Rachel Wahba, "Jewish Arab, not Arab Jew"
David Shasha
Jewish Arab, not Arab Jew
By: Rachel Wahba
In the Weekly Items of Note dated 4/6 (item #7) I discussed a program sponsored by JIMENA that featured the vile Nat Lewin:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/davidshasha/H7yRCr_Md54
I was recently made aware of the following article from this past December by a JIMENA board member that provides a window on the group’s views.
Now we see the issue of Arab Jewish refugees being presented in the Jewish media on a regular basis due to a fortuitous confluence of interests: Israel needs a counterweight to the legitimate Palestinian claims for the repatriation of refugees and for property compensation while certain Arab Jews want to be heard and in the process express their abiding Zionist devotion.
We recently saw an example of such devotion in The Wall Street Journal Op-Ed by Lucette Lagnado:
http://www.jpost.com/Experts/When-Arab-Jews-forget-who-they-are-BDS-and-Egyptian-Jewish-resentment-343713?prmusr=SUlbE%2fOnp3XwCWbCcRHphVv7A1AEUe6DSrj%2bgO18fS4N%2bSSexbXmVNyAlGXZecXk
Such Sephardim have little knowledge of their heritage, but are quite enthusiastic about serving the state of Israel by providing the necessary rhetoric regarding the final stage of Jewish life in the Arab world.
I have dealt with the Arab Jewish refugee issue scores of times and have become tired of repeating the same points over and over:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/davidshasha/shenhav/davidshasha/hHSlpH_1_Hk/NmoqvDC4BQcJ
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/davidshasha/shenhav/davidshasha/m7d9bJKoSTU/_yECXhKwY14J
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/davidshasha/shenhav/davidshasha/VfZPaElykZY/tC52IcWMZegJ
I actually organized the various articles into a section of the special newsletter on Arab Jews:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/davidshasha/shenhav/davidshasha/Y6mrmIhSKfg/0m9SHOUbSjIJ
What we are seeing is a militant chorus of Arab Jews who resent having lived in the Arab world and continue to express their disdain in a way that seeks to valorize Israel. None of the articles contain any negative material on Israel; a matter that creates a duplicity given that Arab Jews were routinely treated as inferiors when they arrived in Israel. It ignores the role of Israel’s secret services in undermining the security of Arab Jews.
It is not that Jews in the Middle East did not suffer from the emergence of Zionism and Arab nationalism; it is that this last phase of the history cannot simply be cut off from everything that preceded it. We read a severely truncated version of the most recent phase of the history, but more importantly we hear nothing about the many centuries of productive life and cultural production by Arab Jews.
There is much hand-wringing in these articles, but we never hear about figures like Haim Nahum Effendi, Sasson Khedourie, James Sanua, and Jacqueline Kahanoff. We do not hear about the Lavon Affair or the Mas’ouda Shemtob Syangogue bombing; two events that have been linked to Israeli meddling and which helped create the exodus of Jews from Egypt and Iraq.
There is little attempt to provide a deeper historical and cultural context in such discussions. The definition of terms and the use of nomenclature remain confused, largely because the Arab Jews in question know very little about their heritage.
What they do seem to know is how to get Ashkenazim to notice them and how to lend a helping hand to Israel by undermining the claims of the Palestinians.
DS
“Why do you call yourself an Arab Jew?” I’m asked every so often.
For those of us from Arab lands, identity has always been an issue. Some of us just want to forget, and erase the “Arab” part out completely. We have suffered, we never really belonged, we are invisible. Its natural to want to forget.
I want to remember for my parents and for those who are no longer here. We were marginalized in our ancestral lands, and barely visible today. And there is a reason we are Arab Jews, not Jewish Arabs.
Albert Memmi, in his book Jews and Arabs explains how we were not accepted as equal, as Arab. Under Islam, we were Dhimmis, a “protected minority,” with inferior status and hostage to punitive laws meant to humiliate and punish Jews and Christians for not converting to Islam. We had no recourse but to put up with the laws and pay a special tax.
With the rise of Arab nationalism after WW2, life for Middle Eastern and North African Jews became more oppressive and precarious. In 1948 with the creation of the modern state of Israel, life became unbearable for Jews in the Middle East and North Africa. But Albert Memmi reminds us that life was never idyllic, safe, and relaxed for a Jew under Muslim rules.
“So why cling to an identity that treated you as
if you never belonged?”
I know — I have wavered. But in the end, what else do I have? I need my roots,
my parents never lost theirs despite being kicked out.
“We were Arab Jews” my mother explained. Not Jewish Arabs, we didn’t have the same rights.
In the United States where I live today, I have the choice to identify as an American Jew or a Jewish American. My parents did not have this choice in Iraq or Egypt. They were Egyptian and Iraqi Jews.
Until Hitler came to power, the Jews in Germany were free to identify as German Jews or Jewish Germans. The Nuremberg Laws shocked Jewish Germans into a new and terrifying reality. Classified as non-Aryan they were no longer Germans – they were simply Jews, a population to be humiliated, tortured and finally exterminated.
With the inception of modern day Israel in l948, discriminatory laws against Arab Jews were intensified. Jews needed to know their place (as if they didn’t) and Israel? There was no space for such an offensive affront to Arab dominance of the entire region.
A sovereign Jewish state in “their” midst was, and remains to this day, unbearable. Jewish life in “their” lands were to be extinguished. Between 1948- 1970 most Arab Jews were expelled or forced to flee their native lands as penniless refugees. Stripped of all their possessions, they became traumatized paupers cruelly kicked and chased out of countries they were deeply rooted in for two to three thousand years.
No Jew was simply allowed to leave. Wedding rings were confiscated, let alone cash, homes, businesses, and for many, even photo albums. Most were kicked out with just one suitcase of clothing.
Arab Jewish refugees poured into an impoverished Israel , struggling for survival in the harsh conditions of the transit camps – the maabarot.
Sharing hardships all first generation refugees face, these immigrants were
under fire in a new country forced to suffer major wars waged by those very
Arab states who removed us from their population.
There was no Jewish state for Europe’s Jews during Nazi Germany’s rampage into Eastern Europe. Even the one suitcase of clothing Jews left their homes with were plundered in the death camps.
My entire maternal and paternal families, all us Arab Jews, were lucky. The Arab nations were satisfied with expulsion. And we had Israel. Despite the hardships we had a future, if not a past.
Few if any remnants remain in our ancestral lands. Most cemeteries, synagogues, and sign of Jewish life have been demolished. Young Egyptians today are surprised when they hear of there was such a thing as “Egyptian Jews” despite the facts, and the facts remain:
In 1948 Egypt had a population of 80,000 Jews. By 1967 only 2,500 remained, and one too many Jewish men who did not give up on Egypt when they could, including a relative of mine, were imprisoned and tortured as “Zionist spies” in prison like Tora. Today there are a few old Jewish women are left in Cairo and Alexandria.
In my mother’s Iraq, in 1948 Jews numbered 135,000 strong, most with ancient ties to their country. Almost overnight they became poverty-stricken refugees, with 6,000 left in Iraq in 1958, 350 left in 1976, and five old Jews today.
Today, there are no Jews left in Libya where once 38,000 Jews lived. In Morocco, the number of Jews dwindled from 265,000 to 3,000 in 2012.
By 2012 less than a 1,000 from a population of 105,000 Jews were left in Tunisia (who did not expell its Jews, but had a long history of Dhimmi laws). The Jews of Yemen are quickly becoming extinct, and persecution continues to grow.
The story repeats itself all over the Muslim Arab world.
Today Jews in Iran (not an “Arab” country) are quiet, afraid of their shadow. They are not free to leave with their possessions.
It is human nature to be attached to our country of origin, family, friends, community, customs, and yes, possessions. Masses don’t just leave. Identities are forged over lifetimes. Integral pieces remain.
We were not allowed to be Jewish Arabs, but we were and still are, Arab Jews.
From The Times of Israel, December 14, 2013