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We Look Like the Enemy: The Hidden Story of Israel's Jews from Arab Lands (2008)

di Rachel Shabi

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549475,799 (3.39)9
"There is a class split," writes Rachel Shabi, "that runs on ethnic lines"--specifically, between Jews of European origin and those whose ancestral homes were Arab countries. Middle Eastern Jews from Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, Yemen, and other Arab lands make up nearly half of Israel's population. Yet European or "Ashkenazi" Jews have historically disparaged them because the emigrants looked Arab, spoke Arabic, and brought with them what was viewed as a "backward" Middle Eastern culture. David Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, called them "human dust with no Jewish or human culture." Such opinions permeated Israeli society. Middle Eastern or "Mizrahi" emigrants were kept in transit camp longer than Ashkenazi Jews and had poorer housing, educational, and occupational opportunities. Shabi returned to Israel for a year to investigate the tense relations that still exist between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews in Israel. She traces the history of this split, starting with the centuries-old story of the Jewish Diaspora, then discussing how Mizrahi figured in the founding and building of Israel, protests by the Mizrahi Black Panther Party in 1971--"the first clash of Jew against Jew in Israel"--and a successful campaign in the 1990s to get the Israeli Ministry of Education to remove negative stereotyping of Yemenites in a textbook. Internalizing such stereotypes led a Moroccan Israeli university professor to begin passing for Ashkenazi when she was only eight years old, even though it meant "destroying, down to the roots, the identity that my parents gave me...rejecting everything: their past, their language, their values." Israel's striving to be a European country and demeaning the culture of its Mizrahi citizens has dislocated those citizens from their own Judeo-Arab identities, and has helped make Israel a misfit state in the Middle East. Shabi combines historical research with intimate oral interviews to shed light on ethnic injustice within Israel, past and present. Her passionate, personal connection and the heartfelt stories told by other Mizrahis make "We Looked Like the Enemy" a stunning, unforgettable book.… (altro)
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This was disappointing. The main points - that Israel looked to Europe as a model both culturally and politically and the country's conflicted relationship with mizrahis affects and colors the relationship with Israeli Arabs and Palestinians are well taken, but probably could have been made in one thoughtful article.

The writing is very uneven which doesn't help. ( )
  laurenbufferd | Nov 14, 2016 |
An interesting book. It informs the reader of the fact that racism does exists within Jews in Israel -- the focus is on Ashkenazi Jews of European descent towards Jews of Arabic descent. It should be noted that the author is an Iraqi Jew. ( )
  ValerieAndBooks | Dec 12, 2011 |
Questa recensione è stata scritta per Recensori in anteprima di LibraryThing.
Rachel Shabi's book is an intimate analysis of a complex racial and cultural situation surrounding Israeli Jews of mostly Arabic lineages, including the many salient political, social, pedagogical, economic, and cultural challenges they have faced and continue to face.

The work is rather fascinating, adding for me a much richer view of the problems facing Israelis than I had understood from either what I have read about Zionist/Anti-Zionist internal conflicts in Israel or my understanding of Jewish history and heritage. The work is quite easy and quick to read and digest, and not even a cursory knowledge of many of the important figures is really needed to get the gist of what Shabi is trying to describe. Shabi is clearly quite sympathetic to the Mizrahi (the term she prefers for the non-Ashkenazi Jewish Israelis), but is not overly hostile to other groups discussed.

For the most part, the information presented seems to be presented fairly, if not in a completely dispassionate manner. However, many supportive bits of evidence, especially in the middle of the book, are quite poor. These range from many accusatory « some people even say... » statements, uncited statistics, generalizations about people and values, oversimplified or questionable attributions of causes and motives, and implications through counterfactual examples or questions when evidence seems not to be available or supportive. That said, the book still presents a great deal of better-supported facts and sources of relevant and seemingly reliable information that still do well enough in making Shabi's case about the rather troubling past and still (though slightly less-so) troubling circumstances surrounding the treatment of Mizrahis.

The book could have been made a bit more solid, and there seemed also to be parts wherein the author undermined her own case by attempting to make strong claims on seemingly opposing sides of an issue without distinguishing how these two claims are not problematic (for instance, to put it rather crudely, how claims about Mizrahi music's importance and popularity don't undermine the position that this music is marginalized and ignored; answers may be implied by the book, but they don't seem to me adequate to allow the author to make both claims without further explanation). Otherwise, the book was quite good. I would love to hear a more detailed follow-up discussing either the specific nature of religious/cultural differences between Israeli Mizrahis non-Mizrahis or a bit deeper analysis (àla Jonathan Kozol, perhaps) of the educational cituation! ( )
  jxn | Mar 19, 2010 |
Questa recensione è stata scritta per Recensori in anteprima di LibraryThing.
I found this one a struggle to stay with. The author's research and effort were clear throughout, and she is a skillful writer, but the anger that came through in her voice, justified as it may be, distracted from the book. The fiery tone took from it what could otherwise have been a better book. Just the same, for a person not terribly familiar with Israeli society, I feel more educated to have been exposed to the problems Shabi describes. ( )
  linedog1848 | Mar 16, 2010 |
Questa recensione è stata scritta per Recensori in anteprima di LibraryThing.
This is not an easy book to read irrespective of the author's strong research, passion for the subject, and excellent story telling abilities. She also maintains a truly brutal degree of objectivity that is all the more amazing given all she, her family, and community lost because of 'a European solution to a European problem.' I tried to maintain objectivity as I read the book, but my anger and disgust reached almost uncontrollable levels and I was forced to stop reading for days at a time as I realized how many people have died and how many vibrant and creative cultures were destroyed all in the name of a solution that is as inherently wrong as the problems it seeks to correct. It is for this reason that this is a trenchant work that should be required reading for every political leader (irrespective of the kinds of groups they lead). Furthermore, organizations that influence the public's reading habits (such as Oprah, Reader's Digest, New York Times Review of Books etc.) should also strongly recommend it. I do not want to say anything more about its contents as I do not want to potential readers to think it is merely an anti-Zionist or pro-Zionist treatise. The author takes her and her readers past such knee-jerk reactions and seeks to address a much more fundamental question; How can these very different groups of people (who, in what is one of history's greatest ironies, are all Semites) whom history and geography have brought together find a way of living with each other? Because it is an inescapable fact that their destinies and, perhaps, that of the rest of the world, are completely entwined. ( )
  millsge | Mar 8, 2010 |
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Eigentlich sind es die Datteln, die ihre irakische Herkunft verraten - eine Gewohnheit, die so fest in ihnen verwurzelt ist wie die arabische Sprache und Musik, die arabische Lebensweise.
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"There is a class split," writes Rachel Shabi, "that runs on ethnic lines"--specifically, between Jews of European origin and those whose ancestral homes were Arab countries. Middle Eastern Jews from Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, Yemen, and other Arab lands make up nearly half of Israel's population. Yet European or "Ashkenazi" Jews have historically disparaged them because the emigrants looked Arab, spoke Arabic, and brought with them what was viewed as a "backward" Middle Eastern culture. David Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, called them "human dust with no Jewish or human culture." Such opinions permeated Israeli society. Middle Eastern or "Mizrahi" emigrants were kept in transit camp longer than Ashkenazi Jews and had poorer housing, educational, and occupational opportunities. Shabi returned to Israel for a year to investigate the tense relations that still exist between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews in Israel. She traces the history of this split, starting with the centuries-old story of the Jewish Diaspora, then discussing how Mizrahi figured in the founding and building of Israel, protests by the Mizrahi Black Panther Party in 1971--"the first clash of Jew against Jew in Israel"--and a successful campaign in the 1990s to get the Israeli Ministry of Education to remove negative stereotyping of Yemenites in a textbook. Internalizing such stereotypes led a Moroccan Israeli university professor to begin passing for Ashkenazi when she was only eight years old, even though it meant "destroying, down to the roots, the identity that my parents gave me...rejecting everything: their past, their language, their values." Israel's striving to be a European country and demeaning the culture of its Mizrahi citizens has dislocated those citizens from their own Judeo-Arab identities, and has helped make Israel a misfit state in the Middle East. Shabi combines historical research with intimate oral interviews to shed light on ethnic injustice within Israel, past and present. Her passionate, personal connection and the heartfelt stories told by other Mizrahis make "We Looked Like the Enemy" a stunning, unforgettable book.

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