tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post7447353742208743404..comments2024-03-14T02:22:26.957+00:00Comments on Point of No Return: Jewish Refugees from Arab and Muslim Countries: Post-Zionist' Arab Jews' rewrite history to flatterUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post-25422915354277901002010-10-27T10:59:23.671+01:002010-10-27T10:59:23.671+01:00Bataween Sasson Somekh didn't just "go na...Bataween Sasson Somekh didn't just "go native" he has been writing and publishing in Arabic all along.Sylvianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post-20564416720567710172010-10-27T10:45:09.619+01:002010-10-27T10:45:09.619+01:00These are only a few reasons why one may take an i...These are only a few reasons why one may take an identity his parents never knew they had. Having said that, Sasson Somekh can define himself as he wishes since that is how he sees himself. Another thing is to call entire groups by names they never gave themselves or they were never given in their countries of origin. <br />In that perspective, I reject the name "Mizrahi" as well.Sylvianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post-67000092089788413922010-10-27T07:59:12.181+01:002010-10-27T07:59:12.181+01:00I think there is a simpler explanation - Somekh ha...I think there is a simpler explanation - Somekh has gone 'native'. He spent some years in Egypt recently running the Israeli cultural office there.<br />He was never a communist, and it is usually communists who call themselves 'Arab Jews'. As for whether his experience of Iraq was so horrendous that he is suffering a kind of Shocken syndrome, you could argue that Fattal's experience in the Farhud was equally horrendous, yet it did not have the same effect.bataweenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15829104245735619972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post-73732089115297834832010-10-26T23:08:06.296+01:002010-10-26T23:08:06.296+01:00Regarding Sasson Somekh I do not doubt for a momen...Regarding Sasson Somekh I do not doubt for a moment that he is sincere when he calls himself an Arab Jew. He belongs to that generation now in their seventies of a few Jews who were educated in Arabic in Iraq in the 1930s and for a reason or another were exposed more than others to massive arabization and the imposition of Arabness as an identity and Arabism as an ideology - in a scale that no other Arab country has known, not even Nasser's Egypt.<br />And yet, it could be that his personal experience was more horrendous than others'. The greater the oppression, the greater the denial. The Bible already speaks of this strange phenomenon: when the Israelites were in hardship in the desert after two hundred years of slavery in Egypt, they remembered the lentils they ate in Egypt, and forgot all about the slavery. We see that with German Jews for example such as the Shocken family who fled Germany after Kristanacht, but returned to associate with a company that had worked for the Nazis. When Uri Avneri, also a refugee from Nazi Germany wants to badmouth Israel, he goes to German TV and Der Spiegel. <br /><br />But most importantly, we know that Jews were very attached to their countries of origin and many of them were nationalists who wanted to fight for it either for its independence and/or a brighter future as equals. Arab identity provided them with the illusion of equality, "just like Muslims and Christians in Lebanon". There were Jews who prepared explosives in the service of the Algerian Revolution, Jews who were internationally known for their anti-colonialist writings, Jews who preached social reforms for all. But once the goals they fought for were attained, and Jews were kicked out of their own countries, they sobered up and abandoned that identity. Sasson Somekh never did, and that's OK with me. It's different when it's an institution doing it or when it is taught out of a pseudo-history book. <br /><br />And there are the one-staters (most of them Ashkenazis) who insist on the name "Arab Jew" but for an entirely different reason.Sylvianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post-54930681683374369502010-10-26T17:41:25.411+01:002010-10-26T17:41:25.411+01:00thanks Bh, terrific.thanks Bh, terrific.bataweenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15829104245735619972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post-46815722188284895262010-10-26T17:04:06.488+01:002010-10-26T17:04:06.488+01:00Cafe Noah: Cultural exile in Israel
A reminiscence...Cafe Noah: Cultural exile in Israel<br />A reminiscence of a by-gone era for a group of Jewish Arab musicians and their struggle to keep their music alive.<br /><br />http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/witness/2010/10/2010101871221949705.html<br /><br />bhAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com