Tourist, Pilgrim, Migrant, Settler: Rethinking the Modern History of Ashkenazim in the Levant Through Sites of Hospitality
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24847/v10i22023.362Keywords:
settler-colonialism, Tourism, Hotels, migration, Ashkenazim, Palestine, ZionismAbstract
This article looks at Ashkenazi-operated hotels in Tiberias, Beirut, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Cairo, Alexandria, and elsewhere, in the late Ottoman period and under British rule, to consider the confusing ambiguities that these stories reveal. Ashkenazi presence in Palestine is typically understood in terms of either the pious, zealot pilgrims, or the nationalist settlers. And yet the story of the hotel owners and operators could also fit into a different category, that of migrants, who sought to integrate within existing social, economic, and political structures. The tourism and hospitality industry, which relied on flows of people across borders and on a diverse customer-base, was to some degree at odds with the segregation associated with Zionist Yishuv. Such stories, which have been forgotten and erased by the history of Palestine in the twentieth century, prompt us to rethink our understanding of Ashkenazi history in the region.
References
Alroey, Gur. Erets miklat: ha-hagirah le-Erets Yisrael, 1919–1927 (Sedeh Boker: Makhon Ben Guryon le-heker Yisrael, 2021).
Alroey, Gur. An Unpromising Land: Jewish Migration to Palestine in the Early Twentieth Century (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014). DOI: https://doi.org/10.11126/stanford/9780804789325.001.0001
Ambon, Rivka “Rabbi Shmuel Heller (1803–1884) and His Role in the Jewish Community in Safed” (PhD diss., Tel Aviv University, 2016).
Avitsur, Shmuel. “Le-Toldot Kvish Yafo-Yerushalayim,” in Mivhar Ma’amarim Le-Toldot Erets Yisrael (Ariel, 1988).
Bartal, Israel. Galut ba-Areẓ:Yishuv Ereẓ Yisra’el be-Terem ha-Ẓiyonut (Jerusalem: World Zionist Organisation, 1995).
Chapman, Rupert, Shimon Gibson, and Yoni Shapira. Tourists, Travelers and Hotels in 19th-Century Jerusalem: On Mark Twain and Charles Warren at the Mediterranean Hotel (Leeds: Maney, 2013).
Cohen-Hattab, Kobi and Yossi Katz, “The Attraction of Palestine: Tourism in the Years 1850–1948,” Journal of Historical Geography 27, no. 2 (2001): 166–77. https://doi.org/10.1006/jhge.2001.0296. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1006/jhge.2001.0296
Cohen-Hattab, Kobi. “Zionism, Tourism, and the Battle for Palestine: Tourism as a Political-Propaganda Tool,” Israel Studies 9, no. 1 (2004): 61–85. https://doi.org/10.1353/is.2004.0012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/is.2004.0012
Cohen-Hattab, Kobi. “Zionist Pilgrimages: The Beginning of Organized Zionist Jewish Tourism to Palestine at the End of the Ottoman Period,” Jewish Culture and History 23, no. 3 (July 2022): 201–220. https://doi.org/10.1080/1462169X.2022.2084219. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1462169X.2022.2084219
Cohen, Stuart. “The First Anglo‐Jewish Pilgrimage to Palestine: 1897,” Studies in Zionism 2, no. 1 (1981): 71–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/13531048108575799. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13531048108575799
Daam, Jasmine. “Palestinian Past, Zionist Future: Vocabularies of Tourism in Mandate Palestine,” Contemporary Levant (8 June 2023): 1–15. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/20581831.2023.2221086
Daam, Jasmine. Tourism and the Emergence of Nation-States in the Arab Eastern Mediterranean, 1920s–1930s (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2023). https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/97775. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24415/9789087283919
Davis, Joseph. “The Reception of the Shulhan ‘Arukh and the Formation of Ashkenazic Jewish Identity,” AJS Review 26, no. 2 (October 2002): 251–76. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0364009402000065. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0364009402000065
Dow, Martin. “The Hammams of Ottoman Jerusalem,” in Ottoman Jerusalem: The Living City, 1517–1917, eds. Sylvia Auld and Robert Hillenbrand (London: Altajir World of Islam Trust, 2000), 519–24.
Dowty, Alan. Arabs and Jews in Ottoman Palestine: Two Worlds Collide (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019). DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvbnm423
Dowty, Alan. “Much Ado about Little: Ahad Ha’am’s ‘Truth from Eretz Yisrael,’ Zionism, and the Arabs,” Israel Studies 5, no. 2 (2000): 154–81. https://doi.org/10.1353/is.2000.0027. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/is.2000.0027
Efraim Yosef ben and Ben. Shachar (Jerusalem: Feldheim, 2009).
Ehrlich, Michael. “The Jewish Communities of Safed and Jerusalem during the Fourteenth Century,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 31, no. 4 (October 2021): 711–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1356186319000506. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1356186319000506
Harari, Ido. “‘The Arab Clothes of Our Forefathers’: Articulating Ashkenazi Palestinian Jewish Identity through Dress and Language,” Contemporanea 20, no. 4 (2017): 569–86.
Hirschberg, Avraham Shmuel. Be-Erets Ha-Mizrach (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 1977).
Kabaha, Mustafa and Nahum Karlinsky. The Lost Orchard: The Palestinian-Arab Citrus Industry, 1850–1950 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2021). DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv16x2bj1
Kahlenberg, Caroline. “The Tarbush Transformation: Oriental Jewish Men and the Significance of Headgear in Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine,” Journal of Social History 52, no. 4 (2019): 1212–49. https://doi.org/10.1093/jsh/shx164. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jsh/shx164
Khalidi, Rashid. The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006).
Krämer, Gudrun. The Jews in Modern Egypt, 1914–1952 (London: I. B.Tauris, 1989).
Lang, Yosef and Reut Green, “Me’ir Hamburge, Ha-Mohel ve-Tsfunot Pinkaso,” Cathedra 156 (July 2015).
Lavi, Bezalel. “Al-Hama, Historya Sh-Nishtakcha,” Ariel (June 2001): 53–65.
Lehmann, Matthias B. “Rethinking Sephardi Identity: Jews and Other Jews in Ottoman Palestine,” Jewish Social Studies 15, no. 1 (2008): 81–109.
Low, Michael Christopher. “The Mechanics of Mecca: The Technopolitics of the Late Ottoman Hijaz and the Colonial Hajj” (PhD diss., Columbia University), 2015.
Ibn-Zahav, Ari and Sylvia Satten. A Gharry Driver in Jerusalem. (Tel-Aviv: Lion the Printer, 1947).
Mendel, Yonatan. “On Palestinian Yiddish and Ashkenazi Arabic in 18–19 Century Palestine: A Language-Oriented New Look on Jewish-Arab Relations,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 49, no. 2 (2022): 204–22. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2020.1778444
Morgenstern, Ari. Hastening Redemption: Messianism and the Resettlement of the Land of Israel. trans. Joel A. Linsider (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/0195305787.001.0001
Morgenstern, Aryeh. Beshliḥut Yerushalayim: toledot mishpaḥat Poḥ. Rozental, 1816–1839 (Jerusalem, Israel: Rivka Weingarten, 1987).
Myers, David. “Is There Still a ‘Jerusalem School?’: Reflections on the State of Jewish Historical Scholarship in Israel,” Jewish History 23, no. 4 (2009): 389–406. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10835-009-9094-y. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10835-009-9094-y
Nasser, Noha. “A Historiography of Tourism in Cairo: A Spatial Perspective,” in Tourism in the Middle East: Continuity, Change and Transformation, ed. Rami Farouk Daher (Clevedon: Channel View Publications, 2007), 70–94. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21832/9781845410520-006
Norris, Jacob. Land of Progress: Palestine in the Age of Colonial Development, 1905–1948 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199669363.001.0001
Ohad Smith, Daniella. “Hotel Design in British Mandate Palestine: Modernism and the Zionist Vision,” Journal of Israeli History 29, no. 1 (2010): 99–123. https://doi.org/10.1080/13531041003595035. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13531041003595035
Osheroff, Eli. “The Jewish Question, the Palestine Problem and Forgotten Political Solutions: The Arab Perspective, 1908–1948” [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 2021), 67–68.
Pappe, Ilan. The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty: The Husaynis, 1700–1948 (Saqi Books, 2010).
Pen, Shahar. “Beyn Palestina, Levanon ve-Eropa: Nesi’ot ve-Tiyulim Bi-Tna’im Shel Mizrah Tichon Koloniali Hasar Gvulot,” Sotsyologya Yisraelit 19, no. 1 (2017): 12–41.
Rozenson, Israel. Ba-Derekh el Ha’ir: Sha’ar ha-Gay ke-Makhoz Zikaron (Jerusalem: Karmel, 2017).
Sayigh, Rosemary and Yusif Sayigh. Arab Economist, Palestinian Patriot: A Fractured Life Story. (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2015). DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2ks6zjc
Shafir, Gershon “Capitalist Bi-Nationalism in Mandatory Palestine,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 43, no. 4 (2011): 611–33. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743811001206. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743811001206
Shiryon, Yitshak. Zikhronot (Jerusalem, 1943).
Sukenik, Eleazar Lipa. The Ancient Synagogue of El-Ḥammeh (Ḥammath-by-Gadara): An Account of the Excavations Conducted on Behalf of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1935).
Tidhar, David. “Todros Wershevsky” in Encyclopaedia of the Founders and Builders of Israel (Tel Aviv: Sifriyat rishonim, 1949).
Tov, Boaz Lev. “Shkhenim Nokheḥim: Ksharim Tarbutiyim Beyn Yehudim Le-Aravim Be-Ereẓ Yisra’el Be-Shilhey Ha-Tkufah Ha-Othmanit,” Zmanim: A Historical Quarterly 110 (2010): 42–54.
Wallach, Yair. “Jerusalem between Segregation and Integration: Reading Urban Space through the Eyes of Justice Gad Frumkin,” in Modernity, Minority, and the Public Sphere: Jews and Christians in the Middle East, eds. S. R. Goldstein-Sabbah and H. L. Murre-van den Berg (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 205–33. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004323285_009
Wircberg, Beni. Wi, Mi-Gay Ha-Hariga le-Sha’ar Ha-Gay (Jerusalem: Masada, 1967).
Wolfe, Patrick. Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race (London: Verso, 2016).
Ya’ari-Polskin, Ya’acov. “Derekh Ha-Ḥatḥatim Shel Ḥaluts: Shalom Rabinovich” in Holmim ve-Magshimim (Tel Aviv: Mizrahi, 1967).
Yehoshua, Ya’acov. Ha-Bayit ve-Ha-Reḥov Bi-Yerushalayim Ha-Yeshanah Pirkey Havay Mi-Yamim ʻAvaru (Yerushalayim: R. Mas, 1966).
Zuckerman, Maja Gildin. “En Route to Palestine: Jewish Mobility and Zionist Emergence,” in New Perspectives on Jewish Cultural History: Boundaries, Experiences, and Sensemaking. eds. Jakob Feldt and Maja Gildin Zuckerman (London: Routledge, 2021), 27–53. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429324048-2
Zuniga, Pedro. Mi Yitneni Ba-Midbar Melon Orḥim (Tel Aviv: Kavim Ishiyim, 2010).
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Yair Wallach (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
The content of this journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.