The Israeli Knesset has, after sixty years of cover-up, exposed one of the most lurid scandals in the history of Israeli medicine. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, inspired by Ben Gurion's philosophy that Israel must populate itself via Jewish immigration to compete with the Arabs, Israel airlifted tens of thousands of Yemenite Jews and resettled them. … [Read more...]
Shimon Peres: Don’t Cry for Him, Palestine
As Israelis mourned Simon Peres' death--scores of world leaders, including two U.S. presidents, one current and one former--there was one conspicuous absence. That was the leaders of the Arab world (with one exception which proved the rule, Mahmoud Abbas) and the Israeli Palestinian community. They found nothing to mourn. Shimon Peres was not their leader; … [Read more...]
Israeli Racial Profiling: Guilty of Breathing While Arab
One of the unintended results of the current round of mayhem in Israel and Palestine has been a reminder of the rampant racism within Israeli society. The racism is not just directed at Palestinians, as one might expect, but against anyone who looks "Arab," which includes Mizrahi Jews. The rampage of violence of the past few weeks offers numerous examples … [Read more...]
Israeli-Palestinian Musician’s Subversive Critique of Mizrahi Politics-Culture
The controversial Israeli-Palestinian performer, Jowan Safadi, produced a new song, It's Hard to Be an Arab, which features a provocative YouTube video. When I first listened to it without knowing anything about Safadi, I thought he might be a Mizrahi Jew satirizing his own ethnic community's prejudices. But after hearing the song's lyrics, it became … [Read more...]