‘Stepbrothers from the Middle East’: negotiations of racial identity among Jewish-Israeli immigrants in Toronto

Abstract

This paper explores the complex negotiations of racial identity experienced on migration. Working from a series of 48 interviews with racially diverse Israeli immigrants to Toronto, and drawing on literature on the assimilated Canadian-born Jewish population, I contrast the racial histories of Canadian and Israeli Jews – groups whose identities have historically crossed intersections of race, ethnicity and religion. By exploring the participants’ accounts of being differently whitened and blackened in Israel and Toronto, and their own interpretations of and responses to these processes, I expose the spatial contingencies of racial hierarchies, meanings and identifications. I also introduce the under-studied Mizrahi/Sephardi Jewish community – who are demographically prevalent in Israel yet largely unknown in North America, and are subject to complex racial and ethno-cultural tensions in both spaces – into discussions of Canadian Jewishness.

RÉSUMÉ

Cet article explore les négociations complexes d’identité raciale vécues lors de la migration. En m’appuyant sur une série de 48 entretiens avec des immigrants israéliens de races différentes à Toronto et sur les recherches auprès de la population juive assimilée née au Canada, j’expose les différences entre les histoires raciales des groupes juifs canadiens et israéliens dont les identités ont croisé historiquement les intersections de race, d’ethnicité et de religion. En explorant les récits des participants du fait d’être différemment plus ou moins blancs ou noirs en Israël et à Toronto et de leurs propres interprétations et réponses à ces processus, j’expose les contingences spatiales des hiérarchies, significations et identifications raciales. Je présente aussi la communauté juive mizrahi/séfarade, qui est démographiquement prédominante en Israël et pourtant largement inconnue en Amérique du Nord et qui est soumise à des tensions raciales et ethnoculturelles complexes aux deux endroits, vers des discussions sur la judéité canadienne.

RESUMEN

Este artículo explora las complejas negociaciones de identidad racial experimentadas en la migración. En base a una serie de 48 entrevistas con inmigrantes israelíes racialmente diversos en Toronto y haciendo uso de la literatura sobre la asimilada población judía nacida en Canadá, se comparan las historias raciales de judíos canadienses e israelíes – grupos cuyas identidades históricamente han cruzado intersecciones de raza, etnia y religión. Al explorar los relatos de los participantes en relación a ser emblanquecidos y ennegrecidos de forma diferente en Israel y Toronto, y sus propias interpretaciones y respuestas a estos procesos, se exponen las contingencias espaciales de las jerarquías, significados e identificaciones raciales. También se introduce a la poco estudiada comunidad judía Mizrají/Sefardí – que es demográficamente prevalente en Israel, pero aún muy desconocida en América del Norte y está sujeta a complejas tensiones raciales y etno-culturales en ambos espacios – en discusiones sobre el judaísmo canadiense.

Keywords:

• Race
• religion
• whiteness
• immigration
• Jews
• Israel

Mots clés:

• race
• religion
• le fait d’être blanc
• immigration
• Juifs
• Israël

Palabras clave:

• Raza
• Religión
• Religión
• inmigración
• judíos
• Israel

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to David Fisher Ben- Hayim and Krysta Pandolfi for their willingness to read drafts and offer substantive critique. I also am indebted for Minelle Mahtani and Deborah Leslie for their mentorship and support.

Notes

1. Originally, the term Ashkenazi Jews (plural: Ashkenazim), was used to designated only Jews whose origins were in ‘Ashkenaz’, the medieval Hebrew term for northern France and the Rhineland. In the late nineteenth century, use of this term expanded to include the Jews of Eastern Europe as well. The category of ‘Mizrahi Jews’ (plural: Mizrahim, literally ‘Easterners’) is the popular Hebrew/Israeli term used to describe non-European Jews (largely from Arab and Muslim countries) in Israel since the state’s establishment in 1948. Its usage is based on the cultural solidarity and common experience of racialization of these diverse groups, who constitute a majority of the Israeli Jewish populace (Chetrit, 2009). The term Sepharadi Jews (plural Sepharadim, literally ‘Spaniards’) is theoretically specific to those Jews who descend from those exiled from Spain and Portugal in 1492 following the inquisitions, who happened to mainly resettle in Arab lands under Muslim rule (i.e. not counting Jews who always lived in Arab lands). While in Israel the ‘Sephardi’ label bears mainly religious significance, in North America, these two categories (Mizrahi and Sephardi) are used more interchangeably.

2. Jews in the GTA make up about half of Canadian Jewry, estimated to be 375,000 in total (Della Pergola, 2013).

3. In 2010, a joint study by the Consulate General of Israel in Toronto and the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto estimated that there were approximately 60,000 Israelis in the city (Personal communication with representative of the Consulate General of Israel in Toronto, 13 February, 2013).

4. The popular understanding of a Jewish prominent/bumpy/crocked nose as symbols of a ‘Jewish face’ originated in 19th century Europe alongside other stereotypes (such the darker skin colour and dark curly hair). European race scientists believed that these physical characteristics are the product of Jews’ racial impurity, and markers of racial inferiority and symptoms of disease (Gilman, 1991, pp. 172–173, 179). These stereotypes serve to ‘other’ the Jew from his/her gentile neighbours, whose slimmer noses and naturally straight, smooth, and often blond, hair are the normal standard of these features (pp. 173–174).

5. The label ‘Sabra’ is often used as a metaphor to describe the simultaneously tough and sweet nature of a Jew born in Israel (or before 1948 in Ottoman or Mandatory Palestine). It is named after the Sabra (Hebrew: צבר, tzabar a type of cactus fruit, which bears a tough, thorny skin and a sweet, juicy interior). The mythical figure of the Sabra is constructed as an active, masculine, athletic, assertive and nationally rooted subject in opposition to the ‘old’ diasporic Jew, often depicted by anti-Semites and Zionists alike as fragile, bookish, and passive (Almog, 2000, p. 77).