Let's talk about Israeli cuisine.
Unfortunately, I have less experience with it than I should, as it looks absolutely delicious, but I've never had any. Diaspora Jew in a place with few Jews or Israelis moment :(. And I'm talking less about Israeli cuisine and more about how it's perceived--namely how it's taken from Israelis, denigrated as 'not Israeli', as having been 'stolen' from Arab cuisine as a part of a broader project of 'cultural conquest'. Looking at you, Joseph Massad.
This assertion is not only a bald-faced lie, it is also deeply antisemitic. People have the right to make food. Nobody's going to call a non Italian racist for making or eating Italian food. Nor would an Italian be culturally appropriating if they eat sushi. Yet Jews and Israelis are stealing if they make Middle Eastern food?
More than that, though, it ignores Jewish history. Jews have lived in the Middle East for... as long as homo sapiens have lived in the Middle East? Mizrahim, who make up most of Israel's population, did not grow out of the ground in Israel from 1948-1979. They were expelled, violently chased out of the Muslim-majority countries they had lived for millennia. Before then, they sustained themselves on falafel, couscous, hummus, tahini, halva, shawarma, and every Middle Eastern food under the sun. If there were such a thing as the 'right' to make food, they'd absolutely have it.
But it's instead 'colonization', 'cultural appropriation', and 'cultural conquest'? To bring the culinary practices they and their ancestors had been practicing since Judaism began to the only country that had thrown open their doors to them? After experiencing pogroms, riots, anti-Jewish legislation, the world once sat by and did nothing to stop it. Again. And then members of these countries have the gall--the audacity and sheer disrespect--to accuse them of pilfering their own fucking culture?? After violently kicking them out???
Like, it blows my mind how many injustices Israelis are subjected to by moronic protestors who think 'Zionism is racism' or whatever. Every time someone posts about Zionist colonization of Palestinian food and culture, they're ironically themselves indulging in cultural erasure. The fact that Palestinians often make the same foods isn't indicative of a supposed Zionist plot to exterminate Palestinians and steal their culinary practices, but rather reflective of their shared origins as being Middle Eastern. But these online 'activists' don't care--nor do they care that the implied 'Zionist plot' that runs through their claims is textbook antisemitism.
Middle Eastern food is widespread in Middle Eastern countries. When Middle Eastern people get kicked out of Middle Eastern countries and go to another Middle Eastern country, they make... Middle Eastern food. Shocking, I know.
It isn't stealing. It isn't cultural appropriation.
Now, gut shabbos everyone.
