The Flying Camel

I had a chance to read several essays in Flying Camel and I had somewhat differing opinions on each article that I read. I'm sad that I missed class discussion about this topic (I was in LA), becuase I find it very interesting and I am curious to read others blogs to see what ya'll think about it. I want to talk about two different essays which really struck me in different ways.

Benign Ignorance or Persistant Resistance?
I thought this was a very honest, straight-forward essay. Rachel Wahba does a fantastic job telling the stories of her mother and father and their entire family's quest for identity. She describes the anti-Semitism that forced her parents to leave their native countries, and tells of their struggle to find a new country. Upon her arrival to America, she learns of the one-sided nature of American Judaism: that of eastern european descent. I never realized how excluded Sefardim are from history books and from general knowledge among other Jews. It blows my mind! What seems even crazier to me, is that I don't think i ever really thought about it before this year. I knew about Sefardim/Mizrahim, but I never thought about the fact that they have a different history and a different culture from Askenazim. I guess I prove Wahba's point.

Ashkenazi Eyes
I did not particularly care for this essay. I thought above all the author just sounded angry. Though Julie Iny does bring up some good points about racism that exists in Israel, I felt a little weary about some of her examples. For instance, she talks about the political party Shas. She acknowledges that Shas is a religious party that is predominately Sefardic. I felt like she ignored the fact that Shas is extremely right wing. Israeli's vote on their government; the fact remains that most Israeli's are not really religious (in whatever sense of the word you want that to mean) so voting for a right wing party may not be very appealing. This results in a low representation of Shas in Israeli politics. I do not know how Mizrahim/Sefardim stand in other political parties, but if they stand for the values that the voting Israeli wants, then I give Iny the right to call it racism. In any case, Iny did open my eyes to the racism and class differences that exist in Israel. I almost wish that her essay were not a reflective one, but rather one with a purpose, because I would like to see what her suggestions for change would be.