The Palestinian Jew Who Envisioned a Semitic Zion

Elie Eliachar was a Palestinian Jew born into a family rooted in Jerusalem since 1485, Eliachar envisioned a "Semitic Zion"—a return to the Middle East not as a European colony, but as a civilizational revival shared by Semitic Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. This video explores how the "Iron Wall" of European Zionism marginalized the voices of indigenous Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews, trading centuries of coexistence for a legacy of colonial conflict. Sources Eliachar, Elie. Living with Jews. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983. Eliachar, Elie. Living with Palestinians. Jerusalem: Council of the Sephardi Community, 1975. Behar, Moshe and Zvi Ben-Dor Benite. Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: A Writings Anthology, 1893–1958. Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2013. "Four differing outlooks." The New York Jewish Week and the American Examiner, Vol. 193, No. 48, May 3, 1981. Gillon, Philip. "Interview with Elie Eliachar." Jerusalem Post Magazine, September 12, 1973. Ba-Ma'arakhah. Special issue dedicated to Eliachar on his 70th birthday. Jerusalem, April 1970. (Hebrew) Zionist Organization. "Address to the 14th Zionist Congress." In Protocols of the XIV Zionist Congress, Vienna, August 18–31, 1925. Jerusalem: Central Zionist Archives. Ha'am, Ahad (Asher Zvi Ginsberg). "Truth from Eretz Israel" (Emet m’Eretz Yisrael). Hameltitz (St. Petersburg), 1891. Jabotinsky, Ze'ev. "The Iron Wall" (O Zheleznoi Stene). Razsviet (Berlin), November 4, 1923. King, Henry Churchill and Charles R. Crane. Report of the American Section of the Inter-allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey. Washington, D.C.: Department of State, 1919. (First published in Editor & Publisher 55, no. 27, December 2, 1922). Hyamson, Albert M. The Sephardim of England: A History of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Community, 1492–1951. London: Methuen, 1951. Shlaim, Avi. The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000.