Six Singular Figures ─ Understanding the Conflict: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate

This is that story of six people who lived and worked in Palestine in the 1930s; remarkable nonconformists who tried to find a solution to the deteriorating relations between Jews and Arabs, the two people living under British Mandate rule. Some took an active part in dialogues between the two peoples and believed that it was possible to live together, altthough they knew that the chances were slim. When World War II broke out, the contacts ended. Two Jews-Manya Shocat and Judah Leib Magnes; two Arabs-Mussa Alami and George Antonius; and two Britons-Arthur Wauchope and Order Wingate, left their distinctive mark on the events of that period, when the Arabs of Plaestine realized that they might become a minority under the Jews, whose numbers where growing because of the persection in Europe. Hadara Lazar has spoken to the descendants of these six individuals and has explored archives and libraries, in Israel and abroad, to produce a book whose personal voice places it squarely in the middle ground between history and literature. Succinctly and with spellbinding narrative skill, she describes the uniqueness, the inner stife, the controversial actions, and the extraordinary, sometimes tragic, lives of her six subjects. And through their portraits, a trubulent and fateful period emerges from the past, during which it might have been possible to preven what has happened and is still happening between Jews and Arabs today.

Hadara Lazar was born and grew up in Haifa. She holds a BA in history from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and also studied literature at the Sorbonne, Paris. During the First Intifada, she worked with Ba€?Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization. Lazar has published several novels and two non-fiction books. She is also the translator of Sartrea€?s major novel, Nausea, into Hebrew. Her book, Out of Palestine: The Making of Modern Israel, was recently published in English (US, atlas).