The Other Jews

How actual is the rift between Askenazim and Sephardim nowadays? More than one generation grew up fuelling the differences, but aren´t now the differences supposed to estompate, as the colours of an Impressionist painting?

Clearly, the new generation of Israeli, born and bred in the country, may not put too much emphasis on those old times´ differences. There are mixed marriages and except Pessach - with or without rice - there are not too many occasions when there is a clear reminder about those distinctions.

But it was not always the same and even nowadays, although praised and integrated as part of the everyday society, being Askenazi and being Sephardi may come to separate ends of the story. Which may turn against the everyday Israeli realities and may also fuel an old antisemitic stereotype regarding whitness myths and colonizer delusions.

Demographically and not only, Israeli society is not purely white. Descendants of people forced to run for their lives from the Arab lands do count in the country that, indeed, institutionally was set for the descendants of people murdered in the European lands. But Israel belongs to the Middle East and it is a success story of the Middle East, not Europe´s. 

Written at the end of the 1980s, The Other Jews. The Sephardim Today (Sephardim, not Mizrahim being considered the politically correct term used to designate Jews from Spain, Portugal, Balkans - such a neglected topic - Arab lands and Iran) , by the late researcher Daniel J. Elazar although it may have a lot of outdated information, it also has the merit of extensively covering the social and political origins of the issue. 

There is a certain note of outrage in the writing, that accompanies the general information about Israel´s ethnical origins as well as the failures, particularly institutional, in approaching the topic - but which country at the time was able to really foresee the difficulties of integration of groups of people with so different cultural and social backgrounds?

I was not very keen of the structure of the book, which outlines the situation of the Sephardim in Israel at the time, followed by a long list of short historical inserts covering communities around the world - although information is outdated, there are noteworthy details regarding the history of those communities, worth researching into depth further on - only to return to considerations about Jewish interactions and institutional and political considerations within Israel.

Looking back at those problems with the eyes and tools of 2024 gives more hopes than some of the conclusions of Elazar´s book. There were mistakes and maybe a one-sided perspective, including in the promotion of one vision of the country, one vision of history, one vision of Zionism, one vision of religious observance. But media, particularly social media, offers alternatives, displays the differences and diminishes the gaps. On the other hand, there is still so much to study and research about those communities and hopefully, will be able soon to present more studies, books and researches on this topics. Because, the biggest power of all times is knowledge, a powerful weapon against ignorance of all kinds and from all directions.