This thesis examines the ways in which the British mandate conceptualised, encountered, and sought to manage mental illness in Palestine between 1920 and 1948. The subject of mental illness has hitherto received partial consideration by historians interested in the Yishuv, who treat this period as formative for the Israeli mental health service. This thesis shifts the focus from European Jewish psychiatrists to the British mandate's engagements with mental illness, thus contributing to the well-developed literature on colonial psychiatry. Where this thesis departs from many of these institutionally-focussed histories of colonial psychiatry is in its source base; lacking hospital case files or articles in psychiatric journals, this thesis draws on an eclectic range of material from census reports and folklore research to petitions and prison records. In bringing together these strands of the story of psychiatry and mental illness, this thesis seeks to move beyond the continued emphasis in the historiography of Palestine on politics, nationalism, and state-building, and to develop our understanding of state and society by examining how they interacted in relation to the question of mental illness. This thesis thus widens the cast of historical actors from psychiatric experts alone to take in policemen, census officials, and families. In addition, this thesis seeks to situate Palestine within wider mandatory, British imperial, and global contexts, not to elide specificities, but to resist a persistent historiographical tendency to treat Palestine as exceptional. The first part traces the development of British mandatory conceptualisations of mental illness through the census of 1931 and then through a focus on specific causes of mental illness thought to be at work in Palestine. The second part examines two contexts in which the mandate was brought into contact with the mentally ill: the law and petitions. The final part of the thesis explores two distinct therapeutic regimes introduced in this period: patient work and somatic treatments.

The 21 inscribed ceramic sherds (or ostraca) known as the "Lachish Letters", which were discovered during the British Mandate Period excavations of Tell ed-Duweir (Lachish), underwent eighty years of scholarship that improved our understanding of at least some of these inscriptions. The archive is terse and fragmentary, and the least well-preserved and faded ostraca from this collection have been seriously overlooked, ironically when the "Lachish Letters" have more or less been regarded as a homogenous group of documents written during the final decades of the Judahite kingdom. Some of the ostraca were discovered in different stratigraphic contexts and pertaining to different settings, if not timeframes. The principal aim of this study is to produce an updated edition of these ostraca by objectively and systematically reassessing and understanding these artefacts, the inscriptions they bear, and their respective stratigraphic layers and archaeological contexts. This is carried out by integrating past studies and modern-day developments on the ostraca (and the site itself) from different perspectives: archaeology, palaeography, philology, the Hebrew Bible, and Classical Hebrew studies. This interdisciplinary approach enables a revision of outstanding controversial issues and a dismissal of outdated proposals on the readings, interpretation, and import of these ostraca in their contemporary world. Despite the illegibility of some inscriptions, this study pays attention to all 21 ostraca via physical examination under the lens, to confirm or deny any dubious readings as far as the naked eye can tell us. A crucial criterion is the integration of photographic data and written documentation gathered from unpublished and archived material of the Mandate Period that were accessible to the author at the time of writing. The study concludes that this surviving group of ostraca is far from homogeneous, and there still exist lacunae in their historico-archaeological contexts and interpretations. Our understanding of the source and function of the ostraca (especially the few legible messages and lists of names) remains riddled with controversies, which derive from the fragmentary nature of the corpus and the limitations in the documentation and preservation of these artefacts.

L’objet de notre recherche est de définir la politique du Saint-Siège face à la « Question de Palestine », durant la période qui va de la Déclaration Balfour (1917) à la création de l’État d’Israël (1948). À ce moment précis de l’Histoire où les Britanniques s’apprêtent à recevoir de la Société des Nations un mandat plaçant la Palestine sous leur tutelle, la « renaissance » d’Israël pose à l’Église catholique un double problème. Sur le plan politique, les pressions des diplomaties arabes et de la Congrégation pour l’Église orientale empêchent toute ouverture vers la création d’un État hébreu, le Vatican redoutant que les chrétiens arabes n’en paient le prix. Sur le plan théologique, le retour du peuple juif sur la Terre de la promesse pose à l’Église une question inédite. Cette restauration temporelle ne démontre-t-elle pas en effet que l’Alliance entre Dieu et le peuple d’Israël reste valide ? Et si Israël demeure le peuple élu, quelle est la raison d’être de l’Église ? Si le christianisme est par essence universel, il n’est pas pour autant dissocié de l’Histoire, et notamment de celle du peuple d’Israël « dont le Christ est issu selon la chair » (Rm 9, 3-5). Il s’agit donc de comprendre le particulier enchevêtrement du temporel et du spirituel dans cette région tourmentée du monde qu’est le Proche-Orient. / The object of this research is to define the policy of the Holy See faced with the “Palestinian Question” during the period dating from the Balfour Declaration (1917) to the creation of the State of Israel (1948). At the precise moment in history when the British received a mandate from the League of Nations placing Palestine under their tutelage, the “rebirth” of Israel posed a dual problem for the Catholic Church. On the political front, the pressures imposed by Arab diplomats and the powerful voice of the Congregation of Eastern Churches prevented any talk of creating a Jewish state, the Vatican's stance being that Christian Arabs should not pay the price for this. On the theological front, the return of the Jewish people to the Promised Land posed a new question for the Church. Did not this return prove that the relationship between God and the people of Israel was still valid ? If Israel remained the chosen people what would be the justification for the Church? If Christianity is essentially universal this does not disassociate it from its history, especially that of the people of Israel "of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came " (Rm 9: 3-5) It is therefore important to understand the particular overlap of politics and religion in this troubled region of the world which is the Middle East.

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