What will be interesting to observe is if this development will extend outside of Israel into the diaspora or not. My personal thought is that this process is much slower in the diaspora and led mainly by people who perhaps now have family in Israel or spent considerable time in Israel. Because there are many communities who still very much cling to diasporas within a diaspora identities.
Amazing topic. I am in the process of converting, and am 50:50 White & African. Instinctively I approached Judaism as a whole, and was open to helping preserve songs, rituals, foods & more from any diaspora culture ✡️. Online connection helps us even more with this. I see Ashkenazi Jews interested in henna, Sephardi Jews learning about Hasidism, Indian Jews dancing Hora and American Jews learning Israeli slang etc. All of it is beautiful and I pray that the great diversity of thought and practice cultivated is preserved even when Am Israel doesn’t segregate it by diaspora. If you think about it: we already have great diversity of thought and era when studying Torah. Why can’t we treat more recent history the same way and embrace it all?
On the surface, the perception that we are essentially wronging a right by reintegrating into one community seems correct; however, the costs of that are the tragic loss of thousands of years of beautiful culture and traditions. The traditions that kept these communities alive for thousands of years. I suppose, the answer is to cling more towards the traditions within the religious framework and not so much the cultural traditions. With that said, contrary to what the founders of the state of Israel anticipated, the culture of the modern state of Israel is a lot more Middle-Eastern and less European. As an Iraqi Jew, the modern Israeli culture parallels my experience and culture more than an ashkenazi Jew.
What will be interesting to observe is if this development will extend outside of Israel into the diaspora or not. My personal thought is that this process is much slower in the diaspora and led mainly by people who perhaps now have family in Israel or spent considerable time in Israel. Because there are many communities who still very much cling to diasporas within a diaspora identities.
We danced the Hora and the Lezginka (Caucasus folk dance) at our wedding, and I hope my children (mixed Ashkenazi and Mountain Jew) do the same.
Amazing topic. I am in the process of converting, and am 50:50 White & African. Instinctively I approached Judaism as a whole, and was open to helping preserve songs, rituals, foods & more from any diaspora culture ✡️. Online connection helps us even more with this. I see Ashkenazi Jews interested in henna, Sephardi Jews learning about Hasidism, Indian Jews dancing Hora and American Jews learning Israeli slang etc. All of it is beautiful and I pray that the great diversity of thought and practice cultivated is preserved even when Am Israel doesn’t segregate it by diaspora. If you think about it: we already have great diversity of thought and era when studying Torah. Why can’t we treat more recent history the same way and embrace it all?
Thank you so much for your beautiful comment! Yes, let’s embrace it all!
Beautiful and well written.
Thank you so much!
Please record and document all the ethnological knowledge you can still collect, so some of the knowledge, if not the practice, is conserved
On the surface, the perception that we are essentially wronging a right by reintegrating into one community seems correct; however, the costs of that are the tragic loss of thousands of years of beautiful culture and traditions. The traditions that kept these communities alive for thousands of years. I suppose, the answer is to cling more towards the traditions within the religious framework and not so much the cultural traditions. With that said, contrary to what the founders of the state of Israel anticipated, the culture of the modern state of Israel is a lot more Middle-Eastern and less European. As an Iraqi Jew, the modern Israeli culture parallels my experience and culture more than an ashkenazi Jew.