Simon Cobbs5d ago
An interesting excerpt from Ladislas Farago’s 1936 book Palestine on the Eve. Although its language and attitudes towards women are plainly objectionable, the passage reveals something significant: Jewish immigration was raising living standards and increasing prosperity in Mandate Palestine, yet Jews were still blamed for the social changes that followed.
Even the Arab official quoted admits that Jews were “not directly responsible” - but held them responsible nonetheless. It is a revealing early example of Jewish progress being recast as a grievance and used to rationalise hostility and violence:
“In Nablus there was much complaint that the prices of women had risen, and the Jewish immigration was blamed for it. With the general rise in the standard of living, many who had previously not been able to afford this luxury were now able to pay high prices for their wives, and prices on the women-market rose from day to day. Once one could have got a hard-working, pretty piece of womanhood for £30; now every moderately pretty and strong Arab woman costs £100, and prices ranging up to £250 are often paid. These prices are offered by non-resident Arabs who come from districts where Jews live, and if young men in the pure-Arab districts want to get a wife they often have to cross to the Arab countries across the border, since they cannot pay the high prices. In Syria one can get wives for £40 to £50, in Cyprus even for £20 to £30; therefore Cyprus has become, in recent times, a paradise for the marrying Arab.
“I can assure you,” an Arab official of the Ottoman Bank said to me in Nablus, “even such episodes add to the general hatred of the Jews, and one must not judge the Arabs harshly if they take to arms in desperation. The great changes caused here by the Jewish immigration have not spared anything—none of the ancient, hallowed traditions nor family life—and these people know no other remedy. Of course, the Jews are not directly responsible, yet they are indirectly the cause that the Arabs in Nablus are no longer able to find wives in their own town.”
The greater part of the day—the siesta—and the whole night are spent by the Arab in his harem, where at the present time one can only seldom find the prescribed four wives. Very few can allow themselves four wives at the prevailing high prices and this naturally causes embitterment. For it is the wife and not the man who does the work, and the more women there are living in the harem the less labour must the man perform; on the contrary there would even remain for”
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