Jerusalem Interrupted

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On the eve of the British Mandate in 1917, Jerusalem Arab society was rooted, diverse, and connected to other cities, towns, and rural areas in Palestine. Over the course of the three decades of the Mandate, no one could have imagined the radical rupture that Arab Jerusalem, a sophisticated and vibrant city, would face in 1948 with the establishment of the state of Israel. This groundbreaking collection of essays brings together distinguished scholars and writers and follows the history of Jerusalem from the culturally diverse British Mandate period through its transformation into a predominantly Jewish city. Essays detail often unexplored dimensions of the social and political fabric of a city that was rendered increasingly taut and fragile, even as areas of mutual interaction and shared institutions and neighborhoods between Arabs and Jews continued to develop.