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Reviewed by:
  • From Empire to Empire: Jerusalem Between Ottoman and British Rule
  • Johann Büssow (bio)
From Empire to Empire: Jerusalem Between Ottoman and British Rule, by Abigail Jacobson. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press 2011. 262 pages. $34.95.

This book is a timely and tightly argued addition to a fast-growing body of literature that examines the social and political history of Palestine from the late Ottoman period to the onset of the Israel-Palestine conflict.1 Abigail Jacobson's study covers two fateful but hitherto much neglected periods in the history of the country: the First World War and the period of British military rule until the establishment of the League of Nations Mandate in 1920. As Jacobson writes, the First World War was "a central event in the history of Palestine" (p. 80) and "a critical moment" (p. 77) during which the lives and livelihoods of many were endangered, routines were broken and collective identities were called into question. Dealing with this period raises a host of questions. For example, which among the Ottoman institutions in Palestine survived the transition to British rule and which ceased to exist? With what ideas in mind did the actors in the Palestinian political arena approach the new situation? What room for manoeuvre did different actors possess?

Jacobson brings these and other questions down to a manageable size by an exclusive focus on the city of Jerusalem and by laying the main emphasis on the changing relations between the city's principal ethno-religious communities. Her study contains much new information, especially regarding the different communally organized relief efforts during the First World War and the process of disaffection among different strata of Jerusalem's inhabitants regarding Ottoman rule. Especially fascinating are Jacobson's observations on the way urban space in Jerusalem was used and contested by different local actors such as Arab intellectuals or the Ottoman local government (pp. 54-60). While during the Mandate period, [End Page 556] East and West Jerusalem grew apart and the old city intra muros became more and more musealized, late Ottoman Jerusalem still possessed a city center located between Jaffa Gate and the municipal park on Jaffa Road, which was connected to civic traditions and a vibrant public life that included members of all neighbourhoods and communities. These passages are an important reminder of how the national conflict that began during the 1920s changed the face of the city almost beyond recognition and that today's social and spatial boundaries are the result of historical processes that have occurred since then.

On a more general note, the book's greatest merit probably is that it questions and transcends several conventional historiographical boundaries. The first is that between the Ottoman and the British period in Palestinian history, which is traditionally portrayed as a sharp rupture. Jacobson, for the first time, directs our attention to the transition between both historical periods and plausibly describes the shifting alliances between Jerusalem's communities. A second conventional boundary Jacobson scrutinizes is that between these communities themselves. While most scholarship on modern Palestine takes for granted a binary division of the local population into Jews and Arabs or a tripartite division into Jews, Muslims and Christians, Jacobson adopts a nuanced "relational" model. Her analysis is not only inter-communal, but includes also the intra-communal level, regarding different groups within one community that arose from different geographical origins, different periods of arrival in the city, different legal status, and so forth. She is able to show that during the war years these categories were still fluid and changed rapidly according to shifting circumstances and political alliances, before they were fixated in a new way around 1920.

A precondition for innovative work on this subject is the use of a wide array of sources, including those in the local languages. This study can serve as a model in this respect as well. The originality of the first three chapters of the book rests very much on the rich new source material that Jacobson was able to access. She skillfully uses contemporary diaries and newspaper articles from the late Ottoman period which bring out the voices of individual actors and allow...

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