DOCSLIB.ORG

Cfp: Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in the Americas; Special Issue of American Jewish History

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Cfp: Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in the Americas; Special Issue of American Jewish History H-Announce CfP: Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in the Americas; Special Issue of American Jewish History Announcement published by Nick Underwood on Tuesday, December 1, 2020 Type: Call for Papers Date: December 30, 2020 Subject Fields: American History / Studies, Immigration & Migration History / Studies, Jewish History / Studies, Spanish and Portuguese History / Studies, Middle East History / Studies CALL FOR PAPERS: Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in the Americas The editors of American Jewish History are calling for papers for a special issue of the journal on Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in the Americas, to be guest edited byDevin Naar, Isaac Alhadeff Professor in Sephardic Studies and associate professor of history and Jewish studies at the University of Washington While the editors will consider papers that address Sephardi immigration to the Americas during the Atlantic and early Republic eras (1654-1820), they are particularly interested in later streams of migration from the Ottoman Empire, North Africa, Syria, Iran and the broader Middle East during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The editors are especially interested in papers that draw on aspects of Sephardi and Mizrahi experiences to disrupt or challenge American Jewish historical narratives—of the United States and the Americas, more broadly. While the terms “Ashkenazi,” “Sephardi,” and “Mizrahi” are problematic and carry their own contested histories, we hope that these terms will provide a fruitful point of departure for authors to explore multiple groups’ histories. We encourage authors to engage or challenge the multiple meanings of these terms. In light of the current political moment, we especially encourage articles that address race and racism in American Jewish history. Possible topics include, but are certainly not confined to: **the social, cultural, political, organizational, religious, and economic experiences of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews; **studies that consider questions of race, racialization, and whiteness in the historic experiences of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews; **studies that place Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in dialogue with discourses about Jews of Citation: Nick Underwood. CfP: Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in the Americas; Special Issue of American Jewish History. H-Announce. 12-01-2020. https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/6882552/cfp-sephardi-and-mizrahi-jews-americas-special-issue-american Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Announce Color; ** studies that place Sephardi and Mizrahi experiences in dialogue with Ashkenazi experiences (particularly when those Ashkenazi experiences have come to be called the "Jewish" experiences in the Americas); **studies that use material culture to explore the lives and experiences of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews; **studies that explore gender and sexuality in the historical experiences of Sephardi and Mizrahi women and men; ** Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews’ experiences of lack of recognition, inequality, double consciousness, and violence, both within and outside the American Jewish community; ** explorations and critiques of “Ashkenormativity” rooted in historical evidence or sources; **historical exploration and critiques of the terms “Ashkenazi,” “Sephardi,” and/or “Mizrahi”; **the historical experiences of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews considered in comparison to other ethnic and racial groups; **the historical experiences of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in their contacts and relationships with other ethnic and racial groups; **historical studies of literature, music, art, film, dance, theater by or about Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews; **analyses of the presence/invisibility of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in representations of American Jewish history in museums, films, and other sites of memory; **transnational dimensions of historical experiences of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, as well as comparative analyses of their experiences in different contexts; ** historical analyses of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in the Americas, including Central and South America and Canada; **interdisciplinary approaches, which, if historically rooted, may draw upon the methodologies of anthropology, sociology, religious studies, literary studies, post-colonial studies, critical race studies, and other disciplines and approaches; Citation: Nick Underwood. CfP: Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in the Americas; Special Issue of American Jewish History. H-Announce. 12-01-2020. https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/6882552/cfp-sephardi-and-mizrahi-jews-americas-special-issue-american Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 2 H-Announce **contributions from specialists in other fields, outside of American Jewish history, that engage with the experiences of Sephardi and Mizrahi studies, whether via American studies, Middle East studies, Arab American studies, Greek American studies, Armenian American studies, Latinx studies, African American studies, Indigenous studies, and other fields of inquiry; Please send abstracts of not more than 300 words, a short bio, as well as any inquiries to the journal managing editor, Nick Underwood [email protected]( ), by December 30, 2020. Full articles based on accepted abstracts should be 6,000-10,000 words in length and be submitted by June 1, 2021 for peer review. Accepted articles will be published in American Jewish History in 2022. Contact Info: Nick Underwood, Managing Editor, American Jewish History Contact Email: [email protected] Citation: Nick Underwood. CfP: Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in the Americas; Special Issue of American Jewish History. H-Announce. 12-01-2020. https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/6882552/cfp-sephardi-and-mizrahi-jews-americas-special-issue-american Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 3.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Migration of Jews to Palestine in the 20Th Century
    Name Date Migration of Jews to Palestine in the 20th Century Read the text below. The Jewish people historically defined themselves as the Jewish Diaspora, a group of people living in exile. Their traditional homeland was Palestine, a geographic region on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Jewish leaders trace the source of the Jewish Diaspora to the Roman occupation of Palestine (then called Judea) in the 1st century CE. Fleeing the occupation, most Jews immigrated to Europe. Over the centuries, Jews began to slowly immigrate back to Palestine. Beginning in the 1200s, Jewish people were expelled from England, France, and central Europe. Most resettled in Russia and Eastern Europe, mainly Poland. A small population, however, immigrated to Palestine. In 1492, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella expelled all Jewish people living in Spain, some refugees settled in Palestine. At the turn of the 20th century, European Jews were migrating to Palestine in large numbers, fleeing religious persecution. In Russia, Jewish people were segregated into an area along the country’s western border, called the Pale of Settlement. In 1881, Russians began mass killings of Jews. The mass killings, called pogroms, caused many Jews to flee Russia and settle in Palestine. Prejudice against Jews, called anti-Semitism, was very strong in Germany, Austria-Hungary, and France. In 1894, a French army officer named Alfred Dreyfus was falsely accused of treason against the French government. Dreyfus, who was Jewish, was imprisoned for five years and tried again even after new information proved his innocence. The incident, called The Dreyfus Affair, exposed widespread anti-Semitism in Western Europe.
    [Show full text]
  • Traces of Absence: How the Trauma of the Yemenite, Mizrahi and Balkan Kidnapped Children Affair Is Present in Photographs and Home Movies
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects CUNY Graduate Center 6-2021 Traces of Absence: How the Trauma of the Yemenite, Mizrahi and Balkan Kidnapped Children Affair Is Present in Photographs and Home Movies Natalie Haziza The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4423 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] Running head: TRACES OF ABSENCE i Traces of Absence: How the trauma of the Yemenite, Mizrahi and Balkan Kidnapped Children Affair is present in photographs and home movies Natalie Haziza The Graduate Center & City College – CUNY A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The City University of New York 2021 TRACES OF ABSENCE © 2021 NATALIE HAZIZA All Rights Reserved ii TRACES OF ABSENCE This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Clinical Psychology Doctoral program to satisfy the dissertation. Elliot Jurist, PhD – Dissertation Chair ________________________________ Date ____________ Richard Bodnar, PhD - Executive Officer ________________________________ Date ____________ Dissertation Committee: Sarah O’Neill, PhD ___________________________ Adeyinka M. Akinsulure-Smith, PhD, ABPP ___________________________ Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber, PhD __________________________ Marianne Hirsch, PhD __________________________ iii TRACES OF ABSENCE For Avigail and Yoyi, to many more muddy puddles אתסלב סמ ו ד י , לבק י ברהה ישנ ק ו ת ממ נ י .
    [Show full text]
  • Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern- Americans Theme: Identity
    Sample Lesson: Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern- Americans Theme: Identity Disciplinary Area: Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies Ethnic Studies Values and Principles Alignment: 1, 3, 4, 6 Standards Alignment: CA HSS Analysis Skills (9–12): Chronological and Spatial Thinking 1; Historical Interpretation 1, 3, 4 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.7 10.4 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.7 CCSS.ELA- LITERACY.W.11-12.8 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.9 Lesson Purpose and Overview: This lesson introduces students to antisemitism and its manifestations through the lens of Jewish Middle Eastern Americans, also known as Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews, whose contemporary history is defined by recent struggles as targets of discrimination, prejudice and hate crimes in the United States and globally. Students will analyze and research narratives, primary, and secondary sources about Mizrahi Jews. The source analysis contextualizes the experience of Jewish Middle Eastern Americans within the larger framework of systems of power (economic, political, social). Key Terms and Concepts: Mizrahi, antisemitism, indigeneity, ethnicity, prejudice, refugees, diaspora, immigration, intersectionality Lesson Objective (students will be able to...): 1 1. Develop an understanding of Jewish Middle Eastern Americans (who are also referred to as Arab Jews, Mizrahi Jews, Sephardic Jews, and Persian Jews) and differentiate the various identities, nationalities, and subethnicities that make up the Jewish American community. 2. Develop an understanding of contemporary antisemitism and identify how the Jewish Middle Eastern American community today is impacted by prejudice and discrimination against them, as intersectional refugees, immigrants, and racialized Jewish Americans. 3. Students will construct a visual, written, and oral summary of antisemitism in the United States using multiple written and digital texts.
    [Show full text]
  • Audacious Hospitality Jews of Color Educational Resource Module a Supplement to the Audacious Hospitality Toolkit
    Audacious Hospitality Jews Of Color Educational Resource Module A Supplement to the Audacious Hospitality Toolkit Building Communities. Pilot Edition Reimagining Jewish Life. Audacious HospitalityJews of Color (JOC) Educational Resource Module An Educational Resource to Help Congregations, Communities, and Groups to be Proactively Inclusive of Jews of Color and Their Loved Ones Executive Editor Cantor Shira Stanford-Asiyo Union for Reform Judaism | Audacious Hospitality | Jews of Color Educational Resource Module• 3 Audacious Hospitality Jews of Color (JOC) Table of Contents Introduction Welcome 9 Jewish Identity and Community 11 Jewish Identity and Jewish Diversity 12 Jewish Identity: Terminology FAQ 13 Where Ever You Go: The Diversity of the Global Jewish Diaspora 15 Embracing Diversity in the Jewish Community 18 Awareness and Inclusion Resources 21 Storytelling: A Self-reflection for Deepening Relationships and Engagement 22 White-Ashkenazi Awareness Checklist: Examining Privilege 24 Reconsidering Being Colorblind 26 What Are Microaggressions and How Can We Address Them? 29 Things You Can Do to Embrace Racial Diversity in Our Jewish Communities 31 Black, Jewish, and Avoiding Synagogue on the High Holy Days 33 Literacy Resources 37 Key Terms for Racial Diversity and Justice 38 Book Lists for Inclusion, Diversity, and Racial Justice for Kids and Adults 44 Union for Reform Judaism | Audacious Hospitality | Jews of Color Educational Resource Module• 5 WELCOME Union for Reform Judaism | Audacious Hospitality | Jews of Color Educational Resource Module• 7 Welcome Welcome to the Audacious Hospitality Jews of Color Educational Resource Module. This module builds on the concepts shared in the Audacious Hospitality Pilot Toolkit and focuses specifically on the knowledge base needed to meet the needs of Jews of Color.
    [Show full text]
  • The Arch of a Sephardic-Mizrahi Ethnic Autonomy in Palestine, 1926 to 1929
    The Arch of a Sephardic-Mizrahi Ethnic Autonomy in Palestine, 1926 to 1929 Yehuda Sharim University of California, Los Angeles During the World Sephardic Meeting in August 1925, members of the Sephardic- Mizrahi leadership questioned the role of a Sephardic-Mizrahi identity in politics.1 Their dilemma revolved around one doubt articulated by multiple Sephardic-Mizrahi leaders in 1926 and 1931: “to be or not to be” (“lehiyot oh lachdol”)2—that is, to be or not to be identified as a political entity separate from the growing Zionist enterprise in Palestine. Throughout the decade, from 1926 to 1929, to even ask this question was to invite accusations by Yishuv members of being seditious and anti-Zionist, of “promoting mistrust and divi- sion,” and of receiving “foreign” donations intended to the Zionist project.3 Nevertheless, the idea of Sephardic-Mizrahi autonomy persisted in the minds of Sephardic-Mizrahi leaders. This article examines how Sephardic-Mizrahi groups envisaged and fought for an autonomous entity in Palestine from 1926 to 1929, but then devolved into being an ethnic group without a distinct political representation or a clear political agenda. Additionally, this paper explicates how the Sephardic-Mizrahi leadership’s resistance of an “abusive” Zionist organization ultimately yielded a discourse of self-inferiority.4 A dichotomy resulted from the growing associations of Sephardic-Mizrahi identity with cultural backwardness and ideological stagna- tion. At this point of the internalization of a cultural and intellectual hierarchy, the once-allied Sephardic-Mizrahi community divided itself into “the enlightened European Sephardim” and “uncultured Mizrahim.”5 This internal divide allowed the Jerusalem’s Sephardic-Mizrahi leadership to produce its own identity as “Sephardic intelligentsia,” in contrast to the Mizrahi “simple masses” (“ha’amon hapashut”).6 This paper explores the decoupling of Sephardic and Mizrahi identities in 1920s and 1930s Palestine by examining the political and social climate of 29 30 UCLA HISTORICAL JOURNAL Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern-Americans
    10214 Sample Lesson 40: Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern-Americans 10215 Theme: Identity 10216 Disciplinary Area: Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies 10217 Ethnic Studies Values and Principles Alignment: 1, 3, 4, 6 10218 Standards Alignment: 10219 CA HSS Analysis Skills (9–12): Chronological and Spatial Thinking 1; Historical 10220 Interpretation 1, 3, 4 10221 CCSS ELA/Literacy: W.9–10.7 10.4; CCSS ELA/Literacy: W.11–12.7; 10222 CCSS ELA/Literacy: W.11–12.8; CCSS ELA/Literacy: W.11–12.9 10223 Lesson Purpose and Overview: 10224 This lesson introduces students to antisemitism and its manifestations through the lens 10225 of Jewish Middle Eastern Americans, also known as Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews, 10226 whose contemporary history is defined by recent struggles as targets of discrimination, 10227 prejudice and hate crimes in the United States and globally. Students will analyze and 10228 research narratives, primary, and secondary sources about Mizrahi Jews. The source 10229 analysis contextualizes the experience of Jewish Middle Eastern Americans within the 10230 larger framework of systems of power (economic, political, social). 10231 Key Terms and Concepts: Mizrahi, antisemitism, indigeneity, ethnicity, prejudice, 10232 refugees, diaspora, immigration, intersectionality 10233 Lesson Objective (Students will be able to...): 10234 1. develop an understanding of Jewish Middle Eastern Americans (who are also 10235 referred to as Arab Jews, Mizrahi Jews, Sephardic Jews, and Persian Jews) and 10236 differentiate the various identities, nationalities, and subethnicities that make up 10237 the Jewish American community; Page 485 of 563 10238 2. develop an understanding of contemporary antisemitism and identify how the 10239 Jewish Middle Eastern American community today is impacted by prejudice and 10240 discrimination against them, as intersectional refugees, immigrants, and 10241 racialized Jewish Americans; and 10242 3.
    [Show full text]
  • Who Is the Synagogue of Satan (Pdf) Download
    Who is the Synagogue of Satan 1. Revelation 2:8-9 2. Revelation 3:9 3. Genesis 9:20-29 (Ashkenazi Jews I.E. Gentile Converts) ● The word enlarge here is not the best translation. The KJV translates Strong's H6601 in the following manner: entice (10x), deceive (8x), persuade (4x), flatter pâthâh, paw-thaw'; a ָפּ ָתה .(2x), allure (1x), enlarge (1x), silly one (1x), silly (1x) primitive root; to open, i.e. be (causatively, make) roomy; usually figuratively (in a mental or moral sense) to be (causatively, make) simple or (in a sinister way) delude:—allure, deceive, enlarge, entice, flatter, persuade, silly (one). Yah enticed Japheth to dwell in the tents in the tents of Shem (the promised land). This happened during the crusades, 1949, & will again after the abomination of desolation. 4. Genesis 10:1-5 ● Encylopedia Brittanica: Ashkenazi, plural Ashkenazim, from Hebrew Ashkenaz ​ ​ (“Germany”), member of the Jews who lived in the Rhineland valley and in neighbouring France before their migration eastward to Slavic lands (e.g., Poland, Lithuania, Russia) after the Crusades (11th–13th century) and their descendants. After the 17th-century persecutions in eastern Europe, large numbers of these Jews resettled in western Europe, where they assimilated, as they had done in eastern Europe, with other Jewish communities. In time, all Jews who had adopted the “German rite” synagogue ritual were referred to as Ashkenazim to distinguish them from Sephardic (Spanish rite) Jews. Ashkenazim differ from Sephardim in their pronunciation of Hebrew, in cultural traditions, in synagogue cantillation (chanting), in their widespread use of Yiddish (until the ​ 20th century), and especially in synagogue liturgy.
    [Show full text]
  • Sepharad Free
    FREE SEPHARAD PDF Antonio Munoz Molina,Prof Margaret Sayers Peden | 385 pages | 04 Aug 2008 | HARVEST BOOKS | 9780156034746 | English | United States (PDF) Remembering Sepharad | Reyes Coll-Tellechea - Sephardi Jewsalso known as Sephardic Jews, Hispanic Jews [2] or Sephardim [a] are a Jewish ethnic division originating from traditionally established communities in the Iberian Peninsula modern Spain and Portugal. Largely expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the late 15th century, they carried a distinctive diasporic identity with them to North AfricaSouth-eastern and Southern EuropeAnatoliaand the Levantas well as the Americasand all other places of their exiled settlement. They sometimes settled near existing Jewish communities, or were Sepharad first in new frontiers. Their millennial residence as Sepharad open and organised Jewish community in Iberia began to decline with the Reconquista. In both Spain and Portugal passed laws that allowed Sephardim who could prove their ancestral origins in those countries to apply for citizenship. More Sepharad, the term Sephardim Sepharad sometimes refers to traditionally Eastern Jewish communities of West Asia and beyond. Although not having direct roots in the Jewish communities of Iberia, they have adopted a Sephardic Sepharad of liturgy and Sephardic law and customs Sepharad the influence Sepharad the Iberian Jewish exiles over the Sepharad of the last few centuries. This article deals with Sepharad within the Sepharad ethnic definition. Historically, the vernacular languages of Sephardim and their descendants have been variants of either Spanish or Sepharadthough they have also adopted and Sepharad other languages throughout their history. The historical forms of Spanish that differing Sephardic communities Sepharad communally was related to the date of their departure from Iberia, and their status at that time as Jews or New Christians.
    [Show full text]
  • Israel's Mizrahim: "Other" Victims of Zionism Or a Bridge to Regional Reconciliation? Franklin Hugh Adler Macalester College
    Macalester International Volume 23 The Israeli-Palestinian Impasse: Dialogic Article 13 Transformations Spring 2009 Israel's Mizrahim: "Other" Victims of Zionism or a Bridge to Regional Reconciliation? Franklin Hugh Adler Macalester College Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/macintl Recommended Citation Adler, Franklin Hugh (2009) "Israel's Mizrahim: "Other" Victims of Zionism or a Bridge to Regional Reconciliation?," Macalester International: Vol. 23, Article 13. Available at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/macintl/vol23/iss1/13 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Institute for Global Citizenship at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Macalester International by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Israel’s Mizrahim: “Other” Victims of Zionism or a Bridge to Regional Reconciliation? Franklin Hugh Adler It may come as a surprise to those unfamiliar with Israeli society, and especially those who have been led to believe it primarily com- posed of European Jews who settled in the Middle East, that roughly half of Israel’s Jewish population is made up of Jews who for millennia were deeply rooted in the region and summarily expelled from Arab states after Israel was founded in 1948. In fact, this Arab Jewish popu- lation exceeds in number those Palestinians who were displaced, and it possessed substantially greater property that was confiscated without compensation upon expulsion.1 The purpose of this essay is not to illuminate the so-called “silent exodus” that went largely unnoticed in the West and remains stub- bornly unrecognized by Arab nationalists today insofar as they focus only on the legitimate rights of the Palestinians, neglecting the Jews, an organic part of Arab communities, who suffered a similar fate at their own hands.
    [Show full text]
  • Palestinian-Jews and Israel's Dual Identity Crisis
    History in the Making Volume 9 Article 8 January 2016 Palestinian-Jews and Israel’s Dual Identity Crisis Rafael Perez CSUSB Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/history-in-the-making Part of the Islamic World and Near East History Commons Recommended Citation Perez, Rafael (2016) "Palestinian-Jews and Israel’s Dual Identity Crisis," History in the Making: Vol. 9 , Article 8. Available at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/history-in-the-making/vol9/iss1/8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the History at CSUSB ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in History in the Making by an authorized editor of CSUSB ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Palestinian-Jews and Israel’s Dual Identity Crisis By Rafael Perez Abstract: This paper looks to explore the complex combination of those who are both Arab in culture and Jewish by faith. This complex dual identity is generally known as Mizrahim or Arab Jews. Within the general Arab-Israeli dispute, this identity complicates the conflict by challenging the normative understanding of nationalism. Moreover, this paper examines the history of the Mizrahim through the Palestinian-Jewish experience in pre-establishment Israel and further examines the social changes that affected Mizrahim within the Israeli State after the 1948 War. Various primary source documents, essays, personal accounts, peer-reviewed journals, and surveys are used to understand the identity and role of the Mizrahim within Israeli society. This paper seeks to illuminate the fact that Israeli society is not homogenous, but a state with a diverse population, making it difficult for the Israeli state to establish a strong unified sense of nationalism.
    [Show full text]
  • The Repressed Israeli Trauma of Immigration
    arts Article Three Mothers (2006) by Dina Zvi-Riklis: The Repressed Israeli Trauma of Immigration Yael Munk Department of Literature, Language and the Arts, The Open University of Israel, Ra’anana 4353701, Israel; [email protected] Received: 26 February 2020; Accepted: 8 June 2020; Published: 16 June 2020 Abstract: This article relates to the complex approach of Dina Zvi-Riklis’ film Three Mothers (2006) to immigration, an issue that is central to both the Jewish religion and Israeli identity. While for both, reaching the land of Israel means arriving in the promised land, they are quite dissimilar, in that one is a religious command, while the other is an ideological imperative. Both instruct the individual to opt for the obliteration of his past. However, this system does not apply to the protagonists of Three Mothers, a film which follows the extraordinary trajectory of triplet sisters, born to a rich Jewish family in Alexandria, who are forced to leave Egypt after King Farouk’s abdication and immigrate to Israel. This article will demonstrate that Three Mothers represents an outstanding achievement, because it dares to deal with its protagonists’ longing for the world left behind and the complexity of integrating the past into the present. Following Nicholas Bourriaud’s radicant theory, designating an organism that grows roots and adds new ones as it advances, this article will argue that, although the protagonists of Three Mothers never avow their longing for Egypt, the film’s narrative succeeds in revealing a subversive démarche, through which the sisters succeed in integrating Egypt into their present.
    [Show full text]
  • Post-Zionism and the Sephardi Question
    Spring 2005 Post-Zionism and the Sephardi Question By Meyrav Wurmser http://www.meforum.org/707/post-zionism-and-the-sephardi-question A growing group of Jewish Israeli professors is challenging the legitimacy of the Israeli state from within. Many are Mizrahim, as the Sephardi Jews from the Middle East and North Africa are increasingly called, and do so from a distinctly Mizrahi outlook. In July 2004, for example, a poem appeared online entitled, "I Am an Arab Refugee": When I hear Fayruz[1] singing, "I shall never forget thee, Palestine," I swear to you with my right hand that at once I am a Palestinian. All of a sudden I know: I am an Arab refugee and, if not, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.[2] The author is not a Palestinian refugee but rather an Israeli Jew. His name is Sami Shalom Chetrit, a Mizrahi professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem who, along with Mizrahi academics like Ella Shohat, Eli Avraham, Oren Yiftachel, Yehouda Shenhav, Pnina Motzafi-Haller and others has developed a radical critique of ethnic relations in Israel. True to post-Zionism, an intellectual movement that believes that Zionism lacks moral validity, post-Zionist Mizrahi writers believe that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state. According to Mizrahi post-Zionism, the Mizrahim, about half of Israel's Jewish population, are "Arab-Jews," who like the Palestinians are victims of Zionism. While this new school of intellectual radicalism remains so far contained within the halls of academia and without broad support among the broader Mizrahi population, it, nevertheless, represents a new and worrisome twist on the post-Zionist phenomenon that continues to dominate Israel's academia and media.
    [Show full text]