Table of Contents
Table of Figures
Praise for Among the Righteous
Robert Satloffs new book... is an essential addition to our understanding of this darkest period of the 20th Century... Perhaps this book can help launch a new kind of dialogue between Arabs and Jews. If nothing else, Among the Righteous does an important service in documenting both the good and the evil committed by Arabs towards their Jewish neighbors during the Holocaust.
ABRAHAM FOXMAN, Holocaust survivor and
National Director of the Anti-Defamation League
Robert Satloff has written an intense and searching and honest book. He has looked into a great unexplored terrain: the reach of the Holocaust into Arab lands. He has returned with both heartbreaking and bracing stories. A supremely honest author, he has no axe to grind, he is moved only by the search for truth. A book of great integrity, it throws a floodlight on the Middle East and North Africa at a time when all tissues of civilization were torn asunder.
FOUAD AJAMI, Majid Khadduri Professor
and Director of Middle East Studies Program,
The Johns Hopkins University, Paul H. Nitze
School of Advanced International Studies,
and author of The Foreigners Gift
Only when we talk openly about the commonalities and differences of our faiths can we begin to address tensions and misunderstandings. Rob Satloffs book is a starting point toward a better understanding, and a bridge to the future. Many times Muslims say that they cannot be anti-Semitic because they are themselves Semitic. Let the incredible research Rob Satloff has poured into his book be seen as a sign of that commonality.
GREGG RICKMAN, Special Envoy for Monitoring and
Combatting Anti-Semitism, U.S. Department of State
[Satloff] speaks objectively about an unknown role of the Arabs in helping the Jews during World War II.
JIHAD AL-KHAZEN, al-Hayat, London
Satloff provides inspiring and heartbreaking personal accounts of survivors of this under explored aspect of Holocaust history [and]... raises critical questions about the Nazi campaign that helped disrupt the centuries-old accommodation between Jewish communities and their Muslim hosts in the Middle East.
JUDITH MILLER, New York Sun
Robert Satloff, one of the worlds smartest Arabists, reveals other links between the Arabs and the Holocaust in his groundbreaking new book, Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocausts Long Reach Into Arab Lands.
MAX BOOT, Los Angeles Times
[Satloff] tells a riveting tale... He settles in North Africa, gathers clues and builds a convincing case. By the end of the book, he presents a persuasive case that Arabs did indeed behave as righteous men and women in the fight against fascism... The story twists this way and then that way, shuttling back and forth relentlessly from good news to bad news, and from despair to elation. Few political stories come as complex as this one, and few stir up as much passion.
San Francisco Chronicle
[I]t is not simply as a historian that Robert Satloff sets about raking through the ashes, but as a man on a mission of peaceto discover evidence of as much or as little humanity as it will take for all parties to Arab/Jewish hostilities over the past 60 years to feel better about one another... Among the Righteous ... is an act of gentlemanly civility amid the shouting...
Sunday Times of London
[Satloff] brings to light a fascinating case of heroism and defiance... While it may be naive to think that a few inspiring stories can break the ice between Arabs and Jews, Satloff is to be commended for digging up such stories in a political climate where many would still prefer them to stay buried.
Montreal Gazette
A leading expert on the Arab world, and as executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Satloff is uniquely qualified to address the broader issue he raises in this sad and interesting book: During the Holocaust, where were the Arabs? And more precisely, whose side were they on?
Weekly Standard
Satloff has crafted a book that is partly a history of the Holocaust in North Africa and partly a travelog of his efforts to re-create the stories of the perpetrators, victims, and bystanders in this often overlooked corner of the Shoah ... Satloff adroitly explains how Arab-Muslim attitudes toward the Holocaust, which range from outright denial to profound knowledge, are often shaped not only by the contemporary conflict between Israel and its neighbors but also by Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism.
Library Journal Reviews
Among the Righteous... has gotten considerable buzz since it came out in the beginning of last month... As an honest historian, [Satloff] tells the whole truth of that time and place as he found it, the good and the bad, and puts things into perspective... [H]e is at once an honest historian and a wellintentioned public intellectual.
Jerusalem Post
We do not know the Arab role in the Holocaust, which required well-known researcher Robert Satloff to dedicate two years of his life. He spent them in Morocco, to investigate the facts and search for Arabs who saved Jews or Arabs who surrendered them to the Nazis...
al-Rai, Jordan
Satloff has discovered that contrary to common wisdom and widespread ignorance, there were Arabs in these lands who risked their lives to save Jews... Polished and erudite, Satloff speaks confidently, sometimes sparsely, in well-honed sentences. As a historian, he is not easily pried away from the rigors of his academic training and he avoids what he refers to as psychologizing or sociological explanations. Yet he often draws political and social conclusions, albeit cautiously.
The Jerusalem Report
Satloffs compelling book details the roles Arabs played in assisting or resisting the Third Reich, Italian Fascism and the Vichy government, and the expansion of the Final Solution into their countries... this is important material, and Satloffs work is groundbreaking for Jewish, Middle Eastern and Holocaust studies.
Publishers Weekly This book is definitely an eye-opener that sheds light on an all-too-often forgotten aspect of the Holocaust. There are many books concerning the Holocaust on the market today. This one is unique and makes a solid contribution to understanding what happened in Arab lands.
Jewish Tribune
Robert Satloffs new book is sure to rankle Arabs who insist that the Holocaust never happened.
Moment magazine
[Satloffs] engrossing and deeply personal study shows how Europeans brought the Holocaust to the Sahara... A thoughtful work showing that hatredand compassioncan flourish anywhere.
Kirkus Reviews
This account is bound to be controversial.
Booklist
To
Mom and Dad,
Benji and William,
and Jennie
We were educated from childhood that the Holocaust is a big lie.
Muhammad Al-Zurqani, editor-in-chief of the Egyptian government newspaper Al-Liwaa Al-Islami, which published a July 2004 article, The Lie About the Burning of the Jews, alleging that the extermination of Jews during World War II was a lie invented by Zionists
