2024 Winner Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature The Sami Rohr Jewish Literary Institute One
of the Wall Street Journal's 10 Best Books of 2023 Named a Booklist Editors' Choice in History:
Adult Books 2023 Finalist Writing Based on Archival Material: National Jewish Book Awards
Finalist Sophie Brody Medal American Library Association "[Kessler] has done an exceptional
job and opened new vistas on troubles past and present." - Wall Street Journal "Kessler's
history is key to understanding the current situation between Israelis and Palestinians." -
Booklist Starred Review A gripping profoundly human yet even-handed narrative of the
origins of the Middle East conflict with enduring resonance and relevance for our time. In
spring 1936 the Holy Land erupted in a rebellion that targeted both the local Jewish community
and the British Mandate authorities that for two decades had midwifed the Zionist project. The
Great Arab Revolt would last three years cost thousands of lives-Jewish British and Arab-and
cast the trajectory for the Middle East conflict ever since. Yet incredibly no history of this
seminal formative first "Intifada" has ever been published for a general audience. The
1936-1939 revolt was the crucible in which Palestinian identity coalesced uniting rival
families city and country rich and poor in a single struggle for independence. Yet the
rebellion would ultimately turn on itself shredding the social fabric sidelining pragmatists
in favor of extremists and propelling waves of refugees from their homes. British forces'
aggressive counterinsurgency took care of the rest finally quashing the uprising on the eve of
World War II. The revolt to end Zionism had instead crushed the Arabs themselves leaving them
crippled in facing the Jews' own drive for statehood a decade later. To the Jews the
insurgency would leave a very different legacy. It was then that Zionist leaders began to
abandon illusions over Arab acquiescence to face the unnerving prospect that fulfilling their
dream of sovereignty might mean forever clinging to the sword. The revolt saw thousands of Jews
trained and armed by Britain-the world's supreme military power-turning their ramshackle guard
units into the seed of a formidable Jewish army. And it was then amid carnage in Palestine and
the Hitler menace in Europe that portentous words like "partition" and "Jewish state" first
appeared on the international diplomatic agenda. This is the story of two national movements
and the first sustained confrontation between them. The rebellion was Arab but the Zionist
counter-rebellion-the Jews' military economic and psychological transformation-is a vital
overlooked element in the chronicle of how Palestine became Israel. Today eight decades on
the revolt's legacy endures. Hamas's armed wing and rockets carry the name of the
fighter-preacher whose death sparked the 1936 rebellion. When Israel builds security barriers
sets up checkpoints or razes homes it is evoking laws and methods inherited from its British
predecessor. And when Washington promotes a "two-state solution " it is invoking a plan with
roots in this same pivotal period. Based on extensive archival research on three continents
and in three languages Palestine 1936 is the origin story of the world's most intractable
conflict but it is also more than that. In Oren Kessler's engaging journalistic voice it
reveals world-changing events through extraordinary individuals on all sides: their loves and
their hatreds their deepest fears and profoundest hopes.
