“A REALLY HORRID JOB TO ALWAYS BE FIGHTING” FREYA STARK’S VISION FOR THE MIDDLE EAST AND HER WARTIME U.S. PROPAGANDA TOUR by DALIAH JAYE GREENWALD Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of History CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY January, 2018 CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES We hereby approve the thesis of Daliah Jaye Greenwald Candidate for the degree of Master of Arts Committee Chair John Broich Committee Member Jay Geller Committee Member Kenneth Ledford Date of Defense 11/15/2017 *We also certify that written approval has been obtained for any proprietary material contained therein. 1 Table of Contents 1. Abstract 4 2. Introduction 5 3. Part I: Freya Stark’s Vision of the Modern Middle East 16 a. Freya Stark: Traveler and Propagandist 16 b. The Brotherhood of Freedom, Lulie Abul-Huda, 17 and Arab Modernizers c. Freya’s Position, Opposition to British Policy 20 d. Jews and Zionism within Freya’s Vision 23 4. Part II: Freya Stark’s American Tour, Zionism, 29 and the Future of the Middle East a. Preparations for the American Tour 29 b. The Tour 38 c. Press Coverage: Popular Media 44 d. Jewish Response 50 5. Conclusion 57 6. Bibliography 61 2 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Professor John Broich for all of his help as my adviser on this thesis, as well as for serving as my adviser for both my Graduate and Undergraduate degrees. I would also like to thank Professor Jay Geller and Professor Kenneth Ledford for serving on my thesis defense committee, as well as the entire Case Western Reserve University Department of History for the help and support I’ve received over the past four years. I also thank the staff at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin for their assistance in navigating the collections. I would also like to thank Dr. Susanne Brand for her work sending documents to me from The National Archives in Kew, as without her help this thesis would not have been possible in its current form. 3 “A really horrid job to always be fighting” Freya Stark’s Vision for the Middle East and her Wartime U.S. Propaganda Tour Abstract by DALIAH JAYE GREENWALD Freya Stark was a British traveler, author, and propagandist who authored two dozen books on her experiences in the Middle East and along the Mediterranean coast. Stark’s decades of experience in the Middle East provided her with a unique vision for the future of the region, which she saw becoming an area containing modern, independent nations after the end of World War II. Stark’s 1943-1944 tour of the United States of America provided her with an opportunity to explain this perspective. Yet, due to the timing of the tour coinciding with the increased tension surrounding Zionism in the United States and abroad, Stark faced personal criticism that was both inappropriate and avoidant. Freya Stark is now a neglected figure in history, whose vision for the Middle East and experiences in defense of this vision merit examination. 4 Freya Stark was a British traveler, author, and propagandist who authored two dozen books on her experiences in the Middle East and along the Mediterranean coast. Stark’s decades of experience in the Middle East provided her with a unique vision for the future of the region, which she saw becoming an area containing modern, independent nations after the end of World War II. Stark’s 1943-1944 tour of the United States of America provided her with an opportunity to explain this perspective. Yet, due to the timing of the tour coinciding with the increased tension surrounding Zionism in the United States and abroad, Stark faced personal criticism that was both inappropriate and avoidant. Freya Stark is now a neglected figure in history, whose vision for the Middle East and experiences in defense of this vision merit examination. Unfortunately, Freya Stark is not taken seriously by professional historians today. None of her biographers is a professional historian, and only Malise Ruthven, possesses a terminal degree.1 Caroline Moorehead, who wrote the biography Freya Stark (Lives of Modern Women) which was published in 1986, was the daughter of Lucy Moorehead, an old friend of Freya Stark’s, also took on the project of assisting Stark edit and type all of her letters for publication.2 Jock Murray, Freya Stark’s longtime friend and publisher, commissioned and then rejected a biography of Stark by Molly Izzard, claiming that it A Subversive Imperialist: Reappraising Freya Stark,” Alif: Journal of“ ,ﺰﻴﻟﺎﻣﻦﭭﺛﺍﺭ Malise Ruthven and 1 Comparative Poetics, no. 26 (2006): 147–67; Caroline Moorehead, Freya Stark (London: Allison & Busby, 2014); Efraim Karsh and Rory Miller, “Freya Stark in America: Orientalism, Antisemitism and Political Propaganda,” Journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 3 (2004): 315–332; Molly Izzard, Freya Stark: A Biography, First Edition edition (London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1993); Jane Fletcher Geniesse, Passionate Nomad: The Life of Freya Stark (Modern Library, 2001); Simon Albert, “The Wartime ‘Special Relationship’, 1941-1945: Isaiah Berlin, Freya Stark, and Mandate Palestine,” Jewish Historical Studies 45 (2013): 103–30; Malise Ruthven, Traveller through Time: A Photographic Journey with Freya Stark (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England ; New York, N.Y., U.S.A: Viking Adult, 1986). 2 Freya Stark, Letters: Bridge of the Levant, 1940-1943, v. 4, ed. Lucy Moorehead (Salisbury: Michael Russell Publishing Ltd, 1978). 5 was too critical.3 The book, Freya Stark: A Biography, was published in 1993, and looks at Freya Stark’s persona as a construction.4 Jane Fletcher Geniesse also published a biography of Stark, which carefully balanced criticism of some of her choices and views with a recognition of her place in history.5 Geniesse’s work, Passionate Nomad, is probably the best biographical work on Stark to date. Malise Ruthven wrote a number of books with and about Freya Stark, but these were colored by their close relationship as godson and godmother. Interestingly, in 2006 Ruthven co-authored an article for Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics entitled “A Subversive Imperialist: Reappraising Freya Stark.”6 This article acknowledges that Freya Stark’s place in history has been called into question, and was an attempt to protect her legacy as well as to highlight her unique position in history. The article established that both Stark’s writing and her accolades as a traveler have been criticized and called into question.7 Ruthven particularly takes issue with the comparison of Stark to Gertrude Bell, one of history’s most remembered Orientalists. Unlike Gertrude Bell, whose class and financial position enabled her to maintain an elite status even while traveling, Stark “was a little Miss Nobody who ventured into regions few Europeans- least of all an unaccompanied woman- had dared to enter before. She was often short of cash, and had nothing to sustain her beyond her native wits, her charm, resilience, and enthusiasm.”8 A Subversive Imperialist: Reappraising Freya Stark,” Alif: Journal of“ ,ﺰﻴﻟﺎﻣﻦﭭﺛﺍﺭ Malise Ruthven and 3 Comparative Poetics, no. 26 (2006): 149. 4 Molly Izzard, Freya Stark: A Biography, First Edition edition (London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1993). 8. 5 Jane Fletcher Geniesse, Passionate Nomad: The Life of Freya Stark (Modern Library, 2001). A Subversive Imperialist: Reappraising Freya Stark,” Alif: Journal of“ ,ﺰﻴﻟﺎﻣﻦﭭﺛﺍﺭ Malise Ruthven and 6 Comparative Poetics, no. 26 (2006): 147–67. 7 Ibid., 147. 8 Ibid., 151. 6 Professional scholars have written little about Stark in the twenty-four years since her death. The most notable article about Freya Stark was published by Efraim Karsh and Rory Miller in the Journal of Contemporary History in 2004. The article, which discusses Freya Stark’s American tour, accused Stark of romanticizing the Middle East, and being an orientalist and a closet antisemite.9 Following this article, Freya Stark’s tour is the point of conjecture for Simon Albert’s 2013 article which speculates that her U.S. tour was set-up to fail by Isaiah Berlin, a political scholar who worked for the British government at the time.10 In both articles, there is a focus on condemning Stark’s actions, without an effort to understand them. There have been other articles about Stark which discuss her role as a female traveler and writer, but a surprising few about her as a propagandist.11 This was a woman who wrote twenty-four books based on her travels, published eight volumes of letters, and was living and working in the Middle East for almost half her life, yet today few acknowledge her expertise. It is true that Freya Stark studied the Middle East as an Arabist, and her earlier works, as asserted by Karsh and Miller, do include some standard orientalist phrases.12 Freya Stark was and still is often compared to Gertrude Bell and even T.E. Lawrence, and perhaps, as Malise Ruthven suggested, she is often mischaracterized through this comparison.13 Yet, all of the problems in addressing Stark’s perspective are not reason enough to dismiss her, as many professionals have done. If scholars are willing to take a 9 Efraim Karsh and Rory Miller, “Freya Stark in America: Orientalism, Antisemitism and Political Propaganda,” Journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 3 (2004): 315–332. 10 Simon Albert, “The Wartime ‘Special Relationship’, 1941-1945: Isaiah Berlin, Freya Stark, and Mandate Palestine,” Jewish Historical Studies 45 (2013): 103–30. 11 Mary Henes, “Autobiography, Journalism, and Controversy: Freya Stark’s Baghdad Sketches,” Journeys: The International Journal of Travel and Travel Writing 16, no. 1 (2015): 98. 12 Karsh and Miller, “Freya Stark in America.” 320.