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23 J. Legal Hist. 307 (2002)
The History of Law in a Multi-Cultural Society: Israel 1917-1967; Ron Harris, Alexandre Kedar, Pnina Lahav and Assaf Likhovski Eds.

handle is hein.journals/lglhis23 and id is 323 raw text is: BOOK REVIEWS The History of Law in a Multi-Cultural Society: Israel 1917-1967. RON HARRIS, ALEXANDRE KEDAR, PNINA LAHAV and ASSAF LIKHOVSKI eds. Aldershot. 2002. Ashgate Publishing Ltd. 462pp. Hardback. £60.00. ISBN 0 7546 2145 6. This book is a compilation of articles, some presented as papers at the First International Conference of Israeli Legal History held at Tel Aviv and Haifa Universities in 1997. It is not that simple to review a collection of essays. When I received the book and began to prepare this review I thought that perhaps the best way was to choose two or three of the more interesting articles and refer to them. But throughout reading it, I realized that the selection would be difficult since every one of the pieces presented addresses interesting points and contains stimulating insights. Although, as commonly happens with books of this sort, the reader may find differences in the length of the papers, the framework of the analysis or the method of research, all of them are written in a clear style and every one paves the way for further analysis and discussion. From the title, the book's focus is the period between 1917 (the beginning of the British Mandate in Palestine) and 1967 (the Six Day War ). Nevertheless, some of the articles deal with questions that originated in the Ottoman period and others refer to legal evolution after 1967. In a country with a relatively short history every such distinction may sound artificial. Moreover, the choice of events as a criterion to divide periods may be relevant with regard to some fields but not others. Thus, the Six Day War in 1967 brought political and sociological changes in Israeli society that influence especially public law, but it was not as important in other fields as, for example, contract law. In the introduction, the editors offer a description of the state of legal historiography in Israel. The survey included in the introduction, alongside the comprehensive bibliography, may serve as a gateway for further research. The first part is dedicated to 'Law under the British Rule'. The British Mandate in Palestine, from 1917 to 1948, influenced the further development of the Israeli legal system. After Independence, the State of Israel preserved the law in force during the Mandate. In some fields it was later replaced (as happened in contract law, where Israel has moved toward a somewhat Continental model). In other fields the British heritage is still present (as in bill of exchange law). But unlike other peoples who passed through colonial rule before achieving independence, Jews succeeded in developing, at least in certain fields, a relatively autonomous legal system that operated alongside the British system. As the editors explain in the introduction (7), most historiography of the Mandate period tends to focus primarily on the development of the Jewish community. Here, too, the articles in this part deal with particulars of the Jewish community during the Mandate, more than the British legal framework. David de Bres analyses the Comrades Courts established by the Histadrut (the General Federation of Workers), which not only played an important role in regulating labour matters within the Jewish community in the difficult times of the British Mandate, but also contributed to strengthening the consciousness of Jewish immigrants-turned-workers. A study of courts of this sort allows us to understand a mechanism aimed at defending sectorial interests as well as to perceive the dialectic present within the labour movement in Israel - nationalistic needs vis-ei-vis a socialist ideology or, perhaps more accurately (as is pointed out in Kedar's article, 321), socialist rhetoric.