Presence In Palestine Research Articles

The Emergence and Main Trends in the Activities of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society in the Sphere of Organizing Pilgrimages (1882-1905)

The article considers the problem of the emergence and main trends of the pilgrimage activity of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society in 1882-1905. It is established that during this period there was an actualization of the Eastern issue and increased competition between the leading states in the Middle East, who covered their geopolitical goals with religious arguments. This posed an imperative for the Russian Empire, a world power that traditionally defended Orthodoxy in the Holy Land and had its own interests in the region, to respond. After the Crimean War, the idea of forming a sphere of Russian presence in Palestine was put forward at the state level. There has been an increase in Russia's diplomatic and spiritual influence in the Holy Land, which has manifested itself in the functioning of a number of relevant representative offices here, the creation of infrastructure and the activation of the Orthodox pilgrimage movement. Subsequently, in order to systematize and increase the effectiveness of efforts, the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society was founded, an organization with a special status, state and church support, which became the main coordinator of the humanitarian presence of the Russian Empire in the Middle East region. The methodological basis of the research is the synthesis of systemic and geopolitical campaigns, the expediency of which interaction is justified by modern trends in the development of the methodology of social sciences and humanities. This led to the use of research methods. The historical and genetic method made it possible to study the peculiarities of origin, establishing appropriate cause-and-effect relationships. The application of the institutional method helped to determine the importance of various institutions in the process of functioning of Society. Based on the analysis of a wide source base and numerous studies, it was revealed that during the period under review, along with charity, education, scientific and publishing activities aimed at maintaining and developing Orthodoxy in Palestine, one of the main tasks of the Society was the organization of a Russian pilgrimage to the Holy Land. It was characterized by the following manifestations: dissemination of information about pilgrimage trips; reduction of tariffs for participants of pilgrimage trips; establishment of transport links between Russia and Palestine; publication of relevant auxiliary, educational and scientific literature; acquisition of new land plots in the region; repair of existing and construction of new infrastructure and religious buildings in Palestine; systematization and improvement of pilgrimage routes; conducting special educational events by the Society.

Tourist, Pilgrim, Migrant, Settler: Rethinking the Modern History of Ashkenazim in the Levant Through Sites of Hospitality

This article looks at Ashkenazi-operated hotels in Tiberias, Beirut, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Cairo, Alexandria, and elsewhere, in the late Ottoman period and under British rule, to consider the confusing ambiguities that these stories reveal. Ashkenazi presence in Palestine is typically understood in terms of either the pious, zealot pilgrims, or the nationalist settlers. And yet the story of the hotel owners and operators could also fit into a different category, that of migrants, who sought to integrate within existing social, economic, and political structures. The tourism and hospitality industry, which relied on flows of people across borders and on a diverse customer-base, was to some degree at odds with the segregation associated with Zionist Yishuv. Such stories, which have been forgotten and erased by the history of Palestine in the twentieth century, prompt us to rethink our understanding of Ashkenazi history in the region.

The Social and Political Life of Armenians in the Holy Land

A Palestinian Armenian: The Intertwine between the Social and the Political. Varsen Aghabekian. Dar al-Kalima University Press (2021)The Armenian presence in the Middle East, and in the Holy City in particular, goes back thousands of years. Armenians’ presence in the territory dates back to 420AD when they participated in the construction of St James (Sourp Hagop) Convent. By the sixth century, they had constructed sixty-six religious institutions in Jerusalem. Currently, they still play a big role in the social and religious life in the Holy Land, where the Armenian Quarter stands as the one of the essential religious and ethnic pillars of the old city next to the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish quarters. The Holy Land refers to Palestinian territory and some parts of Israel, an area roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River. But this book is not solely about the history of the Armenians’ presence in Palestine. As reflected in its title, The Intertwine Between the Social and the Political, this book is about the past and the present of the Armenians of Palestine with implications about their future role in Palestinian nation-building.

Israel’s international mobilities regime: visa restrictions for educators and medics in Palestine

ABSTRACT This article examines Israel’s control of international presence in Palestine as an ‘international mobilities regime’ that has damaging effects for the provision of services in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Focusing specifically on educators and medics, the discussion draws on long-term fieldwork to set international visa restrictions in the context of the ‘internal’ control of Palestinians’ mobilities before documenting the effects for education and healthcare provision. Discussion then turns to the scale and function of bureaucracy that produces a further significant effect: to make nothing happen whereby projects are stalled, cancelled or rendered inconceivable. To this methodologically elusive function, the approach proposed here is to attend to an order of ‘what would have been’ to better understand the power of bureaucracy to prevent movement and make people stay in place. Two main arguments are made: that Israel has developed an international mobilities regime that extends its control over Palestinian spaces; and that the scale of control is perceptible only by careful attention to the lost possibilities effected by bureaucratic restriction – and key contributions are explicated for further enquiry into bureaucracy-as-deterrent, the international dimensions of Israel’s mobility restrictions and a turn to ‘unspectacular’ sites of colonial control.

The Phenomenon of Mistrust in Church-State Relations of the Russian Empire in the 1860–1870s. Conflicts between the Consulate and the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem

The history of the Russian presence in Palestine has received a worthy coverage in the literature. In recent years, there has been an active surge of interest in this topic. At the same time, some aspects of the relationship between the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission and the Consulate in Jerusalem remain insufficiently studied. The article analyzes the three most acute conflict situations that took place in the history of the Second, Third and Fourth Missions in Jerusalem: under Bishop Kirill (Naumov) in 1857–1862, Archimandrite Leonid (Kavelin) in 1864–1865 and under Archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin) in 1879–1881. The corpus of published documents from the funds of the Foreign Policy Archive and other archives makes it possible to identify the positions of the conflicting parties and trace the main processes of the development of crisis situations. For the first time, documents from the funds of the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian National Library are being introduced into scientific circulation. The study of the correspondence between the consuls and the members of the Palestinian Committee who stood behind them, as well as the heads of the Russian ecclesiastical missions, revealed the hidden causes of the conflicts. Secular in nature, the Palestinian Committee became the sole steward in the construction and management of all Russian religious buildings in Palestine. At the same time, the Spiritual Mission lost all means of influencing the numerous pilgrims from Russia. The Jerusalem consulate, being the official representation of the Foreign Ministry, in fact acted as an agency of the Russian Society of Shipping and Trade. In all conflict situations, the Consulate enjoyed the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Holy Synod practically did not take measures to protect the mission. Two chiefs of the mission, Bishop Kirill (Naumov) and Archimandrite Leonid (Kavelin), were removed from their posts due to the intrigues of the consuls. Archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin) retained his post only by accident due to the intercession of influential nobles. All conflict situations were based on the deep distrust of secular institutions in the spiritual authorities. These manifestations of mistrust were especially vividly manifested in the Holy Land.

THE IMAGE OF JERUSALEM IN HEBREW CHILDREN'S LITERATURE: THE PLAY (JERUSALEM TO ME) AS A MODEL

The Zionist movement, in all its stages, relied on Hebrew literature in order to achieve its aggressive and colonial goals. The celebration of Hebrew literature, in its various expressive and poetic forms, was a celebration of describing the conditions of the Jews, and directing them to emigrate to Palestine. Hebrew education books at various school levels described many Zionist concepts and in accordance with smart educational policies. Likewise, Hebrew literature directed at children played an important and vital role that differs from the rest of other literatures, as it carried with it Zionist ideological orientations according to ideological and political ideas and thus succeeded in creating children of a nature. Especially, Jewish writers focused on raising children through literature and focused on important historical issues and special educational trends. All this led to the success of the Zionist project. Zionism began caring for the Jewish child from the beginning, as it issued newspapers for children next to public libraries, and the movement began to revive the Hebrew language and enrich Hebrew children's literature from 1890-1891. Many Hebrew works directed to children have appeared, including story, poetry, and drama. In 1893, the first Hebrew magazine directed at children was published, entitled ( ולם קטן) (a small world). The Zionist movement did not neglect those who direct and take care of children’s literature because the child is the first building block of the state. Therefore, it placed the Jewish child within the framework of its project to accommodate the various Jewish immigrations to Palestine and the production of Hebrew children's literature. With the revival of the Hebrew language at the end of the nineteenth century and the increase of the Zionist presence in Palestine, it became one of the goals of Zionism to make the Hebrew language a language of dialogue between children and to consolidate the values of secular Zionism. One of these methods was to stage theatrical performances in the Hebrew language in front of young children. In this research, I will deal with the play (Jerusalem is mine) by the writer Galia Yei, as this play is concerned with Jewish assimilation in Jerusalem and linking the past with the present. And the Hebrew theater tried to prove the Jewishness of Jerusalem through historical events

The Israeli-Palestinian War of Narratives: Nur Masalha's Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History in Context

ABSTRACT Palestinian academic Nur Masalha, who lives and teaches in London, published a thick volume seeking to anchor his arguments in an academic framework of a sort. Palestine: 4000 Years of History is an effort to document the argument for historical continuity between the Semitic-Arab peoples who had inhabited Palestine and the contemporary Palestinians. For Masalha, Palestine is a defined entity with its own native population embodied in the Palestinian Arabs. There was also a Jewish presence in Palestine during the biblical period but it was brief and insignificant. For the Jewish people and the Zionist Movement the term “Palestine” referred to the Land of Israel, the historical homeland of the Jewish people of the Land of the Bible. Terminology and nomenclature are important components of every national conflict. At the heart of such conflicts is the struggle for control of a specific territory and the respective claims by the contenders to absolute ownership of that territory. Such conflicts over the very name of a contested territory are not unique to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This article surveys the historical evolution of the contest over narratives between Israelis and Palestinians.

Brief Synopses of New Arabic Language Publications

Brief Synopses of New Arabic Language Publications

РЕЗУЛЬТАТЫ АРХЕОЛОГИЧЕСКИХ РАСКОПОК ОСТАТКОВ ПОРОГА ДРЕВНИХ ГОРОДСКИХ ВОРОТ В ИЕРУСАЛИМЕ (1883 Г.)

The article describes the results of the Russian archaeological excavations near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (1883). The author analyses the discussion regarding the discovery of the Threshold of the Judgement Gate, examines the views of K. Schick, V. N. Khitrovo, B. P. Mansurov. Relevance of the study is conditioned by the fact that the Russian presence in Palestine is comprehensively examined in the historical aspect; the results of the archaeological excavations are analysed from the viewpoint of the modern Biblical archaeology. Originality of the study involves a comparative analysis of the views of all the participants of the discussion regarding the discovered artefacts.

Keeping Out the ‘Undesirable Elements’: The Treatment of Communists, Transients, Criminals, and the Ill in Mandate Palestine

ABSTRACTIn the new era of border control beginning after the First World War, the British-administered Palestine Mandate perceived non-Zionist migration as largely undesirable. Both discursively and practically, the Mandate administration crafted the category of the ‘undesirable migrant’ in order to limit its own responsibility for the presence in Palestine of economic, social, political, and morally undesirable Arab and Jewish migrants. Not only did the administration wish to absolve itself from responsibility and diplomatic protection over political agitators such as communists, but it also did not wish to support the mentally ill, transients, and labour migrants who settled in Palestine. The following offers an understanding of how best to situate this unwanted, largely non-Zionist migration into and out of Mandate Palestine within the broader history of Great Britain’s colonial and interwar treatment of undesirable movement.

«Мансуровский проект» Русской Палестины (по материалам поездки 1857 г. по Святым местам)

We consider the activity of B.P. Mansurov in organizing Russian pilgrimage to the Holy Land. We describe the preparation, course and results of B.P. Mansurov’s trip to the Orthodox East (1857) that largely predetermined the nature of the Russian presence in Palestine. In the framework of this trip, we consider the reasons for creating the joint-stock company “Russian Company of Shipping and Trading”. We reveal that created as an attempt to preserve the presence of Russia on the Black Sea coast, the company set the task to facilitate the movement of Russian pilgrims to Palestine and Athos. By this step, the Russian government intended to increase Russia’s humanitarian influence in the region. We pay attention to B.P. Mansurov’s service instructions in trip to the East, the significance of his work for the publication of the “Guide to the Orthodox Worshiper to Holy Places”, and also Mansurov’s own views on the problem of Russian Orthodox pilgrimage in Palestine. We show that B.P. Mansurov’s program envisaged an increase in the intensity of the steamship communication with Palestine, the acquisition of land and construction of pilgrimage shelters, the erection of temples for the Russian worship. The development issues of Orthodox pilgrimage should be managed through the Russian consulates operating in the Middle East, including in Jerusalem itself. Consideration of results of the journey in 1857 allowed to draw conclusions about the significant role of B.P. Mansurov in the history of the Russian presence in the Holy Land.

The Establishment of the Apostolic Delegation to Palestine, Cyprus, and Transjordan (1929): Cause or Effect of Changes in Vatican Middle East Policy?

This essay brings to light how the establishment of the Apostolic Delegation to Palestine, Cyprus, and Transjordan (1929) marked a turning point in the Catholic presence in Palestine during the period of the British Mandate. Based on several unexplored archival sources, this paper analyzes the factors driving the creation of the new Apostolic Delegation and the consequences it produced in the Holy See's Middle and Near Eastern policies. The difficult relationship among various Catholic institutions in Palestine and the necessity to adapt the Catholic presence in that region to the new political situation caused the Vatican to send an apostolic visitor (1925) and then to establish direct representation of the Holy See in Jerusalem (1929). This last decision contributed to sounder relations with the British administration and functioned to limit the involvement of European Catholic powers (primarily France and Italy) in church affairs. At the same time, it highlighted the Vatican's will to reinforce the role of the Christian Arab clergy in Palestine while limiting that of European missionaries. This analysis creates a clearer picture of how the establishment of the Apostolic Delegation to Palestine, Cyprus, and Transjordan was at the same time the cause and effect of an important shift in the Catholic perception of Palestine.

Foreign Presence in Palestine in Diaries and Notes of Russian Travelers of the late XIX — early XX Centuries

Foreign Presence in Palestine in Diaries and Notes of Russian Travelers of the late XIX — early XX Centuries

Negotiating Presences: Palestine and the Weimar German Gaze

The new Jewish presence in Palestine brought about by Zionism and consolidated politically by the Balfour Declaration reintroduced into the German and German Jewish consciousness the idea of the proximity of Jews to the Orient while challenging their image as "orientals." It was photography that showed such new Jewish appearances especially palpably and that confronted viewers with a changing Holy Land. This article discusses three photo books on Palestine published in 1925, using them as markers for the contested presences and absences of Jews and Judaism in Germany. The books discuss the status of Palestine and the role of Jews as its new, old colonizers, allowing for a plethora of opinions on the political meaning of Zionism, many of which would be attacked soon thereafter.

Cadrin, Paul and Downes, Stephen (eds) The Szymanowski Companion (review)

SEER, 95, 2, APRIL 2017 356 book, on p. 212.) Indeed, the gushing reports on, for example, the rapidly growing ‘American’ city of Tel-Aviv brought to mind the breathless style of innumerable Soviet novels such as Valentin Kataev’s Vremia vpered — the feeling that time was on the side of those who were building a new and better future, whether for Soviet or for Jewish citizens. Read, for example, Gershon Svet’s private letter of 1935: ‘Tel-Aviv is growing literally by the hour, if not by the minute. Everyone is in a cheerful, happy mood. You rarely meet so many people in a good frame of mind as you do here. Of course, there are whingers as well, but they are mainly losers, who, in Tel-Aviv, look just like their opposite numbers in Riga’ (p. 214; see also pp. 204–09). (Nonetheless, Mr Svet chose to live in Jerusalem.) This future-projected similarity, however superficial, may help to explain the general widespread reluctance of Jews in Palestine and, later, in Israel to be overly critical of the Kremlin (a rare exception, in 1932, is described on pp. 202–03). There was definitely a Russian non-Jewish presence in Palestine, as shown, i.a., by the lectures given in Russian (and interpreted into Hebrew) in 1935 by the Socialist-Revolutionary leader Viktor Chernov (pp. 212–13) and by the 1937 complete translation of Evgenii Onegin by Avraam Shlenskii, born in Ukraine, who also translated Gogol´, Blok, Mandel´shtam and Pasternak into Hebrew (pp. 221–22). Although it would have benefited from a bit more editing by someone with native English, this is a very worthwhile book, and we should be grateful not only to its editors, but also to the editors at Stanford Slavic Studies, for publishing it. Department of Slavonic Studies Martin Dewhirst University of Glasgow Cadrin, Paul and Downes, Stephen (eds). The Szymanowski Companion. Ashgate,FarnhamandBurlington,VT,2015.xxii+301pp.Musicexamples. Tables. Notes. List of works. Chronology. Bibliography. Indexes. £70.00. What do we understand by a musical Companion: a fireside guide for the informed layman, or an academic’s round-up of recent interpretative scholarship? Paul Cadrin and Stephen Downes, editors of The Szymanowski Companion, could hardly be clearer: in the wake of a burgeoning Szymanowski literature involving a number of different interpretative and analytical approaches, their aim is ‘to provide a text that is the first port of call for English readers, both the professional scholar and the musically trained amateur enthusiast’ (p. xvii). The task sounds daunting but their alphabetic layout, dazzling the reader with juxtapositions such as ‘Dance, Death, Dedicatees’ REVIEWS 357 or ‘Piano Music, Politics, Rhythm’, proves practical, and the narrow angle of some of these headings can be fruitful. ‘Dedicatees’, for instance, brings together biographical detail that one would long hunt for elsewhere. Many of the contributors are familiar to the English-speaking Szymanowski enthusiast.TeresaChylińskahasbeenentrustedwithbiographicalinformation; the editors and Alistair Wightman share chapters on analysis and aesthetic issues; and a further, international group of scholars contribute items on specific aspects of Szymanowski’s oeuvre, his writings and travels abroad. There is naturally some overlap, as between the two chapters concerning Szymanowski’s musical and aesthetic debt to Chopin, or between genre-based and analytical chapters centring on the same works. The more musically detailed chapters succeed in illuminating works one thought one knew, in unpretentious analytical language mildly spiced (in the case of Downes’s ‘Sonata Forms’) with references to Hepokoskian sonata deformation theory. Sometimes one senses that the writers have been obliged by considerations of space to close the door on unexplored avenues. This adds to the appeal of the book, in the event, as one is inspired to explore for oneself. Certain themes recur. Szymanowski’s apparent aesthetic shift circa 1914, when he outgrew his Germanic influences and embraced French music, Hellenism and Orientalism, is central for many. It yielded some of his most characteristic music, of which Symphony no. 3 (‘Song of the Night’), the Mythes and the First Violin Concerto, composed in the incredibly fertile years from 1914 to 1916, are the first point of attraction for many Szymanowskians. Some observers see a further shift...

A Common State in Israel–Palestine: Historical Origins and Lingering Challenges

This papers investigates Palestinian and Zionist understanding of a common state in Palestine by examining two central historical texts that promoted a one state solution in Palestine. It explores the ways in which Palestinian and Zionist nationalisms tried to address the relationship between the state and the nation as well as offered ways to protect collective and individual rights in a single polity. It also examines how each side viewed the identity and needs of the other party, in order to understand how each party thought it (im)possible to accommodate them into a single polity. The paper shows that the Palestinians, while trying to come to terms with the Jewish presence in Palestine after 1970, have often failed to appreciate the complexity of Jewish national identity in a single polity. They accepted the two states solution as an attempt to reconcile with Jewish Nationalism only to find that their political rights were further eroded. The Zionists, on the other hand, has often justified the one state solution from a purely introspective dimension, namely with regards to its congruence with Jewish needs and notions of justice. Although they tried to take into consideration Palestinians claims, they maintained an orientalist tone in their approach to Palestinian claims and options. Moving forward a discourse of rights needs to supersede a reified understanding of self-determination and provide a new political formula that can protect the collective and individual rights of all those living on the land.

Becoming Brigadistas: Jewish Volunteers from Palestine in the Spanish Civil War

Nearly two hundred men and women left Mandatory Palestine between the years 1936–1938 in order to defend the Second Spanish Republic. Despite the expressions of solidarity with the Spanish Republic, most of the political parties in the Jewish Yishuv were against sending youth from Palestine to join the International Brigades. The goal of strengthening the Jewish presence in Palestine was given priority over and above international solidarity or the anti-Fascist struggle. Therefore, most of the volunteers were Jewish members of the Palestine Communist Party. This article relies on autobiographical writings, individual testimonies and personal correspondence, analysed here for the first time. It is here that the private voices of the Jewish men and women who left Palestine in order to fight against the nationalist rebellion in Spain ring more clearly. The paper examines the history of these Jewish volunteers, their motivations, and the process that they went through from the time they left Palestine until they became active members of the International Brigades. As Communists, most volunteers who left Palestine to fight in Spain tended to emphasize the international solidarity of the working class and similar universalistic motivations. The idea of affirming their Jewish identity was alien to them. Reading their letters and testimonies, however, it becomes clear that their ethnic identity as Jews was certainly a key factor in their decision to risk their lives in the Spanish fratricide.

Russian Missions to the Orthodox East: Antonin Kapustin (1817–1894) and his World

This article investigates the Russian Orthodox presence and activities in Christianity’s sacred historical center of the Holy Land from the 1840s, when Russia expanded its consular activities in Palestine and began its first spiritual missions to this region, through the end of the nineteenth century. The article particularly centers on the active leadership of Archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin), who served as the leader of the Russian Ecclesiastical mission in Jerusalem from 1865 to 1894. A prodigious scholar of the Orthodox East, Antonin resourcefully developed a respected Russian presence in Palestine, raised substantial funds for the assistance of Russian pilgrims and for the accumulation of properties throughout the Holy Land, and continued his intensive studies and publications on the region’s history, archeology, and human geography. Frary illustrates how the archimandrite in these pursuits exhibited an impressive ability for flexible and sensitive adaptation to a non-Russian, non-Orthodox environment that was revealed in his own scholarly work and in his successes in constructing new regional centers of Orthodoxy in Palestine.

Palestine under Assyrian Rule


 
 
 The Assyrian presence in Palestine from the ninth through the seventh century B.C.E. represents a case of intercultural contact against the background of an expansionist imperial process. The “Assyrianization” of Israel and Judah, as well as that of the whole Levant, has often been posited. This term, which evokes “Romanization,” would indicate enforced cultural adaptation to Assyrian values and customs within the framework of a process of assimilation. An alleged “Assyrianization” of Ancient Israel would be congruent with that interpretation of Assyrian imperialism postulating programmatic measures to impose the Assyrian way of life upon the whole empire. However, a study of the cuneiform and archaeological sources leads to an alternative interpretation of Assyrian imperial policy in the West.
 
 

De-legitimization of Israel in Palestinian Authority schoolbooks

De-legitimization of Israel as a sovereign state and denial of the Jews' rights, indeed of their legitimate presence in Palestine in both antiquity and today, have been the cornerstone of the Arab position since the onset of the Middle East conflict. Even the peace agreements between Israel and some of its neighbours – Egypt (1979), the PLO (1993), Jordan (1994) – have not changed this attitude, as starkly illustrated by schoolbooks of the nations concerned. This essay describes the depiction of the Jewish state in Palestinian Authority (PA) schoolbooks in comparison to Arab, Iranian, and Israeli textbooks.