[Jewish] Fwd: REMINDER- This Friday at 3pm, WLH, FPH- book reading: Rachel Shabi's Not the enemy: Israel's Jews from Arab lands.

[Staci Akselrod]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: matan cohen <matankohen2 at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 9:15 PM
Subject: REMINDER- This Friday at 3pm, WLH, FPH- book reading: Rachel
Shabi's Not the enemy: Israel's Jews from Arab lands.
To: sjpalestinehampshire at lists.riseup.net,
radicalphilosophy at lists.hampshire.edu, Aaron Berman
<aberman at hampshire.edu>, Ralph Hexter <rhexter at hampshire.edu>, Alan
Goodman <agoodman at hampshire.edu>, "Stephanie A. Levin"
<slevin at hampshire.edu>, Sayres Rudy <sayres.rudy at gmail.com>, Alisa
Klein <alisaklein at yahoo.com>, Staci Akselrod <sra08 at hampshire.edu>,
Steven Nathan <snathan at hampshire.edu>, Margaret Cerullo
<mcSS at hampshire.edu>


Dear friends,
please come tomorrow at 3pm, West Lecture Hall.

FORWARD WIDELY:


Dear friends,

Please join us for a remarkable event this coming Friday, March 5th,
at 3pm- West Lecture Hall, FPH, Hampshire College. Please forward
widely.
Rachel Shabi, a prominent journalist, is coming to the US to promote
her book's paperback release.

On the book:

"In this remarkable, page-turning book, Rachel Shabi lays bare the
painful division within Israeli society between Ashkenazi Jews, whose
families come from Eastern Europe, and Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews, who
come from the Arab countries of the Middle East. Herself from an Iraqi
Jewish family, Shabi explores the history of this relationship,
tracing it back to the first days of the new state of Israel. In a
society desperate to identify itself with Europe, immigrants who spoke
Arabic and followed Middle Eastern customs were seen as inferior;
David Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, famously described
them as lacking the most elementary knowledge.Sixty years later,
Mizrahis are still much less successful than Ashkenazis, condemned,
often, to substandard education, low-quality housing and mockery for
their accents, tastes and lifestyles. Through a combination of
archival research and personal interviews, Shabi brings to light the
prejudices that permeate Israeli society and demonstrates how they
affect Mizrahi lives and hopes. Even more importantly, she argues that
the treatment meted out to Mizrahis reflects a wider Israeli rejection
of the Middle East and its culture, a rejection that makes it
impossible for Israel ever to become integrated within its own
region."

Author's biography:

"Rachel Shabi was born in Israel to Iraqi-Jewish parents and grew up
in the UK, where she studied politics and literature at Edinburgh
University. A journalist, she has been published in a variety of
national and international newspapers including the Guardian, the
London Sunday Times, the Independent on Sunday and the Daily Express.
She also contributes to English Aljazeera online, Jane's Intelligence
Digest, Foreign Policy, the New Statesman, Jewish Quarterly (UK), the
National (UAE) and Salon.conm. Her first book, Not the Enemy -
Israel's Jews from Arab Lands, was published in 2009.For author
interviews, book reviews and articles, please visit:
www.rachelshabi.com"
Best wishes,
matan