98 • CHAPTER 3
are absent from ha-Ḥerut’s stated mission. the paper was meant to
be “an important Land of Israel newspaper [ʿitonereẓyisraʾeli],” not
a “parochial” Sephardic organ. Furthermore, as we shall see, though
the editors remained Sephardim throughout the run of the newspaper,
several of ha-Ḥerut’s regular contributors were actually Ashkenazim.^12
Bezalel, in his monograph on Sephardic Zionists in Ottoman Palestine,
aptly describes ha-Ḥerut not as a Sephardic newspaper but rather as
“a national newspaper with Sephardic ownership.”^13 While one must
not disregard the Sephardic identity of the owners, editors, and many
of the writers of ha-Ḥerut in analyzing this newspaper, one would be
mistaken to link the views presented in the paper exclusively with Pal-
estine’s Sephardic community. For this reason, I endeavor to highlight
the identities of the authors of particular articles when they are noted;
at the same time, it is important to read these articles in the contexts
of the papers in which they appeared and the cultural worlds of the
leaders of those papers.
In the pages of ha-Ḥerut, the Christians of palestine are often denoted
simply as “Christians,” even when religion— as we might understand
it^14 — does not appear to have any connection to the story. For instance,
in august 1909, ha-Ḥerut reported that “many families of Jerusalem’s
youth from among our nation [i.e., Jews] left our city this week. Many
Christian youths from Bethlehem also left our land and traveled to
America [or] to Argentina to seek work.”^15 Indeed, palestine’s Chris-
tians were a disproportionately urban community and shared a number
of socioeconomic characteristics with their Jewish counterparts. While
these similarities bred competition and, at times, strife, they also led,
or at least permitted, Jews and Christians to act in similar ways— such
as emigrating in response to economic hardships. Jews and Christians
were also similarly affected by the Young Turk Revolution, after which
both communities were legally subject to Ottoman military conscrip-
tion. In this context, ha-Ḥerut reported on the drafting of many Beth-
lehem Christians: “The number of Greek, Latin, and Protestant Chris-
tian residents of Bethlehem whose time has arrived to serve in the
army has reached four hundred.”^16 In another 1909 article, ha-Ḥerut
(^12) Bezalel lists Yehoshua Radler- Feldmann (Rabbi Benjamin), A. M. Heimann, Mor-
decai Ben Hillel ha- Cohen, Y. M. Tukachinsky, Samuel Tiktin, Y. H. Teller, Menashe
Meirovitz, M. M. Bronstein, nahum Maltzen, Mikhael nekhes, Moshe Smilansky, Mendel
Kraemer, A. Z. Rabinovitz, Aryeh Roznik, and Samuel Rafaelovitz. See Beẓalʾel, “ʿAl
yiḥudo shel ‘ha-Ḥerut’ (1909– 1917) ve- ʿal Ḥayim Ben- ʿAtar ke- ʿorkho,” 129.
(^13) Beẓalʾel, Noladetemẓiyonim, 305ff.
(^14) See my discussion of these categories in the introduction.
(^15) ha-Ḥerut 1:33. the author is Mendel Kremer.
(^16) ha-Ḥerut 2:6 (October 12, 1909), 3. The author is Mendel Kremer.