British Mandate Period Research Articles

משק האנרגיה של היישוב היהודי בארץ ישראל בשלהי המנדט הבריטי

This article discusses the energy sector of the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine during the late British Mandate period, from late 1947 to the Declaration of Independence in mid-May 1948. The article examines how the Yishuv’s leaders and those in charge of its energy supply prepared for the British withdrawal from Palestine and the measures taken to ensure the Yishuv's energy needs during this period. Until then, the Mandate authorities had seen to the Yishuv’s energy needs, a responsibility that would now be transferred to the institutions of the Jewish state upon its establishment. Were their actions solely focused on the preparations for war or also on preparations for the creation of the state? Archival and other primary sources were used by the author. In addition to analyzing technical information, the article seeks to highlight the individuals who were involved in preserving and securing the energy supply of the Jewish Yishuv. These were resourceful and visionary individuals who used creativity, initiative, and boldness to enable the Yishuv to solve its problems and to navigate between various political and economic interests and the needs of the economy and the military. They successfully steered the rickety ship of the energy sector during the intercommunal war in Palestine and prepared the infrastructure for the energy sector of a sovereign state after the Declaration of Independence.

Cereal cultivation and storage by the Janabib Bedouin in the Negev Highlands, southern Israel (1917–1948)

This study focuses on the traditional methods used by the Janabib Bedouin tribe in the Negev Highlands to cultivate wheat and barley during the British Mandate period from 1917 to 1948. Despite the fact that this region receives only 90 mm of precipitation per year on average, and was located at a great distance from settlements and markets, the local Bedouin cultivated cereals by exploiting the ancient agricultural terraces from the Byzantine period which prevented runoff and distributed water over the agricultural plots. This research also found that the choice of which cereals to grow in different years, were determined by local climatic conditions. Thus, the Bedouin who lived in the Negev Highlands before 1948, developed specific adaptations in order to survive in these arid conditions.

Egyptian Popular Culture in Late Ottoman and Mandate Palestine

Abstract During the late Ottoman and British Mandate periods, Palestine was an integral component of the audience for the new forms of “colloquial mass culture” that emerged in Cairo. Early Egyptian recording artists, theatre troupes, and the giants of interwar Egyptian popular music—Umm Kulthum and Muhammad Abdel Wahhab—regularly appeared and were warmly received in Palestine. Egyptian performers did not come to Palestine to affirm or reinforce its Arabism. They came because they earned substantial fees for their performances and because they had large and loyal audiences there, some of whom were Jews. The presence of both Arabs and Jews at concerts or in movie theaters did not necessarily mean that they liked each other. Neither did they dislike each other as a matter of principle. This ambiguous legacy was manifested in the political uproar over the naming of streets in honor of Umm Kulthum and Abdel Wahhab in Jerusalem, Ramle, and Haifa in 2020. This was not an indicator of Arab–Jewish coexistence, and it did not represent a conciliation with terrorism. It was a phenomenon in which spectators and fans (and detractors) read themselves into the meanings of the work of artists.

Expecting the best: Palestinian Utopianism and trans-sectarianism in the Mandate period

ABSTRACT This essay reconstructs Palestinian utopian discourse from the British mandate period, by focusing on understudied political manifestos and fiction, authored by members of the Palestinian Arab elite. The essay shows that through the lens of utopianism emerges a distinct Palestinian ecumenical discourse on trans-sectarian religion, language unification, bi-nationalism, reform in relations between men and women, and social justice. While this discourse was not necessarily popular, it was shared and articulated in both explicit and latent manners by some of the most influential Palestinians of the period. This discourse was therefore a meaningful, progressive, indigenous political alternative to the colonial and imperial sectarian order.

Al-Lajjun: a Social and geographic account of a Palestinian Village during the British Mandate Period

ABSTRACT This paper provides a social and geographic account of al-Lajjun (Jenin Sub-district), a prominent Palestinian village during the British Mandate period (1918–1948). It portrays a countryside in renewal, encapsulated in the story of Umm al-Fahm’s expansion and Lajjun’s resettlement. In contrast to existing scholarship, the present work contextualizes the site within the wider diachronic, longue durée, history of the region, and the synchronous, shifting pattern of settlements in Marj ibn ‘Amir (Jezreel Valley), Bilad al-Ruha (Ramot Menashe), and Wadi ‘Ara (Nahal ‘Iron). It focuses on the development of the physical outlines of the (re)new(ed) village, with the development of three “Lajjuns” reflecting its founders’ Hebronite/Khalīlī patterns of settlement. Furthermore, it explores Lajjun’s diversified economy and its metamorphosis from a derelict hamlet into a hub of utilities and transportation infrastructure of regional importance under the British Mandate of Palestine (1920–1948).

The rise of the Hebronite alliance: Hebronite regionalism between Palestine and Jordan, 1940–1967

From the late British Mandate period until 1967, a cohesive system of social and political arrangements took shape among the people of the Hebron district in the West Bank. This system, referred to here as the Hebronite alliance, was born of a continuous crisis and played a central role in cultivating harmony and co-liability among the people of the district and its expatriates. It promoted them as a collective and individuals and shaped the distinct pro-Hashemite character of the Hebron region. The strength of the alliance stemmed from the adoption of a unique social contract and a new regional ‘Hebronite’ identity that was a stable anchor for many Palestinians caught between the competing Palestinian, Jordanian, and pan-Arab national identities.

Archaeological explorations at ‘En Qobi in the Jerusalem Highlands and the identification of Qube/Qubi

The article presents the results of archaeological excavations and surveys undertaken at and near the spring of ‘En Qobi. ‘En Qobi is a spring in the upper reaches of Nahal Qobi, a tributary of Nahal Refai’m, West of Jerusalem. There is evidence of human activity near the spring from the Bronze Age to the present – a span of approximately 3,000 years. The article presents and discusses (a) the spring and its water system; (b) partial excavations and the preservation of the interior of the medieval church located near the spring; (c) H. Tasit and a nearby refuge cave, both located west of the spring; (d) H. Qobi, situated east of the spring. Our team cleaned the water system, which consists of a long spring tunnel, a large underground reservoir, an open pool and other elements typical of systems used to tap spring water in the Judean Hills. This system was apparently built in the Early Roman period, was renovated again and again and remained in use until recent times. The medieval church has a rectangular nave, oriented east-west with well-preserved ashlar walls. The inner walls were covered with polychrome frescoes. Elbow columns topped with capitals, characteristic of Frankish (Crusader) architecture in the Jerusalem area, were found in situ on the northern and eastern walls. Our funds permitted only a partial excavation of some portions of the inner walls. Inadequate funding prevented a full excavation of the church walls and floors, so the construction phases of the structure were not fully clarified. H. Tasit is a relatively small site, apparently an agricultural estate from the Roman and Byzantine periods. Unfortunately, the site was looted extensively in the past. On the nearby slope we detected and explored a small karstic cave that was apparently used for refuge purposes in the first – second centuries CE. H. Qobi is a small, ruined village located on a prominent hilltop above the spring. Without extensive excavation it is difficult to ascertain its function and past. An underground olive press and some looted tombs on the slopes were explored. Pottery and finds from the Late Hellenistic, Early Roman, Byzantine, Medieval, Ottoman and British Mandate periods were collected. ‘En Qobi has been identified as Qobi, a location near Bethar mentioned in a story in the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 95a) and in additional Roman-period, late antique and medieval sources. The article describes the sites and discusses their historical-geographical significance and identification.

History of Kirkuk during the British mandate period

In the late years of World War I (1914-1918), the Ottoman-controlled regions faced a new condition. The city of Kirkuk, as a part of Kurdistan's territory, was not deprived of these new transformations and events.
 This research aimed to investigate the history of Kirkuk during the British mandate period. The study found that the arrival of the British in southern Kurdistan, particularly Kirkuk, had a historical background, dating back centuries before the British conquest of the city of Kirkuk in 1918, particularly due to the presence of natural resources in the area. The study also found that Kirkuk residents, as part of Kurdistan's territory, were exhilarated about nationalism after the fall of Ottoman oppression and the arrival of English authorities and that its population had publicly expressed their nationalism desires, for independence and unity with Kurdistan.
 The study also reveals that the British have tried in every way to cut off the area from Kurdistan and the Kurdish national movement after the national stance on Kirkuk residents became clear. Kirkuk residents have also broadly supported Sheikh Mahmud and announced him as their leader, and they fully cooperated with him in this regard, which is due to the national sentiment that has developed in the city of Kirkuk.
 In the study, we found that in a referendum conducted by the United Nations to resolve the Mosul state issue, residents in Kirkuk mostly agreed to be part of Iraq, even though there were votes demanding independence. Kirkuk people were also generally dissatisfied with the issue of appointing Faisal asking for Iraq, and stood against it, publicly expressing that they would prefer to unite with Kurdistan when Faisal was appointed as crown king to Iraq.

Civil Society Activities in Palestine

The authentic political culture of Palestinians and the prototype of civil society began to arise as far back as the British Mandate period. Since then, it has passed several stages of its formation, and due to the influence of several domestic and foreign policy factors it has, on the one hand, become the main element of general mobilization towards liberation of Palestine and the creation of the Palestinian self-identity. On the other hand, because of its dependence on foreign financial help, it has started to promote international institutions’ values and stopped focusing on domestic crucial issues of Palestine exclusively. Civil society in Palestine is a kind of exceptional subject of the political process, as it exists in absence of a state, in context of the decades-long Arab-Israeli conflict and with a low level of the Palestinian National Authority’s support. This paper addresses directions and social, political and economic problems the Palestinian civil society faces and creates, and special attention was paid to online activism and its features.

התיישבות הבדווים בערים ובכפרים ערביים בגליל, 1948-1918

The article reviews the historical events that prompted the Bedouin population to settle in existing Fellahin towns and villages in the Galilee during the British Mandate period, 1918-1948, in Palestine. The process began with the migration of Bedouin tribes from the Arabian Peninsula to Iraq and Syria, forcing local tribes to migrate west, and continued under the Ottoman rule with the laying of infrastructure for Bedouin to settle in the Arab towns and villages of the Galilee. This trend continued under the British Mandate which ended in 1948. The aim of the article is to analyze the dynamic circumstances that led to the migration of Bedouin communities into Fellahin towns and villages. It argues that Bedouin settlement during this period was affected by centralized government policy; by the influence of Zionist institutions on land acquisition; and by the ways in which local pressures on intra-tribal and rural relations played out. The study rests on archival sources, research literature, and seven in-depth interviews with Bedouin and Fellahin inhabitants of various Arab towns and villages in the Galilee, conducted between the years 2013-2015.

British Environmental Orientalism and the Palestinian Goat,1917–1948

British colonial understanding of arid Mediterranean environments was characterised by the idea of degradation: these environments were seen as an aberration from the ‘norm’ of the lush and fertile British forests and grasslands. The struggle against desertification was central to British efforts to model the people and environments of their colonies according to their own ideals. The goat played an important role in the British understanding of arid landscapes as degraded, desertified and generally ‘lacking’, as it became the ultimate symbol for destruction. Nomadic goat-herding, a practice with hundreds of years of history, was singled out as the most destructive form of land use. Connected to the negative image of the goat was the stereotypical image of its owner: nomadic and semi-nomadic lifestyles were deemed not only unproductive but outright reckless. Sedentarisation of the nomad was one of the main goals of British colonisers as a form of population control and maintenance of colonial power. This article examines the British colonial belief in Ruined Landscape Theory as applied to arid Mediterranean environments and tries to uncover the goat’s role in British environmental orientalism, focusing on Palestine during the British Mandate period, ca. 1917-1948.

The representation of spoken Hebrew in Eretz-Israeli fiction films from the 1930s

This article examines whether the dialogue in the first two full-length Hebrew narrative films reflects spoken Hebrew of the time. The first part examines phenomena that, according to written testimonies in grammar books and prescriptivist writings, were typical of spoken Hebrew during the British Mandate period. It shows that these phenomena were not represented in the films from the 1930s, whereas in later films there is a significant rise in their frequency. The second part examines phenomena that are not typical of spoken speech today but are represented in the dialogue of the films from the 1930s. In later films they become very rare or vanish altogether. An analysis of the findings shows that the film-makers did not regard it as the function of cinematic dialogue to authentically reflect spoken speech, but rather adopted the normative approach to Hebrew, which strongly preferred high-register Hebrew over authentic usage.

Archaeological Evidence for the Production of Black Gaza Ware Pottery at the Former Arab Village of Faluja, Israel

ABSTRACT Black and/or Gray Gaza Ware pottery is often found in archaeological contexts in the southern Levant and is broadly dated to the Ottoman and/or British Mandate periods. This ware was primarily made in Gaza, Khan Yunis, and Faluja. In 2002 Yigal Israel conducted an archaeological reconnaissance of Faluja and found archaeological evidence for the manufacture of this ware. He returned to this site in 2009 and excavated a kiln that was used to fire Black Gaza Ware pottery. This report describes his archaeological investigations at the former village Faluja.

An Architectural Survey of the “Mufti's House” in Qālūnyā/Motza

ABSTRACT This is a report of an architectural survey of the “Mufti's House” in Motza/Qālūnyā, Israel. The data is primarily drawn from Saidel and Erickson-Gini's 2019 survey; some information is also drawn from Mashiah's fieldwork in 2010. Historical images demonstrate that this compound was standing by 1906 and that it remained in use throughout the Mandate period. This compound was built using traditional Palestinian construction methods such as those described by Tawfiq Canaan. There is no obvious evidence for architectural modifications to this complex during the Mandate period. Historical records indicate that members of the Husseini family, including the Mufti, occupied this building throughout the Late Ottoman and British Mandate periods. This structure is an example of a summer or country house that was built by an elite Jerusalemite family.

After 1918

After 1918

Towards an Integration of Historical Trees into the Mediterranean Archaeological Record: Case Studies from Central Israel

ABSTRACT The concept of more-than-human agency maintains that objects, animals and plants can act as agents with various effects on people and that trees specifically may play a role in shaping and changing spaces (hence constituting a ‘planty agency’). Also, trees usually outlive several human generations and can therefore be termed ‘historical trees.’ Although this issue is especially relevant for the discipline of landscape archaeology, no systematic methodology has been developed as to how to integrate historical trees in the archaeological documentation of sites and landscapes. Furthermore, there is no scholarly consensus about acknowledging historical trees as legitimate targets for archaeological research from the outset. In this study it is claimed that historical planted (and sometimes wild) trees form relics of intra- and (mainly) inter-settlement cultural landscapes of the recent past. Hence, historical trees can be treated as arboreal evidence that should be interpreted alongside the cultural/material evidence. The great potential of historical trees for archaeological and historical research is demonstrated by seven case studies from Israel’s coastal region which represent various spatial and functional contexts dated to the late medieval, Ottoman and British Mandate periods. Based on these examples a basic methodology for the documentation of historical trees is suggested.

Winemaking between the claims of the local and the international in late Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine (1860s–1948)

Wine-making estates in the late Ottoman and Mandatory period shed light on the relations between land, know-how and nationalism which have shaped up alongside the Arab-Zionist, then Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The dynamics explaining the growth of the estates were grounded primarily in the changing commercial settings of Palestine between the Ottoman and the British mandate periods, with a shift from more quality-oriented production to everyday, low end or mid-range production. In the process, indigenous taste was discarded as of low market value, due to the domination of the increasingly globalized wine market by European wineries. As a result, pressure to adopt European standards of vinification and quality came from various quarters. The article examines to what extent this is due to the anticipation of estate founders, global commercial dynamics, the support government and public debt administrations for the main wineries of the country, and the influence of the nascent international sphere.

Women, Philanthropy and Nationalism in Mandate Palestine. The Greek Ladies' Union of Jerusalem, 1924–1948

ABSTRACT The point of departure for this article is an unexploited source: the minutes of the Greek Ladies’ Union covering the last ten years of the British mandate period. For this period in Jerusalem, women’s voices are rare. By creating this Union along ethnic and national lines in 1924, the ladies also formed a place for philanthropy, social gatherings and the exchange of views on communal and other issues. The minutes of their gatherings bring to us unheard voices of Jerusalem and the Greek community of the city in particular. An analysis of these minutes gives us the opportunity to understand the reasons behind the creation of this association, the different strategies women developed to make their views known within their community, to examine their philanthropic activities within the charitable universe of Jerusalem and, most importantly, to deal with multiple political developments at different levels during a period which is sensitive regarding the future of the Middle East, the Christian communities of Jerusalem and the Greek presence in the region.

The Partition Plans for Palestine—1930–1947

The idea of the “two-state solution” has been on the political agenda of Eretz-Israel/Palestine for the past 40 years. The idea was first discussed during the British Mandate period, especially from the 1930s onward. Jews, Arabs, the British and eventually the UN, all considered establishing two states, Jewish and Arab, side by side in Palestine. The article deals with the areal dimension of the proposals, which were based on the dispersion of existing Jewish and Arab settlements and the allotment of territory for future Jewish immigration to the Jewish state.

Revisiting historical sea level elevation in Israel from the British Mandate period through the present day (1922–2017)

Long-term series of reliable sea level (SL) data are essential for understanding the trends and causes of SL changes, for furthering knowledge about the effects of current climate change and for predicting future SL evolution. This study aims to extend the SL time series of measurements along the Israeli Mediterranean coastline by revisiting historical benchmarks (BM) along the Israeli coast, first determined by the British Survey of Palestine (SOP) at 1922 and later by the Survey of Israel (SOI) in 1995. By identifying and remeasuring the historical BM from Gaza to Imera (1922) and in Jaffa (1936), this study reconstructs the historical mean sea level (MSL), anchoring it to the present national height network, and extending the SL time series of equipped measurements along the Israeli coastline. Accordingly, the study provides long-term SL trends for the Levantine Basin. The long-term SL time series reveals an increasing trend in the 1920s, which moderates during the 1930s, a decreasing trend from the 1960s to the 1990s, and a rapid increasing trend in the 1990s. As a result, it can be deduced that the historical datum can reflect the historical MSL of its period, extend the long-term SL data and by that indicate for environmental changes. Based on long-term SL data (1956–2016) it can be determined that the MSL of Israel is 0.082 m relative to the 1995 Israeli datum.