Racist video exposes Ashkenazi ignorance of Mizrahi culture

A racist skit by Ashkenazi students has touched a raw nerve among Mizrahi Israelis, who still experience widespread attacks on their proud traditions.

"I cried for a long time after I watched that video," says Mirit, a 28-year-old teacher. "I cried for myself, for myself when I was a student there, and for the girls who are in that school now."

Mirit (not her real name) is referring to a recently publicised video that has caused a public uproar in Israel, raising, once again, questions about racism and discrimination in the country.

An Israeli from a Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) background, she was once a student at the prestigious Horev Ulpana, a girls-only religious high school in Jerusalem, where the video was made for the Purim "coronation," a humorous Purim tradition. The video was made two months ago but provoked an outcry when it was uploaded to Youtube last week. It has since been removed.

Among the graduates of the elite school are Supreme and District Court judges and other well-known legal professionals and academics. As in most prestigious schools, the students at Horev are overwhelmingly from Ashkenazi (Western) backgrounds, and many of them are recent immigrants from the United States and France – a fact that the video, entitled If the Ulpana Were Mizrahi (referring to Jews from the Middle East and Africa) intended to spoof.

The video includes eight scenes from daily life, each one portrayed twice: once as they are, according to Ashkenazi customs and mores, and once as it would supposedly be if it were run according to Mizrahi customs. In the "Ashkenazi" episodes, the girls are well-behaved, demure, quiet, respectful, and modestly dressed.

In contrast, in the Mizrahi sections, the girls appear in "brownface" with brown paint smeared on their faces, behave wildly, act vulgarly, disrespect their teachers, listen to loud, clanging music, and do not abide by the school's strict modesty codes. 

As Mizrahim, they tear down the pictures of leading Ashkenazi rabbis and irreverently slap on pictures of Mizrahi rabbis in their place, implying that they revere none of them.