A Critical Look at the Story of Sephardi Jews in Israel

 Searching for a better life and dreaming of playing their part in the Zionist enterprise, hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab countries came to Israel during the 1940s, 50s and 60s. This film presents a story of how their rights to a better life were denied them by the Israeli government and its policies.

In her new film, The Forgotten Ones, filmmaker Michale Boganim presents us with two parallel stories – one is the story of her own father who came to Israel as an immigrant from Morocco in the 1960s.  The other is a road trip through Israeli peripheral towns, exposing stories of Mizrachi Jews of the first, second and third generations, who talk about the imbalance created within Israeli society between Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews.  These two levels – the individual stories and the personal story of the filmmaker -- are interwoven as Boganim takes us back in history to the founding of town such as Yerucham and Dimona, where new immigrants from Muslim lands were plopped down in the middle of desolate places which prevented their real absorption into Israeli society.

In Lod, Erez Biton talks about his immigration from Algeria in 1949 and how they were moved into abandoned Arab houses. In Ashkelon, Carmel tells the story of her parents who came from Morocco.  She talks about how the children of the immigrants had no choice about their education and were forced into vocational schools in order to obtain a trade and thus “they stole generations of dreams from the children of immigrants.”  Placement in remote development towns, separation from the rest of society, and being forced into vocational training are all presented as part of the policies of discrimination on the part of the government leadership who were consciously creating a working under-class.

A major story is told about the kidnapping of Yemenite children from children’s hospital wards, where they were taken away and never heard from again, supposedly for the good of the children!!!  This is a tragedy that is currently being explored within the Israeli media, making it another example in the condescending and discriminatory practices of the early years of the State.

Reuven Abergel, born in 1942, talks about his family’s aliyah in 1948 and the humiliation of being sprayed with DDT upon their arrival, since the authorities were worried that they would bring diseases into the country.  His family was sent to Musrara in Jerusalem, a war-torn border neighborhood.

Boganim’s family story is interwoven, creatively told in voice-over by the filmmaker herself.  Her father, Charlie, frustrated and disillusioned by the failures of his life in Israel, joined the Black Panthers in 1970.  In archival footage, we hear them shouting “enough racism, enough discrimination, enough of sleeping 10 in a room.”  But the political leadership, Golda Meir in particular, reacted with disdain, condescension, and police brutality.

The Yom Kippur war apparently absorbed these immigrants and united us but erased the social struggles of the Black Panthers.  Thus, Boganim’s family decided to leave Israel and go to live on the outskirts of Paris, where they were surrounded by immigrants from Arab lands.  Unable to fully find their place there, they eventually return to Israel.

The discomfort and disillusionment exist still today in the third generation. The story of the well-known singer, Neta Elkayam, is particularly poignant.  Born in 1980 in Netivot, a development town in the Negev, south of Beersheba, she is third generation Moroccan.  Her grandparents were the immigrants and her parents were the generation that tried desperately to assimilate within Israeli society.  Today, Elkayam has come full circle. Together with Amit Hai Cohen, her life partner, she performs North African music and has become drawn to return to visit Morocco and to learn more about its culture. 

Kobi’s parents are from Morocco and were sent in 1955 as new immigrants to help found the town of Dimona.  Now at the age of 37, Kobi has left Israel to “return” to Morocco where he says he feels more at home and has taken up Moroccan citizenship.

During the discussion following the screening of the film last week at the Other Israel Film Festival at the JCC in Manhattan, Michale Boganim stated “I discovered that there was a new generation of racism in the periphery. The racism is not only a subject of the past.  It still exists today.”   For me, this was a sharp indictment of Israeli governments in the past, especially during the long reign of the Labor party in Israel, until 1977 (a political party which barely exists anymore today).

The Forgotten Ones (documentary, 93 minutes) is a serious and critical look at the story of the hundreds of thousands of Mizrachi Jews who came to Israel to be part of the Zionist dream and found themselves severely discriminated against and forced to live on the periphery of Israeli society – both physically and socially.