#mizrahim

[saintmelangell]

A Jewish-Iranian woman from Esfahan, 17th century. x

[koenji]

Iraqi Jewish heart-shaped Amulet bearing the star of David, flower and star ornaments, inscribed with Sh-ddai שַׁדַּי, one of the names of G-d in Judaism and on the backside the Shema or Shema Yisrael (שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל "Hear, O Israel"), one of the most central and foundational prayers of Judaism dating to the first millennium B.C.E.. Used to ward off evil spirits (שדים shedim), negative energies, or the "evil eye" (עין הרע ʿayin haraʿ) while honoring the belief that true protection comes from G-d. Iraq, 1910. (png)

[estera-shirin]

Torah in Torah Case, Kolkata, British India (now India), 1850-1885 CE

[remainsoflilies]

A Jewish woman of Damascus, Syria, photographed by Charles Lallemand, c. 1865

[moran-with-a-g]

I've been at an extended family member's place for Pesach, one I only met once before. She's my grandma's cousin on my mom's side. I'm going to refer to her as Sarah (pseudonym) throughout the post.

My parents have cut contact with the majority of our extended family over 10 years ago. I could count on one hand the amount of times I talked with an extended family member between ages 12 and 22. Most of my family's history is lost to me because of that, which is something I've been devastated by more and more, especially since 7/10.

So you can imagine how excited I was when Sarah started telling me about the history of our family.

I suddenly have an almost complete family tree on my mom's mom that goes all the way back to my great great grandpa. I learnt the name of my great grandpa, whom I knew of but never heard the name, even though my mom has some of his heirlooms. I knew the name of his wife, my great grandma, but not him.

I found out I have a great uncle that shares my chosen name. I found out that while my great grandma was from Aden (like my mom likes to remind anyone who calls her Yemeni instead of Adeni), my great grandpa was from Ibb.

Sarah only knew the history of that side of her family up to my great great grandpa. That's on her mom's side. On her dad's side she has their entire family history going all the way back to the distraction of the first temple (iirc, I'm pretty sure she said they left Israel during the destructive of the first temple and refused to come back when the second was built, because they knew it would be destroyed), because she comes from a line of community of religious leaders and has a collection of records they kept over the years that I'm dying to read at some point.

And she talked to me about how important all this history was for her. The history of eastern Judaism, and what we went through. She told me about the Mawza Exile - one of the biggest disasters in Jewish Yemenite history, when nearly the entire jewish population of Yemen was banished for a year to Mawza. Only between a quarter and a third of the population survived the exile, and they were only allowed to return because the king realised he lost the country's manual labour force, and his own people refused to take on these jobs.

I've never heard about this exile before. I was taught about the Shoah, and about exiles in the history of Europe, Spain, but not Yemen. She told me about how our family made Aliyah, what they had to escape. My great grandparents were seperated, my great grandpa was the provider and main caretaker of the family, and had to stay back in Yemen while my great grandma made Aliyah with some of his siblings, when she was pregnant with my grandma. He came much later with the rest of the family.

Sarah's mom (my great grandpa's sister) is apparently still alive, and they're going to take me to visit that side of the family soon. I'm hoping to try and work with Sarah to digitise all this knowledge and preserve it, and I'm hoping to write down stories from living family members. I don't want this history lost.

This is what I've been thinking about the past Yom HaShoah. It's so important to remember it, but also not forget that our history is much, much older than it. One of the things the Nazis did to try and destroy us is burn our records and our history. I'm not going to let my family's history fade away.

[notaplaceofhonour]

this is so fucking funny

“I would LOVE to hear a Mizrahi Jew from Israel”

then do?? they’re not some theoretical inaccessible separate species of magical beings living in an alternate reality, you can literally just read what Mizrahi Jews have to say for themselves? you can see how they vote, and that as a voter block they’ve been a significant part of Likud’s base since its founding?

obviously Mizrahim in Israel aren’t a monolith any more than any other group, and there are Mizrahim who aren’t pro-Likud/Netanyahu, but maybe actually look at what people have to say for themselves instead of just speculating & assuming they agree with you & treating them like some theoretical political football to kick around?

[mossadspypigeon]

[weemietime]