Second in an ongoing series
JERUSALEM — There’s an old joke among Israeli Jews: it’s easier to pray for the ingathering of the exiles than to live with them.
Israel, like the United States, is a nation of immigrants. If an Israeli is not an immigrant himself, then most likely his parents or grandparents came from places as varied as Germany, Russia, Morocco, Iran, and New York. Modern Hebrew is known as the only language that children teach to their parents – children born here are naturally fluent, but their parents usually know it as a second or third language.
But there is a crucial difference between Israel and the United States. Neighborhoods, cities, and regions in America are usually comprised of one or two ethnic groups. The southwest is increasingly a Hispanic area. Boston has historically been Irish and Italian. Many people in my hometown in southern Illinois are German.
However, Israel is an extremely small country compared to America; it is roughly the size of New Jersey. As a result, every city, neighborhood, and apartment building is a mix of people from all over the world. Everyone must try to live together in a tight environment, but they do not always succeed. Each ethnic group has its own worldview, culture and religion, and these mentalities often conflict. If you ask five Israelis for their opinions, you will get six answers.
But before I explain the conflicts in Israeli society, I need to set the stage by drawing a picture of the different ethnic groups in Israel and how they came here.
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Israeli Jews
After Judea was destroyed by the ancient Roman Empire in 70 C.E., the surviving Jews were forced into exile. Some went to Europe. Some went to Spain, northern Africa, and neighboring Arab countries. Some stayed in the Middle East. Over the subsequent centuries, each Jewish community developed its own cultural, ethnic, and religious flavor.
The Jews of Europe became known as Ashkenazi Jews, they developed the Yiddish language, and they tended to resemble other Europeans in appearance over the centuries as a result of intermarriage and conversion. They know European (and later American) history and culture, and they have Western mentalities. Ashkenazi Jews developed many diverse types of Judaism: Haredi Judaism (the ultra-Orthodox Judaism described in my last letter), mystical Hasidic Judaism, and non-Orthodox types of Judaism like Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism. In the nineteenth century, Ashkenazi Jews founded the secular, Zionist movement that aimed to re-establish the State of Israel someday. Of course, the most significant event in European Jewish history was the Holocaust: Roughly one-third of the Jews in Europe died.
The Jews who fled to Spain following the destruction of Judea became known as Sephardi Jews. For centuries, Spain was divided between Islam and Christianity, and Jews were usually caught in the middle. In the late 1400s, the Christian king of Spain finally defeated the Muslims and united the country. However, there was a side effect. In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella gave all Jews and Muslims a choice between three options: leave the country, convert to Christianity, or die. (Columbus was not the only person to leave that year.) A sizable number of Jews did convert, but most left Spain to settle in Jewish communities in various places throughout the Arab world. A few resettled in the South America and other countries as well.
The Jews who moved to neighboring Arab countries after the destruction of Judea became known as Mizrahi Jews. For centuries they lived among Muslims in relative peace. A little-known fact: Jews, in general, were historically treated better in Arab countries than in Christian Europe until the twentieth century. (Spain was not the only country in Europe by far to expel Jews.) Mizrahi Jews are Arabs in culture but Jews in religion: their food, their mentalities, their dress, and their physical appearances can be virtually indistinguishable from those of Arabs. Their first language became Arabic. Most Sephardi Jews eventually moved to Arab countries, so the terms “Sephardi” and “Mizrahi” are now interchangeable in Israel.
There are two other Jewish communities that have moved to Israel in the past several years: black Jews from Ethiopia and Indian Jews from India. The communities had claimed that they were descendents from the ancient lost tribes of Israel, and DNA testing confirmed that they are descended from Jews in the Middle East. Most of these communities have decided to move to Israel.
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Other Israelis
Roughly twenty-five to thirty percent of Israel’s population is not Jewish: primarily, they are Muslim and Christian Arabs, as well as non-Jews from Russia. Each of these groups has a story to tell.
The largest minority group in Israel is the Arabs. When Israel was founded in 1948, some of the Arabs in the region known as Palestine fled to neighboring countries (and, in some instances, the Israeli army forced them to leave at gunpoint). Others stayed in their towns, which were eventually located inside Israel once the borders were drawn. Israeli Arabs are full citizens under the law – Arabic is the second official language of Israel, and an Arab political party sits in the legislature. Arabs, however, do face constant discrimination and suspicion from other Israelis who consider them to be a fifth column. (One exception: Arab residents of East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed from Jordan after the war in 1967, are permanent residents, but they are not citizens. They are free to travel and work inside Israel, but they cannot vote.) Some Israeli Arabs have committed terrorist acts over the years, but the vast majority of them just want to live their lives peacefully.
When the State of Israel was re-founded in 1948, the country’s founders wanted to encourage Jews from all over the world to move here. Under the law, any Jew who requests Israeli citizenship can receive it. However, the law also permits anyone who is at least one-quarter Jewish to receive automatic citizenship as well – even if he is not Jewish himself. (In other words, anyone with just one Jewish grandparent can become an Israeli citizen.) The reason: Adolf Hitler aimed to kill anyone who had at least one Jewish grandparent – even if he was not Jewish himself.
However, this part of the law drastically changed Israeli culture after the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Once people were allowed to leave Russia, many non-Jewish Russians immigrated to Israel simply because they happened to have a Jewish grandparent and a desire for a better life. Now, as a result, Israel is partially comprised of a large number of Russians who are not Jews, who do not care about Judaism, and who barely speak Hebrew. In fact, at least one Russian-Israeli teenager even founded a neo-Nazi group in Israel recently and assaulted a few religious Jews in an Israeli city. (He was quickly arrested.) As a result, the government may change the law and close the loophole that allows non-Jews to become citizens, and Israel’s leaders are also facing calls to deport the teenager and strip him of his citizenship.
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Forming a Country
Following the destruction of Judea in 70 C.E., a few Jews had always lived in the region known as Palestine. Many Arabs lived here as well. Ashkenazi Jews began moving from Europe to Palestine in the nineteenth century, and many Holocaust survivors later moved to Israel in the 1940s and 1950s. Shortly after Israel was founded in 1948, many neighboring Arab countries expelled the Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews who had been living in their countries, and they eventually moved to the Jewish State. Israel also had to use military operations to airlift several Jewish communities out of some hostile, Arab countries. Eventually, Jews from Ethiopia and India moved to Israel. After the victorious Six-Day War in 1967, many affluent American and European Jews moved to Israel. Tens of thousands of non-Jewish Russians arrived in the 1990s.
Take all of these communities, place them in an extremely small pot, and stir quickly. That’s the recipe for Israel. But how can one create a functioning country – not to mention a civil society – out of such diversity?
This is another difference between Israel and the United States. America has largely been successful in assimilating its immigrants over the years because the United States is a country that was founded not on religion or ethnicity, but on ideas – specifically, the ideas that are described in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. A person’s ethnicity and religion do not matter – a person can believe in these ideas regardless of whether he is white or Hispanic, Christian or Muslim.
But modern Israel was founded on Judaism, an idea that is an ethnicity and a religion. What this mean for citizens who are not Jews? What does a Russian Christian, a Muslim Arab, and a European Jew all have in common besides the fact that they hold an Israeli passport? What is the status of non-Jews in a Jewish state? What unites all Israelis regardless of ethnicity and culture? These are questions that have yet to be answered.
Still, Jews in Israel are extremely divided even among themselves. Ashkenazi Jews from Europe are generally wealthier and better educated than Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, and this difference resembles the racial divide in America because Ashkenzi Jews have lighter skin tones than other Jews here. Ashkenazi Jews frequently work white-collar jobs at Israel’s top high-tech firms; Arabs and Sephardi Jews tend to work blue-collar jobs in food service and as day laborers.
The divide between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews presents itself most significantly in a metaphorical question: Is Israel a European or Middle Eastern country? Is it East or West?
The Zionist founders of Israel were European Jews, and the country has developed a parliamentary democracy that resembles those in most European countries. Israel has friendlier relations with Europe than with other countries in the Middle East. The country’s soccer team plays in the European league (and not the Asian one). Israel’s high-tech companies frequently work with Silicon Valley in America.
However, a majority of Israeli Jews are now Sephardi Jews because that community tends to have more children. More people now eat various Middle Eastern foods including falafel, shawarma, and couscous rather than the foods favored by Ashkenazi Jews like latkes (potato pancakes) and matzah ball soup. At the risk of sounding stereotypical, most Israeli Jews culturally act more like Middle Easterners than Europeans: they yell, haggle, debate, and banter all of the time. Israelis are a very emotive people: to paraphrase New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, a calm discussion between two Israelis sounds like four Americans having a livid argument. It’s hard to put into words, but my readers who have traveled to the Middle East should know what I mean.
Still, the ethnic and cultural divide between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews is nothing compared to the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. But that’s the complex topic for my next letter.
Prior letter: The Ultra-Orthodox; Next letter: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
