Non­fic­tion

Among the Right­eous: Lost Sto­ries from the Holo­caust’s Long Reach into Arab Lands

Robert Sat­loff
  • Review
By – October 26, 2011
Robert Sat­loff, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Wash­ing­ton Insti­tute for Near East Pol­i­cy, and an expert on Arab and Islam­ic pol­i­tics, sets out to exam­ine how Jews in Arab coun­tries fared dur­ing the Holo­caust and to find out if there were any Arabs who at their own risk had helped Jews to sur­vive or on the oth­er hand had active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in per­se­cut­ing Jews. The book focus­es main­ly on the Maghreb as well as on Libya. It is based on doc­u­men­tary evi­dence, inter­views, and per­son­al trav­els and inspec­tions in North Africa. The writ­ing is quite acces­si­ble, and Sat­loff pro­vides much infor­ma­tion on the suf­fer­ing of Jews in labor and con­cen­tra­tion camps. The actu­al num­ber of cas­es of Arabs ini­ti­at­ing per­se­cu­tion, pro­tec­tion, or res­cue of Jews is slim. The book might be more appro­pri­ate for read­ers who know very lit­tle on the top­ic, though experts can also find inter­est­ing parts, thanks to Satloff’s trav­els in the region and meet­ing with sur­vivors. Notes, bibliography.
Rachel Simon, a librar­i­an at Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, does research on Jews in the mod­ern Mid­dle East and North Africa, with spe­cial ref­er­ence to Libya, Ottoman Empire, women, and education.

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