MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Israel
Index
Before 1882 Sephardim or Oriental Jews were the majority, about
60 percent, of the Jewish population in Palestine. Although
Oriental Jews did immigrate between this period and that of the
British Mandate--more than 15,000 came from Yemen and Aden
Protectorate between 1919 and 1948--they were a minority, about 10
percent of all immigrants. Thus, by 1948 Ashkenazim accounted for
77 percent of the population of the new State of Israel. But this
was to change quickly in the period of mass migration that followed
the establishment of the state. Between 1948 and 1951 Oriental
immigrants accounted for 49 percent of all immigrants; in the
Jewish calendar year 1952-53 they comprised 70 percent, and from
1954 to 1957 (following the Sinai Campaign and turbulence in North
Africa), African-born Jews, the majority from Morocco, constituted
63 percent of all immigrants. By 1958 almost the entire Jewish
populations of Yemen, Aden, Libya, and Iraq had immigrated.
The new state was barely equipped, and had few of the resources
needed, to handle this influx. The immigrants were housed in tented
"transition camps" (maabarot; sing., maabara); and
then directed, often without their approval, to some cooperative
settlement (immigrants' moshav) or one of the new development
towns. In both cases, authorities wanted to disperse the Jewish
population from the coast and place the immigrants in economically
productive (especially agricultural or light industrial) settings.
The results were village or town settlements that were peripherally
located, ethnically homogeneous or nearly homogeneous, and the
poorest settlements in the nation.
The lack of resources, however, was not the only obstacle to
the successful integration of the Oriental immigrants. Although
their intentions were noble, in practice the Ashkenazim viewed
their Oriental brethren as primitive--if not quite
savage--representatives of "stone age Judaism," according to one
extreme phrase. Paternalism and arrogance went hand in hand; the
socialist Labor Zionists, in particular, had little use for the
Orientals' reverence for the traditional Jewish criteria of
accomplishment and rectitude: learnedness and religious piety. In
the transition camps and the new settlements, the old elite of the
Oriental communities lost their status and with it, often, their
self-respect. The wealthy among them had been obliged to leave most
of their wealth behind; besides, more often than not, they had been
merchants or engaged in some "bourgeois" profession held in low
esteem by the Labor Zionists. The rabbis and learned men among them
fared no better with the secular Zionists but they were often
patronized as well by representatives of the Ashkenazi religious
parties, who respected their piety but evinced little respect for
the scholarly accomplishments of rabbinical authorities who did not
discourse in Yiddish. The religious and secular political parties
knew, however, that the immigrants represented votes, and so,
despite their patronizing attitudes, at times they courted them for
support. In the early years, the leftist predecessor parties to the
Labor Party even tried adding religious education to their
transition camp schools as a way of enrolling Orientals.
The transition camps were largely eliminated within a decade;
a few became development towns. But the stresses and strains of
immigrant absorption had taken their toll, and in July 1959 rioting
broke out in Wadi Salib, a slum area in Haifa inhabited mostly by
Moroccan Jews. The rioters spread to Haifa's commercial area,
damaging stores and automobiles. It was the first violence of its
kind in Israel, and it led to disturbances in other towns as the
summer progressed. Israelis were now acutely aware of the ethnic
problem, and soon afterward many began to speak of Israel Shniya,
the "Second Israel," in discussing the socioeconomic gaps that
separated the two segments of society. In the early 1970s, violent
protests again erupted, as second-generation Orientals (mostly
Moroccans), organized as the "Black Panthers" (named to great
effect after the American Black protest group of the same period)
confronted the Ashkenazi "establishment," demanding equality of
opportunity in housing, education, and employment. Prime Minister
Meir infuriated them even more by calling them "not nice boys."
This remark underscored the perception of many Orientals that
when they protested against Israel's establishment they were
largely protesting against the Labor Party and its leaders. Many
Orientals came to see the Labor Party as being unresponsive to
their needs, and many also blamed Labor for the indignities of the
transition camps. These were legacies that contributed to Labor's
fall from power in 1977; but, in fact, Oriental voters were turning
away from Labor and toward Herut, Menachem Begin's party, as early
as the 1965 national elections.
The Oriental protest movements, however, were never separatist.
On the contrary, they expressed the intense desire of the Oriental
communities for integration--to be closer to the centers of power
and to share in the rewards of centrality. For example, some of the
Black Panthers were protesting against their exclusion from service
in the IDF, the result in most cases of previous criminal
convictions. This desire was also reflected in the Orientals' turn
to Labor's opposition, Herut and later Likud, as a means of
penetrating power centers from which they felt excluded--by
supporting the establishment of new ones.
Data as of December 1988
|
|