[...] addition, this fine post from JVoices gives a rather personal description of the differences in traditional Sephardic services and how [...]

[...] Khazzoom writes for a number of publications, and recently wrote an article entitled, “Who Stole My Judaism?” for the Jewish Independent. You can find this article on JVoices–here’s a taste: Traditionally, Middle Eastern and African Jewish communities emphasized the concept of chesed, or compassion, over that of mahmir, or strictness. Judaism was a vehicle for joy and celebration, not an instrument of fear and condemnation. One wall around the Torah was enough. We did not need a wall around a wall around a wall. [...]

those who say borsht is jewish food but not haleq, the fidl is a jewish instrument and not the rebab, yiddish is a jewish language and not arabic. those who teach sefardi kids not to pronounce their ayins and ashkenazi kids to say ’shabbat’ instead of ’shabes’. those who tell us to look for our families’ home in ‘judea and samaria’ not in daghestan, czernowitz, salonika, kolkata, isfahan – or in some cases al-khalil or sfat.

these attacks on and attempts to destroy mizrakhi/sefardi/ethiopian/etc traditions of observance are, it seems to me, a continuation of the attacks directed at ashkenazi culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. the derogatory term then was ‘ostjuden’, which, interestingly, means ‘east-jews’, just as the catch-all ‘mizrakhi’ does.

(religion and gender were also two of the key areas of that fight – many traditional ashkenazi practices, especially those associated with women, were dismissed as ’superstition’; a great deal of effort was spent bringing ashkenazi gender roles in line with the bourgeois christian mode.)

those earlier attacks were led, as the current ones are, by assimilated ashkenazim with a very specific agenda of ‘normalizing’ jewish culture into a single mold, one more palatable to european christian tastes. this ideology has been the driving force in both periods, insisting that the whole kaleidescope of jewish cultures must be made over into one monochrome image, that gender roles must be strictly enforced to mimic european christian ones.

the whole complex is summed up in the notion of ’shelilat hagalut’, ‘the negation of the diaspora’: the idea that all traditional jewish cultures must be rejected as tainted and destroyed, to be replaced by a unitary national culture centered in a nation-state.

the assimilated ashkenazi authors of this ideology – theodor herzl, max nordau, etc. – began by attacking the culture of their own families. they denied ‘yiddish’s status as a language, called ‘ostjuden’ “degenerates” and worse, and propagandized against all aspects of ashkenazi culture. the same arsenal of cultural warfare was turned on jews from the rest of the world once it was clear that their dreamed-of nation-state would not be built by the children of ‘ostjuden’ alone.

and now we have the disgusting spectacle of the culture created by these negaters-of-the-diaspora being forced on other jews and called by the name of ashkenaz.

who stole the many jewishnesses and judaisms that grew in the varied landscapes of communities from rabat to cochin, vilne to wolleka, bukhara to toledo?

those who say borsht is ‘jewish’ food but not XXXXX. those who teach sefardi kids not to pronounce their ayins and ashkenazi kids to say ’shabbat’ instead of ’shabes’. those who tell us to look for our families’ home in ‘judea and samaria’ not in daghestan, czernowitz, salonika, kolkata, isfahan – or in some cases al-khalil or sfat.

but above all, those who try to get us to give away our own histories and cultures in exchange for the borrowed myth of the nation-state.

It may be little consolation, but the open-minded, warm, and embracing Mizrahi/Sefardi community you write of & were hoping to find in Be’er Sheva seems to be alive & well here in the DC area. Visiting Magen David Sephardic Congregation (http://www.magendavidsynagogue.com/) in Rockville last Shabbat for Friday night services and talking with the wonderful young rabbi of the congregation, we learned about the wide variation in observance & approach in his congregation (down to the devoted young guy who keeps coming to Shabbat mincha…with a Starbucks coffee in his hand. Yes, it’s a Shabbat no-no to buy coffee on Shabbat–but it’s good that he’s there, so no one’s going to shame him & tell him he’s being a bad Jew).

I’m a gender-egalitarian Jew through & through (generally finding my home in the Conservative/Masorti movement, with some Reconstructionist leanings)–but the women’s section(s) at Magen David count as among the least distressing/off-putting that I’ve encountered:

2 wings on very slightly elevated ramps toward the rear of the prayer space, with a low and not sight-obstructing dividing element (wall) marking the division between this area and the adjacent men’s seating area, not far distant from the central teva/davening & reading platform.

And no one looked at me cross-eyed for singing heartily along.

(Rabbi Maroof has a blog with podcasts on various topics at http://www.magendavidsephardic.blogspot.com/ and a more usual text blog at http://askrabbimaroof.blogspot.com/)

So if you’re ever in Rockville–go to Magen David, and talk to Rabbi Maroof!

If they stole your “Judaism”, then they stole my “Yiddishkeit”.

The idea of a multi-vocal, multi-cultural, Jewishness is highly appealing to me for many reasons, but i believe that the diversity of marginalized Ashkenazic voices needs to be included in that, and not conflated with the the mainline powers that be as one hegemonic European lump.