When issues of racial and colonial discourse are discussed in the U.S., people of Middle Eastern

and North African origin are often excluded. This piece is written with the

intent of opening up the multicultural debate, going beyond the U.S.

census's simplistic categorization of Middle Eastern peoples as "whites."

It's also written with the intent of multiculturalizing American notions of

Jewishness. My personal narrative questions the Eurocentric opposition of

Arab and Jew, particularly the denial of Arab Jewish (Sephardic) voices

both in the Middle Eastern and American contexts.

---

I am an Arab Jew. Or, more specifically, an Iraqi Israeli woman living,

writing and teaching in the U.S. Most members of my family were born and

raised in Baghdad, and now live in Iraq, Israel, the U.S., England, and

Holland. When my grandmother first encountered Israeli society in the '50s,

she was convinced that the people who looked, spoke and ate so

differently--the European Jews--were actually European Christians. Jewishness

for her generation was inextricably associated with Middle Easterness. My

grandmother, who still lives in Israel and still communicates largely in

Arabic, had to be taught to speak of "us" as Jews and "them" as Arabs. For

Middle Easterners, the operating distinction had always been "Muslim,"

"Jew," and "Christian," not Arab versus Jew. The assumption was that

"Arabness" referred to a common shared culture and language, albeit with

religious differences.

Americans are often amazed to discover the existentially nauseating or

charmingly exotic possibilities of such a syncretic identity. I recall a

well-established colleague who despite my elaborate lessons on the history

of Arab Jews, still had trouble understanding that I was not a tragic

anomaly--for instance, the daughter of an Arab (Palestinian) and an Israeli

(European Jew). Living in North America makes it even more difficult to

communicate that we are Jews and yet entitled to our Middle Eastern

difference. And that we are Arabs and yet entitled to our religious

difference, like Arab Christians and Arab Muslims.

arabjew
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