The year after the riots

In August, 1929, Arabs in Palestine rose up in bloody riots against Jews. More than 130 Jews were killed, among them eight young American students. The immediate cause of the riots appeared simple -- a dispute over Jewish religious observances at the Western Wall. More than violence over a small piece of ground considered holy by both Judaism and Islam, however, the riots signaled the growing sophistication of postwar Arab nationalism and also laid bare the contradictory pledges made by England to both Arabs and Jews. American responses to the riots were characterized by actions all too familiar in twentieth-century Jewish history. - Jacket flap.