Israeli Media and the Framing of Internal Conflict: The Yemenite Babies Affair

231 Pages·2009·1.36 MB·English

by  Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber (auth.)

I M F
SRAELI EDIA AND THE RAMING OF
I C
NTERNAL ONFLICT
I M F
SRAELI EDIA AND THE RAMING OF
I C
NTERNAL ONFLICT
T Y B A
HE EMENITE ABIES FFAIR
Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber
israeli media and the framing of internal conflict
Copyright © Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber, 2009.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-61346-1
Thanks to Cultural Studies for granting me permission to use the article
“Orientalism Reconsidered: Israeli Media and the Articulation of Resistance,”
Cultural Studies 17:2 (2003).
The journal’s website: http://www.informaworld.com.
Thanks to the Israeli government’s press office for permission to use the photos
included in the book.
Cover photo: “Yemenite Mothers and Their Children at the Ein Shemer Immigrant’s
Camp, September 9, 1950,” by Fritz Cohen. Courtesy of Israel’s Government Press
Office.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States - a
division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this
is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered
in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire
RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has
companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-37804-3 ISBN 978-0-230-62321-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230623217
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Madmoni-Gerber, Shoshana.
Israeli media and the framing of internal confl ict : the Yemenite babies affair /
Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Jews, Yemeni—Israel—Public opinion. 2. Kidnapping—Israel—Public
opinion. 3. Children of immigrants—Israel—Public opinion. 4. Public
opinion—Israel. 5. Ashkenazim—Israel—Attitudes. 6. Jews, Oriental—Israel—
Social conditions. 7. Mass media and public opinion—Social aspects—Israel.
8. Israel—Ethnic relations. I. Title.
DS113.8.Y4M33 2009
305.23086'912095694—dc22 2008051020
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Macmillan Publishing Solutions
First edition: August 2009
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to the memory of my father, Aharon Madmoni, who inspired
me to research this story.
Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: The Personal, the Political, and the Theoretical 1
1 P resent But Absent: Official Narratives and the
Untold Mizrahi History 19
2 I sraeli Media: History, Ownership, and the Politics of
Mizrahi Representation 43
3 Mapping the Media Coverage of the Yemenite Babies Affair 69
4 Media Discourse: Coverage, Cover-up, and Criticism 129
5 I sraeli Media and the Articulation of Resistance:
Rabbi Meshulam’s Revolt 159
6 M ulticulturalism and Unity: Future Implications of
the Unresolved Yemenite Babies Affair 175
Notes 193
Bibliography 211
Index 219
List of Figures
3.1 A nurse teaching Yemenite immigrant mothers how
to diaper their babies at the Rosh Haa'yin camp,
October 1, 1949, by Kluger Zoltan 81
3.2 A Yemenite grandfather helping to look after his grandson,
January 12, 1949, by Eldan David 115
4.1 Tzila Levine and Margalit Omeisi, March 27, 1997,
by Amos Ben-Gershom 150
Acknowledgments
Writing is a solitary endeavor; yet, ‘it took a village’, as they say, to make
this book happen. I wish to express my deep gratitude and appreciation
to all the people who helped me through the long process of researching
and writing this book. First, I want to acknowledge the many trailblazers
of radical Mizrahi thought and activism. Thanks for paving the way with
your courageous writing and fight for equality. I would also like to thank
my family, friends, and colleagues for their help, support, and inspiration.
I could not have done this without each and every one of you. I would like
to thank all the Yemenite families who shared their stories with me over the
years and the Yemenite activists for providing me with insights, information,
and documents, especially Rafi Shubeli for allowing access to his archive
and sharing his wealth of knowledge and analysis with me. To Avner Farhi,
Shoshi Zaid, and Shimshon Giat for sharing with me testimonies and
documents they have collected. To my dearest friends—Sara Salomon for
helping me with archive searches and Smadar Karni and Nurit Levi for
endless spiritual support.
I would like to thank my interviewees for their time and willingness
to discuss with me: Rabbi Korah, Yosef Dahoah-Halevi, Avner Farhi,
Rafi Shubeli, Rafi Aharon, Shimshon Giat, Ami Meshulam, Tzila Levine,
Shoshi Zaid, Sami Shalom Chetrit, Vicki Shiran, Tikva Levi, Yosef Shiloah,
Shlomo Swirski, Yossi Dahan, Hanna Kim, Shelly Yechimovich, Ehud Ein-
Gil, Yael Tzadok, Shosh Gabay, Iris Oded, Amnon Dankner, Ben-Dror
Yemini, Shaul Bibi, Ron Cahlili, Beni Torati, Esther Hertzog, and Ilana
Dayan. Without you this project could have never happened.
I would like to thank my teachers and mentors at UMASS, Amherst,
Briankle Chang, Henry Geddes, Leda Cooks, and James Young, for reading
earlier versions of this project and encouraging me to turn it into a book.
I am especially grateful to Ella Shohat for consulting and supporting me
with this project all the way from a dissertation to a book. My deepest grat-
itude to my friends and exceptional thinkers Smadar Lavie, Sami Chetrit,
Rafi Shubeli, Eli Avraham, Yossi Dahan, Yael Tzadok, Claris Harbon, and
Barbara and Shlomo Swirski for reading portions of the manuscript and
xii Acknowledgments
making thorough comments and useful suggestions. I want to thank the
College of Arts and Sciences at Suffolk University for supporting me with
a summer writing grant and especially Bob Rosenthal, the chair of the
Communication and Journalism department, for his unfailing support and
encouragement through the process of completing this project.
I want to thank Farideh Koohi-Kamali at Palgrave Macmillan for
believing in this project from the onset and Brigitte Shull and the rest of
the team for your work during the editing and production processes. I
would also like to thank Sue Bumagin for editing the first version of the
manuscript and Martha Peach for writing the index.
Many thanks to the archives of the newspapers Maariv and Yediot
Aharonot for giving me access to the Yemenite Babies Affair files and to the
government photo agency for granting me permission to use the photos
in this book. And, finally, I would like to thank my family: my parents,
P’nina and Aharon Madmoni, my sister, Galit, my brothers, Yishay and
Alon, and my husband and greatest supporter, Michael Gerber, for the
endless encouragement and emotional and intellectual help. A special
thanks to my beautiful boys, Nadav and Gilad—being your mom always
reminded me how important this project is.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
The Personal, the
Political, and the
Theoretical
The day my aunt Hammama emigrated from Yemen to Israel in 1949,
she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. When she returned from the hospital
to the immigrant camp in Rosh Ha’ayin, the nurse who had accompanied
her in the ambulance took her baby in her arms and told my aunt to
step down. When my aunt turned her back, the ambulance and her baby
d isappeared, never to be seen again.
My father, himself a Jewish immigrant from Yemen, said he and the rest
of the family rushed to the scene minutes later when they heard my aunt’s
cry. He told me this story when I was a little girl, but only years later
did I understand the magnitude and ramifications of this traumatic event.
When I became a reporter, I heard similar stories from other families of
Yemenite and other non-European ethnic groups. I learned that hundreds
if not thousands of Jewish families in the state of Israel were carrying
this tragic narrative in their memory. This narrative is known in Israel
as the Yemenite Babies Affair. Through extensive research and interviews
with dozens of families and activists, I discovered that while the Israeli
government and the public had tried to forget and silence this Affair, the
Yemenite families concerned continued to suffer from the pain of their
terrible loss.
During the mass immigration to Israel from 1948 to the early 1950s,
hundreds if not thousands1 of babies disappeared from immigrant absorp-
tion camps and transit camps throughout Israel and from the transit camp,
Hashed, in Yemen. According to the testimonies given to the Kedmi
Commission (1995–2001) investigating the Affair, the absorption policy
governing Yemenite Jews required separating children from their parents
because the stone structures housing the babies, called baby houses,2 were