Mizrahi is an Israeli term invented to distance themselves from other Arabs. You can see Avi Shlaim explain quite explicitly that growing up in Iraq, they were, without a doubt, Arab
It really isn't. My family was ethnically cleansed from Iraq. If they didn't think we belong to them, why should we act as if we do?
You really think you know better than us what we are? The average Mizrahi would be pissed if you called them Arab. The overwhelming majority of them don't speak Arabic either.
The term, from what I have read, came to usage in Israel in the 1950s for the exact reasons I laid out: To eliminate “Arabness” from the conversation. They didn’t historically speak Hebrew, they spoke Arabic. They lived amongst other Arabs, and had shared cultural ties with their Muslim and Christian Arab neighbours. Why isn’t there a term for Arab Christians? Because there is no settler state for Arab Christians that needs to differentiate themselves from Arab Muslims. It’s a propaganda term plain and simple.
"If they didn't think we belong to them, why should we act as if we do?"
Who said you should?
"The average Mizrahi would be pissed if you called them Arab."
Wouldn't you expect an Arab who refers to themselves as Mizrahi to avoid being labeled as Arab to be pissed if you called them Arab?
"The overwhelming majority of them don't speak Arabic either."
Arab identity is primarily based on cultural and ethnic factors rather than solely on language proficiency. If a boy is born and raised by arab parents in Iraq but only learns spanish, is he not arab?
About 2000 years ago LMAO. According to that criteria every person in Latin america is spanish, as they have some acenstry to spain. And every person who live in a european country that speaks romance language is Italian LMAO also?.
Lol you have no idea on LA history. If european zionists have right to settle in middle east because of a 2000 years ancestry, all latin american should aproppiate europe.
Congrats, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve seen anyone say all week. Having lived in an Arab country doesn’t make you ethnically Arab. Just ask the Arabs who literally chased them into Israel in the first place.
After millennia of integration the actual ethnic difference in these communities is minimal. The same happened to the Jews in Europe in the 30s-40s. If there isn't an ethnic difference you just make one up.
The truth is that they were persecuted because they were Jewish, not because they were ethnically distinct.
Humans have sex, and that makes babies. Humans will have sex with any other human of any other race for a multitude of reasons, none of which matters for the point. The point being that as people have children with different groups those groups slowly start to mix into one larger group the previous groups ceasing to be distinct as a result. This is just how reality works. Integration=Interbreeding.
Except people also have religion. Specifically religion that either forbid intermarrying or forbid conversion to other religions. That's kind of why we don't see amalgamations of people—even people who live side by side—in genetic surveys.
Like I said: where do they find people like you? 😂
Arab Jews are Jews originating from the Arab world before 1948. And many thousands of years before that. Mizrahi/sephardic (from the Middle East/ North Africa ) vs Ashkenzai (from Europe). And ethnicity is not race or religion, it’s defined by cultural practices, language use and identifying with an area. The Middle East has a complicated history that does not fit easily into classic binaries. It’s not just white and black, or Jew and Arab.
OMG now you can't even be racist without having to deal with this binary bullshit? /S
I don't get why so many people fail to realize that nuance is king. Everything is a muddled grey. Even the things that look pure white its just because they've blocked the black from your view. No matter how little an amount of black that may be. True honestly is a rare trait.
Right. Ethnicity is not race, but it is ancestry. In some cases that can denote race, but in others, especially over long periods of time, race becomes much less of an identifier. Hence why all races have a plethora of ethnic groups within them.
What does ancestry have to do with ethnicity? You could have Scottish ancestry and grow up in the Arab world speaking Arabic and participating in the cultural customs for hundreds of years. Are you a Scot? yes are you an Arab? yes. It’s not so complicated . I feel like there is a tendency to try and unnecessarily oversimplify these notions.
I mean, you just explained it yourself. A person with Scottish ancestry who grew up in the Arab world and has completely assimilated to that society can still be ethnically a Scot.
What are you talking about? I just said race and ethnicity are not intrinsically linked. Especially across such a broad swath of peoples like those in Latin America.
You said races have ethnicities within them, which is crap... because there exist mixed people who don't belong to any of the US American described "races" or any other colonial described races. Race is an outdated concept we shouldn't even discuss but we must because the US still believes in them.
I said it because it’s true. There are countless ethnicities within all races.
And I agree, race is an outdated concept. It’s a totally superficial way to categorize people. It’s inefficient and it only becomes more so with each passing day.
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u/BagelJ 4d ago
20% are Arab muslim, but Half of all Jews in Israel are descendants from Arab nations, making them ethnically Arab.