Israel’s Uncomfortable History of Racist Engineering
Believers in Eugenics Helped Birth Jewish State
By Seth J. Frantzman
Published April 21, 2014, issue of April 25, 2014.
Late in March, Ebony magazine apologized after one of its senior editors made a racially charged dismissive comment on Twitter. Last November, two students at Lee University apologized for wearing blackface, with one noting, “We are deeply sorry for those we have upset.”
Two recent incidents in Israel mirror these events, but the result was diametrically opposite. On December 22, Haaretz writer Gideon Levy, in a column ostensibly devoted to confronting anti-African racism, claimed that Israel had “a million immigrants from Russia, a third of them non-Jews, some of whom were also found to have a degree of alcohol and crime in their blood.” Called on to apologize, Levy posted a response in which he claimed that “Russian olim in Israel were offended and furious and they accused me, of all people, of being a racist.” He heaped more scorn on Russian Israelis, stating that “many of those who recently moved to Israel from Russia have not done so for Zionist reasons.”
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In mid-March, during Purim, 15 students from the suburban community of Mevaseret Zion dressed up as members of the Ku Klux Klan, and three of their friends wore blackface. A principal of the school defended the actions, according to a report; “the costume was designed to create interesting and important discussions…. This act essentially created a platform where discussion can exist.”
What we see in Israel when it comes to issues of stereotyping in society is generally a collective shrug of the shoulders. Discriminatory actions are regarded primarily as a problem of the victims, who are deemed “incensed” but not taken seriously. And not as a societywide issue. Deeply offensive actions, such as dressing up like the KKK in a community where there are numerous Ethiopians, is poked fun at, with one paper calling it an “epic fail.” Surveys show that Israelis tend to be insular in their views of diversity; a 2013 Israel Democracy Institute survey found that 47% of Jews did not want to live next to an Arab family, while 41% of Arabs didn’t want to live next to Jews. Commentators tend to see this as evidence of a society that is increasingly fraught with racism. But an examination of a history of ethnic and race relations in Israel, focusing particularly on mass media, tends to show that the problem is deeply rooted in the past. Contemporary society has never confronted this history, and it cannot begin the process of learning from it.
Read more: http://forward.com/articles/196719/israel-s-uncomfortable-history-of-racist-enginee#ixzz2zewT7luh
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