Abstract
Abstract This article explores aspects of Middle Eastern and North African (mena) Jewry in the first half of the twentieth century through their engagement with philanthropy. Specifically, this article demonstrates how many urban Jewish communities in mena adopted and adapted Western European philanthropic structures to fit the needs of their local communities by engaging with multiple public spheres (Jewish, Arab, imperial) that were, at times, in conflict with each other. By highlighting the transnational nature of mena Jewry in the twentieth century, this article demonstrates the importance of philanthropic networks as an articulation of power and social status. Finally, this piece suggests that local Jewish philanthropic initiatives can act as a prism by which we understand power structures within transnational religious networks.
Highlights
This article portends to draw general conclusions about Jews from mena, its focus is on urban communities who developed structural relationships with Western European Jewry in the nineteenth century and continued to participate in transnational Jewish philanthropic networks in the twentieth century, a definition which includes much of mena Jewry, but excludes certain important groups
This article attempts to correct misconceptions about transnational Jewish philanthropic networks in the first half of the twentieth century, the majority of which are predicated on reading the history of transnational organizations from a Europe-centric perspective as opposed to from a local communal perspective
The use of philanthropy as a tactic for socio-economically mobile groups, in this case mena Jewry, is a perfect example of religious communities using philanthropy to gain greater agency within multiple public spheres. These examples demonstrate the ways in which public, semi-private and private philanthropy became intertwined in the modern period as endowments became closely linked to large philanthropic organizations
Summary
This article aims to understand how mena Jewry positioned themselves in quickly-shifting political environments, which straddled imperial ambition and nascent nationalism, through their engagement with philanthropy. The French Alliance Israélite Universelle (aiu), founded in 1860, the English Anglo-Jewish Association (aja), founded in 1871 The objectives of these organizations were closely linked to Habermas’s concept of the “public sphere,” which he dates back to nineteenth century and refers to individual participation in salons, associations, societies, and periodicals, with the aim of improving society.[6] The emergence of a global Jewish public sphere is tied to the emergence of religious internationalism, defined by Abigail Green and Vincent Viaene as:. [a] configuration [that] drew upon traditional communal institutions and practices, while remaining distinct from them It may be defined as a cluster of voluntary transnational organizations and representations crystallizing around international issues, in which both “ordinary” believers and religious specialists could serve as protagonists. Spurred on by developments such as revolutions, mass migration, colonial expansion, the spread of the nation-state model or the challenge of secular ideologies, the rise of religious internationals involved a double outward projection of religious energies: into modern society and into the global arena.[7]
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