Marina Benjamin reviews Martin Gilbert’s “In Ishmael’s House,” a book about Jewish experiences under Muslims:

“My sense is that Gilbert doesn’t feel quite at home with his material. Like the white boy in the hood, he likes the rap music but can’t always understand the lyrics. Among Jews from Arab lands (I know this because I am one), there exists a culture of complaint, a cult of victimhood and a strong undertow of racism. “How we suffered!” they like to wail, before cursing their former overlords. Gilbert, as an Ashkenazi, can’t tell when to listen respectfully from when a large pinch of salt is required.There is no arguing with the fact that 850,000 Arab Jews were expelled from their native countries after Zionism trounced Arab Nationalism, brandishing the Israeli state as its trophy. Most Arab Jews are also furious that their forced exile has nothing like the profile given to the plight of Palestinians, spat out of Israel at the same time and in roughly equivalent numbers.

“But that’s where the self-pity ends. Arab Jews wouldn’t dream of going back to countries they now see as primitive. For them, there is no homeland outside America, England, Holland, Israel or Canada. Gilbert tells us that some Muslims think of their Jewish compatriots as “dogs”. Yet he appears clueless as to the slanders that Arab Jews reserve for Muslims in return.”