The most Ashkenazi elite is Israel's radical left

Gideon Levy

Bataween
Point of No Return
17 May '10

If Moroccan royal adviser Andre Azoulay came to Israel tomorrow, the best he could expect would be to sit on the local council in Dimona, Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy has alleged (seemingly dismissing such Moroccan high-achievers as David Levy and Shlomo Ben-Ami). Reading Alexander Jacobson's riposte to Gideon Levy's accusation that Israel has failed to integrate Mizrahi Jews into its elites, one can't help a frisson of satisfaction: the most Ashkenazi elite of all, Jacobson claims, is the radical left, of which the vuzvuz (yekke, noch!) Gideon Levy is a prime example. (With thanks: Independent Observer)

The elites vary enormously in integration of Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews. The elite that is apparently the most Ashkenazi of all is that of the radical left. Gideon Levy raises an important issue: the incorporation of Mizrahi Jews into the elites of Israeli society. The picture he draws is depressing: "Our entire political, economic, legal, academic and even military leadership is made up of Ashkenazim, with a smattering of Sephardim as the exceptions that so remarkably prove the rule." ("And what happens in our community?" May 2 )

This picture is only partially true. The elites vary enormously in this matter. Some are more integrated, while others less so. The elite that is apparently the most Ashkenazi of all is that of the radical left.

In recent decades we have had ministers of defense, foreign affairs and finance who were Mizrahim. We have had chiefs of staff who were Mizrahim, GOCs, heads of Military Intelligence, commanders of the air force and Sayeret Matkal special operations force, attorneys general, directors general and senior officials at the Finance Ministry, heads of the Histadrut labor federation, and business tycoons. Even the Labor Party, a regular target for criticism in this respect, has twice elected a Mizrahi head, and the current Histadrut secretary general is far from being a "pet Mizrahi."

However, the elites calling for an international boycott of Israel, and the Israeli participants in Israeli Apartheid Week in cities around the world, and in general all those who tend to portray Israel as a despicable and failed state, solely responsible for the conflict - this indeed is an Ashkenazi elite "with a smattering of Mizrahim." It would be appropriate for the members of this elite, who excel at preaching morality, to show a little more humility and learn a lesson from Israel's business, political and defense elites on how to integrate Mizrahim.

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