Since the debate keeps coming up: I am not Arab. My family lived in Arab lands, but they also lived in Babylonian lands, which were later Arabized. They refused to assimilate and maintained their Jewish traditions, culture, and language. This made them Dihmmis, a minority without rights and without equality in Arab lands. It's not any more racist to say I'm not Arab than it'd be racist to say I'm not Chinese. We all have different heritages. And that's a good thing. If you want a name for the culture and identity of the Jews who came from these lands, we prefer ‘Mizrahi.’ Yes, Mizrahi Jewish culture and cuisine overlap with the customs that Jews created in their former home countries. Even though we were expelled from the Middle East & North Africa and lost all our belongings, we came to Israel with our culture, where it is maintained to this day. Because the majority of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa were violently expelled from their birth countries, 55% of Israeli Jews are first, second, and third-generation Mizrahi Jews (Noah Lewin-Epstein & Yinon Cohen (2018): Ethnic origin and identity in the Jewish population of Israel) Today Israel is the home of the largest community of Mizrahim in the world. It’s the only place in the world where this identity and culture lives, breathes, and develops. Picture: A-Wa, Israeli Mizrahi band
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