Talk:Arab Jews/Archive 1

Terminology
I would just like to point out that a lot of the controversy discussed in the terminology section is missing out an essential point: the term "arab", in it's scientific meaning, does not refer to a particular ethnic group but, to make it short, to the speakers of one of the different sorts of arabic which believe that they share part of their culture with other arabs. A lot of people do not know or understand it's scholarly meaning which is, as the Arab people article says : "Arab people or Arabs are a panethnicity of peoples of various ancestral origins, religious backgrounds and historic identities, whose members, on an individual basis, identify as such on one or more of linguistic, cultural, political, or genealogical grounds.[11] Those self-identifying as Arab, however, rarely do so on their own. Most hold multiple identities" Then the problem is that people - depending on their language, on their culture and on the environment they live in - have a different (different from the scholarly meaning) idea of what arab means. So "Arab Jews" in a encyclopedia makes perfect sense, even though it might seem contradictory in regard to the common usage of "arab" one can have. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.226.151.201 (talk) 22:18, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Bad Math
wouldnt thst equal 70%, I mean 50% + 20% = 70% no? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.193.61.243 (talk) 19:48, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Approximately one half of Israeli-Jews, (nearly 2,900,000 out of 5,840,000) could be described as Arab-Jews; thus using the term would imply that Israel (with an additional near 20% of the population defined as Palestinian-Arabs) is a 60% Arab state.

Populations
Where on earth do you get the data for the "ethnobox", and when does it relate to? There is only a handful of Jews left in Iraq today, not the one million shown; or do you mean that there are a million "Iraqi Jews" worldwide? --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 12:15, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * This article is still under construction, all the census figures are historical, you may add that on the ethnobox, Thanks. Nochi 12:43, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, but when exactly? --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 14:43, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * All Arabic Jewish populations who where in the Arab lands did move out prior to the creation of the state of Israel. so i guess the numbers may vary from 1920-1948. Nochi 22:47, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Headings
The paragraph headed "Arab Jew or Jewish Arab?" was taken from the article on "Mizrahi Jews". In that context, the heading was right, as it discussed the issue of "Arab Jews" in an article that otherwise did not use that term. But since the present article is entirely about Arab Jews, the paragraph in question addresses the issue of nomenclature, while the following paragraphs describe the Arab Jewish communities of different countries. So it would be better for the paragraph to be headed something like "Terminology" or "Use of the term 'Arab Jew' ". Does this make sense? --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 14:36, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Sure, you are right. I have changed the paragraph headline. Thanks. Nochi 14:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of Moroccans
Are we sure that Moroccan Jews are not Arab Jews? What definition of Arab Jew are we using here? Isn't language alone a significant factor?  T i a m a t  21:29, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I am glad you asked this. For your question the answer is both yes and no, The example are like Iraqi Jews, they consider televises as Arabs with followers of Jewish faith, and have lived a long time in the present day "Arab Lands", while Moroccan Jews consider themselves as Shepherd (Spanish Jews) which have migrated to Morocco from Spain in the 14 century. Btw Moroccan Jews uses Ladino, Tetuani and other Judeo-Romance language while Iraqi and oter in Mideast just use proper Arabic or Judeo-Arabic. Thanks. I hope this satisfied you.Irqirq 21:37, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Some people also beilive that any Jew who lives in the Arab lands regarding thier orgin or language are considred as Arab Jews. This is offcourse nonsense. Irqirq 21:41, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Jewish diaspora has a long history in what may be loosely called "Arab lands", including North Africa and Greater Middle East. For millennia these Jews preserved their identity, their languages and their religion. ←Humus sapiens ну? 23:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Moroccan Jews are Sephardi, something hardly could be called as Arab Jews. Irqirq 10:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * this is completely false, no iraqi jews consider themselves as arabs jews. sometimes they identify as babylonian, but certainly not arabs. (i'm an iraqi descendant jew). and just for your general knowledge, the term arab jew is only used by extreme left jews, who don't consider jews as an ethnic group, and the number of those people is extremely low (no more then couple of hundreds) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.72.225.222 (talk) 21:10, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that explanation Irqirq. I will try to find some sources on the subject that support your explanation so that we can put a rest to this controversy.  T i a m a t  08:27, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Some more information: a significant amount of moroccan jews claimed berber ancestry and/or cultural links as opposed to arabic one. many moroccan jews left morocco prior to significant arabization of the country. furthermore, many iraqi jews did not look upon themselves as "Arabs of the jewish faith". back to your original question: arabism is a loosely defined term, bordering on ethnicity, culture and nationality. this is a topic of much controversy even before you add the notion of arab jews to the mix. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.64.228.215 (talk) 17:19, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

why are yemenite jews left out of arab jews by nation? -mokha 128.208.35.235 (talk) 22:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't know actually. I'll try to do some research on the subject and add material if its appropriate. If you have any suggestions on where I might find information on the subject, that would be great.  T i a m u t  22:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Hebrews
But Hebrews are not Arabic.… —Preceding unsigned comment added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)
 * Corect but don't forget that many present day Jews may have been a result of converts too. Irqirq 10:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The word Hebrews Derived from the word "Eber" ."Eber /Arab" means the one who is a traveler,or crossing nomad. "Eber" had two sons Peleg",in Arabic Faleq ( Divide ) and "Joktan "Genesis 10:25. "Jocktan ( Qahtan )" is the Father of Arab southern tribes like Hadermout tribes in South Arabia read Genesis 10:26. Therfore Arabs are Hebrews from Joktan bin Eber,And Hebrews from Abraham,But Ashkinaz (80% of Jews) come from "Japheth" Genesis 10:2 not "shem"to be'"Semites"'',in short they are brothers of Gog and Megog, and their DNA prove their Japhetite Mongolian Origin  too

217.42.223.240 (talk) 21:38, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Focus only on the idea and controversy
There is a big problem with this article. I don't think the "Arab Jews by nation" section belongs here, because it means thrusting this extremely controversial label on communities that are not generally known as or identify in that way. This content should be moved to Mizrahi Jews, and the article should focus entirely on the concept of "Arab Jew" and controversy surrounding the term. The Hebrew wikipedia article goes into a lot of detail about this. nadav (talk) 01:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Mizrahi is something that are not accepted by those eastern Jews and have shouted down the the real identity by people who identify as such, like now in this article there has been a wrongly adding as Moroccan Jews which are not Arabic because of their presence in a Arab state Irqirq 07:48, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't understand what you wrote. Can you say write it another way, maybe? nadav (talk) 09:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * But I think I understand what you are saying about Moroccans. Yes, they are not Mizrahi; technically, they are either Sepharadic or just Maghrebim. nadav (talk) 09:54, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Mizrahi is a term which is not accepted by those so called "Oriental Jews", They instead uses terms like "Arab Jews", "Persian Jews" and "Indian Jews". This is not like how the European Jews consider themselves as "Ashkenazi" with fully acceptance. Moroccan Jews are not "Mizrahi", They are "Sephardi" which means "Spanish Jews". Those Jews escaped from Spain in the late 14 century when the Castillian/Aragon Christian conquest occurred. Irqirq 10:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I hope you did understand that, thank you very much Irqirq 10:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Irqirq, Nadav1. I found a good source here on the issue of Moroccan Jews. Irqirq is correct in arguing that most of the Moroccan Jews were not Arab, but Spanish, but there were some indigenous Arab Jews.

''Daniel J. Shroeter ("Jewish Communities of Morocco, History and Identity") explains the historical context of the Jews in Morocco with rich detail. A scholar of Moroccan Jewry, Shroeter’s article reminds us that although many Moroccan Jews trace their origins to Spain, there is a long history of "indigenous" Jewish Moroccans ("Toshavim" versus the Spanish/Sephardic "Megorashim"). By the 11th century, Marrakesh and Fez were densely Jewish ...

''Nonetheless, the great Jewish scholar Maimonides was in Fez during this period and urged all Jews to leave because the intolerant Al Moravid Dynasty [1056-1147] was implementing forced conversions. Along with many other Jews, Maimonides went to Egypt, where he became the Chief Rabbi of Cairo and the physician to Saladin. Many other Moroccan Jews moved to remote mountain villages, where they remained until the second half of the 20th century, although the persecutions were over by 1220. In the mountains they interacted with local Berber tribes and integrated with Jews who had been clients of Berber tribes for at least a century.''

''Spanish Jews, however, were the most prosperous Jews of the Middle Ages, and their coming to Morocco in droves left a lasting impact. They began to arrive when Christian anti-Jewish violence began in 1391, a century before their formal expulsion. By 1438, Fez had again achieved a large Jewish population, and relations between the Jews and the Muslims were tense, probably because of a competition over urban space. After a local massacre of the Jews, the ruler took them under his protection, obeying the duty of an Islamic Sultan. He confined them to a special quarter in Fez, an area already called Mellah. This was the first Jewish quarter in Morocco, but it was replicated in other cities and the term "Mellah" soon came to mean any Jewish quarter. These quarters were sometimes compulsory and sometimes not, as the situation of the Jews changed from century to century and ruler to ruler. In the late 19th and 20th centuries, a Mellah might be a Jewish quarter chosen by the less Westernized Jews who did not wish to integrate into Muslim areas.''

In other words, it seems that most of the indigenous Arab Jews in Morocco left to Egypt or to join Berber communities in the mountains, whereas the vast majority of Moroccan Jews today are of Spanish descent. I hope this helps clear up any confusion.  T i a m a t  11:03, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, the excerpt clears up the Moroccan matter well. But what do you think of my proposal to move the ethnological info elsewhere and make this page solely about the controversy surrounding term and concept of "Arab Jew"? nadav (talk) 11:24, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that there are a number of reliable sources that discuss the various Jewish ethnic groups under the term "Arab Jews" that we can include such information here. I don't want to duplicate material in other articles and suggest that where that is the case, we link to the main articles on the topic. But each of the different Arab Jewish groups should be outlined here, with a description of their relationship to Arab language, culture, ethnicity, etc. I don't see why we should confine the page to a discussion of the term, as though it were a pejorative of some kind. Obviously, people still do identify as Arab Jews.  T i a m a t  11:31, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * From my experience, almost no one identifies as an Arab Jew: those who do use the label to make some sort of statement. Perhaps my experiences are colored by the Israeli discourse, however, so I will look more into this topic first. Maybe in academia it has some meaning I am not familiar with. nadav (talk) 11:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Do/did Moroccan Jews speak Arabic? The answer is yes and therefore they belong here. Their ancestry is irrelevant. Hebrew language belongs here because it is Jewish liturgical language. ←Humus sapiens ну? 21:40, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Nadav is going to conduct some research, so I am going to partially revert myself for now. I think we should rely on WP:RS and keep in mind that we are dealing with a controversial and historic (perhaps obsolete?) term. Thanks. ←Humus sapiens ну? 02:16, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Stuff I found
My analysis indicates that though the term was occasionally used in English before (and also in Arabic Baghdad), with the rise of post-zionism in the 1980s the term became heavily politicized, to the point that usage of the term has become a shibboleth for Mizrahi critics of Zionism. Here are some excerpts:

The Invention of the Mizrahim Ella Shohat Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1. (Autumn, 1999), pp. 5-20.

"(By 'Arab Jews' I refer to people of Jewish faith historically linked to the Arab Muslim world)" "On the other hand, official Israeli/Zionist policy urges Arab Jews (or, more generally, Oriental Jews, also known as Sephardim or Mizrahim) to see their only real identity as Jewish. The official ideology denies the Arabness of Arab Jews, positing Arabness and Jewishness as irreconcilable opposites. For Zionism, this Arabness, the product of millennial cohabitation, is merely a Diasporic stain to be 'cleansed' through assimilation. Within Zionist ideology, the very term 'Arab Jew' is an oxymoron and a misnomer, a conceptual impossibility."

"In Iraq multiple definitions were used: Baghdadi Jews (in contrast with the Jews of other cities), Babylonial Jews..., Iraqi Jews (to mark national affiliation), and Arab Jews (in contradistinction to Muslim and Christian Arabs, but also marking belonging to the greater Arab nation)."

--- Oriental Jews in Israeli Society Mikhael Elbaz MERIP Reports, No. 92, Israel's Uncertain Future. (Nov. - Dec., 1980), p. 16.

The term Arab Jews refers to the culture and language of the majority of the immigrants of the "other Israel," but it is too restrictive: it leaves out the Jews of India...Ethiopia...and of Bukhara. -   Iron and a King: The Likud and Oriental Jews Kenneth Brown MERIP Reports, No. 114, Israel Divided. (May, 1983), p. 13.

The great majority of Moroccan Jews, like Jews who had lived in other Arab lands, were Arab Jews by language, customs, appearance, mental habits, world views. See N. Rejwan, "Arab-Jewish Relations through the Ages," in ''Dispersion and Unity, No 19-20 (1973). It is also true, as I. Halevi points out, that Arab Jews had been affected by European expansion and detached from the destiny of other Arabs before the rise of Zionism. Colonialism, Arab nationalism and Zionism all served to increase that detachment.

- Review of Smooha, S., "Ethnic Stratification and Allegiance in Israel: Where do Oriental Jews Belong?" Il Politico, 41(4):635-651. 1976

International Migration Review, Vol. 11, No. 3. (Autumn, 1977), p. 395.

Two perspectives about the ethnic status of Orientals prevail. One views Orientals as "Arab Jews", located adjacent to Ashkenazi Jews. According to one perspective the "real" dividing line is between European and non-Europeans whereas according to the other "true" line separates Jews from non-Jews. Since Orientals are Jews who lived for generations among Arabs both perspectives appear to have at least "face validity".

-   Pappe, Ilan THE EXILIC HOMELAND OF EDWARD W. SAID. Interventions: The International Journal of Postcolonial Studies; Mar2006, Vol. 8 Issue 1, p9-23, 15p

[In the 1980s] the search into the plight of Arab Jews, as they were called by the more radical circles [in Israeli academia], took a more postcolonialist twist. The focus [of] explanation for the discrimination against Mizrachi Jews [moved] to questions of ethnicity, race and nation, that is, the context became mainly that of identity.

JEWISH NATIONALISM AND THE QUESTION OF PALESTINE. Cocks, Joan Interventions: The International Journal of Postcolonial Studies; Mar2006, Vol. 8 Issue 1, p24-39, 16p

On the other hand,one also gets the sense of a deeply harboured hurt at the rejection of Jews by North African nationalists beneath [Albert Memmi's] new determination to make indelible identity distinctions. "Jewish Arabs" he cries, "that's what we would have liked to be, and if we have given up the idea, it is because for centuries the Moslem Arabs have scornfully, cruelly, and systematically prevented us from carrying it out"

Meyrav Wurmser's reply to letters about her article "Post-Zionism and the Sephardi Question" (Spring 2005) Middle East Quarterly; Fall2005, Vol. 12 Issue 4, p80-80, 1/9p

Shohat's argument that Mizrahi Jews should define themselves as Arab-Jews suggests she views Judaism as only a religious identity, not as a nationality. Such an argument is at the root of post-Zionism. Moreover, Shohat is hardly a visionary with regards to the mizrahim in Israel. Her insistence that Mizrahim should redefine their identity as Arab-Jews ignores political realities. As a voting block, Mizrahim tend to lead towards the Right. They do not identify with Arabs and view them as enemies of Israel. It is counterproductive to embrace theories that discount reality.

Meyrav Wurmser Post-Zionism and the Sephardi Question Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2005, pp. 21-30.

According to Mizrachi post-Zionism, the Mizrahim, about half of Israel's Jewish population, are "Arab-Jews," who like the Palestinians are victims of Zionism. Whilethis new school intellectual radicalism remains so far contained within the halls of academia....

Perhaps rooted in their families' past experience, most [Mizrahim] hold an antagonistic view of the Arab world and find the attempt to define them as Arab Jews rather than Israelis insulting. Post-Zionist Mizrahi writer seem to be aware of this problem...

-   ‘Tenured Radicals’ in Israel: From New Zionism to Political Activism. Seliktar, Ofira Israel Affairs; Fall2005, Vol. 11 Issue 4, p717-736, 20p

Shenhav has emerged as the leader of a group of influential Mizrachi scholars who have deconstructed the official Zionist narrative which posits that the Mizrachim were rescued from their oppressive and backwards Arab societies. Adapting Said's work on Zionism from the perspective of its victims, this group, which insists on referring to itself as Arab Jews, holds that, like the Palestinians, the Mizrachim are victims of Zionisim. - nadav (talk) 10:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Good work. keep in mind though that the overwhelming majority of mizrachi jews disdain this group and do not identify with it, this should be a noted fact. infact, the majority of mizrachi jews vote to right-wing zionist parties. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.64.228.215 (talk) 17:22, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

Palestinian Jewish Arabs
I notice that among the list of countries with Arab Jews, a section devoted to that category, of Palestine under Ottoman and then British rule was lacking. I wrote and then reverted, dissatisfied with the superficiality of my comment, and thinking that the proper procedure would be to ask the regional experts in here to devote time to fleshing out a section of this kind, since its absence is curious.Nishidani 20:37, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I thought your addition was a good start. I'm a little busy with other things right now, but will try to get around to developing it further soon. You're right that it is an important oversight. Don't be so shy about your work. Be bold! :)  T i a m u t  21:09, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Tiamut
 * Thanks, and I hope you can take it up. I'll look on as the article develops. I think it best to leave it out (I used the word Mizrahi rather carelessly, given, now that I have read the Talk, nadav's remarks on contemporary usage) until others discuss it. I was dissatisfied also with the fact that the Cooper quote was culled from a file I had without further indications, and on rereading the Itzhak Shami article in here, I realized I must have got it from there some time ago, since the same source is quoted. Since I won't be able to check that quote for some weeks, the proper thing to do was to revert till the primary source could be checked (or, alternatively, if anyone wants to use it, source it to the article on Shami).


 * I would add that the evidence for a strong sense of being both Arab and Jewish in pre-Zionist times through parts of the Levant is such that the post-Zionist erasure of that kind of dual identity (similar as it was to the dual pride of Russian, German and French Jews in being both Jewish and, respectively, Russian, German and French) should be guarded against as a source of confusion. Before the modern state imposed ethnic/linguistic criteria on identity, it was not uncommon for many sub-national groups to feel comfortable with several distinct identities. Identity as a unitary, exclusive value is very much a disease of modernity, as is the notion of 'race', which we now describe with the dulcet euphemism of 'ethnicity'. A good deal of the massive Jewish contribution to modernity comes out of precisely the ease of moving between different aspects of a multiple identity - one thinks of Auerbach, Kafka, Proust, Canetti, Celan and so many others, who, unlike the monoidentical Englishman, Frenchman or German, were at home in distinct, yet interconnected sensibilities. This was true also of pre-Zionist Arab Jews or Jewish Arabs, and the loss of that dual focus has, arguably, been costly for Israel's long-term accommodation with the Arab world. The same process, of cancelling dual identities (Kurd-Iraqi, Shiite Iraqi, Sunna Iraqi, Turkoman Iraqi, etc.) is underway in the Islamic world, with equally disastrous consequences Nishidani 21:36, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Your reflections show great sensitivity and self-reflection. I also have to agree 100% with your comments on multiple identities and the disease of "modernity" and its consequences for Iraq right now. As for the article, I will do what I can after rounding up some reliable sources. I have some real life writing to do but will get to this soon.  T i a m u t  21:48, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * actually, the term was almost never used with relation to palestinian jews because of the relatively low presence of dominant nationality in the region (it used to be widely regarded as a province of syria, for example). hence the lack of emancipation efforts (unlike iraq, egypt or morocco for example). also consider there was stronger clarity regarding the non-issue of ethnicity, unlike in yemen (where some jews were infact ethnically arab and converted to judaism). the emergence of primordial zionism in 1880 pretty much left the palestinian jews ("the old yishuv") on the sidelines watching. as another note, i would like to say that this dual-identity has never disappeared (for one) and many in israel and out of it still grapple with it. i also concur that the actions of the arab world with relation to its jews have also served to erase this dual identity, much like it is happening today in iraq but also with relation to lebanese phonecianism and coptism (for example). 85.64.228.215 14:27, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, that is what we must discover, i.e., to what extent was the term in English 'Arab Jew', and comparable terms in Hebrew and Arabic, used in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Salim Tamari's article, 'Ishaq al-Shami and the Predicament of the Arab Jew in Palestine.' Jerusalem Quarterly, lays out a good case for it, and notes several who were attracted by 'emancipation efforts'. From other researches I know that the older Sephardim communities often felt completely at home within the Arabic world within the area we denominate as Palestine, and in this were quite distinct from the rising Ashkenazi immigrant communities. They were exposed to the currents, nationalist and literary, of the urban Arab intellectual resurgence from Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, and identified their own aspirations with that national feeling, just as Zionism impressed the diaspora's peoples with the idiom of nationality absorbed from Western societies. Salim Tamari, in contradistinction to what you argue, says, I think reasonably, that the advent of Zionism did put this dual identity under considerable stress, particularly after the rise of riotous resistance by the Arab populations who felt menaced by the waves of immigrants, and eventually led to its erasure, until recent efforts to revive it. History is of course the record of what happened. But counterfactual analysis along the lines of, to use Robert Frost's words, 'the road not taken' gives a brighter edge to the penumbral zones of historical narrative, and that is why this article is important.Nishidani 15:09, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * This term can be used to those Arabic speaking jews wich lived in Palestine before the state of Israel. This term is hardly used today. Irqirq 20:00, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Irqirq That is precisely my original point. You need a section on the traditional Arabic-speaking (predominantly Sephardi) Jews of Ottoman-Mandate Palestine.Nishidani 20:05, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * there already is a Palestinian Jew article. you should probably link to that. otherwise, Palestinian jews are quite insignificant numerically (although interesting to learn about) in the big picture of Arab Jews. (ditto for Lebanease Jews, for example). 85.64.228.215 22:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * There are separate articles on several of these communities. This is a general article, and, as such, surveys all Arab Jewish communities synthetically. The original point was that in the list, Palestinian Jews had been overlooked. The only distinction then was between Jews of Arabic culture who emigrated eventually to Israel and those who already lived there, but that distinction, implicitly sustained by the omission, is not germane to the article. The fact too that, compared to major Jewish Arab populations in other countries they were numerically 'insignificant' (I dislike that 'insignificant' -historical relevance of peoples is not a numbers game) is, again, immaterial. One should indeed make a link to the other article, however.Nishidani 09:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)


 * As far as discussion of the term Arab Jews goes (in particular when not looking in retrospect), Palestinians Jews had little to no influence on the political development of jews in the arab world. As you already noted before, they were prone to follow the influence of more important activity centers, like syria, egypt and iraq. One should consider splitting the article into two, prior to the establishment of Israel and after it. the establishment of Israel marks a serious turning point in the attitudes of both Jews and Arabs towards the issue, not to mention the exodus itself. nonetheless, they definitely should not be omitted and deserve a section of their own. this article could/should grow a whole deal, it's hardly yet time to take a deletionist attitude towards it. 85.64.228.215 13:25, 8 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I agree. It is harder to build and flesh out the solid material masonry of an article, than chip, hew and quibble. I concur that the distinction pre-and post Israel a useful one. We are basically talking of an historical identity now lost, clearly, despite recent revivals. There was however an intermediate period 1920-1948 when those with this dual identity were riven by the conflicting claims of Jewishness and Arabness, particularly after the riots and pogroms. I know of several examples of quite rivalrous relations between old Sephardic, Arabic speaking communities and the newer Ashkenazi communities, which only began to heal over when the Zionist project and the often hostile Arab reaction compelled a fusion of identities into a single Jewish one. Then again, there were Hasidic and Sephardic groups who shared a deep suspicion of Zionism itself, a point worth exploring (for theological reasons - the same was true in the US.) Regards Nishidani 13:44, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of sourced material
Dear Beit Or. Would you care to explain this edit and edit summary? You deleted a section that was requested by other editors in its entirety. How is the text in question an "anti-Jewish attack" exactly and how is the Jerusalem Quarterly an unreliable source? Would you like me to find other sources too? Please explain your edits before deleting this material for a third time. Thank you.  T i a m u t  00:30, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Reason for my editing out Hebron
I removed the following words:- 'As Zionism struck root, these sentiment further declined and in the 1929 riots, the Palestinian Jewish community in Hebron was attacked and ultimately driven away. See 1929 Hebron Massacre.'

This is badly written, simplifies complex processes, (actually the Ashkenazi community was explicitly said by the Arab marauders and murderers to be the one they wished to slaughter, and they asked the Sephardi to hand Ashkenazi over, and peace would prevail. The murderer who said this certainly did not think of the 'Palestinian Jewish community in Hebron' as a single community, but distinguished the two groups. I do not add this in mitigation, or intend in any way to attribute a blame to Ashkenazi, but simply to note what the jewish sources say, i.e. that in the twisted mentality of those who conducted the pogrom, there was a distinction between Ashkenazi Zionist newcomers and traditional Sephardi families).

The remark is also unsourced (or unsourced improperly: I have been told quite early one that one must not cite intra-wiki sources, particularly one like the 1929 Hebron Massacre text which is subject to POV disputes, unreliable, poorly written and dominated by one editor Jaakobou who acts as if he had proprietorial rights over its content (which is plagiarised from Tom Segev in a cheap paraphrase in large part). In Hebron, the survivors' books and memoirs speak of a distinct rift between the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi communities, something I would have liked to have developed there but have been impeded from doing since some editors there dislike any mention of distinct and often competitive relations between those two groups in Palestine. The Sephardi community descended from those survivors (the majority killed were Ashkenazi), in the United States at least, have very mixed feelings about the new Americanized, and Zionist recolonization project underway in Hebron today. Some Sephardi descendents living in Tel Aviv have revisited, in recent years, Hebron and have been invited back in by a number of Arab Hebronites, who recall the pre-1929 days, as do certain Sephardi families, with nostalgia. These Sephardi have expressed the view that under present circumstances they will not go back, since they dislike the idea of being thrown into the conflict underway there, between foreign settlers and the Arab Hebronites. The implication is, were the settler led daily abuse and provocation to end, and time to heal the wounds of the recent decades long vendetta to pass, they would indeed return. But not in the present circumstances. This can all be documented, but it is not appropriate to the brief remarks on Palestine in this article. In any case, one doesn't have to read slowly to catch the POV and tendentiousness of what was, as cited, a subversive post intended for disruptive purposes Nishidani 20:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Fair enough, here's the other point of view and why i've added this: while simplistic, the current version as is disregards this complexity altogether. in particular i do know that the distinction was made, however (as the hebron massacre article describes), upon refusal to yield the Rabbi was killed on the spot. the section is incomplete without noting that sepharadic communities were inevitably attacked during these times. I dislike the hinting by comparison to Jaakabu or claiming the post was subversive. My picking of the hebron issue was one in a random assortment, but as it is right now, the section is severely lacking in describing the complexity of Arab-Sepharadi relations. I'd be happy if you'll do the balancing yourself, as you seem an expert on the subject. 85.64.228.215 13:38, 17 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The world slowly dies of simplification's consequences. I am for complexity, and have endlessly boring battles with simplifiers, of which I named one. I tend, as a result, to regard simplifications as disruptive. Apologies for any innuendo about you and Jaacobou.

These are articles in development. The issue of Jewish Arab Palestinian identity is a very complex one, doing full justice to which requires mastery of Arabic and Hebrew sources. I only contributed because in an article on 'Arab Jews' there was a huge gap visible at first glance, no mention of the Palestinian case. Tiamut, averted, made the text what it is. No one is omniscient. As to Sephardi-Ashkenazi relations in Hebron, I have considerable material, but it is not pertinent, being too specific, for this general article.


 * 'the section is incomplete without noting that sepharadic communities were inevitably attacked during these times.'

The vice is to say that every article dealing with Jewish-Arab relations must mention Arab violence somewhere. Man, Jews lived in Arab countries for centuries, and mainly prospered, and this recent vogue for requiring that one underline and note and footnote, anywhere where Arabs are mentioned, that 'they' attacked Jews, makes most articles in Wiki unreliable. Blind Freddie and his dog can see that. Nishidani 13:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Well... as an Arab Jew myself, i have no sympathy to either rampant anti-zionist narratives or to overly zionist ones. the sad fact is, that humankind's history is full of violence, the history of jews in arab countries being no exception to that rule. the hard-core zionist narrative goes on to praise how zionism "rescued" arab jews. the hard-core anti-zionist narrative goes on telling how zionism ruined the utopian relations of Arab muslims and jews. In the fight between those two narratives, the subtleties of the truth is lost. i understand the sensitivity of the issue and the problem of it being paraded, and wikipedia does suck on this issue. that is why i vastly preferred you would write it and not Jaakobu (for example). Do consider that if left as is, someone can come and make this article yet another war zone. the answer to imbalance is not swaying it to the other side, i'm afraid. i don't have much hopes for wikipedia regarding this issue, but if at least this article will look right, that'd be something. 85.64.228.215 20:45, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * We all have our sympathies. I try to make mine explicit in talk pages so people who question my edits can contextualize them, and see if I live up to my desire to write neutral edits. That means, as I share with you Gibbon's view of history, that mystifications of history are not acceptable. By 'prosperous' I didn't mean to imply that things went smoothly. As a person of European origin, I just feel that the pluri-millenial tradition of virulent antisemitism, buried in the very heart of its religious creed, gives us a picture far more hostile to the historical world of Jewry than what was the case with Jews generally under Muslim sovereignty. A large part of an intelligent prospect for humanity was lost when successively Moslems and Jews were expelled from Spain.


 * Many deduce from this obvious truth that reality is complex that, esp. in wiki, articles should take the 'on the one hand' 'on the other' approach in every context. I don't think so. The 1929 Hebron massacre cannot be excused, nor the ready help extended to Sephardi neighbours by many Arabs exploited to deny the horror of the mutilations and slaughter, just as the Qibya massacre cannot be fiddled with by surrounding it with loads of data about infiltrations.


 * 'In the fight between those two narratives, the subtlet(ies) of the truth is lost.'


 * Then, evidently, there is no need for us to disagree. The problem with this particular section is that it must be brief, and probably, to fit your legitimate request, a page allowing detailed expansion would be required. I think the source already cited in that section, Tamiri (sp?) does a pretty good job (I'm a rank outsider and speak only as a reader with academic background) in describing the milieu, and Yitzhak Shami's life. I think Tiamut has, so far, done well in giving us a peek into it, and input from anyone else historically from that milieu esp. would be most welcome. (I know what it is like to be torn between several identities. I try to embrace them all, rather than choose between them, playing off their respective prejudices tends to prod one, over time, to understand that identity is primarily an individual synthesis of all of one's past and present, not an exorcism of parts of it). I'll keep an eye on this page, as a reader desiring to be informed, since I'm not competent to add to it. But if I see injudicious meddling to POV it (as far as I read POVs), I will put in my pennysworth to keep it neat and fair. If these Israeli Arab articles have to keep wearing the absurd battles that have taken place until now, I think the people who run this operation will have to ask us all to register with our real names on this section. People unwilling to do so could contribute suggestions for vetting to a suggestions page or talk page, and leave the actual work to people who have no trouble putting a public name to what they write and think. That would keep things more honest. Regards Nishidani 21:09, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Some might find the first part of this article interesting on Mai Zeidani, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/905785.html Nishidani 16:12, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

The above is extremely interesting, although not for the reasons stated. The Hebron massacre is a seminal event in the history of Palestine, for a variety of reasons. I don't doubt the complexity. So many elements contribute-- yet to pretend that discussion of it is burdensome is ONLY burdensome for those who don't want a balanced discussion, that is, have an ideological agenda that is burdened by the discussion of the pogrom. The absence of a discussion is almost enough for me to conclude that the whole article lacks gravitas, in spite of the fine words of the various contributors, and that the whole thing should be taken with a grain of salt (or two). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigleaguer (talk • contribs) 17:47, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * 'pogrom', the word, as distinguished from 'massacre' means a massacre organized by the duly constituted authorities, or with their connivance, and this is not proven, despite fringe theorists, for the Hebron massacre. The other remarks are unfocused Nishidani 17:59, 10 October 2007 (UTC).

I don't think one can get out of this by a silly semantic game. The Hebron pogrom was organized by a group of Arabs. The authorities were British, and while they did not participate actively, most accounts have them not there at all, whereupon the ones who organized the attacks were the de facto authority and therefore it was a pogrom (analysis is very similar to any other pogrom eg., Russia). Your attempt to associate a difficult question with "fringe theorists" is itself worthy of further discussion because it is a strange dismissive response. Similarly, your attempt to shed light on Ashkenazi and Sephardis is interesting but in this context the assertions are quite bold and not documented, at least here, and appear to be a deflection of dealing with the real issues,at least that is how I see it.18:53, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Writing acceptable prose requires a certain knowledge of standard semantic distinctions. Writing history or judging historians requires that you be aware of their conventions. Hebron was not Kishinev, a classical pogrom, organized by the authorities, because the British did not organize it (despite insinuations by some distraight voices in the Sefer haHebron and other partisan voices at the times, like Maurice Samuels. The distinction between Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities is attested by many documents by the survivors of the Hebronite Jewish community of the period, read a little. I'm not going to do your homework for you. How you see it is all very interesting, but readers of encyclopedias want well-sourced information that does not reflect one person's POV but the state of the art in historiography, in this case.Nishidani 20:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I will admit one thing-- that the use of the word pogrom is used procatively and intentionally knowing that is not the standard use, but done deliberately to draw an analogy that is contentious but which also forces further thinking about the subject. we can debate for a while whether that word is technically wrong and what word should be used instead. However, going from that discussion to AShkenaz and Sephardi is a rough transition. It is not clear whatsoever that there is a transition or relationship between the pogrom/whatever you call it and the other. Further, blind Freddy and his dog also know that dhimmitude  was extant in many parts of the Arab world to varying degrees at different times. This is not a Zionist statement. Arab Jewish testimonies include horrific tales that include pogroms (of the Kishinev variety) yellow stars, etc. Those Jewish testimonies cannot be erased. Bigleaguer 23:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, since you accept 'pogrom' is 'provocative' (apart from being technically incorrect) it should not be used in Wiki of such an incident. As to dhimmi legislation, that is immaterial to the point you raised. Nothing in the history of Arab Jewish relations can come even near to the obscene proportions of violent anti-Semitism practiced on Jews throughout long stretches of Western history. Nishidani 08:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem is, there is not another English word that really captures what happened as well as "pogrom." Mass murder conjures up Charles Manson, terrorist attack, Arafat, attack, military attack, and so on. These fit far less well. What happened is more like a pogrom than anything else. As you said it was only technically incorrect, because besides from the central government not organizing it, it had all the features of a pogrom and as far as the Jewish victims were concerned, they might as well have been in Kishinev. The only thing missing was British involvement. Then, the only issue is whether the Brits were involved. Does passive participation (ie doing nothing instead of actively stopping it) count? Does the moral support of a couple of British officers enough to count? Does the fact that Arabs ran many aspects of the government other than overall security control count? These questions are minutiae. As far as provocative being out of bounds, nothing is further from the truth. Provocative is good-- challenges thinking. Not provocative-- as in get a reaction. Provocative as in challenging to the intellect. Bigleaguer 13:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)


 * As repeated above, read the wiki rule book. Nishidani 13:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Read it. Nothing against applying a word in a novel way when it seems to fit, especially since there is no better word in the English language that I know that can replace it. Bigleaguer 15:20, 11 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, reread the O.E.D. Best wishes Nishidani 17:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

"Proponents of this view do not seek to deny the strong Arabic cultural influence on Jews in those countries. In North Africa, some Jews spoke Judeo-Arabic languages while others spoke French; and in some areas there are still Jews who dress quite like Arabs. Their argument is that “Arabness” referred to more than just a common shared culture. One could therefore legitimately speak of “arabized” Jews, or "Jews of Arab countries", but not of "Arab Jews"; just as one can speak of "English Jews" or "British Jews", but not of "Saxon Jews" or "Celtic Jews". What is needed is an equivalent of the traditional term Musta'arabim (Arabizers), which was used to distinguish the older Arabic-speaking communities of those countries from post-1492 Sephardim."

This entire paragraph is confusing. Undoubtedly Jews who lived in an area for 2500 years would have assimilated somewhat. What is more amazing is the fact that they did not assimilate entirely, and maintained their self-identification as Jews. The paragraph does not really address why "Arab Jews" were different from other "Arabs" and why that was important to the community. Also, the comparison is awkward as it is not parallel in contruction and the opposite conclusion can be drawn (One can not speak of "Arab Jews" just as one can speak of "English Jews." ???). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.244.131.148 (talk) 18:20, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Nishidani, your statement "As to dhimmi legislation, that is immaterial to the point you raised. Nothing in the history of Arab Jewish relations can come even near to the obscene proportions of violent anti-Semitism practiced on Jews throughout long stretches of Western history. Nishidani 08:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC) " seems like an irrelevancy. We both agree that antiSemitism in Europe has been horrendous for 2000 years. However, that is not the subject of the post(s). We also both know (as does Freddy and his pet) that dhimmitude and anti-Semitism have been present at various times in the Arab world. Not all the time, either, we agree on that as well. The fact that there was no Arab or Muslim Holocaust (pending Ahmidinejab) means you are correct, Arab anti-Semitism was not as bad,as European. So what? What is the point of the comparison? Does that mean Arabs can't orchestrate pogroms like the Russians'? Does it mean anything? Bigleaguer 22:33, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Roland-- Here are my reasons for the changes I made. First, thank you or whoever provided the source material for Jews involved in Arab nationalism, as the author defines it, beginning in the nineteenth century. That article was very interesting. Certainly in Europe, Jews wanted after the Enlightenment to become known as Frenchmen, Germans, etc. and the article makes it sound as though the same process was occurring among Arab Jews, which probably was, to a certain extent. The problem is, how big of an extent. Also, the whole issue of Arab "nationalism" as its called the article is contentious, separate from issues such as land reform, etc. Some people say Arab nationalism did not exist until the 20th century. I changed "some" to "a few" because its not clear at all to what extent Arab Jews were involved in these movements, and it was likely a peripheral event as I look at the history.

The second change was changing "ethnicity" to "nationality." The real bugaboo is the latter. Arab Jews, despite being Arab in many respects, were a different ethnicity insofar as they prayed differently, had different laws to obey, married within themselves, had different dietary laws (kosher does not equal halal) etc. Zionism, ie. Jewish nationalism, is what is opposed by non Jewish Arabs. There was a semblance of balance in the respective Muslim/Jewish worlds as long as Jews did not express particular nationalist feeling for Palestine. By the time they left for Palestine, in the 1950s, antiZionism was the real issue.

Finally, I changed an item underneath your description of ancient Jewish communities that predated Mohammed by many centuries. That item was qualified, anachronistically in my opinion, by pointing out that Arabs descended from natives of the area. The distinction is that Jews, despite their evolving culture, had some continuity of identification since the formation of those communities at least in the religious area. The Arabs did not, at least in the religios area. therefore the qualifier was deleted. Finally, Roland please comment on this page rather than my talk page. Much appreciated. Bigleaguer 22:59, 15 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Contrary to what you wrote in your edit summary, I did read the changes you introduced to the article. They were the same as the last time, an edit which RolandR also reverted. Your explanations above do not account for the POV language you use. These are less additions, than re-writes of a highly interpretative nature of material already sourced therein and presented a more NPOV fashion. Please self-revert or alter the language accordingly.  T i a m u t  23:07, 15 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, are you editing under the anonymous IP listed in the history that made the same edits? I ask because your comments above imply that you composed and added the text. If those edits are indeed yours, you might want to read WP:3RR.  T i a m u t  23:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Dear Bigleaguer. Would you mind using sourcing and referencing for your additions? This is a controversial subject and the use of reliable sources and footnotes would greatly aid in determining how to structure and phrase items in the article. Thank you.  T i a m u t  23:17, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Tiamut I did not say you did not read changes I said the discussion which was posted about three minutes after the changes by which time you had already reverted the text, obviously without having read discussion.Re whether my change was less or more NPOV, is there any evidence in that source about how many Jews were part of the nationalistic movement? That seems like a fair question in light of your opposition to my changing "some" to a "a few." Again, I was not certain why one had to qualify the observation that the jewish community in many Arab countries was 1000 years older than Islam, by noting that Muslims descended from native preMuslims. If you put in the qualifier, please explain why it is needed, or why it is problematic to note, as I did, that the jews have more continuity of community (at least longer continuity) and why a footnote or source is needed for something we both apparently agree upon and which is not contentious as far as I can tell. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigleaguer (talk • contribs) 23:29, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

No Bigleaguer. The burden of proof to source and reference your edits is on you. I don't have to provide sources disproving your unsourced additions. That section could use improvement in the way of better sourcing, but the changes you made for what you claimed in your edit summary were linguistic reasons, actually changed the meaning without providing sources. Let's work on making source-based changes.  T i a m u t  23:39, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Tiamut my changes, that you changed back were a mixture of types. I am not certain if you are a "native" English speaker, but one can have a "number" of Jews but not an "amount" of Jews since the item, Jews is categorical. In the same vein, I hope you would agree that a Jew who speaks Arabic is not necessarily an Arab Jew, as your change indicated (I presume unintended). I don't know why you eliminated the quote about Emir Faisal, but it is needed to erase the false impression that the Arab community at the time was antizionist but pro Jewish. Its an intersting idea, but not substantiated since the nationalist elements were all over the map (as they have always been) with respect to Jews. I think the reference to "native" Arabs (Contrast with "non-native Jews" perhaps?) may well contain the wording of the source but is not NPOV. Why? Because Zionist Jews began coming 2 generations before WWI and many of them were native by any definition, not to mention preZionist or non Zionist Jews living there. Also, I rephrased your text to represent the fact that Jews were not restricted to 4 holy cities but just that most, not all happened to live in them. Some still lived outside. Any other changes please discuss before changing back. Bigleaguer 18:14, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Bigleaguer Could you please do us the courtesy of keeping your edits to one issue at a time. These large scale rewritings make taking what positive suggestions you may make difficult to retain. Your remarks confuse the 1882 onward Aliyah with Zionism, which, as you ought to know, was a project adumbrated by Herzl some 2 decades afterwards. It is a matter of record that earlier Jewish immigrant communities often found themselves at odds with newcomers to Palestine under the Zionist project. Secondly, your objection to any nuance that might suggest there was intermarriage between Jews and Arabs is POV. There was a long early history where Judaism was a proselytising religion in certain zones of the Middle east, one open to conversion, until rabbinical orthodoxy strengthened and spread.Nishidani 19:43, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I do not believe I wanted to say anything about intermarriage although traditionally from the time of Ezra Judaism has been against it (Ezra forced the divorce of alien wives including of dignitaries of the community). I made some additional grammatic edits. Do you have any comment on the Emir Faisal paragraph other than deleting it? Bigleaguer 03:04, 20 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The Emir Feisal paragraph is not relevant to the article section. There are plenty of other pages that deal with this.

"One could therefore legitimately speak of “arabized” Jews, or "Jews of Arab countries", but not of "Arab Jews"; just as one can speak of "English Jews" or "British Jews", but not of "Saxon Jews" or "Celtic Jews"." I edited this before; it is a nonparallel and awkward comparison but someone prefers to keep it. Anyone want to come to its defense before I change it to make grammatic sense? Bigleaguer 03:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Nishidani, I am happy to discuss my record on wiki. I am relatively new and am learning wikiquette? but my experience is that I get deleted and reverted without discussion yet I am asked for discussion that I thought I had provided whenever I make an edit with a one liner explanation. When I discuss something, it still gets reverted without discussion. Perhaps not in the edits that you saw. I did see the stuff on intermarriage, and if Arab jews intermarried widely, that is news to me, although the source is which reference????


 * You must never confuse, in history, doctrinal perspectives with socio-historical information. Even in Judea, to note a simple matter, 'the Jews' were a varied lot (as indeed the 'Palestinians' were a very varied set of communities, often ethnically and culturally). Most of these wiki articles are written from premise that there is such a thing as an ethnically and culturally integrated constant, 'the Jews', and it would require a digital Hercules to correct all of the historical formulations that flow from this unitary narrative. You cite Ezra, that is one doctrinal train. To look at the classic rift between Pharisaic Judaism and Jewish Christianity, at that time, within the Ist century communities of Jews there were several quite distinct cults. Even in Pharisaic writings, the phrase am ha-eretz testifies to a large peasant 'Jewish' population that simply did not follow what the Pharisees thought 'orthodox'. Look at the papyri from Elephantine, and you find a polytheistic Jewish community. Look at the writings of ther Christian fathers down through the first millenium, esp. the first half, and you find that they are often nervous about Jewish inroads caused by conversion to Judaism, among the various constituencies of sects which made up Christianity. Rabbinic authority on these matters only consolidated towards the end of that period.This is a large issue, I give a simple sketch just to remind you of the obvious. Practice again, often ignored preaching.

Regarding the text it continues to be incorrect. Zionism began in the latter portions, last decades of the Ottoman rule, as everyone on the board knows, and so it is not true that in that period Jews lived in the 4 holy cities. If you want to specify or parse or qualify or delete or whatever you want do it, but the statement is simply incorrect. Even without taking Zionism into account there were smatterings of Jews all over Palestine, although the greatest number were in the 4 cities mentioned.65.244.131.148 18:04, 20 October 2007 (UTC)


 * For Zionism there is an appropriate article. We are dealing basically in this article with 'native' jewish communities in the Arab world. The influx of immigrants after Zionism took a foothold changed demographics, but a rift remained, well documented, between the traditional communities of the religious, and Zionists who went there under a secular ideology in good part (or with a different religious tradition, such as was the case with yeshivas from Eastern Europe, transplanted en bloc in places like Hebron.

The other points of contention still exist. The designation of native and nonnative individuals in Palestine is problematic on many levels. One, there are few records of Arab migrations (I believe the British only kept records of Jewish migrations, and anyway that was far into the future) leading to debate about whether the Arabs were truly "native." Extensive debates exist on that point with reference to later times. Also, Jewish immigration was constant, although it picked up at the end of the Ottoman period as the First Aliyah and the Second Aliyah occurred. In any event, to designate those Jews as "nonnative" despite the fact that they might have been born in Palestine or be 2d 3rd or subsequent generation depends on the year chosen. (They were immigrants in 1881 say, and natives in 2001 etc.). Third,on a kishke level, it hits me as a political rather than a factual statement.


 * I'm afraid you have a lot of reading to do on this. There is a large modern literature on Palestinian demographics, and you can get an idea of it under Wikipedia Palestinine -ubsection Demographics. Most of what you say here reflects, permit my frankness, public hearsay from old controversies that have been largely settled, the Joan Peters line, in short. History is trying to imagine things as they were, or were thought, before they are as they are now, or as we now think. It's hard to separate the two, of course, but good edits on the past will attend to the distinction. The Zionist narrative, replacing the old Jewish narrative is, synthetic, unitary, and teleological in good part (like most national stories). The historical imagination works in other ways.

Finally, no one on this or other articles will even discuss Emir Faisal. Despite this, and despite the competitition with the Mufti and other Palestinian notables, Emir Faisal was the leader of Palestinian Arab nationalism until shortly before he was deposed. Whereas the quote from the Palestinian antiZionist manifesto presents one historical pov, the implication is that this was the Palestinian POV. Since you had Faisal's nationalism going on simultaneously, that is manifestly untrue and creates the false impression that all Arabs were antiZionist. Event he Palestinians had loyalties to clan, village, sanjaq that suggests there was not one Palestinian Arab POV in this era. While the quote is germane, the presentation of the quote and description of the antiZionist manifesto seems tangential and non neutral, UNLESS it is somehow made clear that the manifesto was not "official Palestinian" and did not have authority, at that time.


 * Nationalism, Jewish and Palestinian, are very recent confections, and follow the old European models. Renan, reflecting on the European exemplar in a famous essay of 1882, said that the sense of nationhood is based on forgetting. National and even ethno-national identity consisted of a willed forgetting of everything that doesn't fit the new image unifiers of a social or national reality are manufacturing. Arab nationalism was primitive at the time, for the simple reason that there was no self-defined state active in autonomus nation-building. So while what you say is true, it means nothing. Nationalisms start with small elites, and then spread through political struggles that muster the majority. This is true also of modern Israel, which however had the advantage of learning more quickly from Europe. But to use this advantage against those native elites who resisted Zionism, speaking of an'Arab' or 'Palestinian' nation, gets us nowhere. Many traditional Jewish communities were anti-Zionist, many European orthodox communities were anti-Zionist. They had their own clannish, particularistic identities as well. This is a complex matter, and it is late. But one thing: knowledge, and contributing to one's neighbours' understanding, is a sacred trust. Truth here is a wavering, slippery thing, in Wiki, because all over, Poles, Croats, Russians, ex.-Russians, Chinese, Jews, Indians want to use this global medium to get across a POV of themselves, as if it were a true representation, rather than being an ethnic slant. All one gets, as a result is tripe, tabloid fictions, and the politics of cliché-mongering. It is, I assure you, in the long run, far more illuminating to study the world against one's prejudices (and we all have them), prejudice in the sense of a sense that one's origins define one's worldview, than to struggle desperately through the archives in search of a rationnale to prop those prejudices up. In the end, if you adopt the latter, you only succeed in being happily deluded, and in convincing no one, except the like-minded. It is more rewarding to surprise oneself, and join the larger world of differencing thought.Nishidani 19:47, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

This will be a less eloquent reply than yours, but there is room for conservatism in every discipline; facts are the basis of theories, and theories should be changed if they don't match the facts. Usually after a wide swing in an idea, as happened with Israeli historians in the last 25 years, the pendulum comes back somewhat. The criticisms of the so called new Historians have been well documented, including a lack of rigor in many instances, plus a failure to look for previous strong similar criticism from unlikely sources, eg. the Israeli/Zionist right. That does not mean we are holding onto mythology of the cherry tree of George Washington, but that we incorporate the new information that has become uncovered, but do so without forgetting what we knew before. Bigleaguer 23:45, 20 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Let me be frank with you. You entered Wikipedia with unsourced highly POV-drenched edits that were unsigned, and several remonstrations were made on your page about this irresponsible behaviour. You clearly do not understand how the editing process works, and your harping on ostensible 'facts', while admitting you do not know much about this area, is beginning to be disruptive. I have endeavoured to reason with you, and you editorialize. Everything you say above ignores the points made. I suggest you retire for a while, read the rules, follow the editorial practice of people who share your views but who understand what is proper in editing practice, and read more deeply in the subject. Harping on 'fact' based narratives versus POV is an old and immediately recognized hasbara technique that suggests immediately that you are not editing with any other aim than to get, clumsily, a political line back onto pages that require respect for all facts, and an understanding that 'facts' are always embedded in theories. I repeat what has been said on your talk page. Respect the rules, and the evidence, or eventually, measures will have to be taken to suspend your habit of interfering with the work of others who strive to write conscientiously to Wiki standards.Nishidani 10:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

"So while what you say is true, it means nothing. " This is what it comes down to. I am right about Emir faisal, but it "means nothing." Why? Because Jews were faster on the nationalism train than Arabs so we are supposed to discount what Faisal said in 1919. The last 3 edits are yours, on the article page, I go back to discussion and don't edit, and now I am editorializing??? I feel the sacred trust has been betrayed, true, not just on this board, either, and not by me. You have a point about my learning wiki methods but that is actually a relatively small point. As far as facts always being imbedded in theories, that is not how I see the truth. Harping on facts is not just a hasbara technique, but one widely employed in almost all of the physical natural and social sciences. Go ahead silence me. I expect it. Bigleaguer 18:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)


 * 're Faisal- You miss the point. The Faisel material is not relevant to the topic, which is about Arab-Jewish identity.


 * 'As far as facts always being imbedded in theories, that is not how I see the truth.'


 * Well do a short course from Karl Mannheim to Juergen Habermas on the sociology of knowledge, and get back to us. Disagree with modernity all you like, but unfortunately we are living in 2007, not in the naivity of 18th century epistemology, or Auguste Comte's positivistic Gradgrindian 19th century.


 * There is nothing distinctive about your contributions. People who've been around since the 1970s know there are standartd templates for these arguments, outdated, factitious, and POV pushing. Virtually everything you've posted fits one of these hackneyed templates. There is, on the other hand, a wealth of good books over the last two decades which replace the trimmed factsheet approach to history, with highly sophisticated archival research. Read that sort of material and get back to us. The things you write have a clear 'thumbprint', at least for me, and come off the Hasbara printing press.


 * I won't silence you. But I feel pretty sure some others, more experienced with Wiki procedures and severer in applying them, almost certainly will if you persist in, as you admit now, not 'learning wiki methods'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nishidani (talk • contribs) 18:40, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

OK Professor. The factsheet approach to history serves more of a smell check / common sense test to look at tomes given to us by those who write such tomes. I have read enough of those books of knowledge to be fairly sure Mannheim was not talking about Palestine, although I could be wrong about that too. There are facts that one can check, eg. when was Bill Clinton President, and so on. You have a point about wikiquette and that is taken. Regarding your assessment of my contributions as pure hasbara, so be it. I will say that to take one example, the Palestinian demographics, that ?mythology preceded Joan Peters and was not completely destroyed by that Israeli (?Porath) who wrote a set of books on Palestinian Arabs. Damaged, but not destroyed.

Bigleaguer 15:17, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

"There is nothing distinctive about your contributions. People who've been around since the 1970s know there are standartd templates for these arguments, outdated, factitious, and POV pushing. Virtually everything you've posted fits one of these hackneyed templates. "

OK there is nothing humanitarian about yours-- you love the destroyed Jewish communities and hate the existing ones. Your hackneyed contributions to mass hysteria, repetition of POV descriptions of history from the PLO sourcebook, make it clear that membership in the club of historians means subscription to these outlandish tales-- everything except Jews using uranium and Holocaust denial which is where the line is (right now). Whether you are a Jewish Uncle Tom or something worse, writing as the Cairo Jew, you have emerged as a scholar of Judaism who, like the Poles and Russians who are the shamases of the synagogues that were destroyed three generations ago, are curious creatures. You just wish that their love extended to the people and not just the buildings. You have forgotten who you are. Bigleaguer 14:33, 24 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Note taken. I will post a copy on my Talk page.Nishidani 14:38, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

"English" parallel
Someone queried the paragraph:


 * Their argument is that “Arabness” referred to more than just a common shared culture. One could therefore legitimately speak of “arabized” Jews, or "Jews of Arab countries", but not of "Arab Jews"; just as one can speak of "English Jews" or "British Jews", but not of "Saxon Jews" or "Celtic Jews". What is needed is an equivalent of the traditional term Musta'arabim (Arabizers), which was used to distinguish the older Arabic-speaking communities of those countries from post-1492 Sephardim.

I wrote this. Of course nothing is ever exactly parallel, but it seemed to me that there was a useful analogy to be made, and that the best explanation is that the word "Arab", like the word "Anglo-Saxon", is used in more than one sense. In America, "Anglo-Saxon" means a person of English descent (though sometimes German, Dutch and Scandinavian descendants try to push into the club). In continental Europe, and in Israel, it means anyone from the United Kingdom, the United States or the Old Commonwealth, regardless of descent. So an American Jew who migrates to Israel may or may not be called an "Anglo-Saxon", depending on the definition one uses. A Jew living in England will quite unself-consciously call himself English and use "we" in explaining to his children about, say, the Spanish Armada or the history of the English language (just as he will equally unself-consciously say "we" in talking about the victims of pogroms in nineteenth century Russia: it's simply a case of multiple identities). But words like "Saxon" or "Celtic" would jar, as they appear to refer to descent or ethnicity.

The question, then, is which side of the line the word "Arab" falls: is it equivalent to "British" (nationality), to "English" (language and culture) or to "Saxon" (actual or claimed ethnicity)? In fact it is used in all these senses. In one sense anyone who lives in an Arab country and speaks Arabic is an "Arab". But much of the "Arab" culture of, say, North Africa involved identifying with the peoples of pre-Islamic Arabia, as in claiming membership of one or other of the Qahtanite or Adnanite tribes, writing poetry about camel journeys through the desert and so on. (I'm not talking about actual genetic descent, but the extent to which one buys into that set of conventions and identifies with that past rather than the pre-Islamic past of the country one actually lives in.) Now Andalusian Jews, say, had the literary skills to appear to be doing exactly that; but what we don't know, and cannot now answer, is whether this reflected a genuine feeling of identity or was a literary exercise equivalent to English schoolboys writing Latin hexameters.

The first reference I have been able to trace to "Arab Jews" is in a memorandum written by the Sephardim of Manchester to the British government at the time of the First World War, arguing that as "Arab Jews" they had nothing in common with Ottoman Turks and ought not to be treated as enemy aliens. Has anyone come across an earlier reference? --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 14:00, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

The question touches on a profound difficulty in language and concepts about identity. I.e. whether identity is a matter of racial stock, or cultural integration. The Anglo-Saxons were thus defined as the subjected other of 'Normans', but that Anglo-Saxons were themselves at that time, people of mixed Celtic, Pictic, Roman, Saxon, and 'Danish' (a large number of Germanic tribes) who, after successive waves of immigration and invasion, constituted the resident old English speaking population of much of England. The definition of 'Anglo-Saxon' arises because there is a newer class, the Normans, whose domination, and discriminations, calls into being the counter category of Saxons, understood to be the people deriving from or under the sway of, the preceding Saxons hegemons (for a nice vignette on this see ch. 1 of Scott's Ivanhoe). Idem with the Celts, I am of Celtic stock, but the Celtic name my forefathers bore was of French Norman origin. Europe was one great brothel of intermingling lineages, and with the rise of the nation state, and of German concepts of 'race', one tended to confuse the state and cultural complex with the 'racial stock', though the latter is not a category that easily lends itself to such simplistic analogies.

True, throughout the diaspora, as a minority subject to often stringent ostracism, the Jews, esp. after rabbinical regulations defined identity in terms of matrilineal descent etc., were less likely to be absorbed in this genetic promiscuity that constitutes much of Europe, to name but one example. But both the Bible (strong evidence emerging of an indigenous 'Canaanite' culture in Syria Palestine of which the later Hebrews of the Bible were an integral part and only separated as an 'ethnic' reality retroactively), and the intense Christian polemics against Jewish proselytisation of their faith from after the period of Bar Kochba, indicate that considerable waves of intermingling and conversion existed. The 'Arabs' for example, were originally small administrative and military elites who ruled over their subject populations from India to Morocco, to whose creed, language and culture, over time, the mass of Semitic, Greek, Roman and non-Indo-European ethnic groups, were converted. Even the 'am ha-eretz' of Pharisaic writings were presumably part of this process. The consolidation of this promiscuous heritage into, respectively 'Arab' and 'Jewish' in a sense of ethnically distinct peoples, strengthens towards the end of the first millenium CE. Religious traditions and their priesthoods have played a central role in maintaining or defining ethnic identity (Anthony D.Smith, 1983), and nowhere is this stronger than in the history of Jewish identity, but the idea of blood stock as the defining element of what is a much more historically fluid reality of identity still holds us in its grip, and confuses debates like the one on this page. (the Karaites are a good example of anomaly, in this regard. Even Hitler's murderers exempted them from the Holocaust, on 'racial' considerations, though they themselves thought of themselves as Jews)

Still, the origin of that phrase is worth keeping in our sights.Nishidani 10:39, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Quite so. In everything I wrote, by "ethnicity" I included cultural/sentimental adoption of an identity and was careful not to make anything depend on literal genetic descent.  As you say, immediately following the Muslim conquests the population of a country such as Syria consisted of a mass of Syriac-speaking Christians, various ethnic minorities (mainly Greeks and Jews), and an Arab garrison.  In the course of the following centuries, whoever converted to Islam, regardless of descent, was automatically counted as part of the "Arab" group, so that this quickly became the majority and Arabic became the general language of everybody (including those that did not convert).  My point is that the Muslim population, however mixed in descent, claimed to be Arabs, and invented genealogies linking themselves to the Quraysh or other tribes of Arabia (possibly truly, as after enough centuries of intermarriage most people would have had some Arabian ancestors).  Conversely, Jews, however mixed their ancestry, would claim descent from the Biblical patriarchs and quietly ignore the other ingredients in their descent.  So even if both the genetic descent and the culture of the two groups was almost identical, there remained a difference in the cultural perception of descent. So my proposition remains: Jews identified with Arabic culture, but would probably not have claimed an "Arab" identity in the sense described.


 * In the same way, the differences between "British", "English" and "Anglo-Saxon" are ones of degree, that is, of how long it takes a family to assimilate into each perceived identity; and in the case of a group such as the Jews that makes the conscious effort to preserve the sense of another ancestry, the point of total assimilation (as opposed to 99% assimilation) never comes. Once more, actual descent, in the DNA sense, is neither here nor there.


 * To sum up. Culture is one thing.  Descent is another.  But "ethnicity" is a tertium quid, "cultural adoption of perceived descent", rather like the Major General's "ancestors by purchase" in the Pirates of Penzance.  And that is what I am trying to track down in this article. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 16:23, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, in any case, the best evidence will be linguistic, as you yourself inquire. Identity is primarily a subjective matter, often influenced by Hobsbawn and Ranger's 'invented traditions'. My problem is with generic categories we have established through modernity with 'Jew', 'Greeks', 'Arabs' or whoever. Historic, premodern identities were far more complex than modern, state-bound or religious ones, which flourish under the fictions of integrated unity. 'Arabs' will descant comfortably about 'we' and those outside Islam, but amongst themselves, with their profound class, regional, dialect, and religious differences, bicker endlessly on their differences, of which they are fiercely proud. I can no more see a 'Jewish identity' valid for all those with, let us grant it, Jewish descent on both sides, than for any other group. Hobsbawm in his Interesting Times calls himself (from memory) a 'Jewless Jew', in that he is Jewish by birth, but had no real contact with what passes for Jewish custom, belief or languages in his first years. The only thing he can identify as Jewish is his family's habit of wandering, and extensive kinship links with people around the world (something shared with many other people with a diaspora identity). My own mentor only got round to accepting to define himself as a Jew at the age of 70, i.e, by undergoing a bar mitzvah. Ethnicity is all very well, but we should do well to recall that it is the term that smuggles back in the other concept justly made disreputable by the uses to which racial thinking was put down to the end of WW2Nishidani 17:16, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

mistakes
it is wrong to write: "refers to Jews of Arab ancestry". the jews of the arab world and the jews outside the arab world are most related genetically. therefor it is wrong to write this sentence. as you can read in the hebrew wiki, the english version is crap. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.219.97.188 (talk) 09:05, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Arab nationalism
Should mention the moderately obvious fact that in the mid-20th-century many Arab nationalists effectively declared that Jews could in fact not be Arabs (in the sense which was relevant to Arab nationalism), resulting in situations such as the 1967 Libyan pogrom, in which all Jews were expelled from Libya, even though most had no particular connection with Israel, and there had been Jews living in Libya long before there were Arabs living in Libya (Simon of Cyrene) -- see Three Whom God Should Not Have Created: Persians, Jews, and Flies etc. etc. Of course in recent years, some opponents of Israel have tried to use the slogan "Arab Jews" to drive a wedge between Ashkenazis and Jews from Arab countries in Israel... AnonMoos 11:18, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


 * You confuse 'race' with culture. The Jews under the Ist century Roman empire constituted roughly a tenth of the whole population. Apart from the massive pogroms in Egypt and Palestine, large numbers were won over to Christianity, which after all was just a Jewish heresy, just as before, large numbers of the local populations were converted to Judaism. 'Arabs' now are the populations, Berber, Hamitic, Semitic, Greek, Roman etc., and worshippers of varied faiths who gradually converted to Islam after the Arabian conquests. To understand the point one must suspend modern obsessions with race and ethnic lineage.Nishidani 09:41, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Whatever -- I didn't use either of the words "race" and "culture" in my remarks (and am in fact highly skeptical whether the word "race" has any valid meaning whatsoever in relation to Judaism), and furthermore, the bulk of my remarks were in reference to 20th-century Arab nationalism (something which you appear to have entirely ignored)... AnonMoos 18:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * And why allow Arab nationalists to define who is an Arab anyway? Is a German Jew any less German because the Nazis defined "German" to exclude non-Aryans?


 * Yes, today's Arabs are a mixture of Syrians, native Egyptians and you name it. But some groups, such as Kurds (and to a lesser extent Berbers), kept their language and identity and are not normally identified as Arabs.  (Some Berbers have a dual identity as "cultural commuters", and are Berbers in their home villages and Arabs when they travel to the nearest large town.)  The question is, do we regard the Jews of those countries as another exceptional group of this kind?  Or do we say that language is the test and that their first language was Arabic? --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 10:01, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think nationalists of any culture should be allowed to get away with their tinkering with issues of identity. What the Arab nationalists of various areas have done with forging various 'Arab' identities is as problematical as what Zionism has done with 'Jewish' identities, or European nations have done with their respective cultures i.e., imposed a monotone of unified state or creed based identity where before there was a delightfully babelic foison of different sub-cultural values and cultures. My German host on a recent visit there is from Stuttgart, but has lived 30 years with his Bavarian wife, near Munich, and still regards himself, and is regarded by his wife, as an outsider, since he cannot master the local dialect. Both are 'German' but within a German milieu they distinguish their local roots, ways of thought, and language with considerable pride. Ernest Gellner was a Czechoslovakian, and Jewish, Hobsbawn was an Austrian Jew. Both speak (or spoke) and behaved as impeccable 'Englishmen'. They have or had several identities, and part of their brilliance lies in their ease with that polylingual, polycultural, polynational past within their life-stories, unlike so many who, won over to a 'nationalist' concept of identity, have hunkered down into just one version of themselves, as that is defined by a particular creed, ethnic identity or national affiliation. Modernity is very much defined by Joyce's memorable figure of that wonderful Irishman, Bloom, who is, we know, Jewish, but also the Greek Ulysses, the Dubliner, the Englishman, and yet a man for all worlds. 'Communities' don't like this of course, and the Nazis characteristically adumbrated and trumpeted their collective ethnic gemeinschaft as the obverse of cosmopolitan Jewish identity. Jews were in good part the pathfinders to modernity because they lived everywhere, and were not impoverished by the otherwise uniform standardization imposed on the emerging political classes of their respective societies into believing there is just one best language, one authentic mode of thinking, one nation of belonging.


 * What therefore the 'Jews' with long roots in an 'Arabic' milieu are cannot be defined with precision, because, just as the various peoples of the Maghreb are uncomfortably with 'Arabic', and speak several versions of it, as well as local languages, the 'Jews' of those areas are only definable as 'non-Arabs', as the major 'other' of the 'Arab' host community. (According to one calculation Maghrebi may be 80% a survival of Punic). But define those Jewish communities within the worldwide traditions of Jewry and you start to observe all kinds of cultic, linguistic, and religious differences, not to speak of class distinctions, or family roots that made some have strong English or French connections and cultural interests. Many Egyptian Jews had Turkish and French as an extra language (and hence culture), some were more anglophone. Beinin's study of those differences is very instructive for the kinds of differences our reflex retromodern tendencies to think in uniform groups elides from awareness. In-your-face nationalists are only, as often as not, people who are desperately trying to hide their deracination from a complex past set of mixed identitities by hugging some abstract confection of recent literary and political fabrication as an ersatz.Nishidani 10:38, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Political Article
When I would have time I'll nominate this article for deletion. The definition of Jews from middle eastern countries as "Arabs" is highly of bad taste. As a Jewish myself, very well rooted in the Jewish society one, I can tell that only insignificant part of the past Jewish inhabitants of the Arab countries seeing themselves as such. In those Arab countries, Jews wasn't the only ethnic minority and like all the other ones they were not referred as "Arabs" until very recently and even then only by Israeli leftist activities (in the sense that they are against Jewish self definition) and therefore this article is a political one-not a neutral one-it should be well mentioned in the opening section. This definition is highly controversial, to say the least, and not accepted by the vast majority of the "Arab" Jews. It is true that from all the Nations, Jews are most related by their origins, to these days Arabic nations-it is valid from the genetic perspective-German Jews, as all other Ashkenazi Jewish communities, for example, are much more related, from the genetic aspect, to Lebanese Arabs, or to Tunisian Arabs, and it was studied well and from all aspects, than to any European nation-and have no genetic link, what so ever, to Germans. More, cutlery, Jews in Europe adopted European names, changing their Hebrew surnames and etc to German/Russian and etc ones, only in a very late stage of their history there (from the 19 century and on mainly)-while this was not the situation in the Arabic states. More, it is true that Jews under Muslim regimes were much more protected than under the Christian ones or the European ones (meaning, the German Nazism is not a religious ideology nor is the Russian communism)-In Germany, for example, Jews were treated as animals almost all along their history there and suffered from  devastative  pursuits almost from their first day in Germany, from the German Crusades (who butchered 300,000 Jews at the 13CE) to the Hap Hap riots to Hitler to today Neo Nazis (why is the Jewish community there is so heavily guarded!?) - but they still were not equal to Muslims  in their rights and suffered riots from time to time. Most important-they had and still have their own self definition and a Jew don't have to be an Arab to appreciate many aspects of the Arab culture or to live in peace with Arabs.Regarding the arguments that middle eastern Jews are Arabs in the same way that German Jews are Germans-it's a complete nonsense-Jews are not Germans. And to me it sounds the quite opposite from being  enlightened  to wrote such a ridiculous thing-not only that it denies the fact that Jews are people, even if were without a country for almost 1600 years, it is also factualy wrong and historically impossible (even that today many Germans, too many regarding the familiarness of Anti Semitism and racism within the present day German society, want to consider Jewish scientists like Einstein as an ethnic (no less!!!) Germans (needless to say, but funny any way, his family immigrated to Germany from east Europe only few generations before he was born) . How about that the offspring's of a  German who lived  in  Borough Park, Brooklyn  while he was a child, but they are living in Germany are actually Jewish-Germans? Sounds logic to you, isn't it? --Gilisa (talk) 20:01, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

The artical's name should be changed!
The Mizrahi Jews don't like the term, plus Arab and Jews both are ethnic groups so it's impossible to have tham in as one word. It should be changed to "Jews in Arab states" or "Jews in Arab lands" etc'.

Arab Jews is a term used by people as Yehudah Shenhav to describe Jews who are Arabs culturaly and this way he claims Mizrahi Jews should be against Zionism etc'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.108.101.7 (talk) 03:26, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Jews from Arabia

Many things written about Mohammed and his teachings were incorrect and totally biased. The religion of Islam on this page was purposely displayed as a made up religion by a man named Mohammed. When infact Islam means submitting to the will of God, and Mohammed was not the founder of Islam, Islam was founded by God himself. Do not mislead people about Islam and the Prophet of Islam. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.208.113.167 (talk) 00:15, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

ZIONISTS HATE THE TERM AND ANTI-ARAB ASHKENAZIM DONT CHANGE THE NAME OF THE TITLE!!! DONT GIVE IN TO ZIONISM RACISM! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Miss-simworld (talk • contribs) 11:03, 8 June 2008 (UTC)


 * gah. how people burst into the discussion, implying they know everything. now, the term is indeed quite a problematic one and its documented in the article. but the parent poster still has a point. i suggest that this article is split into two - one as a grouping of the history of jews in arab countries, while the other specifically discusses the term as used by memmi, shenhav and others. otherwise, this implies acceptance of a theory by wikipedia, rather than documenting it. if no one objects in the next week or so, i'll try to orchestrate the move. p.s. miss-simworld, wikipedia is not a soapbox and typing in all-caps is considered impolite. 85.64.228.215 (talk) 20:44, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Strongly oppose merging: This article is not pretending to represent (or should not be) all Jews from Arab countries. However, it is worthy in its own right. The article should help orient people to the historical changes/debate around the term. Again, it should not pretend to represent the self-definition of Mizrahim, Sephardim at large but should remain as a discussion of a vital minority perspective not replaceable by any other terminology. Best, LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 06:23, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

arab-jew dichotomy
Saying that the dichotomy emerged due to the israeli/palestinian conflict or due to the establishment of the state of israel, is a problematic statement and not a neutral point of view. the amount of participation of jews in arab nationalistic movements is the subject of heated debate. i've found no way around the issue - saying that the dichotomy was amplified by the israeli/palestinian conlifct also takes a stance. suggestions, anyone? MiS-Saath (talk) 18:03, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

"Arab-Jew" does not, in my understanding, connote participation in Arab nationalistic movements. Furthermore, as far as I understand it, there was no dichotomy prior to the creation of Israel. Jews in iraq commonly called themselves Arab Jews. This only changed when the Arab became the 'enemy' in Israel, and one could not be an enemy of oneself. So I'm not sure I understand? Open to hearing your POV.LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 19:13, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * that is exactly what is contested. while your point of view does have some backing behind it, the opposing point of view does as well. the opposing point of view notes that the term "arab jew" was rarely used even in the 'applicable' era, despite the fact that 'arab christian' and 'arab muslim' were. to sum it up, it says that the pseudoethnicity behind judaism was recognized as 'different' than 'arabness'. mendes claims Iraqi Jews used to call themselves arab jews, but i've heard evidence to the contrary as well.

furthermore, even if we are to accept the POV that jews did call themselves arab as a dominant one, the direct cause of the term's fall into disuse is also of considerable controversy. again, to sum up what should be a more lengthy response (because i don't have enough time, i'm afraid) - one side blames arab nationalism for being minority-hostile and borrowing anti-jewish sentiment from other nationalistic movements, while the other side blames the jewish national movement for breaking up what was (in their view) harmonic coexistance. for further reading, i suggest this marvelous piece by Albert Memmi (of 'colonizer and colonized' fame),. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MiS-Saath (talk • contribs) 13:43, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I have read this and other work by Memmi before. What is interesting is that Memmi, who is clearly Zionist and furthermore expresses no critique of Israel, calls himself an Arab-Jew. He fought colonialism, with his fellow Arabs, not as an Arab nationalist, but as an Arab-Jew, a Jewish Tunisian.LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 16:14, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * If you don't take arabism in the national aspect, there's no contradiction in being a zionist arab jew, as 'weird' as it may sound. anyhow, it's just to say that this area is like treading a minefield, so we have to be careful. the statement i removed was quite careless in that regard. we need to find a decent replacement. MiS-Saath (talk) 19:42, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Exactly, there isn't a contradiction. An Arab can be a Zionist like any 'non-Jew'. In fact some Druze are good examples of that. They are Arab and they are also fine with the Jewish majority concept. (Of course, I'll admit that some Druze of this type renounce Arab status. also, I'll admit that to me, Christian Zionists don't really seem motivated by a desire to truly protect, so much as use, the idea of a Jewish homeland.)LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 19:47, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Palestinianh Jews
I have removed this passage.

'Most likely the number of "Palestinian Jews" in Israel today is between 70,000 - 270,000 people, about 1 - 4% of the nation's total population (however given that these Jews mostly married immigrants, the term is largely meaningless in the modern context).'

The original remark, before TelAviv1's parenthetic explanation, was unsourced, personal opinion, useless (any figure as loose as 70-270,000 has such a vast margin for error that it requires some source). If some RS data on this can be found, it would be most welcome. Palestinian Jews are all those born in Israel before May 1948, hence non-immigrant sabra 60s and over Israelis. Nishidani (talk) 10:03, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
 * While the PLO charter never articulated exactly who a "Palestinian Jew" was, it did say that it included any Jew who was in Palestine before the "Zionist invasion". That would, of course, rule out 1948 as being a possible date; I have no idea where you invented that idea. Some people say that it means all Jews who lived in Palestine before the 1917 Balfour declaration would be considered "Palestinian". Another possible reading is that it would include all Jews who were in Palestine before the First Aliyah of 1881. Jayjg (talk) 03:36, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Both the Mufti (when he led the Palestinian national movement) and the PLO until 1994 stated that only Jews born in "Palestine" before 1917 would be allowed to remain. That was the Palestinian definition of a Palestinian Jew. Your statement that those born before 1948 is purely arbitrary and is your own opinion. All jews resident in pre-1948 Palestine were known as Palestinian-Jews by the British.

The whole section is only meaningful in a historical context and has no relevance today. Telaviv1 (talk) 08:53, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I find it hard to accept that any scholar would wish to be linked to this article, which is simply a POV essay to denigrate the Arab Jewish tradition, justify Zionist aggression and besmirch all the countries destabilised by Israel in 1948 and since.
 * The lead calls the "Arab Jew" designation "controversial", and there is an entire section on "Controversy". But go to the only reference provided, Salim Tamari. "Ishaq al-Shami and the Predicament of the Arab Jew in Palestine". 2003, and there's nothing about "controversy". One trivial statement has been cherry-picked out "It is quite indicative that in most places today this term is considered an oxymoron" - what's that supposed to mean, that much of the world's opinion has been misled by propaganda? The rest of that section owes nothing to the reference given.
 * If this was a serious examination of what it meant to be an Arab Jew, it would mostly concern the fierce discrimination they suffered and still suffer in Israel. As regards Palestinian Arab Jews, there'd be mention of the terrorist attacks by the Zionists (1914 to 1947 that I'm aware of), the assassination of their leader in 1924 by the Haganah, the bulldozing of their synagogues in 1948 and likely lots of other mention of serious oppression. PRtalk 10:23, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * PR, please stop soapboxing. If you have any specific changes you feel should be made to the article, then articulate them. Jayjg (talk) 03:33, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete it as being the work of extremists, editors who seem to have inserted at least some lies. If I could be confident that administrative action would be taken against racists I might recover my confidence to make improvements. PRtalk 09:46, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * You actually can rewrite the article and we could either replace this one or merge them. That is, if you feel this article is that awful. -- Enzuru 09:54, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * PR, please stop soapboxing. If you have any specific changes you feel should be made to the article, then articulate them. Jayjg (talk) 00:52, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Article currently lacks description of Arab Jewish characteristics
The article seems to avoid rather than address the subject of Arab Jews. It doesn't matter what terminology is utilized; no but the term "Arab Jew" is helpful and revealing to English speakers such as Americans who may not be familiar with the deep cultural differences between Europeans and Moslems. Before World War II 90% of Jews worldwide were Ashkenazi, i.e., European, Jews. Israel was established beginning in the 19th century by European, not Arab, Jews. In the main article, the lengthy breakdown of regional details does not address the cultural and historical characteristics pertaining to Arab Jews. The introductory section is sketchy and appeals to publications by some controversial figures. The reality, as it is noted in the article as being taboo in Israel, seems also to be taboo in the article itself -- which is translated from the Hebrew Wikipedia (surprise!). What is being avoided is: (1) the fact that Arab Jews carried to post-1948 Israel generic elements of Arab culture; (2) many elements of Arab culture differ and in many respects clashed and continue to clash with elements of European culture carried by European Jews to Israel; (3) these cultural differences are still in play today, sixty years later, despite higher education, professional career success, assimilation, and intermarriage in the Israeli "melting pot;" (4) many Arab Jews relate histories of abuse at the hands of European Jews during the 1950s; (5) children of religious Arab Jews are widely rumored to have been adopted by non-religious European Jews in those times; (6) Arab Jews as a whole consequently carry a tradition of suspicion and defensiveness with respect to European Jews; (7) Because of cultural similarities to enemy Arabs both feel they understand yet perceive the enemy population bleakly as stereotypically incorrigible and inhuman; (8) in contrast to (non-Russian) European Israeli Jews even today have significantly worse command of the English language than other Israelis; (9) May harbor stereotypes of European Jews and fail to understand the true significance of the Holocaust, despite its importance to Israel as a whole and the Jewish people. In addition, everyday cultural differences remain and are very noticeable interpersonally. In sum, the key gap in the present article is the explanation that Jewish people from Arab countries, and their descendants, are far more numerous in Israel than in the U.S. and that these Arab Jews despite generations of assimilation retain significant elements of a separate sub-culture that may not be immediately obvious but is deep-seated and far-reaching. This is not a popular message but it is one that needs to be heard by those who are trying to understand the Arab Jewish people.24.0.92.164 (talk) 05:36, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Problems that need addressing in the overview
This whole article reads like someone is trying to force the term "Arab Jew" on people who do not self-identify as such. This is POV.
 * Being Arab is a matter of self identification (see: Arab).
 * Not all Arabic speakers are Arab. (see for example: Berber or more controversially: http://www.masrifeki.com/english.4.074.0.htm )

Some other unsourced/controversial claims


 * 1) The statement that Arab Jews are "therefore also sometimes referred to as Sephardi Jews" is misleading. "Sepharadi" is by far the more commonly used term for these people.
 * 2) "Today, almost half of Israel's population is both Arab and Jewish". Says who? Source? I doubt even 1% of Israel's population self-identifies as both Arab and Jewish. Later in the article it says they "could be described as Arab-Jews". POV.
 * 3) "a dichotomy between Arabs and Jews has arisen (as one cannot be an 'enemy' of oneself)". Says who? Source? This is editorializing. POV.

Thoughts? If I don't hear otherwise, I'll edit accordingly. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 13:21, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You're right. Please do edit it accordingly. Jayjg (talk) 05:38, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that arab-jews are more commonly referred to as sephardi, but you need to take care as the two terms are not synonyms. the point about israel being both arab and jewish is also made in the controversies section where it is made accurately. so leave that one in place. I agree that the article is pushing the term unfairly. Telaviv1 (talk) 09:11, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Done. Comments? (It was obviously the lede, not overview like I mistakenly put in the header here) No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 19:19, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

"Arab Jews by location" section
I think this whole section doesn't belong here.
 * This section does not deal with people who self-identify as Arab Jews, but with whole Jewish communities in Arab countries. The title is misleading. When you change the title to something more accurate (and less POV) like "Jews in Arab countries", you see it doesn't belong in this article.
 * it is very similar to Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_lands to the point of being a word for word copy for some countries (for example, Bahrain and Lebanon).
 * Neither the Hebrew or Arabic articles for "Arab Jew" have such a section.

Thoughts? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 22:00, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Arab Jews can both be inclusive of those who identify as such, and those who are identified as such by scholarship and the like. It's important our sources about the exodus themselves use the phrase Arab Jews, if they do, this section is fine, but if they don't it needs to be resourced and possibly rewritten. -- Enzuru 22:20, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy to read the scholarship to which you refer. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 17:48, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You're correct. copied large portions of the Jewish exodus from Arab lands article into this article on July 17, 2007, in violation of the GNU Free Documentation License. He had only been editing for a week at the time, and he was subsequently indefinitely blocked less than a month later. It should all be removed. Jayjg (talk) 19:43, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * So, barring any new sources which use the term like it's used in this section (which if my understanding of the term is correct, we're not going to find), we have several options:
 * Remove the section.
 * Merge the section back into Jewish exodus from Arab lands.
 * Merge the section into some other article, such as History of the Jews under Muslim rule
 * Create a new article. Call it History of the Jews in Arab countries, or something like that.
 * What do you guys think? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:02, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It can't be merged anywhere, it violates the GFDL. It should just be removed. Jayjg (talk) 00:59, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Is there a procedure for dealing with GFDL violations? Anyway, I won't be making any changes until after new year, so people can come back from their vacations and comment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by No More Mr Nice Guy (talk • contribs) 12:45, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Bumping this in case people were away (like me) and would still like to comment before I edit as discussed.No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 10:35, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I think creating a new article History of the Jews in Arab countries is the best solution, because many Jews lived in Arab countries, including Arabia, before Islam, so to merge it with History of the Jews under Muslim rule is a wrong idea. Jewish exodus from Arab lands should not necessary tell all of Jewish history in Arab countries so it should not be merged with that article as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Igorb2008 (talk • contribs) 20:58, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Just One Question
Strange that, Arab Christians are tolerated and treated as no different from Arab Muslims, and yet, "Arab Jews" are treated as Jews period.

Forgive me, if I am a little suspicious of both sides, as to how "Arab Jews" are classified.

67.148.120.65 (talk)stardingo747 —Preceding undated comment was added at 13:09, 27 December 2008 (UTC).

I think the problem with the article is that it classifies as Arab Jews millions of people, while there are very few people who identify themselves as Arab Jew. There are people of course, who consider themselves as Arab by nationality, culture, ancestry, and as Jews only by religion, but there are only,maybe, few thousands of them. Most Jews consider themselves distinct group by nationality, culture, ancestry, like Kurds for exemple, and historically mostly recognized as such. If for example you will ask to "Arab Jews" the question "Name some important scientist of your people", 99.95% will more likely answer Einstein than Alhazen ,for example, while Arab Christians or Arab Muslims more likely say Alhazen. It is also notable that that with the rise of Arab and Jewish nationalistic movements in the 20th century, that wanted to establish independent Arab states or independent Jewish state, most "Arab Jews" ended up in Jewish state, while very few remained in Arab states.Igorb2008 (talk) 10:58, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Is Israel in, or out, of the Arab World?
Israel is surrounded by arab states, and has a significant arab population. Is it appropriate to imply that it is outside the arab world, as this passage does?93.96.148.42 (talk) 02:22, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The term was occasionally used in the early 20th century, mainly by Arab nationalists, to describe the 1 million Jews living in the Arab world at the time. Most of this population has since left for Israel, Western Europe and to a smaller degree the United States and South America.
 * Israel it not culturally or linguistically in the Arab World, so I'd say that yes, it is appropriate to say (or imply) that it is not part of it.No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 11:51, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

corrected
before* According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, all Jews are of Arab (Semitic) origin, in Aramaic Mesopotamia. after According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, all Jews are of (Semitic) origin, in Aramaic Mesopotamia. \ because arab and semitic are not the same thing —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.246.66.76 (talk) 23:23, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Israeli Jews of Middle Eastern background
I got to this article after clicking on the "Israeli Jews of Middle Eastern background" link. Seriously, I am not being ironic, but are ALL Jews ultimately of Middle Eastern origin or background (except for African or converts), not just Arab Jews? The distinction between "Arab" and "Israeli" Jews seems to be similar to that of, say, Orthodox Christian Balkans and Muslim Balkans; they share the same general origins, but have different religions and have diverged culturally. Kemet 21:24, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Arab Jews
May I suggest that Arab Jews be renamed to "Judaized Arabs"? "Judaized Arabs" represents Sadducees, Boethusians, Essenes, Zadokites, Hasmoneans and Pharisees who fled Judea after destruction of the Second Temple and later assimilated into Arab culture, dress and behavior. Later, upon arrival of Prophet Mohammed, most of these tribes converted to Islam.

Therefore, "Musta'Arabi Jews" are different from "Judaized Arabs" because the Musta'arabi did not convert en-masse to Islam.

Jimharlow99 (talk) 21:04, 27 October 2009 (UTC)


 * "Judaized Arabs" implies that some previously non-Jewish Arabs adopted Judaism. That is the opposite of what you are trying to say.


 * This article is simply about those Jewish communities that lived in Arab countries and spoke Arabic in the last few centuries. Speculation about the ultimate ethnic origin of Jews in general, or of Arab Muslims who may have Jewish ancestors, is beside the point. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 11:18, 28 October

>>> I am a British Jew, not an English Jew! I have never heard of an Arab Jew. I have never found an Arab who was Jewish, Christian yes, but not Jewish. So this whole article is problematic for me. >>>

Jewish Encyclopedia citation
The article currently states: "According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, all Jews are of Semitic origin, in Aramaic Mesopotamia." Can anyone supply a citation to the relevant Encylopedia article? Since, in the past, Judaism has been a proselytising religion and absorbed, for example, many non-Semitic Roman and Greek converts, it seems odd that it would say categorically that all Jews are of Semitic origin.    ←   ZScarpia  09:36, 16 July 2010 (UTC) Citation Needed template added.    ←   ZScarpia  00:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

People or words
Is this article about the people who are Jewish and "Arabic", or about the term used to describe these people?
 * If it's about Jews who are Arabs or who live in Arabic lands, then it needs a substantial rewrite
 * If it's about the term itself, and the disputes over usage of the term, then I would suggest a MOVE to Definitions of Arab Jews, a companion article to Definitions of Palestine and Palestinian.

Personally, I would like to read about Arabs who are Jews (if any, would they be "Jewish Arabs"?) and also about Jews (or their descendants) who have ever lived in Arab countries? How do they survive? Are they welcomed, tolerated, persecuted, or what? How does this treatment compare to the opposite situation, i.e., that of Arab Israelis or Muslim Israelis? (Sorry, but I still get a little confused between what an "Arab" is and what a "Muslim" is: perhaps a short article on Arabs and Muslims could sharpen the distinction. Historical note: there once was a time when "Englishman" meant "Christian", due to the prevalence of Christianity in the British Empire, although that relation has largely faded (see Western Christendom. --Uncle Ed (talk) 14:45, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

There should be a mosaic
There should be a mosaic for this article, there's many prominent Arab Jews.

People should find image licensing for Naeim Giladi, Ella Shohat, Saadia Goan and Maimonides since these people were prominent JEws from the Arab World. As for Maimonides, southern Spain was part of the Arab World at that time. 76.193.178.172 (talk) 11:01, 14 July 2013 (UTC)PacificWarrior101
 * To refer to Maimonides or to Saadia Gaon as "Arab Jews" is anachronistic and false; see the quote of Maimonides that appears in the article. We should categorize people as "Arab Jews" only if they referred to themselves as such (indeed, like Naeim Giladi and Ella Shohat) since it's not a commonly accepted term. Ben tetuan (talk) 20:43, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
 * For a mosaic you should have 8 (2*4) or 9 (3*3) people. Or at least 6 (2*3). Are there that many notable self-identified Arab Jews with pictures? Debresser (talk) 00:36, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * What a load of crock. Just because the idea of an Arab Jew is recent does not mean the phenomenon is. Arab in its broadest sense (and that used by Arab nationalists and the League) refers to peoples speaking the Arabic language and following the Arab culture. In that sense, the Jews of the Arab world can be legitimately called "Arab Jews" because they were closely integrated into Arab-Islamic civilization as much as a minority could be in that time period. There's a wealth of legitimate literature on this. See Mark Cohen's Under Crescent and Cross and Orit Bashkin's New Babylonians, both peer-reviewed works of scholarship. Although the term wasn't always there, even Cohen and Bashkin use the term frequently to descriptively refer to Jews of the Arab-Islamic world throughout its history, on account of their cultural practices and outlook. As a descriptor, I think its sound. Furthermore, its not like "English Jews", "German Jews", "Russian Jews", "European Jews" or "Persian Jews" were historically common terms either. In the past, these people were just Jews and more often than not, nationalists in these countries did not consider the Jews part of their nations and thought such terms were oxymorons. More often than not, Jews in Eastern Europe were segregated and spoke Yiddish as their native language rather than Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Polish, Hungarian, etc. Though they probably needed those languages for trade and contact. Jews in the Arab world were much more part of their societies than that, until the Enlightenment when Jews became more integrated into western life (and that too had problems). Another issue I have with this argument against Arab Jews is the notion that Jews existed in distinction to "Arabs". The fact is before the late 19th-early 20th century, "Arab" traditionally referred to Bedouin in the peninsula. The Arabic speaking peoples in Mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt and North Africa did not usually call themselves "Arab" unless if they were part of a tribe. They usually identified with their city or region of origin. I don't think the Christian groups like Maronites, Greek Orthodox or Syriacs were calling themselves "Arab" either, despite using Arabic. So its not as if "Arab Jew" is any more problematic. Plus people on this page seem to forget that the Arabic-speaking Jews in the Mashriq were frequently called "Musta'arabim" by Sephardi visitors on account of their professing an Arab culture. Sometimes, they were even called Moriscos or Moors on account of being like them. So while "Arab Jew" may be recent, the idea of these communities having a unique identity centered around their Arab culture is not. Basically this entire quibble with the term "Arab Jew" is a product of contemporary Israeli-Palestinian politics, where Zionist ideology and Israeli nationalism dictate that Jews and Arabs are enemies. I've always found it curious that Syrian Jews living in Latin America and the US who descend from early 20th century immigrants tend to have less of an issue with the term "Arab Jew" (many even affirm it) whereas its usually those living in Israel that object the most. I saw a documentary on Al-Jazeera once about one of the last Jews living in Iraq at the time of the US invasion. He was airlifted to Israel along with some other elderly Iraqi Jews and reunited with his family, only to feel alienated in the new Israeli society, after spending a lifetime in Iraq. He felt more at home among Palestinian citizens of Israel than among other Israeli Jews and even identified himself as "Arab" on account of the cultural attachments he had in Iraq. Furthermore, Lucette Lagnado, a writer who is no enemy of Israel or Zionism btw, writes in her memoir of her father, an Egyptian Jewish businessman, who frequently described himself and his family as Arab Jews. This entire article should be re-done to describe the history, identity and culture of Jews living in the Arab Islamic world up till the creation of Israel, citing credible sources like Mark Cohen, Albert Hourani, Orit Bashkin, Joel Beinin, etc. At the same time, the article can include a discussion of the history of the term and the debate over its usage. And yes, the picture box should include prominent Jews in the history of the Arab world like Maimonides, Samuel ibn Nargela, Saadia Gaon, Sassoon Eskell, David Sassoon, Samir Naqqash, Salima Pasha, Leila Mourad, Yaqub Sanua, Edmond El-Maleh, etc. Just my two cents. 173.15.19.73 (talk) 11:42, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Links
>> Tunisian Jews Seek Place in New Democracy — as TunisiansLihaas (talk) 14:22, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Criticisms of the term "Arab Jews"
Almost all of the section Criticisms of the term "Arab Jews" is an unsourced essay that has to be deleted if it isn't sourced. Zerotalk 02:25, 25 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The arguments in that section are confusing, simply because the the distinctions the text is drawing between "sharing a common culture" and "ethnicity" are vague and unspecified. The distinction also contradicts the definition of "ethnicity" in the Wikipedia article on that subject: "An ethnic group or ethnicity is a category of people who identify with each other based on common ancestral, social, cultural or national experience." So, why doesn't Polish describe an ethnicity? I think it does. Why doesn't Slavic also describe a cultural heritage? I think does. Also, why can't there be overlapping ethnicities? Why is that impossible? There can certainly be overlapping cultures, and at the other extreme, overlapping races. Certainly ethnicity is not more granular than every other category. The text never broaches these questions, so remains confusing. If there is a real debate over the term, then the section is warranted, but the whole presentation of the section has to be rethought in light of these broader questions. Brianshapiro (talk) 17:56, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

February 2015
User:Debresser, almost the entire article is disputed and unsourced, the term is very controversial and except for several individuals is simply non existent. what is your explanation for keeping "descended from such persons" with no reference? Infantom (talk) 00:50, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * @Infantom, nice to meet you here. I really fail to understand what precisely in this entire article you claim is disputed. And who is disputing it?
 * I also have my doubt as to those who are descended of Arab Jews, if they are still considered Arab Jews even if they themselves were born in, let's say Israel, or the US, for that matter. I would definitely agree to adding a Dubious or Fact tag, as I now see you did. I'd give it some time then, to see if anybody wants to source it. Of course, if you insist on removing that part, there isn't much I can do, especially since I have my doubts myself, but in general I prefer to give it some time, since often that helps and editors find good sources. Debresser (talk) 08:25, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

How dit first Arab Jews, i.e. Jews of Arabia, define themselves ? How were they defined by others ?
Hello, I' sorry, I don't speak English very well.

I wonder why this article gives so much importance to the modern period, and neglect the origins of Arab Jews, in Arabia.

For instance, I read in a WP article about a jewish poet of Arabia (VIIth century), Al-Rabi ibn Abu al-Huqayq : He is cited among the Arabic Jewish poets by Moses ibn Ezra in his Kitab al-Muhadharah.

Does it not mean that for Moses ibn Ezra (XIth century), it was possible to be an Arabic jewish poet ?

So, why spending so much time about the controversy : who, today, uses the term "Arab Jew", and who does not ? It seems it is a very ancient way to define the Jews of the Arab world.--86.249.203.94 (talk) 21:08, 9 January 2017 (UTC)


 * You are confusing Judeo-Arabic with the modern anti-Zionist or post Zionist term “Arab Jew” which has only become popular near the end of the 20th century. Most of the sources uses Jews from Arab lands not Arab Jews.Jonney2000 (talk) 19:40, 11 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I look for "Judeo-Arabic" on Wikipedia, and find NOTHING. Please give a source saying that Al-Rabi ibn Abu al-Huqayq is "Judeo-Arabic", and that "Arab Jew" was not used in the past. It is absolutely wrong to say that it is a "modern anti-Zionist or post Zionist term" : THIS TERM IS USED IN ARABIC ALSO, see the Arabic article "Al-yahud al-arab", if you read Arabic ; and Arab Muslims do not repeat usually "post Zionist terms". You have no source and what you say is wrong. I am an Arab Jew, and I have always heard this term, in all languages.
 * Why do we have to say "Jews from Arab lands" ? why not Arabic-speaking Jews, why not Jews of Arab culture etc.--46.218.206.54 (talk) 11:59, 12 January 2017 (UTC)


 * We go by reliable sources here Judeo-Arabic languagesJonney2000 (talk) 13:22, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
 * It's a joke ? "Judeo-Arabic" is just a LANGUAGE, you can not say that people are "Judeo-Arabic". And how can you say about Al-Rabi ibn Abu al-Huqayq that he is "Judeo-Arabic" ???? He wrote in Arabic ! Sorry to tell you that you know nothing about these people. --86.249.200.174 (talk) 17:11, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

What about Jewish Viziers ?
A secundary source is needed for the quotation of Maïmonide in the article (suppressed many times in July 2016), where Maïmonides says "Arabs have persecuted us severely".

1. In what context was he writing ? All Arabs did not behave similarly, at all times. The Almoravides persucuted everybody (Muslims and Jews), the Omeyyades on the countrary (and the Abbassides, the Fatimides, the Merinides) had chosen sometimes Jewish viziers. ¨Maïmonides was writing to Yemenite Jews, who were maybe persecuted, but it was not the case in other Arab countries.

2.Why selecting this extract from Maïmonides ? There must be other texts from this author where he remembers that many Jews of Al-Andalus had very high positions, became very rich, were at the court of the sultan, etc

This passage in the article is not very fair.--90.35.21.85 (talk) 13:29, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

PS : Examples of Jewish viziers : Samuel ibn Nagrela (Al Andalus), Yaqub ibn Killis(Iraq and Egypt), Abû Sa‘d al-Tustarî (Egypt), Yekoutiel ben Isaac ibn Hassan (Al Andalus),, Abu al-Fadl Hasdai (Al Andalus), Abraham bar Hiyya (Al Andalus), Haroun Ibn Batash (Morocco), etc.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.35.21.85 (talk) 13:39, 10 January 2017 (UTC)


 * See reply aboveJonney2000 (talk) 19:40, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * See reply above--46.218.206.54 (talk) 12:00, 12 January 2017 (UTC)