Nathan der Weise in Jerusalem: Elias Haddadʼs Re-appropriation of Tolerance in Mandate Palestine

Abstract

In 1932 Elias Haddad, a teacher at a German orphanage in Jerusalem, published the first Arabic translation of Gotthold Lessingʼs Nathan der Weise. The play is famous as a call for interfaith tolerance and recognition of the place of Jewish people in European societies. But what might its publication in Mandate Palestine signify, at a time of rising tensions between local Arabs and Jewish immigrants? I explore Elias Haddadʼs translation and paratextual materials, arguing that they show continuities from other expressions of Jewish belonging in the Levant, and challenge stereotyped notions of Arab attitudes in interwar Palestine. [Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan the Wise, Nathan der Weise, Arabic, Translation, Elias Haddad, Pales-