​​Instead of viewing geography through the familiar Occident–Orient binary—divided between Greece and Turkey, and by the Black Sea—we might approach it as a single region stretching from Poland and Russia in the north to Egypt and the Levant in the south: the eastern part of West Eurasia. During the interwar period, Eastern Europe (including Russia) and the former Ottoman lands (including Palestine) shared three simultaneous conditions: they were borderlands, often described as a “shatter zone” where empires collided and diverse populations were drawn in[1]; they experienced intense dynamism in ethnicity and religiosity; and they underwent modernization, accompanied by tensions surrounding the notion of civilization and the East/West divide. Moreover, under the pressure of these three forces, both Eastern Europe and Palestine experienced rapid social change that often produced significant human movement and both inter- and intra-ethnic divisions. This included large-scale migration—both voluntary and forced—the classification and reclassification of populations, growing social divides shaped by political and socioeconomic conditions, and massacres in which Jews were often involved such as pogroms, the Holocaust, and the Nakba, but not exclusively so, as seen in the Armenian massacres, the population exchange between Turks and Greeks, and the Volhynia massacres involving primarily Poles and Ukrainians. These tragedies were partly fueled by growing suspicions of transnational (or transborder) connections attributed to the victimized populations.

 

However, despite the advantages of comparison, both East European and Middle Eastern historiographies have taken West European and American history as their primary points of reference. Zionist historiography has modeled itself on pan-European nationalism and modernization, while recent scholarship on Palestine/Israel has drawn its frameworks from settler colonialism in North America and British colonies.

 

Although almost forgotten outside the academia, these two comparable regions were connected through the Zionist project and Jewish migration: the vast majority of Jewish immigrants and Zionist leaders before the establishment of Israel came from Eastern Europe. These immigrants were shaped not only by European culture in general but, more specifically, by the regional cultures of Eastern Europe—primarily Russian and/or Polish. In Palestine, there was an encounter between East European settlers and the indigenous population. With their own culture and memory, and with their particular view on the East/West divide, the East Europeans’ encounter with the indigenous population might have been different from West Europeans’ encounter with their colonists. The East Europeans had stronger ethnonationalism and victimhood memory, and were not a mere representative of the West but sometimes also the critique of it.

 

The indigenous population was by no means passive. As in any society receiving large numbers of newcomers, Palestine underwent significant transformation. Like Eastern Europe, Palestinian society was diverse, comprising multiple ethnic and religious communities, rural and urban populations, peasants and laborers, and modernists and traditionalists. Different groups within society experienced these transformations in distinct ways, generating varied responses and shaping the region’s own dynamics. In this context, East European historiography offers useful comparative concepts that may illuminate the political culture of Zionist immigrants. For example, the notion of “national indifference,” an emerging theme in the historiography of East and Central Europe,[2] is relevant to the histories of both Jewish immigrants and Palestinian Arab society. Neither group necessarily conceived of itself in terms that would later be institutionalized in ethnonational frameworks. Local populations in both Eastern Europe and Palestine possessed their own cosmologies, while new ruling elites sought to reorganize social orders according to their ideological visions, and people associated themselves with these orders in their own ways. As has often been noted, in Palestine, Oriental and Sephardic Jews—many of whom were initially indifferent to Zionism—came to be categorized as part of the Jewish nation both by Zionist institutions and through their lived experience of conflict in Palestine.[3] Eastern Europe also witnessed the reclassification of populations that were originally indifferent to ethnonational distinctions into national categories. For example, in Eastern Galicia under the newly independent Polish state, Greek Catholics were frequently categorized as Poles, clashing with Ukrainian elites who regarded them as Ukrainians.[4] In Palestine, even in the early stages of Zionism, Jewish immigrants to Palestine were not necessarily driven by ideological commitment to Zionism but often by socioeconomic motives—and their experiences were sometimes marked by disappointment.[5] Thus, we must examine not only conflicts between two national movements (Zionist and Arab/Palestinian) but also conflicts between nationalists and those who were non- or anti-nationalist.

 

In this sense, Eastern Europe is doubly important for examining the history of Mandatory Palestine. Shifting the reference point eastward, away from Western Europe, not only deepens our historical understanding but also helps us identify sources of misunderstanding among groups that came into contact within a short period of time. While the political confrontations in Palestine—stemming from settler colonialism, the Zionist pursuit of a Jewish majority in Eretz Israel, the indigenous population’s aspiration for self-determination, and disputes over land—are well known, this workshop focuses instead on the unintended consequences that exacerbated the conflict. These include misunderstandings, confusion, emerging social inequalities, and abrupt political and economic changes both within and beyond Palestine. For example, just as Jews in Eastern Europe were often associated with imperial power—or a comparable dominant force—and therefore attacked as though they were agents of such a power or force, Jews in Palestine were identified with the British Empire, partly because of the Balfour Declaration and other policies perceived as favorable to Jews, and partly because of Zionist engagement with those policies. Seemingly, this association formed a backdrop that intensified Arab attacks on Jews during the riots/uprisings in Palestine. Drawing on the Eastern European experience, Zionists interpreted these attacks as “pogroms,” which prevented them from fully grasping the anti-colonial motivations of Arab resistance. The association of particular groups with particular powers was a common pattern in Eastern Europe as well. For instance, in interwar Poland, Poles often linked Ukrainians and Jews especially in what is now Western Ukraine with the Soviet Union, a perception that further inflamed ethnic tensions.

 

In the workshop, we will focus primarily on the following themes:

• What the Jewish immigrants brought into Palestine, in terms of culture and practice

• The tension between transnational (transborder) nationalism and national indifference (or intra-ethnic divisions)

• The (imagined) shadow of neighboring powers (e.g., the Soviet Union for Poles; Poland and the Soviet Union for Ukrainians; Arab nationalism for Zionists; Britain for Arabs)

• The impact of ideas of civilization and the East/West divide

• Misunderstandings and misconceptions as forces that amplify conflict within such complex settings

 

This workshop marks our first step toward linking East European history with the histories of Palestinian Arabs and Jews. It will be followed by conferences in Tokyo and will culminate in the publication of an edited volume.

 

[1] Although not defined clearly, the following volume demonstrates dynamics of the shatterzone: Omer Bartov and Eric D. Weitz eds., Shaterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

[2] Representative works on national indifference in Central and Eastern Europe include Tara Zahra, Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands, 1900-1948, Ithaca: Cornel University Press, 2008.

[3] For an example of the application “national indifference” to Mandatory Palestine, see Caroline Kahlenberg, “Peddlers and the Policing of National Indifference in Palestine, 1920–1948,” History Workshop Journal 90, 2020, 115–141.

[4] Olga Linkiewicz, “Nationalism and Vernacular Cosmologies: Revisiting the Concept of National Indifference and the Limits of Nationalization in the Second Polish Republic,” in Emmanuel Dalle Mulle et al. eds., Sovereignty, Nationalism and the Quest for Homogeneity in Interwar Europe, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023, 175.

[5] Gur Alroey, An Unpromising Land: Jewish Migration to Palestine in the Early Twentieth Century, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014; Gur Alroey, Land of Refuge: Immigration to Palestine, 1919-1927, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2024.