STUDIES IN

SOCIAL INEQUALITY

EDITORS

David B. Grusky, STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Paula England, STANFORD UNIVERSITY

EDITORIAL BOARD

Hans-Peter Blossfeld

Mary C. Brinton

Thomas DiPrete

Michael Hout

Andrew Walder

Mary Waters

Stanford University Press

Stanford, California

©2008 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford

Junior University. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press.

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Khazzoom, Aziza.

Shifting ethnic boundaries and inequality in Israel : or, how the Polish peddler became a German intellectual /

Aziza Khazzoom.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

9780804779579

1. National characteristics, Israeli. 2. Jews—Israel—Identity. 3. Jews, Oriental—Israel. 4. Ethnicity—Israel. 5. Multiculturalism—Israel. 6. Israel—Ethnic relations. I. Title.

DS113.3.K43 2007

305.80095694--dc22

2007019278

Typeset by Newgen in 10/14 Sabon

To my father, J. Daniel Khazzoom

Table of Contents

STUDIES IN - SOCIAL INEQUALITY
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PART I - INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE - Introduction

PART II - BACKGROUND

CHAPTER TWO - Some Historical Background
CHAPTER THREE - Theoretical and Analytical Approaches to Ethnic Formation
CHAPTER FOUR - Was Dichotomization Inevitable?

PART III - ANALYSIS

CHAPTER FIVE - The Iraqi Paradox
CHAPTER SIX - How the Polish Peddler Became a German Intellectual
CHAPTER SEVEN - Cultural Capital
CHAPTER EIGHT - Residential Segregation and Economic Isolation: The Moroccan Paradox
CHAPTER NINE - Into the Next Generation

PART IV - CONCLUSION

CHAPTER TEN - Perspectives on Ethnic Formation

APPENDICES
ENDNOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
STUDIES IN SOCIAL INEQUALITY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not be the same without the contributions of a few key people. Mike Hout, my dissertation advisor, always saw the big picture, and even his strongest critiques left me encouraged. Ruth Milkman’s, Michael Shalev’s, and Gershon Shafir’s friendship and practical advice were invaluable, and I thank Michael for long talks, well into the night, about the nature of labor markets, dichotomization theory in Israel, and every other subtopic in this book.

Yossi Shavit first piqued my interest in ethnic inequality in Israel and in questions about why groups engage in social closure. Iona Mara Drita took my first attempt at a dissertation proposal, turned it inside out, and made it much clearer. Michal Frenkel greets all of my work with a healthy combination of belief and skepticism and is always available to make incisive comments on drafts. Gil Eyal and Yehouda Shenhav, whose takes on the same issue are quite different from mine, have been providing stimulating conversation for years, and there is more to get out of the differences in our three books. These people are all friends, and I am delighted to have their stamp on my work.

Other people also made important contributions to my thinking. In its stage as a dissertation the work benefited from Nancy Chodorow’s and Sam Lucas’s careful comments, and from David Biale’s guidance. At Tel Aviv University, Noah Lewin-Epstein, Ofra Goldstein Gidoni, Tally Katz, Hana Herzog, Henriette Dahan Kalev, Debbie Bernstein, Esther Meir-Glizenstein, and Yinon Cohen all provided critical assistance at one point or another, and I benefited from exposure to the work of Avraham Yogev, Hanna Ayalon, and Ronen Shamir. At UCLA, some of my better arguments emerged from conversations with Roger Waldinger. Adrian Favell, Manny Scheglof, and David Lopez contributed at key points in the development of my arguments, and I benefited a great deal from exposure to Min Zhou’s work and practice. In a few cases what I wrote is different from what these individuals would have written themselves, and I take final responsibility for any of the arguments made.

I thank my family: my father for his careful, logical mind, my mother for her imagination, my sister for her arm, and my partner for her strength and quiet spirit.

Not all the contributors to this book were people; it was also written with the help of several grants, including an NSF doctoral dissertation grant, a UC–Berkeley Chancellor’s dissertation writing fellowship, a postdoctoral fellowship from Tel Aviv University, and a Fleg fellowship from Hebrew University.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the subjects of this study. Although this book is not based on interview data, strangers in Israel often have conversations with each other in the course of daily life. This enabled me to meet many immigrants who were the focus of my work and to hear their individual takes on the formation of ethnic inequality. Some of the insights in this study resulted from these conversations, and I am grateful to these individuals for their input. But more importantly, these conversations reminded me that the people I studied had left their worlds behind in the hope of building a better one. This book is a critique of what they built; I hope it is a respectful and a useful one.

PART I

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

The 1950s were a time of social fluidity in Israel. Before the state was established in 1948, the Jewish population in the area numbered about 600,000, and the non-Jewish close to 900,000. During the war that surrounded statehood, the indigenous Muslim population was reduced to about a fifth of its original size.¹ Then, over the next ten years, nearly a million Jewish immigrants arrived from more than twenty different countries, nearly tripling the Jewish population. This all occurred as the protostate institutions that Jews and others established before independence were transformed into full-fledged institutions capable of self-government and as the economy grew rapidly. In other words, for better or for worse (depending on one’s politics), what emerged was as close to a new society as sociologists can hope to find.

This book focuses on the labor market experiences of the new Jewish arrivals. Initially, they were a diverse group. From each country of origin, peddlers immigrated with professors, the unschooled with the well-educated; quite literally, a number of separate, independent stratification systems were mixed together in Israel’s dynamic environment. However, despite this heterogeneity, the Jewish sector that emerged was divided into two groups: “easterners” from Muslim countries,² known collectively as Mizrahim, and “westerners” from Christian countries, known collectively as Ashkenazim.³ By the time the first Israeli-born generation reached maturity, Mizrahim had significantly lower educational and occupational attainments than Ashkenazim. Moreover, the initially large internal differences—between Polish and Russian Ashkenazim, for example, or between Iraqi and Yemenite Mizrahim—had been significantly reduced (Nahon 1987; Amit 2001). This process of “dichotomization,” or the distillation of two ethnic groups out of an initial state of heterogeneity and the production of ethnic inequality between them, represents a particularly dramatic instance of what Omi and Winant (1986) called “racial formation” and what in the Israeli context, I am calling “ethnic formation.” ⁴

As in most modern industrialized societies,⁵ these economic disparities have proven to be stable over time (Shavit et al 1998; Cohen et al 1998). But unlike most, it is possible in Israel to locate a historical period in which ethnic diversity in class position was transformed into an entrenched ethnic hierarchy. This is important because pinpointing the sources of ethnic inequality is difficult in stable, established societies. Forms of power and advantage—economic, political, and cultural—converge over time, as particular groups establish dominance over resources. When class and ethnicity are enmeshed, the observed impact of ethnicity on success is not necessarily an indication of its real importance. Thus, even when it can be shown that ethnic inequality is reproduced largely through class factors (e.g., Hout 1984, Farkas et al., 1997), sociologists are in dispute over the meaning of these findings. Some, such as Wilson (1980, 1987) on the U.S. case, argue that the prominence of class demonstrates that racial/ethnic discrimination in the labor market is no longer an important determinant of life chances. Others, such as Parkin (1979), posit dynamics that allow ethnic elites to capitalize on the prior association between class and ethnicity to disguise ethnic discrimination as a class-based outcome. Concern over this issue extends far beyond academic circles. From the publication of The Bell Curve (1994) to the debate over affirmative action, the question of whether ethnic discrimination has simply gone underground continues to shape social policy and spark debate. By studying an ethnically stratified modern industrialized society at its formation, before class and ethnicity were fully enmeshed, we can consider ethnicity as an axis for social closure, less encumbered by preexisting race/class correlations or institutionalization of advantage.

In this book, I examine the process of occupational attainment of Jewish immigrants during their first encounter with Israel’s labor market, that is, the encounter that would set the stage for later generations’ attainment possibilities. I show that even if the perpetuation of ethnic inequality in Israel is correctly conceptualized as a class-based dynamic (Kraus and Hodge 1990), its genesis is not. In 1961, ethnicity conditioned an individual’s ability to translate prior achievements, such as education and occupation abroad, into Israeli occupations. Thus, in a case in which class and ethnicity were not initially fully correlated, this modern industrialized society distributed occupations along ethnic lines directly.

But far more interesting than the fact of an ethnic impact is the nature of the pecking order that developed, and it is here that the complexity and importance of the Israeli situation emerges. As noted, the Jews who immigrated to Israel came in country-of-origin groups. Each country was unique in its history, communal organization, overall attainment levels, and often even language and religious and cultural customs. But in Israel, Jews were portrayed as already divided into Mizrahim and Ashkenazim (Shenhav 2006) These binary categories were drawn from the global east/ west or Muslim/Christian divides (Shohat 1988) and were employed by gatekeepers from the first days of the immigration (Tsur 1997), and it was they, not the country-of-origin grouping, that eventually meshed with class (Nahon 1987; Amit 2001). This process of dichotomization, in which ethnic boundaries shifted in part through the distribution of resources, is one of the more interesting features of Israeli society. But although we know that dichotomization eventually occurred, we know little about how or when.⁶ Thus the question of this book is not just whether ethnicity affected attainment in the first encounter with labor market but how that effect interfaced with the known outcome of dichotomization.

The answer is not simple. Prior work implied that employers and state agents imposed the new binary categories on the arriving immigrants by immediately distributing resources according to the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi distinction (Bernstein and Swirski 1982). Thus, one expected outcome is that in the first encounter with the labor market, gatekeepers would distribute occupational prestige according to the binary, and not country-of-origin, categories. And indeed, among the six largest countries of origin Romanians, Poles, and Soviets, who were Ashkenazi, received similar and relatively high returns to education, while Yemenite and Moroccan immigrants, who were Mizrahi, received similar and relatively low returns. (“Returns to education” refers to the extent to which higher educational attainment results in higher prestige occupations, income, and the like.) What makes the outcome complex is that Iraqi immigrants, who were also Mizrahi, received Ashkenazi-level returns to education. Thus, by 1961 the distribution of occupational attainment only partly followed the expected dichotomization pattern, and more to the point, the experience of Iraqi immigrants was antithetical to what has been a prominent framework for the analysis of Israeli ethnic inequality.

I dub the Iraqi returns to education the “Iraqi paradox” because without Iraqis in the picture, dichotomization would appear to be the straightforward result of labor market discrimination along binary lines. I then explore what the paradox tells us about Israeli ethnic formation and about the use of the dichotomization framework to conceptualize it. Following Emigh’s (1997) “negative case methodology” I do not recommend rejecting the dichotomization framework but rather expanding it so that it can account for the Iraqi pattern as well as that of the other five countries.⁷ This is appropriate because we know that resources were eventually distributed by the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi distinction (Nahon 1987; Amit 2001) and that the Iraqi paradox therefore indicates not that dichotomization didn’t occur, but that it was not immediate or straightforward. The exploration of the Iraqi paradox is therefore guided by three questions: (1) Why did Iraqis do so well in the first encounter with the labor market? (2) Can the explanations for their success be related to their later downward mobility? And (3) how much alteration of dichotomization theory is needed to account for the Iraqi experience?

I consider two plausible stories. The first is that Iraqis did experience discrimination in the first encounter with the labor market but successfully fought back and that the discrimination continued until Iraqi attainments were finally curtailed. This story is in line with dichotomization theory as it exists now, because it implies that Israeli society was for some reason characterized by a consistent and multifaceted push to reduce the attainments of all Middle Eastern Jews to the same level. This contention is supported by evidence that in placing immigrants in residential locations, state agents discriminated against Iraqis to the same degree as Yemenites and Moroccans. In addition, there is evidence that in the next generation the school system discriminated against the children of Iraqi immigrants. These findings imply that the discriminatory apparatus was pervasive and was characterized by a level of cooperation among different groups of gatekeepers that is more in line with Marx’s conceptualization of a united ruling class than with the more multifaceted conceptualizations that predominate today. With regard to modern industrialized societies as a whole, it implies not only that they can discriminate along ethnic lines directly, but also that they can do so in a concerted and forceful way.

But other findings suggest a second story. Some of the cultural differences between Iraqis and the two other Mizrahi country groups corresponded to important features of Israeli identity and social goals. The Jews who established and immigrated to Israel were deeply committed to developing a modern, western society, and more Iraqi individuals fit this ideal than Yemenite and Moroccan individuals.⁸ It may be that because of this greater conformity, there was simply no desire to discriminate against Iraqis. This argument is further supported by findings that when Moroccans conformed to the Israeli conception of modern, western behavior, their returns to education approached those of Ashkenazim, and when Iraqis did not conform to this conception, their returns dropped to the level of other Mizrahim (Chapter 7).

In short, these and other findings in this book suggest that Israel’s gatekeepers were primarily interested not in creating ethnic inequality—although that is certainly what they did—but in marginalizing and managing what they variously referred to as the eastern, Arab, Levantine, or Oriental. They believed that origins in a Muslim country made one eastern, and the dichotomy between Muslim and Christian countries strongly shaped their expectations regarding individual immigrants who sought jobs in the new economy. At the same time, the consistent finding of this book—of an ethnic hierarchy in returns to education that was flexible, and whose flexibility was systematically related to demonstrable westernness—suggests that it was the project of westernization, not of producing an ethnic dichotomy, that remained the guiding logic behind the distribution of resources in the first encounter with the labor market. As a whole, these findings suggest that Mizrahim were evaluated at a group level and an individual level simultaneously; at the communal level all Mizrahim were taken as eastern and signaled a negative contribution to the collective, but at the individual level, they were considered separately, and westernness could become more salient. ⁹ This second explanation requires an expansion of dichotomization theory. Prior work has focused largely on the material reasons for ethnic exclusion and has paid less attention to motivations rooted in culture and identity. The incorporation of these additional dynamics provides for a fuller understanding not just of the Iraqi paradox but also of Israeli ethnic and national formation generally.¹⁰

IMPLICATIONS

Charting this process of dichotomization is important for understanding how Israeli society developed. But it is also a fascinating window into why ethnic discrimination occurred in Israel, and by extension, one mechanism through which racial/ethnic discrimination can occur in other societies as well. And that, in turn, is its main contribution for students of race/ ethnicity worldwide. The book demonstrates that “ideological” factors such as identity and global hegemonic discourses are capable of shaping internal social cleavages. These ideological factors can affect such things as where boundaries are placed around groups, whether ethnic difference becomes an axis of social inequality, and which individuals within ethnic groups are excluded and which are included.¹¹ As such, this book joins a couple of seminal works that have similarly explored moments in which identity appears at least as important as material interest in explaining racial/ethnic dynamics: Roediger’s The Wages of Whiteness (1991) and Almaguer’s Racial Fault Lines (1994). That this is the only book of its kind to use a large-scale, representative data base (the 1961 Israeli census) to make such an argument makes it particularly important.

Three other, related contributions from my work are worth underscoring. First, the book highlights ways that the emergence of social groups can be related to the emergence of social exclusion, or, put differently, it addresses classic sociological questions about why ethnic difference sometimes leads to exclusion and sometimes doesn’t. Some researchers conceptualize the impulse to exclude as following directly from the identification of group difference (van den Berghe 1987), while others suggest the opposite pattern, in which the identification (or strengthening) of group difference occurs when there are scarce resources over which groups might compete (i.e., the impulse to exclude leads to a search for groups to exclude) (Barth 1998). In Israel, however, neither link is appropriate. Rather, both the redrawing of group boundaries and the emergence of exclusion along the new lines were shaped by a third factor: concerns over producing, or portraying, the self as western. Moreover, when one widens the historical window it becomes clear that these concerns shaped Jewish ethnic relations for more than a century prior to immigration but did not always lead to social closure. Instead, groups perceiving themselves as more western sometimes expended significant resources to westernize, and therefore include, groups they saw as eastern.

In fact, as I will discuss, a review of the literature suggests a fourpart classification of reasons that ethnic group boundaries might shift or strengthen, and each reason suggests a different relationship between difference and exclusion. The Israeli case belongs in the “relational” category, in which one group defines itself through defining another. Alternatively, new ethnic boundaries might be created because of lack of information—as when whites classify Japanese and Koreans as Asians—or because of a change in scale—as when immigrants from different parts of Italy, upon arrival in the United States, begin to see a shared Italian identity as more salient than it was previously. This study of Israel suggests that a relational dynamic can create intense commitments to particular ethnic contrasts, but the drive to exclude can wax and wane. In contrast, when one group excludes another to monopolize resources, there may be an intense commitment to exclusion, but little commitment to any specific set of group boundaries, or to excluding one group rather than another (Parkin 1979). In cases of lack of information or change in scale, no systematic relationship between exclusion and group formation may be in place. Within this classification scheme, Israel is not so much unique—Almaguer (1994) and Roediger (1991) make parallel arguments about the United States—as it is an example of a type of ethnic dynamic that is less often researched.

In a second general contribution, I follow Almaguer (1994) in arguing that identity concerns can affect how ostensibly neutral resources such as occupations are distributed in ostensibly neutral arenas such as labor markets. This conflates race and class in interesting ways. In an argument that is parallel to my argument that most Jewish elites wanted to produce Israel as western, Almaguer argued that just after the occupation of California, Anglo immigrants wanted to produce a “free labor” state. Since specific groups of nonwhites were associated with unfree labor to differing degrees, racial categories were infused with class symbolism, and vice versa. This intertwining partly explains why race affected the distribution of occupations, as well as why some racial groups experienced more discrimination in labor markets than others.¹² Similarly, I argue that in Israel, higher status occupations were often seen as representing the modernity and westernness of Israeli society. As such, they seemed appropriate for people who were not only technically qualified but also culturally western, or at least European. My argument and Almaguer’s argument share the basic premise that occupations can be infused with racial/ethnic/national meaning and can thus become building blocks for collective identity. In this way, identity concerns can affect the distribution of material resources without material interest, in the classic sense of increasing personal wealth and power, necessarily playing a role. Thus, this book offers one explanation for how racial/ethnic exclusion can be ingrained into the fabric of modern industrialized societies, even as their economic structures and democratic ideologies mandate that human capital be the main determinant of attainment.¹³

A third contribution is methodological. To chart ethnic formation, this book blends the insights of stratification research, which asks how resources are distributed among groups, with the insights of racialization theory, which asks how those groups are created. In most work, these questions are addressed with different methodologies. Quantitative status attainment models, similar to those used in this book, ask how ethnicity and class background account for outcomes such as occupational prestige or educational attainment. In these models, the individual is usually the unit of analysis, and ethnicity is usually conceptualized as a characteristic of individuals. Racialization work, in contrast, often uses historical-archival materials to track changes over time in ethnic group boundaries or the meanings attributed to them, and treats ethnicity as a set of contrasts between groups and as a characteristic of whole societies, rather than a characteristic of individuals. Or, as Telles (personal communication 2002) put it, quantitative work tends to take ethnicity as an independent variable that affects other outcomes, while qualitative work tends to take ethnicity as the outcome itself.

However, to understand Israel of the 1950s—as a moment of state, national, and ethnic formation, as well as a moment of individual competition for a pool of resources as immigrants tried to build new lives—it is necessary to conceptualize ethnicity as both outcome and cause, individual resource and social structure, and to examine links between social and personal identity and the ability of individuals to obtain positions in an emerging social structure. My contribution is to show that analytical techniques developed in the field of stratification can be tools for understanding ethnicity as a fluid construct. Two technical moves specifically treat ethnicity as fluid: (1) attending to the interplay between two ethnic categorization schemes—country of origin and binary ethnic category—at a critical juncture in time, and (2) translating the components of ethnic meaning during this period of flux into quantitative variables. I will show that although the data in this book constitute a snapshot of the momentary outcome of a range of encounters across a thirteen-year period, that snapshot nevertheless provides an important window into the complexity and historical interplay that shaped it.

The above discussion shows how I use the Israeli case to address some classic sociological questions. Among them:

Why does ethnic difference sometimes lead to labor market discrimination and sometimes not?

What can an understanding of ideology and identity add to materialistic accounts of labor market inequality?

How can racial/ethnic exclusion be ingrained into the very fabric of liberal, democratic, modern industrialized societies, even as their economic structures and democratic ideologies mandate that human capital be the main determinant of attainment?

In Israel, the answers all revolve around identity. Individuals experienced labor market discrimination not when they were ethnically different, per se, but when they were perceived as too “eastern”; this occurred because gatekeepers did not want to lose ground on the project of westernizing Jewish societies, and patterns of ethnic preference were not incidental but rather central to the formation of this modern industrialized society, as a modern industrialized society and a western entity.

In underscoring how important “east” and “west” were to Israeli social formation, this book also addresses questions relevant to students of Israeli society, Jewish studies, and Middle East studies. In addition to explaining how Israel ended up with only two Jewish ethnic groups, when it apparently started with many more, the book can answer two other historical questions:

How did Israeli Jews end up using the global east/west dichotomy to inform ethnic divides when the self-conscious and even enthusiastic “ingathering of the exiles” sought to blend cultures from Muslim and Christian countries, thereby undermining global east/west divides?

Why were Palestinian non-Jews, especially Muslims, also excluded from the emerging society?

Here, too, I argue, attention to the Jewish ambivalence toward the eastern is necessary. Jews, both before and after the immigration to Israel, often experimented with hybrid east/west identities and often even romanticized Jewish communities regarded as eastern (Kramer 1999; Aschheim 1982). However, with the mass immigration of Jews from the Middle East, the threat to the ability to emerge as western increased. To some extent Israel did continue to present a hybrid self-image—as a western society with eastern “flair”—but the primary focus was on being accepted as part of the west and not being conflated with other Middle Eastern countries (Eyal 2006). As such, Israelis became more interested in marking east/west differences than in collapsing them. The effect of the compulsion to become western probably cannot be overestimated; as I argued in another work (Khazzoom 1999), discomfort with the eastern or Arabic can help explain geographic and labor market exclusion of Palestinians,¹⁴ beliefs that traditional Jewish religious practice were Oriental can help explain the religious/secular split within Israel’s Jewish sector, and beliefs that westerners are more gender egalitarian and sexually free can help explain why the early state was officially supportive of nontraditional roles for women, and why it is currently supportive of gay rights. Most important, however, the history of Jewish identity and ethnic relations, in which the tendency to exclude the eastern waxes and wanes, suggests that Israel’s current support of global east/west splits is also mutable (see also Eyal 2006).

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK

The next three chapters provide background for my analyses. Chapter 2 sketches out the history of the Israeli state and discusses some details about the labor market in the 1950s. Chapter 3 provides theoretical background, including prior work on the question of why ethnic groups exclude each other and on dichotomization and categorization practices in Israel. Chapter 4 is quantitative and asks to what extent the immigrants arrived in Israel with resources and cultural practices already clustered into the binary categories. I also assess the argument, common in lay as well as academic work, that one reason resources were distributed along binary lines is that Ashkenazim spoke Yiddish and so could understand each other.

The next four chapters present the main empirical analyses. Chapter 5, also quantitative, presents the Iraqi paradox and shows how it challenges prior implications that gatekeepers discriminated against Mizrahim to monopolize resources for Ashkenazim. Then, having found material interest insufficient to understand the specifics of Israeli resource distribution, in Chapter 6 I use the historical record to find an alternate explanation. This chapter makes the argument that the goal of westernization originated in the Enlightenment, spread at least to the elite of Jewish communities around the world, became embedded in the Zionist project, and can account for patterns of inclusion and exclusion among Jewish communities prior to the immigration to Israel. Given its explanatory power for Diaspora dynamics, I argue, westernization projects are likely to have explanatory power for Israeli ethnic and national dynamics as well.

Having established a new analytical framework based on textual analysis of historical data, in Chapter 7 I return to quantitative analysis. I use Israel’s 1961 census to determine whether Mizrahim could increase their returns to education if they had had characteristics that were read as western in Jewish discourses. These “western” characteristics are conceptualized as cultural capital, but capital that signals progress on a shared project of cultural change rather than an upper-class background. The chapter shows that the Iraqi paradox occurred because more Iraqi individuals were able to demonstrate progress on Jewish cultural change projects than individuals from Morocco or Yemen. Once this difference in ability to prove westernness is accounted for, it becomes clear that Mizrahim from different countries did indeed have similar labor market experiences, in that when they were able to prove westernness, they obtained returns to education that were in line with those of Ashkenazim, and when they were unable to prove westernness they obtained very low returns to education. Thus, Chapter 7 makes two points: (1) perceived westernness and easternness was an important driving force in the treatment of Mizrahi immigrants in the 1950s, and (2) because only Mizrahim had to prove westernness, the binary categories did have salience in the labor market. This latter point means that the dichotomization framework is valid for the analysis of Israeli ethnic formation, though with some adjustments to account for more complex motivations than have previously been realized.

In Chapter 8, I return to the basic task of asking how, technically, dichotomization occurred, by considering the impact of residential location on labor market outcomes. The surprise here—what one might call the Moroccan paradox—is that Moroccans who were relegated to single industry, low opportunity areas (development towns) had better returns to education and better overall attainment than Moroccans who lived elsewhere. This appears to have resulted from a queuing effect; because fewer Ashkenazim were in the towns to take the higher status jobs, Moroccans had a better chance of obtaining them. One result was that in the towns, Moroccans who could not prove westernness were able to obtain the kinds of returns to education normally reserved for western-appearing Mizrahim. The implications for dichotomization, however, are complex. Though gatekeepers placed Mizrahim—from all countries—in development towns at higher rates than Ashkenazim, Iraqis and other Mizrahim from the Asian continent were more likely to move out. Thus the towns were initially mechanisms for generating dichotomization, but because they became Moroccan rather than Mizrahi spaces, they took a role not in dichotomization but in the placement of Moroccans into the ethnic hierarchy.

As with earlier chapters, Chapter 8 finds complex relationships between ethnicity and attainment in the first encounter with the labor market but still no answer to how dichotomization technically happened. In fact, not only is it the case that by the end of the first encounter with the labor market Iraqi experiences were still similar to those of Ashkenazim, but it is also the case that most dynamics that were set in motion at that time would tend to undermine rather than generate dichotomization (Iraqis but not Moroccans or Yemenites obtaining a solid position in the middle class, Moroccans but not Yemenites or Iraqis being concentrated into development towns). The analysis therefore moves on to briefly examine the next logical encounter, when educational attainments were distributed to the immigrants’ children through the national school system. Here, finally, I find a dynamic that caused Iraqi attainment levels to drop to those of other Mizrahim: in the schools, Iraqi boys experienced ethnic discrimination, such that they obtained no returns to their fathers’ occupational attainments. Thus, the final answer to how dichotomization occurred appears to involve a second-generation shift in Israeli distributive practice, such that Iraqi immigrants, who ended the first encounter with Israel’s distributive system with significant occupational resources, were not able to translate this success into educational success for their children.

Although analysis of the second generation is beyond the scope of this book, Chapter 9 does consider several explanations for this shift in patterns of ethnic preference. Two are related. First, the binary classification scheme became less flexible over time. Second, there was a change in gatekeepers from the first to the second generation; while the gatekeepers of the 1950s were largely veterans, teachers were more likely to be new immigrant Ashkenazim who, for a variety of reasons, had stronger interests in discriminating against all Mizrahim and fewer interests in attending to subtle distinctions in westernness among different Mizrahim. Chapter 9 can thus be read as a story of routinization, in which a flexible system of ethnic preference established by the first generation of gatekeepers, in response to a set of concerns about identity, became increasingly inflexible, as new immigrants organized their material activity around the patterns established by the first generation. To the extent that this implies anything about societies generally, it is that ideological interests are most prominent at the formative period of a system of racial/ethnic inequality but lose prominence over time. Such a contention gains some support from the observation that other works that argue for ideological motivations—namely Almaguer (1994) and Roediger (1991)—also concern moments of significant flux. Thus, in reference to the arguments described at the beginning of this chapter, it may be that not only discrimination itself goes underground over time, but the nonmaterial sources of patterns of ethnic preference do as well.

PART II

BACKGROUND

CHAPTER TWO

Some Historical Background

This chapter has two goals. The first is to provide a brief background of state formation and immigrant settlement for those who do not know Israeli history. The second is to consider a variety of technical questions relevant to understanding resource distribution in the 1950s. They are as follows: What was the competition for jobs like in the 1950s? Which social groups had control over resource distribution? How did they obtain and retain control? To what extent did they identify as a separate group? What kinds of values, norms, and orientations did they appear to hold that might affect resource distribution?

The chapter establishes that labor market conditions in the 1950s were such that there were plenty of white collar spaces over which new immigrants could compete. However, several dynamics made these positions hard to get anyway. These included the entry into the labor market of men who had been in school abroad and the little room to work in sales in Israel, relative to the number who had worked in sales abroad. This level of competition is ideal for establishing patterns of ethnic preference, as there were plenty of high status jobs to distribute to the new immigrants but enough scarcity that gatekeepers could choose the immigrants they preferred.

Regarding who controlled resource distribution, thirteen years after statehood most resources, including the distribution of higher status jobs, were still largely controlled by veteran (prestate) immigrants. Veterans were able to retain control after independence, even with the rapid growth of the economy and the general chaos of the early state period, because prior to statehood they had built a network of highly centralized institutions that stood ready to monopolize political and economic resources that became available with statehood. Though these veteran gatekeepers were largely Ashkenazi—mostly from Poland and the Soviet Union (or, earlier, Russia)—they in many ways identified as a separate group from new immigrant Ashkenazim. This was for two reasons. First, from the veterans’ standpoint, their earlier immigration meant that they contributed more and were more committed to building the Jewish state. Second, a shared, stigma-driven sense of derision toward Diaspora Jewry in general often led veterans to perceive themselves as culturally superior. This perceived distance from new Ashkenazim is important because it supports arguments I made in Chapter 1 that ethnically mixed, new immigrants were competing on relatively equal ground for the same jobs.

STATE FORMATION

On some level, all Jews who moved to Israel across the centuries to fulfill biblical commands for settlement can be seen as Zionists. Moreover, as the Bible outlines an independent system of government, they can be seen as Zionists hoping for the establishment of an independent state. Nevertheless, most academic work begins the history of Israeli state formation in the late nineteenth century, with the advent of a European strand of nationalism that advocated the establishment of a modern, democratic, usually secular state based largely on socialist European models, for Jews.¹ The first wave of immigrants who moved to Israel within this later Zionist framework were titled the first aliyah (immigration), and later prestate waves were numbered accordingly (second aliyah, etc.). This typology has survived in academic work.

The organized Jewish settlement that became the core of the new state is referred to as the Yishuv. Around 1920, Yishuv members began producing institutions that are recognizably early versions of Israel’s current institutions. These institutions were complex and overlapping, with some technically being arms of global Zionist or Jewish organizations (e.g., Jewish Agency), others being linked to ideological positions within Zionism that had been articulated in Europe (e.g., political parties), and still others being homegrown (e.g., the Histadrut workers’ federation or the Palmach military unit). The major political and economic institutions had obtained recognition from the British mandate by the end of the 1920s, while nascent military organization was never recognized.

IMMIGRATION, SETTLEMENT, AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF HOUSING AND OTHER NECESSITIES

During the British mandate, immigration of Jews to Israel was heavily controlled through permits obtained from the British. These permits were distributed by Zionist parties, composed mostly of Eastern Europeans. Prestate Middle Eastern Zionists complained that they received fewer permits and even had a hard time obtaining Zionist pamphlets to distribute at home (Smooha 1978). Illegal immigration, from the Middle East as well as Europe, was also common before, during, and just after the Holocaust. Illegal immigrants who were captured were interned by the British in camps in Cyprus, and in 1948, when the state was declared, about 50,000 immigrants were interned there.² Many were Holocaust survivors, and one of the new state’s first priorities was transporting them to Israel. The movement of Palestinians out of Jewish territory also began just prior to statehood, with the U.N. partition plan of 1947, and continued into 1949. There is still significant debate concerning how Palestinians left what became Israel’s borders, but the current academic wisdom is that it largely occurred through expulsion and voluntary movement that the movers intended to be temporary (See Segev 1986 for a critical but sympathetic discussion).

With statehood, immigration was opened to all Jewish immigrants. This was not as uncontested an outcome as has often been presented. There was significant internal debate about whether to regulate immigration, and some regulation of Moroccan immigration did occur (Segev 1986; see especially Hakohen 2003). According to Hakohen (2003), Ben Gurion refused to restrict immigration, despite the obvious pressure on the financially strapped new government, because he felt that without an immediate Jewish population the state could not be established, and he was not certain Jews could be counted on to come later on. Hakohen emphasizes both the disorganization of the early state and the extent of interparty strife, as parties fought bitterly over such “prizes” as control over the education of immigrants in temporary camps (e.g., whether they should be put into religious or secular schools, which would likely affect their voting behavior).

Unlike many receiving societies, Israel guaranteed all Jewish immigrants housing, food, education, medical care, and other basic necessities. There is little systematic research on what these rights were and how immigrants got them, and Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, a historian who has been researching the period, says that the rules changed frequently (personal communication 2004). We do know, however, that placement policy can be divided into three periods. During the first two years, immigrants were taken directly from the port of entry to transit camps run by the Jewish Agency, using money that came from outside Israel (Segev 1986). These camps were intended to house immigrants for several days to several weeks, after which they would be placed in permanent housing. Some early immigrants were immediately placed in housing that had once belonged to Palestinians in urban centers; however, this source of housing was used up fairly quickly.

Immigrants arrived faster than housing could be built, and in the early 1950s the state established temporary facilities, called ma’abarot, in which immigrants lived in tents or small shacks (Hakohen 2003). In contrast to the camps, in which numerous families lived in large halls together, the ma’abarot normally provided one dwelling unit per family. Ma’abarot varied. Some were close to large cities, and in such cases immigrants living in the ma’abarot were supposed to find jobs on their own, some were close to small towns whose population they doubled or even tripled, and others were in rural areas that offered immigrants public works as a source of income. Though most immigrants were taken to ma’abarot during this period, others where also sent to Moshavim or other rural areas. Moshavim were cooperative settlements in which production and income could be shared, but private life was not collective.

Immigration fell off between 1952 and 1954, and by the time it started up again in 1955, the state was more organized and able to better fulfill its initial goal of dispersing the population to less popular areas of the territory. It established a series of “development towns,” which could be one of four types: entirely new establishments, indigenous Arab villages that had been emptied, ancient settlements like Tiberias, and ma’abarot that, having never been emptied, were made municipalities. From the mid-1950s on, immigration experience could diverge drastically. On the one hand, some immigrants were transported directly to the towns. It was much harder to leave these towns than it had been the ma’abarot, since there were few roads, nearly no cars, and only intermittent buses. At the other end of the scale, some immigrants were placed in hotels and given their choice of housing in central areas (Khazzoom in progress; see also Segev 1986 for examples from earlier years). The state argued that such preferential treatment was given to professional immigrants regardless of ethnicity, an assertion that remains a source of debate. The stated reason for giving “academic” and other immigrants preferential treatment is that they were perceived to have other immigration options, and since they were considered desirable immigrants because of their education, the state endeavored to keep them as comfortable as possible (see Segev 1986, p. 174–178, for an example from earlier years).

Regardless of where an immigrant was placed, onsite workers provided information about available resources, including how to get food, how the political system worked, and how to access employment and educational possibilities. Immigrants, however, often claim that that information was incomplete (see Khazzoom 2006 on elite Iraqi women). Segev (1986) stressed that officials, from those who transported the arriving immigrants to the camps to those who were charged with helping immigrants find work, tended to treat the immigrants with indifference, parternalism, and sometimes even cruelty.

Several features of this settlement history are relevant to this book. First, the state exercised considerable control over where immigrants went; this was true both between 1948 and 1955, and after 1955. Many were shipped to ma’abarot or development towns under cover of night. Immigrants often protested and refused to get off in these remote areas, and the trucks would simply crank the bed back, spill the immigrants out, and leave (Segev 1986). Movement of the immigrants was sometimes also controlled after they had been placed. Indirect control occurred through food coupons. There was a shortage of food from about 1949 to 1952, and individuals were issued food coupons. These coupons could be redeemed, however, only in the area in which the immigrant had been placed (Meir-Glitzenstein, personal communication 2004), making changes in residential locations possible only for those with relatives or friends who were well off (all Israelis, regardless of when they had arrived, could legally buy food only with food coupons; however, there was a thriving black market). There was also some direct control of immigrant movement, though in early years it may have been ineffective. The original transit camps were surrounded by fences, but Segev (1986) argues that people nevertheless moved freely back and forth. Immigrants were initially allowed to leave ma’abarot if they forfeited all state benefits, but later when immigrants began leaving the ma’abarot en masse, measures were taken to keep them in (Hakohen 2003). In the moshav agricultural settlements in the Jerusalem corridor, in particular, border police were assigned to forcibly keep immigrants in the settlements in which they had been put (Kemp 2002).

Second, as Hakohen notes, complaints about the camps and the ma’abarot are legendary. Especially early on, the camps were overcrowded and didn’t have sufficient sanitation facilities (Bernstein 1981), and food was largely limited to black bread, margarine, and fish preserved in salt. Moreover, many immigrants didn’t have work, and Bernstein argues that this was a purposeful creation of a reserve labor force. Third, the policy of “population dispersal”—or filling the geographic periphery with people—was a central guide to how state planners directed immigrant settlement from the very beginning, and the reason development town placement got under way only in the last half of the decade was that the state was not sufficiently organized at first (Hakohen 2003).

This history of housing and settlement has ethnic overtones, and some will be examined in this book. Mizrahim have long complained that they had to wait longer in the ma’abara for housing. This cannot be checked with the 1961 census. Mizrahim have also often argued that the state targeted them for residence in the towns. These arguments can be evaluated with the census and appear to be true (Khazzoom 2005b). The towns normally offered low status manual work, such as textile production, and academics have traditionally argued that being placed in a development town limited an immigrant’s chances of obtaining a high prestige job (Spilerman and Habib 1976). I will argue in Chapter 8 that this dynamic was much more complicated than it at first appears.

WHAT WAS THE JOB MARKET LIKE?

Competition for Jobs among New Immigrants

The distribution of jobs in the Diaspora differed from that of Israel.³ Figure 2.1 contrasts the proportion of new immigrant men, from all countries, who worked in particular occupational groups in Israel with the proportion in the Diaspora. Diaspora proportions are represented with black bars, and Israeli with gray (all black bars add up to 100%, as do all gray); thus, an occupational group for which the black bar is higher than the gray bar employed a greater proportion of the sample in the Diaspora than in Israel. Sales is the outstanding example of such a case; about a third of the immigrants worked in sales in the Diaspora compared to only 10% in Israel.⁴ Assuming that immigrants, especially older ones, sought occupations in Israel for which they already had skills, those who had worked in sales abroad would find Israel crowded, with many men competing over few spots, including those wanting to go into business for themselves. Men who had worked in the traditional crafts, such as tailors, furriers, and shoemakers, would also be competing with many people for few spots; the proportion working in textile, garments, and shoes in Israel is only about half that of the Diaspora (20% versus 40%).⁵ I am calling such occupations, which employed more men in the Diaspora than in Israel, “contracting” occupations.

Figure 2.1. Structural “changes” in the availability of occupations: distribution of new immigrants into broad occupational categories abroad and in Israel. Men from all COs who arrived in Israel 1948–1958, ages 20–60

From Figure 2.1, it appears that white collar workers did not experience the same structural tightening as those in other occupations, since slightly more new immigrants had white collar jobs in Israel as had them in the Diaspora (by white collar workers, I mean men in the professional, technical, managerial, and clerical categories, with sales excluded). I argued in Chapter 1 that one reason Israel is a useful site for the examination of ethnic formation is that new immigrants had good access to high status jobs, and Figure 2.1 and the availability of white collar jobs make that point concrete. However, there are also indications that the white collar labor market picture was more competitive than it appears from this figure. Men who had white collar jobs abroad experienced an overall loss of prestige as a result of the immigration; for Mizrahim, the loss was about 13 points and for Ashkenazim 12 (i.e., the jobs men had in Israel tended to be about 12 or 13 points less prestigious than those they had abroad).⁶ In contrast, men who were in sales prior to immigration lost about 2.4 points overall, and men in other occupational groups gained prestige, including those who arrived with experience in “contracting,” blue collar occupations. Crosstabulations of occupation abroad and occupation in Israel (Appendix 1) show that about 30% of men with professional/technical experience were downwardly mobile; similarly, 40% of men with clerical experience abroad found jobs outside of the white collar category in Israel.

How might one explain this downward mobility, if the number of white collar spaces available matched the number of men who arrived with white collar experience? Part of the answer is that in the chaos of immigration and of the early state, people changed occupations frequently, and when one arrived with fairly high occupational status, a move down was more likely than a move up. However, there are also more systematic explanations. About a tenth of the immigrants did not work abroad, mostly because they were in school,⁷ and 40% of these went into white collar occupations in Israel.⁸ Two additional dynamics made clerical positions, in particular, hard to get. First, they were a destination point for downwardly mobile men from higher status occupations. Second, 8% of men who had been in sales occupations abroad moved into clerical positions in Israel. Because so many men had been involved in sales prior to immigration, this constitutes significant crowding of clerical positions. In fact, if we define three groups as potential clerical workers—men who worked in clerical occupations prior to immigration, men who experienced downward mobility out of white collar occupations, and men who actually moved into the clerical category from somewhere else—then the number of Ashkenazim alone who could compete for clerical positions is about the same as the total number of clerical occupations that were available to new immigrants in Israel in 1961 (3414 versus 3310; see Appendix 1).⁹ Though this is only a very rough estimate of competition, it does make the equal treatment of Iraqis in the labor market seem more surprising, if, that is, one believes that gatekeepers were motivated by a desire to monopolize scarce resources for Ashkenazim.¹⁰

VETERAN POWERHOLDERS, IDENTITY, AND ORIENTATIONS TOWARD RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION

To understand veteran identification and practices of resource distribution, it is important to recall that the group was small. Prior to independence Israel had only six hundred thousand Jews. At first, this community was not absolutely unified. Jews arrived at different times and with different goals, and the six hundred thousand included a long-standing Sephardic (Spanish-origin) elite, various religious communities that existed prior to the late 1800s, and the five distinct waves of immigration that began in the late 1800s under the umbrella of European Zionism. However, the five waves made up the numerical majority of Jews in Palestine, and they participated in building a coherent political and social organization that eventually marginalized other groups (see Smooha 1978; Eyal 2006). Prior to statehood, Yishuv members lived in a society that was small, interconnected, and heavily exposed to Zionist ideology through participation in youth groups, paramilitary organizations, and politics (Ben Eliezer 1998). The Yishuv also had its own media, including a radio station and party newspapers. Though commitments to westernization predated immigration (see Chapter 6), they were enhanced by participation in these ideologically intense groups, and such participation also exposed immigrants to the Yishuv’s collectivist ideals.

The Yishuv centralized resources and political power through its institution-building activity (Shapiro 1976; Shafir and Peled 2002; Shalev 1992). Two institutions are of particular importance: the political parties and the Histadrut workers’ federation. The Histadrut was founded during a time of severe unemployment in the Yishuv, when Jewish workers united to create companies and cooperatives in which to employ themselves, including the collective farms known as kibbutzim. It is usually referred to as Israel’s labor union because it began as a workers’ organization oriented toward creating sustainable employment, and it remains Israel’s strongest labor union today. However, as an entity that from the beginning also owned the means of production and employed workers, it was clearly much more. Although its influence declined with statehood, it was also in a position to obtain a large share of the resources that poured into the new state. These resources were used for such activities as building housing and producing food and medical care for the new immigrants, and they enabled the companies to grow in size and influence (Shalev 1989; see also Hakohen 2003).

The Histadrut was run by a committee that was historically composed of the political parties that made up the Knesset’s ruling coalition, in proportion to the votes they obtained from Histadrut members. Thus, through the Histadrut, the ruling labor coalition also controlled much of the economy. The parties, including those not in the ruling coalition, also separately controlled other companies, and this overlapping of employing people, representing labor, and involvement in the political system is one way that resource distribution was centralized. As Gutmann and Landau (1975) wrote seventeen years after statehood, “Israeli parties tend to control, or at least be affiliated with, various economic and commercial enterprises.... Among these are banks and financial institutions, housing corporations and other real estate firms, printing presses and a variety of mass communication enterprises, and agricultural production and distribution networks. In view of the party control of the Histadrut and its economic ‘empire,’ as well as the close connection between parties and rural settlement organizations ... most parties may be thought of as actually being ‘in business’ ” (p. 168) (see also Hakohen 2003). In addition, the Histadrut controlled the placement agencies that at first were the only channels through which one could get a legal job (Lishkat Ha’avodah). The outcome for the immigrants was that a fairly unified and homogeneous group had some hand in the distribution of most resources, including jobs, and there were few ways around “the system.”

Finally, among parties, Mapai (which eventually became part of Labor) had far more resources than others and dominated in the economic and political arenas. Strategies such as flexibility in political position and coopting competing leaderships as they arose (i.e., offering competitors top places in the organization in return for party loyalty) kept power centralized within the Mapai party in particular (Shapiro 1976; Medding 1972). These strategies were also used later on to neutralize competition from new immigrants. Mapai retained its dominant position until 1977, when a Likud-led coalition first obtained a majority in the Knesset.

With statehood, veteran control and economic advantages were also enforced through a number of other means, including appointing all party functionaries from above (Shalev 1989; Medding 1972; Shapiro 1976), enacting laws preventing Israeli firms from replacing veteran workers with new immigrants, requiring that employment vacancies be reported and distributed through the Histadrut’s Lishkat Ha’avoda rather than allowing companies to hire new workers independently (Shalev 1989; Grinberg 1993), housing immigrants outside the cities so that finding jobs on their own was difficult (Bernstein and Swirski 1982), and rationing of food, which was in place through the mid-1950s and again could be used to make immigrants stay in areas from which finding jobs independently was hard. From the new immigrants’ point of view, veteran dominance also extended well beyond the political and economic arenas. Veterans predominated among journalists and party officials who made statements about the new immigrants, shaping attitudes and policy, in media and the workplace alike (Segev 1986). They made up most of the emissaries who went to various countries to encourage Jews to immigrate to Israel (Shenhav 2006), most of the Israeli representatives who negotiated with other governments to allow Jewish emigration, and most of the policy makers who determined where groups of immigrants were to be placed when they landed in Israel (Hakohen 2003).

Indications are that control remained in veteran hands past 1961, when the census on which this book is based was taken, and in fact lasted into the 1970s (Aharoni 1965; Gutmann and Landau 1975; Schecter 1972). For example, in a study from 1972, Schecter systematically examined characteristics of top decision makers in four sectors—politics, corporations (public and private), labor (i.e., the Histadrut organization), and the civil service—and found them to be overwhelmingly veteran. Even two and a half decades into statehood, he found, forty-seven of the fifty-three foreign-born directors of large corporations were veterans. And even in the relatively new civil service sector—which was largely established after statehood—fully fortythree of the forty-nine foreign-born decision makers came before 1948. Moreover, the main effect of this sector’s newness was to open positions not to new immigrants but to Israeli-born youth instead. In 1972 these youth were almost necessarily the children of veterans; moreover, Schecter reports that they tended to have close familial connections with veteran powerholders in other sectors. Schecter made similar statements about public corporations, which were also relatively new.

Moreover, the 1961 census indicates that at that time, veteran dominance still extended far down into the economic and political hierarchies. Regarding the employers who physically gave the new immigrants jobs, about two-thirds (69%) of men who reported being a manager or a smallbusiness owner with at least one employee were veterans (while about two-thirds of the population of Israeli Jews were new immigrants). This veteran dominance is even stronger among employers with more power or the ability to dispense high status jobs, such as those who employed more than two workers (71%), those with more than eight years of education (72%), and those who lived near the variegated labor markets of the three cities (77%).¹¹ Regarding the immigrant workers who placed and helped immigrants acclimate, Meir-Glitzenstein (2000) writes, “The absorption bureaucracy at high and low levels alike was almost entirely Ashkenazi, comprising mainly old timers and a few new immigrants” (emphasis added). Moreover, thirteen years into statehood, it is likely that many new immigrants who had the ability to distribute resources had been chosen by veterans and were chosen because they could represent the establishment. For example, in the Mapai party the number of employed positions increased threefold, but the main task of new immigrant leaders was to persuade the immigrants to vote for Mapai without pressing Mapai to change policies in favor of the immigrants (Meir-Glitzenstein 2000).¹²

So Was Israel Really New?

I argued in Chapter 1 that in many respects the 1950s produced a new society in Israel. With the above information on how institutions parlayed prestate centralization into dominance within the new state, this statement can be refined. There was considerable continuity in economic organizations from the prestate to state period because preexisting organizations were able to grow along with the economy and the shift to independence, and to dominate after independence. Similarly, the prestate period’s nascent political organizations are recognizable in today’s Knesset and party system, and even the state’s legal system is shaped by British policies and institutions developed during the mandate. Two dynamics constitute disruption, or newness, and they make Israel useful as a field in which to study ethnic formation. First, a large group of immigrants, who were ethnically mixed, arrived suddenly to compete for an equally large and newly available set of occupational spaces. Veteran control over the distribution of these spaces has often been interpreted as an indication that new Ashkenazi immigrants would have privileged access to jobs in the 1950s. However, as noted, the equal treatment of Iraqis casts doubt on this argument; moreover, such a statement ignores the lack of representation of Romanians among veterans, as well as the significant difference veterans saw between themselves and new immigrants. The second form of newness is that because these immigrants made up the majority by the end of the 1950s, and because there were few Middle Eastern Jews in Israel prior to statehood, Israel’s contemporary ethnic hierarchy can be said to have been shaped during this decade.¹³

And Was It Really Representative?

Second, the extent of centralization may make the Israeli case seem less generalizable. The Histadrut is certainly a unique institution, but other forms of organizational interpenetration in Israel do follow U.S. patterns more closely. Schecter’s (1972) discussion, for example, parallels Mills’s (1956) argument that, in the United States of the 1950s, elites in different sectors tended to know each other, to share world views, and to take each other into account when making decisions. Mills also argued that technically separate sectors with the potential to create divisions among the powerholders actually overlapped in significant ways because of connections among the individuals who headed them. Similarly, it is worth noting that even two hundred years after the establishment of the United State, many powerholders are the descendants of prestate immigrants. Thus here, as in many respects, catching Israel at a formative period and asking how that formative period shaped it into the nation it is today enables us to examine dynamics that are hard to measure when societies are stable and established.

WHAT UNITED THE VETERANS, AND WHAT DIVIDED THEM?

The preceding discussion described the general social and economic dominance of veterans and their institutions. This dominance implies that veteran concerns—ideological, material, political, and so forth—would remain hegemonic even as the society grew rapidly. Thus, veteran values and norms, as well as areas of agreement and disagreement, are important information. Work on the Yishuv simultaneously portrays veterans as a united group with a highly functional single political and economic system based on widespread voluntary acquiescence to a leadership that had no coercive power, and as a highly fractured entity whose daily pattern included frequent conflict and power plays. Both portrayals are probably accurate, and for the purposes of this book, sources of agreement are more significant than sources of disagreement. Disagreement tended to focus on the following issues:

The extent to which Halachah (religious codes, i.e., “church”) and state should be separated

The extent to which the state should be involved in the economy, e.g., whether it should follow the model of U.S. New Deal capitalism, Europeanstyle socialism, or something in between

Whether the cultural and ideological future of the state lay in rural areas, with collective agricultural experiments such as the kibbutz, or in the cities, with their industries and professional workers

How to handle British authorities

The two related issues of Zionism’s territorial aspirations, and the extent to which Arabs should be incorporated into the new state

With the exception of how to handle British authorities, these continued to be areas of disagreement into statehood, although most argue that with statehood there was a shift from privileging kibbutz life as the cultural and ideological future of the state to privileging industry and the professional arena. A variety of minority and splinter groups did raise issues that pushed in different directions, both before and after statehood. The relatively small group of communists, for instance, were not satisfied with socialism and also pushed for greater inclusion of Arab non-Jews into the polity. Prior to statehood, a small but culturally important group of veterans, including Sephardic elites, academic Orientalists of German origin, and some rural secular European immigrants, sought to imagine futures in which Israel emerged as a hybrid population that bridged “east” and “west” (Eyal 2006). Bernstein’s (2000) latest work examines movements to organize Palestinian and Israeli workers into a single unit (see also Shalev 1989 for a useful discussion). However, these alternatives were rejected by the majority of veteran powerholders, leaving most strife to center around the larger issues described above.

Veterans also shared a great deal. For the purposes of this book, the most important are two shared norms that shaped resource distribution. The first, which was imported from the Diaspora, is the nearly universal belief that the new society should be culturally distinct from its “backward” Middle Eastern, Arab, or Levantine setting (Shohat 1989; Seltzer 1969; Raz Krakotzkin 1998; Shenhav 2006; Eyal 2006).¹⁴ The second, developed during the prestate period, was that individual behavior should be oriented toward the perceived needs of the developing society rather than personal gain (Eisenstadt 1967; Horowitz and Lissak 1978; Peled and Shafir 2002; Ben Eliezer 1998; Kimmerling 1983). There is debate on the extent to which veterans actually did act selflessly, but it is clear that when it came to distributing resources to the arriving immigrants, they considered it legitimate to put the state’s needs above new immigrants’ individual preferences (Sternhell 1992; Eoniger and Feige 1992; Shapiro 1976).

Cultural Change Projects: From “Human Dust” to “New Jew”

As Gil Eyal (2006) has noted, veterans shared a sense of cultural mission. He writes that “early Zionism was ... a church seeking to disseminate a certain revealed truth and to instruct individuals on how to fashion their bodies and souls to attain salvation ... [t]o perform the magic of transforming old Jews into new Jews” (p. 10) (see also Zerubavel 1995; Kimmerling 1983). The importance of the new Jew image and its opposition to the Diaspora Jew is one reason that veterans can be seen to have identified as a separate group from new immigrants, even those new immigrants who came from the same country or even town. The new Jew objective, it has been variously pointed out, was about making individual Jews not only western (or “real” Europeans) (Penslar 2005; Regev and Seroussi 2004; Melamed unpublished), but also masculine (Boyarin 1997; Presner 2003), secular (Shafir and Peled 2002), sexually contained (Biale 1992), productive (Houser 2005; Frenkel and Shenhav 2003), and even clean (Meir-Glitzenstein 2003).

Much of what Israelis sought to make of themselves was rooted in stigmatized identities that developed in western Europe. The new Jew image drew from Enlightenment-era comparisons—made by Jews and non-Jews alike—between, on the one hand, scheming Jewish peddlers who lived in crowded filthy ghettos, were excessively sexual, and even stood in a crooked fashion, and, on the other hand, Europeans (i.e., Christians) whose bodies, minds, and speech were straight and who lived closer to nature (see Zerubavel 1995 for an evocative description).¹⁵ Since the ghettos were perceived as eastern or Oriental (Seltzer 1967; for a more recent statement by a contemporary Israeli politician see Khazzoom 2003), the production of the new Jew was a mechanism for overcoming Jewish easternness. Moreover, the new Jew image includes traditional western symbols such as industriousness, cleanliness, honesty, self-containment, a rational approach to religious belief, and even gender egalitarianism (in the sense that new Jewish women were to work alongside new Jewish men in the fields) (see Said 1978 for common images of the west).

However, this new Jew image was also rooted in agriculture, kibbutz life, and images of the European (and sometimes Palestinian) farmer, and agriculture became less central with the establishment of the state. Other, parallel strands of Enlightenment-era Jewish thought sought to emulate western European bourgeois behavior. These strands also made their way into Israeli images of the new self, and here the goal was not only to produce new individuals but also to ensure that the society as a whole was similar to European-origin societies. As scholars have remarked since the early days of statehood, this desire permeated Israeli political, economic, and cultural goals. Bernstein (1957) wrote that “political Zionism was deeply rooted in values of western democracy” (p. 5), Ginor (1979) that “the aspiration to create a modern society along European lines resulted in the establishment of industries, banks, and commercial undertakings in the expanding towns” (p. 23), Yogev (1987) that “the veteran Ashkenazi immigrants from Europe and America have adopted Western or ‘modern’ life patterns emphasizing the building of an urban industrialized society” (p. 204), and Seligman simply that “the old settlers were Europeans, eager to create a new and better Europe in Palestine” (1964, p. 2). Regarding the pervasiveness of such thought, even today, Eyal wrote that “the [Orientalist] discourse ... in an important sense is not the sole monopoly of the experts but is accessible as a sort of ‘inner orientalist’ to almost all members of this culture” (2006, p. 3).

With the establishment of the state and the arrival of the immigrants, veterans and their institutions directed significant resources and control toward cultural uplift, and here centralization, cultural mission, and resource distribution combine. Examples abound: the Histadrut had an office for cultural affairs; Israel’s only radio station, which was state-sponsored, sought to expose listeners to European classical music (Penslar 2005); state policy and financial rewards encouraged women to give birth in hospitals (perceived as the modern, western practice) rather than at home (Sered 2000); and female army volunteers were sent into Middle Eastern homes to instruct women on everything from how to sit at tables to eat to how to raise children. Earlier scholars, however, took Israel’s “westernization project” for granted, and though they described it often, they rarely analyzed it. With the exception of Shohat’s (1988, 1989) pioneering work and Seltzer’s early monograph, it is only since the late 1990s that scholars have articulated a critical history of “Jewish Orientalism,” in which they describe the original classification of Jews (including western European Jews) as Oriental (Khazzoom 1996; Raz-Krakotzkin 1998; Anidjar 1996; Heschel 1999; Hess 2000; Biale 2001; Kramer 1999; Kalmar and Penslar 2005), describe Zionism as a westernization project (Khazzoom 1996; Raz-Krakotzkin 1998; Shohat 1988; Selzer 1967), and draw connections between that history and the various and sundry ways that Jews in Israel were encouraged to westernize (Shenhav 2006; Melamed unpublished). Within this literature, two recent, large-scale studies of Israel are particularly important.

First, Eyal’s (2006) work examines the road not taken. His analytical starting point is a set of minority voices, heard prior to statehood, that articulated alternatives to full westernization, usually involving some form of hybridization. These voices included Sephardic nobles who existed in fluid networks that encompassed both indigenous Arabs and Europeans; German-origin academics who researched the cultures of Jews in Arab lands to find models for Jewish life in Israel that blended, as they saw it, eastern authenticity with western modernity and progress; and a group of largely East European veterans and Israeli-born, called Mista’aravim, who sought, within the “new Jew” paradigm, to emulate Bedouin and Palestinian farmers (fellahin). With statehood, Eyal tells us, this experimentation with hybridity receded from view and influence. Eyal argues that this disappearance had multiple causes. He himself focuses on the role of new experts who, to compete with the earlier hybridizers, constructed clear east/west lines.

Though our emphases are different, both this book and Eyal’s show that concerns over westernization were central to Israel’s social development, and suggest that westernization projects played a role in a wide variety of sites. At the same time, both see ebb and flow, across time, in the intensity with which Diaspora and Israeli Jews sought to produce themselves as western. We agree that moves to incorporate the eastern indicate that depending on the circumstances, Israelis may well reevaluate westernization projects and produce alternate projects that locate Israel within the Middle East.

The second important study is Shenhav’s (2006). Again, the starting point is that Israel as a collectivity has been dominated by an aspiration to become western and European. Here, however, the focus is on the discursive work European Zionists needed to do to incorporate “Arab Jews” into the planned collectivity and the later effects on Mizrahi identity. Shenhav’s book begins with an early encounter between European Jewish Zionist emissaries and Jews in Iraq in the 1940s. Disturbed by what they considered people so Arab it was difficult to classify them as Jews, the emissaries “religionized” the Iraqi Jews—for example, teaching them how to pray—in order to mark their Jewishness and make them legitimate members of the hoped-for Israeli state. Most Iraqi Jews, however, were already fairly religious, which shows the essentially ritual nature of this religionization. This need to religionize, Shenhav argues, highlights contradictions within Zionism, as it imagined a secular collectivity yet used religion to mark individuals as members. It also, he argues, demonstrates the extent to which Iraqi Jews were perceived as Arab in their initial encounters with European Jews, the level of discomfort that Arabness generated, and the perceived need to “erase” this Arabness in order to incorporate the Iraqis and other Mizrahim into a Jewish collectivity. Later chapters of the book ask how this erasure affected Mizrahi identity and economic circumstance. For example, Shenhav examines how Iraqis attempted to squeeze their history into the European Zionist narrative in order to gain recognition.

Shenhav’s work overlaps and contrasts with my work in this book in useful ways. First, in combination with the results from Chapter 7 of this book, religion emerges as a highly complex entity; Shenhav shows that Iraqis could not be incorporated into the collectivity without first being seen as religious, while my work shows that they could not obtain high status occupations without first presenting themselves as secular. Second, Shenhav’s focus on Arabness, rather than general easternness, highlights the extent to which Mizrahi Jews were not seen as simply Oriental but also specifically Arab.¹⁶ Third, and more generally, this book focuses on how successful westernization was as the key to inclusion for Iraqi Jews, while Shenhav focuses on the downside, so to speak, of Iraqis having to adjust to Israel’s western-philic environment in order to be included.

The Imposition of a Collective Orientation on the Immigrants

Contrasting the “Zionist and Protestant ethics” as two “models of economic activity,” Kimmerling writes, “The difference between Calvinism (and most other religions) and Zionism [is that] ... the religious believer usually is interested in individual and individualistic salvation, whereas Zionism is interested in the collective salvation of an entire collectivity.” (1983, p. 9) The emphasis on the collective, Kimmerling notes, shapes a number of images from the Yishuv period. For example, the pioneer “sacrifices himself for future collective salvation” (p. 5–6), and the creative economic activities of the “institutional entrepreneur” (see also Eisenstadt 1967) were expected to be directed not toward individual profit but toward the “group or national interest or both.... Only as a by-product of the success of his activities did he personally gain political power” (p. 7). This observation that veterans valued collective behavior has been a standard in research on Israeli society (Shapiro 1976; Horowitz and Lissak 1978; Peled 1992; Shafir and Peled 2002; Arian 1968), although later work has shifted from the blanket assertion of universalism and willingness to sacrifice (Eisenstadt 1967) to a more cynical examination of institutional and other factors that generated pressure to appear selfless (Ben Eliezer 1998). There is also general agreement that with statehood personal gain became a more legitimate goal among veterans (Matras 1965), although collectivism may not have necessarily disappeared as a result (contrast Seligman 1964 and Arian 1968; see also Shafir and Peled 2002).

In their influential work, Shafir and Peled (2002) connect collectivism with resource distribution when they argue that both before and after independence, civic recognition was granted to individuals or groups on the basis of their perceived contribution to the common good (see also Peled 1992). This dynamic of recognition is about resource distribution both because civic recognition is itself a resource and because it affects access to other resources, such as political power. As in Kimmerling’s work, Shafir and Peled define the common good as goals articulated in the Zionist project—specifically, as articulated in Peled, “the mutual redemption of the Jewish people and their land through physical labor, agricultural settlement, and military defense.... [Thus in the Yishuv] a distinction was made not only between Jews and Arabs but also between the (mostly European) Jews who came to Palestine to ‘build and be built’ there and the (mostly non-European) Jews who were regarded simply as immigrants” (1992, p. 434).

As noted, there is general agreement among scholars that state planners considered it legitimate to ask Israelis to put the new society’s needs above their own individual needs, and it is clear from other literature that many resources were distributed according to the common good criteria. Residential location is a prime example. As noted above, the state announced and pursued a policy of granting prime housing in Israel’s center to college graduates, and justified this policy by saying that the state needed these immigrants. Similarly, the placement of other immigrants in the periphery—without their permission and without granting them compensation for their sacrifice—was justified by referencing the state’s needs to secure its borders (Segev 1986). In a quotation I will examine again in the next chapter, Golda Meir describes dividing arriving Romanian “human material” into two, and sending half to the development town of Be’er Sheva. Here, the justification was not securing Israel’s borders, but rather the society’s need to place a European presence in Be’er Sheva, to raise its “cultural level” and introduce immigrants capable of running the town. Even Ben Gurion’s decision to encourage Jews to immigrate to Israel because the state needed them, despite the state’s limited ability to feed and house them, is an example of this orientation toward sacrifice for the collectivity. In short, as Peled put it, “while individual rights and the procedural rules of democracy were widely respected, they were clearly seen ... as secondary in value to the collective Zionist mission” (1992, p. 434).

In this book, I, too, utilize the observation that individuals were incorporated into the collectivity according to the degree to which they were perceived to advance Zionist goals. However, I note that there is some tension in Peled’s (1992) and Peled and Shafir’s (2002) work. They assert that Middle Eastern Jews (among others) were marginalized because they were not perceived as contributing to the common good, but do not explain what about being Middle Eastern (or Palestinian) makes one so useless. In addition, they do not explain why new Ashkenazi immigrants would be seen as closer to the pioneer image than Mizrahi, when neither group had been in Israel for the building of the state. Of course, reference to the common good may be simply a justification for exclusion of Mizrahim and Palestinians, but this then returns us to the original puzzles of this book, as it remains unclear why veterans would be so intent on excluding specifically Middle Easterners, and yet, as the Iraqi paradox once again demonstrates, that they didn’t actually exclude all Middle Easterners.

My contribution here is the simple point that the Zionist goal of establishing Israel as part of the European family of nations was one of the criteria on which an individual’s contribution to the common good was assessed. As noted, there was a transition with statehood, in which veteran leaders focused less on those facets of Zionism that promoted a Europeanstyle agricultural sector and more on those that promoted western-style industrial and knowledge sectors. Thus, if contribution to the common good remained the criteria for inclusion and exclusion even after statehood, not only pioneering but also aiding in the production of a modern industrial economy were rewarded. Here, the history of stigma and identity and the collectivist orientation converge. Even without a collectivist ideology, veterans would have rejected Jews who appeared too eastern, since their history of stigma would lead them to fear Levantinization. The collectivist orientation made sense of and legitimated this exclusion. However, the orientation, as well as facets of Zionism that mandated equal treatment of Jews (Kimmerling 1983), also directed gatekeepers to be careful about whom they excluded. The combination led to a concerted effort to incorporate western-appearing Mizrahim, even as those who could not prove westernness were excluded.

Representativeness

The strength of the veteran collectivist orientation may make Israel again seem unique and therefore not comparable to other modern industrial societies. Moreover, in this day and age, it is striking that a national leader such as Golda Meir could have talked so casually about dividing human material and shaping people’s life chances to fulfill a state’s collective cultural goals. Again, however, Israeli uniqueness appears to be a difference in degree and not kind. Paternalism and social Darwinism are accusations levied against the elite in the United States and other societies as well (Roberts 1997), and the United States and other countries often promulgate social policy that is intended to shape citizens’ behavior in ways that benefit the state. In addition, the particular Israeli climate is understood to be rooted in two dynamics that characterize other societies as well. First, emphasis on individual sacrifice is common for nationalist movements, or other groups with a mission. Second, Israeli work on citizenship has repeatedly underscored that Israel’s collectivist orientation draws from communitarian or republican citizenship discourses, which are influential in many European countries.

SUMMARY

This chapter provided a general overview of the context in which the new immigrants found jobs and housing and settled into Israel. Regarding the labor market, I noted that the period considered here can be divided into two—1948 to 1955, and 1955 to 1961—the first of which was characterized by stronger party control over jobs, and the second of which was characterized by less centralization of control over employment and therefore greater immigrant freedom to improvise. Regarding residential placement, however, the pattern is the opposite; the earlier period is characterized by less state control over residential location, and the later period by stricter control. Throughout this period—in which party influence gained and lost strength—the distributive system at all times remained dominated by veterans. They constituted most of the elites and therefore set policy, and employers, from the small to the large, were likely to be veterans.

If we take the jobs that new immigrants actually obtained as an indicator of the pool of empty spaces over which they competed, then it appears that it was simultaneously true that a large number of white collar jobs were available and that these jobs were sites of significant competition. A number of traditional Jewish occupations were not available in Israel—in particular, more people arrived with experience in some kind of sales activity than the new society could support—and many immigrants therefore changed occupations as a result of the immigration. This structural shift meant that there was significant competition over white collar positions, especially the clerical positions that occupied half of Israeli white collar workers. As a result, many immigrants with white collar experience were downwardly mobile, in the sense that their Israeli jobs were less prestigious than their jobs abroad. From an analytical standpoint, this is conceptualized as good news. The level of competition and reshuffling means that a variety of resources—ethnicity, prior occupational experience, age, educational attainment, cultural capital, and the like—should come into play. This is ideal for examining patterns of ethnic preference among veteran gatekeepers.

Finally, my argument in this book is that the dominant ideological stance in Israel was in favor of westernization and that because of a preimmigration history of stigma, most well-educated Jews shared a project of producing Israel as western. The reason the veteran prestate experience is important is that it establishes an additional dimension of attachment to westernization for this group alone. Experiencing themselves as the state’s creators, and having been raised in Zionist youth groups and exposed to Zionist-oriented media, they were identified with the cultural goals of the state, party, and Zionist ideology in ways that later immigrants were not. This generated a sense of responsibility for state and social engineering that adds to the explanation for why they would use westernness as a central criteria for sorting among the immigrants. Thus this stance, which is common in groups with a mission, provides an additional dimension to the findings of this book, which are that gatekeepers distributed high status jobs to men who were not just well educated but also not likely to “Levantinize” the emerging society.

CHAPTER THREE

Theoretical and Analytical Approaches to Ethnic Formation

Why does racial/ethnic difference affect the distribution of resources, such as educational and occupational attainment?

Do people discriminate against other racial/ethnic groups when that’s an available and convenient way to monopolize resources for themselves, as posited by Parkin (1979), following Weber?

Are they responding to “primordial” or even genetic urges to help their own, as van den Berghe (1987) argues?

Do they need other groups to be less successful in order to feel positively about themselves, or more generally, is the identity of one group tied to the social position of another, as Roediger (1991) suggests?

Or is the answer that race/ethnicity doesn’t substantially affect attainment, because the ethos of meritocracy in modern industrialized societies is strong, and human capital is the main determinant of attainment, as Lipset and Bendix (1959) expect (see also Parsons 1954)?

These are the classic sociological questions that motivate this book. They are about the phenomenon of social closure—defined as activity of one group that limits other groups’ access to socially valued objects, such as education, political power, or economic resources (Weber 1978; Parkin 1979)—and they ask why, when, and how racial/ethnic closure emerges. In this chapter, I explain why Israel in the 1950s is a good site to examine the sources of racial/ethnic inequality and describe the theoretical frames that I use for the analysis. I then discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using quantitative data to address such issues. Finally, I introduce the 1961 census, which is the main data set on which this book is based.

ETHNICITY UNBOUND: 1950S ISRAEL AS AN IMPORTANT CASE STUDY

Two processes make it difficult to ascertain the sources of racial/ethnic inequality in stable societies. First, because class and ethnicity are linked, the intergenerational reproduction of class inequality also reproduces ethnic inequality. ¹ In such a case, it is difficult to know if ethnicity is unimportant or just latent. Second, the tendency for groups to monopolize resources or industries institutionalizes advantage by reducing competition. When all outsiders face overwhelming odds against breaking in, it is difficult to assess the utility of an individual’s characteristics in attaining socially valued positions.

To examine the effect of ethnicity on the distribution of social resources, some researchers have compared the occupational attainments of immigrant groups (e.g., Lieberson 1980; Steinberg 1989; Barerra 1979; Takaki 1990). But these groups tend to be small and homogenous, and comparison is hindered by differing opportunity structures, times of arrival, and competition with previously established groups who dominate in key industries (Lieberson 1980). Almaguer (1994) circumvented the problem of resource monopolization by studying a system in flux. When Mexico lost California to the United States, the Mexican elite lost its domination of arable land, opening the way for others to compete. In this case, however, ethnic differences in opportunity were grounded in legal definitions of who was white, limiting our ability to make generalizations for comparison to contemporary society.

In Israel, legal definitions of who could participate fully in the Jewish society,² as well as laws protecting veteran Jewish immigrants’ jobs, did structure attainment differences between veteran and new Jewish immigrants and between Jews and Palestinians. However, among new Jewish immigrants, the competition for position took place on remarkably equal ground. First, immigrants from different countries were heterogeneous with respect to skill levels, educational attainment, and socioeconomic background (Amit 2001; Nahon 1987, 1984; Bernstein and Swirski 1982; Swirski 1989). Second, immigrants from each broad ethnic group arrived during each year (Sicron 1957), so the structure of opportunity that they encountered was more similar than is usually the case. Third, as noted in the previous chapter, Israeli society was in a state of significant upheaval. Along with massive immigration, statehood triggered transformation of social and governmental structures and rapid economic growth. Though prestate immigrants quickly occupied top positions (Matras 1963), by the end of the 1950s there were enough top positions left over that new immigrants could also obtain them.

The empirical research question of this book is therefore how ethnicity, class background, residential location, and other familiar variables affected occupational attainment for the state’s new Jewish immigrants in their first encounter with the Israeli labor market. I use the results to determine (1) whether ethnicity affected attainment, (2) which ethnic classification scheme had what effect, and (3) why. Three structuring themes—the race/ class debate, dichotomization, and Orientalism—generate predictions and make sense of the findings. I discuss these themes through the prism of the Iraqi paradox because it was the inability of the first two frames to resolve the paradox that necessitated including the third.

THE RACE/CLASS DEBATE

The theoretical debate about the relative effects of race and class is about the relationship between race- and class-based closure. Some argue that class is primary. Among these, Marxists argue that capitalists (Reich 1971) or workers (Bonacich 1972, 1979) manipulate ethnic differences to gain advantage in the class struggle for resources. Other scholars, who fall into a variety of camps, attribute the outcome of ethnic inequality at least in part to economic opportunity encountered by particular groups (Lieberson 1980; Nakano-Glen 1986; Takaki 1990; Wilson 1980), or the confluence of the human capital held by group members and the needs of local industry (Wilson 1980, 1987; Steinberg 1989).³ On the other side of the explanatory fence, many scholars argue that race/ethnicity is primary, and that ethnic differences become grounded in class inequality, rather than the other way around. For example, colonialists and internal colonialists argue that colonized, or involuntary (Ogbu 1987), minorities face more virulent forms of discrimination than other minorities (Barerra 1979; Nakano-Glenn 1986; Blauner 1972; Fanon 1967). Similarly, Omi and Winant (1994) argue that societies are characterized by racial formation projects, in which a variety of groups struggle over the extent and meaning of racial/ethnic inequality in resources.

Parkin’s (1979) discussion of credentialism is particularly useful for analyzing the relationship between ethnic- and class-based closure, and the connection between the formation and the perpetuation of ethnic inequality (see also Bourdieu 1977; Collins 1979). In modern industrialized societies, Parkin argues, occupational attainment depends on educational attainment, but the children of the upper classes have a better chance than others at attaining higher levels of education. The main purpose of the educational credentials they obtain, therefore, is not to obtain job skills but rather to legitimate the intergenerational inheritance of class position by making it seem to be dependent on achieved status. Because class is associated with ethnicity, credentialism can also be used to reproduce ethnic inequality without resorting to discrimination. And, notes Parkin, because credentialism relies on individual achievement, the reproduction of inequality, be it ethnic or class, appears to be the result of the individual’s failure to make use of available opportunities. The impression that modern industrialized societies are meritocratic is therefore preserved,⁴ even though in practice not all equally capable individuals have equal chances at valued social positions.⁵

This is one reason that the first encounter with the labor market in Israel is important. For Parkin, ethnic elites build on class differences to conceal ethnic discrimination as an achievement-based system.⁶ But in a case such as Israel, in which achieved characteristics were not, initially, fully enmeshed with ethnicity, Parkin’s theory implies that the prestate Ashkenazi elite would have had to discriminate on an ethnic basis directly. The first chance to do so would be in the labor market.⁷ Then, once educated or skilled Mizrahim had been placed at the bottom of the social hierarchy, the more defensible achievement-based system could be used to reproduce the ethnic hierarchy across generations.⁸

The Iraqi paradox, of course, complicates such an argument, since gatekeepers failed to discriminate consistently along ethnic lines. One of the hypotheses I propose—that gatekeepers did in fact discriminate against Iraqis, but that Iraqis successfully fought back—preserves a Parkin-type story, in that it has Ashkenazim using the first encounter with the labor market to put Mizrahim in a lower class position so that ethnic inequality could then be reproduced across generations through the usual class-based methods. This hypothesis attributes the Iraqi success to the ability of Iraqis to get around gatekeeper preferences. It can be tested by examining other opportunities for closure, such as the distribution of residential locations, and by examining labor market outcomes for groups of Iraqis who differed in their ability to fight discrimination. In Chapter 5, I review the evidence in favor of and against this discrimination hypothesis and argue that evidence against it is stronger than evidence in favor of it. I therefore draw a preliminary conclusion that gatekeepers discriminated against Moroccans and Yemenites in the first encounter with the labor market, but not against Iraqis, and I search for reasons they might see some Mizrahim and not others as legitimate targets for discrimination.

DICHOTOMIZATION

While Parkin’s work is useful for conceptualizing ethnicity and class as alternate axes for the distribution of resources, he, like the majority of stratification researchers, treats ethnic group boundaries as stable (see, for example, Grusky’s 2001 edited volume).⁹ But before resources could be distributed along Mizrahi/Ashkenazi lines, those lines had to be created, and ethnicity had to be given meaning. As early as Weber, sociologists have been aware that ethnic groups can be fanciful creations, or, as Anderson (1991) put it regarding nation’s, “imagined communities” (see also Omi and Winant 1994). In research on Israeli society, the concept of dichotomization similarly treats group boundaries as mutable. In addition, it draws explicit connections between the formation of ethnic difference on the one hand and the emergence of ethnic exclusion on the other.

Prior Work on Dichotomization in Israeli Literature

Israeli dichotomization is similar to panethnic formation in the United States. In both cases, two sets of nested “ethnic” identities exist at all times, one of which contains aggregates of the more specific set.¹⁰ Also in both cases, over time the aggregates become more salient than the specifics. In the United States, one such aggregate is “Asian,” which contains the “specifics” of Korean, Japanese, Malaysian, Vietnamese, and Chinese, among others. We see increased prominence of the aggregates in political activity, subjective identity, and marital patterns, to mention a few axes. In both the United States and Israel, researchers are especially interested in panethnic formation as “categorization” (see Jenkins 1994 on categorization; Kibria 1998; Shenhav 2006 on panethnic formation as categorization), that is, as a process in which identities are imposed by the more powerful onto the less powerful.¹¹

Though the specific term dichotomization is my own, the concept has in one way or another been present in academic research on Israel since the 1970s, and when I refer to “dichotomization theory” I mean the body of work that identified this shift in ethnic boundaries and tried to explain it. Early studies of marital patterns suggested that an “Ashkenazi” identity was forming faster than a “Mizrahi” one, as European Jews began marrying across country lines (but within binary lines) earlier and more frequently than Middle Eastern Jews (Bachi 1956/1957; Shavit and Steir 1997; see also review in Shavit 1994).¹² This work used dichotomization as an overarching theme but did not politicize it. Researchers did not yet know the extent to which the ethnic gap in resources was an Israeli creation, and they believed that identity was simply following language and material circumstances among the immigrants. In 1981, Bernstein treated dichotomization as a problem to be explained when she argued that gatekeepers failed to attend to differences between Iraqis and other Mizrahim, as did Segev in 1986, when he contrasted gatekeepers’ use of a binary framework with the stark differences between immigrants from different Middle Eastern countries. However, it was not until Nahon’s 1987 publication that dichotomization in its contemporary sense gained currency.

In his 1987 work, Nahon studied educational attainment of men in Israel. Using the 1983 census, he examined two groups: older men who had immigrated to Israel and younger men who were Israeli born.¹³ He then used a statistical procedure that graphs data on a plane in order to identify clusters of country groups whose educational attainments were similar to each other. He found that among older immigrant men, educational attainments varied widely among the ten major countries of origin, with no obvious clustering of Middle Eastern and European countries. Among younger Israeli-born men, however, educational attainments of the ten country groups clustered into the binary Mizrahi/Ashkenazi categorization scheme. Educational attainment for all groups increased over the generation, but for dichotomization to occur, the educational averages of different country groups had to grow at different rates. Among the initially similar Iraqis, Egyptians, Poles, and Romanians, Iraqi and Egyptian attainments increased more slowly, while those of Poles and Romanians increased more rapidly, eventually approaching German levels. In the meantime, the attainments of Yemenites, Moroccans, and other Mizrahi groups increased enough to approach Iraqi and Egyptian levels. Amit (2001) replicated Nahon’s results using income and occupation data (Figure 3.1 depicts proportions of students completing high school).¹⁴ Similar arguments about initial diversity among the immigrants have been made regarding occupation and income (Darvish 1982, 1985a,b, 1987; Amit 2001; Khazzoom 1999), and others can be made regarding access to western European cultures prior to immigration (Goldberg 1996b; Schroeter 1988, Schroeter and Chetrit 1996; Yehuda 1996; Meir 1989; Meir-Glitzenstein 1993; Rodrigue 1993; Rejwan 1985; Haddad 1984; Laskier 1983).

Figure 3.1. Dichotomization. Proportions of men who completed academic high school, comparing immigrant men from the 1961 census and Israeli-born men from the 1995 census.

SOURCE: In part from Amit 2001.

Categorization in Israel

The implication of Nahon’s work is that Israel did not receive Mizrahim and Ashkenazim, but rather created them out of a diverse set of country groups. Since an obvious hypothesis is that gatekeepers imposed the new group boundaries, a logical question is which ethnic categories were in use at the time, and by whom. Tsur (1997) analyzed a series of influential articles about arriving immigrants that were published by the journalist Arieh Gelblum in 1949. Both Tsur and Segev (1986) consider these articles to be critical for two reasons: (1) they provided the first view the overwhelmingly European prestate immigrants had of the new immigrants, and (2) Gelblum wrote for Ha’aretz, which was read by the bourgeoisie (who were likely future employers of the immigrants).

Tsur found that Gelblum used four separate categorization schemes, all of which had been available in Jewish discourse since western Europe’s Enlightenment. They were country of origin; the binary distinction between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim (at the time “edot hamizrah”); a three-part distinction among Europeans, North Africans, and other Middle Eastern Jews; and a two-part distinction between all Jews and all Arabs. Tsur argues that Gelblum, like the elites whose thought he reflected, had not yet settled on any specific scheme in 1949, and that his vacillation among the four schemes was shaped by two contradictory ideological frameworks: Orientalism, which directed him to see all Jews from the Middle East as a single, primitive block; and the nationalist project of ingathering of the exiles, which directed him to see all Jews as equal to each other (see Shenhav 2006 for a similar argument). Based on the Zionist criteria of the immigrants’ love of Zion and their experiences of oppression prior to immigration, he cast Yemenites and Moroccans as Jews on par with Ashkenazim. Based on Orientalist criteria, however, Gelblum was certain that Europeans were similar to each other but uncertain how much attention should be paid to internal differences among Mizrahim. When he reflected on levels of “primitiveness” and cultural advancement, Yemenites and Moroccans appeared to him to be similar to each other and different from Ashkenazim, but when he reflected on violent temperament and laziness he concluded that Moroccans were more like Arabs than Jews, while Yemenites were more like Jews (i.e., European Jews) than Arabs.

Similarly, other early examples of categorization show the salience of both the binary and the country schemes (see also Segev 1986). The following is a conversation between two individuals who were responsible for placing immigrants in residential locations, Golda Meir and Berl Locker. Meir begins: “In some places we have reached a clear decision that we cannot keep going without an influx of European Jews. For example, the town of Be’er Sheva. It has 12,000 people. It has a lot of good things—it has work and housing—but it has no public stratum that can run the town, that can give the town a cultural tone. When a ship arrives from Romania, the human material in it is divided up, with some Romanians sent here and some Romanians sent there.”

When Berl Locker, the head of the Jewish Agency, wondered, “And these are the bearers of culture?” Golda responded, “Everything is relative. Incidentally, some of them are decent people and we have to use them to improve the concentrations of immigrants.” Note that although they employ country or regional distinctions, in the minds of both of these important gatekeepers, the binary scheme appears to be primary. Both Meir and Gelblum use the binary distinction, suggesting that both think it is necessary to describe the immigrants, but only Meir references distinctions among Europeans and only Gelblum references distinctions among Middle Easterners, suggesting that such qualifiers were perceived as less important, or that their perceived necessity depended on the situation. In addition, both the Gelblum and Meir examples reference debates among veterans as to how relevant the country or region distinctions were. In the case of Meir we see such a debate directly, and in the case of Gelblum he references friends and colleagues who have debated this issue. Neither Gelblum nor Meir, however, are certain how relevant these internal differences are. Similarly, academics—themselves often immigrants—used the binary categories almost exclusively, including the highly influential veteran immigrant sociologist Eisenstadt (1953, 1964, 1967), and, as I discuss later, it was central to Ben Gurion’s vision of the new state’s population. Results from this study, I argue, also suggest that the binary scheme was basic to gatekeeper treatment of the new immigrants.

Relevance to the Analysis

Three points from the dichotomization literature are relevant to the analysis in this book. First, it is useful to divide dichotomization—whether imposed or not—into two types, representational and resource. The dynamics charted by Nahon and Amit above constitute resource dichotomization, in which social “goodies,” such as high status occupations, education, political power, or residential locations, come to be distributed according to the binary categorization scheme, when they were not originally. Representational dichotomization refers to the portrayal of Israeli Jews as divided into two groups. Gelblum’s vacillation shows representational dichotomization in its earliest stages; academic literature not long after shows it in its hegemonic form (Shenhav 2006).

Second, recent work argues that representational and resource dichotomization were mutually constitutive in Israel and, moreover, that this is how the formation of ethnic difference is related to ethnic exclusion. Difference and exclusion have been connected in this literature through the Orientalist discourse (Said 1978), which casts populations in Muslim lands as inferior to those in Christian areas. Bernstein and Swirski launched the mutually constitutive argument in 1982, when they asserted that presenting all Middle Eastern Jews as a single “Oriental” entity, combined with references to economic underdevelopment in the Middle East, provided justification for unequal distribution of resources (see also Bernstein 1981; Shohat 1988). As Shohat later put it:

According to that discourse, European Zionism ... took [Mizrahim] out of “primitive conditions” of poverty and superstition and ushered them gently into a modern Western society characterized by tolerance, democracy, and “humane values,” values with which they were but vaguely and erratically familiar due to the “levantine environments” from which they came. Within Israel, of course, they have suffered from the problem of “the gap” ... handicapped as they have been by their Oriental, illiterate, despotic, sexist, and generally pre-modern formation in their lands of origin. (1989, p. 3)

According to this approach, representational dichotomization makes resource dichotomization (“the gap”) seem inevitable. Similarly, once inequality in resources is established, representational dichotomization also looks more obvious, even to those on whom it has been imposed. Eventually, this leads to institutionalization of the binary lines as bases for identity and political activity, in addition to resource distribution (see Espiritu 1992 for a U.S. parallel).

Third, from a dichotomization perspective, the first encounter with the labor market is important because of its location in the representation/ resource relationship: it was the first large-scale opportunity gatekeepers had to distribute resources according to the binary scheme.¹⁵ Moreover, Shenhav (2006) tells us that this binary scheme had just been newly strengthened in preparation for the new immigrants’ arrival. According to Shenhav, Ben Gurion’s 1942 “million immigrant” speech, in which he outlined a plan for facilitating the immigration of a million Jews as part of state-building, was critical for two related reasons. First, Ben Gurion formally labeled all Jews from Muslim countries as a single entity.¹⁶ Second, he cast them as potential immigrants and menial workers. Prior importation of Yemenite immigrants to serve as menial workers (Shafir 1989) supports Shenhav’s assertion that Ben Gurion’s speech was preparation for the differential distribution of resources. Of course, as noted, the Iraqi paradox means that dichotomization was not completed through the first encounter with the labor market, and in fact a number of dynamics were set in place that would tend to undermine dichotomization over time.

How does this attention to shifting ethnic boundaries add to the earlier discussion based on Parkin’s (1979) work? In some respects, dichotomization simply provides a more specific way to think about Parkin’s framework, and makes it more paradoxical that Iraqis received Ashkenazi-level returns to education. For Parkin, any available group distinction might become an axis for resource monopolization, including nonethnic distinctions (see also Weber 1978). From this perspective, nondiscrimination against Iraqis is only mildly interesting. For dichotomization researchers, on the other hand, discrimination against Iraqis is integral to the production of Mizrahim and Ashkenazim. The failure of Iraqi discrimination to emerge is therefore more of a theoretical problem.

But for the purposes of understanding the Iraqi paradox and Israeli ethnic formation, Parkin and dichotomization share a central weakness. Particularly with dichotomization researchers who use critical theory (Bernstein and Swirski 1982) or colonial theory (Shafir 1989; Shohat 1989), dichotomization and social closure are motivated by the desire to monopolize scarce resources. There is certainly reason for this orientation. Archival research has shown that gatekeepers frequently linked the construction of Mizrahim as eastern, primitive, and uneducated to the notion that they needed “less,” that is, less pay, fewer immigrant or socialist worker benefits, or less attention paid to the quality of their housing. The newspaper Ha-Ahdut argued that “[the Yemenite worker] is the simple, natural worker, capable of doing any kind of work, without shame, without philosophy, and also without poetry. And Mr. Marx is, of course, absent from both his pocket and his mind” (quoted in Shohat 1989, p. 14). Ben Gurion, who made the “million immigrant” speech that classified Middle Eastern Jews as a single entity and target for immigration, said, “We need people who are born workers.... The Oriental Jews[‘] ... standard of living and their needs are lower than the European workers’ ” (Alcalay 1993, p. 43). Similarly, characterization of Yemenites as unintellectual, quantity workers (as opposed to intellectual, quality workers) underlies a proposal that only 1000 francs need be spent on each Yemenite family’s housing, as opposed to 2000 for each Ashkenazi family (Shafir 1989), and Swirski (1989) argues that Ashkenazim built on their construction of Mizrahim as inexperienced to use them as a readymade proletariat, on the backs of which the Ashkenazi-dominated Israeli industries gained their strength and sophistication.

But this focus on material motivations for ethnic closure actually makes the Iraqi paradox more paradoxical, because it strengthens the implication that Iraqis should have experienced discrimination in the labor market. Of the three Mizrahi countries analyzed here, Iraqis were the largest and arrived with the highest prior attainments and therefore provided the stiffest competition for scarce resources in Israel. Thus, one would expect the Ashkenazim would most want to Orientalize them to prepare the ground for unequal resource distribution and would make special efforts to do so. But in fact, not only did Iraqis receive Ashkenazi-level returns to education, but they were also less likely to be portrayed as backward Orientals. Rather, it was Moroccans and other North Africans who were used as the primary example of Orientalness (Segev 1986; Shokeid 1982b), while Iraqis and other “Asians” were perceived as different (Segev 1986).¹⁷

A second problem is that in the 1950s, gatekeepers were largely veteran (prestate) immigrants. And although it is clear what new Ashkenazi immigrants stood to gain from dichotomization, it is not clear what veterans stood to gain. As noted, this group had already obtained the most valued positions themselves. Of course, veterans were overwhelmingly Ashkenazi, and it stands to reason that they would divide resources according to group boundaries that included them. Moreover, the Orientalist discourse did have wide currency, making it a readily available and effective basis for group formation and exclusion. But again, the explanation is incomplete. The Zionist discourse also held wide currency, and Zionist condescension, even disgust, toward “weak” Holocaust survivors, “backward” Yiddish speakers from eastern European ghettos, “nonideological” refugees, and Diaspora Jews generally (Zerubavel 1995), in addition to a heartfelt commitment to ethnic equality among Jews and the prior articulation of Palestinians as legitimate candidates for exclusion, all provided alternate axes for resource monopolization and mitigated against seeing all Jews from Middle Eastern countries as a monolithic other.

Thus, for the purposes of this book, dichotomization theory provides an advance over Parkin’s work because it posits connections between group formation and the emergence of social closure, which Parkin does not address. But it remains limited—and unable to account for the Iraqi paradox—because of its reliance on competition for scarce resources to make this connection between difference and exclusion. To address this imbalance, it is necessary to reevaluate how Orientalism has been used to make sense of dichotomization, and then reintroduce Orientalism into dichotomization theory. Again, the point is not to reject the dichotomization framework or earlier work’s assertion of material interests as a motivation, but to add to dichotomization theory to enable it to account for the Iraqi paradox.

ORIENTALISM AND THE LINK BETWEEN ETHNIC DIFFERENCE AND ETHNIC CLOSURE

The need to explain the Iraqi paradox highlights questions about why people categorize in the first place. Four answers that are not mutually exclusive can be culled from various literatures that consider race, ethnicity, and nationalism. The first is resource monopolization, as discussed above.¹⁸ Here categorization would by definition lead to exclusion. Second, categorization has been attributed to the “accidental.” This includes confusion (the inability to tell a Japanese person from a Chinese one, for example) (Lopez and Espiritu 1990), administrative efficiency (Espiritu 1992), and the like. Third, it has been attributed to articulation of real cultural differences that have become noticeable because of a change in scale and interaction patterns (Horowitz 2000). The creation of a unified Italian identity in the United States, formed out of the disparate regional identities that characterized the Italy from which the immigrants came, has been used as an example, and Israelis have similarly argued that common languages—Yiddish in the case of Ashkenazim and Arabic in the case of Mizrahim—made dichotomization self-evident.

Those three dynamics constitute the main arguments that have been used in work on Israeli ethnic formation to date. In this book, I do not dispute the salience of any of them, though in the next chapter I add important caveats to the third. However, it is the fourth reason for categorization that is the focus of this book and that fleshes out the dichotomization framework: categorization can be due to identity formation among the categorizers.

Though this kind of argument is less common in the United States, it nevertheless has a strong history and has been read as important because it demonstrates the power of ideological factors relative to material interest. Roediger’s (1991) work on racism among lower-class whites is a classic example. He argued that with industrialization and the move into factory work, white male workers experienced a loss in freedom and became subject to the authority of other men. They compensated by contrasting themselves with African American men, who were less free. As a result, white workers became dependent on maintaining a relationship of superiority to black men. Among other things, this led to the need to keep blacks in lower-status occupations. In other words, whites’ internal identity conflicts led to their classification of blacks as a separate category and to the meanings assigned to that category; those meanings then had implications for the distribution of resources in the labor market.

Almaguer (1994), mentioned in Chapter 1, similarly built on the free-labor concept to explain how self-classification leads to classification of others. After annexation to the United States, California contained five groups: blacks, Native Americans, Asians, the Mexican-origin men who dominated prior to annexation, and “Anglos.” Almaguer argues that not all “nonwhites” were discriminated against equally. His explanation for this variation is that in the context of an internal U.S. battle over slavery, groups who were more strongly associated with unfree labor were more severely excluded. Another example of an identity-related group formation/ exclusion dynamic is Yoshihara’s (2003) work. For her, white American women used the Orientalist discourse to portray Asian non-American women as traditional in an effort to make themselves appear liberated in comparison (see also Boisseau 1995 for a similar argument regarding white American women and Africa).

In these works, whites defined themselves by describing racial/ethnic others as their opposites. Those defiled “others,” identified as everything whites did not want to be, then had to be excluded. None of the works cited above argues against material motivations for exclusion. However, they incorporate identity as a central reason for exclusion, and all use identity to explain why one group, rather than another, would be targeted for exclusion. Moreover, such identity-related dynamics leave majorities invested in particular group distinctions and in exclusion, including, in Almaguer’s and Roediger’s work, exclusion in the labor market from certain symbolically important occupational positions. Finally, majority investment in excluding particular groups is arguably deeper than when group formation results from competition over resources. In the latter case, the powerful are not wedded to excluding any particular group, while in the case of identity-based systems specific groups need to be targeted. In a system based on resource monopolization, in other words, excluding Poles and blacks leads to similar benefits. In Roediger’s and Almaguer’s identity-based systems, however, the exclusion of blacks is essential.

Said’s (1978) Orientalism posits a very similar dynamic. Orientalism, for Said, is a system of thought that first posits an opposition between Occident and Orient, and then builds on that opposition to construct the Orient as inferior.¹⁹ As with the production of whiteness discussed above, the identity of the west is produced through the creation of the identity of the east, and easterners are constructed as everything westerners are not, or do not want to be, or are afraid they are. Over time, argues Said, Orientalism has been related to exclusion in three different ways, and these ways seamlessly mix the material and the nonmaterial. First, European Orientalist thought developed in reaction to fear of Muslim invaders; it was an attempt to make those invaders seem less of a threat by portraying them as inferior. Second, belief in eastern inferiority in part inspired Napoleon to invade Egypt in 1798. Third, that invasion led to a sharp turn in Orientalism, which began justifying colonialism by producing the east as incapable of ruling itself. Behdad (1994), it can be argued, has recently added a fourth, consumption-oriented stage (see also Yoshihara 2003); after occupation was secured, western tourists began visiting the east in search of mystical experiences that they believed could not be had in the putatively rational western world. Here, the exclusionary dynamic is that in order to preserve the east as a mystical region that can be visited, one would have to make sure that east and eest don’t mix, and that the east remains in its romantic but backward state. Thus, one has to prevent it from modernizing, a dynamic that could easily lead to labor force discrimination (see also Trinh 1989).

In Chapter 6 I reinterpret secondary historical material on the Jewish Enlightenment to trace what I argue is a Jewish history of Orientalism and ethnic exclusion that works along similar lines.²⁰ I argue that during western Europe’s Enlightenment, Jews were stigmatized as Oriental. They became invested in westernization, and one group would often construct itself as western through the portrayal of other groups of Jews as eastern. Then, to prevent “stigma by proxy” (Goffman 1963), these newly westernized groups would alternate between distancing themselves from those they saw as more eastern and working to westernize their eastern compatriots. Exclusion, however, tended to occur when one group fundamentally threatened another’s westernization project.

It is that relationship between difference and exclusion, I argue, that explains the Iraqi paradox. Like the Diaspora Jews before them, the veteran gatekeepers who controlled the first encounter with the labor market wanted to push out of sight immigrants who threatened the westernization project. Out of sight meant many things, but among them were relegation to peripheral geographic areas and peripheral occupational positions. Gatekeepers did this to prevent what they called “Levantinization,” or easternization of the core areas of the new society. This provides an alternate resolution to the Iraqi paradox; veteran gatekeepers did not discriminate against Iraqis because Iraqis—who were highly westernized (Alcalay 1993)—did not threaten gatekeepers’ projects of producing Israel as western. In fact, for gatekeepers, for whom equal treatment of Jews was as much a value as the production of a western society (Tsur 1997; Kimmerling 1983), there was even reason to treat Iraqis in a preferential manner, since Iraqis provided a chance to practice egalitarianism without damaging the project of westernization.

As with the Parkin-based story, this interpretation also suggests hypotheses, that are confirmed in Chapter 7. If westernization were the goal, then individual immigrants who could demonstrate westernness should have experienced less discrimination, even if they were from heavily Orientalized countries of origin. And indeed, for Moroccans who spoke French, returns to education approached those of Iraqis and the Ashkenazim. More important, Iraqis whose last school type was a heder or Yeshiva—clear markers of the Oriental in Jewish discourses—received returns that were similar to those of Moroccans and Yemenites, not Ashkenazim. My contention, which I will describe in more detail in Chapter 7, is that the dichotomous categories were highly salient to gatekeepers, such that unless there was clear evidence to the contrary, they assumed that anyone from the Middle East was likely to “Levantinize” the country. However, because the core concern was producing Israel as part of the “rampart of Europe against Asia” (Herzl 1896, reprinted in Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz 1980, p. 425; see Chapter 6), once Middle Easterners could prove westernness, they were given occupations on more or less equal terms with Ashkenazim.

BEYOND THE IRAQI PARADOX

Again, this book uses the Iraqi paradox as its primary window into the logic behind gatekeeper behavior and, therefore, the roots of Israeli ethnic formation generally. The paradox shows that at least regarding the first decade of social formation, dichotomization theory has to account for cultural as well as material sources of social closure. But this book also seeks to determine how dynamics that occurred in the 1950s pushed either for or against dichotomization, and clearly, the Iraqi paradox, by generating differences among different Mizrahim, pushes against dichotomization. I therefore also ask whether dichotomization might be explained by the state’s policy of population dispersion, in which immigrants were moved to outlying areas of the country with lower quality labor markets. Here, too, dichotomization appears more complex than earlier work has suggested, in that I find strong pressures against dichotomization that make it more puzzling that dichotomization actually occurred. In Chapter 9 I consider evidence that dichotomization in resources didn’t occur until the second generation entered the school system, when the gradual gelling of the binary categories combined with increasing numbers of new immigrant gatekeepers to close out the westernization loophole that enabled Iraqi immigrants to obtain Ashkenazi treatment.

THEORETICAL CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF THE LABOR MARKET

I use several frameworks and assumptions to conceptualize labor markets in general and the Israeli one in particular. All of these are drawn from the academic literature, but not all are standard to stratification research. First, I conceptualize each immigrant as entering the labor market with a basket of resources—including ethnicity, age, education, and family size. I assume that most immigrants wanted to obtain the highest status job they could, and used their resources toward that goal. Residential location, which is a structural variable, is here conceptualized as an individual resource because it shapes individual calculations of what goals are feasible. The same is true of ethnicity.²¹ In some cases, a resource may mitigate the effects of a disadvantage. Examples would be residents of geographically isolated “development towns” who, because they have no families, are able to move to a city—here the resource is being single—or a Moroccan who uses fluency in French to demonstrate westernness.

A second framework is Goffman’s concept of performance. Goffman often compared social life to theatrical performance in which individuals, sometimes after significant “backstage” preparation, present carefully crafted selves to each other. I use the concept here because, as I argued in another publication (Khazzoom 2003), it is important to understanding Jewish ethnicity. Historically, Jews who were westernizing would consciously perform their new western selves, through their choice of clothes, languages, mannerisms, and so forth. But performance is also a useful way to conceptualize job searches, and one that does not contradict other work on ethnicity in the labor market. The concept, for example, nicely captures how ethnicity can be mobilized to obtain better jobs. A Moroccan immigrant who fears a potential employer is prejudiced against Middle Eastern Jews may signal his westernization by “forgetting” a Hebrew word and substituting a French one. I take up this question of performing westernness in Chapter 7.

A final framework is the economic concept of “revealed preferences.” This is the argument that the overall outcome of an encounter—such as a labor market or the settlement of immigrants—provides a summary measure of what those making the decisions wanted. I take this up in a later section of this chapter, where I discuss when and to what extent it is possible to read these labor market outcomes as reflecting gatekeeper preference.

ANALYTICAL STRATEGIES

What Can Quantitative Data Prove?

There are numerous ways to examine processes of categorization, how racial /ethnic boundaries shift, the meanings people attach to ethnic groupings, and how ethnicity affects the acquisition of jobs. Ethnographic methods, for example, can be used to track the intricate interpersonal interactions that reproduce or undermine contemporary ethnic categorization schemes. Ethnographers would also be interested in such things as the multiple and complex ways that ethnicity does and does not come up in a job interview, how an employer decides where to place advertisements, how he or she sorts through arriving résumés, or how prospective employees prepare for an interview. In-depth interviews with gatekeepers can also be employed to measure racial/ethnic attitudes. Diaries, newspaper articles, or parliamentary debates can similarly be used to access the complex and multifaceted ways that individuals use ethnic concepts, classify others, or act as groups to monopolize resources. In Israel, of course, ethnographies and in-depth interviews with representative gatekeepers are no longer possible, but documentary evidence has been used to examine these questions with great success (Sered 2000; Tsur 1997; Eyal 2006; Shenhav 2006; Shohat 1989). Early on, researchers also used quantitative evidence to examine the formation of ethnic inequality (e.g., Kraus and Hodge 1990). However, this research largely used the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi distinction and therefore did not find such outcomes as the Iraqi paradox or the advantages that accrued to Moroccans who lived in development towns. As such, there is need for new quantitative evidence to supplant the documentary evidence that has been collected over the years.

Unlike the ethnographic strategy of observing individual interaction, quantitative social stratificationists examine the outcome of all interactions together and ask how, in the final analysis, ethnicity shaped individuals’ abilities to find jobs. There are advantages to such distanced, summary measures. Individual instances of job giving are often intricate, and one employee may be chosen over another for a variety of reasons. Thus, on an individual level, it is often hard to discern ethnic discrimination. Moreover, in-depth interviews may not access attitudes that are unconscious (see, for example, the “Pygmalion in the classroom” experiments). But a large group of gatekeepers leaves a statistical trail. The quantitative effect of ethnicity on individual occupational attainment, net background and structural factors, is an indication of the preferences of the group of job givers as a whole, net their own complicated, multiple goals and priorities.

However, there are also disadvantages to this kind of research. First, the effect of ethnicity is not directly measured. Rather, all other nonethnic factors are measured and the residual ethnic effect is interpreted as ethnicity’s direct effect. The possibility always remains that some nonethnic variable that is correlated with ethnicity has been left out of the model. That models of social processes often explain relatively little of the overall variance indicates how big of a problem this can be. This problem is never resolved in any quantitative analysis. In this analysis, however, about half of the total ethnic variance in Israeli occupational prestige among the immigrants is explained by the variables used in the analysis. Moreover, the residual effects of ethnicity are consistent with theory (at least after accounting for the Iraqi paradox).

The second problem is that gatekeeper preference is not the only factor that affects occupational outcomes, and the less control gatekeepers can be said to have, the more difficult it is to infer preferences based on returns to education. Three related issues are in play: gatekeepers are not a uniform entity, certain structural constraints meant that not all potential employees had the same chances of interacting with potential employers, and the immigrants could also exert influence on their occupational outcomes.

In the previous chapter, I discussed the sources of uniformity and nonuniformity among gatekeepers in the 1950s. I established general agreement on the project of producing Israel as a western state. However, we might still care that one set of gatekeepers could condition the influence the next set had. For example, in other work (Khazzoom 2005b), I showed that state planners and immigration workers were more likely to place Mizrahim with high status backgrounds into low opportunity development towns than Ashkenazim with high status backgrounds. Because development towns had lower quality labor markets than the cities, this initial distribution of residential locations might depress Mizrahi returns to education, no matter what employers did. More specifically, in 1950s Israel, a range of gatekeepers were involved in directing occupational prestige to the new immigrants. Examples are as follows:

State planners who promulgated two kinds of policies, those regarding residential placement of the immigrants (in central or peripheral areas) and employment policies (such as fines for replacing veteran immigrants with new immigrants)

Immigration workers who actually placed immigrants near certain labor markets

Workers in temporary immigrant camps and workers at the state employment office who could provide immigrants with information about jobs

Party workers who rewarded the faithful with “zettele,” or notes asking supervisors in party organizations to hire them

Employers who decided whether to give an immigrant a job

For their part, immigrants had various avenues by which they could circumvent gatekeeper activities. Once placed in a physical location, an immigrant could pick up and move. An Iraqi lawyer offered only janitorial jobs could open his or her own law practice. Immigrant networks could also influence outcomes. As Granovetter (1995) has told us, employers don’t always advertise vacancies but rather hire acquaintances of other employees. Thus, after an employer in a new factory made the first decision to hire a Pole, future hires may be friends the Polish worker brings in. Similarly, the Iraqi lawyer could contact old school friends to get information about available jobs even if gatekeepers neglect to advertise in heavily Iraqi areas.

There is no one single way to address this inference problem; my strategy is rather to use the available data to ask how each outcome can be conceptualized and endeavor to eliminate alternate hypotheses. In general, the issues of gatekeeper diversity and structural constraints on immigrant-employer interaction are the least problematic for this analysis. Though it is true that a variety of gatekeepers influenced immigrants’ returns to education, the most important alternate influence—state agents’ geographic placement of the immigrants—can be statistically controlled (see Chapter 8). Geographic location also accounts for the most serious structural constraint on whether employers and immigrants could ever meet, thus controlling for it addresses the most significant problem.

Regarding the influence of nonemployers (such as party officials) through whom employers were introduced to other immigrants, three points are relevant. First, once it is established that the various veteran groups had interests in westernization, and that westernization is what drove patterns of ethnic preference, then it is less important whether an immigrant’s attainment was influenced only by an employer’s preference or by some combination of an employer and a party worker. Second, even in the early days party control was imperfect. Meir-Glitzenstein (2000) notes that when a group of new Iraqi immigrants obtained positions in the party structure in Be’er Sheva, they were dismayed to find that instead of reporting vacancies to the party, as required, local companies were hiring individuals on their own. Third, in-depth interviews (Khazzoom in progress) and secondary sources (Shalev 1989) suggest that state agencies had significantly less influence on immigrant jobs after the mid-1950s. Beginning then, one could obtain knowledge about potential positions through advertisements, friends, or simply walking into various companies and asking if there was work. From interviews with new immigrants who arrived from Poland and Iraq as young adults (Khazzoom in progress), I discovered that most immigrants found their first nonmanual jobs on their own, usually in the mid- to late 1950s. The following account, from an Iraqi immigrant in Ramat Gan (near Tel Aviv), emphasizes both the initial control of the party and the later dissolution of that control:

There was the Lishkat Ha’avoda. That’s it. There was the Lishkat Ha’avoda. ... You had to sign up every day, and, say, twice a week they would pass out work. And then there [were] fights and yelling. [You could get work] only through the Lishkat Ha’avoda; that is, at first. There wasn’t work in [fields like accounting; I worked in factories for four years]. They would give you work for a week, then you went home and they gave work to someone else. Now in 1955, things got better, and you could find work yourself. Banks started to be—Also through friends ... you could, for example, contact places and they would tell you if they had an opening and you would go. You didn’t have to go just to Lishkat Ha’avoda.

This book examines attainment in 1961, when there was relatively little interference from one group of gatekeepers in the ability of immigrants and potential employers to meet (with the exception of the statistically controlled geographical location).

The more critical problem for this analysis is the tension between how gatekeepers on the one hand and immigrants on the other influenced immigrant occupational attainment. This is where I used available data to eliminate alternate hypotheses. For example, the census distinguishes between the salaried and the self-employed, enabling me to compare instances in which occupational outcomes were more or less dependent on gatekeeper decisions. As it turns out, the Iraqi paradox characterized salaried men only—it did not occur among the self-employed—and this is one reason I conclude that it most likely resulted from gatekeeper preference rather than immigrant moves to circumvent the system.

I do find indirect evidence that immigrant networks influenced the attainment of Iraqis in Ramat Gan. However, two points are of note. First, Iraqi networks were strongest in Ramat Gan. Thus, if immigrants rather than gatekeepers engineered the Iraqi paradox, it should not exist outside of Ramat Gan, or perhaps nearby Tel Aviv. However, it characterizes all geographical areas that I examined; networks in Ramat Gan raise Iraqi attainment above Ashkenazi, not equalize it. Second, an employer’s hiring of employees’ friends is not necessarily an indication that outcomes such as returns to education cannot be attributed to gatekeeper preference. Rather, scholars such as Granovetter (1995) and Salzinger (1997) tell us that the use of networks may occur precisely because employers prefer to fill certain jobs with ethnic or gender groups they believe are appropriate, and the use of networks is what enables them to do so efficiently. For example, we know that veteran state planners believed that Middle Eastern Jews were capable of working in the hot sun without suffering (Segev 1986; Shafir 1989). Were a director of a citrus-picking company, for example, to hire a Yemenite employee’s friends, this would certainly reflect gatekeeper preference for Yemenites, even though it is the Yemenite employee who actually finds the new employees.

Racialization Methodology

Though most of this book is based on quantitative analysis, in Chapter 6 I use the analysis of texts to examine historical changes in identity and exclusion prior to the immigration. The chapter is based on secondary sources, which consist of the historical literature, published primarily from the 1940s through the current time, on Jewish communities in Germany, France, eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. The literature affords two forms of “data”: (1) quotations from primary sources and (2) historians’ descriptions of the discourses, identities, and interactions of the time. In several cases, these scholars explicitly consider the role of the east/ west dichotomy in shaping Jewish identity or intercommunal dynamics (Aschheim 1982; Rodrigue 1993; Yehuda 1996; Kramer 1989; Hess 2000; Heschel 1999), but do not consider this process as part of a larger dynamic of Orientalism (across Jewish Communities). In other cases, the theme of westernness is either not raised or is relegated to the background. My contribution is to sew together observations that are standard in several large literatures in order to understand the backgrounds of the peoples who met in Israel. My concern is thus not with the representativeness of data that was collected in the past but with how that data can be differently interpreted. Moreover, as noted, my arguments about Orientalism and Israeli resource distribution are grounded in quantitative findings (Chapter 7) as well as textual analysis. We know from the secondary literature that some characteristics were used to symbolize older eastern cultural forms across societies and time periods, and I show that those characteristics also altered the ethnic hierarchy in returns to education in Israel.

Stratification Methodology

In the main, this book tracks the behavior of ethnicity in Israel with quantitative regression models. This is standard for stratification research. I model ethnic inequality as inequality in occupational prestige, and I assess the extent of ethnic closure by determining how important ethnicity is to individual occupational outcomes, net human capital.²² The variables in the basic model are education, occupational prestige abroad, age at arrival, and year of arrival. I estimate separate equations for each country; thus the effect of human capital is allowed to vary by country. This conceptualizes each individual as having a set of class-defined resources (i.e., socioeconomic background and own education), which affect a class outcome (i.e., occupation). Ethnicity has three effects: different ethnic groups are more likely to have some resources, ethnicity affects whether one gets “returns” to those resources, and ethnicity is itself a resource. It is the second dynamic—particularly the returns to education—that is the main focus of this book.

I add to this basic model in two ways. First, I include other resources that have been identified in the social closure literature. Among these are relegation to particular sectors of the economy or particular geographic sectors (Barrera 1979; Nakano-Glen 1986; Wilson 1980; Massey and Denton 1993), economic opportunities in the area (Steinberg 1989; Massey and Denton 1993), practical resources such as language (Waldinger 1996), and cultural capital (Bourdieu 1977). Other resources could not be measured in the 1961 census. These include access to the political apparatus (Lieberson 1980; Wilson 1980, 1987), physical capital (Steinberg 1989; Waldinger 1996), and specific information on networks, which are the primary form of social capital.

Second, I attend to two ethnic classification schemes, the binary scheme and the country-of-origin scheme. Technically, I measure ethnicity as country of origin by estimating equations for each country separately. However, to track dichotomization I look for patterns of binary clustering in the experiences of the different country groups. The Iraqi paradox is the finding that the graph of Iraqi returns to education clusters with the Ashkenazi data rather than that of other Mizrahi countries.

For more discussion of analytical strategy, how equations were estimated, and how variables were defined, see Appendix 2. For means and correlations, see Appendices 3 and 4.

Data: 1961 Census

I chose the 1961 census for two reasons. First, it is one of the few data sets that record preimmigration occupation. Second, the census date of May 1961 is a few years after the last immigrants of the first decade of statehood arrived. This generates a sample that is at different stages in the integration process. While the latest immigrants would have just begun the process of translating occupation abroad into Israeli occupation, those who arrived first should have already completed the process. Presumably, those who had been in Israel longer would have had a chance to engage in longer-term status attainment²³ strategies, such as moving or attending school, and by adding years in Israel (year of arrival) as a variable in the equations, I can speculate on the usefulness of such strategies.

The choice of ages at immigration was intended to balance sample size with the need to use respondents old enough that their occupation and education prior to immigration are reliable measures of class location and expected attainment in the country of origin. By age twenty, class advantages in education and occupation are expected to be apparent. Nevertheless, older individuals will have been more established prior to immigration, and younger men would have been more likely to complete their educations in Israel. Age at arrival is therefore one of the variables I consider in the basic model.

I included occupation abroad in these analyses because Smooha and Kraus (1985) showed that although Mizrahim arrived educationally disadvantaged, they did not arrive occupationally disadvantaged. The differential educational and occupational preparedness should then set the stage for an interesting competition in Israel. Under normal circumstances, educational attainment is most important at the beginning of an occupational career (Blau and Duncan 1967); later on, prior occupational attainment takes the fore. What exactly happens with a system in flux, however, is unclear. On the one hand, the economy was expanding, the population was tripling, and many employers would have wanted to quickly fill positions with workers who had relevant prior experience, regardless of their educational background. On the other hand, educational attainment probably offered employers a more reliable method of assessing immigrant attainments across the multitude of societies from which they came.

Other data

I use two other forms of data in my analysis. The first is the 1954 cohort study of Israeli-born men (Matras, Noam, and Bar Haim 1980). I use this data to ask how the children of 1948–1958 immigrants fared in the school system; it is this data set that implies that only the children of Iraqi immigrants (second generation) faced discrimination in the school. Finally, during the time I resided in Israel I collected fifty in-depth interviews with immigrants from that period. These interviews were collected as part of another study and do not provide a representative sample of individuals who competed in the labor force in the 1950s; they are rather biased toward those who resided in Tel Aviv and toward Iraqis and Poles. However, they are often useful to articulate potential interpretations of the quantitative findings and to get a more personalized sense of what the Israeli labor market was like in the 1950s.

Reducing the Sample to Six Countries

The notion that the fifty-year story of Israeli ethnic formation is one of dichotomization is the basis for measuring ethnicity as country of origin and reducing the sample to the six largest countries of origin. Dichotomization was a process by which class differences among the various Mizrahi countries were diminished to produce Mizrahim as a homogeneous group; similarly, differences among the Ashkenazi countries were diminished to produce Ashkenazim. If this is indeed how the distribution of class resources shifted over time, then the correct analytical strategy is to look at each country separately, paying attention to how the effect of country interacted with the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi distinction in determining attainment in the first encounter with the Israeli labor market.

But with twenty-four-plus country groups arriving in Israel in the 1950s, using the full sample would be confusing. In addition, because many of the countries sent very few immigrants, most country statistics would not be reliable. By chance, Israel provides an excellent, smaller comparative set. A full two-thirds of the immigrants came from only six countries, three of which became Mizrahi and three of which became Ashkenazi. They are Romania (Ashkenazi, 15% of the sample), Poland (Ashkenazi, 15%), Iraq (Mizrahi, 14%), Morocco (Mizrahi, 11%), the USSR (Ashkenazi, 6%), and Yemen (Mizrahi, 5%).²⁴ Even more important, two of the Ashkenazi and one of the Mizrahi countries—Poland, Rumania, and Iraq—were very similar to one another in human capital attainments prior to immigration. If part of the story of Israeli ethnic formation is increasing difference between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi countries, then how Iraq came to be different from Rumania and Poland is critical. Similarly, the six-country comparison group contains two lower attaining countries—Morocco, which was internally very heterogeneous, and Yemen, which was much closer to the stereotype of a Mizrahi country on a range of axes—and one higher attaining Ashkenazi country—the USSR. If the story of interest is also how different Mizrahi countries came to be similar to each other, and different Ashkenazi countries to each other, then how the different groups from Yemen, Morocco, and Iraq grew closer, and how those from Rumania, Poland, and Russia grew closer, is also a central question.

What about Other Populations?

This book directly analyzes the experiences of a critical group of people who participated in the Israeli labor market in the 1950s: “new immigrant” men from the six largest countries of origin who arrived between the ages of twenty and sixty. The positions this group occupied in the occupational hierarchy were determined in part by who else was in the field. By and large, the immigrants studied here had access to middle to lower status jobs in Israel. The best positions were reserved for veterans, the worst for non-Jewish Arabs, and “feminine” occupations such as nurse or teacher were occupied largely by women. In addition, western countries such as the United States and England sent smaller groups of highly educated new immigrants, which then had better overall chances at very high status positions than the new immigrants studied here.

CHAPTER FOUR

Was Dichotomization Inevitable?

Prior to Nahon’s 1987 publication on dichotomization in educational attainments, scholars thought that an ethnic gap between Jews from the Middle East and Jews from Europe was a predetermined outcome. Such ideas were even an integral part of work that researched Jewish ethnic formation, such as Eisenstadt’s (1967) or Kraus and Hodge’s (1990) classics. This belief was based largely on modernization theories that posited the west as more developed than the east, and Kraus and Hodge’s finding that GNP of country of origin had a statistically significant effect on individual attainment appeared to support these ideas.

The most persuasive evidence that dichotomization was not an inevitable outcome of the first encounter with the labor market is that it actually wasn’t the outcome in the sense that, by 1961, Iraqi occupational attainments looked similar to those of Ashkenazim (see also Khazzoom 1999; Amit 2001). However, the assertion of inevitability has been so influential in research on Israel that even with this knowledge, it is worth taking a second look at the characteristics of the immigrants upon their arrival, to search for dynamics that would tend to exert pressure toward (and against) dichotomization. That is the topic of this chapter. In addition to reexamining educational and occupational attainment á la Nahon and Amit, I also examine cultural characteristics, as well as the common argument that dichotomization was a natural outcome of language (i.e., nearly all Mizrahim spoke Arabic and nearly all Ashkenazim spoke Yiddish; therefore, lines of communication were necessarily binary). I argue that although some of these prodichotomization pressures existed, they may not have been as strong as previously thought, and that the binary categories do not adequately capture variation in attainments among the immigrants.

EVIDENCE FROM THE ETHNICITY AND LANGUAGES OF NEW IMMIGRANTS AND EMPLOYERS

Ethnicity shapes employers’ choices of employees in many ways, only one of which is conscious, deliberate discrimination. Particularly for immigrants, who often experience cultural displacement, connections with someone from home can be highly pleasurable. Along these lines, prior work and lay opinion often explain the emergence of ethnic inequality in Israel through the ethnicity and language of employers (see discussion in Smooha 1978). In 1950s Israel, most gatekeepers were veterans, most veterans were Ashkenazi, and most Ashkenazim spoke Yiddish. The argument is that employers hired new Ashkenazi immigrants over new Mizrahi immigrants because they felt more comfortable with them, shared experiences with them, or could simply communicate with them. This is not an unusual argument; work on organizations often points out that trust is critical when one works with strangers (Kanter 1977; Mizrahi and Drori 2007), and common ethnicity, culture, and even gender can make interactions seem more predictable and therefore manageable (Mizrahi and Drori 2007). To be clear, such a dynamic does constitute ethnic discrimination—since ethnicity rather than human capital affects who gets which job—but it is a dynamic in which gatekeepers are not oriented toward producing ethnic inequality, per se, but are rather responding to other, more immediate and even individual factors.

However, data and logic suggest that this dynamic cannot provide a full explanation for the emergence of ethnic inequality among Jews in Israel. The most important counterargument has already been presented: gatekeepers didn’t always discriminate along Mizrahi/Ashkenazi lines. Any hypothesis that relies on gatekeeper identification with people who physically lived in Europe or on Yiddish as a common language cannot account for Iraqi returns to education being similar to Ashkenazi. A second counterargument is that when we look at the specific characteristics of veterans and new immigrants in light of significant trends in Zionist thought, we see evidence of lines of identification that worked against the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi dichotomy.

Figure 4.1 presents country distributions for all new (i.e., 1948–1958) male immigrants who arrived between the ages of twenty and sixty, and for veteran (i.e., pre-1948) immigrants who were managers or employers in 1961.¹ Mizrahi countries are represented with black bars, Ashkenazi countries with white bars. The group of managers and employers is intended to be roughly analogous to the group that was doing the hiring when the new immigrants arrived.²

Figure 4.1. Country of origin, for all new immigrant men and for veteran men who were managers/employers in 1961

Figure 4.1 tells us that to the extent that binary ethnic category determined employer preference, Ashkenazim had a strong advantage, and to the extent that country determined employer preference, only Poles and Soviets had that advantage. More than 90% of veteran managers and employers were Ashkenazi, but only 5% were Romanian. As a result, while Romanian new immigrants were a larger group than Romanian managers—15% versus 5%—Polish and Soviet new immigrants were a smaller group than Polish and Soviet managers. Only 15% of new immigrants were Poles, compared to 37% of veteran managers; similarly a mere 6% of new immigrants were Soviet, compared to 28% of veteran managers.

As this turns out to reference a relatively simple dynamic in a complicated labor market encounter, it can be summarized and dispensed with here. As noted in Chapter 2, some secondary research has suggested that a unitary European category was fairly salient to gatekeepers, even just after the immigration, and that debate centered on whether the non-European category was unitary or contained significant internal differentiation (Tsur 1997; Segev 1986). The difference in representation among veterans for Romanians and other Ashkenazim provides a test—though an imperfect one—of this assertion, in that if Romanian new immigrants were treated differently from other Ashkenazim, then it is likely that gatekeepers did not exclusively use a unitary European category, but rather attended more to country of origin than has previously been thought. There is some evidence for this in that in 1961 Romanians were sent to development towns at higher rates than other Ashkenazim (Khazzoom 2005b), but for the most part the European category does appear to have been salient in the labor market, as Romanians had similar experiences to Poles and to a large extent also immigrants from the Soviet Union. Note that I am not arguing that Romanians were always treated similarly to other Ashkenazim, or that Ashkenazim were insensitive to distinctions among themselves. Rather, in the labor market and for the most part in the distribution of residential locations, Romanian outcomes were similar to those of other Ashkenazim, even though their numeric representation among veteran gatekeepers was quite low.

Language, on the other hand, turns out to be critical in the following chapters. Language is an arena on which it would seem that the binary categorization scheme would have a lot of salience. Mizrahim, having come from primarily Arabic-speaking countries, nearly all spoke Arabic. And Ashkenazim, though they came from countries that did not share a common language, did have Yiddish. Yiddish had been the language of commerce between European Jews for centuries before the arrival in Israel, often the cause of jealousy and anger among their non-Jewish competitors. As we have seen, those who had jobs to give out were Ashkenazi. And what would be more logical than giving a job to someone whom one could understand?

But while that is true, it also misses many features of Israeli society, of the history of the Jews who immigrated there, and of the content of the nationalist and ethnic projects that were behind social formation. The simplest point is that the Israeli absorption apparatus was efficient in teaching immigrants Hebrew—the ulpanim are still famous for their ability to get people talking immediately—and Mizrahim, because they already spoke a Semitic language, may have had an easier time than Ashkenazim in learning Hebrew. Thus, even if not always fluent, most employers and potential employees would have been able to communicate with one another. More important, the argument misses the symbolic importance of language to the immigrants. Neither Yiddish nor Arabic were simply languages used to communicate. As I will discuss in the following chapter, language identified individuals as members of an old, backward, traditional world, or a progressive, new world. Long before their immigration to Israel, “enlightened” European Jews had carefully forgotten Yiddish and learned Polish, Russian, Romanian, or Hebrew and, if they were from the upper class, also German and occasionally French. Mizrahim who were “enlightened” also changed their languages. They, however, didn’t learn local languages; what they learned was French and occasionally English.

What does all of this mean? Language represented both the practical ability to communicate and a manifestation of personal identity and ideological orientation. As a result, the expected effect of ability to communicate was probably tempered by the symbolic meaning a language had as well as its importance in the larger nationalist project. Put simply, a veteran Polish bank manager who understood Yiddish but purposefully spoke Polish, German, or Hebrew instead, would not automatically prefer a prospective Polish employee who spoke mainly Yiddish. He or she might, but to the extent that image mattered as much as easy communication, he or she might also prefer a light-skinned, English-speaking Iraqi or a French-speaking Moroccan. Similarly, many veteran Israelis were ideologically committed to speaking Hebrew rather than Diaspora languages, even to spouses whose native language they shared. Such veterans could easily have judged prospective employees on their Hebrew ability above practical considerations of communication.

The census asked respondents what language they spoke most often after Hebrew, allowing the respondent the option of saying that he or she spoke only Hebrew. This is an excellent question for assessing employers’ orientations. Most of the prestate Jewish residents of Israel were immigrants, and as such we can assume that most were capable of speaking languages other than Hebrew. Many would have had spouses from the same country of origin as they. If, in spite of all this, they answered the census question by stating that they spoke only Hebrew, there is a good chance that they subscribed to a pro-Hebrew ideology. Similarly, given the small numbers of native German or English speakers who immigrated prior to 1948, a veteran manager who spoke German or English probably associated these languages with social status (I will argue later with westernness), and therefore was highly attentive to facility in western languages generally. Such an individual might prefer a French speaker to a Yiddish speaker, even if (and perhaps especially if) he or she also understood Yiddish.

I will pick up on this issue again in Chapter 7, on cultural capital. For the moment, Figure 4.2 puts loose numbers to these scenarios by reporting the languages spoken most often by new immigrants from each of the six countries and by veteran managers. The veteran managers are divided into two groups: those with less than ten years of education (who probably had the power to give out lower status jobs), and those with more than ten years of education (who probably had the power to dispense more valued occupations). According to this figure, veteran managers spoke, in about equal proportions, Yiddish, Hebrew, and a western language (about half of these spoke German, most of the rest spoke English, and a few spoke French). When managers had more education (about two-thirds of the manager group), they were less likely to speak Yiddish and more likely to speak a western language. Among new immigrants, on the other hand, Ashkenazim tended to speak Yiddish most often, even more than local languages such as Polish, Russian, or Romanian. In fact, it was the Mizrahi Moroccans, about 20% of whom reported speaking French most often, who led in western languages.

Figure 4.2. Languages spoken most often by new immigrant men and by veteran men who were managers or employers in 1961

The upshot is that when language was a practical consideration, Ashkenazim, as a whole, had a strong advantage, although rapid increase in Hebrew fluency probably eroded that advantage over time. But when language was a symbol, i.e., when efficiency of communication was outweighed by nationalist considerations, the picture was probably more complex, because language as a symbol was not divided according to binary ethnic category. I continue to use language in these two ways—as symbol and as practical resource—in later analyses. In particular, I will show in Chapter 7 that speaking French most often was a critical determinant of Moroccan and Egyptian ability to obtain Ashkenazi-level returns to education and therefore higher status occupations. Here language was clearly not about the ability to communicate; as one can see in Figure 4.2, most well-educated veteran gatekeepers (who would have dispensed high status occupations) did not speak French.

WESTERNIZATION AND IMMIGRANT AND GATEKEEPER ETHNICITY

Figure 4.1a underscores two more points. First, although Israel is often considered a western country, only about 2% of the new immigrants came from western Europe or the United States. Slightly more than half, however, were Ashkenazim, coming mainly from eastern Europe. This is a critical detail, which will be given meaning in Chapter 6, on westernization and Jewish identity; the upshot is that the status of Israel as a western country was not at all clear in the early days. Second, the figure reminds the reader that although the largest six countries were chosen for the analysis, this is by necessity a somewhat arbitrary definition. Among work-age men, Bulgaria provided slightly more male immigrants of labor force age than Yemen (Yemen was larger in terms of total number of people). Other groups were also nearly as large, including Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Iran, Hungary, and Libya. The very small groups were, in addition to the western countries, Greece, Yugoslavia, India/Pakistan/Ceylon, and Syria.

PREIMMIGRATION EDUCATIONAL AND OCCUPATIONAL ATTAINMENT OF THE IMMIGRANTS

Employers, of course, do not choose new employees on the basis of ethnicity and language alone. Human capital of prospective employees is relevant as well, including educational attainment, prior occupational experience, and the prospective employee’s age. Before the emergence of dichotomization theory in the Israeli academy, work normally assumed that the Mizrahi/ Ashkenazi gap was anticipated on the basis of prior attainments of the immigrants (Eisenstadt 1967). This theory is still current (Rebhun and Waxman 2004). In this section, I examine the prior attainments of the immigrants. Here, interestingly, the Iraqi paradox is anticipated (though I will argue in Chapters 5 and 7 that the source of the Iraqi paradox lies elsewhere).

Figure 4.3 presents bar graphs of mean years of education and prestige abroad for new immigrants from all countries. I included all countries, rather than the six studied in this book, to enable the reader to put the six countries in perspective. The countries are arranged from left to right in order of increasing attainment. Again, Mizrahi countries are represented with black bars, Ashkenazi countries with white bars.

Education

I have analyzed educational attainment among immigrants in-depth in previous work (Khazzoom 2005a); for this section a few summary words will suffice. Among immigrants from the six countries, education varies by both the binary and the country schemes. This can be seen in Figure 4.3. On the one hand, with the exception of Egypt, all Mizrahi countries have lower mean attainments than Ashkenazi countries. On the other hand, the countries clearly form a continuum, and differences between countries within the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi constellations are large and consequential, and not smaller than the difference between Romania and Iraq. Without a prior definition of Mizrahim and Ashkenazim as ethnic categories, one would not make such a distinction based on the data. Even further, it is to be noted that the three largest Ashkenazi countries of origin, from which about two-thirds of Ashkenazi immigrants arrived, have some of the lowest educational attainments of Ashkenazim, and Poland and Romania have some of the lowest occupational prestige abroad.

The main point, however, is that in the case of new immigrants, overall averages conceal important information. In most Mizrahi countries, education had not been universalized, that is, not all of the population actually attended school, and much of the variation in educational attainments is the result of different chances of initially entering school. Among Ashkenazim, the group that would have been known as the “uneducated” had for the most part been to school—nearly all Romanians had at least four years of education, most Poles had at least seven years, and most Soviets had at least eight years. Among Mizrahim, on the other hand, the uneducated were literally uneducated. With the exception of Egypt, between a quarter and a half of those in Mizrahi countries had zero years of education, stopping later at six, eight, and ten years.

Figure 4.3. Average educational attainment and average prestige abroad by country of origin; men who immigrated to Israel between 1948 and 1958, ages 20–60

SOURCE: Originally published in Khazzoom 2005b

When this universalization dynamic is accounted for, two details emerge. First, less ethnic variation in educational attainment was found among the more educated than among the less educated. Second, among the less educated, educational attainment varied by binary ethnic category, while among the more educated, it varied by country. This dynamic is shown for the six largest countries in Figure 4.4 (for a discussion of all the countries, see Khazzoom 2005a). Each country’s average is calculated separately for two groups: those with less than eight years and those with eight years or more. Eight years of education was the median point for all new immigrant men who arrived between the ages of twenty and sixty from all countries of origin together. Among the less educated, the two-year gap between the highest Mizrahi country and the lowest Ashkenazi country is bigger than the one-year range of average attainments within the Ashkenazi or Mizrahi group, thus a binary distinction is defensible. Among the more educated, however, there is no binary line. Moreover, approximately the same proportion of Poles, Romanians, and Iraqis had at least eight years of education (see Khazzoom 2005a).

Figure 4.4. Comparison of average years of education for men whose education was below and at or above the eight-year median; six largest countries

SOURCE: Originally published in Khazzoom 2005a

This is important because educational and occupational attainment were differently important for white collar and blue collar jobs. For white collar jobs, education was almost twice as important as prestige abroad in determining an immigrant’s Israeli prestige, while for blue collar jobs prestige abroad was one and a half to two times as important as educational attainment (Appendix 5) Thus, while the educational graphs in Figure 4.3 appear to suggest that ethnic inequality is an unavoidable outcome of meritocratic competition in the labor market, Figure 4.4, and the knowledge that education was more important for those competing for white collar jobs, makes ethnic inequality seem less so.

Occupation Abroad

Jews from the six countries of origin had in many respects similar occupational structures (Khazzoom 1999). This is partly apparent from Figure 4.3, which shows variation in occupational prestige abroad to be relatively less than variation in educational attainment; something similar, as noted above, was also found by Smooha and Kraus (1985). In addition, the general statements made above—that Jews were overwhelmingly in sales and traditional crafts and very rarely in farming occupations and industrial crafts—were true of all countries, particularly the six largest countries (Khazzoom 1999). This can be seen in Appendix 6. This appendix arranges specific occupations abroad by proportion of men who reported having them, and reports the jobs that occupied the top 75% of each country’s immigrants. The resulting lists, or occupational structures, look similar for all six countries except the USSR. In all cases, for example, “tailors and sewers” was one of the top four occupations abroad.

Some have argued that because European countries were generally more modernized, shoemakers in a Middle Eastern country worked under very different conditions from shoemakers in a European country. This issue cannot be addressed with the 1961 census. However, secondary historical material shows that especially for Poland, and probably for Romania as well, production largely occurred under nonmodern conditions. Even a factory often consisted of several people sitting together at a table producing specific items, normally without significant assembly-line techniques.

Meritocracies and Modern Values: The Education-Occupation Link

A system is understood to be meritocratic, and therefore modern, when educational attainment is a strong predictor of occupational attainment. Among new immigrants, it may be possible to argue that Yemenite and Moroccan systems were less meritocratic than other countries. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions of occupational prestige abroad on educational attainment by country (Figure 4.5) suggest that for Moroccans and Yemenites, education and occupational prestige were less closely associated than for Ashkenazim.³ This is consistent with Smooha and Kraus’s (1985) finding using binary ethnic category. In addition, the R² for these equations (not shown) tell us that 1961 age and education explain 5% of the variation in Jewish occupational attainment in Yemen, 10% in Morocco, about 30% in Iraq and Romania, and about 35% in Poland and the USSR. Interestingly, these R² are about the same for regressions of Israeli prestige on education, occupational prestige abroad, age, and year of arrival.

Figure 4.5 tells us something about gross comparability among arriving immigrants. It tells us that among Iraqis and the Ashkenazim, for example, a given higher status occupation abroad was probably associated with a similar educational background. However, each country, as noted above, had different educational distributions. If the issue is cultural modernity, we really want to know whether, within range of the actual education available in the different countries, similar relative increases in educational attainment led to similarly high positions. This is the standardized coefficient for an OLS regression, which simply scales the coefficient to the distributions at hand and assesses the reward in occupational prestige, for each proportional increment up each country’s educational scale. If the standardized coefficient is a measure of modernity, then Iraq was more modern than the USSR, Poland was more modern than both Iraq and the USSR, and Morocco and Romania had equally education-oriented status attainment systems. The standardized coefficient for Poland is 1.04, for Iraq 0.90, for the USSR 0.80 (not shown). Each of these gaps is about equal. Romania and Morocco have similar standardized coefficients, 0.65 for Romania and 0.62 for Morocco. The coefficient for Yemen is significantly smaller, at 0.16. Once again, differences between Morocco and Yemen are substantial. Moroccans emerge, if not competitive then at least versed in the values of meritocracy common to a modern industrial society.

Figure 4.5. Effect of education on prestige of occupation abroad for men 30 and 60 years old in 1961; predictions from regression analysis

SOURCE: Originally published in Khazzoom 2005a

FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS AND WOMEN’S LIVES

If earlier analyses produced complicated relationships between the binary scheme and attainments, the analysis of women and family produces a much simpler one. Figure 4.6 compares the women from the six countries on a series of characteristics, such as average years of education, average number of children,⁴ age at marriage, and so forth. In general, the stereotypes are supported. There is a significant and noticeable gap between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim, with Ashkenazim emerging as more “modern” than Mizrahim. This is true despite the fact that there is much more variation among Mizrahi countries than Ashkenazi countries, usually reproducing the familiar hierarchy of Iraq as the most modern, followed by Morocco and then Yemen.

Figure 4.6. Characteristics of women, by country of origin

The starkest binary differences concerned number of children and years of education. Women from each of the three Ashkenazi countries averaged about two children, while women from the three Mizrahi countries averaged between five and six. Similarly, women in Ashkenazi countries averaged between seven and nine years of education, while those in Mizrahi countries averaged between zero and two and a half years.⁵ On other characteristics, variation among Mizrahim does make it difficult to argue for a binary categorization. Ashkenazim, for example, were on average twenty-four or twenty-five years old on their first marriage, Yemenites and Moroccans less than eighteen years, and Iraqis nearly twenty-one; here, Iraqis emerge as somewhere in between Ashkenazim and the two other Mizrahi countries. Similarly, while the proportion of children passing away before age five is small and nearly identical for all Ashkenazi countries—approximately 5%—it ranges greatly among Mizrahi countries, from about 9% among Iraqis to 15% among Moroccans to 25% among Yemenites. Here the gap between Yemenites and Moroccans is particularly strong.

Is dichotomization therefore expected? Here the answer is: it depends on how these variables are conceptualized. Number of children or wife’s education may have an indirect effect on men’s labor market attainment as a reflection of modernity or westernness. I show in Chapter 7, however, that accounting for these effects does not alter ethnic hierarchies in returns to education, thus they are not good explanations for either dichotomization or the effect of ethnicity on attainment generally. Education of women and number of children is also expected to affect attainment in the second generation, because both mother’s education and number of siblings normally affect attainment. In Chapter 9 I ask whether such a dynamic can explain why we have an Iraqi paradox in the labor market and full dichotomization among the Israeli-born, but mothers’ characteristics do not appear to be an important explanatory variable. Thus, although Figure 4.6 suggests that women’s characteristics may provide some clue as to why dichotomization happened, in fact it appears that the answer must be found elsewhere.

CONCLUSION

Do the characteristics of the immigrants make dichotomization, or some other form of ethnic inequality, seem inevitable? In some ways, yes. Most gatekeepers were Ashkenazim, and people tend to want to hire those with whom they feel comfortable. In addition, people tend to want to hire those with whom they can communicate, period, and most Ashkenazim spoke Yiddish. Finally, even if we don’t expect a dichotomous outcome from the first encounter with the labor market, two central variables that mediate intergenerational inheritance of occupational status—number of children and women’s education—were clearly distributed by binary ethnic category. At minimum, this would add more pressure toward dichotomization over time.

However, as I pointed out, I will show that these latter variables do not explain ethnic gaps either in the first encounter with the labor market or in the immigrants’ children’s scholastic attainment. Moreover, other characteristics and features of Israeli society suggest a more complicated story. Veteran managers were not just concerned with hiring cronies with whom they could reminisce. As Zionists, many wanted to leave the Diaspora behind, produce Israel as a western country, and do their part to facilitate the use of Hebrew, the cultural reunion of the Jews, and an outcome of ethnic equality. All of these goals give Mizrahim, particularly those who learned Hebrew fast or spoke western languages, a fighting chance. Similarly, as managers, many of the veterans wanted the most educated immigrants or the ones with the most occupational experience. The three largest countries—Iraq, Poland, and Romania—sent immigrants with similar proportions of the well-educated from similar occupational structures and among whom the well-educated had access to westernization. Finally, large differences between Moroccans and Yemenites, as well as between Soviets and other Ashkenazim, suggest that although ethnic inequality might be an expected outcome, dichotomization was less clearly so.

Of course, dichotomization was not the outcome of the first encounter with the labor market, but rather waited until the second generation to appear. It is to the Iraqi paradox that I turn now.

PART III

ANALYSIS

CHAPTER FIVE

The Iraqi Paradox

Over the preceding four chapters we have discussed the Iraqi paradox and what it means for our understanding of dichotomization in Israel. However, we have not delved into exactly what this paradox is. In this chapter we take a closer look at this anomaly within the Israeli social structure to determine how it came about and how it can be explained. By doing so, we uncover another dimension of the dichotomization that is the subject of this work.

THE EMPIRICAL PICTURE

Figure 5.1, depicting the Iraqi paradox, graphs returns to education using separate equations for each country (for equations, see Appendix 7). The dependent variable is prestige of Israeli occupation, and the independent variables are education, prestige of occupation abroad, age, and year at arrival. Human capital variables are allowed to interact with each other, so that returns to education, for example, can differ by age or occupational prestige. The lines in Figure 5.1 are created by solving equations for men who arrived in 1951 at the age of forty, with median prestige abroad.¹ Finally, because different countries had different educational distributions, Figure 5.1b limits the lines drawn to the middle 90% of each country’s educational distribution.

Figure 5.1 reveals two details. The first is that although there is a binary clustering pattern in the lines, it doesn’t fully follow the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi binary. Instead, Iraqis cluster with Ashkenazim, and the Mizrahi group contains only Moroccans and Yemenites (as a colleague put it, “Iraqis are Ashkenazim!”). The gap in expected Israeli prestige—between Yemenites and Moroccans, on the one hand, and all other groups, on the other—is present even at low levels of education and strengthens as education increases.² Thus, at four years of education, the gap between Moroccan prestige in Israel and that of Ashkenazim and Iraqis is about 2 points,³ while among those with high school degrees, this gap ranges from 6 to 7 points. In contrast, Iraqi, Polish, and Romanian experiences look almost identical, particularly among those with between four years of education, which is when Romanians start to leave school, and twelve years, where most of the sample has already left school. In addition to this different binary division, a gap develops between Yemen and Morocco after about ten years.

Figure 5.1a. The Iraqi paradox. Estimated returns to education of the six largest countries of origin. Predicted for men who arrived in 1951, at 40 years old, with median prestige abroad (24.6).

Figure 5.1b. The Iraqi paradox, using the middle 90 percent of each country’s educational distribution only.

SOURCE: Originally published in Khazzoom 2005a

Second, for most educational levels Soviet Israeli prestige is expected to be higher than the Iraqi, Polish, Romanian trio. In fact, gaps between Soviets and this trio are often as large or larger than those between the trio and the Moroccans and Yemenites. This leads one to ask whether it is correct to speak of a binary division, or whether one should conclude that three groups had divergent experiences. As it turns out, the size of the Soviet advantage in Figure 5.1 is partly dependent on the 1951 year of arrival, and it is reduced in later years. Moreover, it will become clear over the course of this book that the Soviet positioning is overall less stable than the distinction between Yemenites and Moroccans and the others. It appears to be because of the experiences of a group of early-arriving Yiddish speakers who attended religious schools. This group received higher returns to prestige abroad, which manifests itself in Figure 5.1 as a gap in Israeli prestige at lower levels of education abroad.

Additional evidence that it is correct to differentiate between Yemenites and Moroccans on the one hand and the trio and the Soviets on the other is provided by the R². The R², again, tells us how much of the initial diversity in Israeli prestige is explained by the independent variables, in this case human capital and year of arrival. Figure 5.2 graphs the R² for the equations that produced Figure 5.1. Although for the trio and the Soviets human capital explains about 45% of the initial variation in Israeli prestige, it explains less than a quarter for Yemenites and Moroccans. This is a very large difference and suggests that experience in the Israeli labor market differed substantially for these two sets of countries.

Figure 5.2. R-squared for separate country of origin equations using education, prestige abroad, age at arrival, squared terms, and interactions

POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS FOR THE IRAQI PARADOX AND IMPLICATIONS FOR ISRAELI ETHNIC FORMATION

What do we make of the fact that the Iraqi experience was so similar to that of Ashkenazim? Is it the case that gatekeepers actually treated them as Ashkenazim? Or did Iraqis successfully fight discrimination?

Hypothesis 1: Dichotomous Discrimination

I use the term dichotomous discrimination to refer to the hypothesis that employers treated Iraqis, Moroccans, and Yemenites similarly, and that the Iraqi paradox is the result of activity among Iraqis, rather than employer preference. Thus, this is the hypothesis that Iraqis obtained higher returns to education against the wills of employers. As noted, such a story would not require any alteration of dichotomization theory, because it does not alter the basic assertion that gatekeeper activity was oriented toward distributing resources according to the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi distinction.

One reason to propose this interpretation is that it is already known that Iraqis arrived in Israel with certain strengths that Yemenites and Moroccans didn’t have. For example, they arrived as a complete and wellorganized community. Just before the immigration, 70% of Iraqi Jews lived in urban areas, mainly Baghdad and Basra. In Iraq, ethnoreligious communities were given significant autonomy,⁴ and Jewish communities in these urban centers not only ran their own schools but also established hospitals and charities and even often handled deviance internally. Communal leaders normally had western educations through the French Alliance schools, the British Shamash school, or abroad. They were thus a well-educated and cosmopolitan group, with experience in establishing and running separate communal institutions that distributed resources. Connections with the west and political sophistication also went beyond schooling; a large number of Jews in Iraq worked for British banks, and both youth and adults were active in a number of political movements, including Zionist, communist, and Arab nationalist movements (Meir 1989). Conditions in Morocco were often similar, but Iraqis differed in two ways. First, they were more urbanized and more homogeneous than Moroccans. Second, the Iraqi Jewish community, including communal leaders, immigrated almost intact to Israel during the two-year period of 1950 and 1951, while Moroccans immigrated over a longer period of time and also immigrated to France and other areas as much as to Israel. This splitting of Moroccan communities may have made them less able to resist discrimination in Israel.

Three dynamics result from this Iraqi strength. First, the relocation of leaders along with laypeople could directly affect resource acquisition in Israel. Second, because so many Iraqis had been employed in the British banking system in Iraq, much of the large middle class (Hakohen 2003) was able to use these connections to move wealth through Britain to Israel. Though they removed only a fraction of their total wealth (Hakohen 2003), many were able to buy apartments in the Tel Aviv area (Khazzoom in progress), bypassing the high unemployment of the temporary camps and gatekeeper attempts to place them in low opportunity outlying areas (Khazzoom 2005). Third, the well-educated concentrated in Ramat Gan (Khazzoom 1999), a city that bordered Tel Aviv. Once in the area, they had access to one of the more lucrative labor markets in Israel. Moreover, they could rely on information from veteran Iraqi immigrants, who made themselves available to answer new immigrants’ questions (Khazzoom, in progress). The combination of veteran advice, occupational availability, and high educational attainments among the new immigrants meant that information leading to high status jobs could circulate efficiently (see Portes 1993 for a similar dynamic among Latinos in Miami who arrived with social capital, education, and financial capital).

One way to test the discrimination hypothesis is to ask if other resources were distributed by the binary categories or if they too reveal Iraqi paradoxes. And, in fact, the distribution of residential locations, treated as the placement of immigrants in development towns, is consistent with traditional dichotomization theory.⁵ The ethnic categories that affected development town placement were assessed in Khazzoom (2005b) using the 1961 census but using a different set of countries of origin.⁶ The main graph from this analysis is reproduced in Figure 5.3. It charts by country of origin and specific year of arrival the chances of being placed in a development town.⁷ Recall that there was an immigration lull from 1952 to 1954, during which almost no Ashkenazi immigrants arrived and during which the state regrouped and developed more effective strategies for placing immigrants in residential locations. As can be seen in Figure 5.3, overall placement rates in the development towns began to rise in 1955, and there is a clear binary split, such that Mizrahim, including Egyptians and Iraqis, were placed at higher rates, and Ashkenazim at lower rates. This indication that Iraqis faced discrimination in other arenas—and in fact not just discrimination but treatment that tended to make them similar to Yemenites and Moroccans—implies that Iraqis faced discrimination in the labor market as well, but successfully fought it.

Figure 5.3. Proportion of immigrants placed in development towns upon arrival in Israel, by year. Predicted for married male household heads who immigrated at age 40, with median education (8 yrs.) and prestige abroad (24.6).

SOURCE: Originally published in Khazzoom 2005b

Hypothesis 2: Gatekeeper Choice

As compelling as the above evidence may be, showing dichotomous discrimination on other sites is not evidence of dichotomous discrimination on the labor market site. Thus in contrast to the above hypothesis—that Iraqis obtained higher returns against employers’ wills—this section considers the evidence that Iraqis obtained higher returns because that’s what gatekeepers wanted. Here, the empirical implications center around the observation that if the Iraqi paradox occurred because Iraqis were strong, then among groups of Iraqis who were weaker it should disappear. However, for the most part this turns out not to be the case.

Implication 1: Self-Employed Versus Salaried Workers

First, one way minorities bypass discriminatory gatekeepers in the labor market is to become self-employed (for an analysis of Israel, see Nahon’s 1985 work on the 1983 census). This would be a particularly useful way for Iraqis, with their high educational attainments and physically concentrated community, to resist downward mobility. An Iraqi lawyer who couldn’t find a job in any of the Ashkenazi law firms, for example, could open his or her own firm in Ramat Gan, where Iraqis could pay for lawyers and were willing to use an Iraqi one.

In 1961, 20% of the sample were self-employed. Thus, one way to assess gatekeeper preferences is to compare ethnic hierarchies in returns to education among the self-employed—where gatekeeper control was curtailed—and salaried workers—where gatekeeper control was stronger. If the Iraqi paradox is unremarkable among salaried workers but strong among the self-employed, one can argue that it resulted from Iraqi activity and not gatekeeper choice. If, on the other hand, the Iraqi paradox remains strong among the salaried, then it is more likely that it resulted from gatekeeper choice.

The graphs in Figure 5.4 show the second pattern. These graphs reproduce Figure 5.1, but for salaried workers and the self-employed separately. The graph for salaried workers looks very much like that of Figure 5.1, though Iraqi returns to education do dip at lower levels of education. In the graph for the self-employed, on the other hand, returns to educa tion are largely similar for all country groups, with the possible exception of Moroccans. Thus self-employment did curtail ethnic inequality, but it is not the solution to the Iraqi paradox. On the contrary, accounting for self-employment makes it appear that the paradox resulted from gatekeeper choice.⁸

Figure 5.4. Returns to education, estimated for salaried and self-employed men separately. Predicted for men who arrived in 1951, at 40 years old, with median prestige abroad (24.6)

Implication 2: Regional Differences

Second, of the Iraqi advantages outlined above, most tie Iraqi strength to their concentration in the Tel Aviv area. For example, it was in Tel Aviv that veteran Iraqis could be reached to provide advice, and it was to Ramat Gan that the well-educated relocated (Ramat Gan and Tel Aviv are contiguous and were at the time accessible to each other by bus). Thus a second empirical implication of the dichotomous discrimination argument is that the Iraqi paradox should weaken or disappear outside of the Tel Aviv area, where Iraqis were weaker. One version of this test would compare Ramat Gan and Tel Aviv to the rest of the country. This treats less-educated Iraqis who were concentrated in other towns near Tel Aviv (such as Petah Tikva, Holon, or Or Yehuda) as weaker. Another version would compare Iraqis inside the larger Tel Aviv region (as delineated by the Central Bureau of Statistics) with those outside. The area inside the Tel Aviv region includes the following cities and towns: Tel Aviv, Yaffo, Azur, Bene Braq, Bat-Yam, Givatayyim, Herzelia, Holon, Ramat Gan, Or Yehuda, Qiryat Ono, and Ramat Hasharon. About half of the Iraqi sample lived in this district and half in the rest of the country.

Figure 5.5 provides the results for both outside of the Tel Aviv region and outside of Tel Aviv/Ramat Gan; since the latter produces the lowest Iraqi returns to education, the final graph in Figure 5.5 provides returns for those who lived outside of Tel Aviv/Ramat Gan and were salaried. Here, too, the evidence suggests that the Iraqi paradox cannot be attributed to communal strength. Although again the Iraqi paradox is attenuated among weaker Iraqis, the overall hierarchy of returns to education remains the same.

Implication 3: Weaker Asian Countries

Finally, in a move that anticipates the cultural arguments of the next chapter, a comparison between Egyptians and Iraqis can be used to assess the impact of Iraqi communal strength on Iraqi returns to education. Egypt was the ninth largest country of origin and was pinpointed by Nahon (1987) as the other Mizrahi immigrant group, along with Iraq, that was similar to Ashkenazim in terms of prior attainments. Moreover, state planners, Zionist emissaries, and veteran immigrants in general saw Egyptians as better “human material,” along with Iraqis (Segev 1986). Egyptians, however, did not have the same communal strength as Iraqis. They were more heterogeneous, they immigrated in smaller numbers in several spurts across time rather than in a single burst, and they did not have the same presence in the Israeli center that Iraqis did. Thus, if Egyptian returns to education can be shown to be similar to those of Iraqis, rather than Moroccans and Yemenites, then the suggestion is that Iraqi returns were not caused by communal strength. Conversely, if Egyptians map onto Figure 5.1 near Moroccans and Yemenites, then the key is probably something unique to Iraqis, such as communal strength. Figure 5.6 adds Egyptians to the lines from Figure 5.1 and also adds two other countries that help assess an argument of statistical discrimination in the next section. As can be seen, the Egyptian line is nearly identical to the Iraqi line.

Figure 5.5. Returns to education for men living outside of geographical areas in which Iraqis were strong. Predicted for men who arrived in 1951, at 40 years old, with median prestige abroad (24.6).

Figure 5.6. The Iraqi paradox in context: Estimated returns to education of the six largest countries, plus Egypt, Bulgaria, and Tunisia. Predicted for men who arrived in 1951, at 40 years old, with median prestige abroad (24.6).

So What Have We Learned?

Like many hypotheses considered here, Iraqi communal strength is part of the story of Israeli ethnic formation. As I show in Chapter 8, in Ramat Gan Iraqis had better access to white collar occupations than Ashkenazim, net prior attainments, and this is consistent with our knowledge that Ramat Gan was the center of Iraqi communal strength. However, Iraqi communal strength does not appear to explain the Iraqi paradox. The fact that Egyptians, who were communally weaker, obtained returns to education that were similar to those of Iraqis suggests not only that the Iraqi returns were gatekeeper choice but also that the reasons for that choice have something to do with characteristics that Iraqis and Egyptians shared. Thus, the second hypothesis, that the Iraqi paradox occurred as a result of gatekeeper choice, is supported by the available data, and the search is for something Egyptians and Iraqis shared that would explain why gatekeepers would not want to discriminate against them. The two obvious choices, based on secondary research, are human capital and westernization.

DOES STATISTICAL DISCRIMINATION EXPLAIN THE IRAQI PARADOX?

Westernization is of course the explanation for the Iraqi paradox that I proffer in this book, but this section first considers the possibility that gatekeepers were responding only to known country differences in human capital. Such behavior is known as statistical discrimination, which can be more generally defined as a dynamic whereby employers observe overall group differences in human capital (or some other characteristic) and then use this general knowledge to evaluate individuals from those groups. An example would be a bank manager who, tired of interviewing Yemenite applicants and finding out that they had been educated in religious institutions, simply stopped looking at Yemenite résumés.⁹ Note that like the second hypothesis above, this argument asserts that Iraqis obtained higher returns to education because gatekeepers wanted it that way. It examines one possible explanation for why gatekeepers would decide to include Iraqis but not Moroccans and Yemenites.

In Figure 5.1, the original figure of this chapter, statistical discrimination appears to be a reasonable explanation for the Iraqi paradox. This is because the hierarchy of returns to education in this figure follows the hierarchy of actual educational attainments. As was seen in Chapter 4, in Figure 5.1 the trio of Iraqis, Romanians, and Poles clusters together in the middle, flanked by higher Soviets and lower Moroccans and Yemenites. Statistical discrimination is also indicated by some evidence from Khazzoom (1999) that older Iraqis received lower returns to education than younger Iraqis. Iraqi Jews had undergone rapid increases in education attainment over the decades before immigration, and those educated after World War I had higher attainments than those educated before (Khazzoom 1999). This targeting of returns to education to actual educational attainments of country groups and even age subgroups within country suggest that gatekeepers were responding to knowledge of overall differences in attainment.

However, even in Figure 5.1 there is evidence against statistical discrimination, at least as the primary explanation for the hierarchy of returns to education. First, as noted, the Soviet advantage is unstable. Soviet returns to education approach those of other Ashkenazim in later years and, as can be seen in other figures in this chapter, among salaried men and those who lived outside of Tel Aviv. Second, a dynamic of statistical discrimination implies that Moroccans would be treated differently from Yemenites. Fully 90% of educated Yemenites were educated in religious institutions, while the figure for Moroccans—27%—is comparatively closer to the 18% figure for Poles. In addition, Moroccans were often educated in French schools, while in Yemen only Adenites had significant access to western educations. Gatekeepers who were so targeted in their statistical discrimination that they distinguished between older and younger Iraqis would also be expected to distinguish between the rather different countries of Yemen and Morocco.

To further assess the statistical discrimination hypothesis, Figure 5.6, just discussed, includes not only Egyptians but also Bulgarians and Tunisians. Bulgaria was the seventh largest country of origin, and its immigrants’ average educational attainment was similar to that of the USSR. The statistical discrimination hypothesis—which, again, is a hypothesis that gatekeepers responded to observed attainments rather than ethnicity or other characteristics—implies that Bulgarians experienced returns similar to those of Soviets. However, as can be seen in Figure 5.6, Bulgarian returns to education are similar to those of the trio rather than the USSR. Tunisian immigrants were the largest North African group after Moroccans (recall again that in Israeli parlance Egyptians were Asian and not North African), and the average educational attainment of Tunisian immigrants was between that of Morocco and Iraq, about a year higher than that of Moroccans and slightly less than a year lower than that of Iraqis (Figure 4.3). Thus if statistical discrimination is the correct logic, their returns to education should also be somewhere in between. As can be seen, however, their returns to education are more similar to Moroccan and Yemenite returns than to those of other countries. In fact, when all these countries are taken together, gatekeepers seem to have distinguished between Africans on the one hand and everyone else on the other.

SUMMARY: ETHNICITY AND THE FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH THE LABOR MARKET

The data analyzed in this chapter lead to several empirical conclusions. First, the ethnic hierarchy in returns to education is more consistent with an argument that it resulted from gatekeeper preference—at least primarily—than with an argument that it resulted from immigrant activity or communal strength. Second, that hierarchy reflects an ethnic distinction between North Africans and all other groups more consistently than it reflects either the average human capital of the immigrants’ country of origin or any Ashkenazi identity that gatekeepers may have had. This means that at least as an initial conclusion, the Iraqi paradox can be treated as resulting from a dynamic in which gatekeepers treated “Asian” immigrants like Ashkenazim. It also means that the comparison between Iraqis and Moroccans is key, as these are the largest Asian and the largest North African countries of origin.

But despite these clear empirical conclusions, this chapter has actually deepened the mystery of Israeli ethnic formation and raised more questions than it has answered. Most important, how do we reconcile evidence that the logic of residential placement follows binary discrimination with evidence that the logic of the labor market follows the Asian/African/European distinction? I suggest an explanation for this oddity at the end of Chapter 7. First, however, I take a detour into the preimmigration history of ethnicity and Jewish identity to suggest some answers as to why Iraqis would obtain higher returns to education than Moroccans or Yemenites.

CHAPTER SIX

How the Polish Peddler Became a German Intellectual

Orientalism, Jewish Identity, and the
Antecedents to Social Closure in Israel

The preceding chapters showed that the country hierarchy in returns to education was not consistent with either a logic of gatekeeper’s personal identification with all individuals from Europe or statistical discrimination based on average human capital among arriving immigrants. Nevertheless, it appeared clear that that hierarchy resulted from gatekeeper preference. What, then, could have been the logic of selection? In this chapter and the next, I argue that to understand whom veteran gatekeepers excluded and whom they included, this book needs to leave the realm of ethnicity as an axis for the monopolization of resources, and enter the realm of symbols and meaning. In this chapter, I examine the historical roots of the east/ west distinction that was encoded into the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi categorization scheme, and in the next I quantify important symbols from this history and examine their effect on the distribution of occupational prestige in the labor market. I begin, however, with an anecdote.

Sometime in 2000 I noticed that Berkeley, California, had a new Israeli restaurant. Having lived in Israel for several years, I was curious to see the menu. I smiled to see that the restaurateurs called grilled cheese sandwiches “toast,” as is done in Israel, and then noticed that of the five or so varieties of toast, one was labeled “modern” and one “traditional.” The traditional toast was distinguished by its use of s’hoog, a popular Yemenite spice, while the modern toast was distinguished by its mixing of milk and meat, making it unkosher. Placing these ethnic and religious images under the titles “traditional” and “modern” blends concepts that academics normally separate, namely modernity, religiousness, and ethnic origins. Placing both the traditional Yemenites and the modern nonkoshers under the title “Israeli” implies that they are contrasting facets of “Israeliness,” with Yemenites an ethnic group that embodies the traditional and nonmodern and some unnamed non-Yemenite group embodying the modern, which is not only nontraditional but also less Jewish.

Embedded in the playful menu making of some unknown Israel-to-Berkeley transplant, I argue, is the meaning system that accounts for who did and did not get excluded in the first encounter with the labor market in Israel. Beliefs that “modern” and “traditional” describe alternative states of being, and that Jewish tradition is eastern and modernity is western, have driven Jewish identity and social relations since the very first nationalist settlements in the late nineteenth century. They also created a central contradiction for the ideological Zionists who immigrated to Israel prior to statehood and who became the state’s elite and the gatekeepers of the 1950s. On the one hand, most intended to create a western, modern society in Israel (see Eyal 2006 for exceptions). On the other hand, they came to Israel to create a Jewish state and to engineer the return of Jews to their roots in the Middle East. This represented for them a blending of easternization and westernization, religiousness and secularity, tradition and modernity. It created a delicate project in which things and people that were regarded as eastern needed to be incorporated and their easternness preserved, but kept at a distance. This tension explains why both the traditional Yemenite and the modern secular Jew were essential components of the emerging society’s image, as well as how the Yemenites’ role as authentic Jews could lead directly to their exclusion in the labor market.

OVERVIEW OF HISTORICAL ARGUMENT

In this chapter I locate Israeli identity within two centuries of Diaspora Jewish history in Europe and the Middle East. I argue that these centuries can be conceptualized as a series of orientalizations, or episodes in which one group uses the previously established east/west dichotomy to construct another group as inferior. Orientalization of Jews, unlike that of other communities, always carried the promise of integration as a reward for acculturation. As a result, Jewish communities across Europe and the Arab world accepted their initial stigmatized status, developed commitments to westernization as a form of self-improvement, and became both threatened by and attached to elements of Jewish culture that symbolized the Oriental past. Self-classification then drove the classification of others, as perceived levels of westernization became the primary determinant for evaluation of other Jewish communities. However, categorization did not always result in social closure.¹ On the contrary, it often resulted in efforts to westernize these less western Jewish others.

Thus, although westernized Jews often used geographical origins to demarcate ethnic groups, those classification systems were normally flexible and oriented toward elimination of group boundaries by turning easterners into westerners. Exclusion appears to have resulted when a putatively less western group threatened the westernization project of another.² In Israel, I argue, the mass immigration of Jews from the Arab world, in the context of Israel’s geographic location outside of the west and the incomplete state of westernization of both Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, constituted such a threat. This threat explains not just why ethnicity was an important axis for the distribution of resources but also why most Iraqis would appear to be exempt from a system of ethnic discrimination that at first glance should have targeted them.

A JEWISH HISTORY OF EAST, WEST, AND COLONIAL DOMINATION

The series of orientalization that can be discerned from available secondary sources is illustrated in Figure 6.1. Beginning with western Europe’s Enlightenment, French and German Christians cast Jews in those countries as their eastern foils. It was probably soon after that that German Jews orientalized eastern European Jews, but the trend became pronounced during the mid- to late 1800s. It was also about that time that French Jews established the Alliance school system in the Middle East, a main vehicle by which Middle Eastern Jews were exposed to orientalization. Once the westernization project had circulated among Middle Eastern Jews, they, and probably western European Jews as well, orientalized Arabs. Finally, as many have argued (see especially Shohat 1988), Israel has a three-tiered structure, as the primarily East European Ashkenazim are cast as western, the Mizrahim as assimilable easterners, and Palestinians and other Arabs as unassimilable easterners.

Figure 6.1. Intercommunal Orientalization in post-Enlightenment Jewish history

Orientalization of Jews in France and Germany

I begin the history of ethnic exclusion in Israel with western Europe’s Enlightenment and the first two orientalization episodes. The history itself is well known.³ Beginning in the late 1700s, influential groups of elite German and French Christians resolved to allow Jews full social and economic integration, but at a price.⁴ Jews were expected to “prove their fitness for equal rights” (Aschheim 1982, p. 5), by shedding their “backward” traditions, dismantling their separate communal infrastructures, and moving forward into “modernity.”⁵ Most Jews accepted this deal and launched numerous transformation projects, designed to make Jewish life more compatible with the Christian ideal.⁶ Both the Enlightenment and the Jewish reaction to it differed greatly between Germany and France, as did the legal process of Jewish emancipation and the ease with which Jews were integrated into the larger society. But in the characterization of the Jews, the nature of the demands for change, and the overall effects on Jewish identity, dynamics in the two countries were very similar.

Christians demanded that Jews—“those unfortunate Asiatic refugees” (Dohm, quoted in Greenberg 1944, p. 13)—reform their lifestyle, values, and social, economic, and educational structure. Friends and foes alike were disgusted by Jewish poverty, by their dark, disorderly ghettos with the “narrow streets, dirt, throngs of people, ... and ceaseless haggling” (Aschheim 1982, p. 6, paraphrasing and quoting Goethe’s description). Jewish dress, particularly the beards and sidelocks, were attacked (Goldscheider and Zuckerman 1984), and Goethe disliked the rabbis’ “fanatic zeal ... wild gesticulations ... [and] piercing outcries” (Barzilay 1955, p. 221). Special animosity was reserved for Yiddish. Not only, argued the enlightened, was it “the incarnation of linguistic ugliness” (Miron 1973, p. 45), but it was also too underdeveloped to support high-powered thoughts (Miron 1973). Jewish economic structure accounted for what everyone agreed was their dishonesty and parasitic natures. To solve the problem, Jews needed to reduce the number in commerce, especially peddling (Barzilay 1955; Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz 1980). Christians attacked Jews for their particularistic orientation, their “state within a state.” Finally, Jewish education had to be completely reformed. The heder, the primary educational institution, was dismissed as crowded, unhygienic, and chaotic. Children, it was said, were taught by rote rather than rational thought. And the subjects of their education, particularly the Talmud, were denounced as everything from superstition to sedition (Barzilay 1955; Heschel 1999).

As noted, this history is well known and generally not disputed. What has only recently been added to the analytical picture, however, is that Jews in western Europe were not constructed simply as backward, but as backward because they were Oriental, eastern, or Asian (Khazzoom 1996; in regard to Germany, see Hess 2000; Heschel 1999; Kramer 1999; Biale 2001; Raz Krakotzkin 1998). My own characterization of the French and German stigmatization of western Jews as the first orientalization is based on three observations: Jews were considered Asiatic, the package of deficiencies said to characterize them was already part of a discourse of western European superiority (Fredrickson 1981), and the discourse that constructed Orientals as inferior already existed (Said 1978). Thus Dohm, quoted above, appeared to clearly connect the dislike of Jews to their origins in Asia ); Voltaire was of the opinion that “the [ancient] Jews were vagrant Arabs infested with leprosy” (Barzilay 1955, p. 190); and many believed that Jews operated as a fifth column for the Muslim enemy (Cutler and Cutler 1986).

Of course it is empirically true that the ghetto was small, crowded, and noisy, that Jews were involved in commerce, and that they had a separate institutional infrastructure. This is part of the reason that, until recently, Jewish historians approached this period as a time of needed reform rather than a period in which Jews were subject to a power play. But the superficial accuracy of the construction is misleading. For example, there is nothing inherently backward about narrow streets; today, many parts of Europe are popular precisely for their romantic, intimate sidelanes. In addition, while Dohm complained that Jews overbuilt, colonists to the Americas asserted that Native Americans did not build enough. Denouncing Jews for their particularistic orientation is also suspicious, since Jews were initially attractive to the western European powers precisely because of their lack of investment in the internal European power struggles (Barzilay 1955). Finally, with the increasing importance of commerce to the western European economies and indeed to the Enlightenment itself, Christians should have been delighted to have a skilled commercial group in their midst.

From this perspective, straight streets, decorum, and even a peddlerfree occupational distribution have little to do with practical questions of advancement or economic and social efficiency. They are, rather, characteristics that are given value by a group with power, often because perceived cultural superiority can make economic or political privilege appear deserved (Bourdieu 1984; Bourdieu, Darbel, and Schnapper 1991). That lifestyle can be a tool in the monopolization of resources is an argument that can be traced back to Weber (1978) and that has been taken up in different ways in research on social stratification and inequality (in addition to Bourdieu, see DiMaggio 1982; Ridgeway et al. 1998). Said and the postcolonialists can be said to be arguing for a particularly pervasive form of lifestyle-as-legitimization. They define the broad referential system in which “east” and “west” are connected to other binarily opposed characteristics—straight /not straight, quiet/not quiet, rational/emotional, and Christian/non-Christian—as a discourse. Nearly every possible social and personal characteristic becomes associated with one side of the discourse’s dichotomy. It is because of this power by association that something as trivial as street width can appear to indicate something as complex as social development.

Importantly, Weber (1978) (followed by Bourdieu) presented the choice of cultural and lifestyle characteristics used to demarcate group boundaries as not, in the main, predetermined (e.g., chapter V). He did argue that some markers, such as language, are more likely to be chosen because they tend to be effective, and that others, such as putting butter in the hair, are chosen because they are highly distinctive, but in general the goal tends to be differentiating one putative group from another, so any distinction will do. For the postcolonial literature, on the other hand, one central observation is consistency in the characteristics used across time and space to construct different groups of others as backward. Sets of characteristics similar to the “orientalization package” described here have been used with relatively little variation to describe societies as diverse as the Chinese, Africans, North American Indians, and the Irish (see also Fredrickson 1981).

For postcolonialists, cultural characteristics do come to evoke visceral reactions, but in the main this consistency is seen as a form of convenience. Having become part of widely known discourses of difference, these packages resonate with people and become effective bases for new, often unrelated distinctions. In the Jewish case, consistency is again salient, but for different reasons. What will become clear is that the lifestyle features that were used to build stigma came to have enduring meaning for Jews in and of themselves. These characteristics—a heder education, traditional clothing, speaking a Semitic language, even employment in sales—were later used to create other distinctions not so much because distinction was the goal but because observing these features on other Jews induced panic among those who believed they had made some progress in bringing them under control.

Jewish Acculturation and the Development of a Stigmatized Identity

Jews initially engaged in the required acculturation for practical reasons. Equality and integration meant less violence against them, as well as increased educational and occupational possibilities. In addition, rabbinical hegemony within the Jewish world left many searching for a way to undermine its strength (Barzilay 1955). However, in losing their separate infrastructures, Jews also lost the boundaries that had protected them from their stigmatized place in Christian society (Bayme 1981). This was a moment whose negative consequences would change Jewish history. Jews became vulnerable to self-hatred, as they began to see themselves from the orientalizers’ eyes. Further, they placed the legitimate judges of Jewish acceptability outside the Jewish world. Over time, the goal was less to produce a Judaism that Jews liked as it was to produce a Judaism that the Christians could tolerate.

Goffman’s (1963) theories of stigma can be used to explicate this process. ⁷ He departs from Weber’s insight that when stigmatized ethnic groups are segregated, a separate sense of honor can shield them from the effects of exclusion and stigmatization. He then argues that in the United States, because:

separate systems of honor [are] on the decline[,] the stigmatized individual tends to hold the same beliefs about identity that we do.... The standards he has incorporated from the wider society equip him to be intimately alive to what others see as his failing, inevitably causing him ... to agree that he does indeed fall short of what he really ought to be. Shame becomes a central possibility, arising from the individual’s perception of one of his attributes as being a defiling thing to posses. (p. 7)

Although Goffman’s focus was on interactions between normal and stigmatized dyads (“mixed contacts” [p. 12]), it is clear that the knowledge that one is stigmatized continues to shape self-evaluation and behavior outside of the interaction, in anticipation of future interactions: “The immediate presence of normals is likely to reinforce this [sense of inadequacy], but in fact self-hate and self-derogation can also occur when only he and a mirror are about” (p. 7). One reaction to such a process, says Goffman, is to attempt to rid the self of the stigmas in an attempt to gain the acceptance of normals.

Spurred by the promise that change would effectively destigmatize, Jews accepted and propagated the negative image developed by others (Boyarin 1997; Aschheim 1982; Cuddihy 1974). They decried the narrow Talmudic world of the heder. Berr in 1807 exhorted his fellow Jews “to divest ourselves entirely of that narrow spirit, of Corporation and Congregation” (reprinted in Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz 1980, p. 108). In 1822 Gans wanted to destroy Jewish particularism, “the obstinate, self-centered independence of the Jews” (reprinted in Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz 1980, p. 191). In 1895 Heinrich Graetz called Yiddish a “half bestial language” (quoted in Miron 1973, p. 36). And they simply loathed peddlers (Aschheim 1982).

Jews told each other about their individual responsibility to change these specific characteristics of themselves. Rathenau’s words to his fellow Jews in 1897 illustrate the self-contempt they often expressed: “Look at yourselves in the mirror! ... As soon as you have recognized your unathletic build, your narrow shoulders, your clumsy feet, your sloppy roundish shape, you will resolve to dedicate a few generations to the renewal of your outer appearance” (reprinted in Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz 1980, p. 232).

Importantly, the articulation of the Jewish stigma as an Oriental stigma specifically may have solidified over time, possibly as the Orientalist discourse itself and the notion of a Semitic race became more central to western European thought. In fact, it may be that it was only when western Jews orientalized other Jewish communities in the mid- to late 1800s that the characterization of their own pasts as Oriental crystalized. It was about that time that the French Jew Naquet told the Chamber of Deputies that, through Aryanization, contemporary French Jews had lost “that inferiority which I find in all Oriental people” (Marrus 1971, p. 23–24), and German Jews believed that East European Jews represented the “Asian form of Judaism” (Aschheim 1982, p. 20) that was the German Jews’ own past.

As they increasingly adopted the east/west dichotomy and its hierarchy of cultures, a number of concepts became fused in the Jewish world view. These included enlightenment, progress, modernity, secularism, rationality, reason, and non-Jewish western European culture. As in the larger, non-Jewish European community, these concepts were translated into binary, oppositional categories attached to the umbrella opposition of east and west and given a moral connotation. But, since Jews initially placed themselves on the nonprogressive, ignorant end of the east/west dichotomy, it was their own origins that became the central symbols of degeneracy and backwardness. Says Aschheim, “The ghetto symbolized the distinction between enlightenment and superstition, progress and reaction, even beauty and ugliness” (1982, p. 6). This kind of transformation project tends to create a protracted liminal state; as Goffman wrote, even when “repair” of the stigma is possible, “what often results is not the acquisition of fully normal status, but a transformation of the self from someone with a particular blemish into someone with a record of having corrected a particular blemish” (1963, p. 9). Because of their own ambiguous location within the dichotomy, Jews continued to fear regression until very late in the process of westernization (Aschheim 1982; Rodrigue 1993).

Group Formation and Exclusion: The Production of “Ostjuden” and “Oriental Jews”

In Goffman’s schema, the internalized stigma affects one’s perception of other group members: “The stigmatized individual exhibits a tendency to stratify his ‘own’ according to the degree to which their stigma is apparent and obtrusive. He can then take up in regard to those who are more evidently stigmatized than himself the attitudes the normals take to him. Thus do the hard of hearing see themselves as anything but deaf persons, and those with defective vision, anything but blind” (1963, p. 107).

But the less stigmatized not only exclude the more stigmatized, they also feel attached to other members of the stigma group. This is partly because normals are insensitive to differences among the stigmatized and partly because the less stigmatized experience empathy. “In brief,” says Goffman, “he can neither embrace his group nor let it go” (p. 108). Goffman argues that in an attempt to free themselves from this ambivalence, normalizing members of the stigmatized group may simultaneously push other members to normalize and distance themselves from them.

As they moved into the western European world, German and French Jews began organizing their identities around the east/west dichotomy, evaluating themselves and others according to conformity with the western cultural model. Their discomfort with their Oriental past became particularly important when they were placed in direct contact with other, unwesternized Jewish populations. For German Jews, East European, particularly Polish Jewish, communities became an orientalized “other” against which the Germans measured their own advancing westernization. Aschheim argues that it was at this point that an east/west distinction first began to shape Jewish intercommunal relations, as German Jews dubbed East Europeans “Ostjuden”—literally, “Eastern Jews”:

East European Jews ... were regarded as immoral, culturally backward creatures of ugly and anachronistic ghettos. In large part this was a view formulated and propagated by West European and especially German Jews, serving as a symbolic construct by which they could distinguish themselves from their less fortunate, un-emancipated East European brethren. In this sense, the very notion “Ostjude” was the product of the modernization of Jewish life and consciousness, for before the penetration of Enlightenment thinking, Jews did not divide themselves into radically antithetical “Eastern” and “Western” components. (1982, p. 3)

Somewhat later, French Jews orientalized Jews in Arab lands (dubbed at this point “Oriental”), as part of French colonial expansion into that part of the world (Rodrigue 1993).

Both orientalization-driven relationships simultaneously contained elements of exclusion and attempts to westernize the oriental group and bring it into the fold. But the balance differed, depending, I argue, on the type of contact between the western and the orientalized group. In Germany in the late 1800s, Jews’ still-shaky status as westerners was threatened by massive immigrations of these orientalized East European Jews (Aschheim 1982). Concerned that integration of so many Ostjuden would disrupt their acculturation process, German Jews reacted primarily with exclusion, funneling the would-be immigrants to the United States or Palestine (Aschheim 1982). In France, on the other hand, contact with Middle Eastern Jewish communities was probably less threatening. It took place physically outside of France, and, by constructing the interaction as facilitating the French colonial enterprise, French Jews were actually able to use the relationship to strengthen their own “Frenchness” (Rodrigue 1993). In this case, orientalization did not result primarily in exclusionary activities, but in missionary-style projects aimed at westernizing the Oriental population. French Jews formed the Alliance school system, an intensive and highly successful westernization enterprise.

Orientalization of East European Jews

The influence of Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) ideology on Eastern European Jewish communities and identities can be divided into two historical periods. In the late 1700s, students and businesspeople were exposed to the changing German self-conception (Fishman 1995). At that time, however, the Haskalah took root primarily in larger cities such as Odessa and Vilna (Goldscheider and Zuckerman 1984; Zipperstein 1985). Then, in the earlyto mid-1800s, two changes sped up the East European Haskalah. First, a new czar opened the social system to Jewish penetration (Greenberg 1944; Raisin 1913). Second, German and Germanized maskilim (proponents of the Haskalah) began orientalizing in earnest. They wrote a series of Yiddish novels whose intent was to show East European Jews the decaying and backward nature of their culture (Miron 1973; Rischin 1962). These novels, characterized by Rischin as “paper pogroms,” were very influential. As Goldscheider and Zuckerman (1984) put it, the “winds of change” had soon reached nearly everywhere.

And those winds meant acceptance of the stigma and the launching of westernization projects. Israel Singer, the brother of Isaac Bishevas Singer, wrote:

“See what Jews look like—stooped, despondent, living in filth. Watch them drag their feet as they walk. Listen to them speak. Its no wonder everyone else thinks of them as Asiatics. And how long do you think that Europe will stand for this clump of Asia in its midst?” (quoted in Selzer 1967, p. 35).

Substantively, both Jews and non-Jews, pro- and anti-Semites, Germans and East Europeans, agreed on the nature of Jewish deficiency. The filthy, chaotic, uncultured ghettos with their narrow twisty streets were prominent. The German Jew Zunz complained that the Hassidim (Jewish mystics) of Sklow “screamed and raved and sang like the savages of New Zealand” (Aschheim 1982, p. 14). East European maskilim requested that the Russian government outlaw Hassidic clothing (sidecurls and long black coats) (Selzer 1967) and urged Jews to speak local languages rather than “our corrupted jargon that grates on the ears and distorts” (Rabinowich 1861, reprinted in Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz 1980, p. 322). And the Ostjuden were attacked for their large families. Marx complained that Polish Jews bred “like lice” (Aschheim 1982), the anti-Semitic Vilna Journal reported that “in the same dwelling may be found four, five, or even six families, each of them having a number of children of tender age” (Quoted in Rischin 1962, p. 30), and in a Mendel Moicher Sforim story: “Observe the miserable conditions of the pauper, ... the way his wife lies pregnant, the way his children roll about, the way they are clothed, and the way they are raised” (quoted in Rischin 1962, p. 40). Further examples abound.

Eastern Authenticity, Western Futures, and Variation and Limitation in Reactions to Orientalization in Europe

European Jews did not react with one mind to their orientalization; rather, they responded with a variety of identity projects, including antiwesternization projects (Bayme 1981; Katz 1986) and romanticizing of the orient (Kramer 1999; Aschheim 1982). Nor would the stigmatized have seen themselves as an undifferentiated group of Orientals; in addition to the well-researched religious/secular division in Eastern Europe, numerous internal stratification systems would have either arisen or been reinterpreted along orientalist lines. Yet structuring the variety of responses and relationships, at least in Europe, was an opposition between Oriental authenticity and western modernity. Once a group had internalized the Oriental stigma, identity projects—whether advocating retention, transformation, or rejection of Jewish tradition—and relations with groups perceived as less western—whether vilifying them as culturally backward, romanticizing them as carriers of unspoiled culture, or both simultaneously—were organized around the diametric opposition of a new, modern, secular west and an old, traditional, religious east.

This is important because few westernization projects had full acculturation as their goal; on the contrary, most, including Zionism, aimed for a synthesis between “old” and “new.” But having also accepted the diametric opposition, most groups experimenting with synthesis wanted to be seen as fundamentally western with Oriental features, not as fundamentally Oriental. Several consequences are of interest. First, synthesis had to be undertaken with care, and delicate balances could be easily upset. Eyal (personal communication 1996) suggests that Jews became more adventurous in their synthesis when they were confident in their westernization. Thus later groups of German Jews built synagogues with Oriental architecture; similarly, early Zionists experimented with Arab dress and other forms of “Arabization.” Second, for westernizing Jews who wanted to connect to the past, preservation of other populations’ easternness may have become important (see Bhabha 1994 and Trinh 1989 for similar dynamics in the colonial context). Work on German Jewish romanticizing of the Ostjuden (Brenner 1996; Aschheim 1982) suggests such a dynamic, as does the combination in Israel of admiration for the purity and authenticity of Yemenite Jewry with exclusion from central areas of the country and economy (Segev 1986; Raz Krakotzkin 1998).

Finally, the reaction to at least one piece of the orientalization package differed significantly between western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, and may have been critical to interaction later in Israel. Secularization was correlated with westernization projects in all three areas. There was variation, however, on the extent to which differing levels of religious observance were translated into social movements and related to the larger task of acculturation. First, movements with formally articulated philosophical stances on how Jews should alter religious observance (such as Germany’s reform or conservative movement) emerged in Europe but not the Middle East. Westernizing Middle Eastern Jews did become less observant (Goldberg 1996), but there is evidence that they did not see religious change as necessary (Stillman 1995; Zohar 1986, 1996; Goldberg 1996) and may have even played it down to preserve communal unity.⁸ In Europe, in contrast, specific changes in religious thought and practice became highly salient, visible, and even requisite symbols of adherence to westernization projects. Haskalah thinkers placed the elimination of older forms of thought and practice high on the list of priorities and were often virulent in their attacks. As the Yiddish writer Aksenfeld proclaimed, “We must find instruments for ridiculing [the Hassidim] ... so that the common people will jeer at them in the streets” (Miron 1973, p. 53).

Orientalization of Middle Eastern Jews

The French interaction with Middle Eastern Jews is best understood within the larger history of western European colonization of the non-west. To manage conquered societies, colonizers often used previously marginalized ethnic groups as mediators between themselves and the mainstream of the conquered society. In return, the marginalized groups were provided with social and economic opportunities, and often themselves became pro-western elites. In the Arab world, Jews and Christians (collectively known as “Dhimma”) provided this marginalized population. Within this framework, French Jews used the Alliance school system, established in the 1860s, to reinforce their French and Jewish identities simultaneously. First, French Jews would advance the French cause by westernizing Arab Jews and developing them as an inroad for cultural colonialism. Second, they would help fellow Jews by teaching them the languages and skills that would enable them to take full economic advantage of the European presence in the Arab world. But there was a third goal as well. By westernizing this “Oriental” component of world Jewry, French Jews would be eliminating a potential source of embarrassment (Rodrigue 1993; Laskier 1983; Goldberg 1996).

The leaders of the Alliance network did orientalize Middle Eastern Jews, just as the German Jews had orientalized East European Jews. But, perhaps because Middle Eastern Jews were not threatening to immigrate into France as the Ostjuden were threatening to immigrate to Germany, French Jews did not react with exclusion. Rather, their goals were to “regenerate” the “degenerate” eastern Jews, to “shap[e]” them, and “inculcat[e] them with useful knowledge” (Levy 1892 reprinted in Stillman 1991, p. 204), such as reading, writing, and new languages (Yehuda 1996; Rodrigue 1993). As Middle Eastern students graduated, many traveled to Paris for further education and returned to teach in the schools themselves.

There were probably at least some differences in the perceived “orientalness” of Ostjuden and the Orientals (see also Wolff 1994 for the non-Jewish parallel). Nevertheless, the characterizations of the two orientalized populations are largely similar, and at least some western Jews consciously and explicitly connected the two populations. As late as 1927, Nahoum Slouschz, a traveler who arrived with the local rabbi to visit Libyan cave dwellers reported that “the most prominent men of the village took advantage of our presence to bring up for trial a dispute ... which was dividing the community ...—for all the world like an orthodox Polish community”⁹ (quoted in Stillman 1991, p. 217). Similarly, in his 1930 biography of Sabbati Zvi, the German Josef Kastein remarked that western Jews “regarded [Sabbateanism] from a more worldly, concrete, and political point of view than the Oriental and Polish Jews (Kastein 1931, p. 228).¹⁰

As with Eastern Europe, Jews from Arab countries initially took on westernization projects—in this case, adopting languages, institutional forms, and occupations—for practical reasons. Colonialism generated significant economic possibilities, including careers in colonial enterprises and international business opportunities (Stillman 1991; Goldberg 1996b). Eventually, however, many came to see themselves through their orientalizers’ eyes.¹¹ Westernization became a central goal, at least among the wealthy, educated, or urbanized. Kattan of 1940s Baghdad said, “The rich Jews never missed a chance to slip a few words of English or French into their conversation” (Kattan 1975, in Stillman 1991, p. 281). As a Francophone Tunisian wrote of his boyhood prior to World War I: “They had tried to give me some religious instruction. A rabbi, not too famished-looking and not too threadbare, would come to teach me to read the sacred books three times a week.... How rudimentary was the good man’s pedagogy, how mediocre his culture! Comparing him to my French teachers made him look ridiculous” (Stillman 1991, p. 252).

Jewish Orientalization of Arab Non-Jews

For all their progress, their European networks, and their fluency in western languages and culture, “there remained always the nagging suspicion that the process had not gone far enough, that the truly westernized self remained always at a remove, and could not be totally captured” (Rodrigue 1993). Just as German Jews had reacted to cultural insecurity by orientalizing East European Jews, so did many westernizing Middle Eastern Jews become invested in discursive and symbolic separation from their own Oriental other, Muslim Arabs. Over time, these groups developed identities in which, at the most extreme, Jewishness meant non-Arabness.¹² This move is important not just because it would later facilitate Middle Eastern Jewish acceptance of the Oriental stigma in Israel, but because it may have set the stage for orientalization of non-Jewish Arabs there as well. It thus adds another piece in the evolving relationship between Orientalism and social closure in Israel.

In this sense, it is significant that Jewish distance from Arabs appears to have been at least as important to French Jews as it was to westernizing Middle Eastern Jews. In fact, the first group to use the Arabs as foils was probably the French Enlightenment-oriented group.¹³ In their diaries and reports home, Alliance teachers underscored Middle Eastern Jewish success at westernization by pitting it against the continuing Oriental nature of the Arabs:

[T]he Arab has a plodding mind and is slow to comprehend; his religion and traditions make him a creature of habit and his ideas are desperately slow in changing. The Jew, on the other hand, now that he has been freed of the chains that had reduced him to the status of pariah through the ages, has suddenly taken flight.... Today [he] is a free man, capable of keeping step with the European in his dress, manners, and the development of his mind. (Rodrigue 1993, p. 218)

In an important variation on this theme, an Alliance secretary wrote in 1903 that “numerous communities have imitated the Arabs, who ... marry off their children at an age when they should still be sitting at school benches” (Bigart 1903, quoted in Stillman 1991, p. 200). In this case, Arabs are “blamed” for the Orientalness of the Oriental Jews, despite the fact that the orientalization package of European Jews also mentioned early marriage. In his turn of phrase, the Alliance secretary presents Oriental Jews as not truly of the Orient, but as some lost group that has only to find its true western self.

Westernizing Middle Eastern Jews then used the orientalization package in their ethnic struggles with Arabs. Said a Francophone Moroccan Jew in 1926: “Was it not Judaism which spread among the Berber tribes, bringing them the first glimmers of civilization?” (reprinted in Stillman 1991, p. 302). And in 1918 the Iraqi Jewish community used the dichotomy in a more subtle way, when its leaders requested that the British government restrict Arab political power in Iraq. The Arabs, they said, were too inexperienced “to undertake with success the management of their own affairs.” They would set up a religious, rather than a democratic, government, and since they had so few scientific institutions, they were unqualified. Conversely, the westernness of the Jews is suggested when the community leaders declare that their goals and orientations are commensurate with those of the British: “Two centuries of active commercial relations with Great Britain have slowly cemented a community of interests” (document reprinted in Stillman 1991, pp. 257–258).

ZIONISM AND THE ORIENT

Zionist ideas first began to appear in the late 1800s, as small segments of European Jews became convinced that the integration promised as a result of the Enlightenment would not be forthcoming. Borrowing from other nationalist movements in Europe, the Zionists argued that the respect Jews sought could be attained not by assimilating into European society but by striking out on their own, in their own country, building their own nationalist pride. This constituted a rejection of the Haskalah’s integration project and therefore had the potential to challenge the stigmatized identity adopted by European Jews. Instead, however, the stigma was embedded in the Zionist enterprise and traveled to Israel with the settlers.

Zionists were almost obsessed with creating a culture that was new, unaffected by the “medieval” religious culture most had only recently left behind (Zerubavel 1995; Even-Zohar 1981). The following quote from Lessing is even more startling because it comes from a pamphlet critiquing Jewish self-hatred: “Who you are? The son of the slovenly Jewish pedlar Nathan, would you think, and of lazy Sarah whom he had accidentally slept with? ... No! Judah Macabee was your father, Queen Esther your mother.... They have been there all the time and tomorrow their spirit could be revived” (1930, reprinted in Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz 1980, p. 238).

Lessing’s discomfort with Nathan and Sarah is acute, and he wants to make them disappear. But this escapism leaves Jews vulnerable. Because Nathan and Sarah are, in fact, part of the Jewish past, considerable energy would have to be spent constantly denying their existence.

That Zionists tried to replace the old culture with a new one is known, and much has been written about it (e.g., Penslar 1991; Even-Zohar 1981). What has not been articulated, except by Selzer (1967) and more recently by Raz Krakotzkin (1998), is the extent to which the Zionist transformation project was a westernization project, specifically. It is in Altneuland, written by Herzl, that this is most clear. In the story, Dr. Friedrich Loewenberg travels to Israel with his companion. He is disappointed. The town of Jaffa “was pitifully shabby.... The narrow alleys smelt to heaven; they were dirty and neglected, full of motley oriental misery.... A strange odor, as of mold and open graves, made breathing difficult” (Selzer 1967, p. 43). Jerusalem was no better: “Shouts, smells, tawdry colors, people in rags crowding the narrow airless streets, beggars, cripples, starveling children, screaming women, bellowing shopkeepers” (p. 43).

In other words, says Selzer, Israel was as Oriental as an East European Jewish ghetto. But in Altneuland, twenty years of Jewish stewardship changes Israel greatly. Haifa “looks just like America” (p. 46), and in Jerusalem, “modern suburbs had arisen” (p. 46), and the Jews had even widened and straightened the streets.

Zionism was in many ways a move directed toward Europe, a final bid for acceptance as equals in the European family. When Herzl wanted to “form a portion of the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism” (1896, reprinted in Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz 1980, p. 425), he was trying to place Jews on the European side of the fence, on the western side of the dichotomy, and to argue that the Jewish project and the European project were one and the same. Similarly, when Ben Gurion stated that “we do not want Israelis to become Arabs. We are duty bound to fight against the spirit of the Levant,” and Abba Eban argued that “the object should be to infuse the Sephardim with an Occidental spirit, rather than allow them to drag us into an unnatural Orientalism” (quoted in Shohat 1989, pp. 116–117), they also revealed the extent to which the Zionists were trying to establish themselves as the west’s outpost in the Middle East. Ahad Ha’am’s words, however, are the most startling: “What Herzl understood is that only by leaving Germany and settling in the Jewish state could the Jew finally become a real German” (Ilam 1998).¹⁴

But Zionism is a complicated ideology, and its stance toward the Oriental and toward Jewish tradition as part of the Oriental past was often complex and ambivalent. Zionism, after all, also sought to return Jews to their roots in the Middle East. Some Zionist strands romanticized and partially adopted the Arab way of life, as a model of a land-rooted peasant that was more appropriate to Israel than the models available in Europe (Eyal 2006). Nevertheless, argues Even-Zohar, these models were problematic precisely because they were also Oriental, and thus simultaneously “heroes, men of the soil ... [and] inferior and almost savage” (1981, p. 173). In a similar vein, Cordova (unpublished) argued that an internal movement aimed at fully adopting an Oriental identity did not succeed because it was too far out of the range of the Zionist discourse.¹⁵

Zionism in fact struggled with the same fundamental tension between stigmatized authenticity and new western identities that plagued most European Jewish identity projects. It brought Jews to their ancient roots in the east in order to westernize them; it advocated a revival of Jewish life and celebration of uniqueness, but saw Jewish tradition as incompatible with modernity (Zerubavel 1995). Zionists clearly wanted to integrate Judaism and the Middle East into Israeli culture, but these were handled like dangerous, potentially polluting substances, and maintaining control was key. One common strategy was to transform tradition into a series of symbols that would preserve the uniqueness of Jewish life and provide rallying points for Israeli unity, but leave Jews largely secular. An example is the Israeli flag, whose blue stripes are meant to symbolize the Jewish prayer shawl. The revival of Hebrew shows a similar concern with maintaining a delicate balance (Kimmerling 1997). The care with which these projects tried to combine tradition with continuing cultural connection with Europe is critical, because it was into this delicate balance that the massive immigrations of Jews from the Arab world arrive.

ORIENTALIZATION AND ETHNIC INTERACTION IN ISRAEL

With a deeper understanding of the meaning of westernness to European Jewish communities, we can take a closer look at the application of the east/ west dichotomy to the poststate immigrants to Israel. What stands out is the similarity between the German Jewish orientalization of the Ostjuden in Europe and the Ostjudisch orientalization of the Mizrahim in Israel less than a generation later. In orientalizing the Mizrahim, the Ostjuden simply took the arsenal of images and symbols that had been used to exclude them, and applied them wholesale and nearly unchanged to the Mizrahim. They thus presented themselves as the westerners that they had, up until that point, never been.

In Israel, ethnic difference in Zionist philosophy and orientation is one of the most commonly raised examples of the easternness of the Mizrahim, as well as one of the most effective justifications for Ashkenazi supremacy. The common conception is that Mizrahim, being nonwestern and thus not self-consciously philosophical, were not intellectually Zionist. Rather, their Zionism is understood to have emerged from their deeply religious orientation, to have been felt but not thought, inspired by mystical and messianic tendencies (e.g., Eisenstadt 1967). This construction is, internally, a powerful justification for Ashkenazi dominance in Israeli politics; the argument is that Ashkenazim, being the better Zionists, were uniquely qualified for stewardship of the state. Following, however, is a 1920s description of the Zionism of the Ostjuden, according to Nordau, a prominent Zionist thinker: “[Nordau] distinguished the Western Zionism of the ‘educated and free Jewish elite’ from the East European version. There the attachment to the Zionism of the uneducated tradition-bound masses was a matter of instinct rather than of reasoned reflection; they were still partly influenced by ‘mystical tendencies.’ ” (Aschheim 1982, p. 87).

Herzl, another prominent Zionist leader, made similar comments after speaking to a gathering of Eastern European Zionists in 1896 (Hertzberg 1984). In fact, Herzl remained deeply disdainful of the Eastern European Zionists throughout his career (Goldstein 1986).

Orientalization in Israel also focused on Mizrahi education. It was portrayed as religious rather than intellectual, with children taught by rote in large, uncontrolled classes, by teachers “whose only method of teaching is the whip” (Organization for Youth Immigration in Morocco and Algeria, 1950, quoted in Segev 1986, p. 110). These descriptions parallel Enlightenment descriptions of the European heder, as described by Aschheim: “This institution, above all others, was held to be at the root of the ‘distortions’ of Eastern Jewry [i.e., Ostjuden]. Dark, dank, overcrowded, chaotic, as indeed it was, it was here that the seeds of spiritual and physical degeneration were sown” (1982, p. 19).

Other important parallels exist as well. Just as the peddler, dark, shiftyeyed, and dishonest, was the symbol of the degenerate Ostjude (Aschheim 1982; Avineri 1981; Katz 1973), so was the peddler regularly invoked to demonstrate the backwardness of Mizrahi immigrants. In 1951 Gelblum (discussed in Chapter 3) wrote of recent immigrants from Morocco, “They all say that in Africa they were ‘merchants.’ What they really mean is they were peddlers. And they all want to settle in the city [as opposed to development towns]. What can be done with them? How are they to be absorbed?” (Segev 1986, p. 160). The status of women, the extent of rabbinical authority, and early marriage were also cited as problems with both the Ostjuden and the Mizrahim. Finally, Israeli scholarly and media publications constantly evoked the large families of the Mizrahim (Kraus and Hodge 1990; Smooha and Kraus 1985; Ginor 1979) as a primary source of ethnic disadvantage in Israel, despite the statistical weakness of this effect (Kraus and Hodge 1990).

A PLAUSIBLE STORY

While the quick reversal may help to classify the formation of ethnic inequality in Israel as a process of exclusion, it cannot explain why Israel’s gatekeepers would have used the Orientalist discourse, specifically, to draw lines around groups of arriving immigrants or why, having used the Orientalist discourse, they would not exclude Egyptians or Iraqis. The history of stigma, by connecting social closure to processes of self-classification and their consequences, explains this choice and adds a new dimension to the complicated story of ethnic formation and exclusion in Israel. The care with which Ashkenazi groups, from maskilim to Zionists, sought to balance their eastern heritages with their western futures, and the ferocity with which they often fought each other over this balance, shows how tricky their project was and how easily it could get out of control.

A passage from Segev’s The First Israelis (1986) demonstrates how high the stakes were. On the first anniversary of Israeli independence, a parade was planned. The crowd was huge and unruly, and at some point a scuffle broke out.

Among the scufflers were some who held tickets to the guest podium—government Ministers, Members of the Zionist Executive, Members of the Knesset and foreign diplomats. A judge was seen to climb over a barrier, a foreign ambassador leapt over benches. By the time they all reached the platform, it was already filled. A senior officer was seated in the place of an Ambassador’s wife and refused to vacate it. A Consul took the place of a Minister’s wife. The Minister’s Director General tried to help her, but the Consul was stronger than he. Everybody was shouting and cursing and waving their invitations....

The following day Maariv’s chief editor, Azriel Karlebach, wrote that people wept like children with bitter disappointment, fury and shame “about the disgrace, about the impression abroad, about the disorders and failure, the demonstration of our incapacity on the day of our strength.” (Segev 1986, p. 266)

The incident, as described by Segev, can be seen as one of the first opportunities for public self-presentation to the European “normals” since the establishment of the state. Most of the honored guests would have been veteran Ashkenazim, many of whom had been once orientalized by the very people they were trying to impress. That lack of decorum—a central orientalizing characteristic since the German Enlightenment—made the moment a failure, and the level of shame that resulted from this failure demonstrates again how important it was to veterans to be seen as western in the eyes of the now physically distant western Europeans.

For these uncertain Israelis, the Jews from Arab countries, whatever contact with the west they might have had, were frighteningly Oriental. They were dark, they had large families, their language had the guttural characteristics that German maskilim had carefully removed from the Hebrew language, and they adhered to a form of religious practice that in Europe was one of the stronger and more meaningful markers of prewesternization lifestyles. This left the state’s elite torn between two identity projects. On the one hand, they were deeply invested in westernization, and the massive influx of Jews from the Levant, as they saw it, could drag Jewish society back to its not-at-all-distant Oriental state. On the other hand, deeply committed to free immigration of all Jews—as well as hoping to make the new Orientals the state’s Jewish laborers (see Chapter 3)—they could not solve the problem by restricting immigration from the Middle East. Intent on incorporating the new immigrants without losing ground on the westernization project, they resolved the dilemma by integrating the most Oriental of the Middle Easterners into the margins of Israeli society, where their impact on the emerging culture and society would be minimal.

This argument predicts both salience of the binary categories in the treatment of the 1950s immigrants and a certain amount of flexibility. The flexibility is inherent in the prevailing belief that easterners can become western and that such transformations will be reflected in a specific set of behavioral characteristics. The hypothesis that one can draw from this history is that gatekeepers were concerned about the effect Mizrahim, as a group, would have on the emerging society and tended to exclude them because of that concern. But they would not want to exclude Mizrahim who did not appear to threaten Israel’s ability to identify with Europe. The relevance of a very consistent set of characteristics in symbolizing easternness and westernness in Jewish discourses is an advantage for a quantitative work such as this book, because it means that the concepts can be validly measured with variables that are often standard for surveys. It is to that task that I turn now.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Cultural Capital

One of the more salient points to come out of the historical analysis in the previous chapter is that for the Ashkenazim who became Israel’s gatekeepers, a specific set of characteristics marked individuals as less desirable participants in the western, modern core being constructed for the new society. Among those characteristics were large families, speaking Yiddish, certain forms of religious thought, women who married early, and an assortment of other behavioral traits such as haggling, being loud, or wearing traditional clothing. Conversely, not having these traits, or having direct knowledge of western European institutions and behavioral forms, marked one as desirable and capable of upholding the western, modern, European image veterans wanted to create. The preceding chapter also showed that Jews knew of this list of Oriental/western markers across a range of countries of origin, subcultures, or even stances on the desirability of becoming western. This means that once in Israel, even if veteran gatekeepers and new immigrants spoke different actual languages, they often spoke a common cultural language. One implication of this common cultural language is that when veterans articulated a need to prevent Levantinization, most Jews knew what they meant. Moreover, immigrants could both anticipate this tendency to marginalize and know which cultural displays would mark them as nonthreatening.

These shared definitions of Oriental and western also make it possible to empirically assess Chapter 6’s hypothesis that fear of Levantinization explains why ethnic closure occurred among Jews in Israel. Since we know what characteristics would make an immigrant appear eastern or western to gatekeepers, we also know who should have been included and who excluded under a Levantinization dynamic. Put simply, Mizrahim who could prove westernness were by definition not a Levantinization threat. Thus, if fear of Levantinization was the underlying reason for social closure against Mizrahim, Mizrahim whose characteristics marked them as western should not have experienced discrimination. Conversely, if gatekeepers discriminated against Mizrahim at all, it should have been only against Mizrahim who could not prove progress on Jewish cultural change projects.

This is nice because the alternative argument from the literature—that gatekeepers engaged in social closure to monopolize resources for Ashkenazim—implies a different pattern of exclusion. Westernized Mizrahim were more educated than nonwesternized Mizrahim and therefore more likely to seek high status jobs and other scarce and valued resources. Thus, although they did not pose a Levantinization threat, they did pose a threat to Ashkenazi resource monopolization. So although a Levantinization perspective implies that only Mizrahim who could not prove westernness were excluded, a resource monopolization perspective implies that all Mizrahim were excluded. I already made the argument in earlier chapters that treating Iraqis like Ashkenazim does not make sense if resource monopolization is the goal, since Iraqis—who not only were the largest group of Mizrahi immigrants but also were well educated, organized, and living in central areas of the country—presented the most significant threat to Ashkenazi monopolization of resources. Treating Iraqis like Ashkenazim does, however, make sense from a Levantinization perspective, because exposure to western European institutions and behavioral forms appears to have been widespread among Iraqi Jews (Alcalay 1993; Yehuda 1996; see Khazzoom 1999 for full discussion). What remains to be seen in this chapter is whether it can be empirically shown that the reason Iraqis obtained Ashkenazi-level returns to education is that a critical mass of individuals appeared western.

WESTERNNESS AS CULTURAL CAPITAL; CULTURAL CAPITAL AS PERFORMANCE

In sociological thought, lifestyle markers such as those in the orientalization package constitute cultural capital. Lamont and Lareau define cultural capital as “widely shared, high status cultural signals … used for social and cultural selection” (1988, p. 156). The use of the word capital reflects the argument that some cultural practices can be used to, essentially, “buy” higher status positions. Though Lamont and Lareau’s definition focuses on cultural practices that signal class background, Chapter 6 showed that cultural practice can also signal ethnic background (see also Yogev 1987; Hall 1992; Kibria 2000), or, in this case, one’s progress on a shared project of making Jews culturally similar to European non-Jews. The story of Na’im, a male immigrant from Iraq, illustrates how an immigrant’s display of shared symbols of cultural advancement and a prospective employer’s appreciation of such symbols might lead to the acquisition of higher status occupations in 1950s Israel.¹

In 1950, Na’im and his wife, Mazal, arrived in Israel from Baghdad, Iraq. Na’im was a bookkeeper with eight years of education. To get a job as a bookkeeper in Israel, Na’im would have to take a test in Hebrew, but he had minimal knowledge of the language. While he worked on obtaining a license, he opened up a fruit stand in the Carmel outdoor market in Tel Aviv. Unlike the rest of those in the market, who would change the price of the fruit depending on the customer, he wrote his prices neatly on square pieces of cardboard next to every type of produce. One day, an Ashkenazi woman came by and complimented him on the organization of his stand. She asked him if he would put together for her a selection of fruits and vegetables and have it ready when she got back. He did so, calculated the price, and wrote it on the bag. The woman was again impressed with his organization and asked him to do this every day. He never cheated this woman, easy as it might have been, and he always gave her the best produce.

In the meantime, Na’im met a woman who helped him pass his bookkeeping test. He received a license as a grade B bookkeeper but was unable to find a job. He felt that the mostly Ashkenazi firms in Tel Aviv didn’t want to hire an Iraqi. He was also finding it very hard to work in the Carmel market because the winter was wet and cold and he had always been used to a desk job. One day, when the Ashkenazi woman came by to get her produce, she noted that he looked very sad and asked why. He told her that he felt he would have to give up his stand. She asked what he had done before moving to Israel, and he told her he was a bookkeeper. It turned out that she was an accountant, and she asked if he had passed his Israeli exams. When he told her that he had qualified as a grade B bookkeeper, she said her firm was looking for a grade A bookkeeper but that he should show up in a week and she would give him the job. He got that job as a grade A bookkeeper. Many of the other workers there were suspicious of him at first—they were all Ashkenazi—but when they saw that he was clean, quiet, and organized, they relaxed.

Na’im believes that it was his decorum, lack of haggling, and organization that caused an Ashkenazi gatekeeper to notice him and give him a job (with an instant promotion!), while other Ashkenazim—who were not privy to his pricing strategies—ignored him. It is worth stressing the performative aspect of this interaction. The Carmel market is known as an Oriental space, in which haggling is an integral part of the experience. Thus in using set prices Na’im was going against the grain, distinguishing himself from others in his environment. That Na’im did this consciously and purposefully is suggested by the prominence he himself gives to his set prices in his recollections. Moreover, as a graduate of the Alliance French school in Iraq, he was certainly exposed to the idea that standardized prices marked the western.

It is important to attend to what Na’im was buying with his cultural performance. He arrived with the class background and educational qualifications for a bookkeeper’s job, and what he purchased with cultural capital was the ability to have this background considered seriously by an Ashkenazi gatekeeper. Even further, prior to his performance, his occupation as a booth operator in an open market was consistent with Moroccan or Yemenite returns to education (see Figure 5.1), while after his performance his final occupational outcome was brought more in line with the Iraqi educational slope in Figure 5.1. Thus it was his ability to perform westernness that moved Na’im from an outcome expected for Moroccans and Yemenites to one expected for Iraqis.

PLAUSIBLE STORY AND EMPIRICAL HYPOTHESES

Building on this anecdote and the history reviewed in the preceding chapter, one can articulate the following specific scenario for the 1950s Israeli labor market. The majority of prestate Ashkenazi elites wanted to produce Israel as “part of the rampart of Europe against Asia” and avoid Levantinization. They therefore sought to staff high status jobs and residential locations in Israel’s physical center—which tend to be visible and to establish a country’s reputation abroad—with people who were not only educated and skilled but also capable of supporting a western, European, or modern image. Similarly, gatekeepers believed that the less educated and the eastern were more appropriately placed in low status jobs and in residential locations in the geographical periphery, both of which tend to be hidden but which provided the manpower for the economy to function and for the new state’s borders to be institutionalized.² In this way, gatekeepers distributed occupations and residential locations with an eye to maintaining the hegemony of a culture that reflected ideals established during the Jewish Enlightenment, not, as argued in prior work, with an eye to maintaining Ashkenazi monopolization of resources.

To give high status occupations only to those who are both western and highly educated is to create a situation in which Orientals obtain no returns to education while westerners obtain some returns. Thus, a first assertion is that immigrants who seemed Oriental to employers obtained lower returns to education than those who seemed to be western. But how might employers determine who was Oriental? One possibility is that they evaluated each immigrant separately. However, this would be unusual for a labor market, and some form of statistical discrimination—i.e., using an individual’s group membership to make a guess as to an immigrant’s Orientalness—is expected. Given the historical dynamic of categorization in Jewish societies, it is likely that employers used geographic origin to make educated guesses about who was and was not Oriental. And although the literature is not entirely clear, it suggests that gatekeepers would have used a binary scheme that cast European Jews as a single, non-Oriental group and Middle Eastern Jews as a single, Oriental group. Of course, we need not rely on the literature alone, since the empirical results in this chapter will also provide information on what categories were salient; this initial hypothesis is generated in order to structure the following analysis.

Thus, an amended first assertion is that gatekeepers had a “default” tendency to read Mizrahim as Oriental, regardless of country of origin, and therefore limit the returns to education that Mizrahim could obtain. This is consistent with Na’im’s belief that Ashkenazi employers did not want to hire an Iraqi, even after he had completed his Israeli qualifying exams. It is worth stressing what this means for one of the major questions of this book: whether gatekeepers distributed resources according to the dichotomous Mizrahi/Ashkenazi distinction. The answer here is yes; without some kind of intervention, gatekeepers had a tendency to distribute resources according to the binary categories. Moreover, if gatekeepers initially read all Jews from Muslim countries as Oriental, then not only were the dichotomous categories in use, but they were also basic to gatekeeper thought.

Na’im did finally find a gatekeeper who was open to his ability to prove himself non-Oriental, and once she was aware of his standard prices she gave him more than full returns to his prior attainments. This, I argued above, is a critical test of a Levantinization argument: if Levantinization is the source of the impulse to exclude Mizrahim, then once that fear is assuaged, exclusion should not occur. Thus, a second assertion is that when Mizrahim had characteristics that would enable them to market themselves as western, they obtained returns to education that were similar to those of Ashkenazim. In Na’im’s case, this took some time, but by 1961 even the latest arrivals had had about two and half years to raise their returns to education through performing westernness.

The third assertion has to do with which western characteristics would enable a Mizrahi immigrant to avoid discrimination. The dynamic outlined by Na’im is performative; it was not his being western that altered his returns to education but his ability to convince a gatekeeper that he was, by displaying his westernness in a compelling way. However, not all markers of westernization could be easily displayed. The age at which a woman married, for example, was a highly meaningful indicator of her and her family’s cultural advancement in Jewish discourses. But a male immigrant who sent in a résumé or appeared at the office of a bank manager to seek a job would have a hard time bringing his wife’s or sister’s age of marriage to the bank manager’s attention. Other characteristics would be much easier to communicate, such as facility with a western European language, attendance at a “modern” or Europhillic school, or, in the case of a personal interaction, knowledge of European fashions and basic manners. Thus the third assertion is that only “performable” characteristics should distinguish between the Mizrahim who obtained lower returns to education and those who obtained higher; other characteristics that had meaning as markers of cultural progress but were hard to display are not expected to alter ethnic hierarchies in returns to education.

These are the three assertions I test in this chapter. To do so, I reproduce Figure 5.1 (returns to education by country of origin) for groups of immigrants with different abilities to prove westernness.³ The analytical question is, what happens to the country gaps in returns to education that were observed in Figure 5.1 when we attend to whether or not an immigrant had performable western characteristics? The three assertions made above can be summarized as three specific hypotheses:

First, if gatekeepers took a default stance based on the dichotomous categories (i.e., that all Jews from Muslim countries pose Levantinization threats while Jews from Christian countries do not), then:

Hypothesis 1: Among those with no western cultural capital (i.e., no ability to prove westernness), immigrants from all Ashkenazi countries will obtain higher returns to education than immigrants from all Mizrahi countries.

Second, if gatekeepers included Mizrahim who appeared western, then:

Hypothesis 2: Among those with cultural capital (i.e., those able to prove westernness) there will be little to no ethnic difference in returns to education.

Third, if the dynamic is performative, then:

Hypothesis 3: Hypothesis 2 will be true only for western characteristics that are easily displayed. Western characteristics that are not easily displayed should not affect the ethnic hierarchy in returns to education.

This scenario—we can call it Na’im’s scenario—is both consistent with dichotomization theory and requires adjustment to it. It is consistent for three reasons: (1) it posits that the dichotomous construct was the baseline framework that gatekeepers used to evaluate immigrants, (2) it posits close connections between the dichotomous construct and the Orientalist discourse, and (3) it posits that in using the Orientalist discourse to classify immigrants, gatekeeper perceptions were not always in line with “real” levels of westernization. It requires adjustment to dichotomization theory in that it highlights culturally based exceptions to the rule of binary discrimination and therefore the ideological, identity-based sources of gatekeeper choices.

THE VARIABLES

To what extent can something as complex as the ability to appear western be measured in a large survey such as the census? Westernizing and modernizing Jews invested a long list of behaviors with symbolic importance and many were not measured. Na’im’s strategy of consistent pricing, for example, was not measured, nor were quietness, the tendency to bargain, or knowledge of European fashions. However, while the census does not provide all desirable variables, it does provide a solid set that reflects the most central indicators described in Chapter 6. The variables are described generally below. Means and correlations are given in Appendices 3 and 4, and case numbers are given in Appendices 8 and 9.

Western Language Primacy and Yiddish Primacy

In all countries of origin, acquisition of western European languages was evidence of exposure to the west. The census asked immigrants which language they spoke most often after Hebrew, and I coded those answering French, German, English, Dutch, and so forth, as reporting western language primacy. At the other end of the spectrum from western languages, Yiddish, long held as an indicator of incomplete cultural change, could flag European Jews who would appear unsuited to the modern western society that gatekeepers wanted to create.

In both cases, it is helpful that the census asked about language primacy rather than skills. Regarding Yiddish, many assimilated European Jews knew Yiddish, and what marked unassimilated Jews was not knowledge of Yiddish, per se, but not being integrated enough into the host society to speak other European languages most of the time. Regarding French, it was a common complaint of gatekeepers that Moroccan Jews pretended to speak French when they really knew only a few words. Given the value of French as a cultural indicator, it is unlikely that Moroccan Jews reported French primacy only when they spoke it most often. However, it is likely that they reported French primacy if they were fluent.

There is, however, a methodological wrinkle regarding the western language primacy variable: in Israel some white collar jobs required western language skills; thus, immigrants who spoke them are expected to have higher Israeli prestige even without a westernization dynamic. This can make it seem invalid to use western language primacy as an indicator of how western an immigrant appeared to prospective employers. However, as it turns out, the main effect of western languages was to bring Moroccan and Egyptian returns to education up to Ashkenazi levels. This is helpful because Moroccans and Egyptians tended to speak French, while Israeli jobs tended to require English or even German rather than French (in addition, recall from Chapter 4 that when veteran employers spoke western languages themselves they also tended to speak English and German, not French). Thus, although French probably did have some practical utility, it was also the least practical western language one could have in Israel, suggesting that its effect in reducing ethnic inequalities was primarily about rewarding immigrants for exposure to western Europe, not for having scarce jobs skills.

Family Formation Scale

The census provides a number of gender and family formation variables that we saw in the previous chapter, including number of children (recall that Polish families “bred like lice”), wife’s age at first marriage (which references the child bride issue), age and educational differences between husband and wife (which references education of women and the general issue of male domination), and percent of children who passed away before age five (which references hygiene and access to modern medical care, and took on even greater symbolic importance in Israel; see Segev 1986; Ginor 1979).⁴ On all these indicators Ashkenazim were more likely than Mizrahim to resemble Enlightenment images of westernized and modernized individuals, and as we saw in Chapter 4, there tended to be large Mizrahi/ Ashkenazi differences in this set of characteristics and little country difference within the binary categories.

To reduce the number of variables in the equations, I made a scale from three of these gender and family formation indicators (others were statistically redundant) by counting the number of indicators on which an immigrant resembled or surpassed the average Ashkenazi. Thus an immigrant received one point if his wife had as few or fewer children than the average Ashkenazi, had as low or lower a percentage of children who passed away before the age of five, or was married at or higher than the average Ashkenazi woman’s age of first marriage. The scale therefore ranges from 0 to 3, with 0 meaning that the immigrant had no indicators of progress on Jewish cultural change projects and 3 meaning that he had all three. In regression equations the scale is either as good as or slightly better than the three components separately in accounting for variation in Israeli occupational prestige (Appendix 8).

Education Was Not Heder or Yeshiva

Finally, the census asked immigrants if they attended heder or yeshiva (religious educational institutions associated with pre-Enlightenment life). This variable is particularly important. Recall Aschheim’s words about the heder from the previous chapter: “This institution, above all others, was held to be at the root of the ‘distortions’ of Eastern Jewry. Dark, dank, overcrowded, chaotic, as indeed it was, it was here that the seeds of spiritual and physical degeneration were sown” (1982, p. 19).

Similarly, autobiographies of early European maskilim normally cast leaving the heder or yeshiva community as the first step on the road to Enlightenment (Mintz 1989; Miron 1973). Of course, like speaking a western language, having a secular education had practical value in addition to its value as a symbol of westernization.⁵ Even as late as 1950, some religious institutions did not offer standard secular subjects such as math and science, making their graduates less prepared for employment in a modern industrialized society. However, the question of this chapter is not whether school type affected attainment, per se, but whether it affected ethnic differences in attainment. As it turns out, among those with heder educations, immigrants from all Ashkenazi countries obtained higher returns to education than immigrants from all Mizrahi countries. Thus, the practical utility of a non-heder education is an issue only if we can argue that hadarim in Poland, the Soviet Union, or Romania were either more likely to offer secular subjects or more compliant with Jewish cultural changes projects than hadarim in Iraq, Morocco, or Yemen. In such a case, discrimination against Mizrahim could be attributed to practical concerns rather than Levantinization.

Not only does the secondary literature not support an assertion that Ashkenazi hadarim were more likely to offer secular subjects or access to putative western culture, but it actually suggests the opposite. As noted in Chapter 6, Middle Eastern religious leaders perceived little antipathy between religion and secular subjects, while East European hadarim and yeshivot were often centers of antisecular and antiwestern ideology (Stillman 1995). Thus, Ashkenazi hadarim may have been the ones most likely to produce graduates who were nonwestern and less prepared for jobs in modern economies. Moreover, as it turns out, we care about this issue for Iraq more than other Mizrahi countries, since among the heder-educated, Iraqis had lower returns to education than Ashkenazim and among the secularly educated they had similar returns to Ashkenazim. According to Meir’s encyclopedic collection of curricula and other information about Jewish schools in Iraq, all religious institutions were licensed by the Jewish community, even if they involved just a man teaching some students in his home, and all public Hadarim were required to offer secular subjects. Similarly, Yehuda (1996) found that Jewish communal leaders had fostered intensive modernization programs for all Jewish schools in Iraq, including all religious schools, for about a century prior to the immigration. Thus, at least for Iraqis, hadarim and yeshivot should have been at minimum on par with those in Russia, Poland, and Romania, and differences in returns among those with heder or yeshiva educations are likely due to something other than objective preparation for jobs in a modern industrial society.

Judeo-Spanish Primacy

Finally, I added another variable to the mix: Judeo-Spanish primacy. Judeo-Spanish, spoken primarily by Moroccans in this sample, was associated with a high status, Sephardic (Spanish) background, but not specifically with westernness. The variable thus provides a way to distinguish between individuals whose cultural capital signaled class background and those whose cultural capital signaled progress on Jewish westernization projects.

Measuring Performability

Some of the characteristics described above are harder to display than others, making it possible to address Na’im’s implication that westernness had to be performed. Such factors as family size, age difference between husband and wife, or percentage of children who have passed away are harder to communicate to a potential employer than speaking a western language or having a secular education. Western languages are particularly easy to mobilize; one has merely to “forget” a Hebrew word and substitute a French or German one instead, and telling a tale about a French teacher who got lost in the twisty streets of Casablanca would be an effective way for a prospective employee to communicate knowledge of perceived differences between the Oriental and the western. Similarly, type of education would be a standard question for a job interview. Thus, to the extent that the family formation scale does not alter ethnic hierarchies in returns to education, while school type and western language primacy do, it can be said that westernness had to be performed in order for it to attenuate gatekeepers’ discriminatory impulses.

Interpretive Issues Regarding the Cultural Capital Variables as a Group

In Israeli scholarship, the modernization and human capital perspectives popularized by Eisenstadt (1967) still have currency (Rebhun and Waxman 2004). Modernization perspectives are in tension with cultural capital perspectives in that they posit westernized immigrants as objectively superior employees for a modern industrialized society, while the postcolonial perspective I am using posits “east” and “west” as constructs that are somewhere between exaggerations of reality and outright distortions. Thus a modernization perspective sees sorting immigrants on westernness as a meritocratic process, similar to sorting individuals on prior education or occupational skills, while a postcolonial perspective sees sorting on westernness as another form of ethnic discrimination.

This tension between westernness as legitimate and westernness as imagined cannot be resolved with the data at hand. However, it is largely irrelevant. For the Israeli case, showing that westernness played a role in the occupational attainment of the immigrants is an empirical advance, regardless of how the results are interpreted. Similarly, the preceding chapter’s argument that gatekeeper concerns over westernization were rooted in a Jewish history of stigma and westernization is important to understanding how Israeli society formed and how people interacted with one another in the 1950s, again regardless of whether one feels that attention to westernization was practical and necessary or unfortunate historical accident. Finally, lack of discrimination against Mizrahim who could prove westernness implies that social closure occurred because gatekeepers wanted to keep the country western rather than because they wanted to monopolize resources, again regardless of whether one interprets attention to westernization as meritocratic or discriminatory. This last point is particularly important; the race/ethnicity literature as a whole has few accepted examples of how social closure might be driven by cultural concerns, making the Israeli case critical, again regardless of one’s evaluation of the specific cultural concerns that drove social closure.

A second issue of interpretation is that, as one can see from Appendix 3, some indicators of westernization were unevenly distributed across countries of origin. In the case of language, this occurs because westernness was manifested differently in different countries of origin. For example, 20% of Moroccans reported western language primacy, as opposed to only 2% of Iraqis, but few scholars would argue that Moroccans were more westernized than Iraqis.⁶ The difference likely occurs because French colonizers were more concerned than British colonizers with teaching their language to natives of the societies they conquered. In both Iraq and Morocco, Jews accessed European culture through schools that taught western languages; thus, westernized Moroccans and Iraqis should be equally likely to report western language fluency. However, with a sustained French colonial presence, Francophile Moroccan Jews had more opportunity to speak French outside of school than Francophile Iraqi Jews, and more motivation to convert their families completely to speaking French. Thus, westernized Moroccans would be more likely to report western language primacy than similar Iraqis.⁷ Technically, this means that regression equations are expected to show less discrimination against Iraqi Arabic speakers than Moroccan Arabic speakers, but this is because the census’s variable is better at isolating westernized Moroccans than Iraqis, not because gatekeepers favored Iraqis.

In the particular case of western language primacy, I handle the problem by including Egyptians in the analysis, among whom western European influence was also high (Kramer 1989), and 47% of whom report French primacy. French influence was more similar in Morocco and Egypt than in Morocco and Iraq but gatekeepers considered Egyptians and Iraqis to be similarly good “human material” in contrast to strikingly Levantine Moroccans. This makes Egyptians a good stand-in for Iraqis when it comes to asking how western language primacy affected attainment. This chapter avoids the more general problem of country variation in the meanings of specific indicators by considering a group of cultural capital variables. Although a single variable might not measure westernness equally across groups, the set as a whole does. That is, we can state with confidence that Ashkenazim with no measured cultural capital—i.e., who were educated in a heder, spoke Yiddish, had large families, and had a large age difference between husband and wife—were about as noncompliant with Jewish westernization projects as Mizrahim with the same characteristics (minus, of course, the Yiddish). Similarly, Ashkenazim and Mizrahim were about equally compliant when they were secularly educated, had small families, had wives who were relatively older at marriage, and spoke western languages most often. As it turns out, among the first group—those with no cultural capital—returns to education followed the binary classification system, while among the second group—those with full cultural capital—there were nearly no country differences in returns to education. Findings for those with some forms of cultural capital but not others are more complex, but that complexity does not undermine the basic point that the binary classification scheme was salient among those with no cultural capital and that there was minimal ethnic differentiation among those with full cultural capital.

The final issue is that in all nonwestern countries of origin (including eastern Europe), the upper classes had more access to westernization than the lower classes and were more likely to be educated in secular institutions or to have smaller families. Thus, the cultural capital variables might signal not only westernization but also class status; similarly there is considerable slippage between what symbolized the western, what symbolized the modern, and what symbolized the European.

This is not, however, a problem, for two reasons. First, it is faithful to the way people thought. Jewish cultural change projects were often as much about copying the behavior of the European bourgeoisie—i.e., of a particular class within Europe—as they were about becoming European, per se, and while Jews may have sometimes separated westernness and modernity, they largely thought the first implied the second. The focus of this chapter is not to untangle the strands of these multifaceted cultural projects, but rather to locate the individual characteristics that referenced them, in all of their complexity, and ask whether their possession affected ethnic hierarchies in returns to education. Second, regardless of this mixing of class and ethnic signals, the cultural factors discussed in this chapter had distinctly ethnic connotations. From the maskilim to Israeli social science and popular discourses, religiosity and especially family characteristics were identified as ethnic (i.e., east/west), not class, differentiators. (For early and late examples of academic research see Patai 1953; Shama and Iris 1977; Ginor 1979; Yaish 2005; for analysis see Tsur 2002.) Similarly, speaking a western language marked one as having had direct exposure to western European institutions and cultural forms, regardless of the effect of class on that access. For correlations between class and the cultural capital variables, please see Appendix 4.

RESULTS

Figure 7.1 presents returns to education for immigrants with varying levels of cultural capital. The equations used to produce these graphs are in Appendix 10. Three points about presentation are in order. First, as noted, I added Egypt to the analysis in order to help interpret the findings regarding western languages. Second, when a country provided fewer than fifty cases with particular combinations of cultural capital, it was not represented in that graph. Third, some lines in these graphs are shorter than others because I estimated Israeli occupational prestige only for those values of education that fell within the middle 90% of the distribution of the group being represented. Finally, because family formation turned out to have little effect on ethnic hierarchies in returns to education, I estimated a separate set of equations that did not include it. Graphs from these equations verify that groups that have been left out of Figure 7.1 because there were not enough cases would not change the story told by Figure 7.1.

Figure 7.1. Effect of cultural capital variables on ethnic gaps in returns to education. Calculated for men who arrived at age 40, using median prestige abroad, arrived in 1950.

Reading from left to right and top to bottom, the six graphs in this figure show the effect of increasingly strong cultural capital on the ethnic hierarchy in returns to education. The first graph, Figure 7.1a, predicts Israeli prestige for those with no capital—that is, for those with religious educations, with family formation scores of 0, who spoke Yiddish (Ashkenazim only), and who did not speak western languages. The next graph, Figure 7.1b, shows returns for immigrants with the same characteristics, except that the family formation score has been increased to 1.⁸ Figure 7.1c removes the Yiddish stipulation (i.e., Ashkenazim speak local languages). Figure 7.1d increases the family formation score to 2, Figure 7.1e changes religious to secular educations, and Figure 7.1f changes speaking local languages to speaking a western language. One graph was not added for reasons of space; it shows that among French-speaking Moroccans, returns to education of the secularly and religiously educated were similar to each other.⁹

Overview of Findings from Figure 7.1

As a group, these graphs support all three components of Na’im’s scenario. First, among immigrants who did not have any cultural capital to display, Mizrahim got low status jobs, including well-educated Mizrahim and including Iraqis (Figures 7.1a–d). Second, among immigrants who had full cultural capital to display, there were few country differences in returns to education (Figure 7.1f).¹⁰ Third, cultural capital that was hard to mobilize did not affect ethnic hierarchies in returns to education (though it did often affect returns to education themselves; compare Figures 7.1a–d).¹¹,¹² In all, Na’im’s contention that he couldn’t get his skills recognized until he had a chance to demonstrate westernness is consistent with the data, as is his contention that once he did demonstrate westernness he no longer experienced discrimination. Or, to connect these findings more directly to the arguments in Chapter 6, these graphs suggest that the people who were discriminated against in the labor market were not Mizrahim, per se, but Mizrahim who were unable to prove westernness.

What Does Figure 7.1 Prove, and What Does It Imply?

Having established the overall correspondence between Figure 7.1 and Na’im’s view of things, it is worth distinguishing more specifically between what Figure 7.1 proves and what, in line with the historical evidence from Chapter 6, it implies. Empirically, it proves the following points:

1. The binary categorization scheme was salient in the labor market. This salience is marked among those with religious educations and no western languages (Figures 7.1a–d). About 15% of men from the six largest countries fell into this group (13% from all countries together), and about half of those were Mizahi (see Appendix 13). Among such men, Mizrahim cluster tightly into a group with essentially no returns to education. In this group, there is some variation in Ashkenazi returns,¹³ but they are uniformly higher than Mizrahi returns, and gaps between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim—which reach 5.5 Israeli prestige points for those with eight years of education—are larger than those between different Ashkenazi countries. As noted, it is particularly important that Iraqi returns fall to the lower track in these graphs. Given indications that Iraqi heder educations prepared individuals for the jobs of a modern industrialized society as well as Polish, Romanian, or Russian hadarim, the differences in returns to education are likely due to factors other than objective evaluation of an immigrant’s preparation for the jobs of a modern industrialized society.

The equation used to produce these graphs contains a number of interaction terms (see Appendix 10), making it difficult to assess statistical significance of the ethnic differences in returns to education represented in Figure 7.1. There are two reasons to believe in the robustness of the conclusion that among those without cultural capital Mizrahim as a group obtained lower returns than Ashkenazim as a group. First, if the sample is reduced to those with heder or yeshiva education who do not speak western languages, the 5-point Mizrahi/Ashkenazi gap is statistically significant, as is an interaction between education and a dummy variable flagging Mizrahim (not shown). Second, the clustering pattern is a form of statistical testing in itself, similar to a “bootstrapping” method. The lines in Figure 7.1 are drawn from six separate equations, estimated for each country of origin. Nevertheless, all Mizrahi educational lines are close to zero, and all Ashkenazi slopes are higher.

Thus, the binary gap among the religiously educated is statistically sound. However, because it exists only among the heder educated, it is worth taking a detour to consider explanations that would make it difficult to generalize to the labor market as a whole. First, it might be that the heder educated found religious jobs. Because religious practice does differ along dichotomous lines, a binary pattern of returns to education might be expected in religious jobs and would not be generalizable to other occupational arenas. However, the data suggest that this is not a good explanation. Quite simply, new immigrants didn’t tend to take religious occupations; for all countries of origin, only about 1% to 1.5% of immigrants with religious education were in religious occupations in Israel; moreover, these numbers were similar across countries. Instead, the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi difference in Israeli prestige occurred because religiously educated Ashkenazim were more likely than similar Mizrahim to become managers, clerical workers, and salespeople, while Mizrahim were more likely to take blue collar jobs, such as those in construction (Appendix 13). None of these jobs can be related to religious practice.

Of course, it might be that religiously educated individuals obtained jobs from religious employers, even if those jobs were not religious in nature. It might be the case that religious gatekeepers were more likely to employ a Mizrahi/Ashkenazi dichotomy than the nonreligious, even for secular jobs. If so, it would not be appropriate to use Figures 7.1a–d to assert that the binary categories had salience among gatekeepers as a whole.

There is no direct way to examine the hypothesis that the religiously educated were hired by religious gatekeepers, but there is a powerful indirect way to examine it. By 1961, a clear pattern of residential segregation had emerged, such that religious individuals, including employers, tended to concentrate in certain areas. If religious employers were the cause of the binary patterns among religiously educated job seekers, then the binary gap among the religiously educated should be larger among those who work in these religious areas than in other areas. However, the opposite turns out to be the case.¹⁴ The Mizrahi/Ashkenazi gap in Israeli attainment was lower for those who worked (and also for those who lived) in religious areas, and remained strong in the other areas (not shown). Religiously educated immigrants may well have sought jobs from religious employers, but that dynamic tended to result in smaller Mizrahi/Ashkenazi gaps, rather than being an explanation for the salience of binary ethnic category. Therefore, available evidence suggests that the binary difference pertained to those employed by nonreligious employers, in nonreligious jobs—i.e., similar to the set of employers from whom the secularly educated would be seeking jobs.

Other explanations that link these findings to religiousness, per se, can also be discarded. For example, anecdotal evidence suggests to many that religiously educated Ashkenazim might have used Yiddish networks to obtain higher status jobs. This is likely true for older men, as I will discuss below, but the equation used to produce Figure 7.1 controls for Yiddish, as well as its effect on returns to human capital (including age). Another possibility is that the religiously educated were more likely to be settled in the periphery, and that the binary distinction was more salient there (since the binary distinction was more salient in determining likelihood of being in a town in the first place). However, the binary gap among the religiously educated is not affected by accounting for location type.

Overall, the salience of binary ethnic category in guiding returns to education among the religiously educated appears to have been endemic to the labor market, because it characterized a range of situations across Israel and occurred across a range of likely employers.

2. Mizrahim from all four countries were able to obtain Ashkenazi-level returns to education. Moreover, two variables—education type and western language primacy—provide a near-complete accounting for which Mizrahim obtained Ashkenazi-level returns and which did not. From an empirical perspective, the Iraqi paradox has been solved; the reason Iraqi and Egyptian returns to education were so high in Chapter 5 is that a large number of individuals from Egypt and Iraq had the school type and/or language primacy that, for Mizrahim, were associated with higher returns.

The reason the two variables provide only a near-complete accounting is the Moroccan “lag” in returns to education. As can be seen in Figure 7.1f, even Moroccans with French primacy obtained Israeli occupations that were about 5 points lower than similar immigrants from other countries, as long as they had ten or fewer years of education. Once they passed the tenyear mark, their returns matched those of other groups. This lag appears to be solid, is not due to any extraneous factors such as settlement type, and is due to differences in returns to education rather than other human capital components (Appendix 15). Ten years of education was the quartile mark for the sample of men as a whole and was also a common stopping point in Morocco. Thus, for Moroccans, and only Moroccans, to obtain Ashkenazi-level returns required not just a secular education and western language primacy but also relatively high educational attainment.

Finally, in contrast to the effect of school type and western language primacy, the family formation scale does not affect ethnic hierarchies in returns to education. One might wonder if this is because once school type and western language primacy are accounted for, there is little difference left in family formation. However, this is not the case. For each variable combination used in Figure 7.1, there was a significant Mizrahi/Ashkenazi gap in both the family formation scale and each of its individual components (with one exception: among western-language speakers the correlation between ethnicity and child mortality was not statistically significant; see Appendix 13; see also correlations in Appendix 4). Moreover, it is important to underscore that the family formation variable does affect returns to education; it simply doesn’t affect ethnic hierarchies in returns to education.¹⁵

3. The two variables—secular educations and western language primacy—may have had similar effects on the attainment of all Mizrahi groups, to a larger extent than is apparent in Figure 7.1. This is important because it implies that Mizrahi immigrants had similar experiences not only at either end of the cultural capital scale but also in the middle. The sticking point here is obviously Figure 7.1e, which appears to show that Iraqis needed only secular educations to obtain Ashkenazi-level returns, while other Mizrahim needed western language primacy. Since in all countries of origin more people had secular educations than had western language primacy, this implies that it was easier for Iraqis to obtain Ashkenazi returns than for other Mizrahim.

However, further analysis suggests more parity in how each variable affected Mizrahi attainment than is originally apparent. Most importantly, despite Figure 7.1 it appears that Yemenites with secular educations did experience Ashkenazi-level returns; the Yemenite line in Figure 7.1 is due to a statistically insignificant negative effect of the family formation score on Yemenite outcomes.¹⁶ Some form of parity is already suggested when Mizrahim from countries reporting low levels of western language primacy (Yemen and Iraq) needed secular educations to obtain Ashkenazi-level returns, while immigrants from countries with high levels of western language primacy (Morocco and Egypt) needed western language primacy. In this regard, it is important that for Moroccans who spoke French most often, the religiously educated and the secularly educated obtained similar returns to education, strengthening the impression that school type in one instance and western language primacy in another were measuring similar cultural data.¹⁷

It is also likely, however, that the impact of secular education for Iraqis is artificially raised in Figure 7.1e. Western language facility is probably undermeasured for Iraqis. Only a tenth of a percent reported French primacy, but Meir’s (1989) collection of curricula suggest the number should be larger. As noted, even with similar facility Moroccans were probably more likely to report French primacy than Iraqis. Because in Iraq western languages were taught in secular schools (Meir 1989), it is expected that some of the effect of language would be registered as an effect of secular education. In addition, the impact of secular education on Moroccan and Egyptian status attainment was probably higher than seen in Figure 7.1e. Those lines were calculated by leaving prestige abroad constant at the median, and when education-appropriate values for prestige abroad are used, returns for secularly educated Moroccan, Egyptian, and Ashkenazi lines are closer to one another (not shown).¹⁸ A further point, and perhaps the most simple and persuasive one, is that when the sample is reduced to immigrants with secular education and local language primacy, the gap between Romanian and Moroccan Israeli prestige is not statistically significant after controlling for human capital (not shown).¹⁹

4. The number of Mizrahim who had the characteristics to obtain Ashkenazi returns was not negligible. Returning to Figure 7.1, among all Iraqis—including those who never went to school—65% had secular educations and therefore would obtain Ashkenazi-level returns to education. Moreover, 50% of Egyptians and 20% of Moroccans had western language primacy (nearly all Egyptians had secular educations). As was seen in Chapter 5, enough Egyptians and Iraqis had these characteristics that their overall returns to education equaled those of Ashkenazim. Iraqis are particularly important, as noted, because of their size (see Figure 4.1) and tendency to live in the center, and because the proportion with ten or more years of education was about the same as among Poles and Romanians. All of this means that because of the ability of secular educations and western language primacy to obtain for Mizrahim Ashkenazi-level returns to education, the largest and strongest group of Mizrahim obtained a substantial footing in the middle class. This is consequential, as their effect on the ethnic composition of Israel’s center could be substantial and therefore a risk for any Ashkenazi establishment trying to maintain hegemony or to monopolize resources for Ashkenazim.

5. Nor, however, did an insignificant number of Mizrahim experience different returns from Ashkenazim with similar characteristics. This underscores the importance of examining patterns of exclusion and patterns of inclusion—or discrimination and lack of discrimination—simultaneously. The findings of this chapter are not that ethnicity didn’t matter; in fact, ethnicity mattered very much. The findings of this chapter are that very specific groups of Mizrahim obtained low and high returns to education, and that which group obtained which returns was systematically related to their possession of a set of characteristics that were central to Diaspora Jewish westernization discourses.

What Is Interpretation?

The argument I advance in this chapter is already clear: patterns of inclusion and exclusion of Mizrahim can be explained by gatekeeper sensitivity to perceived progress on Jewish cultural change projects. There are two central interpretive moves behind this assertion: (1) that the returns in Figure 7.1 reflect employer preferences, and (2) that school type and western language primacy mattered largely because they signaled progress on Jewish cultural change projects. Regarding the first, I can now add to the arguments I made in Chapters 3 and 5, the latter when I showed that the ethnic hierarchy in returns to education could not be attributed to the communal strength of Iraqis or to their ability to circumvent gatekeeper control. In this chapter, we see that only those characteristics that gatekeepers could easily observe changed the ethnic hierarchies in returns to education. This suggests again that gatekeepers were key players in producing these hierarchies. Regarding why these variables measure progress on Jewish cultural change projects, I made the case in Chapter 6.²⁰

Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish

Results pertaining to Judeo-Spanish tend to support the argument of this chapter that the cultural capital variables referenced westernization over class status, networks, or other possibilities. Again, being Sephardic indicated that an immigrant was of higher status. Moreover, a Sephardic community was well established in Israel prior to statehood (Eyal 2006; Smooha 1978), providing Judeo-Spanish speakers with potentially useful networks. However, speaking Judeo-Spanish did not reliably indicate direct contact with contemporary European behavioral forms, while speaking French did (though a few Sephardic North Africans did have European citizenship: Stillman 1979, 1991; Laskier 1983). As such, it is not surprising that among Moroccans (the only group among the largest countries with a substantial enough Judeo-Spanish-speaking population to test its effect on returns), speaking Judeo-Spanish did not raise returns to education to the degree that other variables could (Figure 7.2).²¹

Results pertaining to Yiddish tend to support the assertion that without proof of westernness, gatekeepers used the binary categorization scheme as a default. From Figure 7.1, it appears that Yiddish primacy had no effect on Ashkenazi returns to education. Because Yiddish should have been a powerful marker of the Oriental for Ashkenazim, I examined the finding in a number of contexts and for the whole sample as well as the three largest Ashkenazi countries. Several general dynamics appeared to characterize its effect. First, Yiddish primacy tended to increase older men’s attainment and reduce or not affect younger men’s. Second, it tended to lower returns to education, but only at relatively high levels of education, starting anywhere from the sample median of eight years to the twelve-year high school mark. At lower levels of education Yiddish again either made no difference or increased Israeli prestige. Third, while Yiddish reduced returns to education, it often increased returns to prestige abroad, again more for older than for younger men. Finally, for Soviets and Poles an interaction between Yiddish and living in the three cities is significant, and the negative effect of Yiddish on returns to education was particularly strong in Tel Aviv (see Figure 7.3 for a plot of returns to education for men in the three cities). All these findings are consistent with an argument in which Yiddish reflected (1) easternness—and therefore tended to reduce returns to education, especially in Israeli’s modern and secular city—and (2) social networks—and therefore tended to increase Israeli prestige, especially among older men. However, in no cases did Yiddish reduce Ashkenazi returns enough to approach returns of Mizrahim without cultural capital. Thus, the data are consistent with an argument that overall gatekeepers did not see Ashkenazim as a Levantinization threat.

Figure 7.2. Effect of each cultural capital variable on Moroccan returns to education

Freedom from Family Responsibilities and Moroccan Returns to Education

I have shown that among men who were secularly educated but did not have western language primacy, Asians but not North Africans received Ashkenazi returns to education. I suggested there was more parity in treatment than appears in the graphs, because for those who lived in North Africa, westernness was more likely to be reflected in reporting western language primacy than for those who lived in other Arab countries. Additional analyses using practical resources also showed that attention to family responsibilities can attenuate the differences between returns to education of Ashkenazim and Moroccans among this group. By family responsibilities I mean whether an immigrant arrived single or with a wife and children. The idea is that men without family responsibilities had more time to find higher status jobs because without families to support they did not have to take the first available jobs and because they could move to the center and stay with friends while looking for a job more easily than a man with a family could. It turns out that among men without family responsibilities, returns to education for secularly educated Moroccans are closer to those of Ashkenazim. This is shown in Figure 7.4, which graphs returns to education for men in Israel’s three cities (Haifa, Tel Aviv, or Jerusalem), with and without family responsibilities. (The analysis did not include Egyptians. Equations are found in Appendix 16.)²²

Figure 7.3. Effects of Yiddish and type of education on the attainment of Ashkenazi men in the three cities. Prestige abroad set to median, year of arrival 1950, age at arrival 40.

Figure 7.4. Effect of family responsibilities (having children at immigration) on ethnic gaps in returns to education. From equations that interact both cultural capital and family responsibilities with human capital, and, for Moroccans, interacts cultural capital with residential location and human capital. For men who arrived at age 30, in 1950, with median prestige.

BACK TO THE PLAUSIBLE STORY

At this point, it is possible to jump from the specific conditions of attainment in the labor market to my larger argument that in Israel, during the first decade of statehood, cultural concerns were an integral part of the story of ethnic inclusion and exclusion. The basic logic of my argument is simple: if Mizrahim who could perform westernness did not experience discrimination, then the reason other Mizrahim did experience discrimination was that they were perceived to be eastern. However, to make this argument, it is necessary to reconcile those moments where cultural concerns did affect ethnic hierarchies in returns to education with those moments where they didn’t. Specifically, three findings are at issue: the Moroccan “lag” in returns to education among those with full cultural capital, the lack of discrimination against Ashkenazim who spoke Yiddish, and the finding that when it came to distributing residential locations there was no Iraqi paradox but rather all Mizrahim were placed in the towns at high rates. In the following pages, I clarify how these findings fit together into a coherent story. However, not all components of that story can be confirmed with available data. The story, therefore, is as much suggestion for future research as it is conclusion from this research.

The least problematic of these three findings is the Moroccan lag. It is a common observation that Moroccans instilled in gatekeepers a particularly high level of Levantine panic (Shokeid 1982b; Segev 1986; Tsur 1997). That they should be held to a higher standard of proof is therefore not surprising. That Moroccans with fewer family responsibilities, and therefore more time to find gatekeepers for whom to perform westernness, were able to obtain Ashkenazi returns is also in line with such an argument. Tsur (1997) argues that the reason Moroccans took this position of the particularly disturbing Oriental is that unlike Yemenites, they had a cadre of well-educated and politically sophisticated individuals who were capable of challenging Ashkenazi hegemony. Tsur based his thoughts on Gelblum’s articles, which were produced before Iraqis arrived. On the one hand, the Iraqi paradox tends to disprove Tsur’s argument because if anyone had the numbers and political sophistication to challenge Ashkenazi hegemony it was Iraqis, but Moroccans remained the main image of the dangerous Oriental even after Iraqis arrived (e.g., Shokeid 1982). On the other hand, with minor alterations Tsur’s argument appears to be on target. It is possible that Iraqis overall were better “collaborators” with the establishment; for example, they often joined the new state’s apparatus for surveillance of Arab countries. Cause and effect are obviously difficult to disentangle, but Ashkenazim may have been afraid of Moroccans not because they challenged Ashkenazi hegemony, per se, but because they challenged western hegemony. It is intriguing from this point of view that two primarily Moroccan political movements that have been successful—the Black Panthers and the political party Shas—did take western or European hegemony to task, and in the case of the earlier Black Panther movement this challenge to western hegemony was a centerpiece of the movement’s ideology.

Regarding the questions of why inability to prove westernness didn’t appear important for Ashkenazi attainment (or more provocatively, why Oriental Ashkenazim weren’t treated like Orientals while Oriental Mizrahim were), two points are relevant. First, heder educations did lower Ashkenazi returns to education, just not to Mizrahi levels. The same can be said of Yiddish. Second, the findings in this chapter are consistent with information from the literature that by the time of statehood veteran gatekeepers had come to see the binary categorization scheme as primary and had combined immigrants of different European backgrounds into a fairly unitary non-Oriental category (though the tendency to see some differences in Europeanness remained) (Chapter 3). The question that remains to be answered is how and why this unitary European category emerged in Israel, given the salience of the Ostjuden category in the Diaspora, and given the near-disgust toward Yiddish and the heder that, at least Segev (1986) implies, continued in Israel unabated. One possibility is that during the British mandate, veterans (who, recall, were mostly East European) had already had success using their origins on the European continent to present themselves to European Christians as different from Arabs (see examples in Shamir 2000 and Shenhav 2006), and that these experiences taught them that any European origins could be used to represent Israel as western.

Reconciling the dichotomous distribution of residential locations with the Iraqi paradox in the labor market is not difficult, once the full dynamics of the labor market are understood. To review, evidence on the labor market is consistent with an argument that gatekeepers began with a European/ Mizrahi distinction and “upgraded” Mizrahim who could prove similarity to gatekeepers’ concept of a European. As noted, this is a performative dynamic—gatekeepers had to see westernness on the part of Mizrahim in order to reward it—and that, in turn, is the tie between the labor market and the distribution of residential locations. Though we know little about how individuals were actually distributed into residential locations, it seems clear that there were fewer opportunities for performance of westernness on that site than in the labor market. This is true especially after 1955, when the state was more efficient in placing immigrants in the periphery, on the one hand, and when it exerted less control over the labor market, on the other, so that immigrants could find jobs through newspaper advertisements or simply visiting offices in Tel Aviv (see the quotation from an immigrant in Chapter 2). Regarding residential placement, we know that at least some of the time the state took in large groups from a single country, that the residential placement of that group was determined in the offices of state planners prior to the immigrants’ arrival, and that trucks were already onsite when the immigrants arrived, ready to take the immigrants to the destination that had been chosen for them (Segev 1986; recall also the quotation from Golda Meir in Chapter 3). Performance was of course always possible, but given that it was to low-level workers rather than decision makers, that it occurred when the infrastructure was already in place for the transportation of the immigrants, and that many immigrants would not realize that they were about to be taken to outlying areas, the “adjustments” that reduced the impact of binary ethnic category in the labor market were probably harder to engineer. On the other hand, even obtaining a job through the Lishkat Ha’avoda allowed for performance in front of a decision maker, and clearly, once it became possible to find a job by walking into businesses and asking for one, multiple possibilities for performance for decision makers arose. By 1961 immigrants would have had between two and a half and five years for such performances, depending on their years of immigration.

SO WAS THERE DISCRIMINATION IN THE 1950S?

In Israel, the moral question of gatekeeper culpability for discrimination against Mizrahim remains a potent political and emotional one. Moreover, because Ashkenazim and Mizrahim were supposed to be “brothers,” discrimination against Mizrahim is often perceived as less legitimate than discrimination against Palestinians. One can join the debate on how Jews treated Jews by stressing either the discriminatory or the nondiscriminatory component of the findings in this chapter. In reality, both should be stressed.

On the side of those positing nondiscrimination, Mizrahim who could demonstrate westernness could avoid discrimination, and this shows that when gatekeepers of the time referred to easternness and westernness to explain their behavior, this was more than empty justifications for inequality. In recent research on ethnicity generally, it is rare to see an argument that ideologies supporting discrimination need to be taken at face value. At minimum, the dynamics showcased in this chapter make discrimination seem less arbitrary. Moreover, the phrasing I used earlier—that gatekeepers did not exclude Mizrahim but rather excluded Mizrahim who could not prove westernness—represents a fundamental change in how patterns of ethnic preference are seen in Israel.

On the side of those positing discrimination, there are two points. First, only Mizrahim had to prove westernness, something 80% of Moroccans and nearly all Yemenites could not do. Moreover, because performance was necessary to avoid discrimination, discrimination was more prevalent on sites where opportunities for performance were restricted. Thus, many more Mizrahim experienced discrimination at some point during their absorption process than is apparent from Figure 7.1, and the east/west logic did in some cases advance dichotomization in resources. In addition, even when performance of westernness was possible, the need to perform could itself be degrading.

This focus on culture rather than resource monopolization as the motivator for patterns of inclusion and exclusion does not so much suggest lack of discrimination as it does highlight a different form of discrimination. This point can be usefully articulated within Fraser and Honneth’s (2003) debate about how to connect the politics of distribution and recognition, or inequalities based on unequal distribution of resources on the one hand and cultural value on the other hand. Fraser posits that recognition is a matter of social justice rather than psychological well-being: “It is unjust that some individuals and groups are denied the status of full partners in social interactions simply as a consequence of institutionalized patterns of cultural value ... which disparage their distinctive characteristics or the distinctive characteristics assigned to them” (p. 29). In highlighting the importance of recognition to explaining distribution (i.e., in arguing that patterns of cultural valuation explain distributive practice), this book has answered Fraser’s call for connecting the two forms of injustice. However, in highlighting that those who experienced exclusion were those who did not culturally “fit,” this book focuses more on Fraser’s analytical separation of the two forms of exclusion and her underscoring of the harm done by misrecognition.

A second point returns to the issue of whether westernness is properly conceived as a characteristic that makes an employee more productive or as a social construction used to justify colonialism and global inequality. If a social construction, then even absolute adherence to a logic of selection along lines of westernization constitutes discrimination. This is because the stated values of most modern industrialized societies are that only criteria that affect performance can be used to select employees, and if westernness cannot be shown to affect performance then any selection along its lines is simply a substitute for ethnic discrimination.²³ As I noted above, whether or not “western” is a legitimate axis for sorting in the labor market is something that cannot be determined with the 1961 census. However, in the preceding chapter I argued that for Jews, westernness became more than empty social construction and was used as a yardstick to measure the self as well as others. This at minimum complicates the concept of discrimination and leads to a moral question that is beyond the scope of this book: how to evaluate actions that, although not designed to harm, nevertheless do.

Finally, regardless of whether one wants to stress discrimination or nondiscrimination, it is clear that gatekeeper ambivalence toward the eastern affected whom they hired in the first encounter with the labor market. This pushes Israeli debates into different directions. In particular, it collapses the distinction between discrimination against Mizrahi “brother” and Palestinian “other” and instead posits that both were perceived as eastern others and were discriminated against for similar reasons. In addition, though I found no evidence that Ashkenazim had to prove westernness in the labor market, others have found evidence of such a need, even currently, on other sites (Chinski 2002). In line with Eyal’s work, this suggests that the impact of Israeli westernization projects were wide, and continue to the present day, even if their traces can no longer be found quantitatively in the status attainment process.

A PERPETUAL TRANSITION?

In research on Israeli society, there has been some debate on how to interpret “de-Arabization,” or the process by which Mizrahim were encouraged to change Arabic names to Hebrew ones, stop speaking Arabic or listening to Arabic music, and speak a version of Hebrew that removed guttural sounds. The debate is about whether Zionists and Zionist institutions (1) sought to de-Arabize Arab Jews, and then rewarded those who successfully de-Arabized, or (2) perpetuated the Mizrahi liminal status—as Yona (1998) put it, “They are in a transition process that should end with [Mizrahi] integration in all aspects of life in society, but these processes have a fixed status; their end is always at some unknown place in the future” (quoted in Meir-Glitzenstein 2000, p. 97; see also Ben Eliezer 2004; Shafir and Peled 2002). Recent work by Shenhav (2006) and Eyal (2006), uses Latour (1993) to cast this perpetual transition dynamic as symptomatic of modernity.

On the one hand, my empirical information supports the first position. It is clear from the data that Middle Eastern immigrants were rewarded for appearing to be not of the Arab/Oriental/Middle Eastern complex. Though the cultural capital variables used in the book largely measure characteristics obtained abroad, it stands to reason that Mizrahim who underwent a process of de-Arabization in Israel would also be treated like Ashkenazim, at least in the labor market, and at least before increasing numbers of new immigrant gatekeepers caused shifts in the dynamic of ethnic closure.

On the other hand, I have argued that it is worth distinguishing between reactions to Middle Easterners on a collective and individual level—on a collective level Mizrahim were perceived as a threat, but on an individual level some could be perceived as western and therefore not threatening. By attending to this collective/individual distinction, one can imagine a scenario in which both sides of the perpetual transition debate are correct. The chapter on Jewish identity and stigma (Chapter 6) shows that once Jews were exposed to the Enlightenment, they divided themselves, on a collective level, into the western and the nonwestern. Since defining the self as western was contingent on defining the other as eastern, it stands to reason that Israeli society would build an internal eastern other into its collective—i.e., that it would impose an Arab/Oriental identity on some group. However, this dynamic of creating social categories does not exclude the possibility that on an individual level, westernness would be rewarded.²⁴

Although these moral questions are important, the more pressing questions of this book concern how useful dichotomization theory is to describe Israeli ethnic formation and what can be learned about ethnicity and ethnic discrimination in Israel as a modern industrialized society. The evidence that in Israel there were important exceptions to the rule of dichotomous discrimination, and that these had to do with the long-standing identity project of making Jews western, underscores the possibility that ethnic inequality can be driven by motivations other than monopolization of scarce resources.

CONCLUSION

Mizrahi returns to education reached Ashkenazi levels when Mizrahi immigrants possessed characteristics that both signaled compliance with Jewish cultural change projects and were easy to bring to gatekeepers’ attention. Conversely, among individuals who were either noncompliant or whose indicators of compliance were not salient, all Mizrahim, including Iraqis, obtained lower returns than Ashkenazim. This dynamic is the key to the Iraqi paradox; Iraqis were more likely than Moroccans or Yemenites to possess usable cultural capital, and this is why their overall attainments were higher than those of other Mizrahim. Once cultural capital is accounted for, Iraqis appear to have been treated similarly to other Mizrahim, both in when they obtained Ashkenazi returns to education and when they obtained lower returns. Thus, this chapter shows that dichotomization theory is an appropriate framework for the analysis of Israeli ethnic formation—since the dichotomous scheme was salient in the labor market—but that the theory also needs to accommodate the salience of cultural concerns in explaining patterns of inclusion and exclusion, and the production and undermining of dichotomization as an outcome.

Two empirical ripples did not appear to alter the conclusions of this chapter. First, some evidence indicated that Iraqis and Yemenites needed only secular educations to obtain Ashkenazi returns, while Egyptians and Moroccans needed western languages. The extent of this dynamic, however, was at minimum exaggerated in Figure 7.1, and what is not an exaggeration is probably an artifact of historical differences in how colonialism and European influence played out in different parts of the Middle East. Western language primacy efficiently located highly westernized North Africans but not Iraqis. That Moroccans with western language primacy obtained similar returns regardless of whether they had religious or secular educations—while for other groups religiously educated Mizrahim obtained very low returns—is more evidence that gatekeepers used country-appropriate measures of progress on shared Jewish cultural change projects. Second, it was the case that even with French primacy Moroccan returns to education still lagged somewhat behind those of the other countries. However, this is consistent with research that found that gatekeepers saw Moroccans as more Arab than Jewish (Tsur 1997) and as particularly harmful to the emerging society (Segev 1986).

Of course, these findings could be cast as pedestrian. In most societies, truly exceptional ethnic minorities have access to high status positions, even when the group as a whole experiences discrimination. In fact, at least Parkin (1978) would argue that rewarding superior achievement among minorities is integral to modern industrialized systems. This is because it ensures that the truly talented will be part of the social leadership and because successful minorities make the status attainment regime seem meritocratic and deflect attention from discrimination.

It is important to underscore that what happened in the Israeli labor market was not tokenism and therefore does not fit Parkin’s expectations. Iraqis were numerically the largest group of labor-force-aged Mizrahi men, and they needed only a secular education to be treated like Ashkenazim. Sixty-five percent of all Iraqi men and 90% of those who attended school met this threshold. Moreover, the exceptionalism that earned Mizrahim Ashkenazi treatment was not based on individual accomplishment that would mark one as particularly talented, but rather on the possession of cultural characteristics that were obtained from the family or region of birth. As such, the system was not selecting exceptional Mizrahim but rather those who would not interfere with westernization. Finally, the system functioned in a way that reverses the expectations of a materialist interpretation. Class and westernization were correlated, thus treating westernized Mizrahim like Ashkenazim often meant treating upper-class Mizrahim like Ashkenazim. Upper-class Mizrahim were, of course, competing for the higher status positions. The result is that rather than reserving the better positions for Ashkenazim, as a materialist interpretation would expect, gatekeepers were more likely to distribute lower status positions (which were obtained by those without cultural capital) according to the dichotomous scheme and distribute higher status positions without regard to country of origin. It is this point that most strongly suggests that gatekeeper activity was not oriented toward monopolization of resources, but rather toward producing a western state.

The history of Orientalism and Jewish identity, then, can simultaneously explain why the dichotomous categories were salient and why there were such significant exceptions to the practice of dichotomization. Both the use of the dichotomous scheme and the exceptions to its use were generated by the same concerns over who was western. Gatekeepers were careful about giving easterners occupations that, by virtue of their higher status and greater visibility, might grant their incumbents more influence on the emerging society. However, precisely because Levantinization was the issue, gatekeepers were sensitive to cultural characteristics that marked Mizrahi individuals as nonthreatening, and it was that sensitivity that led to exceptions such as the Iraqi paradox.

Implications for Dichotomization

By locating evidence that the dichotomous scheme was salient to gatekeepers in the labor market, this book supports contentions that gatekeepers helped representative dichotomization become resource dichotomization. As such it demonstrates that there were trends in Israeli society, which emanated from veteran elites, that pressed toward dichotomization. However, one irony of this book is that it also locates evidence that as things worked out in practice, most strong trends were against dichotomization. In this chapter, we see that the cultural concerns that drove ethnic discrimination in the labor market resulted in higher attainment for Iraqis, ultimately reducing the likelihood that all Mizrahim would end up in the lower classes. Similarly, I showed in Khazzoom (2005b) that the dichotomous scheme determined who got sent to development towns and who didn’t, but that since “Asians” were more likely to move out of the towns than “Africans,” the end result again pushed against a common Mizrahi fate. Thus, as much as this book answers critical questions about how dichotomization and ethnic inequality occurred, it also raises new ones.

I pick up this issue again at the end of the following chapter, which is on residential location. Prior work, which attributed the emergence of ethnic inequality in part to the predominance of Mizrahim in development towns, never examined specific country of origin. As such, it not only missed the point that in Israel the periphery became Moroccan rather than Mizrahi, but also missed the point that in 1961 Moroccans in development towns had higher Israeli prestige, net background, than Moroccans elsewhere. Having resolved the Iraqi paradox, it is to this new paradox, the Moroccan paradox, that I turn.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Residential Segregation and Economic Isolation: The Moroccan Paradox

In a recent Israeli movie named Go to the End of the World and Turn Left, two families have been unceremoniously dumped into an isolated Israeli settlement deep in the southern desert. One family is Moroccan but speaks French at home, another is Indian but speaks English at home. These two families must mingle with the more numerous “Berber” Jews, who exemplify the eastern stereotypes from Chapter 6 in everything from their inability to control bodily functions to their crass manners, dress, and posture, to the religious head coverings of some older women. In fact, they are so lacking in decorum that when they join the Anglophile’s cricket team and play against visiting British diplomats, they cause the game to degenerate into a disorganized brawl. That brawl, and the embarrassment of the Europhile Mizrahim in front of non-Jewish European onlookers, are reminiscent of Segev’s (1986) description of the first Independence Day parade (Chapter 6), in which I argued that Ashkenazi Jews mourned their inability to uphold western ideals.

But in the main, the movie chronicles the sense of isolation, betrayal, and depression of the Europeanized immigrants, as they cope with their Oriental neighbors, their marginalization from Israeli urban centers and cultures (Tel Aviv, says the Francophile Moroccan mother, is Israel’s Paris), and with the downward occupational mobility caused by their placement in the desert town. By the end of the film, there is evidence of accommodation and even dichotomization. The daughter of the Francophile family questions her mother’s edict that she set herself apart from the Berbers and wonders if her mother has not exaggerated the number of family members who attended the French Sorbonne. As the daughter begins to get friendly with a Berber suitor and finds that she must stay in the town rather than join the army, one gets the sense that distinctions between Europeanized and non-Europeanized Mizrahim will, through residence in the town, attenuate. This lessening of differences between different Mizrahim is a basic dynamic of dichotomization.

The movie was set in one of Israel’s development towns, new settlements on the geographic borders of Israel that were established in order to populate the outlying areas to which most immigrants did not want to move. The movie was written by the daughter of the Francophile Moroccan protagonist and contains two claims that reflect Moroccan Jewish collective memory and recent academic research. First, it claims that Mizrahim were indiscriminately relegated to these isolated Oriental spaces. This has been a source of debate for decades, but as I noted in Chapter 5, I found strong evidence in favor of the movie’s claim in earlier work (Khazzoom 2005b).¹ Second, the movie claims that relegation to these spaces resulted in downward occupational mobility. Academic research has largely agreed and has added that because Mizrahim were more likely to live in the towns, the towns themselves are one cause of occupational gaps between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim. That claim is the focus of this chapter. As I will show, the story is not simple.

HYPOTHESES FOR THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG SETTLEMENT TYPE, MOROCCAN ATTAINMENT, AND DICHOTOMIZATION

The Debate over Development Towns in Israel

In the movie, downward mobility occurs because the only jobs available in the town are in its bottle-making factory. Even the position of factory manager is not available to Mizrahim, Europeanized or not, because it is taken by an Ashkenazi, who, in his demeanor and sexism, is reminiscent of the Ostjude stereotype.² Though a labor strike led by the Francophile Moroccan father is eventually successful, the Mizrahim only win higher salaries; the managerial position is still occupied by the Ashkenazi, and the only form of true upward mobility is finishing high school and leaving town.³ It is an option that is taken by the Indian daughter.

This occupational story might well have been written by Shlomo Swirski (1989), who, in combination with Deborah Bernstein, launched academic research into the state’s role in creating ethnic inequality (Bernstein and Swirski 1982). For Swirski, development towns were tools in the proletarianization of Mizrahim. Like the town in the movie, most development towns had only one industry that provided most jobs in the town and offered residents low skill, low status work that left little room for occupational mobility (see also Spilerman and Habib 1976).⁴ Swirski argued that in placing Mizrahim in the towns, the state ensured that they had no choice but to work in the factories. Moreover, he argued that to establish the factories, the state gave loans to Ashkenazim who in reality were not any more prepared to manage them than the Mizrahim who worked there. This recalls the movie’s contrast between the classless Ashkenazi factory manager and the more cultured and sophisticated, but only temporarily present, poet-teacher from Tel Aviv. Swirski’s dynamic also leads directly to dichotomization; in positing that Mizrahim were indiscriminately proletarianized he suggests that class differences between them were reduced, and in positing that equally unprepared Ashkenazim obtained managerial jobs, he suggests that class differences between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim were created.

In contrast to Swirski, early academics and state planners portrayed the establishment of the towns as a necessary, and in fact beneficent, framework for integrating new immigrants into the society. They argued that in the early days Israel was inundated by large numbers of unskilled and uneducated immigrants, particularly those who arrived from the underdeveloped economies of the Arab world. The immigrants were choking city economies, services, and residences, and, given their low skills, were having difficulty finding work. Locating them in areas in which they had ready employment, and, more importantly, job training, sheltered them from the more competitive economies of the cities and central area of the country. The low skilled industries were an advantage, these scholars argued, because it took little time to train immigrants for productive work, thus they could be given jobs right away. Moving these immigrants to the towns also benefited the state by providing Israel with a working industry and productive infrastructure and by populating the militarily important outlying territories (Altman and Rosenbaum 1973; Amiram and Shachar 1969; Berler and Shaked 1966; Comay and Kirschenbaum 1973; Spiegel 1967).

Today, opinion is divided between followers of Swirski (1989)—who continue to see the towns as state tools in the generation of ethnic inequality (Yiftachel 1998, 2000; Tzfadia 2000)—and a modified version of the earlier pro-state arguments. Recent work in this latter vein has dropped the assertion of state beneficence, and in fact often casts the state as cynically manipulating immigrants. In this conception, the state needed to populate these outlying areas, so it sent “weak” immigrants—mainly those with low human capital or large families—to the towns. Since these groups had fewer options and were normally dependent on state support, they were better targets. For this group of researchers, the concentration of Mizrahim into these areas of low opportunity contributed significantly to the development of ethnic gaps in resources across the country as a whole (Spilerman and Habib 1976; Semyonov and Tyree 1981; Lewin-Epstein et al. 1995; Lipshitz 1995; but see Adler et al. 2001).

The empirical implications of these debates center around how much of a disadvantage living in the towns is expected to be for the arriving immigrants and whether there is an ethnic difference in the effect of living in the towns. Swirski’s argument that the towns were vehicles for proletarianization of Mizrahim implies that residence should have lowered Mizrahi attainment relative to the attainment of Mizrahim elsewhere. Similarly, his argument that they offered unqualified Ashkenazim managerial positions implies that town residence increased Ashkenazi attainment. The other two positions, in positing that weak immigrants were sent to the towns, imply that those who were placed in the towns were unlikely to be hurt by the low opportunity there, at least in the first generation, since they would not have been able to obtain better positions in any case. Even further, the earlier argument that the towns’ single industries protected desperate immigrants implies that town residence should actually increase the attainment of Mizrahim, especially relative to those in the unprotected markets of the large cities.

BACKGROUND AND VARIABLES USED

I focus here on urban settlements in Israel and divide them into three types: Israel’s three cities (Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem), “regular” towns, and development towns.⁵ These three types of settlement differed from one another on the following criteria: proximity to economic centers, ethnicity and immigrant status of residents, and size. Regarding proximity, Israel’s social and economic centers were largely in the three cities, primarily Tel Aviv and Haifa, and regular towns tended to be closer to one of the cities than development towns (though there are important exceptions). Regarding ethnicity and immigrant status, in 1961 regular towns tended to have higher veteran populations and lower Mizrahi populations (Appendix 19). And regarding size, regular towns had overall larger populations, although there is also significant variation in size within both town types (see Appendix 18). In addition to these three settlement types, one can distinguish among three rural types: development towns, cooperative farms including kibbutzim and moshavim, and other rural areas. However, as noted, after some initial comparisons, I focus on the three urban types.

Settlement type is important in the analysis of Israeli society because it affected access to labor markets and therefore occupational opportunity. Because they were economic centers, the cities offered the most white collar “empty spaces” for new immigrants to fill, followed by regular towns and then development towns (Appendix 21). Among all Jewish men in the labor force in Israel in 1961, 35% of those in the cities had white collar occupations versus 27% of those in regular towns and 16% in urban development towns. For new immigrants alone, the numbers are 27%, 22%, and 14%, respectively. In 1961, these differences in occupational opportunities were correlated with the immigrant and ethnic makeup of a settlement; thus, in towns with more veterans the overall prestige of jobs available to residents was higher, and in towns where the new immigrant population was proportionally more Ashkenazi, the overall prestige of jobs available to residents was higher.

It is because of these combined differences in opportunity and demographics that scholars turned their attention to the effect of the towns on ethnic gaps in attainment in Israel. However, no earlier analyses have used country of origin as their variable, and when country of origin is used, new patterns emerge.

EFFECT OF DEVELOPMENT TOWN RESIDENCE ON PRESTIGE IN ISRAEL

Figure 8.1 graphs the gap in Israeli occupational prestige points between new immigrants who lived in the cities on the one hand and those who lived in development or regular towns on the other.⁶ One can see that without controls for human capital (Figure 8.1a), development town residence has a negative effect on the attainment of most country groups—it is associated with anywhere from 3 to 8 fewer Israeli prestige points—and has no apparent effect on that of Moroccans (the slightly positive effect is not statistically significant). However, for all countries of origin, controlling for human capital makes the coefficients for development and regular towns more positive, so that for most groups, type of urban settlement does not have a statistically significant effect on Israeli occupational prestige. This occurs because for all countries of origin, human capital was lower in development towns than elsewhere. Thus, although development towns offered fewer high status jobs, for the most part their residents didn’t have the qualifications for higher status jobs anyway, and the net effect is neither loss nor gain.

Figure 8.1. Differences in expected Israeli prestige by location, for the six largest countries of origin, after controlling for human capital, region of the country, and year of arrival. Urban development towns and regular towns compared to the three cities.

Even this initial finding undermines Swirski’s arguments, at least as they pertain to 1961. Rather than the towns generating downward mobility for Mizrahim and upward mobility for Ashkenazim, as he predicted, they didn’t actually matter much at all. Only Yemenites—few of whom lived in the towns—obtained lower status in development towns than elsewhere, and Moroccans—who were the largest group in the towns and who were Mizrahi—obtained higher status in them. Moreover, not only does Figure 8.1 contradict Swirski’s expectations, but it also appears to support his detractors’. The fact that human capital was lower in the towns than elsewhere is consistent with the argument that the state put weak immigrants in the towns, and the finding that controlling for human capital eliminates the effect of town residence for most groups and makes it positive for Moroccans tends to support arguments that the towns protected weaker immigrants by offering them jobs that were appropriate for their prior skills. Of course, one might still hypothesize that the towns generated ethnic inequality, but one would have to rely on dynamics that entered the picture after the settlement of the immigrants. For example, one might expect that in towns with so many weak immigrants and so little occupational opportunity, schools would be of low quality and that the psychological and practical effects of a poor educational system and limited occupational structure would reduce the next generation’s chances for upward mobility.

This hypothesis regarding the next generation may well be correct, but the story of immigrant attainment is not that easily summed up. Note, in Figure 8.1, that controlling for human capital had relatively little effect on the development town coefficient for Moroccans compared to other countries. This is because for Moroccans human capital was not much lower in the towns than outside. As I showed in Khazzoom (2005b), the state essentially sent two groups to the towns: Ashkenazim with low human capital, and all Mizrahim. The result is that the towns initially contained a fair number of Mizrahim—from all countries—with high human capital. Once placed, Asians and Ashkenazim were more likely to leave the towns than Moroccans, and Moroccans were more likely to move in than other groups (Adler suggests they were engaging in family unification; personal communication 2004). Thus by 1961, the towns had a relatively large number of Moroccan men with higher attainments; in fact, for all intents and purposes, the only development town residents to report western language primacy were Moroccan. While it may be true for other groups that the jobs available in the towns were appropriate to the immigrants’ backgrounds, this was not necessarily as true for Moroccans.

Then why was Moroccan attainment increased by living in the towns? This is where prior work on development towns seems to have missed the critical dynamic. The people who benefited most from living in the towns were not the lower classes at all, but well-educated Moroccans, particularly if they were young. This is shown in Figure 8.2, which charts returns to education for Moroccan men in the three urban settlement types, for different ages at arrival, and with and without western language primacy (see equations in Appendix 23).⁷,⁸ As one can see from this figure, residential location mattered little for men with less than eight years of education.⁹ Among those with more than eight years, on the other hand, younger men were better off in the towns, especially if their primary language was Arabic rather than French.

For example, for twenty-year-old Arabic speakers with at least ten years of education, development towns provided more opportunity than even the three cities; they provided between 4 and 10 more Israeli prestige points than regular towns and about 5 points more than in the three cities. For older (forty-year-old) educated Arabic speakers, development towns were still better than regular towns, but the cities were best; development towns provided no more than 5 extra Israeli prestige points relative to regular towns, while the three cities provided up to 10 points more.

Separate regressions (not shown) confirm what Figure 8.2 implies, namely that Moroccan men had higher chances of obtaining white collar jobs outside of regular towns, net education and whether or not they had white collar jobs before immigration.¹⁰ They also confirm that for young men between the ages of twenty and thirty who did not report western language primacy and who had at least eight years of education, Israeli prestige was higher in development towns than in the three cities and that this was not true for similar men with western language primacy (Appendix 25).¹¹ Clearly, development towns were associated neither with downward mobility for their residents nor with protection of weak Mizrahi immigrants, nor even with upward mobility for Ashkenazim. Rather, the most important role of development towns was to offer spaces in which younger, well-educated Moroccans who did not report western language primacy could have relatively high chances at white collar jobs (protecting, perhaps, the weakest of the strong Mizrahim?).

Figure 8.2. Effect of residential location and age on Israeli prestige. For men with secular educations who do and do not speak western languages. Prestige abroad held constant at sample median (24.6), year of arrival set to 1956, region of the country set to north (with the exception of the three cities).

So what is to be made of this dynamic? Answers are found not in prior work on development towns but in work on the segregation of Palestinians in Israel (who were relegated to more peripheral areas than Mizrahim), as well as U.S. work on segregation, labor market queues, and ethnic enclaves (Massey and Denton 1993; Wilson 1987, 1996; Lieberson 1980; Portes and Manning 1986). Their work is useful for this chapter because, unlike the work of Swirski and his detractors, they explain how segregation can sometimes have a positive effect on minority attainment, particularly the attainment of the middle class.

RACIAL SEGREGATION AND IMMIGRANT ENCLAVES IN THE UNITED STATES AND PALESTINIAN SEGREGATION IN ISRAEL

The U.S. literature often treats enforced segregation and voluntary concentration of minorities as different dynamics, with the first disadvantageous to minorities and the second advantageous. However, Lewin-Epstein and Semyonov (1994) use this U.S. literature and the case of geographically marginalized Palestinians to argue that whenever ethnic minorities are concentrated, the same set of advantages and disadvantages apply. The disadvantage is that the higher the minority concentration, the lower the quality of the labor market. The advantage, according to their work and other work, is that concentration sets in motion four dynamics that give minorities better access to whatever jobs do exist. Those dynamics are as follows:

Networking, where minorities hear about jobs from friends who are from their home country or ethnic/racial group

Ethnic economies, where firms are owned by minorities and therefore more likely to hire minorities

Availability of clients for minority doctors, lawyers, and other professionals, who are often avoided by majority groups

Relief from labor market queues, where the reduced number of majority job seekers means that minorities have better chances at obtaining high status jobs than they would in areas with high majority concentrations

Thus, wherever minorities are concentrated, there are fewer high status jobs, but minorities also have better access to whatever is there.

Both Wilson (1987, 1996) and Massey and Denton (1993), who examine the consequences of the segregation of African Americans, acknowledge that Harlem went through a golden age in which it supported a middle class, because whites by and large did not patronize African American professionals but African Americans did. However, in the main, both works argue that because of the involuntary nature and intensity of the segregation of African Americans, concentration could not be beneficial. In the Israeli case of development towns, segregation was also intense—some development towns were close to 100% Mizrahi—and involuntary—as I discussed in Chapter 3. Yet even under these conditions, the minority that was concentrated did better in its areas of concentration than in integrated centers.

DOES A QUEUING OR NETWORKING DYNAMIC EXPLAIN THE MOROCCAN RESULTS?

Lewin-Epstein and Semyonov (1994) would posit that as concentration increases, labor market quality would exert a downward effect on Moroccan attainment at the same time that the concentration itself would exert an upward effect. This can be modeled statistically by returning to the equation from Figure 8.1—which predicted attainment for all Moroccan immigrants and added terms for settlement type—and adding in terms that measure the ethnic concentration and labor market quality of an individual’s town.

I measured labor market quality as average Israeli prestige of all men in the labor force in 1961. There are two possible ways to measure ethnic concentration—proportion Moroccan and proportion Mizrahi—and the contrast between them can indirectly assess whether the development towns’ boost was due to a queuing dynamic or to a dynamic that is network based. In a networking dynamic, individuals who experience some sense of commonality—because they know each other, know people in common, come from the same town, etc.—hire each other or pass on information to each other about available jobs. As such, a networking dynamic would be manifested by a significant effect of the numbers of Moroccans who were in the towns. In contrast, in a queuing dynamic, it is not the high number of Moroccans that generates the higher attainment, but rather the low number of Ashkenazim (or high number of other Mizrahim) (for the U.S. parallel, see Lieberson 1980). Thus, a positive effect for proportion Moroccan appears to indicate a networking dynamic, and a positive effect for proportion Mizrahi appears to indicate a queuing dynamic.

The results for this analysis (for urban areas and rural development towns) are in Table 8.1.¹² As with the equations for Figure 8.1, these regress Israeli prestige on human capital, year of arrival, settlement type, and region. In the first equation, average Israeli prestige of a town is added. Once this has been done, Moroccan attainment in the three cities and regular towns are similar to each other and 3 to 6 prestige points lower than in development towns (the difference between urban and rural development towns is not statistically significant).¹³ In the second equation, proportion Mizrahi new immigrant and proportion veteran are added so that the comparison category is proportion Ashkenazi new immigrant. These variables reduce the coefficient for urban development town residence from a statistically significant 3 prestige points to an insignificant half point, and reduce the effect of rural town residence from a significant 6 points to an insignificant 2. This indicates that the prestige “boost” associated with development town residence is due to the higher proportions of Mizrahim in the towns. In the final equation, proportion Moroccan is added. It does not appear to affect the equation in any substantial way; thus the Moroccan attainment boost in development towns appears to be due to a queuing effect more than a networking one.

THE EFFECT OF ETHNIC CONCENTRATION ON IRAQI ATTAINMENT IN HIGH OPPORTUNITY AREAS

If the same regression as Table 8.1 is estimated for the rest of the six largest countries of origin, the attainment of Iraqis also appears to be affected by the Mizrahi concentration of a town. In this case, however, the source of the dynamic is not a settlement type but a single city: Ramat Gan. Controlling for residence in Ramat Gan causes the effect of Mizrahi concentration on Iraqi attainment to be halved and reduced to insignificance. Controlling for other towns in which Iraqis were concentrated, such as Petah Tikva or Holon, does not affect the Mizrahi concentration term. Thus Ramat Gan is to Iraqis what development towns are to Moroccans, namely an area in which Iraqis were concentrated and also seemed to do particularly well. Moreover, in both cases, it was the more educated who benefited, through increased access to white collar jobs.

TABLE 8.1

Regressions predicting prestige of individual’s Israeli occupation, using human capital, settlement type, average prestige of Israeli occupation in town, and population distribution in town

The case of Iraqis in Ramat Gan also turns out to be a useful comparison to the case of Moroccans in development towns, because it highlights one downward pressure on Moroccan attainment in the towns. Table 8.2 presents equations estimating the chances of obtaining a white collar occupation in Israel for men who had at least ten years of a secular education in development towns and in Ramat Gan (there were not enough cases to sort on western language). In development towns, where Moroccans did best, they still had a significantly lower chance of obtaining white collar jobs than other groups, net education, age, and having held a white collar position prior to immigration (Yemenites provided too few cases to be included in the equation). This is consistent with a queuing dynamic, in which Moroccans obtain higher prestige occupations not because they successfully competed with other groups but because there were too few members of other groups to occupy all valued positions. In Ramat Gan, in contrast, Iraqi men were more likely than other groups to obtain white collar jobs, and Iraqis had this advantage only in Ramat Gan (in Figure 5.1, this is manifested in the rise of the Iraqi line above Romanians and Poles at higher educational levels).¹⁴

Why might this occur? There is not enough research on the towns or on Ramat Gan to be certain, and future qualitative work might focus on the comparison. However, the dynamic brings to mind Portes and Stepick’s work on Miami (1993). The Miami case was similar to the Ramat Gan case in that the human capital of the Latino (Cuban) immigrants concentrated there was relatively high and in that there, too, the minorities who were concentrated outstripped the attainment of majority members—even, argues Portes, creating a revitalization of the local economy. The dynamics to which Portes attributes this outcome are many and include physical capital—which immigrants could lend to each other to establish businesses—and networking.

The first explanation does not appear to apply to the Iraqi Ramat Gan case. It is of course true that Iraqi immigrants who moved to Ramat Gan often had physical capital (Khazzoom, in progress), and it may be that some used this capital to create businesses. It is also true that more Iraqis were self-employed in Ramat Gan than in other regular towns (7.2% versus 2.4%). However, by and large the set of gatekeepers from whom Ramat Gan Iraqis obtained jobs didn’t differ from the set from whom Iraqis in other regular towns obtained jobs; in both cases, gatekeepers were mostly Ashkenazi and mostly veteran.¹⁵ Moreover, in both Ramat Gan and other regular towns about 90% of Iraqis were salaried (89.9% and 95.6%, respectively) and therefore were dependent on these mostly Ashkenazi gatekeepers for their occupational status. Na’im’s story from the previous chapter is of course in line with these numbers, as he obtained his white collar job from a veteran Ashkenazi gatekeeper who noted his western behavior. The census contains no networking variables, so it is not possible to evaluate Portes’ second dynamic. However, it is of note that the educational attainment of Ramat Gan Iraqis was particularly high: 9.1 years of education, on average, compared to 6.5 years in other regular towns and 6.2 in neighboring Tel Aviv. This does provide for networks that that would tend to lead toward high status jobs.

TABLE 8.2

Logistic regression of chances of obtaining a white collar occupation in Israel on education, age, white collar incumbency, and country of origin (men with at least ten years of secular education)

Thus a reasonable working hypothesis—which can be examined with other data—is that the Iraqi edge in Ramat Gan was due to the access Iraqis had to each other, i.e., to a network of immigrants who could pass on the kind of information necessary to obtain high status jobs, even from employers from a different ethnic group. Regarding development towns, then, the suggestion of the Iraqi case is that although concentration in the towns did benefit Moroccans, that benefit was also limited by the lower human capital of the individuals who lived in the towns. This is suggested by the evidence that in both the case of Miami and Ramat Gan, high human and physical capital enabled minorities to turn concentration into a strong tool for interethnic competition for resources, producing advantages that are larger than those obtained by Moroccans in this sample.

SO WAS THERE DISCRIMINATION?

The answer to the discrimination question is clearer in this chapter than in Chapter 7. First, as Khazzoom (2005b) made clear, there was discrimination in development town placement. Even Mizrahim who were of high human capital had a slightly higher chance of being placed in a development town than Ashkenazim of low human capital. Moreover, even though Moroccans with high educations did better in the development towns than they would have in other urban areas, that occurred only because there were fewer Ashkenazim around, and Moroccans still experienced a disadvantage relative to those Ashkenazim who were in the towns. Thus, despite the development town boost, the overall implication of this chapter and the preceding one is that Moroccans experienced discrimination, both inside and outside of the towns.

IMPLICATIONS FOR DICHOTOMIZATION AND THE FORMATION OF ETHNIC INEQUALITY

As with Chapter 7, examination of a social dynamic—in this case segregation—makes dichotomization less, rather than more, expected, though in this case the push against dichotomization had little to do with gatekeeper preferences. By placing Mizrahim from all countries at equal rates in isolated towns with lower opportunity, gatekeepers set in motion a process of dichotomization. But as it happened, Moroccans were more likely than other groups to immigrate during the years of high development town settlement, and Asians were more likely than Africans to leave the towns. As a result, the towns became centers of North African, and especially Moroccan, concentration, not Mizrahi concentration. Thus any effect of development towns on attainment would tend to disproportionately affect Africans over Asians, undermining dichotomization. Moreover, in 1961, with the towns providing white collar jobs to Arabic-speaking well-educated Moroccans, and the cities providing jobs to French-speaking well-educated Moroccans, not only was dichotomization undermined, but so was any form of ethnic inequality in access to middle-class positions.

WHAT WAS THE EFFECT OF TIME?

As noted, one advantage of the Israeli case is that we can compare ethnic inequality at its formation with its later permutations. Adler et al.’s (2001) analysis, reviewed above, shows that development towns are now a disadvantage for their residents, in that residents’ matriculation rates are lower, net background, than those of residents of other areas in Israel. Moreover, since Adler et al. found no ethnic differences in this dynamic, development towns seem to have shifted from having a positive effect on Moroccan attainment to having a negative one. Thus, time has changed the effect of segregation on Moroccan attainment, turning from positive to negative.

Though this shift has never been empirically examined, its sources would seem clear. Segregation is associated with lower labor market quality. Although causality is hard to prove, I did show that even in 1961, a town’s proportion of new Mizrahi was associated with its labor market quality, even after the average human capital of a town had been taken into account (Appendix 20). Logic would suggest that gaps between labor market quality in segregated and nonsegregated areas would increase with time because high paying industries prefer areas that feel more “central” and, in the Israeli case, more modern and western. As the gap in labor market quality grows, the increased access to high status jobs in segregated areas becomes less of an advantage relative to the lower availability of such jobs. This provides a dynamic through which segregation itself lowers opportunity, over time.

In addition, Massey and Denton (1993) offer a second mechanism for how conditions in segregated areas decline over time, and this appears to apply to the Israeli case. Because minorities, be they African Americans or Israeli Moroccans, tend to lose their jobs first, segregated areas tend to experience higher rates of job loss during economic downturns. Individuals who have lost their jobs may stop taking care of their homes, giving the neighborhood a general feel of neglect. Both the middle-class and the lower-class working population may move out of the neighborhood in search of better opportunities, robbing those left behind of social capital and practical resources (Sanchez-Jankowski 1997). In all these senses, concentration of Mizrahim into development towns would tend to increase ethnic inequality over time; however, by depressing Moroccan attainment it would also tend to undermine dichotomization. Again, the comparison between Iraqis in Ramat Gan and Moroccans in development towns appears important; because Iraqis were concentrated in a central area, in both a geographic and a cultural sense, the same decline over time should not occur.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE UNITED STATES AND OTHER AREAS

In this chapter, I used U.S. research to make sense of the Moroccan paradox, but what utility might the Moroccan paradox have for U.S. research? There are several answers. First, Israel provides an important test case for the assertion that democratic states can be active in producing segregation (Khazzoom 2005b). As noted, the data clearly indicate that gatekeepers placed Mizrahim in the towns at greater rates than Ashkenazim (see Figure 5.4). This is another instance in which Israel is interesting internationally because it can be caught engaging in direct ethnic discrimination at a time when such discrimination is theoretically expected by those who believe that “race matters.”¹⁶

Second, the Israeli case is interesting because the apparent reasons for segregation parallel Massey and Denton’s (1993) contentions about the United States. They argue that blacks were segregated in large part because they were despised, that is, for Massey and Denton as well, the nonmaterial aspects of race and ethnicity are posited as having independent causal effects on the development of racial/ethnic inequality. The Israeli case is therefore another instance in which nonmaterial factors appear to account for moves to geographically marginalize a minority population.

Third, the Israeli case sits uncomfortably next to Massey and Denton’s argument that societies interested in racial justice should focus first and foremost on desegregation. On the one hand, their contention that segregation is the direct expression of the devalued status of African Americans in U.S. society is echoed in the Israeli case. The sense of cultural difference and personal pain that such marginalization can generate pervades the Go to the End of the World film with which I began this chapter, as well as the statements and activities of political organizations, from the Black Panthers of the 1970s to today’s party Shas. On the other hand, in the Israel case the disadvantages of segregation are not in the segregation itself, but in the tendency of gaps in opportunity to increase over time. If the gains of segregation are always present and the losses are associated with degradation of labor markets, then in the continuing debate over whether to integrate (Massey and Denton) or economically develop (Wilson) already segregated areas, the answers appear at minimum complex.

This is in many respects a chicken/egg quandary, since both segregation and its negatives effects are rooted in racial/ethnic preference and both desegregation and economic development of segregated areas are hard to engineer as long as racial/ethnic preference remains in place. However, Israeli experiments with attracting wealthier Ashkenazi residents to the towns may be instructive. Several studies found that when the overall economic health of the town is the measure of success, this strategy brings more benefits than those focusing on attracting new industries to the towns. In particular, the new Ashkenazi residents do tend to spend their money in the town, and the overall quality of the schools increases. However, one of the more complete studies also found that the new Ashkenazi elite of the towns began to monopolize the political structure of the city, pushing out older Mizrahi residents (Ayalon et al. 1993). It may be that when the economic opportunities of local Mizrahi residents are considered, a more conservative strategy of job creation is more successful than suburbanization strategies. In addition, these programs designed to attract wealthier residents have not been the main trend in Israeli desegregation programs. It is easier to attract new Russian immigrants and other, less wealthy immigrants to the towns by offering them housing that is cheaper than that in the center. As a result, those who desegregate the towns tend to be lower in human capital themselves. Because I showed in this chapter that the average human capital of the town was also associated with lower market quality, and because one can imagine that this relationship is causal, attracting Ashkenazim with lower human capital may tend to eliminate the benefits of segregation for Moroccans without significantly altering the losses in labor market opportunity.

CONCLUSIONS

On the surface, the finding that Moroccan attainment was boosted by residence in development towns contradicts the Moroccan assertion of discrimination by isolation. It suggests that rather than being a cause of ethnic inequality, Moroccan relegation to development towns was actually to their benefit. By reducing the number of Ashkenazim higher up in the queue, development town residence appears to have given Moroccans some relief from the discrimination they experienced in other areas and opened up opportunities for better educated men who did not have French primacy to obtain high status jobs. But the experience of the Iraqis in Ramat Gan also suggests that Moroccans in the towns were held back by the low human and physical capital that concentrated there. Moreover, we know that over time development town residence became associated with a lower tendency to matriculate, suggesting that over time their effect was negative, probably because of the increasing gaps in opportunity between segregated peripheral areas and less segregated central areas. Finally, I suggested that the gains made by segregated Moroccans in 1961 have complex implications for whether “development town development” should focus on desegregation or economic vitalization.

To the extent that development towns increased or decreased Moroccan attainment and not that of other groups, they functioned to undermine both ethnic inequality and dichotomization. This is not because gatekeepers didn’t dichotomize or discriminate, but because of a complex set of historical accidents. Though all Mizrahim were placed in the towns at higher rates than all Ashkenazim, migration patterns resulted in the towns becoming Moroccan spaces. Since Moroccans with higher human capital but no ability to prove westernness had better access to high status jobs in the towns, ethnic inequality was mitigated, as was dichotomization. Moreover, with the towns becoming Moroccan spaces, any association between life chances and living in the periphery is likely to undermine dichotomization, as it will affect Moroccans differently from other Mizrahi groups.

Finally, it is worth pointing out that neither the theories addressed in this chapter nor the chapter itself attended to one of the central complaints from the movie: the Europhilic families experienced not only downward class mobility, but, from their standpoints, downward cultural mobility. This omission on my part may seem odd, since one of the primary contributions of this book is to argue for the salience of the concept of “eastern” in shaping resource distribution in Israel, yet in this case the focus on resource distribution appears to hide rather than highlight processes of easternization of Mizrahi immigrants. The simple fact is that it is unclear how this cultural component could be examined quantitatively. My contribution in this book is to argue that Mizrahim were marginalized because they were seen as eastern, and that both residential and occupational marginalization are part of a single process of controlling the influence of the east in Israel. However, while this chapter’s analysis implies a clear research project on the interactions of peripheral residence, ethnic concentration, and the distribution of resources over time, it is unclear what the parallel project would be about the distribution—or perhaps preservation—of easternness over time.

CHAPTER NINE

Into the Next Generation

Earlier chapters of this book sought to find the roots of dichotomization by asking how occupations were distributed to the immigrants in the labor market. Although the analysis found substantial evidence that gatekeepers used the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi dichotomy to distribute resources, in most cases the result was not resource dichotomization but something more complex. Thus this book has established the utility of a dichotomization framework, but has not yet established how or when resource dichotomization actually occurred.

Events after the labor market encounter are beyond the scope of this book as well as that of the 1961 census. However, since the next major site for resource distribution would be when the Israeli-born children of the immigrants obtained their education, it is possible to take a brief look into what happened there. And an analysis of educational attainment among the Israeli-born, based on Matras’s 1954 cohort study, provides some very interesting results. This survey, conducted in the late 1970s, sampled individuals who had been born in 1954, and asked about their own education and their parents’ background. I selected those Israeli-born men whose fathers would have been the subjects of Figure 5.1, that is, men whose fathers immigrated between 1948 and 1954¹, between the ages of twenty and sixty. I then examined the relationship between parents’ attainments and the likelihood of a son obtaining an academic matriculation certificate (high school diploma that allows the recipient to go on to the university). Because mother’s education and number of siblings could easily explain the Iraqi “fall” without reference to discrimination in the schools, I added these variables as well. Because this data set has fewer cases than the census, and because Yemenites were unlikely to obtain matriculation certificates, Yemenites had to be dropped from the analysis and the three Ashkenazi countries aggregated together. The comparison is thus of Moroccans, Iraqis, and Ashkenazim (Soviets, Poles, and Romanians).

Figure 9.1. Likelihood of obtaining bagrut (matriculation) for second generation, by number of siblings and father’s Israeli prestige. Uses 1954 cohort study, Israeli-born men whose fathers immigrated to Israel between 1948 and 1958, ages 20–60.

As it turns out, neither father’s education nor mother’s education were statistically significant once father’s prestige had been controlled, so the effect of parents’ background on son’s education boils down to the effect of father’s prestige. In Figure 9.1, I chart the expected percentage who would matriculate (Y-axis) relative to father’s occupational prestige (X-axis), by ethnic group. Because Ashkenazim rarely had more than one sibling, and Mizrahim rarely had less than two, I produced two lines each for Moroccans and Iraqis. One set of lines uses one sibling, to make them directly comparable to the Ashkenazi line. The second set uses the country median, which was five siblings for Iraqis and six for Moroccans. These lines produce a better sense of how many Moroccans and Iraqis were actually expected to matriculate based on different levels of father’s prestige. The equations used to produce these graphs are in Appendix 25.

The rather startling finding is that Iraqis received, for all intents and purposes, no returns to father’s attainments, while Moroccans had similar experiences to Ashkenazim. In other words, the chart shows another Iraqi paradox, but this time, instead of Iraqis being the only Mizrahim to experience Ashkenazi treatment, they are the only ones not to. As can be seen in the graph, sons of men with very low prestige are expected to matriculate at about the same overall low rate, regardless of ethnic origin. But as father’s occupational prestige increases, only Moroccan and Ashkenazi matriculation rates increase; Iraqi rates do not. This finding means that the immigrant father’s Israeli prestige—precisely the resource that Iraqis seemed to obtain on equal terms with Ashkenazim—was useless to second-generation Iraqis. Thus, the data suggest that Iraqis “became Mizrahim,” in a resource distribution sense, because fathers could not pass on class advantage to their sons.

ARE THESE DATA FOR REAL?

These data, again, are based on men born in 1954, which leads to some cautionary caveats, articulated below. However, these caveats pertain largely to non-Iraqi countries, while the concern here is to accurately asses the attainment of Iraqis. This is because only Iraqi dynamics diverge from the norm; a positive relationship between father’s prestige and son’s matriculation rates is common in modern industrialized societies. Moreover, as noted in the introduction, the intergenerational reproduction of ethnic inequality in educational attainment is usually due primarily to ethnic differences in parents’ attainments, rather than discrimination against those whose parents have higher attainments. Therefore, an outcome in which most Moroccans and Ashkenazim received positive returns to father’s prestige is not at all surprising and probably not in doubt.

The caveats are as follows. First, the data chart the experiences of children who were born just after the immigration, when parents may not yet have accommodated to Israeli systems. However, nearly all Iraqis had arrived by 1951, and evidence is that by 1954 the elite had already largely left the temporary camps and settled into permanent housing (Khazzoom, in progress). This makes it even more mystifying that they, and only they, could not pass on their achievements to their sons born in 1954.

Second, sons of fathers who immigrated after 1954 are by definition not included in the Matras data. However, again, nearly all Iraqis had arrived by 1951, three years before the men in the Matras study were born. In fact, the majority of most immigrants had arrived by 1954,² and the only case in which the choice of cohort is potentially significant is with Moroccans. Earlier Moroccan immigrants were relatively more educated, younger, more likely to arrive without family responsibilities, and more able to prove westernization than later immigrants.³

Finally, fathers who immigrated at older ages probably didn’t have children in Israel. As such, older men, who were included in the equations on which Figure 9.1 was based, were less likely to be included in the Matras data. However, this too can be conceptualized as an advantage, as younger Iraqi immigrants were more likely to receive Ashkenazi-level returns to education in the labor market than older immigrants (Khazzoom 1999). As such, the fact that the fathers included in the Matras sample are younger than those used for the book strengthens the suggestion that precisely the group of Iraqis that did well in the labor market wasn’t able to pass the success on to the next generation.

Finally, from a broad perspective, something like these results is expected. The analysis in this book (see also Khazzoom 1999) establishes that dichotomization did not happen in the first encounter with the labor market, and Amit’s (2001) work shows that even later on in time, as careers progressed, the attainments of Iraqi immigrants continued to be more similar to those of Romanians and Poles than to those of Moroccans and Yemenites. Yet Amit’s work, like Nahon’s (1987), also clearly shows us that by the time the Israeli-born finished school, Iraqi attainments resembled those of Moroccans and Yemenites more than those of Poles and Romanians. The implication, from a variety of angles, is that Iraqi attainments came to resemble those of other Mizrahim somewhere in the school system, and Figure 9.1 is entirely consistent with this expectation.

POSSIBLE INTERPRETATIONS

The task, then, is to take these results as correct, until more data are available, and attempt to reconcile them with dynamics observed among the immigrants. Since second-generation Moroccan and Iraqi matriculation levels are alike at lower levels of father’s prestige but diverge at higher levels, the comparison of interest is between the children of high status Moroccan and Iraqi immigrants, and we are left with two questions. First, why would high status Moroccan children matriculate at higher rates than high status Iraqi children? And second, why would Iraqis not experience discrimination in the first generation and then suddenly experience it in the second? Several possibilities are worth further investigation, and all have generalizable implications for how newly re-formed ethnic hierarchies stabilize over time. These possibilities can be examined in future research.

The first question—why Moroccan matriculation rates were high—can be dispensed with fairly easily. Moroccan immigrants were more likely to live in the periphery, and as we saw, they were more likely to obtain white collar jobs there. Thus a comparison between the children of high status Moroccan and Iraqi immigrants is largely a comparison between Moroccan children who were raised in the periphery and Iraqi children who were raised in the center. We know from Shavit’s (1989) work that Mizrahim overall were more likely to matriculate if they lived in the periphery.⁴ Shavit attributed the higher matriculation rates to lack of competition from Ashkenazim in the periphery, which is the same dynamic that I argued in Chapter 8 explained the Moroccan immigrants’ relative success in finding jobs in development towns. Thus, the high Moroccan matriculation rates are consistent with dynamics from the first generation; what are inconsistent are the low Iraqi rates.

Regarding generalizability, again the Israeli case would highlight the complex effect of residential segregation on minority life chances. On the one hand, results from this book suggest that when segregation does increase minority attainment, the outcome can be striking. On the other hand, we know that it exerts a negative effect, at least over time. Regarding Israel, Adler et al. (2005) found that by 1995 matriculation rates were lower in development towns than in the center, with no ethnic differences. Clearly Moroccans lost their development town “edge” over time. Regarding the United States, Massey and Denton (1993) note that New York’s Harlem once offered opportunities for professional African American men, but then became a place of low attainment. Here, too, benefits associated with segregation disappeared over time. This highlights questions about precisely how the early advantages of segregation turn into the later disadvantages. One possibility, as noted, has to do with economic downturns. Massey and Denton (1993) point out that under normal conditions segregated areas will experience economic downturns more intensively than integrated areas. This is because minorities are likely to lose their jobs first, meaning that in segregated areas large portions of residents will have lost their jobs. As neighborhoods decline and successful residents move out, the effects of the downturns can become permanent. Economic downturns are likely to happen in most places at some point in time, and that may be one basis on which to conclude that segregation, while initially a benefit to minorities, will normally become a drawback over time.

The queuing relief associated with segregation may explain much of the higher Moroccan attainments in Figure 9.1, but it doesn’t explain the greater puzzle of why Iraqi children would experience discrimination in central areas when their parents didn’t. Since this book showed that the parents’ success was based on their ability to demonstrate westernness, the obvious question to ask is whether something prevented Iraqis from trading on their westernness in the second generation. Other hypotheses, such as the school system being less sensitive to cultural capital than the labor market or providing less opportunity to perform westernness, seem unlikely. Attending school every day provides ample opportunity to demonstrate cultural skills, and few would argue that schools are less attentive to culture than labor markets.

One possible reason why Iraqi children couldn’t trade in on western cultural capital is that they didn’t have enough, because their parents didn’t transmit it. Available information might allow one to construct such an argument. In Chapter 7 I pointed out that westernized Iraqi Jews learned French but apparently did not speak it at home, as fewer than expected reported French primacy. If they did not hear French at home, Iraqi children were unlikely to pick it up and would therefore have failed to acquire one powerful method of presenting the self as western. The 1972 census—which also lists first and second language spoken—has no Israeli-born Iraqi children speaking French, compared to 3% of Israeli-born Moroccan children. Though the proportion of Moroccans speaking French is rather low—and thus not a good explanation for high Moroccan attainments—the proportion of Iraqis speaking French is consistent with the argument that Iraqis did not transmit cultural capital. In addition, there is some evidence that successful Iraqis actively sought to culturally assimilate into what they saw as Israeli culture (Shenhav 2006; Khazzoom 2006; Meir-Glitzenstein 2002). Shenhav’s (2006) personal story of changing his name to a Hebrew one, and his academic evidence that Iraqis were strong collaborators with the Israeli establishment, are cases in point. A desire to blend into Israeli culture would also make Iraqis less likely to pass on western cultural capital, as they would be more focused on encouraging children to become Israeli than imbibing their parents’ connections to Europe.

Regarding generalizability to other societies, this would not be the first time that assimilation is observed to hamper rather than enhance the scholastic attainment of the children of immigrants; Zhou and Bankston (1998) made a similar argument for Vietnamese immigrants to the United States.⁵ They argue that in cases where full absorption into the larger society would mean being incorporated into a racial/ethnic minority group, nonassimilation may be more likely to lead to success.

In addition to the possibility that Iraqi children did not obtain their parents’ western cultural capital, another hypothesis is that over time, Israeli gatekeepers became less sensitive to westernness among Mizrahim and that the westernness “loophole” to the practice of discrimination against Mizrahim therefore closed out. This hypothesis builds on the observation that some time elapsed between the selection of immigrants in the labor market and the selection of their children in the school. Though it is true that in 1961, the 1954 cohort would already be in school, Shavit (1989) suggests that the critical decisions that determined matriculation rates occurred later, when Mizrahi children were tracked into vocational secondary educational programs. This would happen around age fourteen, or about 1968, seven years after the census date. Using different data sets, both Shavit (1990) and Yaish (2004) found that even net of ability measures, Mizrahi children were more likely to be placed in vocational secondary tracks.

Why would the system change so that it no longer offered Mizrahim with western capital inclusion? There are numerous reasons. First, we know that the binary categorization scheme gelled over time (see discussion in Chapter 3; see also Regev and Seroussi 2004 and Espiritu 1992 for a U.S. parallel). In fact Supporta’s (personal communication 2004) research on the school system indicates that the scheme gelled fairly fast in the schools specifically. It stands to reason that as the binary contrast seemed more self-evident, attentiveness to possible internal variation among Mizrahim declined accordingly.⁶ Methodologically, this means that the link between the categories and the original concerns about westernization can be statistically observed only in the early years, when commentators such as Gelblum were still uncertain of their utility and were still paying attention to internal variation. Here, generalizability is in the tendency of new identity categories, once launched by powerful groups, to solidify with time. Mechanisms for solidification are plentiful, and they include media portrayals, the use of the new categories in censuses and other frameworks for information gathering, increasing similarity in material circumstance within a new category, and the tendency for all groups to organize material and political activity around the new categories.

A variety of other reasons for increasing rigidity build on the observation that over time more gatekeepers were new immigrants—mostly Ashkenazi—rather than veterans. Thus Iraqi and other Mizrahi children obtained educational resources from a group that included more new immigrant Ashkenazim than the group from whom their fathers obtained occupations. In fact, even in 1961 employers were less likely to be new immigrants than schoolteachers were; for example, in the center (i.e., not development towns or rural areas), 23% of employers were new Ashkenazi immigrants, compared to 30% of Jewish teachers. There is a reason for this; in the 1950s, the state needed teachers and nurses to the extent that it released women from army service if they attended one- to two-year vocational programs to fill either one of those occupations (and not for other educational pursuits). This increasing presence of new immigrant gatekeepers is important because there are four overlapping and mutually reinforcing reasons why veterans would be more likely to put westernization first, or at least to read their material interests through a concern for westernization.

First, veterans promoted a less nuanced version of the binary scheme than they themselves used. This is similar to the above point that the binary scheme gelled over time, but implies faster gelling for new immigrants than for veterans. As I pointed out in Chapter 7, veteran behavior was consistent with a pattern of classifying Mizrahi immigrants, on the collective level, as backward, Levantinizing forces, and then refining these judgments on an individual level. This meant, I argued, that the binary scheme was basic to gatekeeper thought. This pattern, in turn, implies that the less nuanced classification was available in the media to the new immigrants. This is important because by 1948, veterans had had some history of contemplating Jews from the Middle East and therefore had had a chance to think about exceptions to the rules. In contrast, many new Ashkenazi immigrants report being shocked, upon arrival, to find out that Jews existed outside of Europe at all (Khazzoom, work in progress on Polish immigrants).⁷ They were therefore dependent on the binary portrayals that saturated the environment and had little time (or incentive; see below) to consider exceptions.

A second point is that new Ashkenazi immigrants were still relatively insecure in their status as westerners. I argued earlier that veterans assumed that a European origin, in and of itself, indicated that a new immigrant would not threaten Levantinization. I also argued that this veteran stance was due to their prior success in marketing themselves to the British as different from Arabs based on their origins on the European continent generally. Although this did cause veterans to use a coherent Ashkenazi category in the labor market, however, other work tells us that the status of new Ashkenazi immigrants was not solid. For example, we know that veterans condescended to new Ashkenazi immigrants because they had not yet met the criteria for the new Jew, because they were generally less educated, and because they were not ideological enough to immigrate prestate (see, for example, Eisenstadt 1967). In addition, new Ashkenazi immigrants arrived mostly from eastern Europe, where they had been classified as only semi-European. Following Bourdieu, one can argue that the surer one is of being included within the western category, the more flexible and fine-tuned one’s criteria of inclusion is likely to be, and therefore the more open one is likely to be to exceptions to prevailing classification schemes.

Third, in contrast to veterans, new Ashkenazi immigrants had stronger material interests in the exclusion of all Mizrahim, regardless of westernization. Note that I am not arguing that veterans had no, or few, material interests in such exclusion; as noted in Chapter 3, available research does not allow one to make this argument. At the same time, however, there were differences among new and veteran Ashkenazim. As noted earlier, qualified veterans had for the most part either occupied the most valued positions from Yishuv times or obtained them fairly quickly after statehood, while new Ashkenazi immigrants were directly competing with new Mizrahi immigrants for the resources veterans had to give out. Polish immigrants in particular—the largest Ashkenazi group—arrived with similar occupational experiences as Iraqis (Chapter 4) and often competed with them in the larger urban settlements near economic centers, such as Ramat Gan (Khazzoom 1999). For these new immigrant Ashkenazim, any system that excluded all Mizrahim equally would directly contribute to their obtaining a bigger share of available resources, to a greater degree than was true for veterans, and would be to their advantage. In this sense it is quite interesting that in 1961, the census recorded only one female Iraqi teacher who lived in Ramat Gan, as opposed to thirty-four new immigrant Polish teachers.⁸

Fourth, veterans also had stronger ideological interests in finding and rewarding westernized Mizrahim than new immigrants did. I noted in Chapter 2 that veterans were exposed to Zionist ideology in a particularly intensive way and therefore identified strongly with its goals and those of the state. And, in turn, one is likely to care about producing a western state and society, rather than more immediate threats to one’s material interests, the more one is able to identify with the state or able to expect to “own” it. Note that the history of stigma elaborated in Chapter 6 implies that both new immigrant and veteran gatekeepers would have a personal negative reaction to immigrants who appeared eastern; thus, most individuals (including westernized Mizrahim) are expected to have had an initial tendency to exclude immigrants from Arab countries. However, veteran tendencies toward such exclusion were more likely to be tempered by the Zionist mandate to actively produce the society as western society—by including any individuals who appeared western—as well as the Zionist mandate to ensure equality of opportunity for all Jews (Kimmerling 1983).⁹

The general importance of these arguments regarding the solidification of categories and different orientations among first and second generations of gatekeepers is that they provide mechanisms through which identity might recede over time as the observable force behind patterns of racial/ ethnic exclusion. It is possible to state the Israeli case in generalizable terms, as follows. In the 1950s, which was a period of significant flux in Israeli society, the concern over self-definition was primary for the group in charge and shaped the basic contours of ethnic preference and hierarchy. These identity concerns never disappeared but did lose their primacy of place, as new arrivals with less investment in the subtleties of ethnic definitions organized their material activity around increasingly solidifying ethnic categories. Both the solidification of categories and the different orientations of the new arrivals closed out an earlier, identity-based loophole that had allowed significant numbers of the ethnically devalued group to obtain middle-class positioning by demonstrating that their cultural skills were in line with the collective identities powerholders wanted to create.¹⁰

The case therefore suggests that actors discriminate (or not) on the basis of various threats, including not just threats to their access to resources but also to the cultural character of collectivities with which they are associated. These collectivities vary in scale, from the street on which one lives, to the company one manages, to the state and society in which one lives. The more one is identified with such a collectivity, the more one is likely to put cultural concerns above more immediate threats to material interest. This is true at all times; however, in periods of social reorganization, when older patterns are challenged and new possibilities emerge, concerns over identity come to the fore.

PART IV

CONCLUSION

CHAPTER TEN

Perspectives on Ethnic Formation

ISRAELI ETHNIC FORMATION FROM AN INDIVIDUAL POINT OF VIEW

The feminist methodologist Dorothy Smith has written, among other things, that research should make events understandable from two perspec tives: the distanced perspective that is generated by streamlining experience into recognizable categories and general trends, and the experienced, or lived, perspective. In Chapter 7, Cultural Capital, I introduced the experiences of Na’im by describing one segment of his immigration and status attainment experiences. His full story, which follows, provides additional perspective on the large-scale survey research data that is the core of this book. It also fulfills another core criteria of feminist research—locating the author within the research—because Na’im was my uncle by marriage.

Na’im arrived in 1950 with his wife, Mazal, from Baghdad. As noted, Na’im was a bookkeeper with eight years of education. His wife had spent six years at the girls’ Alliance French school and had later taken a course to prepare women to work in business. She had never worked formally. They had no children.

In Israel, Na’im and Mazal were put in a ma’abara (temporary encampment) near Rehovot, about an hour south of Tel Aviv. Some time later, they were offered an apartment in a Yemenite village near Rehovot, but, says Na’im, they were from the city and wouldn’t know what to do in a village. Also, they were Iraqi, and though the Yemenites were nice, they did not eat the same food.

So Na’im went to Tel Aviv, to the area where the prestate immigrants from Iraq had settled. He found a real estate agent, who was a veteran immigrant from Baghdad, at the Iraqi coffee shop on Rothschild Boulevard. Through this agent, he found a small shack that was being sold by its owner, a Russian gardener. It was just one room, but the garden was nice. Na’im’s money had not made it from Iraq—he had deposited it with an old teacher who was going to Israel through France, but who never showed up in Israel—but Mazal’s father, a well-to-do lawyer, had not yet left Iraq and was able to send them enough money to buy the shack. Once he had a Tel Aviv address, said Na’im, he could get a job in Tel Aviv. He also let all his friends use his address so that they could get jobs in Tel Aviv as well.¹ Whenever a prospective employer called to verify that someone lived there, Na’im would always say yes, even if he had never heard of the person.

It was at this point that Naim began working on getting his bookkeeper’s license and in the meantime opened the fruit stand in the Carmel market. As noted, he eventually obtained a bookkeeper’s job, after having an opportunity to display westernness. After Na’im worked at this job for several years, he and Mazal moved to a larger apartment in Tel Aviv. They still had no children.

Meanwhile, Mazal’s brother and my father, Daniel, had arrived in Israel just after finishing high school in Iraq. He worked as a bank clerk and went to the night school that would later become Tel Aviv University. To save money, he lived with them and then with another married sister. After college, Daniel was accepted to Harvard for graduate school. He did not, however, have the money to get there. The network of friends and relatives from Baghdad held a party for him, with everyone donating some money, and they raised the money Daniel needed. By the time of the 1961 census, Daniel was out of the country. He got his Ph.D. at Harvard, in large part because of assistance from the mostly Ashkenazi community in Brookline and Cambridge, and became a professor of economics. He married my mother, a woman of western European Protestant origin, and settled in the United States permanently. However, his identification with Zionism did not recede. My sister and I were schooled in modern orthodox Zionist Jewish day schools in Washington, D.C., Montreal, and San Francisco. We visited Israel frequently and were encouraged to think of it as a potential home.

As time went on, Mazal’s parents and the rest of her seven siblings (the survivors of an original ten) came to Israel. They all settled in Ramat Gan, using money her father had first sent, and then brought with him. Mazal wanted very much to settle in Ramat Gan as well, and eventually they too bought an apartment there, although not in the same small radius as her father and the rest of her sisters. By the 1961 census, Mazal and Na’im lived in Ramat Gan, and Na’im was a bookkeeper. They had two sons. All of Mazal’s family lived in Ramat Gan, including her parents, her aunts and uncles, and her second cousins. On Friday nights, the family would gather at her father’s, and they would generally also be visited by more distant relatives, who were just in the neighborhood strolling by. Her father’s onebedroom apartment was significantly smaller than the five-story house they had in Iraq, but because some portion of their guests was usually strolling around visiting other relatives, the crowd ebbed and flowed.

As Mazal and her siblings’ children grew up, some differences between the Israeli-born and those born elsewhere emerged. Mazal’s oldest sister was one of the few Jews to remain in Iraq until the 1970s, and by the time this sister immigrated her two sons were adults and had become a pharmacist and a doctor. Both found work in their professions in Israel. Daniel raised two children in the United States, both of whom obtained B.A.s from seven-sister colleges, and one of whom obtained a Ph.D. and is the author of this book. Of seven Israeli-born children, only two attended university. One of Mazal and Naim’s children obtained an academic bagrut, another did not.

This story of my family contextualizes the findings of this book by explaining some, contradicting others, and pointing to still other, neglected dynamics. For example, I found that Iraqi and Moroccan men who arrived without children did better than those who arrived with children. My father’s dependence on his married sisters for housing while he went to school suggests one dynamic: extended families, operating as a status attainment unit, used some form of triage. Men with families took any available work, while those without families pursued longer term status attainment strategies. My father’s eventual disappearance from the scene may also account for an observed drop in educational attainment of immigrant Iraqi men younger than age thirty (Khazzoom 1999); the most educated, discouraged by their reception in Israel, may have left. In fact, my father reports that most of his high school class immigrated to Israel but now live in the United States, Canada, and western Europe.

The educational attainments of my generation fit well with Nahon’s research. Only one of Naim’s children obtained an academic bagrut, despite Naim’s success. The comparison between the 100% of foreign-raised cousins who obtained at least college educations (and 75% advanced degrees) and the 30% of the Israeli-raised who obtained at least college educations is of course based on too few cases to be generalizable and is complicated by the fact that college educations were overall more attainable in the United States than in Israel. However, it fits the data on the second generation reviewed in Chapter 9; similarly, my two Iraqi cousins claim that in Iraq there were Jewish quotas for higher education, yet still their attainments are higher than those of the Israeli-born contingent.

Of course not all aspects of my uncle’s experience are reflected in the preceding analysis. Na’im prepared for the bookkeeping test with the help of a friend, found a house in Tel Aviv with the help of prestate Iraqi immigrants, and helped his friends get jobs by using his address, while my father was able to leave the country because his community chipped in, and was able to obtain a Ph.D., despite significant economic hardship, because of the organization of the modern orthodox community in Brookline, Massachusetts. Networking and social capital variables are sorely missing from the 1961 census, and both experiences highlight their importance. Similarly, the census has no information on physical capital. But such capital was critical to Na’im’s status attainment story; without it, he would have remained near Rehovot. Physical capital was, interestingly, less central to my father’s success. He was placed in a ma’abara near Tel Aviv, and the university was accessible by bus. This, he says, was critical.

Other features of Na’im’s story get at the complexity behind the quantitative results. For example, I suggested that Iraqis did better in Ramat Gan because they had access to an ethnic network with high human capital, which passed along information about high status jobs. While the Friday night, extended family gatherings illustrate just such a dynamic, Na’im’s story itself illuminates alternative paths to the same statistical outcome. To get his job, Na’im first used the network of prestate Iraqi immigrants in Tel Aviv to find an apartment (bypassing any housing discrimination he might encounter), and then found his job through an Ashkenazi woman. He got to Ramat Gan only after, and perhaps even because, he found a white collar job. On the other hand, however, my father’s family did not stay in the ma’abara long but quickly moved to Ramat Gan, giving Naim access to the networks there even when he lived in Tel Aviv or the settlement near Rehovot.

But perhaps the most interesting complication of Na’im’s story has to do with his use of westernness to engineer his occupational success. As noted, he suggested that it was because he engaged in western behavior that the Ashkenazi accountant noticed him. In fact, Na’im regularly mobilized western cultural capital; he reports combating prejudice in his new workplace by dressing and behaving like a westerner. What is interesting is that Naim also mobilized his Oriental status in his pursuit of greater attainments. In order to buy his shack, he had to leave his army post for several hours one night. He was caught, but wormed his way out by claiming to be religious and unschooled in the basic western concepts of duty and reliability. He told the judge that his grandmother had died. Iraqis, he explained, were deeply religious and family-oriented and he had to leave to sit shiva (formal mourning ritual) with his family. The judge released him. Na’im was not observant, and although he would have wanted to engage in some form of ritual if his grandmother had died, he thinks that he would not have gone AWOL to do it.

The reaction of the Ashkenazi accountant to Na’im may also reference great complexity. In Chapter 6 I argued that Ashkenazim experienced ambivalence toward the Mizrahi immigrants, such that a commitment to ethnic equality coexisted with a sense of disgust toward the non-European. This often resulted in contradictory behaviors. Given the importance she placed on western markers, for example, it would not be surprising if the same accountant who took the grade B Baghdadi with the fixed prices and gave him a grade A job had also campaigned to place the growing number of uneducated Moroccan youth to development towns. Certainly, in excluding Moroccans, Ashkenazim were trying to reserve the advantages of city life for those more like themselves. But when such behavior is as bound up with national and ethnic identity projects as it was in Israel, a simple, materially oriented explanatory framework appears inadequate.

Na’im’s story, however, is important not just for how it interfaces with the empirical findings of this book, but also for the different spin it puts on them. In Na’im’s life, success appears to be a function of chance, with a good deal of personal grit and determination thrown in. Through my analysis of the population as a whole, his experience seems to fit into macrolevel trends, but for him, chaos reigned, and it was only by taking chances that he was able to succeed. He took pride in his audacity, and the reduction of his life to statistical trends might seem to him to negate his own role in his success. Similarly, nearly every immigrant with whom I spoke, including Mizrahim who felt discriminated against, expressed a sense of purpose and excitement associated with what many saw as the great historical task of reestablishing a Jewish presence on an ancestral land that I have not worked into this book.

Along the same lines, attention to differences between objective data and my father’s reasons for leaving Israel may tell us about how ethnic minorities experience strife and discrimination. In Iraq, my father was an active member of the Zionist movement. When the state of Israel was established, he dropped his plans to go to college in England and immigrated instead to Israel. When he arrived, however, he felt he was treated like a “second-class citizen.” Convinced that he would never get anywhere in Israel, he used his own educational and cultural capital to leave. My father appears to be talking about objective, occupational chances. But all the charts in the preceding pages contradict him, and in fact he was accepted to Hebrew University’s medical school before he left Israel. Because he is not unique in his resentment the contradiction between experience and quantitative information requires investigation.

My sense is that the discrimination my father and his community felt was more about ethnic degradation and personal worth than about occupational attainment. Many Iraqis continue to value the putative Iraqi Jewish culture in which they grew up, and it might be respect and a chance to contribute to the emerging state, not jobs, that they felt they were denied. In fact, one of the most common complaints one hears from Iraqis is that they were deloused on arrival in Israel, even when they were wearing their best (presumably British-made) suits. That this complaint, which pales next to relegation to development towns or the Yemenite accusations of baby-snatching, continues to stir up such pain, is telling. It demonstrates that in focusing on occupational attainment and occupational inequality as the measure of ethnic discrimination and dynamics, we may be missing an important part of the picture.² Put another way, the evidence that gatekeepers responded to individual Iraqis’ abilities to prove westernness may tend to overshadow the personal pain involved in having to prove, to one veteran after another, that one is acceptable.

ISRAELI ETHNIC FORMATION FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF STUDENTS OF RACE/ETHNICITY

Several features of racial/ethnic inequality are now abundantly clear to sociologists. First, racial and ethnic boundaries are mutable social constructions. Second, they are relational constructs, in that describing a “self” by implication describes an “other.” Third, these moving boundaries that form ethnic groups are nevertheless real in their consequences, as they are fundamental building blocks of social hierarchies. But while sociologists care about shifting boundaries largely because they are so often related to exclusion, precisely that connection has received little empirical attention. Currently, the immigration and racialization literature is concerned primarily with charting the processes by which identities are imposed and institutionalized (Omi and Winant 1994; Espiritu 1992), adopted and resisted (Omi and Winant 1994; Lopez and Espiritu 1990; Espiritu 1992; Tefft 1999; Portes and MacLeod 1996), or undermined by internal diversity (Kibria 1998). Within this work, it is not always clear why changes in definition are initiated, why boundaries take particular forms when others are available, or how the emergence of ethnic difference is related to the emergence of ethnic inequality.³

In this book, I have used one instance of rapid transformation in ethnic boundaries to consider these issues. Contemporary Israeli society was re-formed in the 1950s in the wake of massive immigration of Jews from a variety of countries. Despite significant heterogeneity among the immigrants, a bifurcated social structure emerged in which Ashkenazim (European Jews) were the dominant group and Mizrahim (Middle Eastern and North African Jews) were subordinate.

I began with the racial/ethnic formation story that has been produced by prior research on Israel. This story contains four arguments. First, Ashkenazim created ethnic difference by “orientalizing” Mizrahim, i.e., by using the previously existing east/west dichotomy to advance a binary construction of ethnicity in Israel. This construction simplified the heterogeneity of the arriving cultures into two homogenous categories: Ashkenazim, who were fully “western,” and Mizrahim, who were fully “eastern.” Second, bifurcation in the realm of representation shaped and justified unequal distribution of resources. Third, given the eventual confluence between discursive construction, objective life conditions, and the Orientalist discourse’s justifications of inequality between easterners and westerners, the divide among Jews (and between Jews and non-Jews) appeared expected, obvious, and in some respects even banal. Fourth, the main reasons for these moves were economic, in that Ashkenazim excluded Mizrahim in order to obtain more resources for themselves.

This is “racial formation” (Omi and Winant 1994) par excellence, in that it incorporates the construction of ethnic difference, the production of ethnic inequality in power and resource holdings, and the existence of “common-sense” ideologies that inform, justify, and help reproduce both difference and inequality. It also echoes work on categorization (e.g., Jenkins 1994) that outlines processes by which the more powerful impose identities on the less powerful. Similarly, works on panethnic formation in the United States and postcolonial theory outside of the United States outline processes by which the distribution of material resources generates common life chances for individuals on whom a new identity has been imposed, thereby anchoring the new identity (Espiritu 1992). Finally, even Weber, who is known for taking ideological motivations for behavior seriously, posited that social closure is normally motivated by the desire to monopolize resources, and this argument has been taken up by numerous scholars in the United States and elsewhere, especially Barth (1998) and the scholarly work he inspired.

One can use results from this book to support the story told by prior research. The examination of prior attainments and cultural characteristics of the immigrants in Chapter 4 demonstrated that the dichotomous categories were initially insufficient to describe the arriving immigrants. Nevertheless Tsur’s (1997) and others’ work demonstrated that the binary scheme was among those salient to gatekeepers, and the empirical results in Chapters 5 though 9 demonstrated that two sets of gatekeepers used the binary categories to distribute resources to the immigrants, to some degree or another. Moreover, there was even some suggestion of a concerted, multigenerational effort across groups of gatekeepers to produce a binary distribution in resources. When new Iraqi immigrants were successful in the first encounter with the labor market, their children experienced discrimination in the school system. This discrimination brought Iraqi matriculation levels down to those of other Mizrahim and completed the process of resource dichotomization. Finally, the evidence for material motivations produced by other researchers is strong. As I showed in Chapter 2, numerous quotations from a range of Israeli gatekeepers indicate connections between the construction of binary ethnic difference, the placement of Middle Eastern Jews in low status occupational positions, and the use of the Orientalist discourse to justify it all. Ben Gurion’s comments that “we need workers ... the Yemenite is the simple natural worker ... [and] Mr. Marx is far from his pocket and his mind” (see Chapter 3) is a case in point.

In this book, I didn’t dispute the argument that dichotomization in resources occurred in Israel, that discursive and resource dichotomization were mutually reinforcing, or even that material interests played a strong role. In this sense, the contribution of the Israeli case is to use a system in flux to demonstrate just how radical boundary shifts can be, to demonstrate that modern industrialized societies can, as Omi and Winant argued, engage in coherent “racialization projects,” and to contribute to the race/ class debate in the United States and elsewhere by showing that ethnic background can play a role in labor market attainment.

However, as I noted, these are old arguments. The hole in the literature, I argued, is in understanding why groups might create or rearticulate racial/ ethnic boundaries and how that rearticulation might be connected to exclusion. I noted that the dynamics most often invoked to explain discrimination or racialization—competition for scarce material resources and the natural tendency to help one’s own—did not appear to account for the specific patterns of exclusion that were observed in the Israeli case. The most important unexpected pattern was, of course, the Iraqi paradox, or the finding that in the labor market Iraqis were treated like Ashkenazim. At a minimum, the Iraqi paradox meant that what constituted “one’s own” wasn’t clear; if the largely Polish and Russian group of veteran gatekeepers treated Romanians and Iraqis similarly to Poles, then neither country nor continent appeared to mark “self” from “other.” Similarly, not discriminating against Iraqis made little sense from a material point of view, at least if one follows prior arguments that Ashkenazi gatekeepers wanted to monopolize resources for Ashkenazim. Iraqis were the largest group of Middle Eastern Jews in the 1950s, the best educated, and the most organized. They therefore presented the biggest threat to Ashkenazi monopolization of resources and should have been targets for exclusion, not inclusion. Ethnic discrimination did appear to exist, however, as Moroccans and Yemenites obtained relatively low returns to education. Thus, clearly, ethnic discrimination in the labor market was an outcome in need of an explanation. However, prior explanations were inadequate.

I argued that a better explanation for observed patterns of ethnic discrimination lies in an expanded and historicized account of Orientalism in the Jewish world. Based on a review of secondary source materials, and building on the work of Goffman and Said, I argued that the past two centuries of Diaspora Jewish history in Europe and the Middle East can be conceptualized as a series of orientalizations. Through this history, Jews came to see Jewish tradition as Oriental, developed intense commitments to westernization as a form of self-improvement, and became threatened by elements of Jewish culture that symbolized the Oriental past. Self-classification then drove the classification of others, as perceived levels of westernization became the primary determinant for evaluation of other Jewish communities. However, the structuring of ethnic difference along east/west lines did not always result in exclusion. Rather, exclusion occurred when a putatively less western group threatened the westernization project of another, and it usually took the form of emotionally and physically distancing from eastern “others.” In Israel, I argued, both the Ashkenazi move to create Mizrahim and the move to exclude them and Middle Eastern non-Jews developed from this historical need to manage a spoiled identity. It was thus not the formation of ethnic groups, per se, that accounted for the emergence of ethnic closure, but the content of the identities around which they were formed.

An Oriental-stigma dynamic, I suggested, could account for why all other research maintained that the binary categories were salient in the early days, but patterns of discrimination did not seem to follow them. If the concern was marginalizing the eastern, then gatekeepers would be expected to classify arriving Jews into eastern and western categories—in fact, they would be expected to be nearly obsessed with this process of classification—but they would not be expected to be particularly committed to discriminating against any individual Jews. Rather, given connections between Islam and the east, and Christianity and the west, they might make initial stipulations that Middle Eastern Jews threatened to Levantinize the society, but also be sensitive to indicators that specific Middle Eastern immigrants had undergone processes of westernization. Shamir’s (2000) work further supports this contention, when he notes that veteran European immigrants had had earlier success using the category “European” to market themselves to British colonists as different from Palestinians and other Arabs.

To test this argument, I measured some of the main characteristics that were said to identify easterners in Jewish discourses, and also distinguished between those that were easily performed and those that were harder to perform. I found a pattern in which Ashkenazim obtained similar returns no matter what their ability to prove westernness, while Mizrahi returns were heavily affected by this “cultural capital.” Mizrahim who could not prove westernness obtained nearly no returns to education, while those who could had labor market experiences that were nearly identical to similar Ashkenazim. This pattern, I argued, is consistent with one in which gatekeepers assumed that Middle Eastern Jews were eastern unless proven western, but were responsive to an immigrant’s ability to prove that they were western. I argued that concerns with producing Israel as a western state could even explain cases where the Iraqi paradox did not exist, such as in the distribution of residential locations, where Mizrahim were sent to development towns at much higher rates than Ashkenazim regardless of country of origin. It was not being western that enhanced Mizrahi attainment so much as being able to convince gatekeepers that they were western, and in the case of residential locations, there was little chance to perform westernness to decision makers. This is distinct from the labor market, particularly after 1955, where immigrants did have such opportunities.

Thus, although this book set out to track a process in which Israeli Jews were “dichotomized,” the most interesting story was to be found in the exceptions to the process of dichotomization. The fuller picture that emerged simultaneously explained and complicated the process. On the one hand, it remained unclear exactly how dichotomization occurred, since neither on the labor market nor on the residential site did dichotomization in resources actually occur. Rather, the outcome of the first encounter with the labor market was significant Iraqi representation in the middle class, and, because people moved after placement, the primary outcome on the residential site was a solidly Moroccan periphery whose future would be determined by segregation to a degree that Iraqi futures would not. On the other hand, precisely the “rupture” of Iraqi attainment patterns—once it is fully understood—demonstrates how fundamental the east/west distinction was to Israeli identity and social formation. The distribution of both residential locations and occupational positions were oriented around the binary Mizrahi/Ashkenazi scheme, even if the opening for Mizrahim to prove westernness disrupted a dichotomous outcome. Today, these earlier dynamics of dichotomization and its ruptures continue to shape Israeli ethnic dynamics. Structural differences rooted in the distribution of Iraqis in the country’s center and Moroccans in its periphery probably generate pressure against dichotomization, even as the continuing salience of the east/ west dichotomy, and its connections to both identity and material interest, generate pressure in favor.

GENERALIZABILITY AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

The most important general contribution of this study is to show that identity can drive social closure in addition to material interest, and to show one way in which the formation of ethnic groups can be linked to the emergence of ethnic closure. I argued in Chapter 3 that this classifies Israel as one of four ideal types of racial formation: a relational dynamic in which a majority’s identity concerns drive both racial constructions and closure activity. Current work on citizenship, which posits, for example, that white men are perceived as the “real” or basic citizens, would also tend to argue that nationalist projects are routinely raced. This raced nature can affect how a variety of resources are distributed, including occupations in the labor market.

Of course, one might ask how relevant the Israeli case really is to the United States and other societies, given that the dynamics articulated here are not just about identity, but also about stigmatized identities, given that they are rooted in a Jewish relationship to colonialism and Orientalism, and given that I argued that Jews were distinguished from other colonized groups because they were offered a transformation option (i.e., the option of assimilating in return for full acceptance). Two points are of note.

First, although it has not always been prominent, stigma, a sense of inferiority, or some similar concept has often been cast as a critical component of identity, in the United States as well as in previously colonized countries (see Khazzoom 2003 for a fuller discussion). I have already discussed the most obvious examples. Roediger (1991) and Almaguer (1994) directly connect U.S. identity dynamics to stigma, and stigma to the distribution of resources, when they say that whites excluded blacks (Roediger) and others (Almaguer) in order to manage the potential feelings of inferiority associated with being semifree labor. Similarly, themes of cultural superiority and internalization of stigmas are present in a range of recent studies, though, again, the implications of stigma are not always drawn out. Examples include historical processes of what we might call upward cultural mobility, such as the Irish becoming white (Ignatiev 1995), East European U.S. Jews becoming white (Brodkin 1998), or Asian Indians becoming white (Takaki 1990). Examples also include the efforts of minorities currently defined as nonwhite to manage external or internal stigmas. Waters (1996) showed that young Caribbean immigrants often believe that African Americans are lazy, and they engage in a variety of performances to highlight their Caribbeanness (including faking a parent’s Caribbean accent) to separate themselves from African Americans. Espiritu (2001) argued that Filipino immigrants responded to cultural stigmatization from whites by elaborating a sense of Filipino cultural superiority. In these cases, identity concerns may well structure relations between ethnic groups, as well as the distribution of resources.

Second, the relevance of Jewish ethnic formation to the world at large has been underestimated. The assimilation of Jews into post-Enlightenment Europe constituted the test case for newly emerging ideas on national/ethnic belonging in the modern nation state. What happened to the Jews as they faced Europe’s Jewish question thus provides us with important background material for contemporary debates about assimilation and preservation. In addition, western colonial powers usually ruled through intermediaries, who were generally groups that had been marginalized prior to colonial arrival, and so had ambivalent reactions to colonial invasion. In the Middle East, Jews tended to be that intermediary group, in some cases to a greater extent than Christians. Because Jews were more often considered assimilable than unassimilable, and because they established their own state predicated on the westernization project that resulted from intermediary status, this case sheds light on some of the complex ways these intermediary groups have supported and resisted western domination. Preference for the European or the western among these protégés, most of whom remained in their original societies after colonialism, is mentioned in a number of scholarly studies—from Fanon’s (1963) classic, to recent work on Algeria (Prochaska 1990), to even Zinoman’s (2005) scholarly analysis of the Vietnamese writer Vu Trong Phung’s work. Finally, and relatedly, it can be argued that by representing itself as a western entity within a solid east/west dichotomy, Israel has been a participant in the recent polarization of Christian and Muslim worlds, when it could well have functioned as a powerful resistor. The history articulated here can account for that choice.

Generalizability and applicability extend not only to the likely existence of similar ethnic dynamics in other societies, but to this book’s methodological and theoretical treatment of race/ethnicity. Three points are of note. First, the book joins those arguing that race/ethnicity should be treated as mutable rather than stable categories. Its main contribution is to argue that one can study mutability using quantitative as well as qualitative data. I did this by treating ethnicity as country of origin and charting a process of dichotomization—i.e., of group boundaries’ shifting toward a two-group formation—by asking when the experiences of different country groups clustered into the binary formation. When such clustering occurred—as when all religiously educated Mizrahim experienced nearly no returns to education while similar Ashkenazim experienced high returns—I argued that dichotomization was occurring. This method proved successful, as it was in the fissures in the process of dichotomization—the Iraqi paradox—that one could find important information about why social closure occurred. Along these same lines, I argued that I was treating ethnicity simultaneously as outcome and cause. Ethnicity was a factor that determined the attainment an individual got, but that process of individual occupational attainment also supported or undermined dichotomization, or the shifting of ethnic boundaries.

Second, this study is an example of how ethnicity can be treated as “relational,” that is, as a set of macrolevel social contrasts (here east/west contrasts) that give each other meaning (Eriksen 1993). Ironically, however, the main contribution of this work may be in showing limits of a relational approach rather than in showing its necessity. All constructions of the other are simultaneously constructions of the self, but it is only sometimes that the need to define the self in a particular way causes moves to construct and exclude an other. Israel can be posited as an example of such a “relationally driven” system. But in other cases, as when Espiritu (1992) in part credits administrative efficiency for the imposition of an “Asian” category in the United States, or even when groups exclude each other in order to monopolize resources, the fact that categorization also shapes borders around the self appears less relevant, and majorities appear, if not less invested in particular categorizations, at least differently invested. Thus it may be that the distinction between those instances of categorization that are driven by the identity concerns of the powerful and those that are not is more important in understanding racial/ethnic systems generally than treating all ethnic contrasts as relational.

In this respect, it is of more than passing interest that the other two arguments I have discussed that posit identity concerns as significant are also based on moments of rapid social transformation; for Roediger, white working-class investment in a black/white dichotomy emerged with the Industrial Revolution, and for Almaguer the resulting concerns over “free labor” shaped how the large and sudden immigrations to the newly conquered California settled into a coherent society. Similarly, for this book, the concern over remaining western came to the fore when a marginally European society was forced to incorporate a massive immigration from the Middle East. There is obviously no way to empirically ground the implied assertion, which is that identity becomes a central determinant of social closure patterns during moments of massive social change. However, the argument is logical, since moments of social change do often involve challenges to basic patterns of identification.

Third, and regarding cultural capital, this book may suggest new ways of operationalizing ethnicity. I noted above that in treating ethnic categories as mutable, I followed prior literature. However, despite the focus on mutability, prior work in the United States normally treats race/ethnicity as geographic origin (even if using self-identification, since hegemonic discourses in the United States read race/ethnicity as biological origin). However, a more complex way to measure race/ethnicity is to attend to the cultural factors that I also measured in this book. It is my contention that when an Ashkenazi employer met with a prospective Moroccan employee who spoke French, wore European trousers, and had read Proust, the employer did not experience the Moroccan as “OK even though he’s Moroccan,” but rather as non-Moroccan despite his origins in Morocco, or perhaps as having gotten past his Moroccanness. He was thus simultaneously Mizrahi and not Mizrahi. This implies that race/ethnicity should often be operationalized as both the biological origins to which people normally refer and the meanings that people attach to those origins. I have found the concept of cultural capital to be a reasonable way to do this.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX ONE

Cross-tabulation of occupation abroad by occupation in Israel

OCCUPATION ABROAD

OCCUPATION ABROAD

APPENDIX TWO

Variable definitions and overview of analytical strategy

OVERVIEW OF ANALYTICAL STRATEGY

This section describes the basic analytical strategy used in the book. Means and correlations of the variables examined in the book are available here and in Appendix 3; variable definitions are below.

The book is based on regression analyses of occupational attainment of male immigrants who arrived in Israel between 1948 and 1958, between the ages of twenty and sixty, using Israel’s 1961 census. The equations usually regress Israeli occupational prestige on independent variables that are grouped into four sets: human capital, cultural capital, residential location, and practical resources. However, the analysis of practical resources was removed from the final draft of the book; it showed little more than that Moroccans who arrived without children had better returns to cultural capital and that the effect of year of arrival is largely a function of Hebrew skills, and, in the Moroccan case, the earlier arrival of men with higher education and cultural capital.

The equations that included only human capital and year of arrival were perceived as basic models, to which variables measuring cultural capital and residential location were later added. For each human capital variable, I incorporated a squared term to check for nonlinearity and also allowed the main effect of each variable to interact with the main effects of other variables. The basic equation therefore is

ED+ED²+PA+PA²+AG+AG²+PA*ED+PA*AG+AG*ED+YR=PI

Where ED is education (presumably obtained mostly abroad), PA is prestige abroad, AG is age at arrival, YR is year of arrival, and PI is prestige in Israel. Two squared terms are fairly standard; the effect of age on attainment is normally not linear because returns to age taper off at older ages, and an extra year of education is expected to have a smaller effect at lower levels of education than at higher levels (i.e., the difference between one and six years of education is not likely to increase Israeli prestige by much, but the difference between seven and twelve is, and between thirteen and eighteen even more so.¹ I initially squared prestige abroad because in a case of overall downward mobility one might not expect a monotonic relationship between occupation abroad and occupation in Israel. Since the squared term was often statistically significant for some countries, I retained it. Education and prestige abroad are expected to interact with age because for older men, who have presumably developed skills over years of work, prior occupational experience might be more important than education, while for younger men, whose education is more recent, education might be more important. Finally, occupation and education were allowed to interact with each other because Mizrahim often arrived with less education for a given occupation than Ashkenazim. Thus it was anticipated that their returns to occupational prestige abroad would vary with their educations. In the earlier analyses (Khazzoom 1999), I also included interactions between squared terms and main effects; however, these additions did not alter the basic conclusions of the analysis and made equations bulkier than necessary. As a result, I removed them from the analyses for this book.

The basic equation does not interact year of arrival with other variables. Year of arrival is conceptualized as a practical variable, not human capital, and I analyzed it in-depth together with other practical variables. I included year of arrival in the basic equation because of the Iraqi paradox. That paradox, in part, shows that Iraqis obtained higher returns to education than Moroccans. However, Iraqis arrived in Israel earlier than Moroccans, and in general later arrivals lowered Israeli prestige. Controlling for year of arrival addresses this issue. In most analyses, I entered year of arrival as a continuous variable. However, in the analysis of practical variables, in which I also analyzed year of arrival in-depth, I used a categorical variable that collapsed contiguous pairs. This variable was designed to monitor a variety of idiosyncratic dynamics that made the effect of year differ for different countries. This analysis confirmed that dynamics established in this book do not appear different when attainment is analyzed separately for year pairs.

The book estimates identical equations for each country of origin, regardless of whether the terms are statistically significant or not. I developed this strategy in a previous work (see Khazzoom 1999). It makes comparison across groups easier and, I found, does not produce substantially different results from equations that are tailored to each country.

The first human capital equations showed that most ethnic differences were in returns to education. My initial analytical plan was to include resource variables—i. e., cultural capital, residential location, etc.—not only as main effects but also to interact them with human capital. Though it turned out that most ethnic differences were in returns to education only, I retained the initial strategy of interacting resource variables with all human capital variables. This is because the central role that returns to education played was not theoretically expected and because there were occasionally statistically significant interactions with other human capital variables. However, because the “story” of ethnicity and status attainment is in returns to education, my normal practice in this book is to generate graphs of returns to education for men who were forty years old and had average prestige abroad. Graphs modeling returns to occupation abroad and to age are available in Khazzoom (1999).

Statistical Significance

This practice of interacting groups of variables with all human capital variables produces fairly large equations. In addition, since I produce the same equation for each country (for the sake of consistency and comparability), the terms used to calculate the graphs for the analysis are not always statistically significant. This raises the question of whether specific patterns in some graphs are statistically significant. My normal strategy is to model the dynamic of interest separately to test for statistical significance. For example, in Chapter 7, graphs produced from equations with human capital, cultural capital, and interactions suggest that among men with religious educations, all Mizrahim had similar returns to education, which were different from those of all Ashkenazim. To test statistical significance, I reduced the sample to men with religious educations, estimated a single equation with men from all six countries, and added terms for country of origin and interactions between education and country of origin. The resulting equation shows that the Ashkenazi/Mizrahi differences modeled in the graph are statistically significant.

VARIABLE DEFINITION

Though collected under difficult conditions, the 1961 census appeared fairly reliable. For more information on cleaning procedures, please see appendix 3 in Khazzoom (1999).

Variables Introduced in Chapters 2 through 5

Occupation Abroad and in Israel Occupation in surviving census data sets is coded at a two-digit level of specificity, in rough correspondence to ISCO-58, but also recoded to reflect the unique features of the Israeli system. There are no surviving records on how this recoding was done.

The question on occupation abroad did not specify a particular time but instead asked for the “main” occupation prior to immigration. There is good reason for this. The Holocaust, anti-Semitism, and other upheavals are likely to have rendered occupation at a fixed point in time an invalid measure of an immigrant’s skills or background. Of course, the wording enables respondents to pick their most prestigious occupation prior to immigration, and ethnic differences in expectations of believability and norms of modesty may have biased responses. However, the error chosen by the census appears preferable, given the results of this study. I found that, overall, white collar workers lost status through their move to Israel. Had men been asked to report their occupation at a specific point in time, one might worry that this occurred because war victims reported an occupational status abroad that was artificially low.

The question on occupation in Israel referred to the time of the interview, or if not working at the time of the interview, last time worked. However, it seems that most people reporting occupations were either working or looking for work; indications are that individuals who were retired in 1961 normally did not report Israeli occupations. The unemployed do appear to have reported Israeli occupations; only 12% of those who reported looking for work did not have an Israeli occupation recorded.

In comparing results obtained by the census with those from (1) a reinterview that was conducted as part of the census, and (2) an unrelated labor force survey, Kantorowitz found inconsistent responses on both the occupation in Israel and the occupation abroad variable. However, she noted that the reinterview experienced several procedural problems that the census did not experience, and that the labor force survey used different questions. She concluded that the census variables appeared largely reliable. She found that inconsistencies were higher in occupations associated with construction, craftwork, and services, and very low for the liberal professions. Since, in this book, the important dynamics of ethnicity and attainment apply to more educated workers—who usually worked in white collar jobs—this is good news. Kantorowitz also found that in most of the cases where occupation in the census was recorded as unknown the respondent was out of the labor force (my own examination of the census concurs).

The census provides a number of distinctions among sales occupations; however, the majority of men are listed as “sales, unspecified.” On the assumption that a proprietor is fairly easy to recognize, and given that the census tried to make only two distinctions among proprietors (wholesale and retail), I divided the sales occupations into two: proprietors and other workers. Cross classification with a variable recording status at work in Israel (employer, salaried, etc.) suggested that this distinction could be upheld.

Most analyses operationalize occupation as occupational prestige. In some early analyses, however, I looked at movement between broad occupational categories. When I did this, I used the basic census distinctions to define categories. This system distinguished between the professional/technical, clerical, and sales categories, and then coded other occupations primarily by economic branch. In some cases I divided blue collar occupations according to whether they were more available abroad or in Israel, in order to get at the structural shifts in economic environment that accompanied immigration. Some blue collar occupations—primarily skilled crafts such as shoemaking—employed many individuals abroad, but very few in Israel. Others, such as building construction, employed many in Israel but few abroad.² However, as I note in Chapter 2, men who had experience in “contracting” occupations (i.e., those that employed more men abroad than in Israel) did not differ much from men in “expanding” occupations in their tendency to gain or lose occupational prestige as a result of the immigration.

The census also did not ask whether crafts, as for example shoemaking, took place under “modern” factory conditions or “traditional” conditions. Historical research seems to suggest that in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, most of this work occurred under nonfactory conditions. In addition, most of those in sales appear to have been petty bourgeois or peddlers (see Khazzoom 1999 for details). There is thus some suggestion that different countries were comparable enough that the measurement strategy does not, at least for the population studied here, introduce substantial ethnically related bias.

In the cross-tabulation of occupation in Israel with occupation abroad in Chapter 2, the proportions of clerical workers and blue collar workers who went into the professional/technical category may appear alarming. However, inspection of actual occupations suggests that most became teachers (presumably in vocational schools), engineering technicians, or medical technicians in Israel. Two trends did raise concern: eight men who were clerks abroad became judges or jurists in Israel, and forty-seven clerks became accountants, auditors, or social workers. These were mostly Iraqis who were coded as “clerical, unspecified” abroad. Given anecdotal evidence about Iraqi occupations abroad, the clerks may well have been law clerks or accountants. To avoid recording false upward mobility, I removed or recoded these cases and reran some key analysis, but found that this did not alter conclusions regarding the Iraqi paradox. In addition to these trends, seven individuals, whose occupation abroad ranged from clerk to blue collar worker, became physicians, surgeons, or dentists in Israel, and three became judges or jurists. In all but one case (among the six largest countries of origin), the immigrants’ educational attainments were consistent with their reported Israeli occupations. Since it was possible for immigrants to obtain higher educations in Israel, and since Kantorowitz found that the free professions were recorded fairly accurately, I left these cases in rather than coding them as missing.

Occupational Prestige For the analysis of prestige, I generated prestige scores using Kraus’s (1976) scale. This scale was also devised specifically for the Israeli occupational structure; as such, it is preferable to the 1958 ISCO scores. It was, however, devised for the 1972 census. Kraus did find changes in the pres-tige of occupations between 1972 and 1983; she does not, however, expect that changes between 1961 and 1972 were substantial (Kraus 1993, personal communication).³

I used the Israeli prestige variable to code prestige both abroad and in Israel. The concept of interest here is not ranking in country of origin but rather occupational “currency” that could be translated into occupational attainment in Israel. Gatekeepers would for the most part have evaluated the attainments of potential employees according to their own, Israeli-influenced estimation of occupational value, not according to a country-specific estimation.

Education As recorded in the census; measured in whole years. Instructions to interviewers were to include all schooling after kindergarten, including “heder” (religious elementary school), yeshiva (generally a more intensive and advanced form of religious school), and night school. Independent study, courses lasting less than half a year, “ulpan” language courses, musical appreciation courses, and so forth, were not to be counted. On reinterview, Kantorowitz found that educational transitions (i.e., twelve years of education versus more than twelve years) were fairly reliable, but that specific number of years of education may have been off slightly. See Note 1 in this appendix for more details on why I did not use educational transitions.

Indications are that there was general comparability in educational systems across countries, in that in most places, students started primary school at the age of six, twelve years of education was a high school degree, and sixteen years was a college degree (UNESCO 1969).

Country of Origin Defined according to 1961 borders. Yemen and Aden are not distinguished from each other. Iraq includes Kurdistan. USSR includes all Soviet states, including Armenia.

Although respondents were directed to use 1961 borders, Kantorowich (1969) found that this instruction was only partly followed. This is more important for Eastern Europeans than for Middle Easterners. I would suggest that for the purposes of this study, subjective identification, which matches what immigrants would report to prospective employers, is more important than 1961 nationality. Those who refused to follow instructions in the census probably also reported to employers non-1961 borders.

Year of Arrival As recorded in the census. Year is entered in the analyses in this book as a continuous variable. As noted above, I did do a deeper analysis of year of arrival, by breaking it into categories of two to three years each. The analysis suggested that year of arrival was much less important than prior work has indicated. For example, it initially appeared that Moroccans who arrived during the first ten years obtained returns to education that were as high as Iraqis and Ashkenazim; however, this turned out to be due to a preponderance of arrivals who spoke French, had secular educations, and arrived without children during those years. In addition, for most countries of origin, the effect of year of arrival was accounted for by Hebrew ability. A comparison between Poles and Moroccans initially showed large difference in the effect of year, but once ethnic differences in returns to cultural capital and a series of practical variables (Hebrew facility, whether immigrant arrived with a family or not, etc.) were controlled, this difference was rendered insignificant. Because year of arrival appeared to be such an insignificant part of the story, it was retained only as a control variable in the analyses, and the detailed examination of its effect was not included in this book.

Age at Arrival Constructed by comparing year of arrival with year of birth.

Variables Introduced in Chapter 7

Western Language Primacy, Yiddish Primacy, Judeo-Spanish Primacy The census asked immigrants which language they spoke most often after Hebrew, and I coded those answering French, German, English, Dutch, and so forth, as reporting western language primacy. I coded those answering Yiddish as having Yiddish primacy. I coded those in the “Spanish/Ladino” category as reporting Judeo-Spanish primacy.

Family Formation Scale Index of similarity to Ashkenazi family formation patterns. First, I calculated averages for all Ashkenazim (using only the set of immigrants who immigrated during the first ten years of statehood) on five variables: age of wife at first marriage, age difference between husband and wife, educational difference between husband and wife, infant mortality (percent of live births who died before the age of five), and number of children. Then, I scored all respondents as “Ashkenazi” or “Mizrahi,” that is, as equal to or above the Ashkenazi average on age of wife at first marriage, or equal to or below the Ashkenazi average on number of children born, percent of children deceased, and educational and age difference between husband and wife.

I then determined which of these variables should be combined into a scale. I used a Gutman approach to scale construction, in which I identified variables that were increasingly “harder” on which to be European. This method insures that there is no overlap in what is being measured. From the frequencies, I chose three variables that had large gaps in the number who scored Ashkenazi: percent of children who passed away before the age of five, age of wife at first marriage, and number of children in 1961. I then identified answers that would fit a Gutman scale (i.e., no on all / yes on 1 and no on 2 and 3 / yes on 1 and 2, no on 3 / yes on all). Ninety percent of answers were “correct” by the Gutman method.

The scale therefore ranges from 0 to 3, with 0 meaning that the immigrant had no indicators of progress on Jewish cultural change projects, and 3 meaning that he had all three. In regression equations the scale is either as good as or slightly better than the three components separately in accounting for variation in Israeli occupational prestige.

Note that because this variable uses information on families, I was able to calculate it only for married men. In addition, because heads of household sometimes had more than one married son living with them, I was not always able to match all wives to all sons. In cases where it was unclear who was married to whom, I did not calculate the family formation score based on wives’ behavior. Few men were unmarried in 1961, and there were even fewer cases of two married sons living together, but to avoid losing cases and causing bias I substituted missing values with estimated values. I obtained estimated values by regressing the family formation scale on education, occupation abroad, and age in 1961, separately for each country of origin. Separate analyses on the sample before and after substituting for missing values suggested only one difference: among those who had wives, speaking Yiddish had a statistically significant negative effect on returns to education, while with the full sample, this effect largely disappeared. This is probably due to age. Unmarried men were younger, and other analyses showed that the effect of Yiddish primacy on returns to education varied with age.

Education Was Not Heder or Yeshiva This variable was fairly straightforward; it relied on a question that asked about the type of school the respondent last attended. The religious school categories were “heder” and “yeshiva”; all other categories were coded as nonreligious. In all countries of origin, there were schools that were Jewish schools—in the sense that students and teachers were nearly all Jewish, subjects such as Jewish history or Zionism were taught, or they followed specific currents of Jewish identity—but that would never be classified as hadarim or yeshivot. The Alliance was such a school, as was Tarbut and numerous other schools across Eastern Europe. The census does not distinguish between these Jewish schools and other alternatives, such as government schools, antireligious secular Jewish schools (which were rare), or convent schools (note that Jews attended convent schools in Iraq and Morocco as well as in Europe). For the purposes of this book, this is as it should be. The heder and the yeshiva were symbols of older cultural forms; modern religious schools such as the Alliance, Tarbut, and even secular schools that taught in Yiddish were considered examples of Enlightened thought (because they altered religiousness in line with western rationality), and so would mark individuals as conforming to Jewish cultural change projects.

Variables Introduced in Chapter 8

A. Individual analysis

Settlement Type (Residential Location) Again following earlier work and the categories provided by the census, I distinguished six settlement types: rural development towns, kibbutzim and moshavim (collective and semicollective farms, respectively), other rural areas, urban development towns, small, nondevelopment urban areas, and large cities (Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa). The analysis incorporates the census’s urban/rural distinction and focuses on Moroccan attainment in urban areas. Settlements were considered urban if the population exceeded 2000, unless at least one-third of the heads of households earned their living from agriculture (Central Bureau of Statistics 1961).⁴

I followed Spilerman and Habib’s (1976) and Amiram and Shahar’s (1969) broader definition of development towns. The 20% sample of the census reported an individual’s town only if the town had at least 5000 residents. As a result, it was not possible to calculate ethnic concentration for all towns. This primarily affected smaller rural settlements, such as kibbutzim and moshavim, and I was able to find all but one development town. For analyses of urban development towns, it was necessary to drop 148 urban Moroccans, 56 of whom lived in either Nazret Elite or Migdal Haemek (it was impossible to distinguish between the two), and 92 of whom lived in unknown urban areas.

Region I included region of the country as a control variable, to be certain that dynamics attributed to settlement type were not spurious. Because there is little guidance in the literature for the articulation of regional distinctions, I followed the census categorizations to differentiate between the southern, northern, and central regions, and an additional category of towns that were within the Haifa, Tel Aviv, or Jerusalem areas. The assumption behind combining towns near all three cities into a single category (“city regions”) is that it is being near a city, not something about the city itself, that would affect the town’s labor market quality, and hence the effect of ethnic concentration on attainment. In the individual-level analyses, neither this four-category variable nor a three-category variable (north, central, south) produced significant coefficients or affected results.

Ethnic Concentration I use two measures of ethnic concentration: proportion Moroccan of the town, and proportion Mizrahi of the town. These were calculated simply by determining the percent Moroccan or Mizrahi in each town. Appendix 19 lists the development towns and their proportion Mizrahi and Moroccan.

Note that ethnic concentration for the individual analysis is calculated on the study sample only, i.e., on men who immigrated from 1948 to 1958, between the ages of twenty and sixty. This is important because development towns tended to be populated almost entirely by “new immigrants”—those who arrived after the establishment of the state in 1948—while regular towns had substantial numbers of “veterans”—those who arrived before statehood (Appendix 19). However, a good deal of research on this period suggests that veteran immigrants and new immigrants were competing for different pools of jobs (Shalev 1992; Shafir 1989; Matras 1963). The concentration of new immigrants thus reflects more closely the dynamics that are of interest here, namely queuing and potential networking among men who were competing with each other for jobs. At the town level, the analytical question changes to assess the dynamics by which the full set of available occupations were distributed across places. As such, I calculated ethnic concentration for this analysis on the full sample of men who were between the ages of twenty and sixty in 1961, and created a three-category variable: proportion Mizrahi immigrant, proportion Ashkenazi immigrant, and proportion veteran (there were too few Mizrahi veterans to create another category).

B. Town-Level Analysis in Appendix 22

Labor Market Quality Average Israeli prestige of men in the settlement. The 1961 census does not allow for a sophisticated measurement of labor market quality. I argue, however, that average Israeli prestige of a town is a reasonable measure of the set of jobs that are available to residents of a particular settlement, net complex dynamics such as variety of industries available or the availability of transportation to nearby towns.

Average Educational Attainment Averages the educational attainment of men in the town.

Average Prestige Abroad Averages the prestige abroad of immigrants in the town.

Proportion New Immigrant Mizrahi Proportion of the population who were both new immigrants and Mizrahi.

Proportion New Immigrant Ashkenazi Proportion of the population who were both new immigrants and Ashkenazi.

Proportion Veteran Proportion of the population who immigrated prior to 1948. There were so few Mizrahim prior to statehood that it was not possible to distinguish between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim.

Size Number of men who were between the ages of twenty and sixty in 1961.

Region See description above.

Variables Introduced in Chapter 9

Country of Origin The Matras data set followed the same coding procedure as the census.

Father’s Education Measured in whole years.

Mother’s Education Measured in whole years.

Father’s Occupational Prestige

Number of Siblings As reported in the data set.

APPENDIX THREE

Means and standard deviations of variables for the six largest countries and Egypt (included in Chapter 7)

APPENDIX FOUR

Correlations of all variables for the six largest countries

APPENDIX FIVE

Standardized coefficients for the regression of Israeli prestige on education (ED), prestige abroad (PA), and age at arrival (AG) from an equation using linear terms only; all countries together

APPENDIX SIX

Occupational groups accounting for 75% of population employed abroad and percentage of sample in that occupation, for six most populous countries of origin

APPENDIX SEVEN

Equations for regression of prestige in Israel on prestige abroad (PA), education (ED), age at arrival (AG), and year of arrival (YR) for the six largest countries of origin; separate equations for each country

APPENDIX EIGHT

Comparison of R² values for regressions of Israeli prestige on family formation scale (left column) and its components as separate variables (right column) with and without controls

| R² FOR THE MODEL
Predictors | Equations using family formation scale | Equations using separate variables
Model 1: Family formation is the only predictor in the model | 0.039 | 0.036
Model 2: Model 1, plus school type and western language primacy | 0.073 | 0.069
Model 3: Model 2, plus human capital (education, prestige abroad, age at arrival, and interactions) | 0.452 | 0.453
Model 4: Model 3, plus country of origin | 0.458 | 0.458

APPENDIX NINE

Main effects of cultural capital on immigrant attainment

APPENDIX TEN

Interactions between cultural capital and educational slope

APPENDIX ELEVEN

Equations used for calculating Figure 7.1; includes interactions between cultural capital and all human capital variables

APPENDIX TWELVE

Cultural capital by ethnicity for all countries and for six largest countries

APPENDIX THIRTEEN

Average educational attainment and distribution into major occupational categories in Israel for men who were educated in religious institutions

Mean educational attainment of Israeli men who ever attended school by type of education

Israeli occupation of men with religious educations

APPENDIX FOURTEEN

Correlations between ethnicity (as Mizrahi/ Ashkenazi distinction) and the family formation scale (and its components) for different combinations of cultural capital

APPENDIX FIFTEEN

Examination of the “Moroccan lag” in Israeli prestige among those with full cultural capital: regression of Israeli prestige on human capital, year of arrival, family formation, and settlement type in Israel for men with secular educations

APPENDIX SIXTEEN

Regressions of Israeli occupational prestige on freedom from family responsibilities, western language primacy, and having a non-Heder education

APPENDIX SEVENTEEN

Characteristics of development towns

APPENDIX EIGHTEEN

Ethnic and immigrant makeup of development towns and other areas in 1961; male heads of household only, all years and ages of immigration

vet: veteran immigrants, or those who immigrated prior to statehood in 1948. n.i.: new immigrant, or those immigrating after statehood.

NOTE: Moroccans and Tunisians are normally placed in the “African Mizrahi” category, while Egyptians are considered “Asian Mizrahim.”

APPENDIX NINETEEN

Regression of average Israeli prestige of town residents (town as unit of analysis) on location type, average education, and prestige abroad of residents

APPENDIX TWENTY

Israeli occupations; all Jewish men in the labor force by veteran status (%)

APPENDIX TWENTY-ONE

Equations testing effects of location type and human capital variables on prestige in Israel, by country of origin

APPENDIX TWENTY-TWO

Effect of human capital on Israeli occupational prestige by settlement type, controlling for region, secular education, and speaking a western language (Moroccans only)

APPENDIX TWENTY-THREE

Statistical significance of association between residence and language

APPENDIX TWENTY-FOUR

Equations from the logistic regression of the likelihood of matriculating based on father’s education (ED), father’s occupational prestige in Israel (PA), mother’s education, and number of siblings, for sons born in 1954 to men who arrived in Israel between 1948 and 1958, ages of 20–60

B SE P B SE P B SE P

−0.803 (0.335) 0.02 −0.483 (0.378) 0.20 0.906 (0.804) 0.26

−0.288 (0.408) 0.48 0.090 (0.463) 0.85 0.491 (1.067) 0.65

0.008 (0.037) 0.84 0.000 (0.037) 1.00 −0.001 (0.039) 0.98

0.021 (0.008) 0.01 0.020 (0.008) 0.01 0.033 (0.011) 0.00

0.052 (0.041) 0.20 0.035 (0.042) 0.40 0.037 (0.043) 0.39

−0.126 (0.072) 0.08 −0.148 (0.073) 0.04
−0.032 (0.016) 0.05
−0.006 (0.027) 0.82
Comparison group
Comparison group
Comparison group

−1.367 (0.428) 0.00 −0.927 (0.489) 0.06 −1.423 (0.578) 0.01

APPENDIX TWENTY-FIVE

Employers and Jewish teachers in 1961 by immigrant status and ethnicity

ENDNOTES

Chapter One

1

Though most academic research agrees that the primary motor behind this reduction was expulsion, this aspect of the formation of Israel/Palestinian divides is beyond the scope of this book. What is within the scope of this book is to demonstrate the centrality of an east/west contrast to the treatment of individuals, a dynamic that affected state policy toward Palestinians in addition to Middle Eastern Jews.

2

Some of those eventually categorized as easterners were not from Muslim countries; however, this category overwhelmingly contains Jews from Muslim countries, and from early on the group was referred to as coming from Arab or Muslim countries.

3

Arab non-Jews were also conceived as an eastern group, which was contrasted to an essentially western Jewish collectivity. Connections and divergences between the perceived easternness of Arab non-Jews and Jews from Middle Eastern countries are discussed in Chapter 6.

4

Currently, many academics choose the term racial or ethnic by classifying a divide along a range of axes, such as level of exclusion of a group or extent to which an identity is imposed or chosen (Cornell and Hartmann 1998). In the Jewish case, these considerations often lead in different directions. Using level of exclusion as the criteria, the internal Jewish divide is arguably an ethnic one and the Palestinian/ Jewish divide a racial one, because Mizrahim are presented as assimilable and Palestinians as more permanently “other.” However, using voluntarism as the criteria (and referring to categories as racial when they are imposed more than chosen, and as ethnic when they are chosen more than imposed), both cleaveages are arguably racial, but there is no way to distinguish between the exclusions of “eastern” Jews and non-Jews. My preference is therefore to choose the term that is closest to common usage—that is, ethnicity—and then discuss how the divide looks within the range of considerations academics use. Thus, in Chapter 3 I review research that casts the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi divide as an imposed one, and in Chapter 6 I address differences in levels of exclusion of “eastern” Jews and non-Jews.

5

The phrase modern industrialized society technically refers to levels of industrialization and economic growth. However, the term has also been used to refer to societies with distributive systems that are (theoretically at least) based on achieved rather than ascribed statuses and political systems that are (again theoretically) based on universal suffrage among citizens. The classic analytical puzzle, which also drives this book, has been the reason these societies so often do not live up to their promises of equality. Sociologists and economists traditionally refer to early Israel as a modern industrialized society, even in recent research (Yaish 2004). The basis for this categorization is the rate of growth in the GNP and the share of the GNP that was due to agriculture. However, this categorization scheme has also been contested for the 1950s because a large portion of the GNP was due to the building of housing for the immigrants and because industry was in its infancy. In this book I retain the “modern industrial” terminology because the important points are not the economy, per se, but that Israel’s political and distributive philosophy were in line with the group of societies normally referred to as modern industrialized.

6

I discuss dichotomization in-depth in Chapter 3. It occurred on many axes and was resisted on others. This book is concerned with dichotomization in occupational and sometimes educational attainment. Thus, a good working definition of dichotomization for the book is a historical process by which educational and occupational attainments were initially distributed by country of origin, but over time came to be distributed by the binary Mizrahi/Ashkenazi classification scheme.

7

Emigh has argued that cases in which there is a large gap between theoretical expectations and empirical outcomes are particularly useful analytically because, in determining the source of the divergence, theory can be expanded and deepened. She argues that negative case methodology is inherently deductive because identification of the case as deviant is based on comparison between the case and theoretical expectations. This process is analytically more powerful than comparing two empirical cases with different outcomes because prior theory is based on numerous observations. Once a negative case has been identified, it is analyzed inductively to ascertain why it deviates. The goal is to expand the theory so that it can incorporate the deviant case. I argue that resolution of the Iraqi paradox entails attending to nonmaterial motivations for social closure, in addition to the material motivations that have dominated work on dichotomization. These nonmaterial motivations are accessed through a Jewish history of Orientalism.

8

This statement partly draws from the literature (see summary in Khazzoom 1999) and partly from the data that will be presented in the book. By quantitatively measuring the important characteristics that were believed at the time to constitute a modern western individual, it is possible to show that more Iraqis met these criteria than Moroccans or Yemenites.

9

My thanks to one of the reviewers of this book for this wording.

10

As should be clear from this discussion, I take a constructionist view of groups and their identities. This is true of most sociological research today. Constructionist perspectives are usually contrasted to essentialist perspectives. According to Westwood, essentialization means assuming that one is “able to identify and capture the defining qualities and the real or true essence of the Other” (2001, p. 259). This, Westwood argues, “makes the other a ‘knowable Other’ ” (p. 260). A good statement of a constructionist perspective is that “categories of identification (i.e., race, gender, class, sexual orientation, etc.) are not pre-given, essential traits, but constitute an array of available cultural meanings and identities into which one places or sutures oneself, at the same time internalizing those meanings in an attempt to stabilize both oneself and the surrounding world” (Dolby 2001, p. 9).

11

Identity and material interests are never fully separable from each other because identity is often the lens through which people perceive material interests. However, the book demonstrates that in this case material interests are not enough to explain boundaries or patterns of inclusions and exclusion; one needs to attend to identity as well.

12

Note that Almaguer argues that both material interests and identity played an important role in the shaping of California society.

13

Definitions of human capital abound, and economic definitions are often different from sociological definitions. However, most center around acquired skills or knowledge, with many adding other individual characteristics that could affect how good a worker one is, such as age or health. In this book, human capital is measured as prior job experience (usually occupational prestige abroad), education, and age.

14

My intention is not to account for the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in its entirety. If this conflict is like other conflicts, then all sides had some role in creating it. My research into Jewish ethnic inequality is able to shed light on at least some component of the Jewish role.

Chapter Two

1

Their Zionist ideology continues to be controversial among Israeli Jews, with scholars debating whether a state built for a specific ethnoreligious group can really be called a democracy and whether Zionist ideology really was secular. These debates are important, but they are beyond the scope of this book.

2

From the website of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005776. Accessed July 31, 2007.

3

During the prestate period, separate Jewish and non-Jewish economies were established. How this happened is as much a source of debate as anything concerning Israeli/Palestinian inequality. Some attribute it to the Zionist value of “Hebrew labor,” i.e., the idea that rather than Jews forming an upper class that exploited non-Jewish labor, all spaces in the social class hierarchy should be occupied by Jews. This value is supposed to have been developed in the Diaspora, as a response to the lopsided occupational structure that existed there, but Shafir’s (1989) influential work argued that it was not imported from Europe but rather emerged from events in Israel. Prior to statehood, second and third aliyah Jewish immigrant and indigenous Muslim labor competed for jobs—largely agricultural—from a set of Jewish capitalists who arrived during the first aliyah. According to Shafir, non-Jewish Palestinians were able to offer their labor for less, and because they had backgrounds in agriculture while East Europeans didn’t, they were also more skilled. Shafir argues that Jews, searching for a way to compete, called upon ethno-national-religious unity and the hiring of Hebrew labor, and enforced this unity in part through the creation of the Histadrut. Regardless of how one reads this history, however, there is general agreement that the economy in which the new immigrants competed was a largely Jewish one, with non-Jewish Palestinians relegated to lower status positions within the Jewish economy or to separate economies.

4

Note that because this figure uses new immigrants only, the Israeli distribution is not the distribution of jobs in the economy as a whole but what was available to new Jewish immigrants. Data based on new immigrants is a proxy for conditions in the sending country only for Iraqis, since nearly the entire community immigrated to Israel in 1950 and 1951.

5

Country differences existed in the likelihood of an immigrant being in one of the contracting occupations. Yemenites and to some extent Moroccans were more likely to be in diminishing crafts such as tailoring or shoemaking than other groups. Soviets were less likely to be in sales than other groups. I initially considered the possibility that being in a contracting occupation was one of the “neutral” causes of ethnic inequality (i.e., a cause that did not require active ethnic discrimination). However, it turns out that arriving with experience in a contracting occupation did not result in greater downward mobility. I used two methods to determine this. First, I created a variable that compared prestige abroad and prestige in Israel (by simply subtracting one from the other) and looked at the mean prestige gain or loss for men who had worked in “expanding” and “contracting” blue collar jobs. Both groups had a small net gain in prestige after the immigration, and there was negligible difference between the two. Second, I regressed Israeli prestige on education, prestige abroad, age at arrival, year of arrival, and a dummy variable measuring whether an individual had been in a sales occupation or a contracting blue collar occupation abroad. Both of the last two coefficients were statistically insignificant.

6

This may seem like too small a difference; however, note (1) that the standard deviation for Mizrahim is larger, and (2) that many Mizrahi white collar immigrants were Iraqi or Egyptian. Their labor market experience was similar to that of Ashkenazim. Occupations are rated according to their prestige on a scale of 1 to 100. See Appendix 1 for more information on how prestige points were determined.

7

The number of men who reported being students abroad may seem high, given that the sample includes men who were at least twenty years old on arrival in Israel. Indeed, 640 of the 2514 students reported their last school type to be primary school and their number of years of schooling to be less than eight; another 771 reported their last school type to have been a general secondary school and their number of years of schooling to be twelve or fewer. Given the upheavals of war, it may well be that some of these men never worked abroad. However, it is also worth noting that the occupation abroad question asked what an individual had done most; young men whose years in school were greater than their years at work may simply have answered “school.”

8

Please see Appendix 2’s discussion of occupation abroad for a note on clerical workers and blue collar workers who went into the professional/technical category.

9

Of course this calculation is a very rough number that is based on several assumptions (that all professionals would prefer clerical over blue collar work, that employers and employees had access to each other, etc.), but even so it gives some sense of the level of competition for clerical positions.

10

Given evidence that the clerical category was more competitive than the professional/technical and especially managerial categories, I used a multinomial regression for the six largest countries of origin to confirm that once one takes education, age at arrival, and occupational category abroad into account, the chances of Poles, Romanians, and Iraqis obtaining clerical positions are statistically indistinguishable from one another. The dependent variable is occupational category in Israel, divided into three categories: (1) clerical; (2) professional, technical, and managerial; and (3) sales, farming, blue collar, and service. It is regressed against education—in four categories: (1) no education, (2) below median, (3) median to twelve years of education, (4) more than twelve years of education—occupational category abroad (same three categories as occupation in Israel), and country of origin. In none of the possible contrasts are the differences among Poles, Iraqis, and Romanians statistically significant. However, Soviets have higher chances of obtaining clerical occupations (in comparison to blue collar), and Yemenites and Moroccans have lower chances. This replicates the pattern of country differences in returns to education that is discussed in Chapter 5 and shown in Figure 5.1.

11

Sixty-four percent of employers in other urban areas formed prestate were veterans, as were 36% in urban development towns.

12

This assertion is also supported by an early (1956) study by Eisenstadt (himself a veteran) of new immigrant leaders; his focus was on how successful the leaders were in helping new immigrants conform to the political and cultural milieu that had been established prior to statehood.

13

However, even here there is continuity, as both the east/west dichotomy and evidence of ethnic discrimination existed prestate (Shafir 1989; see also Smooha 1978 on the distribution of immigration certificates). However, again, veteran establishments did not have to deal with a mass immigration of Middle Eastern Jews, or their demands for incorporation as part of the collectivity, until after statehood. Writings by veterans of the time (see Segev 1986, for examples) indicate that stereotypes of any new immigrants were not yet set, but were being produced as the new immigrants arrived. Similarly, Shenhav (2006) argues that even in the 1940s, Zionist emissaries in Iraq were gradually developing ways to conceptualize Iraqi Jews.

14

In fact, put that way—that is, as a shared concern that Israel not become Arab or Levantine—even the religious usually agreed. The religious, however, did not generally support the westernization project, largely because westernization usually also implied secularization or at least considerable separation of Halacha (church) and state. Some groups, such as the communists, supported Europeanization and modernization but not westernization specifically, and in fact saw the west as corrupt.

15

Scholars have commented on the anti-Semitic nature of some of these Israeli Jewish images of the self; see Chapter 6 for more discussion.

16

There is little research on what differences were perceived between being Arab and Oriental, how this distinction between Oriental and Arab might matter, and whether there were differences in the extent to which one or another group of Mizrahim was seen as Arab versus Oriental. The data from this book, as noted, suggest that gatekeepers treated all Mizrahim equally, in that they included those who could prove westernness and excluded those who could not.

Chapter Three

1

Children of less educated parents normally obtain less education themselves. Because minorities tend to start off with less educated parents, they also end up with less education themselves, regardless of whether or not racial/ethnic discrimination is an important feature of their society.

2

Some indigenous non-Jews were granted Israeli citizenship and therefore obtained most of the rights Jewish citizens had. However, there were nevertheless a number of forms of exclusion of non-Jews that affected participation in the society in general and economic life chances in particular. For example, rules limiting allowable political platforms hampered Arab non-Jewish political participation (Rouhana 1997), and the definition of the common good as the production of a Jewish society hampered their ability to contribute to the common good. Regarding economic chances, with the exception of Druze, non-Jewish Arabs were not allowed to join the army. Not only did this lead to the loss of potential networks, but also a number of industries were closed to men who had not done army service.

3

Stienberg (1989) makes a cogent argument that the success of Jewish immigrants in the United States is best explained by the confluence of their high levels of literacy at the time of their arrival, their prior experience in textiles, and the expansion of the U.S. textile industry. He makes similar arguments regarding the success or failure of other U.S. ethnic groups. However, since he also emphasizes the role of zenophobia and ethnocentrism in generating the U.S. racial/ethnic hierarchy, he can also be classified as an example of a “race matters” argument.

4

A meritocratic society is one in which prized resources, such as Ph.D.s, are distributed based on ability and personal achievement. In a nonmeritocratic society, “ascribed” characteristics, such as race/ethnicity or gender, can determine attainment, irrespective of achievements.

5

In this book, I follow the mainstream of social stratification research, as well as prevalent ideologies in liberal societies, in treating human capital as a legitimate qualification for jobs. However, the concept of credentialism arguably reads human capital as problematic. The credentialist argument is that degrees and certificates that one obtains through schooling are best characterized as mechanisms to legitimize hiring choices and restrictions on the supply of certain kinds of labor rather than practical training programs. From this perspective, a system that sorts on human capital alone might also be treated as unfair. Other work not specifically in the credentialism vein has also treated human capital as a social construction.

6

In Parkin’s description, racial minorities and the lower class are two groups that are on a par with each other, in the sense that the bourgeois would exclude them both using the same individualist criteria of credentialism. However for him, it is class background that determines one’s access to the intellectual tools needed to thrive in a credentialist system: “credentials are usually supplied on the basis of tests designed to measure certain class-related qualities and attributes rather than those practical skills and aptitudes that may not so easily be passed on through the family line” p. 55. Thus technically, elite build on the class/ race association to conceal ethnic discrimination.

7

There are several reasons to expect intensive resource dichotomization work in the first encounter with the labor market, in addition to the argument Ben Gurion made in his “million immigrant” speech that Arab Jews would make good workers. First, it is simply easier to place people in lower status positions right away than to try to dislodge them from higher status positions later on. Second, Israelis valued what Zionists called “Hebrew labor” and “normalization,” in which Jews occupied all of the positions in the economy, including low status positions. Though non-Jewish indigenous Arabs still got the least favorable jobs (Shalev 1992; Shafir 1989), many Jewish immigrants had to occupy low prestige jobs. Some mechanism would be necessary to place them in these low status positions right away (Bernstein 1981).

8

This argument is similar to Lieberson’s (1980) discussion of latent racism, in which the absence of direct closure activities along racial lines does not necessarily indicate a lack of racist tendencies. Rather, racist orientations result in observable racist practice only in certain instances, such as when majorities are threatened by immigration of large numbers of minorities. As Lieberson puts it, “there is a latent structure to the race relations pattern in a given setting, with only certain parts of this structure observed at a given time” (p. 375).

9

Following Weber, Parkin is aware that group boundaries are social creations, and also that they can become more or less salient over time. However his focus is on when and how groups engage in social closure against each other, and in this discussion group boundaries and individual membership in groups are treated as self evident.

10

Weber defines ethnic groups as “those human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or of customs or both, or because of memories of colonization and migration.” In this sense, this book must consider three nested sets of categories: the umbrella Jewish identity, the binary Mizrahi/Ashkenazi distinction, and country of origin. The latter two categories delineate groups of Jews who were largely separate from each other, to varying degrees, across centuries, and who therefore had putatively different histories, cultures, and even genetic descent. A number of group boundaries within countries of origin were salient both before and after immigration; however, they tend not to be ethnic in nature. For example, in most countries urban and rural Jews were perceived as different from each other, but not because they were perceived to have separate cultures or descent lines. Regional distinctions in Poland that were generated by war and occupation, such as the distinction between Galicia and Congress Poland, were salient, but again not ethnic. This is because of the relative cultural independence of Galicia under Austrian occupation and a strong Polish acculturation effort, both of which tended to retain a sense of “Polishness.”

11

Identities can be imposed in numerous ways, and a number of mechanisms interact and reinforce one another. For example when the state labels Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans as Asians in the census, and medical research distinguishes between the effect of a drug on Asians and blacks, and individual employers discriminate against all Asians similarly, the new identity Asian comes to have practical meaning. The categorized can also adopt panethnic identities and use them as bases of social action (Espiritu 1992), or resist the panethnic identities (Portes and MacLeod 1996); in addition, larger-scale identities can also be salient, and these can undermine panethnic identities. An example would be the umbrella Jewish identity, which undermines the binary ethnic categorization.

12

Researchers who work in the racialization framework argue that in some respects minority categories are the first to take on meaning. This is because minorities become the object of speculation, academic examination, social policy, and so forth, while the majority identity remains diffuse, undefined, and out of the spotlight. It is certainly true of Israel that Mizrahim became objects of discussion in a way that Ashkenazim did not. However, the fact that Ashkenazim married across country-of-origin lines also indicates that, in terms of subjective identity, some sense of commonality as Europeans formed early on. Note also that Portes and MacLeod (1996) point out that when devalued minority panethnic identities are imposed, members of component groups that are of higher socioeconomic status (or other measure of status) are likely to resist this imposition. This might explain why Middle Easterners would take longer to marry across country categories than Europeans; groups such as Iraqis, who were relatively well educated, might have been resisting their presentation in Israeli society as similar to Yemenites, Moroccans, and others.

13

Nahon examined women’s educational attainment as well. I discuss women and education in Chapter 4.

14

Note that while average years of education of Iraqis increased over the generations (Nahon 1987), proportions with academic secondary education did not (Figure 3.1).

15

Smooha (1978) argues that prior to statehood, Ashkenazim controlled the distribution of immigrant visas and distributed them to European immigrants more than to Middle Eastern and North African. This is an early example of resource dichotomization. In general, however, prior to immigration to Israel an individual’s resources depended on dynamics in his or her country, not on any relationship between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim.

16

Though dichotomous distinctions along east/west lines also structured Jewish ethnic boundaries in the Diaspora (see Chapter 6), boundaries also shifted over time, and those that Ben Gurion articulated are the ones along which resources are currently distributed in Israel (Shenhav 2006).

17

Shenhav, however, has argued based on his archival work on Zionist emissaries in Iraq that Iraqi Jews were also seen as distinctly Arabic and therefore as threats to Israel’s westernness. Clearly, more research is needed here. However, even without an argument that veterans Orientalized Iraqis less, it is clear that Iraqis, because of their size and overall attainments, presented a greater threat to Ashkenazi resource monopolization than Moroccans and Yemenites.

18

Resource monopolization is particularly central to Barth’s (1969) work, and to postcolonial work when categorization is seen as a response to the technical needs of colonial rule (Mitchell 1991). It also echoes Weber, who, although characteristically unwilling to posit any single dynamic as driving social behavior, argued that individuals usually wanted to make ethnic distinctions when scarce resources were involved.

19

Orientalism is similar to the white supremacist discourse in a number of ways. First, it is used to create ethnic/racial difference and to posit a hierarchy among the groups. Second, it refers to a similar set of characteristics to construct the eastern “other” as backward; the other is said to be dirty, disorganized, emotional rather than rational, to come from backward occupational structures, to have pathological gender relations, and so forth. Third, its constructions are also connected to exclusion, in that Orientalism, along with white supremacy, has been one of the central justificatory tools for western European colonization. But Orientalism also differs from white supremacy in that it uses an east/west line to construct difference, rather than a black/white line. This is only sometimes important, and even in the Jewish case the two lines often blended (for example, Mizrahim were referred to as black, one of the more effective Mizrahi ethnic movements was called the Black Panthers, and recent work on the United States has suggested that eastern European Jews were initially seen as only semi-white until they successfully constructed themselves as fully white). In Israel the difference was nevertheless important because Zionism was a westernization project that moved Jews to the geographic Middle East for completion, and it is in part the resulting tension that accounts for the formation of ethnic groups and their relationship of exclusion.

20

The term Jewish Orientalism is by now widely used and refers to a new body of literature that asks how Said’s classic work can be applied to Israeli and Jewish studies. It is unclear when the term was first coined; the classic work in this vein is Shohat 1988.

21

In the introduction, I noted that I treat ethnicity as both an individual resource and a relational dynamic. When I say that each individual sees himself or herself as having an ethnicity, which can be strategically manipulated or concealed to obtain a good job, that is treating ethnicity as an individual characteristic (in the labor market context, that ethnicity is not necessarily his or her own identity, but what identification he or she believes prospective employers will use). I treat ethnicity as relational and a characteristic of an entire society when I assess its meaning within the nationalist project and Diaspora identity projects.

22

This tradition of research quantitatively distinguishes between class- and race-based closure by asking whether class or ethnic characteristics can explain individual attainment outcomes. Most countries have a gross ethnic/racial gap in attainment. If that initial ethnic difference becomes significantly smaller when class background is controlled—that is, when ethnic groups are compared within class groups—then some portion of the ethnic gap in outcomes can be said to be the result of class factors. If the addition of class factors eliminates the effect of ethnicity entirely, then ethnic inequality can be said to be a byproduct of class factors. This is true whether one looks within a generation—explaining ethnic gaps in occupational attainment with initial differences in education—or intergenerationally—explaining ethnic gaps in educational outcomes through the initial differences in fathers’ and mothers’ educational and occupational attainments.

23

Most research in the status attainment vein contrasts parents’ educational and occupational characteristics with those of a child. Work in this book substitutes immigrants’ preimmigration characteristics for parents’ characteristics.

24

Note that this distribution is based on male respondents of all ages who immigrated between 1948 and 1958, not only those who immigrated between the ages of 20 and 60. Among the sample of men on whom I ran the analyses, Bulgaria contributed nominally more immigrants than Yemen (1784 vs. 1716); the next largest group is Turkey with 1524.

Chapter Four

1

The census question asked about respondents’ “status at work” and allowed such answers as self-employed, employer, member of kibbutz, and so forth. Thus, the category “employer” probably does not include those who employ only domestics at home. Among men between the ages of twenty and sixty in 1961, 7% reported that they were managers or directors, and 3% were employers (only 8% of managers and 4% of employers were women). Note that this variable was not fully reliable (Kantorowitz 1969), so analyses of employers can be taken as rough estimates.

2

The group analyzed here does not of course include all veterans who were managers or employers in 1948, as some would have retired or moved on to other jobs. By necessity, the overwhelming majority of job givers in 1948 were veterans.

3

Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression produces a set of coefficients that quantify the strength of the relationship between two variables. Height and weight, for example, are related to each other, and if height is used to predict weight, the coefficient for height will be the measure of the strength of the relationship. The coefficient in OLS regression tells us how much weight to add for each incremental increase in height (i.e., if height is measured in inches and weight in pounds, and the coefficient is 10, one adds 10 pounds per extra inch of height).

4

The census considered children to be a characteristic of women, and so asked only women how many children they had.

5

As with men, the proportions of women with no schooling are distributed by binary ethnic category, with nearly 100% of Ashkenazi women attending some school, compared to 30%–36% of Iraqis and Moroccans, and less than 3% of Yemenites. One might think that the gap between men and women is a better statistic than the educational attainment of women, given that Mizrahi men also often didn’t attend school, but this does not change the result. Graphing the average attainment of all women with one year of education by cohort does change the result, however, producing, among youth, the now-familiar distribution: parity between Iraqis, Romanians, and Poles, higher attainments among the USSR, and, in this case, a large and significant difference between Yemenites and Moroccans. See Khazzoom (1999) for more details.

Chapter Five

1

Companion graphs that examine ethnic differences in returns to prestige abroad and age at arrival are available in Khazzoom (1999); however, the conclusion of this analysis was that the story of Israeli ethnic closure is to be found in the ethnic hierarchy in returns to education, rather than in returns to prior occupational prestige.

2

This language of change is technically inaccurate, as respondents’ educational attainments don’t actually increase during the course of the study. The shorthand is common usage.

3

Here, the Soviet/Iraqi gap is larger than the Moroccan/Iraqi gap. But keep in mind that among Ashkenazim, only Romanians obtained four years of education in significant numbers; few Poles or Soviets had such low educational attainments.

4

This was true in much of the Middle East. What is important about the Iraqi community is how this interacts with the education, westernization, and complete immigration of communal leaders.

5

Development towns, as noted, were isolated peripheral areas where few immigrants wanted to settle and that offered mainly low status jobs.

6

An ethnic difference in placement rates developed after 1952, and placement in general accelerated in the mid-1950s. I therefore used the ten countries who provided the most post-1952 immigrants.

7

To ensure that Mizrahi placement was not overestimated, this analysis used only heads of household (Mizrahim had larger families, and so measuring individual placement would tend to increase placement estimates for Mizrahim), and to ensure that those moving in freely were not counted as placements, it used only heads whose year of arrival in Israel and year of arrival in their place of residence were identical.

8

In general, self-employment boosted the Israeli prestige of less educated workers and lowered that of higher educated workers. What ethnicity does is to affect the crossover point, such that even among Ashkenazim with fairly low education, salaried work resulted in higher Israeli prestige, while Mizrahim needed to be fairly well educated before salaried work became preferable, and for Yemenites salaried work was never preferable.

9

It is worth noting that although statistical discrimination is discrimination, in that individuals are being evaluated based on their ethnic group membership, it is not necessarily in tension with the spirit of meritocracy. Another way to say this is that it is a form of ethnic discrimination that is driven by practical rather than ethnic concerns. Presumably, were this gatekeeper to receive more specific information—for example, that immigrants from Aden were both secularly educated and exposed to British colonial institutions—he or she would begin looking at applications from Adenites.

Chapter Six

An earlier version of this chapter was published in the American Sociological Review , 2003, vol. 68, pp. 481–510.

1

Recall that categorization is the imposition of an identity by the powerful onto the less powerful. To cast another group as eastern is to categorize.

2

There are various forms of exclusion. One group can marginalize another group by devaluing its culture without any uneven distribution of resources. Both devaluation and uneven resource distribution can be said to be exclusion, and the second dynamic can be termed social closure.

3

Main references: Zipperstein 1985; Goldscheider and Zuckerman 1984; Aschheim 1982; Bayme 1981; Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz 1980; Katz 1973, 1986; Barzilay 1955; Greenberg 1944; Raisin 1913; Lichten 1986; Mendelsohn 1983, 1986, 1989; Heschel 1999; Hess 2000.

4

The Enlightenment also affected the Jewish position in England. But because this line of orientalization did not extend to other Jewish communities with the same intensity, I have removed it from this account.

5

The terms modern and western were used in a variety of ways by the various actors in this history, and the meanings changed across time and space. But because Jewish Orientalism is a new subject, there are no careful analyses of the meaning of each term, or of the relationship between the two terms, in Jewish thought. Moreover since discourses often referenced a mix of modernity, westernness, and even bourgeois behavior, it might be more correct to analyze these concepts as a complex—similar to the way individuals experienced them—rather than separating them for the sake of analytical purity. For the moment, it is safe to say that both terms were used to refer to the set of characteristics I elaborate in the following paragraphs (see, however, the discussion in the final endnote of this chapter). As I argue, they later became fused with other concepts, such as secularism.

6

These projects varied along a number of axes. Among them were the level of tradition that Jews wanted to retain and the role that Jewishness, in some form or another, should play in individual identity. But in France and Germany, there were few explicitly antiwesternization projects. In addition, even projects that preserved tradition sought to mold it into something more compatible with western Christian observance. The modern orthodox, for example, added decorum to their services, while the conservative and reform sought to update Jewish ritual itself.

7

Given my use of postcolonial theory, one might wonder why I use Goffman’s work to discuss stigma and the copying of putative western cultural forms, rather than Bhabha’s. I detail this choice in Khazzoom 2003; the main point is that Goffman’s work on stigma anticipates the details of Jewish identity and social closure more closely than postcolonial work. For example, in the postcolonial literature the primary focus has been the relationship between colonizer and colonized, not between different groups of stigmatized others (e.g., Said 1978; Spivak 1988; Trinh 1989; even Memmi 1965 and Bhabha 1994). As such, two details of the Jewish Orientalism story have not been elaborated: the chain of Orientalism, in which one recently stigmatized group evaluates other similar groups in terms of the extent to which they show the stigma, and the vacillation between excluding and trying to “normalize” more stigmatized others (Bhabha talks about simultaneously desiring and feeling repelled by the stigmatized other, but this is not the same). Goffman, by simultaneously attending to relations with normals, more stigmatized others, and less stigmatized others, anticipates such a chain more closely. Another point is that postcolonial work has not integrated performance into the discussion of stigma, and as I elaborate in Khazzoom 2003, performance is critical to the Jewish Orientalism experience. Butler (1999) can of course be used, but this is unnecessary because Goffman’s work has already incorporated it.

8

This is one of those statements on which most agree but on which there has been little direct research. The argument weaves through the work cited above, from Stillman, Zohar, and Yehuda. In the in-depth interviews that I am currently conducting with Iraqi immigrants, this strategy is mentioned often.

9

The visit occurred in 1906. What is relevant here, however, is the characterization of Poles, which was published in 1927.

10

Sabbati Zvi lived in the seventeenth century, not in the 1930s, and so Kastein’s remark is theoretically about how Oriental, Polish, and western Jews perceived Sabbateanism in the seventeenth century. I would argue, however, that Kastein is reading contemporary constructions back into history. In fact, the time of Sabbati Zvi predates the westernization of even the western Jews; without the assumption that Kastein is using contemporary constructions, his argument would not make sense at all.

11

In contrast to Europe, where there is general agreement that Haskalah ideology came to shape identity in most communities (including oppositional identities), almost no research has been done on the extent to which the westernization project actually reached varying Middle Eastern groups. Some empirically based theorizing suggests that it was actually quite well spread. According to Israel’s 1961 census, approximately three-quarters of the poststatehood Middle Eastern immigrants who had remained in Israel had at least one year of education, not including Yemenites (Khazzoom 1999; Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel). In urban areas, one can expect this rate to have been higher. Again not including Yemen, rates of attendance at religious institutions were low, particularly in Iraq (11%) and Egypt (1%) (other countries providing substantial numbers of immigrants: Morocco 27%, Poland 17%, Yemen 85%). Evidence suggests, then, that a good portion of urban Jews had had at least one year in an Alliance or other modern school, and therefore was exposed to propaganda about the need for westernization. Moreover, even uneducated Jews used hospitals, social services, old-age homes, and the like that were built and run by westernized or modernized Jews (archives and displays of Moreshet Yehudai Bavel). As such, it is reasonable to assume that the majority of urban Jews, regardless of education level, arrived in Israel with exposure to western institutional forms and, through them, the westernization identity project.

12

Scholars such as Shohat (1988), Shiblak (1986), Alcalay (1993), and Shenhav (1999) argue that the non-Arab identity was neither popular nor indigenous among Jews in the Arab world. They suggest instead that Ashkenazi Zionists exacerbated and often even created divisions between Middle Eastern Jews and their host societies. That western Jews were themselves invested in Mizrahi distance from Arabs is consistent with these scholars’ contention. Recent suggestions that the Iraqi Jewish anti-Zionist (Meir 1989) and communist (Kazzaz 1991) movements were larger and more important than previously acknowledged also indicate strong currents of Middle Eastern Jewish identification with Arabs rather than the west. Nevertheless, it is difficult to know how to interpret anti-Zionist statements from Middle Eastern Jewish leaders in a context in which pro-Zionist statements could lead to imprisonment and death. This, among many other related issues, requires a great deal more investigation.

13

Because the literature is not oriented toward understanding the history of orientalization, the story of how Middle Eastern Jews came to use Arabs as foils has to be built with logic and with what historical information there is. Within the literature that I reviewed, the technique first appears in Alliance documents and therefore appears to have been of French origin. Middle Eastern Jews had been in economic competition with Arabs for centuries, but although they appear to have nurtured a sense of superiority to Arabs, they would not have had the discursive equipment to orientalize Arabs prior to the arrival of the French.

14

Note, however, that Berkowitz (1997) has an accounting of “western” Jewry’s attachment to Zionism that does not require reference to the westernization project. Berkowitz argues, in part, that western (Berkowitz does not unpack the concept) Jews liked Zionism because it was able to alleviate the poverty of the Ostjuden; he does not mention alleviation of their easternness. This is clearly a subject on which more research could be conducted.

15

Cordova did not argue, however, that the movement was rejected because Levantinization, specifically, was threatening to the Zionist westernization project. Eyal interprets this movement as evidence of the potential of the Hebrew culture to easternize Jewish identity (1996; see also 2006), and I do not disagree. I do argue, however, that within the framework of a forced choice between modernity and Eastern culture, such movements were doomed to failure.

Chapter Seven

1

The account comes from notes I wrote after Na’im spontaneously told me his immigration story at a social gathering. He was aware that I was researching the attainment of immigrant men; however, I did not share with any immigrants my theoretical expectations for my research.

2

Recall evidence from Chapter 2 that veterans considered it legitimate to impose such roles on the arriving immigrants.

3

As noted in Appendix 2, the method I use results in large equations with insignificant terms. Several alternate strategies for estimating the effect of cultural capital on returns to education produce smaller equations in which the key terms are statistically significant. One is to estimate an equation that allows the cultural capital variables to interact with education and education-squared alone (i.e., not the other human capital variables and interactions from Chapter 5). Another is to estimate equations that include one cultural capital variable and its interactions at a time (i.e., only speaking a western language and its interaction with the effect on human capital, only the family formation scale, etc.). Yet another is to reduce the sample to immigrants with specific sets of cultural capital (i.e., all immigrants with no cultural capital, all immigrants who speak western languages, etc.) and then regress occupational prestige on human capital. All strategies produce similar results.

4

Note that all these variables were recorded for women only; thus a man’s children from a first marriage would not be counted. To avoid losing cases of unmarried men (there were few), I used regressions to estimate scale values for those who were missing; predictors were education, age, and prestige abroad. Please see Appendix 2 for more details.

5

For ease of reference I am calling education that was not heder or yeshiva “secular.” However, the census question—fortunately—placed modern religious schools in with what I am calling the secular group, separating out only heder and yeshiva.

6

Moreover, only three Iraqi cases reported French primacy, which is in stark contrast to Kattan’s (1980) memoirs (see Chapter 6) and Meir’s (1989) study of Iraqi Jewish curricula.

7

Again, this is why the census’s recording of primary language is useful; because urban Moroccans often had contact with French speakers, many could speak a little French but were not fluent; it is primacy that best distinguishes the westernized from the nonwesternized

8

For all intents and purposes, Ashkenazim with family formation scores of 0 spoke Yiddish and not local languages; thus, there is no graph for local language speakers with family formation scores of 0.

9

In the equations for these graphs, a dummy term for a secular education is added and then interacted with the effect of education. This means that the main term for education is for those with anywhere from zero to twenty years of education, while the term for secular education is for those with anywhere from one to twenty years. The conceptualization behind this is that individuals with no education or with religious education are equally without cultural capital. However, reducing the sample to all men with at least one year of education does not change the overall picture in Figure 7.1.

10

Iraqis were removed from this graph because fewer than fifty secularly educated Western language speakers had family formation scores of 2, but they too map onto the Ashkenazi lines.

11

Though a score of 3 is not represented for space reasons, it is consistent with the picture in Figure 7.1.

12

Figures 7.1a–d are for immigrants with religious educations, and one might wonder if family formation did affect ethnic hierarchies for those with secular educations. However, this turns out not to be the case; for the secularly educated, the ethnic hierarchy in returns to education is also stable across values of the family formation scale (not shown; graph available from author).

13

An equation estimated without the family formation variable (not shown) confirms that for the religiously educated who do not speak a western language, returns to education of Romanians and Poles are nearly identical, while Soviets have an early and consistent advantage.

14

The census provides information on where an individual worked. Therefore, the most obvious analytical strategy would be to see if the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi gap among new immigrants varies by town, operationalizing town as the proportion of Ashkenazi employers who were religious and who worked there. (Employers are defined, as in Chapter 4, as those who reported employing one or more individuals, or who reported being in a managerial/administrative occupation in Israel. Employers were determined to be religious based on their school type. I used only towns with more than five thousand inhabitants; in other cases the census reports only an individual’s larger area of work, not the specific town.) One would also have to control for proportion of Mizrahi in the town, since towns with more religious individuals might also have a greater proportion of Mizrahi. I conducted this analysis and found that the greater the proportion of Ashkenazi employers who were religious, the smaller the Mizrahi/ Ashkenazi gap in Israeli prestige among immigrants. However, the coefficients were not statistically significant. Another reasonable strategy is to compare the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi gap among new immigrants who worked in Bnei Brak with that elsewhere. Bnei Brak is useful because it was dominated by Hasidic Jews, who at the time were normally East European. In 1961, about 60% of Bnei Brak’s residents were Ashkenazi (all years of immigration), and 100% of employers with religious educations were Ashkenazi. A regression for new immigrants showed that the 5-plus-point Israeli prestige gap between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim was reversed for those who worked in Bnei Brak to an approximately 2-point gap in favor of Mizrahim. This was true regardless of whether or not Iraqis were included (Iraqis had higher attainments in the Tel Aviv area). Regressions for those who worked in Bnei Brak alone showed that the 2-point gap was not statistically significant. Thus, the conclusion appears to be that at minimum the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi gap for religiously educated new immigrants was not caused by religious employers; at maximum, religious employers actually didn’t discriminate against Mizrahim with religious educations and only secular employers did.

15

Interestingly, this final point addresses a larger debate in the cultural capital literature. Bourdieu, who pioneered the concept of cultural capital, treated it as an exclusion enabler. In this conception, individuals obtain cultural capital through growing up in middle-class homes, and cultural capital then increases their chances of obtaining middle-class occupations themselves. Cultural capital thus legitimizes the intergenerational reproduction of inequality. In contrast, the scenario described above posits that by obtaining cultural capital, Mizrahi immigrants could avoid being treated like Orientals. This follows more recent work in treating cultural capital as a resource used to facilitate social mobility, rather than a mechanism used by gatekeepers to legitimize exclusion of those with lower status backgrounds (see especially Aschaffenburg and Maas 1997).

16

On the strength of the evidence in Figure 7.1 that family formation did not alter ethnic hierarchies in returns to education, I reestimated equations that did not include that variable. In a graph derived from this latter equation, the returns of secularly educated Yemenites do cluster with Ashkenazim.

17

My intention in this section is to report only what is empirically proven in the analysis. However, provided one accepts that (1) both school type and western language were indicators of compliance with Jewish cultural change projects, and (2) they functioned partly as indirect measures of characteristics gatekeepers could directly observe, such as dress and comportment, it is not necessary to evaluate the census questions’ crosscultural validity at all. Assuming that gatekeepers were looking for westernness, it is not surprising that they would use any available indicator. Among Moroccans and Egyptians, 20% to 50% of whom spoke French most often, it makes sense for gatekeepers to select on French. Among Iraqis, only 3% of whom spoke a western language most often, but 65% of whom attended secular institutions, it makes sense to select on school type.

18

As with all such calculations, the same values are used for all countries, so that the graphs represent ethnic differences that would be expected among men with exactly the same backgrounds.

19

The gap between Moroccan and Polish Israeli prestige is statistically significant, but so is the gap between Iraqi and Polish prestige, again suggesting greater parity among the secularly educated than is evident in Figure 7.1.

20

One might argue for a third interpretive move; the finding that ability to perform westernness prevented discrimination may prove that westernness explains inclusion of Mizrahim, but it doesn’t necessarily prove that easternness explains exclusion or that gatekeepers took a default stance that Mizrahim as a whole were more eastern than Ashkenazim as a whole. That conclusion is based in secondary historical sources (see especially Tsur 1997 and Segev 1986), and few would disagree that in the 1950s, gatekeepers labeled Mizrahim Oriental in all of the meaning that term has in the Orientalist discourse. My contribution has not been to argue that Mizrahim were cast as eastern but rather to show that this was more than simple justification of ethnic discrimination.

21

This does not mean that Judeo-Spanish speakers received no returns to education; the line in Figure 7.4 is for those with a score of 0 on the family formation scale and religious educations. Judeo-Spanish speakers, because they were higher status, would often have higher family formation scores and been secularly educated. What Figure 7.4 shows is that Judeo-Spanish speakers didn’t get any extra returns to education than other similar Moroccans.

22

Figure 7.4 is from an analysis originally intended to be a final chapter of this book, and this is why residential location is included and Egyptians are not. The information in Figure 7.2 was the only major finding from that analysis, and so it is all that is retained in this book.

23

As noted, there are also arguments that human capital itself is a social construction, which has ethnic undertones (Houser 2005).

24

Note that I differ from Shenhav and Eyal in what the correct framework is for conceptualizing efforts to categorize Mizrahim. Rather than rooting them in modernity—as Shenhav and Eyal do when they use Latour—I follow Goffman and root them in a more specific history of stigma. It is my contention that the history of stigma makes sense of details that in the Latour scheme are simply random, such as the importance of an east/west line, specifically, to the hybridization and purification dynamic. This is important because if Israel is simply being modern, then little change in the practice of east/west distinctions can be anticipated, while if the issue is stigma, then as we have seen from the history reviewed in Chapter 6, levels of exclusion and levels of fear of the Orient can wax and wane. My own argument is that exclusion did wax and wane, and at minimum the stigma framework is useful for understanding these shifts.

Chapter Eight

1

Taking the ten countries that produced the most post-1952 immigrants (when development town placement rose), I found that country-group probabilities of being placed in the town clustered into the binary configuration, with the probabilities for immigrants from Mizrahi countries higher than those for immigrants from Ashkenazi countries.

2

In the film, the school teacher stands in stark contrast to the plant manager; the teacher is an idealistic young man from Tel Aviv, who, in his composure and love of poetry, exemplifies the western image. In contrast to the manager’s sexual harassment, and in compliance with Israeli support for miscegenation as the solution to the ethnic gap, the school teacher falls in love with the Francophile daughter and wants to marry her.

3

The western-appearing Ashkenazi, having finished his tour of duty, returns to Tel Aviv.

4

The towns were initially conceptualized as way stations for agricultural produce. When that didn’t work, factories were established instead.

5

This study follows other Israeli work (Lewin-Epstein and Semyonov 1994) in conceptualizing Israel’s segregation issue as one of settlement type. To the extent that researchers care about segregation because it removes minorities from “where the action is,” it was the settlement of people into development towns, not patterns of dispersion among neighborhoods within municipalities, that most isolated them from major currents in the developing society.

6

The equation on which this graph is based is in Appendix 22, and it compares attainment in all six settlement types, for each country of origin separately. As the equation in Appendix 22 shows, and as I explained earlier, Moroccans also did well in rural areas—in fact, better than in urban areas. This is an interesting result that needs to be examined separately. Because it was impossible to calculate ethnic concentration for most rural areas from the 20% sample of the census, and because of the political importance of the issue of Moroccan attainment in development towns, urban areas and development towns are the focus of this chapter. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the rural effect for Moroccans is larger than the development town effect and should be studied fully at a later date.

7

Some coefficients in the equation are not statistically significant. However, those coefficients are also small, so that Figure 8.2 does an accurate job of portraying the important contrasts.

8

This figure follows my standard practice of drawing lines only when at least fifty cases have the relevant combination of characteristics. However, I do not restrict the range to the middle 90% of the education distribution. Rather, I take each line to sixteen years of education, since the important dynamics are among the more educated, and since for all combinations represented there were at least some cases in the twelve- to sixteen-year range. For nearly all groups represented in Figure 8.2, the middle 90% of the distribution ranged from zero to twelve years. The main exception is young residents of the three cities who spoke western languages; their range was four to thirteen years.

9

The exceptions are young men who spoke Arabic and who had particularly low attainment in the three cities (and may well have been the group upon which state planners focused; see Segev’s [1986] discussion of the Gelblum articles). Statistical significance for this dynamic is borderline, but an analysis of exact occupations of older and younger men in the cities suggests a pattern that makes sense. While older Moroccan men in Israeli cities tended to become janitors or salespeople (nonproprietors), younger men tended to go into blue collar occupations. This included both occupations that were not common for Diaspora Jews, such as longshoreman or construction worker, and those that were common, such as shoemaker. These blue collar occupational categories contain many with low prestige, such as unskilled construction worker. Thus, statistically, the prestige loss for younger men occurs because of the low scores of the unskilled jobs. Among older men, the prestige of the sales positions balances the lower prestige of the janitorial positions. Another apparent exception is that forty-year-old men who spoke western languages may have done somewhat better in the cities; however, few older men lived in the three cities. Attainment in rural towns is modeled in Appendix 22 but not represented in Figure 8.2. The effect of age on returns to education in rural development towns is statistically significant but has a large standard error. The estimate is that in rural development towns younger men at all levels of education obtained between 2 and 4 extra prestige points relative to urban development towns. However, probably the best way to read dynamics in rural development towns is to note that they are substantially similar to those in urban development towns, in that benefits accrued primarily to the young and more educated.

10

Note that development towns look good even in comparison to the cities because although the cities had twice as many white collar jobs to offer, Moroccan chances of obtaining one were not higher than in development towns.

11

The coefficient for development towns for non-western-language speakers is statistically significant only to the 0.10 level. However, the number of cases was quite small, increasing standard errors. Under these conditions, 0.10 might be considered enough. For those reporting western language primacy, the effect of living in a development town is as large as the coefficient for those not reporting primacy, but this coefficient is not significant to any standard level.

12

I included only those settlements for which ethnic concentration and average Israeli prestige could be calculated (this includes all regular towns, the three cities, and nearly all urban and rural development towns, but includes no other rural areas). In addition, because ethnic concentration has little meaning in the cities, I included only Tel Aviv and left residents of Haifa and Jerusalem out of the sample.

13

Earlier equations suggested that Moroccans did better in the three cities than in regular towns, and this equation suggests that difference was because of labor market quality.

14

The Iraqi coefficient is significant only to the .07 level. But given the small number of cases, anecdotal evidence regarding Iraqis in Ramat Gan, and a series of other regressions that also suggest that Iraqis obtained particularly high educational attainments in Ramat Gan, it is reasonable to accept this level of significance.

15

Overall, 59.9% of employers and managers in Ramat Gan were veteran Ashkenazim, compared to a very similar 61% in other regular towns; 28.3% of employers in Ramat Gan were new immigrant Ashkenazim, as opposed to 29.2% in other regular towns; 3.0% and 2.7% of employers, respectively, were veteran Mizrahim, and 8.7% and 7.0% were new immigrant Mizrahim.

16

As I noted in Khazzoom (2005b):

In U.S. work, researchers differ on the extent to which they posit the state as instigating segregation. Massey and Denton (1993) arguably posit whites rather than governments as the primary actors; for them it was largely white real estate agents, supported by banks and threats of white violence, who created both the inner city and the system of redlining that was later picked up by the state. Gotham (2000), on the other hand, posits those real estate agents as one arm of the state. And Grannis (1998) implicates the state more directly when he argues that street patterns determine neighborhoods, and that state-employed urban planners determine street patterns.... Israel is interesting because the normal limitations on state intervention were momentarily suspended. Most sociologists posit that democratic modern industrialized societies, including both the U.S. and Israel, prefer the state to discriminate indirectly, for example by passing laws that benefit some groups more than others but that are not explicitly directed toward any group (Parkin 1979; see also Massey and Denton on government programs after the Depression). Even in Israel, direct government intervention in residential placement lasted only a brief moment.... Therefore that moment in which immigrants were placed (or allowed to escape from placement) by state workers provides a unique chance to ask the question: in a case in which a state had unusual direct control over residential patterns, did it generate segregation?

Chapter Nine

1

The immigrants in the main study of this book arrived between 1948 and 1958. However, in order for a child to be born in Israel in 1954, the men would have had to immigrate before 1954.

2

The so-called middle-class Polish immigration did not arrive until 1956 and 1957, but their children should only strengthen the pattern in Figure 9.1, since any statistical discrimination patterns would lead them to be more likely to obtain matriculation certificates.

3

Note that this also explains why the overall proportion of Moroccans who matriculated in this sample is higher than the Iraqi.

4

Shavit contrasted matriculation rates in towns with at least 75% Mizrahi with those that had a smaller proportion Mizrahi.

5

The argument also reflects a comment Yehouda Shenhav (2006) made, that the nationalization of Jews was not to the benefit of all Israeli groups.

6

One might wonder, if the categories were solidifying throughout the 1950s, whether western cultural capital had a decreasing effect across the years. The analysis of year of arrival did initially appear to support that contention. If year of arrival is broken up into pairs, and Figure 5.1 (basic returns to education) is estimated for each year pair separately, then it appears that Moroccan returns to education were similar to those of Iraqis in the first two years, and then dropped to Yemenite levels over time. However, further analysis showed that the early high returns of Moroccans occurred because earlier arrivals were more likely to have western cultural capital and to arrive without family responsibilities.

7

Note that Ashkenazi Jews had encountered the east/west dichotomy before, as East European Jews were often read as eastern, but had not specifically encountered Jews from Arab countries.

8

When teachers of all genders are taken into account, the ethnic distribution of teachers in Ramat Gan looks similar to that of the center as a whole. The reason to attend to gender is that the census combined teachers of all levels into one category, and women are more likely than men to be elementary and even high school teachers. A quarter of all Iraqi immigrants who had white collar jobs lived in Ramat Gan; thus, dynamics there are central to understanding why Iraqi children could not obtain returns to immigrant parents’ success.

9

Of course, not all veterans participated equally in Zionist youth groups or other ideological organizations, and, conversely, many new immigrants had been intensively exposed to Zionist ideology abroad, particularly in Holocaust refugee camps (Khazzoom, in progress). However, this exposure was overall less uniform and less pervasive than in Israel, making identification with Zionism and the state weaker among immigrants who arrived after independence.

10

Rather than retaining this distinction between ideological and material interests, it is possible to make the same argument by noting that identity is the framework through which one interprets one’s interests. Veterans, who strongly identified with the state, saw their primary interest as the creation of a western society.

Chapter Ten

1

I found no evidence of any laws that one had to reside in a particular city in order to get a job there. I did not, however, misunderstand Na’im. It may be that, as part of the same drive to rid the cities of the poor (and perhaps Mizrahi poor) described in Segev (1986), employers informally guarded against interlopers by giving jobs only to those who lived there.

2

The museum of the Babylonian Jewish Heritage Center, which is created and run largely by the urbanized elite of Iraq, focuses on demonstrating three features of Iraqi community life: its Zionist movement, its educational attainment, and its westernness. Its leaders do not consider themselves to have opened an ethnic organization; rather, they see themselves as fostering the integration of Iraqi Jews into the larger Israeli society by teaching all Israelis about what the Iraqi community has to offer. The project here seems to me to be a continuing attempt to gain acknowledgment within Israeli society for what Iraqis understand themselves to have achieved and to be able to contribute. They are, in other words, still trying to carve out a position of value and respect.

3

Parts of this conclusion are taken from Khazzoom (2003).

Appendix Two

1

I did initially experiment with using educational transitions, rather than a continuous variable. This would be defensible since in the first half of the twentieth century most countries’ formal educational transitions were at similar points—for example, twelve years was normally a high school degree. However, examination of educational distributions suggested that important bottlenecks did not necessarily correspond with formal transitions and that these bottlenecks differed for different countries of origin. For example, for Romanians four years was a common stopping point, for Moroccans six, for Poles seven, for Soviets eight, and for Iraqis and Moroccans ten. This would make it difficult to set transition points. The Eastern European bottlenecks may well have been salient to Eastern European gatekeepers despite their noncorrespondence with formal stopping points, thus each of these transitions could have affected the labor market experience. In addition, examination of the historical record suggested there were other important formal transition points that were not common across countries of origin. The Soviet vocational system was particularly complicated, with a number of formal transition points depending on the program, and for Middle Eastern attendees of French schools, six years was a formal transition point to the first level of high school and ten years the point at which students received the Brevet Elementaire (many often went on for a traditional twelve-year high school degree). All of this variation suggested that the best procedure was to add education as a continuous variable and allow the line to bend.

2

Occupation was provided in the 1961 census at the two-digit level of specificity. It was originally coded at the three-digit level, but this coding has disappeared. It seems that after a review of the data, the Central Bureau of Statistics determined that at the three-digit level, the variable would not be reliable (Kantorowitz, personal communication). In general, the occupation in Israel variable appeared clean, but the occupation abroad variable had some problems. In particular, the “clerical, other” category was extremely large, as was the “sales, other.” A cross-tabulation revealed that most of the individuals in the “clerical, other” category were from Iraq, and given the other categories that existed, I believe that many bank clerks ended up in this category. This may have created some false mobility among Iraqis, since the “other” category was of lower prestige than the more precise categories to which I suspect these individuals belonged. At the same time, however, attempts to correct for such a problem—by recoding Iraqis according to the above assumption—did not alter the patterns of Iraqi attainment discussed in this book. The sales problem could not be solved, and I coded all individuals, both abroad and in Israel, as either proprietors or nonproprietors.

3

I assigned prestige in the following manner: using a chart published by the Central Bureau of Statistics (The Uniform Coding for Occupation), I located the three-digit 1972 categories that made up each 1961 two-digit category. Using the 1972 census publications, I weighted the prestige score of each 1972 category according to its frequency in 1972. I then added up the weighted 1972 scores that made up each 1961 category to produce 1961 prestige. This rather complex procedure was necessary because 1961 occupation was available only in two-digit categories, and the list of three-digit categories that made up a two-digit category in 1972 was not the same as the 1961 list.

4

See Appendix A, Note 3.

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INDEX

Bold page numbers indicate materials in figures and tables; n indicates material in endnotes.

absorption bureaucracy, Israeli

acculturation; east/west synthesis; integration and; Jewish

Adenites; western education and

African Americans: black and white male workers; Caribbean immigrants and; devalued status of; Harlem and; rates of job loss in economic downturn; segregation of in the U.S.

Algeria

Alliance French school in Iraq: Na’im (Iraqi immigrant, uncle of author)

Alliance French school system; in Bagdad; in Iraq; Jewish schools and; Middle Eastern Jews and; orientalization of Middle Eastern Jews; started by French Jews in the Middle East; westernization and

Altneuland (by Theodor Herzl)

analysis; discrimination in the 1950s, implications for dichotomization; interpretation of results

analytical strategies; data; data and the 1961 census; Israeli ethnic formation and; other populations; quantitative data; racialization methodology; six-country sample; statistical significance; stratification methodology

Arab countries; Mizrahim and

Arab culture: desire to erase; Jews and Christians (“Dhimma”) in; land-rooted peasant as model for Israel; problematic model as Oriental; romanticized by Zionists; seen as “backward”

Arab Jews; Ben Gurion’s “million immigrant” speech; models for Jewish life in Israel; religious practices as markers of prewesternization lifestyles; seen as Oriental by Israelis; Zionist attempts to de-Arabize

Arabic language; Israeli society and; Mizrahim and; residential location and

“Arabization”

Arabs, non-Jews; distinction from Oriental; indigenous; Israeli army and; Jews and; job opportunities and; oriental-ization of; political participation and; viewed as unassimilable easterners

Ashkenazi countries

Ashkenazi immigrants; loss of prestige through immigration, Mizrahim and; pioneer image and; privileged access to jobs

Ashkenazi/Mizrahi distinction

Ashkenazi, prestate elite; labor market and

Ashkenazi women, education levels of

Ashkenazim; absorption bureaucracy and; attainments of; balance eastern heritage and western future and; as better stewards of the state of Israel; Bnei Brak and; Christian countries and; community in Brookline and Cambridge, MA; cultural capital and; development towns in Israel; dominance of; east/west dichotomy and; education level; educational transitions and; Enlightenment and; exclusion of Middle Eastern non-Jews; exclusion of Moroccan immigrants; expected Israeli prestige and; family and; gatekeepers and; Hebrew and; housing and; Iraqis and; labor market and; language and; managerial positions and; marriage and; Mizrahim and; modernity and; monopolization of resources; Moroccans and; networks and; occupational level and; Oriental; Polish; religious education and; resources and; Romanian; Russian; secular education and; Soviet Union and; Soviet; state loans and; veteran managers and employers and; westernness and; white collar occupations and; Yemenites and; Yiddish and

Ashkenazim, Israeli-born children of immigrants; matriculation rates of; returns to father’s prestige and; siblings, number of

Ashkenazim, new immigrant; Mizrahim and

Asians; education level; as nested or aggregate ethnic identity

Askenfeld

assimilation: contemporary debates about; scholastic attainments of children of immigrants

attainment strategies

Aziza Khazoom (author) and Na’im (Iraqi immigrant, uncle of author)

Babylonian Jewish Heritage Center

Bagdad

bagrut (matriculation)

Basra

Be’er Sheva

Bell Curve, The

Ben Gurion; categorization and; differential distribution of resources and; Jewish immigration encouraged for state needs; Jews from Muslim countries and; Levantinization and; “million immigrant” speech; need for workers; on not wanting Israelis to become Arabs; Oriental Jews and; refusal to restrict immigration

“Berber” Jews

Berber tribes

binary Mizrahi/Ashkenazi classification scheme n10; 1950s immigrants and; created; cultural capital and; culturally based exceptions to; differences among Mizrahim; education level among religiously educated; employer preference; employment by nonreligious employers and; ethnic categories and; flexibility and; gatekeepers and; institutionalization of over time; labor market and; language and; nonreligious jobs and; occupations and; residential placement of immigrants and; resource distribution and

Black Panthers

blacks

Bnei Brak

border police

Brevet Elementaire

British; colonial institutions of

British banks: Iraqi Jews and

British diplomats: French and

British government; restriction of Arab political power in Iraq

British mandate

British Shamash school: Iraqis and

Bulgaria

Bulgarian immigrants; education level

California: “Anglos,” annexation to the U.S.; Asians and; Berkeley; blacks and; ethnic differences and; “free labor state”; material interests and identity in; Mexican men and; Native Americans and

Calvinism

Canada

capitalists

Caribbean immigrants: beliefs about African Americans

Carmel market

Carmel outdoor market

categorization; cultural differences noticeable with a change in scale; identity and; in Israel; Jewish societies and; practices in Israel; resource monopolization and; schemes; stereotypes and. See also binary Mizrahi/Ashkenazi classification scheme

census: education and; gender and family formation variables; language spoken and; western characteristics and

Central Bureau of Statistics; occupations and; The Uniform Coding for Occupation

child mortality

childbirth

children: Ashkenazi women and; men’s labor market attainment and; westernization and

Chinese; identification as Asian

Christian countries

Christian society, stigmatized place of Jews in

Christianity; west and

Christians: French; German; Jews as eastern

cities: Israeli (Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa)

citizenship: current research about; European discourses

class; Ashkenazim vs. Mizrahim and; cultural capital variables and; distribution of resources and; ethnicity and

clothing: Arab; European; western characteristics and

clothing, traditional: Hasidic clothes; stigmatization of Jews and; undesireable for westernization

colonialism; economic opportunity and; Jewish relationship to; in Middle East; western European

communists

conservative movement

consistent pricing, as western characteristic

constructionist perspective; groups and identities

convent schools: Jews and

countries: Asian; Muslim

country of origin; equation using education, prestige abroad, age at arrival, squared terms, and interactions; GNP and; for new immigrant and veteran men who were managers in 1961, town-level analysis

credentialism

cultural capital, class background and; dichotomization and; education level and; ethnic hierarchies and; families and; Judeo-Spanish primacy and; Mizrahim and; modernization and; performance and; perpetual transition of; religious education and; westernness as

cultural capital, results of analysis; implications of findings; overview of findings

cultural capital, variables; age difference between husband and wife; characteristics obtained abroad and; education not heder or yeshiva; effect on ethnic gaps in education level; effect on Moroccan education level; family formation scale; heder education and; interpretive issues and; Judeo-Spanish primacy; performance and; western language primacy; Yiddish primacy

cultural capital, western: effect of over time; Na’im (male immigrant from Iraq)

cultural change projects; “New Jew” and; westernness

cultural differences; class background and; ethnicity and; Iraqis; Israeli ethnic formation; Mizrahi country groups; patterns of inclusion and exclusion

cultural performance: example of (Na’im’s story)

culture, European: accessed through schools that taught western language

culture: new modern secular west vs. old traditional religious east; non-Jewish western European

cultures, hierarchy of; makes economic or political privilege appear deserved

Cyprus

czar, opened social system to Jews

data; 1961 census; married men and; wives and

development town residence: effects of; ethnic inequality and; Iraqis and; Israeli prestige and; Mizrahim and; Moroccan attainment and; white collar occupations and

development towns; “Africans” and; Ashkenazim and; “Asians” and; debate over; definitions of; desegregation and; dichotomous scheme and; economic revitalization in; geographic periphery and; Mizrahim and; Moroccans in; North Africans in; rural; segregation and; urban; western language primacy and

development towns, state placement of immigrants in; Ashkenazi with low human capital sent there by the state; ethnic discrimination and; human capital and; Mizrahi; Moroccans and; “new immigrants” (post 1948 statehood); weaker immigrants in

Dhimma, Jews and Christians in Arab world

Diaspora; dynamics of; in Europe; languages and; in Middle East; occupations and; orientalizations in Jewish

Diaspora identity projects: ethnicity and

Diaspora Jews; identity as western

dichotomization; among Israeli-born; arriving immigrants and; binary Mizrahi/Ashkenazi classification scheme, discrimination and; discursive; education levels of immigrant vs. Israeli-born men; ethnic inequality and; ethnicity and; exceptions to; family characteristics and; framework; gatekeeper thought and; immigrant characteristics and; implications of; inevitability of; Iraqi paradox and; Israel and; Jewish ethnic boundaries in the Diaspora; labor market and; languages and; Mizrahi/Askenazi; Mizrahim and; Moroccan paradox and; new Ashkenazi immigrants; Orientalism and; residential location; resources and; second generation and; social closure and; United States and; women and. See also binary Mizrahi/Ashkenazi classification scheme

dichotomization literature; Israeli; relevance of

dichotomization, representational; Israeli Jews and; resource dichotomization and

dichotomization, resource; “gap”

dichotomization theory; Israeli ethnic formation and; labor market and; Na’im’s scenario; Orientalism

discrimination; in the 1950s, dichotomous; ethnicity and; explanation of; Iraqis; labor market and; Mizrahim and; Moroccans and; Palestinians; patterns of exclusion; resource monopolization; statistical; westernness and; Yemenites and

distribution of resources. See resource distribution

Dohm

downward mobility: class; cultural; development towns and

Druze

Dutch language

Eastern culture

Eastern Europe; Jewish communities in; work in non-factory conditions

Eastern European Jews; funneled to U.S. or Palestine instead of Germany; German Jews; Jews’ status as western in Germany; orientalization and; presentation to European Christians as different from Arabs; veterans during British mandate; viewed as culturally backward; whiteness and. See also Ashkenazim

easternness: exclusion and as Jewish authenticity; Muslim countries

east/west dichotomy; binary construction of ethnicity in Israel; Israeli identity and; Jewish intercommunal relations. See also binary Mizrahi/Ashkenazi classification scheme

Eban, Abba

economics: growth in GNP; isolation and residential segregation and; Jewish economic structure; opportunities; separate Jewish and non-Jewish economies in prestate Israel

education; abroad; in Ashkenazi countries; Ashkenazi women; cultural capital and; distribution of; of father; immigrants and; Jewish subjects; in Mizrachi countries; Mizrahi women; occupations and; prestige of occupation abroad; Soviet vocational system; Zionism and

education, religious; blue collar jobs and; heder; settlement in the periphery; white collar jobs and; yeshiva

education, secular; Ashkenazim and; Mizrahim and; not heder or yeshiva; practical value and; westernization and

education level; Ashkenazim and; average; binary gap among religiously educated; binary Mizrahi/Ashkenazi classification scheme; country hierarchy and; Egyptian immigrants; ethnicity and; European Jewish immigrants; German immigrants; heder education and; hierarchy of; immigrants and; immigrants’ Israeli prestige and; Iraqi immigrants; Iraqi paradox and; Israeli-born men; Middle Eastern Jewish immigrants; Moroccan immigrants; Moroccan/Iraqi gap; occupational attainment and; Polish immigrants; prestige abroad by country of origin and; of religiously educated; Romanian immigrants; salaried and self-employed men; secular education and; six-country comparison; Soviet/Iraqi gap; western characteristics and; women and; Yemenite immigrants

education level, ethnic hierarchies in; communal strength; gatekeeper preference; immigrant activity and

education level, preimmigration; immigrants and; prestige of education abroad and

education of wife: men’s labor market attainment and; westernization and

education type; education level and; ethnic differences in attainment and; Jewish cultural change projects and; not heder or yeshiva; religious (heder or yeshiva); secular

Egypt; education and; French influence in; western language primacy in

Egyptian immigrants; education level and; education type; French language and; human capital and; Iraqis and; not excluded by gatekeepers; not seen as North African in Israel; placement in development towns; prior attainments similar to Ashkenazi; seen as Asians in Israel; seen as better “human capital,” 99; status attainment; western language and; westernization and; white collar jobs and

employers: Ashkenazi immigrants among; dichotomization and; ethnicity of new immigrants and; languages of new immigrants and

employers, religious; binary patterns among religiously educated job seekers

England

English immigrants

English language; enlightened European Jews and; veteran managers

Enlightenment; east/west dichotomy and; European; France and; German; Jews and; Judaism and; western Europe and

essentialization

ethnic classification schemes n4; binary classification scheme; country of origin scheme; distribution of resources and; eliminated by turning easterners into westerners; exclusion and; geographic boundaries and; as shifting; social hierarchies. See also binary Mizrahi/Ashkenazi classification scheme

ethnic concentration; Iraqi attain in high opportunity areas; measuring proportion Mizrahi, measuring proportion Moroccan

ethnic discrimination; among Jews in Israel; concealed as an achievement-based system; cultural concerns and; degradation experienced by immigrants; ethnic difference and; immigrants and; against Iraqi boys at school; in Israel; labor market and; Mizrahim and; modern industrialized societies; occupational marginalization; Orientalism in Jewish world and; patterns of; residential marginalization; westernization and

ethnic equality among Jews; conflict with rejection of non-European culture; Zionism and

ethnic formation; economic disparities and; Jewish; perspectives on; resource distribution and; stratification research; theoretical and analytical approaches to

ethnic formation, Israeli: generalizability and directions for future research; from an individual point of view; from point of view of students of race/ethnicity

ethnic groups: boundaries as stable; changes in scale; definitions of; emergence of ethnic closure; Israeli society; marginalization by pro-western elites; meanings attached to groupings; reasons for shifts in boundaries; relational

ethnic hierarchies; Ashkenazi gatekeepers; education level; elites and class differences; gatekeeper preference and; human capital of countries of origin; as imposed; in Israel; labor market and; nested; North Africans and other groups; secular education and; in United States

ethnic inequality; among Jews; class and; dichotomization and; economic opportunity and; European Jews; exclusion and; formation of; immigrant characteristics and; intergenerational reproduction of; Israel and; Jewish; Middle Eastern Jews; motivations for; in resources; resources and; state’s role in creating; western languages and

ethnic minorities, concentration of: same advantages and disadvantages, whether voluntary or forced

ethnic networks: information about high status jobs

ethnicity; class inequality and; construction of; distribution of resources and; dynamics of; east/ west lines; education level; effects of; of employers; ethnic closure and; exclusion and; gap in attainment identity and; as individual resource and relationship dynamic; inequality and; Iraqi paradox and; in Israel; Jewish; as macrolevel social contrasts; marital patterns and; nationalist project and; of new immigrants; occupational attainment and; operationalizing; Orientalism and; placement rates in development towns and; political activity and; preimmigration history of; quantitative regression models; regular towns and; as “relational”; status and

Europe; colonization of the non-west; eastern; influence in Middle East; Jewish question and; in Middle East; orientalization of Jews in; western

European: modernization and; preference for; self-differentiation from Arab by veteran European immigrants; as a unitary category

European immigrants, veteran

European Jewish identity projects: stigmatized authenticity vs. new western identity

European Jews; antiwesternization projects; convent schools; Israel and; marital patterns; Orientalism and; prestate immigration to Palestine; race and western languages and; Yiddish and. See also Ashkenazim

Europeanizaton

European/Mizrahi distinction: gatekeepers and

Europeans

exclusion, patterns of; among preimmigration Jewish communities; eastern Jews and; ethnic difference and; immigrants from Arab countries and; monopolization of resources; non-Jews and; westernization and

families, small: similar impact for Ashkenazi and Mizrahi; upper classes

family characteristics; dichotomization and; ethnic hierarchies in education level; extended family as status attainment unit; identified as ethnic (east/west) differentiators; small family as western

family formation scale; age difference between husband and wife; age of wife at first marriage; education level; educational difference between husband and wife; ethnic hierarchies in education level; infant mortality; negative effect of score on Yemenite outcomes; number of children; wives and

family responsibilities (having children at immigration); ethnic gaps in education level; Moroccan education level

farmers: Bedouin; European; Palestinian

farming, as Jewish occupation

father’s education, town-level analysis

father’s occupational prestige, town-level analysis

fellahin (Bedoin farmer)

feminist research

Filipino immigrants to United States

first aliyah (immigration)

First Israelis, The (Segev)

food: coupons for and control of immigration movement; Israeli; nonkosher as modern; traditional; Yemenite

France; Jews in; Middle Eastern Jews and

Franco-Tunisian

free-labor concept; immigration to California and

French Alliance school: Iraqis and

French colonial expansion

French Enlightenment

French Jews; Alliance school system; cultural colonialism and; did not exclude Middle Eastern Jews; French identity; Jewish distance from Arabs and; Orientalist discourse towards Jews in Arab lands; western European world and; westernization of Arab Jews

French language; as cultural indicator; Egyptian Jews and; Egyptians and; enlightened European Jews and; Iraqis, Israeli-born children of immigrants and; as least practical western language in Israel; Moroccan Jews and; Moroccans and; primacy and

French schools: Middle Eastern Jews

Galicia, Austrian occupation

gatekeeper preference; dichotomous east/west construct to evaluate immigrants; discrimination and; education level; ethnic hierarchies; Europeanness and; French language and; high status jobs distributed without regard to country of origin; Iraqis and; Jewish cultural change projects and; Levantinization threat; low status jobs distributed according to dichotomous scheme; Middle Eastern Jews and; Mizrahim and; Mizrahim judged by presence of western characteristics; Moroccans and; non-Oriental category; North Africans and; observed attainments of immigrants and; occupational outcomes; Orientalist discourse and; placement of Mizrahim in development towns; self-employment and; westernization and; Yemenites and; Yiddish and

gatekeepers; ambivalence towards the eastern; Ashkenazim and; behavior; changed from first to second generation; changes in population of; distribution of occupations and; distribution of residential locations and; education level and; effects of Mizrahi on Israeli society; Egyptians as “good human material,” ethnicity and; identity; immigrants education level; monopolization of resources; more new immigrant Ashkenazi than veterans in second generation; Poland; Ramat Gan Iraqis and; social closure; Soviet Union

gatekeepers, Ashkenazi; monopolize resources for Ashkenazi

gatekeepers, Israeli

gatekeepers, new immigrant: importance of; less nuanced classification scheme; new Ashkenazi immigrants had stronger material interests in excluding Mizrahim; shifts in dynamic of ethnic closure; shocked that Jews existed outside of Europe

gatekeepers, religious

gatekeepers, veterans (prestate immigrants); Ashkenazi immigrants unsure of their status as westerners; binary classification scheme; Mizrahim; westernization

gay rights

gender and family formation variables: age differences between husband and wife; Ashkenazim and; education of women; infant mortality; Jewish cultural change projects and; male domination; Mizrahi/Ashkenazi differences and; number of children; wife’s age at first marriage (“child bride issue”)

German Jews: exclusion of East European Jews; Orientalism and; orientalization of East European Jews; Polish Jews as orientalized “other,” western European world and

German language; enlightened European Jews and; veteran managers and

Germany; intellectuals; Jews in; stigmatization of western Jews

ghetto; East European; European; as negative; as Oriental

Go to the End of the World and Turn Left (movie); Moroccan collective memory; set in Israeli development town; written by daughter of Francophile Moroccan protagonist

Goethe

Goffman; normal and stigmatized dyads; theories of stigma

Graetz, Heinrich

Greece, immigrants from

group boundaries: exclusion and; language and; lifestyle and; as social creations

group formation: competition over resources; exclusion and; production of “Ostjuden” and “Oriental Jews,”

Gutman scale

Ha’Ahdut: Yemenite workers and

Ha-aretz

haggling: negative views of Jews by Enlightenment Christians and; as undesireable Oriental characteristic

Haifa

Halachah (religion)

Harlem: African American middle class professionals and; golden age of; segregation and

Harvard

Hasidic dress: negative view of

Hasidim: clothing of: ridicule of

Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) ideology: Eastern European Jewish communities and; Europe and; in large cities; Middle Eastern Jews and; religious observance and

Hebrew culture

“Hebrew labor,”

Hebrew language; enlightened European Jews and; Israel and; Mizrahi and; prestate Jewish residents of Israel and; status and; ulpanim; veteran managers; Zionists promotion of

Hebrew University

heder or yeshiva education

heder (religious elementary school); Ashkenazi; Ashkenazi vs. Mizrahi education levels; Eastern Jewry (Ostjuden); Enlightenment rejection of; gap in education level and; Iraq and; Jewish cultural change projects and; Jewish stigma and; marker of oriental in Jewish discourse; Mizrahi; Morocco and; near disgust toward in Israel; negative views of Jews by Enlightenment Christians and; Poland and; pre-enlightenment life and; religous jobs and; Romania and; Soviet Union and; stigmatization of Jews and; as symbol of older cultural forms; Yemen and

Herzl, Theodor: disdainful of Eastern European Zionists; Europe and; Jews become “real Germans” by leaving Germany and settling in the Jewish state

Histradut (workers’ federation); creation of; cultural affairs and; jobs and

Holocaust: immigration and; occupational attainment and; survivor immigration to Israel and

Holocaust refugee camps: Zionist ideology and

Holon; concentration of Iraqis in

housing and settlement: distribution of; educational level and; ethnicity and; for immigrants

human capital; Egyptians; Iraqis; modernization and; as social construction

Hungary, immigrants from

identity; collective; periods of rapid social transformation and

identity categories; distribution of resources and; exclusion and; material interests and; media portrayals and; non-Arab; political activity and; social closure; stigmatized; western Europe and

identity, Italian; disparate regional identities and

identity, non-Arab: Jews in Arab world

identity-based systems

immigrant characteristics, undesireable for westernization

immigrants; access to jobs; arriving without children and; attainments of; average years of education (six-country sample); cultural displacement; education; education in temporary camps; education level; education level and prestige abroad by country of origin; the education-occupation link; ethnicity and; family characteristics; imposition of collective orientation on; Iraqi; meritocracies; occupational attainment; Oriental; preimmigration attainments; prestatehood; proportion placed in development towns upon arrival; regular towns and; religious education and; residential placement; resources and cultural practices of; westernization and; women and; women’s lives; year of arrival and; Zionist ideology and

immigrants, 1948–1958: children of

immigrants, age at arrival of; education levels and

immigrants, European prestate

immigrants, illegal: internment by British in camps in Cyprus

immigrants, Israeli-born children of; likelihood of obtaining bagrut (matriculation) for second generation; matriculation certificates (bagrut)

immigrants, Jewish; age at arrival; arrival between 1948 and 1958, basic needs provided for; characteristics upon arrival; circumventing gatekeepers; country distributions and; housing; labor markets and; movement controlled through food coupons; occupations; percentage from Europe

immigrants, new Jewish: Ashkenazi; availability of occupations in Israel; competition in job market and; dichotomization and; ethnicity of; languages of; occupational attainment

immigrants, poststate

immigrants, veteran prestate (1948); top positions and

immigrants, westernized: as superior employees in modern industrial society

immigration of Jews to Israel; Ben Gurion and; controlled by permits obtained from the British; debate about regulation of; Israeli commitment to free immigration for all Jews; loss of prestige and; from the Middle East; Moroccan immigration and; open to all Jewish immigrants

inclusion and exclusion: Mizrahim with western capital; patterns of

Independence Day Parade, description of by Segev

India/Pakistan/Ceylon, immigrants from

industrial crafts as Jewish occupa tions

Industrial Revolution

industrialization

infant mortality: Ashkenazi women; Mizrahi women; western characteristics and

ingathering, national project of seeing all Jews as equal

intercommunal dynamics

intercommunal orientalization in post-Enlightenment Jewish history

internment camps, illegal immigrants in

Iran, immigrants from

Iraq; heder education in; Jewish occupation level in; Jewish schools in; Jews in; Kurdistan and; Mizrahi and; modernity and; six-country comparison; western language

Iraqi attainment: affected by Mizrahi concentration of a town; Ashkenazi attainment and; ethnic concentration in high opportunity areas and; Ramat Gan

Iraqi children, discrimination in school

Iraqi community: education, westernization, and complete migration of communal leaders; Israeli ethnic formation

Iraqi education level; gatekeeper preference and

Iraqi immigrants; arriving without children and; Ashkenazi monopolization of resources and; Ashkenazim and; attainment patterns of; autonomy of pre-immigration communities; circumvention of gatekeeper control; clerical occupations and; communal strengths of; compared to situation of Latinos in Miami; competition for scarce resources in Israel; concentrated community and; cultural capital and; development towns; discrimination and; drop in education level of men under age education levels ; educational transitions and; Egyptians and; entire community’s immigration to Israel in 1950 and 1951, expected Israeli prestige; “fall” of; financial capital; gatekeepers and; human capital and; Israeli establishment and; labor market and; largest group of Middle Eastern Jews; lived in central area of Israel; middle class; Moroccans and; networking; occupations and; organized; party structure and; physical capital and; placement in development towns; Ramat Gan and; resistance to downward mobility; school type and; secular education and; seen as Arabic and threatening to Israel’s westernness; self-employment and; strengths upon arrival to Israel; strong pre-immigration community; threat to Ashkenazi monopolization of resources; treated like Ashkenazi; treatment by employers; veterans and new immigrants; westernization and; white collar occupations; Yemenites and

Iraqi Jewish anti-Zionist and communist movements

Iraqi Jews; Arab nationalist movements and; Arabic speakers and; community; convent schools; cultural change and; European Zionist narrative and; French language and; Jewish collectivity and; orientalization of; perceived as Arab by European Jews; religionization of; westernization and

Iraqi paradox; “Asian” immigrants treated like Ashkenazi; dichotomous discrimination; difference vs. exclusion; education level and; the empirical picture; ethnicity and; gatekeeper choice and; Iraqis provided chance for egalitarianism without damaging westernization; Israeli social structure and; labor market and; learning from; Levantinization and; middle 90% of educational distribution and; not excluded by gatekeepers; self-employed vs. salaried workers (implication 1); statistical discrimination and; westernization and

Iraqi paradox, implications of; implication 1: self-employed vs. salaried workers; implication 2: regional differences; implication 3: weaker Asian countries

Iraqi paradox, possible explanations for; hypothesis 1: dichotomous discrimination; hypothesis 2: gatekeeper choice

Iraqi strengths: ability to buy apartments in Tel Aviv; ability to bypass high unemployment of temporary camps; access to high-status jobs through occupational and education level; bypassing gatekeeper placement in low opportunity outlying areas; concentration in Tel Aviv area; employment in British banks helped them move wealth through Britain to Israel; networking with veteran Iraqi immigrants; proximity to one of Israel’s most lucrative labor markets; relocation of leaders facilitated resource acquisition in Israel; three dynamics and; well-educated concentrated in Ramat Gan (bordering Tel Aviv)

Iraqi women: education levels of; immigration and

Iraqis; as Asian country of origin; Bnei Brak and; British colonizers and; English-speaking; French language and; hadarim and yeshivot compared with those in Russia, Poland, and Romania; heder or yeshiva; Jewish schools in Basra and Bagdad; largest Mizrahi group; less likely to be portrayed as backward orientals; well-educated; western language primacy; westernization and

Iraqis, Israeli-born children of immigrants: attainments and; demonstration of westernness and; desire to appear more Israeli than to appear European; discrimination against in central areas; discrimination in school of; education and; French language and; parents’ western capital and

Irish

Islam, east and

Israel; in the 1950s, academy; Arab countries and; Arab culture and n14; Arabic language and; Ashkenazim and; author’s visits to; binary Mizrahi/Ashkenazi classification scheme; borders; British influence in; central region; citizenship; claim of educational quotas; common languages; culture and; development of; development towns in; distribution of resources; ethnic discrimination; ethnicity in; European influence; flag; guaranteed immigrants basic necessities; heder and; history of; identification with Europe and; identity; illegal immigration from the Middle East; immigrant settlement; Independence Day Parade; institutions in; internal eastern other and; Iraqi immigrants; Jewish immigrants to; Jewish society; Jews from Arab countries seen as Oriental; labor market; labor union; Mizrahim and; modernity vs. tradition tension in; Muslims and; nationalist and ethnic projects; as a new society; northern region; occupations in; Orientalism and; Palestinian conflict; Palestinian inequality in; periphery as Moroccan rather than Mizrahi; polarization of Christian and Muslim worlds; politics in; population bridged east and west; redemption of Jewish people; regional differences; resource distribution in; scholarship; secularity vs. religiousness tension in; segregation; segregation, residential; social structure and; southern region; statehood and; towns within urban areas; United States and; as western; westernization and; white collar jobs and; Yiddish and

Israel, three-tiered structure of; Arabs as unassimilable easterners; East European Ashkenazim as western, 106; Mizrahim as assimilable easterners

Israeli census of 1961,children considered a characteristic of women; data from; employment status; occupations and; recording of language and; veteran dominance and

Israeli census of 1983,

Israeli census of 1995,

Israeli citizenship: indigenous non-Jews and

Israeli ethnic formation; analytical strategies; dichotomization theory and

Israeli Jews: anti-Semetic images of the self; east/west dichotomy and; encouraged to westernize; identity as western; new immigrants and; religious/secular split; westernization and

Israeli labor market: 1950s, tokenism and

Israeli prestige of immigrants; age and; cultural capital and; differences by location type; education and; gap in expected; of Moroccans; occupational; occupational prestige abroad and; year of arrival and

Israeli studies

Israeli-born children of immigrants; data and; distribution of resources and; education and; effect of father’s prestige and; effect of parents’ background on education of; interpretations; parent attainments and matriculation of children; parent’s attainments and; permanent housing and; returns to father’s prestige and

Israeli-born men (1954), cohort study of

Israel’s three cities (Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem); most white collar “empty spaces” for new immigrants; social and economic centers of Israel

Italian immigrants in the United States

Italy

Jaffa

Japanese; identification as Asian

Jerusalem; corridor

Jewish acculturation, development of a stigmatized identity and

Jewish Agency; Berl Locker and

Jewish capitalists; Jewish communities; the Arab world and; as eastern; elite of; Europe and

Jewish community, Iraqi; education level; immigration almost intact between 1950 and 1951, westernness; Zionist movements

Jewish cultural change projects

Jewish culture, Oriental past and

Jewish “deficiency,”

Jewish dress, negative views of Jews by Enlightenment Christians and

Jewish economic structure

Jewish elites, Israel and western

Jewish Enlightenment

Jewish history: Diaspora and; East European Jews; east, west, and colonial domination; east/west dichotomies; ethnic exclusion and; Europe and; Jewish acculturation; Jewish orientalization of Arab non-Jews; Jews in France and Germany; Middle East and; Middle Eastern Jews; “Oriental Jews,” Orientalism and; “Ostjuden,” stigmatized status; westernization as self-improvement; Zionism and the Orient

Jewish identity; east/west dichotomy and; easternization of; ethnic relations and; Oriental past; Orientalism and; preimmigration history of; stigma and; westernization and

Jewish immigrants: low prestige jobs and; Zionists and

Jewish organizations

Jewish schools: antireligious secular; Eastern Europe; education categories

Jewish settlement, Yishuv

Jewish state, creation of

Jewish studies

Jewish thought, Enlightenment-era

Jewish tradition; as eastern; required compatibility with Christian observance; role of in Jewishness; transform Judaism into symbols but leave Jews largely secular

Jewish world view

Jews; ancient roots in Israel; Arabs and; as Asiatic; assimilation; attempts to change characteristics seen as negative; British and; Christians and; commerce and; cultural reunion of; east/ west dichotomy; easternness; education level; emigration to Israel; Enlightenment and; equal rights at the cost of shedding “backward traditions,” equal treatment mandated by Zionism; Europe and; identity; immigration to Israel; Iraq and; in Israel; language; lifestyle stigmatized as incompatible with Christian ideals; modern, secular; Muslim countries and; negative views of by Enlightenment Christians and; non-European; occupations of; orientalization; religious observance; repression; self-hatred and; separate institutional structure; six-country comparison; social class hierarchy and; stigmatized identity and; westernization

Jews, acceptance of required acculturation: acceptance of negative views of others; equality and integration meant less violence; greater educational and occupational possibilities; Jewish acceptability outside the Jewish world; Jewish attempts at destigmatization; loss of boundaries that protected them from their stigmatized place in Christian society; loss of separate infrastructures; negative consequences in Jewish history; produced a Judaism that Christians could tolerate; vulnerability to self-hatred

Jews, Oriental; Ben Gurion’s “million immigrant” speech

Jews, stigmatization and

Jews, traditional: authentic; exclusion from labor market and

Jews, westernized: invested in Mizrahi distance from Arabs; use of geographic boundaries to demarcate ethnic groups

job opportunities: geographic location; immigrant groups and; influence of party officials on; informal networking and; performance of westernness and; required English or German language in Israel; unadvertised; veterans and new immigrants competition for. See also labor market

Judaism: Berber tribes; religious practices; seen as oriental. See also religious observance, Jewish

Judeo-Spanish (Ladino); cultural capital and; education level and; Europe and; French speakers and; Moroccans; Sephardic (Spanish) background and; Spanish and; status and; useful networks and; westernization and; Yiddish and

Karlebach, Azriel, editor of Maariv

Kastein, Josef

Khazoom, Aziza (author); education of; family history. See also J. Daniel Khazzoom; Na’im (author’s uncle)

Khazzoom, J. Daniel (author’s father)

kibbutzim (collective farms)

Knesset

Koreans

labor: Hebrew Muslim

labor force survey

labor market; in the 1950s, attainment; binary Mizrahi/Ashkenazi classification scheme; ethnicity and; first encounter with; immigrants and; Iraqi paradox and; Iraqis and; Mizrahim and; Palestinians and; quality; reserve labor force; residential location and; theoretical conceptualizations of; town-level analysis; westernness not a legitimate axis for sorting; white collar jobs and

labor market in

Labor Party: Mapai and

lack of decorum: as orientalizing characteristic

Ladino. See also Judeo-Spanish

languages; binary Mizrahi/Ashkenazi classification scheme and; employment and; of new immigrants; occupations and; as practical; significance of; social status and; veteran managers and; western

languages, European: assimilation and; European Jews and

large families: ethnic disadvantage and; of Mizrahi; westernization and

Latino (Cuban) immigrants, Miami and

Levantinization, threat of; ethnic closure and; Jews from Christian countries and; Mizrahi and

Libya: cave dwellers; immigrants from

Likud

Lishkat Ha’avoda; performance of westernness and

literature, historial

Locker, Berl; as gatekeeper; Jewish Agency and; placement of immigrants in residential locations. See also Jewish Agency

loudness, undesireable for westernization

ma’aborot (temporary facilities)

Maariv

Macabee, Judah

Malaysian

Mapai (labor party)

marital patterns: early marriage among Ostjuden and Mizrahi; early marriage as undesireable for westernization; European Jews (Ashkenazim) and; Middle Eastern Jews (Mizrahim) and

Marx, Karl: concept of united ruling class; said Polish Jews breed like lice

maskilim (proponents of the Haskalah); European; German; Hasidic clothing and; orientalization and; Yiddish novels showing Eastern European Jews as backward

Matras cohort study of Israeli-born men (1954); Israeli-born children of immigrants; Moroccans and

matriculation rates: Ashkenazi countries and; development towns and; Iraqi immigrants and; of Mizrahi; Yemenites and

Mazel (wife of Na’im); brother Daniel (author’s father); family settlement in Ramat Gan; parents and siblings’ immigration to Israel

Meir, Golda; as gatekeeper; placement of immigrants in residential locations

meritocracies; competition and; education level, 81; education-occupation link; modern values and; rewarding achievement among minorities

Mexico

Miami; Latinos in

Middle East; Christians and; culture seen as “backward,” economic underdevelopment; Jews and; marginalization and; modernization and; orientalization; work in non-factory conditions

Middle East studies

Middle Eastern immigrants; education level and; reward for not appearing Arab/Oriental/ Middle Eastern; westernization of

Middle Eastern Jews; anti-Zionist statements of leaders and; Arabs and; beliefs about; Ben Gurion’s “million immigrant” speech; differences between various counties; Europe and; French interaction with; immigration to Israel; Israeli society and; Levantinization; marital patterns; Muslim Arabs and; occupations and; orientalization and; orientalization of non-Jewish Arabs; placement in low status occupations; views of; westernization and. See also Mizrahim.

Middle Eastern Zionists, prestate; permits to immigrate and

Migdal Haemek, Moroccan immigrants in

minorities: dynamics of access to jobs in segregated location; higher rates of job loss in economic downturn; rewarding achievement of

Mizrahi countries; education and; Egypt and; Iraq and

Mizrahi education: descriptions parallel Enlightenment descriptions of European heder; portrayal in Israel as religious rather than intellectual

Mizrahi identity; marital patterns and

Mizrahi immigrants; Arabic language and; Arabic music and; Ashkenazim and; attainments of; as backward; concentration of in areas of low opportunity; cultural capital and; de-Arabization in Israel; development towns and; discrimination against; downward occupational mobility; easternization of; education level and; education type and; family formation scale and; gatekeepers and Hebrew and; housing and; Jewish cultural change projects and; labor market and; loss of prestige through immigration; lower classes and; marginalized as eastern; not occupationally disadvantaged at arrival; patterns of inclusion and exclusion; perpetual transitional status of; pioneer image and; placement in development towns; proletarialization of; referred to as black; relegated to isolated Oriental spaces; residential location and; salaried work and; secular education and; with western characteristics; western language and

Mizrahi new immigrants

Mizrahi/Ashkenazi binary categorization scheme. See binary Mizrahi/Ashkenazi classification scheme

Mizrahi/Ashkenazi gap; in achievement; in family formation scale; in Israeli prestige; religous education and

Mizrahim, Arabic and; assimilation and; Bnei Brak and; categorization of; collective vs. individual reactions to; colonialism and; differences among; early marriage and; easternness and; “edot hamizrah,” 49; education; Europeanized vs. non-Europeanized; exclusion of East European Jews; French-speaking Moroccans and; Hebrew language and; immigration of; Iraqis; Jewish collectivity and; Jewish presence in ancient land and; liminal status perpetuated by Zionists; modernity and; Moroccans; Muslim countries and; mystical and messianic tendencies; as nonwestern; objects of discussion in Israel; as oriental; orientalization of; religiously educated; seen as Arab; seen as “not intellectually Zionist,” semitic languages and; social closure and; upper class; western characteristics and; western languages and; westernization; Yemenites

Mizrahim, Israeli-born children of immigrants; educational resources and; matriculation rates and; siblings, number of; tracked into vocational secondary educational programs

modern industrialized societies; racialization projects

modern nation state

modern orthodox

modernity; comparisons among six countries of origin; as western; westernization

modernization: “Ostjuden” and; sorting immigrants on westernness considered meritocratic process; theories of

Montreal

Moreshet Yehudai Bavel

Moroccan immigrants; Arabic speakers; arriving without children and; Ashkenazim in development towns and; attainments of; challenge to western or European hegemony; class and; cultural capital and; cultural change and; described as peddlers or merchants in Africa; development towns and; dichotomization and; discrimination against; education and occupational prestige; education level; education level and; educational transitions and; expected Israeli prestige; family responsibilities; French colonizers and; French language and; gatekeeper preference and; geographic periphery and; Israeli prestige; as Jews; Judeo-Spanish; labor market and; largest North African group; Levantinization and; meritocracy and; networking dynamic; occupations and; as “Oriental,” perceived as more Arab than Jewish; prestige in development towns as per 1961 census; queueing dynamic; in regular towns; religious education and; residence in periphery; residential segregation and; residents in cities and; secular education and; settlement type and; status; treatment by employers; in urban areas; western characteristics; western languages and; westernization and; white collar jobs and women, characteristics; Yemenites and

Moroccan Jews: Arabic speakers and; convent schools; French language and; westernized

Moroccan paradox; background and variables; conclusions about; dichotomization and; discrimination; economic isolation; effect of time and; hypothesis about settlement type, attainment, and dichotomization; implications for the United States and other areas; Moroccan attainment and; networking dynamic; queueing dynamic; residential segregation; settlement type and

Moroccan political movements: Black Panthers; Shas (political party)

Moroccan women, education level and

Moroccans; development towns; discrimination and; French language; immigration to France and; immigration to Israel; Judeo-Spanish; meritocracy and; western language and

Moroccans, Israeli-born children of immigrants: father’s attainments and; father’s prestige and; French language and; geographical periphery; higher rates of job loss in economic downturn; lack of Ashkenazi competition in periphery; matriculation rates and; reasons for attainments

Morocco; as African country of origin; European culture in schools that teach western language; French colonial presence in; heder (haderim); Jewish occupation level in; Mizrahi and; modernity and; six-country comparison; western language primacy in

moshavim (semicollective farms)

mother’s education; town-level analysis

Muslims; Christians and

Na’im (Iraqi immigrant, uncle of author): macrolevel trends in story of; story of

Na’im’s scenario

Naquet

Native Americans

Nazret Elite

networks; bypassing housing discrimination and; dynamic of; European; job opportunities and; Moroccan results and; of prestate Iraqi immigrants in Tel Aviv; as social capital; Yiddish

new arrivals

New Deal capitalism

new Jewish immigrants; arrival after statehood in 1948, concentrations of; leaders and; westernization and

new Jews; agriculture and; emulation of Bedouin and Palestinian farmers (fellahin); emulation of western European bourgeoise behavior; Jewish peddlers living in ghettos vs. Europeans (Christians); kibbutz and; means to overcome Jewish easterness; western image and

new Orientals, as Israel’s Jewish laborers

North Africa, Jewish communities in

North Africans; development towns as centers of; education level; Sephardic; westernization

occupational prestige; abroad; distribution of; of father; by settlement type

occupations; abroad; access to western European cultures prior to immigration; binary Mizrahi/ Ashkenazi classification scheme, class; distribution of; education level and; ethnicity and; “feminine,” gaps between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi; gatekeeper preference; immigrants and; Iraqis and; in Israel; legal; modernization and; new immigrant men and; new Jewish immigrants and; non-manual; preimmigration; racial/ ethnic discrimination; residential location; residential placement and; six-country comparison; traditional Jewish

occupations: blue collar; professional/technical

occupations, clerical; new immigrants in Israel

occupations, high status: educated and westernized immigrants and; Europeans and; networking and; seen as western in Israel; western immigrants and

occupations, low status: blacks and; development towns and; eastern immigrants and; Iraqis; low cultural capital and; Mizrahi and

occupations, religious; binary gap and; in Israel; new immigrants and

occupations, sales

occupations, white collar; Arabic speaking well-educated Moroccans in development towns; chances of obtaining in Israel; cities and; development towns and; Moroccans and; prior to immigration

Or Yehuda

ordinary least squares (OLS) regression

Orient: fear of; Zionism and

Oriental: distinction from Arab; western and

oriental authenticity: western modernity and

“Oriental Jews,” production of

Orientalism; Ashkenazim and; binary categories and; construction of Orient as inferior; dichotomization theory and; discrimination and; distribution of resources and; Jewish Jewish history of; Jewish identity and; Jewish relationship to; Mizrahim and; Occident vs. Orient; social closure and; white supremacist discourse

Orientalism, European: fear of Muslim invaders and; justification of colonialism; Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798,

Orientalist discourse; Asian non-American women as traditional; Jews and; justification of inequality; Mizrahim; populations in Muslim lands inferior to those in Christian areas; white women and

orientalization; Africans and; Chinese and; East European Jews and; Eastern Europe and; of eastern European Jews by German Jews; in Europe; exclusion and; French missionary-style projects to westernize; Irish and; in Israel and; Jews and; of Jews in France and Germany; lifestyle markers; maskilim (proponents of the Haskalah); of Middle Eastern Jews; Mizrahi education in Israel and; Moroccans and; of Muslim Arabs by Middle Eastern Jews; North American Indians and; reactions in Europe to; western Europe and; westernization and; Zionism and the Orient in

orientalization, first: discourse of western European superiority; German and French stigmatization of western Jews; Jews as Asiatics; orientals constructed as inferior

orientalization, Jewish: of Arab non-Jews, Jews see Jewish tradition as oriental; Jews see westernization as self-improvement; Jews threatened by elements of Jewish culture symbolizing Oriental past; of Mizrahim in Israel by Ostjuden; of Ostjuden by German Jews in Europe; by western Jews of other Jewish communities

Orientals; education level and

Oriental/western markers

“Ostjuden” (eastern Jews); attacked for large families; category in the Diaspora; as disruption of acculturation process; early marriage and; immigration to Germany; orientalization of Mizrahim by; orientalness of; production of; romancing of; stereotypes and; term for East European Jews used by German Jews; Zionism and

Palestine

Palestinian and Jewish divide

Palestinians; discrimination against; geographically marginalized; labor market exclusion of; movement out of Jewish territory; non-Jewish; relegated to more peripheral areas than Mizrahim; seen as legitimate candidates for exclusion; segregation in Israel of

Palmach military unit

panethnic formation, in the United States

panethnic identities

peddlers; negative views of Jews and; Polish; symbol of backwardness of Mizrahi immigrants; symbol of degenerate Ostjuden

Petah Tikva; concentration of Iraqis in

placement policy: development towns in Israel; ma’aborot (temporary facilities); moshavim (cooperative settlements); policy makers and; preferential treatment given to professional immigrants; three periods of; transit camps run by Jewish Agency

Poland; Ashkenazi and; Congress Poland; Galicia; hadarim and yeshivot in; heder (haderim); Jewish occupation level in; modernity and; occupational prestige abroad and; production under non-modern conditions; six-country comparison

Poles, Israeli-born children of immigrants: matriculation certificates (bagrut)

Polish acculturation effort, “Polishness,”

Polish community, orthodox

Polish heder education

Polish immigrants; attainments of; clerical occupations and; connection between Yiddish and living in the three cities; education level; educational transitions and; Israeli prestige; largest Ashkenazi group; managers; middle class; new immigrants; number of children and; religious education

Polish Jews; seen as orientalized other by German Jews

Polish language, enlightened European Jews and

Polish women, education levels of

political apparatus, access to

“population dispersal,”

postcolonial perspective, east and west as discriminatory constructs

postcolonial theory; outside of the United States

postcolonialists; lifestyle-as-legitimization

prestige abroad; average; immigrants and; town-level analysis

prestige in Israel

prestige of father, second generation Iraqis and

prestige of occupation abroad prodichotomization pressures Protestant ethic Proust, Marcel

quantitative data; use of

Queen Esther

queueing dynamic; Mizrahim and; Moroccan results and

quietness, western characteristics and

rabbinical authority, extent of: in Jewish world; as problems with Ostjuden and Mizrahi

race: categories; class and

race, semitic: Orientalist discourse and

race/class debate; in the United States

racial formation; construction of ethnic difference; identity concerns drive racial constructions and closure activity

racial justice, segregation and

racial minorities, lower classes and

racial/ethnic boundaries; attitudes about; biological origins and meanings people attach to them; effect of non-material aspects on; literature about; as mutable rather than stable; reasons for leaving Israel; shifting

racial/ethnic discrimination; distribution of resources and; education level; educational patterns and; identity and exclusion; “ideological” factors; Industrial Revolution and; industrialization and; industrialized societies and; mechanisms for development of; occupation level; sources of in Israel

racial/ethnic formation story, four arguments of

racial/ethnic hierarchy in the U.S. and zenophobia

racial/ethnic inequality: in Israel compared to U.S.; as mutable social constructs; as relational constructs describing self and other; in stable societies

racialization: framework of; methodology of

racism: among lower-class whites; latent; observable practices; orientations

Ramat Gan; access to white collar occupations; affect of Mizrahi concentration on Iraqi attainment; author’s extended family settled in; competition between Poles and Iraqis in; ethnic distribution of teachers in

Ramat Gan, Iraqis in; compared to situation of Latinos in Miami

rationality

redistribution, politics of

refugees, “nonideological,”

regressions predicting prestige of individual’s Israeli occupation

regular towns: higher veteran populations and; lower Mizrahi populations

Rehovot

religous education (heder or yeshiva): Mizrahi and; religious employers and; western languages and

religious observance, Jewish; alteration of; certain forms undesireable for westernization; conservative movement; Europe and; German reform of; identified as ethnic (east/west) differentiators; in the Middle East; reform movement and

religious schools, modern: Alliance school system; as examples of Enlightened thought; Tarbut

religious/secular split, Eastern Europe

representativeness

residential location, age, and Israeli prestige for men with secular educations and who do not speak western languages

residential locations; distribution of; east/west dichotomy; eastern immigrants in peripheral areas; ethnic inequality; Iraqi paradox and; labor market utcomes and; predominance of Mizrahi in development towns; state role in placement of immigrants; western immigrants in central areas

residential placement of immigrants; binary discrimination and; performance of westernness and; state planners and

residential segregation: economic downturn and; minority attainments and; queueing dynamic; religious areas

residential segregation in Israel; affects on Israeli-born children of immigrants; background and; economic isolation and; implications for the United States and other areas; variables used

resource distribution; in the 1950s, blacks and; class; concept of “eastern,” housing and other necessities; identity and; racial/ethnic difference and; uneven; veteran powerholders and

resource monopolization; lifestyle as justification for; postcolonial work and

resources; access to; competition for; practical

returns to prestige abroad; age at arrival and

Romania; Ashkenazi and; heder (haderim) and; Jewish occupation level in; modernity and; occupational prestige abroad and; six-country comparison; yeshivot and

Romanian immigrants; attainments of; in Be’er Sheva; clerical occupations and; development towns of Be’er Sheva and; education level of; educational transitions and; European presence in Be’er Sheva and; Israeli prestige and; lack of representation among veterans; managers; new immigrants; outcomes of; production under non-modern conditions

Romanian women, education level

Romanians, Israeli-born children of immigrants: matriculation certificates (bagrut)

Rumania

Rumanian language

Russia; heder education in; yeshivot in

Russian immigrants, development towns in Israel

Russian language, enlightened European Jews and

Sabbateanism; Oriental Jews and; Polish Jews and; western Jews and

Sabbati Zvi

salaried work, prestige and

sales occupations; as Jewish; Jewish stigma and. See also peddlers

San Francisco

scale construction, Gutman approach

second aliyah (immigration)

secular education of upper classes

secular subjects: employment and; more common in Ashkenazi heder than in Middle Eastern heder

secularism; westernization and

segregation; conditions in segregated areas; dichotomization and; generation by the state of; in Israel; labor market quality and; middle class and; minority attainment and; Moroccan attainment and; Palestinians and; in the United States; voluntary concentration of minorities and. See also residential segregation

segregation, racial: United States and

segregation, residential: minority access to jobs and

self-classification, classification of others and

self-employed vs. salaried workers

self-employment; ethnic inequality curtailed by; Israeli prestige and; way to bypass discriminatory labor market gatekeepers

semitic languages: stigmatization of Jews and

separation of religion (Halachah) and state; disagreement about

Sephardic (Spanish origin) elite

Sephardic community, prestate Israel and

Sephardic nobles, Arabs and Europeans and

settlement

settlement history

settlement type (residential location); ethnicity and immigrant status of residents; Israeli society; kibbutzim and moshavim (collective and semicollective farms); labor markets and; large cities (Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa); occupational opportunities; other rural areas; proximity to economic centers; rural development towns; size; small, nondevelopment urban areas; urban development towns

Shas (political party)

Shenhav, Yehouda

shiva

siblings, number of

Singer, Isaac Bashevis

Singer, Israel

single men: education level; higher status jobs and; residence in central locations and

six-country comparison; occupations and; other populations and

Slouschz, Nahoum

Smith, Dorothy

social capital; variables and

social closure; identity and; monopolization of resources

social closure, Israeli: antecedents of; monopolization of resources; Orientalism and; westernization and

social Darwinism

social stratification research

Sorbonne

Soviet immigrants; advantage of; clerical occupations and; education level of; educational transitions and; expected Israeli prestige; managers; Moroccans and; new immigrants; other Ashkenazim and; sales occupations and; Yemenites and; Yiddish and residence in the three cities by

Soviet women, education levels of

Soviets, Israeli-born children of immigrants: matriculation certificates (bagrut)

Spanish, Judeo-Spanish and. See also Ladino

Spanish, modern

standardized prices; as western

state agencies, immigrant jobs and

state formation

state planners: development towns and; employment policies of; low-skilled immigrants moved to development towns by; residential placement of immigrants by; view of Egyptians as better “human capital,”

statistical discrimination; evidence against; gatekeepers and; group differences in human capital and; hypothesis of; Iraqi paradox and

statistical significance

stigmatization; cultural superiority and; distribution of resources and; effects of; ethnic groups and; identity in the U.S. and previously colonized countries and; internalization of; Oriental; in U.S. identity dynamics

stigmatization, history of; social closure and self-classification

stigmatization of Jews: embedded in Zionist enterprise; internalization of

stratification methodology

students

Swirski, Shlomo

Syria, immigrants from

Talmud

Tarbut (Jewish schools)

teachers, new immigrant Ashkenazim

Tel Aviv; Iraqis and

Tel Aviv University

temporary encampment (ma’abara)

textual analysis of Orientalism and Israeli resource distribution

town residence required for employment, Na’im (Iraqi immigrant, uncle of author)

traditional clothing and Jewish stigma

traditional crafts, as Jewish occupations

transit camps run by Jewish Agency

Tunisian immigrants

Turkish immigrants

“ulpan” language courses

United Nations partition plan of 1947,

United States; “Asian” category in; author’s family history and; categorization in; identity dynamics related to stigma in; immigrants and; implications of the Moroccan paradox for; Italian immigrants and; labor market queues and; New Deal capitalism and; Palestinian segregation in Israel and; panethnic formation in; race/ ethnicity treated as geographic origin in; racial/ethnic hierarchy in; residential segregation in Israel and; segregation in; slavery in; textile industry in

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

urban settlements: development towns; impact on Israeli occupational prestige; Israel’s three cities (Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem); “regular towns,”

USSR; Armenia and; Ashkenazi and; education level in; heder (haderim) in; Jewish occupation level in; modernity and; six-country comparison and; Soviet states and

variables; age at arrival; average educational attainment; average prestige abroad; country of origin; definitions of; education; education was not heder or yeshiva; ethnic concentration; family formation scale; father’s education; father’s occupational prestige; individual analysis; Judeo-Spanish primacy; labor market quality; mother’s education; number of siblings; occupation abroad and in Israel; occupational prestige; proportion new immigrant Mizrahi; proportion veteran; region; settlement type (residential location); size; town-level analysis in Appendix western language primacy; year of arrival; Yiddish primacy

veteran employers language

veteran gatekeepers; Ashkenazim; British and; easternization project and; equal treatment of Jews as a value; French and; interest in westernization; Iraqis and; labor market and; largely Polish and Russian; occupational spaces and; prevention of “Levantinization” (easternization); resource distribution and; treatment of Romanians and Iraqis similarly to Poles; what united and divided them

veteran managers: characteristics of; education level and

veteran (pre-1948) immigrants; academic Orientalists of German origin; from America; Ashkenazim; commitment to build Jewish state; Diaspora Jewry and; dominance and; economic advantages of; employers and; immigrants and; job opportunities and; as managers; mostly East European during British mandate; new immigrant Ashkenazim; pre-state experience of; resource distribution and; rural secular European immigrants and; Sephardi (Spanish origin) elite and; settlement type and; statehood and; state’s needs vs. needs of new immigrants and; unity and division among; view of Egyptians as better “human capital,” 99; westernization and; Yiddish and

Vietnamese immigrants to the U.S.; nonassimilation leads to success of

Vilna Journal, as anti-Semitic

visas: distribution to European more than Middle Eastern or North African immigrants of; prestate control by Ashkenazim of

Voltaire, Jews and

Vu Trong Phung (Vietnamese writer)

Washington.C.

Weber

western characteristics; avoidance of discrimination and; education level and; ethnic hierarchy not affected by; facility with western language; non-performative; performance of; women’s age at marriage

western cultural capital

western Europe; institutions and behaviors as desirable

western Jewish collectivity

western Jews

western languages; access to European culture in Middle East; attainment and; development towns and; education level and; Egyptians and; exposure to the west and; immigrants and; Iraqis and; Israeli prestige and; Jewish cultural change projects and; job skills and; Mizrahim and; Moroccans and; North Africans and; as performative western characteristic; rewarding for exposure to the west; secular education and; similar impact for Ashkenazi and Mizrahi; taught in Iraqi secular schools; as a variable; veteran managers and; westernization and; white collar jobs in Israel and; Yiddish primacy and

western modernity: oriental authenticity and; progress and

westernization; characteristics distributed unevenly over countries of origin; as cultural capital; education type and; Enlightenment and; ethnicity and; evaluation of Jewish communities by; gatekeeper ethnicity and; goal of Zionists for Israel and; immigrants and; immigrants characteristics and; Iraqi paradox and; Israel’s social development and; Jewish ethnic relations and; Jewish identity and; of Middle Eastern Jews; as performative; secular education and; stigmatized status and; upper classes and; Zionists and

westernization, access to by upper classes in all nonwestern countries of origin (including Eastern Europe)

westernization, incomplete: of Ashkenazim and; of Mizrahim and

westernization projects; Middle Eastern Jews; religious Jews and

westernness; characteristics of; as cultural capital; dichotomous scheme and exceptions to its use; discrimination in labor market and; Eastern Jewish communities and; as justification for colonialism and global inequality; as legitimate; modernity and; performance of; preference for; rewarded on individual level; as social construction; western language primacy and

westernness, performing; dynamic; Na’im (Iraqi immigrant, uncle of author)

white collar occupations. See occupations, white collar

white race: Asian Indians and; definitions of; exclusion of blacks and; internal identity conflict and; Irish and; production of; self-definition by describing racial/ ethnic others as their opposites; stigma and

women: age at marriage; Ashkenazi; binary classification scheme; characteristics by country of origin; comparisons among six countries of origin; dichotomization and; education level; family and; Mizrahi; nontraditional roles for; number of children and; status of as problems with Ostjuden and Mizrahi; variables and; years of education

workers; Israeli; Palestinian

workers, European, Ben Gurion’s “million immigrant” speech

workers, white collar, Israeli

World War I,

Yemen; access to western education and; Aden and; gap with Morocco; heder (haderim) and; Jewish occupation level in; low levels of western language primacy in; Mizrahi and; modernity and; six-country comparison and

Yemenite immigrants; accusations of baby-snatching; attainments of; characterized as unintellectual, quantity workers; class and; clerical occupations and; contracting occupations and; cultural capital and; cultural change and; development towns in Israel and; discrimination and; education and occupational prestige of; education in religious institutions of; education level of; as ethnic group embodying traditional and nonmodern; expected Israeli prestige; gatekeeper preference and; housing and; Israeli labor market and; as Jews; lower status in development towns than elsewhere; as menial workers; Moroccans and; salaried work and; secular education and; traditional; treatment by employers; women, characteristics

Yemenite Jews, authenticity of

Yemenite system, meritocracy and

Yemenite village

Yemenite women, educational level and

Yemenites; secularly educated

Yemenites, discrimination against, on basis of inability to prove westernness

Yemenites, Israeli-born children of immigrants, matriculation certificates and

yeshiva (advanced religious school); associated with pre-enlightenment life; marker of oriental in Jewish discourse; as symbol of older cultural forms

yeshivot, Middle Eastern, centers of antisecular and antiwestern ideology

Yiddish; Ashkenazim and; assimilation and; early arriving immigrants and; as easternness; education level and; gatekeepers and; Judeo-Spanish and; negative views of; networks and; novels in; in secular schools; veteran managers and; westernization and

Yiddish and education type and attainment of Ashkenazi men in the three cities

Yiddish primacy; education levels and; effects of; Israeli prestige and; western language primacy and; westernization and

Yishuv; Jewish settlement; media and; period

Yugoslavia, immigrants from

Zionism; alleviation of poverty of Ostjuden and; “Arabization” and; Calvinism and; contradictions within; cultural reunion of Jews and; de-Arabization of Arab Jews and; Diaspora and; early; elite of Jewish communities and; equal treatment of Jews mandated by; Europe and; European nationalist movements and; framework of; goals of; Hebrew and; “Hebrew labor” and; Holocaust survivors and Yiddish speakers seen as weak in; identification with weaker immigrants arriving after independence and; ideology of; integration of Judaism and Middle East into Israeli culture and; intellectual; Iraqi Jews and; Jewish eastern heritage and westernized future and; Jewish national pride and; Jewish state and; Jewish tradition and; media; “medieval” religious culture and; the Orient and; orientalization and ethnic interactions in Israel and; pro-Hebrew ideology and; Protestant ethic and; rejection of Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) integration project and; returning Jews to Middle East and; revival of Jewish life and; romanticizing of Arab way of life and; stigmatized eastern authenticity vs. new western identity and; stigmatized identity of European Jews and; territorial aspirations of; western Jews and; westernization and

Zionism, Eastern European, uneducated tradition-bound masses influenced by mystical tendencies

Zionism, European; as “rescuing” Mizrahi

Zionism, political, values of western democracy and

Zionism, Western, educated and free Jewish elite and

Zionist emissaries: European Jewish; view of Egyptians as better “human capital,”

Zionist emissaries in Iraq; ways of conceptualizing Iraqi Jews

Zionist ideology; abroad; controversial among Israeli Jews; to ensure equality of opportunity for all Jews; European style agricultural sector and; exposure of veterans to; goals of; Israel as part of European family of nations and; to produce western society by including individuals who appeared western and

Zionist parties, permits to immigrate and

Zionist youth groups; veterans and

Zionists, Ashkenazi/Mizrahi differences

STUDIES IN SOCIAL INEQUALITY

Boundaries and Categories: Rising Inequality in Post-Socialist Urban
China
BY WANG FENG
2008

Stratification in Higher Education: A Comparative Study
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Volume Two: On Sociology: Illustration and Retrospect
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2007

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BY STEFAN SVALLFORS
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EDITED BY KARIN KURZ AND HANS-PETER BLOSSFELD
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Women’s Working Lives in East Asia
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BY PAUL W. KINGSTON
2000