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

RUHI AL-KHALIdI’S “AS-SAYūNīZM” • 55

separated the Mosaic religion from Jewish nationalism [al-­

qawmiyya­al-­yahūdiyya]^56 and abolished this nationalism. It

obliged the Jews to acquire the citizenship of the countries [jinsiy-

yat­al-­bilād] in which they were born, such as Germany, Austria,

France, and england, to imitate^57 the rest of the christian peoples

of these countries, and to enter with them [the christians] into

european civilization. It [Mendelssohn’s theory] made them for-

get the land of Palestine from which they left and the Hebrew lan-

guage, which they stopped speaking two thousand years earlier.^58

For al- Khalidi, what he called Mendelssohn’s theory was the bold disen-
tangling of Jewish religion and Jewish nationality. This theory, accord-
ing to al- Khalidi, embraced “the Mosaic religion” while it decisively
and irrevocably disposed of the nationality and all its concomitant
marks of distinction: Jewish language, land, and customs. Al- Khalidi
asserts that “whoever looked upon” western european Jews— who, in
al- Khalidi’s view, accepted and modeled Mendelssohn’s theory— “saw
nothing other than Frenchmen or englishmen, for example, without re-
gard to their being Jewish or christian, whether catholic or Protestant,
due to the great degree of similarity between them.”^59
Al- Khalidi mixes a sociological observation— that the Jews (at
least in western europe) did in fact acculturate among their christian
neighbors— with the doctrinal statement he names “Mendelssohn’s the-
ory.” Strikingly, it is the latter, the theory, that is critical for al- Khalidi.
Mendelssohn’s theory, in al- Khalidi’s conception of modern Jewish
history, is not merely the translation of sociological reality into ideo-
logical terms. Rather, it has prescriptive, even binding, force. In a re-
statement of this theory, al- Khalidi writes, “it is not­permitted for a Jew
who was born in Prussia or Austria or France, for example, to consider
himself anything but a Prussian or Austrian or Frenchman.” Moreover,
“he does not have the right to call for Jewish nationalism. . . . It is
not permissible to consider his nationality to be Jewish nationalism,
nor his homeland Palestine.”^60 The language al- Khalidi uses in de-
scribing Mendelssohn’s theory is strikingly legal in nature. This theory
has the power to “abolish” nationalism; to “oblige” the acquisition of

(^56) Al- Khalidi uses the term qawmiyya, which, in the early twentieth century, could
mean either nationalism or nationality. See P. J. Vatikiotis, M. Brett, A.K.S. Lambton,
c. H. dodd, G. e. Wheeler, F. Robinson, “Kawmiyya,” in Encyclopaedia­of­Islam.
(^57) Al- Khalidi uses the term at-­tashabbuh, literally “imitation,” though perhaps “accul-
turate among” would more accurately match the sense implied here.
(^58) al- Khālidī, “as- Sayūnīzm, ay al- masʾala aṣ- ṣahyūniyya” [copyist version], 2
(^59) Ibid.
(^60) Ibid.