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

“CONCerNING Our ARAb QuESTIOn”? • 111

but also the intellectuals who have received higher education. Now

that they hear sounds of happiness from the Jews upon the accep-

tance of Jewish- Muslims to the university, three Muslim intellectu-

als publish this letter to the editor of Moskovskie­vedomosti.^69

By including this extensive quotation, the author suggests that the
real adversaries of Muslims in russia in this matter were not Jews but
Christians^70 (and, read in ha-­­Ẓevi, the implication would seem to be
that the same was true in Palestine as well).

Identity at the Borders

Regardless of the political implications involved in emphasizing dis-
tinctions between groups, found in the pages of Ben- Yehuda’s newspa-
pers in the postrevolutionary years is a strain of interest in and anxiety
concerning the borders of identity in Late Ottoman palestine. Consider,
for instance, the small, rather cryptic paid notice^71 in ha-­­Ẓevi in an issue
from november 1908 (mentioned in chapter 1) that reads: “To the
arab hebrew woman [la-­ʿivriyah­ha-­ʿarviyah]! If you are a hebrew, you
are not an arab. If an arab, not a hebrew. So, you are neither a hebrew
nor an arab. C.Q.F.D.”^72 the author who submitted this note appears
to be writing to question, on logical grounds, an earlier note that was
signed by “an arab hebrew woman.” Just six notices below this dis-
missal, there is yet another enigmatic notice that reads: “to M.M.: I
saw you, I knew you, I respected you. I will leave you, I will remember
you, and I will not forget you,” signed “arab hebrew” (ʿivri­ʿarvi).^73
these brief, mysterious notices suggest that, at this point in palestine’s
history, the borders between “hebrew” and “arab” were still being
delineated.^74 though there were surely those who forcefully disagreed,

(^69) ha-­­Ẓevi 25:47 (December 8, 1908), 3.
(^70) Indeed, Russian Christians, a population particularly despised in the Ottoman
context.
(^71) the section titled Doʾar­ha-­­Ẓevi was a sort of classifieds section of ha-­­Ẓevi, for which
advertisers and other correspondents paid a small fee (a tenth- piece) per line. See, e.g.,
ha-­­Ẓevi 25:39 (november 24, 1908), 3, for an explanation of the system.
(^72) ha-­­Ẓevi 25:42 (november 27, 1908), Supplement, 2. C.Q.F.D. is the French equiva-
lent of the Latin term of logic Q.e.D. the continuation of this notice becomes even more
inscrutable.
(^73) Ibid.
(^74) the related idea of the Jewish arab or the arab Jew has been the subject of much
discussion in recent years. See, e.g., Shenhav, The Arab Jews; Somekh, Baghdad,­Yester-
day; Gottreich, “Historicizing the Concept of Arab Jews in the Maghrib,” 433– 51; Levy,
“Historicizing the Concept of Arab Jews in the Mashriq,” 452– 69; Jacobson, From Empire
to Empire, 111– 16.