“CONCerNING Our ARAb QuESTIOn”? • 127ha-Poʿelha-ẓaʿir, founded and staffed by members of the eponymous
workers’ party, Histadrut ha- poʿalim ha- ẓeʿirim be- ereẓ yisraʾel (Orga-
nization of Young Workers in the Land of Israel).^122 Given these sources,
Jacobson notes that the differences she observed between ha-Ḥerut, on
the one hand, and ha-Aḥdut and ha-Poʿelha-ẓaʿir, on the other, should
be regarded as differences between Sephardic Zionists and Second Ali-
yah Ashkenazic Zionists (rather than Ashkenazic Zionists broadly).^123
By adding the Ben- Yehuda family’s newspapers into the analytical
frame, my study both builds on and complicates Jacobson’s provoca-
tive analysis and conclusions. to be sure, I mined the newspapers for
different sorts of material (especially the terminology and categories
employed in referring to the non- Jews of Palestine) rather than focus-
ing on more programmatic statements. I would suggest, however, that
the commonalities we noted between the Sephardic- edited ha-Ḥerut
and the newspapers of Eliezer Ben- Yehuda, a First Aliyah Ashkenazic
Zionist, support Jacobson’s intuition that the differences she identified
between ha-Ḥerut, on the one hand, and the socialist Second aliyah
papers, on the other, caution against imagining a clear divide between
Ashkenazim and Sephardim.
While some Sephardim during the Late Ottoman period, and still
more thereafter, charged the Ashkenazim with callousness toward Pal-
estine’s arabs and an unwillingness to learn arabic or understand local
culture,^124 it must be noted that for the editors of ha-Ḥerut, the differ-
ences were not black and white. The primary concern that the editors
voiced regarding their non- Jewish neighbors was, as noted above, that
the arabic press was vociferously anti- Zionist. as ha-Ḥerut’s editors
made their case about the degree to which the arabic press posed for-
midable challenges to the future of the Jewish settlement in palestine
and the consequent need to create a Zionist- edited arabic newspaper
to respond to the alleged slander, they declared: “of the newspapers
of our city, we can say that the truth is that ha-Aḥdut is the only one
(^122) Ha- histadrut ha- poʿalim ha- ẓeʿirim be- ereẓ yisraʾel (known by the shortened name
ha- poʿel ha- ẓa‘ir) was founded in Petah Tikvah in 1905. For an English translation of the
organization’s founding document, see Kaplan and Penslar, TheOriginsofIsrael,1882–
1948 , 39– 41.
(^123) In her recent monograph, Jacobson argues that “Zionism indeed played out dif-
ferently among the Sephardi elite and the european Jewish immigrants to palestine,
especially those of the second ʿaliya.” Jacobson contends that the Sephardic Zionists ad-
vocated an “inclusive Zionism” (viewing the arabs as “possible partners for a future life
in the country”) in contrast to the Second Aliyah Ashkenazic Zionists, who advocated an
“exclusive Zionism” (one that “excluded the arabs from the discussion about future life
in Palestine”). Jacobson, From Empire to Empire, 97– 98.
(^124) Ibid., 105, 111.