Language:
English
Year of publication:
2019
Titel der Quelle:
European Judaism
Angaben zur Quelle:
52,2 (2019) 143-155
Keywords:
Jews, Moroccan Identity
;
Jews, Moroccan Social networks
;
Zionism Philosophy
;
Israel and the diaspora
;
Israel Emigration and immigration
;
Israel Ethnic relations
Abstract:
Homeland/diaspora dichotomies are emblematic of the Zionist philosophy and, as a consequence, also in the common critical annals of long-lasting diasporic ethnicities among Jewish immigrants to Israel. This observation applies in particular to Jewish immigrants from Islamic countries, whose Eastern pre-immigration cultures conceivably contrast with the Western character of the national-Zionist venture. In this article, I focus on MABAT, an Israel-based hometown association of Jews from the former Spanish-dominated area in northern Morocco which, from its founding in 1979, embraced the Zionist notion of homecoming. I show how they came to form their own singular network in Israel, while appealing to their former hometowns, as well as to their emerging centres of diffusion in the Americas and Europe, thereby challenging commonly held assumptions of Israel/diaspora, East/West dichotomies in the annals of Jewish ethnicities in Israel.
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