Ashkenazi Zionist philanthropy treated Oriental Jews as raw material for nationalist art.

Evidence

Another view suggests that Schatz’s political and artistic conservatism provoked opposition in artistic circles in the 1920s and that its “style” has had no effect on Israeli art. The vision itself, however, has not been questioned. … As I have suggested in this chapter some of the problems may have stemmed from the underlying orientalist ideology at the core of the project. The benevolent philanthropic approach of central European educated middle-class Jews toward their poor relatives in the Middle East assumed the preservation of these relationships. In return for “education”—often only a basic technical instruction in handmade mass production of souvenirs—and a little earnings, the poor Jews of Palestine, mainly of the oriental communities, were expected to promote actively the image of Palestine as the ancient, oriental land of the Bible. They were expected on the one hand to adapt to European values and ideals, to follow instructions, and to be grateful for being accepted at Bezalel. On the other hand they were taken for granted to be a natural part in fostering the image of Palestine as the cradle of the Jewish people. The link to the ancient homeland was a key element in Zionist national ideology and the oriental Jews were regarded as the authentic inhabitants of the East who had preserved throughout the centuries the true way of life of the ancient Hebrews. They personified a living remnant of the nation’s glorious past and were thus the ideal model for a new national art. In both roles the oriental Jews of Palestine were regarded primarily as “material.” — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 623

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Edward Said’s orientalism thesis and to the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ article’s theme of class/identity signaling through cultural projects.
• DEFINE: Shows how ‘orientalist ideology’ operates concretely: paternalism masks the instrumental use of a marginalized group as symbolic ‘material’.
• SEED: An essay angle: how philanthropy doubles as ideological extraction — European Jews funding Oriental Jews to perform an image rather than to be educated. The ‘paying to be represented’ inversion.