'When We Were Arabs', a different approach to Jewish identity

'Arabeness is a personal identity, it is my politics, my inheritance, how I was raised, my relationship and bond to others who share in that legacy, the soil from which I emerge. Judaism is my faith and my understanding of metaphysical things. (...) I am Arab first and last. Judaism is an adjective that modifies my Arabness'.

After all, identity is a matter of personal choice and in the 21st century we are provided with a richness of conceptual frameworks and ideas to create our very specific identity. It is a matter a choice and of taste, after all.

In When We Were Arabs. A Jewish Family's Forgotten History, Massoud Hayoun wrote a memoir about his grandparents story and experiences as Jews living in Tunisia and Egypt. Interesting narratives that completes the landscape of Jewish identities in the Middle East. Which is not that easy as it might be and far from being black-and-white. However, focus to built his 'Arabeness', Hayoun is ignoring some important details while in some cases takes for granted anti-Semitic propaganda from the yellow Arab media. 

He is unhapppy with the 'de-Arabization' of the young Jews from Northern Africa, that followed the directions of the various French Zionist organisations from the end of the 19th century. Those organisations preached - through the French language - a Westernization of those cultures, that affected not only their dressing style but also the state system. Further on the Jews were used to 'colonize' the Muslim world. The critics against 'Westernization' are common at the beginning of the 20th century all over the Far and the Middle Eastern. The 'third-world'/'tiers-monde', to follow the French Marxists discourse has to do with those critics as well. But it is worth to evaluate negativelly those influences. Was it exclusively a one sided approach? What about the fact that thanks to this 'Westernization', the education for girls was made possible? Those details are not discussed at all by Hayoun. 

Hayoun is also excessively using the metaphor of the 'peaceful Arab-Jewish co-existence' in those areas. The truth is that sometimes it worked, sometimes not. Perfect peace was not and when the situation is not evaluated on a case-by-case basis it does not bring any value to an eventual understanding the Arab-Jewish relations in the Arab world. What Hayoun mentions more than once is that many problems appear following the creation of the Jewish state and sometimes even 'Zionist' themselves created such skirmishes in order to speed up the migration to Israel. Nothing, for instance, about the alliances between Nazi Germany and some states and religious leaders in the area. Or, about how the anti-Semitism originated in those areas - yes, it is an example of 'Westernization' that Hayoun aparently missed when preparing his research.  

Plus, there is the clear bias that I've seen repeated ad nauseam about the anti-Mizrahim attitude of the founders of the state of Israel. Indeed, someone coming from a Polish shtetl,for instance, might have had difficulties in understanding the mentality of let's say, a Jew from Yemen, and the other way round. But there were and are so many nuances and special stories that deserve more than being omitted in the sea of injustice and frustration. 

This clear bias affects at a great extent the quality of the memoir, which has a couple of interesting information about the specific Jewish communities in Egypt and Tunisia. Unfortunatelly the 'ideological' parts are unfortunatelly the only coherent ones, as the story of his grandparents is lost among irrelevant details about half-baked cultural theories. And this is exactly why I was interested in reading this book, for revealing the richness of particular communities and the stories of its people.  

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

The 'Spies of No Country'

There is so much discussion in the late decade in Israel about the need to insert the fate and story of Jews from the Arab lands into the national narrative. It is a topic which creates polemics, unusual approaches and passion, a lot of it. Although right now, the situation is naturally improving, with a higher rate of inter-marriage between European and 'Mizrahim', as well  as a co-existence in the larger, religious realm - especially in the 'settlements' the academic and factual research is still half-way. There are so many stories and histories that need to be told and recollected. It is a long and delicate process that will probably require a serious reconsideration of the original state narrative. The only condition is to be considered on an academic, less emotional and more realistic perspective. Discrimination - it was an probably persists. Alienation - it was there too, especially for the first generation relocating to Israel. Frustration and misunderstanding where as well. However, besides various political and social stereotypes, the things moved in a direction that doesn't necessarily correspond to the initial plan of the founders of Zionism.

Matti Friedman, in his latest book Spies of No Country. Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel expressed very clearly this new reality: 'Israel in this century makes sense only through a Middle Eastern lens, which is one reason that Westerners find it harder and harder to figure out. Trying to navigate today's Israel with stories about Ben Gurion and pioneers will work only slightly better than trying to navigate today's Manhattan with stories about Thomas Jefferson and pilgrims. New stories are needed to better explain this plan'.

The book - based on intensive documentation, interviews and new declassified files at Israel's military archives - is mostly about the fate of 4 different Jews from Arab lands that in their early 20s become spies for Israel. They were the 'mista'aravim' - the ones who become like Arabs, initially part of a section created by the Palmach. 

One might expect secret encounters, special transmission tools and a lot of adventures. In fact, they were the most 'atypical' spies you've heard about: most of the time, they were selling school supplies from a kiosk in Lebanon. Some even visited the family members left in the towns they were sent. Their work is taking place in a time when neighbouring Arab armies invaded the then 'Palestine'  - an aspect willingly obliterated from the contemporary discussions about the pre-1948 Israel. At the same time, they were also keeping an eye on the Germans that at the end of the war found refuge in those countries -  especially Syria and Egypt were safe heaven for many members of the Nazi scientific  establishment. 

Why the stories of those four 'mista'aravim' are important? Matti Friedman doesn't want to demonstrate anything, to support or reject any theory. He offers information about facts and situations that may help a better understanding of Israel and the complex political and social layers of life in the Middle East. I've seen lately a lot of 'theories' trying to demonstrate how the state of Israel was created because of the Shoah. But after WWII was over, Jews from the Arab lands were forced to leave their homes in Bagdad, Tehran, Beirut, Aleppo and Damascus following violent pogroms against them. They used to share bread together, but the situation changed and the new state had a 1% growth of the population every 10 days following this exodus (according to Friedman). The longing for Zion was not an 'invention' of the Shoah survivors, it was an everyday life reality of the holy prayers of Jews from all over the world.

Jews from the Islamic world brought to Israel a completely different approach to religion - especially compared to the fierce atheists of the kibbutzim - but also a perspective on co-existence which deserves further development.

The Spies of No Country has opened the door to a serious fact-based academic-driven discussion at the end of which one might figure out a completely different reality and a more complex history of Israel and the Middle East in general.

The Mizrahi Nation

This balanced and well-documented essay written by Matti Friedman a couple of years ago, Mizrahi Nation, adds a very welcomed perspective on the sometimes very fierce and subjective debate between the Jews of Middle Eastern versus European descent.

Although there are many facts and personal stories that sometimes support a narrative favoring a discrimination-based narrative, in the last decade the gap is rather tends to narrow. There are many more mixed families - although having a darker skin might burden you with additional identity controls - and although there is still no prime-minister of Middle Eastern descent, at least there are more people in the Israeli government with such a background - I am not talking about Aryeh Deri (whose family was not religious and in fact got his religious training in very Askenazi learning institutions). Nothing is set to stay like this and sooner or later things will rather improve if not the rift will be completely overdone by other new realities. 

The Orientalism-based perspective does not offer too many chances (if any) of a change, but the reality on the ground is a bit faster and fairer that the academic minds would like it. In reality, the ethnic realities are permanently changing and you might need new theories to grasp and codify them according to the facts and not to a reality that suits a certain ideological mindset.

More explorations and book reviews on such topics in coming posts (including the much recommended book by Friedman: Spies of No Country. Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel, featuring the stories of those Jews of Middle Eastern origin that served the new Jewish state serving as spies in their countries of origin.

'The Yemenite Babies Affair'

Once in a while, there are news or various media reports regarding the situation of the babies of Yemeni origin that disappeared in unclear conditions during the mass immigration of Jews from Yemen to Israel in the 1950s. 

In Israeli Media and the Framing of Internal Conflict: The Yemenite Babies Affair, Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber, herself of Yemeni origin, documented not only the story as such, but reflected extensively about the ways in which Israeli media and opinion makers positioned themselves to the issue. At a great extent, the different approaches are part of the biggest picture of the dramatic rift between Jews of European (Askenazi) and Oriental (Mizrahi) origin, that continues until today.

The 'Yemenite Babies Affair' affected apparently 'hundreds or even thousands of families' whose children disappeared from hospitals or directly from the camps where those Jews were settled after landing in Israel. Some of those kids that were declared dead, reappeared later as they were given for adoption to families of European origin, from Israel or America. Although most of the families affected were of Yemenite origin, families of the Jews from Iraq, Tunesia, Algeria or Libya were also affected.

This is how those kids disappeared, according to the findings of many of the commissions created to investigate the issue in the last decades: '(...) a baby was taken to the hospital despite parental assertion that the child was healthy. The baby was then taken to one of several institutions around the country, such as WIZO, an international women's organisation with centers in Safad, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The parents were told that their baby had died, even as state institutional workers later testified in such cases that these ''parents were not interested in their children'''.

A couple of years ago, when I've read about this issue for the first time, I've asked a friend that used to live in Rosh Ha'ayin, one of the immigrant camps from where children disappeared, about the case. Nonchalantly, she answered that it was quite known this situation, but...

The 'new Jew' that Ben Gurion endeavoured was: 'secular, cultural Westerner with light skin, who was attached to his land: he was newly settled from Europe with no traces of Mizrahi image, culture or history'. But not all Jews coming from Europe were equal, actually. In the book it is mentioned the case of a Jew originally from Iraq that upon arriving to Israel, dressed in his best clothes with suit and tie, he was sprayed with DDT desinfection powder. Actually, I've heard more than once such a history about DDT desinfectant used for those coming from Eastern European countries. 

Using extensively Edward Said's theory on Orientalism, the author is outlining the persistence of political projections of the European-oriented establishment against the Jews of Oriental origin. The 'Yemenite Babies Affair' is one of the most outrageous examples in this respect, because it cumulates all the mispercetions and stereotypes associated with the non-European Jews, not few of them still persistent. The indifference of the public opinion and the diluted news reports on the issue - with some noticeable exceptions - is a common denominator of the approach. Ironically, the left media who is extensively covering Palestinian-related affairs, played numb and so did the politicians. The dovish Shimon Peres is quoted in the book in relation with the 'forgiveness' that Askenazim owe to Mizrahim: 'Whare are we apologizing for? For establishing this great country?'. 

I personally think that operating under the frame of the 'Orientalism' - which says that the 'West' created a convenient, master-to-servant relationship towards the 'East' - although it offers a relatively simple/simplistic operational and conceptual framework it doesn't necessarily cover all the aspects related to a problem. It is unidirectional and risks to create a reverse syncretism that in fact enforces the initial stereotype. In the very specific case study of the Yemenite Babies this theoretical framework brings meaning to the problem,  but the relationship between Askenazim and Mizrahim are by far more complex and deserve a case-by-case approach and understanding, taking into account all the specific details of the problem. 

The episode of the Yemenite babies is heartbreaking and very hard to grasp and accept. The new generation that grew up as Israeli not necessarily Askenazi or Mizrahi is probably more open towards each other to interact, work or fall in love. But the shadow of the past ignites sometimes and the right answers and solutions cannot be found unless all the aspects of the problem are known in (their ugly) details.

The forgotten refugees

The fate of the Jews from Arab countries is a topic that was not addressed accordingly and sometimes I wondered why. Instead, I've heard very often, including among other Jews, what a better life some Sephardim had in the Arab lands. Being a little bit familiar with stories of refugees and survivors I never realized from where this stereotype originated.

Maybe there were not pogroms and crusades and not too much religious awakening and extremism, but I met many former Yemeni Jews who were forced to change their religion. Sadly enough, many Askenazim used to have fun of their Mizrahi neighbors calling them 'Arabs', but they did not know that they were forced to learn this Arabic. Similarly as many of the Askenazim needed to learn the language of the place - Russian, Frech, German, Hungarian or English etc. - as the only way to be accepted and got professional success. More than all of us, they understand very well what does it mean to deal with the Arab world, their prejudices and stereotypes. 

I wonder why it took so long until the media approached the issue of ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Arab lands. There are so many people for decades talking about the fate of the 'Palestinian refugees' - many leaving the country at the advice of their leaders - but not too many were curious to find out what happened with the Mizrahi Jews. They don't have where to go, their property were stolen and their chances to see the graves where their families rest aren't almost impossible. The rich culture of Mizrahi Jews were took upon in Israel, where many found their home after being forced to leave. 

We are used to think about the strong Zionism of the Jews from Europe and America, but we hardly remember the brave Mizrahi and Sephardim who suffered a lot for being Jews. Many left their houses with their kids in their hand and nothing in their pockets, their properties being held illegally by their Arab hosts. 

After the fall of communism, in many Eastern European countries, a symbolic restitution was sometimes possible. Our brethren from the Arab lands can't have their houses back. Some were even stolen their memories and their religion. 

Better late than never, the world should know more about their fate, and hope that more and more testimonies will be collected and published. Until it is not too late.