Preparing the Mothers of Tomorrow: Education and Islam in Mandate Pal- Estine, by Ela Greenberg
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88 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES GENDER AND EDUCATION DURING THE MANDATE Preparing the Mothers of Tomorrow: Education and Islam in Mandate Pal- estine, by Ela Greenberg. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2010. 195 pages. Notes to p. 245. Bibliography to p. 266. Index to p. 277. $55.00 cloth, $25.00 paper.. Reviewed by Andrea L. Stanton Ela Greenberg’s !rst book is a grace- fully written work of scholarship that highlights an important but overlooked aspect of Mandate Palestinian history: girls’ education. With a deftly woven, richly sourced text that brings together gender, religion, social class, national- ism, and politics, she presents the his- tory of girls’ education in Mandate Palestine as a key lens through which to read some of the era’s most critical issues. Greenberg’s work builds on two con- nected strands of scholarship: that of Mandate Palestine studies, with atten- tion to the roles of the political and the social in examining the formation and character of national identity, and that of gender and modernity in the Middle East, in which the re!guration of woman as mother—a scienti!c, modern, na- tional, teaching mother—played a role in colonized and uncolonized societ- ies alike. She graciously acknowledges Andrea L. Stanton is an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Denver and author of the forthcoming This is Jerusalem Calling: State Radio in Mandate Palestine (University of Texas Press). JPS4104_06_Recent Books.indd 88 10/08/12 4:26 PM RECENT BOOKS 89 this earlier work, and uses it to make affairs”—she notes that this translated a compelling argument: that education into a preference for upper-class girls was “integral to the nationalist and mo- to be educated in European languages dernity narratives in Palestine” and that rather than in Arabic (p. 30). This pref- girls’ education, even when underfunded erence seems to have in"uenced the or used in service of a larger agenda, popularity of French-language Catho- was crucial to these narratives (p. 4). lic girls’ schools in the late Ottoman The book begins with a chapter on era, and French- and English-language girls’ education in late Ottoman Pal- Christian schools during the Mandate. estine. Chapter 2 looks at government The concern with language and literacy schools and Muslim girls’ education dur- for elite girls was reversed in Mandate ing the Mandate, while chapter 3 looks of!cials’ and elite Palestinians’ concern at Muslim girls in Christian schools. with rural education, where literacy Chapter 4 considers the Islamic Girls for girls was discouraged in favor of School in Jerusalem as a case study of “practical” training in farming and rural the Supreme Muslim Council schools, housekeeping. while chapter 5 looks at the various cur- This is a work of social history, and ricular approaches used for inculcat- one that assumes readers will have a ing “modern motherhood.” The book fairly strong knowledge of Mandate po- concludes with a chapter on women’s litical history. While Greenberg goes expanding access to the public sphere, into some detail about the Arab Revolt including mass media, employment, and and its impact on schooling, other ma- volunteer associations. jor events—like the Wailing Wall upris- While Greenberg’s primary focus is ings and World War II—are mentioned on the Mandate period, her work helps only in passing. Yet Greenberg has a connect Mandate education with the rare ability to connect institutional his- educational reforms of the late Ottoman tories to her !ndings regarding educa- period. These continuities undercut tion. For example, she neatly links the British claims that the Ottomans dis- Supreme Muslim Council’s disastrous couraged girls’ education and highlight decision to build the Palace Hotel in the the ways in which the Department of late 1920s to the erosion of its !nancial Education built its institutions on Otto- resources, which in turn weakened the man precedents. Such continuities fol- educational institutions it supported. lowed the letter rather than the spirit These included Jerusalem’s Islamic Girls of late Ottoman educational reforms, School, which shifted within a decade which worked to broaden educational from attracting elite Palestinian girls to access and promote national identity. those listed in school registers as “faq- For example, British administrators in- ira” or “faqira jiddan,” “poor” or “very sisted on the Ottoman practice of poor” (p. 120). At the same time, she gender-segregated schooling, even notes, this shift accompanied another: in rural communities where segrega- the increasing social acceptance of tion was less strict and separate school teaching as a profession for upper-class buildings prohibitively expensive. They young women. Even as the pupils’ so- similarly claimed Ottoman precedent in cioeconomic status declined, a growing giving Christian schools wide latitude number of women from Palestine’s elite in their operations, while bringing Mus- families signed on as teachers. This !ts lim education under state control. The with one of Greenberg’s broader points: result was a system that worked to sep- that girls’ education during the Man- arate students by religion, rather than date, however limited in scope and vi- connecting them by nationality. sion, helped open up the public sphere One of the most interesting argu- to Palestinian women, and especially ments in Greenberg’s book is that of Muslim Palestinian women. the connection between language, Greenberg obtained her doctorate class, and education among Palestin- from the Hebrew University of Jerusa- ian elites. Drawing on earlier research lem and was a postdoctoral fellow at its regarding the role of formal Arabic in Truman Institute for the Advancement notions of elite Muslim masculinity— of Peace. She has published several arti- as “the language of men and of public cles on girls’ and boys’ education during JPS4104_06_Recent Books.indd 89 10/08/12 4:26 PM 90 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES the Mandate, including in the Interna- modernity, and the mix of !scal con- tional Journal of Middle East Studies. servatism, stereotypical assumptions, With this book, she has provided a ma- and good intentions that characterized jor contribution to the social history of the Mandate. Further, she has returned Mandate Palestine and to understand- girls’ education to the prominent posi- ing the complex intersections between tion that it held in this era, in the minds cultural norms, religious identities, of educators, political !gures, religious rural and urban dynamics, notions of authorities, journalists, and parents. Israel’s newly deployed Iron Dome missile defense system launches a missile to intercept a Palestinian rocket !red from Gaza towards Israel, 12 March 2012. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Image) JPS4104_06_Recent Books.indd 90 10/08/12 4:26 PM.