August 13, 2016, +972 Magazine
http://972mag.com (Israel)
By Orly Noy*
In the
1950s thousands of babies, children of mostly Yemenite immigrants
to lsrael, were allegedly taken away from their parents and given up for
adoption to Ashkenazi families. Now an investigative report by Haaretz reveals
dozens of Ashkenazi children also disappeared, arguing that the crime was not
racially motivated.
On Friday
morning, Haaretz
readers woke up to find that the newspaper had decided to dedicate its lead story to
a piece titled “Dozens of Ashkenazi Babies Mysteriously Disappeared During Israel’s
Early Years.” The article, written by Ofer Aderet, was labeled as an
exclusive investigatory piece that tells the story of Ashkenazi families whose
children disappeared during
the early 1950s.
On
paper the article is yet another layer in the thorough investigation
by the liberal newspaper vis-à-vis the stories of the children – the vast majority of them Yemenite –
who were disappeared during the first years of the state.
One may wonder
about the Haaretz’s decision
to frame the piece as an “exclusive,” since the Kedmi Commission, which
convened in 1995 to investigate what came to be known as the “Yemenite Children’s Affair,”
found 30 cases of disappeared children belonging to new immigrants from the
U.S. and Europe. But this is a minor issue – publishing interviews with the
families of disappeared children is an important contribution to exposing one
of the most horrifying chapters in Israeli history, one that the establishment
has done its very best to try and bury.
‘Just like the Yemenite children’
Perhaps this
is the reason why it was so depressing to discover that, along with exposing
another important piece of this tragic puzzle, Aderet’s article seems to
contain a hidden agenda: by claiming that “this was done to everyone,” we
see an attempt to erase the racial component of the crime.
Orna Klein, an
Ashkenazi Israeli whose sister disappeared and who now collects information on
disappeared Ashkenazi children, told Aderet the following:
“When I tell
my story to families of Yemenite immigrants, they tell me, ‘What, you too, the
Ashkenazim, they took babies? No way.’ This was not racism by Ashkenazim
against Sepharadim, but the condescension of veterans against newly-arrived
immigrants. They treated them here as if they were from the diaspora. They
humiliated them because they dressed differently and didn’t know the language. My
parents hated Mapai [the ruling party that founded the State of Israel – o.n.]
just like the Yemenis hated Mapai.”
(Nurses and
mothers taking care of Yemenite children, Rosh Ha’ayin, 1949. (photo: GPO)
Just like the
Yemenis. This, it turns out, is the bottom line with which Aderet hopes to
leave his readers. The author of the piece himself wrote the following on
his Facebook page: “Ashkenazim also disappeared from hospitals during the
founding of the state. How many? Dozens, at the very least. Under what
circumstances? Just like the Yemenis. And why is it different? Because they
were Holocaust survivors and some of them lost their families and children
before even making it to the promised land.”
Aderet goes
even one step further than Klein: If Orna Klein believes ethnicity plays no
role and all the victims are in the same boat, then he is convinced that
Ashkenazim whose children disappeared are becoming more victimized than Yemeni
families. Why? Because of the Holocaust.
Aderet’s use
of the Holocaust for the sake of competition between the victims is foolish,
but out of respect for those who perished I prefer not to expand too broadly on
this issue. With that, two notes:
Aderet writes
that, at the very least, dozens of Ashkenazi children were kidnapped from their
families. That is, he assumes the number of testimonies by Ashkenazi families
that reached the Kedmi Commission were partial – maybe even a small
fraction – of the total number of children kidnapped. If so, why not assume
that the number of Yemenite children who were kidnapped is significantly larger
than what we see in testimonies (according to Rabbi Uzi Meshulam, who
waged a campaign to expose the Yemenite Children’s Affair in the 90s, the
number could reach up to 1,700). Even according to the most conservative
estimates we are talking about several hundred Yemenite children. So how could
anyone claim that the two cases are the same?
Erasing someone else’s tragedy
But Aderet’s
most important comment relates to the circumstances under which these
disappearances took places – the same ones he believes affected Yemeni
immigrants. In the name of the “holy symmetry” between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim,
the author erases the historical, social, and political context in which
this terrible crime took place. He denies the existence of the sick mentality
among both the enablers of the crime and those who carried it out – the
same ones who viewed Jews from Islamic countries as barbarians who needed
to be trained, even before they ever stepped foot in the country. Do we
really need to remind ourselves of the words of Abba Eban?:
“One of the
great apprehensions which afflict us is the danger of the predominance of
immigrants of Oriental origin forcing Israel to equalize its cultural level
with that of the neighboring world. We must not view the immigrants from
Eastern countries as a bridge on our way to integration in the Arabic-speaking
world; we must imbue them with a Western spirit, and not let them drag us
toward the unnatural Orient.”
And is there
any need to quote Arye Gelblum, who published an article in Haaretz
in 1949 using the following language?:
“This is a
race unlike any we have seen before. They say there are differences between
people from Tripolitania, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, but I can’t say I have
learned what those inferences are, if they do, in fact, exist. They say, for
example, that the Tripolitanians and Tunisians are “better” than the Moroccans
and Algerians, but it’s the same problem with them all… The primitiveness of
these people is unsurpassable. As a rule, they are only slightly more advanced
than the Arabs, Negroes and Berbers in their countries… The [North] Africans
bring their ways with them wherever they settle. It is not surprising that the
crime rate in the country is rising… above all there is one equally grave fact
and that is their total inability to adjust to the life in this country, and
primarily their chronic laziness and hatred for any kind of work.”
In light of
these remarks (and countless others like them),
as well as the numbers of disappeared children, is it in any way moral to make
these kinds of comparisons?
(Jewish
immigrants from Yemen at a camp near Rosh Ha’ayin. (Photo: GPO)
Whether or not
he intended to do so, Aderet’s article lends credence to those who deny Mizrahi
oppression. Here are only a few of the sarcastic responses he received on
his Facebook page:
“No!!!! No!!!!
No!!!! Soon they will find out that Ashkenazim were also in the ma’abarot
[transit camps for new immigrants set up during the founding of the state,
mostly populated by Mizrahi immigrants]. Soon they’ll find out that Ashkenazim
were also sprayed with DDT. That they were also sent to development towns.
No!!!!!! We cannot take away the fuel which powers the hate of a few Mizrahim.
It’s not allowed.”
“How dare
they! Once more the Ashkenazim are ruining the Mizrahi narrative.”
“Ofer, you
decided to erase the only advantage Mizrahim had over Ashkenazim?”
I read these
responses and wonder what are the mechanisms that prevent people from
respecting the pain of other people without using it to erase tragedy. What in
these people’s minds turns this story into a zero-sum game, in which
recognizing the obvious racist component of kidnapping children suddenly turns
Mizrahim into “crybabies,” which in turn leads to violent tribalism? Even
Amram, the Israeli NGO that works to bring to light testimonies of families
whose children disappeared, does not deny Ashkenazi children were kidnapped. On
the contrary, members of the organization interviewed Ashkenazi families
and have published their testimonies on their website.
The crime of
kidnapping and disappearing children during the first years of the state was a
racist one. A crime against Mizrahim, mostly Yemenite children, who were viewed
by the establishment as human dust. This crime also had Ashkenazi victims. We
must recognize this fact, and it is a good thing that these testimonies are
being exposed. Instead of turning these testimonies into ammunition for
Israel’s ruling class, which is trying to silence the voices of its victims, we
ought to add them to the long list of people who have for years been fighting
to bring to light all the information on this crime. In order to bring
about justice, even the slightest bit of it, for both its Mizrahi and Ashkenazi
victims.
This article
was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.
Related stories
By Tom Mehager | June 26, 2016
By Uri Zaki | August 11, 2016
By Naama Katiee | June 21, 2015
By Haokets | January 17, 2015
*Orly Noy: I’m a
political activist, in the past through frameworks like the Women’s Coalition
for Peace and the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow. In recent years, I’ve become more
of a keyboard activist. I deal with the lines that intersect and define my
identity as Mizrahi, a female leftist, a woman, a temporary migrant living
inside a perpetual immigrant, and the constant dialogue between them. I
translate poetry and prose from Farsi, and I dream of building up if not a
whole bookcase then at least a modest shelf of Persian books in Hebrew, as a
political act in the struggle against the marginalization of Mizrahi culture in
Israeli discourse.
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