Isral ethnicity



Ethnicity in an Israeli Setting
Israeli society absorbed large numbers of Jewish immigrants who brought with them much of their culture and heritage. In so far as these immigrant groups came from various geographical locations, spoke different. However, unlike the ethnic groups of modern immigrant societies, these communities or ethnic sub-groups also had much in common with the veteranJewish residents.
They were all Jewish.
All were familiar with a common set of religious beliefs and traditions relating to an all-encompassing life-style. Many immigrants alike had grown up in a relatively traditional society: either in Eastern Europe or in the Middle East and North Africa. The holidays and religious traditions were not foreign to these immigrants, even to those who hadabandoned a religiously orientation. Nor were the ideas and images associated with the Jewish return to the promised Land of Israel alien to these people. Many cultural expressions, often related to Jewish religious observance, united the immigrants: cholent/hamin on Saturdays, the Passover Seder, lighting the menorah on Hannukah, the Bar Mitzvah and the Jewish wedding celebration. In addition, most hadexperienced manifestations of anti-semitism such as discrimination, persecution, and violent attacks.
The attachment these immigrants had to the reality from which they had come was moderated by memories of hostility and rejection. Both from a religious and a national viewpoint, Jews shared a common origin. It appeared that Jews also shared a common fate, as the Holocaust and the widespreadhostility toward Jews in the Moslem world on one hand, and the mass migration to Israel on the other seemed to indicate.
Israel embodied the view that the Jews comprised one nation, and that the country was the true home of the immigrants. This was expressed in the Law of Return, passed by the Knesset in 1950, which stated: "Every Jew has the right to immigrate to the country." Inclusion of Jews inIsrael was therefore perceived primarily not in broad humanitarian terms, but rather as part of the Zionist goal to reunite Jews from all corners of the earth in the Jewish State and to forge a new national identity. Jewish immigrants were to be integrated into the new Israeli society.
Another uniting factor was the fact that once in the country, the new immigrants were faced with the samesecurity problems that threatened the entire society. Participation in the defense of the Jewish state undoubtedly accentuated feelings of solidarity on the part of both the newcomers and the veteran population. For these reasons, the nature of ethnicity in Israel is somewhat unique. While "edot" maintain distinct cultural traditions and organizational frameworks, there is a much greater degree ofcommonality and unity among the various sections of the Israeli Jewish population than in other immigrant societies.
Although it is possible to identify dozens and perhaps even hundreds of Jewish "edot" in Israel, the notion of ethnic identity is associated primarily with immigrant groups from the Middle East and North Africa.
Immigrants from Europe did form organizations, but these were usuallydesigned to provide mutual aid, especially during the difficult early stages of integration into Israeli society. Societies were also established to research or memorialize particular European communities. However, these groups were not designed to advance particular interests of a broader nature or to perpetuate ethnic identity and culture. Identification with a particular European communitydecreased considerably among native-born Israelis although they continued be aware of their Ashkenazi origins. A stronger sense of ethnic identity developed among Oriental Jews due to the more limited effects of westernization in their communities, their feelings of deprivation and discrimination engendered by the process of absorption during the 1950s, the lingering socio-economic gap and the...