Tuesday 26 January 2016

An Intersectional Failure: How Both Israel's Backers and Critics Write Mizrahi Jews Out of the Story

From RRW
«When asked to speak at certain Zionist functions, many Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa are asked to focus on the mistreatment they experienced under Arab rule—not the ways in which they successfully coexisted with Muslims, or the serious discrimination they have faced in Israeli society after arriving in the Promised Land. In anti-Zionist circles the situation inverts: the hosts are delighted to hear tales of Israeli malfeasance but are deeply hostile if the topic turns to the oppression and expulsion of Jews from Arab countries or if the Jews proclaim a proud connection to Israel. Either way, non-Ashkenazi Jews are engaged with only as far as they support someone else’s narrative. Once they seek to speak in their own voice, their putative allies disappear.
‘Most non-Ashkenazi Jews in the world live in Israel, and so a boycott of Israel functionally acts to exclude most Jews of color from global conversations.’» 

No comments: