Mizrahim is an Ashkenazi-invented construct later reappropriated as resistance identity

Evidence

The collectivity referred to as the “Mizrahim” did not exist prior to the establishment of the state. Despite certain cultural and liturgical similarities among them, it remains a construct of the Ashkenazi elite who lumped all non-European Jews into a single group, at times called “Edot Hamizrah,” or “Jews from Asian and African lands,” and, most recently, “Mizrahim” (making “Israelis” synonymous with “Ashkenazim”). With time, “Mizrahim” came to denote a reappropriated identity claimed by Arab Jews in response to their shared marginalization within the framework of the Jewish State on the basis of their origin—a hybrid identity produced by both assimilationist policy and the resistance to it. Even today, the use of the category is often rejected, as being an attempt to raise illegitimate claims of deprivation on ethnic grounds, thus leading many Mizrahim to distance themselves from the category. However, it is also used as a resistance through a different kind of integration into society. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 656

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Mizrahim/Edot Hamizrah, its origins as an elite construct, and its transformation into a self-claimed hybrid identity.
• DEEPTHINKING: A dense account of how a state-imposed administrative/cultural category becomes both a marker of marginalization and a site of resistance — a paradigm-shifting model of identity construction.
• XREF: Pattern parallels how colonial-era categories (e.g. ‘tribes’ in Africa) became postcolonial identities; also connects to Benedict Anderson’s imagined communities.