Memoirs of Inclusion: Arab Jews and Twentieth-Century Nationalisms
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MEMOIRS OF INCLUSION: ARAB JEWS AND TWENTIETH-CENTURY NATIONALISMS Brenda Nelson A Thesis Submitted to the University of North Carolina Wilmington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Department of History University of North Carolina Wilmington 2014 Approved by Advisory Committee Kathleen Berkeley Jarrod Tanny ______________________________ ______________________________ Lisa Pollard ______________________________ Chair Accepted By _______________________________ Dean, Graduate School TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. iv DEDICATION .................................................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION: THE IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING TO MEMOIRS ................................1 HISTORIOGRAPHY ..........................................................................................................6 TERMINOLOGY ................................................................................................................6 MEMOIRS AS PRIMARY SOURCES.............................................................................18 CHAPTER 1: NATIONALISM AS ERASURE: OMISSION AND EXCLUSION ....................24 OMISSION ........................................................................................................................25 THE FIRST EXCLUSION: ARAB NATIONALISM ......................................................30 I WAS THERE ..................................................................................................................52 CHAPTER 2: THE SECOND EXCLUSION: ZIONISM AS MASCULINE AND EMASCULATING ........................................................................................................................55 ZIONISM: RECONSTRUCTING JEWISH MASCULINITY .........................................56 EMASCULATION: ERASURE OF ARAB CULTURE ..................................................64 RESPONSES TO EMASCULATION ..............................................................................84 CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE ERASED: WE ARE HERE .........................................................88 EXILE FROM PLURALISM ..........................................................................................103 PRESERVING ARAB IDENTITY ..................................................................................107 WE ARE HERE AND THIS IS OURS ...........................................................................109 CHALLENGES OF BEING A HYBRID ........................................................................114 EPILOGUE: BREAKING CATEGORIES OF PAST AND PRESENT FOR THE FUTURE ..123 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................129 APPENDIX ..................................................................................................................................135 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have written this thesis without the support and guidance of Dr. Lisa Pollard. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom with me. Thank you for your graciousness and patience with me. Thank you also to Dr. Kathleen Berkeley and Dr. Jarrod Tanny for not sparing criticism and pushing me to formulate a specific argument. Thank you to my Covenant professors, Dr. Green, Dr. Follett, and Dr. Morton, who taught me how to write and how to critically think about the past. To my high school history teacher, Dr. Connell, thank you for giving me a glimpse of what history could be. My friends, and especially my roommates, Heather, Katie, Ryan, and Heidi, thank you for putting up with me always working or talking about working. Thank you for cheering me on. Thank you to my fellow graduate students, Whitney, Ryan, and Lettie, for going through this process with me. To my brother, Stephen, thank you for always believing in me, even when I do not believe in myself. Thank you to my future in-laws, Rick and Liz Shafer, who provided a comfortable and quiet place to work. Thank you for being excited for me. Your excitement and encouragement helped me be excited again. To my fiancé, Daniel, thank you for helping me reach my goals and never doubting me. Thank you for putting up with me on a daily basis. You are a gem. To my parents, words cannot express my gratitude for your support, love, and prayers for me over the years. iv DEDICATION To my parents. Thank you for modeling empathy and hard work. v INTRODUCTION: THE IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING TO MEMOIRS “We are Arabs before we are Jews.”1 -Ezra Haddad “Nostalgia for a lost pluralism.” -Deborah Starr The conflict between Israel and the Arab states has redefined Jewish identity and Arab identity as oppositional, in Israel, in the Arab states, and in the watching world. Today, Arabs and Jews are considered separate nationalities and separate ethnic groups, and many believe they are eternal enemies. Historically, however, Arabs and Jews have not always been at war. They, also, have not always been separate nationalities or ethnicities.2 Before the establishment of Israel and the first Arab-Israeli War in 1948, there were many prosperous Jewish communities in the Arab world, from West Asia to North Africa. These communities lived in the Arab world for centuries, many before the arrival of Islam in the seventh century.3 Population estimates from 1 An alternate translation is: “We are Arabs before we became Jews.” Ezra Haddad (1900-1972), headmaster of the Shammash High School in Baghdad, Iraq, said this in the late 1930s. Nissim Rejwan quotes him in his memoir and his history of Iraq. Nissim Rejwan, The Last Jews in Baghdad: Remembering a Lost Homeland (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004); The Jews of Iraq: 3000 Years of History and Culture (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1985), 219. 2 Nationality and ethnicity are subjective and fluid concepts that are very contextual, but in our contemporary world, they can be portrayed as objective. One of the purposes of this essay is to show the fluidity of identity, ethnicity, and nationality. I subscribe to the theory that ethnicity and nationality are modern constructions, mostly developing through conflict or encounters with different cultures. By nationality, I am referring to a group of people identifying with a specific country, post 1850. By ethnicity, I am referring to a group of people identifying with a specific culture or heritage, also post 1850. However, nationality and ethnicity do overlap (Iraqi culture and nationality, American culture and American nationality). In this essay, I try to use the terms ‘identity’ and ‘culture’ because they are more concrete and they can be used to refer to pre-1850. Thus, when I use the term, Arab, I mean that these people identify with Arab culture or that their ancestors were culturally Arab. The term Arab developed as an ethnic term circa 1900 and gained popularity as a national term circa 1950. When I use the term Arab to describe something either before 1900 or after, I am using it as a cultural and linguistic term. However, many Arab Jews do use Arab as an ethnic or national term, but they are usually referring to their own lifetime, post 1900.When I use the term Jewish, I mean both ethnicity and religion. Both Arab and Jewish can refer to ethnicity at the same time. 3 This region has changed names through history. However, for simplicity’s sake, I am using the modern term Arab world, even when referring to the pre-modern era. Also, while referring to the longevity of these Jewish circa 1900 range from 800,000 to 900,000.4 Today, only 4,000 Jews remain in the Arab world.5 Between 1948 and 1967, Jews left, fled, were deported, or forced to leave the countries their ancestors had lived in for centuries. Each country’s situation was slightly different. Some Jews left for Israel before 1948, but many waited. The majority of Iraqi Jews left between 1950 and 1951 through a coordinated airlift by the Israeli and Iraqi governments. However, some delayed, particularly in Egypt, until the 1967 war, when the Arab World was dealt another humiliating defeat. Some Jews went to Europe or the Americas, but the majority went to Israel. One of the many tragedies of the Arab-Israeli conflict is that the Arabs’ and Jews’ shared past is hidden or ignored. Official historical narratives in Israel and the Arab world reflect the current conflict by writing about Jews and Arabs as if they were always separate people. Consequently, there are important gaps in both the histories of Jews and Muslims in the Middle East. Absent from the narratives of Islamic history, for example, is the presence of Jews who lived throughout the Middle Eastern world long before Islam and Arabic became the religion and language of the majority. When Islamic armies began conquering the Middle East in the seventh century, they encountered Jews who were natives and enveloped them into their Islamic empire. When Christian Spain expelled Sephardic Jews in 1492, the Ottoman Empire welcomed them. Also absent from Islamic history are the Jews who were active participants in the Islamic World’s prosperity, in developing the economy, government, and education.6 The majority of these Jews considered themselves at home in the Islamic world, were proud of their native lands, and had no thought of leaving. communities in the Arab World, I am not intending to make any arguments about Arab Jews before 1900. I am not