Thread by @rafaelshimunov

Mizrahi (Jews from Middle East, Central Asia, North Africa, etc) is the colonialist name for us. Many of us don’t know its use and introduction is similar to that of calling a Chinese or Korean person Oriental.

Thread 🧵

Mizrahi's meaning is largely unknown or misunderstood because we allow it ourselves. We celebrate it. Sometimes I celebrate it.

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But the term Mizrahi, its design and its impact is to erase our origins as Jews from places we called home for thousands of years. Among siblings who look and sound like us more than most of our Ashkenazi beloveds.

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In fact, saying Uzbek Jew or Iranian Jew or Egyptian Jew would frighten most of our own families from Uzbekistan, Iran, Egypt because they were taught and they in turn taught us to be frightened. Of ourselves too. For so many reasons.

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Many of us, those who could see our melanin, our curls, our deep black eyes and furry arms hidden, washed out, or lost to love with lovers are able to choose to be white, to adopt the myth of white. To be adjacent to power.

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Because when they see this photo, they see weakness. And when they see this photo, they see power. But we their children draw our strength from the first. And what we see is celebrating the second--is fear. Of ourselves.

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Note: The Jewish woman in the second photo is Jewish like me and us, and I must be careful to specify that over and over. But most of my family would relate to her more than the photo on the left. Of us.

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We fear that among the truths about our sometimes struggles in the lands of our birth, blood, water, language, food and music, the stories may outweigh our revolutionary kinship, our thousands years embrace as family

(Yes, this Bukharian looks like @ActionBronson's brother)

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...and thus unravel the myths our leaders tell us, the myths conjured to settle lands of our cousins, to drive away children who look like our children, and to hold people we see in the mirror with suspicion and contempt.

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It always sounds corny, but I dream of the day we can say who we are beyond Mizrahi. And I will fight for the day when a border is nothing but lines in history books. And I'll probably say Mizrahi all the time.

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So, to be clear, I may say to you when you ask, because I’m busy: I am Mizrahi.

But know that every time I say it, I swallow just a little bit of poison for your comfort and my convenience.

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And every time I say it I also force half the pill to beloveds from Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Morocco, Egypt, Afghanistan, Libya, and so on.

Because with Mizrahi I am also telling my long lost siblings:

You were simply my roommates.

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Thanks for reading, عزیزم.

I don't have solutions yet, but if you want to figure them out and you are Mizrahi in New York, find me at the next @JFREJNYC Mizrahi & Sephardi Caucus meeting.

jfrej.org/community/mizr…

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Addendum