The
Bond of Silence
Prof. Yehouda Shenhav
Prof. Yehouda Shenhav is head of the
Department of Sociology
and Anthropology at
Why do the new
historians in
On this issue
the young generation of Ashkenazi intellectuals, including the new historians, has remained loyal to the generation of its parents. The Israeli
Zionist "Left" is willing to invest its all in exposing the injustices which were
inflicted, and are still inflicted, on the Palestinians, but is not willing to take a
stand in denouncing the racism of its parents' generation toward the Mizrahi Jews. More importantly: this generation is not prepared at all to
acknowledge the urgency and centrality of the Mizrahi question. Neither the
intellectuals nor the politicians, such as Dedi Zucker, Yossi Sarid
and their friends, show any inclination on behalf of those groups which are not at the top of their list.
They flaunt "Leftist" emblems just as the generation of their parents used the
term "equality." Just as their parents were not truly egalitarians, so they are
not Leftists. The result is that lower class Mizrahis, neighborhood
activists and even Mizrahi intellectuals harbor animosity toward the
traditional "Avoda" (labor) movement as
well as its heirs.
Why is the Left so eager to deal with the Palestinian question.
and why does it ignore the Mizrahi issue, even
while participating in its exacerbation? The very fact that the young generation of the
Israeli "Left" does not identify the salient common denominator of these two
communities - Palestinians and Mizrahis - is cause for suspicion and
wonder. But the fact is readily explicable: denouncing the injustice done to the
Palestinians does not endanger the status of our contemporary Ashkenazi intellectuals. It does not
endanger their position
as a hegemonic cultural group in Israeli society or as an economic
class. It does
not endanger their self-definition as representatives of western culture in the Arab orient (or
the "Mediterranean" region, as it is euphemized for the sake of those troubled by
the term "Arab").
Dealing with the
injustices inflicted on the Palestinians earns them laurels of
humanism, the esteemed roles of slaughterers of sacred cows and seekers of peace, the badge of the rebel,
and a catharsis in light of the crime of their parents' generation. That is, the Orient -
unfamiliar, threatening, irrational - is accepted by
the "radicals" as long as it remains on the other side of the fence -like the Palestinians.
The Orient is digestible as long as it can be marked as an "other," and kept at arms'
length. In such a manner one can also understand why the Israeli Left supports separation
and the two-state solution.
Due to the same fear of the East, many Israelis, including Meretz-style
Leftists. have developed a denial of the "Mizrahi-ness"
of Mizrahi Jews, since Mizrahi Jews
cannot be turned into an "other," nor can they be cast beyond the fence; at most, one can
construct detours to bypass development towns and poverty neighborhoods.
The denial is a
method of defense: if Leftists are to recognize the injustices done to the Mizrahis and to try to redress them, they will have to change themselves
as well. They will have to relinquish their hegemonic position, to divide the national cake, and
to fit into the region as partners, not patrons. They will have to change school curricula,
beginning with higher education
and ending with kindergartens. They will be obliged to erect an academy for classical Arab music, to teach
the roots of Arab culture, to learn and teach Arab poetry and language. They will have to
give up their exclusive
identification with Europe and
From all this one can also understand the superficiality of the Left's stance towards
Palestinians. The Left is pro-Palestinian as long as the Palestinians do not demand the right of
return, as long as there is a division, as long as there exists
a separation. as long as Palestinians relinquish their houses in Talbiye and in
If the
intellectuals of the Left were truly emancipated from the myths of their parents generation they
would expose Zionism as an anti-Mizrahi European movement which arrived in the
East (whether for justified or
unjustified reasons), where it did not notice the presence of a
political entity but
only a desert in need of fertilization. If the parents and the children - the Ashkenazis - would recognize the Orient as a political
entity, they would also
discern a common denominator between Jewish Mizrahi-ness
and Muslim and Christian
Mizrahi-ness. They would understand that the
many-years' antagonism between
Mizrahi Jews and Arabs is in part a result of the
European partition between
Mizrahis and Mizrahis. But
the Israeli Left continues its conservative parents' policy of blindness and condescension.
It is clear,
therefore, why Israeli society dealt all these years in the de-politicization of the Mizrahi question. The orient was presented as a local curiosity, as a
collection of cultural artefacts such as wild-mint,
humus, Yemenite
crafts or moufleta [a Moroccan delicacy]. Any attempt
to turn it into a political
question faced de-legitimisation and denial, as would
any other social taboo.
On the one band the big parties encouraged Mizrahi-ness
at the ideological
level. Any ethnic agenda was presented as contradicting the principles of reintegrating the exiles and
national unity. In the fifties, Mizrahi political movements
were dismissed as subversive, and in the 70's the militant Mizrahi
movement known as Black Panthers was presented as a national danger. These processes of
de-politicization influenced the new historians as well. Despite their ostensible radicalism,
they do not deal in any depth with the historiography of the Middle Eastern Jews, though
issues which are crying
for attention are lying at their feet. Two small examples, quite
familiar ones: there
has never been a comprehensive, authoritative study of the Zionist manipulation of the
immigration of Yemenite Jews. For some reason, the new historians do not address this issue. None
of our contemporary intellectuals deal 5 with analogies between Yemenites refusal to
surrender to Moshav land owners and their refusal to surrender in
the Uzi Meshullam affair. In the Ashkenazi folklorist conception, the
Yemenites remained clean, obedient, Zionistic labor-lovers.
None of the new
historians - the fighters for citizens' rights - were stirred to deal with the
atrocious affair of the abduction of Yemenite children. Did any of them demand the
establishment of investigation committees? Similarly, not one of the new historians
deals seriously with any of the testimonies regarding the Zionist movement's provocation
in
Those who
experienced Mizrahi action can tell to what extent
the Ashkenazis fret with each intensification of the Mizrahis' quest for a unique identity. This fear usually receives
several typical Ashkenazi reactions. Conspicuous among them are two: the claim that there is
no point in dealing with
the historical injustices, seeing that other small ethnic groups, such
as the Poles,
the Hungarians or the Romanians suffered absorption problems, humiliation and rejection. An
additional claim is that the problem is gradually diminishing, that the gaps are closing, that
there are inter-ethnic marriages, that there are Mizrahis in
politics and that an Israeli" culture is developing. Whoever dares to claim othenwise is discredited, is named "a professional Mizrahi," is accused of attempting to turn an insult into
personal capital and of damaging national unity (national unity and consensus were always a
recruiting myth and a system
for silencing minorities). But even more absurd..
~'en: time Mizrahi intellectuals claim that there is racism in
However, to all
these claims there are persuasive answers. First, there is no doubt that the
Europeans suffered during immigration, and some were exposed to the condescension of the local
settlers, but the difference between these experiences and the humiliation of the Mizrahis is significant and decisive. There was no doubt that East
European immigrants would fit in nicely as the founders of the national culture, and a typical
middle class in Israeli
society, just as there was no doubt that the new immigrants from Russia
in the Seventies
(and the Nineties) would settle into the center of society. On the other hand, there is
no doubt that the Ethiopians will settle in as feeble," "needy Citizens,"
"a developing class." The Mizrahi
immigrants were channelled to the margins of the economy and were
discriminated against by the absorption agencies in the distribution of water, land. housing and employment.
The claim that
gaps are gradually closing has been sounded since the Fifties. The reality is the opposite,
and the correlation between origin and achievement is becoming more and more pronounced. The
gaps are not the lot of
the Desert Generation [the generation of immigrants],
they are extant amongst
the second generation and growing yet. In a study of the situation of Israeli-born children
of Mizrahi parents as compared to those of Ashkenazi parents, it was found
that in 1975, Mizrahi men made approximately 79% of
the Ashkenazis' wages. In 1992 the proportion was about 68%.
The researchers attribute
about a third of the gap to discrimination. They also focused on the younger stratum
(25-29 year olds) which improved its condition to a certain extent between 1975 and 1992. The proportion
of university graduates amongst Mizrahis was 3.3% in '75, and
rose to 7.7% in '92. among Ashkenazis
-
One of the
bitter results of the denial of Mizrahi-ness is that the second and the
third generations of Mizrahis understand their Mizrahi
identity (if at all) as an antagonism towards Ashkenazi-ness. They are Mizrahi
not through a real cultural link to their parent's land of origin, but
as a particular
Israeli identity associated with anger and frustration. This is a new "Mizrah" (East), of Israeli Mizrahis
alone.
The new Israeli
Left is not worthy of its name. It is essentially composed of Ashkenazis
who have no connection to social issues. Peace Now activists, various activists of Meretz and condescending intellectuals from the social science and
humanities faculties, are not stirred by the ugly injustices of the oppression of the masses of poor,
"the marginal," "the weak strata,"the developing
classes." The main part of the "Left" activists is affluent bourgeois, members of
the business communities, professors of business management and economics. When they speak
of peace or of returning the
territories they tie it to economic growth, to the information
revolution and to the
cultivation of excellence. Economists identified with Meretz
and Peace 'Vow unequivocally
support privatization and economic growth ("a new
The Left of Meretz is a fake Left; a Left of "liberty" (economically),
and not a Left of equality and solidarity. Even the citizen's-rights legalists of Meretz deal to a great extent with human rights according to the
liberal tradition, but they do not deal with other rights, such as claims for housing, land and education,
or with rights for developing ethnic culture. Demands for such rights they leave to Shas, to the Orthodox, and to other interest groups. In such a context,
Shimon Peres could indeed claim that the problem of the poor is that they are poor. To be
historically accurate: not
only the Left and the Labor Party are guilty in their distance from Mizrahis. Part of the guilt one must direct towards the success
of the Right in using Mizrahis and infusing them with its nationalistic and
anti-Arab symbols. In the
last two decades, one of the greatest enemies of social justice has been
David Levy, who
monopolized the "discrimination card" and turned it into vacuous rhetoric. One must
direct the same blame towards the generations of Mizrahi political activists -
Moshe Shahal, Shlomo Hillel, Shimon Shitrit, Itzhak Navon, Shoshana
Arbeli-Almozirio, Moshe Katzav,
Mordechai Ben-Porat and
many others - Mizrahis from birth, but not in consciousness, who delegitimized Mizrahi-ness as a political issue.
In the present
Knesset there is a significant number of Mizrahi
politicians. Amongst them, there is not even one who has laid out an
ordered Mizrahi social ideology. All play with the instruments,
within the field and language
of Ashkenazi hegemony. There is no true Left which will present a democratic social agenda, who will reject
the liberal discourse of Meretz and the fascist discourse of the Right. There
is no Left which will enable the Mizrahi Jews as well to be reconciled with
their Arab origins, without apology or denial, and will enable Israeli Ashkenazis
to recognize the Mizrahi-ness of the Israeli Mizrahis.
There is no Left that will enable the establishment of a Mizrahi identity
not out of conflict but out of cultural liberty. Such a Left can probably only be initiated by Mizrahim.
Note:
Leader of
a militant group which demands an investigation of the kidnapped Yemenite children's affair
(children of Yemenite and other Mizrahi immigrants who disappeared in the 1950's;
many believe they were given for adoption to Ashkenazi parents). He and his closest
followers are now imprisoned, following a violent police attack on the compound where
he and his followers were
holed-up, allegedly with a large cache of weapons.
Response to
"The Bond of Silence"
by Moshe Behar-N.Y.
In the last four
months many reactions to Professor Yehouda Shenhav's
'The Bond of Silence" (27-12-96) have appeared in the Ha 'aretz
weekend supplement. This article presented a caustic Mizrahi
criticism of the Israeli
Left, and was followed by twenty-five follow-ups: two retaliation articles (Prof Amnon
Rubinstein and Prof Saul Mishal), a shorter article
in the "People
in the Front-Line" column (Meir Gal from
Shenhav will be the first to admit that most of the theses he raised had been
sounded before in Mizrahi periodicals from the
Eighties, such as Iton Aher, Hadarhot
Hila, or Pa 'amon, which
were generally ignored by Israelis identified with the Left. Dedi
Zucker claimed that "after so much mud, Shenhav
had no room to deal with the true failures of the Left, such as
representing the economically
weak." Zucker was right, since one central
question came up in the
debate: what will happen between the Left and the Mizrahis
in the elections of
2000? Ever since
The deluge of
reactions following Shenhav's article belied any hallucination that
the so-called "Ethnic Problem" is well behind us. Indeed, Ha 'apet:, the sole democratic-pluralist daily paper in Israel,
which serves as a hospice
not only for liberal and social-democratic Leftists, but also for journalists identified with the Right-
most edges of Israeli politics, has not yet found it fitting to erect a permanent platform for a
single man or woman of those
thousands who are identified with the Mizrahi Left. I
mean a permanent platform
for a Leftist person. whether man or woman, who are Mizrahi in their socio- political consciousness (such as Shenhav, or his fourteen supportive writers), not a platform for Mizrahis by birth alone, such as David Levy, Ran Cohen or Saul Mishal.
And the same
applies to all Israeli power centers. whether economic, educational,
cultural, academic. business-oriented or artistic. As long as this change
of representation does not take place even in the press, one can safely predict that in 2004 the Left
will once again claspts pale pate and wonder "why didn't the Mizrahis vote for US?"
First published on “Ha’aretz”,
27.12.1996