12 • InTROduCTIOn
the sources are descriptive (e.g., accounts of day- to- day incidents in Pal-
estine), while others are prescriptive and even polemical (e.g., religious
apologetic literature). Finally, the texts were written in a variety of lan-
guages (Arabic, Hebrew, Yiddish, Judeo- Arabic, German, and French).
My aim in this selection is not to claim that these texts constitute a
“representative sample,” a futile goal for an intellectual history project
of this type, but rather to offer a wide variety of kinds of sources, each of
which sheds light on another aspect of the mutual perceptions under re-
view. For instance, through mining Zionist newspapers for references to
the Zionists’ non- Jewish neighbors, I show how Zionist writers thought
of their counterparts in Palestine when they were simply (that is, pre-
sumably reflexively and unself consciously) naming them. This is a type
of observation that could not be obtained through the study of, for ex-
ample, more philosophical or apologetic texts, such as those of Moyal
or Malul. These latter— at-Talmūdand Asrāral-yahūd— allow us to un-
derstand how Judaism, Jewish history, and Zionism might be presented
to non- Jewish Arabic- readers in a way that the Hebrew newspapers
obviously could not. At the same time, though al- Khalidi’s manuscript
provides a unique perspective on one influential Arab leader’s percep-
tions of the Jews and Zionism, fin de siècle Arabic journal articles offer
insights into the way a far broader range of Arab intellectuals imagined
the Jews and conceived of their relationship to them. Moreover, these
articles were not generally concerned specifically with Zionism or even
Palestine, so they permit us to view Arab perceptions differently from
those proffered in a text explicitly focused on Zionism. The range of
sources examined in this book, in other words, permits us to analyze
perceptions in this encounter on both micro and macro levels.^16
Blended History and the Scholarly
Taboos of Religion and RaceTwo final points are in order about the significance of this book, both
historically and historiographically. First, it is worth highlighting one
broader way in which this project attempts to contribute to the study
(^16) Because of the radical transformations that occurred in Palestine with the fall of
the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the British Mandate— not least the signif-
icant increase in intercommunal tensions— retrospective accounts of the Late Ottoman
period are exceedingly problematic for a study of mutual perceptions. Therefore, though
I appreciate the considerable utility of autobiographical memoirs and oral histories in
certain historiographical projects, I have consciously avoided these sources here. For the
potential benefits of such material, see doumani, Rediscovering Palestine, 11– 12. On the
need for cautious skepticism, see Stanislawski, Autobiographical Jews.