Mizrahi Jews or Asian Jews (מזרחי "eastern", Standard Hebrew Mizraḥi, Tiberian Hebrew Mizrāḥî; plural מזרחים "easterners", Standard Hebrew Mizraḥim, Tiberian Hebrew Mizrāḥîm) are Jews of Middle Eastern origin; that is to say, their ancestors never left the Middle East. In Israel, they are colloquially called Sephardi Jews, though technically the Mizrahim are not Sephardic, since they never lived in Spain or Portugal nor are they descended of those who were expelled from the Iberian peninsula during the Spanish Inquisition. Though there are many languages associated with Mizrahi Jews, the most prominent are the various Judæo-Arabic dialects; see also Mizrahi Hebrew language.
In reaction to the events leading up to and following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Arab societies acted violently against their local Jewish populations in what they viewed as retaliation for both the inflammatory creation of the Jewish state of Israel and their Arab Palestinian brethren turned into refugees as a result. Further anti-Jewish actions by Arab governments in the 1950s and 1960s, incuding the expulsion of 25,000 Mizrahi Jews from Egypt following the 1956 Suez Crisis, led to the overwhelming majority of Mizrahim becoming Jewish refugees. Most of these refugees fled to Israel.
Today, of the few remaining Mizrahi communities still residing in Arab countries, which total in all less than 8,000 individuals, a trickle of emigration to Israel continues and is encouraged by the Jewish state.
External links
- Jewish Multicultural Project http://www.jmcponline.org/
- Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa http://www.jimena-justice.org/
- Loolwa Khazzoom - Jewish MultiCultural Arts & Education http://www.loolwa.com/
Last updated: 02-07-2005 05:52:50
Last updated: 05-03-2005 17:50:55
