IMAGInInG ThE “ISrAElITES” • 1731897, al-Muqtaṭaf considered the prospect of a Jewish return to pal-
estine. In 1895, in its “Opinions of Scholars” section, al-Muqtaṭaf in-
cluded an extended discussion on a proposal by a certain “Dr. Mendes
in a North american newspaper.”^132 Mendes, the journal reports, ar-
gued that “the only way to bring about the end of wars and disputes
between the world’s countries and to link the nations with bonds of
love and brotherhood is to return palestine to the Jews.” according
to al-Muqtaṭaf, Mendes offered a number of different arguments in de-
fense of this proposal. Among other benefits, granting Palestine to the
Jews would solve the “eastern Question,” he claimed, by removing
Palestine— “the primary ambition of European countries”— from the
claws of the european powers. It would also end the quarrel between
the various Christian sects in Jerusalem, as the goal of dominance for
any one of them would be rendered unrealizable. Finally, it would
solve the “Israelite problem,” that is, the problem of antisemitism in
russia, Germany, and France. Mendes’s arguments are presented with-
out comment or criticism until the last revealing line: “perhaps, were
he [Dr. Mendes] to consult with the Jews about their return to Jeru-
salem, he would find that many of them do not want this.”^133 For this
al-Muqtaṭafauthor, the utopian idea of a Jewish return to palestine was
unrealistic because Jews themselves were uninterested in pursuing it (a
fair assessment, no doubt, in 1895).
at least one of al-Muqtaṭaf’s editors— Shahin Makaryus— looked
more favorably on the Jewish nationalist movement to return to pal-
estine. Let us return to Makaryus’s History of the Israelites, the text in
which Makaryus described Jews in explicitly racial terms. perhaps re-
lated to his racial perspective on Jews, Makaryus evinces a discern-
ible sympathy for their desire to restore their sovereignty in palestine.
to write the history of the ancient Israelites, Makaryus employs “the
torah,” a term that by arabic convention includes the entire hebrew
Bible, as his primary source. the torah, he explains, narrates the Jews’
“slavery and oppression as well as the power, success, and sovereignty
that they achieved.” In this sense, the torah is the book of the Jews’
“consciousness, their beliefs, and religious and civil laws.” For the post-
biblical period, or, as he names it, the period “after the destruction
of Jerusalem,” Makaryus contends that the history of the Jews is not
found in any one book; rather it is “dispersed among the histories of
(^132) Neville Mandel suggests two possibilities as to the identity of this “Dr. Mendes”:
either henry pereira Mendes or Frederick de Sola Mendes, brothers and Sephardic rabbis
in New York. Mandel, TheArabsandZionismbeforeWorldWarI, 40n.35. henry pereira
Mendes was one of the founders of the Federation of american Zionists. See Sefton D.
temkin and eugene Markovitz, “Mendes,” in eJ^2.
(^133) al-Muqtaṭaf (October 1895), 795.