I believe in the authenticity of David Amsalem's pain.
I also believe in the good intentions of Esther Hayut.
But at the same time, it is clear to me that none of them acts or is expressed in a way that really helps us as a society, to deal with one of the deep and ongoing wounds in Israeli society.
When a living body has a wound or disease, there are two ways of doing things that will not really help the healing process, and in many cases will even aggravate the symptoms.
One is to look away: focusing on the healthy organs, and denying or ignoring the fact that there is a problem at all.
The second way is continuous probing and scratching of the wound.
These two forms of conduct may be opposite in some respects, but both are remarkably similar in their contribution to healing and recovery.
In today's Israel, I believe, there is no institutionalized and deliberate discrimination among the Jewish public, which is related to reasons of ethnic origin.
But a claim that there is no problem that requires attention and coping is an unfortunate denial of reality.
The problem lies both in the plane of representation and in other planes that are related to deeper and broader cultural and structural aspects.
At the level of representation, it is enough to look at the number of faculty members at universities or the number of High Court judges of Eastern origin over the years (in these two cases the figure is only about 10%) or, alternatively, the geographical distribution in Israel between center and periphery to understand Really dishonest, to put it mildly, when it comes to the place of ethnic origin in determining socio-economic status, or public and intellectual dominance.
But the plane of representation is not the only story.
Equally important is the question of the place occupied by the culture and existence of the Jewry of the Islamic countries within the cultural and intellectual spaces of Israeli society.
To what extent does the traditional way of life, which is usually inherently connected to the world of the Jews of the Islamic countries, gain legitimacy, respect and appreciation in the various spaces of Israeli society?
To what extent is the history, culture and narrative of Jews of Jewish origin in these countries taught in the humanities departments of Israeli academia?
To what extent does it gain its place in the Israeli education system?
The Bitton Committee's report, published more than five years ago, pointed to the existing systemic problem and proposed a broad and in-depth correction, and unfortunately most of its recommendations have not yet been implemented. Academic study (to this day it is not officially recognized as such in the higher education system in Israel), and it is to be hoped that the forthcoming MLAG decision will begin to drive a correction in this important space.
A situation in which a person feels that his or her family and cultural identity is a burden that must be overcome in order to succeed in finding his or her place in society, carries with it heavy costs, and ultimately does not allow for deep and long-term social leadership.
To correct this situation, the combination of acknowledging the problem and a willingness to work thoroughly and deeply is necessary in order to identify its roots in the various systems of Israeli culture and offer them a correction.
Insults on the Knesset podium or letters in the style of "I also drink Iraq, and I have friends from Khalufim", are really not what will allow us to embark on a path of true healing and correction, and is required unparalleled.
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