Jonathan Gribetz Defining Neighbors: The Arab-Zionist Encounter on the Eve of Balfour

How did Zionist immigrants to early 20th century Palestine conceive of their new Arab neighbors, and how did the Arab natives make sense of the Jews arriving on Palestine’s shores? Drawing on his book Defining Neighbors: Religion, Race, and the Early Zionist-Arab Encounter, Jonathan Marc Gribetz argues that this fateful encounter was initially imagined very differently from the way it ultimately developed. The Late Ottoman period in Palestine was no utopia, but exploring this moment reveals that today’s hardened dividing lines are far from timeless; they have a fascinating history. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 31660]