ISRAEL: THE ORIENTAL JEWS AND BEGIN
Swirski, Shlomo
We continue in this issue our series of articles dealing with Israeli society and politics. In our next issue we shall carry studies of the Israeli economy and the resurgence of...
...Thus they claimed, in the words of one of them, that the Orientals have to undergo a process of "desocialization"—that is, erasure of their cultural heritage—and of "resocialization"—that is, acceptance of the Ashkenazic way of life...
...for the Sephardim were distinct communities, especially in the Balkans and in Palestine, and also in parts of Western Europe and the Americas...
...There are two reasons for this...
...In 1960, Ashkenazim constituted 80 percent of all civil servants...
...77 This confrontation came to a climax, in terms of Jewish history, around the end of the 15th century, with three more or less simultaneous events: (1) the conquests and rise of the Ottomans, with ensuing—and continuous— warfare between the Christian realms and "the Turk," which meant, in practice, the rise of a geopolitical, economic, and cultural barrier between the two zones...
...Thus, at a gathering of top Oriental functionaries in the Labor party (called to voice their resentment at not receiving good slots on the party slate for the 1973 Knesset elections), many felt it necessary to state proudly that they had been instrumental in breaking up "ethnic parties...
...2. 1 ' For a critique of such an interpretation, see S. Swirski, University, State, and Society in Israel: A Study of the Social and Political Consciousness of Israeli Students (Jerusalem: Mifras, 1982), chap...
...Modernity," then, is not something the Orientals met as a finished process, but rather something in whose creation they took part...
...23 R. Bar Yosef, "Desocialization and Resocialization: The Process of Immigrants' Adaptation," in Immigrants in Israel, M. Lissak, B. Mizrachi, and 0. BenDavid, eds...
...Demonstrations by Orientals still in the transitory immigrant camps demanding "bread and jobs" had been dismissed as the agitational work of leftist Iraqi immigrants...
...Furthermore, the ideological stress on the alleged significance of the rise in the proportion of marriages between Ashkenazim and Orientals has largely obscured the fact that a 83 quantitatively more significant trend has been taking place at the same time: namely, a rise in the proportion of marriages between members of various Oriental groups (for instance, between Moroccans and Iraqis...
...Hebrew, my translation...
...and finally, an even larger stratum of semiskilled and unskilled laborers...
...The public image of a party or of a candidate is to a large extent the product of a carefully designed public-relations campaign, and mass rallies are the product of a well-run campaign organization...
...As it was, however, they became an industrial and white-collar proletariat...
...For Israel's rapid industrial development indeed was based on precisely the type of labor power that they provided: the governmental plan for industrial development for the years 1957-61 foresaw that out of the 45,300 new jobs to be created by the plan, 33,010 (73 percent) would be for unskilled workers...
...I don't think, however, that we should search for an explanation in the socioeconomic characteristics of the Oriental Jews in their countries of origin, nor in the insufficient economic means that were at the disposal of the young state of Israel...
...We should note that the population of most of the moshavim was ethnically homogeneous, and that the new Oriental moshavim received fewer means of production from the authorities and consequently had a lower income than the veteran—and mostly Ashkenazic— moshavim...
...It gained the support of many young activists who saw in it a means of expressing an independent Oriental consciousness...
...In the same vein, we ought to remember that Begin is not the product of an autonomous and independent Oriental political movement—but rather an option presented to Orientals by a party structure controlled by Ashkenazim...
...Within a short period of time, they evacuated en masse to the new state of Israel...
...In this way, the Labor party has managed to co-opt a wide stratum of communal leaders, union militants, neighborhood organizers, and intellectuals who might have formed the basis for alternative organizations...
...Few, however, point out that chances for a continued increase in that trend are slim, for, if one takes into account class positions and ecological segregation, the pool of candidates for probable interethnic marriages is quite limited...
...Jerusalem: Akademon, 1969...
...Industry: Toward the end of the 1950s, when agricultural development reached a saturation point and construction could not provide more employment, the government initiated a concerted effort to industrialize the country...
...We must add here, though, that none of the opposition parties—neither of the left nor of the right—provided a systematic critique of the process, or pressed for an alternative policy of development...
...Surely, the widespread contention that the problems of absorbing the Orientals into Israeli society stemmed from the fact that, having come from nonindustrialized societies, they could not adapt to an industrialized setting is an irony...
...From 1948 to 1956, a total of some 450,000 Jews arrived in Israel from Asia and Africa—compared to 360,000 Jews from Europe and America.' I sraelis turn to this period of "mass immigration" when they try to explain the present-day inequality between Ashkenazim and Orientals...
...Numerically, however, these Jewish communities remained much smaller than those of the Moslem countries...
...government loans...
...To assure the success of this strategy, the leaders of the riots were jailed...
...The emphasis in this analysis is on the meaning of class affiliation within the present-day Israeli social structure...
...And why in the form of a vote for the Likud—a coalition of parties 85 whose politicians are mostly middle-class Ashkenazic businessmen...
...Orientals soon were overrepresented in most branches of industrial production...
...These figures indicate, among other things, that there is a clear trend in the direction of the formation of an "Oriental"—as distinct from Moroccan, Iraqi, etc.—community in Israel...
...The Histadrut—the Israeli federation of labor unions—is the most obvious example: throughout the 1950s it openly condoned the process that widened the gap between the incomes of professional and top-echelon workers (mostly Ashkenazim) and those of the lower-echelon workers (mostly Orientals...
...They also tend to hail that trend as a clear sign that "the ethnic problem is disappearing...
...Thus it is not surprising to find that inequality among second-generation Orientals and Ashkenazim—that is, among those born and raised in Israel—is even greater than it was among the immigrant generation...
...90 22 D. Ben Gurion, Eternal Israel (Tel Aviv: Ayanot, 1964), p. 34...
...3) Portugal's discovery of the roundthecape route to India, which by-passed the trade routes dominated by the Moslems—signaling the beginning of the Moslem countries' rapid decline, as well as the expansion of the power of Christian Europe throughout the world...
...It was difficult because it had to be done under very trying personal conditions—exhausting work, poor housing, and lack of acquaintance with the language and the country...
...In 1971, when Oriental militants calling themselves "Black Panthers" organized mass demonstrations in Jerusalem, Golda Meir's government established an inquiry committee to study the situation of poor children and promised to fund any measures advocated by the committee...
...The Oriental immigrants contributed disproportionately to this expansion, because of the large proportion of children among them at the time...
...3, p. 76...
...This, too, is a salient literary motif: in the words of Amos Oz, one of Israel's better-known Ashkenazic writers, the well-to-do people of the shtetl who derided the young socialist pioneers for going to malaria-infested Palestine can burn with envy in their graves now that those same pioneers live in fancy houses "paneled with teakwood and decorated with real Italian marble and Danish furniture...
...The Israeli public in general and social scientists in particular usually refer to those Jews as Edot Ha'Misrach—the Oriental communities...
...On the high-school level, Oriental students constitute a majority in the vocational schools, while Ashkenazim study mainly in schools with an academic orientation...
...AFTER THE ROMAN SUBJUGATION of the Judean kingdom and the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D., the Jewish people dispersed throughout the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East...
...More and better housing, improved educational facilities, support for families with many children, superior vocational training, and generous support for the needy are perceived as measures that could "close the gap" between Orientals and Ashkenazim...
...12 In comparison, for most East European Jews, immigration brought substantial improvement, especially in the postindependence era...
...second, a stratum of industrialists, bankers, and other entrepreneurs who were the recipients of the investment capital procured by the government...
...I n this context, Begin's popularity among Oriental voters can be understood...
...The textile plant is their major single provider of employment, and its ups and downs determine the fate of the majority of the population...
...third, a large stratum of engineers, technicians, and skilled workers...
...The Oriental immigrants played an important role in all aspects of agricultural development...
...Most important perhaps is the fact that most Oriental children study in elementary schools designated by the Ministry of Education as schools for the "teunei tipuah" ("culturally deprived...
...Ashkenazim and Orientals live in separate quarters, neighborhoods, towns, and farming communities...
...in the town squares tend to forget their own recent past: after all, it was in Vilna, the "Jerusalem of Lithuania," that, on the occasion of Herzl's visit, "a dark mass, seething with excitement, crowded the narrow streets," and "surged forth desperately with cries of 'Herz', Herzl!' and 'Long live the King!' " " Second, and more important, it is extremely difficult to discuss the effects of a collectivity's "cultural background" under circumstances where that collectivity has lost effective control over its day-to-day affairs and is no longer carrying out a self-designed and self-managed societal project...
...29 Israeli Labor Party, "Considerations on the Process of Closing the Gaps" (Protocol of a Meeting of Oriental Members at Beit Berl, February 9, 1974...
...H. Cohen, Zionist Activities in the Countries of the Middle East (Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization, 1978), p. 52...
...15 All figures in the following account are taken from Bernstein and Swirski, "The Rapid Economic Development...
...and the flow of new immigrants, which, on the one hand, made for the expansion of the home market and, on the other, provided the labor power necessary for large-scale economic development...
...so did most of the Ashkenazim...
...As this subject merits a detailed analysis of its own, I will here limit myself only to a few remarks...
...In the 14th and 15th centuries, many of these Ashkenazic Jews emigrated to Poland, where they gained a high measure of security and economic well-being, playing an important role in Poland's development into a major grain exporter to Western Europe...
...program for school integration and based, similarly, on busing...
...Oriental Jews did not develop anything of the sort, mainly because they had not experienced the same crisis of communal existence that the Europeans, especially the East European Jews, had experienced in the latter part of the 19th century...
...The first three categories consisted of Ashkenazim, both veteran settlers and new immigrants...
...it had to create an entire state apparatus of its own...
...Finally, it should be remembered that Begin's support comes not only from "authoritarian" Orientals but also from "democratic and rational" Ashkenazim: polls taken in June 1981 (at the time of the last elections) showed that among supporters of the two largest par89 ties, 36 percent of foreign-born Ashkenazim and 45 percent of Israeli-born Ashkenazim also opted for the Likud...
...211 Statistical Abstract of Israel, 1982, p. 633...
...4. Hebrew...
...Of the three, Spain—in Hebrew Sepharad—is the best known, both for the economic well-being and the cultural creativity of its community...
...Israeli politicians and social scientists alike tend to stress the rise in the proportion of interethnic marriages, from 9 percent in 1952 to about 20 percent at present...
...The degree of segregation is such that in the early '70s the state initiated a program of ethnic integration in education, built on the model of the U.S...
...In order to find an answer to these questions, we must look at the development of the Zionist movement...
...In 1952, 70 percent of Oriental grooms married brides of their own country of origin, and 22 percent married brides of other Oriental countries of origin (8 percent married Ashkenazic brides), while in 1975 the figures were 42.4 percent and 40.7 percent (and 16.8 percent...
...the flow of capital from abroad— from Jewish donations, German reparations, and U.S...
...On the face of it, Zionism entailed the transplantation of Jews from their European habitats to their independent state in Israel...
...The Orientals were more dependent than the Ashkenazim on governmental housing, which was of lower quality than private and Histadrut housing projects...
...Under such circumstances one can make reasonable statements mostly about the "cultural background" of the actions of the dominant group—for the dominated one is, in the main, only reacting to options designed for it by the former...
...It was difficult because there was at first no obvious need for an independent organization—because the Zion86 ist infrastructure that the Ashkenazim had created contained not only the organizations that were now in control of the lives of the Oriental immigrants but also organizations that seemed, on the face of it, capable of expressing the grievances felt by dissatisfied Orientals...
...In these areas, too, wages were very low, especially as in many cases the workers were given unemployment compensation instead of regular salaries...
...This theme was picked up by Israeli social scientists, foremost among them S. N. Eisenstadt and his many students...
...This series has been made possible by a grant from Mr...
...On the other hand, industrial development provided new avenues of expansion and growth for industrial firms, most of which were owned and controlled by Ashkenazim...
...Hebrew...
...This is still the prevalent explanation, despite the large amount of contradictory evidence that has accumulated in recent years...
...Both designations "Asian and African" and "Oriental communities" evoke the association of plurality and variety...
...We should, rather, look at the role played by the Orientals in the developmental processes that took place in Israel after their arrival...
...Hebrew...
...There was—and still is—"only" the problem of class inequality...
...And nobody sought an explanation for that in their "cultural background...
...What should be said, however, is that those individuals in the West who have a genuine interest in the future of the Middle East would be wrong to regard the Oriental Jews simply as an impediment to peace—while impatiently awaiting Israel's return to a saner course of policy...
...however, most of the workers were employed on a temporary basis, which meant that their overall income was low...
...Hebrew...
...14 D. Bernstein and S. Swirski, "The Rapid Economic Development of Israel and the Emergence of the Ethnic Division of Labour," British Journal of Sociology, March 1982 (vol...
...At the universities, Orientals constitute less than 20 percent of the student body...
...Zionism was initiated by European Jews, as one response to the crisis of Jewish existence throughout Europe, and especially in Eastern Europe...
...In both cases, campaign managers created public images of their employers that they thought reflected the Orientals' cultural background...
...unless otherwise stated...
...In other words, at issue here is not only the national policy of Israel, but also the nature of its social structure...
...How have the Orientals reacted...
...It is thus not surprising that the majority of the Jews who immigrated to Palestine before 1948 were Europeans—they constituted 87.5 percent of all Jewish immigrants in the period from 1919 to May 1948...
...First, we should mention that housing in Israel is to a very large extent ethnically segregated...
...A third was cotton, at the time not yet mechanized, which was to become a major product of Israel's agriculture...
...While the Orientals were undergo82 ing a process of proletarianization, large numbers of Ashkenazim were entering the public services, which underwent a great expansion concomitant with the rapid economic development...
...in some ministries, such as commerce and industry, foreign affairs, defense, education, and agriculture, the figure was 90 percent...
...At the same time, the Israeli-born Ashkenazim have entrenched themselves in the position of the governing, entrepreneurial, managerial, and commanding class...
...Because of their rather hurried evacuation, the Oriental immigrants had come without any preparation, and they had to leave most of their 80 capital and goods behind...
...The government accommodated them— and Tami returned to its political and social passivity...
...The Orientals' vote for Begin was their first clearly identifiable collective move...
...S. Ettinger, "Modern Times," in The History of the Jewish People, H. H. Ben-Sasson, ed...
...it could offer those who sought refuge in traditional religious activity a plethora of Orthodox institutions...
...There was hardly any time to reorganize, however, for the military confrontation between the Jews in Palestine and the Palestinian Arabs and the armies of the Arab states in 1947-49 created an impossible climate for the Jews living throughout the Middle East and North Africa...
...it came to employ one quarter of all employed persons...
...So are the development towns...
...raise funds...
...3° A. Elon, Herzl (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1975), p. 383...
...The most salient example was the citrus industry, which became the number one agricultural product of Israel, and the number one export...
...It permeates the military establishment, where many, like former Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur, feel that it is going to take years until Orientals can be entrusted with top military posts, because, given their "special" (that is, backward) mentality, they would not know how to operate a sophisticated Western organizational and technological machine...
...Second, marriages are ethnically determined...
...In other words, it puts the blame for the low position of the Orientals on the Orientals themselves...
...In the 1950s and '60s, most construction workers were new immigrants, and among them Orientals were overrepresented...
...Because of their rapid demographic increase, by the 1880s— that is, on the eve of the rise of the Zionist movement—they constituted 7 million out of the estimated 7.5 million Jews in the world.' All this is necessary background for a picture of the developments that took place in the last century...
...The housing produced by all this construction was differentially distributed between Orientals and Ashkenazim...
...Generally speaking, one could best describe the activities of the Jewish settlers in Palestine during the British Mandate as gaining a foothold by settlement of the land...
...Almost all of them were Ashkenazim...
...Swirski, Orientals and Ashkenazim . . . , p. 70...
...The differences in the quality of housing became a permanent feature of the differentiation between Orientals and Ashkenazim in Israel...
...Fourth, we are living in an age of "managed" politics...
...for the Jews who came from Morocco, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, Syria, and other Moslem countries did represent a variety of communal experiences...
...This might have entailed far-reaching changes in the traditional Zionist organizational patterns, or the creation of new structures guided and joined by members of the Oriental communities...
...Thus Ben Gurion, speaking to the top command of the Israeli army in 1950, stated that many of these immigrants come to us without the most elementary knowledge, without a trace of Jewish or human [!] education...
...Second, and more or less simultaneously, they played a decisive role in the great construction effort of the 1950s...
...In addition to these, there is a rather clear pattern of ethnic segregation in the large towns and cities: Ashkenazim live mainly in the northern and "better" neighborhoods, while Orientals are mainly concentrated in the southern ones...
...In 1958 the Industrial Development Bank was established, and the next year the Knesset passed a new law to attract investment capital...
...The prototypical industry that was developed at the time was the textile industry, and by 1961, Orientals already were overrepresented among textile workers...
...WHY WAS THIS TASK SO DIFFICULT...
...These schools have specialized programs and many special teachers, and they are paraded as a sign of the government's great concern for the cultural upgrading of the Orientals, as a means of bringing about social equality...
...32 A. Idan, "War and Equality," in On War and Equality (Haifa: Yated, 1982...
...David Hammou, for example, has called the Likud "an overnight shelter" where Orientals find temporary refuge until they are able to form their own channels of expression (Ha'aretz, October 14, 1981...
...Most of the increase came from new moshavim—cooperative farm communities— and Oriental immigrants constituted 65 percent of the population of these moshavim...
...S. Michael, Some Are More Equal Than Others (Tel Aviv: Boostan, 1974...
...Thus the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish National Fund, the various Zionist parties, the Halutz (Pioneer, agricultural labor) movement, the Jewish Agency, and the various military organizations came into being...
...This figure includes immigrants from Greece and Bulgaria, most of whom are Sephardim...
...Yet once the Zionist movement was created, many Oriental Jews joined it: they founded Zionist clubs, published Zionist newspapers, and contributed to the Zionist funds...
...HAVING BRIEFLY REVIEWED the developments in agriculture, construction, and industry, let us now take a quick look at the Israeli civil-service apparatus...
...This, however, is not necessarily the case...
...train recruits for settlement in Palestine and transport them...
...Third, the ethnic division of labor is reproduced by a system of education that is largely segregated and unequal...
...Weinryb, The Jews of Poland: A Social and Economic History of the Jews of Poland from 1100 to 1800 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1972), pp...
...We should note that the wages for agricultural labor were the lowest in the country...
...Yet to this day Orientals still constitute the bulk of Israel's Jewish blue-collar workers...
...Previous protest activities had been labeled as acts of particular groups with specific grievances: • The Sephardim's slate in the first parliamentary elections had been dismissed as the particularistic representation of the old-time Sephardic elite of Jerusalem...
...Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, Statistical Abstract of Israel, 1978 (Jerusalem, 1979), p. 137...
...They only endeavored—for many years unsuccessfully—to collect the fruits of Oriental discontent...
...The rise of the Jewish community of Poland, paralleled by the decline of the Moslem East in general and its Jewish communities in particular, was reflected in a demographic turning of the tables: while up to the 15th century the majority of world Jewry was, by today's nomenclature, "Oriental" or "Sephardic" and Ashkenazim constituted only a tiny minority, by the beginning of the 19th century, 2 million out of the estimated 2.25 million Jews in the world were European (and mostly East European)— that is, Ashkenazim...
...Only lately, a feeling that independent action is a necessary step for social change has begun to spread among young activists and intellectuals...
...This ideology also permeates the mass media...
...Therefore the new immigrants could not be given the kind of helpful reception that new immigrants to Israel received in later years...
...Otherwise, in all areas of economic activity the scale was small, the capacity for initiative low, and the potential for investment quite restricted...
...The following centuries witnessed a continuous confrontation between the rising Christian West and the weakening Islamic East: in the form of the Crusades, the Reconquista in Spain, and the commercial competition between Italian city-states and Moslem merchants...
...For a personal account of one who foresaw the possibility of problems, see E. Eliachar, Living with Jews (Jerusalem: Marcus 1980...
...The following pages deal with the process by which Orientals became the industrial and white-collar Jewish proletariat of Israel, a process that involved the simultaneous transformation of Ashkenazim into the governing, managerial, and commanding class...
...L. Hakak, The Foundlings (Tel Aviv: Tamuz, 1977...
...Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, Statistical Abstract of Israel, 1982 (Jerusalem, 1983), p. 60...
...33, no...
...Third, they played a key role in the rapid industrial development that began in the late 1950s—especially in laborintensive industries such as textiles, diamonds, metals, chemicals, and minerals...
...First, those who present this question tend to make an implicit distinction between the political culture of East European and Middle Eastern Jews, placing the former in the "Western democratic" camp, and the latter in the "NonWestern authoritarian" camp...
...IN ANALYZING THE OBSTACLES that stand in the way of creating an Oriental organizational infrastructure in Israel, I have proceeded on the assumption that such an infrastructure is the desired goal of a significant number of Orientals...
...The period of mass immigration is a critical one for understanding inequality in Israel today...
...The number of agricultural settlements increased from 326 in 1948 to 723 in 1960...
...However, the continued use of these terms serves to disguise the fact that after they arrived in Israel, most "Asian and African" Jews, or "Oriental communities," underwent a common social life experience, to the extent that a new collective identity has emerged...
...It often was located in outlying areas where Ashkenazim, both new immigrants and veteran settlers, refused to live...
...To sum up: residential segregation, the predominance of intragroup marriages, the segregated and unequal school system, and the ideological apparatus that portrays the Orientals as culturally deprived or backward—all work to reproduce the ethnic division of labor that emerged in Israel during the '50s and early '60s...
...The problem is that the creation of any such organization implies—to Ashkenazim as well as to most Orientals—a denial of the universe to which both feel attached...
...this was especially true for female laborers, who did most of the picking and packing in the citrus groves...
...THE VOTE FOR THE LIKUD, then, has very little to do with the Orientals' "cultural background" —and it has quite a lot to do with their present position in the Israeli social structure...
...This article was written before the resignation of Prime Minister Menahem Begin, which has no bearing on its argument.—S.S...
...Today, some, but not all, feel solidarity with the Oriental Jews in Israel...
...The owners of the firms were Ashkenazim, and some of the most outstanding examples of growth occurred in firms controlled by the Histadrut—that is, by the labor movement...
...Of course, over the years, there have been protests, strikes, petitions, and demonstrations...
...The segregation in schooling stems to a large degree, of course, from segregation in housing...
...Many of those towns—such as Dimona, Kiryat Shemona, Beit She'an, Ofakim, or Afula—became "company towns...
...115-16...
...Some 40 percent of the capital outlay of the Jewish communal organizations was spent on the purchase of land and agricultural settlement...
...At this point, I would like to make a brief diversion in order to discuss the alleged connection between the Orientals' "cultural background" and their massive support for Begin in the last elections, as this connection is made uncritically by most Israeli and foreign commentators...
...the appropriation of the real estate and enterprises of the Arab refugees...
...The first effective and continuous contacts were established as a consequence of the European imperialistic penetration of the Middle East and North Africa in the 19th century...
...This Zionist organizational infrastructure, as we will recall, was almost entirely European— that is, Ashkenazic—and most of its efforts were oriented toward European Jews...
...In the same vein, Begin's campaign managers carefully designed slogans that would appeal to the "lowest common denominator," disregarding the fact that the tactic constituted an insult to the intelligence of many voters...
...This ideology has been elaborated by the Ashkenazic elite in Israel— from politicians and social scientists to educators and journalists...
...They fared even worse in comparison with the kibbutzim (Israel's communal farms), both old and new...
...This ideology permeates the schools for the "culturally deprived" Oriental children...
...This fact, of course, is relevant from the vantage point of the 1977 and 1981 elections...
...However, life did not continue "as normal," for after 1948 these Jews had to evacuate hurriedly to Israel, where they entered a structure that was not suited to their needs and over which they had no control...
...As a result of the process, various categories were formed: first, a large governmental entrepreneurial-managerial apparatus...
...But, most important, this contention constitutes a gross exaggeration of the state of the Israeli economy at the time of independence...
...It has been used so effectively that any mention of the possibility of the creation of an "ethnic organization" instinctively evokes associations of "splitting up the nation...
...Variations of this infrastructure are still at work in most Jewish communities in Western countries...
...English...
...The problem with a social welfare platform, of course, is that anything an Oriental organization can do in this area, the major Ashkenazicontrolled parties can do much better...
...Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1969), vol...
...The fact that generations of Israelis, past and present, Ashkenazim as well as Orientals, were satisfied with this explanation is in itself an important aspect of the present-day situation...
...In this process, the Oriental immigrants constituted, in the main, a relatively cheap, mobile, and manipulable labor force...
...For example: (1) Oriental Jews who immigrated to the West fared better than those who immigrated to Israel.' (2) Of the limited resources that were at the state's disposal in the early 1950s, European immigrants got a better share than did Oriental immigrants.' (3) To79 day, inequality between Israeli-born Orientals and Ashkenazim is greater than it was for the immigrant generation"—despite the fact that today's Oriental youth is not being raised in a "culturally backward" society but in modern, Western-style Israel...
...2) the expulsion of the Jews of Spain—the Sephardim *—most of whom crossed over to Turkish lands, dispersing among the local Jewish communities, or establishing new and distinct centers of their own as they did in Greece, Bulgaria, and present-day Turkey...
...2. Hebrew...
...The picture presented so far is not, however, only a thing of the past...
...It was built to absorb European Jews into the new society, even Jews who were not Zionists...
...The projects included drainage works, soil improvement, removal of stones from fields, rejuvenation of abandoned agricultural land, and afforestation...
...In the framework of those contacts, European Jews tended to regard their Oriental brethren in the same way Europeans as a whole regarded inhabitants of Moslem lands: as strange, exotic, and backward people...
...Third, those who attribute the Oriental vote for Begin to their "authoritarian cultural background" tend to forget that up to the late 1960s and early '70s, the Orientals voted en masse for the liberal-socialist Labor party...
...Swirski, Orientals and Ashkenazim . . . , p. 59...
...Hebrew...
...The members of the Zionist organizations were European Jews, and their activities were oriented almost entirely toward European Jews...
...I, p. 65, Also M. Lombard, The Golden Age of Islam (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1975), pp...
...They became bank tellers, secretaries, sales people and moved into service jobs, such as television and radio repair, became bus and taxi drivers, food-stand and boutique owners...
...Hebrew...
...His first triumph, in 1977, was thought by many to be a one-time accident...
...At the same time, the Panther leaders were harassed by the police...
...Thus David Levy, the most prominent Oriental member of Begin's cabinet, and Meir Shitrit, the most prominent figure among the Likud's Oriental members of the Knesset, both rose rapidly in the ranks of the pre-1977 major opposition party, after having first tried their luck in the Labor party...
...As mentioned earlier, the moshavim, the cooperative farm communities, are ethnically homogeneous...
...9 For a unique study of the school system in one Oriental community, see A. Lewis, Power, Poverty, and Education (Ramat Gan, Israel: Turtledove, 1979...
...The 160 urban neighborhoods selected by the Begin government for the much publicized "Project [Urban] Renewal" are overwhelmingly Oriental...
...Before proceeding, we should note that the divide between Christian Europe and the "lands of the Turk" also existed within the Jewish people...
...The term MisrachimOrientals—reflects this new identity and is, in fact, being used more and more by Oriental activists...
...Y. Peres, Ethnic Relations in Israel (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Po'alim, 1976), chap...
...The Orientals provided most of the necessary wage labor: in afforestation work, for instance, they constituted 75 percent of all workers...
...In these new circumstances, they found it difficult to maintain even their traditional communal organizations: first, because they were dispersed throughout the country, and second, because their communal leaders themselves became dependent on the new authorities...
...The Oriental Jews now constitute the majority of the Israeli Jewish population-52 percent in 1981...
...Small Jewish communities had existed in Christian Europe ever since Roman times...
...In other words, the belief that an Oriental organization would present a threat to the unity of the national-societal universe has posed a very real dilemma for Oriental activists...
...Thus they were highly dependent on the Israeli public absorption apparatus for everything, from food, clothing, and basic expenses to housing and employment...
...For the very processes that created the ethnic division of labor in the '50s and early '60s also created mechanisms of reproduction that have maintained that division of labor—obviously, with variations—to this day and are ensuring its continuation into the foreseeable future...
...Thus, for example, in 1959, at the time of the riots in the Wadi Salib neighborhood of Haifa, Ben Gurion's government offered Wadi residents much coveted employment at the Haifa port, and at the same time proclaimed a plan for resettling them in better housing...
...For a fuller account, see Swirski, Orientals and Ashkenazim . . . , chap...
...Until fairly recently, most explanations were based on two assumptions with regard to that period...
...The development of agriculture, made possible by generous governmental support, greatly benefited the owners of the agricultural means of production and distribution, who now had the chance to expand and prosper...
...they also entered the ranks of the expanded regular army, especially in N.C.O...
...First, they took part in the growth and development of agriculture...
...ZIONISM BROUGHT ABOUT the first massive encounter between Oriental and Ashkenazic Jews—in Israel...
...The press called it "the rebellion of Edot Ha'Misrach" (Oriental communities...
...However, the entire system of schooling for the "teunei tipuah" is based on the a priori assumption that cultural differences can be equated with intellectual inequality...
...Yet despite the variety of political settings, East European Jews maintained a high degree of uniformity * The term "Sephardim" is often used to refer to all the Jews of Moslem lands...
...As a cheap, mobile, and manipulable labor force, the Orientals played a central role in various stages of the postindependence economic development...
...That infrastructure could offer those who harbored class resentments a variety of socialist and communist parties...
...204-12...
...This, however, is not correct...
...In our next issue we shall carry studies of the Israeli economy and the resurgence of religious fanaticism...
...Finally, this ideology has permeated the ranks of the Orientals themselves, and many of them have come to believe that Ashkenazim are in fact intellectually superior and therefore merit their higher social positions...
...On top of that, all the major Israeli institutions hastened to open up new "departments for Orientals," and they competed fiercely for Oriental recruits...
...Let me illustrate this point...
...The contacts between communities on opposite sides of the divide were few, and this was especially true in regard to the Oriental communities not located near the shores of the Mediterranean, as those in Yemen or Iraq...
...In the 10th and 1 1 th centuries, some of these communities, especially those in the Rhine valley, attained a measure of self-identity as the Jews of Ashkenaz—the Hebrew word for the German territories...
...Third-generation Israelis are not listed by the country of their family's origin in the publications of the Israeli Bureau of Statistics...
...M. Shamir and A. Arian, "Ethnic Voting in the 1981 Elections," Medina, Memshal, Ve'Yechasim Benle'umim, Spring 1982...
...Solel Boneh, Israel's largest contracting firm, grew to such an extent that it could take on new projects and new directions even after the construction boom was over—that is, even when high demand, cheap labor, and easy financing were no longer the rule...
...The most recent example was provided by Tami, a party formed by Orientals who split from the National Religious party...
...For reasons we will discuss later, they lacked an independent organizational infrastructure of their own...
...And nobody, to my knowledge, has as yet contended that the Orientals' proletarianization represents an expression of direct continuity with their "cultural background...
...I n Israel, the term "Orientals" refers to Jews who immigrated from Moslem countries— mainly from North Africa and the Middle East...
...Amos Oz, Under the Blazing Light (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Po'alim, 1979), p. 128...
...Orientals were overrepresented in only one governmental branch, the police force, and there only in the lower ranks—for in 1960, only 35 of the 497 officers in the police force were Orientals...
...The seeds of the present-day division of labor between Orientals and Ashkenazim in Israel were sown at the very beginnings of the Zionist movement...
...English...
...Notes ' S.D...
...Over the following centuries, Poland became the site of the largest Jewish community in the world: its numbers rose from about 10,000 in 1500, to about 750,000 before the partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century.' The partitions created large Jewish communities in Russian, Prussian, and Austrian lands...
...The alternative, then, was the formation of Oriental organizations...
...The rapid development of Israel after 1948 was made possible by various factors: the formation of an independent state apparatus that could, as the leading entrepreneur, set its own goals for development...
...Most Orientals did not, and still do not, think that their problems stem from the fact that a class division along ethnic lines has emerged in Israel...
...6. Hebrew...
...On top of that, the system itself is unequal: the schools in Ashkenazic neighborhoods have better facilities, better teachers, and higher status than those in Oriental neighborhoods...
...But such a distinction does not hold: Ashkenazim who look down on the masses chanting "Begin...
...positions...
...Hebrew...
...And many of them 81 —the veteran kibbutzim and moshavim, Tnuva (the largest distributor and processor of agricultural produce), the agricultural banks— were part of the economic empire controlled by the labor movement through the Histadrut...
...5 The 12 percent who came from Moslem countries, however, gave Palestine a high overrepresentation of Oriental Jews, for at the time they constituted only 3 percent of world Jewry.' The main reasons for the small number of Oriental immigrants who came to Palestine prior to 1948 (relative to the post-1948 period) are, first, the favorable social and economic status of their communities and, second, the lack of any major organized effort on the part of the Zionist movement to recruit them—as it recruited European Jews...
...Before it rose to power, the Likud, for its part, recruited those activists who had been rejected by the Labor party, or who had found the rise within the Labor hierarchy too slow...
...First, having come from culturally and economically backward societies, the Orientals could not easily fit into a modern Western context such as Israel...
...Which means that the campaign must have appealed not only to Oriental voters...
...support their economic undertakings, govern them, and defend them...
...B.D...
...thus they entered the lower echelons of the absorbing society...
...This complex organizational network was responsible for the establishment of the Jewish community of Palestine, and after 1948 it became the skeleton of the independent Israeli state apparatus...
...And as soon as it ascended to power, it proceeded to proclaim, with great fanfare, "Project Renewal," a project designed to improve housing conditions in 160 predominantly Oriental neighborhoods...
...In fact, demands for improved and expanded welfare measures have made up the major part of the platforms of most Oriental slates in elections to the Knesset...
...but then, not only Orientals voted for him...
...In other words, in order to be realized, Zionism could not depend on the existing organizational infrastructure of the European Jewish communities...
...It also created new avenues of mobility for many Ashkenazim in management, marketing, banking, engineering and technical jobs, and in research...
...M. Sicron, The Immigration to Israel 1948-1953 (Jerusalem: Falk Institute and Israeli Bureau of Statistics, 1957), Table 8. Hebrew...
...The social gap" is the euphe87 mism used in Israel to refer to the ethnic division of labor...
...Disregarding the clear signs that "resocialization" does not result in social equality, most Israeli social scientists (and most of them are Ashkenazim) continue to place their hopes for change in the process of "cultural upgrading" of the Orientals...
...Lacking a thorough and comparative study on the subject, all that can be said is that while for many Orientals, especially villagers and urban proletariat, immigration brought an improvement in the standard of living, for a substantial stratum, especially those who had been engaged in commerce, administration, and the professions, immigration brought a change for the worse, at least for the first generation...
...the motif of declassement is a very salient one in Israeli Oriental literature...
...For many years the advocates of Oriental organization were few and far between...
...Had life continued as before, the Palestinian Zionist leadership might have developed an operative framework to suit the needs and desires of the Oriental Jewish communities— which, they had come to realize, constituted a large reservoir of new immigrants...
...THE LIKUD PARTY, of course, then had much less to offer, for it was in the opposition—but it made promises in the same vein during all its election campaigns...
...78 For Oriental expressions in this vein, see Swirski, Orientals and Ashkenazim...
...Harry Kahn and we wish here to thank him...
...21 Ibid., p. 649...
...Construction: The mass immigration created a large demand for housing, and it provided a large pool of laborers who could be directed into construction...
...Such groups tend to organize, among other things, because they are denied access to part or parts of the societal universe...
...This ideology stems both from the general European feeling of superiority over the people of the Third World, which the Ashkenazim share, and from the sense of superiority acquired by the veteran Ashkenazim as the creators of the Zionist movement for Jewish political revival...
...Independent Oriental activists know this...
...The Wadi Salib riots in 1959 and the Black Panthers' demonstrations in the early '70s had been dismissed as the expression of "violenceprone" Moroccans...
...In Israel, in contrast, nobody denied that both Ashkenazim and Orientals belonged to one and the same national-societal universe, and Orientals were not openly denied access to any part of it...
...A recent example, which created a great furor among Oriental public figures, was a series of two articles by Amnon Denkner, a well-known liberal columnist of the respectable daily Ha'aretz, likening, in the February 2, 1983 issue, the Oriental supporters of Begin to baboons whose cultural heritage compared poorly with that of the Ashkenazim, a heritage that includes "Heine, Freud, Einstein, and all that wonderful synthesis between Judaism and Western culture...
...For the next 15 centuries this area was the main habitat of the Jewish people...
...The Orientals filled the bluecollar and low-rank white-collar jobs throughout the economy, while the Ashkenazim governed, managed, commanded, and educated...
...It would be meaningless to speculate on future developments, since new options have only now begun to open up...
...Borrowing from the intellectual arsenal of the American functionalist studies of development and modernization, they provided the ideological apparatus with the aura of scientific respectability...
...Zionism portrayed itself as the movement for the liberation of the entire Jewish people—but European Jews tended to think and act as if the Jews in the rest of the world counted for rather little, and did not really need to be consulted and recruited...
...For a comparative study of Moroccan brothers who went to France and to Israel, see M. Inbar and C. Adler, Ethnic Integration in Israel (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1977...
...So far, this belief has been quite effective in forestalling Oriental solidarity groups...
...Following the Holocaust, as the leadership of the Jewish community in Palestine realized that what it had regarded as the major source of membership for the Zionist movement had been practically destroyed, it turned its attention to the Jews of Moslem lands...
...One outcome of those contacts was the establishment, missionary-fashion, of a network of schools— by the Alliance Israelite Universelle—designed to bring European culture to the "native" communities...
...The economic expansion after the Six-Day War brought with it an increased entrance of Orientals into white-collar occupations...
...The large-scale economic development that turned Israel into a highly industrialized society, with a modern, sophisticated managerial apparatus, supported by a relatively large scientific-technological structure, took place only after 1948—that is, after the Orientals had arrived...
...Second, Oriental immigrants were found in higher proportions than Ashkenazic immigrants— not to mention the veteran settlers—in all branches of agricultural production where intensive, nonmechanized and nonskilled labor was required...
...If it were not for the fact that as a consequence of the 1948 War of Independence Israel's borders with its Arab neighbors remained closed, and for the fact that the Israeli economy in the early 1950s was highly centralized and thoroughly planned, many Oriental immigrants would have been able to take advantage of their "cultural background" and enter the field of trade with the Arabs—a field for which their past history gave them many advantages over their Ashkenazic brethren...
...Therefore they do not see the need for any organizational effort based on their own class interests...
...Yet the increased demand for teachers was satisfied mainly by the recruitment of Ashkenazim, who throughout the 1950s constituted more than 90 percent of the teaching corps...
...Finally, none of the organizations built by Ashkenazic veteran settlers provided specific protection and support to the Oriental immigrants...
...A related point, which will not be dealt with here, has to do with changes in class standing caused by immigration to Israel...
...In a country founded as the homeland of the Jews, where the Holocaust is a living memory, and where the Jews are in constant conflict with the Arabs, the implication presents a very strong impediment...
...Second, they come from dark, oppressed, and exploited countries...
...In order to understand today's implications of the process of the formation of this ethnic division of labor, we must note that it took place at the time when the Labor party was in undisputed political control of the country...
...D. Bernstein, "The Immigrant Camps in the 1950s," Mahbarot Le'Mehkar U'Lebikoret, November 1980, Hebrew...
...In its 29 years in government, the Labor party was able to use its power to raise the ante on any and every demand of Oriental militants...
...The Ashkenazim, who are still the majority among world Jewry, even after the Holocaust, constitute somewhat less than half of the Jewish population of Israel—in 78 1981, 47.5 percent of the first- and secondgeneration Israeli Jews...
...Begin...
...The election results of 1981, though, were fully recognized for what they were: a collective Oriental protest...
...A large section of the Orientals thus became an industrial proletariat...
...The fact that so many within the Israeli establishment, and especially among the liberal-to-left intelligentsia, attribute this vote to social-psychological factors —such as the Orientals' alleged "hate for the Arabs" or their alleged "traditionalistic predilection for charismatic leadership"—is a measure both of their continued adherence to the ideology of "cultural backwardness," and of their refusal to recognize that under the long 88 leadership of Labor there developed in Israel a clear and rather rigid class structure that is divided along ethnic lines...
...All Hebrew...
...Third, Oriental immigrants played an important role in the large-scale projects for the development of the agricultural infrastructure, which were initiated by the government to relieve rampant unemployment throughout the 1950s...
...First, they are the product of a period of destruction, a period of world wars, a period of material and spiritual deterioration caused by a shake-up in all human institutions...
...On the contrary: the occupation of most of the Middle East and North Africa by European imperialist powers opened new opportunities for Oriental Jews, whether in economic entrepreneurship, imperial administrative positions, or cultural and political activities...
...This is especially true for many of the Orientals who have entered the state apparatus—as politicians, educators, social workers, and community organizers— and who tend to talk about "them," that is, their Oriental constituents, in terms not unlike those used by Ashkenazim...
...I would like to give brief sketches of the developments in each of these areas.' • Agriculture: The first Israeli governments set a high premium on the development of agriculture, both as a way to avoid dependence on imports for feeding the population and as a way to establish effective Jewish control over all areas of the country—foremost over border areas and the lands left by Palestinian refugees...
...BUT WHY SO LATE...
...First, they provided much of the manpower for the settling of the land...
...In a situation where the formation of independent Oriental organizations is extremely difficult, for both structural and ideological reasons, and where those that do form are overwhelmed by a combination of lavish social-welfare measures, co-optation of their leaders, and harassment of the recalcitrant in their midst, a vote for the party that represents opposition interests within the ruling class becomes a major avenue of collective expression...
...In 1961, 28.3 percent of employed foreignborn Ashkenazim and 37.3 percent of employed Israeli-born Ashkenazim worked in public services—in the bureaucracies, in education, and in the welfare services...
...EDS...
...And the impediment has not remained implicit: it has been explicitly used by the Israeli elite in order to forestall and prevent anything that in Israeli parlance is called "ethnic organization...
...The Ashkenazic infrastructure could offer those Orientals who had labor grievances the services of the Histadrut, the powerful federation of labor unions...
...Lacking effective organization of their own, they were also unable to formulate and carry out alternative directions of development—directions that would have been more in keeping with their previous economic experience than the plans actually carried out by the Israeli entrepreneurial complex...
...Goitein, A Mediterranean Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), vol...
...For a long time, Oriental activists thought that inequality could be fought through the existing, Ashkenazi-controlled, organizations representing working-class interests...
...To begin with, the contention that Orientals emigrated from backward societies to a modern one not only reflects a gross and stereotypical generalization regarding all of North Africa and the Middle East—especially with regard to the role of the Jews in the economies of their countries of origin...
...Whole communities were transplanted—most of the 130,000 Jews of Iraq, the 45,000 Jews of Yemen, and the 35,000 of Libya—as well as substantial parts of other communities, from Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia in the west to Iran in the east...
...The Orientals may be providing, in the present conjuncture, electoral support for the militaristic right wing of the Ashkenazic ruling class in Israel, but they do so for reasons of their own, as a dominated and manipulated collectivity within Israeli society...
...N. Halevi and R. Klinov-Malul, The Economic Development of Israel (Jerusalem: Akademon, 1968), p. 26...
...25 Al Ha'Mishmar, May 10, 1978...
...This figure includes the immigrants from Turkey, who are mostly Sephardim...
...Their entrance into the industrial labor force was accompanied by a decrease of the cost of labor, relative to the cost of equipment, and by a widening gap between the high- and low-salary categories in industry...
...Now it is true that Ben Gurion, the leader of the Labor party for many years, was himself a "father figure...
...Rather, they have believed, and still believe—in accordance with the dominant Israeli ideology—that their problems can be treated effectively through intervention by the state's social welfare apparatus...
...and community, from common languageYiddish—to form of residence—the shred...
...Finally, and possibly most important, the ethnic division of labor is being reproduced by an ideological apparatus that presents the low social, political, and economic standing of the Orientals as a result not of the class nature of Israeli society but of the fact that they came from nonmodern and culturally backward societies...
...Consequently, "cultural background" can be the result of a promotion effort designed to fit the needs of the party that pays the bill...
...Nevertheless, the first action on the part of Orientals to be interpreted and recognized as a collective protest by both Ashkenazim and the Orientals themselves was the reelection of Begin's coalition government in 1981...
...Profits in construction, on the other hand, were high, and this resulted in the rapid expansion of construction firms...
...This was especially true in the lower ranks of the construction labor force...
...In 1981, one out of every two Israeli-born Ashkenazim had an academic, professional, or managerial job, as compared with one out of every six Israeliborn Orientals...
...Also S. Swirski, Orientals and Ashkenazim in Israel: The Ethnic Division of Labor (Haifa: Mahbarot Le'Mehkar U'Lebikoret, 1981), chap...
...Lately, those activists who are freeing themselves from that bind have argued that most of the existing groupings, parties, and institutions in Israel are themselves "ethnic," since they are (joined and run mostly by Ashkenazim...
...So far, it has performed mostly cosmetic changes, and not in all the neighborhoods slated for renewal...
...Textile plants became a major factor in the life of the "development towns," whose populations are mostly Oriental...
...Moreover—and most important—the Orientals in Israel found themselves in a situation unlike that of most minorities and ethnic groups...
...The same held true for the state educational system, which expanded tremendously as a result of the massive influx of immigrants...
...Israel's rapid economic development during the '50s and early '60s thus was characterized by a differential distribution of benefits among its various participants...
...It functions as a huge labeling mechanism that has, among other things, the effect of lowering the achievement expectations of Oriental children and their parents...
...but in the early years, of course, this fact was not generally perceived as a problem, for Zionism spoke in the name of all Jews...
...Many of them, however, came to feel that the Histadrut and the parties of the left were an integral part of the ruling class, operating within an ideological framework that views Orientals as people in need of cultural upgrading...
...In that sense, both terms were correct at the time of immigration...
...Between 1959 and 1965, industry absorbed 35 percent of the new recruits into the labor force...
...After a year and a half of very passive participation in the Begin cabinet (Tami obtained three Knesset seats in the 1981 elections and was assigned one cabinet post in the governing coalition), the party's leaders threatened to walk out of the coalition if the government failed to pass a law providing special financial benefits to families with many children...
...In the early 1950s, the Labor party distributed in Yemenite communities leaflets hinting that Ben Gurion was the Messiah—despite the fact that such an idea is offensive to believers...
...Bereft of their traditional communal organization, and lacking a new organizational infrastructure of their own, those Orientals who were dissatisfied with their new situation faced an extremely difficult task: the creation of an organization of their own in Israel—in their new national homeland...
...Wages in construction were a bit higher than those in industry and agriculture at the time...
...In contrast, 34.7 percent of the Israeli-born Orientals are employed as bluecollar workers—as compared with only 14.0 percent of the Israeli-born Ashkenazim...
...They did so as members of an organization designed for European Jews...
...Hebrew...
...And Asher Idan has written that the Orientals strengthened the hyena— the Likud—only in order to weaken the bear— the Labor party...
...12 See, for example, S. Balas, The Immigrant Camp (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1964...
...In addition to direct social-welfare measures, the Ashkenazi-controlled parties could easily compete with upstart Oriental organizations in another, and possibly more important, field: they could offer activists and militants personal mobility and political careers, with the added prospect of "changing the system from within...
...The Islamic empire, established in the seventh century, after the Arabs' conquest of most of this area, provided the Jews with a renewed unified cultural and economic framework: a common language (Arabic), participation in a unified imperial commercial network, and a common religious organization and hierarchy, headed by the Babylonian Geonim (the eminent scholars and judges who wrote the Babylonian Talmud).' In the 10th century, this empire began to split apart, and within its old realm there now arose several Jewish foci: Iraq, Egypt, and Spain...
...Orientals, on the other hand, found themselves mainly in the last category...
...It permeates the huge welfare apparatus, whose of84 fices have become a ubiquitous presence in Oriental neighborhoods, and whose workers feel that they know best what is good for the Orientals...
...Hebrew...
...They had no need for a nationalist alternative and no reason to create an organizational infrastructure such as was created by the European Zionists...
...Hebrew...
...For a critique by an Oriental sociologist, see S. Smooha, Israel: Pluralism and Conflict (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978...
...But a second look reveals that what occurred was not a simple act of transplantation of Jewish communities as they had existed and operated in the Diaspora: the realization of Zionist goals entailed the creation of a new and complex organizational infrastructure that could recruit adherents, vie for support and control of Jewish communities...
...Here the demographic tables were turned once again...
...Another example was grape-growing and vintage...
...Is there a connection between the "partriarchical" and/or "authoritarian elements" in the Orientals' "cultural background" and their support for the right-wing, conservative, and idolatrized Begin...
...Second, many of the problems that the Oriental immigrants encountered in Israel had to do with the fact that the mass immigration presented an overwhelming burden for the absorbing society, which in 1948 comprised only 650,000 Jews, and which had just emerged from a bloody war of independence and faced not only continuing Arab hostility but also financial insolvency...
...The Israeli state bureaucracy designates them as "those originating from Asia and Africa...
...Statistical Abstract of Israel, 1982, p. 348...
Vol. 31 • January 1984 • No. 1
