Anonymous OP 1w

And there’s another, disturbing reason. In the 1970s, Israel’s Arab population had a high birth rate, and Israel had just seized new majority-Arab territories. The government feared this increasing Arab population, so they sought new populations of Jews to offset them. Israel had already absorbed the mizrahi jewish communities that fled Arab nations following 1948. But Israel didn’t like these communities much. They were seen as “too Arab,” “too religious,” and “backwards.”

7

Anonymous OP 1w

For an example of this attitude towards middle eastern Jews, prime minister Ben-Gurion once said “Those [Jews] from Morocco had no education. Their customs are those of Arabs… The culture of Morocco I would not like to have here… We don't want Israelis to become Arabs.”

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Anonymous OP 1w

So, what to do about this rising Arab population? Get a bunch of Soviet Jewish immigrants. By cutting off access to the USA, Soviet Jews seeking a better life would have to come to Israel. They would offset the arab demographic gain, and their European culture was considered superior by the Ashkenazi (European Jewish) establishment to Mizrahi culture.

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Anonymous OP 1w

When the mizrahim first arrived in israel, they were put into squalid camps (while Ashkenazi immigrants at the same time were put into urban homes). By the time the Soviet Jews were arriving, the Mizrahim had been established in peripheral settlements and public housing. These new Soviet Jews, also excluded by the Hebrew-speaking Ashkenazi social class, were then placed into these marginal, peripheral settlements.

6

Anonymous OP 1w

The soviet jews now occupy an odd space in Israeli society. Highly educated, but socially marginalized. Distrusted for their “non-Jewishness” due to Soviet assimilation. Often very resistant to learning Hebrew and inhabiting Russian-speaking enclaves. I think the mistreatment of Jewish immigrants and the diaspora by the Israeli government isn’t talked about much, so I wanted to share an example.

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Anonymous #2 1w

Nope. The siege of Jerusalem was awful. I’m not gonna accept any antisemitism shit here.

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Anonymous OP 1w

It’s very interesting to hear this perspective being Ashkenazi. I’ve been very disconnected from my heritage as of late due to Israel… y’know, being Israel. Thank you for the education!

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Anonymous #1 1w

I think the history is really interesting and it’s important for a proper understanding of why modern Israel is like that. I recently went down a fascinating rabbit hole about how the Yiddish language was intentionally repressed by pro-Hebrew Zionist factions, who viewed Yiddish as a diasporic cultural element which had to be eradicated.

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Anonymous OP 6d

That’s genuinely so fucking bizarre. They both have an extremely storied history in Jewish communities stories and culture. Not that I should be shocked Israel, an ethnostate, is ethnocentric. A home for all Jews!* *(Non European jews need not apply)

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Anonymous #1 6d

From what I have read, it was driven by a belief that anything characterizing the diaspora was a corruption of Jewish culture which had to be eliminated in favor of a solely Israeli identity. A big part of this was making everyone switch to only using the Hebrew language.

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Anonymous OP 6d

It was also part of a broader anti-Yiddish attitude that developed throughout the 1800s. Yiddish was seen as improper jargon. In Germany (pre-holocaust) this manifested as a switch to using German instead, but among early Zionists in Palestine it involved a revival of Hebrew.

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Anonymous OP 6d

Hebrew was considered essential in constructing a new national identity that rejected diasporic culture. So in the 1920s and 30s in Palestine there were many incidents of Yiddish newspaper stand being burned, pro-Yiddish academics being assaulted, and even theaters playing Yiddish cinema to be protested against.

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Anonymous OP 6d

It’s so depressing to me that one of the primary goals of the Jewish state is to overwrite Jewish history and culture with an Americanized shell of itself. Like, imagine if Israel actually followed Jewish doctrine. The amount of good they could do for the world would be staggering. But of course, as is the case for MANY religions, doctrine is perverted by malicious interpretation.

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Anonymous #1 6d

Yeah I think one of the things I vore about diasporic culture (I’m not Jewish so keep that in mind) that is fundamentally different from Israel, is that diasporic Jewish communities are *both* Jewish and from their country of origin. Removing the Hungarian cultural element from Hungarian Jews is cultural erasure just like removing the Jewish culture in favor of Hungarian assimilation would be.

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Anonymous OP 6d

Oh my god I didn’t mean to say vore I meant to say view

10

Anonymous OP 6d

It’s also odd to watch like the tensions of culture in Israel today as a result of the history. Like for sample, Israel was founded by Ashkenazim and for a long time was dominated by them. So you might expect that current government policy is driven by this privileged group, but it isn’t. The ashkenazim tend to be more left wing and less anti-Palestinian. Netanyahu’s primary base of support is actually the socially conservative Mizrahi community (and the Russians vote pretty conservative too).

7

Anonymous OP 6d

Precisely. They want a Jewish monoculture. I know these comparisons have been made a lot more in recent years, but it is very striking to me how closely nazi germany and Israel align on cultural and ethnic purity. “Yeah you’re German, but you’re not aryan.” “Yeah you’re Jewish, but you’re not Ashkenazi or Sephardic.”

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Anonymous OP 6d

Right- this has been reflected in my local communities here in the states as well. I never thought I’d see the day where I aligned with Hasidics, but here we are.

5

Anonymous OP 6d

Also, religion has tension. Like on one end of the spectrum some super-fundamentalist haredi Jews oppose Israel’s existence because it’s too secular and because the messiah hasn’t come yet. Meanwhile slightly different religious fundamentalists tend to be the most aggressive West Bank settlers. And Israel was founded by secular Zionists, but nowadays non-religious Jews in the diaspora are often those least supportive of Israel.

3

Anonymous #1 6d

Yeah. I guess a lot of it is just like what happens when you have the inherently problematic idea of nation-states. If Germany is for “Germans,” anyone who doesn’t fit the mold is a problem. And if Israel is supposed to be the single unified Jewish nation, cultural diversity harms the goal for uniformity.

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Anonymous #1 6d

Because I’m not Jewish and don’t live in a very Jewish area I don’t really have a good point of reference for the divisions in attitudes within the American Jewish community. Like I have *heard* about the anti-Zionist Hasidics but have never encountered them if that makes sense. And I mean like the more typical ones not the neturei karta fringe which is all over TikTok because they go to protests.

2

Anonymous OP 6d

My personal experience with local Hasidics is mainly just that they’re kind of sexist, often very snappy and rude, and also break housing and fire codes like all the fucking time. Generally just unpleasant towards outsiders. …however, they aren’t genocidal. Which is more than can be said for some more moderate Jews I know.

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Anonymous #1 6d

Yeah that aligns with what I’d generally expect. They strike me kind of like Jewish Amish. Very closed off, isolated from outsiders, lots of kids, misogynistic, distinctive hats (lol). I have heard some very concerning things about the education quality in yeshivas. Stuff about intentionally limiting math and English education so kids have no choice but to remain within the Hasidic community.

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Anonymous OP 6d

Similar to how I think it’s a shame that Pennsylvania German dialects only survive among the closed off Amish and old order Mennonites, I’m saddened that Yiddish is largely limited to these religious fundamentalist communities. But I guess it makes sense that the most isolated communities would preserve a language the longest.

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Anonymous #3 6d

zionists wanting to get rid of yiddish at the time is also very interesting to me given that so many jewish american immigrants at the time spoke yiddish. so much so that newspapers, ads, performances, etc in new york were translated to yiddish for the jewish community

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Anonymous OP 6d

Did you learn what those poor victims did to others? They killed thousands of people in their uprisings before Hadrian scattered their people across the empire

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Anonymous OP 6d

Don’t care if you accept it, people think that way for a lot of good reasons

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Anonymous #2 6d

Massacres, ethnic cleaning, and enslaving of civilians is always bad. Doesn’t matter what rebels of that ethnicity did. The crimes of a few does not justify the genocide of many. Claiming it does is literally the logic Israel uses to justify its genocide in Gaza.

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Anonymous OP 6d

Is it just to kill a murderer if you know that person will kill again if you let them live?

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Anonymous #2 6d

Mirror image of their rhetoric, wow

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Anonymous OP 6d

No need to answer, I know what you would say

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