THE PLOT

The creation of Israel sparked a backlash against Jews throughout the Middle East and North Africa, compounding the existing decades and centuries of persecution. These Mizrahi Jews (Jews indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa) left their home countries en masse, most making their way to Israel. 

Israel was short of everything in the austere years of the 1950s, and in all those things the Mizrahi Jews tended to get the short shrift. The country was Ashkenazi-heavy, and the benefits tended to accrue with that group, as well. The Ashkenazi were the factory managers, shop owners, army officers, kibbutz residents, and political leaders. The Mizrahi were the workers, customers, low-ranking soldiers, and kibbutz day laborers. The Ashkenazi were gathered in the cities while the Mizrahi were often pushed into the ma’abarot (makeshift camps), Development Towns, and poorer urban neighborhoods.

Ashkenazi Jews looked down on their Mizrahi cousins in a kind of cultural discrimination. The feeling was that Mizrahi Jews needed to be integrated into Israeli society, but that meant trying to assimilate them into Ashkenazi ways. It made for a lot of tension.

In the Wadi Salib neighborhood of Haifa, Moroccan Jew Yaakov Elkarif got into an argument with the police on July 9, 1959. He was shot, wounded, and taken to a police station. A riot broke out in the city. What started as a protest against this act of police brutality in Haifa quickly became a nationwide demonstration against Mizrahi discrimination. Ben Gurion’s government downplayed the seriousness of the protests and denied that they were connected to any sort of official discrimination. Still, the Ashkenazi began noticing the Mizrahi more and Israel made greater efforts to improve Mizrahi living. Menachem Begin’s right-wing party began cultivating them especially, which would pay off during elections in 1977.

In 1964 Israeli cinema received its first Oscar nomination for the film Sallah Shabati, a comedy about a Mizrahi immigrant who employs various schemes to try to get his family out of the ma’abarot camps they were settled in. Its depiction of the incredible hardships of Mizrahi life touched a nerve in Israel, and was beloved by the Mizrahi community.

THE PEOPLE

Shoshana Arbeli-Almozlino: Mizrahi Jewish politician on the left, who served in the Knesset starting in 1966.

Ya’akov Elkarif: Mizrahi Jewish resident of Wadi Salib, who was arrested and shot by the police, sparking riots and a national reckoning over the injustices suffered by the Mizrahi.

David Ben Haroush: Mizrahi Jewish resident of Wadi Salib who became a leader in the national protest movement against Mizrahi discrimination. 

Eliahu Navi: Iraqi Jew elected mayor of Beersheva on the Mapai party ticket in 1963.

Isaac Nissim: an Iraqi Jew, became Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel in 1955.

Chaim Topol: internationally acclaimed Israeli actor whose breakout role was in Sallah Shabati.

THE BIG IDEAS

In the midst of an existential war for survival and profound economic hardship, the Jewish State ingathered hundreds of thousands of Jews from all corners of the globe. They often shared neither language, culture, educational levels, or national history — a true smashing together of people from all walks of life, many of them traumatized from recent acts of extreme violence and persecution. But the Mizrahi Jews struggled to integrate, even though they were, by the 1960s, half the population. The Mizrahi had their own historical experiences, cultures, language, Jewish traditions and rituals. They had suffered persecution at the hands of Muslim states, but their needs and interests were largely overlooked by the Eurocentric focus of the Zionist movement and its Ashkenazi leaders. 

Across Israeli society new attention was put into elevating Mizrahi living standards and social integration, though most were a continuation of trends that had already begin in the 1950s. The army, education system, and politics all saw improvements, with greater Mizrahi participation, though cultural attitudes were harder to shake. Many Ashkenazi still looked down on the Mizrahi as backwards.

The ma’abarot tent camp slums were dismantled starting in the mid-1950s, finally finishing in 1963. In their place were Development Towns like Arad, Sderot, Mitzpe Ramon, and Kiryat Shmona. They were around 85-90% Mizrahi, vastly better than the tent camps but still plagued by underinvestment, overcrowding, economic distress, and segregation from the Ashkenazi. 

FUN FACTS

Israel’s population doubled in the three years after independence.

Sallah Shabati starred new Israeli actor Chaim Topol, who would reach international fame for playing Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.

© Jason Harris 2020