![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
The American University of Beirut's emergence as a hub of Arab national and cultural identity in the first half of the twentieth century has been well documented by historians. The simultaneous Zionist presence on campus has been largely overlooked. Zionist ideas were predominantly promoted by Palestinian Jewish students who formed a small but vocal minority at AUB prior to 1948. Faculty and non-Jewish students also regularly collaborated with and traveled to Zionist institutions in Palestine for academic, athletic, and leisure purposes. For Arab students on campus, therefore, Zionism was not an abstract concept, but rather a national identity embodied by fellow classmates and friends on campus. As the conflict in Palestine increased in the 1930s and 1940s, so too did political activism and tensions on campus between Zionist and Arab nationalist students. This article analyzes this unique period of exchange, collaboration, and friction at AUB, which came to a swift end with the outbreak of the 1948 War. By focusing on the interactions between Arab and Zionist Jewish students at AUB, I seek to extend the ‘relational’ approach towards Jewish-Arab contact beyond Palestine's borders.
Acknowledgements
I thank Derek Penslar, Salim Tamari, Chloe Bordewich, Aden Knaap, and William Tamplin for their insightful comments on this project. I am also indebted to AUB's Jafet Library archivists for their generous assistance.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
Notes
1 Hala Sakakini, Jerusalem and I: A Personal Record (Amman: Economic Press Co., 1990), pp.98–9. Emphasis added.
2 I follow the work of Farzin Vejdani, who argues that broadening our scope of study beyond the Arab character of AUB can yield important insights about AUB’s significance to other populations. Farzin Vejdani, ‘The Iranians of AUB and Middle Class Formation in the Early Twentieth-Century Middle East’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies Vol.43, No.4 (2016), p.487.
3 Betty S. Anderson, American University of Beirut: Arab Nationalism and Liberal Education (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011); Hilary Falb Kalisman, ‘Bursary Scholars at the American University of Beirut: Living and Practising Arab Unity’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies Vol.42, No.4 (2015), pp.599–617. See also Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Lina Choueiri, and Bilal Orfali (eds), One Hundred and Fifty (Beirut: American University of Beirut Press, 2016); Elie Kedourie, ‘The American University of Beirut’, Middle Eastern Studies Vol.3, No.1 (1966), pp.74–90; Brian VanDeMark, American Sheikhs: Two Families, Four Generations, and the Story of America’s Influence in the Middle East (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2012), pp.106–7. VanDeMark briefly discusses the Arab-Jewish relations on campus from the AUB administrators’ perspective.
4 Al-cUrwa al-Wuthqa, founded in 1918 as an Arabic literary society, became the major hub for Arab nationalist thought and activity. It was AUB’s longest surviving Arab society. Between 1923 and 1954, the society published a student journal of the same name, which Anderson refers to as ‘the Arab nationalist Bible for its students’. See Anderson, American University of Beirut, pp.2, 129–50.
5 Kalisman, ‘Bursary Scholars’, p.617.
6 Anderson, American University of Beirut, p.15. Kalisman, ‘Bursary Scholars’, pp.614–5.
7 On the ‘relational’ approach, see Zachary Lockman, ‘Railway Workers and Relational History: Arabs and Jews in British-Ruled Palestine’, Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol.35, No.3 (July 1993), pp.601–27.
8 See Bayard Dodge, ‘Statistics of Students’, Report of the President of the American University of Beirut for the Seventy-Eighth Year, 1943-1944; Constantine Zurayk, President’s Annual Report to the Board of Trustees, 1952/3, ‘Appendix “E”: Statistics of Students’. https://ulib.aub.edu.lb/report-pres-annual/capaub_presannrep_1943-44.pdf and https://ulib.aub.edu.lb/report-pres-annual/capaub_presannrep_1952-53.pdf
9 On the pedagogical transition from the Syrian Protestant College’s proselytizing mission to the American University of Beirut’s program of liberal education, see Anderson, American University of Beirut, pp.25–55. This transition also meant that non-Christian and non-Western teachers were allowed to take faculty positions at the university. See Kalisman, ‘Bursary Scholars’, p.601.
10 Daniel Bliss, Reminiscences of Daniel Bliss, Edited and Supplemented by His Eldest Son Frederick Jones Bliss (ed.) (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1920), p.198, quoted in Anderson, American University of Beirut, p.38.
11 In 1894, for example, among 136 students in the preparatory department, there were five Muslims and two Jews. Stephen B.L. Penrose, Jr., That They May Have Life: The Story of the American University of Beirut, 1866-1941 (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1970), p.52.
12 Daniel Bliss, Annual Report, July 20, 1887, cited in Norbert J. Scholz, Foreign Education and Indigenous Reaction in Late Ottoman Lebanon: Students and Teachers at the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut (PhD thesis, Georgetown University, 1997), p.133; Penrose, That They May Have Life, p.52.
13 Penrose, That They May Have Life, p.52.
14 Scholz, Foreign Education, pp.131–32.
15 Andrew J. Patrick, ‘Jesus Optional: First World War and the Shifting Institutional Identity of the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut’, First World War Studies Vol.7, No.1 (2016), p.47; Howard Bliss, ‘The Recent Difficulty in Connection with Religious Instruction and Worship in the Syrian Protestant College, Beirut, Syria’, Student Life 1882–1980s Collection, AUB Archives, AA4.3, Box 1, File 19. See also Anderson, American University of Beirut, pp.82–8.
16 Anderson, American University of Beirut, p.83; Patrick, ‘Jesus Optional’, p.47.
17 Beginning in 1915 students were given the choice of attending one of two morning services that were held at the same time – the Christian religious service, or the ‘alternative exercises’ without religious character. Despite this new option, most students continued to attend Christian services. As Penrose recalled, by 1938–9 the number attending the alternative services had become ‘relatively infinitesimal’. Ironically, ‘the thirteen [who attended the alternative services] were the most vigorously anti-Jewish Moslems and anti-Arab Jews on campus’. Penrose quipped, ‘One may imagine that they regretted their decision to avoid regular chapel’. Penrose, That They May Have Life, p.294; Bayard Dodge, Report of the President of the American University of Beirut for the Sixty-first Year, 1926-1927, p.29.
18 The International College was founded in Smyrna in 1891 and was moved to Beirut in April 1936 where it operated in cooperation with AUB and took over AUB’s existing preparatory school and junior college. Some buildings and playgrounds were shared by the College and the University. International College included an Elementary School, Preparatory Section and the Section Secondaire (French-Arabic course). Bayard Dodge, Annual Report of the President of the American University of Beirut for the Seventy-First Year, 1936-1937, pp.8–9. The population figures cited in this study include the figures for the university as well as the International College.
19 Bayard Dodge, Report of the President of the American University of Beirut, Beirut, Syria, for the Fifty-Ninth Year, 1925-1926, p.27; Dodge, Report of the President of the American University of Beirut for the Sixty-Eighth Year, 1933-1934, p.14.
20 These students were Sara Levy, who attended a Hebrew Gymnasium in Jerusalem; Fortune Azriel, who attended a Hebrew school in Haifa; and Aida Goldenberg, born in Kiev and a student at the American School for Girls in Cairo. Levy enrolled in AUB’s School of Pharmacy, while Goldenberg and Azriel were in the Dentistry School. In 1924, Levy was the first woman in AUB’s history to receive a degree from AUB. The presence of these three students was apparently a point of pride for Jewish readers abroad, as their enrollment and belonging ‘to the Hebrew race’ was reported in The Bnai Brith Messenger and The Sentinel. In the 1930s–40s, female Jewish students continued to represent a high proportion of students at AUB, especially in the medical and nursing schools. The Sentinel, ‘Jewish Girls at American University of Beirut’ (7 April 1922), p.30; Bayard Dodge, Report of the President of the American University of Beirut, Beirut, Syria, for the Fifty-Ninth Year, 1924-1925, p.14. On female students at AUB, see Aleksandra Majstorac Kobiljski, Women Students at the American University of Beirut from the 1920s to the 1940s in Inger Marie Okkenhaug and Ingvild Flaskerud (eds), Gender, Religion and Change in the Middle East: Two Hundred Years of History (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2005), pp.67–84.
21 Some annual reports used the religious category ‘Hebrews’ interchangeably with ‘Jews’. See for example, Bayard Dodge, Report of the President of the American University of Beirut, Beirut, Syria, for the Fifty-Eighth Year, 1923-1924.
22 Students from Palestine consistently represented the second-largest national group on campus. Although we cannot know exactly how many Palestinian students were Jewish, it is clear that the majority of AUB students from Palestine were not Jewish. According to a 1946 report in the Palestine Post, out of about 300 Palestinian students who planned to attend AUB, about one-fifth, or 60, were Jewish. Of those 60, about 28 students were from Tel Aviv. That year, there were a total of 68 Jewish students enrolled at AUB (not including International College). If this report’s statistics were correct, then about 60 out of 68 (or 88 per cent) of the Jewish students enrolled in the university proper that year were Palestinian Jewish students. The Palestine Post, ‘Beirut University Enrolment’ (19 Sept. 1946), p.2. Moreover, a 1934 report showed that students from Palestine arrived from a wide variety of high schools, including the Hebrew Gymnasium and the Higher School for Commerce in Tel Aviv. See American University of Beirut: Description of Its Organization and Work (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1934), Widener Library, Harvard University. There were also Iranian Baha’i students from Palestine. See Vejdani, ‘The Iranians of AUB’, p.487.
23 Other Jewish students arrived from Europe and the United States. Very few Jewish students at AUB were from Beirut itself, as most members of Beirut’s Jewish community opted for the city’s French universities due to cost considerations. See Kirsten E. Schulze, The Jews of Lebanon: Between Coexistence and Conflict (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2009), p.45.
24 Al-Kulliyah, ‘Registration’, Vol.12, No.2 (December 1925), p.33.
25 Bayard Dodge, Report of the President of the American University of Beirut, Beirut, Syria, for the Fifty-Ninth Year, 1924-1925, p.6.
26 Campus Caravan, ‘Students Represent 26 Nations in AUC’, Vol.22, No.5 (22 December 1944), p.1.
27 Kamal Salibi, A Bird on an Oak Tree [Ta’ir ala Sindiyanah: Muthakkarat] (Amman, Dar al-Shuruq, 2002), p.121–2 [Arabic].
28 Sakakini, Jerusalem and I, pp.98–9.
29 While Zionist activities on campus were predominantly led by Palestinian Jews of European descent, some Jewish students from Arab countries also engaged with Zionism at AUB in a variety of ways. For example, Stella Farhi, a Jewish student from Beirut whose father Joseph Farhi was a major leader of Beirut’s Jewish community and a committed Zionist, wrote her master’s thesis at AUB entitled ‘On Zionism as a Solution of the Jewish Problem’ (1944). In a later interview, Stella described AUB as ‘a nest of anti-Semitism’ – which was the only anti-Semitism she remembered in Beirut. See Schulze, The Jews of Lebanon, pp.66–7; Stella Farhi, ‘On Zionism as a Solution of the Jewish Problem’ (Unpublished Master’s thesis, American University of Beirut, 1944), Harvard Library Microfilm Collection. More generally, recent scholars have shown that some young Jews in Arab countries were attracted to Zionism and participated in local Zionist organizations. Further research on Jewish students from Arab countries at AUB may shed important insights on these broader historical questions. See Yaron Harel, Zionism in Damascus: Ideology and Activity in the Jewish Community at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015); Ruth Kimche, Zionism in the Shadow of the Pyramids: The Zionist Movement in Egypt: 1918-1948 (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2009) [Hebrew].
30 Dodge wrote this response to a report in Doar HaYom claiming that AUB had stopped admitting graduates of the Hebrew Gymnasium of Tel Aviv. Jewish Daily Bulletin, ‘American University at Beirut Does Not Bar Hebrew High School Graduates’ (2 December 1928), p.3.
31 The 1914 Class Motto was ‘Unity in Variety’, al-Kulliyah, ‘Senior Class Reception’, Vol.5, No.8 (June 1914), p.252.
32 Bayard Dodge, Report of the President of the American University of Beirut for the Sixty-First Year, 1926-1927, p.29.
33 Dodge wrote this in a letter to al-Kulliyah, Vol.12, No.3 (January, 1926), p.55.
34 Bayard Dodge, Report of the President of the American University of Beirut for the Seventy-Second Year, 1937-1938, p.2.
35 Bayard Dodge, Report of the President of the American University of Beirut for the Sixty-Seventh Year, 1932-1933, p.1.
36 Sakakini, Jerusalem and I, p.100.
37 Ibid., p.99.
38 There are minor discrepancies in the archival record regarding the exact year in which Kadima was founded. One report dated it to 1904 (Hebrew year 5666) (al-Kulliyah, ‘The Hebrew Students’ Society “Kadima”’, Vol.5, No.5 (March 1914), p.154). Most other official documents date Kadima’s founding to 1907 and 1908. Throughout its history, Kadima was referred to by a few names, including the ‘Hebrew Students’ Society’, the ‘Hebrew Literary Society’ and the ‘Jewish Society’. From now on I will not italicize Kadima.
39 Al-Kulliyah, ‘Kadima: Hebrew Literary Society’, Vol.1, No.5 (June 1910), pp.171–2.
40 The stated goal of the Palestine Society in 1914 was to ‘unite the hearts, and to unify the aims of, those students who come from Palestine’ in order to create a society of members ‘so that in the future we may strive together with the same ideals and purposes for the land which we represent’. Meetings were held every two weeks and were generally carried out in Arabic. Al-Kulliyah, ‘The Palestine Society’, Vol.5, No.4 (February 1914), p.115. It does not appear that Palestinian Jewish students participated in the Palestine Society. Notably, some members of this society would become leaders of the Palestinian national movement. For example, Jamal Husayni, a Jerusalemite and Palestinian nationalist leader, was a member of the Palestine Society in 1914. At one meeting he gave a talk on ‘the necessity of union in Palestine’ (Al-Kulliyah, ‘The Palestine Society’, Vol.5, No.5 (March 1914), p.153.) On ethnically exclusive societies, see Scholz, Foreign Education, p.293.
41 Campus Caravan, ‘No Societies at AUC’, Vol.17, No.4 (7 December 1939), p.2.
42 On the role of Kadima in the Beirut Jewish community, as well as Zionist youth movements more generally in Lebanon and Syria, see Nahum Menachem, ‘Jewish and Hebrew Education in Syria and Lebanon in the Period Between 1910 and 1927’, Studies in Education Vol.2, No.1 (1997), pp.5–38 [Hebrew]; Nahum Menachem, ‘Activities of the “Hapoel Association” in Damascus and Beirut Between the Two World Wars’, Movement: Journal of Physical Education & Sport Sciences Vol.1, No.1 (2001), pp.93–103 [Hebrew]; Nahum Menachem, ‘Activities of the Makkabi Movement in Damascus and Beirut between the Two World Wars’, Movement: Journal of Physical Education & Sport Sciences Vol.1, No.3 (1992), pp.7–26. [Hebrew].
43 Al-Kulliyah, ‘Kadima: Hebrew Literary Society’, p.172.
44 A survey of the names of Kadima’s officers and members indicate that the majority were of Ashkenazi background.
45 Al-Kulliyah, ‘Kadima: Hebrew Literary Society’, p.172.
46 On Joseph Atiyeh (also spelled Attie), see Schulze, The Jews of Lebanon, p.90.
47 Al-Kulliyah, ‘The Visit of the American Ambassador’, Vol.5, No.6 (April 1914), p.175; al-Kulliyah, ‘The Hebrew Students’ Society “Kadima”’, Vol.5, No.6 (April 1914), p.193–4.
48 Al-Kulliyah, ‘The Hebrew Students’ Society “Kadima”’, p.193.
49 Al-Kulliyah, ‘The Hebrew Students’ Society “Kadima”’, Vol.5, No.5 (March 1914), p.154.
50 Al-Kulliyah, ‘The Formal Opening of West Hall’”, Vol.5, No.6 (April 1914), p.187.
51 Al-Kulliyah, ‘The Hebrew Students’ Society “Kadima”’, Vol.5, No.6 (April 1914), p.193.
52 Ibid., p.193. On the so-called war of languages at the ‘Technikum’ (later the Technion), see Arieh Saposnik, Becoming Hebrew: The Creation of a Jewish National Culture in Ottoman Palestine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp.213–36.
53 Al-Kulliyah, ‘Kadima’, Vol.9, No.3 (January 1923), p.52; al-Kulliyah, ‘Kadima’, Vol.9, No.5 (March 1923), p.88. In turn, some Zionist actors in Palestine were well aware of Kadima and its activities. Vladimir Jabotinsky, for example, was apparently particularly interested in Kadima. Joseph B. Schechtman, The Life and Times of Vladimir Jabotinsky: Rebel and Statesman (Maryland: Eshel Books, 1986), p.186.
54 In 1931, for example, Kadima organized a Purim ball in Beirut that included a play and speeches in Hebrew. See Doar HaYom (8 March 1931), p.4 [Hebrew]. For more on the Lebanese Jewish community, see Franck Salameh, ‘The Beirut Jewish Community and Early Twentieth-Century Lebanese Nationalism’, The Journal of the Middle East and Africa Vol.6, No.3–4 (2015), pp.293–310; Franck Salameh, ‘Fragments of Lives Arrested: A Memoir of Lebanon’s Jewish Community’, Middle Eastern Studies Vol.52, No.4 (2016), pp.567–87; Tomer Levi, The Jews of Beirut: The Rise of a Levantine Community, 1860s-1930s (New York: Peter Lang, 2012). On Zionist activity in Lebanon and Zionist-Lebanese relations, see Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, My Enemy’s Enemy: Lebanon in the Early Zionist Imagination, 1900-1948 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994).
55 Al-Kulliyah Review, ‘Items’, Vol.2, No.9 (2 March 1935), p.3.
56 Al-Kulliyah Review, ‘Kadimah Society Has Picnic at Dog River’, Vol.5, No.3 (26 November 1938), p.7.
57 Al-Kulliyah Review, ‘Kadimah Society Takes Trip’, Vol.5, No.4 (17 December 1938), p.5.
58 Roth spoke about the history of Judaism, the rise of the religion, and the ‘cooperation of the Jews with the Arabs in serving the causes of science and learning during the rule of the Arabs’. See al-Kulliyah Review, ‘Modern Tendencies in Judaism’, Vol.1, No.4 (3 February 1934), p.4.
59 Al-Kulliyah Review Commencement Number, 1939, ‘Kadimah Society’, p.24.
60 Y. Cohen, ‘The Kadima Society’, al-Kulliyah Review, Vol.1, No.7 (17 March 1934), p.4.
61 Al-Kulliyah Review, Vol.3, No.1 (19 October 1935), p.2. It appears that Jewish students petitioned the faculty, unsuccessfully, to formally coordinate classes in Hebrew in 1927. Executive Committee Meeting, ‘Course in Hebrew’ (1 November 1927), Minutes of University Faculty, 1927-1931, Box 837, University Archives, AUB.
62 Al-Kulliyah Review, Commencement Number, 1935, ‘Review’s Review of the Year, 1934-1935’, p.23.
63 On the Iraqi student organization, see Kalisman, ‘Bursary Scholars’, p.607.
64 Al-Kulliyah Review, ‘Society Scholarship’, Vol.3, No.9 (29 February 1936), p.2.
65 Lewis Cohen, ‘Kadimah Society’, al-Kulliyah Review: Commencement Number, 1938, p.23; ‘Statistics of Students’, Report of the President of the American University of Beirut for the Seventy-Second Year, 1937-1938.
66 Al-Kulliyah Review, ‘Intramural Sunday Games’, Vol.2, No.5 (22 December 1934), p.5.
67 Al-Kulliyah, ‘Reception of the “Société Littéraire française”’, Vol.15, No.5 (March, 1929), p.130.
68 Salibi, A Bird on an Oak Tree, p.122.
69 Bayard Dodge, Annual Report of the President of the American University of Beirut, p.20.
70 Executive Committee Meeting, ‘Closing of Deposit Accounts’ (9 December 1947), University Senate and Executive Committee, 1945-1948, Box 846, AUB.
71 The Palestine Post (6 July 1933), p.5.
72 Lewis Cohen, ‘Kadimah Society’, al-Kulliyah Review: Commencement Number, 1938, p.23.
73 The Palestine Bulletin, ‘Jewish Magistrate for Haifa’, 28 July 1927, p.3; al-Kulliyah, Vol.15, No.9 (July 1929), p.235. The publication of Shems’ book in 1934, ‘A Manual of the Magistrate’s Law in Palestine’, was noted and reviewed in al-Kulliyah magazine. Al-Kulliyah, ‘University and Alumni Publications’, Vol.20, No.3, p.87.
74 Al-Kulliyah Review, ‘Alumni News’, Vol.3, No.1 (19 October 1935), p.6; al-Kulliyah Review, ‘Alumni News’, Vol.4, No.7 (23 January 1937), p.3.
75 Al-Kulliyah Review, ‘Alumni News’, Vol.4, No.7 (23 January 1937), p.3.
76 At AUB, Epstein studied the life of Bedouins and conducted fieldwork in neighboring Arab countries (VanDeMark, American Sheikhs, p.106). While a student, he also coordinated discussions between AUB and the Hebrew University about a potential partnership between the two universities. See Eisenberg, My Enemy’s Enemy, p.72.
77 See, for example, Samuel S. Friedman, letter published in al-Kulliyah, Vol.20, No.2 (December 1933), pp.55–6; See also letter from M. Neumann, al-Kulliyah, Vol.6, No.1 (15 January 1920), p.53.
78 For example, K. Lipschitz, who graduated in 1920, served in the Public Works Department in Safed and visited AUB in 1927. Al-Kulliyah, ‘Alumni News’, Vol.14, No.1 (November 1927), p.25. Of course, these visits could not happen after 1948.
79 Al-Kulliyah Review, Vol.6, No.13 (17 May 1939), p.3.
80 The majority of AUB alumni associations in Palestine had Arab (not Jewish) leadership and members.
81 Al-Kulliyah, ‘Alumni Activities in Palestine’, Vol.10, No.7 (May 1924), p.109. See also al-Kulliyah, ‘Nine Days in Palestine’, Vol.15, No.6 (April 1929), p.167.
82 Doar HaYom, ‘Among the Beirut College Students’ (26 July 1921), p.3 [Hebrew].
83 It was reported that the Arab and Jewish officers of this association, except for two, were AUB graduates. Al-Kulliyah, ‘Jerusalem’, Vol.8, No.1 (November 1921), p.94.
84 Laurens Lickok Seelye, ‘A Philosopher among the Cults of the Near East — II’, The Christian Leader (9 January 1937), p.41, cited in VanDeMark, American Sheikhs, p.107.
85 Al-Kulliyah, ‘The Hebrew University in Jerusalem’, Vol.11, No.3 (January 1925), pp.34–8.
86 Al-Kulliyah, ‘The Hebrew University in Jerusalem’, Vol.11, No.6 (April 1925), p.97.
87 Al-Kulliyah, ‘Distinguished Visitors’, Vol.17, No.1 (November 1930), p.12.
88 Al-Kulliyah Review, ‘Women Students’ News’, Vol.1, No.5 (17 February 1934), p.1.
89 Al-Kulliyah Review, ‘Alumni News’, Vol.3, No.1 (19 Oct. 1935), p.4; al-Kulliyah Review, ‘News Items’, Vol.3, No.3 (16 Nov. 1935), p.1. Al-Kulliyah, ‘University News’, Vol.21, No.6 (1 July 1935), p.205.
90 Al-Kulliyah Review, ‘Items’, Vol.2, No.10 (16 March 1935), p.1.
91 Report of the President of International College for the Year 1939-1940, pp.12–3; The Palestine Post, ‘Lebanese Students Visit Rehovoth Station’ (4 April 1940), p.2; al-Kulliyah Review, ‘Farm Trip’, Vol.7, No.6 (May 1940), p.17.
92 See, for example, The Sentinel, ‘Arabs Study Jewish Methods’ (9 April 1940), p.35. Other Zionist organizations also took an interest in AUB, recognizing its important role in the Arab world. For example, a report of the American Zionist organization Hadassah’s ‘Committee for the Study of Arab-Jewish Relations’ dedicated nine pages to detailing the history and current activities of the American University of Beirut, including its Jewish population and some activities in Palestine. The reason cited for discussing AUB in this report was ‘the great role of the American University of Beirut in the development of the Arab countries’ (p.4). (Moshe Perlman, ‘Hadassah Committee for the Study of Arab-Jewish Relations’, Material VI, Issued 10 August 1942. Central Zionist Archives, File F31/4).
93 Al-Kulliyah Review, ‘Trip to the Levant Fair’, Vol.1, No.8 (21 April 1934), p.4.
94 Al-Kulliyah Review, ‘Campus News’, Vol.1, No.8 (21 April 1934), p.1.
95 Al-Kulliyah, ‘Varsity Football Trip to Palestine’, Vol.15, No.7 (May 1929), pp.187–9.
96 Doar HaYom (5 April 1931), p.1 [Hebrew]; Doar HaYom (9 April 1931), p.4 [Hebrew].
97 Penrose, That They May Have Life, p.287.
98 Doar HaYom (11 March 1931), p.1 [Hebrew]
99 Bayard Dodge, Annual Report of the President to the Trustees of the American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon, 1945-6, p.16. Notably, Constantine Zurayk, the influential Arab intellectual and nationalist thinker, served as secretary of the Executive Committee in the late 1940s.
100 Minutes of the Executive Committee, ‘Committee for Relief of Palestine Sufferers’ (29 October 1929), Minutes of University Faculty: 1927-1931, Box 837, AUB.
101 Anderson, American University of Beirut, p.15.
102 Davar, ‘Solidarity Strike in Beirut’ (3 May 1936) [Hebrew].
103 Minutes of the University Faculty, ‘Student Strikes’ (14 September 1936), Minutes of University Faculty: 1927-1931, Box 837, AUB; Minutes of the University Faculty, 14 September 1936. See also Minutes of the University Faculty, 21 September 1936.
104 Minutes of University Faculty, ‘“Kadima” Society’ (18 March 1937), Minutes of University Faculty: 1927-1931, Box 837, AUB.
105 Sakakini, Jerusalem and I, p.97.
106 Palestine Post, ‘American University of Beirut: Treatment of Arabs and Jews’ (29 December 1938), p.6.
107 Archie Crawford was the son of James Stewart Crawford who spoke as the AUB representative at the Hebrew University 1925 ceremony (cited above).
108 Palestine Post, ‘American University of Beirut’, p.6.
109 Ibid., p.6.
110 Bayard Dodge, Annual Report of the President of the American University of Beirut, 1939-1940, p.21; Dodge, AUB annual report, 1945-6, p.3.
111 Bayard Dodge, Annual Report of the President to the Trustees of the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, 1945-1946, p.2.
112 Bayard Dodge, ‘Must There Be War in the Middle East?’ Reader’s Digest (April 1948), p.45; Stephen B.L. Penrose, Jr., ‘Our Recognition of Israel: Authority of President Questioned, Treatment by Press Criticized’, New York Times (20 May 1948); Bayard Dodge, ‘A Message from President Dodge’, al-Kulliyah Vol.23, No.1 (January 1948), pp.3–5; VanDeMark, American Sheikhs, pp.123–4.
113 On Arab student responses to the 1948 war, see Anderson, American University of Beirut, pp.140–1.
114 Palestinian students appealed to the AUB administration regarding this crisis and uncertainty. In early May 1948, 176 Palestinian students signed a petition sent to the Executive Committee describing the ‘material and mental difficulties’ as a result of the war in Palestine, and the fear they would not be able to return to Palestine after 15 May. The students requested that the AUB administration ‘take the necessary measures to help them in their plight’. The Executive Committee voted in response to inform the Student Council that it would not take general action regarding all Palestinian students, but that students should report to their dean in individual cases in which they needed to leave the university. Meeting of the Executive Committee (4 May 1948), Minutes of the University Senate and Executive Committee, 1945-1948, Box 846, AUB.
115 Crawford served as AUB’s Acting President in 1947–1948 in between the presidencies of Howard Dodge and Stephen Penrose.
116 Joint Meeting of the Executive Committee and Council (7 Jan. 1948), Minutes of the University Senate and Executive Committee, 1945-1948, Box 846, AUB.
117 Minutes of the University Senate (12 January 1948), Minutes of the University Senate and Executive Committee, 1945-1948, Box 846, AUB. As Kirsten Schulze notes, there is some continued confusion around the issue of expulsion of non-Lebanese Jewish students from Lebanon. Unlike AUB, French universities in Beirut evidently announced that Jewish students irrespective of nationality were allowed to stay. Schulze, The Jews of Lebanon, p.69.
118 The Executive Committee Minutes do not state explicitly who this Vice President was. It may have been Constantine Zurayk, who was a Vice President of AUB that year. Later Executive Committee meeting minutes indicate that the students also approached Crawford, who was serving as Vice President as well as Acting President at the time.
119 Joint Meeting of the Executive Committee and Council (14 January 1948), Minutes of the University Senate and Executive Committee, 1945-1948, Box 846, AUB.
120 Minutes of the Executive Committee (20 January 1948), Minutes of the University Senate and Executive Committee, 1945-1948, Box 846, AUB.
121 Dana Adams Schmidt, ‘Censorship in Lebanon’, New York Times (11 January 1948), p.3, cited in VanDeMark, American Sheikhs, p.130.
122 Bayard Dodge, The American University of Beirut: A Brief History of the University and the Lands which it Serves (Beirut: Khayat’s, 1958), p.91.
123 The Palestine Post, ‘American Schools in Middle East Hopeful’ (23 April 1948), p.4.
124 Students who chose to postpone their academic work would be given the opportunity to take exams the following school year. Joint Meeting of the Executive Committee and Council (26 April 1948), Minutes of the University Senate and Executive Committee, 1945-1948, Box 846, AUB.
125 Stephen Penrose, ‘President’s Report of 1948-49’, al-Kulliyah Magazine Vol.24, No.7 (Autumn 1949), p.8.
126 Anderson, American University of Beirut, p.120; Betty S. Anderson, ‘Voices of Protest: Arab Nationalism and the Palestinian Revolution at the American University of Beirut’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East Vol.28, No.3 (2008), p.394.
127 This included, for example, Iraqi Prime Minister Fadil al-Jamali; President of Syria Nazim al-Kudsi; and Palestinian nationalist leader Jamal Husayni. On Fadil al-Jamali, see Kalisman, ‘Bursary Scholars’, p.610.
128 On Palestinian activism at AUB in the post-1948 period, see Anderson, ‘Voices of Protest’, pp.390–403; Betty Anderson, ‘September 1970 and the Palestinian Issue: A Case Study of Student Politicization at the American University of Beirut (AUB)’, Civil Wars Vol.10, No.3 (2008), pp.261–80.