Arab Jews - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Arab Jews is a term referring to Jews living in the Arab World

Arab world

The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...

, or Jews descended from such persons.

The term was occasionally used in the early 20th century, mainly by Arab nationalists, to describe the 1 million Jews living in the Arab world at the time. Most of this population has either been forced out, or voluntarily left, after the founding of Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

in 1948, for the new Jewish state or Western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

, and to a smaller degree the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

. They spoke Arabic, using one of the many Arabic dialects (see also Judæo-Arabic languages

Judeo-Arabic languages

The Judeo-Arabic languages , are a continuum of Arabic dialects spoken by Jews living or formerly living in the Arab world; the term also refers more or less to Classical Arabic written in the Hebrew script, particularly in the Middle Ages. Just as with the rest of the Arab world, Arab Jews had...

) as their primary community language, with Hebrew reserved as a liturgical language. They usually followed Sephardi Jewish liturgy

Sephardic Judaism

Sephardic law and customs means the practice of Judaism as observed by the Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, so far as it is peculiar to themselves and not shared with other Jewish groups such as the Ashkenazim...

, making them one of the largest groups among Mizrahi Jews

Mizrahi Jews

Mizrahi Jews or Mizrahiyim, , also referred to as Adot HaMizrach are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus...

.

In recent decades the term has come back into some usage by Jews who self-identify as Arab Jews, such as Albert Memmi

Albert Memmi

Albert Memmi is a Tunisian Jewish writer and essayist who migrated to France.- Biography :Born in colonial Tunisia,from a Tunisian Jewish mother and a Tunisian-Italian Jewish father, he speaks Hebrew and Tunisian-Arabic...

, a Zionist who uses the term to claim his rights in the Middle East, and Ella Shohat

Ella Shohat

Professor Ella Habiba Shohat is Professor of Cultural Studies at New York University, and has taught, lectured and written extensively on issues having to do with Eurocentrism and Orientalism, as well as with postcolonial and transnational approaches to Cultural Studies...

, an anti-Zionist who uses the term in contrast to the Zionist establishment's categorization of Jews as either Ashkenazim or Mizrahim; the latter, she believes, have been oppressed as the Arabs have. Other public figures who refer to themselves as Arab Jews include David Shasha, Director of the Center for Sephardic Heritage, and Amiel Alcalay, a professor at Queens College

Queens College, City University of New York

Queens College, located in Flushing, Queens, New York City, is one of the senior colleges of the City University of New York. It is also the fifth oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning. The college's seventy seven acre campus is located in the heart of the...

in New York who began emphasizing the importance of his identity as an Arab Jew in the 1990s. André Azoulay

André Azoulay

André Azoulay is a senior adviser to King Mohammed VI of Morocco. He previously advised Mohammed's father, King Hassan II. He currently presides over the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue Between Cultures, based in Alexandria, Egypt...

, Jewish adviser to Moroccan

Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

King Mohammed VI, also defines himself as an Arab Jew, as does Sasson Somekh

Sasson Somekh

Sasson Somekh is a professor emeritus of Modern Arab Literature at Tel Aviv University.-Biography:Sasson Somekh was born in Baghdad to a secular Jewish family. In 1951, Somekh and his family immigrated to Israel in the wake of growing pressures on the Jews of Iraq to leave the country...

in a recent memoir

Overview

According to Salim Tamari

Salim Tamari

Salim Tamari is the director of the Institute of Jerusalem Studies and is an associate professor of sociology at Birzeit University, near Ramallah in the West Bank. Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, has called Tamari "the preeminent Palestinian historical...

, the term Arab-Jew generally referred to a period of history when some Eastern Jews (Sephardic and Mizrahi) identified with the Arab national movement that emerged in the lead up to the dismantlement of the Ottoman empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

, as early as the Ottoman administrative reforms of 1839, owing to shared language and culture with their Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

and Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

compatriots in Greater Syria

Greater Syria

Greater Syria , also known simply as Syria, is a term that denotes a region in the Near East bordering the Eastern Mediterranean Sea or the Levant....

, Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, and Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

.

David Rabeeya

David Rabeeya

David Rabeeya is an author and professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies.David Rabeeya was an Iraqi Jew born in Baghdad, Iraq. Him and his family later moved to Israel. Over the years, Dr. Rabeeya has taught countless students, in all schooling environments-high school, university, and elementary...

, a self-identified Arab Jew, extends that identification back even further, noting the long history of Arab Jews in the Arab world

Arab world

that remained in place after the dawn of Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

in the 7th century until midway through the 20th century. He writes that Arab Jews, like Arab Muslims

Arab Muslims

Arab Muslims are adherents of the religion of Islam who identify linguistically, culturally, or genealogically as Arabs. They greatly outnumber other ethnic groups in the Middle East. Muslims who are not Arabs are called mawali by Arab Muslims....

and Arab Christians, were culturally Arab with religious commitments to Judaism

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

. He notes that Arab Jews named their progeny with Arabic names and "Like every Arab, Arab Jews were proud of their Arabic language

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

and its dialects, and held a deep emotional attachment to its beauty and richness."

In his book, The Arab Jews (2006), Yehouda Shenhav

Yehouda Shenhav

Yehouda Shenhav is an Israeli sociologist and critical theorist. He is known for his contributions in the fields of bureaucracy, management and capitalism, as well as for his research on ethnicity in Israeli society and its relationship with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.-Biography:Born Yehouda...

, an Israeli sociologist, traced the origins of the conceptualization of the Mizrahi Jews as Arab Jews. He interprets Zionism

Zionism

Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...

as an ideological practice with three simultaneous and symbiotic categories: "Nationality", "Religion" and "Ethnicity". In order to be included in the national collective they had to be "de-Arabized". According to Shenhav, Religion distinguished between Arabs and Arab Jews, thus marking nationality among the Arab Jews.

Terminology

The term "Arab Jews" was used during the First World War by Jews of Middle Eastern origin living in western countries, to support their case that they were not Turks and should not be treated as enemy aliens. Today the term is sometimes used by newspapers and official bodies in some countries, to express the belief that Jewish identity

Jewish identity

Jewish identity is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as a Jew and as relating to being Jewish. Under the broader definition, the Jewish identity does not depend on whether or not a person is regarded as a Jew by others, or by an external set of religious, or legal, or...

is a matter of religion rather than ethnicity or nationality. Most Jews disagree with this, do not use the term and, where it appears to them to be calculated to deny the existence of a distinct Jewish identity in favour of reducing the Jewish diaspora to a religious entity, even consider it offensive. However, some Mizrahi activists, particularly those not born in Arab countries or who emigrated from them at a very young age, define themselves as Arab Jews. Notable proponents of such an identity include Naeim Giladi

Naeim Giladi

Naeim Giladi was an anti-Zionist Iraqi jew, president of the World Organization of Jews From Islamic Countries and author of an autobiographical article and historical analysis entitled The Jews of Iraq...

, Ella Habiba Shohat, Sami Shalom Chetrit

Sami Shalom Chetrit

Sami Shalom Chetrit is a Moroccan- born Hebrew poet and Israeli social and peace activist.-Biography:Sami Shalom Chetrit was born in Errachedia, Morocco. His family moved to Israel when he was 3 years old. He grew up in Ashdod...

and David Rabeeya

David Rabeeya

.

Proponents of the term "Arab Jews" argue that "Arab" is a linguistic and cultural rather than an ethnic, racial or religious term; that the Jews in Arab countries fully participated in that culture; and that all ethnic minorities who did so are "Arabs". On this view, the correct distinction is between Jews, Muslims, Christians and other religious groups, rather than between groups such as Jews and "Arabs". Similarly the Christian population of countries such as Egypt

Egypt

, Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

or Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

are often described as "Arabs", even though most are (like most of their corresponding Muslim counterparts) descended from the pre-Islamic pre-Arab-culture population of each individual country. However, the use of the term "Arab" to define Christian Copts (Egypt), Maronites (Lebanon), or Assyrians (Iraq) is controversial among those communities. Others may regard "Arab Jews" as simply shorthand for "Jews of Arab lands" or "Arabic-speaking Jews", and identify as "Arab Jews" while definitely not regarding themselves as "Arabs".

The principal argument against the term "Arab Jews", particularly among Jewish communities descended from Arab lands, is that Jews constitute a diaspora and ethnic group, not simply a "religious" group, and that use of the term "Arab" suggests otherwise. A related argument is that Jewish communities in Arab lands never referred to themselves as "Arab Jews" and that it is only after the exit of most Jewish communities from such lands that the term has been proposed. Hence, in most North African and Near and Middle Eastern communities, people spoke of Arab Muslims and Arab Christians, but never of Arab Jews: the Jews were regarded and regarded themselves as an ethnic as well as a religious minority, similar to other ethnic minorities such as the Assyrians

Assyrian people

The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...

, Berbers

Berber people

Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...

or Kurds (although the latter two are not defined by religion either, as they may include Berber Muslims and Kurdish Muslims, Berber Christians and Kurdish Christians, and Berber Jews

Berber Jews

Berber Jews are the Berber-speaking Jewish communities which used to live in certain parts of Atlas mountains in Morocco. Their origins are not clear as one theory builds the case for "Judeo-cized Berbers" while another defends the "Berber-ized Jews" thesis....

and Kurdish Jews

Kurdish Jews

Kurdish Jews or Kurdistani Jews are the ancient Eastern Jewish communities, inhabiting the region known as Kurdistan in northern Mesopotamia, roughly covering parts of Iran, northern Iraq, Syria and eastern Turkey. Their clothing and culture is similar to neighbouring Kurdish Muslims and Christian...

), and none of these are today referred to or refer to themselves as "Arabs". Indeed, some of the communities referred to originated as early as the Babylonian captivity

Babylonian captivity

The Babylonian captivity was the period in Jewish history during which the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon—conventionally 587–538 BCE....

(6th century BCE), antedating the Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

Muslim

conquest by a millennium. (To underscore this point, Iraqi Jews on some occasions prefer to call themselves "Babylonian Jews"). Rather, "Arab Jews" as a term was created no earlier than the rise of secular ethnic nationalism

Ethnic nationalism

Ethnic nationalism is a form of nationalism wherein the "nation" is defined in terms of ethnicity. Whatever specific ethnicity is involved, ethnic nationalism always includes some element of descent from previous generations and the implied claim of ethnic essentialism, i.e...

in the early twentieth century, when many Jews sought integration into the new national identities (Iraqi, Tunisian etc.) as an escape from their previous minority status, in much the same way as some nineteenth century German Jews preferred to identify as "Germans of the Mosaic faith" rather than as "Jews" and, even then, identification in national terms (with respect to the country) was far more common among Jews of this intellectual stream than was affinity to a pan-Arab identity.

Proponents of the argument against "Arab Jews", including most Jews from Arab lands, do not seek to deny the strong Arabic cultural influence on Jews in those countries. In North Africa, some Jews spoke Judeo-Arabic languages

Judeo-Arabic languages

while others spoke French; and in some areas there are still Jews who dress quite like Arabs. Their argument is that “Arabness” referred to more than just a common shared culture. One could therefore legitimately speak of “Arabized” Jews, or "Jews of Arab countries", just as one can speak of "English Jews" or "British Jews" or "Polish Jews", whereas many Jews would object to terms such as "Saxon Jews", "Celtic Jews", or "Slavic Jews" as the latter refer to ethnic groups and therefore, implicitly, deny the existence of a distinct Jewish ethnic identity. The term "Arab Jews" is seen as more akin to the latter, both by those who oppose it and, on occasion, by those who affirm it as a manner in which to deny so-called "Arab Jews" a distinct ethnic or national identity. A better translation of the traditional term Musta'arabim (Arabizers), used to distinguish the older Arabic-speaking communities of those countries from post-1492 Sephardim, would provide those who wish to refer to Jews from Arab lands with respect to linguistic and cultural markers, but do not wish to assert that there exists no Jewish diaspora or Jewish people.

Finally, a third view is that the term "Arab Jew" has a certain legitimacy, but should only describe the Jewish communities of Arabia itself, such as the Banu Qaynuqa

Banu Qaynuqa

The Banu Qaynuqa was one of the three main Jewish tribes living in the 7th century of Medina, now in Saudi Arabia...

of the time of Muhammad

Muhammad

Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

and, possibly, the Yemenite Jews

Yemenite Jews

Yemenite Jews are those Jews who live, or whose recent ancestors lived, in Yemen . Between June 1949 and September 1950, the overwhelming majority of Yemen's Jewish population was transported to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet...

: see Arab Jewish tribes. This view is typically put forward as stemming from the view of Arab identity as a geographical rather than ethno-linguistic or cultural but, because it refers to a far more restricted understanding of "Arab" geography as referring to the Arabian peninsula

Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula is a land mass situated north-east of Africa. Also known as Arabia or the Arabian subcontinent, it is the world's largest peninsula and covers 3,237,500 km2...

, comes into conflict with the modern pan-Arabism exemplified by the Arab League

Arab League

The Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...

Jews of Arabia before Islam

Jewish populations have existed in the Arabian Peninsula

Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula is a land mass situated north-east of Africa. Also known as Arabia or the Arabian subcontinent, it is the world's largest peninsula and covers 3,237,500 km2...

since before Islam; in the north where they were connected to the Jewish populations of the Levant and Iraq, in the Ihsaa'

Hassa

Hassa may refer to:*Al-Hasa*Hussa Ahmad Al-Sudayri*Hassa, Hatay, a district of Hatay Province in Turkey*Hoplosternum, slang for a South American edible fish...

coastal plains, and in the south, i.e. in Yemen.

While Jewish populations around the world as far as India and Ethiopia

Beta Israel

Beta Israel Israel, Ge'ez: ቤተ እስራኤል - Bēta 'Isrā'ēl, modern Bēte 'Isrā'ēl, EAE: "Betä Ǝsraʾel", "Community of Israel" also known as Ethiopian Jews , are the names of Jewish communities which lived in the area of Aksumite and Ethiopian Empires , nowadays divided between Amhara and Tigray...

have always claimed descent from the twelve tribes of Israel, it is unclear whether all or some of the Jewish populations of Arabia did have such an ancestry, or were locals who have adopted Judaism as a faith, or mixtures of both cases.

External links

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Overview

Terminology

Jews of Arabia before Islam

See also

External links