The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times (review)

Book Reviews 119 The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern. Times, by Norman Stillman. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991. 604 pp. $39.95. In this companion volume to his 1be Jews of Arab Lands, Norman Stillman continues the story of Middle Eastern and Nonh Mrican Jewry into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From more than 800,000Jews living in the region outside of Israel a generation ago, today there are only some 16,000 who remain in Arab lands. Unlike their European-Jewish counterparts who perished in the Holocaust, Middle EasternJews left their homes during a gradual process that culminated in mass emigrations after the establishment of the State of Israel. In pan one of this two-pan volume, Stillman elaborates upon the reasons for the near extinction of Arabic-speaking Jews as a separate culture. Their status as a poor, socially isolated, "inferior" community within the larger Islamic setting at the beginning of the nineteenth century gradually improved. As the area was brought into the world economy and was occupied by European powers, Jews began to undergo westernization through secular education that emphasized the study of English, French, and mathematics. As they acquired modern skills, Jews emerged as renowned businessmen, who established international connections in South America, India, and Shanghai. Like their growing Muslim middleclass neighbors, they moved from the countryside into the city and began to function in the civil bureaucracies that emerged during European rule and continued as Arab countries became independent after World War 1. Not active Zionists as a rule, Middle Eastern Jews were, nevertheless, affected by Zionism. With the establishment ofthe Zionist movement, there was initial interest by members of Middle Eastern Jewish communities in Iraq, Morocco, and Egypt. But as the Jewish political movement increasing~ Iy became a preoccupation of the Arab societies in which they lived, the poSition of local Jews became ever more tenuous. In~ermittentlyharassed and persecuted, in some countries more than others, they were not permitted to become full members of society. They remained neutral in the nationalist political struggles and hoped for the best. With the establishment of the State of Israel, however, and their loyalty ever in question, the only solution seemed to be emigration. The trends expenly sketched in pan one are elaborated upon in the second half of the book. Pan Two is a collection of illustrative materials that includes government documents, memoirs, and private observations from published and unpublished sources, written by Jews, Arabs, and European observers. We are able to witness the inner workings of the Jewish community and its relations with the Muslim community at large 120 SHOFAR Fall 1992 Vol. 11, No. 1 through a sermon by a rabbi against immoral behavior and the reflections of an Algerian-Jewish intellectual on tense Muslim-Jewish relations. Through these sources we learn that Middle Eastern Jews were among the founders of Haifa and modern Jaffa, and that unlike many European Jews in the nineteenth century, they did not live on private donations from abroad (haluka) but were engaged in handicrafts, commerce, and manual labor. We are also made aware of the impact of World War II on Middle Eastern Jewry: of the assistance of young Algerian Jews in the Allied war effort, that it was only by dint of logistical problems that the Tunisian Jewish community was not a victim of the Final Solution, and of the pogrom against the Jewish community in Baghdad as the British stood on the outskirts of the city. Both the narrative and the documentarycompendium are supplemented by extensive footnotes and bibliography, creating a text informative to the general reader and invaluable to scholars. The story ofthe Jews ofArab lands in modern times is a tale rarely encountered in either Jewish or general Middle Eastern histories, and readers will be grateful to Professor Stillman for providing a second volume as useful as the first. Reeva S. Simon Middle East Institute Columbia University PolishJews in Paris: The Ethnography ofMemory, byJonathan Boyarin. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. This elegantly written ethnographic study attempts to recreate the texture ofthe everyday life ofthe East European Jewish community in Paris today. Focusing on the landsmanshaftn, or mutual aid societies, Boyarin describes how the...