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183 Jewish identity in Israel, like Jewish identity elsewhere, is an ethnic identity. It is an identity with a people that meets the criteria of most recent definitions of an ethnic group. These criteria are distinctive cultural and symbolic characteristics (in the Jewish case the major element is religion) and a sense of kinship and community, the “we” feeling that relates to a belief in a common ancestry and group history. This ethnic identity is a national identity in the sense that the relationship of the group to a particular territory, a homeland, is also emphasized. Jewish identity in Israel is differentiated from but interpenetrates and overlaps with other national and ethnic identities. In this chapter I look at the interrelations between Jewish identity and Israeli identity, identities based on countries of origin, and identities based on a broad distinction between Jews from the European Diaspora and Jews from the North African and Asian Diaspora. Among Israeli Jews the Israeli identity has both a civic component and an ethnic-national component. The civic component relates to the legal definition, rights, and obligations of all citizens, Jews and non-Jews, of the Israeli state, a legalgeographic unit. However, when Israeli Jews emphasize their Israeli identity, the ethnic-national component is normally the most prominent in their consciousness. When they think of the term Israeli, more than half of Israeli Jews do not include Arabs,1 and the fundamental distinction made between Jews and Arabs at the level of national identity is reflected in the use of different terms when referring to the plurality of non-Jewish and Jewish ethnic groups in Israeli society. The term miutim (minorities) is used with respect to non-Jewish groups, whereas the term edot (plural of edah) is used to denote Jewish populations from particular counties of origin or regions within countries. However, edah is used more commonly by Israelis to refer to Jewish groups from North Africa and Asia (Moroccan edah, Yemenite edah, etc.), who are often referred to collectively as edot ha’Mizrach (communities of the East), Mizrachim (Easterners), or Sephardim. Less commonly, the term edah is ap9 . jewish and other national and ethnic identities of israeli jews 03 Part 3.indd 183 9/20/10 10:25 AM 184 cha p te r 9 plied to Israelis from Europe and America (Poles, “Anglo-Saxons,” etc.), who are collectively known as edot Ashkenaz or Ashkenazim. Identities with particular edot, edot ha’Mizrach, or Ashkenazim are identities with Jewish populations from particular geographic-cultural backgrounds and are not identities with the countries or continents of origin, their non-Jewish populations , and their cultures. Some Israeli Jews do identity with their countries of origin or have at least a positive orientation toward certain cultural components of those countries, and some hardly differentiate between identity with the country of origin and identity with the Jewish group from that country. But where a differentiation is made, several patterns of identity are possible. Where high levels of segregation and tension existed between a comparatively cohesive and culturally distinctive Jewish community and the non-Jewish population in the country of origin, a negative orientation toward the country of origin may coexist with a strong identity with the Jewish group of origin. Where there was little segregation of Jews, cultural distinctiveness, or community organization or where Jews were relatively assimilated, an Israeli Jewish identity may coexist with a positive orientation toward the country and culture of origin and little special identity with the Jews from that country. Identity with Jews from a particular country of origin may relate to their common participation in that country’s wider culture rather than to any distinctiveness they might have had as Jews. Whereas identities of Israeli Jews with their countries of origin may be similar to ethnic identities in other societies of immigrants, the edah ethnic identity is of a special kind. It is of a type particular to a “returning Diaspora,” of a people who, before their immigration, felt bound to and part of the nation linked to the country or state in which they wished to settle. The special nature of edah identity has made some sociologists question the translation of the term edah into English as “ethnic group.” Ernest Krausz, for example, admits that edot are characterized by primordial attributes, particular sociocultural features, and a consciousness of constituting a group different from others in the same setting, but he argues that, with respect to all three attributes, what unites Israeli Jews...

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