I am furious each time I hear a Jewish family has been driven from its home in the Arab world to Israel as a result of intimidation and oppression. For thousands of years, Jews have lived in these lands only to be forced out now by bigotry and prejudice. What on earth do we gain? I cannot ask that question enough!! Why can we not understand that our diversity is what makes us a durable culture. Without it, we become isolated and stagnant. Without these Jews, we are poorer. Said Ben Yisrael, a combination of names that is a tribute to our rich and shared history yet one we don’t want to hear in our midst. Said, a name shared by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, yet one we want to appropriate for ourselves. A name we believe Jews should not share. A home Jews should not live in. A country Jews should not be citizens of.
Said, I am sorry and ashamed. You have as much right as I do to this land, yet you have had to leave. You are not an Israeli. You are a Yemeni, a Syrian, an Egyptian, an Iraqi, a Libyan, an Algerian, and will remain one to the day I die.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
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Lujayn,
I salute you for bringing this matter to the sportlight. Indeed, we should NOT persecute those communities that have been living amongst us for the last God knows how many years. And I am not talking about Jews only; all the other various communities that, as you said, make our culture diverse and rich.
But there's also a point I'd like to raise, at the risk of hasty generalization, that some of the oriental/arab Jews, chose to live in Israel no matter what. It's really hard to figure out how many of them have migrated out of plain harassment, and how many have chosen to do so only to fulfil and religious promise. I am not saying that all of them are of the latter category, who am I to judge them>? but nontheless, let me ask you this simple question: if we, today, announce that all arab jews are welcome back home, where they'll be given absolute guarantees to euqality and freedom of harassment, and where their properties will be given back to them with the accumulating interest and government support to restore them and run them; how many of them you think will opt to come back?
DJ,
Jews have not migrated to Israel except in the modern period, especially given the fact that Israel altogether did not exist as a state nor as a Jewish homeland more than 60 years ago. The idea of the return to an actual physical Jewish homeland is quite modern, whereas most Jews have considered the Arab lands where they’ve lived for thousands of years as their homelands, just as we all have. I think most of the migration has been due to perceived or actual persecution by the majority populations in their respective countries.
Why would you think people wouldn’t return under those ideal circumstances that you describe? I know of Jews in Libya who left the country for Italy, and not Israel, and have been waiting for decades to come back home. I recently learnt the story of a Jewish family from Damascus who has left for Europe, from a member of the family who loves going back but faces difficulties at the border each time. Only his grandmother remains as she will not leave behind her husband who is buried in Damascus and feels that is her only home. Some Jews buy the Israeli homeland crap but I suspect many don’t. It’s a necessity born of the fact that they have had to leave their own countries.
Hell, under those ideal circumstances, everyone who has been forced to leave would come back, and not just the Jews!
"if we, today, announce that all arab jews are welcome back home, where they'll be given absolute guarantees to euqality and freedom of harassment, and where their properties will be given back to them with the accumulating interest and government support to restore them and run them; how many of them you think will opt to come back?"
Somehow I don't see Syria in the role of any promised land any time soon, or ever. Frankly, if you had a choice between living in your country, a dictatorship whose citizens depend on the good graces of its ruler and his sycophants, where you can't even rely on a steady supply of electric power 24/7, and in Israel, a democracy in which the citizens actually get to control their own life, prosperity and the future of their children, where would you prefer to live?
Here is an example of what Israel is like:
http://simplyjews.blogspot.com/2009/11/israel-leader-of-business-innovation.html
And here is what I hear about your country:
"We are living in a garbage dump and the shit is getting higher."
http://dubai-jazz.blogspot.com/2009/10/generalizations-are-wrong.html
Here is some recorded history of the Jews of Syria:
"In the nineteenth century the commercial importance of Aleppo and Damascus underwent a marked decline. Beginning around 1850, and with increasing frequency until the First World War, many families left Syria for Egypt, and later moved from there to Manchester in England, often following the cotton trade.[39] Later still a considerable number left Manchester for Latin America, in particular Mexico and Argentina. From around 1908, many Syrian Jews migrated to New York, where the Brooklyn community is now the world's largest single Syrian Jewish community. For these communities at the present day, see Syrian Jews.[-]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Syria
Contentious Centrist,
Posting your comments on my blog seem to have been an afterthought; you linked to my blog on yours and insinuated I would delete your comments (seeing as we “Arabs are notorious for deleting anything that doesn’t flatter us”) long before you commented here. I am actually notorious for tolerating all sorts of arguments and have never used the delete button (except on spammers occasionally). However, it’s far easier to discredit people through insinuation than it is to be honest and do your research, isn’t it? It makes for more drama on your part and enforces stereotypes that you seem happy to perpetuate. Don’t flatter yourself – you didn’t say anything monumentally colossal that would have me quaking in my shoes and panicking in my rush to hit the delete button, even given my genetic predisposition as an Arab to not tolerate criticism, as you imply.
In response to your argument, I don’t derive my sense of belonging to a land from a political regime or the availability of electricity. If monetary benefits are the criteria, to each his own. As for the “Israel is the only democracy and everyone everywhere is dying to live there in perpetual happiness and joy” argument - again, to each his own (although one post about business innovation doesn’t really do it for me). I am not rushing off to Singapore or China - claimed democracies - either anytime soon.
My point was: the Jews from Aleppo and Damascus are Jews from Aleppo and Damascus, not Tel Aviv. They were living in Aleppo and Syria for hundreds of years, not in Tel Aviv. They shared culture, language and cuisine, among others, with their Muslim and Christian compatriots, in a way that they will never share with a Lithuanian living next door in Tel Aviv. Case in point, when Jews immigrate to Israel, they tend to move into communities of Jews from their home countries. Iraqi Jews move into Iraqi Jewish communities, Yemenis into Yemeni communities. Israel isn’t a melting pot of ethnicities and races – it is a country of distinct ethnic and racial communities that mirror those in the home countries to a large extent. Meanwhile, the Syrian Jewish community in New York is notorious for maintaining the community’s ties, with people who marry outside the community at risk of being ostracized. To me that sense of belonging trumps the concept of Israel anytime, any day. Israel is an artificial entity that feeds off of a fear of persecution, perceived or real, among Jews. However, in a couple of hundreds years from now, if Israel manages to perpetuate its existence (despite its unlawful appropriation of another peoples' land), then that sense of Israeli community might take root. Until then, I don’t buy it. Until then, Syrian Jews are Syrians.
However, I don’t get the point about the reference to Syrian Jewish immigration to North and South America or if you were trying to make a point, altogether. However, since you brought it up, the thing is, everyone immigrated back then – Syrian Jews, Christians and Muslims – for economic reasons. The Arab communities in the US and South America swelled dramatically at the turn of the century with people looking for better opportunities. I am a Christian Arab with family members who immigrated to both continents. However, it just sounds more dramatic when you say the Syrian Jews immigrated, doesn’t it?
"Posting your comments on my blog seem to have been an afterthought; you linked to my blog on yours and insinuated I would delete your comments (seeing as we “Arabs are notorious for deleting anything that doesn’t flatter us”) long before you commented here"
No. It was an afterthought. I commented on your blog and then was afraid my comment would disappear (as my comments on Buj and Dubai Jazz have disappeared) which is why I decided to preserve them on my blog. It is something I sometimes do, both to keep track of my comments as well as to preserve them, for posterity. I wouldn't want such a rare exchange between a Jew and an Arab to melt into the nether regions of the internet.
FWIIW, I mostly understand that Arab bloggers are speaking primarily to Arab readers and have to be careful to demonstrate that they are loyal to the Arab ethos, of anti-Jewish prejudices, animosities, distortions of history, etc. I have yet to encounter one Arab blogger who is even remotely capable of facing up to Arab mythologies about how good Jews had it in Arab lands.
Your knowledge of Israel's society is some 30 years out of date. I have yet to meet one Israeli Jew who wishes to go back to live in Syria or any other Arab land. What a Syrian Jew shares with his Lithuanian neighbour is direct knowledge of what antisemitism, blood libels, pogroms and persecutions are like.
As for your sneer about "monetary benefits", all too predictable. It is a staple of Arab bloggers that even when they mouth platitudes about how they long for peace, they simultaneously make some antisemitic slur, just in case someone Arab reader might suspect they did not hate Israeli Jews as well as they should.
Oh, I see the root of your mistake. I added the comment trail on my blog to a post I wrote on Nov. 6. But my comment here was inserted on November 10, 2009 7:10 PM, and that is the comment that I recorded on my blog.
Not exactly my favorite topic to wake up to, but hey....
CC, its not an exchange if I delete it, is it?
Please take a look around my blog and point out a single incident of anti-Jewish sentiment or prejudice on my part, noting that I have written a number of times about Israel (please don’t tell me I can’t criticize Israel?!??!?!). I would appreciate if you could lay off the anti-Arab sentiment and prejudice yourself though, with your blanket stereotypes about what Arabs say and do and think and believe. Seems pretty racist when you attribute an Arab "ethos of anti-Jewish prejudices, animosities, distortions of history" to an entire people, wouldnt you say? I seem to remember my original post being about the rights of Arab Jews to live in their land as equals. How that translates into a perceived hatred for Jews in your mind, is beyond me.
Which brings me to my “sneer”. Need I point out that you were the one who in fact coached your argument in favor of Israel and against Syria in monetary terms? I said we all don’t have it good, but that doesn’t affect my sense of belonging to a land. When I said I know of some Arab Jews who want to return to Arab lands, I can assure you they understand that Syria and Libya aren’t business innovation centers. So basically, I am acknowledging that my and their sense of belonging to the land isn’t monetary-based. So easy on the anti-Semitic slur card. You lose credibility when you keep pulling it out every two minutes, especially when you’re the one that actually enforced the monetary notion.
On that note, if you ever manage to track down a land where its entire people have had it good throughout their history, please let me know – Disneyland does not count.
Now about what brought Israelis together originally: anti-Semitism, blood libels, pogroms and persecutions. You are right (at least when it came to the masses), but perpetuating perceptions (by right-wing Israeli leadership) of the above when they are no longer the driving force behind immigration to Israel, does present-day Jews and Israelis no service. The Jews do not have a monopoly on being the victims of persecution, but Israel continues to bang that drum every time its legitimacy or actions are questioned. I would much rather we work on rooting out prejudice in all its forms and incarnations (including prejudice against Arabs and Muslims on the part of Israelis and the West) than milking it (cant say that claim is mine – it’s a position held by many a Jewish scholar, professor, writer and thinker).
"Seems pretty racist when you attribute an Arab "ethos of anti-Jewish prejudices, animosities, distortions of history" to an entire people, wouldnt you say"
If only it were a racist attribution. I have been reading the English editorials from Egypt, Iran, Syria, Saudi arabia for years now, an dI have been visiting the arab blogs and Arab message boards for over a year. Nothing there to suggest there is any gravity to your assertion here. Arabs are deeply steeped in Jew hatred which can hardly be explained by the conflict between Arabs and Israel. They relish it. They celebrate this hatred, this superstition. I don't even have to bother "proving" it. It is all over the place and certainly niot only in the Arab street. Your own Syrian leaders like to perpetuate these myths.
My story about israel was not a "monetary" matter as someone of your sophistication ought to know. It was about success against all the odds. And business success is measured by money but more important by prestige. I could have asked how many Nobel prizes, or other international awards, were won by Arab or Syrian scientists as compared with Israeli ones, but I thought that would have been a low blow...
CC, you've spent so much time looking for and finding that Arabs are inherently racist, deeply stewed in hatred and relishing it, that you just cant see when someone is saying otherwise. You only hear what you want to hear.
I dont assume all Jews are inherently racist and monumentally hateful and sick based on the comments of people who comment on Jerusalem Post, Haaretz and YNet, but your logic seems to imply that I should? And I've read some pretty sick stuff over the years.
As for your Nobel prize "low blow" - no offence taken. I never claimed we were technologically or scientifically advanced. Again, you seem to hear what you want to hear. I dont make any claims of collective Arab advancement or attainment. I never said my leadership was a beacon of justice and good. This is my personal blog, my voice, and I was raising it, but you dont want to hear anything that could possibly shake your sense of self-righteousness and those neat little categories you put Arabs in. Your loss.
Now I'm off to pottery class to make a bowl worthy of a Nobel prize! See ya!
"CC, you've spent so much time looking for and finding that Arabs are inherently racist,"
That's the whole point, Lujayn, I did not spend time looking for it. I just sort of stumbled upon it whenever I attempted to go read what the Arab blogs and media are saying. I'd like to understand: are you really and seriously claiming that Arabs are not inherently racists and antisemitic? I'm sure you can find many who are not, or claim they are not, but that hardly dispenses with the matter, does it?
Israelis who immigrated (fled) from Arab lands tell me differently. My own experience is that Arab bloggers, journalists, educators, and religious leaders find it difficult to draw the line between what they call "criticism" of Israel and open antisemitism. They cannot actually fully comprehend that antisemitism cannot pass for criticism of Israel. Any historical records if written by Jews are dismissed as lies and distortions, any suffering by jews is simply dismissed as fabrications. If that is not antisemitism, I don't know what is.
Israel is qualitatively and immeasurably superior to Syria, that is the point, and my intent in citing the examples of scientific excellence and democratic ethos were intended to refute the fantastic assumption underlying this question you put to your commenter:
"Why would you think people wouldn’t return under those ideal circumstances that you describe?"
"Now I'm off to pottery class to make a bowl worthy of a Nobel prize! See ya!"
Is there a Nobel prize for Pottery?
What kind of a bowl? Anyway, good luck with your pottering endeavours.
I just came upon this post via link from another site; I'd like to add a couple of things based primarily on having lived in Israel when younger (in the 1980's)and on conversations with many Jews who came or whose families came from Arab/Muslim countries:
1. While as in any place there are areas made up primariy of immigrants from the same place, Israel is by no means unoffically or officilly segregated by country of origin. Almost every major city has a wildly diverse population living side-by-side, including especially Jews from different places. I grew up in the New York area, widely held to be a 'melting pot', and it has nothing on Israeli society in that respect. While of course many older immigrants do tend to cluster together (a normal survival mechanism), their children rarely take notice.
BTW, I know many Iraque and Moroccan families where the parent's native language is Arabic; NONE of them speak Arabic at home. This is not so much to help their children as due to the bad, often horrible experiences they had living in their former homes. ALL involved consider themselves Israeli first and foremost, their former nationality is a footnote.
The idea what Jews will be invited to their former places of residence is a pleasant idea but so far from reality as to be ludicrous. Antisemitism is official policy in many of these countries and they are not ashamed to say it. The average citizen has been indocrinated to hate and fear Jews. Barring divine intervention into the current reality, this will never happen.
Many of the people I spoke with (admittedly 25 years ago) considered themselves 'second-class citizens of [wherever]'. The country they lived in was obviously their home - many families had lived their for generations - but they had in no way been treated as full citizens. Sometimes the treatment was better, sometimes worse, but it was never 'normal'. Even the educated elite, who of course were relatively priviliged, rarely felt completely comfortable or protected. Of course there were exceptions, especially in certain places and times, but the vast majority were well aware that their treatment was dependent on the whims of the ruling class.
It's also important to remember that prior to 1948 (and in many cases after), the Jewish population rarely thought seriously about moving to Israel because it was simply not possible. British law kept Jews out of what was then Palestine, resulting in the preventable murder of millions. With no money (most communities were poor) to get to Israel and no way to enter, who was going to spend time analyzing their ethnopolitical nationality. It's like us thinking about what life would be if we lived on Mars - just not a realistic possibility.
I don't have time to go on, but I think you're just not aware of the reality of the situation both now and in the past. This isn't a personal criticism, you just don't have accurate information. But it does make it much more difficult to analyze the situation.
BTW, regarding why Jews left (harrassment vs. religion), my impression is that discrimination played a major part in the decision to emigrate. It's similar to what is happening now - when things are 'good for the Jews', emigration to Israel is often very low (see the U.S. example - good conditions and an extremely low rate of aliya). But when conditions worsen, as they have in Europe, immigration to Israel increases exponentially. While it would be nice from a religious point of view if that were the primary reason for aliya, the truth is that immigration is motivated much more by "push" than it is by "pull".
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