Tradition versus tradition: Mizrahi pupils in National Religious schools in Israel, 1948–1990

ABSTRACT

Absorbing the immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa in Israel was one of the Israeli education system’s important tasks. This article deals with the way the National Religious schools treated these new immigrants and their descendants, known as Oriental Jews, Mizrahi Jews, or “Mizrahim.” The differences between Mizrahi Jews and Ashkenazi Jews (those of European ancestry) were related to differences in religious traditions, academic level, and religious observance. Educators imposed the Ashkenazi tradition on Mizrahi pupils. This created social tension and alienated Mizrahi pupils from the system. On the other side, Ashkenazi pupils who had difficulties with the heterogeneous educational environment left the public system and enrolled in more religious schools, which had a much smaller percentage of Mizrahi pupils. This segregation was even more common at the high school level. Ashkenazim attended yeshiva high schools, while Mizrahi pupils went to regular high schools. Small changes were evident by the 1990s. By that time, more Mizrahi pupils were attending the elite yeshivot, and the public system adopted a more multicultural attitude and included the Mizrahi tradition as well.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Avi Picard teaches in the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archeology at Bar Ilan University. His specialty is Israeli society with an emphasis on ethnicity and immigration. His book Cut to Measure (2013) about the Israeli policy regarding the immigration of North African Jews in the 1950s was awarded the Shazar prize for the best book on Jewish History for 2015. He has published academic articles on immigration, ethnic relations, and development towns in Israel.

Notes

1 Many terms have been used to describe the Jews from Islamic countries and their descendants living in Israel: Oriental communities, Sephardi Jews, Jews from Asia and Africa, Arab Jews, and more. Each terminology has its own problems. The term “Jews from Islamic countries” does not include the Jews from India, Georgia, or Ethiopia, and is not accurate in describing their descendants born in Israel. The term Edot Hamizrah (sometime translated as “Oriental Jews” and lit. “Eastern communities”) is problematic and inaccurate regarding Jews from North Africa, which is located west of Israel; indeed, ironically, these Jews are traditionally called the Ma'aravim (lit. westerners). The term “Sephardi” is problematic when describing communities that were not connected to the Spanish Jews’ diaspora in any way. The term “Jews from Asia and Africa” does not include Jews from the Balkans who were Sephardi Jews, and requires one to exclude the Jews of South Africa. The term “Mizrahi” and in plural “Mizrahim” is not accurate either, since it includes communities from the west (North Africa), and relates to a wide range of very different communities as one, blurring all the differences. The term “Mizrahi” is in fact an Israeli invention, unknown before the 1960s. However since it is common, and helps to simplify the discussion, I will use the term “Mizrahi” in this article. The term “Arab Jews” that is used by some scholars reflects the view that the Jews from Arab countries are Jews in their religion and Arab in their national identity. This term was rarely used prior to the twenty-first century. Very few Jews who grew up in Arab countries use it, and it is mainly used by scholars who share critical views of Zionism. There is a large discourse on the issue of terminology. See for example few articles in Pe’amim: Studies in Oriental Jewry, vol. 125/127, Special Issue: Arab Jews? A Polemic about Identity, 2010 [Hebrew]; see also Levy (2008), Behar (2009), Cohen (2015) and Zamkanei (2016).

2 See, for example, Lissak (2003).

3 For example, Eisenstadt (1954).

4 See, for example, the attitude of the Zionist Commission for Palestine rejecting the organization of the Jews of Jerusalem in ethnic communities (Friedman 1988, 50).

5 There are more than two traditions in practicing Judaism but Ashkenazy and Mizrahi/Sephardi are the two largest categories.

6 Very little quantitative research was done after the 1990s and therefore it is more difficult to draw conclusions on the topic. The lack of research is due to two main reasons. The ethnic gap that was the focus of social research in the 1970s and 1980s was replaced by the discourse about religious–secular relationships. The second reason is that public data about ethnic identity in Israel are based on the classification of the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, regarding country of birth and parents’ country of birth. By the mid-1990s, the percentage of Israelis under the age of 19 born in Israel to Israel-born parents became very large and research based on ethnic identity became less quantitative. The majority of the Jews who came from Islamic countries arrived in Israel by the early 1960s. Forty years later, the majority of the Mizrahim of school age (under 19) were third-generation Israelis and therefore unidentified by their ethnicity. In 1999, 56% of the children (under 19) were third generation and in 2015, 78% were third generation (CBS, table 2.21 for 2000 and table 2.6 for 2016).

7 In English transliteration I have made a distinction between “Mizrachi”, an acronym for Merkaz ruhani literally religious or spiritual centre, and the term “Mizrahi” that refers to Eastern Jews.

8 On the Frumkin report, see Zameret (2002, 19–44), Hacohen (2003,162–186) and Don-Yehiya (2008, 17–274).

9 Hacohen (2003, 163); David Remez, the Minister of Education, in the Knesset, 5/1/51[Knesset protocol, Vol. 8, p. 980].

10 The ultra-Orthodox stream, called the independent education stream, remained.

11 In the first election, in 1949, the religious front had 16 seats. This is, more or less the number of seats religious parties achieved for the next 12 elections, until the 14th election in 1996. Only the increase of Shas, an ultra-Orthodox Sephardi party, to 10 seats and more since 1996, will change the political balance between the secular and the religious. More than 45 years after the mass immigration, this will express the potential for reinforcement for the religious camp that brought about the mass immigration of Mizrahi Jews in the 1950s.

12 According to Avraham Ron, the head of the Religious Education Council in the 1970s, in the 1980s, Mizrahim were 70–75% of the SRE (State Religious education) (Ron 1986b, 117). In the 1990s Mizrahim were 60–70% of the SRE and 50% in secular State schools (Dagan 2006, 123).

13 Aran (1968, 124). According to Ron (1986b, 117), in 1964/1965, 65% of the disadvantaged students were in the SRE. When in 1983/1984 the criteria changed, in the SRE 48% of students were disadvantaged and 11% were in the general state education.

14 See, for example, Shtal (1976, 8–28); Bezalel (1984, 55–58); Cohen (2003, 5–7); and recently the Biton committee (see Grave-Lazi 2016).

15 Some of the justification for this prayer style was that it included some aspects of the Mizrahi prayer style and seemed to east European Jews to be an imitation of the Sephardi style. However, for Mizrahi pupils this style was unfamiliar. On this prayer style and its popularity in the religious Zionist sector see Leon (2015, 161–171); Fogel (2014, 7).

16 On the multiculturalism approach, see Kyimlicka (1995).

17 Ron (1986b, 124–125) describes the response it in a different way.

18 Rabbi Yehuda Felix, Educational director – Bnei Akiva Yeshivot Center, correspondence with the author, February 2009.

19 See, for example, Yablon (2009, 541–542); Schwarzwald (1990, 32–33). On the approach of the “Noam” founders, see Aizek (1992, 51–57).

20 On the re-legitimation of Sephardi identity see Picard (2017).