Mizrahi Identity, Representation and the Politics of Belonging

In this essay, originally published in der Freitag, Mati Shemoelof reflects on Mizrahi identity and its place in contemporary Israel. Writing from his own experience as an Arab-Jewish writer of Iraqi, Iranian and Syrian Jewish heritage, he examines the complicated history of the term “Mizrahi” and the long-standing social and cultural tensions between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews in Israel.

The essay takes the form of a personal letter to Israeli politician Itamar Ben-Gvir, whom Shemoelof first encountered as a young activist at the release of Mordechai Vanunu. From this shared Mizrahi background, the text follows two radically different political paths: one leading toward poetry, culture and a search for Jewish-Arab coexistence, the other toward nationalist politics and the use of Mizrahi and Kurdish identity within a politics of exclusion.

Shemoelof also explores his own Iraqi and Kurdish Jewish family history and argues for understanding Arab-Jewish identity through complexity, entanglement and shared history rather than through separation and ethnic hierarchy. The essay asks what representation means when identity is detached from equality and justice, and what a Mizrahi identity committed to coexistence and Palestinian equality might look like today.

Originally published in der Freitag.

Focus keyphrase

Mizrahi identity

Secondary keywords

• Arab-Jewish identity

• Arab-Jewish history

• Mizrahi Jews

• Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews

• Iraqi Jewish history

• Kurdish Jewish history

• Mizrahi culture

• Jewish identity in Israel

• Itamar Ben-Gvir

• Mati Shemoelof

• Mizrahi identity in Israel

• Jewish-Arab history

Category:
Art & Writing → Essays / Cultural Writing

Tags:
Mizrahi · Arab-Jewish · Jewish History · Israel · Mizrahi Identity · Diaspora · Iraqi Jews · Kurdish Jews · Identity