Middle Eastern Jews

Mizrahi Jews (), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () in plural and ''Mizrahi'' () in singular, and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are terms used in Israeli discourse to refer to a grouping of Jewish communities that lived in the Muslim world.
''Mizrahi'' is a political sociological term that was coined with the creation of the State of Israel. It translates as "Easterner" in Hebrew.

The term ''Mizrahi'' is almost exclusively applied to descendants of Jewish communities from North Africa, Central Asia, West Asia, and parts of the North Caucasus. This includes Iraqi Jews, Iranian Jews, Bukharian Jews, Kurdish Jews, Afghan Jews, Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews, and the small community of Bahraini Jews. The aforementioned groups are believed to derive their ancestry in large part from the Babylonian captivity. Yemenite Jews are also ''Mizrahi'' Jews, though they differ from other ''Mizrahim,'' who have undergone a process of total or partial assimilation to Sephardic law and customs.

Syrian Jews, Egyptian Jews, Tunisian Jews, Moroccan Jews, Algerian Jews, and Libyan Jews (also known as Musta'arabi Jews or Maghrebi Jews) are often labeled as ''Mizrahim,'' though these groups largely merged with the mass arrival of Sephardic Jews from the Iberian peninsula, following their expulsion in the late 15th century from Spain and Portugal. ''Magrebi'' is an Arabic term which translates to "Westerners."

Indian Jews ( Cochin Jews and Bene Israel) are sometimes labeled as ''Mizrahi,'' though members of the community have identified themselves as a separate category, as South Asian.

These various Jewish communities were first officially grouped into a singular identifiable division during World War II, when they were distinctly outlined in the One Million Plan of the Jewish Agency for Israel, which detailed the methods by which Jews of the diaspora were to be returned to the Land of Israel (then under the British Mandate for Palestine) after the Holocaust.: "The principal significance of this plan lies in the fact, noted by Yehuda Shenhav, that this was the first time in Zionist history that Jews from Middle Eastern and North African countries were all packaged together in one category as the target of an immigration plan. There were earlier plans to bring specific groups, such as the Yemenites, but the "one million plan" was, as Shenhav says, "the zero point", the moment when the category of Mizrahi Jews in the current sense of this term, as an ethnic group distinct from European-born Jews, was invented."

An earlier cultural community of southern and eastern Jews were the Sephardi Jews. Before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the ancestors of various current communities of Mizrahi Jews did not identify themselves as a distinctive Jewish subgroup, and many considered themselves Sephardis, as they largely followed the Sephardic customs and traditions of Judaism with local variations in '' minhagim''. The original Sephardi Jewish community was formed in Spain and Portugal, and after their expulsion in 1492, many Sephardim settled in areas where older Jewish communities already existed. This complicated ethnography has resulted in a conflation of terms, particularly in official Israeli ethnic and religious terminology, with ''Sephardi'' being used in a broad sense to include Mizrahi Jews, as well as Sephardim proper from southern Europe around the Mediterranean Basin. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel has placed rabbis of Mizrahi origin in Israel under the jurisdiction of the Sephardi chief rabbis.

Following the First Arab–Israeli War, over 850,000 Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews were expelled or evacuated from Arab and Muslim-majority countries between 1948 and the early 1980s. A 2018 statistic found that 45% of Jewish Israelis identified as either Mizrahi or Sephardic.

Terminology

''Mizrahi'' is literally translated as 'Oriental', 'Eastern', , Hebrew for 'east'. In the past, the word ''Mizrahim'', corresponding to the Arabic word (, 'Easterners'), referred to the natives of Turkey, Iraq and other Asian countries, as distinct from those of North Africa (, 'Westerners'). In medieval and early modern times, the corresponding Hebrew word () was used for North Africa. In Talmudic and Geonic times, however, this word referred to the land of Israel, as contrasted with Babylonia. For this reason, many object to the use of ''Mizrahi'' to include Moroccan and other North African Jews.

During the 1940s, before Israel's establishment, the demographer Roberto Bachi used the categories of "Mizrahim" and "Ashkenazim" in his ethnic classification of the Yishuv. In the 1950s, the Jews who came from the communities listed above were simply called and known as Jews (, in Arabic). To distinguish them in the Jewish sub-ethnicities, Israeli officials, who themselves were mostly Eastern European Jews, transferred the name ''Mizrahi'' to them, though most of these immigrants arrived from lands located further westward than Central Europe. ''Mizrahi'' is subsequently among the surnames most often changed by Israelis, and many scholars, including Avshalom Kor, claim that the transferring of the name ''Mizrahim'' was a form of Orientalism towards the Oriental Jews, similar to the ways in which had labeled '' Ostjuden'' as "second class" and excluded them from possible positions of power.

The usage of the term or (), Oriental communities, grew in Israel as a result of the settlement of Jewish immigrants from Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, along with followers of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Temani (Yemenite) rites. In modern Israeli usage, it refers to all Jews from Central and West Asian countries, many of them Arabic-speaking Muslim-majority countries. The term came to be widely used by Mizrahi activists in the early 1990s. Since then in Israel it has become an accepted semi-official and media designation.

Before the establishment of the state of Israel, Mizrahi Jews did not identify themselves as a separate Jewish subgroup. Instead, they generally characterized themselves as ''Sephardi'', as they follow the customs and traditions of Sephardi Judaism (but with some differences among the "customs" of particular communities). That has resulted in a conflation of terms, particularly in Israel and in religious usage, with "''Sephardi''" being used in a broad sense and including Mizrahi Jews, North African Jews as well as Sephardim proper. From the point of view of the official Israeli rabbinate, any rabbis of Mizrahi origin in Israel are under the jurisdiction of the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel.

Sami Michael rejects the terms and , claiming it is a fictitious identity advanced by Mapai to preserve a "rival" to the and help them push the below in the social-economic ladder, so they won't ever be in line with the Israeli elites of European Jewish descent."There Are People who Want to Keep Us in the Bottom"
Sami Michael's 1999 interview with Ruvik Rozental. He also speaks against the Mapai manner of labeling all the Oriental Jews as "one folk" and erasing their unique and individual history as separated communities. Instead, he wonders why the real Easterners of his time, who were the Eastern European Jewish peasants from the villages, weren't labeled as "''Mizrahi''" in Israel, despite this term being more appropriate than for the Oriental Jews who were labeled that way. Michael is also against the inclusion of Oriental Jewish communities who do not descend from Sepharadic Jews, as "''Sepharadim''" by Israeli politicians, calling it "historically inaccurate". He also claims that his work as an author is always referred to as "ethnic", while European Jews' work, even if historic in theme, is not, as a result of racism.

Most of the Mizrahi activists actually originated from North African Jewish communities, traditionally called "Westerners" (), rather than "Easterners" (). The Jews who emigrated to Palestine from North Africa in the 19th century and prior started their own political and religious organization in 1860 which operated in Jerusalem and was called " The Western Jewish Diaspora Council" (). Many Jews originating from Arab and Muslim countries today reject (or any) umbrella description, and prefer to identify themselves by their particular country of origin, or that of their immediate ancestors, such as "Moroccan Jew", or prefer to use the old term in its broader meaning.

Religious rite designations

Today, many ^{ho/sup> identify non-Ashkenazi rite Jews as Sephardi – in modern Hebrew ''Sfaradim'' – mixing ancestral origin and religious rite. This broader definition of "''Sephardim''" as including all, or most, Mizrahi Jews is also common in Jewish religious circles. During the past century 0th?/sup>, the Sephardi rite absorbed part of the unique rite of the Yemenite Jews, and lately, Beta Israel religious leaders in Israel have also joined Sefardi rite collectivities, especially following rejection of their Jewishness by some Ashkenazi circles.}

The reason for this classification of all Mizrahim under Sephardi rite is that most Mizrahi communities use much the same religious rituals as Sephardim proper due to historical reasons. The prevalence of the Sephardi rite among Mizrahim is partially a result of Sephardim proper joining some of Mizrahi communities following the 1492 Alhambra Decree, which expelled Jews from Sepharad (Spain and Portugal). Over the last few centuries, the previously distinctive rites of the Mizrahi communities were influenced, superimposed upon or altogether replaced by the rite of the Sephardim, perceived as more prestigious. Even before this assimilation, the original rite of many Jewish Oriental communities was already closer to the Sephardi rite than to the Ashkenazi one. For this reason, "Sephardim" has come to mean not only "Spanish Jews" proper but "Jews of the Spanish rite", just as "Ashkenazim" is used for "Jews of the German rite", whether or not their families originate in Germany.

Many of the Sephardi Jews exiled from Spain resettled in greater or lesser numbers in the Arab world, such as Syria and Morocco. In Syria, most eventually intermarried with, and assimilated into, the larger established communities of Musta'rabim and Mizrahim. In some North African countries, such as Morocco, Sephardi Jews came in greater numbers, and so largely contributed to the Jewish settlements that the pre-existing Jews were assimilated by the more recently arrived Sephardi Jews. Either way, this assimilation, combined with the use of the Sephardi rite, led to the popular designation and conflation of most non-Ashkenazi Jewish communities from Western Asia and North Africa as "Sephardi rite", whether or not they were descended from Spanish Jews, which is what the terms "Sephardi Jews" and "Sfaradim" properly implied when used in the ethnic as opposed to the religious sense.

In some Arabic countries, such as Egypt and Syria, Sephardi Jews arrived via the Ottoman Empire would distinguish themselves from the already established Musta'rabim, while in others, such as Morocco and Algeria, the two communities largely intermarried, with the latter embracing Sephardi customs and thus forming a single community.

Language

Arabic

In the Arab world (such as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan), Mizrahim most often speak Arabic. Most of the many notable philosophical, religious and literary works of the Jews in Spain, North Africa and Asia were written in Arabic using a modified Hebrew alphabet.

Aramaic

Aramaic is a Semitic language subfamily. Specific varieties of Aramaic are identified as "Jewish languages" since they are the languages of major Jewish texts such as the Talmud and '' Zohar'', and many ritual recitations such as the Kaddish. Traditionally, Aramaic has been a language of Talmudic debate in yeshivot, as many rabbinic texts are written in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic. The current Hebrew alphabet, known as "Assyrian lettering" or "the square script", was in fact borrowed from Aramaic.

In Kurdistan, a region which includes parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, the language of the Mizrahim is a variant of Aramaic. As spoken by the Kurdish Jews, Judeo-Aramaic languages are Neo-Aramaic languages descended from Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. They are related to the Christian Aramaic dialects spoken by Assyrian people, which are Syriac Christians who claim descent from Assyria, one of the oldest civilizations in the world, dating back to 2500 BC in ancient Mesopotamia.

Persian and other languages and dialects

Among other languages associated with Mizrahim are Judeo-Iranian languages such as Judeo-Persian, the Bukhori dialect, Judeo-Tat, and Kurdish languages; Georgian; Judeo-Marathi and Judeo-Malayalam. Bukharian Jews from various countries in Central Asia and the Mountain Jews living in Azerbaijan are also widely fluent in Russian due to several of those countries' former status as republics of the Soviet Union.

History

The Jewish diaspora in the Middle East outside the Land of Israel started in the 6th century BCE, during the Babylonian captivity, which also caused some Jews to flee to Egypt.Nicholas de Lange: ''Atlas of the Jewish world'', p. 22. Equinox, 1991. Other early diaspora areas in the Middle East and North Africa were Persia, Yemen and Cyrene.

As Islam started to spread in the 7th century CE, Jews who were living under Muslim rule became '' dhimmis''. Because Jews were seen as " People of the Book", they were allowed to practice their own religion, but they had an inferior status in an Islamic society. Even though Jews in the Middle East and North Africa formed strong attachments to the areas in which they lived,Daniel J. Schroeter: ''A Different Road to Modernity: Jewish Identity in the Arab World'', in Howard Wettstein (ed.): ''Diasporas and Exiles: Varieties of Jewish Identity''. University of California Press. 2002. they were seen as a community which was clearly distinct from other communities. For example, while Musta'arabi Jews in the Arab world were influenced by the local culture, e.g. they started speaking variants of the Arabic language and ate their own versions of the same food, they did not adopt Arab identity. Instead, Jews in the Arab world saw themselves (including the ones with family background of converts) and were seen as fundamentally a part of the wider collective of the Jewish people, and they maintained their identity as the descendants of the ancient Israelite tribes.

Some Mizrahim migrated to India, Central Asia, and the Caucasus.

Post-1948 dispersal

After the establishment of the State of Israel and subsequent 1948 Arab–Israeli War, most Mizrahim were either expelled by their Arab rulers or chose to leave and emigrated to Israel. According to the 2009 Statistical Abstract of Israel, 50.2% of Israeli Jews are of Mizrahi or Sephardi origin.

Anti-Jewish actions by Arab governments in the 1950s and 1960s, in the context of the founding of the State of Israel, led to the departure of large numbers of Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. The exodus of 25,000 Mizrahi Jews from Egypt after the 1956 Suez Crisis led to the overwhelming majority of Mizrahim leaving Arab countries. They became refugees. Most went to Israel. Many Moroccan and Algerian Jews went to France. Thousands of Lebanese, Syrian and Egyptian Jews emigrated to the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and other countries in the Americas.

Today, as many as 40,000 Mizrahim still remain in communities scattered throughout the non-Arab Muslim world, primarily in Iran, but also Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Turkey. There are few Maghrebim remaining in the Arab world. About 3,000 remain in Morocco and 1,100 in Tunisia. Other countries with remnants of ancient Jewish communities with official recognition, such as Lebanon, have 100 or fewer Jews. A trickle of emigration continues, mainly to Israel and the United States.

Memorialization in Israel

On 9 May 2021, the first physical memorialization in Israel of the Departure and Expulsion of Jews from Arab land and Iran was placed on the Sherover Promenade in Jerusalem. It is titled the Departure and Expulsion Memorial following the Knesset law for the annual recognition of the Jewish experience held annually on 30 November.

The text on the Memorial reads;

"With the birth of the State of Israel, over 850,000
Jews were forced from Arab Lands and Iran.
The desperate refugees were welcomed by Israel.

By Act of the Knesset: 30 Nov, annually, is the
Departure and Expulsion Memorial Day.
Memorial donated by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation,
With support from the World Sephardi Federation, City of Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Foundation"

The sculpture is the interpretive work of Sam Philipe, a fifth generation Jerusalemite.

Absorption into Israeli society

Refuge in Israel was not without its tragedies: "In a generation or two, millennia of rooted Oriental civilization, unified even in its diversity", had been wiped out, writes Mizrahi scholar Ella Shohat. The trauma of rupture from their countries of origin was further complicated by the difficulty of the transition upon arrival in Israel; Mizrahi immigrants and refugees were placed in rudimentary and hastily erected tent cities ( ma'abarot) often in development towns on the peripheries of Israel. Settlement in moshavim (cooperative farming villages) was only partially successful, because Mizrahim had historically filled a niche as craftsmen and merchants and most did not traditionally engage in farmwork. As the majority left their property behind in their home countries as they journeyed to Israel, many suffered a severe decrease in their socio-economic status aggravated by their cultural and political differences with the dominant Ashkenazi community. Furthermore, a policy of austerity was enforced at that time due to economic hardships.

Mizrahi immigrants arrived speaking many languages:

* many, especially those from North Africa and the Fertile Crescent, spoke Arabic dialects;
* those from Iran spoke Persian and various Judeo-Iranian languages;
* Mountain Jews from Azerbaijan and Dagestan spoke Judeo-Tat;
* Bukharian Jews from various countries in Central Asia (primarily Uzbekistan) spoke the Bukhori dialect.

Mizrahim from elsewhere brought Georgian, Judaeo-Georgian and various other languages with them. Hebrew had historically been a language only of prayer for most Jews not living in Israel, including the Mizrahim. Thus, with their arrival in Israel, the Mizrahim retained culture, customs and language distinct from their Ashkenazi counterparts. The collective estimate for Mizrahim (circa 2018) is at 4,000,000.

Disparities and integration

The cultural differences between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews impacted the degree and rate of assimilation into Israeli society, and sometimes the divide between Eastern European and Middle Eastern Jews was quite sharp. Segregation, especially in the area of housing, limited integration possibilities over the years. Intermarriage between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim is increasingly common in Israel and by the late 1990s 28% of all Israeli children had multi-ethnic parents (up from 14% in the 1950s). It has been claimed that intermarriage does not tend to decrease ethnic differences in socio-economic status, however, that does not apply to the children of inter-ethnic marriages.

Although social integration has increased, disparities persist. According to a study conducted by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS), Mizrahi Jews are less likely to pursue academic studies than Ashkenazi Jews. On the other side, Israeli-born Ashkenazim are up to twice as likely to study in a university as Israeli-born Mizrahim. Furthermore, the percentage of Mizrahim who seek a university education remains low compared to second-generation immigrant groups of Ashkenazi origin, such as Russians. According to a survey by the Adva Center, the average income of Ashkenazim was 36 percent higher than that of Mizrahim in 2004.

In 2023, journalist Shany Littman argued the dynamics of inequality had reversed, with most Israeli cabinet ministers and city mayors being Mizrahi Jews. She also stated that middle-class Mizrahi women earned more than their Ashkenazi counterparts.

The A-WA song "Hana Mash Hu Al Yaman" highlights the discrimination of Mizrahim, especially Yemenite Jews, faced in the 1940s, when they entered Israel as refugees. The song's lyrics depict a reality of cultural assimilation, low income jobs, and a pressure to leave their Yemeni traditions behind.

Genetics

The Middle Eastern Jewish populations have a connection to the Jewish communities of Europe and North Africa in their paternal gene pool, suggesting a common Middle Eastern origin between them.

In autosomal analyses, the Iraqi Jews, Iranian Jews, Bukharian Jews, Kurdish Jews, Mountain Jews, and Georgian Jews form a close genetic cluster. When examined at a more detailed level, the groups can be separated from each other. This cluster plots between Levantine and Northern West Asian populations. Syrian and North African Jews are separate from it and closer to the Sephardi Jews. Yemenite Jews are distinct from other Jewish groups and cluster with the non-Jewish population of the Arabian Peninsula ( although connection has been established between them and other Jewish diaspora communities).

See also

* Adeni Jews
* Arab Jews
* Arab–Israeli conflict
* Berber Jews
* Eastern Sephardim
* Hebrews, a term which is used as a synonym for the terms "Israelites" and "Jews"
* Jewish culture
* Jewish ethnic divisions
* North African Sephardim
* Palestinian Jews
* Spanish and Portuguese Jews

References

Bibliography

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External links

Organizations

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Sephardic Pizmonim Project

JIMENA
– Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa


at the Multiculturalism Project

Hakeshet Hademocratit Hamizrachit
– an organization of Mizrahi Jews in Israel


(British-based)

Ha' Yisrayli Torah Brith Yahad, Mizrahi Jewish Int'l Medical Humanitarian NGO recognized by the United Nations Civil Society and Economic Development Division
(US-based)
Sephardi Voices UK
– audiovisual testimonies of Jews in the UK originally from the Middle East, North Africa and Iran

Articles

Ella Shohat, ''Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation'', (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989; New Edition, London: I. B. Tauris, 2010).
* Ella Shohat, ''Le sionisme du point de vue de ses victimes juives: les juifs orientaux en Israel'' (first published in 1988, with a new introduction, La fabrique editions, Paris, 2006).

Ella Shohat, ''Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices'' (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006).
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Mizrahi Wanderings
– Nancy Hawker on Samir Naqqash, one of Israel's foremost Arab-language Mizrahi novelists

The Middle East's Forgotten Refugees
A chronicle of Mizrahi refugees by Semha Alwaya

The Forgotten Refugees

Moshe Levy
The story of an Iraqi Jew in the Israeli Navy and his survival on the war-ship Eilat


Yeheskel Kojaman describes his life as an Iraqi Jew in the 1950s and 1960s

Audio interview with Ammiel Alcalay discussing Mizrahi literature

Excerpt from ''The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times'' by Norman Stillman

Etan Bloom, ''The Reproduction of the Model "Oriental" in the Israeli Social Space; the 50s and the speedy immigration.''
Tel-Aviv Univ. M.A. in the Unit for Culture Research, 2003. (Hebrew, with summary in English.)
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Saul Silas Fathi
Full Circle: Escape From Baghdad and the Return by Saul Silas Fathi, A prominent Iraqi Jewish family's escape from persecution.

Road From Damascus
, Tablet Magazine

Communities

Bukharian Jews
Bukharian Jewish community (English and Russian)

PersianRabbi.com
Persian Jewish community

Kurdish Jewry (Hebrew)

Sha'ar Binyamin
Damascus Jewry (Hebrew and Spanish)
*

Historical Society of Jews from Egypt


Tunisian Jewish site (French)


Djerbian Jewish site (French)

Zlabia.com
Algerian Jewish site (French)

Dafina.net
Moroccan Jewish site (French)

The Nash Didan Community
Persian Azerbaijany, Aramaic speaking community (Hebrew, some English and Aramaic)

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Jewish ethnic groups
Ethnic groups in Israel
Jews and Judaism in West Asia

Semitic-speaking peoples
Ethnic groups in the Middle East
Jewish culture
Ethnic groups in North Africa