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Introduction Mizrahi and Modern Middle Eastern Thought: Present and Past Mizrahi Conversations and the East A significant development in the world of Jewish thought during the past two decades is evident in the rise of a discourse—better yet, conversations—explicitly concerned with Mizrahim, or Jews of non-Ashkenazi descent whose origins lie in the East outside Europe. At first, the collective name “Mizrahim” simply denoted Jews of Asian and North African origin who lived in Israel after the 1950s. More recently, however, the name is often applied to all Jews of Middle Eastern descent, whether they live in Israel or elsewhere. Simultaneously there has been a surge of publications of all sorts concerned with Mizrahim, first in Israel and later also in the United States and other countries. Mizrahi experiences , identities, and histories are presented, assessed, and debated in scholarly articles and monographs, political statements, personal testimonies and memoirs , poetry and fiction, and music and cinema, as well as on websites and blogs.1 These often passionate conversations take place in a variety of locations—in the “Jewish street,” in political and social organizations, and in academia.2 Perhaps the best indication that something new is happening is the emergence of a body of knowledge that is sometimes called Mizrahi studies, separate from what used to be called “Sephardi studies.”3 At the same time, the word “Mizrahi” is increasingly replacing terms such as “Oriental Jews” or “Middle Eastern Jews,” thereby signaling the importance of the specifically Israeli or Hebrew context within which many of these conversations have emerged in recent years.4 In any case, geography—physical and, more important, cultural and political—plays a key role, as the term “Mizrah” (East) keeps reminding us. If we can be allowed one overarching generalization about these conversations, then it is that the relationship with and the linkage to the East, however defined, and the condition of “being an Eastern Jew,” again however defined, are key elements in all of these conversations. Briefly put, Mizrahi conversations are built on the consciousness of “being in”—and/or “being from”—the East. Nonetheless, although there seems to be a consensus today about the existence of a distinct collectivity known as Mizrahim, and although the term is xxii | I n t r o d u c t i o n common in contemporary Israeli speech as well as in English academic jargon, agreement about its boundaries, origins, and characteristics remains elusive. The one possible exception is the notion that Mizrahim are non-Ashkenazi Jews who originated in Asia or Africa. One of the core issues of Mizrahi conversations in the current phase is the problem of Mizrahi difference from the “mainstream ” Israeli Ashkenazi society that repeatedly gives rise to heated debates about the possibility and the necessity of Mizrahi “assimilation” within that society. Indeed, the question of Mizrahi identity—particularly its distinctive place within Israeli society, politics, and culture—is crucial for contemporary Mizrahi intellectuals. The sociologist Yitzhak Dahan, a Mizrahi scholar himself, has recently attempted to classify the major trends among Mizrahi intellectuals between 1970 and 2005. Dahan identifies several major orientations. At one end of the spectrum he finds radical criticism of Zionism and intense resistance to assimilation within Israeli society and an emphasis on “traditional Mizrahi roots and refusal to detach from them.” At the other end he finds a constant struggle to “harmonize” the “three elements of [Mizrahi] identity: the Jewish, the Zionist, and the Mizrahi,” in order to make space for Mizrahim within the political and cultural mainstream in Israel.5 All orientations, it should be noted, assume a distinct Mizrahi identity. A recent collection of studies on Mizrahim suggests that “Mizrahim” is “a descriptive term—a category, designation, or name—used to distinguish between classes of persons or groups,” as well as a term that “connotes identity, relating to a sense of self, to self-image, to how individuals and groups define themselves and their place in their world, to what is distinctive to them and at the same time separates themselves from others.”6 Furthermore, it goes almost without saying that just as there is little agreement on what the term “Mizrahim” connotes, there is even less agreement about the scope of its history. For instance, the questions of what is Mizrahi history and what is its relationship to Jewish history in general—and to the history of Jews in the Middle East before the establishment of the State of Israel—are among the most hotly...

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