Is religion a source of political stability and social continuity, or an agent of radical change? This question, so central to contemporary conversations about religion and extremism, has generated varied responses over the last century. Taking Jewish and Islamic education as its objects of inquiry, Mandatory Separation sheds light on the contours of this debate in Palestine during the formative period of British rule, detailing how colonial, Zionist, and Palestinian-Muslim leaders developed competing views of the form and function of religious education in an age of mass politics. Drawing from archival records, school syllabi, textbooks, newspapers, and personal narratives, Suzanne Schneider argues that the British Mandatory government supported religious education as a supposed antidote to nationalist passions at the precise moment when the administrative, pedagogic, and curricular transformation of religious schooling rendered it a vital tool for Zionist and Palestinian leaders. This study of their policies and practices illuminates the tensions, similarities, and differences among these diverse educational and political philosophies, revealing the lasting significance of these debates for thinking about religion and political identity in the modern Middle East.
"Mandatory Separation sheds welcome light on a crucial aspect of the British Mandate for Palestine, education for mass politics among both Jews and Muslims. Through this discussion, Suzanne Schneider exposes some of the essential foundations for the decades of conflict in Palestine and Israel that have followed. An important and timely work."
Rashid Khalidi, Columbia University
"Brilliantly weaving together British, Zionist, and Palestinian Arab sources, Suzanne Schneider ... shows that the intertwining of religion and national politics in Israel/Palestine today is neither new nor eternal."
