“Very Ashkenazi Iraqis”: On Authenticity, Class Boundaries, and the Metaphoricity of Ethnic Language in Israel

This article explores transformations in Israel’s ethno-class structure, the social boundaries used to exclude and evaluate others, and the language available to Israelis for the representation of these boundaries. The main argument is that in the last few decades Israeli society has undergone a process of classing: class-based symbolic and social boundaries are increasingly salient at the expense of weakening ethnic boundaries. However, this transformation has not been accompanied by the emergence of a discourse on class identity. Thus, the old ethnic categories have been loaded with new layers of meaning and are increasingly used metaphorically to designate class. That is, when Israelis use ethnic categories, they often mean class. Examples drawn from the research literature demonstrate that the word “Ashkenazi” is now frequently used metaphorically to signify a middle-class lifestyle and middle-class culture. Consequently, the rising Mizrahi middle class is constructed as an inherently inauthentic deviation. Hishtaknezut (“Ashkenazification”) is thus not a pattern of “passing” performance – cultural mimicry aimed at assimilation in the unmarked group – but rather the discursive effect of labeling directed at the rising Mizrahi middle class, based on the assumed incongruence between their class and ethnicity. As the case of “Ashkenazification” demonstrates, in late modern cultures the recognition of authenticity is crucial for the attribution of social worth. Critical sociology should thus explore inequality in the recognition of authenticity of different ethnic groups and the injustices it produces.