‘Communities and Mobilities’ is a research group led by Dr. Aviad Moreno at the Azrieli Center for Israel Studies, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. This interdisciplinary team delves into the intricate tapestry of migrations, with a focal point on Jewish migration from Arab countries. Read More
Scholars widely see the post-1948 mass migration of Jews from Arab Muslim countries to Israel as a direct result of decolonization and rising nationalism across the Middle East and North Africa – or ‘MENA’ – coupled with state policies. These MENA Jews in Israel are collectively known as Mizrahim, and are mostly studied as communities marginalized by Jews who descend from European countries, collectively called Ashkenazim. Dr. Moreno’s team seeks to apply new methods, alongside comparative and global history approaches, to reconceptualize the migratory experience of MENA Jews in Israel and beyond, focusing on cultural processes and transregional networks.
One of the team’s current flagship projects, ‘Emotional Maps: Affective Geographies among Jewish Migrants from North Africa and the Middle East’, explores migration beyond physical relocation, shedding light on its profound emotional dimensions as they overlap with geographical imagination. Their project introduces innovative concepts, such as Ultra-orthodox, Feminine, and Musical ‘mental maps’ that challenge the commonplace geopolitical maps.
An additional project, in collaboration with Emir Galilee and Piera Rosetto from Ca’ Foscari University and Hadas Shabat Nadir from Seminar Hakibutzim, extends this exploration to Jewish Masculinities across the Middle East and North Africa.
One of the team’s earlier projects, entitled ‘The Long History of the Mizrahim’ explored inter-ethnic relations between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim. Part of this project’s conclusion is that Mizrahi history should be seen through a long-term perspective that combines the study of Jewish diaspora in which Ashkenazim were also marginalized as minorities and developed diaspora networks.
Along these lines, one of the team’s current projects, led by Alon Tam and Moreno, explores Egypt as a case study in comparative global migrations. This work covers a diverse range of topics spanning Egypt’s 19th-century global networks, including with Palestine, early 20th-century Egyptian exiles, and migrations of various religious and ethnic communities such as Armenians, Copts, Greeks and Jews, to destinations including Brazil, the Netherlands, Italy, Japan, and Kenya.
In collaboration with former team member, Roy Shukrun from McGill University and Groningen University, Moreno published ‘Rethinking Moroccan Transnationalism: Sephardism, Decolonization, and Activism Between Israel and Montreal’, which examines the development of Francophone Moroccan Jewish communities in Quebec, Canada from 1969 to 1975.
Anglo Canadian dominance and Ashkenazi hegemony in Jewish spheres created difficulties for mostly Francophone Moroccan Jews arriving in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. In response, Moroccan community activists in Quebec seized on the province’s program of francization to articulate a unique Jewish ‘Sephardi’ identity. Concurrently, ethnic protests in Israel, notably the 1971 Black Panther demonstrations against Israel’s Ashkenazi-led establishment, highlighted a global network of solidarity among Moroccan and other MENA and Sephardi Jews with economic and political marginalization by Ashkenazi elites.
This study reveals the interconnectedness of domestic ethnic identities and transnational activism. By bridging the scholarly partition of studying Mizrahi Jews within or outside Israel, Dr. Moreno’s team illuminates the complex dynamics of Jewish migration, identity formation, and community-building that transcends national borders that are typically used to analyze migration in the field.
A final example of the team’s work, in collaboration with Haim (Hai) Bitton, is a project exploring the evolution of ‘Memorial books’, which memorialize European Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust, among Moroccan Jews who hadn’t experienced the Holocaust but were influenced by its collective memory. This project reveals distinct patterns of narration and Holocaust memory construction utilized by Moroccan immigrants to confront stereotyping and exclusion by the Ashkenazi-European elite in Israel. This highlights another complexity in North African diaspora-making that is also influenced by postcolonial marginalization and Jewish collective memory.
The ‘Communities and Mobilities’ hub continues to develop new and exciting projects on the topic. Stay tuned for more!
