Storied Journeys: Recovering Agency in Narratives of MENA Jewish Migration

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

In the second half of the twentieth century over a million Jews departed their homes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). In the past decade, scholars have increasingly questioned the validity and usefulness of treating waves of Jewish migration from MENA countries as homogenous responses to geo-political forces outside of their control, most importantly, the establishment of Israel in 1948, decolonization and the rise of Arab nationalism across the MENA. Scholars such as Orit Bashkin, Aviad Moreno, and Lior Sternfeld have sought to contextualize and ground Jewish migration within their local and transnational contexts. Despite new research, few scholars have connected these broader contexts to how Jews themselves comprehended and narrativized their own migrations. By focusing on how mass migration is distilled by migrants themselves who devise narratives at the intersection of local and transnational contexts, this panel offers an exciting new perspective on identifying agency in meta-narratives of MENA Jewish migration.

Utilizing three case studies, this panel uncovers MENA Jewish agency within all-encompassing push-and-pull factors. Drawing on her forthcoming book treating oral histories of MENA Jews in France and North America, Nadia Malinovich’s contribution unpacks how Moroccan Jews settled in Los Angeles and Montreal have interpreted their migrations through their experiences in the US and Canadian contexts. Set against the backdrop of problematic nomenclatures associated with MENA Jewish emigration such as “forced migration,” Malinovich’s approach privileges moments in which Jews were able to exercise agency on the move. Isabelle Headrick’s contribution offers a new perspective on the AIU as a mediator of MENA migration. Following the Brasseur family, French Jews who migrated to Iran and became prominent actors within the AIU there, Headrick nuances politicized accounts of departure by discovering agency and hybridized identities amongst correspondence, memoirs and oral histories. Finally, Roy Shukrun’s contribution follows Moroccan Jews brought to Israel’s periphery through the “From Ship to Village Plan”. Using local archives in Negev development towns, Shukrun demonstrates how Moroccans there have accessed resources and exercised narrative agency by framing themselves as Israel’s true pioneers against Ashkenazi Israelis.

Sub Unit

• Modern Jewish History in Europe, Asia, Israel, and Other Communities

Chair

• Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah, Groningen University

Individual Presentations

• A Moroccan History of the Negev: Local Identities and Pioneer Narratives of Israel’s Periphery - Roy Orel Shukrun, Utrecht University

• Networks of Love: Families in the Iran-Based Alliance Israélite Universelle, 1908-1978 - Isabelle Headrick, The University of Texas at Austin

• From Morocco to Canada and the United States: Jewish Migrants in Post-Colonial Perspective - Nadia Malinovich, Université de Picardie/ EPHE (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes)

Zoom Host

• Zoom Host 03