[1][2][3][4] Jews living in Arab-majority countries historically mostly used various Judeo-Arabic dialects as their primary community language, with Hebrew used for liturgical and cultural purposes (literature, philosophy, poetry, etc.).
The term can also sometimes refer to Jewish converts of Arab birth, such as Baruch Mizrahi or Nasrin Kadri, or people of mixed Jewish-Arab parentage, such as Lucy Ayoub.
[8] The Arabic al-Yahūd al-ʿArab and Hebrew Yehudim `Aravim literally mean 'Arab Jews', a phrasing that in current usage is considered derogatory by Israelis of Mizrachi origin.
[9] Historian Emily Benichou Gottreich has observed that the term 'Arab Jew' is largely an identity of exile and “was originally theorized from within frameworks of, and remains especially prominent in, specific academic fields, namely literary and cultural studies”.
[10] Gottreich has also noted that the term "implies a particular politics of knowledge vis-à-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and larger Zionist narrative(s)" and post-Zionist discourse.
However, she argues that the discourse about Arab Jews remains largely "limited to the semantic-epistemological level, resulting in a flattened identity that is both historically and geographically ambiguous".
[10] Prior to the creation of the State of Israel, between 700,000 and 850,000 Jews lived in the Middle East and North Africa, but by the end of the 20th century, all of these communities had faced "dislocation and dispersal" and largely vanished, according to Lital Levy, who has noted: "These were indigenous communities (in some cases present in the area for millennia) whose unique, syncretic cultures have since been expunged as a result of emigration."
In Israel, these communities were subject to "deracination and resocialization", while in the West, the concept of Jews from the Arab World was, and remains, poorly understood.
After arriving in Israel the Jews from Arab lands found that use of Judeo-Arabic was discouraged and its usage fell into disrepair.
[4] The terminology became politically important during the First World War, when Jews of Middle Eastern origin living in Western countries used the term to support their case that they were not Turks and should not be treated as enemy aliens.
[19] Today, various Israeli political activists identify themselves as Arab Jews, includinv Naeim Giladi, Ella Habiba Shohat, Sami Shalom Chetrit and David Rabeeya.
[22] She argues that the use of the term Mizrahim is in some sense a Zionist achievement in that it created a single unitary identity separated from the Islamic world.
Which replaced older multifaceted identities each linked to the Islamic world, including but not limited to identifying as Arab Jews.
[26] David Rabeeya argues that while the Zionist movement succeed in creating a Jewish state it did irreparable harm to Arab Jews and Palestinians.
"[27]: 49–50 David Tal argues that Shohat and her students faced great resistance from Mizrahim with few choosing to identify as Arab Jews.
[29] Jonathan Marc Gribetz cautions against the uncritical use of term in historiographical works, viewing it as non-typical.
The Old Yishuv was composed of three clusters: Ladino-speaking Sephardi Iberian emigrants to the late Mamluk Sultanate and early Ottoman Empire following the Spanish Inquisition; Eastern European Hasidic Jews who emigrated to Ottoman Palestine during the 18th and 19th centuries; and Judeo-Arabic-speaking Musta'arabi Jews who had been living in Palestine since the destruction of the Second Temple and who had become culturally and linguistically Arabized.
[33][page needed] The descendants of the Palestinian Musta'arabim live in Israel, but have largely assimilated into the Sephardi community over time.
According to Ignacio Klich, an Argentine scholar of Arab and Jewish immigration, "Arabic-speaking Jews felt themselves to have a lot in common with those sharing the same place of birth and culture, not less than what bound them to the Yiddish-speakers praying to the same deity.
After the September 11 attacks, some Arab Jews in New York City were subjected to arrest and detention because they were suspected to be Islamist terrorists.