“The bride is beautiful” stories analyzed
Atlanta Jewish Connector, February 4, 2025
The ubiquity of “The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man” stories presents a troubling example of how scholars, journalists, and filmmakers regularly dispense with accuracy and evidentiary standards when dealing with Jewish, Zionist, and Israeli history.
An Analysis of “The Bride is Beautiful but she is Married to another Man” Tales
New English Review, January 2025
The ubiquity of “The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man” stories, which will be discussed here, presents a troubling illustration of the shoddiness found in Middle Eastern studies and of how scholars, journalists, and filmmakers regularly dispense with accuracy and evidentiary standards when dealing with Jewish, Zionist, and Israeli history. Professionalism is often intentionally put aside to advance political agendas and as part of efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state, and this approach has become so entrenched that fictions are relied upon even when documented events could be made to serve such purposes instead.
‘The Bride Is Beautiful But She Is Married to Another Man’ Stories
Middle East Quarterly 31:4 (Fall 2024)
What does it take to let go of cherished anti-Zionist narratives lacking historicity?
Bride is beautiful: An irresistible anti-Zionist story
Atlanta Jewish Connector, November 8, 2021
Though stories incorporating the phrase “The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man” lack a primary source, and though there has been no basis for recounting them as historical events that occurred during the early years of the Zionist movement, different versions appear in many articles, books, and films.
(This article is a follow-up to 2020’s “The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man.” The tenacity of an anti-Zionist fable.)
The Independent Amends Its Brief History of Israel
JewishBoston, August 12, 2021
Editors at British newspaper The Independent make significant changes to Joe Sommerlad’s May 2021 article about Jewish and Israeli history, including to his plagiarizing use of a story featuring the phrase “The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man.”
“The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man.” The tenacity of an anti-Zionist fable
Fathom Journal, Autumn/December 2020
Some authors are unwilling to dispense with unsubstantiated stories, opting instead to put scholarly standards aside in their attempts to advance anti-Zionist arguments. One case in point is the “married to another man” fable.
(This article is a follow-up to 2012’s “The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man”: Historical Fabrication and an Anti-Zionist Myth.)
Cover of Ghada Karmi’s Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine
Cover of Ingmar Karlsson’s Bruden är vacker men har redan en man: Sionisme – en ideologi vid vägs ände? (The bride is beautiful but there is already a husband: Zionism – an ideology at the end of the road?)
Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 30:3 (Spring 2012), pp. 35–61
According to a frequently repeated story, during the early years of the Zionist movement a number of European Jews were sent to Palestine to investigate its suitability as a location for a Jewish state. They reported back, the story concludes, that “the bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man“ — Palestine is an excellent land, but it belongs to others.
While its details vary with the telling, the story’s central point is often the same: already in the early years of the Zionist movement, Jews recognized that it would be unjust and immoral for them to try to claim Palestine; despite this awareness, the Zionists proceeded with their plans for Jewish statehood there; from the outset, therefore, the establishment of the state of Israel was an act of severe and willful injustice.
