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aversion to the latter- day “Israelite national renaissance” informed the
way in which he perceived and portrayed ezra the “nationalist” and
Torah- forger.
Jews and Money in “as- Sayūnīzm”Al- Khalidi asserted publicly that his antagonism was not against Jews
but against Zionism.^143 Nonetheless, elements of his manuscript betray
a sentiment that is difficult to characterize as mere anti- Zionism.^144
Such is particularly the case when it comes to his presentation of the
relationship among Jews, money, and commerce. After quoting a
number of Qurʾanic passages concerning the afterlife, al- Khalidi con-
trasts these with the beliefs of the Jews, for whom “religious happi-
ness, rather, is worldly happiness, which, in their opinion, is abundant
money and children. The holiest duties, for them, are two: the first is
increasing descendants and children, and the other is the acquisition,
accumulation, and increase of money.”^145 This is not the first instance
in which al- Khalidi describes what brings Jews “religious happiness.”
As we found earlier, he contends that Jews find “religious happiness”
in the possession of Zion. Now he adds two additional sources of Jew-
ish religious happiness: the accumulation of wealth and the prolifer-
ation of offspring. Importantly, in accounting for the values of Jews,
al- Khalidi appeals to their religion.
The theme of the Jews’ obsession with money reappears throughout
al- Khalidi’s manuscript. Writing of the Jews living under the rule of
Alexander the Great, al- Khalidi contends that they “were infatuated
with profit and money- changing and the rest of the commercial activ-
ities, as was their habit from antiquity in egypt and Babylonia.”^146 He
perceives Jewish financial greed throughout Jewish history, and he
seeks to highlight this phenomenon even when it does not appear in
his literary source. Once more, a comparison of al- Khalidi’s manuscript
to Moyal’s at-Talmūdis instructive. In a passage concerning Antiochus’s
reign over Judea, Moyal writes:
When the force of Antiochus’s oppression increased upon the Is-
raelites in Judea, large groups [jammghafīr] of them emigrated to(^143) This was the case, for instance, in his speech before the Ottoman Parliament. See
Khalidi, PalestinianIdentity, 80– 81, 238n.88.
(^144) On the complicated question of the origins of antisemitism among twentieth- and
twenty- first- century Muslims, see cohen, “Muslim Anti- Semitism.”
(^145) al- Khālidī, “as- Sayūnīzm, ay al- masʾala aṣ- ṣahyūniyya” [copyist version], 14.
(^146) Ibid.