Word: ashkenazy
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...society. Ethnic differences, exacerbated by social inequalities, strain relations between the Ashkenazi Jews of Northern Europe and the Sephardi Jews of the Mediterranean and the Muslim world. Religious quarrels set observant Orthodox Jews against the secular values of less pious Israelis. Lawlessness in general has risen sharply in a nation unused to it, and a small but flourishing Israeli "Mafia" has become an embarrassing new entry in international organized crime. A restive younger generation has shown growing dissatisfaction with the lack of job opportunities, the disruptive effects of compulsory military service, housing shortages and the political process...
...campaign trail, Begin pressed home his vision of Eretz Israel, the "land of Israel" with its extended biblical boundaries, as a necessary bastion of strength in a hostile world. As he had in 1977, Begin, an Ashkenazi originally from Poland, was skillfully using his hawkish posture to retain the support of lower-income Sephardi Jewish refugees from Arab lands who shared his distrust of Arabs. Two weeks ago, at a festival in Jerusalem's Sacher Park attended by some 50,000 North African Jews, Begin so charmed his audience that bodyguards had to protect the frail candidate from...
Some of Israel's other troubling social problems are simply current manifestations of longstanding tensions, notably the antagonism between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews and the often violent clashes between Orthodox and more secular Jews. The differences between Ashkenazim and Sephardim are ancient and real. The original Sephardim were the powerful Jews of Moorish Spain, who were expelled from the country in 1492 and dispersed to North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean and Asia. (A smaller, later wave, who had taken temporary refuge in Portugal, later migrated to The Netherlands, Britain and the Americas...
...Ashkenazi Jews, the Europeans who dominated the Zionist movement in the 20th century, originally were a tiny community on the Rhine. The Ashkenazim founded modern political Zionism and brought to Israel Western values, education, technology and tastes. The problem lies in the fact that often they look down on Sephardim, and the Sephardim on them, a phenomenon fed by ethnic differences. Sephardim tend to live in small towns, raise large families, and to eat foods that even now reflect their Spanish heritage. Rice, for example, is permitted during Passover. Ashkenazim tend to make their homes in the city...
Recognition of these distinctions is institutionalized in Israel's Chief Rabbinate: one Ashkenazi, one Sephardi. Elevation of certain Sephardim to high positions-President Yitzhak Navon is a Sephardi-represents a triumph of talent over prejudice, even though more than half of Israel's population are Sephardim. Economic inequities mirror the prejudice. Explains Daniel Shimshoni, director of Israel's neighborhood rehabilitation program: "Most of the residents in depressed neighborhoods, or their parents, came from Middle Eastern or African countries. Of the lower income groups, those of Asian and African origin form the majority...