The Maronites and the Yishuv: The Levant (Part 1/8)

By Dr. Amine Jules Iskandar | President of the Syriac Maronite Union – Tur Levnon The Orient is often perceived as a homogeneous space. Often no distinction is made between the Middle East and the Levant, or between the different ethnic groups that live there. This region is generally portrayed as anti-Western and, above all, antisemitic. The Catholic Church of the 1930s is similarly often depicted as antisemitic, occasionally colluding with Nazism or choosing to turn a blind eye. This despite the numerous examples across all over Europe of Catholics who earned the title of “Righteous.” The Levant The Levant, too, was home to a Catholic Church that extended a warm welcome to the Yishuv throughout the 1930s and 1940s. It was a period when Maronites and Jews appeared to be renewing a neighborly relationship that had been interrupted for far too long. These two ancient peoples of the Levant experienced the great empires of antiquity, the calamities of the Mamluk period, a revival and reconstruction under the Ottomans, and, above all, the genocides of the twentieth century —for the Maronites it was the Kafno (the Great Famine of 1914–1918) and for the Jews it was the Shoah (1939–1945). Their historical and cultural similarities were further reinforced by what the Yishuv leader Haim Arlosoroff described in 1933 as a “natural community of destiny.” [1] In a letter addressed to Ignatios Moubarac, the Maronite Archbishop of Beirut, Haim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency, described their two communities as “two progressive peoples of the Middle East.” [2] The Magen Abraham Synagogue The Maronite perspective differed little from that of the Yishuv. What better illustration for this than the speech delivered by Patriarch Antonios Arida at the Magen Abraham Synagogue in Beirut on 21 April 1937? In the presence of Chief Rabbi Chabbetay Bahbout, the Maronite patriarch blessed and praised Lebanon’s Jewish community and the Jewish settlement in Palestine. On that occasion, he made his famous statement: “They are the path to the destiny and aspirations of the Christians of Lebanon.” [3] This declaration reflects a profound awareness of the historical and spiritual ties between the two communities, as well as an exceptional Judeo-Christian friendship at a time when Nazism was on the rise. The welcome was marked by emotion and solemnity. The streets were adorned with papal, Lebanese, and French flags, with vine leaves, garlands, and draperies. A triumphal arch had been erected at the entrance to the synagogue. The arch bore the inscription in Hebrew: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” The Levant and the Middle East The common perception during the 1930s and 1940s of these two peoples being “in the Middle East” but not “of the Middle East,” reveals a lack of historical understanding. This perception stems, in particular, from a confusion between the Middle East and the Levant. In reality, these are indigenous populations of the Levantine land, to which they belong historically and culturally. Although Arab populations in the Levant often viewed them as Trojan horses or outposts of Western imperialism, to borrow William Harris’s expression [4], Jews and Maronites belong to cultures deeply rooted in this land and its millennia-old history. Greater Syria Their modern history was shaped by an existential opposition to the Arabist ideology of a Greater Syria. According to Scott Abramson [5], the Maronites of Lebanon and the Jews of Palestine simultaneously faced Arab resistance rooted in an imperial conception of the region and a determination to preserve Syria’s territorial integrity. As early as April 1920, following the allocation of the British and French mandates at the San Remo Conference, attacks began in Palestine and Lebanon. Jews in Jerusalem were the first to suffer violence. The following month, the Maronite village of Ain Ebel was attacked and burned, leaving dozens dead. In May 1921, violence resumed against Jewish residents of Jaffa. The Arab message was clear: geographical Syria constituted an indivisible Arab political entity. This warning was directed at both the Christian and Jewish populations of the Levant and the Mandatory powers. It reaffirmed the resolutions adopted several weeks earlier by the second General Syrian Congress, convened in Damascus, which had proclaimed the independence and indivisibility of Greater Syria. The project of Greater Syria never ceased to be a priority for Arab leaders. They were prepared to pursue it at any cost, even if it meant setting aside their own principles. On 3 January 1919, the Hashemite Emir Faisal ibn Hussein, leader of the Arab Revolt (1916-18), concluded a draft agreement with Haim Weizmann in which he recognized the Balfour Declaration in exchange for the establishment of an Arab state in Syria. The San Remo Conference and the first General Syrian Congress of July 1919 rendered the agreement obsolete. But Arab ambitions did not stop there. In 1921, Riad al-Solh resumed negotiations with Haim Weizmann. In 1934, Riad al-Solh proposed to Moshé Shertok and David Ben-Gurion a kind of “Arab Balfour Declaration.” He pledged to recognize the rights of Jews in Palestine in exchange for the Zionists’ recognition of an Arab Greater Syria [6]. One that would include Lebanon. In 1936, he renewed this proposal in discussions with Haim Weizmann. [7] During the same period, Sunni merchants in Beirut did not hesitate to establish contacts with Zionists. The Sunni merchants promised to buy the land on the Zionists’ behalf. Land that the Palestinian Sunnis were refusing to sell. [8] Despite these initiatives, Arabists continued to accuse the Maronites of being “Zionist traitors.” An Existential Challenge For both the Yishuv and the Maronites, the principal challenge was to shield Jewish Palestine and Christian Lebanon from the project of Greater Syria advocated by Arab nationalists. Initially, both benefited from the support of the great powers whose objectives converged with their aspirations. Great Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, while France proclaimed the establishment of Greater Lebanon. By contrast, as Scott Abramson has demonstrated, most of the Levant’s other communities remained “political orphans,” lacking a patron or European support. [9] The Yishuv and the Maronites were among the Levant’s most organized and dynamic societies. With well-developed cultural, economic, and political structures, they were distinguished by strong communal cohesion and clearly articulated national projects in a region long shaped by imperial governance or caliphal logic rather than national ones. It was within this context that both peoples developed a determination to preserve their distinct identities and differentiate themselves from the broader Syrian whole. [10] This article was originally published in French by Ici Beyrouth on 17 October 2026. The original can be found here. The views expressed in this op-ed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of SyriacPress. References: (1) Haim Arlosoroff to Victor Jacobson, 2 January 1933, Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, Z4/20177. (2) Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, My Enemy's Enemy: Lebanon in the Early Zionist Imagination, 1900–1948, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1994, p. 31. (3) Antonios Arida, speech at the Beirut synagogue, 21 April 1937, cited in The History of the Magen Abraham Synagogue, based on later secondary sources. (4) William Harris, The Levant: A Fractured Mosaic, Markus Wiener, Princeton, 2003, p. 13. (5) Scott Abramson, The Promise and Failure of the Zionist-Maronite Relationship, 1920–1948, thesis, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, 2012, p. 20. (6) Neil Caplan, Negotiation and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Jerusalem Quarterly, No. 6, Winter 1978, p. 13; Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, My Enemy's Enemy: Lebanon in the Early Zionist Imagination, 1900–1948, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1994, p. 66. (7) Neil Caplan, Negotiation and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Jerusalem Quarterly, No. 6, Winter 1978, pp. 14–15; Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, My Enemy's Enemy: Lebanon in the Early Zionist Imagination, 1900–1948, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1994, p. 66. (8) Eliyahu Epstein, The Character of the Pan-Arab Movement: Its Political and Social Values, 4 February 1938, Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, S25/5682. (9) Scott Abramson, The Promise and Failure of the Zionist-Maronite Relationship, 1920–1948, thesis, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, 2012, p. 18. (10) Meir Zamir, The Formation of Modern Lebanon, Croom Helm, London, 1985, p. 6; Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, My Enemy's Enemy: Lebanon in the Early Zionist Imagination, 1900–1948, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1994, p. 31.