Defining Neighbors

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2015 "[F]ortuitously for readers, Gribertz's work contextualize(s) a present-day shift toward religious rhetoric, symbols, and organizations in the conflict. He shows that religion was once central for Jews and Arabs seeking to understand each other, and that nationality is in fact a latecomer to that encounter. But more importantly, he shows that a religious encounter need not mean a holy war."--Raphael Magarik, Haaretz "An essential contribution to the growing conversation."--Noah Haiduc-Dale, H-Net Reviews "In the ever-growing and highly saturated field of Arab-Israeli conflict studies, it is rare for a book to break new ground and challenge long-held and well-entrenched perceptions. This is one of those rare exceptions."--Choice "[A] field-changing new book... Indeed, such a sensitive treatment of historical texts, in light of multiple political contexts, geographic frames, and religious and cultural discourses should serve as a model for many historians working to interpret, categorize, and contextualize the texts they encounter--and for all those who study how changing circumstances change the terms of discourse and lead to mutual understanding or misunderstanding."--Jewish History "Gribetz's fascinating book makes a major contribution to the literature on early Zionist-Arab encounters, in particular, and to the intellectual history of late Ottoman Palestine and the Levant, more generally."--AJS Review

Jonathan Marc Gribetz is assistant professor of Near Eastern studies and Judaic studies at Princeton University.

Acknowledgments ix Note on Transliterations xiii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Locating the Zionist-Arab Encounter: Local, Regional, Imperial, and Global Spheres 15 Chapter 2 Muhammad Ruhi al-Khalidi's "as-Sayunizm": An Islamic Theory of Jewish History in Late Ottoman Palestine 39 Chapter 3 "Concerning Our Arab Question"? Competing Zionist Conceptions of Palestine's Natives 93 Chapter 4 Imagining the "Israelites": Fin de Siecle Arab Intellectuals and the Jews 131 Chapter 5 Translation and Conquest: Transforming Perceptions through the Press and Apologetics 185 Conclusion 235 Bibliography 249 Index 269