Okay now this is news to me. I just read the following on a thread in Mideast Youth’s forum.
Has anyone seen this documentary [The Ringworm Children]? I’ve been trying to find a video of it but cannot find it anywhere.
Apparently this documentary reveals one ugly secret of Israel’s past: deliberate radiation poisoning of 100,000 Sephardic Jews in the early 50’s, complete with equipment provided by the U.S. They were apparently singled out due to their darker skin complexion than the Ashkenazic Jews.
From what I heard about the documentary, I am absolutely disgusted that this happened, and the lack of outrage shown towards the Israeli government for hiding this. Here they are expecting repatriations for the Holocaust, yet deny this to the Sephardic victims of mass radiation poisioning who are apparently affected to this day(kind of like the Hiroshima and Nagasaki residents).
WTFish?!! Is this for real? What kind of sick hypocritical racist animals would do this? I’m surprised that this isn’t even well known in the Arab and Muslim worlds. If more Muslims found out about this, we could have much bigger anti-Israel carnivals!
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
{ 36 comments… read them below or add one }
(I also posted this at MideastYouth)
Three points.
1.
I don’t know everything that happened in Israel in the last few decades, especially in the 1950s, but this whole thing doesn’t make sense.
Sephardic Jews were discriminated against, yes, but not because of their “race”, but because they were less sophisticated than European/American Jews. Making them “whiter” wouldn’t have changed what European Jews perceived as “wrong” about them.
“abducted Yemeni children”
Abucting and adopting children doesn’t usually help against their “race”. It does, however, make it possible to teach the “right” culture to them.
I think that the two legends contradict each other. There was either a belief that Sephardic Jews were too dark OR a belief that they were biologically all right (and fit for adoption). It cannot be both.
2.
The reason the Arab world doesn’t talk about this is because it is about Sephardic Jews. Sephardic (Arab) Jews don’t exist according to most propaganda about Israel being some sort of American imperialism. If Sephardic Jews exist, Israelis become what Palestinian Arabs are: discplaced refugees. That would change the dynamics considerably.
For example, Israel would then have the right to invade any Arab country it pleases, since Arab countries traditionally understood that they had a right to invade Israel because of Arab refugees coming from it (even when these refugees fled AFTER an attempted invasion).
3.
I have heard that Sephardic Jews were discriminated against in Israel, especially Yemenitic Jews. But my own experience has been that they arelooked up to because of their better and more correct pronounciation of Hebrew.
My own experience was also that anti-Arab racism in Israel is mostly a sympton among Sephardic (and, oddly enough, Russian) Jews. Ashkenazim seem to be fairly immune*.
(* I did find a newsletter of the Anglo community in Jerusalem that advertised for shops that hire only Jews. As an English speaker and Anglophile myself I was devastated and shocked to see that English-speaking people were part of the problem! But conversations with taxi drivers who didn’t speak English and insisted on Hebrew even though they appeared to be able to understand Arabic made me think that perhaps most Anglos are not very racist, or not as much as some other people.)
Radiation treatments were widely used in many countries throughout the world in the 50’s and 60’s, before its harmful side effects became apparent. My own grandmother in Finland died of a heart attack after she was treated with radiation for breast cancer in the 60’s.
Google the title of the film, and you’ll find more information on this case. There’s not much evidence of a conspiracy, especially in Israel where there are boisterous opposition parties constantly debating every issue ad absurdum.
But it’s not surprising if Muslim conspiracy nuts will seize on this issue, and ignore all other facts.
There was discrimination against Sepharadic Jews, yes. And it wasn’t based on “race”, but indeed on culture - this sort of cultural discrimination has been going on between Sepharadic and Ashkenazi Jews for a very long time… at least 500 years, to the best of my knowledge. And it goes both ways.
Most of my friends are sepharadic or have one sepharadic parent… and nor them nor myself ever heard of this. Admittedly, most of them are not Moroccan Jews.
Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. It wouldn’t surprise me if there was indeed some sort of X-ray treatment for ringworm infections that was mandatory for people coming from certain states… and that the whole thing was blown out of proportion. I havn’t seen any of the described symthoms (patchy hair, various mutations, etc) anywhere in Israel.
OK. As I was writing this, I called a friend of mine who’s an expert on the Moroccan Aliyah. She tells me that her father got this treatment. And the real story is:
There wasn’t much experience with ringworm in Israel (and it was a common and serious problem with Moroccan Jews), so the State asked USA for advise. USA suggested x-ray treatment and supplied the equipment. The treatment was later discovered to be harmful, and the children who went through it suied the State for malpractice (or the equivalent on a state-level). The suit was won a year ago, and the victims got compensation. Just an ignorant fuck-up, no conspiracies.
Generally speaking, the Moroccan Jews were the poorest and the least educated of the Sepharadim (compared to the rich and powerful Yemenite, Egyptian, Lybian and Persian Jews, for example). They were also the largest group… who felt that they were being looked down upon. This feeling of inadequacy manifests itself in various conspiracy theories and accusations of racism.
Yeah, Jews are also hunams and therefore just as fucked up
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
While it is possible that the poisoning actually occurred (worse things have happened in history), I wouldn’t assume that it is true without a lot of convincing. There are many groups that benefit from just the perception of this radiation poisoning (whether it actually happened or not).
Drima-
I can’t stop giggling. I am married to a Separdic Jew…a whacky Iraqi. Hey…maybe them radiating her head explains her behavior!!!
Naw…the Israeli government did some rather racist, ignorant things like separating Yemen kids from there families. Raccoon and the x-ray stuff makes sense though I never heard of it until today. They sprayed my wife’s parents and siblings with DDT when they got off the airplane from because they believe all these folks had the crabs!! Remember…this was the 40’s and 50’s and racial sterotypic thinking was just starting to be attacked in the West.
Even when I got married we got some off-handed remarks about me marrying a darkie (was before the real darkies started arriving from Ethiopia).
But remember…in Iraq and other Arab countries Israeli’s, including Ashkanzi, risked there lives to help get many of these people out.
In Israel today…we mostly joke about the Jewish ethnic groups…Morocan always carry knives, Iraqi’s always wear pajamas (true for the most part), Turks like anal sex, Persians are crooks, Georgians are stupid, Germans are fastidious and all that stuff. But there is enormous intermarriage and this is hardly even an issue anymore.
Except for the Irish…
Hey Drima-
If you are into conspiracy theories today…sink your teeth into THIS one!!!
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378501838&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
I don’t know how to make it a regular link…maybe you can.
Drima
Darn it…I meant this conspiracy:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378504117&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The bloody Irish!
OMG Howie thanks a lot for that link. I’m gonna make a post about it.
Raccoon & Andrew, thanx for the info. This all sounded very crazy to me. I gotta do some extra reading.
Owiee… there was a LOT of discrimination. I can tell you whole stories. Like being taken into the ‘army’ - placed near a kibbutz and, while one had to work (to build it up) and eat there not allowed to sit in the dining room of the kibbutz but had to sit in the kitchen. Or, applying for a job in your profession but not getting it because the (truely) mongloide ashkenazie child of one of the managers (that happen to be your neighbor and ashkenazie) was supposed to be better. Or, passing an exam at your work which qualifies you for operating independent manager while your collegue an ashkenazi did not pass it - but did get the promotion. Or, going to kindergarten and being told you eat like an animal in front of all the other (ashkenazi) kids and being made a showcase of (of how NOT to eat). I can go on and on and on and on…. It was about culture allright, but that doesn’t matter does it? Loads and loads and loads of people were getting hurt, and most of them in their childhood.
For some interesting reading about the early days (that continued until the palestinians came knocking on the door in the early 90’s when the ‘yaffe-nefesh’ (beautiful souls = sarcastically meant) could hardly pretend they cared about human rights while denying those of the mizrachi jews’ rights) you can look up the Black Panthers….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Black_Panthers
Those yaffeh nefesh were high and above us, they were ‘human’ - we were not. We were, in the words of golda meir “not nice people” - it was Menachem Begin that brought change - the winning of the Likud for the first time since the histadrut (avoda) the opposition party winning in the elections that brought the difference (soon after ‘cassette music’ - mizrachi/arabic based music - not shown on tv or heard on the radio or produced on vinyl records - but only sold on cassette tapes in market-places, hence the name - lost its taboo). The love of the mizrachi jews for the Likud is mostly and often solely for that reason (although wearing off now).
So, let’s not play ‘it was nothing’ - because IT WAS something. I know a man who’s father died because of homesickness to Iraq because he couldn’t stand the hardness and the meanness of the people (ashkenaziem) here. And, furthermore, there was an article in the newspaper a couple of years ago about this lawyer that finished his studies and no lawyer-office would invite him for a meeting after writing more than 200 letters, until………. he changed his name in an ashkenazie name. So, I’m not at all that sure it has been wiped out this discrimination. Who lives in Kiriyat Shmone? Ashkenazie’s? In Sderot? In all of those towns in the peripheria that were needed for so-called ‘development” - but were in fact just places people were placed in as pawns for population purposes and now have the highest unemployment rates?
Sorry, Drima - you may erase my rant, if you want - but I get so angry about people pretending it was ‘nothing’ GRRRR - And, I would even shut up if it wasn’t for the fact that I got so bloody angry the other night when my son came home early instead of going a night out to the disco because two of his friends were not allowed in because they don’t look the ‘ashkenazi’ way. C’mon Howie - excuse me, but how do you explain that then, hey?
Tsedek -
Protectionism is not the same as discrimination. Of course it’s extremely nasty - and if the mongoloid was not the manager’s son, I’d say it’s pure racism - but the way you tell it, it’s just good ol’ favoritism.
There was discrimination. *shrug* people are morons. And it wasn’t “nothing” - but the idea is that it’s in the past. The Mizrahi-majority towns are not Gulags - populations are not forced into them. And a relatively large percentage of Israel’s lower class is Mizrahi, especially descendants of Moroccan Jews. It is reasonable to expect lower living standards and higher uneployement among the lower classes.
Which club was that? And are you sure it was because they look mizrahi? Sounds quite unlikely… and if it’s true, you can sue the club for a hefty sum.
Tsedek-
And you Muslims out there think you are the only ones that fight…heh…watch us Joooz get after each other.
I will say it again…this stuff is has been a minor issue for at least 25 years and has not been a significant issue since the 1950’s and maybe 60’s.
I remember those “black panthers”…what a joke. They went to a real Black Panther convention in Rome around 1968 and got their asses thrown out because they were just a bunch of Jew Honkies. That movement lasted about 45 minutes. What a JOKE!
Israeli’s treat lots of people like shit…especially each other. Just try to wait in line or get a job without “protexia” (connections), or drive your car, ask for extra ice in a resturant. Israelis, at least in public…are equally abusive to whomever.
Of course there are sterotypical and prejudious feelings.
But some of those sterotypes are true! Why do you think I married an Iraqi woman? Because she bows to me and kisses my feet. I can slap her bitch face whenever I want and she takes it because she understands the white man, especially the American white man is her MASTER. She cooks and cleans. I am the ONLY person in my upper class neighborhood that does need a MEXiCAN because I have a Sepharic slave…humble as the earth itself. Ignorant and happy to serve her superior. Ken adoni! Damn right! Just clap my hands twice and yell “isha ochel”!
OK…fantasy over…she actually came from a promient Iraqi family, very well educated and well-respected until the Iraqis took everything they owened and sent them packing.
Joking aside, there is extensive intermarriage, my family alone has Poles, and Russians, and Tunisian and Morrocans, Iraqis and lots of mixes. The Defense Minister is Iraqi I think, the President a Persian and on and on. The thing we don’t like or accept are the stinking Irish. (Actually one of my close Morrancan friends married a dude from Dublin…but she is the ONE exception)
Tsedek…ata lo Tzodek…or as my mother-in-law says..ata lo sodek.
Howie & the Raccoon, I stick by my words. Maybe it seems like it was ‘nothing’ - some phase people had to go through, but it was bloody horrible and if that is not discrimination, what is?
That club was somewhere in the Sharon area (don’t know exactly, but it is not even such an exception, it happens all the time and this was not the first time friends of my son experienced it either - I remember even a few newspaper articles on the subject).
The Black Panthers may have looked to you ‘ridiculous’ - and maybe they were, but they were formed from heart-ache, from being humiliated, from being treated as sub-human, second-class citizens.
C’mon hey! People being placed somewhere strategically are not that easy to jump on the bandwagon, get into a certain pattern.
The previous Defence Minister (currently in charge of Transportation) is Persian, too. He was the biggest ’star’ Voice of Israel’s Persian program had, by the way.
That said, there’s a stereotype around that mizrachi teens are poor, criminals, alcoholics, and prone to violence. The ‘ars’ stereotype. But at the same time, Russian teens have an extremely similar reputation as of the grand aliya of the 90’s.
Oh, a bit off-topic now but VoI in Persian is still broadcasted in Iran. Gets Iranian callers, too.
a very clear example is the way the beitar jerusalem and macabi tel-aviv supporters see each-other.
Tsedek-
My son lived in Petach Tivah with his cousins for 2 years. The family is Tunisian-Iraqi. My son could pass for Ahab the Arab and his cousin is very dark with dred locks and a “trans” addict like so many of the lost teens of Israel.
They went to clubs all over Israel and never once got hassled about their swarthiness.
Of course I am aware that crap happened…and will happen. Hell, there is also enormous prejudious against the wave of Russian immigrants…and I have heard them getting trash talked worse than anyone, Palestinians included and I also hear plenty of Sepharics putting down other Sepharics (my nephew swears Yemens are nice but stupid).
It is an issue of scale. I never heard of an Iraqi being lynched by a bunch of pissed on Yekim in white hoods or bet kennest Oley Bavel being torched.
50’s and 60’s yes,..just like the rest of the world, there was more ignorance and racisim. And many were punished, changes were made, it has not been “institutional” for a long time and there will ALWAYS be individual morons.
We all must be treated with decency…except the Irish…they don’t deserve nothing.
Roman-
Actually….there is no shortage of shithead teens in Israel and I have seen them in every shape color and size.
I do believe the Russian immigrants contributed grandly to the growing alcohol use in Israel…along with Western pop culture. Yes…there are still some populations that might have a higher incidence of crime…that I cannot speak to.
Bottom line…the Irish ruined the damn country.
Howie, are you suggesting I lie? I’m telling you, it happened several times the friends of my son got stopped at the entrance of a disco. They’re so-called ‘messibot’ - but there is even a name for such a person who picks out who can go in and who cannot. “Selector’ - just ask you son….
Things are now a lot better than they were before, (as I wrote: M. Begin brought change with his Likud), but once a population is settled at certain areas in the country it’s demographics and you can very easily point at the places where poverty is an overwhelming majority, and they are always (!) towns and cities mizrachi jews were planted in - in those days….
Btw: what do you have with Irish?
Tsekek-
Read again..I said it is an issue of “scale” not that it does not happen. Don’t be mad at me motek
What do I have against the Irish? Aren’t they responsible for the bombing at Pearl Harbor?
Howie, it happens, and the fact that it happens at any scale is reason enough to oppose it.
Tsedek, it happens, but not as often as it used to. But yes, there’s still a lot of residual bigotry in Israel.
But do we really teach our children not to be bigots? On any side? I doubt that we do, and if we do, then we clearly don’t do so well enough. (In fact, I doubt if we even really can … but that’s another topic for a different forum, I think).
Others here have commented on the ringwork and DDT incidents. They happened, out of a combination of ignorange, and misguided concern. I truly do not believe that malice was involved - heck, if the aim had been to kill these people or to permanently maim them, the country would have been better off never going to the trouble of bringing them here in the first place.
It’s all the bloody Irish, with their beer and gin and Irish bagpipes!
They are ruining the world to please their Fomorian masters. And it is well known that Molly Bloom’s in Tel Aviv is a secret Fomorian temple.
And please note that Muhammad Abu Tir, the arch-terrorist, is actually an evil Leprechaun. Just look at his picture - the Irish connection is obvious!
Actually it is the green hats, long stem pipes and that absurd accent with its “r’s” that roll more than those of my Iraqi mother-in-law that piss me off.
Damn the Irish…damn them one and all!!!
It is interesting to see how the tables have turned with Ashkhenazic and Sephardic Jews over the past few centuries. During the Middle Ages, the Sephardim produced most of the Jewish world’s truly noteworthy scholars and thinkers. Today, the Ashkhenazim overwhelmingly dominate those ranks.
One Jewish group I’ve had a certain fascination with is the Bukharic Jews.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukharan_Jews
I like Jon Stewart’s description of Abu Tir as “Carrot Bottom.”
How many Muslims are familiar with “The Jewish exodus from Arab lands refers to the 20th century emigration of Jews, primarily of Sephardi and Mizrahi background, from majority Arab lands. Typically, this emigration followed discrimination, harassment, persecution, and financial confiscation on the part of the majority population and/or government agencies. Approximately two-thirds of affected Jews emigrated to the modern State of Israel; other common refuge destinations included the United States, Canada and France.”
If you thought about it, it might be an explanation as to why there were all those Sephardic children to have ringworms in the first place.
As for the Yemeni children who were supposed to have been kidnapped by Jews and sold to the USA to conduct radiation experiments on, exactly how did the Jews of Yemen go about it,
“Including Aden, there were about 63,000 Jews in Yemen in 1948. Today, there are about 200 left. In 1947, riots killed at least 80 Jews in Aden. Increasingly hostile conditions led to the Israeli government’s Operation Magic Carpet, the evacuation of 50,000 Jews from Yemen to Israel in 1949 and 1950. Emigration continued until 1962, when the civil war in Yemen broke out. A small community remained unknown until 1976, but it appears that all infrastructure is lost now.
Jews in Yemen were long subject to a number of restrictions, ranging from attire, hairstyle, home ownership, marriage, etc. Under the “Orphan’s Decree”, many Jewish orphans below puberty were raised as Muslims. This practice began in the late 18th century, was suspended under Ottoman rule, then was revived in 1918. Most cases occurred in the 1920s, but sporadic cases occurred until the 1940s. In later years, the Yemenite government has taken some steps to protect the Jewish community in their country’”
And then there is the rest of the ME. How many Muslims have any knowledge of the forced migration of Jews in their hundreds of thousands from Arab countries in which Jews had lived for thousands of years.
A very unpleasant character Mr Barry Chamish has been pushing these conspiracies about Jews and children for several years now. The real story is reported in a medical journal.
The BMJ report
“The Israeli government has announced that it will give financial compensation to former patients with ringworm who were given radiation treatment and who then developed cancer. In common with other countries, Israel treated patients with ringworm over four decades ago with high dose radiation. Now the Israeli government–while insisting that radiation was then a “treatment of choice” for the fungal disease–has decided to compensate these victims or their dependants financially.
The compensation results from a law passed by the Knesset (parliament) after a group of patients who had had ringworm showed evidence of a direct link between the radiation and their tumours. Money, in the form of one off grants or monthly pensions, depending on the severity of the disability, will be distributed on a case by case basis. Immigrants who underwent such radiation treatment may file applications for compensation in district health offices. Only those who arrived between January 1946 and December 1960, received radiation treatment, and later developed cancer may apply. “
Children in the US also were treated for ringworms in this way. When I was growing up in Australia we had our feet put in an x ray box for fittings for new shoes. Plus we had to have an ray each year for tuberculosis, and they were strong x-rays. Nobody really grasped how dangerous it was.
It is saddening to think that evil stories like this about Jews are so readily believed. Now I can understand why Saudi or Syria for example can warn people to watch out for Jews drinking the blood of their children. Jews are just not human beings to many Muslims.
The saddest thing about anti-Semitism amongst Muslims is that though Jews along with Christians and other non believers were treated as dhimmi, institutionalised anti-Jew beliefs and practices were introduced to the Muslim world by westerners. Of all of the characteristics of the west to abandon, surely this is the one that should go.
The Protocols of Zion was a book made up by the Russian Secret Police to justify attacking Jews, but I read it is a popular book with Muslims. Hitler, who would have turned on Muslims once he dominated the world was accepted as a friend by the Mufti of Jerusalem and the Muslim Brotherhood. And young Palestinians admire him. Remember what he really thought of anyone who wasn’t Aryan. It is so sad.
Israel may need to be held accountable for some of its actions. But Judeaism is the forerunner of Islam as well. Don’t hate people for being Jews. So easily abandonning reason and accepting as credible such stories says that the prejudice is there, and powerful.
“Actually one of my close Morrancan friends married a dude from Dublin…but she is the ONE exception”
Who? I might know him.
I actually went to the site to read that thread … i laughed my guts out reading this shit … but no doubt the arabs are in general so paranoic and fall so easily for this kind of crap that this documentary is ways more than their brains can handle
I found this on it.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=458044
This wasn’t something that was supposed to cause harm, although it was tainted by Ashkenazi superiority over Sephardim.
This post & the subsequent discussion made my day!!!
Don’t get me wrong-it’s not because of the ringworm incident but because you opened a door into Israel that I never imagined existed.
The fact that I can relate to your internal racism stories is fascinating despite the difference in religion. Sadly,racism & culture snobbishness are ubiquitous & I guess all countries suffer from it.
Thankx for the priceless info & for making me look at Israelis with new eyes-not that of contempt but of humbleness.
Hipster, man will always focus on differences. If religion and race didn’t exist, there would be a large element of the society that would be prejudiced over tall people vs. short people, or rich people vs. poor people,, etc. In Canada, we have culture prejudices between the French and the English.
The Ashkenazi have always treated the Sephardics as lesser humans in many instances. It could be a Euro-superiority thing. I believe it has changed immensely now for the better now that 65% of all Jews in Israel today were born in Israel.
hmmm, I wonder, why is that so? Does it spawn from an innate feeling that we are inferior/imperfect & hence, by negatively emphasizing on each other’s differences, we feel superior? Why is that power over others makes us feel good? I don’t know but I believe if one is happy & confident about one’s self, one wouldn’t revel in picking on others.
How contradictory.Man gets easily bored from sameness yet feels threatened by diversity.We are so complex:)
The Best Israeli Discussion I’ve read so far
[....] I came across this post on Drima’s blog. It wasn’t the content of the topic that intrigued me but the subsequent discussion between the Israeli commentors[.....]
Hipster, in response to your question about peoples’ differences and feelings of racism. One thing we must keep in mind is that the brain functions efficiently by forming distinct “groups/sections” of data that allow it to better decipher and manipulate information and attain a more meaningful picture.
What do I mean by that? Think along the lines of an organized wardrobe; imagine if you had lacked shelves and hangers and were forced to dig through your entire collection of clothes, shoes, accessories to pick an outfit every morning. I’m sure girls would be in deeper sh*t than men, but you got my point.
Now the same theory applies to our brains. When we group people by race, color, age, religion, language, or communities even, we sort them into meaningful groups by which we can then form relations or comparisons. The latter is where feelings of superiority can begin to develop based on how we perceive that individual or society’s cultural, political, educational and economic standard in comparison to ours.
Let me second the Hipster’s motion on unique insight into the Israeli society this discussion offers. The little knowlidge of Talmudic teaching would led us to believe that exclusivity and uniqueness of Jewish Race in comparison to rest of the World Human Species would alone guarantee equality among the Jews themself. But maybe, just maybe this concept of exclusivity and clannishness adhered to by Jews worldwide for millenia rests on feet of clay, like their Golem. The tribalism wich Goims all over the world had to for most part outgrow in order to cope with societal development each century would bring out might eventually be the Ring Worm that will destroy Israel within.
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