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Israel
The Second Israel
Before 1882 Sephardim or Oriental Jews were the majority, about
60 percent, of the Jewish population in Palestine. Although Oriental
Jews did immigrate between this period and that of the British
Mandate--more than 15,000 came from Yemen and Aden Protectorate
between 1919 and 1948--they were a minority, about 10 percent
of all immigrants. Thus, by 1948 Ashkenazim accounted for 77 percent
of the population of the new State of Israel. But this was to
change quickly in the period of mass migration that followed the
establishment of the state. Between 1948 and 1951 Oriental immigrants
accounted for 49 percent of all immigrants; in the Jewish calendar
year 1952-53 they comprised 70 percent, and from 1954 to 1957
(following the Sinai Campaign and turbulence in North Africa),
African-born Jews, the majority from Morocco, constituted 63 percent
of all immigrants. By 1958 almost the entire Jewish populations
of Yemen, Aden, Libya, and Iraq had immigrated.
The new state was barely equipped, and had few of the resources
needed, to handle this influx. The immigrants were housed in tented
"transition camps" (maabarot; sing., maabara);
and then directed, often without their approval, to some cooperative
settlement (immigrants' moshav) or one of the new development
towns. In both cases, authorities wanted to disperse the Jewish
population from the coast and place the immigrants in economically
productive (especially agricultural or light industrial) settings.
The results were village or town settlements that were peripherally
located, ethnically homogeneous or nearly homogeneous, and the
poorest settlements in the nation.
The lack of resources, however, was not the only obstacle to
the successful integration of the Oriental immigrants. Although
their intentions were noble, in practice the Ashkenazim viewed
their Oriental brethren as primitive--if not quite savage--representatives
of "stone age Judaism," according to one extreme phrase. Paternalism
and arrogance went hand in hand; the socialist Labor Zionists,
in particular, had little use for the Orientals' reverence for
the traditional Jewish criteria of accomplishment and rectitude:
learnedness and religious piety. In the transition camps and the
new settlements, the old elite of the Oriental communities lost
their status and with it, often, their self-respect. The wealthy
among them had been obliged to leave most of their wealth behind;
besides, more often than not, they had been merchants or engaged
in some "bourgeois" profession held in low esteem by the Labor
Zionists. The rabbis and learned men among them fared no better
with the secular Zionists but they were often patronized as well
by representatives of the Ashkenazi religious parties, who respected
their piety but evinced little respect for the scholarly accomplishments
of rabbinical authorities who did not discourse in Yiddish. The
religious and secular political parties knew, however, that the
immigrants represented votes, and so, despite their patronizing
attitudes, at times they courted them for support. In the early
years, the leftist predecessor parties to the Labor Party even
tried adding religious education to their transition camp schools
as a way of enrolling Orientals.
The transition camps were largely eliminated within a decade;
a few became development towns. But the stresses and strains of
immigrant absorption had taken their toll, and in July 1959 rioting
broke out in Wadi Salib, a slum area in Haifa inhabited mostly
by Moroccan Jews. The rioters spread to Haifa's commercial area,
damaging stores and automobiles. It was the first violence of
its kind in Israel, and it led to disturbances in other towns
as the summer progressed. Israelis were now acutely aware of the
ethnic problem, and soon afterward many began to speak of Israel
Shniya, the "Second Israel," in discussing the socioeconomic gaps
that separated the two segments of society. In the early 1970s,
violent protests again erupted, as second-generation Orientals
(mostly Moroccans), organized as the "Black Panthers" (named to
great effect after the American Black protest group of the same
period) confronted the Ashkenazi "establishment," demanding equality
of opportunity in housing, education, and employment. Prime Minister
Meir infuriated them even more by calling them "not nice boys."
This remark underscored the perception of many Orientals that
when they protested against Israel's establishment they were largely
protesting against the Labor Party and its leaders. Many Orientals
came to see the Labor Party as being unresponsive to their needs,
and many also blamed Labor for the indignities of the transition
camps. These were legacies that contributed to Labor's fall from
power in 1977; but, in fact, Oriental voters were turning away
from Labor and toward Herut, Menachem Begin's party, as early
as the 1965 national elections.
The Oriental protest movements, however, were never separatist.
On the contrary, they expressed the intense desire of the Oriental
communities for integration--to be closer to the centers of power
and to share in the rewards of centrality. For example, some of
the Black Panthers were protesting against their exclusion from
service in the IDF, the result in most cases of previous criminal
convictions. This desire was also reflected in the Orientals'
turn to Labor's opposition, Herut and later Likud, as a means
of penetrating power centers from which they felt excluded--by
supporting the establishment of new ones.
Data as of December 1988
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