Reclaiming the Arab Other as Self: Young Mizrahi Jews Singing in Arabic
Dr. Nadeem Karkabi (Visiting Professor for Arab-Israeli Coexistence 2026)
In the last two decades, a growing number of young Mizrahi singers have been performing in Arabic. These performances are often an act of reclaiming ancestral cultural heritage, yet they also offer complex performances where the Jewish self is redefined vis-à-vis the Arab other.
This lecture comes to explain the appearance of this phenomenon and to describe its different performative formations, spanning a spectrum of semantic, sentimental, and symbolic communication. The second half of the lecture will focus on "cultural hista'arvut" as a musical, lingual, and visual performance in which Mizrahi Jews imitate Arabs, as a derogative parody that aims to entertain Israeli Jews.
Eine Veranstaltung des Zentrums für Israel-Studien (ZIS).