TISHREI, 5739 I OCT. 1978 . VOLUME XIIJ, NUMBER 6 Tl-IE $1.25 The Sephardi in Israel: The Gap; to be Bridged The.Electrical Theory of Prejudice THE JEWISH BSERVER THE JEWISH OBSERVER is pub­ lished monthly, except July and August, by the Agudath Israel of America, 5 Beekman Street, New in this issue ... York, N.Y. 10038. Second class postage paid at New York, N.Y. Subscription: $9.00 per year; two years, $17.50; three years, $25.00; The Sephardi in Israel: outside of the United States, $9.50 Victim of Privilege and Prejudice per year. Single copy, $1.25. The Gap to be Bridged, Ezriel Tosha vi..................... ... 4 Printed in the U.S.A. The Electrical Theory of Prejudice, Nehama Consuelo Nahmoud ·-···········-························· 7 RABBI NISSON WOLPIN "It is Not Good for Man to be Alone", Editor Nathan A Solomon ........................ --············-··················-10 Missing-A Feeling of Galut, Editorial Board Dr. Shimon Glick ............................................................. 13 DR. ERNST L. BODENHEIMER The American Welcome to the Russian Immigrant Chairman RABBI NA THAN BULMAN "Dobre Pozhalovat", Hanoch Teller .................................. 15 RABBI JOSEPH ELIAS "Simchas Deis Hasho'eiva": The Art JOSEPH FRIEDENSON RABBI MOSHE SHERER of Celebration, Rabbi Avrohom Chaim Feuer ...................... 20 "Ahavas Yisroel"-Love of Your Fellow Jew, in Law and Life (a review article) THE JEWISH OBSERVER does not assume responsibility for the Love Your Neighbor ······························-····················25 Kashrus of any product or service A Tzaddik in Our Time ............................................ --26 advertised in its pages. Book in Review I Ramban: Writings and Discourses .......................................... _........ 29 Copyright 1978 Second Looks OCT., 1978 VOL. XIII, NO. 6 The Spirit of Camp David and the Mattersdorf Mood ........... 31 Typography by Faith and Humility in the Operating Room ......................... 34 SoloGraphic Photocomposition Service Letters to the Editor ................ _........ _..................................... 35 What ls happening to the .. rich, mlllenium~old, heritage of Sephardic Jewry, now that .the.· greatestcon£entration ofSephar4ic Jews lives in Israel? Two views of their condition are presented in these pages: one, an objective view by }O's Israeli coluwinist; the other, a pained outcry by one who .sees herself a victim of prejudice. 3 Ezriel T oshavi The Sephardi in Israel: "The Problem They Don't Talk About"* is one of Ashkenazi-Israeli, representing a goal that could never the most "talked about" but least "done about" issues be realized. As a result, the second-generation Sephardi plaguing IsraeL The Problem?-The social, economic, community in Israel is fragmented and rootless-and and political gaps between the two Israels-that of Jews bitter. of Ashkenazic extraction, and that of Jews of Sephardic While dry facts do not fully convey the full tragedy parentage. of an irreplaceable heritage disappearing into oblivion, Countless studies, surveys, reports, and articles have and the personal loss of religious identity that goes with highlighted these differences, uncovering the obvious: it,** we are opening our discussion with a presentation At the source of the gaps is the traumatic uprooting of of some of the facts and figures of the inequity. hundreds of thousands of people from one particular Approximately 60% of Israel's population is of way of life, placing them into another, radically African-Asian descent-Sephardim. Yet, the under­ different one. Those supervising this change were all privileged classes have a decided preponderance of members of an Ashkenazic (i.e., Northern European) Sephardim, far beyond their share of the population. establishment, and an anti-religious one at that. Sub­ Many of them had been on the lower rungs of the jected to their mercies, the Sephardim were robbed of socio-economic ladders in their countries of origin, but their general Torah heritage, denied the respectabiiity of their specific Sephardic upbringing, and left with *Title of an article by Aharon Megged on inequities between Sephar­ nothing substantial to replace it. The only available dic and Ashkenazic communities in Israel. featured in the Jerusalem role-model in their new settings was the secular Post, early in '77. **The searing pain of being rendered unacceptable-or invisible-can best be understood by reading "The Electrical Theory of Prejudin'," Ezriel Toshavis observes the Israeli scene for the JO readers. by Nehama Consuelo Nahmoud, which follows this article. 4 The Jewish Observer/ October 1978 they might have expected to enfoy the upward mobility Israel's Prime Minister Yitzchak Navon is often cited of living in a free society.This has not been the case. as a prime example of the upward mobility of the Specifically: Sephardim. Navon, however, had not too long ago used About 37.8 per cent of the women and about 23 per the platform of a Jewish Agency conclave to stress the cent of the men of African and Asian origin have less opposite: than a fourth grade education or its equivalent; about After listing positive aspects of Israeli society, 20,000 primary school pupils, who are required by law Yitzhak Navon [commented] ... : "A large part of our to attend an educational institution, are regularly absent population has no part in all these cultural activities. We still have about a quarter of a million illiterates, aged 14 and over. Two thirds of them came from Asia and Africa." Navon pointed to the gap among Jews of Asian and African origin, emphasizing that these Jews still make up only about 11 percent of the university graduates. "Many thousands of young people are neither at school nor at work. There are growing manifestations of violence and corruption. There is a growing tendency to imitate some of the less desirable features of life in Europe and the United States. The information media have shortened time and space and we have absorbed from abroad customs, manners and concepts that are foreign to the authentic spirit of Judaism and incom­ 1948 ... patible with the quality of life that we want to create in and can be found idle or walking about the streets, or this country." being picked up by the police for juvenile offences; "Navon Outlines Israel's Cultural Problems," about 10-15 per cent of the new recruits in the armed Challense, July-August '76. forces are practically illiterate, despite having com­ The long-term results have been the emergence of a pleted eight or 10 years of schooling; and there are en­ restless, angry youth, expressing its frustrations in tire communities, particularly in the development tumultuous demonstrations and violence, such as towns, poor neighborhoods, and immigrant moshavin1 Israel's famous Black Panther riots of the early 70's. where approximately one third of the population is il­ literate. The most alarming fact is that these figures are not based only on the generation of immigrants which came en masse to Israel from the ghettoes and caves of North Africa and had no time to get an education in the ma'abarot. The problem here is "hereditary ignorance" which, like certain illnesses, is passed to succeeding generations. We find parents and children who cannot add a row of figures or write a simple Hebrew sentence. (Jerusalem Post, March, 1977) Yehoshua Gilboa in an article "Israel's Ethnic Gap" featured in Ma' ariv last fall, focused more fully on the educational discrepancy, pointing out that .1978 The Israeli educational system is like a pyramid in Others, in their despair, seek less sensational, but more which the participation of non-European children sordid paths leading them to tragic lives devoid of all decreases as the level of schooling goes up. Thus, while Torah values and basic morality. This is discussed in a at the 9th-grade level no gap is discernible, one of 11 recent article in Ma'ariv, by Yosef Tzuriel, euphe­ percent exists in secondary education as a whole, and mistically called "Wayward Girls": this reaches 24 percent in academic high schools and 35 2,500 or 4,000? percent among the graduates of the latter who are eligi­ About 800 children drop out of the elementary ble to continue on to college. school system each year, about one-third of them are This has ramifications in the socio-economic realms, girls. One estimate is that there are now over 4,000 Gilboa claims, for: lvayward girls in the country, others put the figure at At the very least, a B.A. is now becoming a minimal 2,500. Most are aged between 12 and 17. Almost all are standard at even the intermediate levels in the public of the Asian and African communities. About 80% were and private sectors of the Israel economy. Consequent­ born and grew up in large, poor families. The parents ly, Asians and North Africans are at a great disadvan­ have lost control, the teachers have problems com­ tage in climbing the occupational and social ladders of municating, and the girls generally do not complete our society. their elementary education. The Jewish Observer I October 1978 5 One might expect that communities that are loyal to Torah would not be plagued by dissension between various sub­ groups, and indeed a ray of hope does shine through in yeshiva circles ... but mostly on Ashkenazic terms. school graduates to continue their education in a full­ Other studies have shown the unusually high time format on the Mesivta-high school level. Jn addi­ representation of Sephardi families in sub-standard tion, it is engaged in a deliberate campaign to increase housing in slum areas, the predominance of Sephardic the Sephardic representation in the faculty and super­ youth in illicit narcotic dealings, and a disproportionate visory ranks of the schools. number of Sephardim among Yordim, who are aban­ The June, 1978 statistics tell the current story: Of the doning !srael altogether. 22,955 boys attending grades 1-6, close to 70% are of Attempts at Healing the Breach Sephardic extraction-15,542 as compared to 7.413 Not only those who had been economically disad­ Ashkenazim.