Zionism's internal others: Israel and the oriental Jews

Journal of Palestine Studies

Volumn 25, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 53-68

  Massad, Joseph ^a  

^a Och Spine at New York Presbyterian Hospitals

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0003303693     PISSN: 0377919X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2538006     Document Type: Article

References (160)

1. On the transformation of Jews from their Diasporic condition to the state condition and its impact on Palestinians, see my "Palestinians and the Limits of Racialized Discourse," Social Text, no. 34 (Spring 1993), 94-114.
2. Also see my "The 'Post-Colonial' Colony: Time, Space and Bodies In Palesline Israel," forthcoming in Dimensions of (So-Called) Post-Colonial Studies, edited by Fawzia Afzal-Khan and Klapana Seshardi-Crooks (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996).
3. Georges Friedmann, The End of the Jewish People? (New York Doubleday, 1967), pp. 243-45.
4. On Jewish identity in Israel, see Akiva Orr, The UnJewish State: The Politics of Jewish Identity in Israel (London: Ithaca Press, 1983).
5. Sephardi referred initially to Ladino-speaking Spanish Jews exiled from Spain in 1492 as well as to the specific religious customs of Ladino-speaking and some Arabic- and Persian-speaking Jews, whose religious customs differed from Yiddish-speaking Jews and often among themselves. See Harvey Goldberg, "Introduction: Culture and Ethnicity in the Study of Israeli Society," Ethnic Groups 1 (February 1977), pp. 164-65. The term Mizrahim came into wide usage only in the 1980s.
6. On Zionism's European character, see Raphael Shapiro, "Zionism and Its Oriental Subjects: The Oriental Jews in Zionism's Dialectical Contradictions," Khamsin 5 (1978), 5-26.
7. Also see the pioneering book of Michael Selzer, The Aryanization of the Jewish State (New York: Blackstar Publishing, 1967).
8. On the European and anti-Mizrahi Ashkenazi Zionist cultural and artistic production, see Ella Shohat, Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989).
9. Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution to the Jewish Question (London: H. Porders, 1972), p. 30.
10. The Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution to the Jewish Question Ibid. 22.
11. On the question of Oriental Jews and Herzl, see Sami Chetrit, "New State, Old Land, the East and the Easterners in The Jewish State of Theodor Herzl" (Unpublished paper, Columbia University, 1992). Algerian Jews at the time formed two communities, the Arab Jewish community, and the European French Jews who had immigrated from France along with French Christians as colonial settlers. In 1870, prior to Herd's writings, all Algerian Jews were granted French citizenship by the French colonial government as pan of its policy of divide et impera, thus rendering Algerian Jews Europeans as far as Herzl was concerned. It must be noted that throughout the period of French colonization, many Algerian Arab Jews were in the forefront of the Algerian struggle for independence.
12. Quoted in Meir Yosef, Beyond the Desert (West Jerusalem: Ministry of Defense Press, 1973), p. 48 [in Hebrew],
13. cited by Chetrit, "New State," p. 19.
14. Yehuda Nini, Aliyot Yehude Teman le-Eretz Yisrael (The immigration of the Jews of Yemen to the land of Israel) (Ph.D. diss., University of Tel Aviv, 1976)
15. and "Ole Teman 1882-1914" (Immigrants from Yemen 1882-1914),
16. cited in Giladi, Discord, p. 364. Cathedra, (October 1977).
17. Ahad Ha'Am, Kol Kitve Ahad Ha'Am (All the writings of Ahad Ha'Am) (Tel Aviv: Dvir Publication House, 1947), p. 426 [in Hebrew],
18. cited by G.N. Giladi, Discord in Zion: Conflict between Azhkenazi and Sephardi Jews in Israel (London: Scorpion Publishing Ltd., 1990), p. 47. Emphasis added.
19. See Ella Shohat, "Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of its Jewish Victims," Social Text 19-20 (Fall 1988), 1-35.
20. Vladimir Jabotinsky, "The East," published in 1926,
21. cited by Giladi, Discord, p. 209.
22. Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky, "Jews of the East," (1919),
23. quoted in Ha'Aretz, 22 July 1983.
24. Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Hebrew Accent (Tel Aviv: HaSefer, 1930), pp. 4-9,
25. cited by Shohat, Israeli Cinema, p. 55.
26. During the Mandate, the British authorities helped the Ashkenazi Zionists to undermine the power of the native Palestinian Jewish leadership by not including Palestinian Jews in the government, which included Ashkenazi colonial settlers. More important, the Mandatory authorities weakened the position of the Palestinian chief rabbi by appointing an Ashkenazi chief rabbi as well as a rabbinical committee made up of equal numbers of Ashkenazi and Palestinian Jews. See Giladi's discussion of Palestinian Jewish resistance to Ashkenazi settlement, Discord, chs. 2 and 3.
27. Discord, Ibid. 58.
28. D. Horowitz and M. Lissak, The Origins of Israeli Society (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1977), p. 155 [in Hebrew],
29. cited in Deborah Bernstein, "Political Participation: New Immigrants and Veteran Parties in Israeli Society," Plural Societies 15, no. 1 (February 1984), p. 15.
30. From 1948 to 1950, Soviet and East European Jews were allowed to emigrate to Israel under the cover of "reuniting families," but only a small number (especially from Eastern Europe) did. Emigration was halted in the Soviet Union in 1950 (but not from Eastern Europe as evidenced by the immigration of Romanian and Polish Jews in the early to mid-1950s) as a result of deteriorating Soviet-Israeli relations. See Ilan Halevi, A History of the Jews. Ancient and Modern (London: Zed Press, 1988), pp. 196-97.
31. Statistical Abstract of Israel 1978 (Jerusalem: Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, 1979), p. 137,
32. cited in Shlomo Swirski, "The Oriental Jews in Israel," Dissent 30 (Winter 1984), p. 79. It should be noted that official Israeli figures assume that all the European immigrants were Ashkenazi, whereas some were European Sephardi.
33. On the integration of Mizrahi immigrants in Israel, see Avraham Shama and Mark Iris, Immigration Without Integration, Third World Jews in Israel (Cambridge: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1977).
34. Tom Segev, 1949 The First Israelis (New York: The Free Press, 1986), p. 169.
35. Eli Peleg's Report, 24 July 1949, Central Zionist Archives, S20/562,
36. cited in Segev, 1949, p. 171.
37. David Ben-Gurion's meeting with writers, 11 October 1949, Divrei Sofrim, State Archives, cited in Segev, 1949, p. 156.
38. David Ben-Gurion, Vaad Hapoel Hatzioni (Meetings of the General Council of the Zionist movement) (West Jerusalem: Zionist Executive, 1949), p. 181,
39. cited in Segev, 1949, p. 157.
40. Ben-Gurion, Netsah Yeisrael, p. 37,
41. cited in Chetrit, "New State," p. 3.
42. Also see Segev, 1949, p. 157.
43. Ben-Gurion, Netsah Yeisrael, p. 23,
44. cited in Segev, 1949, p. 157.
45. Zionist Executive, 5 June 1949,
46. cited in Segev, 1949, p. 156.
47. Sharett Report, 12 December 1948, State Archives, Foreign Ministry, 130.11/2502/8,
48. cited in Segev, 1949, p. 173. Emphasis added.
49. See Giladi, Discord, p. 103.
50. Also see Segev, 1949, p. 119.
51. Segev, 1949. pp. 191-93
52. Dov Levitan, "The Aliyah of the 'Magic Carpet' as a Historical Continuation of the Earlier Yemeni Aliyahs" (MA thesis in political science, Bar Ilan University, 1983) [in Hebrew],
53. cited by Ella Shohat, "Sephardim," p. 17.
54. Also see Segev, 1949, p. 193.
55. Shohat, "Sephardim," pp. 17-18.
56. See "Israeli Cops Trade Fire with Rabbi's Followers," Chicago Tribune, 11 May 1994.
57. Cited in Sammy Smooha, Israel, Pluralism and Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 86-88.
58. Ha'Aretz, 22 April 1949. Emphasis added,
59. cited in Shohat, "Sephardim", p. 4;
60. and Segev, 1949, p. 160.
61. Yosephtal to Locker, 9 June 1949, Central Zionist Archives, S 41/2471,
62. cited in Giladi, Discord, p. 104.
63. On the conditions of the Ma'abarot, see Giladi, Discord, pp. 115-29.
64. Ha'Aretz, 26 April 1949,
65. cited in Giladi, Discord, pp. 252-53.
66. Ha'Aretz, 9 May 1949,
67. cited in Giladi, Discord, p. 253.
68. Knesset Minutes, 26 July 1949,
69. cited in Giladi, Discord, p. 253.
70. See Giladi, Discord, pp. 129-36.
71. Giladi refers to the towns as "cheap labour camps." Also, see Deborah Bernstein and Shlomo Swirski, "Rapid Economic Development of Israel and the Emergence of the Ethnic Division of Labour," British Journal of Sociology 2, no. 1 (March 1982), pp. 64-52;
72. Shohat, "Sephardim", pp. 18-19;
73. and Shlomo Swirski, Israel: The Oriental Majority (London: Zed Press, 1990), pp. 31-43.
74. Between 1954 and 1956, 42 percent of the immigrants were taken to the Negev, 42 percent to the Galilee, 8 percent to the Jerusalem area, and 8 percent to the coastal areas. Giladi, Discord, p. 129.
75. Swirski, Israel, p. 33.
76. Israel, Ibid. 34-43.
77. See Giladi's discussion of the Moshavim in Discord, pp. 142-48.
78. Moshavim in Discord, Ibid. 149.
79. Asher Arian, Ideological Change in Israel (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University, 1968), p. 173.
80. Bernstein, "Political," p. 19.
81. Files of the Absorption Department, 1951-1956, Mapai Archive,
82. cited by Bernstein, "Political," p. 19.
83. G. Yosephtal, His Life and Works (Tel Aviv: Mapai Publication, 1963), p. 148 [in Hebrew],
84. cited in Bernstein, "Political," p. 19.
85. D. Rosen, Municipal Survey: Municipalities and Local Authorities (Jerusalem: Ministry of Interior, 1973), p. 519 [in Hebrew].
86. Bernstein, "Political," p. 28.
87. The following account of events is based on Bernstein, "Political," pp. 28-31
88. and Giladi, Discord, pp. 253-54.
89. Also on the North African community in Israel, see Dima Abdul-Rahim, "Yahud al-Maghrib al-Arabi fi Isra'il," Shu'un Filastiniyya, no. 120 (November 1981), pp. 62-73.
90. Giladi, Discord, p. 254.
91. Bernstein, "Political," p. 30.
92. Davar, 12 July 1959.
93. Giladi, Discord, p. 254.
94. Report of the Wadi Salib Inquiry Committee, Jerusalem, 1959, p. 16.
95. Report of the Wadi Salib Inquiry Committee, pp. 16, 17, and 19, respectively.
96. Bernstein, "Political," p. 31.
97. Giladi, Discord, p. 254.
98. Discord, Ibid. 255. Emphasis added.
99. For similar quotes, see Marion Woolfson, Prophets in Babylon: Jews in the Arab World (London; Faber and Faber, 1980), pp. 267-68. Meir's statements reflect the double valence that Yiddish holds in Zionist discourse: European Jews who spoke Yiddish in the Diaspora are valorized as Zionism's clients and as Israeli citizens, while their Diasporic Jewish culture is refused in favor of an assimilated cosmopolitan gentile-based culture in Israel.
100. For a detailed list of all the benefits received by Russian immigrants, see Giladi, Discord, p. 255.
101. See also Erik Cohen, "The Black Panthers and Israeli Society," Jewish Journal of Sociology 14 (1972), p. 99.
102. Ha'Aretz,22 March 1971, PAGE???.
103. The Russian petition published in Ha'Aretz is partly reproduced in Woolfson, Prophets, p. 268.
104. ISRACA # 17, 18;
105. and Woolfson, Prophets, p. 268.
106. On Russian Jewish racism, see Charlie Biton, "The Ugly Russian," The Black Panther, 11 November 1972,
107. reproduced in English in Uri Davis and Morton Mezvinsky, eds., Documents from Israel 1967-73: Readings for a Critique of Zionism (London Ithaca Press, 1975), pp. 117-18.
108. On the history and development of the Black Panthers, see Moshe Ater, "The Black Panthers and the Economy," The Jerusalem Post, 27 May 1971;
109. Micah Bar-Am and Sammy Smooha, "Black Panthers of Israel," Society 9, no. 7 (May 1972), pp. 40-44;
110. Deborah Bernstein, "Conflict and Protest in Israeli Society: The Case of the Black Panthers of Israel," Youth and Society 16, no. 2 (December 1984), pp. 129-52;
111. Erik Cohen, "The Black Panthers," pp. 93-109;
112. Shalom Cohen and Kokhavi Shemesh,"The Origin and Development of the Israeli Black Panther Movement," MERIP, no. 49 (July 1976), pp. 19-22;
113. "Entre La Revolte et L'Autisme (Entretien avec les Panthères Noires d'Israël)," In Le Second Israël, a special issue of Les Temps Modernes, pp. 327-42;
114. Giladi, Discord, pp. 254-68;
115. Mark Iris and Avraham Shama, "Black Panthers: The Movement," Society 9. no. 7 (May, 1972), pp. 37-39;
116. Shlomo Malka, "Les Panthères Noires, Historique d'une Revolte," in Le Second Israël, (May 1979), pp. 315-26;
117. Sammy Smooha, "Israel and Its Third World Jews, Black Panthers: The Ethnic Dilemma," Society 9, no. 7 (May 1972), pp. 31-36.
118. Mizrahim are often referred to as "Black" by Ashkenazi racists, a common Ashkenazi racist epithet against Mizrahim is "Shwartze Chayis" or "Black animal," see Shohat, "Sephardim," p. 6.
119. Giladi, Discord, p. 256.
120. Bernstein, "Conflict," p. 134;
121. Giladi, Discord, p. 259.
122. Bernstein, "Conflict," p. 136.
123. Also see Cohen and Shemesh, "The Origin," p. 19. Cohen gives the numbers of the demonstrators to be 10,000-15,000.
124. Cohen, "The Black Panthers," p. 100.
125. Bernstein, "Conflict," p. 140.
126. On the general political views of the Black Panthers, also see Giladi, Discord, pp. 261-66;
127. and Cohen, "The Black Panthers."
128. See also "Entre La Revolte et L'Autisme,"
129. and Smooha, "Israel."
130. Shapiro, "Zionism," p. 24;
131. and Israleft, 20 November 1972.
132. Bernstein, "Conflict," p. 147-49.
133. The practice of demolishing unlicensed houses or rooms is commonly used against Palestinians but not Ashkenazim, who in any case do not need to resort to illegal construction, as the Palestinians frequently and the Mizrahim sometimes need to. For the demonstrations, see Giladi, Discord, p. 290;
134. Ha'Aretz, 28 December 1984;
135. International Herald Tribune, 31 December 1982;
136. and Zu Haderekh, 29 December 1982.
137. Most Israeli parties have an economic base; Mapai has the Histadrut and Histadrut-owned corporations, Mapam the Kibbutzim, Herat, private capital, and so on.
138. Ashkenazi-dominated Israeli trade unions and leftist parties (including Rakah) support the Mizrahim as individual workers, not as an oppressed ethnic group.
139. On Ma'avak '85, see "Dissent: Ma'avak '85 (Struggle '85)," New Outlook 28 (February-March 1985), pp. 36-37.
140. On East For Peace, see "The Oriental Jewish Peace Movements - A Ray of Hope," The Other Israel, Newsletter of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, no. 26 (June 1987), pp. 7-9.
141. On Ohalim, see Shlomo Hassan, "The Emergence of an Urban Social Movement in Israeli Society - An Integrated Approach," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 7, no. 2 (1983), pp. 157-74.
142. Also on Ohalim and Oded, see Giladi, Discord, pp. 282-95.
143. See the committee's publication The Israel Equality Monitor, no. 1 (September 1991), for more information. On HILA and Kedma, I would like to thank Sami Chetrit for the information he provided me.
144. Personal Communication with Sami Chetrit, August 1995.
145. On the Mizrahi feminist movement and its organization, see Ella Shohat, "Mizrahi Feminism; The Politics of Gender, Race, and Multiculturalism," News From Within 12, no. 5 (May 1996). News From Within is published by the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
146. See their interview in Filastin al-Thawra, 11 October 1986.
147. For more information about these meetings, see Giladi, Discord, pp. 316-26. I would also like to thank Ella Shohat, one of the Sephardi delegates to the Toledo conference, for sharing her observations with me.
148. For an analysis of Mizrahi voting behavior, see Avishai Ehrlich, "The Oriental Support for Begin - A Critique of Farjoun," Khamsin 10 (1983), pp. 40-46;
149. Emmanuel Farjoun, "Class Divisions in Israeli Society," Khamsin 10 (1983), pp. 29-39;
150. Giora Goldberg and Efraim Ben Zadok, "Voting Patterns of Oriental Jews in Development Towns," Jerusalem Quarterly 32 (Summer 1984), pp. 16-27;
151. A. Hoder, "Oriental Jews in Israel - Collective Schizophrenia," Khamsin 5 (1978), pp. 35-40;
152. Maurice Roumani, "The Sephardi Factor in Israeli Politics," Middle East Journal 42, no. 3 (Summer 1988), pp. 423-35;
153. Israel Shahak, "The Oriental Jews in Israeli Politics," Middle East International, no. 227 (15 June 1984), pp. 15-16;
154. Sammy Smooha, "Internal Divisions in Israel at Forty," Middle East Review 20, no. 4 (Summer 1988), pp. 26-36;
155. Shlomo Swirski, "The Oriental Jews in Israel Why Many Tilted Toward Begin," Dissent 31 (Winter 1984), pp. 77-91.
156. For conservative Ashkenazi-centric analyses of the Mizrahi vote, see Ofira Seliktar, "Ethnic Stratification and Foreign Policy in Israel: The Attitudes of Oriental Jews Towards the Arabs and the Arab-Israeli Conflict," Middle East Journal 28, no. 1 (Winter 1984), pp. 34-50;
157. Ken Shachter, "The Ethnic Factor," Jerusalem Post, 17 June 1988, p. 6;
158. and Yael Yishai, "Hawkish Proletariat: The Case of Israel," Journal of Political and Military Sociology 13, no. 1 (Spring 1985), pp. 53-73.
159. See Middle East International, no. 502 (9 June 1995), pp. 8-9.
160. See Middle East International, no. 522 (29 March 1996), pp. 9-10.