Defining Neighbors. Religion, Race, and the Early Zionist-Arab Encounter - Jonathan Marc Gribetz

RUHI AL-KHALIdI’S “AS-SAYūNīZM” • 81

egypt, where they found the freedom and safety that they lacked

in their land, and where they enjoyed civil rights nearly equiva-

lent to the rights of the Greeks themselves. So their numbers in-

creased to the point that Alexandria itself came to have more than

one million of them, i.e., approximately one- third of the popula-

tion, if the Jewish scholar Philo’s estimate is correct.^147

clearly utilizing Moyal’s work as his source, al- Khalidi offers a version
of this account that is, for the most part, a verbatim reproduction of his
source. The changes he makes, therefore, are of great interest:

When the oppression of Antiochus, King of Syria, increased upon

the Israelites, large groups [jamm­ghafīr] of them emigrated to

egypt as there was safety and freedom there and they enjoyed

civil rights nearly equivalent to the rights of the Greeks them-

selves. They worked in [the fields] that they loved— money-

changing, resale for profit, monopoly, and all types of commerce

and jewel trading— and they amassed much money. Their num-

bers increased to the point that Alexandria itself came to have

more than a million of them, i.e., approximately a third of the

population, if the Jewish scholar Philo’s estimate is correct.^148

As can readily be seen, al- Khalidi’s version takes Moyal’s text about
the retreat of masses of Jews to egypt, and especially Alexandria, and
inserts within it a claim not only about the ways in which they earned
their livelihood— namely, in commercial and financial fields— but also
a statement that these were the economic spheres they “loved.”
Moyal himself offers a different theory about the concentration of
Jews in commerce. “The Jewish nation,” writes Moyal, “at the origin
of its creation, worked in raising cattle and farming the land. It did
not concern itself with commerce, which, in the period of this nation’s
independence, was in the hands of the canaanites.” The extent of Isra-
elite aversion to commerce, he contends, is recognizable in the Hebrew
prophets’ rebuke— “more than once”— of those who engage in trading.
Acknowledging that the contemporary Jewish professional profile does
not correspond with this supposed hostility toward commerce, Moyal
concludes:

And if we see that the members of the Israelite nation are now

strongly inclined toward commerce and working with money,

this is because of the bigotry of the nations in the Middle Ages.

This is what forced them to abandon making a livelihood through

(^147) Mūyāl, at-­Talmūd, 52.
(^148) al- Khālidī, “as- Sayūnīzm, ay al- masʾala aṣ- ṣahyūniyya” [copyist version], 30.