The majority of Israelis today can trace back part or all of their ancestry to immigrants from the Arab world. Ranging from Iraq to Morocco, and from Syria to Yemen, the histories and identities of these communities differed significantly prior to their immigration to Israel, although they all lived for more than a thousand years under Islamic rule and were Arabic speakers. Since the 1980s, the term Mizrahim (literally “Easterners”) has been gradually replacing previous terms, such as “edot ha-mizrah” (the Eastern Communities) or Sephardim (descendants of Iberian Jews), despite the fact that many of them originated in countries located much to the west of Israel, such as Morocco or Egypt. Some immigrants and their descendants chose the term Arab Jews for themselves in order to underline that before their immigration they were part of the Arab world, just as European Jews had been part of Europe.
This conference will explore the place which this heterogeneous group occupies in Israel’s society, its fights against discrimination and marginalization, its role in politics, and its search for identity.

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