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Was there an “Arab-Jewish Question” in the Middle East?
Abstract
In his Enlightenment in the Colony: The Jewish Question and the Crisis of Postcolonial Culture, Aamir Mufti posits the Jewish Question as a “quintessential European Problematic” thereby opening it up for a broader discussion relating to other religious minorities elsewhere in world. Whereas Mufti’s book focuses on Hindu-Muslims relations in India, this paper uses it as a point of departure to think about the Middle Eastern Jews during the period between 1850 and 1950. It does so in two ways. First, and more broadly, by looking again at how the European Jewish question affected Middle Eastern Jews and their histories. Second, it focuses on local instances indicating the articulation of a “Middle Eastern Jewish question” by Middle Eastern Jewish intellectuals writing in Arabic and in Hebrew. The paper ends with a reflection on the place of the Middle Eastern Jewish Question between the European Jewish Question and the Question of Palestine.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Arab States
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries