Ben Lynfield in The Christian Science Monitor:
Projecting the Palestinian-Israeli conflict's intensity and seeming intractability today onto the past, many people assume that enmity has been at the fore of relations for centuries. But in Lives in Common, the dovish Israeli politicial scientist Menachem Klein reclaims a time – only about a century ago – when the interaction was characterized by a good deal of civility, respect, and a shared identity between Arab and Jew in Palestine. The book, published last month by Oxford University Press, analyses the history of the conflict from bottom up, focusing on the daily interactions of Arab and Jew in Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Hebron beginning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and extending to the present day. Taking a new and original approach, Klein draws heavily on the diaries and memoirs of ordinary people, elevating his book beyond the usual leader-based perspectives or histories emanating from official documents.
His touching-off point is that before nationalism – both Jewish and Arab – made the words Arab and Jew mutually exclusive, there were people who thought of themselves as ''Arab Jews,'' just as today there are American Jews. Lifestyle, language, culture, and shared attachment to place created a common identity with Muslims that was expressed in every day life, Klein posits. In other words, there were lives in common.The author shows how Jews and Arabs lived in the same courtyards, participated in each other's religious festivals, watched over each other's children, and worked together in charitable and public welfare organizations.
More here.
