JEWISH DIASPORA’S TABLE OF RANK

In modern Israeli and Jewish-American parlance, there is often a distinction made between just two groups of Jews, identified by their geographical origin: the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim. This is not an accurate distinction, of course, as there exists a more authoritative ranking system among not two, but three, official Jewish groupings, namely, the Ashkenazim, the Sephardim, and the Mizrahim. Today, whenever these three are separately recognized, the Ashkenazi Jews are implicitly considered superior to the other two, while the Mizrahim are found inferior to the Sephardim. (Concerning the alleged superiority of the Ashkenazim over the others, it is worth mentioning that the great Shulkhan Arukh codification of the Jewish Law, to which all observant Jews, regardless of their origin, adhere, was authored by a Sephardic Jew Joseph Caro in the 16^th century.)

Ironically, it is the Mizrahi group that not only constitutes the largest of these groups in Israel, but proudly counts the original Palestinian Jews among its number, together with all other “Oriental” Jews, tracing their first post-Dispersion home to the Middle East, the currently Moslem countries of Asia, and also to certain African countries. But due to the colossal influx of Jews from the former USSR into Israel and the United States, starting in the 1970’s, it is the Ashkenazic, i.e. European, Jewry who claim intellectual supremacy, on account of their better education, higher host country culture in their places of origin, and a vibrant Jewish Rabbinical tradition in Europe during the last several hundred years, plus the moral victim supremacy, on account of the Holocaust. Besides, these Ashkenazi Jews claim, with sufficient substantiation, that the very concept of Yiddishkeit, so precious to modern Judenthum, has its roots in the Ashkenazic tradition, to the exclusion of the other two.

With regard to the Sephardim, their actual origin were Spain and Portugal, whence they were expelled after 1498. Remarkably, at the time of the Iberian Reconquista, these Sephardic, meaning Spanish, Jews were by far the most cultured, best educated and generally advanced in all Diaspora at the time, but having to flee to less profitable and fruitful places in North Africa and elsewhere, they rather quickly lost their edge over the rest of the Judenthum, and so, even the great Maimonides and Caro notwithstanding, as of today they do not seem to amount to much.

Was that simple enough? If yes, be warned that we have not really arrived at the hub of the complications. Is the division at the heart of this entry really geographic, or ethnic-genetic, or cultural, or mainly religious? There are schools that tie this division to different criteria. The crudest of them is of course the geographic origin. But this is also the least reliable of the criteria. Too many historical eras have passed since that first Dispersion of the Jews, to give geography that much credence… But there are distinctive cultural/religious patterns of observance that constitute more solid criteria, because they are non-historical, and not subject to diachronic analysis, where the lines of diverse geographical groups have crossed multiple times, and sometimes merged. On the other hand, religious service customs, identified as Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and such, have endured to the present day, and there are many Sephardim or Mizrahim today who are praying according to the Ashkenazic rite, while there are many Ashkenazim who are praying according to the Sephardic rite, and so on. There are also many cross-denominational marriages where the partitions have been further effaced… Go, figure!

However, the least substantially significant of these distinctions is also the most important of them all, and that is the political distinction between the European Jews immigrating to Israel since the beginning of the twentieth century as well as in the wake of World War II, and the rest of them. It is the former contingent who has constituted the political elite of Medinat Yisroel ever since its formation in 1948, and it has remained the determining factor.

What will the future hold for this Jewish table of rank? It is hard to foresee a change in it under the status quo. For as long as the memory of the Holocaust is alive, the Ashkenazi Jews are bound to stay on top… Which means… forever?...

Unless a radical change takes place in the Middle East, in which case the Israelis will have to adapt to the changing circumstances by relinquishing the current uncompromising secular Zionist stand in favor of the more accommodating Messianic Zionism, which will definitely assure a lasting peace in the Middle East, but may also introduce a radical correction to the Jewish table of rank, placing the Mizrahim, ardently supported by the Haredim of the other two groups, at the top of the score sheet.