Ashkenazim—Jews of European origin—are Israel’s “white folks.” And like most white folks in a multicultural society, they see themselves as the social norm and don’t think of themselves in racial or ethnic terms because by now, “aren’t we all Israeli?” Yiddish has been replaced with Hebrew, exile with occupation, the shtetl with the kibbutz and old-fashioned irony with post-modern cynicism. But the paradox of whiteness in Israel is that Ashkenazim aren’t exactly “white folks” historically... A story that begins in the Rhineland and ends in the holy land (or is it the other way around?), ASHKENAZ looks at whiteness in Israel and wonders: How did the “others” of Europe become the “Europe” of the others?

06 December 2007

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