Rejecting the ‘Arab Jew’
On Language
By Philologos
‘A senior Saudi royal has offered Israel a vision of broad cooperation with the Arab world if it signs a peace treaty and withdraws from all occupied Arab territories,” a Reuters dispatch reported last week, citing an interview with former Saudi ambassador to the United States Prince Turki al-Faisal. In the course of this interview, the prince was quoted as saying, “We will start thinking of Israelis as Arab Jews rather than simply as Israelis.”
Some vision of cooperation!
Needless to say, Prince Turki’s use of the term “Arab Jews” reflects either a comically naive misunderstanding on his part of who Israelis are, or the more sinister hope that they will one day cease to be who they are. In the best case, the prince’s remarks are ignorant and patronizing, and they reveal how even many supposedly sophisticated Arabs haven’t a clue that Israelis, although they live in the middle of an Arab expanse, are a people with a unique language, culture, history and identity of their own. If Prince Turki thinks that once peace is declared, Israelis will cheerfully agree to become another ethnic minority in the Arab Middle East, he is living in a cloud of nargileh smoke.
On the whole, however, one doesn’t come across the term “Arab Jews” in this context. Rather, it is used — mostly by Arabs but also by some anti-Israel and anti-Zionist intellectuals in the West — for the close to 1 million Jews who lived in Arab lands prior to the establishment of Israel, after which they left or were expelled from their native countries and immigrated to Israel or elsewhere. Thus, for instance, Ella Habiba Shohat, a professor of cultural and women’s studies at New York’s City University, writes of herself in an essay titled “Reflections by an Arab Jew”:
“I am an Arab Jew. Or, more specifically, an Iraqi Israeli woman living, writing and teaching in the U.S…. To be a European or American Jew has hardly been perceived as a contradiction, but to be an Arab Jew has been seen as a kind of logical paradox, even an ontological subversion [leading to] a profound and visceral schizophrenia, since for the first time in our history Arabness and Jewishness have been imposed as antonyms…. The same historical process [that is, the establishment of Israel] that dispossessed Palestinians of their property, lands and national-political rights was linked to the dispossession of Middle Eastern and North African Jews of their property, lands, and rootedness in Muslim countries….”
There is, of course, a cynical absurdity in blaming Israel for the wholesale plunder of Jewish property by Arab regimes in Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Algeria, Morocco and other countries that forbade Jews to take money or possessions with them when they emigrated from or were thrown out of these places. But apart from this, what is it that makes one wince at the term “Arab Jews”? After all, don’t Ms. Shohat and others like her have a point? If a Jew living in America is an American Jew, and a Jew living in Europe is a European Jew, why isn’t a Jew living in an Arab country an Arab Jew? Is not the objection to calling him that a form of Arabaphobia?
I think not. Anti-Arab prejudice has nothing to do with it. Historically speaking, Ms. Shohat is simply dead wrong.
It’s true that Jews lived for hundreds and even thousands of years throughout the Middle East, and that after the Arabization of the region that started with the spread of Islam in the seventh century, they became linguistically and culturally Arabized, just as Jews in America have become linguistically and culturally Americanized. But it’s also true that, in the course of these centuries, no Middle Eastern Jew, if asked whether he was an Arab, would have said yes, no matter how at home he felt in his environment. And for that matter, no Arab would have called his Jewish neighbor an Arab either. Jewishness and Arabness were perceived as antonyms in the sense of denoting two mutually exclusive ethnic identities, just as “Jew” and “goy” were antonyms in Eastern Europe. It was only in the 20th century that small numbers of Jews — most of them communists or on the Anti-Zionist political left — in cosmopolitan Arab cities like Cairo and Baghdad began to argue on behalf of an “Arab Jewish” identity as a way of repudiating Jewish nationalism and justifying their participation in Arab revolutionary politics.
One speaks of “American Jews” and “European Jews” rather than of “Jews living in America” or “Jews living in Europe,” because Jews in these places think of themselves as Americans and Europeans. But traditionally, Jews living in Arab lands never thought of themselves as anything but Jews living in Arab lands, and I challenge Ms. Shohat to produce a single pre-20th-century text that suggests otherwise. To refer to these communities as “Arab Jews” is not only to imply that Zionism tore them away from their true homelands for the false lure of a Jewish state; it is to demean them by denying them their own sense of themselves. It’s a term that justly deserves to be rejected.
Questions for Philologos can be sent to philologos@forward.com.
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For what it is worth, the term "Arab Jews" did occur with some frequency in the travelogues of 19th century Christians. See <a href="http://books.google.com/books?as_q=%22arab+jews%22&num=100&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_libcat=0&as_brr=0&lr=&as_vt=&as_auth=&as_pub=&as_sub=&as_drrb=c&as_miny=1600&as_maxy=1900&as_isbn=">http://books.google.com/books?as_q=%22arab+jews%22&num=100&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_libcat=0&as_brr=0&lr=&as_vt=&as_auth=&as_pub=&as_sub=&as_drrb=c&as_miny=1600&as_maxy=1900&as_isbn=</a> As far as whether they self-identified as such, I could not tell you.
The suggestion that the Saudi prince and the professor are linked is the flip side of the professor's suggestion that the establishment of the State of Israel and the expulsion of Jews from Arab lands are two sides of the same coin.
"Ms. Shohat is simply dead wrong." While there MAY be some merit in yr claim that an Arab Jew would never consider him or herself "Arab," it is the height of chutzpah for you to deny Prof. Shohat her own ethnic identity as she wishes to define it. And I think yr characterization of how Jewish Arabs felt about their own identity is also presumptuous. How can you know? You can make an educated guess based on historical knowledge of the period & the culture. But to claim clairvoyance in this matter is...sorry for repeating myself, chutzpah.
I can't argue intelligently about whether 15th-century Egyptian Jews thought of themselves as "Arabs" or not. But I completely reject Philologos' view that the notion of "Arab Jews" is somehow an anti-Israel notion, for two reason. First, the existence of "Arab Jews" puts the onus for the Middle East's refugee problem on the Muslim Arabs, by reminding the world that Jews were ethnically cleansed by Arab countries just as Arabs were ethnically cleansed in Israel. Second, the notion of "Arab Jews" rebuts the hidden basis for Western pro-Arab sentiment: the notion that Israelis are white colonialists and the Arabs their Third World vicitms. In fact, the phrase "Arab Jews" highlights the reality that most Israelis are as "Third World" as Palestinian Arabs.
Why only nti-Israeli and anti-Zionist? This is common use in Mizrakhi circles in Israel, this is use of Alebrt Memmi. A nd this is the name for Jews in Arab world, tha have the long history of living together with Muslim Arabs.
Your statement @no Middle Eastern Jew, if asked whether he was an Arab, would have said yes" is not true. They were a lot of Arab Jews in socialistic, nationalistic and communist Arab mouvements before 1948.
Ella Habiba Shohat is not alone. The Israeli poet, Sami Shalom Chetrit also insists that he is an Arab Jew. In his poem, "Who Is A Jew and What Kind of Jew" Chetrit's speaker derides a cheerful, naive, simpleton of an American Jew for claiming that the term Arab Jew is "funny." But, Chetrit is clearly not amused. The poem suggests that independent of the treatment of the Jews by the Arab world, Arab Jew is a far more logical appelation than, for example, European Jew; just consider, the speaker demands,how the Europeans have made sport of the Hebrew nation. Nevertheless, Philologos makes the critical point, that no Jew, whether from Syria, Egypt of Iraq, would ever fit the description of plain, old "Arab," making Arab Jew a veritable impossibility.
Philologos has gone on a little rant. But the fact of human pluralism is what it is. Any argument where the major premise is "No-one in the entire history of humanity has ever felt XYZ" is bound to come up short. Here's another book for you to look at: Ammiel Alcalay's "Keys to the Garden". Ella Shohat's work (as well as Sami Chitreet, Yehouda Shenhav, Jacques Derrida and lots of others who have borrowed the title 'arab-jew') is disturbing, unsettling, difficult, disruptive, maddening. I don't know if I always buy it either. But it is theirs; it is honestly tendered; and it deserves respect. Especially when the denunciation appears in a column which is not actually signed. Prof. Shohat put her name to her views, knowing that she would suffer slings and arrows for doing so. Where's yours, "Philologos"?
Well... both my parents were born in Morocco. Their mother tongue is Arabic. To this day we all have dark skin and hair, listen to Arabic music, speak Arabic at home, eat Arabic food, celebrate engagement parties in the Arabic style, celebrate the end of Passover by dressing in Arabic clothes, etc. Now of course if you were to call my parents Arabs, they'd be horrified. The term "Arab" is considered derogatory and my parents clearly don't give a rat's ass about political correctness. My parents aren't that exceptional either. My community is made up of Jews who while in Morocco were disenfranchised and existed far from any spheres of influence. We never got to experience citizenship or even a whiff of emancipation and all that that implied for the Jews of Europe and America. So were we Arab Jews? No. Yes. Maybe. Arguments can be made either way. What is however undeniable and not at all chutzpahdick (or rather... chutzpah, Dick.) is that for a large percentage of the Jews that lived in Arab lands, despite all evidence to the contrary, the notion that they were/are Arab Jews is one that they themselves would find laughable.
I agree with Philologos. The notion of the 'Arab world' is also pretty recent, as is 'Arab nationalism'. Jews living in the Middle East used to refer to Muslim Arabs as simply Muslims, or Christians. In addition, the word 'Arab' meant, to many citydwellers, Bedouin - someone who roamed the desert and wore traditional robes.
If I am not mistaken, the term "Christian Arab" was likewise utterly unknown until the notion of a (quasi-)secular Arab nationalism began in the late 19th century. It seems that the notion of "Jewish Arab" should have emerged at the same time; I speculate that the reason it did not was that Zionism had already begun to spread through the Jewish world. That may have been a contributing reason to the birth of Arab nationalism.
Like a Sunni Shia? ajcwerfel@yahoo.com
"Arab" is a fairly recent term as a demographic one. Only a very few people think that it is a geographic signifier like "European" or "American". Most people think of it as an ethnic signifier. That is why Middle Eastern and North minorities, even in Arabized regions, insist on not being called, and do not call themselves, Arab -- ranging from Berbers to Kurds to Assyrians. Those in my family, and in many other families, feel the same way as Jews. When people insist on "Arab Jews", they deny the distinct ethnic identity of Jews. This is usually part of the standard anti-Zionist dogma that the Jewish people does not exist, that "Jewishness" is merely a religion or faith to which can adhere or not, and so forth. "Arab Jews", like "Slavic Jews", implies that these are ethnic Arabs or ethnic Slavs of the Mosaic faith. That assertion is galling and offensive. Those who make it usually retreat to the assertion that "Arab" is a geographic identifier and not an ethnic one. The fact remains that there is no other ethnic minority in Arab lands which refers to itself as "Arab". Jews are entitled to assert the negation of the Jewish people, of course, but other Jews are equally entitled to the outrage we feel over the implied assertion that Dr. Shohat et al are making about our identities.
I think the Arabs want usurp everyone and everything in the middle-east.
If she's an 'Arab Jew' what's she doing living in the city with the largest Jewish population, not Arab population? Among economists this is known as 'revealed preferences'.
These things are always a matter of tone rather than of denotation. Someone may say "Arab cuisine" and just mean the kind of food that Arabs eat; someone else may hear it and think it's the kind of food that Arabs SHOULD eat, their national cuisine. Or whatever. Tone is real, but it's hard to define, especially in print. I find "Prince" Turki al-Faisal's comments offensive, too, because I think I know what he's _implying_, if not stating explicitly. Anyway, whether or not we can say there are Arab Jews, surely there is no such thing as a Jewish Arab! Today's political atmosphere, I think, prevents an Arab from choosing to modify himself with "Jewish." Whereas, when has a Jew ever been able to refrain from giving himself SOME kind of epithet? ("Stam Yid" is disingenuous.) Philologos is probably a better known entity than Dr. Shohat, and everyone knows where to find him/her (here!), so sneering at his/her anonymity is pretty useless.
I am surprised at the misunderstanding Philologos demonstrates in this column. Europe is a continent. America is a country. To be European or American is a geographical distiction. Arab is an ethnic label, equivalent to Gallic or celtic or Amerindian. As well as a religious identification, Jew is also an ethnic label. One can be of Arab ethnicity and Jewish religion. Don't be so sensitive, Philologos. Ms Shohat is entitled to link the creation and development of Israel with the response of Muslim countries. This response included the dispossession of her family. From her perspective, she wasn't forced to leave her home until Israel existed. Peace will not be attained until both parties admit to inhumane activities. Should the light of nations speak up first.
The idea of achieving commonality between Arabs and Israelis and hence eliminate the conflict with our Arab cousins is a laudy goal and I am not so offended by the Saudi official's remarks, even if they are ultimately wrong. Jews are not Arabs anymore than Kurds, despite the fact that both live amongst each other. However, I think philogos is overreacting and I find that his remarks miss the point.
Yes, but the author, who is like Shohet, in his zeal to adapt terms and distinctive categories which serve his ideology rather than hers, is not aware of something also relevant, which is that no Arabic speaking person in a city or in a village, regarless of religion, thought of himself as an Arab until, at the earliest, the end of the 19th century. The classical meaning of the term "Arab" in Arabic means a bedouin who has a nomadic life in the desert. The principal distinction between people who were not bedouin was not between categories such as "Arab" and "Jew" but rather by religion. Thus, the traditional dichotomy was not between "Arabs" and "Jews" but rather between Muslims, Christians, and Jews, and sometimes other religions such as Druze, Zoroastrians, and others. Shohat goes too far and she is as Arab as any Ashkenazic Jew, but it it true that in Iraq the Jews thought of themselves as Iraqi Arabs of the Jewish religion. In fact, the relationship between the Jews of Iraq and Arab and Arabic culture was exactly the same as the relationship between Jews in Germany and German culture. I have no trouble with the term "Arab Jew" even if it is often used self servingly for the purposes of puedo indentity politics and without any objective basis or merit.
My family were Iraqi Jews. While they spoke arabic and adopted arab forms of dress the idea that this somehow made them arab jews would have been perceived by them as utterly absurd and not a little bit crazy. Ms. Shohat and others who share her opinion are coming from an ideological position which rejects Zionism and the cultural values of Ashkenazic jewry. The complete and sheer idiocy of her position, however, is perfectly clear to any Jew who lived as a Jew in any arab or muslim country.
Tarshsiha said that the use of the term Arab Jew is common in Mizrachi circles and cites Albert Memmi as her authority. Memmi actually stated: "The term 'Arab Jews' is obviously not a good one. I have adopted it for convenience. I simply wish to underline that as natives of those countries called Arab and indigenous to those lands well before the arrival of the Arabs, we shared with them, to a great extent, languages, traditions and cultures. If one were to base oneself on this legitimacy, and not on force and numbers, then we have the same rights to our share in these lands - neither more nor less - than the Arab Moslems. But one should remember, at the same time, that the term "Arab" is not a happy one when applied to such diverse populations, including even those who call and believe themselves to be Arabs." From this passage, it is obvious that, for Memmi, it was a term of conveniece, a shorthand term to represent the much more cumbersome "Jews from Arab lands." This was not meant to be an ethnic identifier, as many try to use it.
Once again, an Arab, Prince Turki al-Faisal, has accepted Israel's existence, and tried to make peace with Jews and Israel, and a Jew, Philologos, rejects it. What do you prefer -- war? Prince Turki al-Faisal is doing more to save Jewish lives than Philologos.
Norman, when it comes to arabs and their true feelings about Jews and Israel and the difference between what they say to non-arabs/muslims on this subject and what they freely say among themselves...On all these things, Norman, you're totally clueless. aren't you?
Like CK's parents I was born in Morocco. Unlike his parents, my generation was " Frenchified" and adopted the French language and culture. But just like his parents I would never identify myself as an Arab Jew and neither would 99.9% of Moroccan Jews. I can't speak for Iraki Jews though but I am 100% sure that Algerians and Tunisians Jews feel the same way. As CK mentionned, it is derogatory. It is also insulting to have to explain who we are. We feel the same way Ashkenazim feel when they are told that they are Khazars. In truth most Sephardic Jews identify themselves with their country of origin, ie. Moroccan Jews, Lebanese Jews, etc. I can't figure out why some posters on this board who are not from our cultural group insist on defining us with an identity that most of us reject. Ella is part of an antizionist Mizrahi group who are pissed at the Ashkenazi establishment and want to claim the Arab identity for political purposes. She can say whatever she wants but she can't say it in our names. Besides Ella is a 100% born and bred Israeli. She probably does not even speak Arabic. Some people would be interested to know that many moslems in Morocco and Algeria do not consider themselves Arabs but Berbers and are none to please when called Arab Moslems!
I am a Jew of Arabic descent. Duh....we really do exist. It isn't all Ashkenaz. Would it be such a difficult thing in Israel to acknowledge Jews of Color and Jews of Arabic ancestry?
We do not called what is known in Israel as the "oriental communities" Arab Jews for political reasons. At one time, Jews of Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, and Lebanon formed cohesive, longstanding communities. They, like the Christians, living in these Arab countries, were both dhimmis, a second-class citizenship that prevented them from serving as soldiers and forcing them to pay a head-tax. The rise of Arab nationalism follows the same time-line as the rise of Zionism, and this is the problematic involved in the term "Arab Jews." Christians allowed themselves to be Christian Arabs, Christians who spoke Arabic (even though some used other languages in their liturgical lives), but the Jews were already pegged within the rubric or "Zionist," and "Zionist" and Arab were antithetical concepts.
But (AShkemazi) ZIONISM did tore them away with its aim of liquidating the exile/, no? So why does the annonumous armchair Zionist philologue in the US says otherwise? A Juden rein Jewish diaspora in the Middle East was the aim of all those illegal emissaries" who were sent to al the arab states. zionism need the Arab jews because it needed manpower in israel. the apologetic writing here is merely an advocate of the opression of us, non-european jews in israel. mind your ashkenazi buseness abd take your ideoplogical hands off out history
Sometimes the tone of a message coupled with the 'name' of its author rings hollow. The preceding statement from 'Moshe' in 'Israel' activated my BS detector. No Jew in any arab or muslim was safe in the years preceding 1948 and definitely not after. While many of these jews from arab lands suffered from issues relating to their sudden relocation their fate if left behind was dismal. The language employed by 'Moshe' is strongly identical to the language employed by the most notorious arab jew haters and their anti-Jew brothers worldwide.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is delivering two very different messages to the Western and Arab world. The message to the West, declared in English in front of media microphones and cameras, glorifies an independent Palestinian state coexisting peacefully beside Israel. But according to documented videos of PA TV programs monitored by Palestinian Media Watch , the PA is telling its Arab audience that there will be no Israel at all, rather one large Arab Palestine will rule the entirety of Israel. PMW Director Itamar Marcus explains that translated speeches and interviews of Palestinian leaders reveal their true intentions. Even "moderate" PA leaders have no intention of actually making peace with Israel or even recognizing its right to exist. Marcus says that hate-filled messages are rampant in PA culture and even in children's textbooks, which tell young minds that Islam demands the destruction of Israel.
I refer readers to "Jihad and Jew-Hatred" by Mattias Kuntzel, translated into English and reviewed in the New York Times at <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/books/review/Goldberg-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=seeds+of+hate&st=nyt&oref=slogin">http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/books/review/Goldberg-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=seeds+of+hate&st=nyt&oref=slogin</a> The book promotes the proposition that the dissemination of European models of anti-Semitism among Muslims was not haphazard, but an actual project of the Nazi Party, meant to turn Muslims against Jews and Zionism. Jonathan Goldberg
Jews are Jews we are all one nation. Philogos is right!
Arab Jews or Egyptian Jews? Usually I am not keen to participate in debates. But here I make an exception. Following the recent debate on whether the Jews from Arab countries are considered Arab Jews or else, I couldn’t help but write my thoughts on the subject. I am writing in particular where Egyptian Jews are concerned, and this may also apply for Jews from other Arab speaking countries. The Jews in the Middle East existed in the lands of this region long before the Arab conquest after Islam began. Being a descendant of a an old Jewish community in Egypt, it is claimed that this community was in existence in Egypt before the conquest of the Arabs by Amr Ibn Al’As عمرو بن العاص in 640 CE. Most of the Jews of Egypt identified themselves with Egypt and spoke the Arabic language which is the language of the land. This doesn’t make them Arabs. The notion of Egypt being an Arab country started only after the Gamal Abdel Nasser coup in 1952 when he aspired to join with Syria as one country and changed the name of Egypt to “The Arab Republic of Egypt”. The change had also a personal ambitious motif to claim the leadership of other Arabic speaking countries in the region. Most of the intellectual Egyptians at that time expressed their opposition to the change knowing that the change meant the denial of the rich ancient and modern civilisation of Egypt. The prominent writer and thinker Taha Hussein (1889-1973) vigorously opposed to the notion of associating Egypt to Arabism. I quote below Hussein’s writings in Arabic in this regard: إن الفرعونية متأصلة في نفوس المصريين ، وستبقى . بل يجب أن تبقى وتقوى . والمصري فرعوني قبل أن يكون عربيا . ولا يُطلب من مصر أن تتخلى عن فرعونيتها ، وإلا كان معنى ذلك : اهدمي يا مصر أبا الهول والأهرام ، انسي نفسك واتبعينا . لا تطلبوا من مصر أكثر مما تستطيع أن تعطي .. مصر لن تدخل في وحدة عربية ؛ سواء أكانت العاصمة القاهرة أم دمشق أم بغداد . وأؤكد قول أحد الطلبة القائل : لو حال الإسلام بيننا وبين فرعونيتنا لنبذناه " . “Pharaonism is rooted within the Egyptians and it should stay and enforced. The Egyptian is a Pharaoh before being Arab. It is inconceivable to ask Egypt to renounce her Pharaohnic roots because that means: Demolish O’Egypt the Sphynx and the Pyramids, forget your past and follow us. Do not ask Egypt more that she can give.. Egypt will not enter into an Arab Unity; regardless whether the capital is Cairo, Damascus or Baghdad.” In short, I conclude that there is no basis for the claim that Jews of the Middle East who lived in Arab lands were Arab Jews.
Attacking Shohat: Falsifying Jewish History Ashkenazi Prejudice at the Forward by Joachim Martillo According to Rejecting the 'Arab Jew' in the Forward.com (Philologos, Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2008), former Saudi ambassador to the United States Prince Turki al-Faisal recently made the following comment in a discussion of the hypothetical state of relations between Israel and the Arab world once Israel withdraws from all occupied Arab territories after the signing of a peace treaty. "We will start thinking of Israelis as Arab Jews rather than simply as Israelis." In reply to Turki's rather silly statement, Philologos took the opportunity both 1. to take a nasty pot shot at NYU professor Ella Shohat for rejecting the Ashkenazification of Arab Jewish history (see below) and also 2. to show either willful ignorance or typical Zionist mendacity. He wrote the following. ,,It's true that Jews lived for hundreds and even thousands of years throughout the Middle East, and that after the Arabization of the region that started with the spread of Islam in the seventh century, they became linguistically and culturally Arabized, just as Jews in America have become linguistically and culturally Americanized. But it's also true that, in the course of these centuries, no Middle Eastern Jew, if asked whether he was an Arab, would have said yes, no matter how at home he felt in his environment. And for that matter, no Arab would have called his Jewish neighbor an Arab either. Jewishness and Arabness were perceived as antonyms in the sense of denoting two mutually exclusive ethnic identities, just as "Jew" and "goy" were antonyms in Eastern Europe. It was only in the 20th century that small numbers of Jews — most of them communists or on the Anti-Zionist political left — in cosmopolitan Arab cities like Cairo and Baghdad began to argue on behalf of an "Arab Jewish" identity as a way of repudiating Jewish nationalism and justifying their participation in Arab revolutionary politics.'' Despite the assertion, from the Medieval until the Modern period, Jewish Arabs frequently identified themselves as Arabs in contexts of interaction between non-Arabic and Arabic speakers. There is no significant difference between Arab Christian, Arab Jewish and Arab Muslim behavior in this regard. On page 358, The Jew in the Medieval World, A Source Book: 315-1791 by Jacob R. Marcus provides a translation of a ninth century Persian language example, in which the Persian ship captain Buzurg ibn Shahriyar describes a conversation between a Jewish merchant and a Himalayan king as related by the Jewish merchant. ,,"The King of this city was a powerful and respected prince. When I presented myself before him, he was seated on a golden throne encrusted with rubies, he himself being covered with jewels like a woman. The Queen was at his side still more richly apparelled. He had on his neck necklaces of gold and emeralds of inestimable value such as no kings of East or West possessed. Near him there were about 500 young girls of all colors attired in silk robes and jewels. I saluted him. "'Oh Arab,' he said, 'have you ever seen anything more beautiful than this?' He showed me a necklace adorned with enamels."'' The text continues with a discussion of a transaction between the king and the Jewish merchant. Nothing indicates that it was at all unusual for Jewish Arabs to identify themselves or be identified as Arabs in such contexts. In contrast, S. D. Goitein recounts that Jewish Yemeni Arabs usually referred to ethnic Ashkenazim and German Jews as Christian Jews, for like other Jewish Arabs, Jewish Yemenis perceived European Jews as belonging to an ethnicity distinct from themselves just as Irish and Sicilian Catholics agree that they share a common religious identity despite different ethnic identities. In general Jewish Arabs, unless indoctrinated by European Zionists, had little interest in the Zionist Jewish national identity that had replaced the Jewish religious identity among some German Jewish and ethnic Ashkenazim, Not only is Ella Shohat is completely correct that the destruction of Jewish Arab communities and the murder of Arab Palestine (the Nakba) have a common origin in the genocidal program of Zionism (see below), but Zionist crimes against the native Palestinian population in combination with Zionist incitement in claiming the equivalence of Judaism and Zionism managed to create hostility where none existed previously. Not only have Zionists attempted to erase the native Palestinian population from Palestine, but they have also attempted to erase and rewrite the history of Jewish Arabs and the history of interactions among Jewish, Christians, and Muslim Arabs. The combined erasure of people and history is the Holoexaleipsis, which is the archetypal crime of genocide and far more disturbing that the Holocaust, which was for the most part an unjustifiable but understandable reaction to the mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide in whose planning and execution far too many Soviet Ashkenazim were involved during the creation and consolidation of the Soviet Union. While the behavior of Arab states toward Jewish Arabs could have been better, the destruction of Arab Jewish communities is a crime that must be ascribed to Zionists and that has much similarity to the destruction of Yiddish culture within the Soviet Union by the Yevsektsia (ЕвСекция) or Jewish Section (Еврейская секция) of the Soviet Communist Party.
Arab Jews or Egyptian Jews? Usually I am not keen to participate in debates. But here I make an exception. Following the recent debate on whether the Jews from Arab countries are considered Arab Jews or else, I couldn’t help but write my thoughts on the subject. I am writing in particular where Egyptian Jews are concerned, and this may also apply for Jews from other Arab speaking countries. The Jews in the Middle East existed in the lands of this region long before the Arab conquest after Islam began. Being a descendant of a an old Jewish community in Egypt, it is claimed that this community was in existence in Egypt before the conquest of the Arabs by Amr Ibn Al’As عمرو بن العاص in 640 CE. Most of the Jews of Egypt identified themselves with Egypt and spoke the Arabic language which is the language of the land. This doesn’t make them Arabs. The notion of Egypt being an Arab country started only after the Gamal Abdel Nasser coup in 1952 when he aspired to join with Syria as one country and changed the name of Egypt to “The Arab Republic of Egypt”. The change had also a personal ambitious motif to claim the leadership of other Arabic speaking countries in the region. Most of the intellectual Egyptians at that time expressed their opposition to the change knowing that the change meant the denial of the rich ancient and modern civilisation of Egypt. The prominent writer and thinker Taha Hussein (1889-1973) vigorously opposed to the notion of associating Egypt to Arabism. I quote below Hussein’s writings in Arabic in this regard: “Pharaonism is rooted within the Egyptians and it should stay and enforced. The Egyptian is a Pharaoh before being Arab. It is inconceivable to ask Egypt to renounce her Pharaohnic roots because that means: Demolish O’Egypt the Sphynx and the Pyramids, forget your past and follow us. Do not ask Egypt more that she can give.. Egypt will not enter into an Arab Unity; regardless whether the capital is Cairo, Damascus or Baghdad.” In short, I conclude that there is no basis for the claim that Jews of the Middle East who lived in Arab lands were Arab Jews.
"Arabs haven’t a clue that Israelis, although they live in the middle of an Arab expanse, are a people with a unique language, culture, history and identity of their own." If Israelis are so unique then why is it that when I visited Israel, I noticed that "Israeli cuisine" consisted of hummus, falafel and tabuli (which are Arab foods), and "Israeli music" was suspiciously similar to that of Arabic music, using mainly Arabic instruments such as the Oud, Nay, and Tableh, and "Israeli folk dance" was very similar to that of the Arabic dance called "dabkeh"? It becomes very clear that the Israelis have adopted their "culture" from the Arabs in the first place...
"Arabs haven’t a clue that Israelis, although they live in the middle of an Arab expanse, are a people with a unique language, culture, history and identity of their own." If Israelis are so unique then why is it that when I visited Israel, I noticed that "Israeli cuisine" consisted of hummus, falafel and tabuli (which are Arab foods), and "Israeli music" was suspiciously similar to that of Arabic music, using mainly Arabic instruments such as the Oud, Nay, and Tableh, and "Israeli folk dance" was very similar to that of the Arabic dance called "dabkeh"? It becomes very clear that the Israelis have adopted their "culture" from the Arabs in the first place...
john 8:44 tells you the jews are
john 8:44 is your answer of the jewish people
To be frank, I have never met the term "Arab Jew" in any Greek text. Jews in Middle East were simply called "Jews from Syria" "from Iraq" etc. But I have a serious remark to make : People in Greece, and in most European countries, are fully ignorant of the fate of these Jews that had been expelled from the Arab countries, from Morocco to Iraq, allowed to take with them ONLY THEIR BARE SOULS. So, the Palestinian refugees, that have captured for years the attention of Media, and hence of public opinion in Europe, were equalled in numbers with those milion Jews expelled by the Arab countries. It was actually an informal, BUR REAL, population exchenge. Something like that had taken place between Greece and Turkey in 1923, according to the Lausanne Treaty, but this is a well known fact in Europe. So, in my opinion, international Jewry and Israel should try to make the fact of this informal population exchange known to the world, especially in Europe. It will radically change the view of most Europeans towards Israel. ANDREAS SYGGROS, Greek from Thessaloniki, capital of Greek Macedonia
hmm, this is interesting. Both of my parents, Iraqi Jews, consider themselves Arabs. albeit Arabs that practice Judaism. I consider myself Arab, I look the same as any Iraqi girl my age. Do I look the same as an Ashkenazi girl my age? I think we can be both Arab and Jewish, because thats what I am.
Those who would compare Jews to Berbers, Kurds, and Assyrians need to be reminded of this: All of the latter had separate linguistic traditions that allowed them to remain distinct. In the case of Jews, the best case was Haketia in northern Morocco - everywhere else, they spoke a variety of "Arabic". If we are to take the Arab-Nationalist premise that all which unites Arabs is the "shared mother tongue", then yes, Arab Jews are possible. But Arab nationalism in and of itself is a recent construct, and even this itself is tenuous as most varieties of "Arabic" aren't even mutually intelligible! A Moroccan Jew cannot converse with a Lebanese Jew in his or her mother tongue, unless it was French! Likewise, debka in Algeria is utterly alien, and I doubt a Syrian would acquire the taste for bastilla anytime soon. Iraqi Jews could identify better than Syrian Jews as "Arab" due to the fact that the former had taken prominent positions of power in the Iraqi government before the unfortunate collapse and expulsion. Syrians, OTOH, belonged to a merchant class and could not bother with Arab nationalism. When Sunnis, Syriac Catholics, and others became "Arabs", SY's (as they call themselves these days) remained Jews. Keep also in mind that many "Arab countries" did not exist before Western powers carved up the Middle East and North Africa. In the case of the former, Arab nationalism was fomented as a means of toppling the Ottoman Empire. Do not forget about Lawrence of Arabia. In the case of the SY community today, many are descendants of those who immigrated to the US before there was even a "Syria" - back then, they would largely self-identify as "Sephardi from Aleppo", then under the control of the Ottomans. The fact of the matter is, the situation is much more complex than either Zionists or Arab nationalists would like to portray it. The notion of an "Arab Jew" can only exist in the mindset of an Arab nationalist, but likewise the "Jew living in Arab lands" paints a simplistic picture of the "eternal alien Jew" living among a single people that continually rejected them! (That's a more fitting picture of the "European Jew", or rather "Jew living in Europe", which tell quite profoundly the lens from which the Zionist narrative is seeing!) The people of these regions were who they were, regardless of who ruled over them - which is the best picture that I can paint! As said by a poster above, the notion of an "Arab Jew" in Egypt can be no more valid than an "Egyptian Arab". Considering the fact that most "Arabic"-speaking Egyptians (Copts AND Muslims included!), excluding Jews and Nubians, consider themselves "Egyptian" before "Arab" and derive their heritage from old Kemet rather than the Arabian desert, I say we can safely dispel both. Nationalism in and of itself is an outdated idea, anyway.
But let's not also forget the keystone of Dr. Shohat's thesis - the dominance of Ashkenazim in Israel (in what was once majority-Sephardi!), the contempt for Arabic-speaking Jewish culture, identifying the speaking of native dialects with the "Arab Other", and the subsequent imposition of Ashkenazi "Sabra" culture (itself heavily inflected with European culture) on these groups. If you disagree with her views, you can at least acknowledge what drove her there. Meanwhile, enjoy your "Israeli" falafel and hummus with skhug, knowing it was good enough for you but not for them.
One more point to add: Before they were "Mizrahim"... Jews from Arab countries were categorized in the Israeli media as "Yehudim Aravim". In other words, "Arab Jews". QED.* *Of course, we have to take a notice of the words used here. "Jew" is the noun, and "Arab" is the modifying adjective. Thus, while "Arab Jew" may fit, "Jewish Arab" does not.
I also challenge the author of the article to produce a single pre-20th-century text that suggests most of your everyday Arab Muslims (or should we say Arabized Muslims, since that is what the vast majority of them are) and Arab Christians (again, "Arabized" if one is serious about it) considered themselves such prior to the time invoked by the author. Let's be real here, all but a few of the "Arabs" of the Middle East and North Africa, be they Muslims, Christians, Druze, and yes, Jews, are truly "Arab." They are either all as Arab or Arabless as the other. You might justly argue that "Arab Jew" should be rejected as a terminology, and I would agree with your premises, but also diligently acknowledge in that very same breath that accompanying the rejection of Arab Jew is the rejection of any valid notion of Arab Muslim, Arab Christian or the like. To insist on the rejection of one but not the others, even though both are equally as valid or invalid, shows the political inclinations for the argument in the first place; to reinforce and perpetuate the false dichotomy of Jew v Arab for political gain. One would think that any similarity or common ground should be taken up and used for peace.
The Arab Jew is not proper to described the present people residing beside palestine, they should be call Syrian Arab because according to Herodotus who was there years before the Roman empire, that region was called Syrians of Palestine and the place that Nero conqured Cadytys. No Israel, no jerusalem just syrians. Syrians are Arabs and thus the rest of that region can not cliam anything else but Arab. It has been both historical insane and sucide for anyone to refer to that region as descendant of Abraham of the bible legend(Now I am sure, my post will be deleted for this:( ) The Israelites of the bible is different from israelites of today. Neither the land nor the people have any relation to the ancient isralietes. There is also the notion that palestine is the same as Philistine of the bible. This is also absurd and insane. Philistine were Egyptians! 1 C 1:11 And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim, 1 C 1:12 And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (of whom came the Philistines,) and Caphthorim. Now, for long europeans have been denying the fact that till the time of alexander the notorious and the tyrant caliphs they conqured egypt, the original people of egyptians were no less different from the Sub saharan Africans that is black or just to say bronze in color because 90% of West Africans are black except some ghaninians. However, denying african heritage antiquity of egyptian is required for the existence of mordern day israel. Once it is accepted that Egyptains of biblical time were black, then tell us how could israelites of today be arabs? Do you people even have a clue that Israelite Goshen was close to ancient Nubia? Unlike today mapping of North Egypt? Do you know the Israelites never crossed the Red sea but the reed sea? Sooner someone have to stand against Israel nation of today and challenge their exisitence with proof of their antiquity. Then they will be punished for years of suffering of palestineans and they will have to refund the money of all tourist back to them with interest. I guess christian will never accept african antiquity of israel because it will prove that christianity is based on lies and incomplete history. I tell you people, it will be an interesting court case....
Hi, my familly come from Morocco. Are the jews of arab countries, Arab Jews? Who need first to ask, who are the arabs? Arabic speaking people should be considered as arab? Or, only people from arabic peninsula should be considered as arabs? In my understanding,most of moroccan, algerian and Tunisian people are not arabs, but from amazigh ancesters. Some of them mixed with arabs invaders in the past, and they should now consider themselves as arabs. The same for the jews of north africa, most of them are not sefaradim (from spain), but from a mix of hebrews and amazigh people. So, North african jews are more Amzigh-Jews than Arab Jews. I think the only true arab jews, are from Yemen. They are real arabs, because the country was converted to judaism in the 3rd century, and they are for sure more arab than syrian, lebanese, or egyptian muslims! Jewishness or arabness all are mental constructions based on cultural and religious definitions. The only real arabs are those from Yemen, Qatar, Saudi... The only thing that we could be sure is that the middle east is a semite land. Concerning the idea that israel will become an Arabic Jewish country, Why not! If it could help israel to be more integrated in the region, it should not be a bad Idea. All oriental jews in fact are a mix of traditional jewish and arabic culture, and it make us closer to old hebrews than european jewish people, from an ethnic, cultural and religious point of view!
Philologos has written an excellent article.
In decades of contact with Sephardi and Mizrahi communities, I have encountered none who would not react to the term "Arab Jew" with laughter, derision, or anger.
The term "Arab Jew" is nothing more than an attempt by the brutally anti-Semitic Islamist-leftist alliance to commit "cultural genocide" by denying Jews their identity and self-determination.
Shohat is purely and simply a victim of Stockholm syndrome, in which the oppressed (dhimmi Jews) identify with the oppressor (Arabs).
U R soooooooo prejudice with your article and soooooo dead wrong!!!!!!! and so U R now Philo-Semite or ANTI-Semite. Quit the Bullshit!!! and leave the Arab Jews alone!!!
BTW Are you talking Jews as a race or Jews as a religion. If as a religion, then Arab Jews makes more sense. Since any one can convert to the religion of Judaism, so can Arabs. Just like a latino, and Latinos don't like to be called Sephardic, they call themselves Latino-Jew, so the ones I have met.
Because your articles is so racist, to write and attack an Arab Jew just because you have the means to do it through your website!!!! Why don't you go to the Arab countries and say that, see if you have the guts. Huh?
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