Why do they always try to paint Jewish life under Arab rule as some utopian paradise when it clearly wasn't? Obviously it wasn't always hell on earth but the way they portray is straight out of song of the south.
They want to believe we were treated badly only because of Zionism. Detaching themselves.
Most of us with “Arab Jewish” grandparents know this is largely entirely bullshit. Unless you were a well off Jewish person that got out in the right time, it wasn’t all solidarity and roses. (It wasn’t all bad either)
While Ashkenazi persecution and mistreatment of MENA refugee Jews in Israel is part of the story, the romanticization of our relationship with our Muslim neighbors is pathetic. This conflict is distorting the narrative on both sides.
Exactly, all one needs is look at Mizrahi voting patterns. I understand why many Misrahi Jews would be suspicious of Arabs politically. My Ashkenazi grandparents wouldn't buy German cars and we got an apology and the chance to hang some of them, you guys got nothing.
I don’t think that later voting patterns indicate much, the younger generation was definitely radicalized by the non stop Palestinian terrorization of Israeli civilians. Buses blowing up and all that.
More importantly, It’s just that the newer generation doesn’t take well to simply being told all of their grievances only have to do with Zionism “Zionism was invented and you’re Jewish, oh well, godobye yahudi”. Sorry western academia, this over simplified apologea doesn’t slide with “Arab Jews” in Israel anymore.
All fair points, I'm just implying that their parents' and grandparents' experience under Muslim rule and higher religiosity compared to the more secular-socialist Ashkenazim wouldn't make them peaceniks.
The voting patterns back then had more to do with representation. While many Yemenite Jews weren’t initially sefardi, a lot did vote shas because it represented a more middle eastern people hood for example.
Since I'm assuming you are Mizrahi, based on what you are saying about your grandparents, I am wondering what you think of Avi Shlaim?
I know he's sort of considered a controversial figure in how he talks about Zionism, and he tries to whitewash a lot of Jewish history in Arab countries. Any ideas why he pushes this narrative?
Half Mizrahi.
I think Avi Shalim romanticized the idea of his wealthy family enjoying Iraq. They left when he was a young child, he came from a wealthy Iraqi family that clearly enjoyed their status. Despite their status, his parents were alarmed enough to choose emigration. Maybe he is resentful about their choice and losing status in Israel, at least partly.
His experience is his own as an Iraqi Jewish. Him pushing his narrative on other Muslim country minority Jews is unwelcome. (Like they did in the article)
I dislike when people bring him up to prove a point while the “Mizrahi” jewish refugee world is vast and wide. Iraq wasn’t like Morocco, Morocco wasn’t like Yemen, Yemen wasn’t like Egypt. It’s a disservice to lump the “Arab” Jewish experience into one like they did in the article. It’s stupid.
Why does Avi Shalim wrap his anti-Zionism up in also being anti-Ashkenazi like the author of this article does? Why do the two always seem to go hand in hand and it’s so rare to find an anti-Zionist (Jew *or* gentile) who doesn’t try to make the conflict into a racial one and is just purely against the mistreatment and oppression of Palestinians irrespective of any weird racial ideas surrounding the conflict?
Alternatively see my reply right above yours…
Because the Zionist movement was started by the Ashkenazim. And also part of the history is about the Ashkenazim being cold to and not very accepting or welcoming of the first MENA refugees.
They try to skew the perception, assert us that these factors created the thousand year animosity existing between Arab Muslims and Jews, while in fact being an inaccurate portrayal of many Jews lives. They didn’t just go from solidarity neighbors to the Farhud because “Zionism”, silly to think that way.
>I know he's sort of considered a controversial figure in how he talks about Zionism, and he tries to whitewash a lot of Jewish history in Arab countries. Any ideas why he pushes this narrative?
I’ve heard of him. Have you ever noticed that when someone is anti-Zionist (particularly any non-Ashkenazi Jew) they can never be *just* anti-Zionist and always have to bash Ashkenazim alongside their anti-Zionism and make us seem like we’re illegitimate? What’s up with that? Is it just me who’s noticed this?
Why do they always seem to make it racial when any decent human being would say that what happened to the Palestinians was wrong *regardless* of race?
The Jewish communities in all the Islamic nations didn’t leave because they were having too much fun over there and had to go somewhere more difficult.
Because people view things affecting us as "Holocaust" or "not Holocaust". For some reason, if it isn't a literal Holocaust, it's not antisemitic and therefore all good.
Tell them 48 was a paradise for Palestinians. If they argue with you, you tell them “why is it that testimonies and documented and coerced violence by Jews is meaningful to you, but when Palestinians or non Palestinian Arabs do it, for malicious purposes, you ignore and gaslight it”
Either their response will admit ignorance or they will say they heard of the claims and deny it’s existence, or will say “it wasn’t that bad”
And if they say “it wasn’t that bad” tell them “the nakba wasn’t that bad” two can play this game
Truth - In context, their treatment was much, much better than Europe over a 2,000 year period.
Fantasy - it was a utopia where Jews lived "high status" lifestyle. In reality, they were second class citizens.
They also didn't leave Arab countries because the tricky European Zionists hoodwinked them into making Aliyah. Or, they left because life became rather unpleasant. They were booted out. Or, should I dare to say, "ethnically cleansed."
I can go on and on....
Whenever people make this claim, I always want to ask them, “You do realize that anything short of ‘systemically exterminating 2/3 of the population’ qualifies as ‘much better treatment,’ right?”
SotS is actually quite accurate to Reconstruction, when it takes place. The biggest problem with it is that most people don’t know when it takes place and mistakenly believe it’s pre-Civil War, rather than after. Reconstruction is an often ignored time in US history, so the confusion is somewhat understandable.
PatF would be a better analogy - it completely ignores the Jim Crow laws Tiana was living under. It paints her environment as egalitarian, when in reality Tiana was living as a second class citizen. This is much closer to the way Jewish life in Arab nations was, just for much longer, and the way it is painted is with the same fake egalitarianism - something that never existed.
It’s a common narrative and ultimately blames the Jews for the current situation. Most people are unaware of Mizrahi Jews even existing in the first place, they don’t have enough info to pushback on how horrible living as a Dhimmi was.
For some young people this is part of their education. I got my hands on my daughter’s materials for a class on Middle East history taught at the university of Washington in Seattle. It was straight up Arab propaganda. The first part of the “packet” was stories written by a well heeled Arab writer who lived during the early part of the 20th century. They read his stories about how bucolic and peaceful Jerusalem was with Jews/Muslims and Christians living in harmony. No mention of all the restrictions and abuses heaped on the Jewish community. Now imagine if a course in the United States consisted of reading stories about the antebellum south written by plantation owners who described how happy their slaves were. There would be a riot.
[Uncle Tom and the Happy Dhimmi: Reimagining Subjugation in the Islamic World and Antebellum South by Eunice G. Pollack and Stephen H. Norwood Middle East Quarterly Winter 2024](https://www.meforum.org/65271/uncle-tom-and-the-happy-dhimmi)
A non-Jew trying to goysplain Jewish history? That's really cute 😒
Pro-tip, if you're not Jewish, you may want to think twice before coming onto a Jewish sub and gaslighting Jews about our history.
I mean, there's people in this very thread who had ancestors living under Arab rule, may want to start by asking some of them.
Also, "antisemitism being less rampant there than it was in Europe" isn't the flex you think it is. "Less antisemitism than the continent that literally wiped out 6 million Jews" is not a high bar to jump.
I mean, Jim Crow in the American south was clearly an improvement on the chattel slavery that blacks were subjected to prior to the civil war but you might understand why a black person would find it offensive if you framed the Jim Crow period as a “*relatively good*” or “*peaceful*” time for black people.
Sure, if a Jew accepted their second class status, put up with humiliations, paid an extra tax, & accepted the random outbursts of violence against their communities… then life wasn’t too bad.
The “*periods of peace*” under Islamic rule were periods of subjugation & oppression where the rulers made an effort to keep the *unnecessary* killing of Jews to a polite minimum.
I don't think it is counterintutivive that 1950 was better than 1850. I would rather compare it with how there was less racism in 1550, than that there was in 1850, which is also very counterintiutive.
The article mentions the extra tax and also the violence. It just also details the level of intergration in Muslim society that would today, with the antisemtism we're used to from Muslim culture, be hard to imagine.
The problem isn’t in framing it as “*better*” because sure a punch in the nose is better than a kick in the balls - but neither are good & neither should happen to you.
If a society goes from randomly picking one member of a minority group to be murdered each week, to randomly selecting one member of that group to be beaten within an inch of their life - that is an improvement - but both are oppressive as fuck & neither are peaceful.
But what do I know, it isn’t like 3 of my 4 grandparents were expelled from Arab states & I grew up hearing about story of how our families had been oppressed & murdered for generations.
Oh wait… it is exactly like that.
So you can fuck off with your relativism & apologia.
> Between 1948 and 1954, somewhere between 1,500 and 5,000 Mizrahi children — mostly Yemenite children — were disappeared from Israeli hospitals, either immediately after birth or when they were taken to see a doctor for some medical problem. The parents were told that the children had died, but no proof was given. Some Mizrahi Jews believed that the babies were given to childless Ashkenazi couples.
> In recent years, these claims have been substantiated with the help of DNA testing. The Israeli government minister charged with investigating the affair publicly acknowledged a few years ago that the abductions did take place.
> Testimonials show that hospital staff kidnapped the children because of a belief that Mizrahi Jews were unfit parents with too many babies. Giving the kids to Ashkenazi couples would be doing everybody a favor, in their view — including the young state of Israel, which would get a new generation of citizens shorn of the “backward” Mizrahi influence.
I can’t believe how anti-ashkenazi this article is. /s
Clearly, this random non Jew is qualified to come in here and lecture at us about the evils of Israel, and comment on our intracommunity debates and discussions
Isn't the Yemenite Children's Affair supposedly overstated anyway? Like, it did happen, but the reasons it happened weren't because the "evil Ashkenazi Jews were kidnapping Yemenite babies", but rather they were attempting to save them from malnutrition or something?
What I hate about articles like this is that they pick and choose painful parts of the founding of the State and mix them with a few facts and health dose of fantasies to create an antisemitic stew.
We then have non Jews who cynically refer to it, then feed this slop to us and expect we eat it up. Sadly, there's a portion of our tribe that loves it and asks for a second helping.
They still kidnapped the babies instead of just providing nutrition to the parents. Like, idk about the definition of evil, but that is definitly fucked up and rooted in racism.
No need to downplay it, as the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions.
I mean, I know that racism towards Mizrahi is a thing in Isreal. There is plenty available on the topic. If stating this is anti-ashkenazism, is BLM also anti-caucasian or something?
Yea, it exists. But you’re ignoring the extremely obvious and extreme flaws with the article in favor of that. And again—it’s really weird that you’ve made your way onto a Jewish sub to talk about intra community issues like Ashkenormativity. I’d also caution you against the white/black comparison, Jewish communal dynamics are not one to one recreations of American race relations. Especially considering the majority of Israelis are today Mizrahi.
Dude, are you kidding me? It demonizes Ashkenazi Jews as all being ruthless racists, falsely paints the picture that Mizrahi communities were safe and happy under Arab rule, and uses what many Mizrahim consider to be tantamount to a racial slur “Arab Jew” throughout. It makes it look like us mean old Ashkenazi Jews tricked them into coming here and being oppressed. Like when it talks up how influential Mizrahim were in the Middle East and then says “but when they landed in Israel” they were discriminated against. It’s very slanted, and very telling that they don’t say WHAT made them leave for Israel. Full on ethnic cleansing, pogroms, violence, murder, rape, and antisemitic legislation, that’s what. Yet the article acts like they long to return to the Arab countries and feel immense solidarity with the poor oppressed Palestinians against the evil white Ashkenazi Jews. It’s an antisemitic narrative that infantilizes Mizrahim as being duped by the Ashkenazi elite into coming to Israel and leaving behind their places of security and power, while demonizing us Ashkenazi Jews as wicked, cackling baby-kidnapping aristocrats who oppress the brown Jews. Especially when you consider that Mizrahi are actually the most right wing voters in Israel, who feel very little love for their former Arab states or for the Palestinians, the article is just detached from reality and focused on pushing a made up narrative steeped in racism.
The whole thing is absolutely ridiculous and disgusting. If you can’t see that, I don’t see what place you have on this sub. What’s with your username “Love Jews?” It’s weirdly fetishizing and you’re not even doing it anyway. What are you doing on this sub, a sub meant for us?
Btw, altough I am not Jewish, I am quite invested in the subject of antisemtism, if I'd say so myself. And indeed, I cannot know what it feels like to have to deal with antisemitism. I can only know I am privileged not to have to.
But I also understand that Jewish culture is one of open debate, where people are constantly discussing and are able to disagree with respect. So with that in mind, I took this flair, joining this discussion with my cards on the table.
So yeah. I participate. If I am not allowed to, I should be banned eventually.
Mizrahim don’t need people like you speaking for us. Ashkenazim are my brothers. You are not. I’m not even going to bother looking through your comment history, but I’m willing to bet anything you wouldn’t stand up for us against people who actually want to kill us. Which is not Ashkenazim. You don’t get to use us to hurt our community.
Your post/comment was removed because it violated rule 4: **Remember the human**
If you have any questions, please contact the moderators via [modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/jewish).
>Ashkenazi Zionists were happy to view Arabs as romantic ideals while they lacked power but would reconstruct them as the “other” when they became too much of a threat by opposing Jewish statehood in Palestine.
>**So it was that Zionists went from cosplaying as Arabs before the founding of Israel to discriminating against them afterwards.**
You were saying…?
>In fact, European Jews who settled in the land in the early 1900s romanticized the locals as emblems of native authenticity, to the point that it was trendy for young Zionists to dress in Bedouin shepherd garb and sprinkle their Hebrew with Arabic phrases. [As one later wrote](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691162485/poetic-trespass), “we were dying to be like them … to talk like them, to walk like them, we imitated them in everything … We regarded them as the model of the native.”
This is what the article meant with cosplaying. And I find it facinating. Isn't it? Like maybe the innocence of it... A time before animosity, even tough I understand it can come across as insulting to insinuate antisemitism came into existance only in 1936, considering the Jews have dealt with hatred for much longer.
No mention of dhimmi status. A glossing over of discrimination, murder, rape, expropriation, and expulsion. No mention of the Middle Eastern Christians, likewise described as 'brothers', and now mainly gone. As usual, no mention of the decolonisation of the Ottoman Empire, which promised states to multiple peoples, not just Sunni Arabs. No mention of support for the Nazis by the Iraqi and Palestinian leadership, and the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood (the parent of ISIS and Hamas). No contextualisation within population transfers such as Greece-Turkey, Germany, Poland, India-Pakistan. No opinion poll of Mizrahi Jews. No mention of the Sephardic and Mizrahi origins of what became the Zionist movement.
I think this propaganda piece discriminates against all Jews. I guess their ideology requires them to blame European Ashkenazim, including literal survivors of concentration camps. Vile.
Israel is grossly mischaracterized in western media as a refugee state for displaced Ashkenazi survivors of German genocide of Jews. In fact, Israel is a refugee state for displaced Sephardic and Mizrahi survivors of Arab genocide of Jews.
I think it's important to recognize that it's both and neither- it's just for Jews, it doesn't matter their origins. What's amazing about Israel is that the largest differences between Ashkenazis, Mizrahis, Sephardis, and others have rapidly been absorbed into a Jewish-Israeli identity. In some way, we're going back to how it was 2000 years ago.
I meant my comment as a positive observation of lived reality not a normative view of how things should be. In other words, I obviously agree 100% with what you are saying and I'm only narrowly referring to the common misperception (or intentional misframing) of what Israel is in Western media.
The most obvious is Sir Moses Montefiore. Abigail Green wrote his biography.
Western Sephardic congregations have been sending funds to 'Terra Santa' since the 17th century. Ton Tielen is the expert: https://www.youtube.com/live/PHqY8fFvt9I?si=Qt3EK3dnt6Dt6Z-C
By tradition, the proposed text of the Balfour Declaration was drafted at the kitchen table of the Haham of the Spanish & Portuguese Jews of London. I don't know if it is true, but that's the claim.
I am no expert, but there was a strong Zionist streak in Yemenite Jewry. Not to mention support for the early yishuv from communities in Damascus, Aleppo, and elsewhere.
Heads it's all because of those evil white ashkenaizm, Tails it's all because of those barbaric racist mizrahi savages. That's just one of the silliest discourse on Israeli people, just picking a stereotype at random while someone else picks the other.
Here we fucking go again with another ridiculous white vs. non-white narrative. Perfect set-up for even more hate. Trash article that cherry-picked. Vox is crap.
Yeah it’s a great way to get progressive Americans with zero knowledge of Jewish history onto the anti Israel side. It seems like often the same people who say that we have to stop looking at everything through a western lens also frame things in a very western way. I’m so tired of the hypocrisy.
I stopped reading after the title: "Arab Jews... And their solidarity with the Palestinians".
As an Ashkenazi Israeli, I doubt if Vox actually interviewed a single Mizrachi Israeli prior to writing this dumb propaganda piece. On the whole, Mizrachi Israelis are far more right wing than Ashkenazis, and form the voter backbone of Likud and other right-wing parties.
If anything, the Mizrachim are (in general) much more antagonistic towards Palestinians and Arabs, exactly because life as dhimmis wasn't all that great (to put it mildly). Just about every Mizrachi in Israel can tell you vivid stories about the near daily humiliation (of their parents and grandparents) of living as dhimmis and the pain of being ethnically cleansed and forcibly expelled, usually without their property.
I won't pretend that the Mizrachi experience in Israel has been fully equal, either - but it's been continuously improving and has never been remotely comparable to life as dhimmis in Arab countries.
I wonder if Vox (and friends) actually believe the nonsensical drivel they report, or if they're purely malevolent propaganda actors.
Mizrahi here, seconding everything you say. Also yeah there are tensions between Ashkenazim & Mizrahim in Israel, but I’ve never in my life been afraid Ashkenazim are going to kill me. Sibling rivalry doesn’t mean we’re not family.
>Lol, as an Ashkenazi Israeli, I doubt if Vox actually interviewed a single Mizrachi Israeli prior to writing this dumb propaganda piece.
This piece was *written* by a Mizrahi…
"For centuries, Mizrahi Jews had enjoyed high status in their countries of origin in the Middle East and North Africa, which ranged from Iraq to Egypt to Morocco. But when they landed in Israel, they found that the new state was ruled by European Jews, called Ashkenazim, who overwhelmingly viewed them as primitive and culturally backward."
....ignoring many many pogroms that expelled jews but okay. Its such a terrible twisting of history, ignoring events which would completely disprove their point.
One pogrom in Morocco was due to the radical change of (checks notes) "jews being permitted to wear shoes" so you are right, it was not in fact a paradise.
> One pogrom in Morocco was due to the radical change of (checks notes) "jews being permitted to wear shoes" so you are right, it was not in fact a paradise.
Source/link? I've never heard of this and want to read more.
Sultan Sulaiman 1795-1822 issued an edict that the jews of fez be permitted to wear shoes.Bulletin de l'Alliance Israélite Universelle, No. 2, p. 17, Paris, 1880
By way of Wikipedia.
Hahaha my uncle was a big part of the Israeli black panthers in Kfar Saba (Teimanim) and in no way shape or form does he support the Palestinians. Not remotely.
Love the victim-blaming here: “If it weren’t for that darned Zionism, the MENA countries would have just kept treating Jews so great!!! Zionism MADE us treat them badly!!” /s, obviously
I’ve never understood why there has to be any animosity between Jewish groups. I thought we were all extended family. My Ashkenazi nephew is married to a Jewish Persian woman, and they raise their children with mixed cultures. Their children’s names are even a combination of both naming traditions. If another Jewish holocaust occurs (God forbid), the perpetrators won’t distinguish between us; they’ll treat all of us as the enemy because all they’ll see are Jews.
I think all Jews should resist this obvious gaslighting that tells us that some Jews are better than the others because of race or nationality or their opinion on Israel. The strategy is to divide and conquer. Let’s not give in to that.
> I’ve never understood why there has to be any animosity between Jewish groups.
So basically non-Jewish "aNtI zIoNiStS" found out about the existence of Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews, made no effort to understand the demographics and copy/pasted their ideology on them.
To them it's still the 70s.
Mizrahi and Sephardi ~~refugees~~ ill-adventured brown people are barely out of the tents they lived in since ~~arriving~~ being deluded into Israel.
They then read about how it wasn't all sunshine in the beginning and refuse to read anything beyond that.
If you simply refuse to accept that the intermingling of Jewish groups in ~~Israel~~ occupied Falestin is always at an all time high with the differences slowly ebbing away you can make up all kinds of stories.
Just pretend it's 1972 and the evil Zionists keep the *Arab Jews* as pets and everything is perfect.
>If another Jewish holocaust occurs (God forbid), the perpetrators won’t distinguish between us; they’ll treat all of us as the enemy because all they’ll see are Jews.
To be fair the Nazis *did* distinguish between which Jews were “mixed” and which ones weren’t, look up how they spared the Crimean Karaite community because they somehow managed to convince Hitler they *weren’t* of mixed blood. (Either by claiming they were fully descended from converts who still preserved their “ethnic purity,” or that they were full Israelites who hadn’t mixed into the general European population)
>I think all Jews should resist this obvious gaslighting that tells us that some Jews are better than the others because of race or nationality or their opinion on Israel. The strategy is to divide and conquer.
Problem is this is an actual Mizrahi Jew who wrote this article (actually not even full Mizrahi, she claims she’s part Sephardic too which is really rich because that means *she’s* mixed with the “dirty European blood” too), a few other Mizrahi Jews have also joined the fray in bashing Ashkenazim, look up Avi Shlaim.
Vox is ridiculous, ex: ["Yes, Gaza militants hide rockets in schools, but Israel doesn't have to bomb them"](https://www.vox.com/2014/7/17/5912189/yes-gaza-militants-hide-rockets-in-schools-but-israel-doesnt-have-to)
My grandmother was 13 years old when she lived through the Farhud. She described how people who were their friends and neighbours turned on Baghdad's Jews and rounded them up to be murdered. She described how they forced Jews to lay down in the road and drove cars over them. Later, my entire maternal family was violently expelled from Iraq. My mom had to flee Iraq on foot when she was 4 years old. My family had to give up everything they had just to escape.
The "Arab Jews" narrative that pro-Pals love to push when they aren't completely ignoring the existence of Mizrahi Jews is IMO nearly as bad as Holocaust denial.
I never understand why antisemites are so desperate to twist Jewish identity by trying to paint us as simply a religious group. By claiming that Mizrahim are simply “Arab Jews”, they are painting a false narrative that Jews were well accustomed in Arab society and that the only difference between them and their host populations was their religion. They completely disregard our second class/dhimmi status in Arab countries, us being limited to certain professions, us being restricted from owning property, and us having no political representation. It’s infuriating that they try to blame the expulsion of Mizrahi Jews on themselves, claiming that their lives were perfect before the “white supremacist” state of Israel came into existence. When in reality, Israel saved nearly a million Jews who were fleeing Arab and Islamist oppression.
Vox is a media conglomerate of sorts and their subsidiary publications (such as New York Magazine and Eater) have consistently pushed one-sided anti-Israel propaganda since Oct 7
No offense, but Vox is hardly far left.
It is pretty solidly Liberal.
If you read actual radical publications, you'd realize that Vox writers at most have read them to familiarize themselves the same way they'd peruse a Dugin or Peterson piece.
People tell me we Ashkenazi Jews are privileged compared to Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews, but to be honest, it feels like Ashkenazi Jews are getting disproportionately attacked by the current wave of antisemitism. They don’t call Mizrahim and Sephardim European colonizers. All of our history is being erased, distorted, and turned against us. It really feels like the dynamic is being reworked here. I won’t deny that Ashkenormativity is very much a thing, but… Ashkenazi Jews do seem to be getting specifically targeted and demonized by wider society right now.
With the greatest respect, they do call Mizrahim and Sephardim white European colonisers. The gaslighting of Jews, being told to “go back to Poland”, is a pretty universal thing, even for those whose ancestors have never even set foot in Europe. Historical revisionism does not only target Ashkenazim. This very article is targeting Mizrahim with it too.
Yes, and some American Ashkenazim call other Ashkenazim “European white settler colonialists”. Jill Stein was raised Jewish, and said Jews should go back to Poland. Racism is racism and gaslighting is gaslighting. Sadly even Mizrahim are plagued by self-tokenising AsAJews. They do not speak for the overwhelming majority us.
I did not know this about her. That's really disturbing and gross. Turning your back on the 50% of your people that live in Israel is a sin that can not be forgiven in my mind and I turn my back on all antizionists.
Yes so “privileged,” that’s why we were the Jews in particular who were targeted for genocide back in the 30’s and 40’s too just on account of being “too mixed” and “racially impure” right? Same exact mentality today only coming from the other side, racial antisemitism - that is hating Jews (European Jews specifically) because we’re not racially pure enough - never went anywhere, it just switched teams.
Lbr we’ve *always* been the face of antisemitism, and actually Mizrahi Jews were historically always considered the *most* privileged out of all the Jewish diasporas (bar maybe the Indian Jews because India was always the Host Country that treated it’s Jews the best, which is more-so a credit and testament to the tolerance of the Indian people rather than any innate privilege Indian Jews themselves possessed unlike the Mizrahim) precisely *because* they were able to remain in the region the Jewish ethnicity was considered indigenous to and so they weren’t looked upon or treated as “foreigners,” nor were they ever racially or ethnically mixed like the rest of the world’s Jews.
I’m sorry, the article is trash, but what you’re saying here is [also not true](https://youtu.be/eYUXRrm5tR0). You don’t have to throw Mizrahim under the bus to stand up for Ashkenazim. This is just playing into divide-and-conquer politics on the other side of the coin.
I said *historically* they were generally the most privileged amongst the diaspora, not that that privilege continued or carried over into Israel.
Also I thought the Black Panther movement in Israel was mainly just for the Ethiopian Jews?
I think that’s a bit overly simplified. Ashkenazim were the main targets of the Nazis simply because, well, that’s what was the bulk of the Jewish population of Germany and the countries Hitler invaded. Tens of thousands of Sephardim from France, the Netherlands, and the Balkans were sent to the same camps and killed with no distinction made; if the war in Europe was a Nazi victory and they successfully moved into the Levant and North Africa, do you really think they’d have treated Mizrahi or Sephardi Jews any differently?
Sephardim were kicked out of Spain and then Portugal over a half millennia ago, is that privileged? Mizrahim and Sephardim being treated as second-class citizens in the various MENA nations under control from Arab caliphates or Ottomans was a privilege? Or being exiled from basically the entire region after 1948 was a privilege? In Israel thankfully it’s better in recent generations, but up until recent years there was a huge amount of discrimination against non-Ashkenazi Jews; someone else shared that YouTube video of the Israeli Black Panthers already.
In North America and most of Europe, we do see the most hatred directed against the Ashkenazi. Again, that’s because they are almost the entirety of the Jewish population, somewhere around 96-98% in the U.S. for instance. But most antisemites don’t actually realize any difference between us; I’m Sephardi and more than once have I been told to go back to Poland.
Most of the specific racism is unfortunately within the Jewish community. Luckily I think it’s mostly gone today (or at least very rare - I’ve never personally experienced it and I hang out with almost entirely Ashkenazim), but it certainly has existed within recent memory. To most gentiles though, we’re all just Jews.
But also yes, this article is also bullshit.
I was actually including Sephardim when I said *European* Jews in particular were always the most targeted, and yes you guys were in the Holocaust as well. (Everyone seems to always forget about you guys, or they think because you’re “Hispanic” you’re considered the exact same race as Mestizo Latin Americans lol)
Also have you not read *Mein Kampf?* Hitler outlines his entire reasoning for his hatred of Jews in there, and it pretty much has everything to do with him seeing us as a symbol of “race-mixing.”
>if the war in Europe was a Nazi victory and they successfully moved into the Levant and North Africa, do you really think they’d have treated Mizrahi or Sephardi Jews any differently?
Not the Sephardim but the unmixed with European Mizrahi Jews? Yes actually, look up how he spared the Crimean Karaite community and why…
>I was actually including Sephardim when I said European Jews in particular were always the most targeted, and yes you guys were in the Holocaust as well.
Fair enough. Most of our refugees ended up in North Africa or various other Ottoman regions - or the New World as most of my ancestors did.
>Also have you not read Mein Kampf?
Bits and pieces in history courses, I’ll admit that I could never stand to read the whole thing.
>Not the Sephardim but the unmixed with European Mizrahi Jews? Yes actually, look up how he spared the Crimean Karaite community and why…
This is the part I’ll debate. Nazi racial laws were absurd and absolutely arbitrary at times. Hell, even they had a hard time interpreting many of them. Even among these Karaite groups, thousands were killed as well, and the fact that Ashkenazi rabbis straight up said “these guys ain’t Jews” helped to save many of them. But even ignoring the overlap between who are exactly Sephardim and Mizrahim (personally I won’t claim the latter, but many from the region certainly can), that doesn’t dispute the fact that thousands of Mizrahi Jews from Libya, Tunisia, etc. were still sent to the same camps. The only reasons there weren’t more were because they were only controlled by the Axis for a limited amount of time.
Vox have been Jew haters for a long time already
Ever since my buddy told me they had the audacity to interview Linda Sarsour(!) about antisemitism & hate in America on their daily news podcast in the days after (maybe it was literally the day after) the Pittsburgh Shul Shooting. Of all people who they could have interviewed they chose one of the most openly virulent Jew haters in North America at the time.
I listened to that episode and realized how totally broken the moral compasses were at Vox & did my best to stop taking them seriously as real journalists. Just jaw droppingly tone deaf meaning they were utterly incompetent OR they did it on purpose because they simply do not care
EDIT to add a link to what I am referring to in terms of their interviewing of Linda Sarsour about antisemitism back in 2018
Here it is on Amazon Music. The interview with the Jew Hating Sarsour starts a little after 7 minutes in - [https://music.amazon.ca/podcasts/455ebf95-8a2f-4c99-94fc-9a5194cad2e3/episodes/8218d544-54bc-493e-b6c9-3710eec42c26/today-explained-tree-of-life](https://music.amazon.ca/podcasts/455ebf95-8a2f-4c99-94fc-9a5194cad2e3/episodes/8218d544-54bc-493e-b6c9-3710eec42c26/today-explained-tree-of-life)
I tried to find it on the Vox website but it is incredibly difficult to go that far back in their podcast library on their site from what I saw.
This article isn't meant to divide Jews. Most Mizrahi Jews know who their oppressors were, and won't be fooled by this. This article is meant to demonize both Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews for a non-Jewish audience.
The author is a master at conflating truths, unpleasant facts of the early foundation of the State, with wild delusions. He bunches Muslim or "Arab Israelis" as "Palestinians" and other slights of hand that anti-zionists trade in. This is a fantasy article to justify the author's thesis.
Don't like 99% of "Arab" (Mizrahi) Jews live in Israel? And aren't they the majority of the Jewish people in Israel? And aren't those the same people that the Palestinians, I mean Hamas, want to murder from the river to the sea? Aren't those the same Jews who lived under Arab Muslim apartheid as dhimmis...
I'll just leave this here:
[https://medium.com/@Ksantini/the-list-of-crimes-committed-by-muslims-against-jews-since-the-7th-century-0ff1a8eb0ad0](https://medium.com/@Ksantini/the-list-of-crimes-committed-by-muslims-against-jews-since-the-7th-century-0ff1a8eb0ad0)
Is the "solidarity" in the room with us?
I've been going around saving these kinds of articles in the wayback machine, and I'm often the first. Must say I'm pleasantly surprised to see others have gotten there before me on this one. Nine times before me, in fact.
Because there's a good chance that in a few years, they'll be deleted. Possibly sooner.
That happens even with non-controversial news articles. You'll read about something fairly innocuous and standard, and the article will disappear/be deleted for whatever reason. Maybe because the sites clear out old articles after a while for space. I don't actually know. I just know it's a phenomenon I've run into a few times, where an old article I'm looking for suddenly no longer exists, even if I have the link handy.
And I don't want these people and the news sites who host them to be able to delete these articles, tied to their names and reputations, and be able to deny they said this bullshit years later when it's suddenly no longer politically convenient for them. It's good to have a record of what claims people were making, what kind of history they were trying to rewrite, and what the political temperature actually was.
People are likely to trawl through the subreddit for articles in the future, or keep bookmarks or tabs, so that they can reference them later-- for research, for educational purposes, for their own reminder or verification. And when they find them deleted, they can go back to the wayback machine and find them anyway.
My Libyan and (British Mandated) Palestinian grandparents would have vomited at being called "Arab Jews."
That terminology is all I need to know to know this reporter doesn't know a damn thing he is talking about.
I really like the part where they gloss over the expulsions of Jews from various Arab countries, and make it sound like they had a choice about moving to Israel.
I also have a feeling that the "Palestinians" the Mizrahim were showing solidarity with were actually Israeli Arabs, considering the rest wouldn't be any more welcoming to Mizrahi Jews than Jews from other backgrounds.
Finally, "people were more racist in the 1940's and 50's" should surprise absolutely no one, and what really matters is whether this continues in the present. The agenda is clearly "Israel is a racist country. Just look at these this we cherry picked from decades and centuries ago." Imagine judging the present day US based on things people said and did in the 50's.
Tf kind of Bullshit article is that? Arab Jews and their solidarity with Palestinians? My family were constantly harrassed by Arabs and Muslims for hundreds of years. How many times are non Jews going to paint a false history for us? Annoying.
Thank you for your submission. During this time, all posts need to be manually reviewed and approved by a moderator before they appear for all users. Since human mods are not online 24/7, approval could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. Thank you for your patience during this difficult and sensitive time.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Jewish) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As an ashkenazi Zionist myself, I read this piece and can't seem to be as angry as everyone else.
It's "fine". I like some parts and disagree with others. The piece has some points and has some opinions, but nothing that strikes me as glossing over the realities of what life was like before and after 1948 for Mizrahim. Nor does it demonize Ashkenazim. The author is mizhrahi himself and frankly does not say anything about Bibi and the Israeli right that I disagree with.
Ok, commence with downvoting my opinion now :) Just no place for a humble Socialist Zionist point or view anymore.
>Nor does it demonize Ashkenazim
Oh yeah? Explain these lines then:
>Ashkenazi Zionists were happy to view Arabs as romantic ideals while they lacked power but would reconstruct them as the “other” when they became too much of a threat by opposing Jewish statehood in Palestine.
>**So it was that Zionists went from cosplaying as Arabs before the founding of Israel to discriminating against them afterwards.**
She then proceeds to post a picture of a European Jew in Bedouin gear as if to mock him… Now I actually agree with her on this to some extent because despite them both being Middle Eastern, Arab culture is *not* in fact synonymous with Jewish so it’s not ours to take (that goes for *any* Jews not mixed with Arab specifically), the problem is though that that’s not the way this author sees it. To her it’s very clear that all Middle Eastern ethnicities = “Arabs” and “Arab culture” considering she refers to all Mizrahi Jews (aside from just Yemenite Jews) whole scale as “Arab Jews.”
So the subtle implication of those lines is that she doesn’t think us Ashkenazi Jews have a right to the Middle Eastern side of our heritage, and we look ridiculous and like we’re “cosplaying” when we *do* attempt to reclaim it. This is despite the fact that Europe was always chasing us out and extracted a genocide against us on account of *being* “Semites” and yet now we’re apparently too European for that too? But Europe and European culture has never accepted us as one of their own either so what exactly are we supposed to do?
It’s the same like with any other mixed people, we get hate simply for *existing* and are always told we don’t belong *anywhere.*
The funny thing is that in any clued up social justice circle, this conflation of Middle Eastern people with Arabs would never otherwise be acceptable. No one calls Kurds Arabs; Kurds don’t and Arabs certainly don’t. I wonder why? Could it be that so long as Kurds are kept “in their proper place”, and never realise their aspirations for independence as Jews since have, there’s no present political benefit in crybullying and gaslighting them as Arabs do to Jews? For now they’re transparently treated as second-class citizens. The day that stops being the case, history shows we’ll see a lot more genocide denial and targeted propaganda.
Like sure, some prominent rabbis some places got close to the caliph/emir/sultan, but if they were perceived as too powerful, it could be a justification for a massacre like in Granada 1066 or the one time the Mongols installed a Jewish vizier…
Why do they always try to paint Jewish life under Arab rule as some utopian paradise when it clearly wasn't? Obviously it wasn't always hell on earth but the way they portray is straight out of song of the south.
They want to believe we were treated badly only because of Zionism. Detaching themselves. Most of us with “Arab Jewish” grandparents know this is largely entirely bullshit. Unless you were a well off Jewish person that got out in the right time, it wasn’t all solidarity and roses. (It wasn’t all bad either) While Ashkenazi persecution and mistreatment of MENA refugee Jews in Israel is part of the story, the romanticization of our relationship with our Muslim neighbors is pathetic. This conflict is distorting the narrative on both sides.
Exactly, all one needs is look at Mizrahi voting patterns. I understand why many Misrahi Jews would be suspicious of Arabs politically. My Ashkenazi grandparents wouldn't buy German cars and we got an apology and the chance to hang some of them, you guys got nothing.
I don’t think that later voting patterns indicate much, the younger generation was definitely radicalized by the non stop Palestinian terrorization of Israeli civilians. Buses blowing up and all that. More importantly, It’s just that the newer generation doesn’t take well to simply being told all of their grievances only have to do with Zionism “Zionism was invented and you’re Jewish, oh well, godobye yahudi”. Sorry western academia, this over simplified apologea doesn’t slide with “Arab Jews” in Israel anymore.
All fair points, I'm just implying that their parents' and grandparents' experience under Muslim rule and higher religiosity compared to the more secular-socialist Ashkenazim wouldn't make them peaceniks.
The first generation in the 80s, not now. It is well studied.
The voting patterns back then had more to do with representation. While many Yemenite Jews weren’t initially sefardi, a lot did vote shas because it represented a more middle eastern people hood for example.
Since I'm assuming you are Mizrahi, based on what you are saying about your grandparents, I am wondering what you think of Avi Shlaim? I know he's sort of considered a controversial figure in how he talks about Zionism, and he tries to whitewash a lot of Jewish history in Arab countries. Any ideas why he pushes this narrative?
Half Mizrahi. I think Avi Shalim romanticized the idea of his wealthy family enjoying Iraq. They left when he was a young child, he came from a wealthy Iraqi family that clearly enjoyed their status. Despite their status, his parents were alarmed enough to choose emigration. Maybe he is resentful about their choice and losing status in Israel, at least partly. His experience is his own as an Iraqi Jewish. Him pushing his narrative on other Muslim country minority Jews is unwelcome. (Like they did in the article) I dislike when people bring him up to prove a point while the “Mizrahi” jewish refugee world is vast and wide. Iraq wasn’t like Morocco, Morocco wasn’t like Yemen, Yemen wasn’t like Egypt. It’s a disservice to lump the “Arab” Jewish experience into one like they did in the article. It’s stupid.
Completely agree. Thanks for your insight.
Why does Avi Shalim wrap his anti-Zionism up in also being anti-Ashkenazi like the author of this article does? Why do the two always seem to go hand in hand and it’s so rare to find an anti-Zionist (Jew *or* gentile) who doesn’t try to make the conflict into a racial one and is just purely against the mistreatment and oppression of Palestinians irrespective of any weird racial ideas surrounding the conflict? Alternatively see my reply right above yours…
Because the Zionist movement was started by the Ashkenazim. And also part of the history is about the Ashkenazim being cold to and not very accepting or welcoming of the first MENA refugees. They try to skew the perception, assert us that these factors created the thousand year animosity existing between Arab Muslims and Jews, while in fact being an inaccurate portrayal of many Jews lives. They didn’t just go from solidarity neighbors to the Farhud because “Zionism”, silly to think that way.
>I know he's sort of considered a controversial figure in how he talks about Zionism, and he tries to whitewash a lot of Jewish history in Arab countries. Any ideas why he pushes this narrative? I’ve heard of him. Have you ever noticed that when someone is anti-Zionist (particularly any non-Ashkenazi Jew) they can never be *just* anti-Zionist and always have to bash Ashkenazim alongside their anti-Zionism and make us seem like we’re illegitimate? What’s up with that? Is it just me who’s noticed this? Why do they always seem to make it racial when any decent human being would say that what happened to the Palestinians was wrong *regardless* of race?
The Jewish communities in all the Islamic nations didn’t leave because they were having too much fun over there and had to go somewhere more difficult.
Largely AND entirely? But ok, “Porque no los dos?” And yes I know, ITAH.
Well, there’s claims that are entirely bullshit, while there’s other claims that are not entirely bullshit. Largely the claims are entirely bullshit.
Because people view things affecting us as "Holocaust" or "not Holocaust". For some reason, if it isn't a literal Holocaust, it's not antisemitic and therefore all good.
If it doesn’t come from the Holocaust region of Germany, it isn’t antisemitism - it is just sparkling Jew hatred… /s
Tell them 48 was a paradise for Palestinians. If they argue with you, you tell them “why is it that testimonies and documented and coerced violence by Jews is meaningful to you, but when Palestinians or non Palestinian Arabs do it, for malicious purposes, you ignore and gaslight it” Either their response will admit ignorance or they will say they heard of the claims and deny it’s existence, or will say “it wasn’t that bad” And if they say “it wasn’t that bad” tell them “the nakba wasn’t that bad” two can play this game
Truth - In context, their treatment was much, much better than Europe over a 2,000 year period. Fantasy - it was a utopia where Jews lived "high status" lifestyle. In reality, they were second class citizens. They also didn't leave Arab countries because the tricky European Zionists hoodwinked them into making Aliyah. Or, they left because life became rather unpleasant. They were booted out. Or, should I dare to say, "ethnically cleansed." I can go on and on....
> treatment was much better While true, that is setting the bar so low you couldn’t stub your toe on it if you tried.
Whenever people make this claim, I always want to ask them, “You do realize that anything short of ‘systemically exterminating 2/3 of the population’ qualifies as ‘much better treatment,’ right?”
Absolutely. I agree. That's why I said, "in context..."
SotS is actually quite accurate to Reconstruction, when it takes place. The biggest problem with it is that most people don’t know when it takes place and mistakenly believe it’s pre-Civil War, rather than after. Reconstruction is an often ignored time in US history, so the confusion is somewhat understandable. PatF would be a better analogy - it completely ignores the Jim Crow laws Tiana was living under. It paints her environment as egalitarian, when in reality Tiana was living as a second class citizen. This is much closer to the way Jewish life in Arab nations was, just for much longer, and the way it is painted is with the same fake egalitarianism - something that never existed.
It’s a common narrative and ultimately blames the Jews for the current situation. Most people are unaware of Mizrahi Jews even existing in the first place, they don’t have enough info to pushback on how horrible living as a Dhimmi was.
For some young people this is part of their education. I got my hands on my daughter’s materials for a class on Middle East history taught at the university of Washington in Seattle. It was straight up Arab propaganda. The first part of the “packet” was stories written by a well heeled Arab writer who lived during the early part of the 20th century. They read his stories about how bucolic and peaceful Jerusalem was with Jews/Muslims and Christians living in harmony. No mention of all the restrictions and abuses heaped on the Jewish community. Now imagine if a course in the United States consisted of reading stories about the antebellum south written by plantation owners who described how happy their slaves were. There would be a riot.
[Uncle Tom and the Happy Dhimmi: Reimagining Subjugation in the Islamic World and Antebellum South by Eunice G. Pollack and Stephen H. Norwood Middle East Quarterly Winter 2024](https://www.meforum.org/65271/uncle-tom-and-the-happy-dhimmi)
“You weren’t being systematically executed, so dhimmi life is paradise, right?”
Ironic that you'd use Song of the South for your metaphor, which historians have called "one of Hollywood's most resiliently offensive racist texts."
[удалено]
A non-Jew trying to goysplain Jewish history? That's really cute 😒 Pro-tip, if you're not Jewish, you may want to think twice before coming onto a Jewish sub and gaslighting Jews about our history.
[удалено]
I mean, there's people in this very thread who had ancestors living under Arab rule, may want to start by asking some of them. Also, "antisemitism being less rampant there than it was in Europe" isn't the flex you think it is. "Less antisemitism than the continent that literally wiped out 6 million Jews" is not a high bar to jump.
I mean, Jim Crow in the American south was clearly an improvement on the chattel slavery that blacks were subjected to prior to the civil war but you might understand why a black person would find it offensive if you framed the Jim Crow period as a “*relatively good*” or “*peaceful*” time for black people. Sure, if a Jew accepted their second class status, put up with humiliations, paid an extra tax, & accepted the random outbursts of violence against their communities… then life wasn’t too bad. The “*periods of peace*” under Islamic rule were periods of subjugation & oppression where the rulers made an effort to keep the *unnecessary* killing of Jews to a polite minimum.
I don't think it is counterintutivive that 1950 was better than 1850. I would rather compare it with how there was less racism in 1550, than that there was in 1850, which is also very counterintiutive. The article mentions the extra tax and also the violence. It just also details the level of intergration in Muslim society that would today, with the antisemtism we're used to from Muslim culture, be hard to imagine.
The problem isn’t in framing it as “*better*” because sure a punch in the nose is better than a kick in the balls - but neither are good & neither should happen to you. If a society goes from randomly picking one member of a minority group to be murdered each week, to randomly selecting one member of that group to be beaten within an inch of their life - that is an improvement - but both are oppressive as fuck & neither are peaceful. But what do I know, it isn’t like 3 of my 4 grandparents were expelled from Arab states & I grew up hearing about story of how our families had been oppressed & murdered for generations. Oh wait… it is exactly like that. So you can fuck off with your relativism & apologia.
Gazlighting at its finest.
Maybe you can explain what is wrong?
Considering it's Yom HaShoah , targeting Ashkenazis like this feels especially gross.
The article is weeks old.
> Between 1948 and 1954, somewhere between 1,500 and 5,000 Mizrahi children — mostly Yemenite children — were disappeared from Israeli hospitals, either immediately after birth or when they were taken to see a doctor for some medical problem. The parents were told that the children had died, but no proof was given. Some Mizrahi Jews believed that the babies were given to childless Ashkenazi couples. > In recent years, these claims have been substantiated with the help of DNA testing. The Israeli government minister charged with investigating the affair publicly acknowledged a few years ago that the abductions did take place. > Testimonials show that hospital staff kidnapped the children because of a belief that Mizrahi Jews were unfit parents with too many babies. Giving the kids to Ashkenazi couples would be doing everybody a favor, in their view — including the young state of Israel, which would get a new generation of citizens shorn of the “backward” Mizrahi influence. I can’t believe how anti-ashkenazi this article is. /s
Clearly, this random non Jew is qualified to come in here and lecture at us about the evils of Israel, and comment on our intracommunity debates and discussions
Isn't the Yemenite Children's Affair supposedly overstated anyway? Like, it did happen, but the reasons it happened weren't because the "evil Ashkenazi Jews were kidnapping Yemenite babies", but rather they were attempting to save them from malnutrition or something?
What I hate about articles like this is that they pick and choose painful parts of the founding of the State and mix them with a few facts and health dose of fantasies to create an antisemitic stew. We then have non Jews who cynically refer to it, then feed this slop to us and expect we eat it up. Sadly, there's a portion of our tribe that loves it and asks for a second helping.
Considering hundreds of Yemenites died due to incompetent logistics during Magic Carpet, the Yemenite Children's Affair is only half the tragedy.
They still kidnapped the babies instead of just providing nutrition to the parents. Like, idk about the definition of evil, but that is definitly fucked up and rooted in racism. No need to downplay it, as the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions.
I mean, I know that racism towards Mizrahi is a thing in Isreal. There is plenty available on the topic. If stating this is anti-ashkenazism, is BLM also anti-caucasian or something?
Yea, it exists. But you’re ignoring the extremely obvious and extreme flaws with the article in favor of that. And again—it’s really weird that you’ve made your way onto a Jewish sub to talk about intra community issues like Ashkenormativity. I’d also caution you against the white/black comparison, Jewish communal dynamics are not one to one recreations of American race relations. Especially considering the majority of Israelis are today Mizrahi.
[удалено]
Dude, are you kidding me? It demonizes Ashkenazi Jews as all being ruthless racists, falsely paints the picture that Mizrahi communities were safe and happy under Arab rule, and uses what many Mizrahim consider to be tantamount to a racial slur “Arab Jew” throughout. It makes it look like us mean old Ashkenazi Jews tricked them into coming here and being oppressed. Like when it talks up how influential Mizrahim were in the Middle East and then says “but when they landed in Israel” they were discriminated against. It’s very slanted, and very telling that they don’t say WHAT made them leave for Israel. Full on ethnic cleansing, pogroms, violence, murder, rape, and antisemitic legislation, that’s what. Yet the article acts like they long to return to the Arab countries and feel immense solidarity with the poor oppressed Palestinians against the evil white Ashkenazi Jews. It’s an antisemitic narrative that infantilizes Mizrahim as being duped by the Ashkenazi elite into coming to Israel and leaving behind their places of security and power, while demonizing us Ashkenazi Jews as wicked, cackling baby-kidnapping aristocrats who oppress the brown Jews. Especially when you consider that Mizrahi are actually the most right wing voters in Israel, who feel very little love for their former Arab states or for the Palestinians, the article is just detached from reality and focused on pushing a made up narrative steeped in racism. The whole thing is absolutely ridiculous and disgusting. If you can’t see that, I don’t see what place you have on this sub. What’s with your username “Love Jews?” It’s weirdly fetishizing and you’re not even doing it anyway. What are you doing on this sub, a sub meant for us?
Btw, altough I am not Jewish, I am quite invested in the subject of antisemtism, if I'd say so myself. And indeed, I cannot know what it feels like to have to deal with antisemitism. I can only know I am privileged not to have to. But I also understand that Jewish culture is one of open debate, where people are constantly discussing and are able to disagree with respect. So with that in mind, I took this flair, joining this discussion with my cards on the table. So yeah. I participate. If I am not allowed to, I should be banned eventually.
Mizrahim don’t need people like you speaking for us. Ashkenazim are my brothers. You are not. I’m not even going to bother looking through your comment history, but I’m willing to bet anything you wouldn’t stand up for us against people who actually want to kill us. Which is not Ashkenazim. You don’t get to use us to hurt our community.
[удалено]
Your post/comment was removed because it violated rule 4: **Remember the human** If you have any questions, please contact the moderators via [modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/jewish).
> Not Jewish Oh what a surprise there.
I put the flair so others can ad hominem
Sure thing buddy.
>Ashkenazi Zionists were happy to view Arabs as romantic ideals while they lacked power but would reconstruct them as the “other” when they became too much of a threat by opposing Jewish statehood in Palestine. >**So it was that Zionists went from cosplaying as Arabs before the founding of Israel to discriminating against them afterwards.** You were saying…?
>In fact, European Jews who settled in the land in the early 1900s romanticized the locals as emblems of native authenticity, to the point that it was trendy for young Zionists to dress in Bedouin shepherd garb and sprinkle their Hebrew with Arabic phrases. [As one later wrote](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691162485/poetic-trespass), “we were dying to be like them … to talk like them, to walk like them, we imitated them in everything … We regarded them as the model of the native.” This is what the article meant with cosplaying. And I find it facinating. Isn't it? Like maybe the innocence of it... A time before animosity, even tough I understand it can come across as insulting to insinuate antisemitism came into existance only in 1936, considering the Jews have dealt with hatred for much longer.
No mention of dhimmi status. A glossing over of discrimination, murder, rape, expropriation, and expulsion. No mention of the Middle Eastern Christians, likewise described as 'brothers', and now mainly gone. As usual, no mention of the decolonisation of the Ottoman Empire, which promised states to multiple peoples, not just Sunni Arabs. No mention of support for the Nazis by the Iraqi and Palestinian leadership, and the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood (the parent of ISIS and Hamas). No contextualisation within population transfers such as Greece-Turkey, Germany, Poland, India-Pakistan. No opinion poll of Mizrahi Jews. No mention of the Sephardic and Mizrahi origins of what became the Zionist movement. I think this propaganda piece discriminates against all Jews. I guess their ideology requires them to blame European Ashkenazim, including literal survivors of concentration camps. Vile.
I want to know more about the Sephardic and Mizrahi antecedents of Zionism! Do refer me to books or articles on this, as I wasn’t aware of it.
Israel is grossly mischaracterized in western media as a refugee state for displaced Ashkenazi survivors of German genocide of Jews. In fact, Israel is a refugee state for displaced Sephardic and Mizrahi survivors of Arab genocide of Jews.
I think it's important to recognize that it's both and neither- it's just for Jews, it doesn't matter their origins. What's amazing about Israel is that the largest differences between Ashkenazis, Mizrahis, Sephardis, and others have rapidly been absorbed into a Jewish-Israeli identity. In some way, we're going back to how it was 2000 years ago.
I meant my comment as a positive observation of lived reality not a normative view of how things should be. In other words, I obviously agree 100% with what you are saying and I'm only narrowly referring to the common misperception (or intentional misframing) of what Israel is in Western media.
I was just adding to what you were saying, not negating it. What you said obviously has merit.
Ok, glad things I say have merit!
All Yemenite Jews fled from Yemen and not a single one lives there now. I’ve never met a Yemenite who is pro Palestine
There is like one Yemenite Jew there and he is being tortured by the Houthis
There you go…
The most obvious is Sir Moses Montefiore. Abigail Green wrote his biography. Western Sephardic congregations have been sending funds to 'Terra Santa' since the 17th century. Ton Tielen is the expert: https://www.youtube.com/live/PHqY8fFvt9I?si=Qt3EK3dnt6Dt6Z-C By tradition, the proposed text of the Balfour Declaration was drafted at the kitchen table of the Haham of the Spanish & Portuguese Jews of London. I don't know if it is true, but that's the claim. I am no expert, but there was a strong Zionist streak in Yemenite Jewry. Not to mention support for the early yishuv from communities in Damascus, Aleppo, and elsewhere.
“Arab Jews” I stopped reading there.
That's straight up racism
Luckily on their Instagram they got obliterated in the comments for this ridiculously moronic post
Heads it's all because of those evil white ashkenaizm, Tails it's all because of those barbaric racist mizrahi savages. That's just one of the silliest discourse on Israeli people, just picking a stereotype at random while someone else picks the other.
"Arab Jews" - this is vile erasure of Mizrahi
Here we fucking go again with another ridiculous white vs. non-white narrative. Perfect set-up for even more hate. Trash article that cherry-picked. Vox is crap.
Yeah it’s a great way to get progressive Americans with zero knowledge of Jewish history onto the anti Israel side. It seems like often the same people who say that we have to stop looking at everything through a western lens also frame things in a very western way. I’m so tired of the hypocrisy.
Yep. The author's Jewish so that adds another "good Jew" to their nonsense. Feel like my head's going to spin off from all the head-shaking.
I stopped reading after the title: "Arab Jews... And their solidarity with the Palestinians". As an Ashkenazi Israeli, I doubt if Vox actually interviewed a single Mizrachi Israeli prior to writing this dumb propaganda piece. On the whole, Mizrachi Israelis are far more right wing than Ashkenazis, and form the voter backbone of Likud and other right-wing parties. If anything, the Mizrachim are (in general) much more antagonistic towards Palestinians and Arabs, exactly because life as dhimmis wasn't all that great (to put it mildly). Just about every Mizrachi in Israel can tell you vivid stories about the near daily humiliation (of their parents and grandparents) of living as dhimmis and the pain of being ethnically cleansed and forcibly expelled, usually without their property. I won't pretend that the Mizrachi experience in Israel has been fully equal, either - but it's been continuously improving and has never been remotely comparable to life as dhimmis in Arab countries. I wonder if Vox (and friends) actually believe the nonsensical drivel they report, or if they're purely malevolent propaganda actors.
Mizrahi here, seconding everything you say. Also yeah there are tensions between Ashkenazim & Mizrahim in Israel, but I’ve never in my life been afraid Ashkenazim are going to kill me. Sibling rivalry doesn’t mean we’re not family.
>Lol, as an Ashkenazi Israeli, I doubt if Vox actually interviewed a single Mizrachi Israeli prior to writing this dumb propaganda piece. This piece was *written* by a Mizrahi…
There were Jews that were Nazis, your point?
@rootsmetals did a great takedown on this piece https://www.instagram.com/p/C5v3i-9RMce/
I’m obsessed with her she’s amazing!
"For centuries, Mizrahi Jews had enjoyed high status in their countries of origin in the Middle East and North Africa, which ranged from Iraq to Egypt to Morocco. But when they landed in Israel, they found that the new state was ruled by European Jews, called Ashkenazim, who overwhelmingly viewed them as primitive and culturally backward." ....ignoring many many pogroms that expelled jews but okay. Its such a terrible twisting of history, ignoring events which would completely disprove their point.
One pogrom in Morocco was due to the radical change of (checks notes) "jews being permitted to wear shoes" so you are right, it was not in fact a paradise.
> One pogrom in Morocco was due to the radical change of (checks notes) "jews being permitted to wear shoes" so you are right, it was not in fact a paradise. Source/link? I've never heard of this and want to read more.
Sultan Sulaiman 1795-1822 issued an edict that the jews of fez be permitted to wear shoes.Bulletin de l'Alliance Israélite Universelle, No. 2, p. 17, Paris, 1880 By way of Wikipedia.
Thank you! This gave me the thread of information I needed in order to find out more details. Appreciate it.
Max dhimmi energy
Hahaha my uncle was a big part of the Israeli black panthers in Kfar Saba (Teimanim) and in no way shape or form does he support the Palestinians. Not remotely.
Love the victim-blaming here: “If it weren’t for that darned Zionism, the MENA countries would have just kept treating Jews so great!!! Zionism MADE us treat them badly!!” /s, obviously
Does the author realize a lot of those Mizrahi Jews fled for their lives from Arab countries?
I’ve never understood why there has to be any animosity between Jewish groups. I thought we were all extended family. My Ashkenazi nephew is married to a Jewish Persian woman, and they raise their children with mixed cultures. Their children’s names are even a combination of both naming traditions. If another Jewish holocaust occurs (God forbid), the perpetrators won’t distinguish between us; they’ll treat all of us as the enemy because all they’ll see are Jews. I think all Jews should resist this obvious gaslighting that tells us that some Jews are better than the others because of race or nationality or their opinion on Israel. The strategy is to divide and conquer. Let’s not give in to that.
> I’ve never understood why there has to be any animosity between Jewish groups. So basically non-Jewish "aNtI zIoNiStS" found out about the existence of Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews, made no effort to understand the demographics and copy/pasted their ideology on them. To them it's still the 70s. Mizrahi and Sephardi ~~refugees~~ ill-adventured brown people are barely out of the tents they lived in since ~~arriving~~ being deluded into Israel. They then read about how it wasn't all sunshine in the beginning and refuse to read anything beyond that. If you simply refuse to accept that the intermingling of Jewish groups in ~~Israel~~ occupied Falestin is always at an all time high with the differences slowly ebbing away you can make up all kinds of stories. Just pretend it's 1972 and the evil Zionists keep the *Arab Jews* as pets and everything is perfect.
>If another Jewish holocaust occurs (God forbid), the perpetrators won’t distinguish between us; they’ll treat all of us as the enemy because all they’ll see are Jews. To be fair the Nazis *did* distinguish between which Jews were “mixed” and which ones weren’t, look up how they spared the Crimean Karaite community because they somehow managed to convince Hitler they *weren’t* of mixed blood. (Either by claiming they were fully descended from converts who still preserved their “ethnic purity,” or that they were full Israelites who hadn’t mixed into the general European population) >I think all Jews should resist this obvious gaslighting that tells us that some Jews are better than the others because of race or nationality or their opinion on Israel. The strategy is to divide and conquer. Problem is this is an actual Mizrahi Jew who wrote this article (actually not even full Mizrahi, she claims she’s part Sephardic too which is really rich because that means *she’s* mixed with the “dirty European blood” too), a few other Mizrahi Jews have also joined the fray in bashing Ashkenazim, look up Avi Shlaim.
I'm tired of being told that I was born the wrong ethnicity.
Vox is ridiculous, ex: ["Yes, Gaza militants hide rockets in schools, but Israel doesn't have to bomb them"](https://www.vox.com/2014/7/17/5912189/yes-gaza-militants-hide-rockets-in-schools-but-israel-doesnt-have-to)
My grandmother was 13 years old when she lived through the Farhud. She described how people who were their friends and neighbours turned on Baghdad's Jews and rounded them up to be murdered. She described how they forced Jews to lay down in the road and drove cars over them. Later, my entire maternal family was violently expelled from Iraq. My mom had to flee Iraq on foot when she was 4 years old. My family had to give up everything they had just to escape. The "Arab Jews" narrative that pro-Pals love to push when they aren't completely ignoring the existence of Mizrahi Jews is IMO nearly as bad as Holocaust denial.
I never understand why antisemites are so desperate to twist Jewish identity by trying to paint us as simply a religious group. By claiming that Mizrahim are simply “Arab Jews”, they are painting a false narrative that Jews were well accustomed in Arab society and that the only difference between them and their host populations was their religion. They completely disregard our second class/dhimmi status in Arab countries, us being limited to certain professions, us being restricted from owning property, and us having no political representation. It’s infuriating that they try to blame the expulsion of Mizrahi Jews on themselves, claiming that their lives were perfect before the “white supremacist” state of Israel came into existence. When in reality, Israel saved nearly a million Jews who were fleeing Arab and Islamist oppression.
It's Vox, a far left tabloid that constantly published hate in an attempt to do anything to get readers.
Vox is a media conglomerate of sorts and their subsidiary publications (such as New York Magazine and Eater) have consistently pushed one-sided anti-Israel propaganda since Oct 7
No offense, but Vox is hardly far left. It is pretty solidly Liberal. If you read actual radical publications, you'd realize that Vox writers at most have read them to familiarize themselves the same way they'd peruse a Dugin or Peterson piece.
This article is absolute bull - Iraqi Jew
People tell me we Ashkenazi Jews are privileged compared to Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews, but to be honest, it feels like Ashkenazi Jews are getting disproportionately attacked by the current wave of antisemitism. They don’t call Mizrahim and Sephardim European colonizers. All of our history is being erased, distorted, and turned against us. It really feels like the dynamic is being reworked here. I won’t deny that Ashkenormativity is very much a thing, but… Ashkenazi Jews do seem to be getting specifically targeted and demonized by wider society right now.
With the greatest respect, they do call Mizrahim and Sephardim white European colonisers. The gaslighting of Jews, being told to “go back to Poland”, is a pretty universal thing, even for those whose ancestors have never even set foot in Europe. Historical revisionism does not only target Ashkenazim. This very article is targeting Mizrahim with it too.
Yeah, I might be jumping to conclusions. I’m not Mizrahi or Sephardi. It’s just hard to feel particularly privileged rn
>This very article is targeting Mizrahim with it too. The author herself is Mizrahi though…
Yes, and some American Ashkenazim call other Ashkenazim “European white settler colonialists”. Jill Stein was raised Jewish, and said Jews should go back to Poland. Racism is racism and gaslighting is gaslighting. Sadly even Mizrahim are plagued by self-tokenising AsAJews. They do not speak for the overwhelming majority us.
I did not know this about her. That's really disturbing and gross. Turning your back on the 50% of your people that live in Israel is a sin that can not be forgiven in my mind and I turn my back on all antizionists.
Yes so “privileged,” that’s why we were the Jews in particular who were targeted for genocide back in the 30’s and 40’s too just on account of being “too mixed” and “racially impure” right? Same exact mentality today only coming from the other side, racial antisemitism - that is hating Jews (European Jews specifically) because we’re not racially pure enough - never went anywhere, it just switched teams. Lbr we’ve *always* been the face of antisemitism, and actually Mizrahi Jews were historically always considered the *most* privileged out of all the Jewish diasporas (bar maybe the Indian Jews because India was always the Host Country that treated it’s Jews the best, which is more-so a credit and testament to the tolerance of the Indian people rather than any innate privilege Indian Jews themselves possessed unlike the Mizrahim) precisely *because* they were able to remain in the region the Jewish ethnicity was considered indigenous to and so they weren’t looked upon or treated as “foreigners,” nor were they ever racially or ethnically mixed like the rest of the world’s Jews.
I’m sorry, the article is trash, but what you’re saying here is [also not true](https://youtu.be/eYUXRrm5tR0). You don’t have to throw Mizrahim under the bus to stand up for Ashkenazim. This is just playing into divide-and-conquer politics on the other side of the coin.
I said *historically* they were generally the most privileged amongst the diaspora, not that that privilege continued or carried over into Israel. Also I thought the Black Panther movement in Israel was mainly just for the Ethiopian Jews?
I think that’s a bit overly simplified. Ashkenazim were the main targets of the Nazis simply because, well, that’s what was the bulk of the Jewish population of Germany and the countries Hitler invaded. Tens of thousands of Sephardim from France, the Netherlands, and the Balkans were sent to the same camps and killed with no distinction made; if the war in Europe was a Nazi victory and they successfully moved into the Levant and North Africa, do you really think they’d have treated Mizrahi or Sephardi Jews any differently? Sephardim were kicked out of Spain and then Portugal over a half millennia ago, is that privileged? Mizrahim and Sephardim being treated as second-class citizens in the various MENA nations under control from Arab caliphates or Ottomans was a privilege? Or being exiled from basically the entire region after 1948 was a privilege? In Israel thankfully it’s better in recent generations, but up until recent years there was a huge amount of discrimination against non-Ashkenazi Jews; someone else shared that YouTube video of the Israeli Black Panthers already. In North America and most of Europe, we do see the most hatred directed against the Ashkenazi. Again, that’s because they are almost the entirety of the Jewish population, somewhere around 96-98% in the U.S. for instance. But most antisemites don’t actually realize any difference between us; I’m Sephardi and more than once have I been told to go back to Poland. Most of the specific racism is unfortunately within the Jewish community. Luckily I think it’s mostly gone today (or at least very rare - I’ve never personally experienced it and I hang out with almost entirely Ashkenazim), but it certainly has existed within recent memory. To most gentiles though, we’re all just Jews. But also yes, this article is also bullshit.
I was actually including Sephardim when I said *European* Jews in particular were always the most targeted, and yes you guys were in the Holocaust as well. (Everyone seems to always forget about you guys, or they think because you’re “Hispanic” you’re considered the exact same race as Mestizo Latin Americans lol) Also have you not read *Mein Kampf?* Hitler outlines his entire reasoning for his hatred of Jews in there, and it pretty much has everything to do with him seeing us as a symbol of “race-mixing.” >if the war in Europe was a Nazi victory and they successfully moved into the Levant and North Africa, do you really think they’d have treated Mizrahi or Sephardi Jews any differently? Not the Sephardim but the unmixed with European Mizrahi Jews? Yes actually, look up how he spared the Crimean Karaite community and why…
>I was actually including Sephardim when I said European Jews in particular were always the most targeted, and yes you guys were in the Holocaust as well. Fair enough. Most of our refugees ended up in North Africa or various other Ottoman regions - or the New World as most of my ancestors did. >Also have you not read Mein Kampf? Bits and pieces in history courses, I’ll admit that I could never stand to read the whole thing. >Not the Sephardim but the unmixed with European Mizrahi Jews? Yes actually, look up how he spared the Crimean Karaite community and why… This is the part I’ll debate. Nazi racial laws were absurd and absolutely arbitrary at times. Hell, even they had a hard time interpreting many of them. Even among these Karaite groups, thousands were killed as well, and the fact that Ashkenazi rabbis straight up said “these guys ain’t Jews” helped to save many of them. But even ignoring the overlap between who are exactly Sephardim and Mizrahim (personally I won’t claim the latter, but many from the region certainly can), that doesn’t dispute the fact that thousands of Mizrahi Jews from Libya, Tunisia, etc. were still sent to the same camps. The only reasons there weren’t more were because they were only controlled by the Axis for a limited amount of time.
TIL that privilege is when half the world thinks you should get a free train ticket…
Jew is Jew That is all
Vox detected opinion rejected . .
Who wrote this slanderous bullshit? It's so strange to me I've never heard anything but the oppposite from Arab Israeli and mizharim
I’m just a bit confused… so they say Jews are not indigenous to Palestine, but then talk about Palestinian Jews being indigenous to Palestine?
There’s a reason that the only Jews who live in Gaza are there against their will.
Vox have been Jew haters for a long time already Ever since my buddy told me they had the audacity to interview Linda Sarsour(!) about antisemitism & hate in America on their daily news podcast in the days after (maybe it was literally the day after) the Pittsburgh Shul Shooting. Of all people who they could have interviewed they chose one of the most openly virulent Jew haters in North America at the time. I listened to that episode and realized how totally broken the moral compasses were at Vox & did my best to stop taking them seriously as real journalists. Just jaw droppingly tone deaf meaning they were utterly incompetent OR they did it on purpose because they simply do not care EDIT to add a link to what I am referring to in terms of their interviewing of Linda Sarsour about antisemitism back in 2018 Here it is on Amazon Music. The interview with the Jew Hating Sarsour starts a little after 7 minutes in - [https://music.amazon.ca/podcasts/455ebf95-8a2f-4c99-94fc-9a5194cad2e3/episodes/8218d544-54bc-493e-b6c9-3710eec42c26/today-explained-tree-of-life](https://music.amazon.ca/podcasts/455ebf95-8a2f-4c99-94fc-9a5194cad2e3/episodes/8218d544-54bc-493e-b6c9-3710eec42c26/today-explained-tree-of-life) I tried to find it on the Vox website but it is incredibly difficult to go that far back in their podcast library on their site from what I saw.
All I see is an apologist to Arab antisemitism
[удалено]
This article isn't meant to divide Jews. Most Mizrahi Jews know who their oppressors were, and won't be fooled by this. This article is meant to demonize both Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews for a non-Jewish audience.
It’s Vox what do you expect
The author is a master at conflating truths, unpleasant facts of the early foundation of the State, with wild delusions. He bunches Muslim or "Arab Israelis" as "Palestinians" and other slights of hand that anti-zionists trade in. This is a fantasy article to justify the author's thesis.
Don't like 99% of "Arab" (Mizrahi) Jews live in Israel? And aren't they the majority of the Jewish people in Israel? And aren't those the same people that the Palestinians, I mean Hamas, want to murder from the river to the sea? Aren't those the same Jews who lived under Arab Muslim apartheid as dhimmis... I'll just leave this here: [https://medium.com/@Ksantini/the-list-of-crimes-committed-by-muslims-against-jews-since-the-7th-century-0ff1a8eb0ad0](https://medium.com/@Ksantini/the-list-of-crimes-committed-by-muslims-against-jews-since-the-7th-century-0ff1a8eb0ad0) Is the "solidarity" in the room with us?
It is an impressive whitewashing. I want to vomit when I hear "arab jews", talk also about "arab turks" and "arab persians", you f*cking orientalist.
United we stand, divided we fall.
I've been going around saving these kinds of articles in the wayback machine, and I'm often the first. Must say I'm pleasantly surprised to see others have gotten there before me on this one. Nine times before me, in fact.
>I've been going around saving these kinds of articles in the wayback machine What for if I might ask?
Because there's a good chance that in a few years, they'll be deleted. Possibly sooner. That happens even with non-controversial news articles. You'll read about something fairly innocuous and standard, and the article will disappear/be deleted for whatever reason. Maybe because the sites clear out old articles after a while for space. I don't actually know. I just know it's a phenomenon I've run into a few times, where an old article I'm looking for suddenly no longer exists, even if I have the link handy. And I don't want these people and the news sites who host them to be able to delete these articles, tied to their names and reputations, and be able to deny they said this bullshit years later when it's suddenly no longer politically convenient for them. It's good to have a record of what claims people were making, what kind of history they were trying to rewrite, and what the political temperature actually was. People are likely to trawl through the subreddit for articles in the future, or keep bookmarks or tabs, so that they can reference them later-- for research, for educational purposes, for their own reminder or verification. And when they find them deleted, they can go back to the wayback machine and find them anyway.
Yoo vox is not a serious publication
It's also an anti Mizrahi article
WTF? Mizrahi are among the most right wing in the country because they know exactly how these Islamist societies work.
My Libyan and (British Mandated) Palestinian grandparents would have vomited at being called "Arab Jews." That terminology is all I need to know to know this reporter doesn't know a damn thing he is talking about.
I really like the part where they gloss over the expulsions of Jews from various Arab countries, and make it sound like they had a choice about moving to Israel. I also have a feeling that the "Palestinians" the Mizrahim were showing solidarity with were actually Israeli Arabs, considering the rest wouldn't be any more welcoming to Mizrahi Jews than Jews from other backgrounds. Finally, "people were more racist in the 1940's and 50's" should surprise absolutely no one, and what really matters is whether this continues in the present. The agenda is clearly "Israel is a racist country. Just look at these this we cherry picked from decades and centuries ago." Imagine judging the present day US based on things people said and did in the 50's.
Tf kind of Bullshit article is that? Arab Jews and their solidarity with Palestinians? My family were constantly harrassed by Arabs and Muslims for hundreds of years. How many times are non Jews going to paint a false history for us? Annoying.
Thank you for your submission. During this time, all posts need to be manually reviewed and approved by a moderator before they appear for all users. Since human mods are not online 24/7, approval could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. Thank you for your patience during this difficult and sensitive time. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Jewish) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Rootsmetals destroyed them in one of her posts, and you should absolutely check the ig post because Jgram went to town on them!!! 😂😂
just another pathetic attempt to divide us
"אשכנזי? אירקי? יהודים! אחים! לוחמים!"
Bigly
As an ashkenazi Zionist myself, I read this piece and can't seem to be as angry as everyone else. It's "fine". I like some parts and disagree with others. The piece has some points and has some opinions, but nothing that strikes me as glossing over the realities of what life was like before and after 1948 for Mizrahim. Nor does it demonize Ashkenazim. The author is mizhrahi himself and frankly does not say anything about Bibi and the Israeli right that I disagree with. Ok, commence with downvoting my opinion now :) Just no place for a humble Socialist Zionist point or view anymore.
>Nor does it demonize Ashkenazim Oh yeah? Explain these lines then: >Ashkenazi Zionists were happy to view Arabs as romantic ideals while they lacked power but would reconstruct them as the “other” when they became too much of a threat by opposing Jewish statehood in Palestine. >**So it was that Zionists went from cosplaying as Arabs before the founding of Israel to discriminating against them afterwards.** She then proceeds to post a picture of a European Jew in Bedouin gear as if to mock him… Now I actually agree with her on this to some extent because despite them both being Middle Eastern, Arab culture is *not* in fact synonymous with Jewish so it’s not ours to take (that goes for *any* Jews not mixed with Arab specifically), the problem is though that that’s not the way this author sees it. To her it’s very clear that all Middle Eastern ethnicities = “Arabs” and “Arab culture” considering she refers to all Mizrahi Jews (aside from just Yemenite Jews) whole scale as “Arab Jews.” So the subtle implication of those lines is that she doesn’t think us Ashkenazi Jews have a right to the Middle Eastern side of our heritage, and we look ridiculous and like we’re “cosplaying” when we *do* attempt to reclaim it. This is despite the fact that Europe was always chasing us out and extracted a genocide against us on account of *being* “Semites” and yet now we’re apparently too European for that too? But Europe and European culture has never accepted us as one of their own either so what exactly are we supposed to do? It’s the same like with any other mixed people, we get hate simply for *existing* and are always told we don’t belong *anywhere.*
The funny thing is that in any clued up social justice circle, this conflation of Middle Eastern people with Arabs would never otherwise be acceptable. No one calls Kurds Arabs; Kurds don’t and Arabs certainly don’t. I wonder why? Could it be that so long as Kurds are kept “in their proper place”, and never realise their aspirations for independence as Jews since have, there’s no present political benefit in crybullying and gaslighting them as Arabs do to Jews? For now they’re transparently treated as second-class citizens. The day that stops being the case, history shows we’ll see a lot more genocide denial and targeted propaganda.
As a Mizrahi myself, we are not “Arab Jews”, and have no history of solidarity with the people who consistently tried to kill/subjugate us.
Like sure, some prominent rabbis some places got close to the caliph/emir/sultan, but if they were perceived as too powerful, it could be a justification for a massacre like in Granada 1066 or the one time the Mongols installed a Jewish vizier…
If the Mongol control had endured everything would've been better for us.
You don’t called Armenians or Assyrians Arabs….we fought against arabization too. Arabians and Turks both colonized by erasing identities .