Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav (East and West):

A Sephardi Cultural and Political Project in Post-Ottoman

Michelle U. Campos, University of Florida1

In 1919, only months after the end of the disastrous war that shattered the world of

Ottoman Jewry irrevocably, the Jerusalem-based Jewish journalist and intellectual, Avraham

Elmaliach (Elmaleh), began a new, ambitious project: to collect, archive, and disseminate the history of Sephardi and Mizrachi Jewry. His journal, Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav (East and West), aimed to give a “true and complete picture” of their world, which he argued was missing from both

Hebrew letters and Jewish historiography more generally.

As Elmaliach complained, despite the fact that there were “many authors and wise men” writing in foreign languages on in a variety of countries, “such [a volume] is missing in the history of the Sephardim in their dispersion. It is unbelievable that the history of our brothers in North Africa, Syria, Turkey, the Balkans, the cities of Iran, India, and Yemen – those are the places with large numbers of our brothers and from those cities their light has shone

1 Dear Colleagues: I first came across Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav many years ago while reading the work of its editor, Avraham Elmaliach, for a different project. It struck me as unique, but since it was published in a later period than my project was focused on, I left it aside to gather dust on my bookshelves. Three years ago I was inspired to return to the journal after reading Julia Cohen and Sarah Stein’s JQR article on Sephardi historiography, in part in an effort to appraise its contribution to Sephardi intellectual history. I presented a different version of this paper at a Sephardi Studies conference at UCLA in 2011, but immediately afterward this side-project got pushed aside yet again due to other projects and deadlines. I revive it now in an attempt to continue my thinking on these issues as I move into the Mandate period in my other work, but unfortunately I have not had access to some of the primary sources back in my office in Florida since I am on sabbatical in Germany this year. Lastly, I have recently become aware of Yuval Evri and Amos Noy’s important work on this topic, but I have not yet had a chance to read their theses. **Please do not cite or circulate. 1 on all of – [yet] the history of these brothers is cloudy and a book has not yet been written [about them].”2

Of course Elmaliach was exaggerating his claim, as he himself immediately acknowledged in recognizing the efforts of a handful of Sephardi scholars who had devoted their lives to documenting their communities’ histories. Among those who merited Elmaliach’s conditional approval were the polyglot scholar Shlomo () Rosanes (1862–1938), author of Divrei yamei be-Tugrama (1907-14),3 Avraham Danon (1857–1925), the Edirne-based author of the anthology Yosef Da’at (1888),4 Moshe (Moise) Franco (1837–1918), the author of

Histoire des Israélites de l’Empire Ottoman (1897) and director of Alliance Israélite Universelle

(AIU) schools in various cities including Safed, and David Cazès, author of Histoire des

Israélites de Tunisie (1882) and the director of the AIU school in Tunis.5

In fact, these men already comprised part of the second generation of Sephardi scholars active in the Ottoman Empire, men who were products of the many 19th century transformations that affected urban Ottomans, and non-Jews alike: a reforming and Western-oriented empire, ‘modern’ education, a popular press and emergent public sphere, and changes in technology, mobility, consumption, and social relations. These men saw themselves as part of the Jewish enlightenment, actively consuming and contributing to Haskala publications, and

2 Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav, v. 1, n. 1, August-September 1919. Translation mine. A valuable full translation of this introductory essay recently has been provided in Moshe Behar and Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, eds., Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Politics, and Culture 1893-1958 (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2013). 2-9. 3 Rosanes was based in Ruschuk and authored a study in 1914 of the Jews in his hometown; during WWI he moved to Sofia. Between 1930-45, Rosanes published the six-volume Korot ha-Yehudim be-Turkyah ve-Arẓot ha-Kedem. 4 In addition to his Toldot bnai Avraham, published in 1887, Danon also wrote books on the Sabbatean sect, on Turkish words integrated into Judeo-Spanish, on Ottoman Jewish superstitions, on Judeo-Spanish romanceros, and on Jewish poetry; after World War I, when he moved to Paris, he published a history of two Ottoman sultans, excerpts of which were published in Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav. 5 Cazès also published a study of Tunisian in 1888, Notes bibliographiques sur la literature juive- tunisienne. 2 tried to bridge the world of their fathers’ religion with the world of modern scholarship and science.6 At the same time, they were undoubtedly integrated in the Ottoman world which surrounded them. Some of these men and their contemporaries were educated in Ottoman state schools and were fluent in Ottoman Turkish, and some had working relationships with Ottoman

Muslim intellectuals. Avraham Rosanes (father of Shlomo and a scholar of Sephardi history in his own right) hosted the Ottoman reformer Midhat Pasha in his home; Franco collaborated with an Ottoman Muslim scholar to translate textbooks for adoption in the Ottoman school system; and Danon’s book of Jewish poetry was partially translated into Ottoman Turkish.

And yet, despite their pathbreaking work, Elmaliach complained that these earlier studies were limited variously by language, scope, periodization, sources, and epistemology. What was needed, in his mind, was a journal that would be interdisciplinary in focus, covering the multifaceted aspects of Jewish life from the Maghreb to Asia, spanning from ancient times to current days. Elmaliach’s vision was of a journal that would fulfill a variety of functions, some of which would prove to be contradictory: scholarly, communal-historical, educational, and political. What follows is a very partial, fragmented introduction to the potential scope of Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav as intellectual history, as communal identity producer, and as political contestant in a changing landscape.

*****

Avraham Elmaliach, a Sephardi Hebraist Ottomanist

6 Julia Phillips Cohen and Sarah Abrevaya Stein, "Sephardic Scholarly Worlds: Toward a Novel Geography of Modern Jewish History," Jewish Quarterly Review 100, no. 3 (2010). The literature on the 19th century Ottoman Empire is vast, but a good place to start is M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). For excellent studies of 19th century Ottoman Jewry, particularly with an emphasis on the Ladino press and the Ottoman public sphere, see Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Making Jews Modern: The and Ladino Press in the Russian and Ottoman Empires (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003). And Julia Phillips Cohen, Becoming Ottomans: and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 3

The son of a Maghrebi (North African) rabbinical family born in Jerusalem in 1885,

Elmaliach studied at the local Sephardi schools (Doresh Zion and the Tiferet Yerushalayim

Talmud ), where he learned Jewish religious subjects in Ladino and also took courses in , , and Ottoman Turkish. 7 Although Elmaliach excelled in calligraphy and started a promising career as a sofer stam (religious scribe) at a young age, before long, he left it to undertake secular studies at several of Jerusalem’s new schools—the Alliance Israélite

Universelle, Laemel, and briefly, the French Dominican fathers’ École pratique d’études bibliques (today’s École Biblique), founded in 1890 and offering instruction in archeology and

Biblical exegesis.8

After finishing his studies in 1902, Elmaliach took a job as a Hebrew and French teacher at the AIU, which had a habit of recruiting its brightest young graduates as teachers. There, he joined the ranks of Jerusalem’s leading Hebraists: Eli’ezer Ben-Yehuda, David Yellin, and Yosef

Meyuchas. In 1904, Elmaliach became a founding member of a Sephardi Hebraist circle called

“Youth of Jerusalem” (Ẓe’iri Yerushalayim), committed to the revival of Hebrew as a lived language. In conjunction, Elmaliach entered into the field of Hebrew letters, publishing articles and eventually becoming an editorial assistant at one of the newspapers of the Ben-Yehuda

7 For biographical information see Avraham Elmaliach, "Mi-zichronot ben Yerushalayim," Tesoro de los Judios Sefardies VII(1964)., Va'ad ha-yovel, Manhe le-Avraham: Sefer yovel le-kvod Avraham Elmaliach (Jerusalem: Ahva, 1959)., and David Tidhar, ed. Entziklopediat ha- u-vonav (: 1947). 8 At the Alliance, Elmaliach learned French and continued his modern Hebrew and Arabic, but also took classes in the history of ‘am Israel, geography and government of the Ottoman Empire, math and science; occasionally students went on field trips in neighboring villages and historic sites. For description of the curriculum, see the letters from David Yellin, a teacher at the AIU in the late 1880s-1890s, to the director Nissim Behar. CZA A153/110/2-3. One AIU teacher wrote that there were 416 boys in the Jerusalem school in 1901, half of whom were local Jerusalemites, with the others boarders from Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Anatolia and the Balkans, Yemen, North Africa, and even Persia. Aron Rodrigue, Images of Sephardi and Eastern Jewries in Transition: The Teachers of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, 1860-1939 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993)., 166-70. 4 family, Hashkafa.9 He soon expanded his literary portfolio, writing widely as a Palestine correspondent and as a Sephardi commentator in the Hebrew press published in Europe.10

The topics of Elmaliach’s early writings were varied and suggested the wide-ranging interests that he would later try to corral in Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav. In the decade before the First

World War he wrote dozens of articles about Jewish life in Morocco, the Sudan, Ethiopia,

Damascus, Izmir, Salonica, Istanbul, Bulgaria, Yemen, Iraq, and Iran. Some of these pieces were written based on primary sources—reports from AIU school directors and Jewish emissaries

(shliḥim), for example—whereas others were based on his own visits and extended stays among those communities.11 Mostly, Elmaliach published numerous articles about Jewish life in

Jerusalem, particularly focusing on the institutions, scholars, and intellectual-cultural contours of the Sephardi and Maghrebi communities.12

In addition to the special attention he paid to the question of Hebraism in those communities (a project in which he was doubly invested as a Hebrew teacher and as a man of

Hebrew letters), Elmaliach was both prolific reporter and polemical activist in the struggle over rabbinical office and communal leadership in Jerusalem known as “el pleyto.” After the death of the long-time Chief Ya’akov Shaul Elyashar in 1906, reformers in the Jerusalem Jewish

9 For discussion of Elmaliach’s role in Ben Yehuda’s ‘ivriut campaigns and in his paper’s turn to Sephardim as a local audience, see the recent M.A. thesis by Tamir Karkason, "The Attitude of Eli'ezer Ben Yehuda and His Periodicals to the Sephardim, 1879-1908" (Tel Aviv University, 2013). 10 In 1905 Elmaliach published several articles in the Warsaw-based ha-Ẓfira; in 1907 he wrote for the London- based ha-Yehudi; in 1911 he published reports in ha-‘Olam, the official Hebrew newspaper of the Zionist Organization. One article he published in the Odessa newspaper ha-Shiloaḥ in 1910 sought to correct misconceptions and superficialities written about Sephardim in the Hebrew press; two years later, another article in ha-Shiloaḥ profiled Judeo-Spanish literature. In 1912 Elmaliach began publishing in the Jaffa party journal ha-Po’el ha-Ẓa’ir, primarily reporting on Arab nationalism and Arab opposition to . 11 Elmaliach lived in Istanbul for one year, 1910-11, and lived in Damascus from 1911-13. 12 Many of these early articles elicited sharp rebukes in the form of letters to the editor which invariably claimed Elmaliach had falsely represented the situation. In the case of his article on the old-age home, Elmaliach was accused of stirring up ethnic conflict between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, while in the case of his report on the Hebrew teaching in the Sephardi religious schools, Elmaliach was more gently reprimanded for his misrepresentations and oversights. Hashkafa, February 10, 1905; August 29, 1905. 5 community had supported a maskilic rabbi, Ya’akov Me’ir, to succeed him, rather than the late rabbi’s son, Haim Elyashar, who was supported by conservatives. The dispute went on for several years, with various attempts at mediation made by the local and central Ottoman governments.13

With the July 1908 Ottoman revolution, the hand of the reformers was strengthened and

Elmaliach and others sought to link the changes taking place in imperial political life as an important precedent for revolutionizing the basis of communal representation. In August 1908 a warning was published in Hashkafa alerting readers that Elmaliach was no longer working for the newspaper. The following month, a strongly worded letter was sent by the Acting Chief

Rabbi of Jerusalem to the of the empire, Haim Nahum, denouncing Elmaliach as an agitator who would “turn Jerusalem upside down”. The Jerusalem rabbi, Eliyahu Panijel, complained that the upstart Elmaliach had been mobilizing “bullies” in Jerusalem to march around town “carrying flags,” “singing bad songs,” and “cursing the and wise men.” The rabbi reported that Elmaliach’s “despicable parade” had enraged the “Arabs and Ishmaelites,” and indeed, a “pious man” was so overcome that he struck him. The rabbi succeeded in having

Elmaliach and four other Sephardi youth activists briefly imprisoned by the Ottoman governor.14

In January 1909, Elmaliach created a new platform for his political, communal, and literary activities when he became founding editor of the Judeo-Spanish newspaper El Liberal.

The paper was established as a counterpoint to the conservative El Paradizo, and it demanded a

13 On the pleyto see Rachel Shar'abi, Ha-yishuv ha-Sfaradi bi-Yerushalayim be-shalhei ha-tkufah ha-'Otomanit (Tel Aviv: Misrad ha-Bitahon, 1989). as well as the pamphlet, ‘Al homoteiykh, Yerushalayim, which reproduced many of the furious letters sent back and forth between Istanbul and Jerusalem. 14 Hashkafa, August 26, 1908. For the rabbi’s complaint see Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem to Haim Nahum, September 28, 1908, HM2/8640, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (Jerusalem). On the imprisonment of Elmaliach, Moshe ‘Azriel, Avraham Bar-Adon, Ya’akov Pelosoff, and Yehuda Burla, see ha-Yehudi, nos. 24-25 (1908). Another source lists Gabriel Hanania as among those imprisoned. They were released the next day due to the intervention of Albert ‘Antebi. Ya'kov Yehoshu'a, Hakhamim bi-Yerushalayim ha-yeshana: 'isukam ve-parnasatam (Jerusalem: Reuven Mass, 1968). 6 role in the “new life” taking over the empire and promised its readers that it would “always raise high the banner of Judaism” at the same time that it would fight for social and communal justice within the Jewish community.15 In calling upon his fellow Ottoman Sephardim to awaken from their long, lethargic slumber (“…We have done nothing for our nation, this poor nation which for almost two thousand years lives an abnormal life, a mistreated, unlucky, and sad life…”),

Elmaliach was echoing a nationalist discourse that was universal at that time.16 However, for

Elmaliach, the awakening was a double one: as Jews, and as Ottomans.

Elmaliach’s move into the Ladino press, however, was met with disbelief and derision in the Hebrew press; Itamar Ben-Avi, the son of Eli’ezer Ben Yehuda and editor of the newspaper, ha-Ẓvi, in particular expressed incredulity and disappointment that a self-proclaimed Hebraist and a model to Sephardi youth would publish in “jargon.”17 Although he defended his move into

Ladino publishing as being purely pedagogical in order to reach Sephardim who did not know

Hebrew, by that May, Elmaliach established a off-shoot of El Liberal, ha-

Ḥerut, which soon eclipsed the original. Under Elmaliach’s leadership, ha-Ḥerut defined itself as an independent, nationalist newspaper, attempting to carve out a delicate position for Sephardim in Ottoman and Palestinian life – as loyal, if critical, supporters of Ottomanism and the reforming Ottoman state at the same time that they were proud Zionists participating with every

15 “Our program,” El Liberal, January 29, 1909. Elmaliach writes that he was inspired by Avraham Galante’s Cairo newspaper La Vara, Galante would become an important historian of Ottoman Jewish life, and Elmaliach later published a memorial book in his honor. 16 Quote taken from El Liberal, February 2, 1909. Coincidentally an article published on the same day by Vladimir Jabotinsky in the Hebrew newspaper of the Zionist movement argued that the Sephardim of the Ottoman Empire were ripe for ‘being awakened’ and could be used for diplomatic purposes for the movement. Ha-‘Olam, February 2, 1909. For more on how they were used by the Zionist movement, see Michelle U. Campos, Ottoman Brothers: , Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth Century Palestine (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011)., chapter 5. On the trope of slumber and awakening, see Gabriel Piterberg, "The Tropes of Stagnation and Awakening in Nationalist Historical Consciousness: The Egyptian Case," in Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East, ed. James Jankowski and Israel Gershoni (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). 17 Ha-Ẓvi, May 18, 1909. Elmaliach was already under attack by Ben-Avi for his affiliation with the AIU and its vocational school director, Albert Antebi, someone Ben-Avi was given to calling “little Herod” in the pages of his newspaper. 7 issue in the Hebraist and national revival of the Jewish people as a whole, and of the Sephardi community in particular. Its editors, publishers, many contributors, and at least some readers were Sephardim and Maghrebim, but ha-Ḥerut also sought to serve as a bridge to their

Ashkenazi Jewish coreligionists as well as to the local Arab population.18

Within a year, however, in mid-1910, Elmaliach handed over the reins of ha-Ḥerut and went to Istanbul at the behest of the new Chief Rabbi of the empire, Haim Nahum. Haim Nahum had arrived in Palestine to settle the pleyto once and for all, and had been impressed with

Elmaliach’s performance as his personal assistant on the tour. Once in Istanbul, Elmaliach directed the Torah, taught upper-level Hebrew literature at the AIU school in Galata, and in his free time wrote for the local Zionist newspapers, ha-Mevasser, L’Aurore, and El Judio.

Elmaliach also established contact with important Ottoman Muslim journalists, with French probably serving as the language of communication since there is no evidence that Elmaliach had attained literacy in Ottoman Turkish.19 The following year Elmaliach left the imperial capital to serve as personal assistant to the Chief Rabbi in Damascus, Ya’akov Danon, his father-in-law.

During his time there, Elmaliach organized Hebrew education in the community’s schools, creating Hebrew kindergartens and introducing Hebrew lessons in the upper schools.

In 1913 Elmaliach returned to Palestine, directing the Anglo-Palestine Bank branch in

Gaza, and also teaching briefly in Jaffa after the outbreak of war. He also reported widely on the

Arab nationalist movement, as well as on anti-Zionist mobilization in the Arabic press. With the

18 For more on the newspaper see Yitzhak Betzalel, "On the Journal 'Ha-Herut' (1909-1917) and on Haim Ben 'Atar as Its Editor," Pe'amim 40(1989). and Abigail Jacobson, "Sephardim, Ashkenazim, and the 'Arab Question' in pre- First World War Palestine: A Reading of Three Zionist Newspapers," Middle Eastern Studies 39, no. 2 (2003).. For more on its attempts to reconcile Ottomanism and Zionism, see Campos, Ottoman Brothers., chapter 5. Circulation and subscription data is only partial, but Elmaliach claimed that ha-Ḥerut regularly sold out of its 2000 copies per issue. Interview # , Oral History Program, Institute for Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Ben- Avi acknowledged in his memoirs that ha-Ḥerut was the primary competitor of ha-Ẓvi, and caused it many financial difficulties. Itamar Ben-Avi, 'Im shaḥar aẓma'utenu (Tel Aviv: Magen Press, 1961)., 202. 19 Tidhar, Entziklopediat ha-yishuv u-vonav. V. 1, pp 512-14. 8 outbreak of war, Cemal Pasha, the military governor of Jerusalem, imposed martial law, expelled foreign nationals (including thousands of Jews sent to Alexandria), and imprisoned or exiled dozens of Muslims, Christians, and Jews of suspect politics; Elmaliach was sent to a military prison in Damascus, but as luck would have it he was spared the fate of the accused Arab nationalists who were hanged in Beirut, Haifa, and Damascus, and he spent the rest of the war years in prison.

A Sephardi Voice in Changing Times

Given the dramatic turn of events that accompanied the end of the war – the total dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and the issuance of the Balfour Declaration in which

Great Britain declared its support for the establishment of a “Jewish national home” in Palestine

– Elmaliach returned to Jerusalem with a renewed sense of purpose and possibility. A scholarly journal that was committed to recovering Sephardi history on the morning of its political fragmentation would serve a series of very useful functions. First, of course, was the need to document Sephardi Jewish life before it was transformed unrecognizably. Elmaliach was fully cognizant that the end of 600 years of Ottoman rule and the post-war world order presented a challenge as much as it presented an opportunity. As a result, Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav would publish

“any local fable about Jewish custom, any sharp joke that deals with customs and costumes, ancient sayings, beliefs, [etc.]...because who knows if in a few years under the influence of general progress, if the memory of those popular beliefs—so original, so strange, and sometimes so nice!—will be lost.”20

20 Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav, August-September 1919, p. 6. 9

This anthropological interest in folklore and popular culture had first appeared in

Elmaliach’s 1910 article in ha-Shiloaḥ. In that piece, which Elmaliach thought would be instructive for Ashkenazim “who are completely far from knowing the life of their brothers the

Sephardim,” he argued that the ethnic distinctions between the various Eastern Jewish communities were irrelevant. “It should be known that by the name ‘Sepharadim’ I am

[referring] not only to those Jews who speak Spanyolit, but also to the Jews children of Morocco,

Algeria, Tunisia, Tripolitania, Egypt, Iran, Yemen, Syria and others, because despite the fact that they do not have an identical language, their ways of life are almost identical.”21

Elmaliach then proceeded to outline various aspects of Jerusalemite popular culture: romanceros, dress, life cycle rituals, , and folk beliefs in the evil eye. He also pointed out shared customs and practices between Jewish and non-Jewish women, such as wedding and death customs, incantations and magic. For Elmaliach, it was clear that Sephardi

Jews did not live in a Jewish bubble in the Middle East—rather, they had imbibed traditions, practices, texts, and social relationships from their non-Jewish neighbors.22 In his founding manifesto for Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav, Elmaliach further committed himself to identifying, where possible, any non-Jewish sources of inspiration, borrowing, and imitation. (we shall return to this point later)

This view of “Eastern Jews” as sharing certain historical, cultural, and folk characteristics—in other words, of being a coherent unit of analysis—underpinned Mizraḥ u-

Ma’arav’s anthology project.23 The journal published extensively on medieval Iberia, as well as

21 “Mi-ḥayei ha-Sfaradim,” Ha-Shiloaḥ 24 (1910). 22 “Me-hayei ha-Sefaradim,” Ha-Shiloaḥ, v. 24 (1910). 23 There was a Sephardi discourse of regional commonality as well as practice of ties– shliḥut to Eastern Jewish communities, for example. Furthermore, it was only beginning in the 1860s that Eastern Jewish communities in Jerusalem sought to break off from the Sephardi community to establish their own institutions and organization, 10 on the letters and lives of North African, Levantine/Mediterranean, Iraqi, Bukharan, and Iranian

Jewry. Many of the notable Sephardi historians and anthologizers of Sephardi Jewry of the time appeared in its pages: Avraham Danon, David Cazes, Avraham Galante, Shlomo Rosanes,

Jacques Mosseiri,24 as well as younger writers such as Moshe David Gaon,25 Yehuda Burla, and

Yitzhak Shami. The articles they published were ethnographic-historical-reportage in nature—on , religious folk practices, Sephardic folktales, popular music, gender roles, and longue-duree community histories.

At the same time, this view of Sephardi-Mizrahi unity-in-diversity also served a political purpose: Sephardi leaders had been quickly eclipsed as government intermediaries under British military rule, which instead recognized the Ashkenazi and foreign Zionist Commission as having a special representative role for Palestine’s Jews, in addition to establishing a dual (Ashkenazi and Sephardi) Chief Rabbinate. Furthermore, Sephardim were a clear demographic minority in

Palestine and would remain so, and this numeric fact was reflected in the new local and national institutions established under the British. One Sephardi community leader in Jerusalem

with the usual cause being struggle for political and economic resources. On this issue, see Rachel Shar'abi, "The Splitting of the Oriental Communities from the Sephardi Community, 1860-1914," Pe'amim 21(1984). and Matthias B. Lehmann, "Rethinking Sephardi Identity: Jews and Other Jews in Ottoman Palestine," Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society 15, no. 1 (2008). In other words, I’m not sure that Elmaliach internalized some sort of Zionist Orientalism. 24 A Cairo native from a prominent family and a Zionist activist, Mosseiri discovered an additional trove of geniza documents about 15 years after Solomon Schechter’s 1897 trip. For more information on his contributions, see http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/jmgc/. 25 Born in Sarajevo in 1889, MD Gaon studied in local Sephardi schools and the Catholic gymnasium. After a brief stint in Vienna, he arrived in Jerusalem and studied at the Hebrew Teachers College run by David Yellin. At the same time he served as a local correspondent for several Judeo-Spanish newspapers and wrote in Ha-Ḥerut. In 1920-21, Gaon directed the Talmud Torah in Izmir, after which he returned to Jerusalem and worked in a variety of capacities for the Zionist movement. Gaon also was active in Sephardi organizations at this time—Ḥaluzei ha- Mizraḥ and the World Sephardi Organization, and he worked in Argentina in 1928-29 organizing Moroccan immigrants there. His scholarly magnum opus was the two volume biographical dictionary of Sephardi leaders, entitled Yehudei ha-Mizraḥ be-Eretz Israel (1928, 1937), but he also published widely on the Ladino press, Ladino folklore, poetry, the Me’am Lo’ez, a study of the 16th century Damascene poet Israel Najara, and the history of various Jerusalemite families. Tidhar, Entziklopediat ha-yishuv u-vonav., v 1, pp 500-501. 11 characterized the new situation with the Ashkenazim as “favored sons” and the Sephardim as

“step-sons.”26

In fact, in the fall of 1919, soon after Elmaliach had mailed out the first issue of his new journal, he was busy campaigning among the Sephardi community to establish a national organization of Sephardim (histadrut klalit shel ha-Sfaradim) that would go hand in hand with the aims of his journal.27 Beyond simply anthologizing Sephardi folklore, by carefully selecting notable moments and characters in Sephardi history—and in particular by emphasizing Sephardi contributions to the corpus of Hebrew letters—Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav aimed to incorporate

Sephardim into Jewish national history. By doing so, Elmaliach was on the one hand answering his Ashkenazi Jewish readers who assumed that Sephardi Jews had contributed little of value to modern Jewry generally, or to Jewish nationalism specifically. Though he seems to have imbibed an Orientalist view of the degenerate, stagnant East by calling Sephardi Jewry “that shriveled limb in the global Jewish body,” he also pointed out that there were certain tasks and roles that only they could play in the national revival.28

At the same time, by reminding his Sephardi brothers of their cultural and intellectual heritage in Hebrew, Elmaliach hoped to encourage them to (re-)join the contemporary Hebrew public.29 As Elmaliach complained, “[Hebrew] is the language of our entire great past...[and yet

Sephardim] have distanced themselves so much from the source of our lives, from our language and national literature, to the point that many think it only the language of prayer, and as a result,

26 Doar ha-yom, September 14, 1919. Minutes later, Elmaliach argued that if this was the case, the Sephardim themselves were to blame for the situation. 27 Doar ha-yom, October 23, 1919. 28 Doar ha-yom, August 15, 1919. 29 For modern criticisms of the erasure of Sephardi and Mizrachi memory and history by the Zionist movement and the post-1948 state of Israel, see Sami Shalom Chetrit, "The Ashkenazi Zionist Eraser," News from Within, December 1997. and Gabriel Piterberg, "Domestic Orientalism: The Representation of 'Oriental' Jews in Zionist/Israeli Historiography," British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 23, no. 2 (1996).. 12 the national creations of our (medieval) Sephardi brothers came to an end.” In other words,

Elmaliach would attempt to see to it that the grandsons and great-grandsons of the Rambam, of

Yehudah ha-Levi, and of Ibn ‘Ezra would once again write in Hebrew.30 To that end, the

Andalusi Golden Age was a constant referent in the journal’s pages over its decade-plus history.

Elmaliach published the works of prominent Andalusi luminaries such as: the 11th century rabbi- philosopher-poets Ibn Gvirol, Ibn Ghiat, and Yehudah ha-Levi; the 12th century astronomer- philosopher-poet Avraham Ibn ‘Ezra; and the 13th century poet Yehuda al-Harizi.31

Of course, the Iberian corpus was already enjoying a broader revival in 1920s-1930s in

Palestine—new editions were published for local consumption, and an institute for medieval poetry was established in the newly founded Hebrew University. An article by the German- trained scholar Joseph Klausner characterized the contemporary nationalist fascination with this genre, while also arguing for its uniqueness: “the Golden Age of the in the

Diaspora passed as a dream, a dream of gold. After 500 years of creativity in every branch of literature and science, came the exile from Spain and Portugal. And the living spring of national creativity ended.”32 The poet Haim Nahman Bialik, who published new editions of the Spanish poets, went further and argued that Sephardi Jewish intellectual and cultural life specifically had ended with the Iberian expulsion, and he called on Sephardim to recuperate their cultural legacy.33

30 Ironically this claim to reengage the intellectual efforts of the forefathers of Andalusia was used by Nissim Malul for different purposes—to justify Arabic language education and production by Jews in Eretz-Israel. 31 On Yehuda ha-Levi, see Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav v1, p. 138; on Ibn Gvirol, see v. 1, p. 17, v. 2, pp. 275, 476; on Ibn Ghiat see v. 3, p. 352; on Ibn ‘Ezra see v. 2, p. 245, v. 3, pp. 81, 325; on al-Harizi see v. 1, p. 359. 32 Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav v 1, p. 307. 33 See the discussion in Lital Levy, ""From Baghdad to Bialik with Love": A Reappropriation of Modern Hebrew Poetry, 1933 " Comparative Literature Studies 42, no. 3 (2005). Elmaliach’s criticism echoes Bialik’s, but I don’t know when they first met. 13

However, in significant contrast to Klausner and Bialik’s views as well as the Zionist tendency to negate the Jewish overall, Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav also paid significant attention to early-modern and contemporary Sephardi Jewish history and culture.34 Numerous articles were devoted to Talmudic scholarship in Tunis, to Sephardi liturgical poetry (piyyutim), and to the monumental 18th century Biblical commentary Me’am Lo’ez.35 The journal also sought to introduce lesser-known Sephardi personalities to the global literary, historical, and scholarly stage. The journal proudly noted that many of the literary contributions were being published for the first time, even from heretofore unknown manuscript sources. Such was the case for the poems of the 18th century Livornese rabbi and Talmudist Malachi ha-Cohen, as well as three articles on the 17th century Yemeni poet Rabbi Shalom Shabazi.36 Elmaliach also featured dozens of biographies of Sephardi rabbis, thinkers, and scholars.37 Along these lines, upon the opening of the Jerusalem library of the association “Ḥaluẓei ha-Mizraḥ” in 1928, one of the group members, David Avishar, argued that in addition to the works of medieval Sepharad, they should also collect other Sephardi treasures found in Hebron and Jerusalem.38

Elmaliach was explicit about the Hebraist, Zionist aims of his Sephardi anthology. As he stated at the outset,

Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav yearns for national renewal among the Sephardim and will use those among them who read and imbibed the ancient Hebrew literature as a bridge

34 For a discussion of this issue in pre-WWI Zionist history textbooks, including that written by Eli’ezer Ben Yehuda, see Dan A. Porat, "The Nation Revised: Teaching the Jewish Past in the Zionist Present," Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society 13, no. 1 (2006). 35 Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav, v. 1, pp. 33, 141, 227, 398; v. 2, pp. 351, 453; v. 3, p. 205. On piyyutim see v. 3, p. 219, 366 (Iran), p. 434; on Me’am Lo’ez v. 2, p. 191 36 Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav, v. 1, pp. 8, 123, 327. Despite Shabazi’s prominence in the Yemeni Jewish tradition, his entire diwan would not see publication until 1977. 37 Around the same time, Moshe David Gaon, an immigrant to Jerusalem from Sarajevo, was busy compiling a much more extensive biographical dictionary of Sephardi rabbis and scholars. Moshe David Gaon, Yehudei ha- Mizrach be-Eretz Yisrael be-'avar u-be-hove, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Va'ad 'edat ha-Sfaradit, 1928). And Yehudei ha- Mizrach be-Eretz Yisrael, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Ariel, 1937). 38 Doar ha-yom, June 22, 1928. 14

to our new literature, awakening among the Sephardi Jewry a love for our language for all our national wealth, and especially will attempt to develop among them the ambition to create original Hebrew works and to be an influential lesson in their spiritual development of the Jewish ‘edot in the East and West and the flowering of the national Hebrew education in the schools and Talmud Torah.

From Elmaliach’s other writings we can see that he had a very essentialist notion of nationhood, and he also saw the ancient past as an important legacy to the current nation. Indeed, there is very little to suggest in any of his works that he saw the possibility of Jews either not comprising a nation on their own, or of possibly opting to belong to another nation.39 Thus, in order to complete the circle from the medieval times to the present, Elmaliach also invited contributions by Sephardi Hebraist intellectuals in his circle, such as the poems “My Language” and “My Land” by the Hebron writer Ovadia Kimhi, an article on “Sephardim and our national revival” by the writer and Hebrew teacher Yehuda Burla, and other articles on Sephardi participation in the Zionist movement.40

On Scholarship

The first issue of Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav met with mixed reviews in the Hebrew press. The more generous review, published in Doar ha-yom by the budding scholar and future contributor

Yosef Rivlin, praised the great effort that went into producing the volume but had strong criticisms of its vision/scope, editorial hand, and the uneven quality of its work. Rivlin argued

39 See his writing on Arab nationalism, for example. Ha-Po’el ha-Ẓa’ir, February 7, 1919. A letter from a Damascus about the nationalist demonstrations there—and his own personal excitement as a Jew—was published in Doar ha-yom, November 18, 1919, but Elmaliach ignores this possibility. 40 See v. 1, pp. 83, 171; 174; 163 (Burla); on a “forgotten” Sephardi moshava, see v. 1 p 79; v. 2 p 303, 384. Burla, from a rabbinical family, was educated at Doresh Zion, Tiferet Yerushalayim, and the Laemel school; he became a Hebrew teacher in 1912, served in the Ottoman army during World War I, and in 1919 was sent to Damascus as a Hebrew teacher for three years. See Tidhar, Entziklopediat ha-yishuv u-vonav.. 15 that scholarship and “publikistika” were two opposing things, and the latter had no place in the journal. For this reason he singled out the articles by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, David Levontin, and

Shlomo Calmy as misplaced. He also criticized the uneven scholarship, arguing that the article on Ibn Gvirol, for example, did not add any substantive new analysis or sources. Even that scholarship which did provide new sources and analysis—such as Avinoam Yellin’s work on

Hebrew manuscripts found in Damascus, which he found praiseworthy—could have benefitted from a stricter editorial hand. In all, though, Rivlin argued that the journal was a welcome addition to Hebrew letters, and would surely “find its way” to tighten up its vision.41

The review which appeared in ha-Po’el ha-Ẓair also found some elements of value, but eviscerated the journal’s editor, Elmaliach, from ethnic, political, and stylistic perspectives. First, ha-Po’el ha-Ẓair’s anonymous reviewer argued that the paper was clearly the product of the

Sephardi maskil as the stereotypical Levantine: “clean-shaven and aesthetic in appearance, but superficial and simplistic…polite, yet arrogant.”42 The reviewer singled out in particular the

“research” of the Sephardi Chief Rabbi ‘Uziel as being “full of childish phrases” and superficial.

The reviewer also strongly criticized the politics of the journal which allowed it to publish the article by Levontin on Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel, which was outright colonial in its approach “at a time when the great nations and powers are disgusted by [this practice.]” Finally, the reviewer complained about the needlessly obscure and flowery language used in the journal, including by Elmaliach in his founding manifesto, but also by other writers. “If we accept and swallow this language in our cheap daily press, we cannot do so from a journal that purports to represent the ‘progressive Sephardim.’”

41 Doar ha-yom, October 6, 1919. 42 Ha-Po’el ha-Ẓa’ir, October 27, 1919. 16

I have not found evidence on Elmaliach’s response to these critiques, but after the first six issues appeared, Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav took an eight year long hiatus from publishing. During this time, Elmaliach was increasingly busy as a national political figure and as a Sephardi leader.

He was a member of the Va’ad Leumi and was sent by the Jewish National Fund in 1922-23 to

North Africa to mobilize support among the community there. While there, Elmaliach also gathered extensive archival and ethnographic materials. In the mid-1920s Elmaliach became involved in the World Organization of Sephardim, based in Vienna, and went on several trips for it to Egypt in 1927 and 1928. Elmaliach also continued his own scholarly research and publications: a history of the Jews of Salonika (1924), a translation of AH Navon’s story about the “Mizrachi ghetto” (1926), a study of Shabbtai Zvi (1926), and two volumes on “Eretz Israel and Syria during the World War” (1927, 1929).43

By the time it resumed publication in 1928, Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav was, in some ways, a different journal. Significantly, it no longer identified itself as a “Sephardi and Mizrahi” journal—instead, it was now devoted to study of “the East and Eretz Israel.” Sephardi history, folklore, and literature continued to appear, of course, but as a more scholarly—indeed, even

“scientific”—journal, Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav sought to earn a place for itself on the bookshelves of familiar Orientalist studies. It featured the research of established archaeologists, linguists, and

Orientalists; for example over a dozen articles were published on antiquities, ranging from articles on the ruins of Samaria, antiquities in Atlit, and excavations in Beit Pelet and the cave of

Umm al-Katafa (Umm Qataf).44 The journal also published pieces relating to Samaritan texts, an

43 Additional works will be discussed later. 44 Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav v.2, pp. 165, 184, 188, 472. 17 article comparing the Hebrew and Assyrian alphabets, a report on Hebrew manuscripts in the

Leningrad library, and a short notice about a conference of Orientalists held in Oxford.45

Part of this change was due to the fact that since its first volume had appeared, the

Palestine Oriental Society had come into existence, making antiquities scholarship a new front of the Arab-Zionist conflict in Palestine. Since January 1920 British officials, archeologists, Bible scholars, consular agents, and monastery priests had joined together in this organization devoted to studying ‘life in the ancient Orient.’ I have not found evidence yet that Elmaliach ever joined the POS, but many of his MuM contributors and colleagues were early members, including

Eli’ezer Ben Yehuda, his former mentor, David Yellin, Yosef , Yitzhak Ben-Zvi,

Nahoum Shlouch, Aviezer Yellin, . In addition, five members of the Zionist Commission (and later Zionist Executive) and numerous Zionist figures were also members, underscoring the importance that the Zionist movement placed on monitoring and shaping the POS.46

Indeed, the POS (and upon its resumption, Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav) also provided a platform for the growing interest of the Zionist movement in the fields of and Biblical

Studies. Competing with such giants in the field such as the **British Palestine Exploration Fund

(PEF) and the Deutscher Verein zur Erforschung Palästinas, which had since the mid-19th century played an immeasurable role in producing Palestine as Christian Holy Land, the Zionist movement was in the process of reclaiming the Land of Israel as Jewish national patrimony.47 In

1920 the Palestine Jewish Exploration Society (founded 1914) received permission to conduct excavations in Tiberias, placing it in the company of the PEF, the Franciscans, and three

45 Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav, v. 2, pp. 229, 381, v. 3, pp. 299, 362. The article on Samaritan documents was written by the Jerusalem-based bibliographer and historian Pinchas Grayevsky. 46 Palestine Oriental Society, The Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society, vol. 1 (1921). **Find v 3 on… 47 Much has been written on the Zionist movement’s use of archaeology for nationalist purposes; see Nadia Abou el- Haj. 18

American universities who all had ongoing excavations in the country. Likewise, at POS monthly meetings and in the pages of its journal, Jewish-authored lectures and articles on ancient

Hebrew coins, inscriptions, linguistics, and music all carved out a place for Jews as natives to

Palestine, at the same time that they were authoritative colonial interpreters of the East.

Both Jews and Arabs struggled for a place in colonial Palestine’s antiquities-authenticity marketplace: Palestinian Arab intellectuals also belonged to the POS and delivered lectures and research studies to that organization and its journal; some of these works, however, tended to be works of contemporary ethnography which then gave support to the colonial impression of an unchanging East.48 However, several of the Palestinian Arab POS members also authored works on the geography, history, and folk practices of Palestine and Jerusalem.49 At a time when the

Zionist leadership was wrangling with the British government over place names that would render “true” and legible Jewish claims over Palestine, this Palestinian counter-effort was an important parry.50

By 1928-29, Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav also provided critical aid in this intellectual-political endeavor, publishing a variety of articles by prominent Zionists that supported the Zionist movement’s ideological visions of land and history: an article on Judean topography, written by the budding geographer Ze’ev Vilnai, another on tomb inscriptions by the self-taught hobbyist

48 Society, The Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society, 1. Prominent Palestinian contributors included Tawfiq Ca’anan, Elias Haddad, ‘Umar (Omar) al-Barghuthi. The former mayor of Jerusalem, Faidi al-‘Alami, the educator and historian Khalil Totah, and the journalist ‘Adil Jabra were also members of the Society. 49 Khalil Totah and Bulus Shehadeh, Tarikh al-Quds wa-daliluha (Jerusalem: Mer’at al-Sharq, 1920), 'Umar al-Salih al-Barghuti and Khalil Totah, Tarikh Falastin (Jerusalem: Bulus wa-Wadi'e Sa'id, 1923)., Khalil Totah and Habib Khoury, Jugraphiyat Filastin (Beirut: Mu’assasat Ibn Rushd, 1923). Tawfik Canaan’s numerous works…Elias Haddad’s textbook on Arabic… 50 See the discussion on Hebrew place names in: Nadia Abu El-Haj, "Producing (Arti) Facts: Archaeology and Power during the British Mandate of Palestine," Israel Studies 7, no. 2 (2002). See also “The Hebrew Map” by Meron Benvenisti on the erasure of Palestinian, Muslim, Christian, Arab history and spaces starting in the Mandate period. Meron Benvenisti, Sacred Landscapes: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). 19

(and socialist leader) Yitzhak Ben Zvi, a piece that valorized Jews as agricultural laborers according to the Bible and Talmud, and an article that detailed ancient Jewish migration from

Khaybar to Palestine.51

While the fields of antiquities and geography did not necessarily support Mizraḥ u-

Ma’arav’s earlier mission of documenting Sephardi history, for editor Elmaliach, the service those articles rendered to Zionism was essential to further cementing the contribution of

Sephardi Jewry to the Jewish national project and to the growing battle over spaces. For example, an article by Haim Michlin on “The Jews and the ” appeared in MuM in the fall of 1928, immediately after it became a prominent point of contention between the

Palestinian nationalist leadership and the Zionist movement.52 A review of the issue in Doar ha- yom praised the timeliness of Michlin’s article which showed Jewish continuous use of the wall for prayer and mourning since at least the fourth century CE, and was therefore a needed answer to “our Arab haters.”53

An Eastern Voice?

At the same time that he was curating and documenting Sephardi Jewish life and aiding and abetting Jewish claims to antiquity and political legitimacy, Elmaliach also committed himself to publishing works on their non-Jewish neighbors, “to learn about their histories, customs, and attitudes towards us.” In the pre-war period Elmaliach had begun writing on Arab affairs, particularly in the series of articles on the Arabist movement that he wrote for ha-Po’el

51 Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav, v. 3, pp. 1, 92, 106, 415. The article on the Jews of Khaybar was written by another Land of Israel geographer, Yosef Braslavski. Both Vilnai and Braslavski gained political prominence in the 1920s and 1930s through their “knowing the land” (yedi’at ha-aretz) movement, and scholarly prominence soon thereafter for their numerous publications. On the Zionist anthology Sefer ha-Areẓ, published in 1926 and assembling legends, travel narratives, geography, and other sources promoting the valorization and Judaization of the Land of Israel, see Israel Bartal, "The Ingathering of Traditions: Zionism's Anthology Projects," Prooftexts 17, no. 1 (1997). 52 Mizrah u-Ma’arav, v 2, n 5 (Heshvan TaRPaT). 53 Doar ha-yom, November 23, 1928. 20 ha-Ẓa’ir and in his work with ha-Magen, a press hasbara outfit that he established with about a dozen other Sephardi and Maghrebi Jews in order both to monitor and combat anti-Zionism in the Arabic press. The focus in Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav, however, was less overtly political and more intellectual and cultural.

For example, Nissim Malul, one of the ha-Magen collaborators, published a study on

Cairo’s famed al-Azhar mosque and school; Yitzhak Shami published on the Arabic theater;

Yosef Meyuchas published excerpts of his monumental work on Arab folktales; and other articles on the Qur’an, the Arabs of Safa and their language, and Arab philosophers also appeared in the journal.54 Elmaliach himself wrote several articles on 19th century Arabic literature, reflecting his own growing interest in this area; he had undertaken a translation of the

Kalila wa-dimna fable while in prison in Damascus, which was published in 1926 by Bialik’s press, Dvir. In the 1920s Elmaliach also published a 200-page Arabic textbook (Ha-Moreh ha-

‘Aravi, 1928), as well as a Hebrew-Arabic dictionary (1928) and an Arabic-Hebrew dictionary

(1929).

And yet, Elmaliach was both personally and politically very far from sympathetic to

Arabs. Before the war, when he lived in Damascus with his family, he wrote of his feelings of disconnection from being in a non-Jewish environment, even though he grew up in the old City of Jerusalem, a majority Arab area, and even though he was fluent in Arabic. When writing about Arab opposition to Zionism, he often conflated political anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

And, while Elmaliach wrote admiringly of the post-war Arab national movement based in

Damascus, it was the admiration of an outside observer rather than an insider.55

54 MuM, V2, p 248; v3, pp 26, 97, 348, 439. 55 CITE 21

The role of Sephardim as “Arab Jews” was already a topic of polemicism in the years before the war, and it became more so after. For many European immigrants in the Zionist movement, Sephardim were suspect as Levantines, Orientals, ‘not-quite’ Jews. Nissim Malul in particular had been involved in a scorching debate with the editors of ha-Po’el ha-Ẓa’ir, which mocked his Arabism and questioned his commitments to Hebraism and Zionism.56 (This also underscores Elmaliach’s decision to publish extensively in that newspaper as a political one, to prove himself more “’ivri” than the quintessential “‘ivriim.”)

The Palestinian Sephardim’s national loyalties were publicly called out in an exchange that took place in 1921 in the aftermath of the Palestinian delegation’s trip to London, in which the delegates proposed that Sephardi Jews native to Palestine become a part of the Palestinian civic polity; the delegation also argued that Sephardim were opposed to Zionism.57 The response of Sephardi leaders was swift and unequivocal: they refuted the claim that they were anti-Zionist, and in fact, Sephardi leaders had been prominent supporters of the Balfour Declaration, had testified to the King-Crane Commission, and had sent delegates to San Remo, all in support of the Jewish National Home project.58

Sephardim did claim the right to serve as intermediaries between Palestinian Arabs and the foreign Zionist leadership and immigrant Jews, a role they had been fulfilling since Ottoman times. Elmaliach had been sent on a Sephardi delegation to Damascus in 1919, Nissim Malul served as an advisor for Arab affairs to the Va’ad Leumi, and other Sephardim served in official

56 Discussed in Michelle Ursula Campos, "A 'Shared Homeland' and Its Boundaries: Empire, Citizenship, and the Origins of Sectarianism in Late Ottoman Palestine, 1908-13" (Ph.D. Dissertation, Stanford University, 2003). Also Abigail, Behar/Ben-Dor book…CITE 57 Find original source… 58 See for example the article “Between Sephardim and Arabs” in Doar ha-yom, September 5, 1921. 22 capacities. In a May 1920 flyer on the eve of national Jewish elections (to asefat ha-nivharim),

Sephardim were warned that “there is no place for political parties and there is no utility in disagreements” when building the national home.59

Still, some Sephardi notables did criticize the Zionist handling of the ‘Arab question’ in the 1920s. Yosef Eliyahu Chelouche, a businessman from Jaffa who was prominent in Tel Aviv-

Jaffa politics, Haim Ben-Kiki, a Tiberias scholar, the Orientalist Avraham Shalom Yahuda, and very likely others were critical (if later silenced) voices arguing against the European Zionist hegemony that had brought about the Arab-Jewish conflict in its current form.60 However, these voices did not find any echo in Mizraḥ u-Ma’arav. In the aftermath of the August 1929 country- wide riots, Mizrah u-Ma’arav published a special issue which included a chronology of the attacks, an extended report on the activities of the Bikkur Holim hospital during the riots, gruesome photos of the Motza victims, list of the “holy and pure martyrs,” and testimonies of survivors. In this it echoed the Hebrew press which skewered not only the accused perpetrators but Palestinian Arab society more broadly. Neighbors had revealed their true colors as killers and thieves, according to this view, and the denativization of Sephardim entered its final stage.61

By 1932, when Elias Sassoon in Beirut opined that and Arabs needed to hold a congress to come to an understanding on Eretz Israel, ha-Aretz responded that doing so would constitute a betrayal by Mizrachi Jews.62 Presumably they thought so as well.

[sorry for the lame ending but I am crunched for time…]

59 Doar ha-yom, May 2, 1920. 60 On Chelouche see Michelle Campos, "Remembering Jewish-Arab Contact and Conflict," in Reapproaching the Border: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel/Palestine, ed. Mark LeVine and Sandy Sufian (Rowman and Littlefield, 2007). On Haim Ben-Kiki see Moshe Behar and Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, "The Possibility of Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought," British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 41(2014). 61 I have not yet had the chance to read Hillel Cohen’s new book on Tarpat, but I understand he makes an argument about the death of the Arab Jew in the riots. Certainly Elmaliach agreed with him. 62 Doar ha-yom, September 18, 1932. 23

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