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Sitton published this essay at a time when there was a growing consciousness of the social and cultural bitterness experienced by many educated Mizrahim. These Mizrahim were unable to find jobs that suited their skills because the cultural orientation of Israel was moving further away from the Arab Middle East. At the same time, it was becoming clear to many in Israel that the country’s Western orientation was hurting its relations with countries in the third world. a We do not intend to opine here about the question of Israel’s [international] political “orientation”—that is, whether Israelis should turn their eyes to the Western world or strive to integrate within the Asian world. This very important question should be discussed calmly and without a fit of temper. We should analyze Israel’s situation thoroughly and view our situation from every angle. When we reach a negative or positive conclusion concerning each option, we must not despair even then. Again, this is a serious question that we need to contend with thoroughly and completely. One day we will also be able to clarify some concepts and issues that are currently vague. There are those who argue that Israeli society must not integrate within the Arab-Oriental world surrounding us in any way because Jews comprise a minority community [there]. Even if we become four to five millions Jews living in Israel we might still be, God forbid, culturally assimilated within the forty to fifty million Arabs in the region and disappear from the global stage forever. After two millennia of exile, our whole existence and presence in the world came into being only because we enclosed ourselves in ghettos and removed ourselves from the gentiles. Indeed, once we broke down the ghetto walls and began mingling with the gentiles, assimilation commenced, devouring us, and a major part of our society and body politic was lost. Jewish individuals with superb talents left us to live in foreign lands, took up leading positions in pow32 | A Call for Deepening “The Mizrahi Consciousness” among Us Excerpt from David Sitton, “Le-Ha‘amakat Ha-Toda‘a Ha-Mizrahit Be-Kirbenu,” Shevet ve-‘Am, November 1958, 7–14. Call for Deepening “Mizrahi Consciousness” | 215 erful nations, [and] achieved the highest places in the fields of science, policy, government, and finance. But not only did they not help their own people, they became obstacles to our own development. Zionism arose to redeem us from both the seclusion inside the ghetto and the danger of assimilation. Thanks to the concentration of the [Jewish] nation in Israel, we are able to develop our own values and use what is good and admirable in the people of Israel’s character at the time when we return to our homeland. We have come to restore values that were in deep sleep; we are returning to normal life like any other nation. Settling in this land provides us with what is good and vital for man; we are developing new and diverse economic sources. Most important, we are creating new forms of social life that are quite far from the social life we had, even in the exemplary free countries of Western Europe and the United States. All of this gives us spirit and confidence that we are marching toward a brighter and better future. It is therefore nonsense to think that the Jewish people—while becoming rooted in this land and while developing sublime values in their spiritual and material lives—might still become assimilated in the Oriental environment. Even if our surrounding environment makes giant steps forward culturally and otherwise, the people around us would still remain incapable of leaving their mark on us, or become culturally superior to us. The very opposite should be the case: we must strive by all means and ways to break down the Great Wall of China that the leaders of Arab nationalism have erected around Israel. We must do this in order to give generously from our culture and spirit to the neighboring countries and establish cooperation and contact with them in all spheres of life—spirit and action, cultural and material. This way, we can put an end to the mutual suspicion that wears down ourselves and our neighbors equally. It is well known that the Great Wall that the leaders of Arab nationalism built and fortified around us was built only because of the fear that, with its dynamism , the Jewish state might encourage the millions of wretched and...

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