Israel's Black Panthers

Israel's Black Panthers PDF

Author: Asaf Elia-Shalev

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2024-03-19

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 0520294319

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The powerful story of an activist movement that challenged the racial inequities of Israel. Israel's Black Panthers tells the story of the young and impoverished Moroccan Israeli Jews who challenged their country's political status quo and rebelled against the ethnic hierarchy of Israeli life in the 1970s. Inspired by the American group of the same name, the Black Panthers mounted protests and a yearslong political campaign for the rights of Mizrahim, or Jews of Middle Eastern ancestry. They managed to rattle the country's establishment and change the course of Israel's history through the mass mobilization of a Jewish underclass. This book draws on archival documents and interviews with elderly activists to capture the movement's history and reveal little-known stories from within the group. Asaf Elia-Shalev explores the parallels between the Israeli and American Black Panthers, offering a unique perspective on the global struggle against racism and oppression. In twenty short and captivating chapters, Israel's Black Panthers provides a textured and novel account of the movement and reflects on the role that Mizrahim can play in the future of Israel.

Thoughts From A Unicorn

Thoughts From A Unicorn PDF

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2012-12-29

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13:

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Being a Black man in America means taking prejudice, bias, and ignorance head-on on a daily basis. Being a Jew in America means taking prejudice, bias, and ignorance head-on on a daily basis, but while trying to eat a bagel. But when you combine the two...? Enter Thoughts From A Unicorn, a witty and uncanny satire detailing the "not-autobiographical" account of MaNishtana, an African American Orthodox Jew from birth. Part of a growing cadre of Jewish writers and thought leaders of color, MaNishtana deftly takes the reader from ridiculous pop-culture ruminations to gut-punch insights on race, religion, and the failings of both in America. Written from a vulnerable place of honestly where hurt and humiliation are sometimes masked in humor, he minces no words in pointing out that American Jewry is not immune from the racism that affects the rest of the country, nor is the typically welcoming African-American community a safe-haven from anti-Semitism-even for the people who look like, and often are, family.While weaving through Jewish and ethnic references many readers will find unfamiliar, Thoughts From A Unicorn nonetheless offers indispensable commentary on the "outsider" experience universal to us all, regardless of race, religion, social status, or gender.Written with the honesty of a young leader in the Jewish world today, this newly rereleased, re-edited offering is a must read that exposes the pains, pleasures, and headaches of a non-white Jew in America, navigating social and cultural majorities that are convinced that said reality-much like the mythical unicorn-doesn't exist.

Meir Kahane

Meir Kahane PDF

Author: Shaul Magid

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2023-08-08

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 0691254699

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The life and politics of an American Jewish activist who preached radical and violent means to Jewish survival Meir Kahane came of age amid the radical politics of the counterculture, becoming a militant voice of protest against Jewish liberalism. Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League in 1968, declaring that Jews must protect themselves by any means necessary. He immigrated to Israel in 1971, where he founded KACH, an ultranationalist and racist political party. He would die by assassination in 1990. Shaul Magid provides an in-depth look at this controversial figure, showing how the postwar American experience shaped his life and political thought. Magid sheds new light on Kahane’s radical political views, his critique of liberalism, and his use of the “grammar of race” as a tool to promote Jewish pride. He discusses Kahane’s theory of violence as a mechanism to assure Jewish safety, and traces how his Zionism evolved from a fervent support of Israel to a belief that the Zionist project had failed. Magid examines how tradition and classical Jewish texts profoundly influenced Kahane’s thought later in life, and argues that Kahane’s enduring legacy lies not in his Israeli career but in the challenge he posed to the liberalism and assimilatory project of the postwar American Jewish establishment. This incisive book shows how Kahane was a quintessentially American figure, one who adopted the radicalism of the militant Left as a tenet of Jewish survival.