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From 1948 to 1967, most Arab stamp depictions of Palestine showed its borders as it existed during the British Mandate (1922-1948), from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. These borders convey Arab support for the Palestine cause, the right for Palestinians to return to what became Israel in 1948 and strengthen the Arab propaganda war against Israel by rejecting its right to exist. Occasionally Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia deviate from these portrayals by delineating the Gaza Strip and excluding the West Bank from Palestine. This study will argue that Arab stamp fluctuations of Palestine's borders from 1948 to 1967 occurred because the territories became social constructs by the Arab regimes; Nasser's Egypt depicted Gaza as part of the imagined 'Arab nation', Jordan recognized the West Bank as integral to the Hashemite Kingdom and a temporary deposit until the liberation of Palestine, and all Arab states recognized that Gaza and the West Bank had once comprised part of British Mandatory Palestine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the political background of the formation of the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) as a corollary of the Arab League’s inability to adopt a unified response to the November 1947 UN Partition Resolution. From its inception, ALA was never intended to help the Palestinian Arabs but to serve the goals of the Arab leaders, especially those of Syrian President Shukri Quwatli who sought to thwart Transjordan’s King Abdullah’s ‘Greater Syria’ scheme. This was the reason why the Arab leaders failed to involve the Palestinian Arabs in ALA’s formation and war operations, or to consult their leader, the former Jerusalem Mufti Hajj Amin Husseini, when deciding upon the appointment of ALA commander. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay draws attention to Yehuda Benari, a forgotten figure in the Revisionist Zionist movement who, in addition to serving as the movement’s attorney general (1938–46) and the head of the London office (1947–48), was a leading Zionist lawyer, activist, historian, and journalist. My thesis is that Benari modeled his life, both actively and intellectually, on the leading principles and ideals of Vladimir Jabotinsky. However, his unwavering commitment to Jabotinsky’s interpretation of Revisionist Zionism impeded Benari’s chances of adapting to change and prevented a political career in independent Israel. Nonetheless, his work in the 1940s on behalf of political prisoners sheds light on the way Revisionists used British law as part of their overall struggle. This piece also helps us interpret the political fate of a generation of Revisionist Zionists between Jabotinsky’s death (1940) and the establishment of the State of Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the integration of the Mount Hebron area into a distinct social and political region during the time of British Mandate in Palestine and the emergence of a regional "Hebronite" identity encompassing both the city of Hebron and the villages of the area. The study demonstrates that, while in many areas of the country such regional integration, or regionalization, developed through the gradual growth of economic, administrative, and political networks in the nineteenth century, the regionalization of Mount Hebron took place much later. It was not an outcome of the same dynamics as in other regions, but mainly a reaction born of chronic insecurity, as well as the social and even environmental hardships experienced in the region. In the 1940s, the determination to overcome these challenges was translated into the construction of a stable regional system that had significant intra-Palestinian and even geopolitical consequences. The study also shows that, while the Hebronite identity was a sub-national one, it had strong symbiotic, sometimes ambivalent, relations with the Palestinian and Arab national identities. Moreover, it was in no way a primordial but clearly a modern phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article follows the footsteps of the American Jewish newspaperwoman Dorothy Kahn Bar-Adon, who immigrated to Palestine in 1933 and became a central field reporter of the most important English-language newspaper in the country, The Palestine Post, owned by pro-Zionist proprietors. It explores how she transformed the newspaper over the years as a site of dialogue between the Jewish and the Arab societies, especially by her narrative journalism and her human-interest story angle, and how her writing in English – the language of the international power (Britain) designated by the League of Nations to administer the country, rather than in local languages – enabled her to propose a somehow distanced perspective on Palestine, while still promoting Zionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When reading texts mentioning past currencies, especially those that were in use in Ottoman and British Palestine and the first decade of the State of Israel, historians often remain puzzled as to the relative value of former legal tenders in particular historical periods (i.e. what a specific sum of money could buy), and more so how to interpret the value of specific currencies between these and later periods. Such an interpretation is not only the interest of historians, because there is a practical need to verify sums in obsolete currencies, such as in agreements and laws, in today's money. Few experts are able to make even an inexact linkage from the Mandate period to present day Israel, while linkage from the Ottoman period remains too vague. The main aim of this article is to improve this situation by using applied history, to propose some rules of thumb for understanding the magnitude of such currencies, according to market values and/or laws, and to provide a provisional tool for linkage of former legal tenders – Ottoman Liras, Egyptian Pounds, British Pounds, Palestinian Pounds, Israeli Liras and old Shekels – to present monetary values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the First World War drew to a close, the head of the American Red Cross’s Commission to Palestine, John Huston Finley, stepped into ongoing debates over the future of the Holy Land when he called for an international trusteeship in Palestine. Supporters and opponents of the Zionist movement – as well as the few scholars that have since engaged with Finley’s views – primarily understood Finley’s proposal as anti-Zionist. While Finley certainly presented his plan as an alternative to a Jewish state in Palestine, this article demonstrates that Finley’s proposal was much more directly a case for a British mandate that was rooted in Finley’s experiences working with the British – as well as his personal fascination with General Edmund Allenby. Finley believed and argued that Allenby’s person, character, and conduct demonstrated that the interests of ‘civilization’ could best be secured in Palestine by a British trusteeship. In his 1919 A Pilgrim in Palestine, published amidst the post-war debates over mandate assignments, Finley presented Allenby as a symbol of trusteeship’s possibilities in making an American case for British rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for a common memory creates a link between personal stories and the shared values of the nation's citizens. Flamm's story reflects an attempt to create such a link. In 1943, a group of hikers in the Galilee came upon an Arab who attempted to rob them at gunpoint. Joseph Flamm, the group's guide and an amateur wrestler, fought the Arab, subdued him and killed him. A different version of the story of this incident came up every few years. Joseph Flamm, the story's hero, played a major role in the attempt to paint the incident in nationalistic colours. His own involvement in publicizing and shaping the story enables us to examine the encounter between a personal attempt to enter the national collective memory and the political use that was made of the story. This article discusses the attempt to turn this criminal event into a national heroic event in the context of the Arab Israeli conflict. The later versions presented it as a tangible expression of national myths, among them scouting and knowledge of Israel's geography, physical heroism and defending the homeland. The last version of the story was published in the 1970s, a period that signalled a change in the Zionist ethos. The Israeli public no longer showed interest in heroic stories such as Flamm's. Therefore, despite attempts to revive the story and efforts to affix it in the collective memory, it eventually disappeared from the public eye. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to examine how the Palestinian national ethos was formed based on both primordialism and territorial perceptions. It is based on primary sources—memoirs, public statements, and Palestinian media releases—dating back to the British Mandate for Palestine and examines the use of the basic elements of the ethos: victimhood, victory at all costs, and universal justice. The paper discerns two stages in the process of ethos formation: the first started in the 1910s and ended when the British Mandate was over. The second began after the civil war of 1947–1949 in Palestine. The loss of the Arab-Palestinian side and the consequences of the Nakba has not terminated yet. While the first stage focuses on injustice, the second phase includes all three features of the national ethos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the criminal prohibition against bigamy during the British colonial rule of Palestine, drawing particular attention to the exemptions it afforded to Muslims. Through archival research, the article analyses the debates that led to the legislation of the 1936 Criminal Code Ordinance through three distinct lenses – political, religious, and gendered to circumspectly explore the inconsistencies of the British approach toward Bigamy. I reveal how mandatory legislators prohibited it as a matter of public and criminal law while creating a broad exemption of its stipulations by essentially relegating the matter to the less heavily regulated 'private' sphere. I argue that the exemption provided for Muslims on the bigamy prohibition demonstrates the complexity of colonial law and its intrinsic paradox manifested in outlawing bigamy while accommodating it. This paradox and inconsistencies in colonial legislation are in line with colonial policies toward native populations, reflecting British colonial perception and anxiety towards colonial subjects and themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Milk and Honey: Technologies of Plenty in the Making of a Holy Land" by Tamar Novick explores the history of agricultural settlement in Ottoman Palestine. The book examines how biblical visions of abundance influenced European settlers and their efforts to control and manipulate local ecosystems. Novick discusses the use of technologies, legal decrees, and environmental policies to reshape the production and reproduction cycles of animals such as bees, goats, sheep, and cows. The book also highlights resistance to the colonial project and its ongoing impact on local communities and ecological systems. Overall, "Milk and Honey" provides a comprehensive analysis of the intersection of science, technology, and colonialism in the region. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines Arab art music, or tarab, during the British Mandate for Palestine as the sonic harbinger of Palestinian modernism. It shows how the production, consumption, and dissemination of professionalized Arab art music in early twentieth-century Palestine was linked to the emergence of a Palestinian elite at a time when Palestine was undergoing rapid developments and becoming an important node of cultural exchange in the region. Arab art music thus provided a site for the construction of a cosmopolitanized urban identity across Palestinian cities, one that operated on two political registers: local Palestinian nationalism and regional pan-Arabism. The article concludes with a discussion on how Palestine's political elite negotiated the inherent contradictions of colonized modernity through Arab art music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how age became racialized in the context of British Mandate Palestine (1917–48). Specifically, it charts European Zionist discourses about how Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews aged in different ways. These discourses, which I call "age talk," played an important role in the court case of Rachel Habshush Ohevet-Ami. In June 1939, Ohevet-Ami, a young Jewish woman of Yemeni and Moroccan descent, disguised herself as an "Arab" and attempted to execute an attack targeting Palestinians in Jerusalem. In her ensuing trial, two questions would decide Ohevet-Ami's fate: How old was she? And who had the power to decide? As this article searches for an answer, it addresses questions along the way that lie at the heart of the history of British Mandate Palestine about what it meant to be an Arab or a Jew, an "oriental" or a "European," a terrorist or a freedom fighter, and a child or an adult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the Palestinian rural notables' class, comprised of rural sheikhs, village or clan headmen with similar life trajectories in late Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine. The paper uses the Palestinian Hannun family of Tulkarm to demonstrate how these notables exploited changing legal, administrative and political conditions, and global economic realities, to attain socio-economic and political ascendency in the Palestinian countryside and its emergent towns. The article analyses their actions in structuralist terms of clans, households, marriage alliances and networks of patronage, and historically contextualises their rational decision-making process about selling land to Jews and cooperation with the British authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How did an Arab Jew read the Quran against the backdrop of contradictory ideologies and the rise of key movements, including nationalism, colonialism, and Zionism, in Mandate Palestine? Approaching Isaac Yahuda as an Arab Jew challenges the binary opposition between Arabs and Jews in Zionist discourse, a linkage perceived as inconceivable, and on the other hand, that linkage is asserted, contested, and tested in the context of nationalism. This article also challenges the advancement of Jewish singularity and superiority by exploring how Jewish writers interacted with the Islamic scripture in Mandatory Palestine rather than dismissing it. This article examines Hebrew interpretation of various passages from the Quran that produced an understanding of the Quran that advanced Zionist ideals, including the nationalization of contested religious sites and the consolidation of the indigeneity of Jews in the East. Isaac Yahuda's Hebrew commentary on the Quran challenged his Arab Jewishness in such a divisive nationalist atmosphere in Mandate Palestine. His hybrid background and dynamic connections with both Jews and Arabs enabled him to navigate these turbulent times by invoking the Quran, demonstrating respect for it, and at the same time challenging the understanding of his contemporary Muslims while utilizing German Jewish scholarship on the origins of Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the importance of collaboration and art-making in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It highlights the West-East Divan Orchestra, which brings together Arab and Israeli musicians, as an example of collaboration and finding common ground. The article also explores the concept of collaboration in academic writing and theater production. It features various articles that examine the political impact of storytelling, the representation of non-European Jews in Hebrew theater, the use of scenography to explore trauma, and the politics of performance in public spaces. The article concludes by emphasizing that spaces of collaboration are complex and ambivalent, but they offer hope and the potential to find common humanity. [Extracted from the article]

The article traces the production and reception of Love as Strong as Death, a dramatization of the Song of Songs that was performed in Mandatory Palestine in the years 1940–42 by a group of Yemenite Jewish actors. We argue that the tensions between the actors' amateur status and their image as embodying a long-lost Biblical heritage were emblematic of the inherent contradictions within the hegemonic Ashkenazi Zionist discourse and the Orientalist perception of the role of Yemenite Jews in it. By exploring both Yemenite and Ashkenazi voices in and around the production, we analyse how the stage, the theatre hall and the written press all served as contested sites regarding the participation of non-European Jews in Hebrew theatre and culture. In the paper's conclusion, we demonstrate how Love as Strong as Death anticipated later debates in Israeli theatre about the place of Mizrahi Jews on stage and in the auditorium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Palestinian filmmakers are largely dependent on foreign funding for production and on foreign festivals for publicity. Making a Palestinian film can seem as "impossible" as remaining Palestinian amid fragmenting effects of occupation/war and peace accords. Against such pressures, Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir tells stories with protagonists, who, for foreign funders, can seem like "unruly subjects" for remaining Palestinian. As a consequence, her films themselves can seem like "unruly subjects" to industry film critics. Her films like twenty impossibles (ka'inana ashrun mustaheel, 2003), Salt of This Sea (Milh Hadha al-Bahr, 2008), When I Saw You (Lamma Shoftak, 2012), and Wajib (2017) tell stories about Palestinians debating each other (rather than Israelis via US negotiators) during key moments in Palestinian history, including the Nakba (1948), the Naksa (1967), the Oslo Accords (1993), and Al-Aqsa or second Intifada (2000–05). Jacir's protagonists refuse the limiting choices on offer. They demand to be recognized as Palestinian, as does Jacir as a Palestinian filmmaker against the efforts of Western industry critics, festivals, and funders to label her as an "Arab woman filmmaker," often carrying colonial assumptions of "oppressed" or "exceptional" women throughout Southwest Asia ("the Middle East"). Her films do more than offer a glimpse of everyday life to "humanize" Palestinians; they are "unruly subjects" that unsettle assumptions to reframe the debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report focuses on the contributions of three Palestinian archaeologists: Yusra Al-Ḥaifaweyeh, Naṣr Dwekat, and Ibrahim Al-Fanni. Despite limited information available, these individuals played significant roles in the development of Palestinian archaeology and sought scientific accuracy in their work. They faced challenges under British and Israeli control, which imposed Western concepts on indigenous material. The article emphasizes their efforts to preserve Palestinian cultural identity and their involvement in negotiations over disputed archaeological sites. The author plans to publish a comprehensive record of Palestinian archaeologists to further document their contributions. [Extracted from the article]

The staff members from the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago who oversaw the excavations at Megiddo relied upon skilled Egyptian workmen (Quftis) as well as local labourers during their excavations from 1925–1939. However, although there were more than fifty of these Egyptian workmen in all, only a few are mentioned in the preliminary and final publications produced by the project. They are what Stephen Quirke has called 'hidden hands' on excavations; an example of 'invisible labor', as discussed by anthropologists and sociologists. In any effort to reconstruct the lives and labours of these men, we are now at the mercy of what can be found in various archival sources. Data must be gleaned from, for example, requests for half-price railway vouchers for travel between Kantara and Haifa for specific workmen each season; field diary entries; black and white photographs; and occasional mentions in budgets or in passing within letters sent back and forth between Megiddo and Chicago. Still, from this fragmentary information, we can piece together a picture of these unsung members of the expedition, some of whom were present at Megiddo for more seasons than the ever-rotating members of the Chicago staff themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the partition of India and Palestine and its impact on culture, nationalism, ethnicity, identity, and security in South Asia and the Middle East. It examines the religious divisions that contributed to these partitions and the role of British colonial policies. The book analyzes the historical context, key actors, and consequences of the partitions, including the rise of majoritarian nationalism and its impact on minority rights. The article praises the book for its comprehensive and balanced analysis, providing valuable insight into the partition processes and their ongoing effects. [Extracted from the article]

Chaim Frenkel, a renowned plant physiologist from Rutgers University, passed away in 2022 at the age of 88. Throughout his career, he made significant contributions to the study of plant physiology, particularly in areas such as fruit ripening, cold acclimation, and vanilla production. Frenkel's dedication to teaching and mentoring students was highly valued, and his impact on the scientific community is evident in his numerous publications and collaborations. His colleagues remember him fondly for his intellectual integrity, generosity, and passion for scientific inquiry. [Extracted from the article]

This document is a book review of two works: "Re-Excavating Jerusalem: Archival Archaeology" by Kay Prag and "Revealing the History of Ancient Palestine" by Keith W. Whitelam. The review discusses the different approaches taken by the authors in studying Palestine, archaeology, and biblical studies, and their engagement with the wider historical and political context. The reviewer praises Prag's work for its comprehensive examination of the archives and its application to the study of Jerusalem, but criticizes its lack of engagement with broader historical and political issues. In contrast, Whitelam's work is commended for its integration into a wider body of scholarly work and its focus on the political implications of biblical studies. The review concludes by highlighting the importance of considering the wider context in historical and archaeological research. [Extracted from the article]

Land has always been of great importance in the Palestinian cause, especially since the Zionist occupation adopted land confiscation policies to bring about demographic change. The British Mandate era over Palestine is considered one of the most dangerous historical stages for the Palestinian territories, as Britain pledged to create a national home for the Jews in Palestine. Accordingly, Britain enacted and manipulated laws to serve Zionist goals in Palestine. This era’s importance is highlighted by the emergence of laws and legislations to organize lands in Palestine, which gave the High Commissioner the right to dispose of Palestinian lands, which later gave way to Israeli settler colonialism, a policy that remains the same till this day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the interplay between autobiography and psychoanalysis through the writings and personal experiences of Yakov Vladimirovich Veynshal, a prominent Zionist Revisionist journalist and Hebrew writer in Mandate Palestine. Veynshal’s memoirs and journalistic work provide insights into the connection between these two fields by using personal experiences, literary analysis, creative expression, and cultural and political commentaries. They also demonstrate how literature and psychoanalysis intersect through creative and symbolic expression. The article explores first Veynshal’s journey, from a non-traditional ‘bar mitzvah’ trip to Palestine to his experiences in Russia and his complex relationship with Russian culture. Secondly, it demonstrates how his writings reflect the formation of his Zionist sentiments and unique identity. Additionally, Veynshal’s experiences in Palestine during the 1920s are analysed, highlighting the historical and political context of British Mandate Palestine and the development of Jewish and Arab relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dr. Rawia Aburabia's book, "Within the Law, Outside of Justice: Polygamy, Gendered Citizenship, and Colonialism in Israeli Law," examines the historical and legal context of polygamy in Israel and mandatory Palestine. The book argues that polygamy perpetuates patriarchal structures and marginalizes women, particularly Bedouin women. It also explores the connection between polygamy and settler colonialism in Israel. The author's methodology combines quantitative and archival research, comparative legal history, and feminist theory. The book serves as a critique of the factors that perpetuate polygamy and calls for action from activists, jurists, and the Israeli government. The article discusses the book's exploration of settler colonialism in relation to marginalized communities in Israel and invites further exploration of this framework. [Extracted from the article]

When the British Mandate of Palestine ended in 1948, the fledgling State of Israel was immediately in need of circulation coins and banknotes. Attempts to strike coins in makeshift factories in Israel failed: the production rate was low, and the coin quality was poor. Coin production was therefore outsourced to the ICI Mint in Birmingham, U.K. Years later, a few pruta-series coins were found with the inscription SPECIMEN in raised letters. This brings the questions of how and why these coins came to be, how many exist, and how some of them ended up in the hands of collectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Palestinian peasant families had to adapt and survive under political and economic conditions dictated by European occupation and Zionist settler colonialism. Women had a major role in contributing to the efforts for survival and acquiring their status in the rural economy and the wider national struggle against British policies. Rural Arab families constituted the vast majority of the Palestinian population before the Nakba, or those displaced from their villages during the war on Palestine in 1948, and the formation of the State of Israel. The agricultural knowledge Palestinian women had and passed from one generation to the other was an important element for the survival of the peasant families under the different periods in which colonial countries and Zionist settlement shook the base of their economic existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Global Forensic Cultures: Making Fact and Justice in the Modern Era" is a book edited by Ian Burney and Christopher Hamlin that emerged from a conference on forensic science and medicine. The book explores the interactions between forensic science and various local factors such as social, cultural, religious, political, and colonial influences in different locations around the world. Divided into three sections, the book covers topics such as the relationships between forensic practices and institutions, the role of forensic sciences in nation-building and policing, and the professionalization of forensic science. While the book primarily focuses on Anglo-American and colonial narratives, it provides a valuable resource for historians interested in the connections between science, power, and law. [Extracted from the article]

The Haj Amin al-Husayni, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and leader of the Palestinian Arab cause, accepted help from Nazi Germany during the Second World War. This article looks at the orders he provided to SS-trained commandos who parachuted into Palestine and Iraq in 1944. The agents' task was to organize an insurgency against the Jewish community in Palestine and to attack Iraqi Jews, although the latter were not necessarily sympathetic to Zionism. The infiltrators also had poisons that were likely intended for the Tel Aviv water system, although this is not clear evidence that Husayni was extending the Shoah into Palestine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, titled "Chapter 1: Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism?" from the journal Canadian Jewish Studies / Études Juives Canadiennes, explores the complex meanings and interpretations of the terms "antisemitism" and "anti-Zionism." The author acknowledges that these terms have multiple interpretations and argues for the use of more specific terminology, such as attitudes toward Jews and attitudes toward Israel. The author also emphasizes the importance of an empirical approach to studying these attitudes and aims to provide fresh insights into the subject matter. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the significance of fencing among European Jews who immigrated to Palestine during the early-to-mid 20th century, particularly fencing as a means of social integration and assimilation, and why many European Jewish immigrants chose a sport considered socially elitist in their new land.

Modern universities have largely been portrayed in the literature as an extension of nation building projects, focusing on the state as primary actor. This article challenges such presuppositions by separating 'nation' and 'state' and with a critical appropriation of diasporic subjectivity and institutions from a comparative historical perspective. The article has four themes: 'diaspora', 'ethnic internationalism', 'stateless nations' and 'internationalisation' in higher education (IHE). It illustrates these themes and their interrelationships by considering Koreans in the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945) and Jews during the British Mandate for Palestine (1920–1948) and construing them as stateless nations. These two historical cases illustrate how higher education was linked to ethnonational diasporas and internationalisation in the absence of a supportive state apparatus. The paradox is that ethnic nationalism was not only compatible but often overlapped with ethnic internationalism in higher education. The conclusion of this comparative study suggests the implications for the twenty-first century and the important role of diaspora in processes of IHE then and now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents in a preliminary manner, a historical and geographical phenomenon that has yet to be dealt with extensively: The settlement and activities of Jewish medical personnel working alone in Arab towns and villages from the beginning of the Mandate period till the outbreak of the Arab Revolt: , the motives which led Jewish doctors to settle in Arab cities; the characteristics of their activities, medical and cultural; the relations they formed with the local Arab populace; and the circumstances which eventually led to the end of their activities in these cities. A sensitive reading of related sources may offer a deeper insight into the phenomenon as it was perceived within the bi-national context—mainly on the Jewish side, but on the Arab side as well. The article is based on current research dealing with Jews in Arab cities during the Mandate period, with a primary focus on several Jewish physicians who worked within an Arab milieu before the Arab Revolt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By drawing on crime fiction, press commentaries and archival records, this article explores Jewish public discourse about hashish in Mandatory Palestine and the first two decades of the State of Israel. Fearing over-assimilation into the Levant, Jews in interwar Palestine shunned the drug, considering it a form of 'backwardness' linked to the realities of living among Arabs in the Middle East. Colonial knowledge about hashish (as well as Orientalist fantasies) validated these fears, appearing to confirm that hashish was an Oriental substance that animated the pathologies inhering in Arab mentalities. This knowledge survived the transition to the Israeli state by responding to new realities: the expulsion and flight of the Arab population and the country's repopulation by Jews from the Muslim world (Mizrahim). Some of these Jews had used hashish in their countries of origin and brought the habit with them to Israel. Others began to smoke hashish in Israel due to their socio-ethnic marginalization. Although hashish smoking in Israel in the 1950s and much of the 1960s remained limited to a few thousand members of the Mizrahi underclass, it rekindled middle-class fears of Levantinization-cum-Arabicization of the Jewish state. It also assisted in further marginalizing Mizrahim in Israeli society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a study of the responses of the Arabic and Hebrew press of Palestine to the abolitions of the Ottoman Sultanate and Caliphate. It is based on a comparative examination of the contemporary coverage of the events by the Arabic newspapers al-Karmil and Filastin and by the Hebrew newspapers Doar ha-Yom and Haaretz. The analysis yields valuable insights about how the Yishuv and the Palestinians viewed the abolitions of the Sultanate and Caliphate, the contemporary significance of these institutions, Kemalist Turkey, the rival population in Palestine, and Sharif Husayn. Mainly, it shows that the Hebrew press hailed the abolitions as revolutionary developments that would pave the road before the modernization of not only Turkey but the whole of Asia, while the Arabic press considered this too momentous a matter to be decided by Turkey alone and predicted adverse consequences for both that country and the East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores mid-twentieth century professional transnationalism by highlighting the crucial role of lesser-known planners – 'ordinary modernists' – in disseminating, negotiating, and ultimately shaping the modern built environment. It focuses on the work of Ariel Kahane (1907–1986), a mostly unknown German-Jewish senior planning officer under both the British Mandate and on the Israeli 'New Towns' team of early statehood. It examines Kahane's critique of British imperial planning's betrayal of the emancipatory values of large-scale planning, and shows how, while drawing on planning innovations from the British metropole, he produced his own, self-contradictory, planning vision. Kahane's planning ideas advanced notions of Jewish exclusiveness, an orientation expressed ever more explicitly after 1948, when he became a high-ranking planning officer in Israel. His work as a senior state planner illuminates aspects of continuity across the divide of 1948, which is typically viewed as a moment of rupture with respect to Israeli state planning and the formation of ethno-spatial structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British Mandate in Palestine ended abruptly in 1948. The British departure engendered a complex situation which affected all areas of life, and the country's health system was no exception. Gradual transition of the infrastructure was almost impossible owing to the ineffectiveness of the committee appointed by the United Nations. The situation was further complicated by the outbreak of the Arab–Israeli War. We relate for the first time the story of 75 Jewish patients who were left in a former British mental hospital in Bethlehem – deep behind the front lines. Despite the hostilities, there were complex negotiations about relocating those patients. This episode sheds light on the Jewish and Arab relationship as it pertained to mental institutions during and immediately after the British Mandate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the disappearance of the Jewish aviation company Palestine Airways from the historical narrative of the foundation of Jewish and Zionist aviation in Mandatory Palestine. Less than two years later, another company called Aviron (modern Hebrew for airplane) was established by the Jewish Agency, the Jewish National Council, and the Histadrut labor union as an aviation company and a flight school. Aviron is considered by the media and aviation historians to have been the pioneer of Jewish aviation in Palestine though it was founded in July 1936 while Palestine Airways had registered as a company in December 1934 and began to operate a few months earlier than Aviron. While the story of Aviron has been commemorated and described in various studies, there has been no comprehensive research on Palestine Airways. I offer two complementary explanations for this phenomenon: first, the assumption made by Zionist historians regarding the importance of private non-socialist ventures verses collective socialist enterprises in relation to the nation building process; second, the opposition of Palestine Airways founder Pinchas Rutenberg and one of its managers, Eliyahu Eliachar to the labor movement because of their self-perceived identities and ethnic spatial perception. These two factors precipitated the labeling of Palestine Airways as a non-national company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In August 1932, when nineteen-year-old Hadassah Kaplan learned that she would no longer be able to teach in the New York public school where she had been a substitute teacher, she decided, instead, to travel to Mandatory Palestine. Her parents, including the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, Mordecai Kaplan, agreed that she should spend the year studying Hebrew and exploring Palestine's capacity to revitalize Judaism as a civilization. Within her first month abroad, Hadassah began corresponding with her father in Hebrew. This note includes an exchange of Hebrew letters between Mordecai and Hadassah in which he articulated his loneliness as he sought to revitalize Judaism in the United States. He asked Hadassah if "a man like me [should] settle in the Land of Israel?" She shared her father's question with two of his friends, the Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold and the Zionist educator Jessie Sampter, who expressed reservations about Kaplan migrating. But Hadassah liked the idea. She argued that this was a place where he could pursue his own happiness, having already done enough for the "spiritual state" of the Jewish people. The discussion between father and daughter offers insight into their reflections on what role the Hebrew language and the Land of Israel should play in their personal lives as well as for the Jewish people more generally. Within the year, Hadassah returned to New York where she and her father lived most of their lives. Nevertheless, each remained committed to Hebrew and Zionism, with Mordecai briefly settling in Israel after retiring in the mid-1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Mandate period (1920–1948), Haifa attracted thousands of Palestinian rural migrants, who constituted a significant portion of its Arab population. The article examines the experience of rural migrants in urban life and the influence of this social group on urban society. I argue that rural migrants contributed to Haifa's economic development, participated in political and cultural activity and formed a connecting link between the city and their villages of origin. Rural migrants played a significant role as agents of change in Palestinian society, owing to the conjunction of rural and urban characteristics in their daily life. To demonstrate this, I focus on three arenas of their agency: the labour market, civil society and militias during the Arab Revolt. Their involvement in civil associations and in the Arab Revolt was central to their construction of modernity, and they disseminated it in widening circles in their villages of origin and among their acquaintances in the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1930s, the two Hebrew repertoire theatre companies in Palestine – the Habima and the Ohel – performed a large corpus of plays dealing with the landscapes of the Eastern European Jewish shtetl. Their fascination with the shtetl is surprising, considering the fact that these two companies were deeply committed to the Zionist project, whose ethos was building a new society in Eretz-Israel and negating the diasporic condition of Jewish existence. This article explores the landscapes of the shtetl as they were presented on the Hebrew stage of the 1930s and analyzes their aesthetic and cultural meaning for their audiences at that time. It shows that the shtetl plays formed a memory landscape that served the formation of a modern, consolidated, ethnic Jewish collective in Palestine, which shared a unified narrative of its past, as well as national aspirations for the future. Shelly Zer-Zion is a lecturer of theatre at the University of Haifa and was previously a Fulbright post-doctoral scholar at New York University. Her recent publications include Habima in Berlin: The Institutionalization of a Zionist Theatre (Magness Press, 2015), and her research is currently supported by the Israeli Science Foundation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the legal and temporal dimensions of the transition from British Mandate Palestine to the State of Israel on 15 May 1948. I examine the paradoxical character of Israeli jurisdictional claims during this period and argue that it reveals the Israeli state's uncertainty as to whether the Mandate had truly passed into the past. On one hand, Israel recognized the validity of the Mandate administration's jurisdiction until 15 May; I employ the Israeli trial of the British citizen Frederick William Sylvester to demonstrate how Israel even predicated its own jurisdictional claims on their being continuous with those of its predecessor. In this case, the Mandate administration was cast as having entered the realm of the past. Conversely, the Israeli state contested Mandate laws and legal decisions made prior to 15 May to assert its own jurisdictional claims. In the process, Israeli officials belied their efforts to bury their predecessors in the past and implicitly questioned whether the past was in fact behind them. By simultaneously relying upon and disavowing past British legal decisions, the Israeli state staked a claim on being a "completely different political creature" from its British predecessor while retaining its colonial legal structures as the "ultimate standards of reference." Israel's complex attitude toward its Mandate past directs our attention to how it was created against the backdrop of the receding British Empire and underscores the importance of studying Israel alongside other post-imperial states that emerged from the First World War and the mid-century decolonizing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]