Роздуми про становище етнічних груп в Ізраїлі: історія спільноти Бней Ісраель

Abstract

This article seeks to understand how Israel has coped with the reality of multiple ethnicities following the large scale immigration to Israel in the years since 1948. What bureaucratic practices has it shaped? What are the popular or academic responses to it? How is the Israeli "economy" of ethnic identities managed? I answer these questions by examining the case of one immigrant community, the Bene Israel of India, the largest and oldest community of the three Jewish communities of India. I argue that the Jews of India, in particular the Bene Israel who possessed a hybrid identity, pose a challenge the emerging "economy" of ethnic identities in Israel and mark the borders of the Israeli-Jewish collective and its inflexibility beyond a certain point.