1

SOC 465
12/09/2014
Sarah R Louden

Israeli Nationalism: the Constructs of Zionism and its Effect on

Inter-Jewish Racism, Politics, and Radical Discourse

2
Although contemporary Western media remains flooded with pertinent stories about Arab versus Jew
segregation and ethnic racism in Israel, it is unlikely to see stories emerge highlighting the blatant intra-Jewish
racism that occurs in Israeli society. Perhaps this is the unique position of Western (and especially U.S.) news
outlets, which do not seek to emphasize the second (and third, and fourth) class citizens that continue to exist in
Israel based solely on their ethnicity or phenotype. Although American Jews (and Americans in general) are often
raised with the idealistic view of Israel as a utopian state for all Jewish immigrants and refugees to flock to, this
paper will present research to debunk such biased claims. This essay will provide a succinct overview of the
various immigration waves to Palestine, and later, to the State of Israel. By doing so, this essay will investigate how
the race and ethnicity of immigrants predetermines their likelihood of assimilation, absorption and success in
Israeli society. Furthermore, this essay will provide an overview of Israeli nationalism, the history of Zionism, and
the effect that the Zionist movement continues to have on Jewish Israeli society, racial dynamics, religion, and
politics.
Early Zionist Settlers, Absorption, and the Ingathering of the Exiles
European Jews first set foot in the Middle East and Palestine in 1882, when the Zionist Russian settler group
BILU made the first historical aliyah to Palestine. The BILU is generally considered by Zionist historiographers as
the first European Aliyah with a political Zionist motivation.1 However, historians trace smaller, independent
migrations of Middle Eastern Jews to Palestine as far back as the thirteenth century.2 Although the Balfour
Declaration of 1917 is typically viewed in a positive light by Israeli Jews and supporters of Israel, it must be noted
in this papers context that the Balfour Declaration which recognized the European Zionist movement as the
official representative for the Jewish race, and was a precursor to the formation of the modern State of Israel
further marginalized the existing Mizrahi/Sephardi3 and particularly the Yemenite communities already settled in
Palestine.4 In practice, this meant that the European Zionist movement concurrently prevented and interrupted
the attempts of various Mizrahi attempts to organize, while moreover maintaining control over donations from
abroad and their distribution among individuals, communities, and institutions within Palestine.5
The word absorption is often used in reference to literal statistics or the sheer number of humans that
immigrate into a physical state (in this instance, Israel). Furthermore, it may relate to economic integration within
the state. It is also used in connection with cultural and social assimilation, in the sense of attainment of stable
relations between the immigrants and the host population, acquisition of formal political equality, and adaptation

Sami Shalom Chetrit. Intra-Jewish Conflict in Israel: White Jews, Black Jews,(New York: Routledge, 2010), 26.
Ibid.
3
Although the terms Mizrahi and Sephardi hold different meanings for the individuals utilizing them, this essay will primarily adopt the term Mizrahi to
refer to Jews whose families hail from Arab-majority or Muslim-majority countries. In some cases, Mizrahi and Sephardi may be used interchangeably, while
in other contexts, there is a differentiation made between them. Additionally, a note on grammar: while Mizrahi, Sephardi, and Ashkenazi all represent the
singular form of these proper nouns, an m is added to the end of each one to create its plural form: Mizrahim, Sephardim, Ashkenazim.
4
Chetrit (2010), 29-30.
5
Ibid.
2

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to the social structure.6 Since its official founding as a state in 1948, Israel welcomed, and even encouraged
immigration so long as the immigrants were Jewish. According to a 1950 survey, this position was not only held
by the Israeli government, but also shared by the majority of Israels residents. In 1950, approximately 75% of
Israels Jewish population supported unlimited immigration, while around 82% proposed more planning and
systematization of immigrant intake.7 The Israeli governments official discourse was based upon the Zionist ideal
that Israel existed as a state for the worlds Jewish refugees and exiles. However, this was not the only reason Israel
accepted such a massive influx of immigrants without substantial infrastructure to care for them; the security of
the Jewish State rested on the shoulders of its citizens. Israel needed a larger pool of residents for both its military
as well as its agricultural manpower. Put bluntly, Israels open door policy was developed to fulfill two purposes:
rescue Jews in distress, and strengthen the state.8
Between 1919 and 1948, the percentage of Jewish immigrants of European origin residing in Palestine was
between 60-80%. However, after the founding of Israel, that percentage declined to around 49%, as the state began
to absorb increasing numbers of Jewish African and Asian immigrants.9 One could reasonably assume that Israels
intra-Jewish racial troubles began during this time when the number of Eastern Jews sporadically came to
outnumber the Western Jewish settlers who spent the previous decades pioneering and building upon
Palestines undeveloped lands. However, in order to recognize the complex ethnic tensions within Israel, one must
step back and assess the Zionist frontier movement and its implications on the Middle Eastern Judaic population
between approximately 1919 and 1948, as well as Israels recruitment of African and Asian Jewish immigrants in
the years between 1948 and 1956.
The First Mizrahi wave of Immigration and the Introduction of Hebrew Labor
Yemeni Jews were initially recruited for manual labor in Palestine for Zionist settlers in the early 1900s.
Between 1910 and 1914 approximately 2,000 Yemeni Jews immigrated to Palestine, where they were referred to as
Hebrew laborers. This influx of Jewish workers was primarily used to replace the native Palestinian and Arab
laborers, whom European settlers saw as corrupting Zionist ideals.10 During the British Mandate a few thousand
additional Jews of Kurdish and Persian ethnicity were brought in as workers. In 1948, when Israel proclaimed its
statehood, the combined numbers of Asian and African Jews was estimated to be only around 20-25% of Israels
total population. The Ashkenazi Jewish claims of genetic superiority are evident in the writings of Revisionist
Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky. His blunt racism toward non-European Jewry was evident in his publicized
writings. In 1926, Jabotinsky stated, Jews, thank God, have nothing in common with the East. We must put an

Norman Lawrence. Israel: Jewish Population and Immigration, (Washington D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office, 1952), 23.
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
9
Ibid., 19.
10
Joseph Massad. Zionisms Internal Others: Israel and the Oriental Jews. Journal of Palestinian Studies. Vol. 25, No. 4 (Summer 1996): 54.
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end to any trace of the Oriental spirit in the [native] Jews of Palestine.11 Other remarks of Jabotinsky included
opposition to mixed marriages between Middle Eastern and European Jews, as well as the assertion that the
Ashkenzim must retain their majority population over Mizrahim and non-Jewish Arabs in Palestine.12
Recruitment for non-European Jews intensified following the end of WWII. After the world became aware of
the harrowing murders that took place during the Holocaust, including the deaths of approximately 6 million
European Jews, it became clear to Israels political elite that the State would need to seek its Jewish population
from outside of Europe. This was also deemed necessary due to the fact that many Jews living in the USSR were
not permitted to emigrate.13 The state of Israel literally viewed Mizrahim as replacement Jews for the Zionist State.
As a result, between 1948 and 1956 Israel absorbed a total of 450,00 Jews from the African and Asian nations, in
comparison to the 360,000 Jewish immigrants that arrived from Western Europe and America.14 Racism and
discrimination towards Mizrahim occurred even before they set foot in Israel: The first Mizrahim encounter with
Israeli State racism dates to their recruitment in their home countries, where the conditions of the camps in which
they were placed before being transported to Israel, for example, were extremely poor.15 Moreover, as
discrimination of Mizrahim in Israel trickled back to home countries via word-of-mouth, immigration,
specifically from North Africa, began to decline. A Jewish Agency worker noted, the first thing one notices now is
the obvious reluctance to go to Israelthe people virtually have to be taken aboard the ships by force.16
It doesnt come as a surprise that racism became so thoroughly immersed in everyday Israeli culture, as it was
blatantly acceptable at a higher political and governmental level. The Israeli politician David Ben Gurion, who
worked for the Jewish Agency, and thereafter went on to serve as Israels Prime Minister and Minister of Defense,
described North African Jews in 1949 as resembling savages, and emphasized that European Jews were the
leading candidates for citizenship in the State of Israel.17 During the same year, Israels liberal newspaper
HaAretz published a piece by journalist Arye Gelblum reiterating the primitivism of Mizrahim whose level of
knowledge is one of virtually absolute ignoranceGenerally, they are only slightly better thanthe Arabs,
Negroes, and Berbers in the same regions. In any case, they are at an even lower level than what we knew with
regard to the former Arabs of Eretz Yisrael.18 Eliahu Dobkrin, who headed the Jewish Agencys Immigration
Department during Israels early years as a state referred to Jews living in Muslim majority countries as a highly
valuable political factor within the framework of world Jewry and stated that the time had arrived to mount an
assault on this Jewry for a Zionist conquest.19

11

Ibid., 55.
Ibid.
13
Russian Jewry, rather, would seek immigration in large numbers after the dissolution of the USSR.
14
Massad. 55.
15
Ibid., 56.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid.
18
Ibid., 57-58.
19
Yehouda Shenhav. How Did the Mizrahim Become Religious and Zionist? Zionism, Colonialism, and the Religionization of the Arab Jew. Israel Studies
Forum. Vol. 19, No. 1 (Fall 2003), 74-75.
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Although Israels Zionist historiography presents the emigration of Arab Jews as the result of a long history of
anti-Semitism, as well as of religious devotionit is first important to remember that Sephardim, who had lived
in the Middle East and North Africa for millennia (often before the Arab conquest), were simply not eager to
settle in Palestine and had to be lured to Zion.20 Even well into the 1940s, members of Arab-Jewish communities
within Middle Eastern states remained reticent to emigrate from their countries of origin. However, due partially
to propaganda and active lobbying by European Zionists and Jewish Agency officials, a decline in the distinction
between Jews and Zionists within the international arena, and particularly among Arab communities, occurred.21
In some Arab communities particularly Iraq Zionist agents from Israel coordinated with the local
governments to create (sometimes by violent means) anti-Jewish hysteria and thereby achieved Mizarhi
immigration by alternate means.22 Moreover, anti-Semitic sentiment also crept into the Middle Eastern region by
the (predominantly non-Jewish) European colonialists who controlled multiple states and territories after the fall
of the Ottoman Empire.23
Thus, the modern state of Israel and the Ashkenazi modernity came to fruition largely due to the massive,
cheap labor force provided by the Mizrahim.24 In practice, Avoda Ivrit the Zionist notion of Hebrew Labor had
tragic consequences engendering political tensions not only between Arabs and Jews, but also between
Sephardim and Ashkenazim, as well as between Sephardim and Palestinians.25 Early European Zionist settlers in
Palestine chose to import Oriental Jews as manual laborers and agricultural workers in order to replace native
Palestinian Arab workers and thereby avoid what many Ashkenazim viewed as the danger of employing
significant populations of Arabs. Put bluntly by Shohat:
European Zionists were not enthralled by the prospect of tainting the settlements in Palestine with an infusion
of Sephardi Jews. The very idea was opposed at the first Zionist Congressthe visionary dreams of he Zionist
Jewish State were not designed for the Sephardim. But the actual realization of the Zionist project in Palestine,
with its concomitant aggressive attitude toward all the local peoples, brought with it the possibility of the
exploitation of Sephardi Jews as part of an economic and political base.26

Early Jewish European settlers in Palestine made a point to distinguish themselves socially and culturally from
the population already living on the land both Arab-Jews (primarily of Yemenite origin) and non-Jewish Arabs.
While the Ashkenazi agricultural workers self-identified themselves as idealistic and civilized, they labeled the
Palestinian and Mizrahi populations as natural workers. In this context, the term natural had less to do with
agricultural or farming experience, and more to do with the East/West dichotomy where European settlers viewed
Orientals as primitive workers who could perform under uncomfortable conditions for longer stretches of time
with less pay, due to fact that they were from non-industrialized societies, and therefore they were naturally

20

Ella Shohat. Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Jewish Victims. Duke University Press Social Text. No. 19/20 (Autumn 1988): 10.
Ibid., 11.
22
Ibid., 12.
23
Chetrit (2010), 25.
24
Shohat (1988), 23.
25
Ibid., 13.
26
Ibid., 15-16.
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inclined to perform grueling manual labor.27 During the early 1900s, The implication of this distinction between
idealistic and natural workers was that, whereas the former may have had to learn how to work the land, the latter
had to learn how to be modern human beings and ideologically committed Zionists. This categorization was used
both to demand and to justify the preferential treatment accorded by Ashkenazi-dominated Zionist settlement
organizations to Ashkenazi immigrants.28
The distinctions adopted by Ashkenazi settlers also differentiated between olim (pilgrims) and immigrants.
While olim were considered ideologically motivated settlers whose physical migration involved a cultural and
spiritual transformation, immigrants were considered common refugees fleeing their countries of origin. Despite
what original and unique motivations each individual or family had for migrating to Palestine and later, Israel
Ashkenazim were frequently labeled as pilgrims or settlers while Mizrahim were purely refugees.29 The
physical and psychological immigration to Israel is frequently (and officially, by the Israeli authorities) referred to
as aliyah, which literally translates to ascent. However, what was for Ashkenazi immigrants from Russia or
Poland a social aliya, was for Sephardi immigrants from Iraq or Egypt a yerida a descent. What was for
persecuted Asheknazi minorities a certain solution and a quasi-redemption of culture, was for Sephardim the
complete annihilation of a cultural heritage, a loss of identity, and a social and economic degradation.30 The
ideology behind aliya is that Jews are returning to their homeland. However, some Mizrahi Jews, especially those
who left Iraq, were forced to give up their home countrys citizenship; they lost their right to return and were
coerced into Israels population exchange.31
Mizrahi, Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews: Real or Fabricated Ethnicities?
On a linguistic and historical basis, contemporary Jewish identities are riddled with confusion and
idiosyncrasies. It can generally be agreed that Ashkenazi Jews are of European origin, although some scholars may
argue that even European Jewry at some point originated from the Middle East. The term Ashkenazi comes from
the word for Germany, and Ashkenazi are those Jews whose religious practice and Diaspora path can be traced
through Germany.32 Sephardi Jews, on the other hand, are Jews who can trace their ancestry back to the Iberian
Peninsula/Renaissance Spain (present day Spain and Portugal), before they were exiled. These Jews spoke (and in
some places continue to speak) Ladino (Judeo-Espaol).33 The majority of the confusion arises when
distinguishing between Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews. Although numerous Jews will define Sephardim simply as
Jews who are not Ashkenazim, many contemporary Israelis will distinguish (sometimes harshly) between the
differences between Sephardim and Mizrahim. According to author Kaye/Kantrowitz, some Sephardim resent
the blurring of distinctions between themselves and Mizrahim, reacting with pride in their history and with

27

Yoav Peled, Towards a Redefinition of Jewish Nationalism in Israel? The Enigma of Shas. Ethnic and Racial Studies. Vol. 21, No. 4 (July 1998), 712.
Ibid., 713.
29
Ibid.
30
Shohat (1988), 20.
31
Massad, 58.
32
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz. The Color of Jews. (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2007), 87-88.
33
Ibid., 81.
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Eurocentric bias against non-Europeans, referring to themselves as true or pure Sephardim.34 Put bluntly: the
ethnic terms can designate different groups of people depending on who is providing the definition. Scholar
Herzog notes that the designation of Sephardi is generally found to have softer and more positive
connotations than the term Mizrahi, which is generally considered to be more stigmatizing and political in
nature.35
Another Hebrew term deeply rooted in Israeli public discourse Edot haMizrah literally translates to the
Eastern ethnic communities. This label derives from an Oriental perspective and continues to carry cultural
prejudices against Mizrahi Jews that separates them as non-European, others, and degenerates.36 If and
when Mizrahim finally assimilate into the Ashkenazi Israeli society, they are considered successful graduates from
the modernization process and may, in theory, be able to forward themselves up the cultural ladder to
Ashkenazi Israeli identity.37 Furthermore, Sami Chetrit notes that, The Ashkenazi Zionist hegemony considers
such assimilation as a success, the erasure of Arabness from the Jews of the Arab world. Radical Mizrahim may
even refer to this systematic process as Ashkenazation implying that the assimilated Mizrahim have been
disarmed of their cultural assets.38
Scholar Ella Shohat questions the terminology that often goes along categorically with Israeli immigration. She
maintains, None of the terms aliya (ascendency), yetzia (exit), exodus, expulsion, immigration, exile, refugees,
expatriates, and population exchange seems adequate.39 She goes on to bring up multiple vital questions
pertaining to the influx of Mizrahim during the initial years of Israels statehood, including questions that sound
deceivingly simple, but actually resonate much more complex answers: Did Arab Jews want to stay? Did they
want to leave? Did they exercise free will?...Once in Israel, did they want to go back? Were they able to do so? And
did they regret the impossibility of returning?40 Shohat emphasizes that the ingathering of Jewish immigrants
to Israel seems less natural when one takes into account the circumstances forcing their departure.41 Some of
these examples include the so-called population exchanges between Israel and neighboring Arab nations, the
anti-Jewish propaganda that began to infiltrate many Arab communities, and the generalization of labeling all
Jews as Zionists after the creation of Israel.42
While Jews from Arab nations may have previously identified themselves as Arab-Jews, Iraqi Jews,
Moroccan Jews etc., the transformation of Arab Jews into Mizrahim did not occur until the immigrants
physically reached Israel. Shohat labels this transformation of Arab Jew into Mizrahim as a largely colonial-settler

34

Ibid., 82.
Hanna Herzog and Nissim Mizrachi. Participatory Destigmatization Strategies among Palestinian Citizens, Ethiopian Jews, and Mizrahi Jews in Israel.
Ethnic and Racial Studies. Vol. 35, No. 3 (March 2012): 423.
36
Chetrit (2010), 17.
37
Ibid., 20.
38
Ibid., 20-21.
39
Ella Shohat. "Zionist Discourse and the Study of Arab Jews." Social Text. Vol. 21, No. 2 (Summer 2003): 55.
40
Ibid.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid., 55-56.
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enterprise.43 This argument moreover encompasses the notion that Zionist discourse erased the Arab Jewish
memory as well as its history, and in a sense, hijacked Jews from their Judeo-Islamic political geography and
subordinated them into the European Jewish chronicle.44 Arab Jews, upon immigrating to Israel, for the first
time in their history, faced the imposed dilemma of choosing between Jewishness and Arabness in a geopolitical
context that perpetuated the equation between Arabness, Middle Easterners, and Islam on the one hand, and
Jewishness, Europeaness, and Westerners on the other.45 Shohat furthermore investigates the linguistic and
conceptual history of Mizrahi Jews as a cohesive ethnic group. She critically proposes that the idea of Mizrahim
have been, at least partly, invented with Zionism.46 While many Jews living within Muslim majority
communities previously identified themselves as Arab-Jews, this has become a taboo form of self-identification
within modern Israeli society. The state wishes to emphasize the separation between the two ethnicities of people,
and erase any kind of Judeo-Arab identity and history that once existed. The rise of Zionism and Arab
nationalism, along with the implementation of partitions as colonial solution for regional conflicts, impacted the
identity designations of Jews in the Arab Muslim worldTheir religion (Jewishness) was rapidly turning into a
national marker in the international arena.47 After Israel gained its statehood in 1948, it became impossible for
many Jews in the Middle East to maintain their Jewish identity within the explosive politics in the region during
that time.48 After their immigration to Israel, Jews from Muslim majority countries saw their religion (which they
previously may have only used a one of multiple identity markers) become their dominant source of
identification. These immigrants Arabness became marginalized (if not completely erased). Shohat emphasizes,
that while living in the Arab world, their Jewish identity (associated now with Zionism) may have been subjected
to surveillance, and similarly whilst in Israel their affiliation with an Arab cultural geography wasdisciplined
and punished.49
It is imperative to keep these ideas about ethnic identity in mind when considering the correlation between
Israels ethnic hierarchy and its Oriental roots. According to scholar Aziza Khazzoom, in the instance of racism in
Israel (and certainly, in other colonialist-affected regions) categorization prefigured exclusion.50 Khazzoom also
emphasizes the direct correlation between the power of classification [racialization] and forms of domination that
follow. She adopts Edward Saids analysis concerning the relationship between categorization and exclusion, and
states: The effect of Orientalism on Jewish identity was massive. Group boundaries informed by Orientalism
served not only to integrate Jews into their host hierarchies but also to integrate disparate Jewish communities in

43

Ibid.
Ibid., 59.
45
Ibid., 62.
46
Ibid., 51.
47
Ibid., 53.
48
Ibid.
49
Ibid., 54.
50
Aziza Khazzoom. The Great Chain of Orientalism: Jewish Identity, Stigma Management, and Ethnic Exclusion in Israel. American Sociological Review.
Vol. 68, No. 4 (August 2003): 483.
44

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hierarchical, transnational structure that shaped interaction both before and after immigration to Israel.51
The Birth of Development Towns (Ayarot Pituah): Housing discrimination and Ghettozation
Following the massive influx of immigrants after the founding of Israel, the government decided to build and
settle newly arrived immigrants in Development Towns (Ayarot Pituah). The Development Town program
established 28 towns throughout the 1950s. Scholar Oren Yiftachel emphasizes the ethnic and class relations
evident in their planning.52 Yiftachel defines Israeli Development Towns as urban settlements built or
significantly expanded by the Israeli Statefor the settlement of immigrants. The towns were mainly inhabited by
Mizrahi Jews of a low socioeconomic background, and [more] recently by a wave of Russian and Ethiopian
immigrants.53 By 1995 Development Towns encompassed approximately 20.9% or 1.09 million inhabitants of
Israels population. These towns were reserved almost exclusively for Mizrahim, especially North African Jews,
rather than Ashkenazi immigrants, and were, in theory, meant to accelerate and advance the development or
modernization of the immigrants housed within the communities.54 Geographically, the Development Towns
were located in remote, undesirable locations. Economically, the towns were frequently dependent on a single
factory or business overseen by the State, Histadrut [National Labor Union], or an Ashkenazi enterprise owner.
The Development Towns were often cited as highly undeveloped with high levels of unemployment and poor
health and educational services available to the residents.55 In addition to the Development Towns, Mizrahim
were also settled in cooperative Moshavim. However, these cooperative villages stood in contrast to the Ashkenazi
Moshavim, which typically were rich settlements with good land, machinery and livestock, while the Mizrahi
Moshavim were settled on some of the States worst land, and given paltry resources to succeed.56
Immigrants generally moved to Development Towns due to a lack of other feasible (or affordable) options.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s, these towns predominantly became populated by North African Mizrahi Jews who
fit the description of low-income and low-skilled.57 Some Development Towns encompassed populations that
were 99% Mizrahi (such as Netivot), with multiple others trailing closely behind. Yiftachel emphasizes that
although nowhere in policy documents or planning discourse would one find goals of Mizrahi marginalization or
stratificationthe practices of planners spawned a clear social geography of deprivation and inequality.58 Over
half a century after the conception of Israels Development Towns, the inhabitants therein continue to lag behind
other Israelis in areas such as mean salaried income, mobility level, employment level, and higher education, and
are substantially more dependent on the States welfare system.59

51

Ibid., 482-483.
Oren Yiftachel. Social Control, Urban Planning and Ethno-Class Relations: Mizrahi Jews in Israels Development Towns. International Journal of Urban
and Regional Research. Vol. 24.2 (June 2000): 418.
53
Ibid., 420.
54
Massad, 58.
55
Ibid.
56
Ibid.
57
Yiftachel, 423.
58
Ibid.
59
Ibid., 429.
52

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The view of the Mizrahi Jew as primitive and in need of modernization was apparent not only within Israeli
public and governmental discourse but had an overarching impact within Israels state education system as well. It
was considered the responsibility of the education system to resocialize the new, young generations of
Mizrahim, and thereby turn them into loyal Zionists.60 One may conclude, therefore, that Zionism has been
deeply ingrained into the Israeli Jewish population via its educational system since its inception as a state.
According to scholar Uri Ram, the invention of the Jewish national tradition was disseminated and propagated to
young Israelis systematically via the Israeli education system, especially under the direction of Ben Zion Dinur,
who served as Israels Minister of Education and Culture.61 This was primarily accomplished with the help of the
statist State Education Law of 1953, which brought to a peak a trend of the national regulation of the structure
and content of education in Israel. The overarching ambition of the State Education Law and Zionist education in
general was the forging of a new Jewish type a national Jew.62 The Dinur model of education affected
generations of graduates of Israeli schools, and by extension Jews all over the world, especially in the USA, it
seems obvious that there is, that there always had been, a Jewish nation, and that this nation had been on the
move back to the land of Israel ever since it was expelled form it. The Zionist movement invented a tradition and
constructed a nation, one which did not exist, and would not have existed, if not for the Zionist initiative.63
Within Israeli schools, Mizrahi and Palestinian children are often:
Condemned to study a history of the world that privileges the achievements of the West, while effacing the
civilizations of the EastThe Zionist master-narrative has little in place for either Palestinians or Sephardim,
but while Palestinians possesses a clear counter narrative, the Sephardi story is a fractured one embedded in the
history of both groups. Distinguishing the evil East (the Moslem Arab) from the good East (the Jewish Arab),
Israel has taken upon itself to cleanse the Sephardim of their Arab-ness and redeem them from their primal
sin of belonging to the Orient. Israeli historiography absorbs the Jews of Asia and Africa into the monolithic
official memory [of] European Jews.64

Immigration continues: 1970s-90s Ethiopian Jews and Soviet Immigrants

Ethiopian Jews immigrated to Israel primarily within two orchestrated waves of immigration: Operation Moses
in 1984-5, and Operation Solomon in 1991. Over 80,000 Ethiopian Jews currently reside in Israel.65 The response
of the Jews worldwide to accept Ethiopian Jews has varied considerably on the spectrum of support to denial of
the communities true Judaic roots.66 In general, Sephardic and Mizrahi Rabbis (and their affected communities)
are more accepting of Ethiopian Jews and their traditions, while denial of the Ethiopians as Jews continues to
persist among Ashkenazim communities especially at the ultra-orthodox level. According to scholars Diane
Tobin, Gary A. Tobin, and Scott Rubin, Whether ancient or new, a distinctive trait of African communities

60

Chetrit (2010), 34.

Uri Ram, Israeli Nationalism: Social Conflicts and the Politics of Knowledge. (New York: Routledge, 2011) 19.
62
Ibid., 20.
63
Ibid., 26.
64
Shohat (1988), 7-8.
61

65
66

Uri Ben-Eliezer. "Becoming a Black Jew: Cultural Racism and Anti-Racism in Contemporary Israel."Social Identities. No. 2 (2004): 246.
Kaye/Kantrowitz 86-87.

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results from historical isolation from rabbinic Judaism. Their Judaism has either been passed on through oral
tradition or is practiced as pre-Talmudic Torah-based Judaism.67 Referencing the influx of Ethiopian Jews, BenEliezer explains: The state [of Israel] declared a policy of assimilation, but in practice relegated the new arrivals to
a status of inferiority and marginality.68 Recent data implies that between 65% and 72% of Israeli-Ethiopian
children, and thereby also their families, currently live below the poverty line.69 Following their arrival in Israel,
the majority of these Ethiopian Jews were placed in Development Towns or various other state-subsidized
housing. While discrimination against Mizrahim is often associated to their Arab culture or familial origin,
racism against Ethiopian Jews tends to be more directly linked to their phenotype or darker skin tone. In contrast
to Jews, the identity of Ethiopian Jews is firmly positioned within the Jewish-Israeli national identity. Also
contrary to Arabs, Ethiopian Jews fervently downplay their ethno-racial identity when experiencing racism.70
Around the same time period, a large wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union also occurred.
Although an initial influx of Soviet Jews occurred from 1969-70, the number of Soviet immigrants increased to
approximately 850,000 during the late 1980s. These Russian immigrants are primarily Ashkenazi and are
frequently referred to by Israelis as simply (and not always accurately) as Rusim (Russians).71
However, these immigrants faced a different welcoming and absorption process than the Ethiopian
immigrants did. Unlike most of the immigrants from the former USSR, Ethiopians were considered an
immigration of distress (aliyat metsuka) that required bureaucratic attention before beginning a normal way of
life.72 Russian immigrants were incorporated into a contemporary method of direct absorption whereby the
immigrants often were free to choose their own residency and were given sums of grant money from the state
rather than direct welfare-type services. Although Ethiopians were not doused with DDT like Mizrahim decades
earlier upon entering Israel, they were unlike the recent Soviet Immigrants strongly encouraged to adapt new
Israeli names as a means of cultural assimilation.73 The new situation in Israel reflected more a multiplicity of
cultures than a multicultural democracy. This was clearly evinced by the attitude towards the Ethiopians, who
arrived in Israel.74 Although Ethiopian Jews were originally granted immigration rights to Israel based upon the
states Law of Return, the Ashkenazi Rabbinical authority questions the legitimacy of their Judaism. Meanwhile,
the immigrants from Russia Jews and non-Jews did not collectively have to undergo stringent religious tests
in order to buy their right to live in Israel, it gradually became clear to the Ethiopian Jews that they were being
discriminated against due to their skin-colour and the perception that they are different or that they do not look

67

Ibid., 86.
Ben-Eliezer 245.
69
Epstein, Jerome M. "Bias towards Ethiopian Jews." The Jerusalem Post, December 13, 2012, 15.
70
Herzog et al., 426.
71
Benjamin Acosta. The Dynamics of Israels Democratic Tribalism. Middle East Journal, Vol. 68, No. 2 (Spring 2014): 274.
68

72

Ben-Eliezer, 248.
Ibid., 248-249.
74
Ibid., 249.
73

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like Jews.75 Some Ethiopian Jews view the Chief Rabbinates attitude as another sign of Israeli support for
separation of Jewish sects and ethnicities.76 Ben-Eliezer confirms this interpretation as accurate, and goes on to
explain that the Chief Rabbinate and other Israelis took a stand against those they believed might threaten (or
contaminate) the particularity (or the purity) of a Jewish religious-national state. Thus, the attitude of religious
institutions towards Ethiopian Jews was fundamentally racist.77
This cultural racism, which started at a high religious level towards the Ethiopian Jews soon trickled down to
the societal level. A huge scandal broke in 1996, which revealed that Israeli blood banks had not used the blood
donations of Ethiopians for the past twelve years. Moreover, Ethiopians faced racism at an educational level as
well much like Mizrahim have for decades throughout the 1990s, there were multiple instances of white
families removing their children from schools that they felt had too many Ethiopian students, and Ethiopian
students being denied access to schools that already had large Ethiopian populations.78 One teenage interviewee of
Ben-Eliezer puts this cultural racism bluntly: In Ethiopia we were Jews, here [in Israel] we are blacks.79
Zionism Origins and History
Like many contested terms, there is no single definition for Zionism the meaning and practices associated
with the term and movement depend largely on the person or group defining it. However, for most Jews, Zionism
is a movement of national self-determination designed to restore their right to live in the land of their
ancestors.80 The concept of Zionism dates back to the late 1800s, when individuals and small pockets of
European Jewry gradually came to terms that full integration into European society as Haskalah
(Enlightenment) advocates had promised would not come to fruition. This realization, which undoubtedly
correlated with rising anti-Semitism and pogroms in Europe, prompted the birth of the Zionist movement.
Zionist thought borrowed ideas from other European nationalist movements, and argued that, the respect Jews
sought could not be attained by assimilation into European society but instead by striking out on their own, in
their own country, building their own nationalist pride.81 While Zionist ethno-nationalism resembled other
European nationalist discourses, Zionism, unlike them, needed to seek out a territory for immigration and
colonization. Thus, as a settlement movement, Zionism bears important similarities to other European colonial
societies established through territorial struggle with native peoples.82
Zionism, in many ways, was ironically a cultural progression towards European acceptance, rather than away

75

Ibid., 253.
Ibid.
77
Ibid.
78
Ibid., 254-256.
79
Ibid., 259. This brings about the theoretical question, does the presence of darker skinned Ethiopian Jews of the past two decades, somehow enhance the
whiteness and Israeliness of Mizrahim? Does the presence of darker-skinned Africans somehow make the Mizrahim more acceptable to Israeli nationalism
and more Western in the eyes of Ashkenazi Jews?
80
Mohammed Abu-Nimer and Simona Sharoni, The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in Understanding the Contemporary Middle East, edited by Jillian
Schwedler, 175-221. (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publichers Inc., 2013) 185.
76

81
82

Khazzoom, 499.
Yoav Peled and Gershon Shafir. Citizenship and Stratification in an Ethnic Democracy. Ethnic and Racial Studies. Vol. 21, No. 3 (May 1998): 414.

13
from it. Theodor Herzl, considered one of the original fathers of Zionism, wrote that Zionism strove to form a
portion of the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism, whereby he
intended to theoretically place Jews on the Western side of the East/West dichotomy, rather than with the
Orientals in the East.83 An early quote from David Ben Gurion similarly emphasizes the promotion of
Eurocentrism in Israeli society, We do not want Israelis to become Arabs. We are duty bound to fight against the
spirit of the Levant.84 When analyzing such early examples of European Jews being marginalized and
discriminated against in their countries of origin, a linear path may be drawn to the European Zionist settlers
domination of Arabs, and Eastern Jews upon their immediate arrival in Palestine (and later, in Israel). According
to scholar Aziza Khazzoom, Jewish orientalizers occupied a complex position vis-a-vis orientalism because it was
out of their own experience of being classified that the move to classify others arose. Dominating others, in other
words, was an integral part of, and a direct reaction to, the experience of being dominated.85 Thus, since the
initial settlement of European Zionists in Palestine, the commonly accepted notion among Ashkenazi Jews has
been that since Mizrahim are not Western or industrialized they are thereby not self-conscious philosophical
thinkers and inherently not Zionist by intellect or nature.86
Finally, from Zionisms historiographical perspective, Jews from Arab-majority countries appear only once
they have arrived in Israel.87 In other words, the history and rich culture of Oriental Jews prior to 1948 and/or
their arrival in Israel (whichever occurred first to each individual) is considered for all practical purposes nonexistent, and at the very least unimportant and disjointed from Israeli culture and history. Everything conspires
to cultivate the impression that Sephardi culture prior to Zionism was static and passive and, like the fallow land
of Palestine, lying in wait for the impregnating infusion of European dynamism.88
Nationality as a Construct: Zionism and State-Identity Conflicts
Scholar Sammy Smooha defines an ethnic democracy as a society driven by ethnic nationalism, whereby the
state is identified with a core ethnic nation rather than a society defined by its citizens.89 Scholar Benjamin
Acosta elaborates that the ethnic democracy model captures much of Israels early experience with democracy,
wherein the Ashkenazi hegemony hoisted the preferences of its own ethnic group over that of other Israeli
citizens, including non-Ashkenazi Jews.90 According to Acosta, Israeli national identity derives from territorial,
political, and ideological signifiers: the land of Israel, democracy, and Zionism.91 Like all historic nationalist
movements, the Jewish-Israeli nationality is modern construct based on the themes of unity and continuity of the

83

Khazzoom, 499-500.
Ibid.
85
Khazzoom, 503-504.
86
Khazzoom, 500-501.
87
Shohat (1988), 8.
88
Ibid., 9.
89
Acosta, 271.
90
Ibid.
91
Acosta, 270.
84

14
ostensible nation.92 During Israels first three decades of statehood, and to some extent today, this nationalism
was widely accepted by multitudes of Israeli and non-Israeli Jews, as well as Westerners in general. However,
based on the notion that nationality and nationhood were constructed by the state, they may also be contested by
its participants.93 Indeed, this is what has transpired within Jewish-Israeli society over the last few decades.
During its first few decades as a state and to various extents before statehood Israels homogenization of
cultures encouraged, and at times demanded, assimilation by all immigrants to the Ashkenazi Zionist vision. This
required, at least on a superficial level, new immigrants from all over the world to rid themselves of their previous
languages, cultures, and customs. All aspects of Jewish life which did not fit this scheme were tarnished, ignored,
or modified to accord with the Zionist grand narrative, such is largely the case with Oriental Jewish culture,
heritage, language, and customs in Israel.94 Due to their close cultural ties and physical resemblance of Arabs, the
treatment of Mizrahi Jews was particularly brutal. The ongoing Arab-Jewish conflict inside and outside Israels
borders only encouraged harsh and derogatory treatment of Israels Mizrahim.95 Gradually, such stigmatization
and racism from the Ashkenazi hegemony within Israel contributed to the widespread Mizrahi disassociation
from everything Arab, including their own culture. This ideological dilemma forced Mizrahim to view
Judaism and Zionism as synonyms, while regarding Jew and Arab as antonyms, and to furthermore define
Arabs as the enemy.96 Because Arab and Eastern association led many Mizrahi Jews only to further rejection by
the Ashkenazi hegemony in Israel, the Mizrahim thereby went on to attempt to conform to Israels Eurocentric
idealism and ultimately many attempted to whitewash themselves of their own unique culture. Despite
contemporary media and scholars labeling and accusing Mizrahim of being Arab-haters, it is truly, In the
classic play of colonial specularity, the East came to view itself through the Wests distorting mirrorArabhatred, when it occurs among Oriental Jews is almost always a disguised form of self-hatred and is furthermore a
phenomena that was made in Israel rather than brought into the state by Mizrahi immigrants.97
Contemporary critics, including Yehouda Shenhav, argue that the dichotomy of us versus them does not work
in regards to the categories of Mizrahi Jews and Arabs. Furthermore, the context of colonialism is crucial to
analyzing the initial relationship and encounters among Mizrahi Jews and early European Zionist settlers in
Palestine and Israel.98 Religion, both historically and currently, plays a key role in the construction of ethnic
identity among Arab-Jews.99 Mizrahim were indirectly coerced into becoming more religious Jews in order to
distance themselves culturally from non-Jewish Arabs in Israel in order to gain acceptance, and participate, within
the Israeli Ashkenazi hegemony. In fact, in order to accrue an Israeli-Jewish identity, Arab-Jews must adopt a

92

Ram, 9.
Ibid.
94
Ibid., 26.
95
Yiftachel, 432-433.
96
Shohat (1988), 25.
97
Ibid.
98
Shenhav, 78.
99
Ibid., 75-76.
93

15
stronger religious and Zionist identity than their Ashkenazi counterparts and at the same time renounce their
Arab ethnic identity.100 One may thereby conclude that religion became an ethnic and national marker for
Mizrahim.101 Mizrahim, upon their arrival in Israel, had no choice but to actively practice and accentuate their
religiousness in order to participate in the Zionist discourse, as well as to gain social leverage and acceptance over
Arab Muslims and Christians.
Israeli Political Parties and Their Correlation to Race-relations and Ethnic Groups
As an outsider, one may wonder As lower and working-class citizens of Israel, why did Mizrahim not
naturally become supporters of left-wing politics? According to multiple scholars, including Benjamin Acosta,
Mizrahim generally resisted leftist political persuasions, unified under a common experience of disaffection and
maltreatment by the ruling left-wing Ashkenazi elite, and then set out to promote their own cultural and
ideological thoughts.102 This theory is reflected in Israels 1977 landmark election, whereby the RevisionistZionist Likud party rose to power with prominent backing from the Mizrahim and especially from Development
Town populations. This election reflected the maturing of the Mizrahim as a political force.103 The rejection by
Mizrahim of Western and secular/Leftist ideals is primarily due to the groups submissive role under the Leftwing Labor partys rule throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Secularism, democratic socialism, and other values
and beliefs ingrained in the Ashkenazi European experience do not constrain the Mizrahi vision of Zionisms
future.104 Contemporary scholars of Israeli politics argue about the reality of the Left and Right political
camps within their society. Many claim, including the New Mizrahim, that while Labor historically branded itself
as a Leftist party for the working class, in reality it enabled only the elite within Israel.105 Additionally, there is
evidence that Political manipulation of Mizrahi immigrants began virtually on their arrival, and at times even
before, when Israeli party recruiters competed for Sephardi allegiance in the Oriental countries of origins. In
Israel, the immigrants were met in airports not only by the officials in charge of arrival procedures, but also by
representatives of the various parties, who parceled out the Sephardim along the existing political spectrum.106
During the 1950s-1960s Mizrahim and Development Town populations frequently voted in favor of the Labor
party, but this voting bloc made a shift in its voting patterns beginning in the 1970s. This massive change in voting
has helped the Likud party maintain power and influence within Israeli politics since the 1970s. Recently,
however, Mizrahim voters, especially residents of Development Towns, have curtailed their votes again, and
supported more right-wing aligned religious parties rather than the Likud bloc.107 Labors electoral upset to Likud
in 1977 is frequently referred to as the Mizrahi protest vote or the Mizrahi Ballot Rebellion, and furthermore

100

Ibid., 79.
Ibid., 73.
102
Acosta, 272.
103
Ibid., 273.
104
Ibid.
105
Shohat (1988), 20.
106
Ibid., 28-29.
107
Yiftachel, 430.
101

16
that approximately a third of the overall Knesset seats in the 1981 election were decided by one of the greatest
ethnic protest votes in the history of ethnic struggles.108 During the early 1980s, many Mizrahim went on to see
Likud as their independent political home, but Mizrahim participating within the Likud party were ultimately
unsuccessful in dictating its agenda for their benefit; their main failure was not being able to turn around the
partys liberal capitalist economic ideology and policies.109 While the Mizrahi vote was vital in bringing Likud to
power in 1977 (and beyond), it is essential to point out that since Likuds rise to power over the last few decades,
the socioeconomic positions of Development Towns have remained stagnant, while Mizrahi household income
and education have fallen further behind that of the Ashkenazim.110
A Rift in the Israeli Political Hegemony
HaPanterim Shhorim were founded at the end of 1970. These Israeli Black Panthers borrowed their name
from the now infamous African-American organization. The name was suitable not merely for its reference to an
ethnically divided society but also to denote a parallel condition taking place in Israel, as well as in North
America.111 The first large-scale demonstration that the group held was on March 3rd 1971, in front of Jerusalems
City Hall building. The groups demonstrations continued unabated through August, and grew crowds between
five and ten thousand people. Their demands included the elimination of slum-housing, free education and
housing for the needy, higher wages for the working class, especially those supporting large families, and the full
representation of Mizrahim in all institutions.112 Demonstrations and protests sparked by the initial March 3rd
demonstration, continued through the Spring of the following year, and spread into Tel Aviv.
Over the following years the Black Panthers attempted to establish themselves as a political party, the Black
Panthers-Israeli Democrats, and merged with the Israeli Democrats. However, in the 1972 elections they failed to
gain political traction (partly as a result of the recent Arab-Israeli War) and ultimately did not win a single Knesset
seat. The group splintered shortly thereafter due to internal disagreements. However, despite the Black Panthers
failure to enter Israeli mainstream politics, their impact was far-reachingthe Panthers struggle was organized
around a self-conscious identity encompassing all Mizrahim. It was after the rise of the movement that Mizrahim
began openly demanding cultural rights.113 The movement helped spark Mizrahi political consciousness as
never before, and influenced both Conservative and Radical movements and political parties in the following years
after their disbandment.114
One such party who embraced the political discourse that the Black Panthers unveiled was TAMI. Formed in
1981, TAMI ultimately disappeared from the political map. According to scholar Sami Chetrit, TAMIs failure was

108

Chetrit (2010), 141.

Ibid., 142.
110
Massad, 65; and Yiftachel, 430.
111
Massad, 62.
112
Ibid.
113
Ibid., 64.
114
Sami Shalom Chetrit, Mizrahi Politics in Israel: Between Integration and Alternative. University of California Press on behalf of the Institute for
Palestinian Studies. Vol. XXIX, No. 4 (Summer 2000): 53.
109

17
due to the fact that the party did not succeed in offering an alternative to the Ashekanazi Zionist hegemony it had
abandoned.115 Despite TAMIs failure as a political party, the disillusionment of the Mizrahi intellectuals who
left TAMI stimulated the growth of a new Mizrahi discourse.116 Almost immediately thereafter, the controversial
Shas party gained momentum. The Sephardi-Mizrahi party Shas (literally meaning, Sephardi Tora observers) was
established in the mid-1980s. The party is generally described as orthodox religious and went on to capture a
majority of the votes (compared to both Labor and Likud) in many Development Towns in the 1996 elections and
1999 elections.117 Although exact numbers are hard to come by, a growing number of Mizrahim are gradually
forming an identity group that Acosta labels as the New Zionist Coalition, which is formed around cultural
politics and encompasses ideologies stemming from both Revisionist and Religious Zionism this new Zionist
Coalition forms a supportive base for the Shas political party.118 The Shas party has succeeded in Israel as a
Mizrahi-backed political party due to its integrative, rather than separatist, ideology. Shas seeks to replace secular
Zionism with religious Judaism as the hegemonic ideology in Israeli society, and presents this as the remedy for
both socio-economic and the cultural grievances of its constituency.119 Through this lens, a restoration of Jewish
values is presented as a remedy for both the cultural and the socio-economic plight of the Mizrahim.120
During Israels 1996 election, Mizrahim responded to the Shas formula in unprecedented numbers and Shas
became the second-largest party that Mizrahi communities, especially Development Towns, supported (after
Likud).121 In fact, following the 1996 elections, high correlations were found by political analysts between voting
for Shas and average household income, as well as voting for Shas and the percentage of Ashkenazim living in the
community. Thus, within communities where the largest percentage of Mizrahim lived which were also in the
lowest income bracket, the share of the vote that Shas received was twice its national average. Shas electoral
success has been commonly interpreted as a separatist reaction against the denigration of traditional Mizrahi
culture by the Ashkenazi-dominated institutions of Israeli society.122 The Shas party is strongly tied to religion
and continues to center its political action and supportive base within synagogues and yeshivas (Orthodox Jewish
secondary schools and religious seminaries), which function as hundreds of local branches of the movement
across the state.123 Interestingly, Shas chooses to reject the term Mizrahi and prefers to self-identify as Sephardi.
Shas disowns the Mizrahi identity because Sephardi defines identity in a purely religious frame, where absolute
control of the Sephardi Jewish agenda is possible. 124 Additionally, the party chooses to abandon the Mizrahi
identity out of fear that the connotation of Mizrahim may potentially include those who are secular, or anyone

115

Ibid., 56.
Ibid., 56-7.
117
Yiftachel, 430.
118
Acosta, 269.
119
Peled, 703.
120
Ibid., 718.
121
Ibid.
122
Ibid., 718-719.
123
Chetrit (2000), 57.
124
Chetrit (2010), 18.
116

18
strictly non-Jewish.
Post-Zionism and the New Mizrahim
Although the historical Zionist ideology and Ashkenazi hegemonic culture continue to dominate mainstream
Israeli society, counter-movements have emerged. Israeli scholar Uri Ram defines Post-Zionism as an alternative
theory budding in Israel of a counter-hegemonic to Zionist ethno-Jewish identity; an alternative that indicates a
potential of an inclusionary nationality, based on territorial or constitutional membership in the nation, rather
than upon mythical origins of ancestry and belonging.125 While Post-Zionism diverges from the traditional
Zionism in its demand for the opening of the boundaries of the nation beyond the Jewish ethnic group to include
all the citizenry; yet it likewise deviates from the anti-Zionist discourse by recognizing Israel as a legitimate
political shell for its citizens.126 Post-Zionism first emerged as a theory in 1993, and can be organized into four
distinct approaches: post-national, post-modern, post-colonial and post-Marxist.127 The notions of postmodernist and post-colonial Post-Zionism are the strands that most directly correlate to the topic at hand of intraJewish systematic racism within Israels society. The term and concept of post-Zionism initially entered public
discourse in Israel in 1993, but may be traced to at least one philosopher and professor, Menachem Brinker, who
in 1986 coined the Hebrew phrase tekufa betar Zionit which translates in English to the period after Zionism,
as well as to sociologist Erik Cohen who used the term publicly in 1989.128 Political theorist Hannah Arendt is,
among others, referred to as one of the first post-Zionists, or at the very least, a precursor to the theorys camp.
Uri Ram goes on to elaborate that there are even those who support the concept of post-Zionism as true
Zionism.129
The post-modernist approach to post-Zionism may be recognized as a truer form of historical Zionism,
because Zionism in its most recognized form has for many Jews and non-Jews lost its legitimacy because of faults
committed by it [on]to others.130 However, other theorists may view post-Zionism not as the maturation of
Zionism, but, on the contrary, as signaling its demise this is considered to be the post-modernist perspective.131
Another related strand of post-Zionism, the post-colonialist perspective, is found within the postmodern
perspective; this approach to post-Zionism shares the postmodernist challenge to modernity but superimposes
on the self-other dichotomy the West-East dichotomy.132 Thus, Zionism is rendered as Western while postZionism is viewed with an Eastern tilt ideally joining together Arab-Palestinian and Jewish-Oriental
identities.133 Post-Zionism may be considered as (but not exclusively) a form of Mizrahi counter-hegemonic

125

Ram, 111.
Ibid.
127
Ibid.
128
Ibid., 112.
129
Ibid., 113-115.
130
Ibid., 115.
131
Ibid., 119.
132
Ibid., 121.
133
Ibid.
126

19
politics of identity.134 Ultimately, while the post-colonial approach to post-Zionism attempts to speak in the
voice of the Orient both for the Jewish and Arab combined it currently remains almost exclusively within
the realm of the Jewish perspective; however, the possibility still exists that this theory could change and adapt
within the greater Palestinian-Arab and Israeli-Arab identities at large.135
Sami Chetrit defines the New Mizrahim as an unorganized, but growing wave of young people academics,
educators, students, artists, authors, journalists, and intellectuals who, in the past [three] decades, have created a
new discourse with their critique of Israels Ashkenazi-dominated social, economic, cultural, and political
structures. 136 The New Mizrahim refuse to view Israeli society through the Zionist dichotomy of Arabs and
Jews, nor in Terms of the Right and Left.137 However, during the late 1990s, critics argue that the radical theory
of the New Mizrahim was partially appropriated and domesticated by political theorists within the Ashkenazi
Zionist Left, and interpreted as post-Zionism.138 Thus, although Post-Zionism may encompass many of the
same theories as the new Mizrahim rhetoric, the New Mizrahim do not consider there to currently be any kind of
Israeli political Left, and prefers to completely reject the convention of Right and Left politics.139 Overall,
The New Mizrahim, and their political and cultural critique and discourse helped to allow the Mizrahi liberation
from mental dependence on Israels historical MAPAI and contemporary Labor parties.140 Significantly, the New
Mizrahim also acknowledge their unique albeit tragic position as both the oppressed (by the Ashkenazi
hegemony) and the oppressor (of the Palestinians).141
Conclusion
Although much Western and Israeli rhetoric promotes the notion of Israel as an ideal country where all Jews
are treated on equal terms, the historical and contemporary research presented in this essay portrays a different
view. Both cultural and biological racism continue at an unabated rate by the government, influential religious
leaders, and the Israeli society at large. As outlined above, the ethnicity and cultural backgrounds of hundreds of
thousands of immigrants predetermined their likelihood for assimilation and progression in areas such as
education, housing, and income. The physical racial stratification and literal labeling of ethnicities within Israel
has helped to enable further racism and inequality within the Jewish State. This essay provides an overview of
ethnic immigration patterns and intra-Jewish racism in Israel, while attempting to deconstruct the complex

134

Ibid., 122-126.
What would this imply for the peace process? Indeed, a closer look at a one-state solution and/or a bi-national solution otherwise referred to liberally as a
state of citizens (Ram, 125) is necessary. Such a solution, has as of late has been pushed completely out of the mainstream conversation regarding the
Israel-Palestine conflict; this is regrettable at best, because Post-Zionism seemingly has the ability to deliver the pertinent vision of a pluralistic and multicultural Israeli society.
136
(Chetrit 2000, 59). Many of these New Mizrahim are quoted from, and used as resources for this paper; notably, Ella Shohat.
137
Ibid. Significantly, the politically radical Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow was also established in Israel in the early 1990s known by its Hebrew name
Hakeshet Hademokratit Hamizrahit or its abbreviation Keshet. This group encompasses many individuals who may identify as New Mizrahim and viceversa. The movement, and especially member Yehuda Shenhav, used the group as well as its Theory and Criticism journal as a platform for the promotion of
the Mizrachi postcolonial perspective in Israel (Ram, 84). Sami Chetrit recognizes The Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow Coalitions founding manifesto as the
highest degree of Mizrahi political radicalism to date. (Chetrit 2000, 61).
138
Chetrit (2000), 59.
139
Chetrit (2002), 111.
140
Chetrit (2010), 142.
141
Chetrit (2002), 111.
135

20
relationship between racism, nationalism, Zionism, and Israeli politics. Although Israels systematic racism of
Jewish ethnic groups brought about hardship, and irretrievable cultural loss for many individuals and
communities, new movements and discourses continue to emerge from this stratified society that may yet prove
to alter Israels identity as a Jewish state.
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