The Jews of Lebanon Between Coexistence and Conflict
Kirsten E. Schulze
Author text to follow
Second revised and expanded edition
“An outstanding sociopolitical history of the Jewish community of Lebanon. Highly recommended.” Choice
“Dr Schulze uses a rich panoply of sources to provide a comprehensive discourse on the social, economic, political, cultural and religious aspects of the life of the Jews of Lebanon. She succeeds in placing the Jewish community in the broader context of Lebanese and Middle Eastern politics, and makes a highly significant and substantive contribution to the study on minorities in the Middle East.” From the foreword by Professor Avi Shlaim, St Antony’s College, Oxford
This is the first book to tell the story of the Jews of Lebanon in the twentieth century. It challenges the prevailing view that Jews everywhere in the Middle East were second-class citizens, and were persecuted after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The Jews of Lebanon were just one of Lebanon’s 23 minorities with the same rights and privileges, and subject to the same political tensions. The author discusses the Jewish presence in Lebanon under Ottoman Rule; Lebanese Jews under the French mandate; Lebanese Jewish identity after the establishment of the State of Israel; the increase of the community through Syrian refugees; the Jews' position in the first civil war; the beginning of their exodus; the virtual extinction of the Jewish community as a result of the prolonged second civil war and the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon; and finally the community's memory of their Lebanese past.
