Essays and Features

Lebanese Jewry: Once Part of the Country’s Confessional Map, Now Vanished

By Al Jadid Staff

With roots going back to the 7th and 15th centuries, many Jews who fled the Spanish Inquisition settled in Lebanon. By the early 1700s, more Jews who had earlier fled to North Africa and the Middle East followed and settled in Lebanon’s Shouf Mountains, according to British Historian Kristen Schultz. But in recent years, this small Jewish community has been decreasing even further, numbering less than a hundred. Once boasting a population as high as 14,000 in 1958, the number of Lebanese Jews has shrunk in the wake of conflict: the short-lived civil war of 1958, the 15-year 1975 war, as well as the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The fascination in the dwindling numbers within this community has especially enraptured news media.

Essays and Features

Wannous' Perspective on Theater: A Balance Between Nationalist Tradition and Universalism

Fatme Sharafeddine Hassan

Emile Habibi: The Pessoptimist Who Went Global

Omar Zane

Emile Habibi died in early May, 1996 in his home in Nazareth. In addition to being a great Palestinian writer he was an exceptional character as well. His presence, his tongue and his written words added a certain lightness to the otherwise unbearably sad Palestinian and blighted Arab experience of the last seven decades. He witnessed events unfold, and for many years recorded the stories of an area which had acquired a much bigger foot print than its geographic size.

For a Friend Sorely Missed

Moayyad al-Rawi (1939-2015)

By

Elie Chalala

This brief column can only begin to do justice to Iraqi poet and critic Moayyad al-Rawi. A longer tribute will appear in Al Jadid’s next issue later this year (Vol. 23, No. 77, 2019).

Moayyad, who died in 2015, fled the Iraqi dictatorship in 1970 for Lebanon, making it his first stop in a life in exile; it is there I met him. Imprisonment and repression following the 1963 Baathist coup forced him to leave Baghdad and Kirkuk, which he loved, and which figured prominently in his writings.

Uninterrupted Fugue: Uprootedness in Kamal Boullata’s Work

Gérard Xuriguera

Contemporary artists adhering to Constructivism were not solely content with respecting the orthodoxy of its ethic. From Malevitch to Mondrian through the Bauhaus and up to this day, the structural unfolding of this art of simplification and of exactitude has at times been refined, at other times made more complex; all along, it continued to explore different venues that retraced the founding precepts without relinquishing its rigor.

Ali al-Shawk in the Eyes of One Acquaintance

By

Mahmoud Saeed

Ali al-Shawk’s death leaves an empty space that no one can fill. He was prolific, thoughtful, articulate, and of high manners. Personally, I thought of him as one of the most cultured intellectuals I have met inside or outside of Iraq. His cultural depth owed to the greatness and diversity of his reading, which included his fluent command of English, from which he translated several books.

The Arabic Novel: The Voice of an Oppressed People

In his “The Arabic Novel: The Voice of an Oppressed People,” Shaker al-Anbari examines the rise of the Arabic novel as a medium for exploring interactions within Arab communities. Where the short story and poetry failed to capture the large-scale impact of war and strife, the Arabic novel allows writers to artistically respond to the upheaval and change which has shaken entire societies. This has sparked a recent spike in Arabic novels – in numbers and in the desire to translate these works – as publishing houses see a profitable prospect.

Essays and Features

‘Sexuality in the Arab World’: Book Attempts to Shed Multi-Faceted Light on Subject Long in the Shadows

By

Al Jadid Staff

“Sexuality in the Arab World” has fascinated many Western scholars, though not as many Arabs, mainly for political and cultural reasons. Edited by Samir Khalaf and John Gagnon, this book first appeared in English in 2005 and then was published in Arabic by Dar al-Saqi in 2015, translated by Osama Manzalji.

Late Entry Winner for Arabic Booker Award Prompts Renewed Outcry For Judging Reform

Al Jadid Staff

Prolific in Exile: An Appreciation of the Life and Work of Ali al-Shawk

By

Al Jadid Staff

A prolific author and reader, Ali al-Shawk embodied scholarship, transforming himself into a veritable encyclopedia of intellectual knowledge. His humility endeared him to his friends and set a worthy example for others. He remains particularly known for being a good listener and for his non-confrontational ways, listening “to you until you finished talking before offering his own opinion,” according to Mahmoud Saeed. His writings encompassed the topics of mathematics, music, painting, literature, etymology, mythology, and science, and he wrote continuously until his death in his London home this year.

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