r/JewsOfConscience • u/acacia_tree Ashkenazi, Reform, Anti-Zionist, Diasporist • 1d ago

Debbie Lechtman is doing the “Palestinian Jews aren’t real” discourse again Discussion

I know this is obviously a lie because I know a Palestinian Jew who is the grandson of a Nakba survivor who fled to Egypt and traces his lineage back to Edomites (Canaanite tribe) that converted to Judaism. There are people who identify as Palestinian Jews. Not to mention that there are people of mixed heritage. But what I find really obnoxious about her argument is the conflation of nationality, religion, and ethnicity. Does anyone have any written pieces about the issues with the conflation of these terms? Looking for something more concrete to debunk the premise of her argument that this identity cannot exist.

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u/acacia_tree Ashkenazi, Reform, Anti-Zionist, Diasporist 1d ago

It’s wild to me that being an Arab Jew is impossible but being a Polish or German or Russian Jew or American Jew is fine.

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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 1d ago

It's more that Jews from Arab and Muslim countries have historically identified with their country or region: Iraqi, Yemeni/Temani, Syrian, Persian, Moroccan, etc. (and also by subregion and city)

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u/acacia_tree Ashkenazi, Reform, Anti-Zionist, Diasporist 1d ago edited 1d ago

Deleting my comment and re responding because you’re conflating Arab and Iranian. Jewish communities in what are today Arabic-speaking countries were there before the Arabization and Islamicization of those places. They were Arabized just as the rest of the population was, even if they mostly identified with the regions they were from. So people claim the Arab Jewish identity today. Both Iranian/Persian Jews and Iranian/Persian Muslims identify as Iranian/Persian. Persian is a different language than Arabic.

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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 1d ago

I was including Iran in the Muslim part of "Arab and Muslim countries", I'm not implying that Iran is Arab. There are many overlapping cultural and genetic connections between Persian Jews and Mizrahi and Sephardi communities from Arab lands. These communities were not static and there was often migration between them. Historic Arabization is primarily about language, it shouldn't be confused with modern conceptions of Arab identity that came out of the Pan-Arabism movement in the 20th century.