Mizrahi cultures were framed as isolated, unchanging, and awaiting external preservation

Evidence

Cultures like those of Jews from the Libyan desert are presented as petrified cultures, or, more accurately, the product of what could be called Galapagos Jews, untouched by foreign influences. … The preservation of Mizrahi culture was entirely the work of Ashkenazic experts: “And so we began to uncover these treasures through persuasion. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 723

Categorization

• DEFINE: ‘Galapagos Jews’ — the evocative metaphor used in the broadcast to describe diaspora communities imagined as evolutionarily isolated, petrified cultures.