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naimfrewat's review
Lebanon’s Jewish Community is, by the author’s own account, a book that bridges a work on history, that of the Lebanese Jewish community and a memoir: the memories of those Lebanese Jews who had to leave Lebanon, not knowing they will never return back and, to a lesser extent, those Lebanese who miss their Jewish friends, neighbors, colleagues, the Jewish presence tout court.
Without it being clearly marked, the book is divided into two parts: the first sets the political and social frames in which the Jews lived. It draws on various newspaper articles, books and official letters and provides valuable information and figures about the Jews of Lebanon at the start of the 20th century until 1967 – 1975. This part also draws on quotes from individual Lebanese Jews’ accounts which are narrated in greater detail in the second part of the book. The final chapter of the second part closes the book with the author’s own reflections about his work. Each chapter starts with a quote taken from -where else- Marcel Proust’s À La Recherche du Temps Perdu.
To the author, Lebanon offered a safe haven for minorities, a meaningful life for Jews, possibly unthinkable to those Jews living in the Arab world, outside of Israel. Surprisingly to me, the number of Jews living in Lebanon grew after 1948, unlike in any other part of the Arab world.
Still, they remained small in number, 14,000 at the highest estimations but, in the multi-cultural system of pre-civil war Lebanon, they were large enough to ask for parliamentary representation. In the 1930s, president Emile Eddé is known to have joked with Jewish community heads demanding representation in Parliament, asking them, why do you need representation? You have the best representation you can get: me.
I very much liked the author’s genuine nostalgia, if not sadness, as to the state of modern-day Lebanon, no longer a safe resort for minorities, but a place in which bigotry takes the front stage. One is saddened by all those Lebanese Jews who had to leave Lebanon -in some cases within days- thinking this was not a one-way ticket only they’ve never managed to return, except maybe as tourists, citizens of another country.
More on my blog
Without it being clearly marked, the book is divided into two parts: the first sets the political and social frames in which the Jews lived. It draws on various newspaper articles, books and official letters and provides valuable information and figures about the Jews of Lebanon at the start of the 20th century until 1967 – 1975. This part also draws on quotes from individual Lebanese Jews’ accounts which are narrated in greater detail in the second part of the book. The final chapter of the second part closes the book with the author’s own reflections about his work. Each chapter starts with a quote taken from -where else- Marcel Proust’s À La Recherche du Temps Perdu.
To the author, Lebanon offered a safe haven for minorities, a meaningful life for Jews, possibly unthinkable to those Jews living in the Arab world, outside of Israel. Surprisingly to me, the number of Jews living in Lebanon grew after 1948, unlike in any other part of the Arab world.
Still, they remained small in number, 14,000 at the highest estimations but, in the multi-cultural system of pre-civil war Lebanon, they were large enough to ask for parliamentary representation. In the 1930s, president Emile Eddé is known to have joked with Jewish community heads demanding representation in Parliament, asking them, why do you need representation? You have the best representation you can get: me.
I very much liked the author’s genuine nostalgia, if not sadness, as to the state of modern-day Lebanon, no longer a safe resort for minorities, but a place in which bigotry takes the front stage. One is saddened by all those Lebanese Jews who had to leave Lebanon -in some cases within days- thinking this was not a one-way ticket only they’ve never managed to return, except maybe as tourists, citizens of another country.
More on my blog
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