Introduction In the past two decades, the term Arab Jew has gained increased traction in the vernacular of both academics and activists; it is associated with a rejection of the constraints of the conflict, and a desire to shake up the normative standards of Zionism. While not attaining a mainstream backing, this reemergence comes at the heels of half a century of discrimination dealt to the Jews of Arab descent living in Israel. The revolt is aimed against the hegemonic Ashkenazic rule, whereby those Jews of Arab descent were not accorded the same social, economic, and cultural rights as their European brothers. The upheaval, starting in activism in the 70s, has shifted forms and is now visible in the prolific academic field known as “Mizrahi” studies. As in many burgeoning fields, there is considerable disagreement over the definitions of terms, as well as varying attitudes of how to approach the discussion. Yitzhak Dahan reviews the main trends associated with Mizrahi intellectuals in the past fifty years, ranging a wide spectrum of political orientations—from radical critiques of Zionism that place a premium on the traditional Mizrahi identity, to a more accommodating approach, which attempts to rectify the discordance amongst the various strands of identity: Jewishness, versus Israeliness, versus the Arab Jew, or Mizrahi. The terminology chosen to denote this group of Middle Eastern Jews includes: Mizrahi, Sephardim, Arab Jews, Oriental Jews, Edot Hamizrah (Jews of Eastern descent), and Bney Haaretz (natives of the land). The most common term, and the most descriptive as it connotes the ethnic divide between European Jews and Middle Eastern Jews is Sephardi. Sephardi Jews are those who descended from Spain, and after being exiled moved to neighboring localities. The term also includes under its umbrella the Jews of North Africa, the Levant, Egypt, the Caucasus, Persia, Yemen and Afghanistan. The binary division between the Ashkenazi connotation with West, and the Sephardi connotation with East only came into parlance following the creation of the state of Israel. Prior to this, communities had a tendency to self-identify, and were labeled by others in specific communal terms.
Referring to Jews of Middle Eastern descent as Mizrahi has in recent years replaced the use of other terms, such as Oriental Jews, or Middle Eastern Jews.1 This preference is a reflection of the Israeli context within which these discussions are taking place. However, this trend brings to light two dangers—one, that the term Mizrahi does not represent a monolithic group, and two, that binary approaches undoubtedly overlook the various and differing histories of these groups regarding their relationship to Zionism. This misrepresentation has implications not only for history, but also in how we approach the current experience of being Mizrahi in Israeli society today. This study seeks to break this narrative by telling the story of a bygone community sitting in the cross roads between myriad competing ethno-national currents. Having witnessed the fall of the Ottoman Empire, ensconced amidst British and French colonialist claims, culturally and religiously connected to their Jewish neighbors in Palestine, the story of the Jews of Sidon provides a unique glimpse into the history of Middle Eastern Jewry, and their distinctive approach to Judaism and Zionism. While this discussion of terminology has important socio-linguistic implications, with both pros and cons attached to each term, an additionally crucial aspect of the debate relates to the scope of Mizrahi history, and how it should be understood within the context of a Middle East before the establishment of the State of Israel. The recent interest in this question has refashioned the traditional historiographical understanding of the existence and place of Jews in Middle Eastern society. Moshe Behar, along with a host of other scholars, elucidate the ways in which the Jewish Ashkenazi-focused paradigm has blurred our understanding of the Mizrahi experience; in its interactions with the hegemonic Ashkenazim of the Yishuv, within their host communities, and with their relations to their neighbors in Ottoman society. 2 When discussing the historical genesis of the field, we start off with the presiding question of the terminus a quo; does Mizrahi identity truly coalesce only around the arrival of the other? Some would be even more stringent, looking at the creation of the State of Israel and the subsequent Mizrahi immigration of the 50s. It is understandable 1
Behar, Moshe. "What's in a Name? Socio-Terminological Formations and the Case for 'Arabized-Jews'." Social The Ashkenazi trajectory relates to the European Jewish experience of the past 200 years, mainly a discourse of struggle and turbulence, leading up to the Holocaust, and then to the creation of the State of Israel. For scholarship on the Sephardi response to the Arab question, and inter-confessional relationships between Mizrahi Jews and Arabs, see Itzhak Bezalel, Noladetem Ziyonim. 2
that the entry point of study would start at an initial point of contact, or conflict, being the emergence of the Zionist movement in Palestine in the late 19th century. Recent trends in scholarship have linked the pre-history—the history of Middle Eastern Jews before the establishment of the State of Israel—to the post-history, or the reality of Mizrahim living in Israel today. They argue that this contemporary Mizrahi conversation has had a large affect on the pre-history, or traditional historiography of Middle Eastern Jewry, which is not necessarily a bad thing, as it has brought on renewed interest in the field, and a strong cohort of prolific scholars. 3 The first wave of Mizrahi scholarship indeed made it possible for people to speak of Arab Jews, however, this discussion was framed through the lens of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, or through a trope of absence and discrimination. This absence has become visible. These authors engaged in a revision of the Zionist narrative, rather than reconstructing the differing dynamics of Arab Jewish history and culture. This response can almost be justified when looking at the broader field of Jewish history or Jewish historiography. For all intents and purposes, these fields, which consist of over 200 years of history, are almost exclusively framed through the European Jewish perspective. The modern Jewish historical trajectory generates solely from the European experience, and is used as the yardstick for judgment of all other models. The preeminence of the European model has led the second wave of Mizrahi scholars to focus almost exclusively on the colonial context as the defining characteristic of the experience of Zionism and Middle Eastern Jewry. However, in the case of the Jews of Sidon, the post-colonial model, familiarized by the works of Ella Shohat and Yehuda Shenhav, is not the starting point for the discussion. Post-colonial theory may have some important things to teach about the experiences of Mizrahim in Israeli society, but this model proves less descriptive when looking at the relationship between the Yishuv and Lebanon’s Jews. So while critical theory attempts to deconstruct the hidden assumptions of dominant social groups, in this case, the Zionists of the Yishuv and their relationship to the Jews of the Middle East, they are relying on a hidden assumption of their own that 3 Prominent scholars include Tomer Levi on Lebanese Jewry, Yaron Harel on Syrian Jewry, Orit Bashkin on Iraqi Jewry, Abigail Jacobson on the Jews of Palestine, Yehuda Shenhav and Ella Shohat.
suppresses alternative points of view, mainly that Zionism was a wholly top-down, European-imposed concept. In his study Hayehudim Ha’aravim, The Arab Jews, Shenhav claims to describe “the first practical encounter between the Zionist movement and the Jews of Arab lands.”4 While the case study of the Jews of Abadan, Persia has been helpful in understanding the nationalist intentions of the shelihim, or Zionist emissaries, the claim that Zionist ideology was wholly removed from the lives of Jews in Middle Eastern countries has proven misguided. As the following study will show, the Jews of Sidon pursued a relationship with the Yishuv and acknowledged Zionism for a range of motivations. The Yishuv provided them a means to advance their economic, societal, religious, and cultural institutions, through the school systems, philanthropy, and seeking counsel from Yishuv leaders. While the study of the Jewish experience in Sidon has a limited wider applicability, as the community was relatively small in number compared to the communities of Damascus, Aleppo, or Beirut, these stories do provide a view into the particular realities of individual members of a Jewish community living ensconced between competing ethno-national currents, in a changing Middle East. With the ubiquitous narrative of conflict and enmity between Lebanon and Israel, relatively little attention has been given the practices and experiences of this now deceased Jewish community amidst the larger mosaic of Middle Eastern Jewry prior to the creation of the state of Israel. The History of Sidon Sidon, a coastal-port city of biblical origins, has a rich cultural history as it passed through the hands of numerous empires. It sits on the Mediterranean, 40 kilometers south of Beirut, and 40 kilometers north of Trye. Allegedly founded by Saidoune ibn Canaan, known as the first-born son of Caanan, Sidon and was used by the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Christians. The Ottomans, the last Empire to hold control of the city, were in power from 1516-1918 before the French granted Lebanon semi-autonomy in 1920. In 1902, Sidon housed 15,000-18,000 residents—the majority of which were fisherman, merchants, or agricultural landowners, with orange groves and plantations on the outskirts of the fertile coastal city. In 1850, the Jewish community was sufficiently large 4
Yehuda Shenhav, The Arab Jews (Stanford University Press, 2006) p. 27.
enough to warrant building a synagogue, and a decade later, in 1860, the synagogue was completed. The Ottoman Empire was divided into regional administrative units called vilayets, or districts, and sub-districts known as sanjaqs. Due to successive administrative reorganization, the city fell under different territorial districts—part of the vilayet of Damascus, Syria, until 1866 when it subsequently fell under the control of the Beirut vilayet. This elastic regional organization makes evident the fact that the physical territorial entities of Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon did not exist as defined today. The Southern Syrian district referred to what is now southern Lebanon, and possibly even northern Palestine. The border region between the two entities did not exist as it does now—the vilayet of Beirut stretched up to and including Latakia, Syria in the north, south to just above the border of Jaffa, Palestine. The modern history of Lebanon began with Général Gouraud’s official declaration of the creation of Greater Lebanon, Le Grand Liban, under the French mandate, on September 1 1920. Following World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Europe divided up the Middle East and the Levant at the conference of San Remo and the Treaty of Sèvres, Greater Lebanon acquired state status with defined borders. Meanwhile, in the south, the Zionist’s of the Yishuv explored land acquisition throughout the borders of the biblical Eretz Yisrael, which stretched all the way north of the Litani River and into Lebanon. Certain factions in the Yishuv took the liberty defining the area of interest according to these biblical boundaries, which included Sidon. In addition to the historical implications of these lands, Zionists saw potential economic and political opportunities in Lebanon. Literature Review While previously overlooked, the study of the Lebanese Jewish community has made what might be deemed a comeback in the recent two decades. While most of the preeminent scholars on Lebanon barely cover the Jewish community, save for in passing mention, Kristen Schulze rectified this with her book, The Jews of Lebanon, Between Coexistence and Conflict. Her study is the most comprehensive to date, beginning just prior to the upheavals of World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and ending with the Israeli invasion of 1982. The book is a political history with a clear
thesis aimed at rectifying a history that she views as full of “half truths”, and “sketchy at best” previous scholarship, which would conflate the reality of the Jews of Lebanon with the fates of the Jews in other Middle Eastern contexts.5 She argues that the Jews never suffered major oppression or persecution, and were viewed as just another integral part of Lebanon’s multi- ethnic mosaic. While she points to clear exaggeration in the narrative of persecution of Lebanon’s Jew, and shows that after 1948 the Jewish community actually grew in size, her attempts to prove that Zionism—and by extension, the subsequent creation of the State of Israel did not have any concrete impact on the lives of the Jewish community also constitutes a form of exaggeration. She claims that the relationship between Lebanon’s Jews, Zionism, and the Yishuv is intriguing because of strong Lebanese nationalism, coupled with “apathy towards the Zionist project by the majority, but on the other hand by fervent Zionism by a few leaders.”6 She states as evident truth, “Lebanon’s Jews like the majority of the Jews living in Arab countries were not particularly sympathetic to the efforts of the Zionists.”7 Such an overarching statement, without providing any references, should be taken for what it is, a generalization. This study will show that while not actively engaging in promoting Zionism by moving to Palestine, or the new state, a keen appreciation for Zionism thrived, not only in an idealistic, religious sense, but also through material support to Jewish cities, and in a close personal and advisory relationship towards Yishuv Rabbis. Another relevant study is Laura Zittrain Eisenberg’s, The Enemy Within. She devotes an entire chapter to the early Zionist interest in Lebanon, describing a few scenes where the Yishuv potentially considered buying land in southern Lebanon, for both it’s strategic political and economic potential. 8 Owing to the intentional geographical vagueness of early Zionist activity in Palestine, Sidon and Tyre fell within the range of biblical Eretz Yisrael, and thus, at least until the establishment of the French mandate in Lebanon, beginning in 1920, the Jews of Sidon did not see a real distinction between themselves and their Palestinian Jewish brothers living in Tiberias, Safed, or Haifa. 5 Schulze,
The Jews of Lebanon (Sussex Academic Press, 2001) p. 11. Ibid., p. 47. 7 Ibid., p. 47. 8 Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, My Enemy’s Enemy: Lebanon in the Early Zionist Imagination, 1900-1948 (Wayne State University Press, 1994). 6
However, her analysis of the Jewish communities’ views towards Zionism and the Yishuv remains one-dimensional. Tomer Levi, in The Jews of Beirut — The Rise of a Levantine Community 1860s1930s, provides the most objective and in depth chronological description of the evolution of the Jewish community of Beirut from the late Ottoman times to the French mandate. He shows that the formation of this vibrant Jewish community was thanks to numerous overlapping factors in the cultural, political, social and economic spheres. Sidon is mentioned in passing—with the establishment of the French Mandate, the smaller Jewish communities of Sidon and Tripoli were put under the tutelage of the Beiruti Jewish council. His story begins where Sidon’s leaves off. “The revitalization of Beirut during the nineteenth-century changed the demographic structure of Jewish life in the region dramatically… [S]econd, as a result of migration, Beirut replaced Sidon as the major center of Jewish life in Lebanon.”9 The wealthiest, leading, original Jews of Beirut came from a few families who had emigrated either from Damascus, or Sidon. At the end of the nineteenth century, sources put the number of Jews in Sidon at 600. New Sources: Fonds Youssef Melhem Politi My great-grandfather, Youssef Melhem Politi, was elected as President of the Jewish community of Sidon in 1931, after holding several positions on the community council starting from its inception in 1919. Minutes from the weekly community council meetings, or va’ad, as well as correspondences with notable figures in the Yishuv, dating between 1919-1959, were recently discovered and archived by his daughter, Dr. Yolla Polity. The archive serves as a valuable source of information on the history of the Jews of Lebanon; telling their story not through the lens of conflict, but through the daily lives of its members, and the internal organization of this poorly documented and now vanished community. Though Sidon’s Jewish community dwindled following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire as many of its members moved to Beirut whose burgeoning post-war economy attracted many. The characters and stories portrayed in this archive provide a snapshot into an important era of change. The Sidon case study offers a fresh lens through which to understand Zionism’s dynamism in relation to a 9 Tomer Levi, The Formation of a Levantine Community: The Jews of Beirut, 1860-1939, Ph.D. Dissertation, Brandies University, 2010.
Jewish community that lived as integrated citizens amongst a multitude of various religious denominations. The Establishment of the Community Council Sent on behalf of the Zionist Commission in Palestine,10 in February of 1919, Rabbi M. B. Uziel and his colleague Jack Mosseri, 11 embarked on a two-week trip to visit the Jewish communities of Damascus, Beirut and Sidon. The purpose of the trip was to report back to the Joint Commission on the social and material status of these communities, to provide relief to needy families, and to help maintain or establish Jewish schools. The team was also tasked with exploring the option of opening a branch of the Anglo-Palestine Company, which never came to fruition. Sidon was the final destination on their trip, and the conditions they encountered disturbed them greatly—they reported, “no Ghetto in the world can be worse than that of Sidon.” 12They found 150 families living in the squalid Jewish quarter of the city, in small, cramped conditions. As for the Jewish community’s representation, they describe a hotelkeeper by the name of Braun, who plays both the role of President of the Jewish Council, and chief Rabbi of the community, referred to as the Chacham Bashi. They mention two local notables who may be better placed to lead the community, and yet they are not involved in the community’s leadership. They decide that the Jews of Sidon are not in any position to help the most needy members of their community, and surely in no place to offer philanthropic or national assistance. “The community does not possess any national or philanthropic institutions and is not in a position to meet even the most urgent demands for relief or education.” On February 15 1919, following this visit, the first meeting of the Council of the Jewish Community of Sidon, known in French as the Conseil Communite Israelite, convenes. Two delegates of Rabbi Uziel are in attendance, and the community writes a letter to the governor of Sidon to let him know of the creation of the new council, with a 10
The Zionist commission was created following the 1917 Balfour declaration. Chaim Weizmann oversaw the organization’s efforts, where their main responsibilities included liaison with the British, providing relief for the Jewish refugees of WWI, and establishing settlements in Palestine. 11 Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel was an integral member of the Sephardi community in Palestine. He would later become chief Sephardi Rabbi in 1939. He was a part of the HaMizrahi movement, and was an active member of the Rabbinate’s bureaucracy and religious courts. During his visit he was the Sephardi chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. He was honorary president of the council of Sephardi community in Jerusalem and the World Confederation of Sephardi Jews. This was not his first delegation to the visit the Jewish communities of Arab countries. 12 Visit of Chief Rabbi M.B. Uziel and Mr. Jack Mosseri, L4/415, CZA.
list of the members included. This episode provides important context to understand the dynamics of the relationship between the Sephardic and Oriental members of the Yishuv, and their neighbors in the surrounding Jewish communities. While the decision to embark on this trip did not stem directly from the intraethnic concern of Rabbi Uziel for the communities of the Levant, when given the chance, they took it upon themselves to provide support these communities, by promoting selforganization, and retaining close relations with the members of the council, with the hopes of engendering not only national solidarity, but to also create channels of mutual support. Abigail Jacobson and Jacob Naor, in their new book, Oriental Neighbors, put this story in the context of the burgeoning Jewish-Arab conflict in Palestine. They claim that the Sephardi and Oriental leaders recognized that their actions may jeopardize the future safety of the Jews in these countries. Linking these two issues—the actions of the Yishuv in Palestine, and the broader Jewish-Arab relations, put the oriental leaders of Palestine in a tight position. They had to navigate both the demands of their own constituencies, the various competing organizations of the Yishuv, as well as the community leaders of other countries. These competing interests affected their presentation of the parameters of the national conflict underway in Palestine. “Chose to depict the Jews of the Middle East as a community in political, economic, and physical distress, thereby linking the Jewish-Arab conflict in Palestine to the question of Jewish-Arab relations in the region as a whole.”13 In addition, the oriental leaders tried to make the case that these Jews should be given special permission to immigrate. However, at the time of this episode, immigration was not on the minds of the Lebanese Jewish community—as they were not technically considered as part of the golah, the diaspora—the community saw themselves as part of the wider Jewish community of Palestine. This view was clearly articulated by the Jewish community of Sidon in 1914, when after the Jewish school was shut down, the leaders of the community wrote a letter to the Yishuv, requesting support to help fund a school in Sidon, so that the Jewish children of the city “may learn the values of her nation, her 13 Abigail Jacobson and Moshe Naor, Oriental Neighbors, Middle Eastern Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine (Brandeis, 2016) p. 48.
language, her land, and the necessary sciences of life. Why diminish part of the community from the rest the community of Eretz Yisrael?”14 The letter is signed the community of Sidon, with an official stamp, spelling out Communite Israelite a Zidon (Syrie), in French, Hebrew, and Arabic. The stamp also highlights 1897 as the founding year of the community. While the letter does not specify to whom it as addressed, it is housed at the Archive of Jewish Education in Israel and the Diaspora, housed at Tel Aviv University. The community was writing to the newly established Zionist Committee of Education. The Jewish community of Beirut is documented to have had close ties with the Committee of Deputies, and the Committee of Education.15 The impending World War would further strain the community’s resources, and increase its reliance on outside organizations, a role the Yishuv, and American philanthropic organizations took upont themselves, evident by Rabbi Uziel’s visit on behalf of the Joint Distribution Committee in 1919. This was not the first time Zionist leaders took an interest in Sidon. In 1908, the Zionist organization Hibbat Zion, a movement that originated in the Russian Pale, and had an active branch in Beirut, was tasked with buying land in Palestine for Zionist immigrants from Russia. The head of the organization, who would become an important figure in the Yishuv, Menachem Ussishkin, was particularly interested in a farm that came on the market in Southern Lebanon, in the Sidon Nabatye region.16 He saw the land as a potentially important gateway that would provide the Zionists with a crucial foothold with which to create a chain of Jewish settlements in Eretz Yisrael. The sale never went through, but this episode put Sidon on the map for the Zionists, making it clear that this property might serve both political and material interests. The fall of the Ottoman Empire brought with it both considerable political and economic uncertainty, and increased the community’s dependence on outside Jewish organizations.
Under the Ottoman Empire, Jews were granted religious, legal, and
cultural autonomy, under what is known as the millet system. Ethno-national minorities 14
Petition from the Jewish Community of Sidon, Archive for Jewish Education in Israel and the Diaspora 1138. ED. Levi, p. 17. 16 Shlichover to the Odessa Committee, 20 Nisan 5668 [21 April 1908], A24/51/II, CZA. 15
were self-governed in matters of personal-status, property rights, education systems, exempted from military service, and had the right to be heard by the Sultan through their appointed religious leaders. This organization system fell apart following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, which brought with it many upheavals, and a more pressing need for the community to take care of its weakest members: orphans, widows, and the poor. This is where the Yishuv, and by extension, philanthropic movements of the West step in, providing moral and material support. The geographic proximity of the community to the Yishuv meant that the Jews of Sidon were able to benefit from the burgeoning Zionist organizations, in both economic and cultural realms. Being close in proximity to the sphere of influence of the Yishuv perhaps diminished any existential need for these Jews to immigrate to Palestine, if moving a few kilometers even merits the term immigration. For Sidon, the creation of the Va’ad, or Jewish community council, was a positive development, albeit having been imposed from the outside. Rabbi Uziel and Jack Mosseri allegedly had the best interests of the community at heart. It must be noted that the Keren Kayemet and Keren Hayesod had a regular practice of raising money for poor Jewish communities, and began traveling throughout the region to elicit funds from the neighboring communities. (The Jewish centers of the time were in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and Hebron). They would send representatives on to raise money, and despite the fact that the community itself was not well off, and had difficulty taking care of its poor, they would nonetheless make an effort to contribute. There remains a question as to the underlying motives of the Zionist emissaries. Yehuda Shenhav dedicated the prime focus of his study of the Zionist organization Soleh Boneh. He draws attention to certain dynamics traditional Zionist historiography overlooked—how British colonialism provided a cover for the Zionist emissaries goals, and by extension, created distinct demarcation lines between the ethnic groups of the region, plainly, European versus non-European. Evolution of Lebanon With the political uncertainty sweeping through the region following the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Jewish community of Lebanon came to rely on Zionist organizations for support. This relationship was complicated following the arrival of the
French, as the Jewish community would find itself caught between emerging pan-Arab nationalism, a Maronite-Yishuv alliance of common interests, and the modernization forces of economic growth brought on by the French-European orientation, which upgraded Beirut to the main hub of Levantine port cities. France was awarded the mandate for Lebanon on September 1 1920, following the April San Remo conference. The French then created the Republic of Lebanon through the territorial configuration of Greater Lebanon. The League of Nations dictated much harsher terms than the French were granted in North Africa; they were forbidden from implementing any sort of policy that would alter the structure of local society. While many Lebanese Christians saw this as an obstacle to independence, the centuries old friendship reassured other Maronites that French rule would provide the necessary check on Arab nationalism. For the Jewish community, the new Lebanese constitution was strikingly similar to the legal system they were used to under the Ottoman millet. While every elected representative had both the duty to represent the whole nation rather than their respective community, the seats in parliament were distributed on a confessional basis—in proportion to the demographic makeup of Lebanese society. What this meant for the Jewish community was that they retained, by in large, all of the religious and cultural autonomy they enjoyed under the Ottoman system. The only thing that changed, and in effect strengthened the Jewish community of Sidon, was the support it would receive from the Beirut community—the French authorities subjected the smaller Jewish communities of Sidon and Tripoli to the authority of the Beirut Jewish council. While this obviously irked some members of the community, it proved useful when in the 1930s, the community needed help dealing with various political and economic issues. The following three vignettes will outline to what extent the community of Sidon operated within a unique national-ethnic sphere, where it effectively straddled both the Zionism, transmitted by the shelichim17, emerging Lebanese nationalism promoted by the Christians, and the nascent pan-Arabism. These three conceptions competed against one another—Arab unity, Greater Syria, and an independent Lebanon. The Maronite hierarchy supported independence, 17
Zionist emissaries
while the secularist establishment claimed that Syria, Lebanon and Palestine constituted one secular territorial entity, as they saw this as the only possible solution to the conundrum of the region’s inter-ethnic distinctions. Lebanon’s Muslims, and some Greek Orthodox fell into the pan-Arab camp, while the Jews were by in large supportive of Lebanon’s right to self-determination. On June 13 1919, the Jewish community council of Sidon was faced with the question of whether or not to support an independent Lebanon. The minutes relay an episode where the council members are asked to sign a document pledging the council’s support for Sidon to be connected to the Lebanese state, under the auspices of the French mandate. 18 The community raised the question as to whether the Jews had any right to take a stand on this issue in the first place. They decided to consult with the Beiruti council, and even still, the council members questioned their authority to claim to speak for all of the Jews of Sidon. The community council of Beirut responded that Sidon would be wise to contact the committee in Jaffa, and get their opinion. In order to understand the importance of this episode, a brief history lesson is necessary. As previously mentioned, the French mandate over Lebanon and Syria began on September 1 1920. However, Maronite lobbying for the creation of Greater Lebanon had been years in the making. The modern history of Lebanon began with Général Gouraud’s official declaration of the creation of Greater Lebanon, Le Grand Liban, under the French mandate, on September 1 1920. As a result of the conference of San Remo and the Treaty of Sèvres, Greater Lebanon acquired for the first time the status of a state, with defined borders that correspond to today’s Lebanon. By the times of Sykes-Picot in 1916, an independent Lebanon within Syria was not part of any French plan. Yet, by September 1920, four developments accelerated the establishment of an independent Greater Lebanon. First, the French efforts to obtain its mandate over Syria were facilitated by the actions of the Maronite Church, represented by Patriarch Elias Huwayik who had called for an independent Christian Lebanon under a French Mandate. Their national claim went beyond the traditional territory of Mount Lebanon; indeed this resource-poor region 18 Réunion du 13 juin 1919, Fichier 1919_PV, Dossier Procès-verbaux du Conseil communal, Fonds Youssef Melhem Politi
could not constitute an economically viable state by itself. Therefore, they requested the annexation of other regions, which would include Beirut, the Biqa Valley, and Sidon. This Maronite request coupled with French strategic interests, led to the emergence of the project entitled Greater Lebanon, expanding the official territory beyond the borders of the former Mutasarrifiya. Greater Lebanon emerged from the annexation of the cities of Beirut, Sidon, Tyre, Tripoli and the four ex-Ottoman regions of Hasbaya, Rashaya, Ba’albak and Akkar, to the original territory of Mutasarrifiya. This annexation of new regions to Mount Lebanon dramatically changed the prevailing ethnic balance, as much of the area annexed to Mount Lebanon was occupied by Sunni and Shia Muslims. In addition to these ethnic divides, there were considerable political and social contrasts between Mount Lebanon and the annexed regions. First, the political history of the Mountain was rooted in the government of the elected Administrative Council of the Mountain, which had much more political autonomy and power than the other Ottoman provinces. Most of the religious sects were concentrated in specific areas, which accentuated the socio-economic divides. These contrasts and differences explained why there was little common identity in the Greater Lebanon, and no instinct to become a nation. This episode refers to lobbying efforts undertaken by the Maronite hierarchy and Lebanese emigrants in Paris, following the arrival of French troops to Lebanon in 1919— for whom, Grand Liban was the result of hundreds of years of yearning for independence and liberty. The Jewish community was faced with the opportunity to embrace this opportunity to become a minority amongst many, to be members in a multicultural state that not only respected the rights of confessional minorities, but also had its religious equality enshrined in the states’ constitution and legislative bodies. When compared to the broader context of Jews in the Middle East, this reality firmly secured the future of Jews in Lebanon, not as the ‘enemy within’, or as second-class citizens, but as a respected minority. Amongst these currents, it is still telling that the Jewish community of Beirut felt it necessary to seek advice on their best course of action from the Jewish council of Jaffa, of which Rabbi Uziel was the head. Nevertheless the consociational model proved inefficient, and politics in Lebanon, as is still the case, remained essentially a tribal-based
system. While the Jews began to tie to their future to the success of this multi-cultural state, they retained their close ties to the Yishuv. Decision to Celebrate the Balfour Declaration On the 31 of October 1920, the community decided that it would celebrate the Balfour Declaration’s third anniversary, to take place on November 2 of that year—the decision came on the heels of the establishment of independent Lebanon in September of 1920. 19 The decision to commemorate this date shows that the community leaders of Sidon felt a certain degree of appreciation for the British government’s declaration in support of the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This acknowledgement points to the fact that the Jews of Sidon did not see themselves necessarily apart from the Jews of Palestine. It is interesting to highlight the differences between this approach and that of Jewish intellectuals in neighboring Arab countries that felt that Zionism’s claim to represent Jews in Arab countries damaged or posed a threat to their positions in their home countries. The geographic proximity was likely the reason for the Jews of Sidon’s relatively less hostile approach—and this outlook carried over throughout the remaining years of the Yishuv. Feeling relatively little contradiction between their Jewish ethnonational identity, and their Lebanese identity, the Jews of Sidon had a more fluid, localterritorial identity. Pnina Morag Talmon was among the first scholars to outline the place of the Sephardim within the state building apparatus of the Yishuv. 20She defines ethnicity as emphasizing the cultural and traditional values of a particular identity, while nationality transcends the particular, and provides expression to a larger, overriding conception of the body politic. She examines how ethnicity and nationalism both coalesced and clashed within the Yishuv, to show that a very different Zionism existed for Sephardim versus Ashkenazim. While the Ashkenazim were familiar with nationalism, emancipation and enlightenment from their time in Europe, this led them to a widely different approach to Zionism than that of the Sephardim already living in Palestine. She makes a distinction between practical approaches embraced by the Ashkenazim, versus the more cultural 19 Fichier 1920_PV, 8. 19 Heshvan 1920 (5681), Dossier Procès-verbaux du Conseil communal, Fonds Youssef Melhem Politi.
20 Pnina Morag Talmon, Ha‘eda Hasfaradit Bitkufat Hayeshuv.
approach, with more symbolic emphases, such as the revival of the Hebrew language. This explanation is a common criticism launched at the Jews of Arab descent, and an explanatory variable with which to understand their lack of political clout in the Yishuv, has proved one-dimensional. 21 But in the case of the Jews of Sidon, this explanation provides insight to understand how the community interacted with Zionism and the Yishuv. While they felt a clear affinity and appreciation for Zionism, their means of connection to Zionism was through the spheres that were familiar and accessible to them. The main connection came through the cultural, social, and economic spheres. Tomer Levi shows how fundamental the philanthropic aspects were to shaping the community. “There was also a clear colonial component to local philanthropy; in the multi-communal structure of the Lebanese society, community status and social standing were highly regarded by the local Jewish leadership. Quite paradoxically, while local philanthropy strengthened the communal framework, it was also an important social practice that indicated the inclusion of the Jewish community in the mosaic of communities that constituted the Lebanese society.” This philanthropy extended beyond the borders of the Lebanese communities, with members of the community often donating to the neighboring communities of Haifa, Safed, and Jaffa. The community also regularly requested funds from individuals who were a part of the Zionist Commission, and from neighboring communities in Palestine in order to celebrate the Jewish High holidays, both Sukkot and Passover are mentioned explicitly. Personal Ties with the Yishuv Rabbi Meir Ben Uziel, the man who was responsible for the original organization of the Jewish community of Sidon was an important figure in the Yishuv. He was promoted to the position of Chief Sephardi Rabbi in 1939, after holding several positions as Chief Rabbi of Salonica, and subsequently of Tel Aviv. He was honorary president of both the Council of the Sephardi Community in Jerusalem and the World Confederation of Sephardi Jews.22 Apart from these prestigious positions, he was also known for his 21 Jacobson provides deeper insight into this issue in her book on the Jews of Ottoman Jerusalem. For further reference see: Abigail Jacobson, From Empire to Empire, Jerusalem Between Ottoman and British Rule, Syracuse University Press, 2011. 22 Jacobson, p. 69
close relationships with the leaders of the Jewish communities throughout the Middle East, and for his participation in numerous delegations sent on behalf of the Sephardi community of Palestine to the neighboring Jewish communities. On August 17 1944, the vice president of the community informed the council that Rabbi Uziel was in Beirut paying a visit to the community. 23 A delegation was sent to Beirut to invite him to come and visit Sidon. On the 23 of August 1944 the Rabbi visited Sidon, where he was welcomed by the community President Yousef Diwan, and after a visit to the synagogue, they ended up at the house of the Vice President, Youssef Politi. Rabbi Uziel was interested in the religious state of the community that he had help set up twenty years prior. The Rabbi had a regular correspondence with Sidon’s Jewish council leaders, sent the community prayer books to distribute to the poor, and requested donations to support the Yishuv. The community would often responded with requests for financial support. Conclusion The story of the Jews of Lebanon is often overlooked by historians—told as a part of the Arab-Israeli conflict, or within the context of the wider Levantine Jewish community. The framing question of this study was to examine the role the Jews of Sidon played vis-à-vis the Zionist movement in the timeframe between 1919 and 1948. Amongst varying emerging ethno-national movements, the Jews of Sidon navigated the range of new institutions created by the Yishuv, and fostered mutually beneficial economic, social and cultural ties. The community welcomed the counsel of prominent Sephardi Yishuv leaders, often turning to them to answer questions of how they should define themselves within the shifting landscape of a modernizing Middle East in flux. This story plays out amidst the backdrop of a wider narrative of ethnic dimensions to Zionist activity in Palestine. Historians are reevaluating the function and role played by the Sephardi and Oriental Jewish communities of Palestine with the Yishuv, their host communities, and the communities of the surrounding Middle Eastern landscape. By all intents and purposes, Lebanon’s Jewish community remains outside the lenses of this analysis. This is due in part to Lebanon’s relatively small Jewish community, and perhaps 23 Séance du 17 août 1944, Fichier 1944-PV, Dossier Procès-verbaux du Conseil communal, Fonds Youssef Melhem Politi.
to the overwhelming narrative of conflict and enmity which has overshadowed other potential approaches. While the relationship with the Yishuv was crucial in institutionalizing the Jewish community of Sidon, the council and community members never felt compelled to immigrate to join the nascent Jewish state following its inception in 1948. While the trajectory of the State of Israel following 1948 is beyond the scope of this study, this post-history adds an additional dimension to the story of Lebanon’s Jews: if they acknowledged and appreciated Zionism, and fostered successful relationships with the Yishuv, why did they not feel compelled to make it official, and pledge their allegiance with the ultimate act of immigration? One potential answer to this question relates to Lebanon’s uniqueness amongst the Middle Eastern states. Lebanon’s Jewish community has always stood apart, this distinctness due to the specific nature of inter-communal relations that differed from the social dynamics of Lebanon’s neighboring countries. Lebanon would develop a separate Francophile Levantine identity, and the Jewish community found itself as just one element of the emerging multi-cultural state.
Works Cited Behar, Moshe, Ben-Dor Benite, Zvi, eds. Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Politics, and Culture, 1893-1958. Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2013. xxxix + 257 pp. Levi, Tomer, The Formation of a Levantine Community: The Jews of Beirut, 1860-1939, Ph.D. Dissertation, Brandies University, 2010. Jacobson, Abigail. From Empire to Empire, Jerusalem Between Ottoman and British Rule, Syracuse University Press, 2011 Jacobson, Abigail, and Naor, Moshe. Oriental Neighbors, Middle Eastern Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine. Waltham: Brandeis, 2016. Shenhav, Yehuda. The Arab Jew. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006. Schulze, Kristin. The Jews of Lebanon. Sussex Academic Press, 2001. Zittrain Eisenberg, Lauara. My Enemy’s Enemy: Lebanon in the Early Zionist Imagination, 19001948. Wayne State University Press, 1994. Documents Cited: Visit of Chief Rabbi M.B. Uziel and Mr. Jack Mosseri, L4/415, CZA Petition from the Jewish Community of Sidon, Archive for Jewish Education in Israel and the Diaspora 1138. ED Shlichover to the Odessa Committee, 20 Nisan 5668 [21 April 1908], A24/51/II, CZA Archives Consulted: Fonds Youssef Melhem Politi Central Zionist Archives (CZA) Archive for the Jewish Education in Israel and the Diaspora (ED)
