I am absolutely enchanted with the Arab Jewish culture – it seems like such a potent blend of flavors and sounds. It all started when I made a couple of Mizrahi (Arab Jewish) friends in the US. They kindly introduced me (sonically) to Om Kolthoum, and fed me some of the most extraordinary hummus I’ve ever devoured!
It’s hard to estimate how many Arab Jews there are today – according to an Aramica article from 2002, 800,000 Arab Jews lived in the Middle East prior to 1948 and by 2002, there were around 8,000 Arab Jews left in the region.
Why do we never hear about Arab Jews?
The Aramica article includes three fascinating interviews with experts on the subject of Jewish Arabs in America. The first is with Professor Ella Shohat, an Iraqi Jew who teaches in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at New York University.
She talks about mutual discrimination of Arab Jews within both the Jewish and Muslim communities and the choice Arab Jews are pressurized to make between being Jews and being Arabs. The professor describes the fragmentation of the Arab Jewish community within the Arab-American community, concluding that Arab Jews don’t really interact with the Arab American nor the European Jewish communities.
Unfortunately, the events of September 11th made it especially complicated for this small community, with members targeted on the streets alongside other Arabs and Muslims who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
An Active Approach to Honoring Arab Jewish Heritage
Aramica also interviews David Shasha, an American born Arab Jew living in Brooklyn. David holds a Master’s Degree in Jewish/Middle Eastern Studies from Cornell University and works as an activist, educator, author and archivist. He is the Director of The Center for Sephardic Heritage.
David explains how records and documentation of Arab Jewish history are far less prolific than that of Jewish history during the Russian revolution or the Holocaust. As such, it’s hard to get a clear idea of what life was like for Arab Jews, as very little reflection has been produced by historians.
David dedicates his career to changing this and dispelling some of the clouds on some of the historical and cultural issues surrounding the US Arab Jewish community.
Can you Be Both an Arab and A Jew?
The final interview in the article is with Professor Ammiel Alcalay, who teaches at Queens College and is the author of numerous books on Arab Jews and Levantine culture.
Professor Alcalay talks about the cultural creativity of the Arab Jews in countries such as Iraq and Spain. Sadly this became muted in the face of integration issues the community had to endure trying to fit into America’s Ashkenazi Jewish community.
He concludes that the political situation in the Middle East has further isolated members of the Arab Jewish community. Not fitting in with the Arab community and wanting to associate with Israeli politics has left the community somewhat adrift and rootless within the US.
“In America, it seems very strange to people that you can be both an Arab and a Jew.” The professor concludes.
