Joshua Prawer
Encyclopedia
Joshua Prawer was a notable Israeli historian
and a scholar of the Crusades
and Kingdom of Jerusalem
.
His work often attempted to portray Crusader society as a forerunner to later European colonialist
expansion. He was also an important figure in Israeli higher education
, was one of the founders of the University of Haifa
and Ben-Gurion University, and was a major reformer of the Israeli education system
.
, a small city in the Polish
part of Silesia
. He grew up speaking Polish
and German, learned Hebrew
, French, and Latin
at school, and after joining a Zionist group, learned Yiddish as well. He immigrated
to Palestine in 1936, where he learned English, and became a student of mathematics
at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
. An invitation to study at the university was one of the few legal ways for Jews to enter the British Mandate of Palestine at the time. His mother died at the outbreak of World War II
, and most of his family died in the Holocaust.
Prawer found that he was unhappy with mathematics, and his father suggested he study history instead since he had always enjoyed history in high school. His professor, Richard Koebner, an Anglophile historian of imperialism
, set him on the course of studying the crusader colonies in the Holy Land
. The close ties to Koebner were likely to have instilled in Prawer his interest in the history of settlements and colonialization. Prawer began his teaching career at the Hebrew University in 1947 and (after fighting in the 1948 siege of Jerusalem
) soon rose through the faculty ranks. He became deputy dean
of the Faculty of Humanities from 1953–55, was made professor
and chair of medieval history in 1958, was dean
of the Faculty of Humanities from 1962–66, and served as prorector
at the university in the years 1975-78. In the process, he succeeded in making the university into a "global center" for Crusade Studies, and trained many future Israeli historians in that specialty. Prawer has been described as an outstanding teacher and lecturer who combined thorough preparation with a charismatic style. He was often invited to lecture abroad.
, where he was the first dean and academic chairman in the years 1966-8.
Prawer was a key contributor to Israeli government policy as well. Between 1957 and 1959, at the request of David Ben-Gurion
, he chaired the Pedagogic Secretariat of the Education Ministry
which was responsible for setting up new norms for Israeli secondary education
. He fought against graded fees and for wider free compulsory education
, and gave high priority to social integration
and the rights of Sephardi students. During that time and as advisor to education minister Zalman Aranne afterwards, he helped draft the principles for teaching "Jewish awareness" that were incorporated into the primary
and secondary school curricula. In 1963-65, he chaired a committee of experts bearing his name that recommended a radical reform of the entire Israeli education system
. Its suggestions included making preschool enrollment universal for disadvantaged children, shortening elementary school
to grades 1-6; admitting all pupils without tests into integrated junior high schools (grades 7-9), raising the age of free compulsory education to fifteen (later raised to eighteen), establishing two-year and three-year comprehensive schools that provided a choice of tracks towards either a vocational diploma or a matriculation certificate
, further integrating students of different skills and social classes, and establishing a new curriculum
division in the Ministry of Education and Culture. The plan was approved by the Knesset
and government, which allocated substantial resources to it, and the program began to be implemented in the summer of 1968.
Together with Professor H. Hanani, Prawer initiated the mechina
university preparatory programs in 1963, which were originally intended to provide an additional year of study for Sephardic students after discharge from the defense forces, but were later expanded to include foreign educated students and immigrants.
Prawer served as chief editor of the Encyclopaedia Hebraica
from 1967 onwards, with volume 21 the first to be published under his tenure. He advised and helped shape the Tower of David
Museum of the History of Jerusalem, and was asked to advise the government on cultural agreements with other countries.
In an interview a year before his death, Joshua Prawer said his message for the Jerusalem of today is "that it is a universal city, belonging to all cultures and conquering time." Prawer died in Jerusalem on April 30, 1990.
and Jean Richard
, who freed crusader studies from the old conception of crusader society as an exemplar of pure, unchanging feudalism
that spontaneously emerged from the conquest. This view, which originated with feudal jurist
s in the thirteenth century, was held to by modern historians since the early thirties. Through the work of Prawer, particularly his two papers from the fifties, and his colleagues, crusader society began to be seen as dynamic, with the nobility
gradually putting checks on the monarchy
. The combined efforts of these historians led to a surge of new research into crusader society. Prawer's research extended to a wide variety of other aspects of the crusader states. Among the topics he addressed were land development
projects and urban settlement, agriculture, the Italian quarters of port cities, the types of landed property
, and legal issues in the Assises des Bourgeois
.
One of Prawer's best known works is the Histoire du Royaume Latin de Jérusalem, which won
him the Prix Gustave Schlumberger
of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
. The two-volume work presents the crusader states
as a working immigrant society, and shows the importance of immigration
and labor shortage
s. Another book by Prawer, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages, which was intended for a larger audience, was more controversial. In it, he portrays the crusaders as a society of Frankish
immigrants living in complete political and social segregation from the local Muslim
and Syro-Christian
population, and terms this phenomenon "Apartheid". To Prawer, it is the settlers' refusal to assimilate
and their reconstruction of a European-type society on foreign soil, as well as the persistence of indigenous institutions without any interference, that mark the Crusader settlement as colonialist. His thesis is that the economy, society, and institutions of the Latin states are best understood in the light of their colonial status. The 1980 book Crusader Institutions collected a number of his earlier publications and expanded upon them with revisions and new chapters. The book continues his treatment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
as a European colonial product but focuses attention on five topical areas, while throughout employing the tools of textual criticism
and commentary on sources. Especially prominent is his coverage of the status and administrative role of burgesses, which had not received such attention before. In his last years, he published a book on a topic of especial interest to him, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, which examined the tightly-knit isolated Jewish communities of the Levant
, the Jewish philosophical
feuds they engaged in, and their dreams of restoring Israel
.
has frequently been drawn between the European Crusades of the Middle Ages
and the modern day Zionist movement. This view, which has been espoused by Arab media and political leaders, has also been discussed in Israeli academia. Prawer was often asked to comment on this analogy, and claimed that a major difference was that the Jews settled the land and worked it, whereas the Crusaders lorded over a conquered land worked by the natives. Ronnie Ellenblum, a lecturer at Hebrew University, identifies a subliminal objective in Prawer's work to draw a distinction between the two: "He's always writing about the Crusaders' manpower shortage and about their not settling the land...He claims that their presence here was principally urban, consisting of nobility and merchants. This is why they lost in the end. The implications are obvious: If we bring enough immigrants, and if we settle the land, we are bound to succeed." (Ellenblum himself has shown that Crusader settlement in the Holy Land was much more widespread than previously thought and has found evidence of hundreds of Crusader farms.) But he also notes that "if Joshua Prawer were alive today he would no doubt deny any linkage between his Zionist political beliefs and the model of segregation that he developed."
Ziad J. Asali
, who considers Zionism "the heir—albeit illegitimate—of the Crusader movement," goes further and writes that Prawer "recognized the extent of the similarity in the individual and social experience of Crusaders and Zionists. Rather than studying the comparison and denying its validity, he chose to study the Crusader's experience as if it were a historical model which could be completely analyzed and dissected in order to benefit from its experience and avoid its mistakes." To Zionist author Yoram Hazony, however, it is exactly because of Prawer's readiness to draw the analogy that he considers him a subverter of Zionism and a progenitor of post-Zionist thought. David Ohana, a professor of history at Ben Gurion University who rejects the Zionist-Crusader analogy, writes that the subject has now become a litmus test for clarifying one's views on Zionism, with post-Zionists freely making the analogy and sympathizers with the Zionist viewpoint rejecting it.
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
and a scholar of the Crusades
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
and Kingdom of Jerusalem
Kingdom of Jerusalem
The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Catholic kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, but its history is divided into two distinct periods....
.
His work often attempted to portray Crusader society as a forerunner to later European colonialist
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
expansion. He was also an important figure in Israeli higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
, was one of the founders of the University of Haifa
University of Haifa
The University of Haifa is a university in Haifa, Israel.The University of Haifa was founded in 1963 by Haifa mayor Abba Hushi, to operate under the academic auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
and Ben-Gurion University, and was a major reformer of the Israeli education system
Education in Israel
Education in Israel refers to the comprehensive education system of Israel. Expenditure on education accounts for approximately 10% of GDP, and most schools are subsidized by the state.-Educational tracks:...
.
Life
Prawer was born on November 10, 1917 to a prosperous Jewish merchant family in BędzinBedzin
Będzin is a city in Zagłębie Dąbrowskie in southern Poland. Located in the Silesian Highlands, on the Czarna Przemsza river , the city borders the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - a metro area with a population of about 2 million.It has been situated in the Silesian Voivodeship since its...
, a small city in the Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
part of Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
. He grew up speaking Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
and German, learned Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, French, and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
at school, and after joining a Zionist group, learned Yiddish as well. He immigrated
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
to Palestine in 1936, where he learned English, and became a student of mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
. An invitation to study at the university was one of the few legal ways for Jews to enter the British Mandate of Palestine at the time. His mother died at the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and most of his family died in the Holocaust.
Prawer found that he was unhappy with mathematics, and his father suggested he study history instead since he had always enjoyed history in high school. His professor, Richard Koebner, an Anglophile historian of imperialism
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
, set him on the course of studying the crusader colonies in the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
. The close ties to Koebner were likely to have instilled in Prawer his interest in the history of settlements and colonialization. Prawer began his teaching career at the Hebrew University in 1947 and (after fighting in the 1948 siege of Jerusalem
Siege of Jerusalem (1948)
The Battle for Jerusalem occurred from 30 November 1947 to 11 June 1948 when Jewish and Arab population of Mandatory Palestine and later Israeli and Jordanian armies fought for the control of the city....
) soon rose through the faculty ranks. He became deputy dean
Dean (education)
In academic administration, a dean is a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, or over a specific area of concern, or both...
of the Faculty of Humanities from 1953–55, was made professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
and chair of medieval history in 1958, was dean
Dean (education)
In academic administration, a dean is a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, or over a specific area of concern, or both...
of the Faculty of Humanities from 1962–66, and served as prorector
Prorector
In many countries in Europe , a prorector is deputy to rector and a member of the management body of a university. In cases with more than one prorector each prorector manages a particular area of university life...
at the university in the years 1975-78. In the process, he succeeded in making the university into a "global center" for Crusade Studies, and trained many future Israeli historians in that specialty. Prawer has been described as an outstanding teacher and lecturer who combined thorough preparation with a charismatic style. He was often invited to lecture abroad.
Other roles
In addition to his work at the Hebrew University, Joshua Prawer was involved in the creation of other Israeli institutions of higher learning, namely Ben Gurion University of the Negev and especially the University of HaifaUniversity of Haifa
The University of Haifa is a university in Haifa, Israel.The University of Haifa was founded in 1963 by Haifa mayor Abba Hushi, to operate under the academic auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
, where he was the first dean and academic chairman in the years 1966-8.
Prawer was a key contributor to Israeli government policy as well. Between 1957 and 1959, at the request of David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion
' was the first Prime Minister of Israel.Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946...
, he chaired the Pedagogic Secretariat of the Education Ministry
Ministry of Education (Israel)
The Israeli Ministry of Education is the branch of government charged with overseeing public education institutions in Israel. The political head of the department is the Minster of Education, currently Gideon Sa'ar....
which was responsible for setting up new norms for Israeli secondary education
Secondary education
Secondary education is the stage of education following primary education. Secondary education includes the final stage of compulsory education and in many countries it is entirely compulsory. The next stage of education is usually college or university...
. He fought against graded fees and for wider free compulsory education
Compulsory education
Compulsory education refers to a period of education that is required of all persons.-Antiquity to Medieval Era:Although Plato's The Republic is credited with having popularized the concept of compulsory education in Western intellectual thought, every parent in Judea since Moses's Covenant with...
, and gave high priority to social integration
Social integration
Social integration, in sociology and other social sciences, is the movement of minority groups such as ethnic minorities, refugees and underprivileged sections of a society into the mainstream of societies...
and the rights of Sephardi students. During that time and as advisor to education minister Zalman Aranne afterwards, he helped draft the principles for teaching "Jewish awareness" that were incorporated into the primary
Primary education
A primary school is an institution in which children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as primary or elementary education. Primary school is the preferred term in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth Nations, and in most publications of the United Nations Educational,...
and secondary school curricula. In 1963-65, he chaired a committee of experts bearing his name that recommended a radical reform of the entire Israeli education system
Education in Israel
Education in Israel refers to the comprehensive education system of Israel. Expenditure on education accounts for approximately 10% of GDP, and most schools are subsidized by the state.-Educational tracks:...
. Its suggestions included making preschool enrollment universal for disadvantaged children, shortening elementary school
Elementary school
An elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...
to grades 1-6; admitting all pupils without tests into integrated junior high schools (grades 7-9), raising the age of free compulsory education to fifteen (later raised to eighteen), establishing two-year and three-year comprehensive schools that provided a choice of tracks towards either a vocational diploma or a matriculation certificate
Bagrut
Te'udat Bagrut is the official Israeli matriculation certificate. The bagrut is similar to the British A-levels, German Abitur, French Baccalauréat, and Austrian Matura...
, further integrating students of different skills and social classes, and establishing a new curriculum
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
division in the Ministry of Education and Culture. The plan was approved by the Knesset
Knesset
The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...
and government, which allocated substantial resources to it, and the program began to be implemented in the summer of 1968.
Together with Professor H. Hanani, Prawer initiated the mechina
Mechina
A Mechina is an Israeli educational program that prepares high school graduates for serving in the Israeli Army or study at an institution of higher learning in Israel...
university preparatory programs in 1963, which were originally intended to provide an additional year of study for Sephardic students after discharge from the defense forces, but were later expanded to include foreign educated students and immigrants.
Prawer served as chief editor of the Encyclopaedia Hebraica
Encyclopaedia Hebraica
The Encyclopaedia Hebraica is a comprehensive encyclopedia in the Hebrew language that was published in the latter half of the 20th century.-History:...
from 1967 onwards, with volume 21 the first to be published under his tenure. He advised and helped shape the Tower of David
Tower of David
The Tower of David is an ancient citadel located near the Jaffa Gate entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem.Built to strengthen a strategically weak point in the Old City's defenses, the citadel that stands today was constructed during the 2nd century BC and subsequently destroyed and rebuilt by,...
Museum of the History of Jerusalem, and was asked to advise the government on cultural agreements with other countries.
Honors and later life
- In 1967, Prawer served as chairman of the Humanities Section of the Israel Academy of Sciences and HumanitiesIsrael Academy of Sciences and HumanitiesThe Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, based in Jerusalem, was set up in 1961 by the State of Israel to foster contact between scholars from the sciences and humanities in Israel, to advise the government on research projects of national importance, and to promote excellence. It comprises...
, and was elected as Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of AmericaMedieval Academy of AmericaThe Medieval Academy of America is the largest organization in the United States promoting excellence in the field of medieval studies. It was founded in 1925 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts...
. - In 1969, he received the Israel PrizeIsrael PrizeThe Israel Prize is an award handed out by the State of Israel and is largely regarded as the state's highest honor. It is presented annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state ceremony in Jerusalem, in the presence of the President, the Prime Minister, the Knesset chairperson, and the...
in the humanities. - In 1969, he also received an honorary doctorate from the University of MontpellierUniversity of MontpellierThe University of Montpellier was a French university in Montpellier in the Languedoc-Roussillon région of the south of France. Its present-day successor universities are the University of Montpellier 1, Montpellier 2 University and Paul Valéry University, Montpellier III.-History:The university...
. - In 1974, Prawer was honored as Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, OxfordAll Souls College, OxfordThe Warden and the College of the Souls of all Faithful People deceased in the University of Oxford or All Souls College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England....
, - In 1974, he was also awarded the Rothschild Prize and the Order of the Chevalier de L'Ordre Nationale du Mérite.
- In 1982, he was presented with a festschriftFestschriftIn academia, a Festschrift , is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during his or her lifetime. The term, borrowed from German, could be translated as celebration publication or celebratory writing...
containing papers by twenty-two historians during a special conference in Jerusalem. - In 1987, Prawer and his colleagues hosted the Second International Conference of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East.
- In 1989, he was honored as a Yakir YerushalayimYakir YerushalayimYakir Yerushalayim is an annual citizenship prize in Jerusalem, Israel, inaugurated in 1967.The prize is awarded annually by the municipality of the City of Jerusalem to one or more residents of the city who have contributed to the cultural and educational life of the city in some outstanding way....
(Distinguished Citizen of Jerusalem).
In an interview a year before his death, Joshua Prawer said his message for the Jerusalem of today is "that it is a universal city, belonging to all cultures and conquering time." Prawer died in Jerusalem on April 30, 1990.
Research
Prawer was part of a cadre of historians, including Claude CahenClaude Cahen
Claude Cahen was a French Marxist orientalist and historian. He specialized in the studies of the Islamic Middle Ages, Muslim sources about the Crusades, and social history of the medieval Islamic society ....
and Jean Richard
Jean Richard (historian)
Jean Richard is a leading French historian, who specializes in medieval history. He is an authority on the Crusades, and his work on the Latin missions in Asia has been qualified as "unsurpassed". Richard is a member of the Institut de France...
, who freed crusader studies from the old conception of crusader society as an exemplar of pure, unchanging feudalism
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
that spontaneously emerged from the conquest. This view, which originated with feudal jurist
Jurist
A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...
s in the thirteenth century, was held to by modern historians since the early thirties. Through the work of Prawer, particularly his two papers from the fifties, and his colleagues, crusader society began to be seen as dynamic, with the nobility
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...
gradually putting checks on the monarchy
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
. The combined efforts of these historians led to a surge of new research into crusader society. Prawer's research extended to a wide variety of other aspects of the crusader states. Among the topics he addressed were land development
Land development
Land development refers to altering the landscape in any number of ways such as:* changing landforms from a natural or semi-natural state for a purpose such as agriculture or housing...
projects and urban settlement, agriculture, the Italian quarters of port cities, the types of landed property
Landed property
Landed property or landed estates is a real estate term that usually refers to a property that generates income for the owner without the owner having to do the actual work of the estate. In Europe, agrarian landed property typically consisted of a manor, several tenant farms, and some privileged...
, and legal issues in the Assises des Bourgeois
Assizes of Jerusalem
The Assizes of Jerusalem are a collection of numerous medieval legal treatises containing the law of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and Kingdom of Cyprus...
.
One of Prawer's best known works is the Histoire du Royaume Latin de Jérusalem, which won
him the Prix Gustave Schlumberger
Gustave Schlumberger
Léon Gustave Schlumberger was a French historian and numismatist who specialised in the era of the crusades and the Byzantine Empire. His is still considered the principal work on the coinage of the crusades....
of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres is a French learned society devoted to the humanities, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France.-History:...
. The two-volume work presents the crusader states
Crusader states
The Crusader states were a number of mostly 12th- and 13th-century feudal states created by Western European crusaders in Asia Minor, Greece and the Holy Land , and during the Northern Crusades in the eastern Baltic area...
as a working immigrant society, and shows the importance of immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
and labor shortage
Labor shortage
In its narrowest definition, a labor shortage is an economic condition in which there are insufficient qualified candidates to fill the market-place demands for employment at any price...
s. Another book by Prawer, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages, which was intended for a larger audience, was more controversial. In it, he portrays the crusaders as a society of Frankish
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
immigrants living in complete political and social segregation from the local Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
and Syro-Christian
Syriac Christianity
Syriac or Syrian Christianity , the Syriac-speaking Christians of Mesopotamia, comprises multiple Christian traditions of Eastern Christianity. With a history going back to the 1st Century AD, in modern times it is represented by denominations primarily in the Middle East and in Kerala, India....
population, and terms this phenomenon "Apartheid". To Prawer, it is the settlers' refusal to assimilate
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
and their reconstruction of a European-type society on foreign soil, as well as the persistence of indigenous institutions without any interference, that mark the Crusader settlement as colonialist. His thesis is that the economy, society, and institutions of the Latin states are best understood in the light of their colonial status. The 1980 book Crusader Institutions collected a number of his earlier publications and expanded upon them with revisions and new chapters. The book continues his treatment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
Kingdom of Jerusalem
The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Catholic kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, but its history is divided into two distinct periods....
as a European colonial product but focuses attention on five topical areas, while throughout employing the tools of textual criticism
Textual criticism
Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...
and commentary on sources. Especially prominent is his coverage of the status and administrative role of burgesses, which had not received such attention before. In his last years, he published a book on a topic of especial interest to him, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, which examined the tightly-knit isolated Jewish communities of the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
, the Jewish philosophical
Jewish philosophy
Jewish philosophy , includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or, in relation to the religion of Judaism. Jewish philosophy, until modern Enlightenment and Emancipation, was pre-occupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism; thus organizing...
feuds they engaged in, and their dreams of restoring Israel
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
.
Comparison of Zionism to the Crusades
An analogyAnalogy
Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...
has frequently been drawn between the European Crusades of the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
and the modern day Zionist movement. This view, which has been espoused by Arab media and political leaders, has also been discussed in Israeli academia. Prawer was often asked to comment on this analogy, and claimed that a major difference was that the Jews settled the land and worked it, whereas the Crusaders lorded over a conquered land worked by the natives. Ronnie Ellenblum, a lecturer at Hebrew University, identifies a subliminal objective in Prawer's work to draw a distinction between the two: "He's always writing about the Crusaders' manpower shortage and about their not settling the land...He claims that their presence here was principally urban, consisting of nobility and merchants. This is why they lost in the end. The implications are obvious: If we bring enough immigrants, and if we settle the land, we are bound to succeed." (Ellenblum himself has shown that Crusader settlement in the Holy Land was much more widespread than previously thought and has found evidence of hundreds of Crusader farms.) But he also notes that "if Joshua Prawer were alive today he would no doubt deny any linkage between his Zionist political beliefs and the model of segregation that he developed."
Ziad J. Asali
Ziad Asali
Ziad J. Asali, M.D., is the President and founder of the American Task Force on Palestine, a 5013 non-profit, non-partisan organization.-Education:...
, who considers Zionism "the heir—albeit illegitimate—of the Crusader movement," goes further and writes that Prawer "recognized the extent of the similarity in the individual and social experience of Crusaders and Zionists. Rather than studying the comparison and denying its validity, he chose to study the Crusader's experience as if it were a historical model which could be completely analyzed and dissected in order to benefit from its experience and avoid its mistakes." To Zionist author Yoram Hazony, however, it is exactly because of Prawer's readiness to draw the analogy that he considers him a subverter of Zionism and a progenitor of post-Zionist thought. David Ohana, a professor of history at Ben Gurion University who rejects the Zionist-Crusader analogy, writes that the subject has now become a litmus test for clarifying one's views on Zionism, with post-Zionists freely making the analogy and sympathizers with the Zionist viewpoint rejecting it.
Selected publications
- (1969–70). Histoire du royaume Latin de Jérusalem. Le Monde byzantin. Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueCentre national de la recherche scientifiqueThe National Center of Scientific Research is the largest governmental research organization in France and the largest fundamental science agency in Europe....
. - (1972). The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem: European colonialism in the Middle Ages. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
- (1972). The world of the Crusaders. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
- (1980). Crusader institutions. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- (1988). The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
See also
- First CrusadeFirst CrusadeThe First Crusade was a military expedition by Western Christianity to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquest of the Levant, ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem...
- History of JerusalemHistory of JerusalemDuring its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times. The oldest part of the city was settled in the 4th millennium BCE, making Jerusalem one of the oldest cities in the world....
- History of the Jews and the CrusadesHistory of the Jews and the CrusadesThe history of the Jews and the crusades became a part of the history of anti-Semitism for the Jews in the Middle Ages. The call for the First Crusade touched off new persecutions of the Jews that would continue on and off for centuries.-Background:...
- History of the Jews in the Land of IsraelHistory of the Jews in the Land of IsraelThe history of the Jews in the land of Israel can be traced from the first appearance of the name "Israel" in the historic record, an Egyptian inscription of c.1200 BCE where it refers to an ethnic group apparently located in the northern part of the central highlands between the Mediterranean and...
- List of Israel Prize recipients
External links
- Joshua Prawer (1917–1990) - Resources for studying the Crusades
- Crusader Shadows, by James PinkertonJames PinkertonJames Pinkerton is a columnist, author, and political analyst. A graduate of Peter Vanleslie High School and Stanford University, he served on the White House staff under both Ronald Reagan and George H.W...
- Mediterraneans or Crusaders? Israel Geopolitical Images between East and West, by David Ohana. Contains excerpts from Prawer's statements about the Zionist-Crusader analogy.