- ISBN13: 9780802717665
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- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Ethnic bias against Middle Eastern Jews within Israel has far-reaching implications for the whole region. Middle Eastern Jews from Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, Yemen, and other Arab or Muslim lands—“Mizrahis”—make up nearly half of Israel’s population. Yet European or “Ashkenazi” Jews have historically disparaged them for looking like Arabs, speaking Arabic, and bringing with them what was viewed as a “backward” Middle Eastern culture. Journalist … More >>
We Look Like the Enemy: The Hidden Story of Israel’s Jews from Arab Lands
Rachel Shabi’s book, We Look Like the Enemy, contains two themes. The first theme asserts that the Palestinians are victims of the state of Israel, a position espoused by revisionist historians such as Benny Morris and Ilan Pappé. The second theme presents a portrait of persecution of Sephardi * Jews by the Ashenazic holders of power in the state of Israel.
What is the connection between these two themes? Rachel Shabi asserts that prevailing view of the Israeli ruling elite is that Arabs are a primitive people and that the darker coloring and cultural preferences of Sephardi Jews triggers associations with Arabs in the minds of the Israeli government.
On p. 11 in a footnote, Shabi states: “Recently Israeli “New Historians” such as Ilan Pappé have documented that the expulsion of Palestinians was official policy.” Ephraim Karsh, author of Fabricating Israeli History–The `New Historians’, says that “For years Pappé has proudly presented himself as a staunch opponent of Israel’s existence.” In the introduction to his book, Karsh states: “To set my mind at rest I looked up the entire documentation used by Morris with regard to the Zionist position regarding the expulsion of the Palestinians to the neighbouring Arab states, or `transfer’ as it is commonly known, to which Ben-Gurion’s letter allegedly referred. To my bewilderment I discovered that there was scarcely a single document quoted by Morris which had not been rewritten in a way that distorted its original meaning altogether.”
Rachel Shabi’s book has two flaws. Relying on the `New Historians’ for the first theme mars the credibility of her second theme. The other flaw is the essence of anger which permeates nearly every page. That said, the book is beautifully written, with many colorful turns of phrase and treats a subject that should be explored.
*Rachel Shabi prefers the use of Mizrachi to describe Jews who came from North African and Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq, Morocco, Turkey and others, rather than the term Sephardi, which literally means from Spain. Since Sephardi is more commonly used, I have used this term in the review.
Rating: 2 / 5
Wow – this book really lifts the lid off an Israel that I didn’t even know existed. As a westerner who has never visited Israel, I had the view that Israeli life was what was depicted in “Fiddler on the roof”, and that Jews were represented by the likes of Woody Allen, Albert Einstein. I had no idea that “Arab- Jews” existed, never mind that they were once in the majority in Israel. The dichotomy of Arabs hating Jews and being the enemy – whilst at the same time a majority of Israeli citizens having their birthplace in various Arab countries – has led to these “Mizrahi” Jews being treated as second class citizens. I come originally from Northern Ireland but now live in the USA, and I see striking similarities to the Catholics in N.I. and African Americans here in the USA.
The cultural differences set the Mizrahi apart, and the European (Ashkenazi) Jews do not want their Arab culture to be expressed in Israel.
Shabi’s writing style is conversational and easy to read – and she backs up her claims with a multitude of references. Speeches by Ben Gurion, Golda Meir and others, show that the bias against Mizrahi Jews was not random or accidental, but strategically planned. “We look like the enemy” shows clearly that the popular view of Israel is wrong, and that there is a large population in Israel who share a cultural identity with their Arab neighbors. The book notes that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sees the Mizrahi Jews as the best option for negotiations between Israel and Palestine, and who knows, maybe this community could well be the key to solving a problem that it seems has no end.
Rating: 5 / 5
What an excellent, well written book. This author has the ability to express the Mizrahi’s feelings in terms that allows the reader to feel their pain. It sheds a shining light on a new element of struggle that is never mentioned when discussing the Arab-Israeli struggle. European Jews with European culture seem to have absorbed the anti-Semitic methods into their genetic make-up and are now perpetuating the injustices they have collectively experienced on the hands of anti-Semitic Christian Europe unto authentic Middle Eastern Jews. The stories in this book share a common thread with stories I have read of injustices many minorities of different races have experienced throughout the ages.
These stories bring to focus another dimension to the Arab-Israeli struggle. If Mizrahi Jews are viewed with such disdain by their own co-religionists, one can’t help but wonder how much more disdain is saved for the Israeli Arabs or for the Palestinians living in the West Bank. Could this ongoing struggle between Israelis and the Palestinians be a racial struggle whose origins can be found in the doctrines espoused by the likes of Hitler himself? Or could this struggle be perpetuated by the West Bank being a captive market or a source of cheap labor for a racist Israeli society that cannot live with an ostensibly inferior culture, but yet wants access to the cheap labor that Mizrahi Jews and Palestinian Arabs provide.
These are the issues discussed in this book, and these are the topics that should be the subject of the mainstream debate
Rating: 5 / 5
There have been several important books on the lives and immigration of Sephardim and Mizrahim, or Jews from the Middle East, to Israel. Among these are Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book and The Forgotten Millions: The Modern Jewish Exodus from Arab Lands. This book seeks to examine the hardship these groups faced when they arrived in Israel. Several personal memoirs have already done this, such as Last Days in Babylon: The Exile of Iraq’s Jews, the Story of My Family.
But this book’s central thesis is that the maltreatment and stereotypes of these Jews by the Ashkenazi or European Jews is a reason to condemn Israel in total and label it a ‘misfit’ in the Middle East. But herein lies the problem. The author blames Ben Gurion for saying these Jewish immigrants had no culture but yet it was Ben-Gurion who ordered Israel to bring them. In successive waves of immigration after 1948 some 800,000 of these Jews came on such operations as Magic Carpet from Yemen. The Jews that came were very diverse, from the poorer but very educated communities in Yemen to the wealthy ones of Baghdad and the French speakers from North Africa. From the wordly Egyptians, some of whome were actually recent Ashkenazi arrivals, to the Libyans and Kurds and Persians ans Turkish Jews who spoke Ladino and even the Jews of Greece who, although this book does not deal with them, were also Sephardim. In fact the book seems to miss all these diverse nuances, missing out on the essential difference between the history of the Sephardim (exiles from Spain in 1492) and those ancient communities. The Ethiopian Jews are not dealt with at all.
The insinuation is that these Jews faced hardship for speaking Arabic and were seen as ‘like the enemy’. It is true that the dominant Labour party relegated these new Jews to ‘development towns’ and border areas and left them in harder conditions than newly arrived European Jews, that the governing officials felt connected to culturally. But the Sephardim also joined the opposition political party, Likud. In fact not all these Jews even spoke Arabic, something this book seems oblivious too. The Algerians spoke French along with Arabic and Turkish Jews didn’t speak Arabic at all. Neither did the Persians or Bokharans, not to mention the non-mentioned Ethiopians who were speaking Amharic.
While the author centers the book around the ‘Black Panther’ movement it fails to mention that this was a tiny extremist movement, whereas the Sephardie support for Likud, the right wing Israeli party that came to power in 1977 after years in opposition was more common. In fact the book doesn’t even mention that it was Menachem Begin, an Ashkenazi Polish Jew, who gave the Sephardim hope with his election in 1977. They turned out in the hundreds of thousands crying and cheering on that day after Labour officials had referred to them in racially derogatorry terms as ‘Chochchockim’ and threatened to ‘beat them as we beat the Arabs’. But it was the Labour party that was beaten. It wasn’t the Black Panthers that were the legacy but Shas, the Sephardie religious party.
This book dwells on stereotypes in itself, ignoring the brilliant and beautiful diversity of the Jews of the Middle East, and ignoring their actualy political aspirations and choices. It never once mentions the succcess this community has found, in the army (in units like Golani) and in politics. It ignores Likud and Shas. It ignored Begin. It ignores the Ethiopians. It lumps the Sephardim and Mizrahim together, never once noting the business success of many prominent families. It uses these people and selective interviews as a tool to bash Israel as a ‘misfit’ nation, but it never addresses the fact that no European nation wanted these Jews of Arab lands and when they were thrown out after suffering pogroms and ‘farhads’ they had only one place to go. Their story was hard and full of struggle and discrimination but this story is never fully revealed in a book full of political expediency. Unfortunate for the Sephardim and Mizrahim deserve justice and respect.
Seth Frantzman
Rating: 3 / 5