"We thank you, our brothers (the Ashkenazim), for bringing us up to the land of our ancestors, from Morocco, Yemen and Algeria, from Greece and Babylon and Tangier, from Bulgaria, Egypt and Persia, and Bukhara and Italy and the Caucasus (...) and you saved us from the clutches of the foreigners and opened all the gates for us and thanks to you Our eyes were opened, and you taught us to live within our means, and you earned us equal rights, and you gave us all the possibilities, to make you a sponge and wash floors, to cut stones for you, and to lay paving stones. On Independence Day and the Histadrut holiday, if it makes you happy and if it's good for tourism, to be bellboys, clerks and messengers, carpenter apprentices, and garage apprentices, go through the city hall in the water department, and shine shoes on the main street.
This subversive and mocking tact was published in April 1964 in Yediot Ahronoth under the title "The Ashkenazi Revolution." It was written by a wise and talented "Mizrachi Jew" born in Poland (Austen-Yoden was where the immigrants were called from) by the name of Haim Feiner. If you haven't heard of Mr. Feiner, the Stirikan Great, you will surely be surprised to learn that in 2002 he said in an interview with Yaniv Khalili from Yediot America: "They (the Moroccans) did not bring anything unique to Israel's culture. What did they bring, the Mufalat? Come on. Is this an important thing? What did they bring, A culture of how many graves?".
Wait, isn't that what Chaim Hefer, the Israel Prize-winning songwriter, said?
Indeed, Feiner-Hefer is the same life.
If so, who is the digger and who is the finder?
Ignorant, doubt racist?
Or a sharp jab against the oppression of immigrants from Islamic countries in Israel?
The answer is - both.
The reason for these excavations is that this week the Bima Theater offered the singer Itai Levy to star in a remake of "Casablanca".
For the young and forgetful, we remind you that Hafer is responsible together with Menachem Golan for the adaptation of the musical and the movie "Casablanca", which is one of the most well-known representations of an "Oriental" character in the history of Israeli culture.
Second maybe only to Kishon's "Saleh Shabbati".
Gefilte, photo: Liron Almog
The history of Casablanca is a fascinating example of how the cultural combine in Israel is created, works and, above all, is distorted.
In his doctoral thesis, Dr. Ofir Meman traced the history of the establishment and activity of the Telam organization - Theater for Transitions - established by the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Jewish Agency and the Histadrut.
Between the years 1953 and 1966, Telam served as the executive arm for the implementation of the Israeli melting pot policy. This is how the state became an active player in the field of reproduction, in which it sought to educate its citizens.
If the sentence you just read doesn't sound strange to you, it's only because for decades we've been so used to this distortion that we don't even understand what the problem is that a democratic state controls culture through a commissariat.
If it is one channel, the Voice of Israel, Gali IDF, the military bands, the Israel Cinema Fund and other cultural bodies that are supposedly semi-independent, but in practice always act under explicit instructions or with a wink to echo the policies of the masters of culture. Miri Regev was laughed at when she said "What is the corporation worth What if we can't control it?", but Regev only echoed the Pa'inic consciousness in Israel, according to which the state should also control the culture that is made in it.
In the pre-television era, theater and cinema were the only cultural entertainment activities for the majority of the audience.
It's no wonder that about 1,700,000 viewers experienced Telam activities. In 1953, Yigal Musinzon was invited to create a play that "would be particularly beautiful for new immigrants and express to Betty the Jewish settler's grip on the land of the land and the joy of his awakening." Musinzon presented "Casablanca" which bridged the gap The sect in Israel to the surface.
The people of Tel Aviv rejected the play and in 1955 it was staged for the first time in the Chamber Theater.
Casabellan was played by Yossi Yedin (Suknik) and even though Casabellan was suspected of being a murderer (Moroccan knife, etc.) the play was very successful.
Until the crowd of immigrants in the crossings asked to see the play and it was presented as part of Telam.
Ten years later, Musinson and Joel Zilberg adapted the dramatic play into a musical.
To make things easier, the charge of murder was reduced to theft, Dan Almagor, Haim Hefer and Amos Ettinger wrote hymns composed by another talented Mizrahi Jew - Dobi Seltzer.
It wasn't until 1973, almost two decades after it was originally created as a homeland lesson for Mizrahim, that the play became a movie that was shown with enormous success.
Half of the country's population watched it.
This is the casablanca on which generations of Israelis grew up and were shaped.
The character of the newcomer from Casablanca was played by Yoram Gaon.
Someone who was perceived at the time as a "type of" Mizrahi.
Although Gaon was careful to emphasize that he was a pure Sephardi from Jerusalem, perhaps so that they wouldn't be mistaken for thinking that he was one of the impure Sephardim who listens to "trash not created by Satan" music.
The years have not been kind to Casablanca.
Beyond the ridiculous dancing, watching the movie today is a continuous display of awkward cringe.
Casabellan is a stereotypical character of a criminal and troublemaker, whose whole concern is "honor", and the way to achieve it is embodied in the statement about the boy who was born into a miserable life in Jaffa, "Kosher not kosher?
The main thing is that he knew how to beat.'
Step into big shoes.
Itai Levy, photo: Koko
If Casabellan has some other positive qualities that show his good heart, then the characters around him in the Jaffa slum are the embodiment of Israeli stereotypes.
It is true, the Ashkenazim here also suffer from a distorted and derisive representation, but this is to a lesser extent compared to the Mizrahi who are presented as horribly loud, lacking in political consciousness who do not know "what is democracy?", full of superstitions, and in general seem like a lot of Arabs.
In the night of wild testimony there is no difference between them.
So what if Arya Elias was born in Baghdad and played Shakespeare?
Elias plays Moshiko in the biof, whose name indicates that he came from the Bukhara tribe, but for some reason he curses in Arabic.
Whereas the Yemenite of the neighborhood wears a Moroccan turban on his head, considering all Mizrahim the same.
When Casabellan asks his Ashkenazi lover what she thinks of him, she replies that "I don't think you're an animal, but I definitely think you're a wild man."
And that is the heart of the matter.
Despite all the changes it has undergone over the years, the film remains faithful to the original intent of the play, the immigrants from Islamic countries are human savages who need to be civilized.
how?
Through the biggest reward offered to Casabellan for his "good behavior", a reward that is greater than the TLS he received in the war - marriage to an Ashkenazi woman.
It is clear to me that Casabellan has succeeded a lot thanks to those immigrants whom he mocks and tries to educate.
But you have to remember that Casablanca and the other Burkes films were actually Gefilte films.
Most of them were created, written and understood by Ashkenazi authors.
Whether educational, benevolent, or purely commercial, it is a display of racism that has distorted, distorted and flattened the image of the Mizrachi in Israeli culture.
Unfortunately, these were the only representations that the Mizrahim could see and experience themselves.
From Salah Shabti to Casablanca and their successors, the culture offered the same diabolical deal to the expatriates of the Islamic countries: do you want to be present in the culture?
Please, but only through our distorted mirror.
What exactly makes the stage people want to come back and stage Casablanca in 2022?
The answer is clear - in the absence of inspiration, even warming up a stale piece of nostalgia will fill halls and deficits.
I have no complaints about the fossilized lemon squeezers, but I would like to turn to Itay Levy and the general public, and ask do you really want to take part in this?
To applaud the 70-year-old paving?
Are we forever doomed to repeat the same twisted homeland lesson?
Is there no place that remains far in the past?
Before you answer, read the beginning of the column again and don't forget, who, who, has more respect and who, who, has more power.
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