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Age, Race, and Jewish Terrorism on Trial in Mandatory Palestine: The Case of Rachel Habshush
Abstract
This paper examines how age became a racialized category in British-mandate Palestine. It focuses on the case of Rachel Habshush (Ohevet Ami), a young Jewish woman of Yemeni and Moroccan descent who, while working for the Irgun Zionist paramilitary organization in 1939, disguised herself as an “Arab” and tried to plant a bomb amidst Palestinian visitors at a Jerusalem prison. Habshush’s presence at the prison aroused the suspicion of British and Arab police officers who searched Habshush, found the bomb, and put her on trial. Habshush was sentenced to life imprisonment, rather than to death, all because of one medical expert’s assessment of her young age. Although an X-Ray indicated that Habshush was nineteenth, the medical expert working for the defense claimed that Habshush was most likely only seventeen, since the X-Ray machine was made for “European” bones and not for “Oriental” bones. This paper explores a series of questions related to Habshush’s trial: What did it mean for a Jewish girl of Yemeni and Moroccan descent to dress up like an “Arab”? What roles did Mizrahi Jews play in Zionist terrorist operations against Palestinians? And more broadly, how might we understand age as a racialized category that both delineated and blurred the borders between Ashkenazim, Mizrahim, and Palestinians?
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Palestine
Sub Area
Gender/Women's Studies