Do Arabic Jews not identify as Arabic? spinoff

Dandelion1

Mon, Aug 01 2016, 6:43 pm

mazal555 wrote:

When you sit in shul and hear the Rabbi talk about 'the Arabs' when he means terrorists, and you speak Arabic, eat Arab, dress Arab, dance Arab and look Arab, it probably feels a lot like it feels when you hear people say 'blacks' when they mean 'criminals' and you look black and sound black. It makes you uncomfortable to say the least.

How is this any different from the Rabbi speaking on Yom Hashoah about the evil acts of the Germans, when he means Nazis, and I speak German, my grandparents are from Germany, I look German, etc.? You think Jews from Germany are taking offense at the criticism of Germans and Nazis?

We are all JEWS who come from different countries. Yes, we were influenced by the surrounding culture, and yes, we often look like the non-Jews from these countries. But why deny the antisemitism and cruelty and hatred that inspired our grandparents to flee?

Do you think black people whose great-grandparents originate from the south are offended by speakers who criticize the southern ruling elite back in days of slavery, and the persisting prejudice and racism that has lingered till today? And yet they are still products of that culture and might enjoy the foods, speak with a southern accent, and feel connected to the overall culture that seeps through even to the politically disenfranchised members of society.

How are you being offended by people who have political criticisms against the current ruling powers of the Muslim countries? Don't you have criticisms against them and their racist and sxist policies and actions?

It sounds to me like a deliberate attempt to assume some sort of persecuted victim status. It's popular nowadays, almost a status symbol, to claim victimhood. Let me tell you, as Jews and as Israelis, we are definitely victims. Not the victim of the other Jews who are inadvertently not labeling you according to your grandparents' racist birthplace (from which they clearly wanted to escape),but a victim of the countless Muslim countries that plot daily to destroy us on a grand scale.

BayMom

Mon, Aug 01 2016, 6:43 pm

The only time I heard the term 'Arab Jew' was from a Palestinian Arab being interviewed by Corey Gil-Shuster on Youtube. He referred to Sephardi Jews as Arab Jews. The Palestinian guy was saying that Ashkenazi Jews have no business living in Israel as he considers them European, while the 'Arab Jews', in his opinion, may have claims to Israel, because they're Middle Eastern.

JerseyShore

Mon, Aug 01 2016, 8:21 pm

amother wrote:

So what I'm getting from these responses is that some do and some don't but most identify with the Arabic culture (food, language) and with specific Arabian locales? Do Yemenese or Moroccan Jews consider themselves Arabic, or do they consider themselves Yemenese or Moroccan?

My father is Moroccan (my mother is North African and Turkish) and we identify as "Moroccan Jews".

amother

Aubergine

Mon, Aug 01 2016, 8:41 pm

In Egypt, it wasn't like the Arabs (non Jews) and the Jews lived together in harmony. They hated each other and parents would tell their their Jewish children not to mingle with them. The Jews were eventually expelled from the land and they had to leave all their property behind and scatter to different places, many of them separating from their families and not being able to reunite for years. It wasn't anything as bad as the halacaust, however it can be comparible to identifying as Germans or Nazis. The "Arabs" as a nation were not the Jews friends and the Jews were eventually chased out with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. So I think that's the reason many Egyptian/Syrian Jews may not identify as Arab.

JerseyShore

Mon, Aug 01 2016, 8:43 pm

BayMom wrote:

A number of Israeli historians use the term Arab Jew ie. Yehouda Shenhav (who titled his book Arab Jews), Ammiel Alcalay, Ella Shohat, Albert Memmi, Naeim Giladi, Reuvin Snirm Sami Shalom Chetrit and David Rabeeya.

Jews who speak Judeo German are "German Jews" or "Ashkenazic (Hebrew for German) Jews".
Jews who speak Judeo Spanish are "Sephardic (Hebrew for Spanish) Jews" or "Ladinos".
Jews who speak Russian are "Russian Jews".

The Modern Hebrew word "Aravim" ערבים did not have the same meaning in Mishnaic Hebrew.

The Biblical Hebrew word ʿarav" mean "desert" ( see Isaiah 21:13 and Ezekiel 27:21 for the region of the settlement of Kedar in the Syrian Desert.)

The tribal peoples described in the Torah were a mixed community from many different tribes thus the etymology of the word which comes from erev.

This predates Islam and the conversion of the tribal peoples of the Arabian peninsula in the 7th century by centuries.

Every major rabbi since the Rambam has ruled that Muslims are righteous monotheists (see Responsa #448 also Talmud AZ 64b, also Rav Ovadia Yosef ztl has a very thorough compilation in Responsa Yabiah Omer part 7 – Yoreh De’ah 12 including that Jews are permitted to pray (Jewish prayers) in a mosque including the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron which is a mosque).

For a detailed discussion of this, please also see Rav Kook Mishpat Kohen 58-63,69 on heter mechira and why lo techanem does not apply to the Arabs of the Holy Land.

For Jews, there is only one standard of right and wrong and that is our Holy Torah as transmitted by our Gedolim.

tichellady

Mon, Aug 01 2016, 9:34 pm

amother wrote:

Have you never heard of German Jews referring to themselves as German Jews?

amother

Aubergine

Mon, Aug 01 2016, 10:24 pm

tichellady wrote:

Have you never heard of German Jews referring to themselves as German Jews?

Sure, but more commonly I hear German Jews referring to themselves as yekke. The bottom line is that Jews were not ultimately welcomed in these countries. They may have lived side by side with Germans and Arabs and shared a culture, however, these countries ultimately threw them out and rejected them. They didn't care that they were Arab or German and didn't consider the Jews part of their people.

tichellady

Tue, Aug 02 2016, 12:35 am

amother wrote:

This is not the conversation that we are having here. No one is discussing how Jews were treated in different countries.

amother

Taupe

Tue, Aug 02 2016, 1:01 am

JerseyShore wrote:

Exactly. It is a term that has been used in academic discourse, to promote a specific political agenda. Some of the scholars you cited, for example Albert Memmi, discussed the term mainly to take issue with its application.
Mazal is entitled to use the term to define herself. The difficulty that some posters here have is her claim that it now enjoys popular currency. This seems strange, especially in regard to second and third generation Israelis of mizrachi descent and given the absence of the term in the contemporary Israeli media.

Dandelion1

Tue, Aug 02 2016, 8:38 am

tichellady wrote:

This is not the conversation that we are having here. No one is discussing how Jews were treated in different countries.

Maybe you are not having that conversation. But actually, the main point that I made earlier, and that this amother is making is very central to the conversation we are having. Namely, that we find it extremely surprising that a Jew would so vehemently defend her right to define herself by the name and culture of her oppressors.

mazal555

Tue, Aug 02 2016, 10:59 am

aleph wrote:

That's because when you hear Arab, you think terrorists, oppressors, Jew haters, etc. And when I hear Arab, the first picture in my mind is my mother. And your mind is not open enough to understand that from someone else's perspective. You want a court case and proof that there are people that think this way. It doesn't work that way. People don't have their emotions based on 'proofs'. Identity is not something you argue someone into or out of. This is my identity, this is my extended family's identity, this is my friends' identity, in my circles this is normal and I don't care who else has this identity or how it makes you feel. You have no right to have an opinion about my right to my identity.

And to say that Arab jews are claiming their identity as an anti-zionist movement is so offensive to all of my relatives who have died in the IDF, lived on the periphery and settlements, and so many other things for the state of Israel. But some things about Israel I guess will never change and mindless, casual, oblivious racism is probably one of them.

tichellady

Tue, Aug 02 2016, 11:10 am

aleph wrote:

History and people are more complex than that. you are free to feel how you do but donot impose your feelings on others.

And you do realize that tor most of Jewish history Jews prospered in Muslim countries. Even Jews in askenaz who had very dark troubling times also had times of relative peace. The Jews of Iran/ Persia are very proud of their culture- do you tell them that they are not allowed to connect to their culture because of current day Iran or because of hamans plot to destroy the Jewish people.