A favorite tactic of antisemites through the ages is to divide and conquer by separating the Jewish community into two groups. The first faction will be the so-called “good Jews”, those Jews whose values, behavior, or actions can somehow be linked with the larger gentile community. These Jews are held up as examples of loyal citizens indistinguishable from their neighbors.
By contrast, the second and much larger group comprises the “problematic Jews”. It’s these Jews the antisemites insist, who are the real problem. Not only are these deviants against the gentile state the antisemites assert, they are even against their fellow Jews.
Such a division can be remarkably successful. The group designated as the approved group will be so grateful, not only to find acceptance but to escape the wrath coming to their brethren, that they will gratefully support allegations levied against their fellow Jews, somtimes even being the first on the attack. To prove their loyalty and to confirm that they are “the good ones” they might be even more vicious in attacking their fellow Jews than the gentile instigators.
As a result, Jews do the antisemites’ work for them, weakening the Jewish world by their very separation, and then further delegitimizing the ousted community, therefore making it easier to justify future assaults. They justify their behavior by rationalizing that they have more in common with the oppressors than with their fellow Jews, and thus it’s with the oppressors that their loyalties lie.
By the time they realize the truth, that they have been nothing but useful idiots, it is already too late. In the end they learn that to their persecutors, a Jew is always, and nothing but, a Jew.
Like all things antisemitic, this ploy morphs and takes on new forms to fit the times and situation. Today, when the Jewish world is at war with the Arab world, it has once again mutated. In the modern interpretation, the refrain goes that the Jewish world can again be separated into two types of Jews.
The first are the Mizrachi Jews. These are Jews who hail most recently from Arab countries, mainly in the Middle East and North Africa. These Jews, it is claimed, are actually Arabs, both in cultural identity and in genetic makeup. Moreover, since this group hails from the Middle East, where Israel is located, they must be the true, original Jews (How they can be both the original Israelites and also Arabs is a contradiction that never enters into the equation). As true Arabs, it only makes sense that Mizrachi Jew’s loyalty should lie with their Muslim neighbors, not with the foreigners who claim a connection through faith.
The second group is the Ashkenazi Jews, those Jews who most recently resided in European, Christian countries. These Jews, the antisemites argue, are not really Jews at all. Rather, they are pretenders drawn from the white European population. It’s claimed that they have nothing to do with their Middle Eastern counterparts, but rather belong to the White European community.
As such, not only are they not real Jews, but their loyalty is to Europe, and the values it holds. Not surprisingly, the proponents of this argument also argue the DEI worldview that the world can only be divided into oppressors and oppressed, climaxing with Western white colonialism. In this worldview, most of recent history and the damages therein, are the result of an insatiable European lust to colonize and control the entire non-white world.
European Jews therefore are nothing but tools of these colonial powers. They care nothing for Jews in the Middle East, seeing them as a separate and inferior race. Instead, all their actions are inherently done in service of their true masters, their fellow “white Europeans.” The millenniums of horrendous persecution against Jews in Europe specifically because they were not considered European are conveniently overlooked.
Basing themselves on this allegation, the antisemites of the world, the Western world as well as the Arab world, have in recent years put forth a preposterous claim. The argument goes that because Mizrachi Jews are actually Arabs, their true alliance is with Arabs fighting against the Ashkenazi Jews. Ashkenazi Jews are not only not even Jews, but are nothing more than tools of the supposed oppressors. Tools that would happily wipe out their Mizrachi inferiors if given the chance.
These antisemites base their beliefs on a series of increasingly ludicrous claims.
First, they argue that the “original Jews”, those who lived in the ancient kingdom of Israel, the ones mentioned in the Bible, are extinct. Through some never-explained calamity, any trace of the native Israelites is lost to history. Instead, all of today’s so-called Jews are nothing more than later converts from their respective countries.
Scientifically, it’s an absurd claim. There have been to date dozens of genetic tests done in relation to Jewish ethnicity. These have all uniformly shown two things. First that Jews the world over, no matter what country they now live in, hail from the Levant. Confirmable test after test has proved conclusively that Jews, be they Mizrachi or Ashkenazi are very much the progeny of ancient Israelites. Secondly, genetics has also proven beyond a doubt that Jews from every part of the world are genetically related. Despite years and distance, Mizrachi and Ashkenazi are one race.
Science matches tradition. The Jewish people truly are one big family. And one with very illustrious ancestors.
Likewise, the historical evidence shows definitively that Jews are the historic indigenous people of Israel. Countless items of archeology create an unbroken chain, a record of the entire history from biblical times down to the present. The sheer volume of artifacts that not only prove Jewish nativity but trace their history down to the modern day, is at this point beyond any reasonable dispute.
This means that the antisemites must turn to being unreasonable. I once heard an interview by an Arabist self-hating Jew. When asked about the overwhelming proof of Jewish indigenousness he grew indignant and shouted “Who cares about all that? Why should we listen to arguments based on science or archeology?”
(I have never come across a statement that so fully encapsulates the Jew-hater’s mindset. By their own admission they must reject science and archeology, meaning verifiable truth and empirical evidence, to make their case.)
It’s important to note the genesis of these lies. They originated as variations of the Khazar myth, a historical hypothesis that suggests that today’s Ashkenazi Jews are in fact decedents of the converts from the Khazars, a multi-ethnic conglomerate of mostly Turkic peoples who formed a semi-nomadic khanate in and around the northern and central Caucasus and the Pontic–Caspian steppe.
Long ago discredited, it has its origins in the antisemitism surrounding the publication of Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It was later popularized by the Nazis who portrayed Jews as enemy invaders. Since the Second World War ended, it’s been persevered by Neo-Nazi groups and has become a staple of their beliefs. (To any Jew-haters who happen to read this piece, it’s important to note that if your argument comes from the Nazis, you might also be the bad guys.)
Next, they turn toward more recent times and put forth the absurd claim that before Zionism, Jews and Muslims lived in blissful peace in Arab countries. It is only those wicked Zionists who turned Arabs, Muslim and Jewish, against each other. Without Zionism, Jews in Arab-speaking countries would be able to thrive and allow their true Middle Eastern culture to flourish.
It’s a wonderful fairy tale. But to believe, one has to willfully ignore the entirety of Jewish history in Arab lands. Anyone who has studied the history of Jews under Arab rule can find only a history of genocide and persecution. Jews at times were forced to choose between conversion to Islam and death. Riots and pogroms were regular occurrences over the centuries. Even in times of relative peace, Jews were still considered second-class citizens, and forced to pay a special tax known as the jizya.
Even Jews in what was then called Palestine fared poorly. The numerous massacres by Arabs against Jewish inhabitants before 1948 put to rest any argument that the Arab's hatred of Jews started with the Jewish state.
The persecution of Jews by Arabs reached its climax with the near-complete expulsion of all Jews from Arab countries. By the end of the 1970s, 900,000 Jews (my own grandparents and family included) were expelled from Muslim nations around the world. To this date, we have not been allowed to return, or received compensation, and these countries remain Jew-free (in case anyone would like to know what actual apartheid looks like.)
In the face of so much history contradicting them, Jew-haters must invent their own alternative history. They do this through the power of what Lenin called “useful idiots.” In this case, it’s Jews so desperate to gain the love and approval of the gentile neighbors that they are willing to testify to an invented narrative.
Books like Massoud Hayoun's “When We Were Arabs: A Jewish Family's Forgotten History" And Avi Shlaim's “Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew” are proudly held up by antisemites as evidence that Mizrachi Jews themselves support their claims. They overlook the fact that they are cherry-picking, finding two supporters out of the millions of Mizrachi Jews. Instead, they proudly hold individuals like these up as the poster children for their cause and as banners for Arab sovereignty.
It’s not surprising that people like this exist. Throughout Jewish history, there have always been Jews willing to side with their oppressors in the hopes of gaining acceptance. Josephus, the famous Jewish historian, traded his life as well as his self-respect to become a propaganda arm of the Roman government. In Christian countries, there were always Jews ready to come forward and support the church’s charges against Jewish communities. Many of the most violent episodes against Jews in Europe were predicated by a Jew, usually a convert to Christianity, willing to substantiate whatever twisted accounts the church required them to say.
Like all false narratives, once investigated, there is no substance behind the stories. Both authors have had their claims debunked by authoritative historians. It’s telling as well that while they enjoy a large degree of popularity, they are entirely ignored in the Jewish world, including among Mizrachi Jews. Avi Shlaim won the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize and was the Palestine Book Award’s pick. Massoud Hayoun (also a writer for Al Jazeera) was named one of the best books of the year by NPR and won the Arab American Book Award. But while they are celebrated by Western and Arab media, they are entirely non-existent among the Jews they claim to represent. It's revealing that their own community, the people whose story they claim to be sharing, utterly rejects them.
Revisionist history has always been a fundamental tool of antisemites and this is no exception. It’s not only unsupportable, it’s unoriginal. Faced with proper history, antisemites might be forced to agree that every other act of historical revisionism was an intentional lie, but somehow, this time is different.
This lie is the most insidious because like all good lies, it starts with a drop of truth. Not only argue the antisemites, do the wicked European Jews oppress their gentle Arab Muslim neighbors, but they oppress their Arab Jews as well. In their version of Israel, Ashkenazi Jews rule supreme and govern Israel with an iron fist, actively working to keep their Mizrachi counterparts down. Since Ashkenazi racism, rooted in European colonialism, extends even to their supposed brothers, it follows that Mizrachi Jews should therefore be willing to join Arabs in rising up against a mutual enemy.
I would like to write here honestly that racism does not exist in Israel. I would like to say that there have never been cases where Ashkenazi schools refused to accept Mizrach children. I would like to say that it’s not the case that people change their last name to an Ashkenazi-sounding one to get ahead in their careers. I would like to say that Israel’s Parshat Yaldei Teiman, the Yemenite Children Affair was just a myth instead of a dark spot on the young nation's history.
But the unfortunate reality is that some racism in Israel does and did exist. We, the Jewish people, have still to fully reach the biblical ideal of being one nation with one heart. But to claim that it is anywhere near the scope or with the vehemency that Israel’s enemies suggest means condemning the vast majority of the Jewish world.
Yes, racism exists, but to call it systemic or to suggest that it is state-sponsored is simply engaging in conspiracy theories. Israel haters, gentile and Jewish, are quick to share wild accusations and throw their support behind any discrediting allegation, no matter how dubious. One look at the Knesset proves the point.
Capitalizing on real concerns to corroborate wild fantasies is simply manipulative. It also flouts the broader reality. The reality, one that these bigots hate, is that for all its faults, Israel is a model of tolerance for the world. And this tolerance, with rare tragic exceptions, extends to different groups of Jews.
Nowhere but in Israel are Jews from so many diverse origins united into one people. Jews of all backgrounds live alongside each other, work together, and pray (although they might prefer a service like the one they grew up with) as one just as they have done for thousands of years. In fact, where else but in Israel can one find such unity among so many diverse Jewish peoples? In Israel, a Jew might hail from Poland or Iraq, but he will still be counted in a minyan. A minyan made up of Jews gathered together from around the globe. Because all the externals don’t matter. He is a Jew.
Coming up to the modern day and looking back at the accusations, it becomes clear that at every step the entire attempt at separation is nothing more than so many pseudo-histories attempting to wear the mask of legitimacy. Faced with the unpleasant fact that reality doesn’t support them, Antisemites and their self-hating Jewish counterparts instead have chosen to reject truth in favor of a compelling narrative. The goal is nothing less than to take the unpleasant reality of Arab brutality against Jews, centuries of systemic violence and oppression, and reframe it as the noble resistance of proud indigenous people against colonial occupiers.
As with any lie, there are of course numerous problems with the entire story. Chief among these is that assumes that Israeli Jews are only Ashkenazi or Sephardic (let alone Mizrach). It willfully ignores the existence of a large demographic of Israel’s population who are neither one nor the other. Bukharin, Iranian, and Indian Jews are just a small number of the type of Jews who make up the Israeli Jewish population who do not fall into the Ashkenazi-Sephardic binary.
Perhaps most glaringly, it ignores the tens of thousands of Beta Israel Jews who have returned home in the past decades. Black African Jews, especially ones coming in so late in the story, understandably don’t seem to fit into the worldview the antisemites expound. Faced with the difficulty that Ethiopian Jews do not fit in neatly to their story of conquers and conquered, antisemites have been forced to shoehorn them in. Thus, they argue that the entire Beta Israel community in Israel only came into being as part of an Ashkenazi colonial plot, for reasons vague but sinister. This dismisses the rich, vibrant culture and history of Ethiopian Jews and reduces the community to nothing more than childlike tools of a more sophisticated empire. Remember that this is the viewpoint of the side claiming to oppose racism.
For that matter, it diminishes the importance of Mizrachi Jewry. It tosses out centuries of prolific history of the Mizrachi Jewish world. Jews in Arab countries went to great lengths to maintain a separate culture and identify as different from the Arabs. They endured persecution and discrimination because of their separateness, but fought to maintain their identity because it was so important to them. The beautiful poetry and songs, wonderful food, the colorful customs and minhagim, all prove a separate unique culture, one that is rich and vibrant, with some influence from their surroundings.
All this is disregarded. Instead, they are absorbed into the Arab world. The frankly offensive result is that Mizrachi Jews have their identities entirely stripped away. Arab supporting Jews do not evens seem to realize that what they are advocating for is Jewish erasure.
The antisemite’s argument also assumes that Ashkenazi and Mizrachi Jews are only one of the other. One of the benefits of Jews from all over the world returning home and mixing in society is that they mix in other ways as well. The vast majority of the past few generations of Israelis are neither fully Ashkenazi nor Sephardic. Most children born in Israel have a parent from more than one community. (This author is himself a mixture of classical European and Egyptian Jewish communities). Not only does this intermixture mean that claims of oppression are that much harder to substantiate since it means Jews are essentially oppressing themselves, it means that the vast majority of Israeli Jews now have enough Mizrachi DNA for Arab supporters to have no choice but to welcome all Israelis as their own.
As always, the number of Jews who fall for these delusions is thankfully very low. Unfortunately, these small numbers are able to do a large amount of damage. That’s why it is absolutely imperative that Jews the world over resist these attempts at fracturing the Jewish community.
We cannot let ourselves be destroyed from within. Jews must stand strong in the face of every attempt to create internal discord, especially when it comes from our fellow Jews. The world has already abandoned us, we have only our Jewish brothers and sisters to turn to.
It’s very simple. We are already united by blood, history, and belief. We must now show the world that are likewise united in a common cause.
Ilan Goodmanis a museum collections professional and exhibition curator. He also serves as a rabbi and educator. He made Aliyah to Israel in 2011 and lives with his wife and children in Beit Shemesh.