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

IMAGInInG ThE “ISrAElITES” • 143

of all kinds, philosophy, finance, music, and diplomacy. The rep-

utation of the medieval arabs as restorers of learning is largely

due to their wise tolerance of the enlightened Jewish communi-

ties in their midst. In recent years the persecutions, especially in

russia and rumania, have caused a fresh exodus, and flourishing

agricultural settlements have been founded in argentina and pal-

estine. Efforts have also been made to direct the current of migra-

tion to the British possessions in east Central africa.^43

Zaydan reproduces nearly all these lines in close arabic translation,
openly praising the Jews for their intelligence and resourcefulness.
there are two noteworthy changes Zaydan makes in his rendition of
this narrative. First, while he notes the British efforts to “transplant”
Jews to their East Africa protectorate, he omits mention of the “flour-
ishing settlements” in argentina and palestine. Later in this chapter we
will return to the issue of the presentation of Zionism by these journal-
ists; for now, we might simply note that Zaydan apparently preferred
not to broach the topic here. Second, while Keane presents Jews as the
ultimate source of the revival of scholarship and culture in medieval
Arab society— crediting Arabs with nothing more than not interfering
with the Jews’ intellectual creativity— Zaydan offers a different per-
spective. For him, Jews merely “had a hand in the renaissance [nahḍa]
of the arabic language during the Islamic civilization.”^44 Zaydan ac-
knowledges the role played by Jews in medieval arabic culture, but he
is loathe to attribute all of this culture’s accomplishments exclusively
to Jews.

Jewish and Arab race against European Prejudice

Implicit in these journalists’ conception of the Jews in racial terms
is the link between Jews and arabs. Five years before publishing his
monograph on human races, Jurji Zaydan was already considering the
relationship between Jews and arabs and the phenomenon of Jewish
arabs. In a 1903 volume of his al-­Hilāl, Zaydan published an article
entitled “the Jews in the Lands of the arabs” (al-­yahūd­fī­bilād­al-­ʿarab)
in response to a reader’s inquiry about “the arab tribes who converted
to Judaism before Islam.” Under the rubric of “Jews in the Lands of the
arabs,” Zaydan includes both people of biblical Israelite origin who
immigrated to the arabian peninsula as well as natives of these bilād­

(^43) Keane, The­World’s­Peoples, 332.
(^44) Zaydān, Ṭabaqāt­al-­umam­aw­as-­salāʾil­al-­bashariyya, 235.