ABSTRACT
In 1955 an anthology of Arabic poetry (alwan min-shi‘r al-arabi-yati fi Isra'il) which included poems by Jews, Christians and Muslims, was published in Nazareth. The editor, Michel Hadad, in his foreword divided his contributors into three groups. He ingeniously referred to those who had written poetry before and after their incorporation within the Zionist State, as al-mukhadhramun—a term originally applied to pagan poets who continued to write poetry after the triumph of Islam. In the second group he placed immigrant Jewish poets from Arab countries (al-qadimun), and in the third “those whose poetic gifts had developed during the years of this new era” (al-nashi’un). This third group consisted almost entirely of the sons of villagers with the ambition and the means to provide their sons with a secular education.
