During two days in May 1986 some fifty scholars, graduate students, and other interested individuals gathered at Princeton University for a colloquium entitled 'Jews Among Arabs: Contacts and Boundaries'. The conference was organised in awareness of the controversial tone in which the subject of 'Jews and Arabs' has been discussed in recent years. Against the backdrop of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Jewish-Arab relationship of the past has come under new and intense scrutiny, with historical questions often masking political predilections. The six papers of this book comprise the fruits of the colloquium and, it is hoped, make a qualitative though small contribution to a different kind of study of Jewish-Arab relations in the modern world, one that might be relevant for other minorities as well.