Apropos of https://kolektiva.social/@oatmeal/117095516132724119 ... another day, another "Ashkenazi great-replacement" piece in #Haaretz. Amit Vershitzky is mourning the Israel he knew, forgetting that while posing as a liberal, educated, persecuted minority they've been very busy since 1948 dehumanizing and/or orientalizing Palestinians and Arab Jews.
Hebrew https://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/2026-08-13/ty-article-opinion/.premium/0000019f-faa6-d101-a5bf-fbb6cd730000 (archive https://archive.li/P5Grs)
I've always wondered why Vershitzky and friends don't count right-wing religious Eastern Europeans as Ashkenazi. The settlers, the religious Zionists, the Haredim, they're all Eastern European too. If "Ashkenazi" is an ethnic category being persecuted and replaced, why does it suddenly mean only the self-proclaimed liberal elite who've controlled resources? Why is the right-wing religious bloc that's actually taking over not part of this poor "persecuted minority"?
Aziza Khazzoom shows the category was never natural anyway. Eastern Europeans arrived in Palestine already orientalized as "Ostjuden." They were gradually re-drawn into a standardized "western" category as part of a project to produce an Israel that is part of the West ("a villa in the jungle" if you will). The Polish peddler became a German intellectual in one generation. "Ashkenazi" as it's deployed in identity politics today, not the religious traditions that predate it by centuries, was a construct barely a century old, imposed by the westernization project now being demolished.
So the "replacement" isn't ethnic. It's a class and political shift within the same group. Eastern Europeans still hold central roles in government and the economy. They just can't gatekeep Arab Jews out anymore, and their own right-wing cousins are taking the places once reserved for the self-proclaimed liberal elite. The panic mirrors the neo-Nazi "white genocide" trope, same rhetorical escalation, same anxiety. But what's being "replaced" isn't a real ethnic category. It's a curated identity losing its gatekeeping function. Also Israel will always be associated with occupation, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid. So its reputation is not something to worry about too much.
Ref: Khazzoom, Shifting Ethnic Boundaries and Inequality in Israel (Stanford UP, 2008).
#Israel #1948
oatmeal
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2026-08-15 12:01:05 UTC
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"content": "Apropos of https://kolektiva.social/@oatmeal/117095516132724119 ... another day, another \"Ashkenazi great-replacement\" piece in #Haaretz. Amit Vershitzky is mourning the Israel he knew, forgetting that while posing as a liberal, educated, persecuted minority they've been very busy since 1948 dehumanizing and/or orientalizing Palestinians and Arab Jews. \n\nHebrew https://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/2026-08-13/ty-article-opinion/.premium/0000019f-faa6-d101-a5bf-fbb6cd730000 (archive https://archive.li/P5Grs)\n\nI've always wondered why Vershitzky and friends don't count right-wing religious Eastern Europeans as Ashkenazi. The settlers, the religious Zionists, the Haredim, they're all Eastern European too. If \"Ashkenazi\" is an ethnic category being persecuted and replaced, why does it suddenly mean only the self-proclaimed liberal elite who've controlled resources? Why is the right-wing religious bloc that's actually taking over not part of this poor \"persecuted minority\"?\n\nAziza Khazzoom shows the category was never natural anyway. Eastern Europeans arrived in Palestine already orientalized as \"Ostjuden.\" They were gradually re-drawn into a standardized \"western\" category as part of a project to produce an Israel that is part of the West (\"a villa in the jungle\" if you will). The Polish peddler became a German intellectual in one generation. \"Ashkenazi\" as it's deployed in identity politics today, not the religious traditions that predate it by centuries, was a construct barely a century old, imposed by the westernization project now being demolished.\n\nSo the \"replacement\" isn't ethnic. It's a class and political shift within the same group. Eastern Europeans still hold central roles in government and the economy. They just can't gatekeep Arab Jews out anymore, and their own right-wing cousins are taking the places once reserved for the self-proclaimed liberal elite. The panic mirrors the neo-Nazi \"white genocide\" trope, same rhetorical escalation, same anxiety. But what's being \"replaced\" isn't a real ethnic category. It's a curated identity losing its gatekeeping function. Also Israel will always be associated with occupation, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid. So its reputation is not something to worry about too much. \n\nRef: Khazzoom, Shifting Ethnic Boundaries and Inequality in Israel (Stanford UP, 2008).\n\n#Israel #1948",
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