To the editors:
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I want to address the myth of Israel as a “state for European settlers,” and the lack of awareness regarding Jews from Arab countries. The majority of the Jewish population of Israel are Sephardic Jews. These are Jews from North Africa and Middle Eastern countries that had lived under Arab/Moslem domination. When Israel became a state, these Jews were forced out of the countries they had lived in for centuries (Iraq, Libya, etc.) and sent fleeing to Israel. Other Jews from Arab countries fled to the new state of Israel to escape persecution and the tremendous intolerance they experienced as a religious minority. Jews in Yemen, for example, were not allowed to ride on camels because they could not be higher than the Arab Moslems.
Thus, it was the Arabs themselves that gave Israel most of its Jewish population. And the “Arab Jews” do not want to see Israel destroyed. It is their country, and they have no desire to return to places like Syria, where the 5,000 remaining Jews live in a forced ghetto of poverty and persecution. Or Libya, or the other Arab countries where they were disenfranchised and persecuted.
Steve Lapin
Actually, Steve Lapin would seem to have missed the chance to make a much stronger point. Why mention only Sephardic or Arab Jews? Why not include the two million Palestinians who live within the effective borders of Israel? This really brings us to the heart of the matter, which is the existence of Israel as a “Jewish state”–that is, one in which full citizenship is open only to those who pass certain criteria of birth and origin. As I said in my review, if the determining factor were a white skin, no one would hesitate to call such a state racist; it’s hard to see how the criterion of Jewishness changes the principle.
