Six Singular Figures: Understanding the Conflict; Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate

This book’s title promises to help readers understand the Jewish-Arab conflict, but the exceptional nature of the six people whom Lazar (Out of Palestine: The Making of Modern Israel) profiles makes her book less about historical realities than about what might have been if her subjects had had more influence. She focuses on a period in the early 1930s when, under the British mandate, “bloody riots were rare and there was some dialogue between Jews and Arabs.... Leaders and important figures on both sides met and discussed terms of peaceful coexistence.” The people she focuses on—two Jews, Manya Shochat and Judah Lieb Magnes; two Arabs, Musa ’Alami and George Antonius; and two Englishmen, Arthur Wauchope and Orde Wingate—were, with the exception of Wingate, “actively involved in those attempts at dialogue.” Lazar paints rich, intimate portraits of these individuals that will interest biography lovers, but their life stories overshadow the political narrative. Readers should not expect to encounter individuals who shaped history or connected with the aspirations of Arab and Jewish peoples in that era, but rather those who stood out as stones in a river as the currents of history swirled past them. (Oct.)