Temas de relaes internacionais e de poltica externa do Brasil,polticas econmicas, viagens, livros, cultura em geral.

sbado, 13 de dezembro de 2014

Estado Judeu na Arabia Saudita? Um projeto de1917 (BBC)

Magazine Monitor

13 December 2014 Share

Round the bendTales from Britain's rule in India andbeyond

The Jews may have originated in the

The Jews of Arabia

Middle East but they were long agoscattered far and wide - to the Gulf,among other places. Few now remain,except in Iran. But a century ago, writesMatthew Teller, there was even aproposal to found a Jewish state at anoasis near Bahrain.In 1859 Grith Jenkins, a senior Britishnaval ocer in the Gulf, wrote to asubordinate named Hiskal.Hiskal - or Yehezkel - ben Yosef was aminor ocial representing Britishinterests in Muscat. And, like hispredecessor in the post in the 1840s (aman named Reuben), he was Jewish.Jews had been living in Muscat since atleast 1625. In 1673, according to onetraveller, a synagogue was being built,implying permanence. British ocerJames Wellsted also noted the existenceof a Jewish community on a visit in the1830s.Jenkins's letter talks obliquely about theImam (a Muslim ruler who held sway inOman's interior) and the arrival of a manfrom Persia. He ends by asking Hiskal toexplain the matter in private - and then,remarkably, had his letter translated intoHebrew.

British Library curator Daniel Lowe, whounearthed the letter recently, isummoxed. With Arabic in daily use, andHiskal doubtless able to read English, whywould Jenkins communicate in Hebrew?Lowe guesses that he may have beenusing Hebrew as a secret code, to beunderstood by Hiskal but not bymessengers - and, perhaps crucially, notby the Imam and the "man from Persia".But if this remains a mystery, it'swell-known that Jews once lived all acrossArabia.The Koran records Jewish tribes in andaround Medina in the 7th Century, andthe medieval traveller Benjamin of Tudela,who passed through in about 1170,describes sizeable Jewish populationsthroughout modern-day Iran, Iraq andSaudi Arabia, as well as on both shores ofthe Gulf - at Kish (Iran) and Qatif (SaudiArabia).Baghdad had been home to Jews sincethe 6th Century BC. Around the time ofWW1, ocials estimated the city's Jews tonumber between 55,000 and 80,000, in atotal population of 200,000 - aproportion equal to or greater than that incentres of European Jewry such asWarsaw or Berlin.Today, fewer than 10 individuals remain.For a combination of reasons includingeconomic migration, political pressureand outright persecution - notably afterthe State of Israel was declared in 1948 -almost all the Jewish communities of theGulf countries dwindled to nothing in the20th Century.Two survive. In Iran perhaps 25,000 Jews

remain, while Bahrain has a tiny Jewishminority, comprising only a few families -though they wield signicant power. Untillast year, Bahrain's ambassador to the USwas a Jewish woman, Houda Nonoo.Neither community, though, has had aneasy time. Racist attacks were beingrecorded by the British in Iran in1905 andin Bahrain in 1929.Meanwhile, British diplomat John GordonLorimer hints at tensions caused byJewish businessmen in Kuwait,whodistilled "spirituous liquors" andthus enabled local Muslims to breakreligious laws.

In 1917 an outlandish plan was oated touse Bahrain as the bridgehead fromwhichto establish a "Jewish State ofEastern Arabia" in the desert nearby, butit came to nothing. Just weeks afterwardsBritish Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfourgave his support to the idea ofestablishing a "national home for theJewish people" in Palestine.

Ya Shayile El Gerre, featuring the JewishIraqi singer Sett Salima Pasha

Today, the cultural legacy of JewishArabia survives most tangibly in music.This evocative song, Ya Shayile El Gerre -

Paulo Roberto Almeida s 21:19

recorded in the 1930s on 78rpm shellacdisc - features the Jewish Iraqi singer SettSalima Pasha, accompanied almostcertainly here by the Jewish Kuwaitimusicians Daoud Al-Kuwaiti (oud) and hisbrother Saleh (violin).Round the Bend is a series of tales fromthe days when Britain ruled India and theGulf, told with documents newly digitisedby the British Library. You can explore thearchive yourself.British Library curator Daniel Lowecontributed original research for thisarticle.Selected documents:Photograph of an Aden Jew,photographer unknown (1870s)Jews in the Persian Gulf region, by JohnGordon Lorimer (1908)"Throughout the Muslim countries, theseunhappy people [the Jews] have beensubjected to persecution." GeorgeCurzon, MP (1892)British diplomatic note mentioning theJewish shopkeepers of Bahrain (1927)Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine'semail newsletter to get articles sent toyour inbox.

Compartilhar 0

Adicionar um comentrio

Incio

Visualizar verso para a webTecnologia do Blogger.