Bulletin of Palestine Studies

Abstract

Tensions between the Jewish communities, particularly in the context of the
division between “Ashkenazim” and “Sephardim” produce reciprocal images, which,
according to social psychologists, create stereotypes that ”attach” some
characteristics to this or that community. Stereotypes can also have a function
in the formation and transformation of cultural identities, including in their
historical concept, as diagnosed by cultural studies scholars.

The claim regarding discrimination against oriental communities in shaping
the cultural identity of the State of Israel is well known. It could be assumed
that the phenomenon, as known to us in its present dimensions, is as old as the
State of Israel. However, the previous waves of immigration as well created a
situation of Communal Identification.

Texts and reports from the years 1878- 1884 written by notable Hebrew
journalists of the time, demonstrate that the attempt to identify “Ashkenazi
characteristics” and “Sephardi characteristics” was already obvious in 19^th
century Palestine. We make use of texts by Yehiel Bril, founder and editor of
the first Hebrew newspaper in Palestine, The Lebanon (1863) and
Eliezer Ben Yehuda, founder of the Modern Hebrew press in Palestine since 1884.

In 1878, Bril wrote a text as a letter to a friend, analyzing “communal
problems” of Jerusalem. In this text and another one written three years later,
the observations of Bril, are more sympathetic to the Sephardim, although he
also knows how to qualify his praise. In 1883, Bril visited Palestine again and
found new comparisons of Sephardic and Ashkenazi characteristics.

During the visit of Bril in Palestine, another
top Hebrew journalist was already there. The newcomer, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the
renovator of Hebrew language, created his own press “Empire” in Jerusalem.
Ben-Yehuda, native of Russia, expressed already its preference to Sephardic
pronunciation of Hebrew language, but in his writings, he enlarges the
“Sephardic superiority” (however, mixed with “orientalist” approach) also to
other stereotypical personal and social characteristics.

It appears that communal tensions existed already in the 19^th
century. The stereotypes existed, although their contents were not always
similar to those of today. However, the communal identity was supposed to merge
into a national identity. Nevertheless, identity, as Habermas urges, “is not
something given, but also, and simultaneously, our own project”. There is
apparently no clear agreement on such a project, even in Israel and the Jewish
World of our days.