Mizrahi Subaltern Counterpoints: Sderot's Alternative Bands

Abstract

This article addresses Mizrahi (or Oriental) identity in Israel by focusing on a well-known musical scene in the town of Sderot, in the south of Israel, populated largely by low-income Mizrahim. This group has undergone a unique Orientalization process in Israel. This process triggered the crystallization of a diverse musical scene in Sderot that exposed three practices of molding Mizrahi identity. By engaging with a dialectic model that appears in the later writing of Edward Said, I argue that the Mizrahi subversion of Israeli Orientalism encompasses a re-creation of it in different degrees of intensity.