Mizrahi Jews in Israel
[3] Anti-Jewish actions by Arab governments in the 1950s and 1960s, in the context of the founding of the State of Israel, led to the departure of large numbers of Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East.
Today, as many as 40,000 Mizrahi Jews still remain in communities scattered throughout the non-Arab Muslim world, primarily in Iran, but also Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Turkey.
[7] Some 607,900 Israeli Jews are immigrants and first-generation descendants by paternal lineage of Moroccan, Tunisian, Libyan, Algerian, Yemenite, Iranian, Egyptian, Kurdish, Afghan, Pakistani, Indian and Turkish Jewish communities.
Often Mizrahi and North African Sephardic Jews in Israel are grouped together due to the similarity of their history under Muslim rule and an overwhelming migration out of their countries of residence during the 20th century.
Refuge in Israel was not without its tragedies: "in a generation or two, millennia of rooted Oriental civilization, unified even in its diversity," had been wiped out, writes Mizrahi scholar Ella Shohat.
Settlement in Moshavim (cooperative farming villages) was only partially successful, because Mizrahim had historically filled a niche as craftsmen and merchants and most did not traditionally engage in farmwork.
As the majority left their property behind in their home countries as they journeyed to Israel, many suffered a severe decrease in their socio-economic status aggravated by their cultural and political differences with the dominant Ashkenazi community.
[16] It has been claimed that intermarriage does not tend to decrease ethnic differences in socio-economic status,[17] however that does not apply to the children of inter-ethnic marriages.
[19] Furthermore, the percentage of Mizrahim who seek a university education remains low compared to second-generation immigrant groups of Ashkenazi origin, such as Russians.
[27] The robustness of support among Mizrahi Israelis for Netanyahu has been credited for his political survival despite a string of scandals, court investigations, and very close elections.
[23] Likud's electoral success in 2020 has hinged on turnout in its strongholds in Beersheba and a string of northern towns inhabited by Mizrahim,[23] while in 2015 likewise Likud was carried to victory by a wave of turnout in working-class, predominantly Mizrahi "development towns", and because this occurred in response to Netanyahu's warning about Arab voters coming out in "droves",[24] it led to a low level wave of ethnic tensions, with mutual accusations of racism between left-wing Ashkenazi figures and their right-wing Mizrahi counterparts.
Although these tensions were initially based on economic rivalries, the distinction remained strong even as Mizrahim increasingly moved up the socioeconomic ladder around 1990, entering the middle class, and the disparity between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim diminished (but did not completely disappear), with Mizrahi political expression becoming increasingly linked to the Likud and Shas parties.
[27] However, other analysts partially or mainly reject the economic explanation, arguing that instead cultural and ideological factors play a key role.
[11] By the 2010s, all parts of the political spectrum, not just the centre-right, were giving increasing focus on the Mizrahi perspective, with some identifying a resulting trend of orientalization of Israeli public discourse.
[15][36][37][38][39][40] The orientalization of Israeli identity and discourse and the shift from a society aiming to emulate Europe to one identifying itself as Middle Eastern is increasingly being embraced by the younger generation of Ashkenazim as well, especially on the left.
[15] May 9, 2021, the first physical memorialization in Israel of the Departure and Expulsion of Jews from Arab land and Iran was placed on the Sherover Promenade in Jerusalem.
