Six Singular Figures
Understanding the Conflict: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate
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- ¥1,700
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- ¥1,700
発行者による作品情報
This is the story of six people who lived and worked in Palestine in the 1930s; remarkable nonconformists who tried to find a solution to the deteriorating relations between Jews and Arabs, the two peoples living under British Mandate rule. Some took an active part in dialogues between the two peoples and believed that it was possible to live together, although they knew that the chances were slim. When World War II broke out, the contacts ended. Two Jews—Manya Shochat and Judah Leib Magnes; two Arabs— Mussa Alami and George Antonius; and two Britons—Arthur Wauchope and Orde Wingate, left their distinctive mark on the events of that period, when the Arabs of Palestine realized that they might become a minority under the Jews, whose numbers were growing because of the persecution in Europe. Hadara Lazar has spoken to the descendants of these six individuals and has explored archives and libraries, in Israel and abroad, to produce a book whose personal voice places it squarely in the middle ground between history and literature. Succinctly and with spellbinding narrative skill, she describes the uniqueness, the inner strife, the controversial actions, and the extraordinary, sometimes tragic, lives of her six subjects. And through their portraits, a turbulent and fateful period emerges from the past, during which it might have been possible to prevent what has happened and is still happening between Jews and Arabs today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This book's title promises to help readers understand the Jewish-Arab conflict, but the exceptional nature of the six people whom Lazar (Out of Palestine: The Making of Modern Israel) profiles makes her book less about historical realities than about what might have been if her subjects had had more influence. She focuses on a period in the early 1930s when, under the British mandate, "bloody riots were rare and there was some dialogue between Jews and Arabs.... Leaders and important figures on both sides met and discussed terms of peaceful coexistence." The people she focuses on two Jews, Manya Shochat and Judah Lieb Magnes; two Arabs, Musa 'Alami and George Antonius; and two Englishmen, Arthur Wauchope and Orde Wingate were, with the exception of Wingate, "actively involved in those attempts at dialogue." Lazar paints rich, intimate portraits of these individuals that will interest biography lovers, but their life stories overshadow the political narrative. Readers should not expect to encounter individuals who shaped history or connected with the aspirations of Arab and Jewish peoples in that era, but rather those who stood out as stones in a river as the currents of history swirled past them.
