#mizrahi women

[koenji]

Rachel Sofaer, Jewish actress in Kolkata, in the Bollywood classic 'Punarianma: A Life Divine' in 1932.

Her family of Baghdadi Jews had migrated from Iraq first to Burma and then India. When Rachel's father fell on hard times financially, he permitted his daughter to act under the name Arati Devi. She was accompanied to the set by her mother and married a Baghdadi Jewish man in 1933 at age 21, never again acting in a film. Her cousin Abraham Sofaer became a Hollywood character actor. x

[thebrightestwitchofherage]

A brief History of Mizrahi Jews in Arabic countries and Their expulsion

A\N: While I am an Ashkenazi Jew, I have done A LOT of research, and have both Iraqi friends and relatives to corroborate this with. Also, I'm petty - an Iraqi user who comments regularly on my posts seems to forget about his own country's Jewish history... Well, I hope he forgot instead of the more likely reality: It seems like Arabic people nowadays aren't aware of Jewish history in their countries since they either killed to expelled them all. Thus is born the constant argument that all Jews originated in Europe and are merely settlers in the Middle East.

I realized that what may be obvious to me won't be obvious to others since I'm a history nerd who grew up in Israel with plenty of rich archeological evidence and resources surrounding me. I'm happy to make these posts in hopes of educating others and contributing my part to ending antisemitism and prejudice. ___________________

You might have seen the following picture in one of my previous posts:

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Unfortunately, in this case, it concludes hundreds of years of discrimination, violence, and exile for Mizrahi Jews. * It is important to note that numbers are slightly varied between sources, but the meaning is clear.

In a nutshell- all throughout history, the fate of Jewish people in countries where they weren't the religious majority was the same:

Discriminatory laws, blood libels, being blamed for disasters > violence & murder > Pogroms * > and eventually- exile or mass murder AKA ethnic cleansing \ genocide.

Pogrom-  the term refers to violent attacks by local non-Jewish populations on Jews in the Russian Empire and in other countries.

Every Jewish community has its own Pogrom. While my side of the family might immediately think of the Kristallnacht or persecution & pogroms in Hungary, it is different for Jews from different backgrounds. You can read about a few cases of forced conversion to Islam here.

A brief History of the land of Israel

The land of Israel has always been considered a strategic passageway, and so many empires throughout history have conquered it:

* I simply cannot accurately write 3000+ years of Jewish history in the land of Israel. I found that this video summarizes it perfectly.

Exile from the land of Israel

Jews were exiled from the land of Israel numerous times since the Assyrian empire conquered Israel in 732 BCE, to what we call "the diaspora" גולה. It was not by choice and we were persecuted everywhere we went.

Jews were not allowed to legally return to Israel until 1948 when the British mandate over the land of Israel ended and Israel was formed. Yes, even during the Holocaust.

The Jewish answer to exile - Aliyah עליה There have been 5 waves of illegal immigration from all over the world to the land of Israel before 1948, recorded in modern times.

Chart taken from Wikipedia (their chart was the best I could find in English)

Forced Conversion

Whether in conquered Israel or in exile, Jews were often forced to convert to either Christianity or Islam. The choice was between conversion or death.

*You can read more about some of the forced conversion of Jews during history here and here.

First Case study- The last jew of Peki'in, Margalit Zinati

Peki'in is an ancient village in the upper Galilee, Northern Israel. Nowadays, its population is mostly Druze.

Peki'in has had a Jewish presence since the Second Temple period, until Arab riots in the 1930s*. Meet the remaining member of the Zinatis, the only family who returned. (aish.com)

*Read more on the Arab riots of the 1930s here and here. Margalit is currently the last Jew living in the village of Peki'in . She is the last direct descendent of the Zinati Cohen family. The Zinati family's origins are dated back to the Second Temple era. The former Jewish community of Peki'in maintained a presence there since the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE). That is when the polytheistic Persian Empire conquered the land of Israel. For reference- that was approximately 500 years before Jesus was even born! "During which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and ended with the First Jewish–Roman War and the Roman siege of Jerusalem." (Wikipedia)

As an adult, Margalit chose to not marry so she could stay in Peki'in and continue her family's Jewish legacy in Peki'in. She later became in charge of the ancient synagogue in the village and turned her basement into a visiting center \ museum of Jewish history in Peki'in- "House of Zinati". in 2018, she lit up a torch as part of Israel's 70th Independence Day Torch lighting ceremony (which is considered an honor given to influential and trailblazing people).

-Margalit Zinati pictured in the Peki'in Synagogue yard, 2016 Picture taken from Wikipedia, uploaded by Deror Avi.

Second Case study - Iraqi Jews (Babylonian Jews \ יְהוּדִים בָּבְלִים)

Iraqi Jews are one of the oldest documented Jewish communities living in the Middle East. It is estimated that they originated around 600 BC.ת

The Farhud الفرهود הפרהוד

Unfortunately, Iraqi Jewish history ended in the same pattern I've described earlier. The Farhud was the violent mass dispossession against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq between 1-2 June 1941. was the pogrom or the "violent dispossession" that was carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on 1–2 June 1941, It immediately followed the British victory in the Anglo-Iraqi War.

Background for the Farhud:

WW2- At the time, many Arabic countries in the Middle East agreed with Nazi ideology.

History of violence towards Jews.

The Anglo-Iraqi War (2–31 May 1941) - caused rising tension, and as usual, it was turned on the Jews.

personal family ties to the Farhud My relative was born in 1939 in Iraq, to a big upper-class Jewish family. Unfortunately, the mass exile of Jews in the 1950s didn't skip her family: she was stripped of her belongings and exiled to Israel along with her family. In the 1950s there were approximately 140,000 Iraqi Jews. As of 2021, there are only 4 left.

----------------- Please feel free to add anything I missed in the notes. And as usual - remember I am a human being. If you cuss or harass me, I will block and report you.

______________

Online Sources: * https://www.israelhayom.co.il/article/865383 - Hebrew article, Title means "Sad ending to a magnificent history: Only 4 Jews left in Iraq".

What was the Farhud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farhud

History of the Jewish community in Baghdad https://cojs.org/the_jewish_community_in_baghdad_in_the_eighteenth_century-_zvi_yehuda-_nehardea-_babylonian_jewry_heritage_center-_2003/

What are Pogroms?https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/pogroms?gclid=Cj0KCQiAkeSsBhDUARIsAK3tiedM7DuwIaSQX-kRxvXTgCDxN6-zqeo_DNNFgyanSYGyGOhwu_0vfrkaAg6REALw_wcB

The last Jew of Peki'in, Margalit Zinati https://aish.com/the-last-jew-of-pekiin/

Arab riots of 1930s- https://www.gov.il/en/Departments/General/ben_zvi_30 https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-1936-arab-riots

Israel's history from ancient times & timeline : https://www.travelingisrael.com/timeline-land-israel/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=iiUIWnU-Ofk

Second Temple era - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Temple_period

Forced conversion of Jews across history- https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt18mvnct.7?seq=4

https://academic.oup.com/book/32113/chapter-abstract/268043723?redirectedFrom=fulltext

[margaretcruzemark]

Ιsaac Μizrahi S/S 1994

[ladelbarrio]

Sun Mizrahi, Victoria's Secret fashion show 2024, New York [video source: Kan 11]

[carmelasoprano]

WOMEN ON THE VERGE The cast of The Women, from left: Mary Louise Wilson, Amy Ryan, Jennifer Tilly, Rue McClanahan, Kristen Johnston, Cynthia Nixon, Lynne Collins, Lisa Emery, and Jennifer Coolidge, with costume designer Isaac Mizrahi. — Vanity Fair (October 2001)

[shopaholixs]

Courrèges, FW24

Model Sun Mizrahi

[knittinganddrinkingtea]

Bottega Veneta Spring 2023

Model: Sun Mizrahi

[mexashepot]

Israelis on the reg:

Israelis when someone shows appreciation of Rachel from Ofaqim:

[estellaestella]

Thanks to the Me Too movement the world has some better boundaries than in 2006 😬 (The male reporter actually says 'I touched Scarlet's boob' in a sing-song way in the clip.)

[koenji]

Nadira, otherwise known as Farhat Ezekiel, a Jewish Bollywood star in the 1950s and 60s who often played 'temptress' roles.

"At a time when custom and tradition kept many Indian women from performing in movies, liberated Jewish actresses and Jewish scriptwriters pioneered the building of the now world-renowned Bollywood brand." - American Sephardi Federation

Nadira was born on 5 December 1932 in Baghdad, Iraq, into a Baghdadi Jewish family. When she was an infant, her family migrated from Baghdad to Bombay in search of business opportunities.

[bantuotaku]

(Koppi Mizrahi)

[ladelbarrio]

Sun Mizrahi for Bottega Veneta Fall Winter 24

[xclowniex]

Hey can non jews actually shut the fuck up about jews and whether or not we are "white"

To address everything in this post

1. Jews are very much NOT seen as white by western society. Jews are only seen as white and benefit from white privilege when we hide or forgo out jewishness. That is not being perceived as white. That is people using the ability to be white passing, at the cost of their jewishness, to recieve the same benefits as white people. This also only applies to jews with pale skin. If you are Mizrahi, Sephardic or even an Ashkenazi jew who does not have pale skin, you cannot be white passing.

2. The birth control on Ethiopian jews, was not Israel forcibly sterilizing them. In the refugee camps set up by the UN, birth control is something automatically given to all women in all refugee camps WORLD WIDE. Once they left the refugee camps, their GPs thought they knew they were on birth control, and took them off of it when they asked. Yes it is utterly terrible. But it was miscommunication. It was not sterilization.

3. The racist language isn't something only done by white people. Acting like POC cannot be racist is incorrect and messed up. You can 100% criticize racist language without going "hmmm because some of you use racist language, I diagnose you with white", literally a basic fucking concept.

4. Israel was very much not founded with the motivation of killing Palestinians. It was founded on returning to our homeland. But I guess whatever fits your propaganda better ig, who cares about the truth

[fromgoy2joy]

To all my fellow people converting- this is a Call-in post

We are going to be a part of this community, as dictated by Jewish law, once we enter the water of the Mikveh, it will be as if we were Jewish all our lives.

That doesn’t erase the fact that we come from different backgrounds. Most of us didn’t have our grandmother escape genocidal countries. We didn’t grow up around the dinner table hearing holocaust stories about family and friends. The legacy of our families was not split between two choices of what opened up first for amnesty- Israel or the United States.

Our love for Judaism originates from studying theology, culture, and warm moments in the community- not clinging onto it in a generational storm where at any moment you can be expected to run.

Israel has been there for the Jewish people demonstrably, in a world where a Jewish child is taken aside at a young age and told “one day, they could come after you”.

In response, Israel has said “and we will be there to catch you.” This has rung true for the Jewish exile out of Middle Eastern countries, the fleeing from the USSR, and yes- Ethiopia.

Mistakes were made along the way. Tribalism between Jewish religious and geographical sects came up. Refugee camps in the newly established country were a mess- with high rates of death from sickness occurred in the Mizrahi resettlement. Where Ethiopian Jewish women’s translation failed as they were told they were being out on temporary birth control as to not overcrowd struggling camps.

But you don’t get to shake this in their faces. Not when the descendants of those Jewish people know Israel to be what saved them. What gave them life. And what has been threatened everyday by rockets in the sky and terrorist organizations on every side that promises for the painful death of them and their families.

You are under no obligation to support the actions of the Israeli government. But you have to understand why the country was founded, and especially why it was set up in 1948 after the largest slaughter of Jewish people had just ended, where it wasn’t clear if this could happen again the very next year.

You have to see the connection to the land, where Hebrew coins get dug up from thousands of years ago on a daily basis. Even if that’s not apart of your personal practices, you must learn of the background to many of our stories. What Jewish people longed for as they were ostracized and humiliated globally.

This doesn’t come at the price of not sympathizing with the Palestinians. Just as you can hold Jewish pain close to your chest, so can you the pain of Palestinians. The good news is, life isn’t a sports game with your team and their team. The bad news is, that makes it a whole heck of a lot harder.

That being said, we do have the extra responsibility of accurately representing the people we will hopefully call our own one day, BH.

Edit-born Jewish people, if this post speaks to you on any level, feel free to reblog. Your family histories deserve to be represented in our community.

[knittinganddrinkingtea]

Missoni Spring 2023

Model: Sun Mizrahi