We do ourselves a disservice when we marginalize that part of our story.In the book, Friedman touches upon several key historical events that took place in Israel during 1948-1949. “The existence of the state of Israel,” said Friedman, “is not the result of European crimes, but has to do with the way Jews of the Middle East were mistreated. These difficulties lead to the question: What does the legacy of Friedman’s spy story mean for Mizrahi Jews and for European Jews? Jews from the Middle East clashed with the kibbutz movement and the inherent socialism of those times. In the early years of the Jewish state, the European idea of Zionism prevailed. Fifty percent of Israeli Jews have roots in the Islamic world.”įriedman observed that political and societal fault lines separate Jews from the Middle East and Jews from Europe. “Our politics, pop music, cuisine and behavior are Middle Eastern. “We need a creation story about that country that helps us understand the country we have in 2019,” he said. They ended up shaping the state in many ways, but they’re still on the margins of the story we tell.”įriedman asserted that key to understanding Israel is an acknowledgment of the country as thoroughly Middle Eastern rather than a European transplant of the Jewish world of Europe. But half of the Jews in Israel initially came from the Arab world. “Many of us grew up with simple stories about Israel-stories about Herzl, the kibbutz movement, Zionism and the Holocaust. “I’m suggesting a different way to understand what happened in 1948 and what has happened since,” he said. In addition to uncovering the roots of Israel’s highly successful spy program, Friedman also aims to supplement the Ashkenazi-European narrative regarding the founding of Israel. Their importance to history lies instead in what they turned out to be-the embryo of one of the world’s most formidable intelligence services.” Friedman writes that, in general, their missions “didn’t culminate in a dramatic explosion that averted disaster, or in the solution of a devious puzzle. In Haifa, two of them pulled off a daring car bombing in an Arab-owned garage. In Lebanon, the men ran a small concession stand selling snacks and school supplies near a school. In the 20 months before statehood, the four young men were deployed in Beirut and the Arab neighborhoods of Haifa.

That’s what they did, and it has a lot do with the success of Israeli intelligence.”

These guys were so similar to Arabs and passed for years. It’s definitely fuzzy and the Arab section sat on that fuzziness.

Some call themselves Arab Jews and some don’t like the term. “Who they are is complicated, and I don’t answer that question in the book. “These young men were close to the Arab world in language and culture,” Friedman said.

Spies of No Country by Matti Friedman