Meet Our Fellows 2016-17

Lilly Ilan

Faculty of Humanities.

Research Topic

Social History of The Western Galilee, Between WW1 and the Military Governorate.

Research Summary

Between the First World War and the end of the 1960s, the region we now know in Israel as the Western Galilee saw the changing of three regimes, including languages, bureaucracies, borders, dramatic population transfers and the wars they brought along. The region was home to Palestinian Muslims, Christians of various denominations, Druze, native Jews, and Jews who immigrated from different parts of the world. The big dramas that took place in this small area during that period were about immigration, refugees, settlement of the land, fighting, and pioneer spirit. This study will examine the social history of the inter-community relations in the Western Galilee between Jews and Arabs and within the Jewish community itself, as well as within the Arab community, through the following questions: What are the changes in the inter-community relations throughout that period? What were the significant events in shaping the relations between the various communities during that time? How did demographic changes of immigration and refugees in the region affect the fabric of relations during that period? This study will thus shed light on issues of inter-community, international and interfaith relations in the Israeli-Palestinian sphere and the broader Middle-Eastern region.