Mizrahim Research Articles

HaTikva Encampment, 2011

Under the legitimacy of the wave of social protest initiated by middle-class Israeli students in July 2011, a much broader movement developed as thousands of marginalized poor hoping to obtain housing solutions began encamping in public spaces. These Israeli poor, mainly of Mizrahi origin, did not fit the model of “the salt of the earth,” the “good citizens” who by virtue of their contribution to the colonization project are supposed to enjoy preferred treatment by the state. Based on a reflexive analysis of my political intervention, in this paper I describe the dynamics of the HaTikva encampment of the poor in south Tel Aviv. Making use of the contradictions between the state’s colonialist logic and its neoliberal reforms, a marginalized and poor segment of Mizrahi Jews was able, for a short while, to act as an autonomous political agent and shed the control and patronage of political bosses. The very same marginality that allowed them to develop significant agency and even to experiment with alliances ...

From Diaspora to Nationalism via Colonialism: The Jewish “Memory” Whitened, Israelized, Pinkwashed, and De-Queered

In this essay, I argue that the concept of queerness, defined as resisting static productions of knowledge and being, constitutes a threat to the monolithic narrative of Zionist Diasporic memory. As the Jewish memories were forced into one homogeneous linear narrative, the Israeli identity was whitewashed and branded; it differentiated itself from the Arabness of Mizrahi Jews, and served to suppress the histories of migrants and Palestinians alike in favor of absolute sovereignty and settler colonialism. This process, which I call de-queering memory, debilitates cross-temporal diasporic narratives, and celebrates a pinkwashed identity of white Jewishness.

Ethnic and Racial Employment Discrimination in Low-Wage and High-Wage Markets: Randomized Controlled Trials Using Correspondence Tests in Israel

Abstract A rich body of literature on employment discrimination exists. Theoretically, discriminatory practices are explained by taste-based discrimination, differences in the bargaining ability of applicants or statistical discrimination. Global experimental research tends to show significant anti-minority attitudes in the hiring process, specifically at the entry stage into the engagement cycle – when an application and resume are sent to the prospective employer. These field studies often employ “correspondence tests,” in which identical, fictitious resumes are sent to employers with differences only in the racial, gender, religious or national origin of the applicant (e.g., the name of the applicant). Yet, the literature is lacking in at least three areas: First, evidence from correspondence tests has primarily focused on middle-range wage earners, and little research exists on low-wage or high-wage earner positions. Second, research has looked at employment discrimination that excludes certain groups, but has neglected possible prejudice that “locks” such groups into unqualified or underpaid positions. Finally, there may also be a place-based effect – in which diverse communities are less discriminatory than more homogeneous communities, or vice versa. In this paper, we report on two population-level experiments with seven independent correspondence tests that were conducted in the Israel labor market, both designed to fill these three lags in the literature. We tested the likelihood of (a) Israeli-Arab lawyers versus Jewish lawyers being asked to job interviews at Israel’s largest law firms (n = 178); and (b) Mizrahi Jews versus Ashkenazi Jews being asked to job interviews, in any one of the registered security firms (n = 369). We compared which groups are more likely to be called for interviews and then meta-analyzed the results using standardized differences of means. Our findings suggest significant overall employment discrimination against both Arab-Israelis and Mizrahi Jews, whose applications are overall less likely to be both acknowledged by the prospective employers and asked for interview – despite the applicants having identical qualifications. However, we find that the effect in low-wage jobs is conditional on geographic location, with evidence to suggest that in some regions there is no preference toward either ethnicity. We find no support for a locking effect. We discuss the findings in the broader theoretical context, but suggest that a more granular application of the theory is called for, which takes into account community dynamics and the level of localized ethnic integration.

Tel Aviv Mizrah

Before immigrating to Israel, first-generation Iraqi Jews were deeply attached to their identity as Mizrahi Jews. Their mother tongue was Arabic and they had grown up in an oriental environment. Therefore, it was not easy for them to adopt the Euro-Israeli identity that the dominant Ashkenazi-European stratum in Israel compelled them to accept. Despite strong Westernizing tendencies in Israeli society, the first generation of Iraqi Jewish immigrants maintained strong links to the Iraqi customs and traditions they had acquired in Iraq, particularly with regard to the musical folklore and oriental cuisine. On the other hand, second-generation Iraqi Jews were more familiar with Israeli society than their parents; they grew up in Israel and learned Hebrew in Israeli schools along with Ashkenazi Jews and other ethnic groups. This paper establishes connections between the historical realities of Iraqi Jewish immigrants and the literary representation of their world in the trilogy Tel-Aviv Mizrah (Tel Aviv East) written in 2003 by the Iraqi Jewish author Shimon Ballas, through a comparison of Ballas's literary vision with the historical realities of Iraqi Jewish identity in Israel over the course of two generations.

Exploring determinants of progression in Parkinson's disease. Is there a difference among Jewish ethnic groups?

Parkinson's disease (PD) displays an individually variable rate of progression, of which the underlying mechanisms are largely unknown, but may involve genetic factors. In this study, we aimed to explore the effect of ethnic origin on PD progression rate in Israeli Jews, as expressed by time from onset until reaching Hoehn and Yahr stage 3 (HY3). Consecutive patients with PD followed bi-annually at the Movement Disorders Institute at Sheba Medical Center, were included. Demographic data and clinical information, including age at PD onset (AO), H&Y staging, and family history of PD, were collected. Ethnicity was determined based on the parents' origin and was categorized as Ashkenazi Jews (AJ), Yemenite Jews (YJ), North African Jews (NAJ) and Oriental Jews (OJ) excluding YJ. Associations between the above variables and the time to HY3 were determined using Cox proportional hazards model. Survival curves were derived from the model. Of 707 patients [430 males, AJ: 458, YJ: 37, NAJ: 75 and OJ: 137] included in the analysis, 343 had reached HY3. In a multivariate analysis, a longer time to HY3 was significantly associated with a younger AO (HR = 1.07, p < 0.001). YJ showed a significantly shorter time to HY3 compared to AJ and OJ, but not compared to NAJ. Time to HY3 was significantly shorter for NAJ than for OJ. Jewish PD patients of Yemenite and North African origin may have a more rapid progression of PD, compared to those of Ashkenazi and Oriental origin, suggesting distinctive genetic influences.

Jewish Identities in the Arab Middle East: The Case of Egypt in Retrospect

Much work has been done in recent decades on the histories of the Jews of Arab lands across a variety of time periods, reflecting an increasing interest in the historical past of the Jews of the “Orient.” While diverse, this literature may be divided into several general groups. The first comprises studies written by Western and Israeli scholars and encompasses a broad spectrum of Arabic-speaking countries. This literature has explored, among other things, issues relating to the way of life and administration of ethnically and culturally diverse Jewish communities, their approaches to Zionism and the question of their national identities, their positions regarding the Zionist–Israeli–Arab conflict in its various phases, and the phenomena of anti-Semitism, particularly in light of the increasing escalation of the conflict. It includes works by Israeli intellectuals of Mizrahi heritage, some of whom came together in the late 1990s in a sociopolitical dissident movement known as the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow Coalition. The target audience of this movement was Mizrahi Jews: refugees and emigrants from Arab countries as well as their second- and third-generation offspring. The movement, which was not ideologically homogeneous (particularly regarding approaches to the resolution of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict), took a postcolonialist approach to the Zionist narrative and enterprise, and was critical of the entrenchment of the Ashkenazi (European-extraction) Jews among the elites of the emerging Israeli society. The movement had scant success in reaching its target population: the majority of Mizrahi/Sephardi Jews living in Israel. Nevertheless, it brought to the fore the historical socioeconomic injustices that many Jews from Arab countries had experienced since arriving in Israel, whether reluctantly or acquiescently.

Reeled in: the settlement project and the evacuation of an Israeli fishing village from Gaza

Footage of emotional Israeli settlers leaving their homes as part of Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan evoked a mixed reaction from critics, underlying a lack of consensus on the relationship between individual settlers, the settlement project and the government. In this essay, I explore the political dynamics between the Israeli state, settlers in the occupied territories and the Palestinians on a micro-level by analyzing Dugit – a small and overlooked former settlement from the Gaza Strip. The study of this marginal settlement shifts focus away from settlements that have more political clout and a larger public profile and troubles the idea of the settlement project as a monolithic enterprise. Furthermore, by virtue of its marginal status and its location at the very northern tip of the Gaza Strip just near the Green Line, Dugit existed at the intersection of many interfacing groups, ideas, institutions and geo-political entities within Israeli society. These include Israelis and Palestinians; Israeli settler society and Israeli liberal society; religious and non-ideological settlements; settlers and the Israeli government; Mizrahi Jews and Palestinians; as well as the concept of Israel proper and the occupied Palestinian territories. Based on interviews conducted with former members of Dugit, this study analyzes informants' understanding of the politics of living in the occupied territories, their relations with their former Palestinian neighbors as well as their interpretation of their position in Israeli society post-eviction. Israeli–Palestinian encounters in Dugit were represented as amicable but these relations were nevertheless over-determined by the larger political structures, which the Dugit settlers did not challenge. This essay argues that a nuanced understanding of the dynamics of the Dugit settlement needs to take into account the settlers' position as partial agents of their own political actions but also as victims of government policies.

THE SOCIAL REPRESENTATIVENESS OF CABINET MINISTERS IN ISRAEL: ARE THE GAPS CLOSING?

Although parliaments are usually perceived as the political institutions responsible for the functioning of representation, it is not out of context to expect cabinets to also be representational of society. This applies especially to parliamentary democracies, where ministers are not only heads of executive portfolios but also the voting members of a decision-making organ, the cabinet. It also particularly applies to countries divided by multi-societal rifts. This article explores the social representativeness of cabinet ministers in Israel, a multi-cleavage society with a parliamentary system of government. Based on an original dataset of the 230 individuals who have served in Israeli cabinets since 1949, it aims to find whether the demographic characteristics of cabinet ministers have changed over time. It also investigates whether the current population of ministers reflects Israeli society today in terms of various social characteristics. It finds that the under-representation in cabinet of some social groups, such as women, Mizrahi Jews and young people has decreased. On the other hand, the representation of the Arab minority in cabinet has not improved and remains at an extremely low level.

Oriental by Design: Ottoman Jews, Imperial Style, and the Performance of Heritage

WHEN, IN THE EARLY 1890S, OTTOMAN JEWS began to appear in Chicago in anticipation of the 1893 World’s Fair, many American observers were perplexed at first. In one author’s words, the “looks and garb” of these foreign visitors to the Windy City led him “to believe them Mohammedan.”1 Others decided that they were Turks, such as the editors of The Chicago Times Portfolio of the Midway Types, who labeled Robert Levy—an Ottoman Jewish merchant who managed the empire’s exhibit at the fair and who was photographed wearing the attire of an Ottoman Muslim religious scholar—a “typical Turk,” or “Rosa”—a Jewish woman from Ottoman Salonica—a “Turkish dancer.” (See Figures 1–2.) Fairgoers’ disorientation was not helped by the fact that these Eastern Jews used the newly constructed mosque built on the Midway—where Muslim employees of the Ottoman exhibit regularly prayed—as the site of their Yom Kippur services.2 Once they discovered that the people dressed as Muslims or Turks were Jews, however, certain visitors expressed their disappointment. One chronicler of the fair explained that visitors in the know had begun to grumble that the “Turkish village” erected on the Midway Plaisance did not really “represent Turkey,” and that it was “purely a speculative enterprise of some Oriental Jews.”3 Equally vexing for those who sought an unadulterated glimpse of Eastern life in Chicago, many of the performers in the Midway’s Turkish Village were caught changing into Western-style suits and dresses between their Oriental acts. During the same period, Sultan Abdulhamid II and various Ottoman officials

Spearman's hypothesis tested on European Jews vs non-Jewish Whites and vs Oriental Jews: Two meta-analyses

Spearman's hypothesis states that differences between groups on the subtests of an IQ battery are a function of the cognitive complexity of these subtests: large differences between groups on high-complex subtests and small differences between groups on low-complex subtests, and it is virtually always confirmed. We test Spearman's hypothesis comparing European Jews with gentile Whites in the US, and European Jews and Oriental Jews in Israel. We carried out two meta-analyses based on, respectively, 4 data points and a total N=302; 4 data points and a total N=870. In both meta-analyses Spearman's hypothesis was strongly confirmed with mean rs with values of, respectively, .80 and .87. We conclude that Spearman's hypothesis is not only confirmed when Whites are compared with groups with lower mean IQ scores, but also when Whites are compared with groups with higher mean IQ scores; Spearman's hypothesis appears to be a more robust phenomenon than previously thought.

Discrimination Based on “Sameness,” Not “Difference”: Re-Defining the Limits of Equality through an Israeli Case for Discrimination

This article points to a general weakness in liberal rights discourse, and specifically in the antidiscrimination stratagem. It argues that this stratagem is of limited effectiveness due to its perception of “difference” as constituting the heart of the notion of discrimination. Reliance on “difference” in formatting discrimination fails to acknowledge discrimination held against a group within settings characterized by “sameness,” thereby rendering the antidiscrimination principle too narrow to protect some discriminated-against groups. This point is exemplified by analyzing the case of the de facto discrimination against Mizrahi Jews in Israel, or Jews of Arab/Muslim descent, who are conceptualized under a notion of “sameness” rather than “difference” within Israeli hegemony vis-a-vis the Palestinians, who figure as the ultimate “others.” Employing an interdisciplinary methodology, the argument relies on the theory of Orientalism, developed in the fields of postmodern cultural studies, and on its implementation to address Israel’s social stratifications. Fortified with this richer, contextual concept of Orientalism, the article turns to the legal sphere to attain better understanding of the constituents of discrimination as a whole and of that practiced against Mizrahim, in particular. Specifically, the analysis targets the antidiscrimination stratagem and stresses its limited effectiveness when applied from within its traditionally ahistorical, de-politicized framework. In a radical move, the article argues that to cross into the antidiscrimination discourse in an effective way, Mizrahi Jews should also embrace the “Arab” component of their own identity. This move entails two reconstructive undertakings: one in which Mizrahis’ legal identity may be re-identified as “Arab,” and a second in which discrimination against Palestinians may be reconsidered as rooted in anti-ethnic rather than in anti-national sentiments. Consequently, a new discursive “third space” will be opened for both Palestinians and Mizrahis, in which they may collaborate in articulating and contesting both shared and uniquely encountered forms of discrimination. This two-pronged critical approach to challenging discrimination in Israeli systems can benefit both groups and enrich the antidiscrimination discourse in a manner crucial to achieving a better, more just society inside Israel.

A Different Kind of Whiteness: Marking and Unmarking of Social Boundaries in the Construction of Hegemonic Ethnicity

This article proposes a new theoretical approach to the analysis of hegemonic ethnicity through an examination of the construction of white ethnicity among Ashkenazim (Jews of European origin) in Israel. Contrary to the theory of symbolic ethnicity, I argue that “Ashkenaziness” in Israel is not an optional, voluntary identity; rather, it is constituted by employing narratives that continually establish cultural, color‐based, and ethnic boundaries between Ashkenazim and Mizrahi Jews. In certain social and ideological circumstances, however, boundary marking is not enough to maintain a privileged status. From the narratives of Ashkenazi Jews—the Israeli version of whites—it emerges that not only do they demarcate social boundaries between themselves and other groups, thereby preserving the ethnic hierarchy, but they are constantly engaged in blurring or erasing these same boundaries, allowing Ashkenazim to remain a transparent, unmarked social category. This dual practice of marking and unmarking is a result of the tension between the Jewish‐Zionist and Western‐secular images of the state. While Israel's Jewish discourse supposedly negates intra‐Jewish ethnic conflicts, the Western ideal identifies Ashkenazim with the state, thus solidifying their power and preserving their privileged status.

Participatory destigmatization strategies among Palestinian citizens, Ethiopian Jews and Mizrahi Jews in Israel

This study examines how members of minority groups in Israel cope with stigmatization in everyday life. It focuses on working-class members of three minority groups: Palestinian Arabs or Palestinian citizens of Israel, Mizrahim (Jews of Middle Eastern and North African origin) and Ethiopian Jews. It reveals the use of racial, ethnic and national markers in daily processes of social inclusion and exclusion in one sociopolitical context. Palestinians, a group with a fixed external identity and a limited sphere of participation, were found to use the language of race and racism when describing stigmatizing encounters. Ethiopian Jews, the most phenotypically marked group, strictly avoided this language. For their part, Mizrahi Jews perceived the very discussion of stigmatization as stigmatizing, while often using ‘contingent detachment’ to distance themselves from negative group identities. Despite differences between the communities and the powerful role of the state in establishing symbolic and social boundaries, members of all three groups expressed their intention to achieve or retain avenues for participation in the larger society.

Acute kidney injury in the tropics

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is one of the most challenging problems faced by clinicians in the tropics owing to its fast-changing burden. AKI in the tropics is strikingly different from that in the developed world in terms of etiology and presentation. In addition, there is a stark contrast between well-developed and poor areas in the tropics. The true epidemiological picture of AKI in the tropics is not well understood due to the late presentation of patients to tertiary centers. Infections remain the major culprit in most cases of AKI, with high mortality rates in the tropics. Human immunodeficiency virus–related AKI, related to nephrotoxicity due to antiretroviral therapy, is on the rise. Acute tubular necrosis and thrombotic microangiopathy are the most common mechanisms of AKI. A notable problem in the tropics is the scarcity of resources in health centers to support patients who require critical care due to AKI. This article reviews the unique and contrasting nature of AKI in the tropics and describes its management in each situation.

The Myths and Misconceptions of Jewish Linguistics

David M. Bunis, ed. Language.) and Literatures of Sephardic and Oriental Jews: Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress for Research on the Sep hard i and Oriental Heritage. Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute and Misgav Yerushalayim, 2009. Pp. 482 (in English, Spanish, French) and 434 pages (in Hebrew).Frank Alvarez- Pereyre and Jean Baumgarten, eds. Linguistique des langues juives et linguistique generale. Paris: CNRS Editions, 2003. Pp. AA7 (with two articles in English).John JVIyhill. Language in Society: Towards a New Understanding . Clevedon-Buffalo-Toronto: Multilingual Matters Ltd., 2004. Pp. ix + 239.The three books here under review consist of two collections of studies in a number of and one discussion of the role of in societies. All three, especially the two collective works, make ample reference to Max Weinreich 's Geshikhtefun der y id L) her shprakh. 1 The two collective works continue the tradition of comparative treatments of that began in the 1930s.2The three volumes also contain numerous mentions of my article Jewish Interlinguistics: Facts and Conceptual Framework Language 57 [1981]: 99-149), which was inspired by Weinreich 's magnum opus. However, since 1981, I have radically altered my views on languages. In my 1981 article, I accepted Weinreich 's premise that most were connected to each other through successive acts of language shift, leading back to colloquial Hebrew, for example, Yiddish replaced Judeo-French and Judeo-Italian which in turn replaced Judeo- Latin and Judeo-Greek, the successors of the Judeo-Aramaic and Hebrew speech communities of the biblical period. It is true that there are unique (Judeo-) Romance elements in Yiddish and a handful of Judeo-Greek elements in some Judeo-Romance languages, but these facts can reflect language contact as well as substratal influences. There is also no reason to think that the presence of a community in a single location in successive historical periods automatically implies generational links between those very communities. For example, there is no evidence that Romance-speaking Jews in pre-eighth-century Spain are the ancestors of Romance-speaking Jews in Spain in the thirteenth century. A consequence of the assertion that cannot be placed on an unbroken chain of language shift leading back to old colloquial Hebrew is that the Hebrew component of cannot provide straightforward clues to the reconstruction of old colloquial Palestinian Hebrew. I also accepted Weinreich's assumption that were acts of linguistic creativity intended to support the unique religion and culture of the Jews and to replace obsolete colloquial Hebrew and Judeo-Aramaic.I now believe that the importance of an unbroken chain of language shift leading back to Hebrew was grossly exaggerated, since it emerges that most were created independently of preexisiting (e.g., Judezmo [Judeo- Spanish] arose centuries after the demise of colloquial Latin, and there are doubts about the very existence of a Judeo- Latin). Moreover, my research in Yiddish and Judezmo have convinced me that they were in fact created by recent Irano-TurkoSlavic and Berber converts to Judaism, respectively. If that is the case, then the big question is whether collective studies of Jewish languages have any raison d'etre; if they do, what should the goal of such collective studies be?The use of the Biblical Hebrew term adhkenaz (Scythians) as a selfdesignation of Yiddish-speaking Jews is a dramatic clue to the largely Iranian ethnic origin of the biggest community in the world, yet the historical facts are almost universally denied. The term has in fact gone through a number of semantic changes: (a) ashkenaz = Iranian: David ben Avraham ai-Fasi, a Karaite philologist from Fez, wrote in the tenth century that Ashkenaz was the man from whom the Khazars descended, while another Karaite, Josef ben Burhan, wrote in the same century that Khazars were Ashkenazim. …

Nationalism, Identity, and Rebellion: An Interpretation of the Wadi Salib Events

This article puts forward an in-depth examination of the Wadi Salib events. The recently disclosed proceedings of the Wadi Salib Committee of National Inquiry are interpreted to show how the Oriental Jews (Mizrachim) explained their actions in Zionist terms centered on Jewish kinship. The Western Jews (Ashkenazim) in turn, rejected the Oriental Jews’ sense of alliance and underlined the colonial element of Zionist identity. Identity threat theory is incorporated to explain how the two opposing views of Zionism may have been constructed and how these may have contributed to the outbreak of the Wadi Salib events. Some conclusions regarding the nature of Israeli national identity, Ashkenazim-Mizrachim relations, and Majority-Minority, Immigrants-Veterans relations emerge.

An ancient autosomal haplotype bearing a rare achromatopsia-causing founder mutation is shared among Arab Muslims and Oriental Jews

Numerous cultural aspects, mainly based on historical records, suggest a common origin of the Middle-Eastern Arab Muslim and Jewish populations. This is supported, to some extent, by Y-chromosome haplogroup analysis of Middle-Eastern and European samples. Up to date, no genomic regions that are shared among Arab Muslim and Jewish chromosomes and are unique to these populations have been reported. Here, we report of a rare achromatopsia-causing CNGA3 mutation (c.1585G>A) presents in both Arab Muslim and Oriental Jewish patients. A haplotype analysis of c.1585G>A-bearing chromosomes from Middle Eastern and European origins revealed a shared Muslim-Jewish haplotype, which is different from those detected in European patients, indicating a recurrent mutation stratified by a Jewish-Muslim founder effect. Comprehensive whole-genome haplotype analysis using 250 K single nucleotide polymorphism arrays revealed a large homozygous region of ~11 Mbp shared by both Arab Muslim and Oriental Jewish chromosomes. A subsequent microsatellite analysis of a 21.5 cM interval including CNGA3 and the adjacent chromosome 2 centromere revealed a unique and extremely rare haplotype associated with the c.1585G>A mutation. The age of the shared c.1585G>A mutation was calculated using the microsatellite genotyping data to be about 200 generations ago. A similar analysis of mutation age based on the Arab Muslim data alone showed that the mutation was unlikely to be the product of a recent gene flow event. The data present here demonstrate a large (11 Mbp) genomic region that is likely to originate from an ancient common ancestor of Middle-Eastern Arab Muslims and Jews who lived approximately 5,000 years ago.

Frequencies of C282Y and H63D alleles in the HFE gene among various Jewish ethnic groups in Israel: A change of concept required

PurposeHereditary hemochromatosis has not been fully evaluated in the non-Ashkenazi population and is considered to be relatively rare. After ascertaining three unrelated hereditary hemochromatosis families of North African Jewish origin with the HFE C282Y/C282Y genotype, we evaluated the C282Y and H63D allele frequencies among the different Jewish ethnic groups in Israel, in particular North African Jews. MethodsData were collected from three Israeli Medical Centers. North African, Oriental, Yemenite, and Sephardic Jewish healthy individuals were assessed for the C282Y and H63D alleles. ResultsThe C282Y allele frequency was 1.02% (6/586 chromosomes), and the H63D allele frequency was 13.82% (81/586 chromosomes) in the North African Jewish group. The C282Y allele was not detected in the other non-Ashkenazi groups. The H63D allele frequency was 12.5% (38/304 chromosomes) in Oriental Jews, 14.9% (14/94 chromosomes) in Yemenite Jews, and 9.3% (11/118 chromosomes) in Sephardic Jews. DiscussionHereditary hemochromatosis is underrecognized among North African Jews, who have carrier frequencies of 1/58 and 1/4 for C282Y and H63D, respectively. HFE-hereditary hemochromatosis is not rare among this population as currently thought and merits increased awareness to prevent endpoint disease. The frequent occurrence of β-thalassemia trait and HFE-H63D in non-Ashkenazi Jews raises the possibility of genetic interactions contributing to iron overload when coinherited and requires further evaluation.

Revisiting Bialik: A Radical Mizrahi Reading of the Jewish National Poet

In this essay I offer a radical Mizrahi reading of the poetry of the Ashkenazi Zionist poet Haim Nahman Bialik—that is, a reading that examines Jewish and Israeli history and culture through the radical Mizrahi discourse that has evolved in Israel during the past generation, as part of Mizrahi resistance to the cultural and social oppression of Mizrahim. Equipped with these critical lenses, I read Bialik's poems both in the context of their own time and in the Israeli context of my own life. I focus on three poems that I believe are central to his national poetry: “To the Bird” (“El Hatzipor”) from 1892, “A Small Missive” (“Igeret Ktana”) from 1893, and “City of the Killings” (“Be'ir Hahareiga”) from 1903. I also examine alongside these poems two of Bialik's lesser known lectures: “The Revival of the Sephardim” (“Tchiyat Hasefaradim”), which he gave to an audience of young Sephardim in Jerusalem in 1926, and “Eretz Yisrael,” (“The Land of Israel”), which he delivered to Jewish youths in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, 1929.In the course of the essay, I argue that by configuring Arab-Jews (Jews from the Arab world) and, with greater vigor, Palestinians, as those who live outside of history, Zionist historiography has enabled both the economic dispossession and cultural oppression of these groups, including their uprooting and relocation from one region to another. A close and retrospective reading of “poems of diaspora and redemption” written by Bialik and his contemporaries reveals the Orientalist and colonialist world view held by the Ashkenazi-Zionists. By speaking always of Sephardicness but not Jewish-Arabness, Bialik acts as a pioneer of the de-Arabization of Arab Jews and their culture, a trend that grew evermore deeply entrenched in Israel's official policy towards Mizrahi Jews. Indeed, it was Bialik—the institution and the literary symbol—who served three generations of Zionist educators devoted to writing a new Jewish history from which the Jews who lived in Arab and Islamic lands during the last few centuries were erased.

“Location, not identity”: The Politics of Revelation in Ronit Matalon's &lt;em&gt;The One Facing Us&lt;/em&gt;

This article traces the profound ambivalence toward religion in Ronit Matalon's novel, Ze im ha-panim eleinu (The One Facing Us) . The novel tells the story of Esther, sent by her Israeli family to Cameroon, to her maternal uncle Jacques Sicourelle and his family, perhaps in order to marry her cousin Erouan or simply to reunite with distant relatives. Spreading over large geographical expanses, it is the story of the national identity of Mizrahi Jews. The novel strongly criticizes the rigidity of identity politics, and Matalon suggests replacing it with politics of location; location is fluid and may change frequently without our becoming fixed in any one particular identity. The photographic images in the novel grant their subjects identifying visual features; and the exposure of the photographic process is in and of itself an exposure of the process of identity building. Roland Barthes depicts photography as an intense experience of union with the reality " beyond" the photograph: an experience that crosses the boundaries of the photograph to move toward the reality it represents. In this light, it is possible to examine the extraordi- nary process Matalon offers in her novel, which seeks to reconstruct the aura—that is, the revelation, after it has disappeared—through the means of photographs. She breaks the photograph down to its constituent parts, pointing to the source of its aura, its revelatory effect, even though the revelation is invisible in the finished image as a whole. The opposite action—emphasis on the photograph's artifici - ality—externalizes and reveals a contradiction. It fixes and freezes a unique moment, but also freezes the disturbance and so recalls for us both the status of a photo as a reproduced signifier lacking an aura as well as the unique moment it seems to memorialize. From her Mizrahi stance, Matalon refuses to completely participate in the theological-Zionist enterprise: that is, on the one hand she is attracted to the revelatory effect of the photographs, but on the other she will not take on religious identity as an essentialist and fixed component of selfhood.