Today’s NY Times features a fascinating article, entitled Manama Journal, on the Jews of Bahrain. It tells of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa and his relationship with his 36 Jewish subjects. At the core of the article stands the unspoken question, what is a Jew, at least according to Bahrainis?
Are we a small cabal with undue influence over global markets and media, who must be mollified? Are we good Arabians who happen to follow another religion? Are we a sophisticated minority that serves the royal family and are rewarded for doing so? Are we pawns in a larger game of Sunni v. Shia?
This article portrays a long-ago world in which Jews have not functioned for generations, if not centuries. It begs us to pay attention to both the real possibilities of working with even the most traditional elements in the Islamic world today, and the genuine challenges of any relationship which is based on preserving deep imbalances in the power and autonomy of any party to the relationship.
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Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of 
posted April 6, 2009 at 9:28 pm
I went to graduate school with a member of the Bahraini royal family, whom I am told was the first woman from Bahrain to earn a PhD, and I was forthright about having Jewish ancestors although I was not raised to be observant. I found the family to be gracious, helpful beyond any reasonable expectation, and kind, and I thought of my classmate as a colleague. I didn’t feel that I was in any way less a person than any other non-royal–and perhaps that is the thing to keep in mind. They are they royal family. We are not. But it is not a Jewish-Muslim issue.
posted April 7, 2009 at 9:37 am
So let me get this straight–there are exactlyl 36 Jews in Bahrein? Are these, perhaps, the 36 righteous men that are alive at any time, and who are responsible for the continued existence of the world–according to Hasidic lore? And it takes me, an apostate Jew to recognize this?