in ret- 28 rospect, everyone knows that it has brought no beneHt to the Jews in their 29 rela tions with the world.”130 30 In fact, Rawi dow icz main tained, the prag matic ap proach—and the only 31 path to normaliza tion with the Arab world—was through resolu tion of the 32 refu gee ques tion. He felt simi larly about the State of Is rael’s re la tion ship 33 with the interna tional commu nity beyond the Middle East. One ought not 34 be de ceived, he warned, by the fact that pres sure from the West on Is rael 35 to re solve the refu gee ques tion was not yet in sur mountable. In all like li - 36 hood, this “passive-neutral” stance drew from the re ser voir of guilt built up 37 in the im me di ate after math of the Holo caust (sec. vii). Even tu ally, it would Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 131

the arab question| 131 dry up, leading to a new era of tension between Israel and the West—and 1 di min ished com fort and se curity for Dia spora Jewry. Were that not to hap - 2 pen, the West would simply con tinue to sig nal that it “under stood” that 3 Jacob had adopted Esau’s ways. In either case, the “plight of the refu gees” 4 would be neither a “miracle” nor a “blessing,” but a rather a “stain” and a 5 “curse” on the name of Is rael. 131 6 7 8 “Save the Honor of Israel: Open the Gate!” 9 In “Between Jew and Arab,” Simon Rawidowicz gave voice to what few Jews 10 of his day chose to or were capable of articulating—indeed, a position far 11 more in line with frontline Arab states than with the State of Israel. He did 12 so with a sense of genuine urgency, Hrmly believing that “every additional 13 hour that this question remains alive in the world only adds a further blem- 14 ish to the moral image of the Jewish people, and moreover, heightens the 15 danger to its future existence” (sec. xv). 16 Ae onus to act, he announced, lay neither with the Arabs nor the in- 17 ternational community, but with the Jews. Having gained control of a good 18 chunk of western Palestine, the State of Israel could not comfort itself with 19 claims that it did not initiate hostilities or that it did not hatch a premed- 20 itated plan to “transfer” Arabs out of the country. Even more remarkably, 21 he believed that it could not claim that “Hve or six hundred thousand Arab 22 refugees from the State of Israel outside of its borders are more dangerous 23 to the State than Hve or six hundred thousand additional Arab citizens 24 within its borders” (sec. xv). 25 As we have seen, Rawidow icz was quite certain that repa tria tion was 26 the less inju ri ous path for the State of Israel. His cost-beneHt analysis of a 27 prospec tive return of the refu gees took note of poten tial advan tages, but 28 less so of possible liabilities. Aus, he never asked whether the return of 29 large num bers of Pa les tin ian re fu gees would, over the course of a gen era - 30 tion or two, re shape the demo graphic land scape of the State of Is rael to 31 the point of eras ing its Jew ish char ac ter. Nor, to turn the ques tion around, 32 did he re veal whether he re garded the pres er va tion of a Jew ish state as a 33 supreme value worth preserv ing—and if so, at what cost. Aese questions 34 dwelt in a large gray area in “Between Jew and Arab,” set between Ra wid- 35 ow icz’s sup port for the crea tion of the state in 1948 and his dis af fec tion for 36 the behavior of the “servant who has come to reign.” 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 132

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1 Aese unre solved questions make clear that Rawidow icz’s strength did 2 not lie in forging a blueprint for a future State of Israel in which displaced 3 Pales tin ians would Hnd their home. Rather, it was in the asser tion of an 4 un com mon moral voice that, from an unapolo getic po si tion of ahavat Yis- 5 ra hel, called for “re pair [of] this in jus tice” in order that not “a sin gle refu gee 6 from the State of Is rael [re main] in the world.” At stake was noth ing less 7 than “the very soul of the State, the very soul of Is rael [that is, the Jew ish 8 peo ple]” (sec. xv). Echo ing a cen tral point made at the be gin ning of the 9 essay, Rawi dow icz re it er ated at its end that the “ques tion of these re fu gees 10 is not an Arab ques tion; it is a Jewish question, a question that 1948 placed 11 upon the Jew ish peo ple” (sec. xv). 12 What did Rawi dow icz ac tu ally pro pose to do? Im me di ately upon con - 13 cluding the last armis tice agreement with Syria, the State of Israel should 14 have de clared that “every Arab man and woman who left the coun try at 15 the out break of war is per mit ted to re turn to their pro perty” (sec. xv). Ae 16 under ly ing prin ci ple was framed in clas sic Rawi dow ic zian lan guage, full of 17 Hebrew wordplay and a clear nod to Maimo nides: “the gates of return and 18 re pen tance are not yet locked.”132 19 But the hour had grown late, and the geo po liti cal fault lines in the Mid - 20 dle East had shifted since 1949. Writ ing some years later, Rawi dow icz sum - 21 moned up all his moral authority and announced:

22 I dare to pro pose to the gov ern ment of the State of Is rael that it as sume this 23 moral—and ter ribly dif H cult—path. From an emo tional, po liti cal, so cial, eco - 24 nomic, and mili tary stand point, the se verity of the situa tion does not es cape 25 me. It re quires noth ing less than this: open ing the gates of the State to Arab 26 refu gees after the Arab coun tries have ar rived at a peace treaty with it—ex- 27 cluding those Arabs who endan ger the security of the State. (sec. xv; empha - sis mine) 28 29 Ae pro viso that re pa tria tion should fol low a peace treaty was new, hint - 30 ing that in the years in which Rawidow icz wrote this chapter (primarily 31 between 1951 and 1953) his views about the sequenc ing of repa tria tion—be - 32 fore or after a peace settle ment—had changed. He was well aware of the 33 perva sive fear in the State of Israel in this period that the Arab states were 34 itch ing for a sibuv sheni—a sec ond round of Hght ing in order to avenge their 35 losses in the Hrst.133 He also knew well that the nar row win dow of time dur - 36 ing which the state had consi dered repa tria tion on any scale had all but 37 closed. After the Lausanne Confer ence, the leaders of the State of Israel Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 133

the arab question| 133 tended to shift respon sibility for the refugee problem either to the neighbor - 1 ing Arab states or to the interna tional commu nity; on the rare occa sion 2 when they did acknowl edge a measure of respon sibility, they focused not on 3 re pa tria tion, but on another angle of the refu gee ques tion men tioned in 4 U.N. Resolu tion 194: Hnan cial compen sa tion for the displaced. 134 5 Feeling himself alone in the face of Jewish public opinion, 135 Rawi do - 6 wicz was prepared—at least as late as 1956 (when he was still consi der ing 7 publish ing his chapter)—to face the wrath of his compat ri ots by calling 8 for repa tria tion: “It is better that I should be the target of the arrow of 9 every archer in Is rael than I should hold my tongue and say: Is rael [that 10 is, the Jew ish peo ple] has no sin. If Is rael has sinned, then this sin is also 11 part of me. If blood has been spilled in [the State of] Israel . . . if Israel has 12 spilled blood outside of Israel, then no Jews can say: my hands did not 13 spill it” (sec. xvii). 14 As commit ted as he was to uphold ing the preemi nence of Jewish ethi- 15 cal propriety—which many in his day and after ward would regard as irre - 16 spon sibly naïve—Rawi dow icz was equally com mit ted to the propo si tion 17 that he was not a utopian dreamer. On the contrary, he believed that the 18 uto pian was the one who de ceived him self through “total avoid ance of the 19 ques tion of the re fu gees.” What re sulted was an “ima gined re al ism that ... 20 brings us, in every genera tion, to human slaughter and pushes us into the 21 abyss of loss—of life and land alike” (sec. xv). Ae true re al ist must con - 22 front the most vexing problems of the era with a depth of perspec tive that 23 eschews the “Real poli tik of the hour, which destroys everything from one 24 day to the next” (sec. xv). 25 Invert ing the notions of utopian and real ist was key to Rawidow icz’s 26 view of the Jew ish Ques tion in its post-1948 guise. Im pelled by a strong 27 sense of moral recti tude, he maintained that, as a true real ist, his insis - 28 tence on re dress for the “plight of the re fu gees” was also a mat ter of Jew - 29 ish self-interest. Conversely, the false real ist was so dizzy with power as to 30 ignore the peril to his own moral and politi cal status. 31 To be sure, there was in Rawi dow icz him self so meth ing of the false re - 32 alist, detached from a clear sense of what was politi cally possible and un- 33 per sua sive in con ceiv ing of the prac ti cal bene Hts and costs of re pa tria tion. 34 But there was also so meth ing of the far-reaching re al ist in him, an ability 35 to in tuit that the wound of Pa les tin ian na tional suf fer ing and in dig nity 36 would con tinue to feed dis con tent and tur moil well into the fu ture. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 134

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1 Ais, indeed, reGects the double-edged quality of Rawidow icz’s advo - 2 cacy: at once, high-minded and im prac ti cal as he sought to blend pro - 3 phetic and realistic notes into a single key. True to form, Rawidow icz often 4 em braced the role of the lonely critic over the course of his car eer. But he 5 also sensed that, in a matter as contro ver sial as Pales tin ian repa tria tion, 6 he could not go it alone. Turn ing to fel low Jew ish in tel lec tu als, he 7 beseeched them toward the end of “Between Jew and Arab” to demand 8 reso lu tion of the Arab Ques tion: “And you, Jew ish writ ers in the State of 9 Israel, educa tors and thinkers—rise and awaken and help the govern ment 10 of the State of Israel to undertake this opera tion. Save the honor of Israel 11 and of the State of Is rael; pre serve its peace and the peace of its sons and 12 daugh ters for gen era tions to come: Open the gate!” (sec. xvi). 13 At the end of the day, this stirring call, born of a sense of urgency and in- 14 digna tion, may have fallen victim to Rawidow icz’s own self-censorship— 15 a Hnal act of real ism intended to save the larger ediHce of “Babylon and Je- 16 rusa lem.” Whether or not such was the case, Rawidow icz’s distinc tive 17 vision of a dual-centered Jewish nation in fact did not reach a wide audi - 18 ence, owing both to lingu is tic constraints and an unre cep tive Zeitgeist (in 19 which the State of Israel had been estab lished). Of course, even less known 20 was “Between Jew and Arab,” the un pub lished chapter whose mix of pres - 21 cience and utopian ism, so charac ter is tic of his thought in general, marked 22 the dra matic pas sage from the Jew ish Ques tion to the Arab Ques tion. 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 135

1 2 3 “BETWEEN JEW AND ARAB” 4 5 6 From Simon Rawidowicz, Bavel vi-Yerushalayim (1957) 7 English translation by David N. Myers and Arnold J. Band 8 9 e foreign policy of Zionism and the State of Israel; the “Arab question” 10 and the question of the homeland from 1948 on; Israel’s transition from 11 powerlessness to power; improvement in the condition of the Arab in the 12 Hebrew state; a law for the Jew 1 and a law for the Arab; the Law of Return; the 13 law declaring the State of Israel; 2 the refugee problem in 1948; the moral and 14 practical facets of the refugee problem; the status of the State of Israel in the 15 world and the refugee problem; the claim that “it is not good for the State of 16 Israel to have a large national minority”;3 the refugee problem and the 17 beginning of the “ingathering of the Exiles,”and Israel’s role in building up the 18 state; between Jew and Arab and the education of the coming generation in 19 the State of Israel; what role Israel’s morality? the ethics of Judaism and the 20 ethics of “Exile”; Zionism’s guiding assumption in the matter of Jew and Arab 21 until 1948; religion of labor, people of humanity; “solutions”to the problem of 22 Jew and Arab: transfer, assimilation; the “Arab question”in the world and for 23 Jews; the danger in repatriating the refugees and the danger in not 24 repatriating them, aspirations from within and without; the participation of 25 the U.N. in 2nding a solution to the refugee problem; “utopia”and reality; the 26 shadow of 1948; responsibility for the existence of the State of Israel, and for 27 the well-being of the sons and daughters of Israel in the days to come. 28 29 30 I 31 rom the day that I 4rst broached the subject of Israel and Dia spora, I 32 Fmade a vow4 not to dis cuss pub li cly two is sues: the for eign pol icy of 33 34 35 Editorial note: Rawidowicz’s original footnotes have been retained; editorial comments (in brackets) have been added where necessary. e endnotes are intended to provide 36 relevant bibliographic and historical context to the chapter. 37

| 135 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 136

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1 the Zi on ist move ment and [of the State of Is rael],5 and the “Arab question” 2 in Erets Yis ra hel. e cen tral con cern of my work has been the “House of Is - 3 rael”6—the status of our “House” resting on its four pillars—with the goal 4 of re mov ing the stum bling blocks from the path of Is rael in its home and 5 its soul. 6 I still hold to my vow regard ing foreign policy. ose who have dis- 7 cussed this mat ter, be fore and after 1948, speak in ex ag ger ated terms of 8 the sov e reignty of for eign policy. For the most part, the State of Is rael has 9 not the slightest possi bil ity of choosing its own course, as if it is able to 10 make the sun rise and set in its re la tions with the out side world. Eve ry - 11 thing is predes tined for her in the present, and the present is not brief. And 12 she is not alone in this regard. Several states greater and more power ful 13 than she have lost the abil ity in re cent times to de ter mine af fairs out side 14 of their bor ders, in their for eign pol icy. 15 But that is not the case re gard ing the Arab ques tion, about which I shall 16 now break my earlier vow. is is for the simple rea son that with the cre- 17 a tion of the state, the na ture of the bat tle be tween Jew and Arab in the 18 Land of Israel has been transformed. is is no longer about “two people 19 holding on to a garment,” 7 both of whom claim to the mas ter watch ing 20 over them that the gar ment is all theirs. Rather, one has grabbed hold of 21 it, domi nates, and leads, while the other is led. e 4rst rules as a deci sive 22 major ity, as a nation- state. e other is domi nated as a minor ity. And dom- 23 i na tion is in the hands of “Israel.” Conse quently, the “Arab Question,” in its 24 new guise, the guise of 1948, has be come a ques tion about the Jew ish peo- 25 ple and its national home: in its most profound sense, a question of “Is- 26 rael” (that is, the Jew ish Ques tion) writ large, both for those who live out- 27 side of the country and espe cially those who live in the State of Israel. 28 Zion ism (or at least its domi nant parties) saw the “Jewish Question” as 29 the product of impo tence. 8 Accord ingly, their argu ment was: Render power 30 to a power less people, make it a master of its fate like all strong nations in 31 the world, auton o mous like all peoples—and the problem will be solved. 32 e very idea of power, with its roots in the nine teenth cen tury (cul tu rally 33 and polit i cally), fueled the struggle of modern Jewry for empow er ment (the 34 gift of power to a people without power)—actual social and polit i cal power, 35 a matter that deserves its own study.9 36 e issue be fore us is: how did a peo ple, after two thou sand years, pass 37 from impo tence to power, from lack of sove reignty to sove reignty? What Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 137

“between jew and arab” | 137 were its 4rst steps, footsteps that were so instruc tive and deci sive on its 1 path to so cial and po lit i cal em pow er ment, to the ac qui si tion of power in 2 the world? Did it display great matur ity, age- old exper i ence? Or was it af- 3 cicted with “child hood mal a dies” of a small and young coun try, which ex- 4 perts in such dis eases have di ag nosed in groups that have moved from ill- 5 ness to inde pen dence? Did it overcome tempta tion—or did the acqui si tion 6 of power and domi nance tip its judgment and make it like “the servant 7 who now comes to reign,”10 the weak one who now attacks and feels com- 8 pelled to display exces sive force (whose aggres sion fuels itself)? Specif i - 9 cally, has the State of Is rael stood the test in the cru cial realm of re la tions 10 be tween Jew and Arab? 11 I am not inter ested in what transpired between Jew and Arab in the 12 past—from the begin ning in the Middle Ages on—but rather in the chap- 13 ter that begins in 1948: the rela tion ship between the State of Israel and the 14 Arabs within its bor ders (that is, not the re la tion ship be tween the State of 15 Israel and the Arab countries, which concerns foreign affairs). is rela - 16 tion ship is dif 4 cult, com plex, and dis turbing, and yet we are not at lib erty 17 to avoid it. 18 19 20 II 21 I do not discount the seri ous ness of the polit i cal situ a tion in which the State 22 of Is rael 4nds her self: there is no peace treaty be tween her and the Arab na - 23 tions, and the lat ter long for a “sec ond round.”11 And grave is the danger of 24 in 4l tra tors who at tack from time to time.12 As for the Arabs within the 25 State of Is rael, their ec o nomic sit u a tion has im proved since 1948 in a num - 26 ber of regards. Like other citiz ens, they enjoy the services of the state: ed- 27 uca tion, welfare, medi cal care, etc. Arab women have the right to vote. 28 With the creation of the state, many Arab tillers of the soil were given the 29 op por tu nity to throw of the yoke of the ef fendi.13 From 1948 on, Arab farm - 30 ers have suffered fewer food shortages than the major ity of the Jewish pop- 31 ula tion in the state’s cities. And yet, in contrast to the many improve ments 32 in their lives, they are (or have been) subjected to a number of restric tive 33 laws brought on by the state of emer gency.14 In general, they control their 34 own fate in their do main of ex is tence—in mat ters of re lig ion, lan guage, 35 and social rela tions. But when we tally up the things that the State of Israel 36 has done for the ben e 4t of the Arabs within its bor ders, we should not join 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 138

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1 in with those who count “good deeds.” e Arabs dwell in the State of Is rael 2 by right, not suffer ance—just like any minor ity in the world, includ ing the 3 Jewish minor ity, which dwells where it dwells by right, not suffer ance. e 4 State of Israel must concern itself with the welfare of its citiz ens. ey, in 5 turn, must concern themselves with the welfare of the state—one concern 6 in ex change for the other. 7 Of course, one cannot escape the fact that the Arab countries attacked 8 the State of Israel in 1948, and that the deci sive major ity of Arabs in the 9 state—one can even say all—prayed for the victory of the attack ers. 10 There is nothing surpris ing about this, just as it is “natu ral” that the sus- 11 pi cion between Jew and Arab in the State of Israel is mutual. In fact, it is 12 not simply the Jews of the state, but the new Jew ish im mi grants, or re fu - 13 gees, from Arab countries who have so much bitter ness toward the 14 Arabs.15 It is diffi cult for them, as members of the major ity, to conquer 15 this bit ter ness to ward the Arab mi nor ity. This is un der stand a ble, and so 16 the govern ment, which is respon si ble for all its citiz ens, must distance it- 17 self from any dis crim i na tion di rected against the mi nor ity—a mi nor ity 18 that is the remnant of a one- time major ity that became a minor ity in 19 1948.16 We must edu cate the major ity to overcome its natu ral incli na - 20 tions, the incli na tions of any major ity to lash out at a minor ity that is 21 sub or di nate to it. 22 e top decision- makers of the state from 1948 on are Zion ists and so- 23 cial ists who always acknowl edged the rights of Arabs to complete equal- 24 ity in this coun try; among them were those who spoke fre quently of broth- 25 er hood be tween Jew and Arab. ey do not need rem on strators to come 26 and hold them to their ob li ga tion to the Arab rem nant in a coun try that 27 was es tab lished with newly found power for the rem nant of the rem nant 28 of the Jews. 29 But in fact, are those who once preached equal ity so nicely able to prac- 30 tice it as nicely in the actual rela tion ship between Jew and Arab from 1948 31 on ward? 32 33 III 34 35 Some of the laws legis lated by the State of Israel between 1948 and 1953 are 36 not equally applied to Arab and Jew. I shall not discuss them in all their 37 de tails; it will suf 4ce to ofer a few ex am ples here. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 139

“between jew and arab” | 139

e Arabs—as far as I know—did not protest the Law of Return (20 1 Tammuz 5710),* which locks the gates of the country to their brethren, who 2 are a mi nor ity in the State—while open ing the gates widely only to mem- 3 bers of the ma jor ity pop u la tion in it. is is the harsh re al ity. On one hand, 4 a “scat tered and dis persed” peo ple with out a coun try wants to gather its 5 far- cung and homeless children in the State of Israel. 17 On the other hand, 6 the Arabs have nu mer ous coun tries which are not suf 4 ciently pop u lated. 7 ey do not know the pain of migra tion, oppres sion, and perse cu tion. We 8 would be happy if the ter ri tory of the State were not so lim ited, and it were 9 possi ble for Jews to estab lish a state open to all in this land. is would be 10 in clear protest against the walling in of every living creature that was so 11 perva sive in the world, a world of Jeri cho and Sodom18 that makes one for- 12 get the law of free movement. But we have not yet achieved the possi bil ity 13 of free movement, and thus Jew and Arab alike must accept the harsh ver- 14 dict. e State will arise in this small patch of land and will serve as a refuge 15 for the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 16 However, in contrast to the Law of Return, not only the Arabs but some 17 Jews in the State of Is rael, and not only mem bers of “Ihud,”19 have protested 18 the dis cri min a tory clauses against Arabs in the Na tion al ity Law (Tam muz 19 5712)† accord ing to which the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob alone 20 earn citi zen ship in the State of Israel through the Law of Return: 21

Wher eas “ non- Jews must ful 4ll the fol low ing con di tions in order to be come 22 citiz ens in (the State of) Israel by virtue of resi dence: (1) the 4rst condi tion is 23 status as a sub ject of [Man da tory] Pa les tine on the eve of the crea tion of the 24 State; (2) can di dates for cit i zen ship must have been reg is tered as in hab i tants 25 by 4 Adar 5712 (1 March 1952); (3) they must have been res i dents by the date 26 on which the Law took effect . . . (4) the fact of their having been in (the State 27 of) Israel from the day of the creation of the state until the day on which the Nation al ity Law took effect, or their having entered Israel legally (see above) 28 dur ing that pe riod, must be clearly es tab lished. is ap plies even to those 29 whose place of resi dence is on land that was annexed to the state after its 30 crea tion (and not from the day of an nex a tion) and who en tered it dur ing this 31 32 *Divre Ha-Keneset . . . [e reference is incomplete in Rawidowicz’s text. For a full text 33 of the Law of Return, see appendix B.] 34 † See the deliberations of the Knesset in the matter of the Citizenship Law in Divre Ha- 35 Keneset, vol. 11 (Jerusalem), appendix p. 1723, as well as the report on other sessions of the Knesset devoted to this subject that were published in Divre Ha-Keneset. [See ap- 36 pendix D.] 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 140

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1 period legally. In addi tion to those who gained Israeli citi zen ship by virtue of 2 their res i dence, their chil dren—those born after the crea tion of the state and 3 who were res i dents of the state on the day on which the Law took ef fect—be - come ci tiz ens as well. On the basis of this pro vi sion, there fore, only chil dren 4 who are not older than 4 years and 2 months can gain Israeli citi zen ship 5 through their par ents. With re spect to chil dren who are older than this, it is 6 ne ces sary to ex am ine each case in di vid u ally to de ter mine if each of the con - 7 ditions mentioned above is ful4lled.* 8 9 Moral ity itself protests against these discri min a tory clauses. But there is 10 also a prac ti cal con sid er a tion. It is well known that in con trast to the traces 11 of dis crim i na tion prac ticed by the State of Is rael against the Arab mi nor ity 12 within its borders, the nations of the world would dole out to the Jews 13 throughout the entire world a double dose of discrim i na tion. One can see in 14 these discri min a tory clauses a vio la tion of the U.N. Charter, and the Declar - 15 a tion of Human Rights em bed ded in it, which the State of Is rael it self has 16 endorsed. 20 From an inter nal polit i cal perspec tive, neither the ingath er ing of 17 the ex iles nor the se cur ity needs of the state re quire these dis cri min a tory 18 clauses. If they were re quired, they would not trump the ob li ga tion of the 19 State of Israel toward the Arab minor ity in its midst. Discrim i na tion is dis- 20 crim i na tion, even when it serves the secur ity needs of a state. 21 De fend ers who at tempted to as sert the le git i macy of the dis cri min a - 22 tory clauses found after some effort that these clauses adversely affect 23 “only” 15,000 Arabs out of a gen eral pop u la tion of ap prox i mately 180,000.21 24 As op posed to them, one should re spond that: (a) the num ber of those af- 25 fected is not the point, but rather the very act of dis crim i na tion; (b) if the 26 State of Israel is not required to issue protec tive regu la tions on behalf of 27 the deci sive major ity of its Arab citiz ens, does it make sense, from a prac- 28 ti cal po lit i cal stand point, for it to dis crim i nate against a small mi nor ity of 29 the Arab minor ity within its borders? 30 Repre sen ta tives of the State of Israel—am bas sa dors, attachés, and its 31 angels of propa ganda—used to declare in 1950 that the Nation al ity Law is 32 the most “liberal” of Nation al ity Laws in the world, that there is nothing 33 like the freedom in it, etc.22 By con trast, one can 4nd legal spe cial ists of 34 our own who discuss the laws of the State of Israel from a “profes sional 35 36 *Yehoshua Freudenheim, Ha-shilton bi-medinat Yisrael (1953), 190. [Cf. the English ver- 37 sion, Government in Israel (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publicatgions, 1967), 257.] Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 141

“between jew and arab” | 141 legal” perspec tive, and who want to defend the govern ment, but cannot 1 hide their doubts about this mat ter. e words of Ye ho shua Freu den heim 2 in his above- mentioned book (n. 3) serve as a good ex am ple: 3 4 From the out set it was clear that in this area, it was im pos si ble to dis re gard the se cur ity needs of the state. How ever, the so lu tion at which the leg is la tor ar- 5 rived aroused sharp crit i cism in Is rael and abroad; many con demned the leg- 6 is la tion as a clear case of racial discrim i na tion. Although this accu sa tion cer- 7 tainly has no legs to stand on, and there can be no doubt that the regu la tions 8 against which the ar rows of crit i cism were di rected stem only from se cur ity 9 con sid er a tions, it is dif 4 cult to claim that the legal ar range ment is very suc- 10 cess ful or that so lu tions that bet ter 4t both the pro blem and the de mand for justice, and are less likely to mar our repu ta tion in the wide world, are beyond 11 the realm of pos si bil ity. It ap pears that the dis cus sion has not been con cluded 12 in this affair and that the injus tice will be recti 4ed in the not- distant future.* 13 14 May this be God’s will. With re spect to the Na tion al ity Law, we read fur ther: 15 Since the bur den of proof falls heav ily upon the non- Jewish ap pli cants for Is- 16 raeli cit i zen ship, it is clear that one can not speak here—as is rou tinely done— 17 of auto matic granting of citi zen ship for non- Jews. It is better to desig nate this 18 r o u t e o f a cq u i ri n g c i ti z e ns h i p b y n a tu r a li z at i o n a cc o r di n g t o t h e m o s t d em a n d - 19 ing condi tions, since it is almost impos si ble to bring evi dence beyond all doubt to demon strate ful4ll ment of each and every one of the condi tions for citi zen - 20 ship prescribed by the law. As a result, the author i ties have the power in every 21 instance to deny claims to citi zen ship due to insuf 4 cient evi dence. 22 ere fore, those who claim that the law re mands the mi nor ity to the 23 mercy of the author i ties and does not grant it any rights are correct. One can 24 only hope that the practi cal imple men ta tion of the law will be better than 25 the law itself. † 26 e Jew ish press in the Di a spora has ig nored these dis cri min a tory 27 clauses. Accord ing to one of the oppo nents of these clauses in the State of 28 Is rael, the Jew ish press in Amer ica was “re quested not to call at ten tion to 29 this matter.” ‡ Meanwhile, if our own writers had not heeded this request, 30 and instead would have protested as they should have, they would have 31 earned a re ward for their protest, as would have the State of Is rael it self. 32 33 34 *Freudenheim, 188. 35 †Ibid., 191. 36 ‡Shershevsky, “Seaife ha-hacayah be-hok ha-aezrahut,” Be-terem, 24, 24 Av 5712, 26. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 142

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1 But here the debt collec tors have found a place to collect their debt: from 2 the Galut.23 A num ber of the op po nents of this dis crim i na tion have linked 3 it to the Galut: for ex am ple, the critic men tioned above who has said: “e 4 d ep r e s si n g i mp r e ss i o n r em a i n s a m o n g t h e n o n -J e w i s h p o pu l at i o n i n t h i s 5 country and abroad, and espe cially among our Jewish brethren here and 6 abroad, that we could not liber ate ourselves from our Exilic complexes.”* 7 Is Galut the sources of sins, even those sins of which it knows nothing? 8 No Jew ish mi nor ity in the Di a spora would dream of dis crim i nat ing in this 9 fashion. And if it did dream of this, it would not have the chance to imple - 10 ment it. In Galut, the Jewish people was—and is—a discrim i nated minor - 11 ity, whether in actu al ity or in poten tial, on a small or large scale. In the 12 State of Is rael, the Jew ish peo ple be came a ma jor ity with the po ten tial to 13 dis crim i nate even when it did not ac tu ally do so. So what is the rel e vance 14 of the Galut and its “complexes” here? In the Galut, whether old or new, 15 the Jewish people has always been a victim of discrim i na tion. At what 16 point do we learn how to victi mize? One vete ran Zion ist leader in the State 17 of Israel, who fought in Poland against the discri min a tory laws that the 18 govern ment imposed upon Jews within its borders, revealed in public his 19 great dis ap point ment that this coun try—of which he dreamt and for 20 which he fought all his life—is proceed ing along the very path that Poland 21 and other coun tries fol lowed.24 22 e protest ers protest—even if they are not many in number, if their 23 voices do not al ways carry like a trum pet, if they do not al ways per sist in 24 their protest. Mean while, the gov ern ment pro poses its laws, the Knes set 25 ap proves them—with the re quired ma jor ity—and the state goes about its 26 usual busi ness. Custom becomes law, each law has its defend ers, and the 27 same dis crim i na tion con tin ues to stand. 28 29 IV 30 31 More severe than the above- mentioned clauses in the Nation al ity Law is 32 the [ . . . ] Law, which was approved by the Knesset on 1 March 1953 by a 33 vote of 22 in favor and 4ve opposed (out of 120 votes in the Knesset). 25 34 Moshe Smilan sky wrote an arti cle in protest over this law: “How do you 35 sit alone in Jeru sa lem, O Jewish consci ence?” 26 In fact, both re lig ious and 36 37 * Ibid. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 143

“between jew and arab” | 143 social ist kibbut zim “acquired” land by virtue of this law from their Arab 1 neigh bors, who were evicted from this land and made home less. e Knes - 2 set vote dem on strates that a ma jor ity of its mem bers op pose this law or 3 disa gree with it. And yet, it is now law, for the “law of the kingdom is the 4 law.”27 As if laws of this type are leg is lated by them selves! Can the leg is la - 5 ture legis late against the will of its legis la tors? 6 Until 1948, Zion ism was proud of the fact, and justi 4 a bly so, that it “re- 7 deemed Zion with justice”; 28 it did not expel nor would it expel Arabs from 8 their land. What was so felic i tous and hearten ing to Israel and Zion ism 9 was that the Peel Commis sion and other commis sions of inquiry that stud- 10 ied every nook and cranny of modern- day Pales tine up to the Second 11 World War, were never able to jus tify the claim of ex pul sion that hat ers of 12 Zion used to raise.29 Is our moral and prac ti cal po lit i cal po si tion in this 13 mat ter—in the re la tion ship of dom i nance that ex ists be tween one peo ple 14 and another—as attrac tive after 1948 as it was before? Some esti mate that 15 almost half of the Arabs who remained in the state (in fact, almost 90,000 16 souls), were evicted from their land, le gally and il le gally, and were ex iled 17 from their pro perty by de cree of the army and as a re sult of the security- 18 related laws. And if it were only a matter of ten or twenty thousand out of 19 100,000, would it be possi ble to ignore them alto gether? 20 You will say that Israel has entered an era of new fortune—not as a 21 stateless commu nity, but as a state, a govern ment that breaches boundar - 22 ies with out any one rais ing a voice. I would re spond: (a) the King dom of Is- 23 rael (that is, the State of Israel) must be careful not to breach boundar ies. 24 It is for bid den for Is rael to adopt the laws of the Gen tiles and ex pro pri ate 25 the pro perty of an enemy or com bat ant who was van quished on the bat- 26 tle 4eld; (b) in fact, it is not ad vis a ble for a weak and poor peo ple, weak and 27 poor even with the crown of statehood on its head, to pillage and plunder. 28 Plun der ing will not last long in its hands. In the end—and I should keep si - 29 lent lest the devil hear—she will be pillaged and plundered twofold. 30 As al luded to above, voices have been heard in the State of Is rael that are 31 bitter over the discrim i na tion against Arabs.30 Blessed is the press in that 32 coun try that does not lock its gates to these voices. Would that the Zi on - 33 ist press in the Dia spora, in all its mani fold languages, follow suit! Partic - 34 u larly the Di a spora He brew press, to the ex tent that it ex ists, which brands 35 as an out cast any one who doesn’t an swer “amen” to the ex cess of prop a - 36 ganda that simply regur gi tates old tales. Rest assured: the State of Israel, 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 144

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1 its gov ern ment and the Jews within it, will ul ti mately rec tify any wrong 2 within its bor ders, ei ther by choice or co er cion. ere will arise among the 3 Jews those who will protest and struggle to eradi cate the evil in their midst, 4 on the one hand. On the other, the Arabs themselves will 4ght with their 5 very lives to defend their rights in the State of Israel. Moreo ver, public opin- 6 ion in the Arab countries—and the rest of the world—will also play a role. 7 In light of this, it is far better for the State of Israel that this work not be 8 done by others. One surely hopes that the rela tion ship between Jew and 9 Arab not become a subject for discus sion in the U.N. or in the world press. 10 e United Na tions does not in ter vene in the do mes tic af fairs of coun tries, 11 and yet its plat form is open to any and all de nounc ers. A num ber of those 12 coun tries are bur dened by their own mi nor ity pro blems. One coun try may 13 say to another: “Re move the beam from be tween your eyes. And the other 14 responds: Remove the splinter from between your teeth.”31 But many are 15 the beams, and many are the splinters in this world. Indeed, sins abound 16 on all sides, and thus there is no conso la tion. 17 It is not the dis cri min a tory acts in the areas of cit i zen ship and pro p- 18 erty—en acted in a par tic u lar time—that are the heart of the trou ble be- 19 tween Jew and Arab. ey are in sig nif i cant com pared to one major act of 20 dis crim i na tion: the de nial of re pa tri a tion that was im posed upon the 21 Arabs who left Pa les tine—or took cight from it—with the out break of war 22 between the State of Israel and the Arab countries—or more accu rately, 23 with the at tack of the Arab coun tries on the State of Is rael. 24 25 V 26 27 e mat ter of the Arab re fu gees is ex tremely ser i ous, now and in the fu - 28 ture; any one who ig nores it does no favor to Is rael. I don’t know the num - 29 ber of refu gees. e Arabs speak at times of a million souls or more. By con- 30 trast, there are those who set the 4g ure at 4ve, six, or seven hun dred; that 31 is, about the number of aolim (Jew ish im mi grants) to the State of Is rael be - 32 tween 1948 and 1951.32 e num ber is not sig nif i cant here; nor is the re a son 33 for the Arabs’ exit or cight. It matters little whether they left because their 34 Arab brothers and British friends incited them to do so by promis ing them 35 a quick re turn to a Pa les tine in which there would be no State of Is rael, or 36 whether they ced out of fear of the Jews (the Deir Yassin massa cre, 33 for ex- 37 ample, certainly could have frightened the Arabs of this country), or out of Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 145

“between jew and arab” | 145 the chaos of war that up roots peo ple from their place of res i dence and 1 sweeps them beyond the borders, or out of polit i cal naïveté and “techni - 2 cal” ig nor ance (it is told that a night rain storm once drove the Arabs from 3 their homes in Safed, and they believed that it was the “secret weapon” of 4 the Jews that trig gered the storm). 5 Noth ing stands be fore me—be fore Is rael and the en tire world—ex cept 6 this simple fact: hundreds of thousands of Arabs, man, woman, and child, 7 left this country, and the State of Israel will not permit them to return to 8 their homes and set tle on their land, the land of their fa thers, and of their 9 fa ther’s fa thers. From 1948 on, I have spent much time think ing about this 10 fact, from all angles, and to the best of my ability. But it is impos si ble for 11 me to come to terms with it in any way, shape, or form. 12 If all of the hundreds of thousands of Arabs had fought as soldiers 13 against the Is rael De fense Forces, would they have lost the right to re turn 14 to their property? Would they not be like prison ers of war, who are per- 15 mit ted to return to their terri tory at the end of the war or after the signing 16 of a peace treaty? 17 Has even this cus tom been elim i nated from our world? e Arabs in 18 question do not have the status of prison ers of war. ey are refu gees. e 19 State of Israel had the right—and obli ga tion—to inves ti gate each and every 20 one of them upon his re turn home, and with the most thor ough scru tiny; 21 it could have shut its gates to spies and incit ers. But it has instead shut its 22 gates to every refu gee, to men, women, and children who did not commit 23 any wrong. When did this become a posi tive command ment in Israel? 34 24 When I used to hear in 1948–49 and after Jewish leaders, mini sters of the 25 State of Israel, Zion ist writers, and even non- Zionists ofer fulsome praise 26 for the mira cle, indeed, to the greatest of all mira cles to happen to Israel 27 (in their words), the fact that six, seven, or eight hundred thousand resi - 28 dents of Pales tine—even if it were four hundred thousand or less—became 29 re fu gees, I would ask my self: is this re ally a mir a cle for “Is rael”? On the 30 contrary, it is a trap. A snare that history has set for us, and into which we 31 have fallen. is is not the kind of mira cle that “Israel” can or must bless. 32 ere is no place for it in the “About these Mira cles” bless ing re cited by a 33 people that has learned about mira cles over the gener a tions. 35 “Israel” 34 should not rejoice at mira cles of this sort. 35 If the cight of Arabs from the Land of Israel be a mira cle in any way, it 36 is only in that the State of Is rael does not per mit the ex iled to re turn.36 And 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 146

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1 the Arabs never im a gined that they would be ex pelled from their lands for 2 good because of the “sin” of their cight with the outbreak of the war. is 3 re ally is our own hand work. And our hands, the hands of Jacob, were not 4 created for this task. 5 6 VI 7 8 ere are several aspects of the refu gee question before us. e 4rst of 9 these is the moral as pect, with which I have great dif 4 culty. In deed, it is 10 very dif 4 cult to preach about mo ral ity in this world in the twen ti eth cen - 11 tury. How much more dif4 cult it is to preach moral ity to “Israel,” the vic- 12 tim of the world’s im mo ral ity for more than two thou sand years! Is there 13 any nation on the face of this earth that has the author ity to admon ish Is - 14 rael? But “Israel” should admon ish itself. e source of wisdom is moral - 15 ity: the 4rst prin ci ple is that rule which gov erns the re la tion ship be tween 16 man and his neighbor. As a practi cal matter, if moral ity prevails in the 17 world, Israel has a future—some hope—in it. If moral ity falters, having 18 reached the low est rung, Is rael will go from bad to worse. e ver dict that 19 the State of Israel pronounced upon the Arab refu gees is an act that should 20 not have been un der taken as a mat ter of mo ral ity. We were once cer tain 21 that such an act could never have been under taken by Jews. Now that we 22 have de scended into the val ley of “the shadow of death”37—that is, into the 23 moral ity of the Gentile nations—we think and act like they do: an indi vid - 24 ual’s moral ity is one thing, that of a country another; that which is consi - 25 dered an evil deed between indi vid u als is deemed a moral obli ga tion, a 26 com mand ment, among na tions, as if “ou shall not mur der” and “ou 27 shall not steal,” and the rest of the Ten Com mand ments apply only to in - 28 divid u als in order to teach us that there is nothing in them that pertains 29 to a large group of people, to a soci ety at large or to its diverse parts. No de- 30 fender of Is rael can ex plain away this deed with his my riad jus ti4 ca tions. 31 We need not continue elaborating on this point of morality. I shall limit 32 myself to discussing in outline form the political and practical aspects of 33 this decree38 as it afects the Jewish people and the State of Israel as part 34 of it:* 35 36 *See Divre ha-Keneset. [Rawidowicz includes this note in “Between Jew and Arab,” al- 37 though it does not correspond to any superscripted citation in the text.] Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 147

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A. e econ omy of the state: Ac cord ing to ex perts in this mat ter, the 1 prohi bi tion against the return of refu gees did not bring any eco - 2 nomic bless ing to the state. e rates of food and ag ri cul tu ral pro - 3 duction would be much improved if the Arabs were able to return 4 and per form their work. eir exit has hurt the food sup ply of the 5 pop u lace and made the state de pen dent on for eign cur rency for 6 this pur pose. Had the re fu gees been per mit ted to re turn to their 7 property, this money could have been used for other purposes. I do 8 not know if the dam age to the econ omy was tran si tory, con 4ned 9 to the 4rst years of the state—or if its impact will be felt in the 10 coming years. In any event, the advan tage that the state (and its 11 Jewish citiz ens as indi vid u als) seemingly gained from the new 12 owner less property 39—that is, from the refu gees’ property—will 13 not be an asset even from an eco nomic perspec tive.* 14 B. From another ec o nomic per spec tive, which is also po lit i cal at 15 core, one must in quire about the “boy cott” that Arab coun tries 16 have imposed on the State of Israel, which gets worse and worse 17 by the year. If the re fu gees were per mit ted to re turn home, it 18 would surely weaken consid er a bly, and eventu ally disap pear al- 19 together. Moreo ver, those hundreds of thousands of Arabs 20 would surely serve as a bridge between the State of Israel and 21 the Arab state[s]; they would as sist not only in im prov ing po lit - 22 ical rela tions between Jews and Arabs in the wider world, but 23 also in strength en ing the ec o nomic po si tion of the State of Is - 24 rael. at is to say, they would free it from its depen dence on 25 for eign as sis tance, or les sen it in a sig nif i cant way. 26 27

*This point about the “uneconomical” aspect has been raised in the country’s press. 28 For example, the author of the article [Zvi Hefetz], “Observations on Hofein’s 29 Speech,” writes in Be-terem 24 Av 5714: “Thus there fell into our hands houses, or- 30 chards, fields, vineyards, wells, and pipes, even whole factories with all their equip- 31 ment and warehouses. I do not want to attempt to estimate the value of this prop- erty that fell into our houses, but it was not a little. The question is really whether 32 they used all this property in efficient fashion (without speaking of theft, stealing, 33 and so forth).” Our author is doubtful whether they “used it for their benefit or the 34 benefit of the State”—that is, at the expense of the minority that was deprived of its 35 property. Does that minority now require reparation? Our author does not ask this question at all. This is not the kind of question that even one in a hundred Jews in 36 the State of Israel would ask. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 148

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1 C. Regard ing polit i cal rela tions between Jews and Arabs: the pres- 2 ence of the re fu gees out side of the State of Is rael is a major stum - 3 bling block to the normal i za tion of rela tions between it and (1) 4 the neighbor ing Arab countries, and (2) the broader Arab world. 5 Were it not for the re fu gees, the Arab coun tries would not be 6 able to hold fast to their refu sal to come to terms with the exis - 7 tence of the State of Israel. And they would not 4nd so much sup- 8 port for their refu sal in the wider Arab world. is problem that 9 we call the refu gees is the source of all obsta cles to the foreign 10 pol icy of the State of Is rael; its sig nif i cance is not re stricted to 11 the Arab world alone. e as sump tion in our stra tegy has been: 12 4rst a peace agree ment with the Arabs, and then a res o lu tion to 13 the refu gee question, or a reso lu tion as part of an agreement. 14 From the outset, this posi tion was never practi cal. And in retro - 15 spect, every one knows that it has brought no ameli o ra tion to 16 the Jews in their rela tions with the world. 17 18 VII 19 20 Beyond the Arab countries, is it bene 4 cial for the State of Israel, in terms 21 of its stature in the world, not to permit the return of the refu gees to their 22 homes? Many in the Jewish world say: e world under stands that the 23 State of Israel cannot cancel this decree. 24 First of all, does the en tire world un der stand? Can the State of Is rael re- 25 gard the entire world, or a large part of it, as the West? Will the East (Asia 26 and Africa) accept the oppres sion of a fellow Eastern people whose op- 27 pres sor is return ing to its ori gin? e latter’s ori gin in the East is begin - 28 ning to earn it a place there, even though it remains a Western people in 29 the eyes of the East.* Can those in charge of the pol icy of the State of Is rael 30 31 *I completed this chapter two years before the Bandung conference (Indonesia, April 32 1955), in which twenty-nine Asian and African states participated. is was the 4rst 33 meeting of its kind, inaugurating a new era in the political history of these countries 34 and in the realm of relations between East and West in their fullest scope. e confer- 35 ence closed its gates to the State of Israel in the spirit of the Arab states that oppose it— as if it is not Eastern in the least. Moreover, the twenty-nine countries were divided on 36 most of the questions with which they dealt—but they spoke in one voice (if not with 37 one heart) when they arrived at the matter of Jews and Arabs. ey expressed “their Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 149

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express dis dain for the ris ing star of the East? Per haps the East is des tined 1 to de ter mine the vic tor in the bat tle of the giants in our day, as a third plot 2 among two other plots that cancel each other out.40 What will come at the 3 end of the State of Israel’s plot if it be laden by the plight of the refu gees, the 4 refu gees of the East? 5 Second, why does the State of Israel think that the Western world truly 6 “under stands” this plight and has readily come to terms with it? e West- 7 ern world, which remem bers what Hitler did to the Jewish people and 8 whose na tions have done some rather im mo ral things to one another—at 9 least part of that world, adopts a “ passive- neutral” stance on the ref ugee 10 question. It is prepared to accept a reso lu tion of this question outside of 11 the State of Is rael—for the sake of “peace” in Asia, etc. But there is a world 12 within that world—even those who as sisted in the crea tion of the State of 13 Is rael, es pe cially the United States of Amer ica—that ex presses the view 14 from time to time that “the State of Is rael [has] an ob li ga tion to con trib - 15 ute so meth ing” to the res o lu tion of this pro blem: that is, to re turn some, 16 or most, of the refu gees to their land of ori gin. 17 State of Israel, do not mistake the silence of the enlight ened liberal- 18 democratic world—enlight ened in fact or only in appear ance—for tacit 19 agreement. Do not raise up a storm over every poli ti cian in America, Eng- 20 land, and elsewhere who occa sion ally breaks “the vow of silence and de- 21 mands some form of assis tance from the State of Israel” in this matter. 22 e world was si lent in this mat ter after 1948. Should we not fear that 23 its voice, which began to be heard several years later, will get contin u ally 24 louder and be come a blar ing trum pet? “Keep quiet,” as noted above, be- 25 cause the de struc tion of the Jews of Eu rope led to some per plex ity and 26 aroused a certain amount of unpleas ant ness. But I doubt that the major - 27 ity of the world is genuinely embar rassed by Hitler’s deeds against “Israel.” 28 29 full support for the rights of the Arabs in Palestine” and demanded “the implementa- 30 tion of U.N. resolutions on Palestine.” e issue of the refugees was the most serious of 31 those raised by the Arabs and their friends who oppose the State of Israel. And this is what decided the day against the State of Israel. 32 Many of our newspapers—in the State of Israel and the Diaspora—vehemently 33 protested the decision of this Asian-African Conference, some deriding it and calling at- 34 tention to its lack of substance. is criticism surely stands. One must look at the con- 35 ference thoroughly if one feels a sense of responsibility for the State of Israel and its place in the world of the East. [See the 4rsthand account in Richard Wright’s The Color Curtain: 36 A Report on the Bandung Conference (Cleveland: World Publishing, 1956).] 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 150

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1 Maybe they do not know anyth ing about what that de praved devil did— 2 just as some of our Jew ish sons and daugh ters do not know. And those 3 among the world’s poli ti cians who recected on the Holo caust, whether ex- 4 ten sively or not, hesi tated to come in its wake and preach to us about mo- 5 rality. is too is Hitler’s curse. at is, not only the destruc tion that was 6 brought upon us, but also the new era of apol ogy and si lence that the de- 7 struc tion brought, among us Jews and among the Gen tiles. Among Jews, 8 there is one response to those who mumble incan ta tions over the wounds 9 in cicted by each de fect or weak ness that you 4nd among the Jews fol low ing 10 the “third ca tas trophe”:41 “‘And Hitler was any better?’ You want Hitler? As if 11 there is no choice but this: ei ther one of our mis takes—or Hit ler. Among the 12 Gen tiles, there is, in their world of ra tion al i za tions fol low ing what Hit ler did 13 to the Jews, a sense that ‘no one could come in judgment of them.’” 14 ird, even if the whole world under stood the problem of the refu gees 15 and genuinely and sincerely accepted it, it is forbid den for us to under - 16 stood and accept it willingly. Among our founda tional princi ples is, Woe 17 unto the Jew who has been re built in the state of the Jews upon the ruin of 18 the Arab! 19 20 VIII 21 22 “e world under stands”—this is what is terri fy ing. is world under - 23 stood—it matters little whether a lot or a little, in theory or in practice— 24 what Hitler did in Germany, Czechos lo vakia, and later in Poland and in 25 Europe. Many around the world “under stood” his deeds against us. Un- 26 derstood and still under stand every evil under the sun. If the same world 27 that accepted Hitler and his ilk appeased him, made friendship and non- 28 ag gres sion treat ies with him, now un der stands the State of Is rael when it 29 locks its gates to the refu gees—this is a bad sign for it, indeed for us. 30 Jacob was “not un der stand a ble” to Esau his whole life. In this very “lack 31 of under stand ing” lurks one of the sources of Esau’s hatred for Jacob. When 32 Esau does not com pre hend the lan guage of Jacob—“have no fear, O Jacob 33 my ser vant.”42 But when Esau begins to compre hend the language of Jacob, 34 woe unto Jacob. Everyth ing of Jacob that can be under stood by Esau will 35 be alto gether elimi nated from the dwellings of Jacob, body and soul. 36 I fear that from 1948 on ward, Esau has been de 4l ing Jacob through this 37 “under stand ing”; the two have become alike. e twins are no longer Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 151

“between jew and arab” | 151 strug gling with each other. ey have begun to un der stand each other. Un- 1 der stand each other? Jacob is a brother to Esau, who always made of the 2 credo “live by the sword” a posi tive command ment. 3 At present, it appears—so it seems—that Esau under stands Jacob’s 4 deed. And “when it will no longer be worth his while” to un der stand it, he 5 will not un der stand it. He will then surely say: I don’t un der stand. He will 6 demand a full account ing. Will the state of the Jews and the Jewish people 7 be able to pro vide such an ac count ing, to be ex on er ated? Per haps one day 8 Esau and Ishmael will join forces in a single union to repay Jacob for the act 9 that he com mit ted in 1948.43 And when the aven gers are given the author - 10 ity to avenge, will they know any limit? 11 Until 1948, there was not a single solid complaint in the arsenal of the 12 hat ers of Is rael. We knew, and many from the Gen tile world also knew: the 13 blood libel is a lie, the claim of poison ing wells is a falsehood. ere is no 14 blood in “the bread of af cic tion”44 We did not de stroy the econ o mies of Eu- 15 rope and Amer ica nor did we un dermine the ex is tence of other coun tries. 16 Rather, the Jews have been a tool of preserv ing peace in the world. How 17 4ne was our moral standing in the world! Our hands were as clean as clean 18 could be. We did not spill blood, no blood at all, in any place or at any 19 time—al though we knew how to de fend our lives in cer tain places and at 20 cer tain times. We did not cause any man, woman, or child in this world to 21 shed a tear. We had no part in the vi o lence that the Gen tiles com mit ted 22 under the sun. When the hat ers of Is rael and the his to ri ans, for ex am ple, 23 sought to prove that the hands of Is rael were also full of blood, they were 24 forced to reach as far back as the Has mo neans. (Clar i fy ing the per spec tive 25 of these his to ri ans, though, is not my task.) From the days of the Has mo - 26 nean kingdom until the middle of the twenti eth century, one could not 27 4nd a trace of in iq uity in Jacob: nei ther spill ing of blood nor con quest of 28 land, or anything else of that kind.45 29 And now in 1948, prin ci pally as a re sult of the ref u gee pro blem, there is 30 ever- growing criti cism of us not only from the haters of Israel in this world 31 (who hardly need addi tional cause) nor from the poli ti cians alone. Rather, 32 it comes from intel lec tu als and histor i cal scholars who distanced and still 33 dis tance them selves from Jew- hatred. Even when they ex ag ger ate greatly in 34 insist ing on links between the Jews’ deed in 1948 in the State of Israel and 35 the deeds of vari ous dicta tors from ancient and modern times, are we able 36 to deny the painful fact on which they seize: namely, that several hundred 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 152

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1 thousand men, women, and children were forced from their land because 2 of our po lit i cal re vi val? Can we dare face our selves and say: We are righ t- 3 eous and did not sin. ere is no thorn in the crown of our king dom, the 4 king dom of 1948, no stain in the vest ments of our glory; our gar ment is 5 pure through and through. 6 When those of our ene mies who are not Arab will say, look what you 7 did the mo ment the door to state hood was opened to you, with that 4rst 8 small measure of strength and sove reignty that was given to you, what 9 shall we say? Of what shall we speak? What is so pain ful—the pain is so 10 deep that it is im pos si ble to lift it from the heart to the mouth—are the 11 German voices, the heirs of the Nazis who are full of wrath.46 ey have 12 been heard to say at times: Go look at what the Jews have done to the 13 Arabs, who lived in Pales tine for more than one thousand years. Why 14 should the Ameri cans, the English, and the rest of the West complain 15 about us and our par ents? 16 Time blurs the basic distinc tions between one evil and another, one in- 17 stance of suffer ing and another. But the vio lence perpe trated by Hitler’s 18 regime has no prece dent in modern times. And now his heirs, on one hand, 19 and in tel lec tu als, on the other, come and claim that while the present vi- 20 o lence is not like Hit ler’s vi o lence, it is vi o lence non ethe less; whether large 21 or small, every act of vi o lence cries out to God.* 22 I fear that those who do not “under stand” the plight of the refu gees will 23 only increase in number—and they will not be silent. And we shall anoint 24 each of those who does not under stand with the crown of Jew- hater. And 25 therefore we make an enemy out of one who is not an enemy, as if he seeks 26 27 28 *Many in our midst complain, and justi4ably so, about the English historian Arnold Toynbee, who compared the plight of the refugees to Hitler’s deeds. One cannot avoid 29 the fact that this historian was simply repeating a claim that is alive in the hearts of 30 some Gentiles, including the righteous among them. 31 Clarifying the Toynbee matter is not my concern. If it were possible to remove from the world this claim through articles protesting Toynbee’s words or through spirited 32 declarations of the sort that have been published in the press in recent years, all would 33 be well and good. In fact, this “literature” is growing in our midst by the day, but there 34 is nothing in it to neutralize the cause of our vili4ers, nor, for that matter, to assuage 35 those who are not Jews and whose vocation is not the hatred of Israel. [For a condensed version of Arnold Toynbee’s highly critical view of Zionism, see the interview conducted 36 by Louis Eaks, “Arnold Toynbee on the Arab-Israeli Concict,” Journal of Palestine Stud- 37 ies 2, no. 3 (Spring 1973): 3–13.] Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 153

“between jew and arab” | 153 to elimi nate us from the world, as if he wants the life, limb, and property 1 of Jews, though in fact he has no inten tion of doing so. ey are all our en- 2 e mies—and that’s that? If you want to place some of those who are not 3 hat ers of Jews among our en e mies, does this help the State of Is rael or the 4 Jewish people in the world? Or should we not instead preserve someth ing, 5 like the open ing to ward shared un der stand ing and feel ing that has devel - 6 oped be tween “Is rael” and the na tions in the past two hun dred years? Even 7 if that opening is not very wide, are we at liberty to dismiss it? We want 8 candor between “Israel” and the nations. Let the Gentiles think of us with- 9 out preju dice, but also without “defend ing” or “toler at ing” us. ey should 10 speak about and with us can didly, just as we ap proach them as free peo- 11 ple, by right and not suf fer ance. In this mat ter [of the re fu gees], we force 12 some of their best and bright est to van quish their bit ter ness—they are 13 af raid that they will be sus pected of hat ing Jews, though this is far from 14 their hearts—in order to sing the praise of the State of Is rael. All the while 15 they hide what is in their hearts. But they should speak to and of us from 16 their heart of hearts. Other wise, we will have rea son to be sorry. 17 And if a mira cle should happen and the plight of the refu gees does not 18 serve as “a 4ery stream” 47 that ignites the came of Jew- hatred in the world, 19 it will cer tainly not in crease love of the Jew ish peo ple and of the State of Is- 20 rael. us, some say: it does not mat ter at all if the world will love us; it 21 will re spect and re vere us be cause of our grow ing strength, and it will fear 22 us, for it re spects only the pow er ful. 23 Over the course of my life, I have never counted my self among those who 24 chase after the world and its love for Israel; that grand illu sion, embed ded 25 in the words of those who al ways praise the Jews, fright ens me a great deal. 26 27 28 IX 29 I am not able to ex am ine here all the claims, one by one, made by those 30 who defend the plight of the refu gees. But I cannot avoid discuss ing the 31 claim that has been repeated from 1948 on, in the State of Israel and out - 32 side of it—from the 4rst pres i dent of the state, Chaim Weiz mann, to the 33 lat est jour nal ists and prop a gand ists: it is not good for the State of Israel if it 34 has a large and alien na tional mi nor ity that is not Jew ish.* 35 36 *See above. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 154

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1 When advanc ing the claim of a national homeland for the Jews, Pinsker 2 supported as a key plank the idea of “welcom ing guests.” But when the 3 State of Is rael was created, it said then and still says: “We can’t have guests, 4 or citiz ens who are not of our own kind—that is, a national minor ity, even 5 the Arab mi nor ity that was the ma jor ity in the land of Is rael up to 1948.” If 6 only the State of Israel had sustained Pinsker’s vision, and the scale of the 7 state itself could sustain it, I would be silent. 48 But the fact that the world, 8 accord ing to our poli ti cians, “agrees” that “it is not worthwhile to permit 9 a large Arab minor ity in the State of Israel” is offen sive to the Jewish peo- 10 ple. e world does not at all trust that the Jewish people has the ability to 11 pro ceed in proper fash ion with “an alien na tional mi nor ity”; it is sim i larly 12 skepti cal of the ability of the State of Israel to support a minor ity of this 13 kind, to pass the test. 14 If it is not good for the State of Israel to have “an alien national minor - 15 ity,” then it is not good for any coun try in the world to have a na tional mi- 16 nor ity. at is, every na tional mi nor ity should be elim i nated. And if one 17 can not elim i nate it in an in stant, then one should weaken and un der mine 18 it until it rots away and passes from the world by “nat u ral means”—with 19 the na tional ma jor ity as sist ing na ture in its work of de struc tion. But don’t 20 those who make this claim re al ize that it ac tu ally un der mines the ex is- 21 tence of the Jewish Dia spora? 22 My query is not di rected at those who ne gate the Di a spora. ey say: 23 “Yes, it is true that we want to re move the Di a spora from the world, to bring 24 it to a point of cri sis that will re quire that it dis solve it self ei ther through 25 aliyah or assim i la tion. Indeed, any thought or deed that hastens the pro- 26 cess of disso lu tion is a blessing.” e State of Israel, however, frequently 27 s p e a k s o f a p a r tn e rs h i p between it and the Dia spora, which is to say, that it 28 does not “of 4 cially” make use of the lan guage of the ne ga tors!49 If the State 29 of Israel is permit ted to issue a decree of exile [sic] upon the “alien na tional 30 mi nor ity”—upon its own res i dents, po ten tial ci tiz ens by vir tue of their res- 31 i dency within its bor ders—to can cel their right of pro perty own er ship and 32 force them from their land, and no amount of mate rial compen sa tion can 33 elimi nate the spilling of blood asso ciated with the forced removal, then how 34 easy would it be for the ene mies of the Jews to justify the right to perse cute 35 the Jewish minor ity in the Dia spora—in the very name of the State of Israel? 36 For this is the way that you treated those res i dents of the land who pre ceded 37 you, whose forefa thers resided on this land for more than a thousand years. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 155

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Just as your broth ers in Pa les tine treated the Arabs, so we shall treat you. 1 ere is no jus tice and there is no judge, ei ther for them or you. 2 David Ben- Gurion used to go to great lengths to stress the respon si bil - 3 ity of the State of Israel and its Jewish citiz ens to the rest of the Jewish 4 world. For ex am ple, in his arti cle “Like All the Gen tiles?”:* 5 e Jewish citizen of the State of Israel bears respon si bil ity not only for his 6 state, but for his peo ple where ver it is found. To the ex tent that the good and 7 bad deeds of each Jew ish ci tizen de ter mine the fate of the state—and these 8 deeds de ter mine the fate of the state no less than the gov ern ment—they also 9 de ter mine, di rectly or in di rectly, the fate of every Jew in the world. . . . What 10 happens in Laos, Ceylon, or Leba non, concerns only the resi dents of the 11 state. What happens in [the State of] Israel concerns all the press in every coun try in which Jews are found—for ex am ple, all the press in Eu rope, Amer- 12 ica, Austra lia, Africa, and large parts of Asia. e [renown of the] State of Is- 13 rael spread to every coun try, even be fore it was es tab lished. And this is a 14 bind ing fact for the state and its Jew ish in hab i tants. e ci tizen of Is rael who 15 does not rec og nize this fact and its con se quences does not rec og nize the re- 16 spon si bil ity placed on the State of Is rael and its in hab i tants. 17 If the State of Is rael is re spon si ble for the “fate and status” of the Jew ish 18 people outside of it, and if every act that the state and its citiz ens under - 19 take concerns the well- being of the Jewish people in the world, then does- 20 n’t this af fect the “fate and status,” as well as the fu ture, of the Jew ish peo- 21 ple in the wide world out there? Does not the re spon si bil ity placed on the 22 state, ac cord ing to Ben- Gurion, com pel it to re gard the plight of the re fu - 23 gees also from the stand point of the status of Jews in the Di a spora, of their 24 struggle for rights in Gentile countries, whether the rights be those of a ci - 25 tizen or of a national minor ity? ey should not be deprived of their right 26 to property and land, and their posses sions should not be plundered. 27 28 29 X 30 Up to this point, we have dis cussed re la tions be tween “Is rael” and the na- 31 tions. From here on, we shall address the seri ous ness of the situ a tion facing 32 the Jewish people itself, from the standpoint of the Zion ist vision (princi pally 33 the matter of aliyah) and of life in the homeland of the Jews at present. 34 35 *Davar, 26 November 1954. [is paragraph is drawn from a series of quotes from Ben- 36 Gurion’s long article, “Ke-khol ha-goyim.”] 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 156

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1 It seems to me that when those who stand in judgment of the State of 2 Is rael de liver a 4nal ver dict, they will link, to a greater or lesser ex tent, the 3 break50 that began with the a liyah of 1948 to the lock ing of the [state’s] 4 gates to Arab refu gees. e redemp tive opening that was opened to the 5 State of Is rael, a re demp tion short and swift, a re demp tion wor thy of the 6 name and very long in com ing—that sud den open ing, a “mi rac u lous” 7 opening, that inad ver tent discov ery and then claiming of owner less land, 8 per haps caused the fai lure, to some ex tent, of the in i tial pro cess of the “in- 9 gath er ing of the ex iles” (1948–1950) in two ways. First, one can not ig nore 10 the fact that the “Arab mir a cle”51 created an open ing to the East (an in- 11 gath er ing of Eastern exiles), and to the extent that this opening to the East 12 expanded, it placed upon the state an unbear a ble burden and forced its 13 pol icy in a num ber of ec o nomic and po lit i cal di rec tions that were not be - 14 ne 4 cial. Sec ond, from the point of view of Jew ish im mi gra tion, this “open - 15 ing” blocked, di rectly or in di rectly, a liyah from West ern coun tries. I do not 16 dis tin guish be tween Jews, be tween Jews of the East and West.52 But the 17 opening to the West has greatly narrowed, indeed, has almost been en- 18 tirely closed. Some might say that this is only a tempo rary closing. But 19 this tem po rary clos ing of the gate dur ing the 4rst years of the ex is tence of 20 the State of Is rael played a dec i sive role in shap ing its image at home and 21 its status abroad. As a result, the gain from the aliyah from the East was 22 of set by a loss; that is, the ab sence of West ern a liyah, which the State of 23 Israel so desper ately needed. It is not yet possi ble to calcu late the value of 24 these “open ings” in min ute de tail. But it will be quite sig nif i cant in our 25 moral account ing. It should also serve to warn those who choose the short 26 route about the obli ga tion of taking the long route, which turns out to be 27 shorter and more be ne 4 cial. 28 We turn now from a liyah and the “in gath er ing of ex iles” to the as sis tance 29 pro vided by Jews who are not likely to im mi grate, and to the re al i za tion of 30 the Zion ist dream in its total ity. e lack of a peace accord between the 31 State of Israel and the Arab countries—which is connected to the plight of 32 the re fu gees—cer tainly slows down a great deal the a liyah of Di a spora Jews, 33 as well as their in vest ments in the state, which sorely needs them. 34 Moreo ver, I fear that the plight of the refu gees can damage—in deed, se- 35 r i ously dam age—the cha rit a ble im pulse53 of Dia spora Jewry for the State 36 of Is rael. It is not in my na ture to see the world in dark terms, but I am fear- 37 ful. Perhaps the day will come when public opinion in America and other Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 157

“between jew and arab” | 157 coun tries will scare of Jew ish cir cles, among them wealthy Jews, and dis- 1 suade them from con trib ut ing cha rit a ble funds to the State of Is rael. For 2 the clos ing of the gates of the state to Arab re fu gees is an “un dem o cratic” 3 act, and tramples on the princi ples of indi vid ual and collec tive freedom 4 and rights. It in tro duces bit ter ness into the world, to the point that Jews 5 in the Di a spora, or at least some of them, will be fear ful of iden ti fy ing with 6 the State of Is rael. At that point, a num ber of groups through out the world, 7 ei ther out of love of Arabs or ha tred of Jews, will begin to in cite over the plight 8 of the refu gees—and the result will be confu sion among Jews of the Dia - 9 spora.* Of course, the apolo gists will preach to the world about the plight 10 of the refu gees with all their might, but they will not achieve their objec - 11 tive. Fear in the world will be so great that Jews in the Di a spora, as well as 12 in the State of Is rael, will de mand an ac count ing of the re la tion ship be- 13 tween Jews and Arabs. Traces of this fear will be em bed ded into every phil- 14 an thropic effort on behalf of the State of Israel. 15 16 17 XI 18 We should not ignore the poten tial inher ing in this matter to edu cate the 19 future gener a tion of Jews in the State of Israel. e normal course 54 of the 20 21 22 *And they have already begun. See, for example, the American press from 1954 to 1955. 23 e improvements that the State of Israel made in the lives of Arabs within its borders 24 receive no special mention. In contrast to these improvements, discrimination against Arabs—and particularly the plight of the refugees—is publicized in the world press with 25 growing frequency from year to year. 26 In May 1955, a number of leading American newspapers published a picture of the 27 “4rst” Arab refugee family that ced Jerusalem in 1948 and then came to New York ac- 28 cording to a 1953 law that assists refugees. [Rawidowicz is referring here to the U.S. Congress’s Refugee Relief Act, which permitted the immigration of some three thou- 29 sand Palestinians to the United States between 1953 and 1963.] e family was allowed 30 to settle in America through the help of a number of charitable organizations. Do those 31 responsible for Zionist propaganda in America believe that this picture of the refugees wins friends for the State of Israel (and the various projects associated with it)? If the 32 American papers continue to publicize pictures of this sort, will they not harm the 33 well-being and status of American Jews too? And their ability to help the State of Israel? 34 And if this assistance is not damaged by the plight of the refugees, then it is not really 35 decisive in this matter before us. I only make this point, and others like it, in order to reach those responsible for Jewish philanthropy and propaganda who have before them 36 such matters. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 158

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1 State of Israel in dealing with rela tions between Jew and Arab has the po- 2 tential to distance its sons and daughters—the children of Abraham, Isaac, 3 and Jacob—from the princi ple of “brotherly co- existence” 55 between na- 4 tions (not just “tol er ance,” which is an in sult both to the one who tol er ates 5 and the one who is tol er ated), ac cord ing to which di verse groups of peo - 6 ple stand hand in hand with one another. is ten sion fuels and in creases 7 a sense of national “chauvin ism” in Jewish youth that is pointless in itself 8 and is likely to harm the un der ly ing foun da tion of the State of Is rael in the 9 fu ture. It un der mines the moral basis of Zi on ism that de vel oped from its 10 in cep tion to 1948, deep ens the lack of faith of the young in the con sis tency 11 of Zion ism and the moral ity of the State of Israel, and induces in them 12 grave dis ap point ment in the lead ers of the Zi on ists par ties, ed u ca tors, and 13 writers who made grand promises about the rela tion ship between Jews 14 and Arabs. Our atten tion was directed to this issue by S. Yizhar, the one 15 writer who sal vaged the honor of our He brew li ter a ture in the State of Is - 16 rael when he protested in his stories (“Sipur Hirbet Hiz aah” and “Ha- 17 shavui,”) the in jus tice done to the Arabs.56 From afar, I praise this noble 18 devel op ment in liter a ture and ethics that the new Land of Israel has nur- 19 tured; it is gain ing a re spect a ble place for it self among our writ ers. Here are 20 S. Yi zhar’s words in re sponse to ques tions from youth at a con fer ence:* 21 22 And so it was said in schools and in the Yishuv as a whole, as well as in the mouths of our lead ers, re gard ing the Arabs be fore the es tab lish ment of the 23 state. ey planted deep in every one’s heart that there is place for two peo- 24 ples in this country, that one does not need to push the other out. 25 We used to speak with pride of the fact that the English commis sion that 26 was ap pointed to in ves ti gate the ex pul sion of Arabs from their land found a 27 very small number of actual cases.57 We spoke of the inten si 4 ca tion of the ag- 28 ricul tu ral sector in this country, which opens up new possi bil i ties without having to expel anyone. We spoke the language of “We and Our Neighbors,” 58 29 al beit in dif fer ent tones and voices. But the con tent was more or less the same. 30 Today, without even speaking of or ana lyz ing the matter [we say that] 31 there is no room for Arabs in this coun try. [We hear that] they are not trust - 32 wor thy, that they can be a 4fth co lumn dur ing war time. is coun try is in - 33 deed only for Jews, because the Jew has no other place in the world other 34 than this country. But Arabs can live in other countries without harming 35 36 *Divre siah, 52–53. [e full citation is Divre siah: hartsahot ve-diyune haverim (Tel Aviv: 37 Miceget poaale Erets Yisrahel, 1951), 2:52–53.] Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 159

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their national sove reignty. e national exis tence [of the Arabs] does not de- 1 pend on the Jews. And so they have no place in this country. All of this is now 2 accepted in a simple and clear fashion without any seri ous debate. 3 What is the meaning of this? Where is the connec tion between these two ser mons? When were we more just—be fore the crea tion of the state or after? 4 When we were weak or strong? I see this as a psychic wound and a breach of 5 faith by those same leaders who spoke in such a way and by those polit i cal 6 par ties that changed their cag. e key point is the man ner of cast ing of, of 7 for get ting, of adapt ing to the new way. I do not bring the ques tion of the 8 Arabs be fore you be cause it is par tic u larly pain ful to me. My in ten tion is only 9 to show you of what I speak: phony edu ca tion. I am not here to speak of cruelty to man or coldheart ed ness to Arabs or of ruthless ness with respect 10 to the Arab ques tion, but rather about the switch ing of the cag at the head 11 of our camp—without so much as a peep. And thus, a certain miasma settles 12 in the bottom of one’s soul . . . 13 14 How could our ed u ca tors and pol i ti cians di vert their at ten tion from 15 this admo ni tion, which issued from such a loyal soul? 16 17 XII 18 19 It is dis tress ing that a cer tain ten dency is on the rise among our peo ple 20 and re ceives very clear ex pres sion in the case be fore us: one stan dard for 21 the Jews, and another for non- Jews. When they com mit an out rage, it cries 22 out to heaven. But when we commit such an act with our own hand, it is 23 an im per a tive that could not have been avoided. And if there is so meth ing 24 about it that might as sist our na tional re vi val, then that is well and good, 25 and should be praised a hundred times every day. 26 ose who dreamt of our national revi val—Pins ker, Ahad Ha-am and 27 the ones who came after them—com plained a great deal about our 28 national- social, or national- political, weakness; at times, they cast doubt 29 on the abil ity of the “cock” to be come a “na tion,” ac cord ing to the national- 30 political ed u ca tion that it re ceived in the nine teenth cen tury. (eir words 31 on this mat ter re quire closer ex am i nation). Just yes ter day we earned the 32 right to create a na tional move ment ca pa ble of con quest—and today we 33 speak of those weaker than us in the language of aggres sive nations who 34 desig nate the national movement of a minor ity that is not conven ient to 35 them as dark and “destruc tive,” or as an “enemy of freedom and progress.” 36 Some of our writers and poli ti cians speak of the Arabs—employ ing the 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 160

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1 language of the British, French, and Ameri cans (and not the most clever or 2 decent among them)—as purvey ors of a nation al ism typi cal of Oriental 3 peoples. As if this nation al ism is nothing but the product of incit ers and se- 4 duc ers, dema gogues thirsty for power—a foreign branch, “a passing con- 5 ta gion,” as is said, along with other descrip tions, in writing devoted to the 6 national question in the “backwater” world that is now awaken ing from 7 na tional slum ber. 8 Sometimes it seems to me that just as the Arabs in the State of Israel 9 and the broader Arab world misrep re sent the Jewish national idea, so too 10 do we fail to rep re sent ac cu rately the strug gle of the Arabs to re al ize their 11 nation al ism. In their eyes, we are “agents” of the West. And Moscow 12 spreads the cag of the West over the East too. Meanwhile, for us, they are 13 back ward “Asiat ics,” tools in the hands of ex ploi ta tive ef fen dis and of this 14 or that state that uses them and their na tion al ism for their own pur poses. 15 When we 4ght for our re vi val, we are men of vi sion, her ald ing a na tional 16 renais sance that has great value for the entire human race. And the Arabs 17 who 4ght for their ex is tence in their land of res i dence—what is the name, 18 or names, by which we call them and their wars? As Moshe Smilan sky has 19 written: “Our brothers, the children of Israel, who return to their land after 20 two thousand years of Exile, are daring ones;59 they are national heroes 21 wor thy of the world’s sup port—wher eas the Arabs who re turn to their pro - 22 perty after two or three years of exile are in4l tra tors, whose blood it is not 23 forbid den [to spill].” 24 ere is rea son to fear that the plight of the refu gees, and all that is 25 bound up within it, will add to this notion of a “new national moral ity” 26 that is stead ily gain ing strength in the State of Is rael—and which is not 27 new at all. In fact, it is like the man who conquers and subdues, and thus 28 not like the Jewish moral ity of which the Jewish people has been proud 29 from its in cep tion—nor like the mo ral ity of the “new Jew” that some of our 30 thinkers had envis aged in their haste in recent times. 31 As an ex am ple, take the man i festo of one of the found ers of Na ha lal, 32 S h m u e l D a y a n , 60 who sought to de fend the right of “He brew labor” in the 33 State of Israel—that is, after the Arab refu gees were not permit ted to return 34 to their homes within its bor ders and only 20 per cent of the Arabs who had 35 lived in the country up to 1948 remained there. It is impor tant to ensure that 36 the Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Agency and their settle ments em- 37 ploy “only Jews and not Arabs”—ac cord ing to Dayan’s ar ti cle, “Our At ti tude Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 161

“between jew and arab” | 161 to the Arabs,” which was writ ten in op po si tion to R. Bi nyo min and Hayim 1 Greenberg, 61 who ques tioned this prin ci ple of “He brew labor.” 2 is writer—like all Zion ist writers and leaders of the state—insists on 3 the uni que ness of the sit u a tion of the Jew ish peo ple in the State of Is rael, 4 as well as the state’s tasks: 5 6 e task of unit ing the frag men tary tribes into a na tion and re viv ing an an- cient lan guage that is in com pre hen si ble to most of the peo ple—no other na- 7 tion has this kind of task. From this we under stand that the standard as- 8 sump tions about national minor i ties in all aspects of their life will not be 9 part of this discus sion, because what is under stood and justi 4ed in normal 10 countries and nations is not always justi 4ed and proper in our situ a tion 11 today in Is rael.* 12 Even if we as sume that there isn’t a bit of ex ag ger a tion in em pha siz ing 13 the lack of sim i lar ity, doesn’t this lack of sim i lar ity serve to cover up an 14 ethi cal, social, and polit i cal injus tice done to another people, or to a na- 15 tional minor ity that was not molded by the same exper i ences as the Jews? 16 Our writer den ies eve ryth ing; Jacob has no sin: 17 18 Did we commit a wrong to the Arabs by taking their land, homes, and all their 19 p o ss e ss i o n s ? Arabs as indi vid u als surely suffered, but the Jewish people com- mitted no wrong to the Arab people. ey waged a war against us, sought to 20 throw us into the sea. We defended our lives, fought, and won. We acted like 21 a man who is drown ing and does eve ryth ing in his power to save him self. We 22 pushed the Arabs from their homes to their neighbors and brothers by race, and 23 saved our selves. Be cause we were slaugh tered and de stroyed in the land of 24 the Gentiles, we acted to save ourselves. And the Arabs, we shoved the Arabs to 25 the homes of their brethren, who have countries empty of people and amongst whom they can easily take root. Meanwhile, we can repair somewhat the in - 26 jus tice done to the in di vid ual. We fought and are 4ght ing for our ex is tence as 27 indi vid u als and as a nation. ose amongst us who do not agree with the ways 28 of this war of survi val are prepared to surrender, it seems, our exis tence as in- 29 divid u als and as a nation. eir Zion ism is not compre hen si ble, because it is 30 not con sis tent. Hayim Green berg and R. Bi nyo min, who claim that there is 31 ra cial dis crim i na tion, must admit that until the crea tion of the state they were parties to this discrim i na tion. And now they argue against it. 32 33 If we did push the Arabs from their homes a s i nd iv i du a l s a n d a s a 34 nation, t h e n t h e “ J e wi s h p e op l e ” c o mm i tt e d a n i nj u st i c e t o t h e “A r a b 35 36 *Ha-poael ha-tsaair, 45 (nos. 44–45). 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 162

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1 people”—to Arabs as “indi vid u als and as a people.” A war on the battle - 2 field is one thing, but the ex pul sion of men and women who were not 3 com bat ants is another. 4 Our writer does not have the abil ity—which is typ i cal of Zi on ist writ- 5 ers—to distin guish between moral ity and the polit i cal revi val of a nation. 6 Is anyone who assists in the polit i cal revi val of the Jews in the Land of Is- 7 rael, by def i ni tion, moral? And whoever ob structs is amo ral? 8 What after all is moral? To help the other, the per son who suf fers, who lacks 9 a home or means of ex is tence, who lacks hope, who lacks roots, who is op - 10 pressed, who comes from far- away countries without the language, who 11 needs to break from his na tive tra di tions, to get used to the blaz ing sun and 12 physi cal labor, and so forth. e people who suffer are the new aolim [Jew ish 13 im mi grants]. Mean while, noth ing of the sort hap pened to the Arabs re sid - 14 ing in this land. Are not the con tri bu tions of Jews from abroad to the State of Israel intended to build up the tribes of Israel into a uni 4ed nation in its 15 own home? e Zion ist Organ i za tion collected contri bu tions from the Jew- 16 ish people and built Naha lal so that it would serve as a founda tion and home 17 for the aolim, who come to rebuild and root themselves in this country. And 18 when Naha lal employs aolim, it is ful 4ll ing its moral ob li ga tion to the na tion. 19 Tell us, please, what is in your heart and then we will know what your Zi on - 20 ism is and what your mo rals are. Is it for the Jews to be mur dered and slaugh - tered in Exile, or is it to build up the Jewish people and the homeland? ere 21 is no half way mo ral ity. e ec o nomic frame work for our ex is tence still needs 22 to be built; it is not easy and de mands sac ri 4ces for an ex tended pe riod of 23 time. Polit i cal and eco nomic moral ity will be measured by how much it 24 serves Jews who have no bread to eat, who dwell in tattered tents, who ced 25 vari ous countries, includ ing Arab countries, endur ing physi cal and emo- 26 t i o n a l t o r t u r e a n d t h e e x p r o p r i a t i o n o f t h e i r p r o pIf ethis r t y . enter prise of ours—the “in gath er ing of the ex iles”and the build ing up of a na tional econ omy— 27 is not moral, then what is mo ral ity? 28 29 An eye for an eye, an expro pri a tion from an Arab for an expro pri a tion 30 from a Jew—this is moral ity? “To be murdered and slaughtered in Exile”— 31 is there no choice but to expel Arabs from their land, to push and shove 32 them out of their homes, as our writer would put it? Is it not pos si ble “to 33 build up the Jew ish peo ple and the home land” without com mit ting a grave 34 in jus tice to the Arabs? And if there is no “half way mo ral ity,” can an in jus - 35 tice to one’s fellow man be called moral ity? 36 If the idea of Hebrew labor was needed at the outset to lay down the 37 roots of the Jewish people in the land of Israel, is it not possi ble to surrender Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 163

“between jew and arab” | 163 this goal after 1948 when the Arabs have become a small minor ity, and 1 after Jews have taken over their homes and property?* Or does moral ity 2 dictate that even after 1948, one must discrim i nate between differ ent kinds 3 of ci tiz ens in the state in the realm of labor? Where are the Ten Com mand- 4 ments of this “na tional mo ral ity” in whose name our writer and his friends 5 up hold the State of Is rael? 6 Very trou bling, in deed, is this “mo ral ity”—and fright en ing is the faith of 7 our writer that: 8 [t]he Amer i cans will un der stand our sit u a tion, which is so clear and pro - 9 nounced. And they will judge us pos i tively, be cause if they re garded fa vor a - 10 bly those asso ciated with “Brit Shalom,” whom Magnes brought before them 11 in his day, they would not have agreed to the crea tion of a Jew ish state or to 12 62 pro vide con stant sup port for it to this day. 13 e con4 dence in America shown by this expo nent of “national mo- 14 ral ity” ex tends to this point: Amer ica will al ways un der stand dis crim i na - 15 tion against Arabs in Jewish settle ments sponsored by the Jewish National 16 Fund, etc.; it will always accept the real ity of hundreds of thousands of 17 Arabs liv ing out side of the bor der of the State of Is rael; it will an swer 18 “amen” in response to this “national moral ity” and “provide constant sup- 19 port” for it!† 20 21 22 *Michael Assaf—who does not believe in A. Sharon’s plans for the “exodus of the Arabs,” though in fact he accepts the idea of “transfer” in principle but has doubts about its 23 practical implementation—comments in his article “e Bad Myth of the Military Gov- 24 ernment” (Be-terem, 15 May 1953) about the “problem of idolatry”: “My heart goes out 25 to my persecuted friend, Avraham Sharon! He lost all hope to earn the right to sit in a 26 jail of the Jewish state, because of his romantic, fanatic defense of ‘Hebrew labor.’ Be- cause the Employment Bureau controls all labor in the State of Israel and faithfully 27 performs its task of protecting organized labor paid according to the Histadrut tarifs. 28 At any point where there is an ‘opportunity’ to push out an Arab laborer, even a veteran 29 worker with a large family, he is pushed out. ere are so many diligent ones in this work that I am sure that if R. A. Sharon were called upon to assist them, he would rise 30 up against them with all of his noble soul, which remains detached from reality.” If I 31 am not mistaken, the opening of the doors of the Histadrut (the General Federation of 32 Labor in the Land of Israel) to Arabs a short while ago greatly improved their position 33 in the country’s workforce. 34 † Surely our writer could not write his words about this “constant support” in 1954–55, 35 after a change took place in U.S. policy toward Israel and the Middle East. Even prior to this, only the truly naïve could claim that the support of America for the State of Is- 36 rael in 1948 was “constant.” 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 164

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1 A last word about moral ity between Jew and Arab. e period between 2 1948 and now* places in ques tion the very mo ral ity of Ju da ism it self. Is the 3 moral ity of Juda ism in which Jews have taken such pride, both relig ious 4 and secu lar—that great joy in which “Israel” reveled as a result of its lack 5 of ap pe tite for in iq uity, for doing wrong to its neigh bor—is there noth ing 6 to this concern? Can our ene mies and haters say of us that this is but the 7 m or a li t y o f Galut, the moral ity of a weak minor ity with its back to the wall, 8 the moral ity of slaves, the moral ity of a group that does not have the abil- 9 ity to do what other normal groups do? So the Jew was given sove reignty 10 in a small patch of land—and he acts like any Gen tile under the sun. Your 11 enemy lashed out, so kill him. He killed one or more from your camp, go 12 seek him out and kill him—and his family and the family of his family. Be- 13 cause this is the “only language” under stand a ble to your enemy. 14 15 *I wrote the bulk of this ap pen dix two years be fore the Kibya epi sode. On the night of 14– 16 15 Octo ber 1953, an “armed band” from the State of Israel undertook an attack on a village in 17 Transjor dan in which more than sixty people, includ ing women and children, were killed— in retalia tion for an attack by Arabs from Transjor dan on 13 Octo ber on a single house in a 18 Jewish village in which a woman and her two children were killed in their sleep (and others 19 injured). e Kibya episode disturbed Diaspora Jewry greatly, but they did not hasten to crit- 20 icize it in public in order not to cause harm to the State of Israel. In the words of the author of the “Seventh Column,” Nathan Alter man, it was impor - 21 tant to give expres sion to the thought of those children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who 22 did not count them selves among the con ceal ers of this epi sode: “Per haps He knows / Who 23 sits on high / Why it was with all its signs? / We labor to de fend today / A dark act / Whose 24 face is not His face / An act whose re pu dia tion is not sub ject to de bate among us, but we all secretly / Say it was neces sary and impera tive / And yet it could have been done differ - 25 ently / An act that those among us know / Can only with eyes forced shut / be pushed 26 among the noble deeds / Among which we labor to place it squarely. /Only the celes tial 27 heavens know how and why /We cling to our righteous ness rather than accept it as a 28 wrong . . . / What would the State and nation stand to lose / If we stood up and rejected it / In a loud voice in front of all / God only knows when we be came reti cent / To call it by a 29 name that is known, and tremulous / And when we began to allow foreign preachers / To 30 say what we should be saying in Hebrew. / And when we began to exer cise ourselves so 31 much / Not to open our mouths, Heaven forbid / Even though in this way (as was already proven) / We give it more salience rather than less. / For also from the legal standpoint / 32 Not just from the in stru men tal or logi cal stand point / We must ob ject to the ob jec tionable 33 in order that / the just and wise be doubly af4rmed.” “aAl devekut she-ena bimkoma,” Davar, 34 23 Oc to ber 1953. 35 In the same issue of Davar, M. A. opens his ar ti cle “e Kibya In ci dent” with this paragraph: “e act of retalia tion in the village of Kibya has stirred up debate anew 36 about a whole range of ethics, policies, and instru men talities, and so forth. In particu - 37 lar, de bate has been re vived around the ques tion of re straint, and the ques tion of a Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 165

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We knew that we could not under take an unjust act. And in our hearts 1 we be lieved that we did not want to com mit an in jus tice to another. We 2 have no evil incli na tion to do wrong. And there were those who hung the 3 essence of Juda ism on the ina bil ity to do wrong.† And it has been revealed 4 in ret ro spect that this is but a lie. I shall not ex ag ger ate and say that “my 5 sin is worse than all the other nations’.” But I must say, to my regret, that 6 “my sin is like all the other nations’.” We have become like the Gentiles. Just 7 8 9 moral state within the global framework of nation-wolves, as well as the question of 10 yearning for Arab-Israel peace and the impact of this inci dent on these yearnings.” And 11 further: “ere is no reason in the world—moral, politi cal, instru men tal, and so forth— that Israel (the State of Israel) should not be enjoined to live in peace with its Arab 12 neighbors. Each reason on its own—and all the reasons together—re quire of us peace. 13 ‘ou shall not murder?’ But how will the State of Israel live and survive if, from Cairo 14 (haven of the Mufti and Nazi war crimi nals) to Lon don and Wash ing ton, they are shocked and ap palled by this one-sid ed ness?” And more: “Re straint and the de struc - 15 tion of the fabric of our life bit by bit, cell by cell over the years—how long can we pre- 16 serve ourselves in this way?” 17 And yet with all of the dif4 culty in this compli cated matter, the command ment not 18 to mur der, with all that is con tained within it, still stands in place. In the lan guage of our author: is is not a moral command ment alone, but a “politi cal” and “instru - 19 men tal” one as well. 20 †e words of David Frishman [Hebrew author and Zionist critic: 1859–1922] can serve 21 as an ex am ple. Al though we do not de rive our deep thoughts or Jew ish con cerns from 22 him, and be cause he spoke in no cently and with out any sense of the present stakes, there 23 are in his words faith ful tes ti mony to the think ing of a sim ple Jew in his day, a Jew who 24 sought to de 4ne Ju da ism as “a feel ing of up right ness, or bet ter yet, of the inability to do wrong to the other. is is it. If this up right ness came from music, I would say that the 25 Jews have a better sense of hearing, while other peoples are not so musical. is Juda - 26 ism came into the world and raised up a family from among the fa mi lies of the world, 27 and this family was 4lled up with a feeling of upright ness in every corner that it turned, night and day, and it could not, even if it wanted to, com mit an evil deed.” e Jew ish na- 28 tion “is distin guished by the fact that it has no ability to do wrong or evil to anyone, and 29 we 4nd that as a result, there devel oped within it a norm of abso lute upright ness.” And 30 further, “it is possible that in the entire world, he [the Jew] is now the only repre sen ta - 31 tive of that idea. It is pos sible that this has be come a stum bling block on the path of the rest of the na tions.” And fur ther, “it is pos sible that this is the se cret of the ha tred that 32 the na tions in stinc tively feel for this na tion, be cause it is the only one that still re minds 33 them without saying a word of that old and worn version of silent morality and of jus- 34 a tice and up right ness and of cau tion be fore doing wrong, wick ed ness, and evil” (“ Al ha- 35 Yahadut,” He-Aatid 4 [1914], 155). As for this hatred, will it pass from the world when the Jews will “earn” for them selves the ability to do evil, when they will be like all the evil- 36 doers in the world? 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 166

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1 as they have done to us, we do to them. As has been said already, the 2 world—the world of Esau and Ishmael—has no right to preach moral ity to 3 the Jews. e world is no better than they—and too bad for that. Are Jews 4 better and 4ner than the world, from every standpoint and at every mo- 5 ment on the stage of his tory? You may an swer: e world, at the end of the 6 day, is worse than the Jews. And my question is, Even if Israel is better in 7 general, is that true in that which concerns us here?* 8 ere are those who say that after 1948 an opening was created for Is- 9 rael to become a Chosen People. us, David Ben- Gurion teaches us that 10 “as long as we were merely a dispersed and scattered Dia spora people, re- 11 moved from any ter ri to rial frame work, sub ser vi ent to for eign rule and de- 12 pen dent on the mercy of for eign ers, there was no ob jec tive pos si bil ity for 13 us to become the ‘Chosen People.’ Only ‘Israel’ sitting in its land and self- 14 su‚cient can ascend the rung to become a Chosen People.” 15 My question is: Does not the plight of the refu gees caused by ‘Israel,’ 16 which now renews itself as a state, signif i cantly delay the ascent of Israel 17 to that noble and desired rank? Is it not the 4rst nega tive command ment 18 incum bent on any Chosen People: Do not uproot a man from his posses - 19 sions, whether he be a member of your people or not? Every one (Jew or 20 not) is called “man.” Do not build your self up from the de struc tion of one 21 who is weaker than you. Conquer your impulse to domi nate, as well as all 22 lesser im pulses, and per haps you can be come a Cho sen Peo ple. 23 is epi sode weighs very heavily upon us. e sun of Israel could have 24 risen to the full ness of its light in 1948, with out ob struc tion. ere was no 25 need, even in prac ti cal terms, to ob struct the light. In fact, from an eth i cal 26 standpoint, an obstruc tion cannot be removed even when it serves a nec- 27 es sary func tion in the real world. 28 29 XIII 30 31 Regard less of whether the Hibat Zion63 and Zion ist movements acknowl - 32 edged the re al ity of an Arab ma jor ity in Pa les tine at their in cep tion or not, 33 or whether they delved deeply into the “Arab ques tion” to ful 4ll their Zi - 34 onism or not, it was impos si ble to ignore this real ity in 1887, in 1917, and 35 all the more so in 1948. The world knew of this re al ity, and so did we. We 36 37 *“aAm se gu lah,” Davar, 29 Octo ber 1954. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 167

“between jew and arab” | 167 consi dered it and then accepted it. We said to the world and ourselves: 1 We’ll 4nd a way out, a path of “com mon ex is tence” for Jew and Arab in Pa - 2 lestine. Who among the leaders and writers of Zion ism did not promise 3 this path of peace and honor, whose guiding princi ple is total equality 4 rooted in a sin gle law for Jew and Arab in a fu ture state of Pa les tine? Not 5 only “dem o cratic,” “pro gres sive,” “ra di cal,” and so cial ist Zi on ists (in clud ing 6 some re lig ious Jews), but the leader of mil i tant Zi on ism, the Zi on ism of 7 both banks of the Jor dan River, whose op po nents have branded it as “im - 8 p er ia li s t ” a n d “ f a sc i s t ” : Z e v J a bo t i ns k y , 64 who was always among those who 9 pro mised a path of peace with re spect to the Arab ques tion in the coun try. 10 Even Avra ham Sharon—the father of the nega tors of the Dia spora among 11 Zion ists who arouses passions with his call for the exo dus of Arabs from the 12 State of Israel for the sake of both Jew and Arab—wrote several years prior 13 to the crea tion of the State of Is rael: 14 We Zion ists must assume respon si bil ity ourselves to solve the question of 15 the Jews in its enti rety. at is, over the course of a rea son a ble period of time, 16 we will set tle all of our peo ple, or al most all of them, on the ter ri tory of Man - 17 datory Pales tine, west and east. And this will be done on the con di tion, and 18 with suf fi cient in ter na tional guar an tee, that its other res i dents will not be 19 h a r m e d . If in the future twelve out of seven teen million of our own will sup- port themselves in this land, two mil lion of the other peo ple will also be able 20 to sup port them selves here.* 21 22 In the past two gener a tions, almost every Jewish writer who was drawn to 23 this ques tion re peated this pro mise to the Arabs, and if only by al lu sion, it 24 was taken for granted.† 25 If one had said to David Ben- Gurion, Chaim Weiz mann, Yit zhak Ben- 26 Z v i , 65 and their friends before 1948 that they were soon to stand as the lead- 27 ers of a State of Israel that did not permit Arab refu gees—men, women, and 28 children—to return to their posses sions, and thus up rooted and ren dered 29 them homeless, would they not have seen in this claim a contempt i ble libel 30 31 *Torat ha-Tsiyo nut ha-akh zarit (1944), 49. 32 †For ex am ple, Chaim Nach man Bi alik in his lec ture “Erets Yis ra hel” (1929–30): “Right 33 now, there is in Erets Yis rah el enough room for two peoples, as there will be in the fu- 34 ture. We do not want to push the Arabs from the land. We do not say ‘let’s expel them 35 to the desert, like Abraham the Patri arch did in his day to his son Ishmael.’ In fact, they set tled in this land and were laid bare in it.” Devarim she-beAal peh [Tel Aviv: Dvir, 36 1935], 1:156. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 168

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1 of the hat ers of Is rael and Zion who aimed to des e crate the name of Is rael 2 and be smirch Zi on ism in the world? Would they not have dis missed this 3 prophecy with disgust? For the writings of the founding fathers of Zion ism 4 (of all stripes), as well as the Zion ist press in Hebrew and all other lan- 5 guages that Jews used in the past two gen er a tions, are open to all who want 6 to pe ruse them. Is it ne ces sary to men tion the abun dance of in for ma tion 7 in them about solv ing the Arab Ques tion with out in cict ing any dam age 8 whatsoever on their rights or property? 9 If Aha ron David Gor don66 were liv ing in 1948, would he have per mit ted 10 the chil dren of Abra ham, Isaac, and Jacob to dwell in ex pro pri ated and 11 con quered Arab homes? Even if their ex pelled own ers re ceived com pen - 12 sa tion? What would this prophet of the re lig ion of labor have done, for ex- 13 am ple, with the newspa per of his party, Ha- poAel ha- tsa Air, which de clared 14 (in an ar ti cle by its ed i tor) that the State of Is rael “will not re turn re fu gees.”* 15 Would he have asked, as I do, how is it possi ble to say in the holy tongue 16 17 *“And our re la tions with the Arabs,” A. D. G[ordon] writes in ‘Let ters to the Dia spora,’ 18 “to the ex tent that they de pend on us, must be based on new grounds, on the same 19 grounds that we des ig nate in these let ters as exalted national and cosmic, univer sal hu- 20 mani tarian inter ests” (Kitve A. D. G. [Jeru sa lem, 1952], 1:553). “And not only are rela tions between a man and his neighbor an impor tant measure of truth, but also rela tions be- 21 tween one na tion and another. ‘Na tion shall not lift sword against na tion [Isaiah 2:4]— 22 this was the verdict of truth that love did not ful4ll. e truth will come and be ful- 23 4lled. rough the force of truth, we shall 4nd a path toward a shared life with the 24 Arabs and shared labor that is a blessing to the two sides. . . . We and they are natural allies. More than ethnic brother hood from within unites us, hatred from the outside to- 25 ward our two nations unites us” (“Ha-kongres,” in ibid., 203). 26 A. D. G[ordon] is also sure that “apart from their right to live and work (in Pa les - 27 tine) , the Arabs have only a his tori cal right to this land, like us, ex cept that our his tor- 28 i cal right is un de niably greater than theirs.” With this de gree of con 4 dence, he de mands that we be “very cautious in our rela tions with the Arabs, in purchas ing land and the 29 like, without trampling their human rights or forcing actual works from their land, etc. 30 . . . In general, it is incum bent upon us to maintain humane rela tions with the Arabs, 31 and not relate to them in purely nega tive terms—just as the anti-Semites relate to us in purely ne ga tive terms” (“aA voda tenu me-aata,” in ibid., 244). 32 As for his de mand to ar rive at ‘cos mic’ hu mane re la tions with the Arabs in prac tice 33 (for exam ple, in his “Yesodot le-takanot le-moshav aov dim, in ibid., 460): “Re gard ing the 34 choice of land, that which is allo cated to the Arabs must be upper most in the minds of 35 the moshav (Naha lal), not just for its own bene4t but for the bene4t of the Arabs. . . . In gen eral, all that the mo shav can do to help Arab work ers, we must do with out tak ing 36 into ac count whether their re la tions with the mo shav are good or bad.” At times, he ap- 37 pears to be opening a path to a solu tion to the Arab problem that is far from the Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 169

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“thou shall not re store the re fu gees?”† A state that seeks to ele vate its peo- 1 ple to the status of a people of human ity ‡ locks its gate to men, women, 2 and children who belong to a “foreign national minor ity?” Would he have 3 kept silent or perhaps blurted out like his friends and disci ples at Dega nia, 4 Na ha lal, and else where that “we have no stain on our hands, we are righ - 5 teous and have not sinned?” Doesn’t the pride of Israel lie in the fact that 6 the gates of “the relig ion of labor”67 are open to each and every worker or 7 to each and every future worker? In fact, the vision of a humane people 8 applies, in Gordon’s thought and in the thought of those that come after 9 him, only to Israel. Accord ing to this vision, the Jewish people must purify 10 its Galut “4lth,” its para sit ism (to which they cling, in exag ger ated fash- 11 ion)—as if only Jews are human, only Jews will achieve the rank of a 12 13 hu mane and cos mic ideals [he values]. We cannot ignore this “opening” in Gordon’s 14 thought. For exam ple, in “Pitaron lo-ratsyo nali” (ibid., 96): “It is an unde niable fact that 15 this land is ours as long as the Jewish people is alive and has not forgot ten it. On the 16 other hand, we cannot decide that the Arabs have no stake in it. e question is: in what sense and on what scale is this land ours, and in what ways is it theirs? And how 17 to recon cile the claims of the two sides? e question is not so simple and requires a 18 great deal of study. One thing that can be said with cer tainty is that the land will be long 19 to the side that is more able to suffer on it and work it—or in fact suffers on it and 20 works it more than the other. Logic dictates this, justice dictates this, and the nature of things dictates this as well.” 21 Was the preacher of the re lig ion of labor so cer tain that the “na ture of things” be- 22 tween Jew and Arab would always be of a piece with “justice”; that is, not with the jus- 23 tice of a group or with that of a certain indi vidual, but justice as it really is: “univer sal 24 human” justice, justice between one people and another, justice between a majority and a minority, between the victor and the vanquished? 25 26 †“Ha-mefu rash veha-satum,” Ha-poAel ha-tsaAir, 27 Sivan 5703. 27 ‡Lovely were the words of A. D. G[ordon] in this mat ter which I heard from his mouth 28 at the founding confer ence of the union of “Tseaire tsiyon” and “Ha-poael ha-tsaair” in Prague in 1920. [Rawidow icz here is refer ring to the union of two social ist-Zion ist par- 29 ties that would form the foun da tion of the Labor Zion ist move ment in Pa les tine.] Great 30 was their en cour age ment for both Jews and Arab in the days ahead: “If there is no hu- 31 mane peo ple, there will be no hu mane man, for there is no iso lated in di vidual. Who, if not us, the chil dren of Is rael, must reckon with this truth? We who learned 4rst that 32 man is created in God’s image must move forward and say: the nation must be created 33 in the image of God. And not be cause we are bet ter than oth ers, but rather be cause we 34 bore and suf fered all that was placed on our shoul ders. For our tribu la tions, which have 35 no parallel in the world, we earned the right to be the 4rst to arrive at this teaching, and through the force of our tribula tions we will 4nd the force of this teaching.” (Kitve 36 A. D. G., 260). 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 170

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1 humane peo ple. But when this peo ple fails to reach this ex alted level, does 2 it do so by failing to recog nize the “image of God”68 in that group of peo- 3 ple fac ing it? How have we forgot ten—and so quickly—the lovely dec lar - 4 ations we’ve been making for the last two gener a tions about peaceful co- 5 ex is tence, some even said brotherly exis tence, between Jew and Arab in 6 the Land of Is rael? We feared that the op pos ing side would not want such 7 peace ful co ex is tence, but is it not we who do not allow the Arabs to set tle 8 among us on their land in the Land of Israel? Who did not answer “amen” 9 after every prayer for a sin gle con sti tu tion for Jew and Arab? And if we for- 10 got all this, didn’t the world, in clud ing the Arabs, also for get it and con- 11 tinue to for get it? 12 Do not say: the Arab coun tries at tacked the State of Is rael in 1948—the 13 seven coun tries that at tacked, on the one hand, and the hun dreds of thou- 14 sands of Arab res i dents of Pa les tine, on the other. Do not say: there is no 15 certainty in poli tics; it depends on the spur of the moment and circum - 16 stance. At 4rst, we made declar a tions and promises, but aftere ward, we 17 did not follow through. At 4rst, we did not expel the Arabs, and in retro - 18 spect, since they left of their own accord, why should we bring them back? 19 Zion ism did not yearn for an expul sion of Arabs from Pales tine. It was for- 20 bid den to do so. And it was not in its own in ter est to val i date, with the 21 royal stamp that it re ceived in 1948, the ret ro spec tive ex pul sion of Arabs. 22 ere are prin ci ples among na tions, be tween Jew and Arab, that are not 23 time- bound, that must be pre served at all times and in all places. e de- 24 mands of the hour are a chal lenge for those who meet the chal lenge, and 25 a pit and snare to those who fail the test. 26 27 XIV 28 29 Would that the true face of moral ity itself could have encour aged the gov- 30 ern ment of the State of Is rael to move quickly to ward an ex am i na tion of its 31 pol icy to ward the Arabs—and as I say this, I must add that I do not be - 32 lieve, God for bid, that my mo ral ity is bet ter than that of the policymakers 33 of the State of Is rael, for whom 1948 and its ex i gen cies com pelled them to 34 im pose that fate ful ver dict on the Arabs within its bor ders. But now that 35 moral ity alone cannot foment the desired revo lu tion in the state’s policy, 36 it is ne ces sary to make clear to the State of Is rael the huge prac ti cal dan - 37 ger in a delayed reso lu tion to the refu gee question. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 171

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e state can not de lude it self with “ dreams” of that which goes by the 1 name of “trans fer”: the ex change of Jews of Arab coun tries for Arab re fu - 2 gees and their brethren who remained in the State of Israel.* Popu la tion 3 trans fers are un der taken ei ther (1) for ci bly by dic ta to rial re gimes in which 4 a popu la tion is moved from one country to another without being asked, 5 “What do you want to do?” or (2) will ingly by those being ex changed. Nei- 6 ther of these paths is the one before us in this case. Even if it were possi - 7 ble to under take a “transfer,” it would not bring much advan tage to the 8 State of Israel at present (for the state will not be built by immi grants from 9 Arab coun tries who have not an swered the call for an in gath er ing of the ex- 10 iles thus far and who would ar rive to its shores as ex iles with out money or 11 voca tion in most cases). On the contrary, this propo sal (for transfer) has 12 the poten tial to endan ger the well- being of some of our Dia spora commu- 13 ni ties in the East and the West, now and in the foresee a ble fu ture, on the 14 other. For all in tents and pur poses, the Jew ish com mu ni ties in Arab coun- 15 tries are at lib erty to choose their own fate. e State of Is rael can not treat 16 them as if they belong to it; that is, by forcing them to leave their country 17 of res i dence, as part of a trans fer. If it [the State of Is rael] com menced such 18 an “oper a tion,” there would be rea son to fear that some countries, and not 19 only in Asia and Af rica, would help them selves to their own “trans fer 20 plans,” or at least half a plan.69 ey would expel their Jews, whether the 21 State of Israel was prepared to accept them or not. And they would ask: 22 23 24 *Av ra ham Sharon, the most “logi cal” and con sis tent of the ne ga tors of the Dia spora, is faithful to himself and his “cruel” logic when he links his demand for an exodus of 25 Arabs—the Arab remnant—from the State of Israel to a “transfer” plan for the Arab re- 26 fugees. “And thus I always insist that we do not have the correct answer to the demand 27 to re turn the re fu gees that is sues from the mouth of our enemy. We do not have the 28 ability to re turn the Arabs who left. Rather, it is im pera tive that our an swer take the form of a coun ter claim: we must de mand the de par ture of the Arabs who re mained. To 29 a cer tain ex tent, these ar gu ments are inter de pen dent. e only logi cal guard against 30 their return is their depar ture. If for the past four years we had demanded—at least 31 theo reti cally, in the gen tl est and soft est way—the de par ture of those who re mained with us, we would not be compelled at all to return those outside; the demand for their 32 depar ture would be based on security grounds. If we were to declare that on these same 33 grounds, there is no possibility of return ing refu gees because they consti tute an enemy, 34 hostile, and antago nis tic presence, then the question would arise: And those who re- 35 main in our state: in what way are they dif fer ent from their breth ren? Are not our peo- ple mem bers of a dif fer ent tribe al to gether?” (“Heaarot diploma tiyot shel lo-diplo mat,” 36 Be-terem 4 [1953], 169). 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 172

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1 Why are we un der tak ing this act of trans fer? If the State of Is rael does not 2 send us anyth ing in ex change for our ci tiz ens, or does not want an ex- 3 change, why should we lose?70 In short, the “solu tion” [of transfer must be 4 al to gether re moved from con sid er a tion, both in terms of Arab re fu gees 5 outside of the country, and all the more so, regard ing the remain ing Arabs 6 in the State of Is rael. Here]71 t h e “ s ol ut i o n ” o f a ss i mi l at i o n ( t h a t i s , a ss i mi - 7 lat ing the re main ing Arabs in the state among the chil dren of Abra ham, 8 Isaac, and Jacob) would be in ju ri ous. “at which is hate ful to you, do not 9 do to your neigh bor.”72 From our begin nings, we fought every one who 10 came to as sim i late us. We saw as sim i la tion as an op pres sive act, as the 11 murder of our soul, and self- assimilation as a moral sickness; we fought 12 for our right to live as we were, preserv ing our distinc tive visage, our na- 13 tional visage, our way of life, and thought, etc. Heaven forbid if we do the 14 same grave evil to the Arab remnant in the State of Israel.* 15 16 XV 17 18 Earlier, when the armis tice between the Arab countries and the State of 19 Israel was arranged, 73 the fol low ing should have been de clared: every Arab 20 man and woman who left the coun try with the out break of war is per mit - 21 ted to return to their posses sions—or at the very least, they will be per- 22 mitted to do so after the signing of a peace treaty between the state and 23 the Arab coun tries, ex clud ing those Arabs who have no de sire or abil ity to 24 be loyal citiz ens of the State of Israel, indeed, and who would endan ger 25 26 *I am sorry that some of those drawn to the question of Jew and Arab at this time—es- 27 pe cially in the State of Is rael—4nd the so lu tion in the as simi la tion of the Arab within 28 the Jew. We must em pha size that there is no no velty in this “so lu tion.” Even a na tional Jew like Ahad Ha-aam, who rejected any form of assimi la tion by Jews (and permit ted 29 only a com peti tive kind of imi ta tion of the Gen tile), failed on this score and did not 30 hesi tate to per mit the Arabs that which he for bade the chil dren of Abra ham, Isaac, and 31 Jacob; that is, to hope that they would do this “dis grace ful” deed: “e Arab ques tion. 32 After we become a cultu ral force in the land [Pales tine] in the spirit of Juda ism, it is pos sible that the Arabs will as simi late within us. Have they not in hab ited this land for 33 a long time? Perhaps some of them come from our people” (“Maska not,” Kol kitve Ahad 34 Ha-Aam [1947], 479). 35 But how will the evo lu tion of a “cul tu ral force in the land in the spirit of Ju da ism” lead to the as simi la tion of Arabs? What is the na ture of the “spirit of Ju da ism” that will 36 prompt the loss of a nation’s essen tial charac ter and hasten the assimi la tion of the 37 Arab mi nority into the Jew ish ma jority? Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 173

“between jew and arab” | 173 the se cur ity of the state. A dec lar a tion of this sort would surely have as - 1 sisted in achieving a peace treaty. In retro spect, the gates of return and re - 2 pen tance were never locked.74 3 e State of Israel must 4x this in jus tice. It af fects the very soul of the 4 state, the very soul of “Is rael.” e pres ence of the Arab re fu gees from the 5 State of Israel is a blessing to those Arab countries that desire the destruc- 6 tion of the State of Israel—and a curse to the Jews. It would be comfort ing 7 to the Arab countries to have the world (or the U.N.) settle these refu gees 8 in some re gion, a kind of “ refugee- land” and haven for the Arab re fu gees 9 that will serve as a mon u ment of in jus tice against the State of Is rael and 10 the Jew ish peo ple where ver they may be. Or, it might dis perse the re fu gees 11 among the Arab countries, in which they will kindle (of their own will or 12 not) the came of ha tred for the coun try that forced them from their land. 13 e entire world will sit as judge over the reso lu tion of this matter; perhaps 14 the world it self could be judged tol er ant and defer this mat ter year after 15 year. Which the Jews can not do: they can not af ford to delay this res o lu tion 16 in any way. In fact, there can be no real reso lu tion that does not entail the 17 complete elimi na tion of the ref u gee ques tion. Every ad di tional hour that this 18 ques tion re mains alive in the world is a fur ther blem ish on the moral image 19 of the Jewish peo ple and height ens the dan ger to its fu ture ex is tence. 20 e question of these refu gees is not an Arab question; it is a Jew ish 21 ques tion, a ques tion that 1948 placed upon the Jew ish peo ple. e Jew ish 22 people must deliver this problem from the world with all delib er ate speed 23 and thorough ness. Let not a single Arab refu gee from the State of Israel 24 re main in the world. is is an ex is ten tial im per a tive for the State of Is- 25 rael, from which it can not cinch. 26 Accord ingly, I dare to propose to the govern ment of the State of Israel 27 that it assume the moral—and terri bly dif4 cult—path. From an emotional, 28 polit i cal, social, eco nomic, and mili tary standpoint, the dif4 culty of the so- 29 lu tion has not dimin ished at all. It requires nothing less than this: opening 30 the gates of the state to Arab refu gees after the Arab countries have arrived 31 at a peace treaty with it (ex clud ing those Arabs who en dan ger the se cur ity 32 of the state). e State of Israel should appoint a commit tee of inquiry for re- 33 fugees that includes members from outside the State of Israel (such as rep- 34 re sen ta tives of the U.N.), in order to show the world that the State of Is rael 35 is the state of “Israel,” the Jewish people. en the world would see how the 36 Jew ish peo ple rec ti 4es an in jus tice and solves the pro blem of the re fu gees. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 174

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1 I know well what has been oft- repeated: the State of Israel is still beset 2 by deep eco nomic troubles and requires a great deal of foreign assis tance 3 that has not yet been ad e quately pro vided. More o ver, more than forty mil- 4 lion ene mies surround her, whose ani mos ity was deepened by the same 5 “plight of the re fu gees.” And the ec o nomic and se cur ity dif 4 cul ties will mul- 6 ti ply when the Arab refu gees are permit ted to return. Despite all this, it is 7 hard for me to ima gine that the return of several hundred thousand refu - 8 gees will re ally en dan ger the ex is tence of the state (which is pre pared, it ap- 9 pears, to open its gates to one hundred thousand refu gees, and maybe 10 more, when the Arab coun tries reach a peace agree ment with it).75 e re- 11 turn of the re fu gees will bur den the state, not de stroy it. It is ne ces sary for 12 the state to take upon itself this large burden, and in partic u lar e l i mi n a t e 13 by its own hand the very dif4 cult problem of the refu gees. e failure to 14 return them will be far more burden some. 15 De fend ers of the plight of the re fu gees, in clud ing those among the Gen- 16 tile na tions, claim that if those hun dreds of thou sands of Arabs had not 17 left Pales tine in 1948, the State of Israel would not have ari sen at all. And 18 if they be permit ted to return to settle in the State of Israel, it will be de- 19 stroyed. Is this an ar gu ment of de fense on be half of the State of Is rael? Re- 20 cect on it well and you will see that they are mak ing a mock ery of the 21 dream of Zi on ism at its core. ese de fend ers af 4rm that they never be- 22 lieved in the dream of Zion ism. ey al ways knew that it could not be un- 23 der taken without destroy ing the Arabs in the land of Israel. In their view, 24 there was no Zion ism to speak of between 1884 and 1948. Its goals were in 25 fact nothing but an illu sion. 26 State of Is rael, be ware of de fend ers of this sort and their ar gu ments in 27 your de fense! Don’t the lead ers of the state and its rep re sen ta tives eve ry - 28 where speak of a pop u la tion of four, 2ve, or six mil lion souls in the state, 29 sometimes adding “at least” to that number? If the State of Israel can only 30 survive on the condi tion (that of the children of Gad and Reu ben) 76 that 31 those hun dreds of thou sands of re fu gees not return to their property, will 32 the vision of Zion ism, along with its scope and goals, inspire much faith in 33 the future in the hearts of Jews and Gentiles alike? 34 I am ig nor ant in mil i tary and se cur ity mat ters, but I do know one thing: 35 prac ti cally speak ing, 4ve or six hun dred thou sand Arab re fugees from the 36 State of Is rael out side of its bor ders are much more dan ger ous to the state 37 than 4ve or six hun dred thou sand ad di tional Arab ci tiz ens within its Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 175

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borders—even if most or all of them were a “4fth co lumn,” which they are 1 not. Are they a danger to the state? Yes, they are a danger in the state, but 2 they are also a danger outside of the State; and this latter danger is many 3 times more ser i ous than that within the state. Any as pi ra tion that an Arab 4 “4fth co lumn” may have re gard ing the State of Is rael is noth ing com pared 5 to the aspi ra tion of those hundreds of thousands of refu gees who dream 6 night and day, by virtue of their stateless exis tence, of the possi bil ity of cre- 7 at ing a state right now, of re al iz ing this goal in the im me di ate fu ture. 8 e State of Is rael will not be re deemed by ar gu ments of the fol low ing 9 sort: “e Arabs have a num ber of un pop u lated coun tries of their own, 10 and we only have one lit tle state.” Arab states are not pop u lated; this is one 11 matter. e rights of the Arab refu gees vis-à-vis the State of Israel is 12 another matter. Or when it is said: “e houses of the refu gees are now 13 taken.” What cries out to be heard is this: How were they occu pied? e 14 hand that takes is the hand that will return. Land cannot just be stolen, 15 any land from any land owner. e ingath er ing of the ex iles does not de- 16 pend on the refu gees; may it not come to pass that in our own quarters, we 17 seek to bring the in gath er ing about com pletely and quickly in this age at 18 the expense of several hundred thousand displaced and neglected refu - 19 gees. It is better to repair an evil later, and with many sacri 4ces, than to let 20 it fester all the way to the heart of heaven. 21 Sometimes, when there is trouble, a gain results at a future date. And 22 some times when there is an ap par ent pro4t, there is sub se quently trou ble. 23 e State of Israel can ask the U.N., as well as America (and the Jews 24 within it), to partic i pate in solving the e co n o m i c p r ob l e m bound up with re- 25 turn ing the refu gees to its borders—and I am certain [that they would re- 26 spond] with an open hand. Such would be a new di rec tion in the State of 27 Israel’s policy regard ing Jewish- Arab rela tions. e details of the arrange - 28 ment are best left to ex perts in the many prac ti cal ques tions con nected to 29 this ques tion, which is not my ex per tise. But cer tainly the ar range ment 30 would bring about a great triumph for the State of Is rael. All the ar gu ments 31 of the Arab countries and their friends in the world would completely dis- 32 ap pear. e Arab coun tries would be com pelled to ac knowl edge the ex is - 33 tence of the State of Israel and arrive at a peace treaty with it. e boycott 34 against the State of Israel in Arab countries would lose its polit i cal and ec- 35 onomic ratio nale. e moral standing of the State of Israel would rise dra- 36 mat i cally. All the nations of the world would know that the vision that 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 176

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1 Isaiah son of Amoz prophe sied in the days of the kings of Judah—Uzziah, 2 Jotham, Ahaz, and Heze kiah—is no mere rhetoric. 77 It is alive and well in 3 the State of Is rael that was es tab lished in 1948. “Zion shall be re deemed 4 with justice; and they that return of her with righteous ness.” 78 “ey that 5 re turn” re fers, on the one hand, to the chil dren of Abra ham, Isaac, and 6 Jacob; and on the other, to the chil dren of Ish mael: jus tice to all, with out 7 any discrim i na tion whatsoever. e people of Zion, “Jeru sa lem,” will not 8 pollute their hands with the 4lth of the spoils of a minor ity that is not of 9 the coven ant. ey will not resort to taking by force. Whoever takes by 10 force, the measure of justice is not with him. 11 e practical- minded will say: the return of the refu gees to their land in 12 the State of Is rael is a dream, a uto pia. But in fact, what is “uto pian” is the 13 total avoid ance of the ques tion of the re fu gees, de lay ing its res o lu tion from 14 year to year. It is danger ous to leave the reso lu tion to the U.N. or to the 15 Arabs. ere is no other path than the elim i na tion [of this pro blem]—and 16 by Jews themselves. 17 Our soul has tired of that imagi nary re al ism that governs rela tions be- 18 tween the nations and brings us, in every gener a tion, to human slaughter 19 and pushes us into the abyss of loss—of life and land alike. ere is a kind 20 of Real pol i tik of the hour, which turns out to be a total disaster the next 21 day. If there is hope that “out of Zion will go forth Torah,”79 this Torah will 22 go forth without any trace of that kind of “real ism.” It will be a Torah of 23 faith in hu man ity, a Torah of one law gov ern ing the state and “the stranger 24 who sojourn eth in it”80 (though the Arab who lives in the state of the Jew 25 is not a stranger), as well as the refu gees who live outside of its borders. 26 is Torah is time- honored to us, and its time is now. 27 Never in their history did Jews force refu gees into the world. Let not the 28 State of Israel begin its path by forcing refu gees into the world. 29 30 XVI 31 32 My words of plea to the State of Israel, its govern ment, parlia ment, and 33 polit i cal parties regard ing the abo li tion of the decree of the refu gees do 34 not stem from Arab- Oriental r om a nt ic i s m . 35 roughout my life, I have never been counted among those who be- 36 stow glory on the Arabs either in the past or the present. I am very dubi - 37 ous about de scrip tions of the be nef i cence that the Arabs be stowed upon Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 177

“between jew and arab” | 177 the Jew ish peo ple in the Mid dle Ages that held sway in his tory books 1 (theirs and ours). e Arabs did not do to us what the Chris tian Church 2 did, but most of their countries were not a Garden of Eden for Jews either. 3 ey heaped much scorn on the “eternal wanderer,” 81 a n d v e h em e nt l y o p - 4 posed his national revi val. I cannot close my eyes to the perse cu tions that 5 they in cicted on Jews in their lands: be fore the es tab lish ment of the state, 6 and even more so after;82 nor from the distur bances that they orga nized in 7 the Jew ish Yi shuv in Pa les tine in the days of the Brit ish Man date.83 I do not 8 trust them, just as I do not trust the Chris tians and their ethic of “love.” It 9 is not for their honor that I am anx ious; it is for ourhonor . I am concerned 10 for our soul, for the pur ity of the gar ment of Is rael. 11 e shadow of re demp tion (or the athalta de- Geulah)84 is not signaled 12 for me in the spiri tual and social crisis present in the state today nor in 13 the realm of ethi cal rela tions among Jews in the state. Such a crisis will 14 not last forever. e tempo rary clouds will pass, the skies over the state of 15 Israel will be clear blue. For the Jews in the state, the sun of 1948 is greater 16 than its shadow. e ample light in it dispels any shadow that steals into 17 its do main, de spite the dirges that are chanted in the State of Is rael and in 18 the Dia spora over the decline of the state. e main part of the shadow of 19 1948 is the rela tion ship between Jew and Arab. ere will be a shadow with- 20 out sun light as long as the State of Is rael leaves re fu gees out in the world. 21 e State of Is rael’s re fu gees are not the only re fu gees in the world at this 22 time. Millions of refu gees—of war, famine, Commun ism, and so forth— 23 wander from place to place in the coun tries of the Far East.85 But that 24 which is accept a ble to the world is not accept a ble to Israel. It is simply not 25 possi ble this way. However many oper a tions the State of Israel has under - 26 taken since 1948, the time has come to under take the most exalted and 27 dif4 cult of them: the oper a tion to elimi nate the problem of the refu gees. 28 e God of Isaac and Jacob promised the conquer ors of Canaan, and Jo- 29 shua bin Nun at their helm, “great and goodly cities, which thou didst not 30 build and houses full of all good things which thou didst not 4ll, and cist - 31 erns hewn out, which thou didst not hew, vineyards and olive trees, which 32 thou didst not plant.”* To them, not to the re turn ers to Zion from 1881 or to 33 the creators of the State of Israel in 1948. Would that there be 4xed in the 34 Dec lar a tion of the State of Is rael from 1948 the pas sage from the Scroll of 35 36 * Deute ronomy 6:10–11. 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 178

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1 Es ther about the Jews of Shu shan; namely, “the other Jews that were in the 2 king’s provinces,” who “assem bled to defend their lives,” did not lay their 3 hands on the spoils. 86 4 To sum mar ize: there should not be a sin gle ref u gee from the State of Is- 5 rael in the world. e Arab re fu gees should re turn to their homes, and your 6 state should be pure, O Israel. 7 And you, Jewish writers in the State of Israel, edu ca tors and thinkers— 8 rise and awaken and help the govern ment of the State of Israel to under - 9 take this oper a tion. Save the honor of Israel and of the State of Israel; pre- 10 serve its peace and the peace of its sons and daughters for gener a tions to 11 come: Open the gate! 12 If that will hap pen, there will be peace unto its sons and daugh ters. e 13 gener a tion of the victors in the State of Israel, the 1948 gener a tion, will be 14 sure of justice in this affair. May the days to come not demand that we im- 15 pose a debt on our chil dren and their chil dren’s chil dren, and not de cree 16 that they pay four, 4ve, and seventy- seven times for this “ben e 4t,” this “mi - 17 racu lous bene 4t” that came to their forefa thers in 1948, and that they hold 18 on to with all their might for their sake and for the sake of those who come 19 after them. 20 May there not have to be among Jews in coming gener a tions those who 21 will call to jus tice the gen er a tion of the gat e keep ers of the state who locked 22 the gate to former res i dents of the land—and who thereby opened, 23 through this clos ing, the door to their de fam ers and per se cu tors in sur- 24 round ing coun tries. It is in your hands, guides of the cur rent gen er a tion in 25 the state, to safe guard those who will come after you from the ver dict of 26 that future day of retri bu tion. May it not come, but if it does come, what 27 will be the price that the children of our sons and daughters will pay? 28 29 XVII 30 31 In my notebook from 1948, I found the follow ing entry: If this year angels 32 came to sing a song before the Holy One, would He silence them? e re- 33 sults of His handi work are drowning in a sea of refu gees, a sea that came 34 about, ei ther di rectly or di rectly, through the work of the most ex alted 35 among his Chosen People, who lived the life of a refu gee for thousands of 36 years. Would they sing a song today?87 e Arab refu gees did not incict 37 even a fraction of the evil upon the Jews that the Egyptians incicted upon Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 179

“between jew and arab” | 179 their ances tors for more than four hundred years. And when the Egyptians 1 drowned, no voice of song was heard from on high. 2 And if the God of Israel will not silence them, and the angels will sing a 3 song, and the poets of Is rael will lav ish praise on the lamb that was priv i - 4 leged to be come a lion, and they will con tinue to place the “mir a cle” of the 5 Arab refu gees above the other “mira cles” that happened to our forefa thers 6 over the gen er a tions, what will a Jew utter at that mo ment? What will he 7 do in the fu ture? 8 I have spoken at length with Jew ish men and women from 1948 on about 9 this matter of Jews and Arabs, and I have not yet been privi leged to hear 10 them say: “is is no time for song, ei ther from an gels on high or from the 11 Jews who dwell below, so long as hun dreds of thou sands of up rooted re fu - 12 gees are di vested of their homes.” I have learned this much. ose who are 13 not Zi on ists, and even those who are op po nents of Zion and na tional Ju- 14 da ism, the new anti sem ites and the neo- traditionalists, sometimes “un- 15 der stand” the plight of the re fu gees and jus tify it more force fully than those 16 chil dren of Is rael whose heart was al ways faith ful to Zion and its re vi val. 17 ese peo ple too, who wash their hands of the 1948 ep i sode, are fear ful of 18 inquir ing into the matter ade quately. I fear that it is impos si ble to 4nd one 19 out of a hundred Jews from the State of Israel (and not only there) who 20 doubts the jus tice of the ver dict of the re fu gees. 21 I also know this. Many in our ranks have said that my words regard ing 22 the rela tion ship between Jew and Arab suf4ce to disqual ify the entire proj- 23 ect of “Baby lon and Jeru sa lem.” e latter will surely 4nd someth ing in 24 my words pertain ing to other matters that will assist them in disqual i fy - 25 ing it. And I would not be wor thy of writ ing in the lan guage of “the herds- 26 man and dresser of syca mores,” the man from Tekoa and those who come 27 after him,88 had I not vanquished that which was in my heart in this mat- 28 ter, whether spoken or unspoken. A Hebrew writing to Hebrews in our 29 language, to his people, whose face is not facing outward, must think and 30 write with heartfelt candor. It is forbid den to hide anything. Gath does 31 not under stand it. And Ashke lon does not need it. e fear of the daugh- 32 ters of the Philis tines is not upon it: “Lest they rejoice, the daughters of the 33 un cir cum cised.”89 34 It is bet ter that I should be the tar get of the arrow of every cross bow in 35 “Israel” than I should hold my tongue and say: “Israel” has no sin. If “Israel” 36 has sinned, then this sin is part of me. If blood has been spilled in “Israel” 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 180

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1 (and there are several types of bloodlet ting), if “Israel” has spilled blood 2 outside of “Israel,” then no Jew is able to say: my hands did not spill it. 3 Do not say that as long as a Jew cannot 4nish the blessing for the “mir- 4 a cle of the re fu gees,” he can not re joice in the po lit i cal ren e wal of “Is rael,” 5 and thus has no place or stake in “Is rael.” Do not say if he does not an swer 6 “amen” to this blessing, the blessing of making refu gees, of uproot ing men, 7 women, and children from their property, he is our enemy. Woe unto the 8 last of the last who wraps himself in the splendor of his ances tors! He 9 should ask: those who rose up in anti quity against kings who breached the 10 wall, usurped the vine yard, and trans gressed the bor der, were called “trou - 11 blers of Is rael” in the lan guage of the ag gres sors90—but were they and their 12 descen dants the ones who caused trouble to Israel? 13 I have always had faith in Israel. And I pray: may the remnant of Israel 14 not commit acts of injus tice. May the Guardian of Israel protect this rem- 15 nant, which be came the foun da tion of the State of Is rael, from the in jus - 16 tice and de struc tion [ke liyah] now as so ciated with it. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 181

1 2 3 EPILOGUE 4 5 6 “Historical enquiry brings to light deeds of violence which took 7 place at the origin of all political formation . . .” 8 —Ernest Renan, “What Is a Nation?” (1882) 9 10 11 he motif of awaken ing one’s people from a deep and danger ous slumber 12 Tis, as scholars remind us, a famil iar theme in the history of modern na- 13 tional ism. 1 In the case of the Jews, a number of nineteenth- century journals 14 ed ited by in cip i ent na tion al ists bore ti tles an tic i pat ing or im plor ing a re vi - 15 val, a new dawn, or a rea wak en ing. 2 Cu ri ously, one of the sharp est ex pres - 16 sions of this motif came in a Hebrew poem implor ing Jews in Russia to em- 17 brace the cul ture and lan guage of their coun try, to join more fully not the 18 Jew ish, but the Rus sian na tion. Judah Leib Gor don’s “ Awaken, My Peo ple!” 19 calls out to Jews: 20 21 Awake, my people! How long will you sleep? 22 e night has passed, the sun shines through. 23 Awake, cast your eyes hither and yon. 24 Recognize your time and your place.3 25 Raw i dow icz made nei ther ex plicit ref er ence to this poem nor res o nated 26 with its in te gra tion ist ethos, though he surely knew of Gor don’s ear lier plea 27 for Jews to awaken from their slum ber. Like Gor don, he be lieved that the Jews 28 should rec og nize their “time and place”; namely, that they were at the dawn 29 of a new era in their his tory (in Raw i dow icz’s case, the era of 1948). And, again 30 like Gordon, he believed that the task of awaken ing Jews to the new real i ties 31 of the day fell to intel lec tu als: in this instance, to those who must implore Is- 32 rael’s polit i cal leaders to permit the return of Pales tin ian refu gees. But unlike 33 Gordon and (and many early Jewish nation al ists), he did not believe that 34 slum ber was the centuries- old con di tion of the Jews; rather, their cur rent tor- 35 por was a new devel op ment, induced by the hypnotic force of Zion ism. 36 37

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1 Raw i dow icz’s mis sion in over com ing this tor por took form dur ing a 2 pe riod in which the boun dary be tween the scholar and the ac tive pub lic 3 intel lec tual was becom ing more 4xed. Rawi dow icz traversed this border 4 throughout his entire life, moving from his detailed studies of Maimo - 5 nides, Nahman Krochmal, and Feuerbach to his more public mission of 6 reviv ing a Hebrew cultu ral nation. Ani mat ing him was the convic tion that 7 ideas truly mat tered, that they were in dis pens a ble sti muli to im por tant 8 deeds, not merely mallea ble constructs molded by and for profes sional 9 ac a dem ics. Even though his death in 1957 co in cided with the pe riod that 10 Daniel Bell called “the end of ideol ogy”—en tail ing, among other effects, 11 the seg re ga tion of the func tions of the scholar and the in tel lec tual— 12 Raw i dow icz never for sook this con vic tion nor the weighty sense of re- 13 spon si bil ity that accom pa nied it. 14 Above all, he re mained wed ded to the prin ci ple of in teg rity until his last 15 days. is meant that he was compelled at times to give voice to discom - 16 4ting opinions that, in his view, honesty or the Jewish common weal de- 17 manded; most provo ca tive among them was his call for Pales tin ian Arab 18 re pa tri a tion to the State of Is rael. But “in teg rity” also meant that he saw his 19 lifelong corpus as an organic unit, not divis i ble into isolated fragments or 20 genres. Bavel vi- Yerushalayim, the culmi na tion of three decades of thought, 21 com bined a re- narration of Jew ish his tory, es pe cially a re val u a tion of the 22 First and Second Temples, with an extended ideo log i cal medi ta tion on 23 Jewish life in his day. We may well fault the unwieldy book for its unsys - 24 tematic quality. But one cannot dispute that it sought to meld the histor - 25 i cal and the con tem po rary—for in stance, by coupling the claim that the 26 4gu ra tive “Baby lon” has histor i cally been one of the two centers of the Jew- 27 ish nation with the persis tent call to recog nize present- day Jews as a na- 28 tion both in their terri to rial homeland and beyond. Nor, for that matter, 29 can one dispute that Rawi dow icz saw a close link between the Jewish 30 Ques tion, to which he de voted much of his adult life, and the Arab Ques- 31 tion, to which he was atten tive in his last years. 32 Here too one could 4nd fault in his pres en ta tion. While seek ing to in tro- 33 d u c e p r a ct ic a l p ol i ti c a l c o ns i de ra t i o n s i n t o h i s d i sc u ss i o n o f t h e r e fu g e e 34 problem, he evinced little under stand ing of the massive social and polit i cal 35 up hea val that re pa tri a tion would cause in the State of Is rael and even less 36 of the de li cate art of dip lo macy that would be re quired for any agree ment 37

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epilogue | 183 be tween Is rael and the Arab side (par tic u larly if it dealt with the ref u gee 1 question). Moreo ver, his unbend ing alle giance to a Jewish moral excep - 2 tional ism sounded chauvin is tic at times, naïve at others. 3 For these and other re a sons, it would be easy to com pile a long list of 4 Simon Rawi dow icz’s defects and dismiss him as irrel e vant. But to do so is 5 to miss the hon esty, depth of per spec tive, and again in teg rity that in formed 6 his world view. Raw i dow icz un der stood what was mo men tous in the res - 7 tora tion of sove reignty to the Jews, how it marked the ful4ll ment of millen- 8 nial aspi ra tions and a remedy to the ravages of the recent past. But he re- 9 f u s e d t o s u r r e n d e r t o t h e i n t o x i c a t i n g f e e l i n g o f h i s t o r i c a l v i r t u e a n d s a c r e d 10 mis sion that often en vel ops na tion al ist move ments—and that en vel oped 11 the Zi on ist move ment and much of the Jew ish world in 1946. He saw 12 through the celeb ra tory mist of the day to observe that the triumph of the 13 Jew ish peo ple en tailed the fall of another. He also ob served that in dif fer - 14 ence and am ne sia vis-à-vis the re fu gees were the norm among Jews in the 15 State of Is rael and the Di a spora. In re sponse, he of fered as fun da men tal a 16 cri tique of this in dif fer ence and am ne sia as any Jew ish thinker of his—or, 17 perhaps, any—day. 18 In this regard, Rawi dow icz repre sents a stark contrast to those Jews (es- 19 pe cially, but not ex clu sively, those from the Di a spora), who identify them- 20 selves as sup port ers—in deed, as self- described “ad vo cates” on be half— 21 of the State of Israel. ese advo cates routinely turn a deaf ear to critics, 22 brand ing op po nents as mis in formed and ill- intentioned while jus ti fy ing or 23 ig nor ing trans gres sions against Pa les tin ians. ey often con vey the sense 24 that the de fense of Is rael’s po si tion hinges on the dim i nu tion or de nial of 25 P al e st i ni a n s u ff e ri n g , w h e n i n f a c t a ck n o w le d gm e n t o f t h e p a i n o f t h a t s u f - 26 fer ing—and more broadly, of Pa les tin ian na tional as pi ra tions—can only 27 lend credi bil ity to their cause.4 28 Ar rayed at the op po site end of the spec trum are those who are in clined 29 to see in Zi on ism the source of the world’s evils—and in the State of Is rael 30 the sole or primary state actor worthy of condem na tion in the inter na - 31 tional order. eir keen appre hen sion of Zion ism’s caws often prevents 32 them from seeing that Jews in fact have a long- standing attach ment, as 33 well as an inter na tion ally recog nized claim, to the Land of Israel. e ina - 34 bility of these critics to discern any legit i mate grounds for Zion ism, and 35 their one- side appli ca tion of empa thy—lit tle to Jewish aspi ra tions and 36 37

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1 m u c h t o P a l e s t i n i a n a s p i r a t i o n s — e x p o s e s a n u n f o r t u n a t e h i s t o r i c a l a n d 2 moral blind ness.5 is blindness encour ages, in an unhealthy dynamic of 3 inter de pen dence, the ongo ing myopia of some support ers of Israel who 4 t u r n o f t h e i r h um a ni t a ri a n s e ns o r s w h e n i t c o m e s t o t h e P al e st i ni a n s . 5 Finding the middle point between these poles is not an easy task. A 6 number of recent books, includ ing the anthol ogy Proph ets Out cast and Jac - 7 que line Rose’s e Question of Zion, at tempt to do so by ex ca vat ing a lin e - 8 age of crit i cal Jew ish think ers who, while often drawn to Zi on ism in one 9 form or another, were also acutely aware of the move ment’s pit falls, es pe - 10 cially re gard ing the Arab Ques tion.6 Rose, for her part, un der takes an ex- 11 tended and rather re duc tionist psy cho an a lytic read ing of Zi on ism that is 12 m a r r e d b y i na de q u a t e h i st o ri c a l n ua n c e a n d k n o w le d g e . B u t h e r b o o k d o e s 13 advance an argu ment that cannot be summar ily swept away: namely, that 14 there is a re cur rent ten dency within Zi on ism to sup press and over com - 15 pen sate for pain ful wounds in cicted both upon Jews (in the Di a spora) and 16 by Jews (in Pales tine/Is rael). 17 In the course of her discus sion, Rose treats a number of those men- 18 tioned in this book—Ahad Ha-am, Hannah Arendt, Martin Buber, Judah 19 Magnes—sug gest ing that they pursued an alter na tive Zion ist course that 20 con fronted, rather than ig nored, the more ig no min ious deeds of the past.7 21 Of course, she does not include Simon Rawi dow icz in her roster of Jewish 22 critics; she could not have known of his impas sioned brief nor of his belief 23 that ad dress ing the ef fects, if not the cause, of the “ plight of the re fu gees” 24 was an essen tial step for the State of Israel to take—indeed, a price worth 25 pay ing sooner rather than later. 26 e fact that Raw i dow icz is un known to Rose, and most oth ers, as one 27 of the most sensi tive and empathic critics of Zion ism owes as much to him 28 as to anyone else. As we know, he clung to a language, style, and genre that 29 were not easy to under stand. And in the matter that has concerned us 30 here, he poured out his soul over, but ulti mately published nary a word 31 about, the Arab Question. 32 Raw i dow icz still has a good deal to say to us today. In terms of his grand 33 life pro ject, the idea of a mean ing ful part ner ship be tween “Bab y lon and 34 Je ru sa lem” re mains quite ger mane, es pe cially given the dem o graphic par- 35 ity between the Dia spora and Israeli popu la tions. Moreo ver, his intui tion 36 that ven er a tion for the State of Is rael qua state mis took the means for the 37 end of Jewish nation al ism merits atten tion. His was not a call to oppose Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 185

epilogue | 185 the ex is tence of the state, but rather to ques tion whether that state, as dis- 1 tinct from Jewish relig ion, culture, or the global nation, should be the foun- 2 da tion of Jewish group identity. is challenge to “statism” did not deny 3 that the State of Israel could serve a variety of impor tant aims, includ ing 4 the provi sion of physi cal defense, social services, and a framework for He- 5 brew cul ture for its Jew ish ci tiz ens. But it stub bornly re fused to re gard Jew- 6 ish sove reignty as a supreme value in itself, and surely not as commend a - 7 ble if it entailed the nega tion of the Dia spora or discrim i na tion against 8 P al e st i ni a n A r a b s . 9 e les sons of Jew ish his tory taught Raw i dow icz that power, while ne - 10 ces sary, was fraught with dan ger un less con stantly checked by moral and 11 polit i cal constraints. He could not accept the view of Zion ists in his day— 12 from David Ben- Gurion to Av ra ham Sharon—that the as sump tion of state- 13 hood was the ful4ll ment of Jewish history. He would perhaps have even 14 more trouble under stand ing the claims of those today, such as Ruth Wisse 15 in her recent Jews and Power, who move in an op po site di rec tion and main- 16 tain that the State of Israel is not suf4 ciently unmoored from a self- 17 destructive “Di a spora stra tegy of ac com mo da tion” (as, for ex am ple, when 18 it engages in peace nego ti a tions with the Pales tin ians). 8 Raw i dow icz, for 19 his part, thought that the state had abandoned that strategy at its incep - 20 tion and, in fact, would do well to recall the princi ple, born in condi tions 21 of exile, to respect the stranger—“for you were strangers in the land of 22 Egypt” (Ex o dus 22:21). 23  i s d i st i n ct i v e m o r a l s e ns ib i li t y p u ls a t e s t h r o u g h R a wi d o wi c z ’ s c h a p - 24 ter on the Arab Question. “Between Jew and Arab” brought to the fore his 25 voca tion as a moral critic more than as a pragmatic polit i cal actor engaged 26 in the art of ne go ti a tion and com prom ise. Ac cord ingly, his call to re spon - 27 si bil ity might be dis missed by some as ir re de em a bly naïve. But its un re - 28 lenting intro spec tion—a quality often lacking in the self- aggrandizing rhe- 29 toric of nation al ist movements—bored through to a point that stands at 30 the center of the concict between Jews and Arabs over Pales tine. 31 e “ plight of the re fu gees”—ig nored by some and in camed by oth- 32 ers—could not escape Simon Rawi dow icz’s atten tion. After more than 33 4fty years, his exposé sees the light of day for the 4rst time. It does so in 34 an age in which reckon ing with past misdeeds—ex pos ing the wound in 35 order to heal it—has oc curred with in creas ing fre quency among po lit i cal 36 states. On the one hand, this trend results from an unfor tu nate cause: the 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 186

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1 ever- expanding number and scale of state- sponsored acts of vio lence 2 (from Cam bo dia and Rwanda to Ser bia and Rus sia). On the other hand, it 3 re cects a sense of grow ing re spon si bil ity that is sues from in ter na tional or- 4 gan i za tions (includ ing the United Nations and vari ous af4l i ated legal bod- 5 ies), from the victims of the crimi nal acts themselves, and even from the 6 citi zenry and new leader ship of perpe tra tor states, to overcome the crim- 7 i n a l p a s t b y c o nf r o n ti n g i t d ir e c t l y . Va ri o u s t y p e s o f r ed r e s s — r a n gi n g f r o m 8 trials for war crimes to pro perty res ti tu tion to truth and re con cil i a tion 9 commis sions—have emerged since the end of the Second World War. With 10 postwar Germany as a model, states have increas ingly been compelled or 11 encour aged to answer for their past actions, a process that, in the best of 12 cases, en a bles their so ci e ties to re store a meas ure of nor mal ity. While there 13 are not a ble cases in which coun tries man age to re sist this pro cess (Japan 14 comes to mind), one need only scan the globe to see this process of con- 15 front ing the past at differ ent stages of devel op ment in Rwanda, South Af- 16 rica, the Bal kans, Li be ria, East Timor, Aus tra lia, and Ar gen tina.9 17 It is impor tant to empha size that the dispos ses sion of Pales tin ian Arabs 18 occurred in the midst of a war that the Jews did not ini tiate and during 19 which they believed themselves to be 4ghting for survi val. Conse quently, 20 some say that Is rael should feel no ob li ga tion to ex am ine its role in the dis- 21 pos ses sion. ey point to the long his tory of pop u la tion ex changes and ex- 22 pul sions in modern times—as well as to the unre solved matter of Jewish 23 res ti tu tion ef forts in Arab coun tries, an im por tant cause in its own right— 24 as rea sons to ignore or explain away the Pales tin ian case. At the same time, 25 there are critics of Israel who argue that the state was born in origi nal sin 26 and lacks all legit i mate grounds to exist. While the fate of the Pales tin ians 27 is upper most in their minds, the fate of the Jews is of no moment. 28 As we have seen, Simon Raw i dow icz as sid u ously avoided these two ex- 29 tremes. An un re con structed par ti san of his own peo ple, he saw no op tion but 30 for the State of Is rael, and the en tire Jew ish world, to swal low a bit ter pill and 31 as sume re spon si bil ity for the “ plight of the re fu gees.” “Any one who ig nores it,” 32 he warned,” does no favor to ‘Is rael’ [that is, the Jew ish peo ple]” (“Be tween 33 Jew and Arab,” sec. V). e cost of ignor ing the predic a ment, he feared, could 34 only breed more resent ment and hatred among millions of Pales tin ians and 35 require ever more costly mechan isms of repres sion from Israe lis. 36 is is what Raw i dow icz feared more than a half- century ago. To a great 37 ex tent, his con cerns have been borne out. is is not to say that the en tire Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 187

epilogue | 187

Israeli- Palestinian concict can be reduced to the refu gee question. A host 1 of other issues, from land to the status of Jeru sa lem to water rights, not to 2 mention recog ni tion of the State of Israel by its neighbors, remain unre - 3 solved. Nor is it to say that Is rael bears exclu sive respon si bil ity for solv ing 4 the Pa les tin ian ref u gee pro blem. While U.N. Res o lu tion 194 places the bur- 5 d e n t o r ep at r ia t e o r c o mp e ns a t e t h e P al e st i ni a n r ef ug e e s o n “ t h e G o ve r n- 6 ments or author i ties respon si ble” (that is, the State of Israel), inter na tional 7 law in general situ ates the obli ga tion to act on “the countries of asylum to 8 which re fu gees cee” (which would in clude, in the case of the Pa les tin ians, 9 Jor dan, Leb a non, and Syria, among oth ers).10 Bridg ing the gap be tween 10 these two for mu la tions is a com plex mat ter that moves bey ond the scope 11 of this study. Even if one arrived at a posi tion of theo ret i cal clarity, it would 12 have to be admit ted that Rawi dow icz’s propo sal for the repa tri a tion of 13 hundreds of thousands of refu gees is not practi ca ble in the present con- 14 text. e State of Israel would never permit the return of millions of Pales- 15 tin ians to its terri tory, and a large major ity of Pales tin ians, if we are to be- 16 lieve pollster Khalil Shikaki, are not inter ested in actual return to their 17 pre-1948 homes. 18 is, however, does not mean that the question of the refu gees has van- 19 ished or should be swept of the table. It was a factor—some would say a 20 cen tral one—in the ul ti mate fai lure of the Oslo peace pro cess;11 P al e st i ni a n 21 leaders continue to insist to this day that “the plight of Pales tin ian refu gees 22 must be addressed holis ti cally—that is, in its polit i cal, human, and indi - 23 vidual dimen sions in accor dance with UNGA reso lu tion 194.”12 By re fus ing 24 to recog nize this plight in any meaning ful way, the State of Israel does lit- 25 tle to ad vance its own in ter ests or the cause of con cict res o lu tion. As an al- 26 ter na tive to de nial, it might well be hoove Is rael to con clude, as Yoav Peled 27 and Nadim Rou hana have argued, that “rec og ni tion of the nar ra tive told by 28 the victims of injus tice is a neces sary precon di tion for recon cil i a tion.” 13 29 What pre cise con se quences might fol low from such rec og ni tion is un- 30 clear, with the gamut of options ranging from compen sa tion and property 31 resti tu tion to partial or full return (to the State of Israel or, more likely, to a 32 fu ture state of Pa les tine).14 e point of this book has not been to square 33 the circle with a Solo monic policy recom men da tion. Rather, it is to recover 34 an intri guing and forgot ten text and to focus overdue atten tion on a thinker 35 who pre sciently grasped the per ils of ig nor ing the “ plight of the re fu gees.” 36 Central to Rawi dow icz’s thinking was the propo si tion that the welfare of 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 188

188 | between jew and arab

1 the Arabs of Pa les tine had be come in ex tri ca bly linked with the wel fare of 2 the Jew ish state (and na tion). is link age re mains as true today, if not more 3 so. And thus, even though “Between Jew and Arab” was never published, 4 linger ing for more than half a century in silence, the ongo ing rele vance of 5 its main theme prompts us to let Simon Raw i dow icz’s voice be heard. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 189

1 2 3 APPENDIX A 4 5 HISTORICAL TIMELINE 6 Relevant Dates in “Between Jew and Arab” 7 8 9 10 1958 11 Bavel vi-Yerushalayim published (bearing 1957 imprint) 12 13 1957 14 Rawidowicz dies (20 July) 15 16 1956 17 Suez Canal War (October–November) 18 19 1955 20 Bandung Conference of nonaligned countries (18–24 April) 21 22 1953 23 Kibya attack: Israeli reprisal force kills sixty-nine civilians in Jordanian border village 24 (14–15 October) 25 26 1953 27 Land Acquisition Law passed by Knesset (10 March) 28 29 1952 30 Nationality Law passed by Knesset (1 April) 31 32 1950 33 Law of Return passed by Knesset (5 July) 34 35 1949 36 U.N. General Assembly Resolution 273 (11 May): State of Israel admitted to the U.N. 37 38 1949 39 Lausanne Conference convened by U.N.. Israel provisionally o@ers to repatriate 40 100,000 Arab refugees. UNRWA created in wake of conference’s failure (April– 41 September) 42 43

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190 | appendix a

1 1949 2 Publication of S. Yizhar’s “Hirbet Hizah.” 3 4 1948 5 U.N. Resolution 194 (11 December). Calls for Israel to repatriate Arab refugees who 6 desire to live in peace “at the earliest practicable date” or pay compensation. 7 8 1948 9 New State of Israel is attacked by Arab states (15 May). Hostilities ensue. 10 11 1948 12 State of Israel is declared by Provisional Government (14 May). 13 14 1948 15 Deir Yassin attack by IZL and Stern Gang militia; more than one hundred Arab adults 16 and children killed (9 April) 17 18 1947 19 Outbreak of hostilities between Arab and Jewish forces over the fate of Palestine. 20 (Late November–December) 21 22 1947 23 U.N. Resolution 181 (29 November). Calls for partition of Palestine into Jewish and 24 Arab states. 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 191

1 2 3 APPENDIX B 4 5 THE DECLARATION OF THE ESTABLISHMENT 6 7 OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL (1948) 8 9 10 e Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, reli - 11 gious and politi cal identity was shaped. Here they %rst attained to statehood, created 12 cultural values of national and univer sal signi% cance and gave to the world the eternal 13 Book of Books. 14 After being for cibly ex iled from their land, the peo ple kept faith with it through out 15 their Disper sion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the res- 16 to ra tion in it of their po liti cal free dom. 17 Impelled by this historic and tradi tional attach ment, Jews strove in every succes sive 18 genera tion to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they 19 re turned in their masses. Pion eers, de % ant re tur nees, and de fend ers, they made deserts 20 bloom, re vived the He brew lan guage, built vil lages and towns, and created a thriv ing 21 commu nity control ling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to 22 defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country’s inhabi tants, and as- 23 pir ing towards inde pen dent nation hood. 24 In the year 5657 (1897), at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, 25 eo dore Herzl, the First Zion ist Con gress con vened and pro claimed the right of the 26 Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country. 27 is right was recog nized in the Balfour Declara tion of the 2nd Novem ber, 1917, and 28 re-a7rmed in the Man date of the League of Na tions which, in par ticu lar, gave inter na - 29 tional sanction to the historic connec tion between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel 30 and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home. 31 e catas trophe which recently befell the Jewish people—the massa cre of millions of 32 Jews in Eu rope—was another clear dem on stra tion of the ur gency of solv ing the pro blem 33 of its homeless ness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open 34 the gates of the home land wide to every Jew and con fer upon the Jew ish peo ple the sta- 35 tus of a fully privileged member of the commu nity of nations. 36 Survi vors of the Nazi holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the 37 world, contin ued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by dif% cul ties, restric tions and 38 dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil 39 in their national homeland. 40 41 42 SOURCE: Provi sional Govern ment of Israel, Of  cial Ga zette, no. 1 (Tel Aviv, 1948), 1 43

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1 In the Second World War, the Jewish commu nity of this country contrib uted its full 2 share to the struggle of the freedom- and peace-loving nations against the forces of Nazi 3 wick ed ness and, by the blood of its sol diers and its war ef fort, gained the right to be 4 reckoned among the peoples who founded the United Nations. 5 On the 29th Novem ber, 1947, the United Nations General Assem bly passed a resolu - 6 tion calling for the estab lish ment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assem - 7 bly required the inhabi tants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were neces sary on their 8 part for the im ple men ta tion of that reso lu tion. is rec og ni tion by the United Na tions 9 of the right of the Jewish people to estab lish their State is irrevo cable. 10 is right is the natu ral right of the Jew ish peo ple to be mas ters of their own fate, like 11 all other nations, in their own sovereign State. 12 Accord ingly we, members of the People’s Council, repre sen ta tives of the Jewish Com- 13 mu nity of Eretz-Israel and of the Zionist Movement, are here assem bled on the day of the 14 termi na tion of the British Mandate over Eretz-Israel and, by virtue of our natural and his- 15 toric right and on the strength of the resolu tion of the United Nations General Assem - 16 bly, hereby de clare the es tab lish ment of a Jew ish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the 17 State of Israel. 18 We declare that, with effect from the moment of the termi na tion of the Mandate 19 being tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948), until the estab - 20 lishment of the elected, regular authorities of the State in accor dance with the Consti - 21 tution which shall be adopted by the Elected Constitu ent Assem bly not later than the 1st 22 Oc to ber 1948, the Peo ple’s Coun cil shall act as a Pro vi sional Coun cil of State, and its ex- 23 ecu tive organ, the Peo ple’s Ad min is tra tion, shall be the Pro vi sional Gov ern ment of the 24 Jewish State, to be called “Israel.” 25 e State of Israel will be open for Jewish immi gra tion and for the Ingath er ing of the 26 Exiles; it will foster the devel op ment of the country for the bene%t of all its inhabi tants; 27 it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envis aged by the prophets of Israel; it 28 will ensure complete equality of social and politi cal rights to all its inhabi tants irre - 29 spec tive of re li gion, race or sex; it will guar an tee free dom of re li gion, con sci ence, lan- 30 guage, edu ca tion and cul ture; it will safe guard the Holy Places of all re li gions; and it will 31 be faithful to the princi ples of the Charter of the United Nations. 32 e State of Israel is prepared to cooper ate with the agencies and repre sen ta tives of 33 the United Nations in imple ment ing the resolu tion of the General Assem bly of the 29th 34 Novem ber, 1947, and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of 35 Eretz-Israel. 36 We appeal to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the building-up of its 37 State and to receive the State of Israel into the commu nity of nations. 38 We appeal—in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months— 39 to the Arab inhabi tants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and partici pate in the up- 40 build ing of the State on the basis of full and equal citi zen ship and due rep re sen ta tion in 41 all its provi sional and perma nent insti tu tions. 42 We ex tend our hand to all neigh bour ing states and their peo ples in an oHer of peace 43 and good neighbour li ness, and appeal to them to estab lish bonds of coopera tion and Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 193

the declaration of the establishment| 193 mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. e State of Israel is 1 pre pared to do its share in a com mon ef fort for the ad vance ment of the en tire Mid dle East. 2 We ap peal to the Jew ish peo ple through out the Dia spora to rally round the Jews of 3 Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immi gra tion and upbuild ing and to stand by them in the great 4 struggle for the realiza tion of the age-old dream—the redemp tion of Israel. 5 Plac ing our trust in the Al mighty, we a7x our sig na tures to this proc la ma tion at this 6 session of the provi sional Council of State, on the soil of the Homeland, in the city of 7 Tel-Aviv, on this Sabbath eve, the 5th day of Iyar, 5708 (14th May, 1948). 8 9 David Ben-Gurion 10 11 Daniel Auster; Mordekhai Bentov; Yitzchak Ben Zvi; Eliyahu Berligne; Fritz Bernstein; 12 Rabbi Wolf Gold; Meir Grabovsky; Yitzchak Gruenbaum; Dr. Abraham Granovsky; 13 Eliyahu Dobkin; Meir Wilner-Kovner; Zerach Wahrhaftig; Herzl Vardi; Rachel Cohen; 14 Rabbi Kalman Kahana; Saadia Kobashi; Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Levin; Meir David 15 Loewenstein; Zvi Luria; Golda Myerson; Nachum Nir; Zvi Segal; Rabbi Yehuda Leib 16 Hacohen Fishman; David Zvi Pinkas; Aharon Zisling; Moshe Kolodny; Eliezer Kaplan; 17 Abraham Katznelson; Felix Rosenblueth; David Remez; Berl Repetur; Mordekhai 18 Shattner; Ben Zion Sternberg; Bekhor Shitreet; Moshe Shapira; Moshe Shertok 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 194

1 2 3 4 APPENDIX C 5 6 THE “LAW OF RETURN” (5710/1950) 7 8 9 10 Right of Aaliyah * (1). 11 1. Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an aoleh.* 12 13 AOleh’s visa. 14 a A 15 2. (a) Aliyah shall be by oleh’s visa. 16 (b) An aoleh’s visa shall be granted to every Jew who has expressed his desire 17 to settle in Israel, unless the Minister of Immigration is satis%ed that the 18 applicant 19 (1) is engaged in an activity directed against the Jewish people; or 20 (2) is likely to endanger public health or the security of the State. 21 22 AOleh’s certi% cate. 23 3. (a) A Jew who has come to Israel and subsequent to his arrival has expressed 24 a 25 his desire to settle in Israel may, while still in Israel, receive an oleh’s 26 certi%cate. 27 (b) e restrictions speci%ed in section 2(b) shall apply also to the grant of 28 an aoleh’s certi%cate, but a person shall not be regarded as endangering 29 public health on account of an illness contracted after his arrival in Israel. 30 31 Residents and persons born in this country. 32 4. Every Jew who has immigrated into this country before the coming into 33 force of this Law, and every Jew who was born in this country, whether 34 35 36 Passed by the Knes set on the 20th Tam muz, 5710 (5th July, 1950) and pub lished in Sefer Ha-Chukkim, No. 37 51 of the 21st Tam muz, 5710 (5th July, 1950), p. 159; the Bill and an Ex plana tory Note were pub lished in Hat- 38 zaH ot Chok, No. 48 of the 12th Tammuz, 5710 (27th June, 1950), p. 189. 39 * Transla tor’s Note: aaliyah means immi gra tion of Jews, and aoleh (plural, Aolim) means a Jew immi grat - 40 ing, into Israel.

41 SOURCE: e Law of Return, 5710–1950. Of% cial Records of the Laws of the State of Israel. Author ized 42 trans la tion from the He brew (Je ru sa lem: Gov ern ment Printer, 1950), 4:114. 43

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before or after the coming into force of this Law, shall be deemed to be a 1 person, who has come to this country as an aoleh under this Law. 2 3 Imple men ta tion and regula tions. 4 5. e Minister of Immigration is charged with the implementation of this Law 5 and may make regulations as to any matter relating to such implementation 6 and also as to the grant of aoleh’s visas and aoleh’s certi%cates to minors up to 7 the age of 18 years. 8 9 DAVID BEN-GURION 10 Prime Minister 11 12 MOSHE SHAPIRA 13 Minister of Immi gra tion 14 15 YOSEF SPRINZAK 16 Act ing Presi dent of the State 17 Chair man of the Knes set 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 196

1 2 3 4 APPENDIX D 5 6 THE “NATIONALITY LAW” (5712/1952) 7 8 9 10 Part One: Acquisition of Nationality 11 12 Preliminary. 13 1. Israel nationality is acquired— 14 • by return (section 2), 15 • by residence in Israel (section 3), 16 • by birth (section 4) or 17 • by naturalisation (section 5 to 9). 18 19 • ere shall be no Israel nationality save under this Law. 20 Nationality by Return. 21 2. (a) Every Aoleh* under the Law of Return, 5710/1950,1 shall become an Israel 22 national. 23 24 (b) Israel nationality by return is acquired— 25 (1) by a person who came as an Aoleh into, or was born in, the country 26 before the establishment of the State—with eHect from the day of the 27 establishment of the State; 28 (2) by a person having come to Israel as an Aoleh after the 29 establishment of the State—with eHect from the day of his Aaliyah; 30 (3) by a person born in Israel after the establishment of the State— 31 with eHect from the day of his birth; 32 A 33 (4) by a person who has received an oleh’s certi%cate under section 3 34 of the Law of Return, 5710/1950—with eHect from the day of the issue of 35 the certi%cate. 36 37 Passed by the Knesset on the 6th Nisan, 5712 (1st April, 1952). and published in Sefer Ha-Chuk kim, No. H 38 95 of the 13th Nisan, 5712 (8th April, 1952), p. 146; the Bill was published in Hat za ot Chok, No. 93 of the 22nd Cheshvan, 5712 (21st Novem ber, 1951), p. 22. 39 40 * Transla tor’s Note: Aoleh and Aaliyah mean, re spec tively, a Jew im mi grating, and the im mi gra tion of a 41 Jew, into the Land of Israel. 42 Source: Na tion ality Law, 5512/1952. Of% cial Records of the Laws of the State of Israel. Author ized trans- 43 la tion from the Hebrew (Jeru sa lem: Govern ment Printer, 1952), 6:50–53.

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(c) is section does not apply 1 (1) to a person having ceased to be an inhabitant of Israel before the 2 coming into force of this Law; 3 (2) to a person of full age who, immediately before the day of his 4 Aaliyah or the day of his Aoleh’s certi%cate is a foreign national and who, 5 on or before such day, declares that he does not desire to become an 6 Israel national; 7 (3) to a minor whose parents have made a declaration under 8 paragraph (2) and included him therein. 9 10 Nationality by Residence in Israel. 11 3. (a) A person who, immediately before the establishment of the State, was a 12 Palestinian citizen and who does not become a Israel national under section 13 2, shall become an Israel national with eHect from the day of the 14 establishment of the State if— 15 16 (1) he was registered on the 4th Adar, 5712 (1st March 1952) as an 17 inhabitant under the Registration of Inhabitants Ordinance, 18 2 5709/1949; and 19 (2) he is an inhabitant of Israel on the day of the coming into force of 20 this Law; and 21 (3) he was in Israel, or in an area which became Israeli territory after 22 the establishment of the State, from the day of the establishment of the 23 State to the day of the coming into force of this Law, or entered Israel 24 legally during that period. 25 (b) A person born after the establishment of the State who is an inhabitant 26 of Israel on the day of the coming into force of this Law, and whose father or 27 mother becomes an Israel national under subsection (a), shall become an 28 Israel national with eHect from the day of his birth. 29 30 Nationality by Birth. 31 4. A person born while his father or mother is an Israel national shall be an 32 Israel national from birth; where a person is born after his father’s death, it 33 shall be su7cient that his father was an Israel national at the time of his 34 death. 35 36 Naturalisation. 37 5. (a) A person of full age, not being an Israel national, may obtain Israel 38 nationality by naturalisation if— 39 (1) he is in Israel; and 40 41 (2) he has been in Israel for three years out of %ve years proceeding the 42 day of the submission of his application; and 43

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198 | appendix d

1 (3) he is entitled to reside in Israel permanently; and 2 (4) he has settled, or intends to settle, in Israel, and 3 (5) he has some knowledge of the Hebrew language, and 4 5 (6) he has renounced his prior nationality or has proved that he will 6 cease to be a foreign national upon becoming an Israel national. 7 (b) Where a person has applied for naturalisation, and he meets the require - 8 ments of subsection (a), the Minister of the Interior, if he thinks %t to do so, 9 shall grant him Israel nationality by the issue of a certi%cate of naturalisation. 10 (c) Prior to the grant of nationality, the applicant shall make the following 11 declaration: 12 13 “I declare that I will be a loyal national of the State of Israel.” 14 (d) Nationality is acquired on the day of the declaration. 15 16 Exemption from conditions of naturalisation. 17 6. (a) (1) A person who has served in the regular service of the Defence Army 18 of Israel or who, after the 16th Kislev, 5708 (29th November 1947) has served 19 in some other service which the Minister of Defence, by declaration 20 published in Reshumot, has declared to be military service for the purpose 21 of this section, and who has been duly discharged from such service; and 22 23 (2) a person who has lost a son or daughter in such service, is exempt 24 from the requirements of section 5 (a), except the requirement of 25 section 5 (a) (4). 26 (b) A person applying for naturalisation after having made a declaration 27 under section 2 (c) (2) is exempt from the requirement of section 5 (a) (2). 28 (c) A person who immediately before the establishment of the State was a 29 Palestinian citizen is exempt from the requirement of section 5 (a) (5). 30 (d) e Minister of the Interior may exempt an applicant from all or any of 31 the requirements of section 5 (a) (1), (2), (5) and (6) if there exists in his 32 33 opinion a special reason justifying such exemption. 34 Naturalisation of husband and wife. 35 7. e spouse of a person who is an Israel national or who has applied for Israel 36 nationality and meets or is exempt from the requirements of section 5 (a) 37 may obtain Israel nationality by naturalisation even if she or he is a minor or 38 39 does not meet the requirements of section (5) (a). 40 Naturalisation of Minors. 41 8. Naturalisation confers Israel nationality also upon the minor children of the 42 naturalised person. 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 199

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Grant of Nationality to Minors. 1 9. (a) Where a minor, not being an Israel national, is an inhabitant of Israel, 2 and his parents are not in Israel or have died or are unknown, the Minister of 3 the Interior, on such conditions and with eHect from such day as he may 4 think %t, may grant him Israel nationality by the issue of a certi%cate of 5 naturalisation. 6 (b) Nationality may be granted as aforesaid upon the application of the 7 father or mother of the minor or, if they have died or are unable to apply, 8 upon the application of the guardian or person in charge of the minor. 9 10 11 Part Two: Loss of Nationality 12 Renunciation of Nationality. 13 10. (a) An Israel national of full age, not being an inhabitant of Israel, may 14 declare that he desires to renounce his Israel nationality; such renunciation 15 16 is subject to the consent of the Minister of the Interior; the declarant’s Israel 17 nationality terminates on the day %xed by the Minister. 18 (b) e Israel nationality of a minor, not being an inhabitant of Israel, 19 terminates upon his parents’ renouncing their Israel nationality; it does not 20 terminate so long as one of his parents remains an Israel national. 21 22 Revocation of Naturalisation. 23 11. (a) Where a person, having acquired Israeli nationality by naturalisation— 24 (1) has done so on the basis of false particulars; or 25 (2) has been abroad for seven consecutive years and has no eHective 26 connection with Israel, and has failed to prove that his eHective 27 connection with Israel was severed otherwise than by his own volition; 28 or 29 (3) has committed an act of disloyalty towards the State of Israel, a 30 District Court may, upon the application of the Minister of the Interior, 31 revoke such person’s naturalisation. 32 (b) e Court may, upon such application, rule that the revocation shall 33 apply also to such children of the naturalised person as acquired Israel 34 nationality by virtue of his naturalisation and are inhabitants of a foreign 35 country. 36 37 (c) Israel nationality terminates on the day on which the judgment revoking 38 naturalisation ceases to be appealable or on such later day as the Court may %x. 39 Saving of Liability. 40 41 12. Loss of Israel nationality does not relieve from a liability arising out of such 42 nationality and created before its loss. 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 200

200 | appendix d

1 Part ree: Further Provisions 2 Interpretation. 3 13. In this Law— 4 5 “of full age” means of the age of eighteen years or over; 6 “minor” means a person under eighteen years of age; 7 “child” includes an adopted child, and “parents” includes adoptive parents; 8 “foreign nationality” includes foreign citizenship, and “foreign national” 9 includes a foreign citizen, but does not include a Palestinian citizen. 10 11 Dual nationality and dual residence. 12 14. (a) Save for the purposes of naturalisation, acquisition of Israel nationality is 13 not conditional upon renunciation of a prior nationality. 14 (b) An Israel national who is also a foreign national shall, for the purposes of 15 Israel law, be considered an Israel national. 16 (c) An inhabitant of Israel residing abroad shall, for the purposes of this Law, 17 be considered an inhabitant of Israel so long as he has not settled abroad. 18 19 Evidence of Nationality. 20 15. An Israel national may obtain from the Minister of the Interior a certi%cate 21 attesting to his Israel nationality. 22 23 OHence. 24 16. A person who knowingly gives false particulars as to a matter aHecting his 25 own or another person’s acquisition or loss of Israel nationality is liable to 26 imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to %ne not exceeding 27 %ve hundred pounds, or to both such penalties. 28 29 Implementation and regulations. 30 17. (a) e Minister of the Interior is charged with the implementation of this 31 Law and may make regulations as to any matter relating to its 32 implementation, including the payment of fees and exemption from the 33 payment thereof. 34 (b) e Minister of Justice may make regulations as to proceedings in 35 District Courts under this Law, including appeals from decisions of such 36 Courts. 37 38 Repeal, adaptation of laws and validation. 39 18. (a) e Palestinian Citizenship Orders, 1925–1942,3 are repealed with eHect 40 from the day of the establishment of the State. 41 (b) Any reference in any provision of law to Palestinian citizenship or 42 Palestinian citizens shall henceforth be read as a reference to Israel 43 nationality or Israel nationals. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 201

“nationality law”| 201

(c) Any act done in the period between the establishment of the State and 1 the day of the coming into force of this Law shall be deemed to be valid if it 2 were valid had this Law been in force at the time it was done. 3 4 Commencement. 5 19. (a) is Law shall come into force on the 21st Tammuz, 5712 (14th July, 1952). 6 (b) Even before that day, the Minister of the Interior may make regulations 7 as to declarations under section 2(c)(2). 8 9 MOSHE SHARETT 10 Minister of Foreign Affairs 11 12 MOSHE SHAPIRA 13 Mini ster of the Interior 14 15 YOSEF SPRINZAK 16 Chair man of the Knes set 17 Act ing Presi dent of the State 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 202

1 2 3 4 5 APPENDIX E 6 7 “THE LAND ACQUISITION (VALIDATION OF ACTS 8 AND COMPENSATION) LAW” (5713/1953) 9 10 11 12 In t e r p r e t a t i o n , 13 1. (a) In this Law— 14 15 “the Minister” means the member of the Government whom the 16 Government shall authorise for the purposes of this Law by notice 17 published in Reshumot; 18 “Development Authority” means the Development Authority established 19 under the Development Authority (Transfer of Property) Law, 5710–1950;1 20 21 “property” means land; 22 “acquired property”’ means property vested in the Development Authority 23 in pursuance of section 2; 24 25 “date of acquisition” means the date on which property vests in the 26 Development Authority in pursuance of section 2; 27 “owners,” in relation to acquired property, means the persons who 28 immediately before the date of acquisition were the owners of, or had a 29 right or interest in such property, and includes their successors; 30 31 “the Court” means the District Court in the area of whose jurisdiction 32 acquired property is situated. 33 (b) In the case of a person who has a right or interest in property, any 34 reference in this Law to property shall be deemed to be a reference to such 35 right or interest. 36 37 Passed by the Knesset on the 23rd Adar, 5713 (10th March, 1953) and published in Sefer Ha-Chukkim, No. 38 122 of the 4th Nisan, 5713 (20th March, 1953), p. 58; the Bill and an Explana tory Note were published in 39 Hat za Hot Chok, No. 118 of the 2nd Sivan, 5712 (26th May, 1952), p. 232.

40 SOURCE: Land Acqui si tion (Valida tion of Acts and Compen sa tion) Law, 5713/1953. O f % c i a l R e c o r d s o f t h e 41 Law of the State of Israel. Author ized transla tion from the Hebrew (Jeru sa lem: Govern ment Printer, 42 1953), 1:43–45. 43

202 |

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Acqui si tion of land for purposes of devel op ment, settle ment, or security. 1 2. (a) Property in respect of which the Minister certi%es by certi%cate under his 2 hand— 3 4 (1) that on the 6th Nisan, 5712 (1st April, 1952) it was not in the 5 possession of its owners; and 6 (2) that within the period between the 5th Iyar, 5708 (14th May, 1948) and 7 the 6th Nisan, 5712 (Ist April 1952) it was used or assigned for purposes 8 of essential development, settlement or security; and 9 10 (3) that it is still required for any of these purposes— 11 shall vest in the Development Authority and be regarded as free from any 12 charge, and the Development Authority may forthwith take possession 13 thereof. 14 15 (b) e property shall vest in the Development Authority as from the date 16 speci%ed in the said certi%cate; the certi%cate may only be issued within one 17 year from the day of the coming into force of this Law, and shall be published 18 in Reshumot as early as possible after the day of its issue. 19 (c) Property vested in the Development Authority as aforesaid shall be 20 registered in the Land Register in its name, but non-registration shall not 21 aHect the validity of the vesting of the property in the Development 22 Authority. 23 24 (d) A certi%cate under this section shall not constitute an admission that 25 acquired property is not or was not State property or that the State has not or 26 had not a right or interest therein. 27 28 Right to Compen sa tion. 29 3. (a) e owners of acquired property are entitled to compensation therefore 30 from the Development Authority. e compensation shall be given in money, 31 unless otherwise agreed between the owners and the Development 32 Authority. e amount of compensation shall be %xed by agreement between 33 the Development Authority and the owners or, in the absence of agreement, 34 by the Court, as hereinafter provided. 35 36 (b) Where the acquired property was used for agriculture and was the main 37 source of livelihood of its owner, and he has no other land su7cient for his 38 livelihood, the Development Authority shall, on his demand, oHer him other 39 property, either for ownership or for lease, as full or partial compensation. A 40 competent authority, to be appointed for this purpose by the Minister, shall, 41 in accordance with rules to be prescribed by regulations, determine the 42 43

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204 | appendix e

1 category, location, area, and, in the case of lease, period of lease (not less 2 than 49 years) and the value of the oHered property, both for the purpose of 3 calculating the compensation and for determination of the su7ciency of 4 such property for a livelihood. 5 (c) e provisions of subsection (b) shall add to, and not derogate from, the 6 provisions of subsection (a). 7 8 Deter mi na tion of compen sa tion by the court. 9 10 4. In the following cases, the right to and amount of compensation shall, on the 11 application of the Development Authority or the owner of the acquired 12 property, be determined by the Court: 13 (1) in the absence of agreement between the Development Authority and the 14 owner of the acquired property as to the grant or amount of compensation; 15 16 (2) where the owner of the acquired property did not %le a claim for 17 compensation with the Development Authority within one year from the day 18 of publication of a certi%cate under section 2; 19 (3) where a claim as aforesaid was %led but was not supported by su7cient 20 evidence; 21 22 (4) where diHerent or conWicting claims were %led in relation to the acquired 23 property. 24 25 Rules for deter min ing compen sa tion. 26 5. (a) In %xing the amount of compensation, the Court shall follow mutatis 27 mutandis the rules laid down in section 12 of the Land (Acquisition for 28 Public Purposes) Ordinance, 1943;2 provided that the 12th Tevet, 5710 (Ist 29 January, 1950) shall be regarded as the day on which notice of the intended 30 acquisition was published for the purposes of the said section. 31 32 (b) Any amount %xed by the Court as aforesaid shall be increased by an addition 33 of three per centum per annum as from the 12th Tevet 5710 (1st January, 1950). 34 35 Decision of the Court in the case of deposit of compen sa tion. 36 6. (a) e decision of the Court or, in the case of appeal, of the Court of Civil 37 Appeal shall be %nal with regard to all parties to whom notices of an 38 application under section 4 have been sent or who have attended and 39 claimed compensation either personally or by attorney. 40 41 (b) A person to whom notice as aforesaid has not been sent or who has not 42 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 205

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attended and claimed as aforesaid may %le a claim within one year from the 1 date of the %nal decision. 2 (c) Where the Court has awarded compensation, but has not issued 3 directions as to the mode of payment thereof, the compensation shall be 4 deposited with the Court, and the Court shall pay it only upon the expiration 5 of one year, or such shorter period as it may decide, from the date of the %nal 6 decision, and after application has been made to it by a person claiming the 7 compensation; and the compensation shall be paid as the Court may direct. 8 9 (d) Deposit of the compensation with the Court has the eHect of full 10 discharge, and relieves the Development Authority from liability as to any 11 claim in relation to the property, unless the Court otherwise orders in 12 connection with a claim under subsection (b). 13 (e) A person who alleges that he has a right to compensation deposited with 14 the Court and the whole or any part of which has not been paid, may, within 15 three years from the date of the %nal decision, apply to the Court for payment 16 of the whole or any part thereof; and any person who alleges that he has a 17 better right to the whole or any part of the compensation, may %le a claim 18 against the person to whom compensation has been paid. 19 20 Re lief from liability for use of com pen sa tion. 21 22 7. e giving of compensation, whether in money or in land, and whether by 23 agreement or under a decision of the Court, or the deposit of compensation 24 under section 6, relieves the Development Authority from any liability for the 25 manner in which such compensation is used or for the misuse thereof. 26 27 In a p p l i c a b i l i t y . 28 8. Section 3(4)(a) of the Development Authority (Transfer of Property) Law, 29 5710/1950, shall not apply to property of the Development Authority oHered 30 or given to the owner of acquired property as full or partial compensation for 31 the acquired property. 32 33 Immu nity. 34 35 9. Where the Minister certi%es by certi%cate under his hand that an act done on 36 behalf of the State or the Development Authority in respect of any property 37 was done after such property had %rst been used or assigned for purposes of 38 essential development, settlement or security, and before it became acquired 39 property, such act shall not serve as cause for an action on the part of the 40 owner of the property or of his predecessor in title, or as basis for a charge. 41 42 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 206

206 | appendix e

1 Regu la tions. 2 10. e Minister may make regulations as to any matter relating to the 3 implementation of this Law. 4 5 DAVID BEN-GURION 6 Prime Minister 7 8 YITZ CHAK BEN-ZVI 9 President of the State 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 207

1 2 3 APPENDIX F 4 5 UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF 6 7 HUMAN RIGHTS 8 General Assembly Resolution 217 A (III) 9 10 11 On Decem ber 10, 1948 the General Assem bly of the United Nations adopted and pro- 12 claimed the Uni ver sal Dec lara tion of Human Rights (reso lu tion 217A [III]), the full text 13 of which appears in the follow ing pages. Follow ing this historic act the Assem bly 14 called upon all Member countries to publi cize the text of the Declara tion and “to cause 15 it to be dis semi nated, dis played, read and ex pounded prin ci pally in schools and other 16 educa tional insti tu tions, without distinc tion based on the politi cal status of countries 17 or terri to ries.” 18 19 20 PREAMBLE 21 Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights 22 of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace 23 in the world, 24 25 Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts 26 which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which 27 human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and 28 want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people, 29 Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last 30 resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be 31 protected by the rule of law, 32 33 Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between 34 nations, 35 Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter rea7rmed their 36 faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person 37 and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social 38 progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, 39 40 41 source: U.N. General Assem bly, ird Session, Of% cial Records, International Bill of Human Rights. 42 Pre pared in pur su ance of U.N. Gen eral As sem bly Reso lu tion 217A, A/PV 183, 1948. 43

| 207 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 208

208 | appendix f

1 Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with 2 the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of 3 human rights and fundamental freedoms, 4 Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest 5 6 importance for the full realization of this pledge, 7 8 Now, ere fore THE GEN ERAL AS SEM BLY pro claims THIS UNI VER SAL DEC - 9 LARA TION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a com mon stan dard of achieve ment for all peo - 10 ples and all nations, to the end that every indi vidual and every organ of society, keeping 11 this Dec lara tion con stantly in mind, shall strive by teach ing and edu ca tion to pro mote 12 respect for these rights and freedoms and by progres sive measures, national and inter- 13 na tional, to se cure their uni ver sal and ef fec tive rec og ni tion and ob ser vance, both among 14 the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of terri to ries under 15 their juris dic tion. 16 17 Article 1. 18 All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.ey are endowed with 19 reason and consci ence and should act towards one another in a spirit of brother hood. 20 21 Article 2. 22 23 Every one is en ti tled to all the rights and free doms set forth in this Dec lara tion, 24 with out distinc tion of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, lan guage, re li gion, po liti - 25 cal or other opin ion, na tional or so cial ori gin, pro perty, birth or other status. Fur - 26 thermore, no distinc tion shall be made on the basis of the politi cal, juris dic tional 27 or interna tional status of the country or terri tory to which a person belongs, 28 whether it be inde pen dent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limita tion 29 of sovereignty. 30 31 Article 3. 32 33 Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. 34 35 Article 4. 36 No one shall be held in slavery or servi tude; slavery and the slave trade shall be pro - 37 hib ited in all their forms. 38 39 Article 5. 40 41 No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhu man or degrad ing treatment 42 or punish ment. 43

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universal declaration of human rights| 209

1 Article 6. 2 Everyone has the right to recog ni tion everywhere as a person before the law. 3 4 Article 7. 5 6 All are equal be fore the law and are en ti tled with out any dis crimi na tion to equal 7 pro tec tion of the law. All are en ti tled to equal pro tec tion against any dis crimi na tion 8 in viola tion of this Declara tion and against any incite ment to such discrimi na tion. 9 10 Article 8. 11 Everyone has the right to an effec tive remedy by the compe tent national tribu nals 12 for acts violat ing the funda men tal rights granted him by the consti tu tion or by law. 13 14 Article 9. 15 16 No one shall be subjected to arbi trary arrest, deten tion or exile. 17 18 Article 10. 19 Everyone is enti tled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an inde pen dent 20 and impar tial tribu nal, in the deter mi na tion of his rights and obli ga tions and of 21 any crimi nal charge against him. 22 23 Article 11. 24 25 (1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed inno cent 26 until proved guilty ac cord ing to law in a pub lic trial at which he has had all the 27 guar an tees ne ces sary for his de fence. 28 (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal of fence on ac count of any act or omis - 29 sion which did not consti tute a penal offence, under national or interna tional law, 30 at the time when it was commit ted. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the 31 one that was appli cable at the time the penal offence was commit ted. 32 33 Article 12. 34 35 No one shall be sub jected to ar bi trary inter fer ence with his pri vacy, family, home 36 or corre spond ence, nor to attacks upon his honour and repu ta tion. Everyone has 37 the right to the protec tion of the law against such interfer ence or attacks. 38 39 Article 13. 40 (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the bor- 41 ders of each state. 42 43

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210 | appendix f

1 (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, includ ing his own, and to return to 2 his coun try. 3 4 Article 14. 5 (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from 6 persecu tion. 7 8 (2) is right may not be in voked in the case of prose cu tions ge nuinely ar is ing from 9 non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and princi ples of the 10 United Na tions. 11 12 Article 15. 13 (1) Every one has the right to a na tion ality. 14 15 (2) No one shall be ar bi trarily de prived of his na tion ality nor den ied the right to 16 change his na tion ality. 17 18 Article 16. 19 (1) Men and women of full age, without any limita tion due to race, nation ality or re- 20 ligion, have the right to marry and to found a family. ey are enti tled to equal 21 rights as to mar ri age, dur ing mar ri age and at its dis so lu tion. 22 23 (2) Mar ri age shall be en tered into only with the free and full con sent of the in tend - 24 ing spouses. 25 (3) e family is the natural and funda men tal group unit of society and is enti tled 26 to protec tion by society and the State. 27 28 Article 17. 29 30 (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in asso cia tion with others. 31 (2) No one shall be ar bi trarily de prived of his pro perty. 32 33 Article 18. 34 35 Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, consci ence and reli gion; this right in- 36 cludes free dom to change his re li gion or be lief, and free dom, ei ther alone or in com - 37 mu nity with oth ers and in pub lic or pri vate, to mani fest his re li gion or be lief in 38 teach ing, prac tice, wor ship and ob ser vance. 39 40 Article 19. 41 Every one has the right to free dom of opin ion and ex pres sion; this right in cludes 42 free dom to hold opin ions with out inter fer ence and to seek, re ceive and im part in - 43 forma tion and ideas through any media and regard less of fronti ers. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 211

universal declaration of human rights| 211

Article 20. 1 2 (1) Every one has the right to free dom of peace ful as sem bly and as so cia tion. 3 (2) No one may be compelled to belong to an asso cia tion. 4 5 Article 21. 6 7 (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the govern ment of his country, directly or 8 through freely chosen repre sen ta tives. 9 (2) Every one has the right of equal ac cess to pub lic ser vice in his coun try. 10 11 (3) e will of the peo ple shall be the basis of the au thority of gov ern ment; this will 12 shall be expressed in peri odic and genuine elections which shall be by univer sal 13 and equal suf frage and shall be held by se cret vote or by equiv al ent free vot ing 14 proce dures. 15 16 Article 22. 17 Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is enti tled to 18 realiza tion, through national effort and interna tional co-operation and in accor - 19 dance with the or ga ni za tion and re sources of each State, of the eco nomic, so cial 20 and cultural rights indis pensable for his dignity and the free devel op ment of his 21 person ality. 22 23 Article 23. 24 25 (1) Every one has the right to work, to free choice of em ploy ment, to just and fa - 26 vourable con di tions of work and to pro tec tion against un em ploy ment. 27 (2) Every one, with out any dis crimi na tion, has the right to equal pay for equal work. 28 29 (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remu nera tion ensur - 30 ing for himself and his family an exis tence worthy of human dignity, and supple - 31 mented, if neces sary, by other means of social protec tion. 32 (4) Every one has the right to form and to join trade un ions for the pro tec tion of 33 his interests. 34 35 Article 24. 36 37 Every one has the right to rest and lei sure, in clud ing rea sonable limi ta tion of work - 38 ing hours and pe ri odic holi days with pay. 39 40 Article 25. 41 (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well- 42 being of himself and of his family, includ ing food, clothing, housing and medical 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 212

212 | appendix f

1 care and ne ces sary so cial ser vices, and the right to se curity in the event of un em - 2 ployment, sickness, disability, widow hood, old age or other lack of liveli hood in cir- 3 cumstances beyond his control. 4 (2) Mother hood and childhood are enti tled to special care and assis tance. All chil- 5 dren, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protec tion. 6 7 Article 26. 8 9 (1) Everyone has the right to educa tion. Educa tion shall be free, at least in the ele- 10 men tary and fun da men tal stages. Ele men tary edu ca tion shall be com pul sory. Tech - 11 ni cal and pro fes sional edu ca tion shall be made gen er ally available and higher edu - 12 cation shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. 13 (2) Educa tion shall be directed to the full devel op ment of the human person ality 14 and to the strengthen ing of respect for human rights and funda men tal freedoms. 15 It shall promote understand ing, toler ance and friendship among all nations, racial 16 or re li gious groups, and shall fur ther the ac tiv i ties of the United Na tions for the 17 mainte nance of peace. 18 19 (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of educa tion that shall be given to 20 their chil dren. 21 22 Article 27. 23 (1) Every one has the right freely to par tici pate in the cul tural life of the com mu - 24 nity, to enjoy the arts and to share in scien ti%c ad vance ment and its bene %ts. 25 26 (2) Everyone has the right to the protec tion of the moral and mate rial interests re- 27 sult ing from any scien ti%c, lit er ary or art is tic pro duc tion of which he is the au thor. 28 29 Article 28. 30 Everyone is enti tled to a social and interna tional order in which the rights and free - 31 doms set forth in this Declara tion can be fully real ized. 32 33 Article 29. 34 35 (1) Everyone has duties to the commu nity in which alone the free and full devel op - 36 ment of his person ality is possible. 37 (2) In the exer cise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such 38 limita tions as are deter mined by law solely for the purpose of secur ing due recog ni - 39 tion and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just re- 40 quire ments of mo rality, pub lic order and the gen eral wel fare in a dem o cratic so ciety. 41 42 (3) ese rights and free doms may in no case be ex er cised con trary to the pur poses 43 and princi ples of the United Nations. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 213

universal declaration of human rights| 213

Article 30. 1 2 Noth ing in this Dec lara tion may be inter preted as im ply ing for any State, group or 3 person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the de- 4 struc tion of any of the rights and free doms set forth herein. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 214

1 2 3 4 APPENDIX G 5 6 UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION 7 8 181, NOVEMBER 29, 1947 9 10 11 e General Assem bly, 12 13 Having met in special session at the request of the mandatory Power to 14 constitute and instruct a Special Committee to prepare for the 15 consideration of the question of the future Government of Palestine at the 16 second regular session; 17 Having constituted a Special Committee and instructed it to investigate all 18 questions and issues relevant to the problem of Palestine, and to prepare 19 proposals for the solution of the problem, and 20 21 Having received and examined the report of the Special Committee (document 1 22 A/364) including a number of unanimous recommendations and a plan of 23 partition with economic union approved by the majority of the Special 24 Committee, 25 Considers that the present situation in Palestine is one which is likely to impair 26 the general welfare and friendly relations among nations; 27 28 Takes note of the declaration by the mandatory Power that it plans to complete 29 its evacuation of Palestine by 1 August 1948; 30 Recommends to the United Kingdom, as the mandatory Power for Palestine, and 31 to all other Members of the United Nations the adoption and 32 implementation, with regard to the future Government of Palestine, of the 33 Plan of Partition with Economic Union set out below; 34 35 Requests that 36 37 e Security Council take the necessary measures as provided for in the plan for 38 its implementation; 39 e Security Council consider, if circumstances during the transitional period 40 require such consideration, whether the situation in Palestine constitutes a 41 42 source: U . N . G e n e r a l A s s e m b l y , S e c o n d S e s s i o n , O f % c i a l R e c o r d s , Fu ture Gov ern ment of Pa les tine. 43 Pre pared in pur su ance of U.N. Gen eral As sem bly Reso lu tion 181, A/PV 128, 1947.

214 | Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 215

resolution 181| 215

threat to the peace. If it decides that such a threat exists, and in order to 1 maintain international peace and security, the Security Council should 2 supplement the authorization of the General Assembly by taking measures, 3 under Articles 39 and 41 of the Charter, to empower the United Nations 4 Commission, as provided in this resolution, to exercise in Palestine the 5 functions which are assigned to it by this resolution; 6 e Security Council determine as a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or 7 act of aggression, in accordance with Article 39 of the Charter, any attempt 8 to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution; 9 10 e Trusteeship Council be informed of the responsibilities envisaged for it in 11 this plan; 12 Calls upon the inhabitants of Palestine to take such steps as may be necessary on 13 their part to put this plan into eHect; 14 15 Appeals to all Governments and all peoples to refrain from taking any action which 16 might hamper or delay the carrying out of these recommendations, and 17 Authorizes the Secretary-General to reimburse travel and subsistence expenses of 18 the members of the Commission referred to in Part 1, Section B, Paragraph I 19 below, on such basis and in such form as he may determine most 20 appropriate in the circumstances, and to provide the Commission with the 21 necessary staH to assist in carrying out the functions assigned to the 22 Commission by the General Assembly.* 23 24 e General Assembly, 25 26 Authorizes the Secretary-General to draw from the Working Capital Fund a sum 27 not to exceed 2,000,000 dollars for the purposes set forth in the last 28 paragraph of the resolution on the future government of Palestine. 29 30 PLAN OF PARTITION WITH ECONOMIC UNION 31 32 Part I. Future Constitution and Government of Palestine 33 A. Ter mi nation of Man date, Par ti tion and In depen dence 34 35 e Mandate for Pales tine shall termi nate as soon as possible but in any case not 36 later than 1 Au gust 1948. 37 e armed forces of the manda tory Power shall be progres sively withdrawn 38 from Pa les tine, the with drawal to be com pleted as soon as pos sible but in any case 39 40 41 *At its hundred and twenty-eighth plenary meeting on 29 November 1947 the General Assembly, in ac- cordance with the terms of the above resolution, elected the following members of the United Nations 42 Commission on Palestine: Bolivia, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Panama, and Philippines. 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 216

216 | appendix g

1 not later than 1 August 1948. e manda tory Power shall advise the Commis sion, 2 as far in ad vance as pos sible, of its in ten tion to ter mi nate the man date and to evac- 3 uate each area. e manda tory Power shall use its best endea vours to ensure that 4 an area situ ated in the ter ri tory of the Jew ish State, in clud ing a sea port and hin- 5 ter land adequate to provide facilities for a substan tial immi gra tion, shall be evac- 6 uated at the earli est possible date and in any event not later than 1 Febru ary 1948. 7 Inde pen dent Arab and Jewish States and the Special Interna tional Regime for 8 the City of Je ru sa lem, set forth in Part III of this Plan, shall come into ex is tence 9 in Pales tine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the manda - 10 tory Power has been completed but in any case not later than 1 Octo ber 1948. e 11 boundaries of the Arab State, the Jewish State, and the City of Jeru sa lem shall be 12 as de scribed in Parts II and III below. 13 e period between the adoption by the General Assem bly of its recom men - 14 da tion on the ques tion of Pa les tine and the es tab lish ment of the in de pen dence of 15 the Arab and Jewish States shall be a transi tional period. 16 17 B. Steps Prepara tory to Inde pen dence 2 18 19 A Com mis sion shall be set up con sist ing of one rep re sen ta tive of each of %ve Mem - 20 ber States. e Members repre sented on the Commis sion shall be elected by the 21 General Assem bly on as broad a basis, geographi cally and other wise, as possible. 22 e admin is tra tion of Pales tine shall, as the manda tory Power withdraws its 23 armed forces, be progres sively turned over to the Commis sion, which shall act in 24 con for mity with the rec om men da tions of the Gen eral As sem bly, under the guid- 25 ance of the Se curity Coun cil. e man da tory Power shall to the full est pos sible ex- 26 tent coor di nate its plans for withdrawal with the plans of the Commis sion to take 27 over and ad min is ter areas which have been evacu ated. 28 In the discharge of this admin is tra tive respon sibility the Commis sion shall 29 have au thority to issue ne ces sary regu la tions and take other mea sures as re- 30 quired. e man da tory Power shall not take any ac tion to prevent, ob struct or 31 delay the imple men ta tion by the Commis sion of the measures recom mended by 32 the General Assem bly. 33 On its arri val in Pales tine the Commis sion shall proceed to carry out measures for 34 the estab lish ment of the fronti ers of the Arab and Jewish States and the City of Jeru - 35 salem in accor dance with the general lines of the recom men da tions of the General 36 As sem bly on the par ti tion of Pa les tine. Neverthe less, the bound aries as de scribed in 37 Part II of this Plan are to be modi%ed in such a way that village areas as a rule will not 38 be di vided by state bound aries un less press ing rea sons make that ne ces sary. 39 e Com mis sion, after con sul ta tion with the dem o cratic par ties and other pub- 40 lic organiza tions of the Arab and Jewish States, shall select and estab lish in each 41 State as rap idly as pos sible a Pro vi sional Coun cil of Gov ern ment. e ac tiv i ties of 42 both the Arab and Jewish Provi sional Councils of Govern ment shall be carried 43 out under the general direc tion of the Commis sion. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 217

resolution 181| 217

If by 1 April 1948 a Provi sional Council of Govern ment cannot be selected for ei- 1 ther of the States, or, if selected, cannot carry out its functions, the Commis sion 2 shall commu ni cate that fact to the Security Council for such action with respect to 3 that State as the Security Council may deem proper, and to the Secretary-General 4 for commu ni ca tion to the Members of the United Nations. 5 Subject to the provi sions of these recom men da tions, during the transi tional 6 period the Provi sional Councils of Govern ment, acting under the Commis sion, 7 shall have full authority in the areas under their control includ ing authority over 8 matters of immi gra tion and land regula tion. 9 e Provi sional Council of Govern ment of each State, acting under the Com- 10 mis sion, shall progres sively receive from the Commis sion full respon sibility for the 11 admin is tra tion of that State in the period between the termi na tion of the Man- 12 date and the estab lish ment of the State’s inde pen dence. 13 e Commis sion shall instruct the Provi sional Councils of Govern ment of 14 both the Arab and Jewish States, after their forma tion, to proceed to the estab - 15 lishment of admin is tra tive organs of govern ment, central and local. 16 e Pro vi sional Coun cil of Gov ern ment of each State shall, within the short- 17 est time pos sible, re cruit an armed mi li tia from the resi dents of that State, suf % - 18 cient in num ber to main tain inter nal order and to prevent fron tier clashes. 19 is armed mili tia in each State shall, for opera tional purposes, be under the 20 com mand of Jew ish or Arab of %c ers resi dent in that State, but gen eral po liti cal 21 and military control, includ ing the choice of the mili tia’s High Command, shall be 22 ex er cised by the Com mis sion. 23 e Provi sional Council of Govern ment of each State shall, not later than two 24 months after the withdrawal of the armed forces of the manda tory Power, hold 25 elections to the Constitu ent Assem bly which shall be conducted on demo cratic 26 lines. 27 e elec tion regu la tions in each State shall be drawn up by the Pro vi sional 28 Council of Govern ment and approved by the Commis sion. Quali%ed voters for 29 each State for this election shall be persons over eighteen years of age who are (a) 30 Pales tin ian citiz ens resid ing in that State; and (b) Arabs and Jews resid ing in the 31 State, al though not Pa les tin ian ci tiz ens, who, be fore vot ing, have signed a no tice 32 of inten tion to become citiz ens of such State. 33 Arabs and Jews re sid ing in the City of Je ru sa lem who have signed a no tice of 34 inten tion to become citiz ens, the Arabs of the Arab State and the Jews of the Jew- 35 ish State, shall be enti tled to vote in the Arab and Jewish States respec tively. 36 Women may vote and be elected to the Constitu ent Assem blies. 37 During the transi tional period no Jew shall be permit ted to estab lish residence 38 in the area of the pro posed Arab State, and no Arab shall be per mit ted to es tab - 39 lish residence in the area of the proposed Jewish State, except by special leave of 40 the Com mis sion. 41 e Con stitu ent As sem bly of each State shall draft a dem o cratic con sti tu tion 42 for its State and choose a provi sional govern ment to succeed the Provi sional 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 218

218 | appendix g

1 Council of Govern ment appointed by the Commis sion. e Consti tu tions of the 2 States shall embody Chapters 1 and 2 of the Declara tion provided for in section C 3 below and in clude, inter alia, pro vi sions for: 4 Es tab lish ing in each State a leg is la tive body elected by uni ver sal suf frage and by 5 se cret bal lot on the basis of pro por tional rep re sen ta tion, and an ex ecu tive 6 body respon sible to the legis la ture; 7 8 Settling all interna tional disputes in which the State may be involved by peace- 9 ful means in such a manner that interna tional peace and security, and justice, 10 are not endan gered; 11 Accept ing the obli ga tion of the State to refrain in its interna tional rela tions from 12 the threat or use of force against the ter ri to rial in teg rity or po liti cal in de pen - 13 dence of any State, or in any other manner incon sis tent with the purpose of 14 the United Na tions; 15 16 Guaran tee ing to all persons equal and non-discriminatory rights in civil, politi - 17 cal, eco nomic and re li gious mat ters and the en joy ment of human rights and 18 funda men tal freedoms, includ ing freedom of reli gion, language, speech and 19 publi ca tion, educa tion, assem bly and asso cia tion; 20 Preserv ing freedom of transit and visit for all residents and citiz ens of the other 21 State in Pales tine and the City of Jeru sa lem, subject to consid era tions of na- 22 tional security, provided that each State shall control residence within its 23 borders. 24 25 e Com mis sion shall ap point a pre para tory eco nomic com mis sion of three 26 members to make whatever arrange ments are possible for economic co- 27 operation, with a view to es tab lish ing, as soon as prac ti cable, the Eco nomic Union 28 and the Joint Economic Board, as provided in section D below. 29 During the period between the adoption of the recom men da tions on the ques- 30 tion of Pales tine by the General Assem bly and the termi na tion of the Mandate, the 31 manda tory Power in Pales tine shall maintain full respon sibility for admin is tra tion in 32 areas from which it has not with drawn its armed forces. e Com mis sion shall as - 33 sist the manda tory Power in the carry ing out of these functions. Similarly the man- 34 datory Power shall co-operate with the Commis sion in the execu tion of its functions. 35 With a view to ensur ing that there shall be conti nuity in the function ing of 36 ad min is tra tive ser vices and that, on the with drawal of the armed forces of the 37 manda tory Power, the whole admin is tra tion shall be in the charge of the Provi - 38 sional Councils and the Joint Economic Board, respec tively, acting under the 39 Com mis sion, there shall be a pro gres sive trans fer, from the man da tory Power to 40 the Commis sion, of respon sibility for all the functions of govern ment, includ ing 41 that of maintain ing law and order in the areas from which the forces of the man- 42 datory Power have been withdrawn. 43 e Commis sion shall be guided in its activ i ties by the recom men da tions of Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 219

resolution 181| 219

the General Assem bly and by such instruc tions as the Security Council may con- 1 sider neces sary to issue. 2 e measures taken by the Commis sion, within the recom men da tions of the 3 Gen eral As sem bly, shall be come im me di ately ef fec tive un less the Com mis sion 4 has previ ously received contrary instruc tions from the Security Council. 5 e Commis sion shall render peri odic monthly progress reports, or more fre - 6 quently if desirable, to the Security Council. 7 e Commis sion shall make its %nal report to the next regular session of the 8 General Assem bly and to the Security Council simul ta ne ously. 9 10 C. Declara tion 11 12 A declara tion shall be made to the United Nations by the Provi sional Govern ment 13 of each proposed State before inde pen dence. It shall contain, inter alia, the fol- 14 low ing clauses: 15 Gen eral Pro vi sion 16 17 e stipula tions contained in the Declara tion are recog nized as funda men tal 18 laws of the State and no law, regula tion or of% cial action shall conWict or inter- 19 fere with these stipula tions, nor shall any law, regula tion or of% cial action pre- 20 vail over them. 21 Chapter I: Holy Places, Reli gious Buildings and Sites 22 23 Exist ing rights in respect of Holy Places and reli gious buildings or sites shall not 24 be denied or impaired. 25 In so far as Holy Places are concerned, the liberty of access, visit, and transit 26 shall be guaran teed, in confor mity with exist ing rights, to all residents and citiz - 27 ens of the other State and of the City of Je ru sa lem, as well as to ali ens, with out dis - 28 tinction as to nation ality, subject to require ments of national security, public order 29 and decorum. Similarly, freedom of worship shall be guaran teed in confor mity 30 with ex ist ing rights, sub ject to the main te nance of pub lic order and deco rum. 31 Holy Places and re li gious build ings or sites shall be pre served. No act shall be 32 permit ted which may in any way impair their sacred charac ter. If at any time it 33 appears to the Govern ment that any particu lar Holy Place, reli gious, building or 34 site is in need of ur gent re pair, the Gov ern ment may call upon the com mu nity or 35 commu nities concerned to carry out such repair. e Govern ment may carry it 36 out itself at the expense of the commu nity or commu nity concerned if no action 37 is taken within a rea sonable time. 38 No taxation shall be levied in respect of any Holy Place, reli gious building or site 39 which was ex empt from taxa tion on the date of the crea tion of the State. No change 40 in the inci dence of such taxation shall be made which would either discrimi nate 41 between the own ers or oc cu pi ers of Holy Places, re li gious build ings or sites, or 42 would place such owners or occu pi ers in a posi tion less favourable in rela tion to 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 220

220 | appendix g

1 the general inci dence of taxation than existed at the time of the adoption of the 2 As sem bly’s rec om men da tions. 3 e Governor of the City of Jeru sa lem shall have the right to deter mine whether 4 the provi sions of the Consti tu tion of the State in rela tion to Holy Places, reli gious 5 buildings and sites within the borders of the State and the reli gious rights apper tain - 6 ing thereto, are being pro perly ap plied and re spected, and to make deci sions on the 7 basis of ex ist ing rights in cases of dis putes which may arise between the dif fer ent 8 reli gious commu nities or the rites of a reli gious commu nity with respect to such 9 places, build ings and sites. He shall re ceive full co-operation and such pri vi leges 10 and im mu nities as are ne ces sary for the ex er cise of his func tions in the State. 11 Chapter 2: Reli gious and Minority Rights 12 13 Free dom of con sci ence and the free ex er cise of all forms of wor ship, sub ject only 14 to the mainte nance of public order and morals, shall be ensured to all. 15 No discrimi na tion of any kind shall be made between the inhabi tants on the 16 ground of race, re li gion, lan guage or sex. 17 All per sons within the ju ris dic tion of the State shall be en ti tled to equal pro - 18 tection of the laws. 19 e family law and per sonal status of the vari ous mi norities and their re li - 20 gious interests, includ ing endow ments, shall be respected. 21 Except as may be required for the mainte nance of public order and good gov- 22 ernment, no measure shall be taken to obstruct or interfere with the enter prise 23 of reli gious or charitable bodies of all faiths or to discrimi nate against any repre - 24 sen ta tive or mem ber of these bod ies on the ground of his re li gion or na tion ality. 25 e State shall en sure ade quate pri mary and sec on dary edu ca tion for the Arab 26 and Jewish minority, respec tively, in its own language and its cultural tradi tions. 27 e right of each com mu nity to main tain its own schools for the edu ca tion of its 28 own mem bers in its own lan guage, while con form ing to such edu ca tional re quire- 29 ments of a general nature as the State may impose, shall not be denied or im- 30 paired. Foreign educa tional estab lish ments shall continue their activity on the 31 basis of their ex ist ing rights. 32 No restric tion shall be imposed on the free use by any citizen of the State of any 33 language in private intercourse, in commerce, in reli gion, in the Press or in pub- 34 li ca tions of any kind, or at public meet ings.3 35 No ex pro pria tion of land owned by an Arab in the Jew ish State (or by a Jew in 36 the Arab State)4 shall be allowed except for public purposes. In all cases of expro - 37 priation full compen sa tion as %xed by the Supreme Court shall be said previ ous 38 t o d i s p o s s e s s i o n . 39 40 Chap ter 3: Citi zen ship, Inter na tional Con ven tions 41 and Fi nan cial Ob li ga tions 42 43 1. Citizen ship Pales tin ian citiz ens resid ing in Pales tine outside the City of Jeru sa lem, Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 221

resolution 181| 221

as well as Arabs and Jews who, not hold ing Pa les tin ian citi zen ship, re side in Pa - 1 lestine outside the City of Jeru sa lem shall, upon the recog ni tion of inde pen dence, 2 be come ci tiz ens of the State in which they are resi dent and enjoy full civil and 3 politi cal rights. Persons over the age of eighteen years may opt, within one year 4 from the date of recog ni tion of inde pen dence of the State in which they reside, for 5 citi zen ship of the other State, pro vid ing that no Arab re sid ing in the area of the 6 proposed Arab State shall have the right to opt for citizen ship in the proposed 7 Jew ish State and no Jew re sid ing in the pro posed Jew ish State shall have the right 8 to opt for citi zen ship in the pro posed Arab State. e ex er cise of this right of op - 9 tion will be taken to include the wives and children under eighteen years of age 10 of persons so opting. 11 Arabs re sid ing in the area of the pro posed Jew ish State and Jews re sid ing in the 12 area of the proposed Arab State who have signed a notice of inten tion to opt for 13 citizen ship of the other State shall be eligible to vote in the elections to the Con- 14 stitu ent As sem bly of that State, but not in the elec tions to the Con stitu ent As - 15 sembly of the State in which they reside. 16 17 2. Interna tional conven tions e State shall be bound by all the interna tional agree- 18 ments and conven tions, both general and special, to which Pales tine has become 19 a party. Subject to any right of denun cia tion provided for therein, such agree- 20 ments and conven tions shall be respected by the State throughout the period for 21 which they were concluded. 22 Any dis pute about the ap pli cability and con tin ued va lidity of inter na tional 23 con ven tions or treat ies signed or ad hered to by the man da tory Power on be half 24 of Pales tine shall be referred to the Interna tional Court of Justice in accor dance 25 with the provi sions of the Statute of the Court. 26 27 3. Finan cial obli ga tions e State shall respect and ful%l all %nan cial obli ga tions of 28 whatever nature assumed on behalf of Pales tine by the manda tory Power during 29 the ex er cise of the Man date and rec og nized by the State. is pro vi sion in cludes 30 the right of public servants to pensions, compen sa tion or gratuities. 31 ese obli ga tions shall be ful%lled through partici pa tion in the Joint Economic 32 Board in respect of those obli ga tions appli cable to Pales tine as a whole, and indi - 33 vidu ally in re spect of those ap pli cable to, and fairly ap por tionable between, the States. 34 A Court of Claims, af %li ated with the Joint Eco nomic Board, and com posed of 35 one mem ber ap pointed by the United Na tions, one rep re sen ta tive of the United 36 Kingdom and one repre sen ta tive of the State concerned, should be estab lished. 37 Any dispute between the United Kingdom and the State respect ing claims not 38 recog nized by the latter should be referred to that Court. 39 Commer cial conces sions granted in respect of any part of Pales tine prior to 40 the adop tion of the reso lu tion by the Gen eral As sem bly shall con tinue to be valid 41 accord ing to their terms, unless modi%ed by agreement between the concession- 42 holders and the State. 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 222

222 | appendix g

1 Chapter 4: Miscel la ne ous Provi sions 2 e provi sions of chapters 1 and 2 of the declara tion shall be under the guaran - 3 tee of the United Nations, and no modi%ca tions shall be made in them without the 4 assent of the General Assem bly of the United Nations. Any Member of the United 5 Na tions shall have the right to bring to the at ten tion of the Gen eral As sem bly any 6 infrac tion or danger of infrac tion of any of these stipula tions, and the General As- 7 sem bly may there upon make such rec om men da tions as it may deem proper in the 8 circum stances. 9 Any dis pute re lat ing to the ap pli ca tion or inter pre ta tion of this dec lara tion 10 shall be referred, at the request of either party, to the Interna tional Court of Jus- 11 tice, un less the par ties agree to another mode of set tle ment. 12 13 D. Economic Union and Transit 14 15 e Pro vi sional Coun cil of Gov ern ment of each State shall enter into an under tak - 16 ing with respect to Economic Union and Transit. is undertak ing shall be drafted 17 by the Com mis sion pro vided for in sec tion B, para graph 1, uti liz ing to the great est 18 pos sible ex tent the ad vice and coop era tion of rep re sen ta tive or ganiza tions and 19 bodies from each of the proposed States. It shall contain provi sions to estab lish the 20 Economic Union of Pales tine and provide for other matters of common interest. If 21 by 1 April 1948 the Provi sional Councils of Govern ment have not entered into the 22 undertak ing, the undertak ing shall be put into force by the Commis sion. 23 24 The Eco nomic Union of Pa les tine 25 26 e ob jec tives of the Eco nomic Union of Pa les tine shall be: 27 A customs union; 28 29 A joint currency system provid ing for a single foreign exchange rate; 30 Opera tion in the common interest on a non-discriminatory basis of railways 31 inter-State highways; postal, telephone and telegraphic services and ports 32 and airports involved in interna tional trade and commerce; 33 34 Joint eco nomic de vel op ment, es pe cially in re spect of ir ri ga tion, land rec la ma - 35 tion and soil conser va tion; 36 Access for both States and for the City of Jeru sa lem on a non-discriminatory 37 basis to water and power facilities. 38 39 ere shall be es tab lished a Joint Eco nomic Board, which shall con sist of three 40 repre sen ta tives of each of the two States and three foreign members appointed by 41 the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. e foreign members 42 shall be appointed in the %rst instance for a term of three years; they shall serve 43 as in di vidu als and not as rep re sen ta tives of States. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 223

resolution 181| 223

e func tions of the Joint Eco nomic Board shall be to im ple ment ei ther di - 1 rectly or by delega tion the measures neces sary to real ize the objec tives of the 2 Economic Union. It shall have all powers of orga ni za tion and admin is tra tion nec- 3 es sary to ful %l its func tions. 4 e States shall bind them selves to put into ef fect the deci sions of the Joint 5 Economic Board. e Board’s decisions shall be taken by a majority vote. 6 In the event of failure of a State to take the neces sary action the Board may, by 7 a vote of six members, decide to withhold an appro pri ate portion of the part of 8 the cus toms reve nue to which the State in ques tion is en ti tled under the Eco - 9 nomic Union. Should the State persist in its failure to cooper ate, the Board may 10 decide by a simple majority vote upon such further sanctions, includ ing dispo si - 11 tion of funds which it has withheld, as it may deem appro pri ate. 12 In rela tion to economic devel op ment, the functions of the Board shall be plan- 13 ning, in ves ti ga tion and en cour age ment of joint de vel op ment proj ects, but it shall 14 not undertake such projects except with the assent of both States and the City of Je- 15 rusa lem, in the event that Jeru sa lem is directly involved in the devel op ment project. 16 In regard to the joint currency system, the curren cies circu lat ing in the two 17 States and the City of Je ru sa lem shall be is sued under the au thority of the Joint 18 Economic Board, which shall be the sole issu ing authority and which shall de - 19 ter mine the re serves to be held against such cur rencies. 20 So far as is con sis tent with para graph 2(b) above, each State may op er ate its 21 own cen tral bank, con trol its own %s cal and credit policy, its for eign ex change re - 22 ceipts and ex pen di tures, the grant of im port li cences, and may con duct inter na - 23 tional %nan cial opera tions on its own faith and credit. During the %rst two years 24 after the ter mi na tion of the Man date, the Joint Eco nomic Board shall have the 25 au thority to take such mea sures as may be ne ces sary to en sure that—to the ex - 26 tent that the total foreign exchange revenues of the two States from the export of 27 goods and services permit, and provided that each State takes appro pri ate mea - 28 sures to conserve its own foreign exchange resources—each State shall have 29 available, in any twelve months’ period, foreign exchange suf% cient to assure the 30 sup ply of quantities of im ported goods and ser vices for con sump tion in its ter ri - 31 tory equival ent to the quantities of such goods and services consumed in that 32 terri tory in the twelve months’ period ending 31 Decem ber 1947. 33 All eco nomic au thority not spe ci% cally vested in the Joint Eco nomic Board is 34 reserved to each State. 35 ere shall be a common customs tariH with complete freedom of trade 36 between the States, and between the States and the City of Jeru sa lem. 37 e follow ing items shall be a %rst charge on the customs and other common 38 reve nue of the Joint Eco nomic Board: 39 40 e expenses of the customs service and of the opera tion of the joint services; 41 42 e ad min is tra tive ex penses of the Joint Eco nomic Board; 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 224

224 | appendix g

1 e %nan cial obli ga tions of the Admin is tra tion of Pales tine, consist ing of: 2 e ser vice of the out stand ing pub lic debt; 3 4 e cost of super an nua tion bene %ts, now being paid or fall ing due in the fu - 5 ture, in accor dance with the rules and to the extent estab lished by para- 6 graph 3 of chap ter 3 above. 7 After these obli ga tions have been met in full, the surplus revenue from the cus- 8 toms and other com mon ser vices shall be di vided in the fol low ing man ner: not 9 less than 5 per cent and not more than 10 per cent to the City of Jeru sa lem; the 10 resi due shall be al lo cated to each State by the Joint Eco nomic Board equi tably, 11 with the ob jec tive of main tain ing a suf % cient and suitable level of gov ern ment 12 and so cial ser vices in each State, ex cept that the share of ei ther State shall not ex- 13 ceed the amount of that State’s con tri bu tion to the reve nues of the Eco nomic 14 Union by more than ap proxi mately four mil lion pounds in any year. e amount 15 granted may be ad justed by the Board ac cord ing to the price level in re la tion to 16 the prices pre vail ing at the time of the es tab lish ment of the Union. After %ve years, 17 the princi ples of the distribu tion of the joint revenue may be revised by the Joint 18 Eco nomic Board on a basis of equity. 19 All interna tional conven tions and treaties affect ing customs tariH rates, and 20 those com mu ni ca tions ser vices under the ju ris dic tion of the Joint Eco nomic 21 Board, shall be entered into by both States. In these matters, the two States shall 22 be bound to act in ac cor dance with the ma jority of the Joint Eco nomic Board. 23 e Joint Economic Board shall endea vour to secure for Pales tine’s exports 24 fair and equal ac cess to world mar kets. 25 All enter prises oper ated by the Joint Economic Board shall pay fair wages on 26 a uni form basis. 27 28 Free dom of Tran sit and Visit 29 e under tak ing shall con tain pro vi sions pre serv ing free dom of tran sit and visit 30 for all resi dents or ci tiz ens of both States and of the City of Je ru sa lem, sub ject to 31 se curity con sid era tions; pro vided that each State and the City shall con trol resi - 32 dence within its borders. 33 34 Termi na tion, Modifica tion and Interpre ta tion 35 of the Undertak ing 36 e under tak ing and any treaty is su ing there from shall re main in force for a pe - 37 riod of ten years. It shall continue in force until notice of termi na tion, to take ef- 38 fect two years thereafter, is given by either of the parties. 39 Dur ing the initial ten-year pe riod, the under tak ing and any treaty is su ing 40 therefrom may not be modi%ed except by consent of both parties and with the ap - 41 proval of the General Assem bly. 42 Any dis pute re lat ing to the ap pli ca tion or the inter pre ta tion of the under tak - 43 ing and any treaty issu ing therefrom shall be referred, at the request of either Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 225

resolution 181| 225

party, to the Interna tional Court Of Justice, unless the parties agree to another 1 mode of settle ment. 2 3 E. Assets 4 5 e movable assets of the Admin is tra tion of Pales tine shall be allo cated to the 6 Arab and Jewish States and the City of Jeru sa lem on an equitable basis. Allo ca - 7 tions should be made by the United Nations Commis sion referred to in section B, 8 paragraph 1, above. Immovable assets shall become the property of the govern - 9 ment of the ter ri tory in which they are situ ated. 10 During the period between the appoint ment of the United Nations Commis - 11 sion and the termi na tion of the Mandate, the manda tory Power shall, except in 12 respect of ordi nary opera tions, consult with the Commis sion on any measure 13 which it may contem plate involv ing the liqui da tion, dispo sal or encum ber ing of 14 the assets of the Pales tine Govern ment, such as the accu mu lated treasury sur- 15 plus, the proceeds of Govern ment bond issues, State lands or any other asset. 16 17 F. Ad mis sion to Mem ber ship in the United Na tions 18 When the inde pen dence of either the Arab or the Jewish State as envis aged in 19 this plan has become effec tive and the declara tion and undertak ing, as envis aged 20 in this plan, have been signed by ei ther of them, sym pa thetic con sid era tion should 21 be given to its appli ca tion for admis sion to member ship in the United Nations in 22 accor dance with arti cle 4 of the Charter of the United Nations. 23 24 25 PART II. BOUNDARIES 26 A. Be Arab State 27 28 e area of the Arab State in Western Galilee is bounded on the west by the Medi- 29 ter ra nean and on the north by the fron tier of the Leba non from Ras en Na qura to 30 a point north of Saliha. From there the boundary proceeds southwards, leaving 31 the built-up area of Sa liha in the Arab State, to join the south ern most point of 32 this vil lage. ere it fol lows the west ern bound ary line of the vil lages of Alma, Ri - 33 haniya and Teitaba, thence follow ing the northern boundary line of Meirun vil- 34 lage to join the Acre-Safad Sub-District boundary line. It follows this line to a 35 point west of Es Sam muai village and joins it again at the northern most point of 36 Far ra diya. ence it fol lows the sub-district bound ary line to the Acre-Safad main 37 road. From here it follows the western boundary of Kafr-Ianan vil lage until it 38 reaches the Tiberias-Acre Sub-District bound ary line, pass ing to the west of the 39 junc tion of the Acre-Safad and Lubiya-Kafr-Ianan roads. From the south-west cor - 40 ner of Kafr-Ianan village the boundary line follows the western boundary of the Ti- 41 berias Sub-District to a point close to the bound ary line between the vil lages of 42 Ma ghar and aEila bun, thence bulging out to the west to include as much of the 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 226

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1 east ern part of the plain of Bat tuf as is ne ces sary for the re ser voir pro posed by the 2 Jewish Agency for the irri ga tion of lands to the south and east. 3 e boundary rejoins the Tiberias Sub-District boundary at a point on the 4 Nazareth-Tiberias road south-east of the built-up area of Tur aan; thence it runs 5 southwards, at %rst follow ing the sub-district boundary and then passing between 6 the Kadoo rie Agri cul tu ral School and Mount Tabor, to a point due south at the 7 base of Mount Tabor. From here it runs due west, par allel to the hori zon tal grid 8 line 230, to the north-east corner of the village lands of Tel Adashim. It then runs 9 to the northwest corner of these lands, whence it turns south and west so as to 10 in clude in the Arab State the sources of the Na zar eth water sup ply in Yafa vil lage. 11 On reaching Ginnei ger it follows the eastern, northern and western boundaries 12 of the lands of this village to their south-west comer, whence it proceeds in a 13 straight line to a point on the Haifa-Afula railway on the boundary between the 14 villages of Sarid and El-Mujeidil. is is the point of intersec tion. e south- 15 western boundary of the area of the Arab State in Galilee takes a line from this 16 point, passing northwards along the eastern boundaries of Sarid and Gevat to 17 the north-eastern corner of Naha lal, proceed ing thence across the land of Kefar 18 ha Horesh to a central point on the southern boundary of the village of aIlut, 19 thence west wards along that vil lage bound ary to the east ern bound ary of Beit 20 Lahm, thence northwards and north-eastwards along its western boundary to 21 the north-eastern cor ner of Wald heim and thence north-westwards across the 22 village lands of Shafa aAmr to the southeast ern corner of Ramat Yohanan. From 23 here it runs due north-north-east to a point on the Shafa aAmr-Haifa road, west 24 of its junc tion with the road of Iabil lin. From there it pro ceeds north-east to a 25 point on the south ern bound ary of Iabillin situated to the west of the Iabillin-Birwa 26 road. ence along that bound ary to its west ern most point, whence it turns to the 27 north, fol lows across the vil lage land of Tamra to the north-westernmost cor ner 28 and along the western boundary of Julis until it reaches the Acre-Safad road. It 29 then runs westwards along the southern side of the Safad-Acre road to the Galilee- 30 Haifa Dis trict bound ary, from which point it fol lows that bound ary to the sea. 31 e bound ary of the hill coun try of Sa maria and Judea starts on the Jor dan 32 River at the Wadi Malih south-east of Bei san and runs due west to meet the 33 Beisan-Jericho road and then follows the western side of that road in a north- 34 westerly di rec tion to the junc tion of the bound aries of the Sub-Districts of Bei san, 35 Nablus, and Jenin. From that point it follows the Nablus-Jenin sub-District bound - 36 ary westwards for a distance of about three kilome tres and then turns north- 37 westwards, pass ing to the east of the built-up areas of the vil lages of Jal bun and 38 Faq quaa, to the boundary of the Sub-Districts of Jenin and Beisan at a point north- 39 east of Nuris. ence it proceeds %rst northwest wards to a point due north of the 40 built-up area of Zieain and then west wards to the Afula-Jenin rail way, thence 41 north-westwards along the District boundary line to the point of intersec tion on 42 the Hejaz railway. From here the boundary runs southwest wards, includ ing the 43 built-up area and some of the land of the village of Kh. Lid in the Arab State to Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 227

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cross the Haifa-Jenin road at a point on the district boundary between Haifa and 1 Samaria west of El-Mansi. It follows this boundary to the southern most point of 2 the village of El-Buteimat. From here it follows the northern and eastern bound- 3 aries of the village of Araara rejoin ing the Haifa-Samaria district boundary at Wadi 4 aAra, and thence pro ceed ing south-south-westwards in an ap proxi mately straight 5 line joining up with the western boundary of Qaqun to a point east of the railway 6 line on the eastern boundary of Qaqun village. From here it runs along the rail- 7 way line some dis tance to the east of it to a point just east of the Tulk arm rail way 8 station. ence the boundary follows a line half-way between the railway and the 9 Tulkarm-Qalqiliya-Jaljuliya and Ras El-Ein road to a point just east of Ras El-Ein 10 sta tion, whence it pro ceeds along the rail way some dis tance to the east of it to the 11 point on the rail way line south of the junc tion of the Haifa-Lydda and Beit Na - 12 bala lines, whence it proceeds along the southern border of Lydda airport to its 13 south-west cor ner, thence in a south-westerly di rec tion to a point just west of the 14 built-up area of Sara fand El aAmar, whence it turns south, passing just to the west 15 of the built-up area of Abu El-Fadil to the north-east cor ner of the lands of Beer 16 Yaaa qov. (e bound ary line should be so de mar cated as to allow di rect ac cess 17 from the Arab State to the air port.) ence the bound ary line fol lows the west ern 18 and southern boundaries of Ramle village, to the north-east corner of El Naaana 19 vil lage, thence in a straight line to the south ern most point of El Bar riya, along 20 the east ern bound ary of that vil lage and the south ern bound ary of aInnaba vil- 21 lage. ence it turns north to follow the southern side of the JaHa-Jerusalem road 22 until El-Qubab, whence it follows the road to the boundary of Abu-Shusha. It runs 23 along the eastern boundaries of Abu Shusha, Seidun, Hulda to the southern most 24 point of Hulda, thence westwards in a straight line to the north-eastern corner of 25 Umm Kalkha, thence fol low ing the north ern bound aries of Umm Kalkha, Qa zaza 26 and the north ern and west ern bound aries of Muk he zin to the Gaza Dis trict 27 boundary and thence runs across the village lands of El-Mismiya El-Kabira, and 28 Yasur to the south ern point of inter sec tion, which is mid way between the built- 29 up areas of Yasur and Ba tani Sharqi. 30 From the southern point of intersec tion the boundary lines run north- 31 westwards between the vil lages of Gan Yavne and Barqa to the sea at a point half 32 way between Nabi Yunis and Minat El-Qila, and south-eastwards to a point west 33 of Qas tina, whence it turns in a south-westerly di rec tion, pass ing to the east of the 34 built-up areas of Es Sawa%r Esh Sharqiya and aIb dis. From the south-east cor ner 35 of aIb dis vil lage it runs to a point south west of the built-up area of Beit aAHa, cross- 36 ing the Hebron-El-Majdal road just to the west of the built-up area of Iraq Suwei - 37 dan. ence it proceeds southward along the western village boundary of El- 38 Faluja to the Beersheba Sub-District boundary. It then runs across the tribal lands 39 of Arab El-Jubarat to a point on the bound ary between the Sub-Districts of Beer - 40 sheba and Hebron north of Kh. Khuwei lifa, whence it proceeds in a south-westerly 41 direc tion to a point on the Beersheba-Gaza main road two kilome tres to the 42 north-west of the town. It then turns south-eastwards to reach Wadi Sab h at a 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 228

228 | appendix g

1 point situated one kilome ter to the west of it. From here it turns north-eastwards 2 and proceeds along Wadi Sabh and along the Beersheba-Hebron road for a dis- 3 tance of one kilome ter, whence it turns eastwards and runs in a straight line to 4 Kh. Kuseifa to join the Beersheba-Hebron Sub-District boundary. It then follows 5 the Beersheba-Hebron boundary eastwards to a point north of Ras Ez-Zuweira, 6 only de part ing from it so as to cut across the base of the in den ta tion between 7 ver ti cal grid lines 150 and 160. 8 About %ve kilo me tres north-east of Ras Ez-Zuweira it turns north, ex clud ing 9 from the Arab State a strip along the coast of the Dead Sea not more than seven 10 kilome tres in depth, as far as aEin Geddi, whence it turns due east to join the 11 Transjor dan frontier in the Dead Sea. 12 e north ern bound ary of the Arab sec tion of the coastal plain runs from a 13 point between Minat El-Qila and Nabi Yunis, passing between the built-up areas 14 of Gan Yavne and Barqa to the point of intersec tion. From here it turns south- 15 westwards, run ning across the lands of Ba tani Sharqi, along the east ern bound ary 16 of the lands of Beit Daras and across the lands of Julis, leaving the built-up areas 17 of Ba tani Sharqi and Julis to the west wards, as far as the north-west cor ner of the 18 lands of Beit-Tima. ence it runs east of El-Jiya across the village lands of El- 19 Barbara along the east ern bound aries of the vil lages of Beit Jirja, Deir Su neid and 20 Dimra. From the south-east corner of Dimra the boundary passes across the lands 21 of Beit Hanun, leaving the Jewish lands of Nir-Am to the eastwards. From the 22 south-east corner of Beit Hanun the line runs south-west to a point south of the 23 par allel grid line 100, then turns north-west for two kilo me tres, turn ing again in a 24 south west erly di rec tion and con tinu ing in an al most straight line to the north- 25 west cor ner of the vil lage lands of Kir bet Ikh zaaa. From there it fol lows the bound - 26 ary line of this village to its southern most point. It then runs in a southerly direc - 27 tion along the verti cal grid line 90 to its junction with the horizon tal grid line 70. 28 It then turns south-eastwards to Kh. El-Ruheiba and then proceeds in a southerly 29 di rec tion to a point known as El-Baha, bey ond which it crosses the Beersheba-El 30 aAuja main road to the west of Kh. El-Mushrifa. From there it joins Wadi El-Zaiyatin 31 just to the west of El-Subeita. From there it turns to the north-east and then to the 32 south-east follow ing this Wadi and passes to the east of aAbda to join Wadi Nafkh. 33 It then bulges to the south-west along Wadi Nafkh, Wadi Ajrim and Wadi Lassan 34 to the point where Wadi Las san crosses the Egyp tian fron tier. 35 e area of the Arab enclave of JaHa consists of that part of the town-planning 36 area of JaHa which lies to the west of the Jew ish quar ters lying south of Tel-Aviv, 37 to the west of the con tinua tion of Herzl street up to its junc tion with the JaHa- 38 Jerusalem road, to the south-west of the section of the JaHa-Jerusalem road lying 39 south-east of that junc tion, to the west of Miqve Yis rael lands, to the north west of 40 Holon local council area, to the north of the line linking up the north-west corner 41 of Holon with the northeast corner of Bat Yam local council area and to the north 42 of Bat Yam local council area. e question of Karton quarter will be decided by 43 the Boundary Commis sion, bearing in mind among other consid era tions the Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 229

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desirability of includ ing the smallest possible number of its Arab inhabi tants and 1 the largest possible number of its Jewish inhabi tants in the Jewish State. 2 3 B. Be Jewish State 4 5 e north-eastern sector of the Jewish State (Eastern Galilee) is bounded on the 6 north and west by the Lebanese frontier and on the east by the fronti ers of Syria 7 and Transjor dan. It includes the whole of the Huleh Basin, Lake Tiberias, the 8 whole of the Bei san Sub-District, the bound ary line being ex tended to the crest 9 of the Gilboa mountains and the Wadi Malih. From there the Jewish State extends 10 north-west, fol low ing the bound ary de scribed in re spect of the Arab State. e 11 Jewish section of the coastal plain extends from a point between Minat El-Qila 12 and Nabi Yunis in the Gaza Sub-District and includes the towns of Haifa and Tel- 13 Aviv, leaving JaHa as an enclave of the Arab State. e eastern frontier of the Jew- 14 ish State follows the boundary described in respect of the Arab State. 15 e Beer sheba area com prises the whole of the Beer sheba Sub-District, in - 16 clud ing the Negeb and the east ern part of the Gaza Sub-District, but ex clud ing the 17 town of Beersheba and those areas described in respect of the Arab State. It in- 18 cludes also a strip of land along the Dead Sea stretch ing from the Beersheba- 19 Hebron Sub-District boundary line to aEin Geddi, as described in respect of the 20 Arab State. 21 22 C. Be City of Je ru sa lem 23 24 e bound aries of the City of Je ru sa lem are as de %ned in the rec om men da tions 25 on the City of Je ru salem. (See Part III, section B, below). 26 27 28 PART III. CITY OF JERUSALEM5 29 30 A. Special Regime 31 e City of Je ru sa lem shall be es tab lished as a corpus separa tum under a spe cial 32 inter na tional re gime and shall be ad min is tered by the United Na tions. e Trus - 33 tee ship Coun cil shall be des ig nated to dis charge the re spon sibilities of the Ad - 34 minis ter ing Authority on behalf of the United Nations. 35 36 B. Bound aries of the City 37 38 e City of Je ru sa lem shall in clude the present mu nici pality of Je ru sa lem plus the 39 sur round ing vil lages and towns, the most east ern of which shall be Abu Dis; the 40 most south ern, Beth le hem; the most west ern, aEin Karim (in clud ing also the built- 41 up area of Motsa); and the most north ern Shuhfat, as in di cated on the at tached 42 sketch-map (annex B). 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 230

230 | appendix g

1 C. Statute of the City 2 e Trus tee ship Coun cil shall, within %ve months of the ap proval of the present 3 plan, elaborate and ap prove a de tailed stat ute of the City which shall con tain, 4 inter alia, the substance of the follow ing provi sions: 5 6 1. Government machinery; special objectives. e Administering Authority in 7 discharging its administrative obligations shall pursue the following special 8 objectives: 9 (a) To protect and to preserve the unique spiritual and religious interests 10 located in the city of the three great monotheistic faiths throughout the 11 world, Christian, Jewish and Moslem; to this end to ensure that order 12 and peace, and especially religious peace, reign in Jerusalem; 13 14 (b)To foster cooperation among all the inhabitants of the city in their 15 own interests as well as in order to encourage and support the peaceful 16 development of the mutual relations between the two Palestinian 17 peoples throughout the Holy Land; to promote the security, well-being 18 and any constructive measures of development of the residents having 19 regard to the special circumstances and customs of the various peoples 20 and communities. 21 2. Governor and Administrative staE. A Governor of the City of Jerusalem shall be 22 appointed by the Trusteeship Council and shall be responsible to it. He shall be 23 selected on the basis of special quali%cations and without regard to nationality. 24 He shall not, however, be a citizen of either State in Palestine. e Governor shall 25 represent the United Nations in the City and shall exercise on their behalf all 26 powers of administration, including the conduct of external aHairs. He shall be 27 assisted by an administrative staH classed as international o7cers in the 28 meaning of Article 100 of the Charter and chosen whenever practicable from the 29 residents of the city and of the rest of Palestine on a non-discriminatory basis. A 30 detailed plan for the organization of the administration of the city shall be 31 submitted by the Governor to the Trusteeship Council and duly approved by it. 32 33 3. Local autonomy 34 (a) e existing local autonomous units in the territory of the city 35 (villages, townships and municipalities) shall enjoy wide powers of local 36 government and administration. 37 38 (b) e Governor shall study and submit for the consideration and 39 decision of the Trusteeship Council a plan for the establishment of 40 special town units consisting, respectively, of the Jewish and Arab 41 sections of new Jerusalem. e new town units shall continue to form 42 part the present municipality of Jerusalem. 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 231

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4. Security measures 1 (a) e City of Jerusalem shall be demilitarized; neutrality shall be 2 declared and preserved, and no para-military formations, exercises or 3 activities shall be permitted within its borders. 4 5 (b) Should the administration of the City of Jerusalem be seriously 6 obstructed or prevented by the non-cooperation or interference of one or 7 more sections of the population the Governor shall have authority to 8 take such measures as may be necessary to restore the eHective 9 functioning of administration. 10 (c) To assist in the maintenance of internal law and order, especially for 11 the protection of the Holy Places and religious buildings and sites in the 12 city, the Governor shall organize a special police force of adequate 13 strength, the members of which shall be recruited outside of Palestine. 14 e Governor shall be empowered to direct such budgetary provision as 15 may be necessary for the maintenance of this force. 16 17 5. Legislative Organization. A Legislative Council, elected by adult residents of 18 the city irrespective of nationality on the basis of universal and secret suHrage 19 and proportional representation, shall have powers of legislation and 20 taxation. No legislative measures shall, however, conWict or interfere with the 21 provisions which will be set forth in the Statute of the City, nor shall any law, 22 regulation, or o7cial action prevail over them. e Statute shall grant to the 23 Governor a right of vetoing bills inconsistent with the provisions referred to 24 in the preceding sentence. It shall also empower him to promulgate 25 temporary ordinances in case the Council fails to adopt in time a bill deemed 26 essential to the normal functioning of the administration. 27 28 6. Administration of Justice. e Statute shall provide for the establishment of 29 an independent judiciary system, including a court of appeal. All the 30 inhabitants of the city shall be subject to it. 31 7. Economic Union and Economic Regime. e City of Jerusalem shall be 32 included in the Economic Union of Palestine and be bound by all 33 stipulations of the undertaking and of any treaties issued therefrom, as well 34 as by the decisions of the Joint Economic Board. e headquarters of the 35 Economic Board shall be established in the territory City. e Statute shall 36 provide for the regulation of economic matters not falling within the regime 37 of the Economic Union, on the basis of equal treatment and non- 38 discrimination for all members of thc United Nations and their nationals. 39 40 8. Freedom of Transit and Visit: Control of residents. Subject to considerations of 41 security, and of economic welfare as determined by the Governor under the 42 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 232

232 | appendix g

1 directions of the Trusteeship Council, freedom of entry into, and residence 2 within the borders of the City shall be guaranteed for the residents or 3 citizens of the Arab and Jewish States. Immigration into, and residence 4 within, the borders of the city for nationals of other States shall be 5 controlled by the Governor under the directions of the Trusteeship Council. 6 7 9. Relations with Arab and Jewish States. Representatives of the Arab and Jewish 8 States shall be accredited to the Governor of the City and charged with the 9 protection of the interests of their States and nationals in connection with 10 the international administration of thc City. 11 10. OGcial languages. Arabic and Hebrew shall be the o7cial languages of the 12 city. is will not preclude the adoption of one or more additional working 13 languages, as may be required. 14 15 11. Citizenship. All the residents shall become ipso facto citizens of the City of 16 Jerusalem unless they opt for citizenship of the State of which they have been 17 citizens or, if Arabs or Jews, have %led notice of intention to become citizens 18 of the Arab or Jewish State respectively, according to Part 1, section B, 19 paragraph 9, of this Plan. e Trusteeship Council shall make arrangements 20 for consular protection of the citizens of the City outside its territory. 21 22 12. Freedoms of citizens. 23 (a) Subject only to the requirements of public order and morals, the 24 inhabitants of the City shall be ensured the enjoyment of human rights 25 and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of conscience, religion 26 and worship, language, education, speech and press, assembly and 27 association, and petition. 28 29 (b) No discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants 30 on the grounds of race, religion, language or sex. 31 (c) All persons within the City shall be entitled to equal protection of the laws. 32 33 (d) e family law and personal status of the various persons and 34 communities and their religious interests, including endowments, shall 35 be respected. 36 (e) Except as may be required for the maintenance of public order and 37 good government, no measure shall be taken to obstruct or interfere 38 with the enterprise of religious or charitable bodies of all faiths or to 39 discriminate against any representative or member of these bodies on 40 the ground of his religion or nationality. 41 42 (f) e City shall ensure adequate primary and secondary education for 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 233

resolution 181| 233

the Arab and Jewish communities respectively, in their own languages 1 and in accordance with their cultural traditions. 2 e right of each community to maintain its own schools for the 3 education of its own members in its own language, while conforming to 4 such educational requirements of a general nature as the City may 5 impose, shall not be denied or impaired. Foreign educational 6 establishments shall continue their activity on the basis of their existing 7 rights. 8 (g) No restriction shall be imposed on the free use by any inhabitant of 9 the City of any language in private intercourse, in commerce, in religion, 10 in the Press or in publications of any kind, or at public meetings. 11 12 13. Holy Places. 13 (a) Existing rights in respect of Holy Places and religious buildings or 14 sites shall not be denied or impaired. 15 16 (b) Free access to the Holy Places and religious buildings or sites and the 17 free exercise of worship shall be secured in conformity with existing 18 rights and subject to the requirements of public order and decorum. 19 (c) Holy Places and religious buildings or sites shall be preserved. No act 20 shall be permitted which may in any way impair their sacred character. If 21 at any time it appears to the Governor that any particular Holy Place, 22 religious building or site is in need of urgent repair, the Governor may 23 call upon the community or communities concerned to carry out such 24 repair. e Governor may carry it out himself at the expense of the 25 community or communities concerned if no action is taken within a 26 reasonable time. 27 28 (d) No taxation shall be levied in respect of any Holy Place, religious 29 building or site which was exempt from taxation on the date of the 30 creation of the City. No change in the incidence of such taxation shall be 31 made which would either discriminate between the owners or occupiers 32 of Holy Places, religious buildings or sites or would place such owners or 33 occupiers in a position less favourable in relation to the general 34 incidence of taxation than existed at the time of the adoption of the 35 Assembly’s recommendations. 36 14. Special powers of the Governor in respect of the Holy Places, religious buildings 37 and sites in the City and in any part of Palestine. 38 (a) e protection of the Holy Places, religious buildings and sites located 39 in the City of Jerusalem shall be a special concern of the Governor. 40 41 (b) With relation to such places, buildings and sites in Palestine outside 42 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 234

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1 the city, the Governor shall determine, on the ground of powers granted 2 to him by the Constitution of both States, whether the provisions of the 3 Constitution of the Arab and Jewish States in Palestine dealing therewith 4 and the religious rights appertaining thereto are being properly applied 5 and respected. 6 (c) e Governor shall also be empowered to make decisions on the basis 7 of existing rights in cases of disputes which may arise between the 8 diHerent religious communities or the rites of a religious community in 9 respect of the Holy Places, religious buildings and sites in any part of 10 Palestine. In this task he may be assisted by a consultative council of 11 representatives of diHerent denominations acting in an advisory 12 capacity. 13 14 D. Dura tion of the Special Regime 15 16 e Stat ute elaborated by the Trus tee ship Coun cil on the afore men tioned prin - 17 ciples shall come into force not later than 1 Octo ber 1948. It shall remain in force 18 in the %rst in stance for a pe riod of ten years, un less the Trus tee ship Coun cil %nds 19 it neces sary to undertake a re-examination of these provi sions at an earlier date. 20 After the expi ra tion of this period the whole scheme shall be subject to examina - 21 tion by the Trus tee ship Coun cil in the light of ex peri ence ac quired with its func - 22 tioning. e residents the City shall be then free to express by means of a referen - 23 dum their wishes as to possible modi%ca tions of regime of the City. 24 25 PART IV. CAPITULATIONS 26 27 States whose nation als have in the past enjoyed in Pales tine the privi leges and 28 immu nities of foreign ers, includ ing the bene%ts of consu lar juris dic tion and pro- 29 tection, as formerly enjoyed by capitu la tion or usage in the Otto man Empire, are 30 invited to renounce any right pertain ing to them to the re-establishment of such 31 privi leges and immu nities in the proposed Arab and Jewish States and the City of 32 J e r u s a l e m . 33 ADOPTED AT THE 128TH PLEN ARY MEET ING 34 35 In favour: 33 36 Austra lia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Byelo rus sian S.S.R., Canada, Costa Rica, Cze- 37 choslo vakia, Denmark, Domini can Repu blic, Ecuador, France, Guate mala, Haiti, 38 Iceland, Libe ria, Luxem burg, Nether lands, New Zealand, Nicara gua, Norway, 39 Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philip pines, Poland, Sweden, Ukrainian S.S.R., Union of 40 South Africa, U.S.A., U.S.S.R., Uruguay, Venezuela. 41 42 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 235

resolution 181| 235

Against: 13 1 Afgha ni stan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Paki stan, Saudi Ara- 2 bia, Syria, Tur key, Yemen. 3 4 Abstained: 10 5 Ar gen tina, Chile, China, Co lom bia, El Sal va dor, Ethiopia, Hon du ras, Mexico, 6 United King dom, Yugos la via. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 236

1 2 3 4 APPENDIX H 5 6 UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY 7 8 RESOLUTION 194 (III) Palestine—Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator 9 10 11 12 13 e General Assem bly, 14 Hav ing con si dered fur ther the situa tion in Pa les tine, 15 16 1. Expresses its deep appreciation of the progress achieved through the good 17 o7ces of the late United Nations Mediator in promoting a peaceful adjustment 18 of the future situation of Palestine, for which cause he sacri%ced his life; and 19 Extends its thanks to the Acting Mediator and his staH for their continued 20 eHorts and devotion to duty in Palestine; 21 22 2. Establishes a Conciliation Commission consisting of three States members of 23 the United Nations which shall have the following functions: 24 (a) To assume, in so far as it considers necessary in existing 25 circumstances, the functions given to the United Nations Mediator on 26 Palestine by resolution 186 (S-2) of the General Assembly of 14 May 1948; 27 28 (b) To carry out the speci%c functions and directives given to it by the 29 present resolution and such additional functions and directives as may be 30 given to it by the General Assembly or by the Security Council; 31 (c) To undertake, upon the request of the Security Council, any of the 32 functions now assigned to the United Nations Mediator on Palestine or to 33 the United Nations Truce Commission by resolutions of the Security 34 Council; upon such request to the Conciliation Commission by the 35 Security Council with respect to all the remaining functions of the United 36 Nations Mediator on Palestine under Security Council resolutions, the 37 o7ce of the Mediator shall be terminated; 38 39 3. Decides that a Committee of the Assembly, consisting of China, France, the 40 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom and the United States 41 42 source: U.N. Gen eral As sem bly, ird Ses sion, Of % cial Records, Admission of Israel to the United 43 Nations. Pre pared in pur su ance of U.N. Gen eral As sem bly Reso lu tion 173, A/PV 207, 1949.

236 | Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 237

resolution 194| 237

of America, shall present, before the end of the %rst part of the present session 1 of the General Assembly, for the approval of the Assembly, a proposal 2 concerning the names of the three States which will constitute the 3 Conciliation Commission; 4 5 4. Requests the Commission to begin its functions at once, with a view to the 6 establishment of contact between the parties themselves and the Commission 7 at the earliest possible date; 8 5. Calls upon the Governments and authorities concerned to extend the scope of 9 the negotiations provided for in the Security Council’s resolution of 16 10 November 1948 and to seek agreement by negotiations conducted either with 11 the Conciliation Commission or directly, with a view to the %nal settlement of 12 all questions outstanding between them; 13 14 6. the Conciliation Commission to take steps to assist the Instructs 15 Governments and authorities concerned to achieve a %nal settlement of all 16 questions outstanding between them; 17 7. Resolves that the Holy Places—including Nazareth—religious buildings and 18 sites in Palestine should be protected and free access to them assured, in 19 accordance with existing rights and historical practice; that arrangements to 20 this end should be under eHective United Nations supervision; that the United 21 Nations Conciliation Commission, in presenting to the fourth regular session 22 of the General Assembly its detailed proposals for a permanent international 23 regime for the territory of Jerusalem, should include recommendations 24 concerning the Holy Places in that territory; that with regard to the Holy 25 Places in the rest of Palestine the Commission should call upon the political 26 authorities of the areas concerned to give appropriate formal guarantees as to 27 the protection of the Holy Places and access to them; and that these 28 undertakings should be presented to the General Assembly for approval; 29 30 8. Resolves that, in view of its association with three world religions, the 31 Jerusalem area, including the present municipality of Jerusalem plus the 32 surrounding villages and towns, the most eastern of which shall be Abu Dis; 33 the most southern, Bethlehem; the most western, Ein Karim (including also 34 a the built-up area of Motsa); and the most northern, Shu fat, should be 35 accorded special and separate treatment from the rest of Palestine and should 36 be placed under eHective United Nations control; 37 Requests the Security Council to take further steps to ensure the 38 demilitarization of Jerusalem at the earliest possible date; 39 40 Instructs the Conciliation Commission to present to the fourth regular session 41 of the General Assembly detailed proposals for a permanent international 42 regime for the Jerusalem area which will provide for the maximum local 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 238

238 | appendix h

1 autonomy for distinctive groups consistent with the special international 2 status of the Jerusalem area; 3 e Conciliation Commission is authorized to appoint a United Nations 4 representative, who shall co-operate with the local authorities with respect to 5 the interim administration of the Jerusalem area; 6 7 9. Resolves that, pending agreement on more detailed arrangements among the 8 Governments and authorities concerned, the freest possible access to 9 Jerusalem by road, rail or air should be accorded to all inhabitants of Palestine; 10 Instructs the Conciliation Commission to report immediately to the Security 11 Council, for appropriate action by that organ, any attempt by any party to 12 impede such access; 13 14 10. Instructs the Conciliation Commission to seek arrangements among the 15 Governments and authorities concerned which will facilitate the economic 16 development of the area, including arrangements for access to ports and 17 air%elds and the use of transportation and communication facilities; 18 11. Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace 19 with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable 20 date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing 21 not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of 22 international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or 23 authorities responsible; 24 25 Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, 26 resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the 27 payment of compensation, and to maintain close relations with the Director of 28 the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees and, through him, with the 29 appropriate organs and agencies of the United Nations; 30 12. Authorizes the Conciliation Commission to appoint such subsidiary bodies 31 and to employ such technical experts, acting under its authority, as it may %nd 32 necessary for the eHective discharge of its functions and responsibilities under 33 the present resolution; 34 35 e Conciliation Commission will have its o7cial headquarters at Jerusalem. 36 e authorities responsible for maintaining order in Jerusalem will be 37 responsible for taking all measures necessary to ensure the security of the 38 Commission. e Secretary-General will provide a limited number of guards to 39 the protection of the staH and premises of the Commission; 40 13. Instructs the Conciliation Commission to render progress reports periodically 41 to the Secretary-General for transmission to the Security Council and to the 42 Members of the United Nations; 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 239

resolution 194| 239

14. Calls upon all Governments and authorities concerned to co-operate with the 1 Conciliation Commission and to take all possible steps to assist in the 2 implementation of the present resolution; 3 15. Requests the Secretary-General to provide the necessary staH and facilities 4 and to make appropriate arrangements to provide the necessary funds 5 required in carrying out the terms of the present resolution. 6 7 At the 186th plen ary meet ing on 11 De cem ber 1948, a com mit tee of the Assem bly con sist - 8 ing of the ve States des ig nated in para graph 3 of the above reso lu tion 9 pro posed that the fol low ing three States should con sti tute 10 t h e C o n c i l i a t i o n C o m m i s s i o n : 11 12 FRANCE, TUR KEY, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 13 14 Be pro po sal of the Com mit tee hav ing been adopted by the Gen eral As sembly 15 at the same meeting, the Concilia tion Commis sion is therefore 16 com posed of the above-mentioned three States. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 240

1 2 3 4 APPENDIX I 5 6 UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY 7 8 RESOLUTION 273 (III) Admission of Israel to Membership in the United Nations 9 10 MAY 11, 1949 11 12 13 Having received the report of the Security Council on the application of Israel for 14 membership in the United Nations,1 15 16 Noting that, in the judgment of the Security Council, Israel is a peace-loving State and 17 is able and willing to carry out the obligations contained in the Charter, 18 Noting that the Security Council has recommended to the General Assembly that it 19 admit Israel to membership in the United Nations, 20 21 Noting furthermore the declaration by the State of Israel that it “unreservedly accepts 22 the obligations of the United Nations Charter and undertakes to honour them from 23 the day when it becomes a Member of the United Nations,”2 24 Recalling its resolutions of 29 November 19473 and 11 December 19484 and taking note 25 of the declarations and explanations made by the representative of the Government of 26 Israel5 before the ad hoc Political Committee in respect of the implementation of the 27 said resolutions, 28 29 30 Be Gen eral As sem bly, 31 Acting in discharge of its functions under Article 4 of the Charter and rule 125 of its 32 rules of procedure, 33 34 1. Decides that Israel is a peace-loving State which accepts the obligations contained 35 in the Charter and is able and willing to carry out those obligations; 36 2. Decides to admit Israel to membership in the United Nations. 37 38 39 Source: U.N. Gen eral As sem bly, ird Ses sion, Of % cial Records, A d m i s s i o n o f I s r a e l t o M e m b e r s h i p i n 40 the United Nations. Prepared in pursu ance of U.N. General Assem bly Resolu tion 273, A/PV 207, 1949. 41 42 43

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1 2 3 4 NOTES 5 6 7 8 Introduction (pages 1–19) 9 10 1. is was British High Commissioner Herbert Samuel’s warning to Chaim Weizmann 11 from 1921. I thank Liora Russman Halperin for this citation. See her superb bachelor’s 12 thesis, “e Arabic Question: Zionism and the Politics of Language in Palestine, 1918– 13 1948” (Harvard University, 2005), 74. 14 15 2. is desire is deeply embedded in the founding document of the State of Israel, the 16 Declaration of the Establishment of the State from 14 December 1948, which declares: 17 “After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout 18 their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the 19 restoration in it of their political freedom. . . . Impelled by this historic and traditional 20 attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in 21 their ancient homeland.” 22 3. e Arabic term Nakba was coined in 1948 by the historian Constantine Zureik. e 23 literature on the Nakba and the Palestinian right of return is large and growing. In terms 24 of literary representation, Elias Khoury’s Gate of the Sun is peerless in evoking the sense 25 of longing, neglect, and misfortune that the Nakba caused Palestinian refugees. It bred, 26 on one hand, a kind of psychic malady among displaced Palestinians that Khoury’s nar- 27 rator calls “Return fever.” It also generated a well-developed sense of self-deprecation, 28 no more poignantly expressed in the novel than by a Palestinian woman to an Israeli 29 oMcer: “We’re the Jews’ Jews.” See Khoury, Gate of the Sun (Bab al-Shams), trans. 30 Humphrey Davies (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Archipelago, 2006), 62, 381. 31 32 4. Khalil Shikaki, “e Right of Return,” Wall Street Journal, 30 July 2003. is point was 33 aMrmed by a recent New York Times article that concluded that “(a)lmost no Palestin- 34 ian questions the demand for Israel’s recognition of the right to return; many, however, 35 now say returning is becoming less and less feasible.” See Hassan M. Fattah, “For Many 36 Palestinians, ‘Return Is Not a Goal,’” New York Times, 26 March 2007. 37 5. For critical voices on his conclusions, see, for example, Salman Abu Sitta, “Inalien- 38 able and Sacred,” http://weekly .ahram .org .eg/ 2003/ 651/ op11/ htm, 13–20 August 2003 39 and Ghada Karmi, “e Right of Return: e Heart of the Israeli-Palestinian ConXict,” 40 http:// www .opendemocracy .net/ conXict-debate_ 97/ article_ 1456.jsp, 27 August 2003. 41 For another critical voice from a dierent angle, see Max Abrams, “e ‘Right of Re- 42 turn’ Debate Revisited,” Middle East Intelligence Bulletin 5 (August–September 2003), ac- 43 cessed at http:// www .meib .org/ articles/ 0308_ pal1.htm. 44 45 6. Said oered his assessment while polemicizing against Palestinian political leaders 46 who were prepared to compromise on the question of return. See his “Introduction: e 47

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1 Right of Return at Last” in Naseer Aruri, Palestinian Refugees: %e Right of Return (Lon- 2 don: Pluto, 2001), 4. Meanwhile, the interview with Olmert in the Jerusalem Post from 3 29 March 2007 can be found at http:// www .jpost .com/ servlet/ Satellite ?apage =4&cid 4 =1173879210818&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull. 5 7. See Rawidowicz’s lecture at a symposium on the new State of Israel held in 1949, “Two 6 at are One,” in Rawidowicz, State of Israel, Diaspora, and Jewish Continuity: Essays on 7 the “Ever-Dying People” (1986; reprint, Hanover, N .H.: University Press of New England, 8 9 1998), 155. 10 8. ere were some exceptions, as we shall explore in part II, especially in the midst of 11 and after Israel’s wars in 1956 and 1967. 12 13 9. In addition to those discussed here, groups ranging from the Reform-oriented Amer- 14 ican Council for Judaism to the ultra-Orthodox Neturei Karta attacked the Zionist goal 15 of statehood on religious grounds. In its opening “Digest of Principles” from August 16 1943, the American Council for Judaism (ACJ) declared its opposition to “the e[orts to 17 establish a Jewish National State in Palestine or elsewhere,” as well as to “all philoso- 18 phies that stress the racialism, the nationalism and the homelessness of the Jews.” 19 Later, after the state was created, the ACJ accepted the principle of the partition of 20 Palestine, but strenuously aMrmed the loyalty of American Jews to the United States. 21 e brst article of a new statement of principles from 19 January 1948 proclaimed: “Na- 22 tionality and religion are separate and distinct. Our nationality is American. Our reli- 23 gion is Judaism. Our homeland is the United States of America. We reject any concept 24 that Jews are at home only in Palestine.” See the discussion in omas A. Kolsky, Jews 25 against Zionism: %e American Council for Judaism, 1942–1948 (Philadelphia: Temple 26 University Press, 1990), 71, 177. Perhaps the most renowned and vociferous among reli- 27 gious critics was Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe and author of the theological 28 polemic against Zionism, Va-yo’el Mosheh (1958), who famously called Zionism “the great- 29 est form of spiritual impurity in the entire world.” See http://www . jewsagainst zi onism 30 .com/ quotes/ teitelbaum .htm#SomeWords. 31 10. See, for example, Yoram Hazony, %e Jewish State: %e Struggle for Israel’s Soul (New 32 York: Basic Books, 2000), Michael B. Oren, “Jews and the Challenge of Sovereignty,” 33 Azure 23 (Winter 5766/ 2006), 27–38, and Ruth Wisse, Jews and Power (New York: 34 Schocken, 2007). 35 36 11. See Avraham Sharon, Torat ha-Tsiyonut ha-akhzarit (Tel Aviv: Sifriyat De’ot, 1943–44). 37 is viewpoint bears a strong resemblance to—and became more famous among—the 38 Canaanites, the literary and political movement that arose in the Yishuv in the 1940s. In- 39 spired by the Hebrew poet Yonatan Ratosh, the Canaanites constructed a rather fan- 40 tastical image of a radical Hebrew culture at home in the native soil of ancient Canaan— 41 and genetically unrelated to Jewish religion, Diaspora Jewish life, or even Zionism (with 42 its European origins). Rawidowicz, for his part, regarded the Canaanites as the Xip side 43 of the coin of the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism. Both groups denied an or- 44 ganic relationship between Babylon and Jerusalem: the American Council, because it re- 45 jected the notion of a national bond of any sort among Jews; and the Canaanites, be- 46 cause they “absorbed (the idea of) the negation of the Diaspora with their mothers’ milk.” 47 See Bavel vi-Yerushalayim (Waltham, Mass.: Ararat, 1957), 1:188–89. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 243

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12. In a related vein, Anita Shapira has traced a shift in the dominant Socialist Zionist 1 movement from a defensive to an o[ensive posture vis-à-vis the native Palestinian Arab 2 population, marked by the outbreak of the general Arab strike and rebellion of 1936. 3 See her Land and Power: %e Zionist Resort to Force, 1881–1948, trans. William Templer 4 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 5 6 13. Yizhar’s short piece, “aAl dodim ve-aArvim” is included in a section on “e Arab 7 Question as a Jewish Problem,” in Mordekhai Martin Buber be-mivhan ha-zeman, ed. 8 Kalman Yaron and Paul Mendes-Flohr (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1993), 14–15. See also 9 the English translation by Steven Bowman, “About Uncles and Arabs,” Hebrew Studies 10 47 (2006), 325–26. I thank Yael Feldman for calling this source to my attention. 11 14. Yizhar, “aAl dodim ve-aArvim,” 14. 12 13 15. See Joseph B. Schechtman, Postwar Population Transfers in Europe, 1945–55 (Philadel- 14 phia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1962), ix, and Schechtman, %e Arab Refugee 15 Problem (New York: Philosophical Library, 1952). 31. 16 16. is, for example, is the argument of the Israeli writer Hillel Halkin, who describes 17 the Palestinian claim to repatriation as “absurd,” given that “no such right was ever de- 18 manded on behalf of far larger refugee populations in the 20th century.” Halkin does not 19 mention in his article United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948, which 20 specibcally addresses the plight of Palestinian refugees by calling for either repatriation 21 or compensation; see Hillel Halkin, “e Peace Planners Strike Again,” Commentary(Jan- 22 uary 2008), 16. For a more nuanced legal discussion that dismisses the right of return for 23 Palestinians (but not the idea of compensation), see Ruth Lapidot, Israel and the Pales- 24 tinians: Some Legal Issues (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 2003), 43–54. 25 26 17. See, for example, Salman Abu-Sitta, “e Right of Return: Sacred, Legal and Possi- 27 ble,” in Aruri, Palestinian Refugees: %e Right of Return, 195–207. On the inalienability of 28 the right of return, see the introduction by Said and Joseph Massad’s chapter, “Return 29 or Permanent Exile?” in Aruri, Palestinian Refugees. Elsewhere, Ali Abunimah and Hus- 30 sein Ibish argue that with respect to the Palestinians’ right of return, “[n]o state or au- 31 thority has the right to bargain it away, any more than it could bargain away its people’s 32 other human rights.” See Abunimah and Ibish, %e Palestinian Right of Return (Wash- 33 ington, D .C.: American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, 2001), 7. Ibish has re- 34 cently o[ered, in a private exchange, a rebnement of this position that draws upon his 35 reading of current political realities and his own commitment to a two-state solution. 36 He writes: “Israel must recognize and accept the right of return as an inviolable prin- 37 ciple of international law, and Palestinians must recognize and accept that in practice 38 Israeli sovereignty will dictate the modalities for the implementation of any such return 39 of refugees” (e-mail correspondence, 10 July 2007). A competing view that suggests that 40 the right of return is not rooted in international law is o[ered by Israeli legal scholar 41 Eyal Benvenisti who argues: “[I]nstead of an individual right of each Palestinian refugee, 42 or any refugee, to return, international law recognizes the full authority of the relevant 43 governments (including those representing the refugees) to reach any compromise 44 they deem to be just and appropriate.” See Benvenisti, “e Right of Return in Inter- 45 national Law: An Israeli Perspective,” http:// www .idrc .ca/ uploads/ user-S/ 10576079920 46 Session _ 2_ Eyal_ Benvenisti_ paper .doc, 1. 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 244

244 | notes

1 18. An exception to this pattern is provided by Sari Nusseibeh, who argues of the Pales- 2 tinian cause: “We have two rights. We have the right of return, in my opinion. But we 3 also have the right to live in freedom and independence. And very often in life one has 4 to forgo the implementation of one right in order to implement other rights.” See Nus- 5 seibeh (with Anthony David), Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life (New York: Far- 6 rar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007), 446. See also the observation of Hannah Arendt in 1948; 7 she notes in Jews and Arabs in Palestine “the complete incompatibility of claims which 8 until now has frustrated every attempt to compromise and every e[ort to bnd a com- 9 mon denominator between two peoples whose common interests are patent to all ex- 10 cept themselves.” Arendt, “Peace or Armistice in the Near East?” in her %e Jewish Writ- 11 ings, ed. Jerome Kohn and Ron H. Feldman (New York: Schocken, 2007), 430. 12 19. e question, following the groundbreaking work of Israeli scholars, particularly 13 Benny Morris, is no longer whether expulsions took place in 1948. As Derek Penslar 14 has commented in a recent book: “[I]t is now conventional wisdom that, as Benny Mor- 15 ris argued back in 1988, substantial numbers of Palestinians were expelled from their 16 homes in 1948.” See Derek J. Penslar, Israel in History: %e Jewish State in Comparative 17 Perspective (New York: Routledge, 2007), 44–45. However, two key questions remain: the 18 extent of the expulsions (i .e., how many Palestinians were forcibly removed) and 19 whether the expulsions were deliberately organized according to a master plan or not. 20 On the latter question, Ilan Pappé has recently advanced a sweeping thesis, arguing 21 that a small group of Zionist oMcials led by David Ben-Gurion—and which he refers to 22 as “e Consultancy”—came together “solely for the purpose of plotting and designing 23 the dispossession of the Palestinians.” Ilan Pappé, %e Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Ox- 24 ford: Oneworld, 2006), 5. Pappé presents a seamless plot line based on a wide range of 25 sources (including Arab accounts and oral histories), though the documentary evi- 26 dence he uses is at times fragmentary and ignores countervailing statements that point 27 toward a more complicated set of Zionist/ Israeli intentions vis-à-vis the Arab popula- 28 tion of Palestine up to and including 1948 (i .e., professions from Zionist oMcials speak- 29 ing of the desire for peace, friendship, or fraternity with them). e position at which 30 Pappé is taking aim, most famously associated with Morris, asserts that the expulsion 31 of Palestinian Arabs was far more episodic and partial than premeditated, dependent, 32 as it was, on local conditions and the discretion accorded individual commanders by 33 the Haganah’s “Plan D.” at said, Morris in the revised edition of his 1988 book arrived 34 at a new conclusion: “pre-1948 ‘Transfer’ thinking had a greater e[ect on what hap- 35 pened in 1948 than I had allowed for.” Morris, in this sense, tries to avoid the pole of 36 Pappé’s sweeping determinism and his erstwhile assertion of a lack of premeditation. 37 In this view, pre-1948 Zionist discussions of “transfer” (the forced removal of Palestin- 38 ian Arabs) did not necessarily provide the blueprint for expulsions in 1948, but rather 39 o[ered a policy option that was acted upon in moments of crisis or stress. See Morris, 40 %e Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- 41 sity Press, 2004), 5–6. 42 43 20. We shall see that Simon Rawidowicz was well aware of and deeply disturbed by the 44 fact that various Israeli government oMcials, including the brst president of the State 45 of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, referred to the Arab Xight from Palestine as “a miracle.” 46 Meanwhile, David Ben-Gurion, the towering founding father of the State of Israel and 47 its brst prime minister tended to see the creation of the state in messianic terms, Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 245

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indeed, as “a messianic event”—notwithstanding his conbrmed secularism. His writ- 1 ings are replete with this kind of messianic resonance from 1948 to his last years. See 2 David Ohana’s study and source collection dealing with Ben-Gurion’s messianism, 3 Meshihiyut u-mamlakhtiyut: Ben-Guryon veha-intelektuHalim ben hazon medini le-teHol- 4 ogyah politit (Beer Sheva: Makhon Ben-Guryon, 2003), 57[. 5 6 21. In addition, it is important to note that at various times, and with increasing fre- 7 quency today, Jewish advocates have countered the claims of Palestinian disposses- 8 sion with claims of Jewish dispossession from Arab countries in 1948. Indeed, some 9 850,000 Jews left Arab countries in 1948 and thereafter, many under the dark cloud of 10 threat to their physical well-being. Recently, the group Justice for Jews from Arab Coun- 11 tries has claimed to unearth evidence that the Arab League drafted a law that called on 12 its seven member countries to discriminate against Jews in response to Zionism. See 13 “Group Spotlights Jews who Left Arab Lands,” New York Times, November 5, 2007. As we 14 shall see in part II, it has been proposed on di[erent occasions that the Xight of Arabs 15 from Palestine/Israel and of Jews from Arab countries be deemed a population ex- 16 change. Such a proposal has the e[ect of ignoring both the sense of historical injus- 17 tice and the legitimate demands for compensation of both Arabs and Jews. 18 22. In this regard, Don Peretz’s early and excellent treatment of Israel’s stance on the 19 refugee question (1958) concludes on an overly optimistic note: “Time as a healing el- 20 ement is the most important factor in coping with the psychological disturbances cre- 21 ated by the Palestine conXict.” See Peretz’s important study, based on his 1954 Colum- 22 bia dissertation, Israel and the Palestine Arabs (Washington, D .C.: Middle East Institute, 23 1958), 247. 24 25 23. e intent of this discussion of parallel but opposing vectors of change is not to 26 equate the Nakba with the Holocaust; the latter remains a unique example of pre- 27 meditated state-sponsored mass murder. 28 24. One such bgure is Palestinian philosopher, Sari Nusseibeh. Nusseibeh is hardly the 29 only Israeli Jew or Palestinian Arab to be able to grasp with empathy the perspective of 30 the other. He is, however, an especially noteworthy one, given his commitment to serve 31 his people (as president of Al-Quds University) and to advance with an Israeli coun- 32 terpart what they see as the most equitable and practical solution: a two-state arrange- 33 ment between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. And yet, as a telling sym- 34 bol of the suspension of reality in which Nusseibeh must engage, he commences his 35 recent memoir by describing how he felt compelled to pen a fairy tale in order to lure 36 his British wife to leave the comforts of Oxford for the travails of Jerusalem. How else, 37 he pondered, “do you break the news that your fate will be tied to one of the most 38 volatile corners on the planet, with two major wars in its recent history and the Arab 39 leaders worldwide calling for another?” e fairy-tale quality is preserved in the title of 40 the book. See Nusseibeh, Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life, 4. 41 42 25. Arendt’s response to Scholem from 24 July 1963 is found in %e Jewish Writings, 466–67. 43 26. e journalist J. J. Goldberg captures this dynamic in reporting an exchange in 1992 44 between Yossi Beilin, then Israel’s deputy foreign minister, and American Jewish leader 45 Ruth Popkin. Beilin insisted to an audience of Jewish community leaders: “We want 46 you to disagree with us.” Popkin responded: “We can’t do that. Our job here is to defend 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 246

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1 you.” See Goldberg, Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment (Cambridge, 2 Mass.: Perseus, 1996), 347. 3 27. e example of Cubans, Hindus, Irish, and Armenians in the United States, to men- 4 tion but a few, illustrates the point about diaspora or exile communities adopting a 5 political stance that is more conservative than in the homeland. For a discussion of 6 this tendency, see María de los Angeles Torres, In the Land of Mirrors: Cuban Exile Pol- 7 itics in the United States (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1999), Prema 8 Kurien, “Multiculturalism, Immigrant Religion, and Diasporic Nationalism: e De- 9 velopment of an American Hinduism,” Social Problems 51, no. 3 (2004), 362–85; and 10 Yossi Shain, “e Role of Diasporas in ConXict Perpetuation or Resolution,” SAIS Review 11 22, n0. 2 (Summer–Fall 2002), 115–44. As against the declared intention of the organ- 12 ized Jewish community in America to provide unstinting support to the government 13 of the State of Israel, the Oslo peace process prompted some Jewish groups to break 14 ranks. Shain notes the e[orts of some of these groups to resist conciliatory steps by Is- 15 rael or the United States toward the Palestinians despite the strong support of both 16 the Israeli and American governments. Shain, “e Role of Diasporas,” 124. 17 18 28. Benny Morris seemed to justify the practice of ethnic cleansing in a well-publicized 19 interview with Ari Shavit from 2004: “A Jewish state would not have come into being 20 without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. erefore it was necessary to uproot 21 them. ere was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the 22 hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads.” See Morris’s in- 23 terview of 9 January 2004, “Survival of the Fittest,” in Ha-arets, accessed on 22 June 2007 24 at http://www .haaretz .com/ hasen/ objectspages/ PrintArticleEn .jhtml ?itemNo =380986. 25 29. Shlomo Ben-Ami, Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: %e Israeli-Arab Tragedy (Oxford: 26 Oxford University Press, 2006), 42. 27 28 30. See Oz, “No right of return, but Israel must o[er a solution,” from 12 May 2007 at 29 http: // globeandmail .workopolis .com/ servlet/ Content/ fasttrack/ 20070512/ COOZ12 30 ?gateway=cc. 31 31. Ben-Ami, Scars of War, 50. 32 33 32. For example, the Parameters presented at Camp David by President Clinton, which 34 were accepted by the Israelis, o[ered bve possible venues for refugee resettlement, in- 35 cluding a new state of Palestine (brst) and, in limited fashion, the State of Israel (last). 36 Moreover, the Clinton Parameters suggested one of two alternative formulations re- 37 garding recognition of the Palestinian right of return: (1) “Both sides recognize the right 38 of Palestinian refugees to return to historic Palestine”; and (2) “Both sides recognize the 39 right of Palestinian homeland.” Dennis Ross includes the Parameters in his careful ac- 40 count of the Camp David peace talks, %e Missing Peace: %e Inside Story of the Fight for 41 Middle East Peace (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005), 804–805. 42 33. It is especially interesting to note the e[orts of a number of Israeli legal theorists to 43 mediate between the Palestinian right of return and the right of Jews to a state of their 44 own, including Eyal Benvenisti, Chaim Gans, and Andrei Marmur. Gans, for example, 45 makes an admirable though at times convoluted attempt to balance the competing 46 interests at hand before arriving at the following two conclusions. First, Israel should 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 247

notes| 247 accept responsibility for those who were expelled (as against all Palestinian refugees). 1 Second, Israel should allow (a) the return of refugees to their original homes if the land 2 on which they stand is unpopulated, and (b) the return of more refugees—ranging be- 3 tween the poles of “negligible” and “mass” in number—as part of a broader peace agree- 4 ment. See Gans’s paper, “e Palestinian Right of Return and the Justice of Zionism,” 5 %eoretical Inquiries in Law 5 (2004), 269–304; a Hebrew version of this essay, along 6 with a number of others dealing with the right of return can be found in hisMe-Rikhard 7 Vagner Aad zekhut ha-shivah: nituah @loso@ shel beAayot tsibur YisreHeliyot (Tel Aviv: Am 8 Oved, 2006), especially 200–285. e above-noted issue of %eoretical Inquiries in Law 9 is devoted to the question of return and includes contributions by Lukas Meyer, Je- 10 remy Waldron, Alon Harel, and David Enoch. Meanwhile, Andrei Marmur o[ers a 11 somewhat sharper and more straightforward account than Gans in which he also con- 12 cludes that Israel must accept partial responsibility for the refugee problem, as well as 13 a limited number of returnees. See Marmor, “Entitlement to Land and the Right of Re- 14 turn: An Embarrassing Challenge for Liberal Zionism,” in Justice in Time: Responding to 15 Historical Injustice, ed. Lukas H. Meyer (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2004), 319–33. e Meyer 16 volume includes a range of views on the right of return, including Gans’s critique of 17 Marmor, 335–38. 18 19 34. e Beilin–Abu Mazen text calls, on one hand, for the Palestinians to acknowledge 20 that full implementation of the right of return is “impracticable,” and on the other, for 21 the Israelis to acknowledge “the moral and material su[ering caused to the Palestin- 22 ian people as a result of the war of 1947–1949.” See the text at http:// www .bitterlemons 23 .org/ docs/ beilinmazen .html (accessed on 29 June 2007). For the Geneva Accord, see 24 http:// www .geneva-accord .org/ Accord .aspx?FolderID=33&lang=en (accessed on 29 25 June 2007). 26 35. Nusseibeh makes this remark, a version of which he once delivered to an Israeli au- 27 dience, just after describing the Arab tradition of the sulha (the act of making amends 28 for a wrong through a ritualized expression of contrition) in his memoir: “It doesn’t 29 matter whether you set out premeditatedly to cause the Palestinian refugee tragedy.... 30 the tragedy did occur, even as an indirect consequence of your actions. In our tradition, 31 you have to own up to this. You have to come and o[er an apology. Only this way will 32 Palestinians feel that their dignity has been recognized, and be able to forgive” (Once 33 Upon a Country, 169). 34 35 36. See Ravid’s Hebrew biography of his father, “Le-hayav veli-khetavav shel Shimon 36 Rawidowicz,”‘Iyunim be-mahshevet Yisrael (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1969), 1:xvii–lxxii. 37 e English version, “e Life and Writings of Simon Rawidowicz,” is found in Rawid- 38 owicz, State of Israel, Diaspora, and Jewish Continuity, 13–50 (citation at 43–44). Michael 39 A. Meyer’s brief foreword to this volume makes a number of incisive and important 40 points about Rawidowicz, but does not mention the chapter. See also Ravid’s intro- 41 duction, similar to the other English version, to Simon Rawidowicz, Studies in Jewish 42 %ought, ed. Nahum N. Glatzer (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1974), 3–42. 43 Among other studies that address Rawidowicz’s signibcance to the beld of Jewish 44 thought, see the tribute of his Brandeis colleague, Nahum N. Glatzer, “Simon Rawid- 45 owicz on his 10th Yahrzeit,” Judaism 16 (Summer 1967); Jay Harris’s discussion of his 46 contribution to the study of Nachman Krochmal in his Nachman Krochmal: Guiding 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 248

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1 the Perplexed of the Modern Age (New York: New York University Press, 1991), passim; and 2 my “A ird Guide for the Perplexed? Simon Rawidowicz ‘On Interpretation,’” in His- 3 tory and Literature: New Readings of Jewish Texts in Honor of Arnold J. Band, ed. William 4 Cutter and David C. Jacobson. (Providence, R .I.: Brown Judaic Studies, 2002), 75–87. 5 37. See, for example, Yosef Gorny, %e State of Israel in Jewish Public %ought: %e Quest 6 for Collective Identity (New York: New York University Press, 1994), passim; Ehud Luz, 7 Wrestling with an Angel: Power, Morality, and Jewish Identity (New Haven, Conn.: Yale 8 University Press, 1998), 82–83. Gordon Tucker’s review of Rawidowicz’s State of Israel 9 collection and James Diamond’s Homeland or Holy Land? %e Canaanite Critique of Is- 10 rael is found in Judaism 37 (Summer 1988), 364–75. One of the most perceptive analy- 11 ses of Rawidowicz’s attitude toward Zionism was o[ered by Arnold Band in an un- 12 published lecture, “Simon Rawidowicz: An Early Critic of the Zionist Narrative,” 13 delivered as the 35th Simon Rawidowicz Memorial Lecture at Brandeis University in 14 Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1998. See also David N. Myers, “Simon Rawidowicz, ‘Hash- 15 paitis,’ and the Perils of InXuence,” Transversal 7 (2006), 13–26. 16 17 38. See Noam F. Pianko, “Diaspora Jewish Nationalism and Identity in America, 1914– 18 1967” (Ph .D. diss., Yale University, 2004), 195–96. It is noteworthy that Rawidowicz has 19 attracted recent attention from two aspiring scholars in their respective B .A. theses. See 20 Ronch Willner, “Mobilising Diaspora: Identity beyond Sovereignty” (Monash University, 21 2007), especially 46–70, and Jason Lustig, “Between Berlin and Tel Aviv: Simon Rawid- 22 owicz and the Politics of Culture (Brandeis University, 2008). 23 39. See Arendt’s short opinion piece from 14 August 1942, “Confusion,” originally pub- 24 lished in the German-American newspaper, Aufbau, and newly reprinted in %e Jewish 25 Writings, 170. 26 27 40. A more updated existentialist expression of this predicament is o[ered by Je[rey 28 Goldberg in describing his own tortuous path from a Jewish boy in Long Island to mil- 29 itary sentry in an Israeli prison: “My love for Israel was so bottomless that my disap- 30 pointment with it was bottomless, too.” See Goldberg, Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew 31 across the Middle East Divide (New York: Knopf, 2006), 175. 32 41. For recent attempts to treat the Jews and Arabs in Palestine as part of a single his- 33 torical sphere, see the collection, Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the Study 34 of Israel-Palestine, ed. Sandy Suban and Mark Levine (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Lit- 35 tlebeld, 2007), and Adam LeBor, City of Oranges: An Intimate History of Arabs and Jews 36 in Haifa (New York: Norton, 2007). 37 38 39 PART I | !e Jewish Question (pages 21–87) 40 41 1. Fifty years after its publication, this book remains largely unknown to the world of 42 Jewish letters. While portions of the book have been translated in State of Israel, Dias- 43 pora, and Jewish Continuity and Studies in Jewish %ought, a complete translation and 44 critical analysis of Bavel vi-Yerushalayim remain an overdue desideratum. 45 46 2. Rawidowicz recalls at the end of the introduction to Bavel vi-Yerushalayim that he 47 wrote the text between 1951 and 1955, though he made some modibcations in 1956 upon Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 249

notes| 249 reading the completed draft. See Rawidowicz’s recollections in Bavel vi-Yerushalayim 1 (Waltham, Mass: Ararat, 1957), 49. 2 3 3. See the account of Avraham Greenbaum in A History of the Ararat Publishing Society 4 (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1998), 22. 5 4. e question of the number of refugees remains an open one. A report by the United 6 Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine (PCC) from 28 March 1949 estimated 7 that “the number of refugees to be repatriated or resettled (in Palestine or elsewhere), 8 amounts to approximately 650,000,” while also noting a bgure of 910,000 by another 9 U.N. oMcial, Stanton GriMs, director of the U .N. Relief for Palestine Refugees. By con- 10 trast, oMcials of the State of Israel argued that there were 530,000 refugees. See the 11 PCC’s “Observations on Some of the Problems Relating to Palestine Refugees,” 12 5256cf40073bfe6/ 1c4639213dbdfad985256caf00726eec!OpenDocument. A commonly 13 quoted bgure today, drawn from British Foreign OMce analysis, is 711,000 refugees. See 14 Morris’s summary, “e Number of Palestinian Refugees” in %e Birth of the Palestinian 15 Refugees Problem Revisited, 602–604. 16 17 5. In the early 1930s, Rawidowicz had to combat claims that his distinctive position vi- 18 olated the spirit and essence of Zionism. See his response to Zionist critics who deemed 19 him an apostate in Im lo kan—hekhan? (Lvov: Brit aIvrit aOlamit, 1933), viii. More than 20 a decade later, at a London reception to celebrate the appearance of the brst volume 21 of Metsudah, the journal he edited, Simon Rawidowicz came under attack from his fel- 22 low Hebraist and occasional collaborator, Sir Leon Simon. Simon complained that 23 Rawidowicz’s opening article contained “unfair and bitter attacks on the Zionist move- 24 ment” that “went beyond the bounds of fair criticism.” See “Publication of ‘Metsudah’: 25 Sir L. Simon’s Attack,” %e Jewish Chronicle, 18 February 1944, as well as the discussion 26 by Ravid in a lengthy note in Rawidowicz, State of Israel, Diaspora, and Jewish Conti- 27 nuity, 252. Some years later, the German-born British rabbi and scholar Alexander Car- 28 lebach reported that Rawidowicz had been branded, unfairly to his mind, with the ep- 29 ithet “anti-Zionist” by a recent commentator. See his review of Rawidowicz’s journal 30 Metsudah, “Solving the Jewish Problem?” Hayenu 12, nos. 9–10 (October 1948), 13. By 31 contrast, a year later, the State of Israel’s brst Ambassador to the United States, Eliahu 32 Eilat, participated in a forum (in Yiddish) with Rawidowicz in New York in which he ca- 33 sually referred to Rawidowicz, along with Ahad Ha-am, Jacob Klatzkin, and Yehezkel 34 Kaufmann, as “Zionist thinkers who have grappled with the problem of the relationship 35 between Jews in the Land of Israel and those outside of it.” See Eilat’s remarks at the 36 forum of 20 February 1949, “Yisroel un di tsukunft fun dem yidishn folk,” Di tsukunft 54 37 (May–June 1949), 279. See also the postmortem appreciations of Rawidowicz by Israeli 38 intellectuals and writers who challenge the perception of his hostility to Zionism; for 39 example, G. Kressel’s analysis in Davar from 12 December 1958 or Robert Weltsch’s re- 40 view of Bavel vi-Yerushalayim from 3 April 1959 in Ha-arets. 41 6. As we shall see later, Rawidowicz was borrowing the title from an article written by 42 a young Bernard Lewis in Hebrew, “aEver ve-aarav,” in a Hebrew journal that Rawido - 43 wicz edited in London. Lewis’s essay was an early and compressed version of his more 44 renowned later work on the peaks and valleys in Jewish-Muslim relations. See Bernard 45 Dov Lewis, “aEver ve-aarav,” Metsudah 1 (1943), 104–112. e term was also the title of a 46 book by the scholar, A. S. Yahuda, in 1946, and has recently been evoked by Gil Anidjar 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 250

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1 in his chapter “aEber ve-aArab (e Arab Literature of the Jews),” in his Semites: Race, Re- 2 ligion, Literature (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2008), 84[. 3 4 7. Perhaps the most obvious borrowing by Rawidowicz from this classicizing Hebrew a 5 style was the term “ ever” itself. In the eighteenth century, the Hebrew language was a a 6 often referred to as “sefat ever.” See for example the volume by N. H. Wessely, Gan na ul, H a 7 le-va er u-lelaben yesode sefat ever veha-shorashi mi-ha-nirda@m (Amsterdam: Y. Y. and 8 A. Props, 1765–66). is usage abounds in the later Haskalah journal Ha-shahar, edited 9 by Peretz Smolenskin. 10 8. See “Between Jew and Arab,” sec. XII. 11 12 9. Ibid., sec. VII. 13 10. e earliest that Rawidowicz could have received proofs that included a mention of 14 the Bandung conference, it would seem, was late summer/ early fall 1955. 15 16 11. “Between Jew and Arab,” sec. VII. 17 12. See Marion Aptroot’s introduction to Moshe Sanders and Marion Aptroot, Jewish 18 Books in Whitechapel: A Bibliography of Narodiczky’s Press (London: Duckworth, 1991), ix. 19 20 13. See Greenbaum, A History of the Ararat Publishing Society, 17 and 26 n.46. On Fink, see 21 the Leksikon ha-sifrut ha-Aivrit be-dorot ha-aharonim , 1st ed., s.v., “Yaaakov Yisrahel Fink.” 22 14. Rawidowicz, Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, 50. 23 24 15. See Rawidowicz’s brief approbation, “Ahare mahatayim shanah: divre berakha le- 25 Shevivim,” Shevivim 1 (1955), 3–6. 26 16. See Benjamin Ravid’s comment in Rawidowicz, State of Israel, Diaspora, and Jewish 27 Continuity, 44. 28 29 17. A collection of a dozen letters from Fink to Rawidowicz dealing with a variety of 30 publishing matters from 1949 to 1955 can be found in the Simon Rawidowicz archive in 31 Newton, Massachusetts. 32 18. Greenbaum, “Rawidowicz at Brandeis University (A Memoir),” in A History of the Ararat 33 Publishing Society, 50. Greenbaum has conbrmed (in an interview on April 10, 2005) that 34 this information emerged out of a conversation he had with Rawidowicz in 1957. 35 36 19. Jacob Neusner notes that the traditional use of the term was layered with powerful 37 theological resonances: “e word ‘Israel’ today generally refers to the overseas polit- 38 ical nation, the State of Israel.... But the word ‘Israel’ in Scripture and in the canoni- 39 cal writings of the religion, Judaism, speaks of the holy community that God has called 40 forth through Abraham and Sarah, to which God has given the Torah (‘teaching’) at 41 Mt. Sinai. e Psalmists and the Prophets, the Sages of Judaism in all ages, the prayers 42 that Judaism teaches, all use the word ‘Israel’ to mean ‘the holy community.’” Neusner, 43 “Jew and Judaism, Ethnic and Religious: How ey Mix in America,” Issues [American 44 Council for Judaism] (Spring 2002), 3–4, quoted in Yakov M. Rabkin, A %reat from 45 Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism (London: Zed Publishing, 2006), 6. 46 Meanwhile, Rabkin also recalls, following Aviezer Ravitzky, early twentieth-century 47 rabbinic disdain for the very idea of a “state of Israel.” e ultra-Orthodox rabbi, Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 251

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Elyakum Shlomo Shapira of Grodno, asked in 1900: “How can I bear that something be 1 called the ‘State of Israel’ without the Torah and the commandments (heaven forbid)?” 2 See Aviezer Ravitzky, Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism, trans. 3 Michael Swirsky and Jonathan Chipman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 4 4, and Rabkin, A %reat from Within, 59. 5 6 20. e text was sent on to Waltham either by Jacob Fink, or perhaps after Fink’s death, 7 by the person in Paris responsible for the actual printing of Rawidowicz’s and Fink’s 8 Hebrew books, Yehudah Shapnik. 9 21. Rawidowicz’s letter of 12 June 1948 to Avraham Ravid is excerpted in Benjamin 10 Ravid’s detailed biographical introduction to S. Rawidowicz, aIyunim be-mahshevet Yis- 11 raHel (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1969), 1:lviii. In a later lecture, Rawidowicz raised this per- 12 sonal reXection to the level of a broad principle: “If people in general could always re- 13 main as ‘guests’ to each other, and never become too ‘residential’ or ‘familiar’—we 14 might live in somewhat more cheerful circumstances.” See Rawidowicz, On Jewish 15 Learning: Address delivered at the opening convocation of the College of Jewish Studies, 16 September 1948 (Chicago: College of Jewish Studies, 1950), 5. Cf. the statement of Dub- 17 now in 1934, when asked by a colleague to move to Palestine: “I move easily in time, 18 but not in space. In my researches I can move swiftly from period to period, from the 19 twelfth to the sixteenth century, for example; but to move several thousand kilometers 20 from Riga to Jerusalem is not within my powers.” is letter to Abraham Levinson is 21 quoted in Koppel S. Pinson’s introduction to Dubnow, Nationalism and History: Essays 22 on Old and New Judaism (New York: Atheneum, 1970), 33. 23 24 22. Greenbaum, A History of the Ararat Publishing Society, 12. 25 23. Fifty years after “Between Jew and Arab,” Rawidowicz’s concerns seem more appo- 26 site than ever. Debates over the status of Palestinian Israelis arise periodically, often in 27 response to a cyclical pattern of Arab protest and government response. Perhaps the 28 most notable instance of this cycle occurred on 30 March 1976, when six Arab Israelis 29 were killed in the Galilee by Israeli police at a protest over conbscated land. is event 30 has come to be known and commemorated by Palestinians as Yom al-ard (Land Day). 31 Meanwhile, in October 2000, an outbreak of heated Palestinian Israeli demonstrations 32 in support of the second Intifada prompted a berce Israeli response in which thirteen 33 Arab citizens were killed. In the wake of this episode, a state-sponsored commission 34 headed by Supreme Court Justice eodor Or was appointed to investigate the events 35 and the larger issue of Israel’s treatment of its Arab citizens. e Or Commission pro- 36 duced a lengthy and, in many respects, remarkable report in the summer of 2003 that 37 called into question the behavior of the Israeli police, noted with concern the radical- 38 ization of Israel’s Arab population, and issued a series of recommendations to amelio- 39 rate tensions between Palestinian citizens and the State of Israel. In the brst chapter, 40 the Or Commission report o[ered a powerful evocation of Simon Rawidowicz’s con- 41 cerns a half century ago (without, of course, being aware of his plea). It stated with 42 striking candor that “the embitterment and disquiet among citizens from the Arab 43 sector, to a great (though not exclusive) extent, stem from the attitude of the State to- 44 ward them in various realms.” e report went on to assert that “Arab citizens of the 45 State live a reality in which they are discriminated against as Arabs,” and then pro- 46 ceeded to detail the nature of that discrimination, ranging from land expropriations in 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 252

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1 the early years to unequal distribution of government resources in education and so- 2 cial services today. See Din ve-heshbon: vaaadat ha-hakirah ha-mamlakhtit le-verur ha- 3 hitnagshuyot ben kohot ha-bitahon le-ven ezrahim yisrehelim be-Oktober 2000 (Jerusalem: 4 Ha-madpis ha-memshalti, 2003), 1:33[. I thank Professor Shimon Shamir, a member 5 of the Or Commission, for providing me with a copy of this report. See also the detailed 6 explanation of the commission’s exhaustive work by its chair, Justice eodor Or (ret.) 7 in “e Report by the State Commission of Inquiry into the Events of October 2000,”Is- 8 rael Studies 11, no. 2 (2006), 25–53. 9 10 24. See http://daccessdds .un .org/ doc/ RESOLUTION/ GEN/ NR0/ 043/ 65/ IMG/ NR004365 11 .pdf?OpenElement. is resolution is mentioned in a subsequent General Assembly 12 Resolution of 11 May 1949 (273) that admitted the State of Israel to the United Nations. 13 25. Glatzer arrived at Brandeis in 1950, while Altmann came in 1959, two years after 14 Rawidowicz’s death. 15 16 26. Daniel Bell, %e End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties 17 (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1960), 374. 18 27. Alongside them are admirers of Rawidowicz’s Berlin dissertation on Ludwig Feuer- 19 bach (later expanded in a book in 1931 and reprinted in 1964). 20 21 28. See Abram L. Sachar, Brandeis University: A Host at Last (Hanover, N .H.: University 22 Press of New England, 1995), 204. 23 29. Sihotai aim Bialik (Jerusalem: Devir, 1983), 15. 24 25 30. See Ben-Gurion’s letter of 5 November 1958 to Zev Margalit (William Margolies) ac- 26 knowledging receipt of the two volumes of Bavel vi-Yerushalayi—(bg. 6). Rawidowicz 27 Archive. 28 31. Nahum G. Glatzer, “Simon Rawidowicz on his 10th Yahrzeit,” 343. 29 30 32. Kitve Rabbi Nahman Krochmal (Berlin, 1924; 2nd ed., Waltham, Mass.: Ararat, 1961). 31 33. e published results of the research on Maimonides include a number of Hebrew 32 articles from 1935 on the Guide, “Shehelat mivnehu shel aMoreh Nevukhim’” and “Hov- 33 atenu ha-madaait le-aMoreh Nevukhim,’” as well as studies on Sefer ha-madaa extending 34 back to 1922. For a discussion, see Benjamin C. I. Ravid’s introduction to Simon Raw- 35 idowicz, State of Israel, Diaspora, and Jewish Continuity, 29–30. 36 37 34. See the following important discussions by Ravid: “Le-hayav veli-khetavav shel Shi- 38 mon Rawidowicz,” in Rawidowicz, aIyunim be-mahshevet YisraHel, I: xvii–lxxxii; “Ha-reka 39 aha-histori,” in Rawidowicz, Sihotai aim Bialik, 7–17; and a shortened English version of 40 the brst piece above, “e Life and Writings of Simon Rawidowicz,” in State of Israel, Di- 41 aspora, and Jewish Continuity, 15–52. 42 35. See the comments in Zvi Woyslawski’s recollections about the Jewish community 43 of Grayewo in “Grayewo” in Grayeve yizker-bukh (New York: United Grayever Relief 44 Committee, 1950), 159. On the origins of the town in general, see S. Y. Fishbein’s article 45 in the same volume, “Grayeve fun amol,” 11–12. 46 47 36. Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1972 ed., s .v. “Grajewo.” Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 253

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37. Fishbein, “Grayeve fun amol,” 15. See also the discussion of the railway’s impact on 1 commercial travel on the waterways in Eugene van Cleef, “Eastern Baltic Waterways 2 and Boundaries with Special Reference to Königsberg,” Geographic Review 35, no. 2 3 (April 1945), 266. 4 5 38. See Ravid, “Le-hayav veli-khetavav shel Shimon Rawidowicz,” xviii–xix. 6 39. Rawidowicz draws here on Deuteronomy 11:19. See Ibid., xxi–xxii. See also his con- 7 tribution (in Yiddish) to the Grayewo memorial book, “Grayeve: di strebendike troy- 8 mendike,” Grayeve yizker-bukh, 39. 9 10 40. See Ravid, “Le-hayav veli-khetavav shel Shimon Rawidowicz,” xx. 11 12 41. Rawidowicz, “Grayeve,” 38. 13 42. Ravid, introduction to State of Israel, Diaspora, and Jewish Continuity, 14. 14 15 43. Rawidowicz, “Grayeve,” 42. 16 44. For a recent discussion, see Yael Chaver, What Must be Forgotten: %e Survival of 17 Yiddish in Zionist Palestine (Syracuse, N .Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2004). 18 19 45. According to Ravid, Yiddishist opponents of Rawidowicz insisted that these 20 speeches were pearls of Yiddish oratory, and hence the best advertisement for Yiddish 21 itself. See “Le-hayav veli-khetavav shel Shimon Rawidowicz,” xxiii. 22 23 46. is retrospective claim came in a brief autobiography that Rawidowicz penned in 24 1937 at the request of the editor of the Yiddish journal, Di tsukunft. It was published as 25 the introduction to a collection of Rawidowicz’s Yiddish writings published after his 26 death, Shriftn (Buenos Aires: Argentiner opteyl fun Alyeltlekhn Yidish kultur-kongres, 27 1962), 11. 28 47. An important step in this direction, though limited in temporal scope, is the excel- 29 lent dissertation of Kenneth Moss, “‘A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build Up’: Re- 30 casting Jewish Culture in 1917–1921” (Ph .D. diss., Stanford University, 2003). 31 32 48. “Le-hayav veli-khetavav shel Shimon Rawidowicz,” xxii. 33 34 49. Ibid., xxiii. 35 50. e schools, however, did not last long after Rawidowicz’s migration to Berlin in 36 1919. See his account in “Le-yisud keren ha-tarbut ha-aIvrit,” Ha-aolam 12 May 1932. 37 38 51. For a brief but helpful discussion of Rawidowicz’s relationship to and critique of 39 Ahad Ha-am, see Barbara Schäfer, “Jewish Renaissance and Tehiyya: Two that are One?” 40 Jewish Studies Quarterly 10 (2003), esp. 322–23. 41 52. See Michael Brenner, e Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany (New 42 43 Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996), 198, as well as David N. Myers, “‘Distant Rel- 44 atives Happening onto the Same Inn’: e Meeting of East and West as Literary eme 45 and Cultural Ideal,” Jewish Social Studies 1, no. 2 (1994–95), 75–100. 46 53. See Benjamin Ravid’s introduction to Rawidowicz, Sihotai aim Bialik, 9. 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 254

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1 54. Edward Kaplan and Samuel Dresner observe in their biography of Heschel that 2 “(a)lthough his basic beliefs had taken shape—a certainty of God’s attachment to hu- 3 mankind—he hoped to reconcile them with Western categories of thought” while in 4 Berlin. See Kaplan and Dresner, Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness (New 5 Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998), 108. 6 55. Kaplan and Dresner, A Prophetic Witness, 108–109. For Soloveitchik’s involvement 7 with Dessoir and Maier, see the autobiographical curriculum vitae of Soloveitchik 8 9 quoted by Manfred Lehmann at http:// www .manfredlehmann .com/ sieg439.html. See 10 also Reuven Kimelman, “Rabbis Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Abraham Joshua Heschel 11 on Jewish-Christian Relations,” Modern Judaism 24, no. 3 (2004), 251. 12 56. Details of Rawidowicz’s studies can be gleaned from the autobiographical 13 “Lebenslauf ” included in his ble at the University of Berlin. Humboldt Universität zu 14 Berlin Archiv, Phil. Fak., 656, Bl. 26. 15 16 57. Rawidowicz devoted a long chapter of his 1924 Krochmal introduction to “He- 17 galianism.” See Rawidowicz, ed., Kitve R. Nahman Krochmal, 160–201. See also his 18 well-known article, “War Nachman Krochmal Hegelianer?” Hebrew Union College An- 19 nual 5 (1928), 535–82, published in English as “Was Nachman Krochmal a Hegelian?” 20 in Rawidowicz, Studies in Jewish Thought (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society), 21 1974, 350–86. 22 58. See Rawidowicz’s sixty-four-page dissertation, which was included in a much larger 23 (500-page) study that he wrote on Feuerbach’s thought and reception, Ludwig Feuer- 24 bachs Philosophie: Ursprung und Schicksal (Berlin: Reuther und Reichard, 1931). e vol- 25 ume was later burned by the Nazis, but then republished in Germany in 1964. 26 27 59. Ibid. 28 60. Sihotai aim Bialik, 28. See also Brenner, %e Renaissance of Jewish Culture, 198–99. 29 30 61. Rawidowicz discusses Bialik’s hesitations about Ayanot in a letter to him from 15 31 March 1922 which is published in Sihotai aim Bialik, 99–100; see also Ravid’s comments 32 in Sihotai aim Bialik, 11. 33 62. Brenner, %e Renaissance of Jewish Culture, 200–201. 34 35 63. Rawidowicz’s letter to Avraham Ravid of 26 May 1925 is excerpted inSihotai aim Bia- 36 lik, 12. According to Genesis 4:12, “ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her 37 strength; a fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be in the earth.” 38 64. e brst M .A. degrees were awarded at the Hebrew University in 1931, and the brst 39 Ph .D in 1936. %e Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1957) (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Post Press, 40 1957), 33. 41 42 65. Over the course of his fourteen years in Berlin, Rawidowicz was employed variously 43 as an editor for Hebrew and Yiddish publications, researcher and coeditor for the 44 Moses Mendelssohn jubilee volume for the Akademie für die Wissenschaft des Juden- 45 tums, and librarian and lecturer for the Jewish community of Berlin. It is essential to 46 add that his wife, Esther, maintained a full-time job as a researcher at the Charité Hos- 47 pital in Berlin (until her dismissal in 1933). Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 255

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66. Rawidowicz’s letter to Joseph Klausner from 20 June 1928 is found in the Jewish Na- 1 tional and University Archives, Joseph Klausner Papers, 40 1086/ 469. 2 3 67. Letter to Joseph Klausner from 4 February 1931 in the Jewish National and Univer- 4 sity Archives, Joseph Klausner Papers, 40 1086/ 469. 5 68. Letter to Joseph Klausner from 17 December 1930 in the Jewish National and Uni- 6 versity Archives, Joseph Klausner Papers, 40 1086/ 469. 7 8 69. Letters of 16 September 1931 and 4 January 1932 in the Jewish National and Univer- 9 sity Archives, Joseph Klausner Papers, 40 1086/ 469. 10 70. See Myers, Re-Inventing the Jewish Past: European Jewish Intellectuals and the Zion- 11 ist Return to History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). 12 13 71. Rawidowicz suggests this in letters to Klausner from 16 September 1931 and 4 Janu- 14 ary 1932. However, the minutes of the Institute faculty reveal that Scholem raised Ra - 15 widowicz’s name as a prospect, along with Wiener and Strauss, in 1931 when it seemed 16 unlikely that Julius Guttmann would accept the o[er to come to Jerusalem. Protocols 17 of the Institute for Jewish Studies, 14 Iyar (1 May 1931). Central Archive for the Hebrew 18 University (CAHU). 19 72. For example, the protocol of the meeting of the Institute for Jewish Studies held on 20 10 Tevet (30 December 1930) states: “Prof. Klausner reads the names of the candidate 21 for this beld (Jewish philosophy); proposes Prof. Guttmann, and also reads out the 22 names of Rawidowicz and Tsifroni as possible experiments for a year.” Protocols of 23 the Institute for Jewish Studies, 10 Tevet (30 December 1930), CAHU. In a later meet- 24 ing of the institute held on the Fast of Esther (2 March 1931), Klausner indicated that 25 Guttmann was the candidate of choice with whom negotiations were being con- 26 ducted. He did not mention Rawidowicz on this occasion, but did express his oppo- 27 sition to the appointment of Max Wiener. Protocols of the Institute for Jewish Stud- 28 ies (2 March 1930). 29 30 73. Protocols of the Institute for Jewish Studies, 10 Tevet (30 December 1930), CAHU. 31 Rawidowicz did have an advocate in the scholar of Hebrew language and literature, 32 David Yellin, who wrote Judah Magnes from Berlin that “renowned scholars here 33 [deem] him to be worthy and appropriate to receive a position” at the Hebrew Univer- 34 sity. Yellin’s letter of 8 Elul (1 September 1930) is found in the CAHU, 5-R. By contrast, 35 Rawidowicz received strong support for his candidacy at the Hebrew University from 36 two leading scholars of Jewish philosophy in the Diaspora. Harry Austryn Wolfson of 37 Harvard wrote to Judah Magnes on 30 August 1933 “recommending him most highly for 38 a position in the beld of Jewish philosophy.” Meanwhile, Isaac Husik of the University 39 of Pennsylvania wrote Magnes on the same day with a request to “give him a post in 40 your university at least for a year.” e letters are contained in the Central Archive of 41 the Hebrew University, ble 165 (1933). 42 74. In a series of letters between 1926 and 1928, Rawidowicz kept Morgenstern apprised 43 of his scholarly progress; Morgenstern, for his part, expressed interest in Rawidowicz’s 44 research, but never o[ered or promised a job to him at HUC. Morgenstern’s letters are 45 included in Benjamin Ravid, “e Human Dimension of Wissenschaft des Judentums: 46 Letters from the Rawidowicz Archive,” in Studies in Arabic and Hebrew Letters in Honor 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 256

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1 of Raymond P. Scheindlin, ed. Jonathan P. Decter and Michael Rand (Piscataway, NJ: 2 Gorgias Press, 2007), 92–97. 3 75. Rawidowicz’s letter of 16 May 1928 is in the Klausner Papers. In fact, Schorr did write 4 Rawidowicz on 10 May 1928 to “inquire whether you are ready to accept the position of 5 6 a permanent teacher of the history of Jewish philosophy and also medieval poetic lit- 7 erature at our Institute.” Although Rawidowicz asserted that he did not take the job 8 because he did not like the intellectual climate of Warsaw, in fact, neither the precise 9 contours of the job nor exact bnancial arrangements for it were ever detailed. See the 10 letters regarding this matter printed in Ravid, “e Human Dimension of Wissenschaft 11 des Judentums,” 97–102. 12 76. Rawidowicz’s letter to Judah L. Magnes of 17 July 1930 is found in the CAHU 5-R. 13 14 77. Rawidowicz’s letter of 7 June 1931 is in the Klausner Papers. Rawidowicz alludes to 15 Maier’s antisemitism in a letter to his father from 6 July 1931 in Ravid, “Le-hayav,” xl-xli. 16 78. See Brenner, %e Renaissance of Jewish Culture, 209–210. 17 18 79. Rawidowicz to Klausner, 7 June 1931, in the Klausner Papers. 19 80. Rawidowicz’s letter of 12 November 1933 is in the Klausner Papers. 20 21 81. Rawidowicz’s letter to Avraham Ravid from 6 December 1948 is quoted in Ravid, 22 “Le-hayav,” lxvii. 23 82. As he wrote in a letter to Asher Barash on 27 July 1939: “You wrote: ‘In my view, you 24 should come here (to Palestine).’ Between us, the situation of [Hebrew] literature and 25 writers, scholarship and scholars in the country is not a happy one. e country can- 26 not support those from our family who are already there, and you want to add more?” 27 28 is letter is found in the Schwadron Autograph Collection of the Jewish National and 29 University Library. 30 83. See Rawidowicz’s comments in “Mi-bene ha-arets,” Ha-Aavodah 1 (1919–20), 18, 31 quoted in Ravid, “Le-yahav,” xxv. 32 33 84. See Delphine Bechtel, “Les revues modernistes Yiddish à Berlin et à Varsovie de 34 1922 à 1924: La quête d’une nouvelle Jéruslaem,” Etudes germaniques (April–June 1991), 35 164, and Myers, “‘Distant Relatives Happening on the Same Inn,’” 87. 36 85. Rawidowicz recalls his relationship with Dubnow—and includes ninety-seven let- 37 ters from him—in the memorial volume that he edited, Sefer Shimon Dubnow 38 (Waltham, Mass.: Ararat, 1954), 402[. 39 40 86. is description from a 1919 pamphlet is quoted in Brenner, %e Renaissance of Jew- 41 ish Culture, 52. However, in a recent article, Simon Rabinovitch notes that Dubnow was 42 not especially attracted to the German Volkspartei as “it only vaguely resembled its 43 Russian forebear, the Folkspartey.” See Rabinovitch, “Simon Dubnov and the Dawn of 44 a New Diaspora,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 50 (2005), 280. 45 87. In the introduction to his ten-volume history of the Jews, Dubnow did actually make 46 a Rawidowiczian move. Writing in 1924, he asserted that “the dualism of the European- 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 257

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American West and of the Palestinian East now becomes possible.” See Dubnow, His- 1 tory of the Jews, trans. Moshe Spiegel (South Brunswick, N.J.: T. Yosselo[, 1967), 1:36. 2 3 88. See “Le-irgun ha-golah ha-aIvrit,” Moznayim 3, no. 9 (1931), 2. A fuller version of the 4 speech was published by the Lvov branch of the Brit aIvrit aOlamit as Im lo kan—hekhan?, 5 10. See also Ravid’s extensive discussion of Rawidowicz and the Brit, “Shimon Rawid- 6 owicz u-Vrit aIvrit aOlamit: perek be-yahasim ben tarbut aIvrit be-tefutsah le-idehologyah 7 ha-Tsiyonit,” in Studies and Essays in Hebrew Language and Literature: Berlin Congress: 8 Proceedings of the 16th Hebrew Scienti@c European Congress (Brit Ivrit Olamit: Jerusalem, 9 2005), 119–54. 10 89. “Le-irgun ha-golah ha-aIvrit,” 3. 11 12 90. See Ahad Ha-am’s discussion of imitation in his well-known essay, “Hikui ve- 13 a hitbolelut” (1893), reprinted in his collection of essays, Al parashat derakhim, new ed. 14 (Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag, 1930), 169–177. See also Barbara Schäfer’s discussion, “Jewish 15 Renaissance and Tehiyya,” 322–23. 16 91. “Le-irgun ha-golah ha-aIvrit,” 3. Rawidowicz’s view is a telling contrast to the more 17 historically nuanced perspective of Gerson Cohen in his essay, %e Blessing of Assimi- 18 lation in Jewish History (Brookline, Mass.: Hebrew Teachers College, 1966). 19 20 a 92. Mishnah Baba Metzia 1:1. See Rawidowicz, “Le-irgun ha-golah ha- Ivrit,” 4. 21 93. Quoted in Ravid, “Le-hayav veli-khetavav shel Shimon Rawidowicz,” xxxix–xl. 22 23 a 94. “Le-irgun ha-golah ha- Ivrit,” Moznayim 3, no. 10 (1931), 3. See also Rawidowicz’s 24 essay from 1934, “Kiyum ha-tefutsah,” which enshrined the principle of aMrming the Di- 25 aspora and thus stood in pointed contrast to the Zionist goal of “negating the Dias- 26 pora” (shelilat ha-golah). 27 95. “Le-irgun ha-golah ha-aIvrit,” Moznayim 3, no. 9 (1931), 5. 28 29 96. Ibid., 4. e motif of “two that are one” was recurrent in Rawidowicz’s thinking. See, 30 for example, his essay, “Shete shehelot she-hen ahat,” Moznayim 44 (1931), 7–9, and 45 31 (1931), 8–9. See also his essay, “Two that are One,” in State of Israel, Diaspora, and Jew- 32 ish Continuity, 147–61, based on a Yiddish lecture from 1949. 33 34 97. Bialik, Devir 1 (1923), xii, cited in “‘Distant Relatives Happening onto the Same Inn,’” 89. 35 98. F. Lachover, “Ha-kenesiyah ha-aIvrit le-maaaseh ule-halakhah,” Moznayim 3, no. 10 36 (1931), 1. 37 38 99. Ibid., 2. 39 100. Rawidowicz’s letter to his brother Avraham from 16 November 1932 is quoted in 40 Ravid, Sihotai Aim Bialik, 14. Among those given credit for the Brit at Rawidowicz’s ex- 41 pense was his conversation partner from Berlin in the early 1920s, Bialik. See Benjamin 42 Ravid’s discussion of this “revisionist” account of the Brit in “Shimon Rawidowicz u-Vrit 43 aIvrit aOlamit,” 146–48. 44 45 101. See Renner’s 1899 book, Staat und Nation, translated as “State and Nation” in Na- 46 tional Cultural Autonomy and its Contemporary Critics, ed. Ephraim Nimni (London: 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 258

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1 Routledge, 2005), 33, and quoted in Roni Gechtman’s excellent article, “Conceptualiz- 2 ing National-Cultural Autonomy—From the Austro-Marxists to the Jewish Labor 3 Bund,” Simon Dubnow Yearbook 4 (2005), 30. 4 102. See Gechtman, “Conceptualizing National-Cultural Autonomy,” 43–49. 5 6 103. ere were, it must be said, disagreements between the Eastern Europeans, on the 7 one hand, and the Western Europeans and Americans, on the other, over the extent to 8 which Jewish national rights should be explicitly recognized (and what form of politi- 9 cal organization these rights should assume). For an elaboration of these di[erences, 10 see the exchange between Bernard G. Richards and Solomon Zeitlin in the Jewish Quar- 11 terly Review 36, no. 1 (July 1945), 89–103. 12 104. is language comes from Wilson’s proposed Paragraph VI to the Covenant. See Jacob 13 Robinson et al., Were the Minorities Treaties a Failure? (New York: Antin Press, 1943), 8. 14 15 105. Ibid., 45. See also the comprehensive account of Carole Fink, Defending the Rights 16 of Others: %e Great Powers, the Jews, and International Minority Protection, 1878–1938 17 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), especially 133–70. 18 106. Ezra Mendelsohn, %e Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars (Bloom- 19 ington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1983), 81. 20 21 107. See Fink, Defending the Rights of Others, 344–45. Dimitry Shumsky has recently ar- 22 gued, in a lecture that is the kernel for a larger book project, that Zionist leaders, in- 23 cluding Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky, had a more favorable attitude toward national mi- 24 nority rights for Jews in the Diaspora than is commonly thought. Shumsky, “Me-aever 25 le-ribonut: Tsiyonut otonomistit ben mizrah u-mercaz Eropa le-Erets Yisrahel ha- 26 mandatorit,” unpublished lecture, p. 5. 27 108. See Rawidowicz’s letter to Chaim Yitzhak Ravid from 2 July 1933 excerpted in Ravid, 28 “Le-hayav veli-khetavav shel Shimon Rawidowicz,” xl. 29 30 109. Rawidowicz letter to Joseph Klausner from 12 November 1933 in the Klausner Papers. 31 110. e discussions over Rawidowicz’s status at Jews’ College are contained in the min- 32 utes of the Sta[ and Education Committee beginning on 3 October 1933. London Mu- 33 nicipal Archive 4180/ JC/ B/ 03/ 012. 34 35 111. A perusal of the list of annual public lectures and publications of the School of Ori- 36 ental Studies’ aMliated faculty from 1935 to 1947 reveals that Rawidowicz was among 37 the most active lecturers and most prolibc researchers. See the Report of the Governing 38 Body and Statement of Accounts of the School of Oriental Studies, London Institution 39 (Hertford: Stephen Austin, 1935–47). 40 41 112. In this labor, he was joined by the Anglo-Jewish civil servant, Leon Simon (later Sir 42 Leon), who served as president of the Tarbut Association while Rawidowicz served as 43 chairman. As we have noted (n. 5 of this part), Simon would become a vocal critic of 44 Rawidowicz’s, accusing him of leveling unfair attacks on the Zionist movement. 45 113. VeAidat ha-histadrut “Tarbut” be-London: din ve-heshbon (London: Tarbuth Associa- 46 tion, 1938), 6. It is interesting to compare this optimistic account with the more tempered 47 opinion that Rawidowicz voiced in a letter from 1936 to the Hebrew activist in Palestine, Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 259

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Avraham Schwadron (Sharon). While Rawidowicz would later criticize Schwadron- 1 Sharon for his doctrine of “cruel Zionism,” he conbded in 1936 that “I pray like you for 2 the ‘uprooting of the exile.’ But a prayer is one thing, and reality is another.” Rawidowicz’s 3 letter to Schwadron-Sharon from 15 November 1936 is found in the Jewish National and 4 University Library Archive, Schwadron Autograph Collection, Rawidowicz letters. 5 6 114. “Kiyum ha-tefutsah” (AMrmation of the Diaspora). See Ravid, “Le-hayav veli- 7 khetavav shel Shimon Rawidowicz,” xlvi. 8 115. Rawidowicz, “aAl ha-shelihut,” Ha-Aolam 28 May 1936, 383. 9 10 a 116. “ Al ha-shelihut,” 668. 11 117. See Rawidowicz, “Ha-Yalkut: Petikha,” Yalkut: Musaf-hodesh le-hashkafah ha-Tsiy- 12 onit 1 (December 1940), 1. Rawidowicz repeated this warning in the brst number of the 13 second year, albeit with increasing urgency. See his opening essay, “aEt litkoaa yated,” 14 Yalkut 2 (1941), 1. 15 16 118. Yalkut 3 (February 1940), 1. 17 119. “Et liktoaa yated,” 7. 18 19 120. See Ish Boded, “Shivre devarim,” Yalkut 2, nos. 2–3 (1942), 95. 20 121. Rawidowicz was informed of his appointment in a letter of 28 July 1941 by the Registrar 21 of the University of Leeds. Archives of the Central Records OMce of the University of Leeds. 22 23 122. Letter of H. A. R. Gibb to Rawidowicz from 14 August 1941 in the Rawidowicz 24 Archive, Newton, Massachusetts. 25 123. is description comes in a departmental memorandum from 10 October 1944. A 26 copy of the contract between the University of Leeds and Rawidowicz (dated 14 Octo- 27 ber), as well as correspondence relating to the appointment from July 1941, are pre- 28 served in the Archives of the Central Records OMce of the University of Leeds. I thank 29 Mr. David Wardle, assistant secretary of the university, for sending me copies of the 30 documents relating to Rawidowicz’s tenure there. 31 32 124. Telephone interview with Professor Bernard Lewis, 24 November 2004. 33 34 125. “Editor’s Preface,” Melilah 1 (1944), vii. 35 126. Avraham Greenbaum observes that the name “Ararat” also o[ered up a glimmer of 36 hope, as a place from which “to foresee the renewal of life on earth.” A History of the 37 Ararat Publishing Society, 10. 38 39 127. Letter of 27 April 1941 to Avraham Ravid in “Le-hayav veli-khetavav shel Shimon 40 Rawidowicz,” lxii. Although there was underground Hebrew publishing in Eastern Eu- 41 rope during this period, England was one of the last sites in Europe where it was pos- 42 sible to publish freely in Hebrew until the demise of the ird Reich. We should recall 43 that the journal Melilah was produced in Manchester, not London. 44 128. Rawidowicz, Metsudah 1 (1943), 20. In a letter from November 1942, Rawidowicz also 45 evoked this theme in a letter to his brother, Avraham: “I cannot, under any circumstance, 46 accept the idea that at this hour in Europe when the Hebrew language is banned, we 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 260

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1 do nothing here in London, the last fortress of freedom at home and abroad.” Quoted 2 in Ravid, “Le-hayav veli-khetavav shel Shimon Rawidowicz,” lxii. 3 129. Rawidowicz, “Bi-metsudah zo,” Metsudah 1 (1943), 16, 18. 4 5 130. “Ish Boded,” “Shivre devarim,” Metsudah 1 (1943), 165. 6 131. “Ish Boded,” “aAm ve-lashon lo,” Metsudah 1 (1943), 168. 7 8 132. Ibid., 170. 9 133. See Arendt’s articles from the Aufbau from 14 November 1941 and 26 December 10 1941, in Arendt, %e Jewish Writings, 137, 143. 11 12 134. Arendt’s meditation on “e Minority Question” from the summer of 1940 was 13 copied from a letter to Erich Cohn-Bendit and is found in %e Jewish Writings, 131–32. 14 As Arendt grew increasingly troubled by the course of Zionism in the 1940s, she came 15 to favor a variation of the commonwealth idea—namely, a federation or confederation 16 of nations—in Palestine and/ or the Middle East more broadly. 17 135. is image was reprinted at the opening of the memorial volume for Simon Dub- 18 now, who was murdered by a Nazi soldier in Riga in 1941. 19 20 136. Dedication page, Metsudah 2 (1943). e last two lines are modibcations of Job 16:18 21 and the famous Psalm 137:5. 22 137. e familiar language of right and su[erance harks back to a British government 23 document, the Churchill White Paper of June 1922, which declared to the Jewish peo- 24 ple: “it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on the 25 su[erance.” See the 1922 White Paper at http:// www .yale .edu/ lawweb/ avalon/ mideast/ 26 brwh1922.htm. Hannah Arendt relies on the formulation in support of a Jewish army in 27 this period, noting that “if the Jews are to live in Palestine by right and not by su[erance, 28 it will only be by the right they have earned and continue to earn every day with their 29 labor.” See her Aufbau essay from 26 December 1941 in %e Jewish Writings, 144. 30 31 138. “Yisrahel ba-aolam,” Metsudah 2 (1943), especially sec. 1 (pp. 7–20). 32 33 139. “Kiyum lelo tenai (Unconditional Survival),” Metsudah 3–4 (1945), 5. 34 140. Ibid., 8. is right calls to mind Mordecai Kaplan’s earlier insistence that “the task 35 now before the Jew is to save the otherness of Jewish life” by preserving its “di[erentia” 36 (for example, language, arts, religion, and law). See the classic account in Mordecai M. 37 Kaplan, Judaism as A Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American-Jewish Life (New 38 York: Macmillan, 1934; reprint, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1981), 173, 178, 180. 39 40 141. “Kiyum lelo tenai,” 13. Rawidowicz then enumerated the ways in which “Israel” is 41 di[erent, especially its language. 42 142. “Kiyum lelo tenai,” 18. 43 44 143. “Li-keliyah oli-tekumah,” Metsudah 5–6 (1948), 30 n.7. 45 144. Yaakov Fleischer, “Shehelat Yisrahel bi-veaidat ha-shalom bi-shenat 1946,” Metsudah 5– 46 6 (1948), 162–194. e rights accorded to national minorities in the paradigmatic Polish Mi- 47 norities Treaty that emerged out of the Paris Peace Conference included a declaration of Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 261

notes| 261 basic human rights, full citizenship rights, as well as the right to preserve the group’s lan- 1 guage and to education in the group’s language (with state subvention). In addition, specibc 2 clauses were included with respect to Jews; for example, that aMrming their right to observe 3 the Sabbath without discrimination. ese rights were to be enforced by the League of Na- 4 tions. See Janowsky, Nationalities and National Minorities (With Special Reference to East- 5 Central Europe) (New York: Macmillan, 1945), 112–15. See also Janowsky’s more detailed study 6 %e Jews and Minority Rights (New York: Macmillan, 1933), as well as the discussion of the 7 Jewish delegation to Paris in Shlomo Netzer, MaHavak Yehude Polin Aal zekhuyotehem ha- 8 ezrahiyot ha-leHumiyut (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1980), especially chap. 4. 9 10 145. Fleischer borrowed Rawidowicz’s language in concluding that the evidence at hand 11 in the wake of the Second World War “proved that the era of libertas diNerendi still remains 12 a future vision.” Fleischer, “Shehelat Yisrahel bi-veaidat ha-shalom bi-shenat 1946,” 168, 170. 13 146. Ibid., 160. 14 15 147. See Ravid, “Le-hayav,” lviii. 16 148. Ish Boded, “Shivre devarim,” Metsudah 7 (1954), 661. 17 18 149. is view can be seen in a letter Rawidowicz wrote to the Leeds registrar, Mr. 19 Loach, on 30 May 1948, as well as in his oMcial letter of resignation to the Leeds vice- 20 chancellor of 12 June 1948. Both are in the Leeds University Central Records Archive. 21 150. Rawidowicz’s letter to Avraham Ravid is quoted in Ravid, “Le-hayav,” lviii. 22 23 151. Ish Boded, “Shivre devarim,” Metsudah 5–6 (1948), 544–45. 24 152. Ibid., 560. 25 26 153. Consistent with his interest in local Jewish culture, he initiated and edited a bilin- 27 gual volume devoted to the history of the Jewish community in Chicago. is volume, 28 which was published by the college in 1952 as Pinkas Chicago, evoked the legacy of the 29 record books of the great semi-autonomous communities of premodern Jewish his- 30 tory. Rawidowicz did note that Pinkasim usually came from older communities which 31 had passed through many travails, while the Chicago Pinkas dealt with a young com- 32 munity that bore few scars of persecution. See his introduction to Pinkas Chicago 33 (Chicago: College of Jewish Studies, 1952), viii–ix. 34 154. Rawidowicz here refers to Judah Ha-Levi’s famous poetic lament that “my heart is 35 in the east, while I am in the west.” See “Divre hatimah,” Metsudah 7 (1954), 673. 36 h 37 155. Rawidowicz, “Yisra el,” Metsudah 7 (1954), 36. Rawidowicz was not alone in this be- 38 lief. e Orthodox rabbi and philosopher, Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who was friendly with 39 Rawidowicz from their days in Berlin, shared his reservation. Soloveitchik confessed in 40 1960 that “I have never called the state in the Holy Land by the name ‘Israel.’ . . . In the 41 letters that I send to the land of our Patriarchs, I write instead of ‘Israel’ State of Israel, h 42 Erets Yisra el.” See Soloveitchik’s “Response to a Questioner” in Divre hashkafah 43 (Jerusalem: Sifriyat Eliner, 1992), 242. 44 156. ese opponents included Michael Assaf, Bechor Shetreet, and David Remez. See 45 Nissan’s brief article, “Ha-lebatim seviv ha-shem Yisrahel: zikaron mi-yeme hakhrazat 46 Medinat Yisrahel,” Ha-umah 91 (1988), 410–11. 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 262

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1 157. e exchange is published with a postscript by Rawidowicz under the heading “Ben 2 Yerushalayim u-Bavel-Yerushalayim” in Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, 2:872–909. Substantial ex- 3 cerpts appear in English in his State of Israel, Diaspora, and Jewish Continuity, 194–204. 4 h 5 158. Rawidowicz, “Yisra el,” 36. 6 159. Ben-Gurion’s letter of 24 November 1954 to Rawidowicz is quoted in Rawidowicz, 7 State of Israel, Diaspora, and Jewish Continuity, 197. 8 9 160. Rawidowicz quoted Ben-Gurion to the e[ect that “the creation of the state of Is- 10 rael has not concluded . . . not from the perspective of the land in its possession nor 11 from that of the surrounding environment.” Ben-Gurion’s comments were published 12 in Ha-Dor 15 Elul 5712 (1951–52), and quoted in “Yisrahel,” Metsudah 7 (1954), 14 n.5. 13 161. In inverting the famous phrase from Zechariah 4:6, Rawidowicz called this new 14 15 sensibility “the pathos of ‘by might and by power.’” Ish Boded, “Shivre devarim,” Metsu- 16 dah 7 (1954), 647. 17 162. Ibid., 648. 18 19 163. Rawidowicz liked to recall his reaction when asked “Have you ever been to Israel?” 20 He would respond in a confounding way that reXected his distinctive commitment to 21 a global “Israel”: “I have been all my life in Israel. As a matter of fact I was born in Israel, 22 got my name in Israel.” See Rawidowicz, “Yisrahel,” 25. 23 164. Aryeh Tartakower, “Mishtar-demokratyah bi-medinat Yisrahel,” Metsudah 7 (1954), 24 77. Tartakower may have had in mind the 1922–23 population exchange between Turkey 25 26 and Greece following the Greco-Turkish War as a possible model. A more recent ex- 27 ample, far larger and more disruptive, was the population exchange of some 14.5 mil- 28 lion people following the 1947 partition that led to the rise of the independent states of 29 India and Pakistan. 30 165. Ibid., 77. 31 32 166. Cf. Joseph Schechtman, who notes in his detailed study of post–WWII population 33 transfers and exchanges: “After this war, just as after World War I, the peacemakers did 34 not—and apparently could not—succeed in creating such a territorial settlement in Eu- 35 rope that would eliminate, or at least reduce, the scope and the intensity of the minori- 36 ties problem.” See Schechtman, Postwar Population Transfers in Europe, 4. We should note 37 that Rawidowicz declared in no uncertain terms in 1945 that “the political solution of 38 moving national minorities from one country to another (transfer), of which many speak 39 favorably, is not at all an exalted or desirable ideal.” See “Kiyum lelo tenai,” 18. 40 41 167. Tartakower, “Mishtar,” 78. Tartakower had no illusions about the diMculty inhering 42 in relations between the State of Israel and the Arab minority in its midst: “History has 43 placed before us one of the most diMcult and yet responsible tasks in the annals of the 44 minority problem in the world: to realize the principle of full equality of rights and, at 45 the same time, to safeguard the well-being of a most neglected and distinct minority 46 which sees us as its enemy and does not know to recognize the hand extended to it in 47 assistance and friendship.” Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 263

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1 (pages 89–134) PART II. !e Arab Question 2 3 1. See Arendt’s brief essay, “Confusion,” from 14 August 1942 in %e Jewish Writings, 171. 4 2. Rawidowicz reports in a long note at the end of the introduction to Bavel vi-Yerusha- 5 layim that he wrote the book in the years 5711 (1950–51) to 5714 (1953–54). He adds: “In 6 5716 (1955–56), most of it was already in press, except for a few additions that I made 7 in 5717 (1956–57) upon reading the galley pages.” He goes on to state that the main sec- 8 tions of the book—parts I and II—were drafted on multiple occasions, but that they 9 were composed “in a single breath.” See Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, I:49. 10 11 3. Rawidowicz, Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, I:17–18. 12 13 4. Ibid., I:27. 14 5. Kaplan stressed that neither the State of Israel nor any state, for that matter, could 15 serve as “the nerve center of world Jewry.” Rather, what was needed was “a formal and 16 publicly recognized renewal of covenantship among all the Jews of the world” as the 17 embodiment of Klal Yisrael (the entirety of Israel). Mordecai M. Kaplan, “e State of 18 Israel and the Status of the Jew,” %e Reconstructionist 15, no. 10 (24 June 1949), 10, 14. 19 20 6. Rawidowicz, Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, I:35. 21 7. e First Temple period ran from the mid-10th century BCE to 586 BCE; the Second 22 Temple period ran from 520 BCE to 70 CE. 23 24 8. Rawidowicz noted that the two were not strictly markers of time, and the bound- 25 aries between them far from bxed. Indeed, one is inclined to argue that they repre- 26 sented two distinct systems as much as phases. See Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, I:104. 27 9. Rawidowicz elaborated on the distinction between interpretive modes in one of his 28 last published essays, “On Interpretation,” Proceedings of the American Academy for 29 Jewish Research 26 (1957), 83–126. See also David N. Myers, “A ird Guide for the Per- 30 plexed? Simon Rawidowicz ‘On Interpretation,’” in History and Literature: New Read- 31 ings of Jewish Texts in Honor of Arnold J. Band, ed. William Cutter and David C. Jacob- 32 son (Providence, R .I.: Brown Judaic Studies, 2002), 75–90. 33 34 10. See Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, I: 84–85. 35 11. See Rawidowicz’s comments about messianic and antimessianic impulses in Zion- 36 ism in Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, I:131. 37 38 12. Rawidowicz argued that the very nature of Jewish peoplehood—that is, the pres- 39 ence of centers in both “Babylon” and “Jerusalem”—distinguished Jews from other na- 40 tions and made their path toward normalization a unique one. Ibid., I:190, 217. 41 42 13. “Shaaar TaShaH” can be translated as “e Chapter of 1948.” 43 14. ere were, in fact, two impulses present in Rawidowicz’s ideological worldview. 44 e brst was to assert a strong and resilient Diaspora culture in the face of Zionism’s 45 insistence on a single Palestine-based center; the second, and somewhat countervail- 46 ing impulse, was to defend the proposition of a single Jewish nation that could not be 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 264

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1 divided With respect to the latter, Rawidowicz often asserted that “there is no Aeruv in 2 Israel”—referring to the line of demarcation within which it is permitted for Jews to 3 carry certain objects and perform certain tasks otherwise proscribed on the Sabbath. 4 Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, I:205. 5 6 15. Ibid., I:243. 7 16. Ibid., I:506. 8 9 17. See the discussion of Jewish anti-Zionism in Rabkin, A %reat from Within, and Rav- 10 itzky, Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism, especially chapters 2 and 4. 11 18. For a still valuable summary of the history of the binational idea and the organiza- 12 tional forms it assumed, see Susan Hattis, %e Bi-National Idea in Palestine During 13 Mandatory Times (Haifa: Shikmona Publishing, 1970). 14 15 19. S. H. Bergmann, letter to the editor, Ner 1, no. 4 (31 March 1950), 3. 16 20. See Buber’s speech from spring 1949, “Should the Ichud Accept the Decree of His- 17 tory?” in Buber, A Land of Two Peoples, ed. Paul Mendes-Flohr (Oxford: Oxford Univer- 18 sity Press, 1983), 251–52. 19 20 21. Buber, “Bene Amos,” Ner 1, no. 1 (February 1950), 4. See also the translation, “e 21 Children of Amos,” in Buber, A Land of Two Peoples, 257. 22 22. ey included Be-terem, Davar, Ha-arets, and Ha-poAel ha-tsaAir. 23 24 23. Rawidowicz, “Tsvay vos zaynen eyns,” Di Tsukunft 54 (May–June 1949), 288; “Two 25 that are One,” 158. 26 24. As noted in the introduction, the attachment of young Jews in America to Israel is de- 27 clining, according to a study undertaken by sociologists Steven Cohen and Ari Kelman. In- 28 deed, the rate of strong attachment of Jews under thirty-bve is less than 20 percent. See “At- 29 tachment to Israel Declining among American Jews,” %e Forward, 5 September 2007. 30 31 25. For recent discussions of this relationship, see Yossi Shain, Kinship and Diasporas in 32 International ANairs (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007), and Gabriel Shef- 33 fer, Diaspora Politics: At Home Abroad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 34 26. e number fourteen, represented by the Hebrew letters “yod” and “dalet” that spell 35 the word “hand,” refers in traditional Jewish literature to God (the strong hand). It was 36 also the number of chapters in Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah (known as the “yad ha- 37 hazakah” or strong hand)—a fact of which Rawidowicz was well aware. 38 39 27. Fink to Rawidowicz, 5 September 1955, Rawidowicz Archive. Jacob Fink died in Paris 40 on October 26, 1955. We have in our possession a copyedited typed version of the man- 41 uscript, with marginal notes in both French and Yiddish (suggesting Fink’s hand), as 42 well as a more polished set of galleys. I thank Benjamin Ravid for sharing both texts 43 with me from the Rawidowicz Archive. 44 28. Simon Rawidowicz to Avraham Ravid, 10 May 1956, Rawidowicz Archive. 45 46 29. I owe this speculation to Professor Jonathan Sarna, who proposed a version of it in 47 response to my lecture, “‘Between Jew and Arab’: Simon Rawidowicz and the Jewish Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 265

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Politics of the Arab Question,” delivered as the 41st Simon Rawidowicz Memorial Lec- 1 ture at Brandeis University on 28 March 2004. A small piece of evidence in support 2 of this claim is the clipping preserved among Rawidowicz’s papers of an article by the 3 New York Yiddish writer, B. Z. Goldberg. Goldberg wrote a pair of articles on the Arab 4 question on 7 and 14 February 1956 in the Tog-morgn zhurnal. In the first of the arti- 5 cles, Goldberg writes, perhaps with Rawidowicz in mind, that he is in touch with 6 “Jews who are concerned about the Arabs in Israel and more so about the Arab 7 8 refugees from Palestine.” While allowing for the possibility of improved treatment 9 for Arabs in Israel and even the prospect of some limited return at a later juncture, 10 Goldberg declares that “now is not the time to speak . . . The danger of an assault is 11 great....And if ever there were a danger of an Arab fifth column in Israel, such a 12 danger is present today.” See Goldberg, “In gang fun tog,” from 7 February 1956 in the 13 Tog-morgn zhurnal. 14 30. Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, II:819. 15 16 31. Proverbs 30:21–22: “For three things the earth doth quake, and for it cannot endure: 17 For a servant when he reigneth; and a churl when he is blled with food; For an odious 18 woman when she is married; and a handmaid that is heir to her mistress” (emphasis 19 mine). 20 21 a h 32. Emphasis mine. Ahad Ha- am’s essay, “Emet me-Erets Yisra el,” originally appeared 22 in the Russian Hebrew newspaper Ha-melits and was republished in Kol kitve Ahad Ha- 23 Aam (Tel Aviv: Devir, 1947), 23–30 (citation at 29). I have relied upon and at times mod- 24 ibed the English translation by Alan Dowty, “Much Ado about Little: Ahad Haaam’s 25 ‘Truth from Eretz Yisrael,’ Zionism, and the Arabs,” Israel Studies 5, no. 2 (2000), 174. 26 Dowty also o[ers a helpful introduction to the piece, though consciously understates 27 the signibcance of the paragraphs dealing with the Arab population of Palestine. 28 29 h 33. “Emet me-Erets Yisra el,” 24. 30 34. Yitzhak Epstein, “Shehelah neaelamah,” Ha-shiloah (1907), 203–204. 31 32 35. On the origins of Brit Shalom and a detailed analysis of the binational idea, see Hat- 33 tis, %e Bi-National Idea in Palestine during Mandatory Times, 39[. On the Central Eu- 34 ropean circle that became the core of Brit Shalom, see Shalom Ratzabi, Between Zion- 35 ism and Judaism: %e Radical Circle in Brith Shalom, 1925–1933 (Leiden: Brill, 2002). 36 37 36. See Yosef Gorny, Zionism and the Arabs, 1992–1948: A Study of Ideology (Oxford: Ox- 38 ford University Press, 1987), 134. See also Shabtai Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestin- 39 ian Arabs: From Peace to War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 70–71. 40 37. Zeev Sternhell has argued strenuously for the ascendance of nationalist over so- 41 cialist values in the Labor Zionist movement of which Ben-Gurion was the dominant 42 bgure. See Sternhell, %e Founding Myths of Israel, trans. David Meisel (Princeton, N .J.: 43 44 Princeton University Press, 1997). 45 38. See Ben-Gurion’s response to Brit Shalom’s stance from 1930, “Mi-tokh ha-vikuah: 46 siha aim havre Brit Shalom,” in his essays Anahnu u-shekhenenu (Tel Aviv: Davar, 1931), 184. 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 266

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1 39. Shabtai Teveth asserts that in Ben-Gurion’s view, “the Arab right to Palestine was in- 2 ferior to that of the Jewish people.” Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, 94. 3 40. Ibid., 129–48. 4 5 41. Benny Morris discusses a shift in rhetoric and tactic by the 1930s in %e Birth of the 6 Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 44–45. Dimitry Shumsky points out that Ben- 7 Gurion held on to the view of a federated arrangement with autonomous Jewish and 8 Arab cantons as late as 1931. Shumsky, “Meaever le-ribonut,” 2. 9 42. Benny Morris notes the sentiment of some Mapam members (from the more left- 10 leaning kibbutz faction) in favor of a return of refugees in late 1948/ early 1949. See Mor- 11 ris, “Mapai, Mapam, and the Arab Problem in 1948,” in 1948 and After: Israel and the 12 Palestinians (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), 63–64. As an example, see the critique of the 13 Mapai leader, Moshe Shertok (Sharett) by Moshe Sneh in the Mapam newspaper, Al 14 ha-mishmar (5 December 1948), 2. 15 16 43. Morris, “Mapai, Mapam, and the Arab Problem,” 39, 43. I have modibed Morris’s 17 own translation of Yavneheli’s remark from “slaves who have become kings” to the more 18 common “servants who have come to reign.” 19 44. Indeed, there was a concerted e[ort by Israeli politicians, government oMcials, and 20 researchers to count and categorize the refugees and then to rebut their claims to re- 21 turn to their homes. See the study of this e[ort during the years 1948–52 by Haya Bom- 22 baji-Sasportas, “Kolo shel mi nishma/ kolo shel mi mushtak: havnayat ha-siah aal 23 abeaayat ha-pelitim ha-falastinimh ba-mimsad ha-Yisreheli” (master’s thesis, Ben-Gurion 24 University, 2000). Meanwhile, Gil Eyal studies the impact of the “Orientalist” profes- 25 sion in the Yishuv and the brst decades of the State of Israel in %e Disenchantment of 26 the Orient: Expertise in Arab ANairs and the Israeli State (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Uni- 27 versity Press, 2006). 28 29 45. See the published version of his speech in “Ki tetsu le-milhamah,” AAl ha-mishmar, 30 30 July 1948. Meanwhile, the brst number of Ner 1, no. 1 (February 1950) reported on a meet- 31 ing involving Rabbi Binyomin, S. H. Bergmann, and a Maronite priest to discuss the ex- 32 pulsion of the village of Kafr Biraim (near Safed) in November 1948. e next two num- 33 bers (1, no. 2, and 1, no. 3) discuss the case of the coastal village of al-aAbbasiyya in which, 34 it is argued, villages were unjustly expelled given their peaceable relations with neigh- 35 boring Jews. (On the fate of these two villages during the 1948 war, see Walid Khalidi, ed., 36 All %at Remains: %e Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 37 [Washington, D .C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992], 232–33, 460–61.) Subsequent 38 issues of the journal are blled with reports on legal and social discrimination against 39 Arabs, discussions of cases of expulsions (and responses to Ner’s own coverage in other 40 journals or papers), and meditations on the question of the return of refugees. On the 41 last point, see R. Binyomin’s article in Ner 2, nos. 1–2 (27 October 1950), in which he ar- 42 gues that Israel was responsible for the war and should thus agree to the return of the 43 refugees. To neglect the refugee problem is, he argued, to perpetuate the spirit of fascism 44 that led to the war in the brst place. In the next number (2, nos. 3–4 [1 December 1950]), 45 R. Binyomin continues this theme, challenging the claim of a writer in AAl ha-mishmar 46 that the refugees should only be permitted to return following a peace agreement with 47 the Arab nations. R. Binyomin says that no such linkage should be drawn, though he Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 267

notes| 267 published an article by Shlomo Shershevsky (3, nos. 1–4, October–November 1951) that 1 made a similar point. Curiously, R. Binyomin’s own views seemed to change a bit by 1951. 2 In an article on the refugee problem from 13 July 1951 (Ner 2, nos. 18–21), he asserted that 3 responsibility for the refugee problem should be divided among three parties, the Jews, 4 the Arabs, and the international community—each of whom should take responsibility 5 for one-third of the refugees; that is to say, 250,000 people. 6 46. Alexander Prag, “Medinat Yisrahel veha-kefar ha-aArvi,” aAl ha-mishmar, 1 August 7 1948. And yet, this view was not uniformly maintained throughout AAl ha-mishmar. For 8 example, Avraham Benshalom argued some months earlier (7 May) that the respon- 9 sibility for Arab Xight lay not with Jewish forces, but with Arab political leaders. Moshe 10 Shertok (Sharett) aMrmed this view in an article from 20 June, and went on to main- 11 tain that the Xight could actually help in demarcating borders with Israel’s Arab neigh- 12 bors. He also cited the population exchange of Greeks and Turks in 1923 as an exam- 13 ple of the irreversibility of the movement of people. Moshe Sneh rejects the logic of 14 Shertok’s claims (5 December), arguing that those refugees who accept the State of Is- 15 rael should be permitted to return with the war’s end. I discuss these views in my 16 essay, “Simon Rawidowicz on the Arab Question: A Prescient Gaze into the ‘New His- 17 tory,’” in Mediating Modernity: Challenges and Trends in the Jewish Encounter with the 18 Modern World: Essays in Honor of Michael A. Meyer, ed. Lauren B. Strauss and Michael 19 Brenner (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 2008). 20 21 47. R. Binyomin (né Yehoshua Radler-Feldmann [1880–1957] was a prolibc Hebrew au- 22 thor and editor, as well as the possessor of a unique Zionist perspective. at is, he 23 held that the fulbllment of Zionism would come with the integration of Jews and Arabs 24 in a single “pan-Semitic” project of renewal. See the brief memorial volume published 25 on the thirtieth day after his death, R. Binyomin: Zikhrono li-verakha, ed. Yehudah ibn 26 Shmuel, Naftali Ben-Menahem, and Shraga Kadri (Jerusalem: R. H. Ha-Cohen, 1958), 11. 27 R. Binyomin edited a number of Hebrew journals other than Ner including the earlier 28 H Brit Shalom organ, She ifotenu. 29 48. e reference to the “servant who has come to rule” is actually an excerpted section 30 of Ahad Ha-aam’s 1891 essay, “Emet me-Erets Yisrahel” in Ner 1, nos. 10–11 (29 June 1950), 31 11. Meanwhile, Natan Hofshi invokes Hillel’s dictum in the opening issue of Ner 1, no. 1 32 (February 1950), 5. 33 49. See R. Binyomin, “Be-shule ha-sefer veha-zeman,” Moznayim 4 (1935), 76. In that re- 34 sponse, R. Binyomin reveals himself to be a most curious Zionist, at once committed 35 to territorial maximimalism and yet also to a political state for Jews and Arabs alike 36 (hence, his early involvement in Brit Shalom). Ibid., 73–74. See Rawidowicz’s discus- 37 sion of R. Binyomin’s criticism of him in a 1957 symposium, translated as “Jewish Exis- 38 tence: e End and the Endless,” in State of Israel, Diaspora, and Jewish Continuity, 81. 39 ere Rawidowicz notes, with a trace of self-vindication, that R. Binyomin began to 40 change his views by the 1940s. 41 42 a a 50. Rawidowicz, “Levatser velo le ar er,” Moznayim 5 (1935–36), 290–94, quoted in Ravid, 43 “Le-hayav,” xlviii. 44 51. Benny Morris notes that the tide began to turn decisively in favor of the Jewish side 45 toward the end of the brst stage of the war (what he calls the “civil war” stage)—that 46 is, in April/May 1948. See Morris’s new account in 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 268

268 | notes

1 War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 77–78. For a demographic perspective on 2 the pace of Xight, see Charles S. Kamen, “After the Catastrophe I: e Arabs in Israel, 3 1948–1951,” Middle Eastern Studies 23 (October 1987), 453. 4 52. See the discussion of Sasson’s memo of 13 August 1948 and the meeting of 18 August 5 1948 in Morris, %e Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 327–28. 6 7 53. See Bernadotte’s “Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator to Palestine,” 16 8 September 1948 at http://domino .un .urg/ unispal .nsf/ 9a798adbf322a[3852 5617b006d88d7 9 / ab14d4aafc4e1bb9 85256204004f55fa!OpenDocument &Highlight =0,Bernadotte ,progress. 10 See also Morris, %e Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 331. 11 54. Morris, %e Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 330. 12 13 55. Anita Shapira, “Hirbet Hizaah: Between Remembrance and Forgetting,” Jewish So- 14 cial Studies 7, no. 1 (2000), 25. 15 56. See Don Peretz, Israel and the Palestine Arabs (Washington, D .C.: Middle East Insti- 16 tute, 1958), passim. 17 18 57. Rony Gabbay, A Political Study of the Arab-Jewish ConOict: %e Arab Refugee Problem 19 (Paris: E. Droz, 1959), 109–110. 20 58. Ibid., 110, no. 158. 21 22 59. Exceptions to the rule are Benny Morris and Avi Shlaim, who both lauded Gabbay’s 23 book, with the former calling it “a remarkable achievement.” See Morris, “e New His- 24 toriography: Israel and its Past,” in 1948 and After: Israel and the Palestinians, 16–17, as 25 well as Avi Shlaim, “e Debate about 1948,” International Journal of Middle Eastern 26 Studies 27 (1993), 289. 27 60. In the famous words of veteran Labor Zionist novelist Aharon Megged, the “New 28 Historians” were motivated by a “suicide drive.” See his “e Israeli Suicide Drive,” Ha- 29 arets (supp.), 10 June 1994, quoted in Neil Caplan, “e ‘New Historians,’” Journal of 30 Palestine Studies 24 (Summer 1995), 103. Subsequently, Israeli parliamentarian and later 31 minister of education, Limor Livnat, argued that the “New Historians” posed the 32 gravest of dangers to Israeli society. In a speech in New York on 17 August 2000, she de- 33 clared: “ese academics would have us believe that the Holocaust was not unique 34 and that, therefore, Israel’s creation and continued existence lacks any particular moral 35 justibcation. To them, we have no legitimate past. Post-Zionists go on to say we do not 36 have a legitimate future.” Livnat’s speech, “Post-Zionism and Israeli Politics,” can be 37 found at htt:// www .meforum .org/ article/ 185 (accessed on 27 December 2006). 38 39 61. In the case of 1956, the Israeli government considered a variety of options (for exam- 40 ple, resettlement outside of the country and preserving the status quo) regarding the 41 300,000 residents (more than 200,000 of whom were refugees) in the Gaza Strip, which 42 Israel captured in November. Before making any debnitive decision, it exited the Strip in 43 March 1957. See the discussion by Nur Masalha, “e 1956–57 Occupation of the Gaza 44 Strip: Israeli Proposals to Resettle the Palestinian Refugees,” British Journal of Middle East- 45 ern Studies 23, no. 1 (May 1996), 55–68. Meanwhile, Tom Segev chronicles the extensive de- 46 liberations within the Israeli cabinet and beyond over what to do with the new refugee 47 problem created by the Six-Day War in 1967. Segev shows that Israel’s conquest of the Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 269

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West Bank, and the subsequent entry of Israelis into that territory, occasioned a renewed 1 awareness of the presence of refugees from 1948. Moreover, the 1967 war created its own 2 refugee problem, with Palestinians from the West Bank Xeeing beyond Israeli control 3 into Jordan; reports indicated that some 80,000 took shelter in tents in Jordan. e pres- 4 ence of the new refugees, whose plight was publicized through the medium of television, 5 prompted new international pressure on Israel, including from the United States. As a re- 6 sult, Israeli politicians (Levi Eshkhol, Menachem Begin, and Pinhas Sapir among others), 7 as well as academics (such as Michael Bruno and Roberto Bacchi), came up with a vari- 8 ety of plans to address the new and old refugee problems, but none gained traction. Tom 9 Segev, 1967 veha-arets shinta et paneha (Jerusalem: Keter, 2005), 548–68. 10 11 62. See Shapira’s exhaustive analysis of public debate, especially after a blm version of 12 a the story in 1978, in “Hirbet Hiz ah: Between Remembrance and Forgetting,” 30–50. 13 63. See Tom Segev, %e Seventh Million: %e Israelis and the Holocaust, trans. Haim Watz- 14 man (New York: Hill and Wang, 1973), 421–45. See also Idit Zertal, Israel’s Holocaust and 15 the Politics of Nationhood, trans. Chaya Galai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 16 2005), 84–88. 17 18 64. Ben-Gurion’s interview in the New York Times Magazine, 18 December 1960, is ex- 19 cerpted in Zertal, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, 98. See also the fa- 20 mous discussion in Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of 21 Evil, rev. and enlarged ed. (New York: Penguin, 1977), 10. 22 65. Zertal, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, 98–99. 23 24 66. e brst oMcial census by the State of Israel in November 1948 listed 69,000 Arabs. 25 Meanwhile, it is estimated that 156,000 Arabs lived in the State of Israel by the time of 26 the armistice agreements in 1949, and more than 170,000 in 1953. See the detailed de- 27 mographic analysis in Kamen, “After the Catastrophe I”, 454, 458. 28 67. See the text of the White Paper at http:// www .yale .edu/ lawweb/ avalon/ mideast/ 29 brwh1922.htm (consulted on 24 August 2006). Two new books discuss Churchill’s re- 30 lationship to Zionism, pointing out his supportive stance. at said, his task in 1922 31 32 was to restrain more optimistic Zionist readings of the Balfour Declaration focused on 33 Jewish self-administration in a “wholly Jewish Palestine” by instead referring to the cre- 34 ation of a Jewish center “in which the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds 35 of religion and race, an interest and pride.” Such a center, the paper instructed, would 36 not alter the fact that “the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall 37 be Palestinian.” See Michael Makovsky, Churchill’s Promised Land: Zionism and State- 38 craft (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007), 130; for a more sanguine reading 39 of the White Paper’s aMrmation of Zionism, see Martin Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews: 40 A Lifelong Friendship (New York: Henry Holt, 2007), 85. Meanwhile, Rawidowicz quotes 41 (and critiques) Churchill’s “rights, not su[erance” formulation in a discussion of the 42 relationship between Diaspora Jews and Jews in Palestine. See his “Yisrahel ba-aolam,” 43 Metsudah 2 (December 1943), 8. 44 68. e literature is extensive, but among the leading scholarly contributors to the dis- 45 cussion are Ashad Ghanem, Sabri Jiryis, Ian Lustick, Sara Ozacky-Lazar, Ilan Pappé, 46 Shira Robinson, Nadim Rouhana, Sammy Smooha, and Oren Yiftachel. 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 270

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1 69. Meron Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape: %e Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948, 2 trans. Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California 3 Press, 2000). 4 70. David Grossman, Sleeping on a Wire: Conversations with Palestinians in Israel, trans. 5 6 Haim Watzman (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1992), 82–84. 7 71. http:// www .knesset .gov .il/ docs/ eng/ megilat_ eng .htm (accessed on 25 August 2006). 8 9 72. Shira Nomi Robinson, “Occupied Citizens in a Liberal State: Palestinians under Mil- 10 itary Rule and the Colonial Formation of Israeli Society, 1948–1956” (Ph .D. diss., Stan- 11 ford University, 2005), 55. 12 73. See Schmitt’s 1922 book, Politische %eologie, translated as Political %eology: Four 13 Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, trans. George Schwab (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT 14 Press, 1985). 15 16 74. On the operation of the military government, see Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State: 17 Israel’s Control of a National Minority (Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, 1980), 123–29. 18 75. See Don Handelman, “Contradictions between Citizenship and Nationality: eir 19 Consequences for Ethnicity and Inequality in Israel,” International Journal of Politics, 20 Culture and Society 7, no. 3 (1994), 441–59; qtd. in Robinson, “Occupied Citizens in a 21 Liberal State,” 63. 22 23 76. For a discussion of the uphill battle faced by an Israel government bgure such as 24 Shetreet who saw his role as safeguarding the interests of Arabs, see Tom Segev, 1949: 25 %e First Israelis (New York: Free Press, 1986), 43–91. See also Ilan Pappé, “An Uneasy 26 Coexistence: Arabs and Jews in the First Decade of Statehood,” in Israel: %e First 27 Decade of Independence, ed. S. Ilan Troen and Noah Lucas (Albany: State University of 28 New York Press, 1995), 642–49. 29 30 77. See appendix C, “Law of Return,” Laws of the State of Israel: Authorized Translation 31 from the Hebrew (Jerusalem, 1948–87), 4:114. Israeli legal scholar David Kretzmer ob- 32 serves in his thorough book: “e right given in the Law of Return to Jews to immi- 33 grate to Israel is one of the only cases in Israeli legislation in which an overt distinction 34 is made between the rights of Jews and non-Jews.” David Kretzmer, %e Legal Status of 35 the Arabs in Israel (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990), 35. 36 78. See the report of the Knesset debate, “Vikuah soaer aal hok ha-aezrahut,” Ha-arets, 27 37 March 1952. Meanwhile, the Communist Hebrew daily, Kol ha-Aam, ran a story several 38 days after the law’s implementation (on 12 July 1952) under the headline “Protest Strike 39 in Arab Locales against the Racist Law.” See “Shevitat mehaaah ba-yishuvim ha-aArviyim 40 neged ha-hok ha-gizaani,” Kol ha-Aam, 14 July 1952. 41 42 79. See appendix D. 43 80. See Benny Morris’s discussion of “inbltration” in his article on the government re- 44 sponse to and public debate over the Kibya episode of 1953 in “Ha-aitonut ha-yisrehelit 45 be-farashat Kibya,” in his Tikun taAut: Yehudim ve-AArvim be-Erets-YisraHel, 1936–1956 (Tel 46 Aviv: Am Oved, 2000), 175–97. 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 271

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81. e Universal Declarations contains a number of articles (2, 7, 12, 13, 15, and 21) that 1 relate to the right of members of a national minority to express themselves as such, to 2 move freely, and to participate fully in the government of their host country. 3 4 82. “Between Jew and Arab,” (sec. III). See Yehoshua Freudenheim, Ha-shilton bi-medinat 5 Yisrael (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1950), 190. 6 83. See, for example, the opinions expressed in the recent collection assembled in Tony 7 Kushner and Alisa Solomon, eds., Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Re- 8 sponses to the Israeli-Palestinian ConOict (New York: Grove Press, 2003). 9 10 84. e press release announcing the agreement from 10 September 1950 can be found 11 at http:// www .ajcarchives .org/ AJC_ DATA/ Files/ 508.PDF. See also the discussion in 12 Jonathan Sarna, American Judaism: A History (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 13 2004), 334–35. For Rawidowicz’s analysis and critique of the agreement between Ben- 14 Gurion and Blaustein, see Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, I:225–45. 15 85. For a detailed discussion of the term, see Nir Kedar, “Ben-Gurion’sMamlakhtiyut : Et- 16 ymological and eoretical Roots,” Israel Studies 7, no. 3 (2002), 117–33. 17 18 86. Israel Land Acquisition (Validation of Acts and Compensation) Law, 2.a.3. See ap- 19 pendix E. 20 87. Benvenisti estimates that the number of “present absentees” has grown from 21 30,000–35,000 in 1951 to 150,000 in 1998. See Sacred Landscape, 209. 22 23 88. Kretzmer, %e Legal Status of the Arabs in Israel, 49–76, esp. 50. Kretzmer also notes, 24 without accepting, Sabri Jiryis’ bgure of one million dunams of expropriated Arab land. 25 Ibid., 50, and Jiryis, %e Arabs in Israel (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1969), 138. 26 For his part, Meron Benvenisti estimates that 4.5 million dunams of land were either 27 conbscated or abandoned by Arabs in Israel. See Sacred Landscapes, 315. Meanwhile, 28 Michael R. Fischbach maintains that in terms of “the Palestinian refugees’ land, the 29 exact scope and value . . . has been and continues to be debated by scholars and gov- 30 ernments alike.” See his thorough study, Records of Dispossession: Palestinian Refugee 31 Property and the Arab-Israeli ConOict (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), xxii. 32 89. Together, kibbutzim and moshavim, Israel’s two main forms of collective settle- 33 ments, “held 45 percent of the land abandoned by Arabs or conbscated from Arab cit- 34 izens.” Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape, 182. 35 36 90. e multivalent Hebrew term gezerah can be rendered in English as “verdict” or 37 H H “plight.” It also connotes a violent pogrom, as in gezerat Ta H ve-Ta T (the Chmielnicki 38 massacres of 1648–49). 39 91. On the question of numbers, Rawidowicz observed: “e Arabs speak at times of a 40 million souls or more. By contrast, there are those who set the bgure of bve, six, or 41 seven hundred thousand—that is, about the number of Aolim to the State of Israel be- 42 tween 1948–1951.” “Between Jew and Arab,” sec. V. 43 44 92. See the account of a conversation with the brst American ambassador to Israel, 45 James McDonald, in his book My Mission in Israel, 1948–1951 (London: Victor Gollancz, 46 1951), 176. 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 272

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1 93. See most prominently Nur Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians: %e Concept of 2 “Transfer” in Zionist Political %ought, 1882–1948 (Washington, D .C.: Institute for Pales- 3 tine Studies, 1992). 4 a 5 94. Shapira, “Hirbet Hiz ah: Between Remembrance and Forgetting,” 1–62. In her analy- 6 sis of the story, Nurith Gertz observes that the “Israeli protagonists disengage from the 7 historical past, from the shared communal future, from the natural environment sur- 8 rounding them, from human values in which they once believed, and from a connection 9 to the metaphysical world that had accompanied them from biblical times.” See Gertz, 10 Hirbet HizAah veha-boker shele-mohorat (Tel Aviv: Ha-kibuts ha-mehuhad, 1983), 77. 11 95. S. Yizhar, “Hirbet Hizaah,” in ShivAah Sipurim (Tel Aviv: ha-Kibuts ha-Mehuhad, 1971), 12 82, 86. 13 14 96. Ibid., 86, 87. 15 97. Shapira, “Hirbet Hizaah,” 6–7. 16 17 98. See Shmuel Dayan, “aAl yahasenu la-aArvim,” Ha-poAel ha-tsaAir 45, nos. 44–45 (1952), 16. 18 19 99. Ibid., qtd. in “Between Jew and Arab,” sec. XII. 20 100. “Between Jew and Arab,” sec. XIII. 21 22 101. “It is a rare occurrence indeed,” Sharon wrote, “when a bad episode, which everyone 23 regrets, largely turns out well in the vicissitudes of time and circumstance.” Avraham A A A 24 Sharon (Schwadron), He arot shovinistiyot le- inyan ha- Arvim (Tel Aviv, n.p., 1949), 7. 25 102. Sharon, HeAarot shovinistiyot le-Ainyan ha-AArvim, 8. Sharon had been, by his own 26 account, an advocate of population exchange for decades, brst proposing the idea in 27 a Swiss newspaper in 1916. Ibid., 14. Notwithstanding this commitment (and his many 28 post-1948 remarks), Rawidowicz notes that Sharon seemed at one point to adopt the 29 rhetoric of accommodation between Jews and Arabs: “Zionists must assume for them- 30 selves the responsibility to solve the question of the Jews in its entirety. at is, over the 31 course of a reasonable period of time, we will settle all of our people, or almost all of 32 them, on the territory of Mandatory Palestine, west and east. And this will be done on 33 34 the condition, and with suPcient international guarantee, that its other residents will not 35 be harmed. If in the future 12 out of 17 million of our own will earn their keep in this land, 36 two million of the other people will also be able to earn their keep here.” Sharon, Torat h 37 ha-Tsiyonut ha-akhzarit (Tel Aviv: Sifriyat De ot, 1944), 49. 38 103. “Between Jew and Arab,” sec. XI. e text of Yizhar’s remarks can be found in Divre 39 siah: hartsaHot ve-diyune haverim (Tel Aviv, 1951), 2:52–53. Yizhar made reference in his 40 remarks to an earlier era in which Zionists used the language of “we and our neigh- 41 bors”; this was a clear reference to a volume of that name containing David Ben- 42 Gurion’s essays on the Arab question: Anahnu u-shekhenenu. 43 44 104. ReXecting his deep-rooted sense of Jewish ethical virtue prior to 1948, Rawido wicz 45 asserted that from the time of the time of the Hasmonean kingdom (2nd centuryBCE ) 46 until the present, “there was not a single solid complaint in the arsenal of the haters of 47 Israel.” “Between Jew and Arab,” sec. VIII. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 273

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105. Ibid. For a helpful discussion of the association of Esau with Christianity, see Ger- 1 son D. Cohen, “Esau as Symbol in Early Medieval ought,” in his collected essays, Stud- 2 ies in the Variety of Rabbinic Cultures (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 3 esp. 245–50. 4 5 106. See Leibowitz essay, “After Kibya,” originally published in the Israeli journal Be- 6 terem in 1953 and reprinted in his Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State (Cam- 7 bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 189–90. According to Leibowitz, “moral- 8 ity does not admit a modifying attribute and cannot be ‘Jewish’ or ‘not Jewish.’” See the 9 discussion of Leibowitz and, more broadly, debates over the balance of power and 10 ethics by Ehud Luz, “‘Jewish Ethics’ as an Argument in the Public Debate over the Is- 11 raeli Reaction to Palestinian Terror,” Israel Studies 7 (2002), 134–56. 12 107. It is noteworthy that Leibowitz, despite his disavowal of a specibc Jewish morality, 13 did conclude his essay on Kibya by suggesting that “the curse of our father Jacob” (pro- 14 nounced upon the tribes Simon and Levi after they killed the men of Shekhem in re- 15 taliation for the debling of their sister Dinah) could fall on Israel for the dangerous ar- 16 rogation of holiness to the state and its activity. Leibowitz, “After Kibiyeh,” 190. 17 18 108. For a more recent version of this argument, see Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin, “Di- 19 aspora: Generation and the Ground of Jewish Identity,” Critical Inquiry 19, no. 4 (Sum- 20 mer 1993), 693–725. 21 109. See Dvora Hacohen, trans. Gila Brand, Immigrants in Turmoil: Mass Immigration to 22 Israel and its Repercussions in the 1950s and After (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 23 2003), 103. See also Nachum T. Gross’s discussion of the system of rationing and economic 24 controls in the name of “austerity” (tsena) in “e Economic Regime during Israel’s First 25 Decade,” in Israel: %e First Decade of Independence, ed. Troen and Lucas, 232. 26 27 110. By contrast, a group of nineteen American theologians, academics, and university 28 administrators submitted a proposal to the United Nations in 1951 to resettle Palestin- 29 ian refugees in Arab countries. Among their arguments was that “(f)or Israel to ab- 30 sorb the Arab refugees would be to dislocate the economy of a state which in the 31 space of three years has been compelled to bght a war of defense, establish itself under 32 democratic constitutional forms, and open its doors to almost 700,000 Jewish refugees.” 33 See H. Dewey Anderson, %e Arab Refugee Problem: How It Can be Solved (Proposals 34 Submitted to the General Assembly of the United Nations) (New York: Nation Associates, 35 1951), 12. 36 37 111. A leading force in this e[ort is the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries 38 (WOJAC), founded in France in 1976 whose mandate is “is to document the assets Jew- 39 ish refugees lost as they Xed Arab countries following the establishment of the state of 40 Israel.” See the group’s website at http:// wojac .com. For a critique of WOJAC’s linkage 41 between this demand and the Palestinian refugee problem, see Yehouda Shenhav, 42 “Hitching a Ride on the Magic Carpet,” Ha-arets, 15 August 2003. 43 112. See the discussion by Yehouda Shenhav, “Arab-Jews, Population Exchange, and the 44 Palestinian Right of Return,” in Exile and Return: Predicaments of Palestinians and Jews, 45 ed. Ann M. Lesch and Ian S. Lustick (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 46 2005), 228–32. 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 274

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1 113. On rates of immigration and economic development in Israel, see Linda Sharaby, 2 “Israel’s Economic Growth: Success without Security,” MERIA: Middle East Review of In- 3 ternational ANairs 6, no. 3 (September 2002); http:// meria .idc .ac .il/ journal/ 2002/ 4 issue3/ jvbn3a3.html#Linda%20Sharaby. 5 114. Ironically, the immigrants who did come in large numbers from the West to the 6 State of Israel were Holocaust survivors, who bore the same stigma of being unpro- 7 ductive that was placed on Jews from the Middle East. See Hacohen, Immigrants in Tur- 8 9 moil, 109. 10 115. In terms of the largest concentration of Jews in the world, one scholar has noted: “De- 11 spite Ben-Gurion’s exhortations, American Jews simply ignored the Jewish state’s call for 12 their immigration.” Steven T. Rosenthal, Irreconcilable DiNerences: %e Waning of the 13 American Jewish Love ANair with Israel (Waltham,Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 2001), 14 27. at said, between 1948 and 1951, slightly more than half of the Jewish immigrants to 15 the State of Israel (50.1 percent) were from the West (99 percent of whom came from Eu- 16 rope)—as opposed to 49.9 percent from the Middle East. Between 1952 and 1954, the tide 17 had turned decisively toward the east, with 76.4 percent of Jewish immigrants coming 18 from the Middle East and the remainder from the west. See the bgures from the Israeli 19 Central Bureau of Statistics Statistical Abstract of Israel (2006) at http://www .jewishvirtual 20 library.org/ jsource/ Immigration/ Immigration_ by_ region .html. For the broader period 21 from 1946 to 1953, estimates are that 48.6 percent of all Jewish immigrants to the State of 22 Israel were Holocaust survivors. See Dalia Ofer, “Holocaust Survivors as Immigrants: e 23 Case of Israel and the Cyprus Detainees,” Modern Judaism 16 (1996), 2. 24 25 116. According to the United Jewish Communities, nearly $12 billion was raised by the 26 United Jewish Appeal, the United Israel Appeal, and the Jewish Federations in the United 27 States for Israel between 1948 and 2004. See the table “American Jewish Contributions 28 to Israel” at http://wwwjewishvirtuallibrary .org/ jsource/ US-Israel/ ujatab .html. 29 117. Benny Morris, “e Crystallization of Israeli Policy Against a Return of the Arab 30 Refugees: April–December 1948,” Studies in Zionism 6, no. 1 (1985), 87, 90. e sequence 31 of events described in this paragraph and the next owes much to Morris’s article. 32 33 118. Morris describes the wave of Palestinian Xight from Palestine beginning in April 1948 34 as the “mass exodus.” See %e Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 163[. 35 119. In a discussion with members of the UN’s Palestine Conciliation Commission in 36 1949, David Ben-Gurion asserted that the question of repatriation depended on “the es- 37 tablishment of peace, because so long as the Arab States refused to make peace . . . Is- 38 rael could not fully rely upon the declarations that Arab refugees might make con- 39 cerning their intention to live in peace with their neighbors.” He went on to express his 40 preference for the resettlement of refugees in Arab countries, not Israel. Quoted in Ed- 41 ward H. Buehrig, %e UN and the Palestinian Refugees: A Study in Nonterritorial Admin- 42 istration (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1971), 15. 43 44 120. For example, all of the Arab states voting in December 1948 (Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, 45 Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen) opposed U .N. Resolution 194 with its call for repatria- 46 tion of or compensation for Palestinian refugees. Later, the Arab states shifted to the 47 view that it was better to insist on the return of refugees to Israel than to absorb them Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 275

notes| 275 in their own countries. See Morris, %e Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revis- 1 ited, 550. Meanwhile, Rashid Khalidi observes that Jordan and Egypt kept tight lids on 2 Palestinian political activism in the wake of 1948 and that, in general, “constraints 3 (were) placed on Palestinian activism by the Arabs regimes.” Khalidi, %e Iron Cage: %e 4 Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006), 136, 138. See 5 also the earlier observation of Ben Halpern that the “tactics adopted by the Arabs were 6 designed to derive the greatest possible political advantage from the humanitarian 7 and quasi-legal claims of the refugees.” Halpern, %e Idea of the Jewish State, 2nd ed. 8 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969). 9 10 121. Quoted in Neil Caplan, “A Tale of Two Cities: e Rhodes and Lausanne Confer- 11 ence, 1949,” Journal of Palestine Studies 21, no. 3 (Spring 1992), 15. 12 122. Shenhav, “Arab Jews, Population Exchange, and the Palestinian Right of Return,” 226. 13 14 123. Truman’s frustration was evident in a number of communications from the spring 15 of 1949. On April 29, he wrote Mark Ethridge, the American representative of the Pales- 16 tine Conciliation Commission: “I am rather disgusted with the manner in which the 17 Jews are approaching the refugee problem.” A month later, on 29 May 1949, he sent a 18 very stern classibed note to Ben-Gurion via Ambassador James McDonald that began: 19 “e Govt of the US is seriously disturbed by the attitude of Israel with respect to a ter- 20 ritorial settlement in Palestine and to the question of Palestinian refugees.” e lengthy 21 note concluded: “if the Govt of Israel continues to reject the basic principles set forth by 22 the res of the GA of Dec. 11, 1948 [that is, U.N. Resolution 194] and the friendly advice of- 23 fered by the US Govt for the sole purpose of facilitating a genuine peace in Palestine, 24 the US Govt will regretfully be forced to the conclusion that a revision of its attitude to- 25 ward Israel has become unavoidable.” Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949: %e 26 Near East, South Asia, and Africa (Washington, D .C.: GPO, 1977), 957, 1072, 1074 n. For 27 further discussion, see Simha Flapan, e Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities (New York: 28 Pantheon, 1987), 214–22, as well as Joseph Schechtman, %e Arab Refugee Problem, 26. 29 124. e resolution can be seen at http:// daccessdds .un .org/ doc/ RESOLUTION/ GEN/ 30 NR0/ 043/ 65/ IMG/ NR004365.pdf?OpenElement (accessed on 22 December 2006.) It is 31 important to add that this clause was part of a larger document that called for the 32 creation of the Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC) and urged the conXicting 33 parties to engage in negotiations “with a view to the bnal settlement of all questions 34 outstanding between them.” 35 36 125. In his massive biography of Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett, Gabriel She[er 37 notes: “Sharett tried to cut the new Gordian knot and separate the question of Israel’s 38 membership in the UN and its participation in the Lausanne Conference, but to no 39 avail.” See She[er, Moshe Sharett: Biography of a Political Moderate (Oxford: Clarendon, 40 1996), 458. Indeed, the decision to admit the State of Israel to the U .N. on 11 May 1949 41 hardly seems unconnected to its agreement to sign the “Lausanne Protocol” on 12 May. 42 e protocol detailed the shared principles of the parties to that conference (Israel, 43 Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the members of the PCC—France, Turkey, and the 44 United States), including agreement to realize “as quickly as possible the objectives of 45 the General Assembly resolution of December 11, 1948, regarding the refugees, respect 46 for their rights, and the preservation of their property, as well as territorial and other 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 276

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1 questions.” http:// domino .un .ort/ UNISPAL .NSF/ 90634F6F0DC1B85256d0a00549202/ 2 4a5ef29a5e977e2e852561010079e43c!OpenDocument. See also Flapan, %e Birth of Is- 3 rael, 214. 4 126. See the discussion in Morris, %e Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 5 561–66 (and here at 565). Cf. Joseph Schechtman, who places the initiative for the pro- 6 posal in the hands of Mark Ethridge, the United States representative to the Palestine 7 Conciliation Commission. See Schechtman, %e Arab Refugee Problem, 36–37. 8 9 127. See Morris’s discussion of the “100,000 O[er” in %e Birth of the Palestinian Refugee 10 Problem Revisited, 570–80. Cf. Schechtman, %e Arab Refugee Problem, 39–40. For an 11 early discussion of the proposal to repatriate 100,000, see Jon Kimche, “Mahen ef- 12 sharuyot le-yishuv beaayat ha-pelitim ha-AArvim,” AAl ha-mishmar, 10 August 1948. 13 14 128. One Israeli researcher argues that Israel’s “100,000 O[er” was made without “any 15 intention of implementation.” See Varda Schi[er, “e 1949 Israeli O[er to Repatriate 16 100,000 Palestinian Refugees,” Middle East Focus 9 (Fall 1986), 18, quoted in Caplan, “A 17 Tale of Two Cities,” 31. See Caplan’s broader study as well, %e Lausanne Conference, 18 1949: A Case Study in Middle East Peacemaking (Tel Aviv: Moshe Dayan Center for Mid- 19 dle Eastern and African Studies, 1993). Morris asserts that “Israel hesitantly brandished 20 the refugees as a carrot in the multilateral negotiations.” Morris, %e Birth of the Pales- 21 tinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 551. In fact, there was a not insignibcant current in Is- 22 raeli policymaking that held to the view of the notorious “Transfer Committee” chaired 23 by Yosef Weitz: namely, that far from being the heart of the problem, the “uprooting of 24 the Arabs should be seen as a solution to the Arab question in the State of Israel”’ qtd. 25 in Morris, “Israel Policy and the Arab Refugees,” 92. 26 129. Joshua Landis has argued that the United States continued to concern itself with 27 the refugee question after Lausanne, turning its attention from repatriation in Israel to 28 resettlement in Syria (via negotiations with Husni Zahim). See Landis, “Early U.S. Pol- 29 icy toward Palestinian Refugees: the Syria Option,” in %e Palestinian Refugees: Old Prob- 30 lems—New Solutions, ed. Joseph Ginat and Edward J. Perkins (Norman, Okla.: Univer- 31 sity of Oklahoma Press, 2001), 77–87. See also Avi Shlaim’s discrete study of the Zahim 32 proposal noted in note 130. 33 34 130. “Between Jew and Arab,” sec. VI. Rawidowicz was joined in this view by one of the Is- 35 raeli government’s chief intermediaries with Arab regimes, Eliahu Sasson. Sasson opined 36 in June 1949 that the “Jews think they can achieve peace without paying any price, max- 37 imal or minimal.” at is, they expect the Arabs to cede all territory held by Israel, ab- 38 sorb all the refugees, and agree to all border modibcations, among other concessions. 39 Sasson’s communication is quoted in Avi Shlaim, “Husni Zahim and the Plan to Resettle 40 Palestinian Refugees in Syria,” Journal of Palestine Studies 15, no. 4 (Summer 1986), 76. 41 131. e language of “blessings” and “curses” in response to the behavior of “Israel” is a 42 recurrent theme in the Bible, especially in Deuteronomy 26. 43 44 132. wl[nn al ˜yd[ hbwçtw hbyç yr[ç e Hebrew cognates “hbyç”and “hbwçt”in this sen- 45 tence convey the interrelated notions of return—in the physical sense for the Arab 46 refugees—and repentance, in the moral sense for those Jews putatively responsible 47 for their fate. e phrase immediately evokes Maimonides’ well-known claim in %e Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 277

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Guide for the Perplexed (II:25) that the “gates of bgurative interpretation are (not) shut 1 in our faces.” 2 3 133. “Between Jew and Arab,” sec. II. See, for example, the reference to a “second round” in 4 “Mi-yom le-yom,” Ha-arets, 9 June 1950. See also the discussion in Zaki Shalom,David Ben- 5 Guryon: Medinat YisraHel veha-Aolam ha-AArvi (Sde Boker: Ha-merkaz le-moreshet Ben- 6 Guryon, 1995), 5–7. For a skeptical assessment of this fear, see Flapan, %e Birth of Israel, 212. 7 134. In response to a question posed by the Ihud journal Ner to a number of experts or 8 public oMcials in 1952 regarding the rights of refugees to their property or compensa- 9 tion, Moshe Sharett o[ered the following formula: the United Nations is responsible for 10 solving the refugee problem in political-diplomatic terms; the Arab States for the ac- 11 tual absorption of the refugees, and Israel for paying a fair share of reparations per Res- 12 olution 194. See the issue devoted in large part to the refugee question, Ner 3, nos. 7–8 13 (February–March 1952), 9. 14 15 135. In fact, Rawidowicz was not alone. To recall one obvious example with similarities 16 to Rawidowicz in style and substance, Rabbi Binyomin continued to call for at least 17 partial repatriation of refugees in the pages of Ner in a variety of forms and under a va- 18 riety of noms de plume throughout the early 1950s. Similarly, one can bnd pro-repatri- 19 ation advocates in M. R. Cohen ( from a lecture at the Israel Oriental Society printed in 20 Ner 3, no. 9–10 [April 1956], 2–3); Akiva Ernst Simon, Ner 5, nos. 6–7 (March–April 1954), 21 19–23; and Heinrich Strauss, Ner 6, nos. 3–4 (December 1954–January 1955), 43–48. 22 23 24 “Between Jew and Arab” (pages 135–80) 25 26 1. We have chosen to translate the word “aever,” whose literal meaning is “Hebrew,” as 27 Jew. is usage was commonly found in the Jewish Enlightenment movement, the 28 Haskalah, and reXects Rawidowicz’s own fealty to an archaic Hebrew style. In the con- 29 text of this chapter, “Jew” is a more suitable translation. 30 2. e typescript version of the manuscript includes here a reference not to Israel’s Dec- 31 laration of Independence, but rather to the state’s Nationality Law (1952). e latter 32 more accurately reXects the content of Rawidowicz’s chapter. 33 34 3. is formulation hints of Rawidowicz’s debt to the sociologist Aryeh Tartakower, 35 who (as noted in part I) authored an article on democratic principles in the State of Is- 36 rael that dealt with the status of the Arab minority. In the midst of that discussion, Tar- 37 takower articulated the general principle that “it is not good to be a minority in a state.” 38 Rawidowicz inverted the principle, but used quotations, I surmise, to acknowledge 39 Tartakower’s formulation. See Tartakower, “Mishtar-ha-demokratyah bi-Medinat Yis- 40 rahel,” Metsudah 7 (1954), 77. 41 4. Rawidowicz here uses a verb of early rabbinic vintage (µnq) to indicate a pledge of ab- 42 stinence. e more familiar form of this root µnwq (konam), connoted a vow of absti- 43 nence in lieu of a sacribcial o[ering (korban). 44 45 5. Rawidowicz was adamant that the word “Israel” should be understood in its tradi- 46 tional meaning, to refer to the Jewish people at large, not to the State of Israel. For that 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 278

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1 reason, we have often retained his use of the word “Israel” to refer to the Jewish peo- 2 ple, retaining quotation marks around it to indicate his distinctive meaning. As noted 3 earlier, Rawidowicz insisted that the State of Israel (Medinat YisraHel) be known only 4 as that. Rawidowicz engaged in an interesting exchange of letters on this theme in 5 1954–55 with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. See his essay “Israel: e Peo- 6 ple, the State, followed by the exchange with Ben-Gurion in Rawidowicz, State of Is- 7 rael, Diaspora, and Jewish Continuity, 182–204. 8 6. Here Rawidowicz relies on one of the most familiar and versatile words in his lin- 9 guistic arsenal, the Hebrew word tyb (bayit). In much of his writing, including Bavel vi- 10 Yerushalayim, he makes frequent reference to the bayit rishon and bayit sheni, usually 11 translated as the First and Second Temples. Rawidowicz, however, understands these 12 terms less as markers of a physical space than of di[ering cultural dispositions of the 13 Jews. ese two dispositions continually competed with each other for primacy in the 14 Jewish people throughout its long history—a battle that Rawidowicz described as 15 “bayit ve-bayit” in Bavel vi-Yerushalayim, I:105[. He also believed that the events that 16 culminated in the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 marked the inauguration of ha- 17 bayit ha-shlishi (the third house) in the history of the Jewish people. Ibid., 148[. In the 18 present chapter, Rawidowicz uses the term bayit to refer both to the Jewish homeland 19 in the Land of Israel and to the people of Israel in a larger, extraterritorial sense. 20 21 7. is phrase bgures in the opening of Baba Metzia in the Mishnah tractate Nezikin: 22 “If two people are holding on to a garment and each one says it belongs to him, the law 23 is to divide it and each must swear that he for sure did not have less than half.” Baba 24 Metzia 1:1. 25 8. Rawidowicz has in mind here political Zionists à la Herzl for whom the key problem 26 facing the Jewish people was not a desiccated culture or language but the absence of 27 a physical home. 28 29 9. Rawidowicz’s term for empowerment—lwya—is an uncommon variation of the He- 30 brew word, lya, which connotes power. Rawidowicz’s use of an obscure form of this 31 word reXects a number of important qualities in his prose: his search for antiquated 32 and rare usage from ancient and Hebrew texts; and his willingness to modify that usage 33 to create neologisms for a still developing modern Hebrew idiom. 34 10. is expression, “aeved ki yimlokh,” comes from Proverbs 30:22. 35 36 11. Rawidowicz is here making reference to the recurrent fear in Israel that the Arab 37 countries might attempt a “second round” of bghting (known in Hebrew as a “sibuv 38 sheni”). See, for example, the reference to a “second round” in “Mi-yom le-yom,” Ha- 39 arets, 9 June 1950. 40 41 12. “Inbltrators,” known in Hebrew as mistanenim, were those Palestinians who at- 42 tempted to reenter Israel’s boundaries from Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon. While it is 43 reasonable to assume that a large majority of “inbltrators” were seeking to reclaim their 44 property or rejoin their families, a smaller number harbored the desire to inXict harm 45 on the Israeli population. 46 13. is term, from the Turkish word “e[endi” (lord or master), refers to wealthy and dis- 47 liked absentee landlords. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 279

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14. e new State of Israel declared in May 1948 a state of emergency (sec. 9a of the Law 1 and Administration Ordinance). is declaration carried over previous British Manda- 2 tory regulations (including the Defense [Emergency] Regulations of 1945). See the dis- 3 cussion in Menachem Hofnung, Democracy, Law and National Security in Israel (Alder- 4 shott, Eng.: Dartmouth Publishing, 1996), 47[. 5 6 15. Rawidowicz is referring to the nearly 600,000 Jews who had Xed Arab countries and 7 moved to Israel by 1951. 8 16. In a provocative move, Rawidowicz employs here the Hebrew term for remnant, “she- 9 herit,” that was most commonly used to refer to Holocaust survivors (sheherit ha-peletah). 10 11 17. e phrase “scattered and dispersed,” in reference to the Jewish people, can be found 12 in Megilat Esther 3:8: “King Ahasuerus: ‘ere is a certain people scattered abroad and 13 dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are di- 14 verse from those of every people; neither keep they the king’s laws; therefore it probt 15 not the king to su[er them.’” 16 18. e reference is to two well-known walled cities in antiquity. 17 18 19. e Ihud Association was founded in September 1942 to advocate for “Jewish-Arab 19 co-operation in a bi-national state, on the basis of parity of numbers and parity of po- 20 litical rights.” Its initial membership included Judah Magnes, Martin Buber, and Moshe 21 Smilansky, all of whom spoke on the behalf of the group at a meeting of the Anglo- 22 American Inquiry Commission of 1946. See Arab-Jewish Unity: Testimony before the 23 Anglo-American Commission for the Ihud (Union) Association by Judah Magnes and Mar- 24 tin Buber (London: Victor Gollancz, 1947), 9 e group also included among its promi- 25 nent members Rabbi Binyomin, who edited the Ihud’s journal, Ner. 26 27 20. Rawidowicz here refers to the U .N. Charter (1945) and the Universal Declaration of 28 Human Rights (1948). He most likely had in mind the 13th clause of the latter docu- 29 ment, which declares that “everyone has the right to leave any country, including his 30 own, and to return to his country.” e Universal Declaration is included in appendix D. 31 21. is bgure presumably refers to the number of IDPs (internally displaced persons) 32 whose land was annexed and were prevented from returning to it. According to Charles 33 Kamen, there were 23,000 IDPs by the time of the conclusion of the 1948 war. Kamen, 34 “After the Catastrophe I: e Arabs in Israel, 1948–1951,” Middle Eastern Studies 23, no. 35 4 (October 1987), 466–69, quoted in Meron Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape: %e Buried 36 History of the Holy Land since 1948 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California 37 Press, 2002), 201. Benvenisti estimates that there were 30,000–35,000 IDPs in 1951, dou- 38 39 ble the number that Rawidowicz mentions. 40 22. It should be noted that a Nationality Law was brst presented to the Knesset for dis- 41 cussion in June 1950, but was not approved until 1 April 1952. 42 43 23. Rawidowicz uses here the derogatory term (especially in the Zionist lexicon) “Galut” 44 (exile) to signify the Diaspora. 45 24. Rawidowicz most likely had in mind Yitzhak Gruenbaum (1879–1970), the Polish- 46 born Zionist activist who wrote about and defended (as a member of the Sejm) the 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 280

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1 rights of Jews and other minorities in Poland. Gruenbaum was the brst interior min- 2 ister in the State of Israel and later a member of a kibbutz associated with the leftist 3 Mapam party. 4 25. e text does not include the name of the law, though Rawidowicz was referring to 5 the Land Acquisition (Validation of Acts and Compensation) Law of March 1953, which 6 facilitated the transfer of annexed Arab land to the Israel Development Authority. e 7 Development Authority then redistributed the land to kibbutzim, moshavim, and other 8 bodies for their use. While Rawidowicz claims that the majority of Knesset members 9 opposed or disagreed with the law, Menachem Hofnung notes that “the Law was passed 10 with the support of all the Zionist parties.” See Hofnung, Democracy, Law, and National 11 Security in Israel, 115. What is true is that the law was passed with a fraction of the Knes- 12 set in audience, by a vote of 22–5. Finally, Rawidowicz provides the wrong date for the 13 passage of the law; it was on 10 March 1953, not 1 March. See Divre ha-Keneset: moshav 14 sheni shel ha-Keneset ha-sheniyah (Jerusalem: e Knesset, 1953), 13:923. 15 16 26. Smilansky’s article is a play on the opening line of Lamentations: “How doth the 17 city sit solitary, that was full of people!” Smilansky (1874–1953) was born in Kiev and 18 emigrated to Palestine in 1890 as part of the First Aliyah. He settled in Rehovot, where 19 he owned groves and vineyards. Smilansky opposed the e[orts of the subsequent wave 20 of Zionist immigrants to introduce a regime in the Yishuv of “Hebrew labor.” He de- 21 voted a good deal of his energies and literary e[orts to Arab-Jewish harmony, albeit 22 with a rather pronounced paternalism. Nonetheless, Smilansky wrote a number of 23 works of bction, including one collection, Bene AArav, that depicted rural Arab life in 24 Palestine. Smilansky was also, as noted earlier, the uncle of S. Yizhar, the renowned He- 25 brew author. 26 27. Rawidowicz is referring here to the maxim articulated by the third-century Baby- 27 lonian sage, Samuel: “Dina de-malkhuta dina.” is principle held that it was incum- 28 bent upon Jews to observe the law of the land. 29 30 28. Isaiah 1:27. 31 29. e Peel Commission was a British commission of inquiry that came to Palestine 32 to investigate the circumstances surrounding the Arab revolt in 1936. After hearing tes- 33 timony from various parties, the commission issued a recommendation in 1937, calling 34 for the abolition of the British Mandate and partition of Palestine into Arab and Jew- 35 ish states. Rawidowicz may also have been making reference to the Anglo-American In- 36 quiry Commission, which was established in 1945 to explore Jewish immigration to 37 Palestine in the wake of the Holocaust. 38 39 30. See the discussion in part II of those Israelis critical of the treatment of Palestinian 40 Arabs, both inside Israel and beyond. 41 31. Rawidowicz here refers to a Talmudic passage (Arakhin 16b) that deals with the 42 competing claims of disputants: “For if one says to [his fellow]: Remove the splinter 43 from between your eyes [that is, refrain from a minor infraction], his fellow can retort, 44 ‘Remove the beam from between your eyes [refrain from a major transgression].’” 45 46 32. Slightly fewer than 700,000 Aolim, or Jewish immigrants, came to Israel in the pe- 47 riod between 1948 and 1951. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 281

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33. Deir Yassin was a village on the outskirts of Jerusalem which Jewish bghters from 1 the Irgun Zvai Leumi and Lehi groups entered on 9 April 1948. As part of their e[orts 2 to ward o[ an Arab assault on Jerusalem, the Jewish soldiers laid siege to the village, 3 killing between 110 and 120 residents (according to most current accounts). e event 4 sent shock waves through both Jewish and Arab communities in Palestine, inducing 5 fear, panic, and Xight among members of the latter. Since that time, it has stood as a 6 symbol of the excesses of Jewish military activity during the hostilities of 1948. 7 8 34. Rawidowicz here uses the rabbinic term “mitsvat aaseh,” referring to an aMrmative 9 commandment; that is, a commandment of commission. 10 11 35. e reference is to the “aal ha-nisim” blessing said at the Hanukah and Purim festivals. 12 36. Rawidowicz here uses a term for “exiled” (µysn from swnl the verb for “to Xee”) whose 13 unvocalized Hebrew form also means miracles. 14 15 37. Psalms 23:4. 16 38. Rawidowicz uses a Hebrew term “gezerah,” abundantly present in medieval and 17 early modern Jewish literature, which can be translated variously as “plight,” “decree” 18 (especially an evil decree), or “catastrophe” (as in “gezerot ta”h ve-ta”t,” referring to the 19 Chmielnicki massacres of 1648–49). Rawidowicz’s usage contains elements of all three 20 21 of these English words. 22 39. Rawidowicz uses the Jewish legal term “hefker” to refer to the lands abandoned by 23 the Arab refugees. 24 25 40. is is an obvious reference to the Cold War tensions between the United States and 26 the Soviet Union. 27 41. Rawidowicz’s term “hurban shelishi” refers to the Holocaust as the “third catastro- 28 phe” after the destruction of the First and Second Temples. 29 30 42. Jeremiah 46:27. Rawidowicz here uses the biblical siblings Jacob and Esau to repre- 31 sent, as was common in late antique and medieval Jewish literature, Judaism and Chris- 32 tianity respectively. See part II. 33 34 43. Rawidowicz is suggesting that perhaps one day Christians (Esau) and Muslims (Ish- 35 mael) will unite to punish the Jews (Jacob) for their hand in the Palestinian refugee 36 crisis. 37 44. Rawidowicz here refers to the series of recurrent accusations labeled against Jews, 38 initially in medieval Europe, but spreading throughout the world, including in the pres- 39 ent. e most common accusation involving the blood libel was that Jews murdered 40 Christian children, whose blood was used either to poison wells or to make matsah, the 41 ritual unleavened bread eaten during Passover. e “bread of aiction” (ha-lakhma 42 43 anya) is another name for matsah used in the Passover Haggadah. 44 45. e Hasmoneans refer to the familial Maccabean band which initially rose up in 45 rebellion against the Greek ruler, Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 165 BCE, and then went on 46 to establish a ruling dynasty in Palestine from 140–37 BCE. 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 282

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1 46. Here Rawidowicz performs a clever linguistic trick by describing “the heirs of the 2 Nazis”— µyxan—as full of wrath (µyxawnm), two words composed of similar Hebrew let- 3 ters. 4 47. Daniel 7:10. 5 6 48. Leo Pinsker (1821–91) was a Russian-Jewish physician and early exponent of Jewish 7 nationalism, especially in his 1882 treatise Auto-emancipation. Pinsker maintained that 8 Jews were everywhere guests and nowhere at home, constantly subjected to the mal- 9 ady of “Judeophobia.” e remedy was to bnd a place where the erstwhile guests were 10 at home. 11 12 49. e idea of a vibrant partnership, or shutafut, between the State of Israel and the Di- 13 aspora was a key pillar of Rawidowicz’s worldview. 14 50. Rawidowicz would seem to be making the counterintuitive claim that in an era in 15 which hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants were arriving in the State of Israel, 16 there was nonetheless a “break” or “interlude” of sorts (implied by the word hafsakah) 17 in the current of immigration to the country after 1948. He somewhat claribes this seem- 18 ing incongruity further in the text, arguing that the Zionist ideal of “kibuts galuyot” (an 19 ingathering of the dispersed exiles from around the Jewish world) had failed. 20 21 51. at is to say, the “miracle of Arab Xight.” As we have seen in part II (and will have 22 occasion to see later in the text), Rawidowicz understood this notion that the Xight of 23 refugees was a “miracle” in the most ironic of terms. 24 52. is statement debes credulity, given Rawidowicz’s manifestly Eurocentric orien- 25 tation, according to which the Western Jews are culturally superior and, hence, more 26 valuable than Jewish immigrants from the Middle East. 27 28 53. Rawidowicz makes a clever play on words with “masekhet terumah,” referring to 29 the Mishnaic tractate of that name. As noted, this prediction of Rawidowicz’s was not 30 borne out by subsequent charitable giving—or by the Jewish communal ethos of sup- 31 porting the State of Israel as a cardinal article of faith. 32 54. ere is a printer’s error in the galleys version of the manuscript. e earlier type- 33 written version of the text claribes, however, that the word in question is ghwn, meaning 34 habit, custom, or in this case, norm. 35 36 55. e Hebrew term Rawidowicz uses, “shevet ahim,” comes from the well-known 37 Psalm 133:1: “How good it is, and how pleasant when we dwell together in unity.” 38 56. S. Yizhar (né Yizhar Smilansky [1916–2006]) was a leading Hebrew writer, intel- 39 lectual, and political figure. His two powerful stories, “Hirbet Hizaah” and “Ha-shavui” 40 were published together in 1949. See the discussion of Yizhar and “Hirbet Hizaah” in 41 part II. 42 43 57. Yizhar actually has in mind the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, which de- 44 clared in 1946: “In Palestine there has been no expulsion of the indigenous population, 45 and exploitation of cheap Arab labor has been vigorously opposed as inconsistent with 46 Zionism.” e report can be found at http:// www .yale .edu/ lawweb/ avalon/ anglo/ 47 angcov .htm. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 283

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58. is refers to a collection of essays by David Ben-Gurion on relations between Jews 1 and Arabs; among them are some with a rather conciliatory message, especially those 2 prior to 1929. See Ben-Gurion, Anahnu u-shekhenenu (Tel Aviv: Davar, 1931). 3 4 a 59. Smilansky uses the term “ma apilim” here, which was commonly used to refer to 5 Jewish immigrants who entered Palestine in debance of stringent British restrictions 6 during the Second World War. 7 60. Nahalal was the brst collective moshav established in Palestine in 1921. Shmuel 8 Dayan (1891–1961) was one of the founders of Nahalal, a veteran farmer and Labor Zion- 9 ist political bgure, as well as the father of Moshe Dayan. 10 11 61. Rabbi Binyomin, as noted in part II, was a passionate cultural Zionist, long-standing 12 advocate of Jewish-Arab reconciliation, and editor of the Ihud’s journal Ner. Hayim 13 Greenberg (1889–1953) was a writer, editor, and socialist Zionist leader aMliated with 14 Poaale Zion in the United States. 15 16 62. Dayan refers here to “Brit Shalom,” the organization of progressive Zionists (largely 17 from Central Europe) who advocated dialogue, reconciliation, and power sharing with 18 Arabs in Palestine. A key guide to this circle was the American-born rabbi, Judah L. 19 Magnes (1878–1947), who immigrated to Palestine in 1922 and became the founding 20 chancellor of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Neither Brit Shalom nor Magnes be- 21 lieved in the necessity of a Jewish state, preferring instead a binational polity in which 22 governance was shared by Jews and Arabs. While Brit Shalom lost momentum by 1933, 23 Magnes continued to adhere to the principle of a binational state until his death. In 24 fact, he spoke in favor of the idea in his testimony before the Anglo-American Com- 25 mittee of Inquiry in 1946. 26 27 63. Hibat Zion was a proto-Zionist movement that arose in the 1880s in order to stim- 28 ulate Jewish immigration to and agricultural settlement in Palestine. 29 64. Vladimir Zev Jabotinsky (1880–1940) was a Russian Jewish writer and charismatic 30 orator who became the leader of the Revisionist Zionist movement, which broke away 31 from the mainstream World Zionist Organization in 1935 and advocated a maximalist 32 territorial agenda for Zionism (a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan River). Jabotin- 33 sky was the mentor of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and the inspirational 34 force behind the contemporary Likud party in Israel. 35 36 65. Weizmann (1874–1952) and Ben-Zvi (1884–1963) were veteran Zionist leaders who 37 became the brst and second presidents of the State of Israel. 38 66. A. D. Gordon (1856–1922) was a Russian Jew who left behind his life as an estate 39 manager at the age of 47 to move to Palestine and assist in the work of redeeming the 40 land through physical labor. Gordon exhibited a quasi-religious devotion to physical 41 42 labor (the Hebrew word for which, hdwb[, also connotes worship). As a result of his 43 own example, Gordon became a beloved and inspiring bgure to the Labor Zionist 44 movement. 45 67. e term “religion of labor” (dat ha-Aavodah) points to the sacred quality that Zion- 46 ist immigrants, especially from the various socialist Zionist movements, attributed to 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 284

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1 the task of physical labor, which was seen by many of them as the antithesis to the 2 stereotypical bgure of the cerebral and unproductive Diaspora Jew. 3 68. e expression “image of God” (tselem Elohim) draws from Genesis 1:26: “en God 4 5 said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the bsh of 6 the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the 7 creatures that move along the ground.’” 8 69. e Hebrew “wapwz” should be read as “wa,wz.” is typographical error is contained in 9 both the typescript and galleys version of the text, but not in the original handwritten 10 version (p. 79). 11 12 70. e content of this sentence is somewhat unclear. Rawidowicz is conjuring up a 13 hypothetical situation in which countries would exchange their Jewish population in 14 return for the refugees. In fact, the topic of a population exchange was discussed vari- 15 ously by British, Israeli, and Arab leaders. According to the various suggestions, the 16 displaced Palestinian refugees would be resettled in an Arab country (e .g., Iraq) in ex- 17 change for the settlement of Jews from Arab lands in Israel. See, for example, Yehouda 18 Shenhav, “What do Palestinians and Arab-Jews Have in Common: Nationalism and 19 Ethnicity Examined through the Compensation Question,” http:// www .arts .mcgill/ ca/ 20 MEPP/ PRRN/ PAPERS/ shenhav1.htm. See also his article “Arab Jews, Population Ex- 21 change, and the Palestinian Right of Return,” in Ann M. Lesch and Ian S. Lustick, eds., 22 Exile and Return: Predicaments of Palestinians and Jews, 225–45. 23 24 71. e section in brackets was excluded by the printer in the galleys version, but ap- 25 pears in the typescript version. 26 72. is line is a famous principle attributed to the brst-century sage Hillel, the entirety 27 of which reads: “at which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. at is the 28 whole Torah; the rest is commentary; go and study it.” BT Shabbat 31a. A similar point 29 is expressed by Natan Hofshi in the brst volume of Ner 1 (February 1950), 5–8. 30 31 73. Hostilities between Israel and four Arab states came to an end through a series of 32 armistice agreements signed in the brst half of 1949: on 6 January with Egypt; on 23 33 March with Lebanon; on 3 April with Jordan; and on 20 July with Syria. 34 35 74. Here Rawidowicz modibes a famous phrase of Maimonides to the e[ect that “the 36 gates of interpretation are open to us” (Guide to the Perplexed, II:25). His own formula- hbyç hbwçt 37 tion entails a word play between the cognates and . See 276, n. 132. 38 75. As noted in part II, the State of Israel, through Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett, o[ered 39 to the Arab states at Lausanne the 100,000 plan. According to this plan, Israel would 40 repatriate 100,000 Palestinian refugees (25,000 of whom had already made their way 41 back to the state and 10,000 who would qualify under a family reunibcation program). 42 43 76. e tribes of Gad and Reuben were prepared, on the eve of the Israelite entry into 44 Canaan, to remain where they were in Transjordan. Numbers 32:5. 45 77. Isaiah 1:1. 46 47 78. Isaiah 1:27. Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 285

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79. Isaiah 2:3. 1 2 80. Rawidowicz is here referring to the well-known injunction from Leviticus 19:34: 3 “e stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the home-born among you, 4 and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the 5 Lord your God.” 6 81. is refers to the well-known image of the rootless “wandering Jew.” 7 8 82. With the intensibcation of the conXict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine in the 9 1940s, threats to and violence against Jews increased in various countries in the Arab 10 world. More violence broke out against Jews in Egypt and Iraq, among others, follow- 11 ing the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. 12 83. Rawidowicz probably has in mind the disturbances that broke out in Palestine in 13 1920–21, 1929, 1936–39, and throughout the 1940s. 14 15 84. is is an Aramaic term indicating the beginning of the messianic redemptive 16 process, which is usually imagined to be a time of diMculty, duress, and crisis. 17 85. Rawidowicz may have in mind here the massive displacement of people caused by two 18 Asian conXicts: the French Indochina War (1946–1954) and the Korean War (1950–1953). 19 20 86. Rawidowicz here plays on the double use of the term “megilah,” as in the Declara- 21 tion of the State and the Scroll of Esther. It is curious that in quoting from the Scroll of 22 Esther (9:16), Rawidowicz neglects an essential passage (in italics) that would seem to 23 undermine his more felicitous reading of Jewish behavior in ancient Persia: “And the 24 other Jews that were in the king’s provinces gathered themselves together, and stood 25 for their lives, and had rest from their enemies, and slew of them that hated them sev- 26 enty and @ve thousand—but on the spoil they laid not their hand.” 27 87. e previous sentences echo the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1–21), in which the Is- 28 raelites sing their gratitude to God for their exodus from Egypt and the drowning of 29 Pharaoh’s army in the sea. 30 31 88. Rawidowicz is referring here to Amos, the humble prophet of justice who stated: “I 32 was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdsman, and a dresser of 33 sycamore-trees.” Amos 7:14. 34 35 89. Rawidowicz is here drawing on King David’s admonition not to publicize the death 36 of Saul and Jonathan: “Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon; lest 37 the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised tri- 38 umph.” 2 Samuel 1:20. 39 90. It was this term—“troubler of Israel”—that King Ahab used to describe the prophet 40 Elijah when the latter came to chastise the king for his worship of idols. 1 Kings 18:16. 41 42 43 Epilogue (pages 181–88) 44 45 1. For example, Ernest Gellner calls attention to the frequently uttered nineteenth- 46 century belief that “the ‘nations’ are there, in the very nature of things, only waiting to 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 286

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1 be ‘awakened’ (a favorite nationalist expression and image) from their regrettable slum- 2 ber, by the nationalist ‘awakener.’” He judges this slumber image to be the “nationalist 3 ideologue’s most misguided claim.” See Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ox- 4 ford: Basil Blackford, 1983), 47–48. 5 2. See, for example, Ha-shahar (e dawn [1868]), Ha-meAorer (e awakener [1906]), 6 and Rasszvets (Dawn [1860]). 7 8 3. Gordon’s “Ha-kitsa aami” is translated and discussed in Michael Stanislawski’s For 9 Whom do I Toil? Judah Leib Gordon and the Crisis of Russian Jewry (New York: Oxford 10 University Press, 1988), 49–50. 11 4. Among the leading sources of inspiration and information for this group of sup- 12 porters of Israel are Alan Dershowitz, %e Case for Israel (Hoboken, N .J.: John Wiley, 13 2002), and Mitchell Bard, Myths and Facts Online: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli ConOict at 14 http:// www .jewishvirtuallibrary .org/ jsource/ myths/ mftoc .html. Both texts deal with 15 the refugee question in partial fashion, minimizing or ignoring altogether any Jewish/ 16 Israeli responsibility, past or present, for the plight. 17 18 5. See, most recently, Joel Kovel, Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single, Democratic State 19 in Israel/ Palestine (London: Pluto, 2007). 20 6. See Tony Kushner and Alisa Solomon, eds., Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish- 21 American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian ConOict (New York: Grove Press, 2003), 22 and Adam Shatz, ed., A Century of Dissident Jewish Writing about Zionism and Israel 23 (New York: Nation Books, 2004). 24 25 7. Question of Zion, 86. Rose concludes her analysis by recalling the insight o[ered by a 26 non-Zionist, the late nineteenth-century French Jewish thinker, Bernard Lazare, who 27 feared that eodor Herzl’s plan to restore Jewish pride through the creation of a state 28 would inevitably ignore the depths of misery of Eastern European Jews. Lazare retorted 29 with an observation that resonates powerfully in our own day: “We die from hiding 30 our shames, from burying them in deep caves, instead of bringing them out into the 31 pure light of day where the sun can cauterise and purify them.” Lazare’s retort is found 32 in Nelly Wilson, Bernard Lazare: Antisemitism and the Problem of Jewish Identity in Late 33 Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), quoted in 34 Rose, Question of Zion, 144–45. 35 8. Wisse, Jews and Power, 169. 36 37 9. Much of the momentum to “come to terms with the past” owes to the regime of ac- 38 countability set in place by the Nuremberg trials from 1945 to 1949. Since that time, a 39 number of European countries and business concerns have examined the history of 40 their complicity with Nazism, expressed contrition, provided bnancial compensation 41 to victims and, in so doing, lifted the stigma of criminality that had enveloped them. For 42 a recent discussion of the postwar regime of accountability in Europe, see the essays in 43 Dan Diner and Gotthard Wunberg, eds., Restitution and Memory: Material Restoration 44 in Europe (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007). In addition, there is a large and ever- 45 expanding body of literature dealing with “truth and reconciliation” as part of the 46 process of transitional justice (most notable in the South African case, but evident as 47 well in countries from Liberia to Chile). For a discussion of this important development, Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 287

notes| 287 see the volume edited by Tristan Anne Borer, Telling the Truths: Truth Telling and Peace 1 Building in Post-ConOict Societies (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2 2006). For the less well known South Korean case, see “After Long Wait in Korea, Un- 3 earthing War’s Horrors,” New York Times, 3 December 2007. 4 5 10. See Mark Cutts, ed., %e State of the World’s Refugees, 2000: Fifty Years of Humanitar- 6 ian Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 2. A central tenet of the United Na- 7 tions Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951) is that host countries should 8 not “expel or return [refouler] a refugee in any manner.” At the same time, the conven- 9 tion explicitly excluded from its mandate “persons who are at present receiving from 10 organs or agencies of the United Nations other than the United Nations High Com- 11 missioner for Refugees protection or assistance.” See http:// www .unchr .ch/ html/ 12 menu3/ b/ o_ c_ ref .htm. Given that Palestinians received assistance from the United 13 Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) as of December 1949, they were not 14 subject to the 1951 convention. 15 11. See, for example Ann M. Lesch and Ian S. Lustick, “e Failure of Oslo and the Abid- 16 17 ing Question of the Refugees,” in their edited volume, Exile and Return: Predicaments 18 of Palestinians and Jews, 3–16, See also the various opinions on this question in Shimon 19 Shamir and Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, eds. %e Camp David Summit—What Went Wrong? 20 Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians Analyze the Failure of the Boldest Attempt Ever to Re- 21 solve the Palestinian-Israeli ConOict (Brighton, Eng.: Sussex Academic Press, 2005). 22 12. See the remarks of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Annapolis confer- 23 ence on 27 November 2007 at http://domino .un .org/ UNISPAL .NSF/ c25aba03Xe079db 24 85256cf40073bfe6/ 36a4fb9b0a4de40d852573a1006be3f6!OpenDocument. 25 26 13. Yoav Peled and Nadim Rouhana, “Transitional Justice and the Right of Return of the 27 Palestinian Refugees,” %eoretical Inquiries in Law 5, no. 2 (2004), accessed online at 28 ble:// / C:/ DOCUME~1/ DAVIDM~1LOCALS~1/ Temp/ Download%20Document .html. 29 Rouhana has written extensively on the importance of a truth and reconciliation 30 process in the case of Israel and the Palestinian refugees. See, for example, his essay, 31 “Truth and Reconciliation: e Right of Return in the Context of Past Injustice,” in Exile 32 and Return: Predicaments of Palestinians and Jews, ed. Lesch and Lustick, 261–78. 33 14. e Palestinians have been accumulating data on property claims, relying on old 34 maps and other sources, as well as studying the restitution claims process elsewhere 35 (for example, Bosnia-Herzegovina), for use in negotiations with the Israelis. See the 36 37 discussion in Fischbach, Records of Dispossession, 336–58. For a recent Israeli perspec- 38 tive laying out the contours of a peace settlement, including the refugees question, see 39 Menachem Klein, A Possible Peace between Israel and Palestine: An Insider’s Account of the 40 Geneva Initiative, trans. Haim Watzman (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). 41 42 43 APPENDIX D : “!e Nationality Law” (pages 196–201) 44 45 1. Sefer Ha-Chukkim, No. 51 of the 21st Tammuz, 5710 (6th July, 1950), p. 159. 46 2. I .R., No. 48 of the 5th Shevat, 5709 (4th February, 1949), Supp. I, p. 164. 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 288

288 | notes

1 3. Palestine Gazette, English edition, No. 1210 of the 16th July, 1942, Supp. 11, p. 1193. 2 3 4 APPENDIX E: !e “Land Acquisition (Validation of Acts and 5 Compensation Law” (pages 202–6) 6 7 1. Sefer Ha-Chukkim, No. 57 of the 26th Av; 5710 (9th August, 1950), p. 278. 8 2. P .G. (English edition), No. 1305 of the 10th December, 1943, Supp. 1, p. 44. 9 10 11 APPENDIX G: United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 12 (pages 214–35) 13 14 1. See OMcial Records of the General Assembly, Second Session, Supplement No. 11, 15 Volumes 1–4. 16 17 2. is resolution was adopted without reference to a Committee. 18 3. e following stipulation shall be added to the declaration concerning the Jewish 19 State: “In the Jewish State adequate facilities shall be given to Arabic-speaking citizens 20 for the use of their language, either orally or in writing, in the legislature, before the 21 Courts and in the administration.” 22 23 4. In the declaration concerning the Arab State, the words “by an Arab in the Jewish 24 State” should be replaced by the words “by a Jew in the Arab State.” 25 5. e boundary lines described in Part II are indicated in the Annex. e base map 26 used in marking and describing this boundary is “Palestine 1:250000” published by the 27 Survey of Palestine, 1946. 28 29 30 APPENDIX I: United Nations General Assembly Resolution 273 (III) 31 (page 240) 32 33 1. See document A/ 818. 34 35 2. See document S/ 1093. 36 37 3. See Resolutions adopted by the General Assembly during its second session, pages 131–32. 38 4. See Resolutions adopted by the General Assembly during Part I of its third session, 39 pages 21–25. 40 41 5. See documents A/ AC.24/ SR.45–48, 50 and 51. 42 43 44 45 46 47 Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 289

1 2 3 4 BIB LIOG RA PHY 5 6 7 Archives Consulted 8 9 Bran deis Uni ver sity Ar chive: Rawi dow icz’s fa culty as sign ments and con tracts. 10 Central Zionist Archives: bles A 71/64 and A 115/26; letters, arti cles about Rawidow icz, 11 and obituar ies. 12 Central Archive of the Hebrew Univer sity: bles 165 (corre spon dence); 2010 (Proto cols 13 of the In sti tute of Jew ish Stud ies); and 2254 (cor re spon dence). 14 Chi cago Jew ish Ar chives, Sper tus In sti tute of Jew ish Stud ies: re lated ma te ri als from 15 the in sti tu tion’s news let ter, “Alon.” 16 Hum boldt-Uni ver sität zu Ber lin, Uni ver sitätsar chiv: Rek to rat bles 112 and 116, Phil. Fak. 17 ble 656, records re lat ing to Rawi dow icz’s en roll ment, course work, dis ser ta tion, 18 and pro mo tion. 19 Jacob Rader Mar cus Cen ter, Ameri can Jew ish Ar chives, Cin cin nati, Ohio: cor re spon - 20 dence with Adolph Oko. 21 Jewish National and Univer sity Library Archives: Schwadron Auto graph Collec tion, 22 Rawidow icz letters (Ben-Zion Dinur, Judah Magnes, Joseph Klausner, David 23 Yellin) 24 Leeds Uni ver sity Cen tral Records Of bce: records re lat ing to Rawi dow icz’s ten ure as 25 lec turer and Mon tague Bur ton Lec turer. 26 London Metro poli tan Archives: bles 4180/JC/B/02/009 and 4180/JC/B/03/012: records 27 relat ing to Rawidow icz and Jews’ College. 28 Rawi dow icz Ar chive, New ton, Mas sachu setts: cor re spon dence, manu scripts, in sti tu - 29 tional records, and pho to graphs. 30 31 32 Inter views 33 34 Chi men Abram sky, 24 July 2005 (Lon don). 35 Ben-Zion Gold, 5 August 2005 (Cambridge, Massachu setts). 36 Ber nard Lewis, Oc to ber–No vem ber 2004. 37 Wil liam Mar go lies, 1 Au gust 2005 (Je ru sa lem). 38 Alice Shalvi, 1 August 2005 (Jeru sa lem). 39 40 41 Main Pe ri odical Sources Con sulted 42 AAl ha-mishmar 43 44 Be-terem 45 Davar 46 Divre ha-kene set 47

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1 2 3 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 5 6 7 8 Writing a book is, in most cases, a col labo ra tive ef fort, and surely so in this 9 case. e respon sibility for any errors remains wholly mine, but I must ac- 10 knowl edge with deep gratitude those indi vidu als and insti tu tions whose 11 12 ex pert as sis tance and kind sup port made this book pos sible. e Lu cius N. 13 Littauer Founda tion, as it so often has in the beld of Jewish studies, ena- 14 bled the pub li ca tion of this book through a gener ous sub sidy. I am privi - 15 leged to work at an in sti tu tion, UCLA, that val ues the im por tance of re- 16 17 search. anks are due the UCLA Fa culty Se nate, Hu manities Dean Tim 18 Stowell and Social Science Dean Reynaldo F. Macias for their bnan cial sup- 19 port for this book. Much of my time at UCLA over the past four years has 20 21 been spent di rect ing the Cen ter for Jew ish Stud ies, a chal leng ing and thrill - 22 ing as sign ment at once. Man ag ing our very busy sche dule, not to men tion 23 my life, would simply not be possible without the extraor di nary sta[ of the 24 center: David Wu, Gina White, Mary Pinker son, and my close colleague of 25 26 ten years, our won drously ef b cient and for bear ing as sist ant di rec tor, Vi- 27 vian Holen beck. 28 In the course of re search ing the book, I made use of the fol low ing ar - 29 chives and relied on the kind ness of the fol low ing in di vidu als: the Ameri - 30 31 can Jew ish Ar chives (Kevin Prof btt), the Ro bert D. Far ber Ar chives and 32 Spe cial Col lec tions at Bran deis Uni ver sity (Karen Ab ram son), the Cen tral 33 Zionist Archives (Batya Leshem), the Central Archive of the Hebrew Uni- 34 35 ver sity (Etty Alagem), the Chicago Jewish Archives of the Spertus Insti tute 36 of Jewish Studies (Joy Kingsol ver), the Jewish National and Univer sity Library 37 Archives (Rivka Plesser), the Univer sitätsar chiv of Humboldt- Univer sität in 38 Ber lin, and the Lon don Met ro poli tan Ar chives. A par ticu larly hearty 39 40 thanks goes to Ben Ravid who, as noted in the intro duc tion, was unstint - 41 ing in an swer ing every re quest, large and small, and in grant ing me full ac- 42 cess to the Rawi dow icz Ar chive lo cated in the base ment of his home. 43 A num ber of col leagues and friends were kind enough to take time from 44 45 their busy sche dules to read vari ous parts of the manu script. I thank Andy 46 Apter, Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, David Ellen son, Ruth Gavison, Liora Halpe rin, 47

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1 Hagit Lav sky, Nadera Shal houb Ke vorkian, Mena chem Lor ber baum, Adam 2 Rubin, David Ru der man, Chaim Seid ler-Feller, Nomi Stolzenberg, and 3 4 Roger Wal dinger. Par ticu lar thanks go to those who read the en tire man- 5 u script and whose criti cal com ments sig nib cantly im proved its con tent 6 7 and style: Mi chael Be ren baum, David Biale, Ra’anan Bou stan, Mi chael 8 Brenner, Michael A. Meyer, Derek Penslar, Ben Ravid, and Anita Shapira. I 9 also thank Stephanie Chasin, who read every line of the text with her typ- 10 11 i cally keen eye. Jake Cun ning ham and Hil lel Eyal pro vided out stand ing re- 12 search as sis tance that was of in dis pensable value to the com ple tion of this 13 14 pro ject. As al ways, David Hirsch pro vided ex pert bib lio graphic help from 15 his perch as Ju daica li brarian at the Young Re search Li brary. 16 Colleagues at Brandeis Univer sity have been suppor tive of this project 17 18 from the be gin ning. Eu gene Shep pard, former stu dent and dear friend, 19 care fully read the book and passed it on for con sid era tion by the Tau ber In- 20 21 sti tute for the Study of Eu ro pean Jewry. e in sti tute’s ex ecu tive di rec tor, 22 Sylvia Fuks Fried, is a person of excep tional compe tence, discern ment, 23 and charm who guided the book through to the Uni ver sity Press of New 24 25 Eng land (UPNE) of which Bran deis Uni ver sity is a con stitu ent mem ber. 26 anks are also due Jehuda Rein harz, president of Brandeis Univer sity and 27 28 Tauber series general editor, for consent ing to include the book in the se- 29 r ies. e Press al ways seemed to me the most ap pro pri ate venue for a book 30 about one of Bran deis’ most inter est ing early fa culty mem bers. I thank 31 32 UPNE’s editor-in-chief, Phyllis Deutsch, for her sage advice and willing - 33 ness to take on a book of this nature, as well as the book’s able copyedi tor, 34 35 Betty S. Water house. 36 To my on go ing mar vel, Los An geles re mains a vi brant in tel lec tual, cul- 37 tu ral, and social milieu. I gratefully acknowl edge the friendship of Steve 38 39 Aron, Sharon Brous, Adam Rubin, Teo Ruiz, Hi lary Schor, Chaim Seid ler- 40 Feller, Daniel Sokatch, and, with deep sadness, the late R. B. Kitaj, for ad- 41 42 ding so much stimula tion and spice to life. e anchor of it all, though, is 43 my family. Nomi Stolzen berg remains the love of my life, my best friend, 44 and most care ful reader. She man ages to bal ance the com pet ing de mands 45 46 of her own career and our family with great skill and compas sion. Our 47 proudest creation is the stupen dous trio of daughters with whom we’ve 48 49 been blessed: Tali, Noa, and Sara. ey are the lights of our life—and have 50 been up per most in my thoughts through out the writ ing of this book. Nomi 51 and I have tried to in cul cate in them the values of self-re spect and respect Myers: Between Jew and Arab page 303

acknowledgments | 303 for oth ers in equal meas ure, often with the in ex tri cably en twined fate of 1 Jews and Arabs in mind. It is my hope that they will con tinue the strug gle 2 3 for peace and jus tice that re mains so ur gent in our day. 4 is book is dedicated to Arnold J. Band. It was a fateful encounter with 5 6 Arnie as a senior in college that sealed my fate as a Jewish histo rian. I have 7 had the privi lege of know ing him as a teacher, and for the last sev en teen 8 years at UCLA, as a col league and friend. Not with stand ing his fa mously 9 10 iras cible de meanor, he has seen to this tran si tion with re markable ease 11 and good will; in deed, his ex am ple is a pow er ful in spi ra tion to me. He and his 12 13 wife Ora have been a font of va luable in for ma tion about Simon Ra wido wicz 14 based on their en count ers with him in Bos ton in the 1950s. Above all, Arnie 15 agreed to join me in trans lat ing Rawi dow icz’s chal leng ing He brew text, 16 17 “Between Jew and Arab.” With out his mas ter ful com mand of He brew lit er- 18 ary style and history, the chapter would have remained an unreadable 19 20 mess. Arnie also read every page of this book with his cus to mary acuity. He 21 devoted so much time and energy to this task not because he shares Raw- 22 idow icz’s (or my) politi cal perspec tive. Rather, he is ever the teacher, gen- 23 24 uinely interested in new approaches while insis tent on attend ing to the 25 wis dom of the past. In the case of this book, he knew when to en cour age 26 27 and when to re strain. He also knew to ap pre ciate Simon Rawi dow icz’s 28 great strengths, as well as the weak points in his ideologi cal and politi cal 29 project. Arnie’s clarity and open-minded ness helped bring this book to life; 30 31 both qualities strike me as es sen tial in under stand ing the cen tral issue— 32 the Arab Ques tion—that lies at its core. 33 34 35 36 Illustration Credits 37 Images on pages 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 38, 42, 43, 55, 56, 67, and 68: Courtesy of the Rawid- 38 owicz Archives. Image on page 34: Courtesy of the Central Zionist Archives. Image on 39 page 37: Reprinted from Atlas Historyczny Polski (Warsaw: PPWK, 1977). © PPWK S. A. 40 POLAND Prof. Ładogórski T. Images on pages 45, 46, and 48: Courtesy of the Univer- 41 sitätsarchiv, Humboldt-Universität, Berlin. Image on page 65: Courtesy of the London 42 Municipal Archives. Image on page 80: Courtesy of Chicago Jewish Archives, Spertus In- 43 stitute of Jewish Studies. Image on page 83: Courtesy of the Robert D. Farber University 44 Archives, Brandeis University. 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 Myers: Between Jew and Arab [blank] page 304

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1 2 3 4 INDEX 5 6 7 8 Abramsky, Rabbi Yehezkel, 71 tion with Arabs, 100–101; correspondence 9 Absentees’ Property Law (1950), 116–17 with Rawidowicz, 29, 32, 278n.5; leader of 10 Agnon, S. Y., 49, 60 the Provisional Government, 84–85; 11 Ahad Ha-am (Asher Ginzberg), 43, 53, 57, 60, messianism of, 93, 244–45n.20; relation- 92, 95, 99–100, 159, 172n., 184, 249n.5 ship between Israel and the diaspora, 12 Akademie für die Wissenschaft des Juden- 114–15, 166, 258n.107; as Socialist Zionist, 13 tums, 50–51 100–101 14 Alami, Musa, 101 Benjamin, Walter, 44 15 Alterman, Nathan, 164n. Benvenisti, Meron, 110 16 Altmann, Alexander, 32, 82 Ben-Zvi, Yitzhak, 83, 104, 119, 167, 193, 206, 17 American Council for Judaism, 242n.11 283n.65 18 American Jewish Committee, 114–15 Bergmann, Shmuel Hugo, 95, 266n.45 19 Amiel, Rabbi M. A., 39 Bernadotte, Count Folke, 105, 128 20 Anglo-American Inquiry Commission (1946), Bialik, Chaim Nahman, 32, 48–49, 60, 167, 21 279n.19, 282n.57, 283n.62 257n.100 Antisemitism, 62 Binationalism, 100, 101. See also Brit Shalom; 22 Arab boycott of Israel, 147, 175 Ihud Association; Kedma Mizraha; 23 Arab-Israeli War (1948), 126, 128 League for Arab-Jewish Rapprochement 24 Arab League, 128 Birobidzhan (Soviet Union), 62 25 Arab Revolt (1936), 101 Blaustein, Jacob, 114–15 26 Arabs: expulsion of Palestinians (1948), 102, Bloch, Ernst, 44 27 106–7, 110, 143, 186, 244n.19, 266n.45 (see Bowman, Rev. Dr. John, 70, 71 28 also Nakba); as infiltrators (mistanenim), British Mandate for Palestine, 177, 192 29 113, 123, 175, 265n.29; as refugees, 31, 102, Brit Shalom, 95, 100, 101, 109, 163, 267n.49, 30 104–8, 123, 128–30, 132–33, 249n.4, 268– 283n.62. See also Binationalism 31 67n.61, 273n.110, 274–75n.120, 275n.125, Buber, Martin, 44, 95–96, 103, 112, 116, 184, 276n.128–30, 277n.134 and 135; repatria- 279n.19 32 tion of, 129–30, 284n.75; residents of Israel, Bund, 61, 62, 75 33 110–11; Zionist attitude toward, 43, 122–23 Burton, Montague, 70 34 Arendt, Hannah, 73, 116, 184, 260n.134 35 Auerbach, Shlomo, 71 Camp David peace talks, 246n.32 36 Carlebach, Alexander, 249n.5 37 Baeck, Rabbi Leo, 50 Churchill, Winston, 109, 269n.67; White 38 Balfour Declaration (1917), 109, 191 Paper (1922), 109, 260n.137 39 Bauer, Otto, 61 Cohen, Aharon, 101, 112 40 Baumgardt, David, 47 41 Begin, Menachem, 283n.64 Dayan, Moshe, 121, 283n.60 Beilin, Yossi, 245n.26; Beilin-Abu Mazen Dayan, Shmuel, 121, 160–61, 283n.60 42 Agreement, 274n.34 Declaration of the Establishment of the State 43 Bell, Daniel, 32, 92, 182 of Israel (1948), 177, 191–93 44 Ben-Gurion, David, 34, 108, 109, 119, 155, 185, Deir Yassin massacre, 104, 122, 144, 281n.33 45 195, 206; Arab refugees, 102, 104–5, 116, Dessoir, Max, 47 46 129, 155, 167, 244n.19, 274n.119; coopera- Diesendruck, Zvi, 51 47

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1 Dubnow, Simon, 48, 54, 57, 61, 256n.86, 256– Ibn Ezra, Abraham, 79 2 57n.87, 260n.135; Pinkas medinat Lita, 54; Ihud Association, 95, 116, 279n.19; Ner 3 Weltgeschichte des jüdischen Volkes, 54 (journal), 102, 103, 112, 139. See also 4 Binationalism 5 Eichmann, Adolf, 109 “Ingathering of the exiles” (1948–50), 156, 162, 6 Einstein, Albert, 59 175, 192 7 Elath, Eliahu (né Epstein), 96 Israel, State of, 85–86, 91, 102, 108–9, 125, 183; 8 English Zionist Federation, 64, 69, 72 creation of, 79, 83–84, 192; messianism 9 Epstein, Yitzhak, 100 and, 93, 94–95, 244–45n.20; policy toward 10 Expulsion of Arabs. See Arabs, expulsion of Palestinian Arabs, 111–13 11 Palestinians 12 Expulsion of Jews from Arab lands, 245n.21 Jabotinsky, Zev, 167, 258n.107, 283n.64. See 13 also Revisionists 14 Feuerbach, Ludwig, 47, 52, 182 Jewish Agency, 160 15 Fink, Jacob, 28–29, 31, 97, 251n.20; Shevivim Jewish Colonial Association (ICA), 54 16 (journal), 28 Jewish National Fund, 127, 160, 163 17 First Zionist Congress (Basel 1897), 95, 191 Jews’ College (London), 64 18 Fleischer, Yaaakov, 77, 86 Johnson, President Lyndon B., 33 19 Freudenheim, Yehoshua, 114, 141 Jüdische Volkspartei, 54 20 Frishman, David, 165n. 21 Kaplan, Mordechai, 91 22 Gibb, H. A. R., 70, 71 Kaufmann, Yehezkel, 91, 249n.5 23 Glatzer, Nahum, 32, 34, 82 Kedma Mizraha, 95. See also Binationalism 24 Goitein, S. D., 104 Kibya (1953), 24, 124–25, 164n. 25 Gordon, A. D., 119, 168–69, 283n.66 Kishinev pogroms (1903), 61–62 26 Gordon, Judah Leib, 181 Klatzkin, Jacob, 48, 249n.5 27 Greenbaum, Avraham, 29, 30 Klausner, Joseph, 50–53, 63, 255n.72 28 Greenberg, Hayim, 121, 161, 283n.61 Klee, Alfred, 54–55 29 Grossman, David, 110–11 Kleinmann, Moshe, 69 30 Gruenbaum, Yitzhak, 279–80n.24 Krauss, Samuel, 71 31 Guttmann, Julius, 50–51, 255n.72 Krochmal, Nachman, 33–35, 47, 49, 63, 79, 89, 32 182 33 Ha-Levi, Judah, 89 34 Ha-‘olam (Zionist journal), 39, 64, 67, 69 Lachover, Fishel, 60 35 Halkin, Hillel, 243n.16 Land Acquisition (Validation of Acts and 36 Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsaair. See Mapam Party Compensation) Law (1953), 116, 202–6, 37 Haskalah, 39 280n.25 38 Hazan, Yaakov, 101 Lausanne Conference (1949), 129, 130, 132; 39 Hebrew University (Jerusalem), 50, 54, 63 Protocol, 275n.125 40 Hegel, G. W. F., 47 Law of Return (1950), 78, 112, 139, 191, 194– 41 Heine, Heinrich, 41 95, 196 42 Heller, Joseph, 71 League for Arab-Jewish Rapprochement, 95. 43 Hertz, Joseph, 71 See also Binationalism 44 Hertz, Walter, 73 League of Nations, 62 45 Herzl, Theodor, 54, 93, 191 Leibowitz, Yeshayahu, 124–25 46 Heschel, Abraham Joshua, 32, 44, 254n.54 Lewis, Bernard, 71 47 Hibat Zion, 166, 283n.63 Lieberman, Saul, 32 48 Histadrut (General Federation of Labor), 163n. Likud Party, 283n.64 49 Hitler, Adolf, 53, 72, 79, 124, 149–50, 152 Lurie, Joseph, 100 50 Holocaust, 108, 127, 130, 150, 191 51 Husik, Isaac, 255n.73 McDonald, James, 105, 119, 275n.123 Husseini, Haj Amin al- (Mufti of Jerusalem), Magnes, Judah L., 50, 52, 104, 163, 184, 165n. 255n.73, 279n.19, 283n.62

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Maier, Heinrich, 47, 52 Plessner, Meir, 103 1 Maimonides, 33–35, 49, 63–64, 70, 89, 132, Poaale Tsiyon. See Mapam Party 2 182 Population transfer, 163n., 171–72, 186, 3 Maki Party (Israeli Communist), 116; Kol 272n.102, 284n.70 4 ha-‘am (journal), 102 Prag, Alexander, 102 5 Malul, Nissim, 100 6 Mapai Party, 101, 102, 116, 123 Rabbi Binyomin (Yehoshua Radler-Feldmann), 7 Mapam Party, 101, 104, 116; ‘Al ha-mishmar 100, 103–4, 112, 161, 266n.45, 267n.47 and 8 (journal), 102, 112 49, 277n.135, 279n.19, 283n.61 9 Margulies, Alexander, 28, 71 Ranke, Leopold von, 90 10 Margulies, Benzion, 28, 71 Ravid, Avraham, 29–30, 49, 53, 81, 97 11 Markon, I. D., 71 Ravid, Benjamin, 28, 36 12 Marmorstein, Arthur, 71 Rawidowicz, Chaim Yitzhak, 36, 38, 39, 49 13 Mayer, L.A., 104 Rawidowicz, Chana Batya, 39 14 Mendelssohn, Moses, 33, 51, 64 Rawidowicz, Esther (née Klee), 30, 54, 70–71, 15 Minorities Treaties, 62, 77. See also National- 254n.65 16 cultural autonomy Rawidowicz, Simon: accused of anti-Zionism, 17 Mittwoch, Eugen, 47 23, 249n.5; Arab nationalism, 160; the Arab 18 Morgenstern, Julian, 51, 255n.74 Question, 23, 31, 78–79, 85–87, 97–99, 101, 19 Morris, Benny, 102, 104, 106–7, 246n.28. See 104, 109–10, 113–14, 116, 120, 136–38, 143, 20 also New Historians 153–54, 159–60, 166–68, 184–85; Arab 21 Morris, Nathan, 71 Question as a Jewish Question, 173; Arab 22 refugees, 29–30, 78, 97–98, 103–4, 118–19, 23 Nahalal (moshav), 160, 162, 169, 283n.60 124–27, 130–34, 144–53, 155–56, 160–62, 24 Nakba (Catastrophe), 108, 241n.3. See also 166–68, 170, 173–74, 176–80, 183–87; 25 Arabs, expulsion of Palestinians Ararat Publishing Society, 23, 28–29, 72; 26 Narodiczky, Israel, 28 assimilation, 172; attempts to get job at 27 Nasser, President Gamel Abdul, 98 Hebrew University, 50–53, 57, 61; Ayanot 28 National-cultural autonomy, 61–62, 73, 75. See Publishing Company, 49, 52, 54; Bavel vi- 29 also Minorities Treaties Yerushalayim (Babylon and Jerusalem), 21, 30 Nationality Law (1952), 112–16, 139–43, 23–24, 28, 31–33, 35, 59, 83, 89–93, 97–98, 31 196–201 115–16, 134, 179, 182, 184; bayit rishon and 32 Nazism, 40, 62, 69, 72–73, 75, 152, 286n.9; and bayit sheni (First Temple and Second 33 Arab rulers, 109, 164n. Temple), 92–93; Berlin, 32, 35, 44, 48–49, 34 Neturei Karta, 242n.9 53–54, 60, 70; Bet ha-‘am ha-‘ivri, 52; “Be- 35 New Historians, 106, 108, 244n.19, 268n.60. tween Jew and Arab” (“Ben ‘Ever le-‘Arav”), 36 See also Morris, Benny 23–24, 27, 29, 31, 78, 89, 97–98, 103–4, 117– 37 Nokhehim nifkadim (present absentees), 19, 126, 131, 134, 185–86, 188; Białystok, 32, 38 110–11 41–44, 49; birth of, 36; Brandeis, 21, 32, 82, 39 Nordau, Max, 54 89; College of Jewish Studies (Chicago), 79– 40 Nusseibeh, Sari, 244n.18, 245n.24, 249n.35 80, 82; criticism of English Jews, 72–73, 79; 41 criticism of statism, 116; criticism of 42 Or Commission, 251–52n.23 Zionism, 53, 72, 75, 78, 85, 136, 138, 158, 43 Oslo peace process, 187 160, 162, 174; death of, 23, 27, 32; diaspora 44 and Zion, 23, 44, 50, 55, 57, 59–60, 63, 66– 45 Palestine Conciliation Commission, 275n.123 67, 78, 82, 94, 96, 154, 157, 263–64n.14; 46 Paris Peace Conference, 62, 77 economic benefit of Arabs, 147; education 47 Partition of Palestine. See United Nations, of, 44, 47, 50, 52; England, 30, 32, 63–64, 70, 48 Resolution 181 79–80; essays of, 33, 39, 75, 103; ethical role 49 Peel Commission, 143, 280n.29 of “Israel,” 90, 146, 151, 164–66, 179–80, 183, 50 Peretz, Don, 106 185; ethical role of the State of Israel, 103, 51 Phillip, Oskar, 69 113–14, 117, 123, 132, 149, 160, 162–63, 170, Pinsker, Leon, 154, 159, 282n.48 173, 175, 185–86; Galut, 142; Grayewo, 32,

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1 Rawidowicz, Simon (continued) Soloveitchik, Rabbi Joseph, 32, 44, 261n.155 2 36–41, 47; Hebrew culture, 39–44, 47, 49– Sprinzak, Yosef, 195, 201 3 52, 57, 59, 63–64, 69–70, 72, 92; the idea of Stählin, Karl, 47 4 “Israel,” 29, 57, 76, 83–85, 115, 136, 145, 173, State of Israel Bonds, 127 5 186, 262n.163; importance of the diaspora, Strauss, Leo, 44, 51 6 53, 57, 59, 66, 85, 94, 103, 114; “Ish Boded,” Suez War (1956), 98 7 30, 34, 70, 72, 81, 85; Jewish nationalism, 30, 8 57, 75; job offers, 51–52; Metsudah, 28, 71– Tarbuth Association, 64 9 73, 75–78, 81–83, 85; national minority Tartakower, Aryeh, 86, 262n.164, 262n.167 10 rights, 73, 75, 77–78, 82, 87; in Palestine, Tchernichovsky, Shaul, 48 11 49–50, 53, 63; perils of Western liberalism, Teitelbaum, Rabbi Yoel, 242n.9 12 76–77; plans for World Hebrew Congress, Treaty of Versailles (1919), 62, 73, 76, 77 13 61; rejection of orientalism, 176–77; repa- Truman, President Harry S., 129, 275n.123 14 triation of Arabs, 182; the State of Israel, 87, Tsifroni, Avraham, 51 15 93, 98, 118, 134, 136–40, 143–44, 174, 184– 16 85; superiority of Ashkenazic Jews, 126–27; United Jewish Appeal, 127 17 Yiddish culture, 40–41, 44, 54; as Zionist, United Jewish Communities, 127 18 43, 50, 53, 59 United Nations, 76–77, 129, 144, 173, 175, 186, 19 Rawidowicz, Ya’akov, 38 192; Convention Relating to the Status of 20 Reines, Rabbi Y. Y., 39 Refugees (1951), 287n.10; Resolution 181 21 Renner, Karl, 61 (1947), 77, 192, 214–35 (see also Partition 22 Revisionists, 85. See also Jabotinsky, Zev of Palestine); Resolution 194 (1948), 31, 23 Right of Return, 102, 243n.17, 244n.18, 247n.33 129, 133, 187, 236–39, 243n.16; Resolution 24 Robertson, Edward, 71 273 (1949), 240; Palestine Conciliation 25 Roosevelt, President Franklin D., 76 Commission (1949), 129, 274n.119; Uni- 26 Rosenzweig, Franz, 44 versal Declaration of Human Rights 27 Roth, Cecil, 71 (1948), 113, 140, 207–13 28 29 Saadya Gaon, 33, 64, 89 Vilner, Meir, 112 30 Sachar, Abram, 33, 82 31 Samuel, Sir Herbert, 241n.1 Wallenstein, Meir, 71 32 Sasson, Eliahu, 105, 112 Wartski, Isador, 71 33 Schmitt, Carl, 111 Weizmann, Chaim, 82, 118–19, 153, 167, 34 Schorr, Moses, 52 241n.1, 244n.20, 283n.65 35 Scholem, Gershom, 32, 44, 51 Weiner, Max, 51, 255n.72 36 Seventh Zionist Congress (1905), 39 Wilson, President Woodrow, 62 37 Shapira, Anita, 106, 107, 120 Wissenschaft des Judentums (the Science of 38 Shapira, Hayim Moshe, 112, 195, 201 Judaism), 32, 51 39 Sharett, Moshe (né Shertok), 104, 105, 130, World Hebrew Union (Brit ‘Ivrit ‘Olamit), 33, 40 193, 201, 268n.55, 275n.125, 277n.134, 52, 57, 59–61, 64 41 284n.75 World Jewish Congress, 63 42 Sharon, Avraham (né Schwadron), 121–23, World Organization of Jews from Arab Coun- 43 163n., 167, 171n., 185, 272n.102; “cruel tries (WOJAC), 273n.111 44 Zionism,” 121, 259n.113 World War I, 41, 44, 62, 77, 86 45 Shazar, President Zalman, 33 World War II, 69, 76, 77, 86, 143, 186, 192 46 Shetreet, Bechor (Bekhor Shitreet), 112, 193 World Zionist Organization, 59, 64 47 Shikaki, Khalil, 187 48 Simon, Ernst, 103 Ya’ari, Meir, 101 49 Simon, Leon, 249n.5, 258n.112 Yavne’eli, Shmuel, 102 50 Smilansky, Moshe, 121–22, 142–43, 160, Yellin, David, 255n.73 51 279n.19, 280n.26 YIVO, 54 Sneh, Moshe, 101, 268n.55 Yizhar, S., 107, 120–23, 158–59, 282n.56 David N. An exploration of the fascinating Jewish thinker Myers Simon Rawidowicz and his provocative views “This stirring and exquisite volume restores to vitality an essential prin­ on Arab refugees and the fate of Israel ciple and an essential man. The principle is that power must answer to morality—and that this is a central teaching of the experience of the Jews This book brings new attention to Simon Rawido­ in exile, which the Jews in their state cannot evade. The man is Simon wicz (1897–1957), the wide-ranging Jewish thinker Rawidowicz, one of the most original Jewish thinkers of the twentieth and scholar who taught at Brandeis University in Between Jew &Ar Jew Between the lost voice of voice lost si the century, whose ideas are uncannily pertinent to the Jewish situation the 1950s. At the heart of Myers’ book is a chapter now. In the skill with which he blends erudition and engagement, David that Rawidowicz wrote as a coda to his Hebrew Myers reminds me distinctly of his hero.” —Leon Wieseltier tome Babylon and Jerusalem (1957) but never published. In this coda, Rawidowicz shifted his “In Between Jew & Arab: The Lost Voice of Simon Rawidowicz, David Myers decades-long preoccupation with the “Jewish provides the crucial service of recovering the prescient words that one of Question” to what he called the “Arab Question.” Asserting that the “Arab Question” had become photo by chelsea hadley the most profoundly learned and morally sensitive Jewish thinkers of the 20th century put forward on the question of Israel and its relationship to a most urgent political and moral matter for Jews after 1948, Rawidowicz called for an end to DAVID N. MYERS is Professor of History at the Palestinians. By translating and contextualizing this Hebrew essay discrimination against Arabs resident in Israel— UCLA and Director of the UCLA Center for Jewish written more than fifty years ago by the first head of the Near Eastern and and more provocatively, for the repatriation of Studies. Born and raised in Scranton, Pennsyl­ Judaic Studies department at Brandeis University, Myers has done more Arab refugees from 1948. vania, David Myers commenced graduate study than write a work of great intellectual interest for students of modern Myers’ book is divided into two main sections. in Israel in 1982 and from that point forward, he Jewish history and thought. He has also broadcast a thought-provoking and morally challenging book that is of the utmost importance for Part I introduces the life and intellectual develop­ began his engagement with the history of Zionism. m ment of Rawidowicz. It traces the evolution of After receiving his Ph.D. in Jewish history from anyone concerned about the contemporary state of Israeli-Palestinian o his thinking about the “Jewish Question,” name­ Columbia University in 1991, Myers published his relations.” —David Ellenson, President, rawi n ly, the status of Jews as a national minority in first book, Re-inventing the Jewish Past: European David N. Myers Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion the Diaspora. Part II concentrates on the shift Jewish Intellectuals and the Zionist Return to His­ occasioned by the creation of the State of Israel, tory (1995). Having encountered the writings of “This well-written and insightful book by David Myers has unearthed the when Jews assumed political sovereignty and en­ Simon Rawidowicz in his Columbia years, Myers voice of Simon Rawidowicz, a Jewish intellectual and man of letters, who tered into a new relationship with the native Arab vowed to return to study his life and thought at d was completely forgotten over the last 50 years. Rawidowicz proposed population. Myers analyzes the structure, content, a later date. Meanwhile, other research interests owicz an alternative vision of the relations between Jew and Arab in the Holy and context of Rawidowicz’s unpublished chapter diverted his attention, including work on a second Land, and between the Jewish state and the Jewish Diaspora. Though ab on the “Arab Question,” paying particular attention book, Resisting History (2003). Over the past four controversial and considered out of touch with reality, the moral issues to Rawidowicz’s calls for an end to discrimination years, open access to Rawidowicz’s papers in the he raised are relevant to this very day.” against Arabs in Israel, on the one hand, and for the basement of his son, Benjamin Ravid, prompted —Anita Shapira, Tel Aviv University repatriation of those refugees who left Palestine in Myers to write this new book. Between 1948, on the other. The volume also includes a full English trans­ lation of “Between Jew and Arab,” a timeline of Jew & Arab signi­fi­cant events, and an appendix of official Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry Series legal documents from Israel and the international Brandeis University Press the lost voice of community pertaining to the conflict. Waltham, Massachusetts jacket illustration Reuven Rubin, Sheikh Munis, 1924, oil on canvas, simon rawidowicz Published by University Press of New England courtesy Rubin Museum, Tel Aviv brandeis Hanover and London | www.upne.com