AMONG THE RIGHTEOUS: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Land

[Trumpeldor]

AMONG THE RIGHTEOUS:
Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Land
Robert Satloff

Was there an Arab "Schindler?" The neverbefore- told story of the Holocaust in the Arab lands of North Africa, and one man's quest to find the truth

http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=9781586483999

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/video/video_popup.php?CID=312 (video)


From Publishers Weekly
Satloff's compelling book details the roles Arabs played in assisting or resisting the Third Reich, Italian Fascism and the Vichy government, and the expansion of the Final Solution into their countries. This includes active collaboration with anti-Semitic policies—Arabs helped run Bizerte, one of 60 labor camps for Jews in Morocco and Algeria established by the Vichy government. It also includes many instances of brave resistance, such as the bey of Tunis, who protected the Jews under his patronage. On the whole, while Jews "were almost always better off ruled by Muslims rather than Christians," Arabs generally displayed indifference to the Jews' plight. Satloff, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and an expert on Arab culture and history, is careful to explore the nuances of a complicated story and the relationship between fascist European powers and their colonies. Italy and France, for example, overrode local control by imposing anti-Semitic social restraints in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Satloff is, correctly, so careful about nuance that, despite some greatly moving personal narratives, the book as a whole lacks the powerful wallop that we receive from reading David Kertzer or Daniel Goldhagen. But this is important material, and Satloff's work is groundbreaking for Jewish, Middle Eastern and Holocaust studies. 8 pages of b&w photos; maps. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.