Who Are The Mizrahi Jews?
- Uri Pilichowski
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Mizrahi Jews, also known as Mizrahim, are Jews from Middle Eastern and North African countries. "Mizrahi" comes from the Hebrew word for "Eastern." Mizrahi Jews trace their origins to ancient Jewish communities that have existed for millennia in the Middle East and North Africa. These communities were established long before the advent of Islam and Christianity, often in connection with the expulsions of Jews from their indigenous home in the Land of Israel by foreign empires like the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Romans.
Since ancient times, these communities have lived continuously in places such as Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Syria, and Egypt.
Mizrahi Jews and Israel
Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon was the Chief Rabbi of Muslim Egypt. His writings on the Jewish people’s fidelity to the land of Israel echo centuries of Jewish writings in Arab and Muslim lands. He wrote, “A person should always dwell in the land of Israel. Great sages would kiss the borders of Eretz Yisrael, kiss its stones, and roll in its dust.”
Similarly, Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar, a Moroccan Rabbi, who himself moved to Israel, wrote of the Jewish people’s eventual return to the land of Israel, “When you come to the land of Israel, the intention of coming to the land will be to love and to embrace the holy land that the Lord has chosen.”
Mizrahi Jews and Zionism
Opponents of Zionism spread the narrative that Zionism is a European colonialist project. Ussama Makdisi, professor of history and Chancellor's Chair at the University of California, Berkeley, taught, “The Zionism imposed on Palestine is an extension of Western imperialism in the Holy Land. So in November 1917, Lord Arthur Balfour, a European who was British foreign secretary at the time, promised another European, Lord Rothschild, that the British Empire would support a Jewish national home in Palestine by ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority in the land were Palestinians.”
When challenged with the absurdity of calling Zionism a European colonialist project when Mizrahi Jews shared the dream of returning to the land of Israel with their Ashkenazi (European) fellow Jews, Zionism’s opponents create a questionable narrative about Mizrahi Jews.
Mizrahi Jews in Arab lands
In a provocative 2017 opinion piece for Al Jazeera, "Invention of the Mizrahim," Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa wrote that life was great for Jews in Arab lands. A stark example, she highlights, is the case of Iraq's ancient Jewish community, one of the world's oldest, dating back over 2,500 years to the Babylonian exile. Iraqi Jews had thrived as integral members of society, making significant contributions to literature, commerce, and governance.
However, Abulhawa claimed that Zionist agents orchestrated false-flag operations, such as bombings of synagogues and Jewish institutions in the late 1940s and early 1950s, to incite panic and flight. Mizrahi Jews didn’t move to Israel by force or out of a sense of Zionism, but because the Zionists forced them.
In truth, Jewish life in Muslim lands was governed by a hierarchy. At the top were Muslims. At the bottom were enemies of the Muslims. And in the middle were dhimmis, or the “protected people.” This category automatically included monotheists like Christians and Jews, and often stretched to encompass other religious minorities. Dhimmis’ lives were governed by a document called The Pact of Umar, which was codified into Islamic law in the 9th century. It set out a bunch of rules that dhimmis had to follow – the tax they had to pay, the clothes they had to wear, the social norms that placed them firmly underneath their Muslim neighbors.
The most traumatic event in the collective memory of Iraqi Jews took place in the spring of 1941 – the Baghdad pogrom known as the Farhud. On the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, 180 people were brutally murdered, thousands were wounded and raped, and shops and synagogues were plundered and destroyed.
Anti-Zionist publications claim Middle Eastern Jews left their lands for a variety of reasons. In the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace Fact Sheet, the question “Why did Middle Eastern Jews immigrate to Israel, Europe and the Americas?” was asked. It explained, “Middle Eastern Jews immigrated to Israel for a variety of reasons related to each particular country’s economic, political, religious and national policies, messianic hopes and Israeli policies. Where one immigrated depended on socioeconomic status and religiosity. For example, many Yemeni Jews and some North African Jews decided to immigrate to Israel for messianic reasons. Most Algerian Jews moved to France as French citizens. Wealthier Iraqi, Egyptian and other Jews moved to Europe and the Americas rather than Israel.”
Mizrahi Jews self-identification
Absurdly, the aforementioned, Abulhawa tried to reconstruct Mizrahi Jews' identity by claiming Jews from Arab lands identified more as citizens of their individual country than as Jews.
“Palestinian Before Israel, Jews of Iraq identified as Iraqi, of Morocco as Moroccan, of Tunisia as Tunisian, of Iran as Persian, of Syria as Syrian, of Egypt as Egyptian, and of Palestine as Palestinian. They spoke Arabic, ate the same foods as their Christian and Muslim compatriots, celebrated and partook in the same national events and traditions, lived by the same social protocols, and moved through their respective cultures as other natives did. And despite the similarities of their cultures, Tunisians were distinct from Egyptians, who were both distinct from Iraqis, who were distinct from Moroccans, etc.
But Israel collapsed them all under a single identity, which was to be distinguished only from Ashkenazis, European Jews, who were higher up on the social order, and, of course, from non-Jewish Palestinians and Arabs, who were to be despised. The level of their resulting self-hate can be measured in the heightened cruelty they practise against Palestinians.”
Wrap up
Mizrahi writers Sapir Taib and Matthew Nouriel claim, “Poor public understanding of the history, politics and economics of Middle East and North African countries makes it easy to tokenize Mizrahi and Sephardic anti-Zionists, turning them into leading voices even though they do not represent our communities. Anti-Zionist organizations and publications exploit our underrepresentation to manufacture partisan narratives about the Middle East and weaponize public ignorance in order to rewrite history.” Tabi and Nouriel assert, “Anyone involved in Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish life knows that the overwhelming majority of us are Zionists. Israel’s existence has been a lifeline for many of us. It has been crucial to the survival of our culture in the face of violent hatred.”
Uri Pilichowski is an author, speaker, and senior educator at institutions around the world.