Jerusalem and Its Role in Islamic Solidarity

Modernity, Minority, and the Public Sphere

“…This public sphere continued to evolve and change, but all of these changes allowed for a greater variety of people to be part of it, even if actual political participation, under mandate rule or under later autocratic Arab rulers, was still limited to a few. 23 The way in which Jews and Christians, as part of the majority or as minorities, participated in the emerging Arab states was characterized by a variety of 22 For an overview, see Ellen L. Fleischmann, "The Other 'Awakening': the Emergence of Women's Movements in the Middle East, c. 1900-1940," in Karen Offen (ed. ), Globalizing Feminisms, 1789-1945(London and New York: Routledge, 2010, 89-139.…”

“…Although technically, girls could attend the ustadhs (but not the Midrash Talmud Torah) in reality, few if any girls ever attended.21 It is more likely that upper class girls received private tutoring, as the existence of correspondence by women from the nineteenth century demonstrates that some had the ability to read and write in both Hebrew and Latin scripts, although this was surely the exception. 22 For the Jewish community this limited choice in education began to change when the Alliance Israélite Universelle opened its first school in Baghdad in 1864, at the request of members of the community who had heard about the recently opened Alliance boy's school in Tetouan, Morocco. By way of comparison, the first elementary school teaching secular subjects to Muslim boys in Baghdad was established in 1869 by Midhat Pasha.23 So although at the time of the British Mandate the Jewish community had developed the most extensive network of schools, the importance of modern education also had advocates in other religious communities in nineteenth-century Baghdad, albeit access to these schools was limited to a privileged few.…”

“…According to 1905 census documents, Jews made up at least 45 percent of households. 22 The area was known in Hebrew as "Hebron Street," as it housed a large number of Ashkenazi Jews who originally settled in Hebron before coming to Jerusalem. There were numerous synagogues and Jewish religious schools in the area.…”

“…It seems as if the LoN and Great Britain were not as brave as Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) and his government in Turkey in the 1920s, when they radically abolished the traditional religious infrastructure of minorities, even though other problems were created in this process. 22 However, Iraqi minorities perceived the minority protection under international law very differently. The leaders of the Jewish community rejected them entirely, on the grounds of their identification as Arabs, and therefore already an integral part of the new Iraqi state and society; for this reason the Jews refused any special treatment.…”

From Wailing to Rebirth: The Development of the Western Wall as an Israeli National Symbol After the Six-Day War

“…This Arab withholding of recognition has characterized the Palestinian national movement since the 1920s (Porath 1977;Reiter 2008). The national importance that Israelis accorded to the Western Wall after 1967 was, in part, a response to such voices on the Arab side, and we can assume that the symbolic aspect of the Western Wall strengthened in the wake of these challenges.…”