Reports that the Ashkenazi cultural elite in Israel has lost its hegemony to Mizrahim have been exaggerated, argues Rami Kimchi in this provocative piece for Haaretz. Their experience in Europe is making them panic unnecessarily (with thanks: Lily):
Ashkenazi ‘cultural elitist’ Yair Garbuz, a candidate for the Israel Prize
In the debate over the elitism of the Israel Prize – which was demonstrated again recently by the unfortunate candidacy of artist Yair Garbuz – Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev claimed that the exclusion of Mizrahim (Jews of Middle Eastern or North African origin) and Arabs is the inevitable result of a situation in which the cultural elite is comprised mainly of Ashkenazim.
At the same time, author Meir Shalev denied that the Ashkenazim were an elite, saying they forfeited their hegemony a long time ago to the Mizrahim, who have become the new elite.
Indeed, since the 1970s, mainstream Hebrew literature has been careful to produce allegories that reflect the decline of the old Ashkenazi elite and its replacement by a new elite comprising all those who were previously excluded. In other words, Mizrahim, Arabs and the ultra-Orthodox (or Haredim). Examples include A. B. Yehoshua’s “The Lover” (1977) and Amos Oz’s “Black Box” (1986). Shalev’s own “The Blue Mountain (1988) also deals with the death of the old elite.
A question arises as to what extent these elegiac literary depictions of contemporary Israeli life correspond to reality. How reliable are they, and not just the result of a false panic that has taken grip of the elites – as Regev claimed following the removal of Avi Shoshan, an expert in Mizrahi music, from Army Radio’s playlist committee.
Objectively, it seems there is nothing in the Israeli reality which proves the Ashkenazi elite has lost its hegemonic status. Absurdly, its undisputed control of Israeli art reflects this.
Art has always been an expression of power. The wonderful statues of the Roman emperors and senators were nothing more than propaganda posters, carved out of marble for the greatness of the empire.
The Church used art to raise the standing of Christianity. In ancient Christian mosaics, Jesus is shown as the model of a Roman ruler, not as the son of a carpenter from Nazareth. And the two largest ideological movements of the 20th century, fascism and communism, also used art as propaganda.
A clear indication that the old Ashkenazi elite had lost its hegemonic status would be a radical change in the dominant Israeli artistic style, and its replacement by another, matching the interests of the “new elite” – just as socialist realism replaced the European artistic style that had been predominant in czarist Russia, and which, with the rise of the Bolsheviks to power, immediately became “corrupt bourgeois style.”
But events of recent weeks show this is far from the case in Israel.
So why do the Ashkenazi elite seem so panicked and paranoid about the supposed loss of their hegemony? It is possible they have good reason for their insecurity about the stability of their control. Unfortunately, though, this is not related to the improved status of the Mizrahim or Haredim, but to what previously happened to these elites in Europe.
These Israeli elites are just the heirs of the Ashkenazi Jewish elites of Eastern Europe. In other words, until just three generations ago, they themselves were the “other” of Europe, and suffered from exclusion, discrimination, prejudice and an anti-Semitic discourse that portrayed them as non-European. It seems the Ashkenazi Israeli elites inherited from their forefathers an inferiority complex with regard to their original Jewish culture – an inferiority rooted in the ethno-cultural suppression of Ashkenazi Jewry by the Christian European discourse.
Beginning in the late 19th century, a modern Jewish identity was formed in Europe. This process was accompanied by a racial-ethnic distinction made by European Christians, which attributed inherent cultural and racial inferiority to the Jews. This included the belief that the Jews, by their very nature, had something that caused them to lack any aesthetic sensitivity. The Jews were characterized as shameless imitators with an “oriental” imagination, drawn to superficial beauty.
Therefore, as a result of this history, the Israeli Ashkenazi elites have a very fragile recognition of their own worth in general, and are especially vulnerable in the areas of culture and art.
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