Sami Shalom Chetrit, Queens College CUNY
In my paper I will examine the political sociology of Mizrahi Jews (Jews from North Africa and the Middle East) in Israel, focusing in particular on social and political movements such as the Black Panthers and SHAS, which rose against cultural and social oppression of Mizrahi Jews in general, and from North Africa in particular. I’ll talk about the formation of North African communities and the redefinition of their identity as Mizrahim along with Jews of the Middle East such as Iraq. I’ll present the ongoing cultural encounter between Zionism and Israel on one side and Mizrahi Jews on the other. I’ll examine three junctions in Israeli history in regard to Mizrahim: the 1970s Black Panther movement uprising; the ‘Ballot Rebellion’ of 1977; the evolution and rise of the SHAS political party as a Mizrahi Collective since the mid 1980s, in parallel to the rise of a new radical Mizrahi movements of the 1990s and present day. In all these junctions Moroccan Jews played a leading and crucial role.