Co-editor of a new collection of writings of the Egyptian-born Jewish writer Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff, who believed Israel would never find peace until it recognized that it was in the Middle East……….
She spent time in New York (earning a journalism degree at Columbia University ) and in Paris, before settling in Israel in 1954. Here, she encountered a society dominated by a European-Jewish cultural and political elite that seemed almost embarrassed by their brethren arriving from North Africa and the Middle East.
Kahanoff is convinced that Israel would never find peace until it recognizes that it is part of Middle East.
Kahanoff became convinced that Israel would never find peace until it recognized that it was in the Middle East, and understood that its Mizrahi citizens could serve as the cultural bridge to the Arab-Islamic world. Her philosophy, which she termed “Levantinism,” earned a following among other intellectuals and writers in Israel, and remains relevant today, perhaps more than ever.
Categories: Israel, Judaism, Middle East, Religion
Levantism seeks a balanced, open social environment in which the Jews of diverse origins are free to express Jewish-Israeli and Pan-Arab cultural-political affiliations.