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

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“even during the pre- Islamic era.”^78 Indeed, soon after the Jews’ arrival
in the Arabian Peninsula, to which they fled from “roman oppression,”
“commerce and money- changing were virtually their monopolies.”
and the situation was much the same, the author explains, in Iraq,
Syria (ash- Shām), and Egypt.
While for rida, as we saw above, a primary cause of antisemitism
was the Jews’ excessive self- interest, this al-­Hilāl author explains the
widespread hatred of Jews in a related but somewhat more sympa-
thetic way. “It is possible,” the article suggests, that the Jews’ “wealth
was one of the most significant reasons for their persecution, due to
envy and jealousy.” as opposed to attributing anti- Jewish sentiment
to a negative quality of Jews, the author instead blames non- Jews’
“envy and jealousy.” the Jews’ “enemies poured wrath upon their [the
Jews’] religion and seized, expelled, and killed them.” though the
Jews’ wealth was a target of gentile jealousy, those responsible for the
hatred and violence were the coveters, not the coveted.
though the al-­Hilāl author and rida differed in their apparent de-
gree of sympathy toward the Jews and in their explanations of the
Jews’ persecution, they agreed in one important regard. In the minds of
both the Muslim rida and the writer for the Christian- edited al-­Hilāl,^79
the Jewish experience under Islamic rule was fundamentally distinct
from (and superior to) that under non- Muslim domination. the Jewish
condition was so grave in the pre- Islamic Middle east, writes al-­Hilāl’s
author, “that when Islam arrived, they [the Jews] saw in it relief for
themselves, and they assisted the Muslims in their goals and helped
them with the means of conquest.” In turn, the Muslims “were kind” to
the Jews; “they became close with them and many [Jews under Islamic
rule] were distinguished in science and politics even though their en-
deavors were mostly devoted to trade, money- changing, and usury.”
Indeed, the author explains, they constituted a number of the famous
financial houses in the Abbasid state in Iraq, the Fatimid state in Egypt,
and the Umayyad state in andalusia. In contrast to this remarkably
comfortable coexistence within the Islamic realm, the Jews of europe


continued to suffer persecution under the rule of Christian kings
to the point that oftentimes official orders were issued to take
their money, burn their books, and expel them, based on charges
that were mostly fabrications. Some of these accusations are still
leveled [against them] until the present day, such as the charge of
kidnapping Christian children, poisoning drinking wells and the

(^78) Literally: the period of arab “ignorance.”
(^79) As this article was anonymous, the religious affiliation of its author is unknown.

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