by Ron Duncan Hart, 2020, Institute for Tolerance Studies. 

Review by Diane Joy Schmidt, New Mexico Jewish Link, Vol. 50, 2020 Honorable Mention, History, New Mexico Press Women Awards

At a time when Arab and Jewish relations have reached a fever pitch, “Jews and the Arab World”  traces the many centuries during which Jews and Arabs have lived together peacefully in the Middle East, and illuminates how the current period of nationalistic strife, beginning in the 20th century, is an anomaly. This meticulous, scholarly work provides an excellent introduction to this history, and gives us reason to hope for peace in the future by reminding us of this very recent past. 

Hart explains, “For 1,400 years Jews and Arabs have lived side by side and mostly with mutual respect. The oldest center of Jewish life outside of Israel was Baghdad. The greatest Jewish scholars lived there and prepared the “Babylonian” Talmud. In Western Europe,

a major center of Jewish life was the 800 years under Muslim rule in Spain. When the Muslims were driven out of Spain in 1492, Jews were expelled from that country three months later, mostly joining the Muslim retreat into North Africa and the Ottoman Empire. The Jewish/Arab conflict that started in the twentieth century is an anomaly, and this book analyzes the issues that transformed that long history of co-existence into the conflict of today, including the four stages of the current conflict and the new developments that have occurred in recent years.” 

The story begins with Abraham, born in the city of Ur in what is now Iraq, and his two sons Ishmael and Isaac, and traces the common linguistic and cultural roots of Jews and Arabs. Muslims follow the line of the first born son, Ishmael, as the father of the Arabs, whose mother Haggar was Egyptian. “In contrast, Jews follow Isaac, the second born son, who was born of tribal purity, as the father of the Jews.” The Quran affirms that Islam is the religion of the God of Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, and Jacob, that Abraham and Ishmael founded Islam, and together laid the black stone as the cornerstone of the Ka’aba at the center of Mecca. As People of the Book, Jews were accepted in Muslim society, in a minority status.

Across fourteen centuries, Hart introduces many historic figures that spark further interest. There is the warrior queen and seer Damia al-Kahina, “the Jewish Queen of the Amazigh.” Born into a Berber tribe that had become Jewish, she led a decades-long united tribal resistance to Arab advances during the 7th century.  Today, she is a legendary national heroine of Algerian independence; others revere her as a feminist and sorceress whose knowledge of tribal ways gave her the ability to foresee army advances through communication with birds.

There is the Spanish Jewish traveler and chronicler, Benjamin de Tudela, who witnessed the high status of the Jews of Baghdad in 1168 and described how the chief Rabbi, mounted on a horse with heralds proclaiming the way, made weekly visits to the Caliph, where he was placed on a throne. 

In Persia, Saadia Gaon translated the Torah into Arabic, “postulated the rational basis of Jewish thought and argued that Jews should accept the rational teachings of Aristotle and Plato in addition to the Torah,” and “prepared the basis for the later work of Maimonides. Saadia made it legitimate to be Jewish and Arab at the same time.”

In Muslim Spain, “Cordoba became the most important center of Talmudic studies in Europe. Poetry was a valued art form in the Muslim world, and the Jewish poets of Cordoba excelled.” Some of the greatest Jewish scholars come from this period: ibn Gabirol, Judah Halevi, Abraham ben Ezra, and Maimonides.

Following the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, Hart introduces the larger-than-life 

Doña Gracia Nasi, who helped thousands of Jews settle in the Ottoman Empire. 

Many also went to Morocco, where during World War II, the king refused to allow the Nazis to put the Jews of Morocco into camps. While the Jewish population is small today, the Jewish dialects of “Haketía and Judeo-Arabic are still spoken among many, and the traditional Jewish ballads are sung…” The Mimouna Association was created in 2007 by young Muslim students willing to promote and preserve the Jewish-Moroccan heritage. 

Finally, Hart relates the rather dreary events of the last one hundred years, and how anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic views have hardened among Arab states, especially among the young people who, unlike their grandparents, never experienced living together with Jews. 850,000 Jews were expelled from Arab countries after 1948.  He writes how a young population, with no prospects for jobs, creates tremendous unrest. Hope may ultimately come in the form of greater opportunities for women. “As women’s educational levels increase, fertility rates tend to decrease and the woman’s opportunity to participate in the economy increases,” writes Hart.

Ron Duncan Hart, Ph.D. is a cultural anthropologist, Director of the Institute for Tolerance Studies in Santa Fe, and is also President of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico. 

In an unusual confluence, Hart, his wife, and his daughter’s interests have influenced and enlivened one another’s. Columbian-born Gloria Abella Ballen is an international award-winning artist, and author of  “The Power of the Hebrew Alphabet.” Of their daughter, Vanessa Paloma Elbaz, Ph.D., who has achieved international renown and is now on the University of Cambridge music faculty, Hart writes that her “research in Morocco on gender and music in Jewish life has opened new areas of understanding” for him.