RUHI AL-KHALIdI’S “AS-SAYūNīZM” • 61Jewish leader from Izmir, “are the greatest opponents of Zionism.”^77
Such, al- Khalidi infers, is the power of Mendelssohn’s theory.
The reader finally encounters al- Khalidi’s clearest explanation of
this asqāmah halfway through the manuscript in yet another discussion
of naẓariyyatMāndilsūn. “Mendelssohn’s theory,” al- Khalidi writes,
“means that there is never again to be Jewish nationalism.”^78 al- Khalidi
emphasizes that “Mendelssohn was not alone in this view.” Rather, all
the Jews of western europe agreed with his theory, and thus “it was
certified by the community of rabbis.^79 Their people resolved to accept
it and they named this consensus with the term of their religious law^80
‘asqāmah,’ which means the consensus of the people. Their acceptance
of this theory was not political only, but rather religious and religious-
legal.”^81 With this final explication of Mendelssohn’s theory and its
binding “religious and religious- legal” authority over contemporary
Jewry,^82 we might finally decipher al- Khalidi’s theory of modern Jew-
ish history and identity. Al- Khalidi notes a dramatic change in the ways
in which Jews in the modern world conceived of themselves— and par-
ticularly of their national identity— and he is quite correct to do so.
Though, as we have seen, he may have been mistaken historically, or
at least overly simplistic, in linking this transformation directly to
Moses Mendelssohn, al- Khalidi was hardly exceptional in associating
Mendelssohn with an opposition to Zionism; Jewish Zionists and anti-
Zionists of al- Khalidi’s time did the same.^83
What, though, did al- Khalidi have in mind when he wrote of this so-
called asqāmah? While the term is presumably a corruption resulting
from the Arabic transliteration of a european- language transliteration
of the Hebrew term haskamah, or “agreement,” the particular historical
(^77) See al- Khālidī, “as- Sayūnizm, ay al- masʾala aṣ- ṣahyūniyya” [copyist version], 6; al-
Khālidī, “as- Sayūnizm, ay al- masʾala aṣ- ṣahyūniyya” [author’s version].
(^78) Al- Khalidi uses the phrase al-qawmiyyaal-yahūdiyya.
(^79) jumhūral-ḥākhāmīnwa-r-rabānīn. This phrase might also be understood as “most of
the rabbis” or even “all the rabbis.”
(^80) Al- Khalidi uses the Islamic legal term sharīʿa.
(^81) The final words are “dīniyyanwa-sharʿiyyan.” al- Khālidī, “as- Sayūnizm, ay al-
masʾala aṣ- ṣahyūniyya” [copyist version], 55.
(^82) Or at least those in western europe. There is an ambiguity in al- Khalidi’s presenta-
tion of this consensus: at times he portrays it as the agreement of all the Jews and their
rabbis, whereas at other times he limits the claim to western european Jewry.
(^83) even al- Khalidi’s Zionist neighbor Ben- Yehuda linked the claim that the Jews are
“not a people” to Mendelssohn. “even in countries where the Jews never heard of the
name Moses Mendelssohn or his teachings,” Ben- Yehuda wrote in 1880, “Jewish youth
is repeating the pattern of the Jews in Germany by turning away from its people and the
language of its forefathers. The Maskilim of Berlin wrote many books and created elab-
orate theories to prove that we are not a people.” See Hertzberg, TheZionistIdea, 163.