Mizrachim

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Mizrachim or Misrachim / mizra'xim / ( Hebrew מזרחי Mizrachi , German 'east, oriental' , plur. מזרחים Mizrahi ) also Adot ha-Mizrach (municipalities of the East, the Orient) is in Israel common name for from Asia and Africa , and especially from the Middle East coming Jewish populations. The Mizrahim include the Jews of the Arab world and other Muslim countries such as the Persian , Bucharian , Kurdish Jews as well as the Indian Jews , the mountain Jews from the Caucasus and the Jews from Georgia .

Name and history

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The term "Mizrachim" comes from the Israeli usage of the present. Before the establishment of the State of Israel it was not used in this sense, i.e. for the oriental Jews. Before it was a self-designation of the Mizrachi activists . The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics defines Mizrahim more broadly as "Jews from Asia and Africa".

Many Mizrachim actually identify with their country of birth or that of their ancestors, such as the “ Iraqi Jews ”, “ Tunisian Jews ”, “ Persian Jews ” etc. The Mizrachim are also referred to as oriental Jews (literally translated as “Mizrachi”).

The Mizrachim are often grouped together with the Sfaradim ( Sephardi , which means Spanish in Hebrew ), who settled in North Africa ( Maghreb ) and the Middle East after the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 . However, the Sfaradim do not want to be counted among the Mizrahim.

Before the appearance of this name, "Mizrachi" was occasionally used as a foreign name for Jews living in Arab states. Few accepted the designation as Arab Jews or Arabs , as it evoked the hostility endured by the Arab states and their living conditions. This term is mainly used in the Arab world. As with Arab Christians , most of these communities date back to the Arab- Muslim conquest, during which some ancestral Christian and Jewish communities in North Africa and the Middle East retained their ancestral beliefs.

language

The Mizrachi communities spoke numerous Judeo-Arabic dialects, such as Moghrabi , which is now mainly used as a second language . Other dialects used by Mizrahi are Dzhidi , Judaeo-Georgian , Judäo- Tadschikisch (Buchori), Judeo-Berber , Juhuri and Judeo-Aramaic .

Most of the many important philosophical, religious and literary works of the Mizrahim were written in Arabic with the Hebrew alphabet changed .

History after 1948

Most of the Mizrahim left their Muslim-dominated homeland after the proclamation of the State of Israel . Israeli envoys had also encouraged the Mizrahim to leave their homeland through Zionist propaganda, Hebrew language courses and the like. For their part, the Arab Muslims aggravated the situation by violently attacking their Jewish neighbors. Further anti-Jewish actions by Arab governments in the 1950s and 1960s, including the expulsion of 25,000 Jews from Egypt in the wake of the Suez Crisis in 1956, made many Mizrahim refugees, most of whom went to Israel. Algerian Jews had French citizenship since 1870 , which is why most of them moved to France as a result of the Algerian War . As a result of the Oujda and Jerada pogroms , Moroccan Jews began to leave their country in 1948; however, most of the community did not move to France, Canada, and Israel until the 1960s. Thousands of Jews from Syria and Egypt live in the United States today.

In 2012 over 40,000 Mizrahim lived in communities in the non-Arab Muslim world , mainly in Iran , but also in Uzbekistan , Azerbaijan and Turkey . Of those who remained in the Arab world, over 5,000 live in Morocco and fewer than 2,000 in Tunisia , in other countries less than 100 in each case. Currently, emigration is mainly to Israel and the USA . The statements about the situation of the Iranian Mizrahim are contradicting, because the Islamic government of Iran tolerates Christians and Jews as members of a " book religion ", but also considers them to be ideological opponents. While local Jews report largely peaceful coexistence between religions, Israeli sources, for example, document anti-Semitic attacks.

In the Arab countries, 1948–2008

In 1948, Jewish communities still existed throughout the Arab world. The entire Jewish population comprised around 758,000 to 881,000 people (see table). Today it is less than 8,600. In some Arab states, such as Libya , there are practically no Jews left; in other countries there are a few hundred left.

Jewish population of the Arab countries: 1948, 1972, 2000 and 2008
Country or territory Jewish
population in
1948 		Jewish
population in
1972 		Jewish
population
2001 		Jewish
population
2008
Aden 8,000 ~ 0 ~ 0
Algeria 140,000 1,000 ~ 0 ~ 0
Bahrain between 550 and 600 36 about 50
Egypt between 75,000 and 80,000 500 ~ 100 100 in 2006
Iraq between 135,000 and 140,000 500 ~ 200 less than 100
7 to 12 in Baghdad
Lebanon between 5,000 and 20,000 2,000 <150 between 20 and 40, exclusively in Beirut
Libya between 35,000 and 38,000 50 0 0
Morocco between 250,000 and 265,000 31,000 5,230 3,000 in 2006
Mandate Palestine (Jordanian part) 10,000 0 (West Bank repopulated) 0 (West Bank repopulated) 0 (West Bank repopulated)
Sudan 350 ~ 0 ~ 0
Syria between 15,000 and 30,000 4,000 ~ 100 100 in 2006
Tunisia between 50,000 and 105,000 8,000 ~ 1,000 an estimated 1,100 in 2006
Yemen between 45,000 and 55,000 500 between 400 and 600 between 330 and 350
All in all between 758,350 and 881,350 less than 7,300 less than 6,400

Mizrahim in today's Israel

Since their arrival in Israel , the cultural gap between Mizrahim and Ashkenazi Jews in terms of customs, habits, language, etc., was unmistakable and in some cases unbridgeable. The Jews coming from North Africa spoke Arabic dialects , the native language of those of Iranian origin was Persian , the Baghdad Jews from China spoke English , the Gruzinim Georgian , other languages ​​were Tajik , Juhuri and numerous other languages ​​depending on their country of origin. Some Israeli Mizrahim still mainly speak these languages ​​today. Before emigrating, many Mizrahim saw Hebrew only as the language of prayer.

The Mizrachim were initially quartered in poor, hastily erected tent cities and later assigned to develop cities. The settlement in Moshavim (agricultural cooperatives ) essentially failed because many Mizrahim craftsmen and merchants were without any agricultural experience.

The Mizrahim were very different from the Ashkenazim , which made assimilation into Israeli society a difficult process that took decades. Sociologists have identified numerous factors that hampered integration, including the level of pre-arrival education and the presence or absence of a professional class within the community, as well as racism on the part of the Ashkenazi establishment. However, the widespread mixed marriages of Ashkenazim and Mizrahim in Israel, as well as the general use of Hebrew, have had such a lasting effect on the younger generation that newcomers such as Ethiopians and Jews from the post-Soviet region now regard the Mizrahim as part of the Israeli establishment.

In 2004 the average income of the Ashkenazim was 36 percent higher than that of the Mizrahim, but this difference becomes smaller as the groups mix.

The religious Shas party in Israel sees itself in particular as the guardian of the Sephardic religious expression. In addition to the Ashkenazim , the Sephardi in Israel have their own chief rabbi .

See also

literature

  • Orit Bashkin: Impossible Exodus Iraqi Jews in Israel. Stanford University Press, Redwood 2017, ISBN 978-0-8047-9585-2 .
  • Yfaat Weiss: Wadi Salib. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 6: Ta-Z. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2015, ISBN 978-3-476-02506-7 , pp. 315-319.
  • Omar Kamil: The desert generation. The "Arab Jews" in Zionist ideology from the beginning to the 1950s. In: Klaus-Gerd Giesen (Ed.): Ideologies in world politics. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2004, pp. 211–226 (preview) .
  • Ella Shohat: The Invention of the Mizrahim. In: Journal of Palestine Studies. Volume 29, 1999, No. 1, pp. 5-20, doi : 10.2307 / 2676427 , JSTOR 2676427 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Meir Amor, Chen Bram: Misrachim . In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK) . tape 4 . JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-476-02504-3 , p. 200-204 .
  2. ^ Zvi Ben-Dor Benite: Between East and West - The Mizrachim. Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Israel, October 9, 2016, accessed February 17, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Sergio Della Pergola: World Jewish Population 2012 . In: Arnold Dashefsky, Ira Sheskin (Eds.): Current Jewish Population Reports . No. 7 , 2013, p. 61 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-94-007-5204-7_6 ( study for download from Berman Jewish DataBank [PDF; accessed on January 3, 2017]).
  4. ^ Jews in Islamic Countries: Iran. In: Jewish Virtual Library. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, 2014, accessed January 3, 2017 .
  5. ^ Jacqueline Shields: Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries . Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved May 22, 2006.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Aryeh L. Avneri: The claim of dispossession: Jewish land-settlement and the Arabs, 1878-1948 . Yad Tabenkin Institute, 1984, ISBN 0878559647 , p. 276.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h The Encyclopedia of World History, Sixth Edition, Peter N. Stearns (general editor), © 2001 The Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001, p. 966. (English)
  8. ^ A b c Leon Shapiro, World Jewish Population, 1972 Estimates. American Jewish Year Book vol. 1973, 73: 522-529. (English)
  9. ^ The Virtual Jewish History Tour - Bahrain . Retrieved December 5, 2011. (English)
  10. ^ Bahrain Names Jewish Ambassador , BBC News . May 29, 2008.  (English)
  11. ↑ Jewish Virtual Library (English)
  12. ↑ Jerusalem Post ( Memento of the original from July 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (French) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / fr.jpost.com
  13. ↑ Baghdad's last rabbi to leave Iraq , Haaretz (English)
  14. ↑ Baghdad Jews Have Become a Fearful Few , The New York Times (English)
  15. ↑ David Van Biema: The Last Jews of Baghdad . In: Time , July 27, 2007. Retrieved December 5, 2011.  (English)
  16. ^ Jews of Lebanon . Retrieved December 5, 2011. (English)
  17. ↑ Haaretz.com
  18. ↑ Yemenite Jews {Note: On November 1, 2009, The Wall Street Journal reports in June 2009 that an estimated 350 Jews were left — of whom by October 2009–60 had immigrated to the United States and 100 were considering to leave}
  19. ↑ מרכז אדוה. (PDF) In: Adva-Center . 2005, archived from the original on December 17, 2005 ; Retrieved May 25, 2017 (Hebrew).