Reviewed by Jordann Saliba Sullivan

In a time when the Middle East is portrayed as a hotbed of religious and ethnic conflict, the label "Arab Jew" seems like an oxymoron. From the beginning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict onward, Arabs and Jews have been painted as separate, warring peoples, fighting over religion, land and even their place in history. Moreover, Israel has sufficiently demonized Arab culture as to have virtually eliminated the classification of "Arab Jew" from its modern lexicon. However, perhaps the two aren't as disparate as we've been led to believe.

Author Rachel Shabi's first book, We Look Like the Enemy: The Hidden Story of Israel's Jews from Arab Lands, eloquently combats the notion that Arabs and Jews are cut from a different cloth. Shabi was born in Israel to Iraqi parents, and grew up in the UK. Her book explores the little-discussed fate of "Mizrahi" Jews from Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, Yemen, and other Arab/Muslim nations who immigrated to Israel. Shabi critically yet thoughtfully examines the vast socio-economic disparity that characterizes the Mizrahi and European "Ashkenazi" experiences in Israel.

Arab Jews in Israel: "We Look Like the Enemy": this book is available from Levantine Cultural CenterHer research builds on foundational texts in both Hebrew and English, including Sammy Smooha's Israel: Pluralism and Conflict; Sami Shalom Chetrit's The Mizrahi Struggle (published in English in 2009 as Intra-Jewish Conflict in Israel); and Ella Habiba Shohat's essays, "Sephardim in Israel: Zionism From the Standpoint of Its Jewish Victims" and "Reflections of an Arab Jew," and her book Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation.

While Shabi* tells us a lot about how the Arabic language and Arab musical traditions are viewed in the Israeli mainstream, she is able to transition from historical research to striking personal narratives to give the reader a profound understanding of the type of cultural discrimination that has plagued Israel's short history as a nation and continues to foster tense relations within its own borders. When Ashkenazi Jews, the architects of the Zionist movement, descended upon what is now known as Israel, their vision was not to create a society that was Middle Eastern, but to build a European nation in the Middle East. This vision was complicated by the fact that the majority of the immigrant population hailed from Arab lands. Ashkenazi Jews, who considered Arabic culture as synonymous with low, common culture, despised the linguistic and artistic traditions that these Mizrahi immigrants brought with them to Israel. As Ashkenazi Jew and former Prime Minister David Ben Gurion famously said, Mizrahi Jews were "without a trace of Jewish or human education." Unfortunately, Mizrahi Jews have been treated as such, and as a result have been destined for failure in the Jewish state by being automatically appropriated to the vocational school system and blue-collar jobs. Further, when Mizrahi Jews call on their state to address the enormous social inequality in their own country, they are met with the tried-but-true scapegoat of the Israeli government: national security will always trump social concerns.

Although Shabi provides the reader with a thorough and objective look at Israel's socio-economic stratification, the larger messages of her book are what truly sets it apart. Her re-examination of the identity politics of the Middle East touches upon the most sensitive of issues in current conflict studies. What does it mean to be a Jew from an Arab country? What are the concrete differences between Mizrahi Jews and Arabs? Why did Mizrahi Jews leave their countries of origin? To an unbiased observer, it would appear that Mizrahi Jews are "Arab in all but religion." However, the hyphenated label, "Arab-Jew," inspires such passionate animosity in Israel that although it may be accurate, it is seldom, if ever, used. Still, as Shabi so powerfully argues:

What do you call someone who lives in an Arab country, who prays and dreams in Arabic, who reads Arabic poetry and papers, whose mother and her mother cooked Arabic food, who loves Arabic film and music, and who lives by the customs of the Arab world? Why would you painstakingly persist on a definition that says the [Mizrahi] Jews lived like, but were not, Arabs?

When the Israeli government and other self-interested parties attempt to create a single narrative of Jewish migration to modern Israel, certain stories are lost. Thanks to Rachel Shabi's work, we now have a more inclusive, historically accurate narrative of the various reasons Jews left their Arab homelands for Israel. At a time when our own government is renewing negotiations with Israel, Rachel Shabi's work is integral to understanding that until Israel can reconcile the differences among its own people within its own borders, it will never achieve regional peace.

* Rachel Shabi spoke at Levantine Cultural Center on March 10 and at USC's Levan institute on March 12, 2010, in addition to speaking in Santa Cruz on March 14 and at the Arab Cultural & Community Center in San Francisco on March 15. See photos on the Levantine Flickr page. Watch a short video clip. 

Jordann Saliba Sullivan, an American of Lebanese heritage, is Public Policy & Community Coordinator at Levantine Cultural Center.