Modernity, Minority, and the Public Sphere: Jews and Christians in the Middle East

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents: A chronology of space Searching for common ground : Jews and Christians in the modern Middle East H.L. Murre-van den Berg The changing landscape of Muslim-Jewish relations in the modern Middle East and North Africa D. Schroeter Arabic and its alternatives Standardized Arabic as a post-Nahda common ground : Mattai Bar Paulus and his use of Syriac, Arabic, and Garshuni T. Barda Jewish education in Baghdad : communal space vs. public space S. Goldstein-Sabbah Preserving the Catholics of the holy land or integrating them into the Palestine nation (1920-1950) K. Sanchez Summerer Urban presence Ottoman Damascus during the Tanzimat : the new visibility of religious distinctions A. Massot The king is dead, long live the king! Jewish funerary performances in the Iraqi public space A. Schlaepfer Jerusalem between segregation and integration : reading urban space through the eyes of justice Gad Frumkin Y. Wallach Transnationalism Refugee camps and the spatialization of Assyrian nationalism in Iraq L. Robson The League of Nations, a-mandates and minority rights during the mandate period in Iraq (1920-1932) H. Muller-Sommerfeld "Soundtracks of Jerusalem" : youtube, North African rappers, and the fantasies of resistance A. Boum

Modernity, Minority, and the Public Sphere: Jews and Christians in the Middle East explores the many facets associated with the questions of modernity and minority in the context of religious communities in the Middle East by focusing on inter-communal dialogues and identity construction among the Jewish and Christian communities of the Middle East and paying special attention to the concept of space. This volume draws examples of these issues from experiences in the public sphere such as education, public performance, and political engagement discussing how religious communities were perceived and how they perceived themselves. Based on the conference proceedings from the 2013 conference at Leiden University entitled Common Ground? Changing Interpretations of Public Space in the Middle East among Jews, Christians and Muslims in the 19th and 20th Century this volume presents a variety of cases of minority engagement in Middle Eastern society.