The Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow
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Press Release - 29 May 2003
The Exclusion of Mizrahi and Palestinian Anthropologists from the Faculty Club: Protest the 2003 Annual Meeting of the Israeli Anthropological Association
The Mizrahi (Oriental, Arab-Jewish, Heb.) Democratic Rainbow is an NGO advocating a new dicourse and action for a democratic, multi-cultural Israel. One of our goals is to expose the mechanisms preserving the socio-economic structure responsible for the continual oppression of disenfranchised groups. Israeli universities in general, and their anthropology departments in particular, are part and parcel of this exclusionary power structure.
The Mizrahim and Palestinian citizens of Israel have long been the main object of research by Israeli anthropologists, who made world class careers on their backs. Our dispossession has always been the raw material leading to the proliferation of scientific texts that result in anthropological academic job hires, and the subsequent university merits and promotions. Moreover, the monthly paycheck of most Israeli anthropologists has depended on Mizrahi and Palestinian informant cooperation with these anthropologists. Paradoxically, such anthropology has always been careful to muffle our political and cultural plight. We are yet to share either prestige or monetary gains with those who get their monthly paychecks out of anthropologizing us.
For us, the gates of Israeli anthropology departments are locked. Israeli anthropology departments are still almost purely Ashkenazi (European Jewish) and upper class. Among Israeli tenured anthropologists there is only one Mizrahi. To even contemplate a tenured Palestinian-Israeli anthropologist is beyond the pale.
As the Israeli Anthropological Association convenes for its annual meeting, we would like to demonstrate today against the almost total lack of Mizrahi and Palestinian anthropologists from the tenured body of university professors. Also protested is the total lack of tenured Mizrahi and Palestinian women faculty from each and every discipline in Israeli universities. Devoid of either jobs or prestige while still being the object of the ethnographic academic industry, we also rally against the lack of any ethics code for ethnographic research and publication that would protect our copyrights to our own cultures.
The radical postcolonial/postmodernist theories presently decorating Israeli anthropology do not dare to venture outside their lofty conference halls or gated universities. Mizrahi and Palestinian anthropologists habitually are left outside these terrains of privilege.
For details: Nurit Hajjaj, Ph. +972-56-346-554
HaKeshet HaDemokratit HaMizrahit
20 MAPU St., Tel Aviv. POB 11518, Tel Aviv 61115
Ph. +972-3-524-7702 Fx +972-3-522-2224
e-mail: hakeshet at netvision.net.il *****
-- Yoshie
* Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>