Mizrahi Jews

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For the Religious Zionist Movement and other entities and people named "Mizrachi", please see the Mizrachi disambiguation page.
Mizrahi Jews
(יהדות מזרח Yahadut Mizrah)
A Jewish family in Damascus, pictured in their ancient Damascene home, in Ottoman Syria, 1901.
Total population

3.0 to 3.5 million (estimate)
Regions with significant populations
Flag of Israel Israel <3,000,000
Flag of France France 400,000
Flag of the United States United States 200,000-300,000
Flag of Canada Canada 35,000
Flag of Iran Iran 25,000
Flag of Chile Chile 2,700
Flag of Argentina Argentina 2,170
Languages
Hebrew, Dzhidi, Judæo-Arabic, Gruzinic, Bukhori, Judeo-Berber, Juhuri and Judæo-Aramaic
Religions
Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardi Jews, other Jewish ethnic divisions and Arabs.

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v • d • e

Mizrahi Jews or Mizrahim, (Hebrew: מזרחים, Standard Mizraḥim Tiberian Mizrāḥîm ; "Easterners"), also referred to as Edot HaMizrach (Communities of the East) are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and the Caucasus. With the exception of Yemenite Jews, who are sometimes included but more often considered a separate group, the Mizrahi category includes Jews from the Arab world and adjacent countries, primarily Muslim-majority, including Iraqi Jews, Syrian Jews, Lebanese Jews, Persian Jews, Bukharian Jews, Maghrebi Jews, Berber Jews and Kurdish Jews, as well as communities such as Mountain Jews and Georgian Jews, and among the Jews of India and Pakistan the Baghdadi Jews (descendants of relatively recent Iraqi Jews settled in the last few centuries, in contrast to Jewish communities of the Indian subcontinent established millenia earlier).

Despite their heterogeneous origins, Mizrahi Jews generally practise traditional Sephardic Judaism (a fact which complicates the prevalent Israeli nomenclature as discussed below) with some differences among the minhagim of the particular communities.

Contents

[edit] History and usage

"Mizrahi" is literally translated as "Eastern", מזרח (Mizrach) being 'East" in Hebrew. The original use of the terms "Mizrahi" and "Edot ha-Mizrach" was as a translation of the Arabic term Mashriqiyyun (Easterners), referring to the people of Syria, Iraq and other Asian countries, as distinct from those of North Africa (Maghrabiyyun).

In modern Israeli usage, it refers to all Jews from North African and West Asian countries, particularly Arabic-speaking Muslim-majority countries. The term came to be widely used by Mizrahi activists in the early 1990s, and since then has become a widely accepted designation.[1]

Many Mizrahim today reject this (or any) umbrella description and prefer to identify themselves by their particular country of origin, or that of their immediate ancestors, e.g. "Iranian/Persian Jew", "Iraqi Jew", "Tunisian Jew", etc. Another description sometimes heard is "Oriental Jews". This term is still frequently used by people in the western hemisphere.

[edit] Other designations

Jewish wedding in Aleppo, Syria, 1914.
Jewish wedding in Aleppo, Syria, 1914.

Many speakers, especially in Israel, identify all non-Ashkenazi Jews as Sephardim. The reason for this classification is that most Mizrahi communities use much the same religious rituals as Sephardim proper. In the same way, "Ashkenazim" is used for "Jews of the German rite", whether or not they originate from Germany. This broader definition of "Sephardim" as applying to all Mizrahi Jews is also common in Jewish religious circles, especially those associated with the Shas political party.

Additionally, many of the Sephardic Jews exiled from Spain resettled in small and large numbers in Arabic-speaking countries such as Syria and Morocco. In Syria, for example, most eventually intermarried with and assimilated into the larger established community of Arabic-speaking Jews. While in Morocco, where they came to outnumber the pre-existing Arab and Berber Jews, it was some of the latter that assimilated into the more prosperous and prestigious Sephardic community. Either way, it led to the popular designation and conflation of most non-Ashkenazic Jewish communities from the Middle East and North Africa as "Sephardic", whether or not they are actually descended from Spanish Jews, which is what the terms "Sephardic Jews" and "Sepharadim" refer to in the ethnic as opposed to the religious sense.

In many Arab countries, older Arabic-speaking communities distinguished between themselves and the newer arrivals speaking Judeo-Romance languages, that is, Sephardim expelled from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1497. The established Arabic-speaking Jews called themselves Musta'arabim (Arabic for Arabizers), while the newer Sephardi arrivals called them Moriscos (Ladino for Moorish).

[edit] Language

Main article: Judeo-Arabic languages
Kurdish Jews in Rawanduz, northern Iraq, 1905.
Kurdish Jews in Rawanduz, northern Iraq, 1905.

Mizrahi communities spoke a number of Judeo-Arabic dialects such as Maghrebi, though these are now mainly used as a second language. Most of the many notable philosophical, religious and literary works of the Mizrahim were written in Arabic using a modified Hebrew alphabet.

Among other languages associated with Mizrahim are Judeo-Persian (Dzhidi), Gruzinic, Bukhori, Kurdish, Judeo-Berber, Juhuri, Judeo-Marathi, Judeo-Malayalam and Judeo-Aramaic dialects. Most Persian Jews speak standard Persian.

Aramaic is a close sister of Hebrew. It is identified as a "Jewish language", since it is the language 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 yeshivoth, as many rabbinic texts are written in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic. As spoken by the Jews of Kurdistan, Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects are descended from Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, as could be seen from its hundreds of reflexes in Jewish Neo-Aramaic. In addition to Judeo-Aramaic, some Kurdish Jews speak an unrelated language called "Judeo-Kurdish" which is a "Jewish" form of the Indo-European Kurdish language.

By the early 1950s, virtually the entire Jewish community of Kurdistan — a rugged, mostly mountainous region comprising parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and the Caucasus, where Jews had lived since antiquity — relocated to Israel. The vast majority of Kurdish Jews, who were primarily concentrated in northern Iraq, left Kurdistan in the mass aliyah (emigration to Israel) of 1950-51. This ended thousands of years of Jewish history in what had been Assyria and Babylonia.

See also Mizrahi Hebrew language.

[edit] Post-1948 dispersal

Main article: Jewish exodus from Arab lands

After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and subsequent establishment of the state of Israel, most Mizrahi Jews emigrated to the new state where they could become citizens.

Anti-Jewish actions by Arab governments in the 1950s and 1960s, including the expulsion 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.

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 [2]. There are few remaining in the Arab world. About 5,000 remain in Morocco and fewer than 2,000 in Tunisia. Other countries with remnants of ancient Jewish communities with official recognition, such as Lebanon, have 1,000 or fewer Jews. A trickle of emigration continues, mainly to Israel and the United States. A number have been arrested, mostly for alleged connections with Israel and the United States. Some have been executed, with religious intolerance often cited as the main contributing factor. [3]

[edit] Transitioning into Israeli society

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Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (April 2008)

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.[4] 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 and later sent to 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.

Mizrahi immigrants arrived with many mother tongues. Many, especially those from North Africa and the fertile crescent, spoke Arabic dialects; those from Iran spoke Persian; Baghdadi Jews from India and Gruzinic arrived with English; Mizrahim from elsewhere brought Georgian, Tajik, Juhuri and various other languages with them. Hebrew had historically been a language of prayer only 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, but with time they became more assimilated, creating a new, Israeli identity.

[edit] 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 European and Middle Eastern Jews has been quite sharp. Segregation, especially in the area of housing, limited integration possibilities over the years.[5] Intermarriage between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim is now relatively common in Israel,[citation needed] however, it has been found that intermarriage does not tend to decrease ethnic differences in socio-economic status.[6]

It appears that despite increased social integration, disparities persist. A study conducted by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS), Mizrahi Jews are less likely to pursue academic studies than Ashkenazi Jews. Less than 10% of total doctoral students are Arabs or Mizrahi Jews,[7] and Ashkenazi immigrants are up to 10 times more likely to study in a university than Israeli-born Mizrahim.[8] Furthermore, the percentage of Mizrahim who seek a university education remains low compared to second-generation immigrant groups of Ashkenazi origin, such as Russians.[9] According to a survey by the Adva Center[10], the average income of Ashkenazim was 36 percent higher than that of Mizrahim in 2004.[11] This difference is declining as the communities integrate.[citation needed]

[edit] Prominent Mizrahi figures

[edit] Politicians

[edit] Writers and Academics

[edit] Entertainers

[edit] Business people

[edit] Religious figures

[edit] Others

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ http://web.mit.edu/cis/www/mitejmes/issues/200105/download/Shohat.doc
  2. ^ The Jewish Population of the World, The Jewish Virtual Library
  3. ^ The Jews of Iran, The Jewish Virtual Library
  4. ^ Ella Shohat: “Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of its Jewish Victims,” Social Text, No.19/20 (1988), p.32
  5. ^ Blackwell Synergy - Int J Urban & Regional Res, Volume 24 Issue 2 Page 418-438, June 2000 (Article Abstract)
  6. ^ [1]
  7. ^ http://www.cbs.gov.il/publications/educ_demog_05/pdf/gr10.pdf
  8. ^ http://www.cbs.gov.il/publications/educ_demog_05/pdf/t16.pdf
  9. ^ 97_gr_.xls
  10. ^ Adva Center
  11. ^ Hebrew PDF [2]

[edit] Literature

  • Ella Shohat, "The Invention of the Mizrahim" in: Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1. (Autumn, 1999), pp. 5-20.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Organizations

[edit] Articles

[edit] Particular communities

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