ISRAEL VOTES: How the Mizrahi-Ashkenazi divide still shapes Israeli politics - with Mijal Bitton

**Dan Senor** (0:00)
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**Mijal Bitton** (0:17)
You are listening to an Ark Media podcast. There is this grievance, and for many people it's a Mizrahi grievance, right? It comes and says, we have the will of the people, we represent the will of the people, and there is this elite that is trying to use what they think of as non-democratic means, which means institutions that have not been democratically elected, let's say like the judiciary, and they're trying to basically weaponize the deep state in order to continue to keep Mizrahim outside of the picture or outside of the halls of power.

**Dan Senor** (1:03)
It's 8 a.m. on Sunday, August 23rd in New York City. It's 3 p.m. on Sunday, August 23rd in Israel.
Before today's episode, a quick housekeeping note. On Thursday, October 22nd, just five days ahead of the Israeli elections, Call Me Back will hold a live taping at the Streicker Center in New York City, where I'll sit down with Dan Shapiro, Dahlia Scheinlein and Brett Stevens to discuss what's at stake in Israel's 2026 election and what its results will mean for the U.S.-Israel relationship. Tickets have just gone on sale, so if you want to join us, please follow the link in the episode description. Now on to today's episode.
One of the many strange things about Israeli politics is that some of its deepest political divisions are rooted in social battles that Israel appears on the surface to have largely moved beyond, that have been settled. Take the divide between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews, who are basically split about 50-50 among the Jewish population. In Israel today, Mizrahi food and music are mainstream, families are increasingly mixed as a product of mixed marriages between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews, and younger Israelis may have grandparents from Poland, Morocco, Iraq and Romania, all sitting around the same Shabbat dinner table. And yet, politically, the history of this divide remains remarkably powerful and, some may argue, enduring. To understand why, you have to go back to Israel's founding. The Jews who built the institutions of the new state were overwhelmingly European, Ashkenazi, in some cases, often secular. Then, hundreds of thousands of Jews arrived in places like Iraq, Yemen, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, and elsewhere across the Middle East and North Africa. They brought with them a different culture, generally more traditional, more communal, and shaped by centuries of life in Muslim societies. And when these two Jewish worlds met, they did not meet as equals. The Ashkenazi establishment controlled the government, schools, and cultural institutions. Many Mizrahi immigrants were sent to transit camps and shanty towns, and these peripheral development towns, and what were often called tent cities, while their traditions were often treated as something that modern Israel was supposed to leave behind. The resentment eventually became political. In 1977, Menachem Begin and the Likud Party ended nearly three decades of labor party rule, powered in significant part by Mizrahi voters. For many, that vote was not simply about left versus right, it was a rejection of the establishment that had governed Israel and in their eyes looked down on them since its founding.
Nearly 50 years later, that realignment still shapes large aspects of Israeli politics. So how can an ethnic divide become less important in everyday Israeli life while remaining so powerful politically? Is this simply the legacy of discrimination or did Mizrahi Jews also bring a different understanding of religion, of Jewish identity, and of Israeli nationalism? To help us understand that history and its political consequences today, I'm joined by Mijal Bitton. Mijal is a sociologist, a scholar, and a Jewish communal leader who directs the national study of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews in the United States. My conversation with Mijal right after this short message.
As Israel heads towards the October 27th election, Call Me Back listeners know that the stakes could not be higher. Shifting political alliances, debates over religion and state, and competing visions for Israel's future are reshaping the national conversation. Join the Shalom Hartman Institute, home of the For Heaven's Sake podcast, on Tuesday, September 8th at 1 p.m. Eastern for the Road to the Israeli Elections, Understanding the Political Landscape. It's a virtual session. Hear from Tani Frank, Director of the Judaism and State Policy Center, in conversation with Senior Faculty Member Masua Sagiv. They'll unpack the key issues, parties, and political forces driving this pivotal election. Register today for this timely virtual briefing and gain essential insight into one of the most consequential moments in Israeli politics at shalomhartman.org.
Michael Bitton, welcome to Call Me Back.