Arab Jews

Yoni Battat in Jerusalem. (Emily Glick)

Piecing together the fragments of our Arab-Jewish identity

Siblings Yoni and Sivan Battat discuss how collaborating on the former's music album became a means of reconnecting with their Iraqi family and heritage, and of disentangling Mizrahiness from Israeliness.

By Yoni Battat and Sivan Battat November 17, 2022

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas shakes hands with Idit Shemer, daughter of Iraqi-Jewish writer Ishaq Bar-Moshe, Ramallah, November 16, 2019. (Office of the President of the Palestinian Authority)

Abbas to family of Iraqi-Jewish author: ‘You are our bridge to peace’

An Iraqi-Jewish family visits Ramallah for the first time — at the personal invitation of the Palestinian president.

By Naomi Niddam November 22, 2019

Prof. Sasson Somekh, scholar in the field of Arabic literature and translator of poetry, was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1933. (Emet Prize CC BY-SA 3.0)

Bidding farewell to ‘the last Arab Jew’

Born in Baghdad, Prof. Sasson Somekh was a prominent expert on Arabic literature, and a notable author and activist. He passed away this week. By Raanan Shemesh Forshner Prof. Sasson Somekh, one of Israel’s most prominent experts on Arabic literature and a lifelong proponent of peace, passed away this week in Tel Aviv. A winner of…

By +972 Magazine August 23, 2019

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A Palestinian child looks on at a police vehicle in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya. (Yuval Abraham)

In one East Jerusalem neighborhood, summer vacation has become a war zone

For children in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya, summer vacation means dodging rubber bullets and watching their fathers and brothers arrested and humiliated every day.

By Yuval Abraham August 22, 2019

The Kadoori, Hamias, and Ashram families sit at an improvised Shabbat dinner table next to their demolished houses in Givat Amal, Tel Aviv, Sep. 19, 2014. (Shiraz Grinbaum/Activestills.org)

Israel’s Nation-State Law also discriminates against Mizrahi Jews

Mizrahi academics and activists demand Israel’s High Court strike down the Jewish Nation-State Law, saying it erases their cultural legacy and perpetuates injustices against both them and Palestinian citizens of Israel. Over 50 prominent Israeli Jews of Mizrahi origin filed a petition to the High Court of Justice on Tuesday demanding it strike down the Jewish Nation-State Law,…

By Orly Noy January 2, 2019

Shakshuka. (Rafram Chaddad)

Jewish food tells the story of immigrants, not of Israeli nationalism

Jewish food has always been a way to demonstrate how Jewish immigrants and refugees mixed and integrated into different societies. So how did it all of a sudden become ‘Israeli?’ By Rafram Chaddad Tablet Magazine released last week a list of “the most Jewish foods,” in which editors Gabriella Gershenson and Alana Newhouse invite “us,” the…

By +972 Magazine March 9, 2018

An old Arabic newspaper from Palestine in a lab for repairing and digitizing old books and scripts at the National Library in Jerusalem, December 30, 2015. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Israel’s nation-state bill threatens the mother tongue of Mizrahi Jews

The Israeli government’s attempts, via the nation-state bill, to erase the Arabic language from this country not only threatens Palestinians, it also undermines Mizrahi identity. But their attempt is doomed to fail. By Netta Amar-Shiff When my grandmother, Sa’ida, came to Israel, she worked at Kfar Hadasim Youth Village as a house mother, and needed to…

By +972 Magazine May 19, 2017

Tariq Al-Bab, Aleppo, 2013. (Basma/Foreign and Commonwealth Office)

Downstairs, from heavenly Aleppo

Aleppo, your stories will come back to my ears, like a child who sits on his grandmother’s knees. By Mati Shemoelof Aleppo, I, Matityaho Ibn Shifra, your old daughter, a grandson of your Arab-Jews, mourn the erasure of your city of poetry, Aleppo, how did they forget to save your libraries? Aleppo, was it not…

By +972 Magazine February 18, 2017

Alternative Israeli banknote designs featuring Alternative Israeli banknote designs featuring Arab-Jewish, writers, singers and poets. (Design: Eitam Tubul)

Towards a new understanding of Arab-Jewish culture

The severed ties between Arab-Jewish culture and the wider history and culture of Judaism and the Arab world are being repaired by a groundbreaking new university degree in Israel. By Hadas Shabat-Nadir and Almog Behar In the 1950s, Professor Shlomo Dov Goitein suggested establishing a chair of Arab-Jewish culture at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. But…

By Haokets December 9, 2016

Footprints in the sand in the Sinai desert. (Dudarev Mikhail / Shutterstock.com)

What we left behind in Egypt: Mizrahi thoughts on Israel

Even when they had reached the borders of the Promised Land, after 40 years in the desert, all the Children of Israel wanted was to go back to Egypt. In Erez Biton’s poem, the immigrant from Algeria and his son fail to build a home in Israel. Independence Day is also the tale of the…

By +972 Magazine May 24, 2016

Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem's Old City, toward the end of the Ottoman Empire's control over Palestine.

Before Zionism: The shared life of Jews and Palestinians

Before the advent of Zionism and Arab nationalism, Jews and Palestinians lived in peace in the holy land. Menachem Klein’s new book maps out an oft-forgotten history of Israel/Palestine, and offers some guidance on how we may go back to that time. By Noam Rotem Menachem Klein’s book, Lives in Common: Arabs and Jews in…

By +972 Magazine April 4, 2016

Yemenite Jews walking to a ‘reception camp’ near Aden, 1949. (Photo by Kluger Zoltan/Israel National Archive)

It is time to rebuild ties between Mizrahim and the Arab world

Five years after Mizrahi Israelis offered their solidarity to the young men and women of the Arab Spring, it is time to say it loud and clear: real peace will come once we recognize the deep cultural and religious ties between Jews and Muslims of the region. By Almog Behar Five years ago in April…

By Haokets March 1, 2016

Muslim Brotherhood characters in Haret al-Yahoud/The Jewish Quarter (Screenshot)

In Sisi’s Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood are the new Jews

Weighted down by historical, religious and linguistic inaccuracies, Egyptian television series ‘The Jewish Quarter’ nevertheless tells an intriguing story of the political, social and religious changes that have transformed Egypt — in 1948 and in 2015. An Egyptian Ramadan television series called “The Jewish Quarter”* has attracted quite a bit of international media attention for…

By Lisa Goldman July 6, 2015