Wadi Salib riots

Last updated

The Wadi Salib riots were a series of street demonstrations and acts of vandalism in the Wadi Salib neighborhood of Haifa, Israel, in 1959. They were sparked by the shooting of a Moroccan Jewish immigrant by police officers. Demonstrators accused the police of ethnic discrimination against Mizrahi Jews.

Contents

Israeli scholar Oren Yiftachel characterizes the riots as "the first wave of Mizrahi protest outside the [development] towns." [1]

History

Wadi Salib residents demonstrating in front of a Haifa police station after the shooting of Yaakov Elkarif WadiSalib1-Arkyvn hmdynh mAmr 2012.jpg
Wadi Salib residents demonstrating in front of a Haifa police station after the shooting of Yaakov Elkarif

On July 9, 1959, police confronted a Wadi Salib resident, Yaakov Elkarif, who was drunk and disturbing the peace. When he began behaving erratically and hurling empty bottles at the police sent to arrest him, he was shot and seriously wounded. Residents surrounded the police vehicle and dragged an officer out of it. He was released only after shots were fired in the air. [2]

Conflicting testimonies arose from the event. One witness claimed Elkarif provoked the officer through threats. Another witness offered that Elkarif, perceived as a stereotypical Moroccan immigrant -- i.e., violent and hot-tempered -- was shot for his lack of standing in society. Lastly, another witness claimed that the officer fired with the intention of calming the situation, which resulted in Elkarif's accidental shooting.

After false rumors circulated that he had died, several hundred Wadi Salib residents marched to Hadar HaCarmel, a predominantly Ashkenazi district, smashing shop windows and setting cars on fire. [2] Back in Wadi Salib, the angry demonstrators targeted the headquarters of Mapai [Labor Party] and the Histadrut (the Israeli congress of trade unions). The police tried to disperse the demonstrators by force, leaving 13 police and 2 demonstrators wounded. 34 demonstrators were arrested.

On July 11, riots broke out elsewhere in Israel, particularly in large communities of Maghrebi immigrants, like Tiberias, Beersheba, and Migdal HaEmek. It was claimed the riots were not completely spontaneous, and that a local movement, Likud Yotsei Tsfon Africa (Union of North African Immigrants) was involved in planning some of them. David Ben-Haroush, one of the movement's founders, was sent to prison. Ben-Haroush ran for the next Knesset elections while incarcerated, on the Union's list, though he failed to cross the electoral threshold.

Ashkenazi-Mizrahi relations

Discrimination against Mizrahim is believed to have been one of the main catalysts of the riot. [3] This event marked the initial recognition of ethnic discrimination among Israeli Jews. [4] Prior the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the term “Mizrahim“ was not commonly used, but entered the Jewish lexicon as a term used broadly to refer to Jews Middle Eastern and North African ancestry. [5] The Mizrahim were viewed as passive recipients, whereas the Ashkenazim actively contributed to the creation of the Zionist vision of a Jewish-national community in Israel. [6]

The Wadi Salib riots still resonate in Israeli society as a symptom of the social malaise that led to clashes between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews. [7]

Legacy

In 1979, Amos Gitai produced a film on the subject - Me'urot Wadi Salib ["the events of Wadi Salib"]. [8] The Wadi Salib riots have been discussed in many scholarly articles. [9] [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Migdal HaEmek</span> City in Israel

Migdal HaEmek is a city in the Northern District of Israel.

Mizrahi Jews, also known as Mizrahim (מִזְרָחִים) or Mizrachi (מִזְרָחִי) and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or Edot HaMizrach, are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained in the Land of Israel and those who existed in diaspora throughout and around the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) from biblical times into the modern era.

Jewish ethnic divisions refer to many distinctive communities within the world's Jewish population. Although considered a self-identifying ethnicity, there are distinct ethnic subdivisions among Jews, most of which are primarily the result of geographic branching from an originating Israelite population, mixing with local communities, and subsequent independent evolutions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Panthers (Israel)</span> Israeli protest movement

The Black Panthers were an Israeli protest movement of second-generation Jewish immigrants from North Africa and Middle Eastern countries. It was one of the first organizations in Israel with the mission of working for social justice for Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, drawing inspiration and borrowing the name from the African-American organization Black Panther Party. It is also sometimes referred to as the Israeli Black Panthers to distinguish them from the original American group.

An ethnocracy is a type of political structure in which the state apparatus is controlled by a dominant ethnic group to further its interests, power, dominance, and resources. Ethnocratic regimes in the modern era typically display a 'thin' democratic façade covering a more profound ethnic structure, in which ethnicity – and not citizenship – is the key to securing power and resources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wadi Salib</span>

Wadi Salib is a primarily Palestinian neighbourhood located in downtown Haifa, Israel, on the lower northeastern slope of Mount Carmel, between the Hadar HaCarmel and the city's historic center and CBD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amos Gitai</span> Israeli film director and screenwriter

Amos Gitai is an artist and an Israeli filmmaker, born 11 October 1950 in Haifa, Israel.

Ethnic democracy is a political system that combines a structured ethnic dominance with democratic, political and civil rights for all. Both the dominant ethnic group and the minority ethnic groups have citizenship and are able to fully participate in the political process. Ethnic democracy differs from ethnocracy in that elements of it are more purely democratic. It provides the non-core groups with more political participation, influence and improvement of status than ethnocracy supposedly does. Nor is an ethnic democracy a Herrenvolk democracy which is by definition a democracy officially limited to the core ethnic nation only.

Israeli Jews or Jewish Israelis are Israeli citizens and nationals who are Jewish through either their Jewish ethnicity and/or their adherence to religious Judaism. The term also includes the descendants of Jewish Israelis who have emigrated and settled outside of the State of Israel, where they are predominantly found in the Western world. The overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews speak Hebrew, a Semitic language, as their native tongue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Development town</span> Settlements in Israel

Development towns were new settlements built in Israel during the 1950s in order to provide permanent housing for a large influx of Jewish immigrants from Arab countries, Holocaust survivors from Europe and other new immigrants (Olim), who arrived to the newly established State of Israel.

Yehouda Shenhav is an Israeli sociologist and critical theorist. He is known for his contributions in the fields of bureaucracy, management and capitalism, as well as for his research on ethnicity in Israeli society and its relationship with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wadi Nisnas</span> Neighbourhood in Haifa, Israel

Wadi Nisnas is a formerly mixed Jewish and Arab neighborhood in the city of Haifa in northern Israel, which is becoming mixed again. Nisnas is the Arabic word for mongoose, an indigenous animal. The Wadi has a population of about 8,000 inhabitants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reuven Abergel</span> Moroccan-Israeli activist

Reuven Abergel is a Moroccan-Israeli social and political activist and a co-founder and former leader of the Israeli Black Panthers.

Racism in Israel encompasses all forms and manifestations of racism experienced in Israel, irrespective of the colour or creed of the perpetrator and victim, or their citizenship, residency, or visitor status. More specifically in the Israeli context, racism in Israel refers to racism directed against Israeli Arabs by Israeli Jews, intra-Jewish racism between the various Jewish ethnic divisions, historic and current racism towards Mizrahi Jews although some believe the dynamics have reversed, and racism on the part of Israeli Arabs against Israeli Jews.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Migration of Moroccan Jews to Israel</span> 20th-century population movement event

The migration of Moroccan Jews to Israel has been made all over the centuries. Moroccan Jews in Israel have been the founders of many pioneer neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Tiberias and others.

Mizrahi Jews constitute one of the largest Jewish ethnic divisions among Israeli Jews. Mizrahi Jews are descended from Jews in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia and parts of the Caucasus, who had lived for many generations under Muslim rule during the Middle Ages. The vast majority of them left the Muslim-majority countries during the Arab–Israeli conflict, in what is known as the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries.

Ashkenazi Jews in Israel refers to immigrants and descendants of Ashkenazi Jews, who now reside within the state of Israel, in the modern sense also referring to Israeli Jewish adherents of the Ashkenazi Jewish tradition. They number 2.8 million and constitute one of the largest Jewish ethnic divisions in Israel, in line with Mizrahi Jews and Sephardi Jews. Ashkenazim, excluding those who migrated from the former USSR, are estimated to be 31.8% of the Israeli population.

Mizrahi feminism is a movement within Israeli feminism, which seeks to extricate Mizrahi women from the binary categories of Mizrahi-Ashkenazi and men-women. Mizrahi feminism is inspired by both Black feminism and Intersectional feminism, and seeks to bring about the liberation of women and social equality through recognition of the particular place Mizrahi women hold on the social map, and all the ways it affects Mizrahi women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henriette Dahan Kalev</span> Israeli academic and Mizrahi feminist

Henriette Dahan Kalev is an Israeli Senior Lecturer of political science and the founder of the Gender Studies Program at Ben Gurion University. She is one of the founders of the Mizrahi feminist movement, and one of the leading theorists of Mizrahi feminism.

<i>Ashkenaz</i> (film) 2007 documentary film

Ashkenaz is a 2007 Israeli documentary film, directed by Rachel Leah Jones.

References

  1. Yiftachel, Oren (2000). ""Ethnocracy" and Its Discontents: Minorities, Protests, and the Israeli Polity". Critical Inquiry. 26 (4): 751. ISSN   0093-1896.
  2. 1 2 So much for the melting pot, Tom Segev
  3. Massad, Joseph (1996). "Zionism's Internal Others: Israel and the Oriental Jews". Journal of Palestine Studies. 25 (4): 53–68 [60]. doi:10.1525/jps.1996.25.4.00p0006c. JSTOR   2538006.
  4. Weiss, Yfaat (2011). A Confiscated Memory: Wadi Salib and Haifa's Lost Heritage. Columbia University Press. p. 131. ISBN   978-0231152266.
  5. For God's Sake: Why Are There So Many More Israelis with the Surname "Mizrahi" Than "Friedman"?, by Michal Margalit, 17 January 2014, Ynet.
  6. Kahn-Nisser, Sara (2010). "Nationalism, Identity, and Rebellion: An Interpretation of the Wadi Salib Events". Nationalism and Ethnic Politics. 16 (3–4): 375–396 [392]. doi:10.1080/13537113.2010.526919. S2CID   144817834.
  7. Timeline Archived 2008-12-03 at the Wayback Machine Jewish Agency for Israel
  8. "Wadi Salib Riots | The Films of Amos Gitai". www.amosgitai.com. Retrieved 2021-12-08.
  9. Judith T. Shuval (May 1962). "Emerging Patterns of Ethnic Strain in Israel". Social Forces . 40 (4): 323–330. doi:10.2307/2573888. JSTOR   2573888.
  10. Daniel L. Smith (June 1991). "The second Israel: Peace in the Middle East and the implications of militant oriental Jewish ethnicity". Dialectical Anthropology . 16 (2): 153–166. doi:10.1007/BF00250243. S2CID   144842725.