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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.
Israeli scholar Oren Yiftachel characterizes the riots as "the first wave of Mizrahi protest outside the [development] towns." [1]
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.
Shay Hazkani sees the struggle of Moroccan Jews in against Ashkenazi racism in Israel that led to the Wadi Salib riots as an extension of the anti-colonial struggle they had been engaged in against France in Morocco. [3]
Discrimination against Mizrahim is believed to have been one of the main catalysts of the riot. [4] This event marked the initial recognition of ethnic discrimination among Israeli Jews. [5] 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. [6] 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. [7]
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. [8]
In 1959, Jewish Israeli author Leah Goldberg's children's short story and poem Room for Rent was reprinted as a book reportedly due to its message on tolerance and as a reaction to the Wadi Salib Riots. [9]
In 1979, Amos Gitai produced a film on the subject - Me'urot Wadi Salib ["the events of Wadi Salib"]. [10] The Wadi Salib riots have been discussed in many scholarly articles. [11] [12]
Migdal HaEmek is a city in the Northern District of Israel. In 2022 it had a population of 27,088.
The Battle of Haifa, also known as the Fall of Haifa, and called by the Jewish forces Operation Bi'ur Hametz, was a Haganah operation carried out on 21–22 April 1948 and a major event in the final stages of the civil war in Palestine, leading up to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The objective of the operation was the capture of the Arab neighborhoods of Haifa. The operation formed part of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, with approximately 15,000 Arab residents being displaced between April 21–22, and with only 4,000 remaining in the city by mid-May from a pre-conflict population of approximately 65,000.
Mizrahi Jews, also known as Mizrahim (מִזְרָחִים) in plural and Mizrahi (מִזְרָחִי) in singular, and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or Edot HaMizrach, are terms used in Israeli discourse to refer to a grouping of Jewish communities that lived in the Muslim world. Mizrahi is a political sociological term that was coined with the creation of the State of Israel. It translates as "Easterner" in Hebrew.
Jewish ethnic divisions refer to many distinctive communities within the world's Jewish population. Although "Jewish" is considered an ethnicity itself, 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.
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.
Arab Jews is a term for Jews living in or originating from the Arab world. Many left or were expelled from Arab countries in the decades following the founding of Israel in 1948, and took up residence in Israel, Western Europe, the United States and Latin America. The term is controversial and politically contested in Israel, where the term "Mizrahi Jews" was adopted by the early state instead. However, some anti-Zionist Jews of Arab origin actively elect to call themselves Arab Jews.
An ethnocracy is a type of political structure in which the state apparatus is controlled by a dominant ethnic group to further that group's 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. An ethnocratic society facilitates the ethnicization of the state by the dominant group, through the expansion of control likely accompanied by conflict with minorities or neighbouring states.
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.
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, who arrived to the newly established State of Israel.
Wadi Nisnas is a predominantly Arab neighborhood in the city of Haifa, Israel, with a population of about 8,000 inhabitants.
Moroccan Jews are Jews who live in or are from Morocco. Moroccan Jews constitute an ancient community dating to Roman times. Jews began immigrating to the region as early as 70 CE. They were later met by a second wave of migrants from the Iberian Peninsula in the period which immediately preceded and followed the issuing of the 1492 Alhambra Decree, when Jews were expelled from Spain, and soon afterward, from Portugal. This second wave of immigrants changed Moroccan Jewry, which largely embraced the Andalusian Sephardic liturgy, to switch to a mostly Sephardic identity.
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.
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. A 2018 statistic found that 45% of Jewish Israelis identified as either Mizrahi or Sephardic.
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. As of 2013, they number 2.8 million and constitute one of the largest Jewish ethnic divisions in Israel, in line with Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews. Ashkenazim, excluding those who migrated from the former USSR, are estimated to be 31.8% of the Israeli population in 2018.
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.
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.
Ashkenaz is a 2007 Israeli documentary film, directed by Rachel Leah Jones.