Israel: Ingathering the Exiles
“Exodus from Egypt 33”
Marc Chagall (Etching, 1956)
Operation Magic Carpet
Airlifts Yemenite Jews to
Israel, 1949
The Idea of “Ingathering Exiles”
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Jewish religious belief stemming from the Bible (Prophets):

Isaiah 11:12 –
He (the Lord) will hold up a signal to the nations
And assemble the banished of Israel,
And gather the dispersed of Judah
From the four corners of the earth.

Jeremiah 31:10:
He who scattered Israel will gather them, And
will guard them as a shepherd his flock.
Also a component of Jewish daily prayers:
“Blessed are you, O Lord, who gathers in the dispersed of Your people
Israel .”

Became a core focus of the Zionist political philosophy to
increase immigration and settle the land
Goals of Today’s Lecture

To see how the concept of “Ingathering” played
out in Israeli society and culture starting in the
1950s
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To understand the role of mainstream, native Israeli
writers
To cite examples of Mizrahi (“Eastern”) authors and
artists who emerged later in Israeli society
And to pose the question: How unifying or
inclusive is the label of “Israeli culture” today?
Consolidating the State through Culture:
A Model of Hebrew Cultural
Production
Political and
Social
Ideologies
Values
E.G. Labor, The Land,
The Collective Good
Cultural
Production
E.G. Literature,
Poetry, Music,
Visual Arts
Who were the mainstream writers in the
early years of the state?
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Dor Ba’aretz (the generation in the land / the native
generation): born to Ashkenazi immigrant families at the
end of WWI and early 1920s
Because many of these writers fought in the War of
Independence, this generation of writers is also
sometimes known as the Palmach Generation or the
Generation of Independence.
Common experiences shaped their writing:

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British Mandate
the Holocaust
the War of Independence and establishment of the state
Palmach Generation of Writers
MOSHE SHAMIR
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1921 – Born in Safed, Israel
(died 2004)
Served in Palmach during War
of Independence
Served in Knesset 1977-1981
Notable Works:
 He Walked In the Fields (1947)

With His Own Hands:
The Elik Chronicles (1951)
FAMOUS LINE:
Elik was born of the sea –
Elik nolad min hayam.
He Walked in the Fields
Movie Poster
1967
S. YIZHAR
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1916 – Born in Rehovot,
Israel (died 2006)
Fought in 1948 War
Served in Knesset for 17
years (MAPAI)
Notable works:


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“The Prisoner” (1949)
Days of Ziklag (1958)
Preliminaries (1992)
Center and Margins

The Center: In the two decades surrounding the creation
of the Israeli state, mainstream cultural production was
dominated by male authors of Ashkenazi origin who
wrote about secular, socio-political concerns. The
Hebrew canon served to reinforce the values and goals
of the new state.

The Margins: Other voices such as non-European
Jewish immigrants (Sephardim / Mizrahim), women,
the religious, and Arab-Israelis, created as a cultural
minority. These groups gained recognition only in the
1970s and 1980s.
The Name Game

Sephardi (plural: Sephardim) – Jew of
Spanish/Portuguese descent


Mizrahi (plural: Mizrahim) – “Easterner” or Eastern Jew



from the word Sepharad (Spain)
from the word mizrah (East)
Oriental – refers to Jews of North African and Middle
Eastern descent
Levantine – from the Levant, a geographic area east of
the Mediterranean
…all considered to be ethnically and culturally
OTHER than the Ashkenazi (European) Jews
Stirring Up the Melting Pot
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
As the “Ingathering of the Exiles” became a reality, and
Jews immigrated to Israel from various countries during
the 1950s, new elements were introduced to Israeli
culture.
At the same time, the process of absorbing these
immigrants was difficult.
 Reality of ma’abarot (transit camps) versus dream of
Promised Land
 Ties to place of origin and religious/family customs
versus pressure to “become” Israeli
Sallah Shabati (1964)
Directed by Ephraim Kishon
Uses the amusing
troubles of a North
African Jewish immigrant
to satirize the Israeli
establishment and
immigration bureaucracy
 Quotable quote:
"Lady, no work, no bread,
no housing, seven
children, one in the
womb, his name is BenGurion.”

Conceptualizing Mizrahi Identity
Ammiel Alcalay:
“During the 1950s and 1960s, over half a million
Mediterranean, North African, and Middle Eastern Jews
came to Israel with little more than the clothes on their
collective back. . . . Completely dependent upon state
institutions intent on remolding them in their own
image, choices were limited and autonomy, except in the
most private sense, was unimaginable. . . . Active
resistance often took the form of social and cultural
movements and it is within these movements that a
mizrahi consciousness developed.”
-Keys to the Garden: New Israeli Writing
(1996), vii-viii
SHIMON BALLAS
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1930 – Born in Baghdad;
educated in Jewish
schools and the
Communist movement
1951 – Arrived in Israel
Notable Works:
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The Transit Camp (1964)
A Locked Room (1980)
The Other One (1991)
“The problem of the exile, the problem of the stranger, the problem of the
man different from his environment—occupies me in all of my work . . .”
Shimon Ballas In His Own Words

“It is much more convenient for this mainstream establishment to
refer to my work as the work of an ‘Oriental Jew.’ In other words,
work that belongs on the margins, beyond the mainstream. This,
however, absolves them of having to contend with my work on its
own terms. ”

“…I came from the Arab environment and I remain in constant
colloquy with the Arab environment. . . . The whole project of a
nationalist conception, of Zionist ideology, of the Jewish point of
view, the bonds between Jews in the diaspora and Israel, all of this
is quite marginal for me and doesn’t play a major role, it’s not part
of my cultural world. I am not in dialogue with the nationalistic or
Zionist point of view, nor am I in dialogue with Hebrew literature
. . . . If anything, I am in dialogue with language itself.”
-From “At Home in Exile: An Interview with Shimon Ballas by Ammiel Alcalay”
ELI AMIR
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1937 - Born in Baghdad
1950 - Arrived in Israel
Today he is the directorgeneral of the youth
immigration division of
the Jewish Agency.
Notable Works:
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Scapegoat (1984)
Farewell, Baghdad (1992)
Jasmine (2005)
“My generation's dream about the Land of Israel was of vast proportions, which
generated a huge fall. . . . We came here borne on the wings of a dream . . .”
-Haaretz.com
Eli Amir in His Own Words
On what it took to write Scapegoat (pictured left) :
"It took me 20 years after I came to Israel . . .
and, according to the experience of other writers
who describe the crisis of immigration, it takes
between 10 and 20 years until you can start
writing about it. Immigration is such a deep
experience, such a total uprooting of one's roots,
that the day-to-day struggle tries to repress it,
and we can't deal with it in the first years. It's an
experience that interferes with and weakens the
individual, constantly reminding you that you
are different. Maybe one of the kids who is now
arriving at the same age I did will write their
Scapegoat 20 years down the line."
-Haaretz.com
SAMI MICHAEL
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1926 - Born in Baghdad;
active in Communist
party
1949 - Arrived in Israel
Notable Works:
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Equal and More Equal (1974)
A Trumpet in the Wadi
(1987)
Victoria (1993) – the story of
a young girl growing up in
a poor courtyard in
Baghdad at turn of century
Sami Michael in His Own Words
“You have to understand, I am
not writing about the reality
in Iraq for the Iraqi reader,
but for the Israeli reader,
that these chapters of the past
are a part of [the Israeli],
and I mediate them for him.”
-Interview in Yediot Aharanot, 1985
RONIT MATALON
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Born 1959 in Ganei Tikva (new
immigrants’ town near Tel
Aviv) to Egyptian parents
1985-1990 - As a journalist for
Ha’aretz she covered Gaza and
the West Bank.
Notable works:
 The One Facing us (1995)
This novel, told through
photographs and fragments,
is about how being in cultural
exile affects an EgyptianJewish clan.

Sarah, Sarah (2000)
The One Facing Us
“The siblings went their separate
ways. Different times and places,
different needs and experiences
divided them; the few surviving
photographs left great gaps in the
story—empty spaces that the
family filled with words, gestures,
childhood yearnings that had
become tainted by later hues, a
desire to link past and future and a
longing for other days, for the
people they had been in other
days, and for a place that had
never been a homeland but that
they had called home.” (-p.113-114)
DORIT RABINYAN
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1972 - Born in Kfar Saba,
Israel
Notable works:
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Persian Brides (1995)
Our Weddings (1999)
Set at the turn of the century in
the fictional Persian village of
Omerijan, Persian Brides tells the
magical story of two young girls-Flora and Nazie Ratoryan--and
their many neighbors in the
almond tree alley in Omerijan
where they live.
Dorit Rabinyan in Her Own Words
“I think books are written by people who
stubbornly won't let go: of a moment
to be forgotten, of a beauty or an
injustice, but mainly of the their own
past. We all have our childhood inside
of us, we all miss a paradise in some
sense: authors are constantly reliving
it, retracing it as a profession. I think
the present is to be experienced. Only
when it turns into a past—after a
second, an hour, a lifetime—can it
become an inspiration.”
-Interview on
Randomhouse.com
A Recent Scholarly Assessment

“… the Sephardi writers, those from Arab and Islamic
lands in particular, have made great contributions to
contemporary Israeli literature. They are among the first
and foremost to write immigrant literature, to develop
the political novel, and to restore the reconstruction of
the past to the literary scene. As such, they are no longer
the ‘other’ but an integral part of the development of
Israeli literature.”
-Nancy E. Berg, “Sephardi Writing: From the Margins to the
Mainstream” (1997)
Following the Same Pattern:
Israeli Music
Generally, as with literature, Mizrahi music was
marginalized by mainstream Ashkenazi culture
in the first three or four decades of the state.
 Middle Eastern-style music by Jews from Arab
lands began to penetrate public awareness in the
1970s. Since it was hard for these artists to gain
radio exposure, cheap cassette recordings were
mass produced and distributed in the lower
class neighborhoods near Tel Aviv’s old Central
Bus Station.
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Teapacks

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The members of the band grew
up in Sderot, a southern
development town that
initially housed Moroccan and
Yemenite immigrants.
The band’s name refers to
Tipp-Ex (European brand of
White-out) and symbolizes
how they are “a band who
erased the borders between
styles.”
Cover art from 2001 album, “Sitting in a Coffee Shop”
The Idan Raichel Project
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The triple-platinum first album (2002)
Idan Raichel is a 29-year-old
composer born in Kfar Saba to
parents of Eastern European
origin.
He was music director of the
Army rock band during his
army service.
His music takes inspiration
from Ethiopian, Arabic,
Yemenite, South American,
and other musical traditions.
After the ingathering: what comes next?
Immigrants after a rescue
operation, 1948-49
“Israel Melting Pot” T-shirt , 2008
Contact Information
Presentation ©Hannah Pressman, January 2008
pressman@u.washington.edu