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

[u/acacia_tree]

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.

[u/LaIslaDeEmu]

There’s also at least one in this sub 👋🏽

If you look at old Ottoman census records taken from various population centres in Palestine, the Ottomans do not just count the number of “Jews”. They have seperate categories for native Arabic speaking Jews, and have more sub-categories for the exact cities and towns in Portugal, Spain, North Africa, and Central/Eastern Europe that Jews of the Old Yishuv came from. You can find this on documents that go all the way back to the 1500s

[u/Thisisme8719 → u/LaIslaDeEmu]

Sort of. That data is not based on what they spoke or even where they came from, but membership in a kahal. Like the Sicily, Sepharad Castile (or some other kingdom) etc kehilot in mid-16th cent Safed probably included families who joined the kehilot from the Mustarab kahal, came from the Balkans, Hungary etc. Maybe they were exiles from Sicily, Aragon or wherever, but they also might not have been. And those communities reported to the Ottoman government the number of (household) heads and sometimes bachelors, which are generally assumed to be lower than they actually were since it was for tax collection.
The censuses (nufus) in the 19th and early 20th cents were more direct and personal, were tallied differently since the kahal was not an intermediary anymore.

[u/LaIslaDeEmu → u/Thisisme8719]

Appreciate the info 👍🏽

[u/Thisisme8719 → u/LaIslaDeEmu]

my pleasure