‘From badness to sickness’:1

This phrase is borrowed from Conrad and Schneider (1992).

the role of ethnopsychology in shaping ethnic hierarchies in Israel

Abstract

This article explores the role of the psychological sciences in depoliticising processes of ethnic demarcation and marginalisation within the Jewish population in Israel. It shows how the psychological sciences have provided the scientific foundation by which cultural domination and subordination have been essentialised. The study traces the ways in which ethnopsychological discourse has changed its contours over time. Early ethnopsychological discourse provided an overt link between the ‘cultural backwardness’ and ‘psychological impairment’ of the Mizrahi Jew. In light of broad social and political transformations, in the more recent model the overt ethnic signifier was silenced, and the Mizrahi ‘impaired mind’ appeared to be detached from its ethnic roots while being attributed to the same ethnic population. Both ethnopsychological forms have focused on the individual's ‘special needs’ and ‘inherent psychological impairment’, obscuring the role of social and political forces in shaping social gaps in Israeli society and reinforcing the hegemonic discourse of nurture. The latter has provided a negative mirror image of the modern Ashkenazi secular Israeli Jew following Western cultural models of self‐control as the universal index of health and progress. This study is based on both primary and secondary sources as well as on my in situ observations.

Notes

This phrase is borrowed from Conrad and Schneider (1992).

My use of the term ‘ethnopsychology’ departs from its use in other work to describe folk or ‘common‐sense’ psychology. In contrast to this use of the term, here ‘ethno’ refers to ethnicity and ethnopsychology describes the ideas of profession. These ideas are infused with common‐sense assumptions and local cultural beliefs.

This is not necessarily true in the case of the Ethiopians. See Seeman (1999).

The Mizrahi Jew in these theories is prototypically male.

As Swirski (1990) points out, Israelis of both Mizrahi and Ashkenazi origin have internalised the discourse of nurture. ‘Successfully assimilated’ Mizrahim, who have been among the nurturers, have played a role in reinforcing the apolitical, psychologically oriented discourse of nurture.

See Kleinman's semiotic terminology calling attention to the conversion of cultural signs into medical symptoms (Kleinman, 1988, p. 8).

Frankenstein's primitive or modern individual is always a man.

The pamphlet, written by Kobi Hass, Yigal Ben‐Arie, Devora Haberfeld and Yael Gur, was not dated. The authors mention that the IDF ‘rehabilitation program was founded 10 years earlier’, so it was probably written in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

Although the exact demographic picture has been inaccessible, this decisive estimate is based on the statements of various high‐ranking informants. During a meeting I attended in 2000, one of the highest‐ranking officers replied to my query: ‘At least 95 per cent of MACAM soldiers are of Mizrahi origin’.

This particular list refers to male recruits only.

Although the soldier's social background is considered to be relevant to his overall condition, in Frankenstein's approach culture and society are perceived as external forces shaping the overall psychological state of the individual. See, for example, an article published in 1994 in Megamot by Mash and Dinai (Mash and Dinai, 1994) examining the correlation between the adjustment of MACAM solders to the system and the type of family they come from. The authors conclude that MACAM soldiers who come from ‘warm families’ adjust better than MACAM soldiers who come from ‘families of neglect’. The Mizrahi family becomes once again a unit of analysis and the subject matter of psychological investigation. No similar psychological inquiry has been carried out on the general population.

One should keep in mind that the vast majority of the Mizrahi population does not belong to MACAM.