| מאגר מידע |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
דבריו של מאיר גל, אמן הפועל בישראל ובניו-יורק, על היצירה: מאז הקמת מדינת ישראל שמענו בעיקר על יהודיה האשכנזים ורק את קולם. מאמרים רבים תיארו בחיוב את המדינה ככזו שהצליחה ליצור חברה מגוונת מבחינה אתנית ותרבותית. לצערי, רוב החיבורים האלה תיארו מצב כוזב הרחוק מאוד מהמציאות שהקבוצות הלא-אשכנזיות היו צריכות לסבול. מזרחים אשר כתבו באופן מתמיד ונרחב על דיכוי המזרחים בישראל ואשר תיעדו את ההתנגדות של המזרחים לדיכוי, מצאו עצמם תחת צנזורה וביקורת קשה. עד היום הזה פעילים מזרחיים מודחקים לשוליים ואף מוּדרים ממוקדי החלטה ומשאבים ציבוריים. מאיר גל Meir Gal, Nine Out of Four Hundred (The West and The Rest) , New York, 1997. Since the establishment of Israel we have heard mostly from and about its European (Ashkenazi) Jewry. Numerous articles have depicted the State of Israel as a country that successfully managed to bring together people of different ethnic origins. Unfortunately, most of these articles have created a perception that is far from the realities that non-Ashkenazi groups have had to endure. Mizrahim (Jews of Asian and African origins commonly referred to as Sephardim) who have written extensively about the discrimination against Mizrahim in Israel and who have documented the history of Mizrahi resistance have been censured and criticized. To this day, Mizrahi activists in Israel are marginalized and often excluded from public positions and funding. The official textbooks on the history of the Jewish people used in Israeli schools are dedicated almost exclusively to the history of European Jewry. For decades the Ministry of Education systematically deleted the history of Jews who came from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. These books helped establish a consciousness that the history of the Jewish people took place in Eastern Europe and that Mizrahim have no history worthy of remembering. The origins of this policy date back to the Ashkenazi treatment of the Mizrahi Diaspora prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. Both Jewish European communities and the Eastern European leadership in Palestine and later in Israel, categorized non-European Jews as backward and primitive. Cautionary measures in the form of selective immigration policies were enacted in the 1950¹s in order to reduce the dangerous influence of non-European cultures on the new Israeli entity. From the moment of their arrival in Israel, Mizrahim were forced to deny their Jewish-Arab identity, which they held for centuries in Arab countries and in Palestine. Throughout this era there was no contradiction between being a Jew and an Arab simultaneously. The advent of Zionism and the establishment of the Israeli State drove a wedge between Mizrahim and their origins, and replaced their Jewish - Arab identity with a new Israeli identity based on hatred of the Arab world. The inevitable outcome was an irreconcilable Mizrahi denial of its own past, which gradually evolved into self-hatred. The title of the book I am holding in the photograph is The History of The Jewish People In Recent Generations. This book was the only official text book which was given to high school students (including myself) in the early 70's. The nine pages I am holding are the only pages in the book that discuss non-European Jewish history. Hence the title: Nine Out of Four Hundred (The West and the Rest). My intention is to put an end to the speculative character of the argument whether or not Mizrahim have been discriminated in Israel. Today the Ministry of Education continues to erase the history of its non European Jews despite the fact that they comprise more than half of the Israeli population. And this is only one example of the ways through which the State minoritized its non-European majority. Meir Gal
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
