DEFINICIONES Y NOMENCLATURAS

Collectively, as previously mentioned, memoirs of Mizrahi displacement constitute a very different type of remembrance in contrast to Ashkenazi Holocaust survivor testimonies.182

Yet both are important and both are ‘authentically’ Jewish. Of the two, Mizrahi displacement remains generally a lesser known historical experience.183 _{This is not the case}

regarding the Holocaust. Over the last fifty years, Holocaust remembrance has “move[d] towards the centre of consciousness in many Western European, North American, and Middle Eastern societies” as well as significant, if more general, influence noticeable throughout the rest of the world.184 _{Rothberg, for example, observes of Holocaust memory}

that “there is probably no other single event that encapsulates the struggles for recognition that accompany collective memory in such a condensed and global form”.185 _{Paris also}

notes more generally that memory of World War II “which sits implacably at the heart of the twentieth century, refus[es] to be displaced”.186

Significantly, there is direct geographical overlap between areas of greatest Holocaust memory saturation and the regions that Mizrahim were initially displaced from and subsequently resettled within.187 _{Rothberg mentions that Western Europe, North America}

and the Middle East are the greatest regions of saturation.188 _{Comparatively, as mentioned}

180 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 10-11.}

181 _{Whitlock, Soft Weapons, 2-7; Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 7, 10-11; Prentice, Devadas, and Johnson,}

‘Introduction – Cultural Transformations’, xiv-xv. Whitlock (2007: 5) notes that there has been a “resurgence of fundamentalist forms of cultural identification based on religion and nationalism . . . [due to] the armed conflicts of the war on terror”.

182 _{Stillman, Jews of Arab Lands, xxi.}

183 _{Stillman, Jews of Arab Lands, xxi; Simon, Laskier, & Reguer, Jews of the Middle East, vii-xi.} 184 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 6; Paris, Long Shadows, 451.}

185 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 6.} 186 _{Paris, Long Shadows, 451.}

187 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 6; DellaPergola, ‘Sephardic and Oriental’.} 188 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 6; DellaPergola, ‘Sephardic and Oriental’.}

83 in Chapter One: Introductory Overview, Mizrahim predominantly resettled within the State of Israel, Europe, Britain, and North America – although communities also became established within South America and Australia. Where people go, their pasts and memories travel with them.189 _{The places that Mizrahim resettled were spaces where}

Ashkenazim had already been living or had themselves resettled. They had already established themselves and set a generalised precedent on what they and others considered as ‘being Jewish’. This precedent spoke of a Europeanised Jewish cultural identity and appearance, one that differed from the Middle Eastern cultural background of most Mizrahim and did not necessarily match Mizrahi historical experiences or collective memories.190 _{Zohar explains, regarding the situation within the State of Israel, that:}

under Ashkenazi leadership to be a ‘good Israeli’ meant subscribing to socialist ideals, living out Western values, and rejecting all but the most modern adaptations of religious identity. Naturally, this paradigm presented a serious problem for Sephardi [and Mizrahi] immigrants and their children. To accept it, meant to reject their past, their traditions, and their very sense of self.191

While Zohar’s observation is for the most part true, and reflected within Mizrahi memoirs, experiences were diverse.192 _{Some Mizrahim, especially businessmen within Egypt and Iraq,}

had very much embraced a secular Westernised lifestyle before leaving their homeland as this way of life was seen as a mark of prestige and European ‘civilisation’.193 _{While they}

experienced identity conflicts following displacement, this was more oriented towards encountering discrimination at the hands of fellow Jews regarding their origins or ethnicity, rather than religious issues.194 _{Haddad, for example, is religious, but repeatedly mentions}

the racial discrimination and cultural hierarchies that were pervasive within the State of Israel at the time.195 _{Among many other examples of racial discrimination, he writes that:}

in Iraq . . . Jews were Jews, diversified as individuals but not divided . . . Now at home at last in [the State of] Israel, gathered in from all the scattered places,

189 _{Gillian Polack, ed. Baggage: Tales of Speculative Fiction (Rockville: Borgo Press, 2014).}

190 _{Shabi, Not the Enemy, 3-6; Shohat, ‘Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices’, 213-229; Shohat, ‘Rupture and}

Return’; Medding, Sephardic Jewry, vii-xii; Zohar, Sephardic & Mizrahi Jewry, 18-19; DellaPergola, ‘Sephardic and Oriental’, 38-40; Haddad, Flight from Babylon.

191 _{Zohar, Sephardic & Mizrahi Jewry, 18-19.}

192 _{Lagnado, The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit; Schinasi-Silver, 42 Keys to the Second Exodus; Zonana, Dream}

Homes; Rossant, Apricots on the Nile; Goldin, Wedding Song; Horesh, An Iraqi Jew in the Mossad; Sabar, My Father’s Paradise; Shamash, Memories of Eden; Kattan, Farewell, Babylon; Somekh, Baghdad, Yesterday; Benjamin, Last Days in Babylon; Haddad, Flight from Babylon; Kazzaz, Mother of the Pound; Jawary, Baghdad, I Remember; Aciman, Out of Egypt; Fathi, Full Circle; Hakakian, Journey from the Land of No.

193 _{Horesh, An Iraqi Jew in the Mossad; Kattan, Farewell, Babylon; Somekh, Baghdad, Yesterday; Haddad, Flight from}

Babylon; Kazzaz, Mother of the Pound.

194 _{Horesh, An Iraqi Jew in the Mossad; Haddad, Flight from Babylon.} 195 _{Haddad, Flight from Babylon.}

84 together we were worlds apart. Separate and unequal. At the top were those who’d lived in Palestine pre-Statehood; next, the sabras, born and bred in Israel; and in descending rank, the Ashkenazim, the Sephardim, and last and last, the Easterners. The Orientals. ‘Arab’ Jews. Mizrachim. And all of these, in turn, were subdivided into smaller units. Though disavowed by everyone in public office, the pecking order, based on origin alone, was all-pervasive. Where Arabs spat ‘Yehudi!’ in Islamic states, Israelis of an upper class would utter ‘Marocani!’ or ‘Tunisai!’ with the same contempt.196

Indeed, as DellaPergola argues “in the process of immigrant absorption, [the State of] Israel did not act in the manner of a utopian society, as some would have liked to believe”.197 _{Nevertheless, the bringing together of these different experiences and}

remembrances makes this situation highly multicultural. The tensions between and among diverse Jewish identities, especially the recognition or otherwise of specifically Mizrahi experiences past and present, make understanding the interactions between collective memories especially pertinent.

As part of present conflicts within the Middle East, there is an unfortunate tendency – among all parties – to use Holocaust reference as part of aggressive rhetorical grandstanding.198 _{Zertal notes how Israeli Prime Ministers have repeatedly used rhetorical}

discourse to equate Arabs with Nazis.199 _{Holocaust denial, however, is also a strong feature}

of Iranian political rhetoric in heated exchanges with the State of Israel and mutual reference to the Holocaust also surfaces in exchanges within the ongoing Israeli and Palestinian conflict.200 _{This demonstrates the complex entanglements of histories and}

present politics, but Rothberg points out that:

in this context, the Holocaust’s invocation tends to take the form of a ritual tradition of threats and insults. A typical – and relatively minor – exchange took place in February 2008 between Israeli and Palestinian spokespeople. After an Israeli defense official warned Palestinians that they would be subject to a ‘shoah’ (disaster or Holocaust) if they continued firing rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel, a Hamas official answered that Palestinians were faced with ‘new Nazis’. Here we see in a condensed form the typical spiraling logic of memory production and the tendency of ‘enemies’ to share a language of suffering and retribution.201

196 _{Haddad, Flight from Babylon, 317.}

197 _{DellaPergola, ‘Sephardic and Oriental’, 38.}

198 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 6, 29, 311; Idith Zertal, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood}

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

199 _{Zertal, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, 98-99.} 200 _{Zertal, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, 98-99.} 201 _{Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 311.}

85 Within both the State of Israel and the West, the centrality of Holocaust memory has impacted to such an extent that the level of respect or fervour someone personally displays for remembrance of this unprecedented atrocity has become associated with how ‘legitimate’ or ‘loyal’ they are to their Jewish identity.202 _{Shohat also notes the ‘salvational’}

and ‘messianic’ discourse present within political Zionism. This discourse creates a value judgment and identity hierarchy that equates being Israeli and living within the State of Israel as the culmination of being Jewish.203 _{Dwelling elsewhere is viewed in lesser terms}

and, as Shohat argues:

the metanarrative of the nation constructed one official past while simultaneously destroying other perspectives on the narrative. Non-canonical memories have been suppressed while previous affiliations have been severed.204

In short, Jewish identity has very much been conflated with Zionist and Israeli nationalist perspectives, with Holocaust remembrance intoned as the singular universal history and definitional paradigm that Jews should understand themselves within.205 _{Ophir argues that}

political Zionism will ultimately diminish, yet nevertheless he observes that:

the Holocaust is conceived of, thought, learned, and taught through the prism of the question of Jewish identity. The Holocaust is used and abused as a means in the construction of Jewish identity, and identity questions frame and shape the domain of Holocaust discourse.206

The saturation of Holocaust memory has deeply affected understandings and assumptions about being Jewish, for Jews and non-Jews alike. Sometimes this is part of a misunderstanding that comes from presuming that Jewish origins are Western ones along with a greater familiarity in the West with Ashkenazic culture compared to that of Mizrahim. Yet across both the Middle East and the West, being Jewish has generally become conflated with having ties to a Holocaust past.207 _{What then of Mizrahim, whose}

experiences differ?

The collective memory of the Holocaust has also been further transformed into a symbol – a universally dominant cipher of ultimate atrocity. The weight of such a symbol shapes how

202 _{Zertal, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood; Shohat, ‘Rupture and Return’, 330-358; Adi Ophir, ‘The}

Identity of the Victims and the Victims of Identity: A Critique of Zionist Ideology for a Post-Zionist Age’, in Mapping Jewish Identities, ed. Laurence J. Silberstein (New York: New York University Press, 2000).

203 _{Shohat, ‘Rupture and Return’, 330-358.} 204 _{Shohat, ‘Rupture and Return’, 341.} 205 _{Shohat, ‘Rupture and Return’, 342.}

206 _{Ophir, ‘The Identity of the Victims and the Victims of Identity’, 178-179.} 207 _{Shohat, ‘Rupture and Return’, 332; Shabi, Not the Enemy, 3-4.}

86 other groups relate to and remember their own suffering and that of others.208 _{For this}

reason, both competitive and multidirectional models of memory focus attention on Holocaust remembrance. Its currently unshakable place as referent makes it an inescapable part of global memory discourse. The Holocaust is also prominent within historiography and is central to the debate over the role of moral judgement in historical writing.209 _Both

frameworks recognise that other collective memories, including those of Mizrahim, frequently seek to compete, compare, or contrast with the dominant cipher of the Holocaust.210 _{Viewing memory as multidirectional enables interactions between collective}

memories to be viewed as a conversation. As part of a conversation, even if an unequal one, voices come into being and remembrances effectively enabled through the exchange even when driven by the act of reacting against.211 _{The relationship is allowed to be}

entangled, enmeshed, and unpredictable.212 _{This complements Morris-Suzuki’s view of an}

“enmeshment” of past, present, and person within the recording, representation, and reception of different accounts of events.213 _{This perspective is reflective of the memory}

dynamics apparent within Mizrahi memoirs, where a transnational and multicultural context dominates and their relationship with Holocaust remembrance serves as a reminder of the diversity present within Jewish experience.