Identity Issues within Israeli Jews

There are Jewish people living in Israel who have come from many countries and even after 3 or more generations they are still called often and identified with their source country. Can German Jews living 3 generations in Israel be considered as Germans? The Germans and the rest of the world will definitely not consider them as such.  However, in Israel they are still considered as German (Yekka)!  The identity definition for people in Israel always proceeds with the country of origin.  Out of Israel all the Jewish populations are considered as Israelis.  In Israel, your ancestry country of origin is a necessary element for a person’s definition of his identity.  Israeli people are composed of over 60% of Sephardic and “Mizrachi” (Eastern) Jews who are different in their culture from their brethren the Western Ashkenazi Jews.  These differences were noticeable early in the history of the State of Israel.   These differences understandably existed because Jews came from different countries of the world. 

There was a long-existing Sephardic community in Israel (Palestine) before the mass migration of Jews started.  Israel’s Jewish population came in several waves. The first and second waves of immigrants were from Russia and they came during the second half of the 19^th century.  Later and through the 1940s, the vast majority of immigrants were from Europe.  The Nazi threat brought German Jews in the 1930s, and they left their mark on Israel’s major institutions.  After the War of Independence in 1948, over 700,000 Jews were expelled from Arab lands.  These Jews had darker skin, different songs, different foods, and a somewhat different outlook on life.  The arrival of these Sephardic Jews changed the dynamic to Ashkenazic-Sephardic as opposed to Russian and German, or German and Polish styles.   

Ashkenazim and Sephardim (source: http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft709nb49x&doc.view=content&chunk.id=ch7&toc.depth=1&anchor.id=0&brand=eschol)

The division among Jews from different communities is an inescapable result of Jewish history. Since the inception of Zionism, Jews have immigrated to Israel from over a hundred countries of origin, bringing with them vast cultural, social, linguistic, and—by some definitions—ethnic differences.  Jews of European cultural backgrounds are labeled “Ashkenazim,” while those of non-European background are referred to as “Sephardim” or as “Easterners.”  The potential for conflict among Israeli Jews from different backgrounds should not be underestimated.  European Jews founded the Zionist movement, dominated it, and overwhelmed the long-existing Sephardic community in Palestine. They imposed their institutions and values on the politics, society, and culture of the “yishuv” (the Jewish community in pre-1948 Palestine) and the State of Israel, assuming that Jews from “backward” non-European areas would simply have to adjust to the established order.  The bulk of Asian and African Jews, on the other hand, arrived on the scene only after the state was established, often as uprooted refugees who had been stripped of their property and other resources.  Initially the gap—economically, socially, politically, or on any other dimension—was enormous, and resentment was further fueled by attitudes of paternalism and contempt for non-European culture on the part of the Ashkenazi elite.  The cultural linkage of most Eastern Jews to Middle East societies was also a factor, since the Arab-Jewish conflict also increased hostility toward Arab culture. The attitude of veteran settlers was expressed in a Western-oriented educational system that ignored the heritage of Middle Eastern Jews and dismissed non-Western cultures.

Differences Today

While reading Maariv online I have read many readers’ responses to provocative articles.  If it was on Mordechai Vannuno, usually there were many racist responses about Moroccan Jews or Sephardic Jews in general.  If it was on Eigal Amir there were responses against Yemenite and Mizrachi Jews in general. Israelis somehow tend to forget that actually most traitors and big embezzlers are actually Ashkenazi Jews.  See the following names: