Who Are the Mizrahim in Israel, and How Have American Jews Tokenized Them?
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Who Are the Mizrahim in Israel, and How Have American Jews Tokenized Them? Mijal Bitton Campus Professionals Fellowship Cohort VII Distance Learning July 1, 2020 I. At the Margins 2 1. “Jewish Residents in Mainly Muslim Countries, 1948” 2 2. Sergio Della Pergola, “‘Sephardic’ and ‘Oriental’ Jews in Israel and Western Countries: Migration, Social Changes, and Identification” 3 3. Stephen Sharot, “Jewish and Other National and Ethnic Identities” 3 4. Statement by Arye Gelblum, Haaretz, April 22, 1949 4 5. Drora Rotman, “Suham-Drora-Sparrow,” October 30, 2012 5 6. Statement by David Ben Gurion, ca. 1960s 6 II. Open Resistance 7 7. Picture from a Black Panther demonstration for social justice, Israel, 1971 7 8. R’ Ovadia Yosef, Yabia Omer Vol. 6, 1976, §43 8 III. Today’s Stories 9 9. Pew Research Center, “Israel’s Religiously Divided Society”, 2016 9 10. Recommendations from the Bitton Commission, 2016 10 11. 2015 Shas Campaign Slogan 11 12. Shababnikim, TV series from Israel 12 13. Sarit Hadad, Pop Singer 12 14. Miri Regev, Mimouna celebration, 2017 13 15. Jerusalem protest organized by AMRAM, Summer 2017 13 16. Almog Behar, “Sheikh Jarah, 2010” 14 17. Marie Nahmias, May 2019 15 18. Rabbi Haim Sabato, speech in the Knesset, excerpt, January 2017 15 The Shalom Hartman Institute is a leading center of Jewish thought and education, serving Israel and North America. Our mission is to strengthen Jewish peoplehood, identity, and pluralism; to enhance the Jewish and democratic character of Israel; and to ensure that Judaism is a compelling force for good in the 21st century. Share what you’re learning this summer! #hartmansummer @SHI_america shalomhartmaninstitute hartmaninstitute 475 Riverside Dr., Suite 1450 New York, NY 10115 212-268-0300 [email protected] | shalomhartman.org I. At the Margins 1. World Jewish Congress, “Jewish Residents in Mainly Muslim Countries, 1948” Figure 1 2. Sergio Della Pergola, “‘Sephardic’ and ‘Oriental’ Jews in Israel and Western Countries: Migration, Social Changes, and Identification,” Studies in Contemporary Jewry Vol. 22, 2007, p. 4 All in all, somewhat echoing more general contentions about the concept of ‘‘Orientalism,’’ it appears that ‘‘eastern,’’ in the Jewish sense, is most commonly defined not in objective, but rather in symbolic terms. ‘‘Eastern’’ often appears in the context of value-laden assumptions about difference—or more precisely, hierarchic inequality. In such statements, the paradigm of edot hamizrah, or ‘‘Oriental communities,’’ while expressed in the plural, is not posited against any similar paradigm of edot hamaarav, or ‘‘western communities.’’ Instead, Oriental Jews are consistently contrasted with an aggregate of ‘‘Ashkenazim’’ who are assumed to form a coherent alternative paradigm. So, too, ‘‘eastern’’ and ‘‘Sephardim’’ commonly go together even though the history of Jews from Spain has little in common with that of Jews from Oriental communities. What this means is that all those who are not “western’’ (actually Ashkenazic) constitute a single group. Put somewhat differently, ‘‘eastern-ness’’ is defined not by the existence of a given property, but rather by the absence of another property: ‘‘western-ness.’’ Furthermore, ‘‘West’’ and ‘‘western’’ are commonly (whether explicitly or implicitly) associated with modernization, progressiveness, and rationality—all of which are endowed with positive connotations and deemed desirable both for individuals and groups. In contrast, ‘‘East’’ and ‘‘eastern’’ represent the alternative—perhaps more expressive and colorful, probably less orderly and efficient, maybe good for them, but surely less desirable for ourselves or for us all. 3. Stephen Sharot, “Jewish and Other National and Ethnic Identities,” in National Variations in Jewish Identity: Implications for Jewish Education, eds. S. Cohen and G. Horenczyk, 1999, p. 309 The term edot ha’Mizrach was not related to a cultural entity that existed prior to immigration [to Israel. The] communities in North Africa and Asia varied greatly with respect to their Judeo-Arabic dialects, religious customs, and other cultural features. However, in their confrontation with Israelis from Europe, many North African and Asian Israelis felt that, despite their differences, they were closer culturally to other edot ha’Mizrach than to Ashkenazim. 4. Statement by Arye Gelblum, Haaretz, April 22, 1949 This is immigration of a race we have not yet known in the country… We are dealing with people whose primitivism is at a peak, whose level of knowledge is one of virtually absolute ignorance, and worse, who have little talent for understanding anything intellectual. Generally, they are only slightly better than the general level of the Arabs, Negroes, and Berbers in the same regions. In any case, they are at an even lower level than what we knew with regard to the former Arabs of Eretz Israel… These Jews also lack roots in Judaism, as they are totally subordinated to the play of savage and primitive instincts… As with the Africans you will find card games for money, drunkenness, and prostitution. Most of them have serious eye, skin and sexual diseases, without mentioning robberies and thefts. Chronic laziness and hatred for work, there is nothing safe about this asocial element… Aliyat Hanoar [the official organization dealing with immigrant youths] refuses to receive Moroccan children and the kibbutzim will not hear of their absorption among them. Transit Camp, ca. 1950s 5. Drora Rotman, “Suham-Drora-Sparrow,” October 30, 2012 Translated by Orit Bashkin and Youval Rotman in Impossible Exodus: Iraqi Jews in Israel by Orit Bakshin, pg. 1-2 Autumn 1951: She was eight years old when she heard her name for the first time, her new name, her Hebrew name. It was the year of the mass migration from Iraq to Israel, and the family moved from a newcomers’ camp to [transit camp]. The camp stretched between Mount Carmel to the east, the Carmel shore to the west, and the cemetery to the south - the military cemetery, where children used to go and watch the funerary rites of soldiers. The transit camp’s name was Camp David, but everybody called it “Winds Camp” because of the strong winds that blew there in the winter. In their first winter the wind blew off all the tents they were living in, exposing them and their belongings to the heavy rains. Later they would get permanent housing: canvas and wooden shacks, clustered together haphazardly all around the camp’s grounds. In her first week of school, the school nurse asked for a girl’s name: Suham? What does that mean? Is it some sort of bird? We will call you, then, Drora (“sparrow” in Hebrew, and it also means “freedom”). Thus blessed with the sweet and satisfying smile of the school nurse, the girl was reborn. Her parents were not asked for their view of the matter. It was a beautiful autumn day, cloudy and chilly. She felt the raindrops in the air pleasantly clinging to her cheeks. She inhaled the humid air. It filled her lungs and washed her entire body with a special freshness that will never return. A soft and white fog embraced the nurse and the group of children standing around her in the schoolyard, and distanced them from the searing sight of naked shacks, the ever-blazing sun, and the emptiness that filled the bare spaces between everything. The nurse was tall and beautiful. She wore a tight blue gown and a snowy starched cap that crowned her head, with a thick bob of her black hair tightened on top. Amid the children of the transit camp with their baggy gray clothes, amid the wooden shacks used as classrooms and the trodden faded soil, the nurse was the most colorful and spectacular thing the girl saw in those days. The old name that was tossed away as a useless object reemerged fifty years later, when she opened her son’s ID card, looking under “mother’s name.” A little girl in an old childhood photo instantly surfaced, staring at her with endless sadness. And she was back at the moment her name was lost, starting all over again. 6. Statement by David Ben Gurion, ca. 1960s We do not want Israelis to become Arabs. We are in duty bound to fight against the spirit of the Levant, which corrupts individuals and societies, and preserve the authentic Jewish values as they crystallized in the Diaspora. Figure 2 Yemenite children airlifted to Israel, ca. 1950s II. Open Resistance 7. Picture from a Black Panther demonstration for social justice, Israel, 1971 Sign on the right: “Join the Panthers, resign from discrimination.” Sign on the left: “Golda, teach us Yiddish” 8. R’ Ovadia Yosef, Yabia Omer Vol. 6, 1976, §43 ושמעתי שיש טוענים על דברי שמאחר שהרבנים הראשיים לת"א שקדמוני הניחו המנהג להחמיר אין לשנות המנהג ולאו מילתא היא (=זו אינה טענה) שמקום הניחו לי לה ת ג ד ר בו. ומכל שכן שידוע שהרבנים הראשיים הספרדים שקדמוני הוו מיכף כייף (=היו כפופים) לעמיתיהם הרבנים הראשיים האשכנזים. הרב עוזיאל ז"ל הוה כייף לרב קוק זצ"ל וכן הרב טולידנו ז"ל בהיותו רב ראשי לת"א לא היה יכול להרים ראש כלפי עמיתו יבדל לחיים טובים הרב אונטרמן שליט"א ולחלוק עליו בהלכה. והם היו ממונים ושולטים על הרבנים רושמי הנשואין והנהיגו הכל כמנהג בני אשכנז. ולמען השלום שתקו, שרים עצרו מילין וכף ישימו לפיהם. והדברים מפורסמים בבירור גמור. אבל אנן דלא כייפינן תודה לאל יתברך, על משמרתי אעמודה להחזיר עטרה ליושנה להורות כדעת מרן שקיבלנו הוראותיו... ושומע לנו ישכון לבטח . And I heard that some claim against my ruling, because they contend that given that the previous chief Rabbis of Tel Aviv adopted the custom of stringency there was no justification to change the custom, but this is not a compelling argument. All the more so because it is well known that the chief Sephardi Rabbis were subordinated to their fellow Ashkenazi chief Rabbis.