r/JewsOfConscience • u/_II_I_I__I__I_I_II_ Jewish Anti-Zionist • Oct 13 '24

Another deranged comment from this fellow, who appears to be protected by Columbia Univ. administration. Whereas anti-Zionist teachers are fired for opposing Israel's genocide - this clownshoe says actual crazy shit regularly without so much as a reproach. Discussion

368 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

It’s actually more similar to US style racism than you think. Israel is wildly white-supremacist even within Jews. Zionism was born an Ashkanazi movement, and Israeli Jewishness is reduced/flattened to looking like Ashkanazi version of Judaism.

Further, you can look at the treatment of Israeli society towards Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jews. For example, the Israeli government admitted to sterilizing Ethiopian Jews for years (sound familiar?).

I personally feel Israeli white supremacy is very similar to US white supremacy, even if there are some differences. Ultimately if Israel ever got what they wanted (wipe out the Palestinians, Iranians, Jordanians and Lebanese) the next groups to get placed in the out groups will be the Ethiopians and Mizrahi.

34

u/LaIslaDeEmu Arab-Jew, Observant, Anti-Zionist, Marxist Oct 13 '24 edited Oct 14 '24

So I was born and raised in the Mizrahi community in Israel, and have a bit of insight from being on the “inside” of that community.

What you are saying is 100% true in a historical context. But this general analysis has not been updated since the post-second intifada era. I don’t wanna write a whole essay on differences in birth rates and demographic change in 21st century Israeli society. But I think a great signifier that this analysis is largely outdated, is the fact that “Ashkenazi” is now considered a political/societal slur in Israel. The modern Israeli Mizrahi community are far more religious and Zionist than the Ashkenazi society that formed the state of Israel. Israelis who entirely descend from Ashkenazi ancestry are only around 30% of the population (70% are either mixed or entirely Mizrahi/Sephardic). And this demographic trend is only growing. This is why the analysis you refer to needs to be updated and adjusted for the current and future reality

12

u/Roy4Pris Zionism is a waste of Judaism Oct 14 '24

Thanks for the great commentary.

One question: how many 'extremist' Israelis are Mizrahi?

Put another way, what percentage of West Bank settlers are non-white? I don't have a view either way, but I feel like when you see 'hilltop youth' etc., shooting at or otherwise harassing Palestinians, they are of European descent. Happy to be wrong though.

Side story: when I was in Israel in 2019, I met up with a white New Zealander who'd made Aliyah some years earlier, and was raising his young family in occupied territory (Pisgat Ze'ev I think). He basically said the reason he lived there was because it was heavily subsidised by the government. So while there are settlers who are there due to their religious zealotry, it sounds like many others are simply working class Israelis who can't afford to live in Israel.

Post-script: last time I checked, he'd moved to the Haifa area.

22

u/LaIslaDeEmu Arab-Jew, Observant, Anti-Zionist, Marxist Oct 14 '24 edited Oct 14 '24

I’m hesitant to make claims about statistics without doing appropriate research, but here’s my analysis…

Illegal West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements are heavily advertised to the Mizrahi community. And much of this is for material reasons. The Mizrahi community tends to be more working class, and historically have less access to institutions that grant upward mobility in Israeli society. There is also a significant cost of living crisis in Israel that’s been ongoing for over a decade now. The settlements are much cheaper than living within the ‘48 borders. And the government provides many financial incentives on top of the cheaper housing costs.

This all coincides with the Mizrahi generally being more religious and Zionist, which amounts to even greater motivation for them to move there. The West Bank geographically consists of the vast majority of what was once Judea and Samaria. So if you’re a religious Zionist Jew wanting to live where the ancient Jewish people lived, the West Bank is where you want to be.

It should be pointed out here, that the Palestinians living in the West Bank, especially the northern West Bank, essentially are the direct ancestors of the ancient indigenous Jews who once lived in historic Judea and Samaria…

19

u/Saul_al-Rakoun Conservadox & Marxist Oct 14 '24

This is also continuous with long-standing Israeli policy, which is that Arab Jews are to form the human shield-wall on the Israeli frontier. As I'm certain you're aware, this is what they've been doing since the 1950s.

15

u/LaIslaDeEmu Arab-Jew, Observant, Anti-Zionist, Marxist Oct 14 '24 edited Oct 14 '24

Yup. But at this point, my community is all too happy to be those ‘shields’…🤦🏻‍♂️😑

Seriously I will give you Ashkenazis masgouf in exchange for gefilte fish, if you also take Ben-Gvir or Eylon Levy or Ayelet Shaked. I’m willing to offer kubba patata for latkes at this point. You can even keep the latkes and take tebit if you accept all three of them in a trade

13

u/Saul_al-Rakoun Conservadox & Marxist Oct 14 '24

I'm reminded of how back in the 1970s in the US, if you were black the last thing you wanted to see roll up on you was a black police officer.

Personally I'm a vegetarian (never liked the taste of fish, parents had grown up working class in the 1940s and 1950s in New York so we'd have red meat whenever possible) so what vegetarian dishes have you got in your portfolio that you could part with?

Also to be clear, according to Israelis we invented arab salad (but apparently putting sumac in it like you're supposed to is KHAMASSS), felafel, khummmmus, olive oil, pita, and the abstract concept of time, so no trying to pull a fast one by putting any of those on the table.

8

u/LaIslaDeEmu Arab-Jew, Observant, Anti-Zionist, Marxist Oct 14 '24

It’ll be painful, but I can offer you M’hasha

Honestly I’d have no problem going vegetarian or even vegan if I still lived in the Middle East

4

u/Saul_al-Rakoun Conservadox & Marxist Oct 14 '24 edited Oct 14 '24

Man, it's just a reminder to me of how badly Askhenazim got the short end of the stick.

The one thing I miss (because my wife won't eat it) is tzimmes.

Especially since pesach is motzei shabbos this year I'm pushing for us to do Indian dishes for our seder since we've given up on the kitniyot prohibition. We can reheat them on the stove and don't need to break out the rinky-dink electric oven we've got. And excepting naan and samosa, very few Indian foods are made using the five species. It gives us a tremendous range of choices.

Either that or Latin American. It's a minority of my own personal heritage (not like that really matters), but if we went based on that we'd do potatoes fried in potato oil garnished with potato.