Israel's Black Panthers: The Radicals Who Punctured a Nation's Founding Myth

by Asaf Elia-Shalev

The powerful story of an activist movement that challenged the racial inequities of Israel.
 
Israel's Black Panthers tells the story of the young and impoverished Moroccan Israeli Jews who challenged their country's political status quo and rebelled against the ethnic hierarchy of Israeli life in the 1970s. Inspired by the American group of the same name, the Black Panthers mounted protests and a yearslong political campaign for the rights of Mizrahim, or Jews of Middle Eastern ancestry. They managed to rattle the country's establishment and change the course of Israel's history through the mass mobilization of a Jewish underclass.

This book draws on archival documents and interviews with elderly activists to capture the movement's history and reveal little-known stories from within the group. Asaf Elia-Shalev explores the parallels between the Israeli and American Black Panthers, offering a unique perspective on the global struggle against racism and oppression. In twenty short and captivating chapters,  Israel's Black Panthers provides a textured and novel account of the movement and reflects on the role that Mizrahim can play in the future of Israel.

Genres: History, Israel, Politics, Nonfiction, Middle East, Judaism, Jewish

341 pages, Hardcover

Published March 19, 2024

Reviews

[Tamar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't believe (actually I completely can believe) that I went my entire life as an Israeli American without any meaningful education on the Israeli Black Panther movement.
This book was incredibly written, centering the perspectives, experiences, and context of the Mizrahi Panther community within a narrative structure that felt like a novel.
It was a beautiful and pretty heartbreaking account of the Israeli Panther movement, and I'm grateful to know this story as I continue to navigate my own identities.

[Roee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book tells the story of a group of underprivileged Mizrahi Jews who were inspired by the Black Panthers in the US to fight for equality. It’s told from the perspective of the people who actually played key roles in the events, which makes the book read like a novel. It really pulled me in and kept me reading.

I didn’t know most of this history. It was interesting to learn about something that you don’t often hear about.

The author seemed to do a lot of research, he talked to a lot of the people involved, he uncovered records, and really put together this story from all these different sources.

Given what’s happening now, it’s interesting to learn about the politics and social in influences that led to how Israeli society is now.

I highly recommend the book to anyone who is interested in Israel, in Palestine, or just a history about the struggle for equal rights that you don’t often hear about.

[Jaylani Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally, a book on the Israeli Black Panthers and their impact on Israeli society and the Mizrahi Jewish population. Also, I was glad that the author discussed Kahanism, which has been a huge impact on the Mizrahi Jews and Sephardi Jews. I wish someone had the guts to discuss the impact of Kahanism on the Mizrahim population and as well as the history of Shas party, a Haredi Jew party of Mizrahi and Sephardi Jew origin.

[James Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Idk why my review didn’t save so I’ll try again

A fairly smooth read as it plays out almost like a novel. Interesting to see the similarities between Black Panther Parties outside the U.S. A bit disheartening seeing the same tactics used to break it apart (disunity, counterintelligence, drugs, etc.) however it ends on a positive note and I’m glad to hear that Abergel is doing better and still making an impact.

[Umar Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not nice boys

[Jurij Fedorov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh, I was looking for a deeper look at bigotry and unique history of Israel and Mizrahi Jews. Instead it's a book about losers calling themselves Black Panthers as they are Arab Jews and poor compared to Ashkenazi Jews who founded Israel. I wanted a deeper look at this conflict and why it came about yet we get nothing. We follow single people and their dull lives instead of focusing on the overall meta story.

It's about Arab Jews becoming radical left-wing and even supporting Palestinians and PLO and anti-Semitic Black Panthers of USA. Yet they are the right-wing group today so this history feels pointless as the author never explains why these single people who protested changed Israel's history. Seems like they were just weird left-wingers who didn't even find a way to control or guide their very own group at the moment or long-term.

Main issues was the terrible audio quality making me unable to hear it all.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating and revealing tale of unintended consequences: how neglected Mizrahi Jews pushed Israel's supposedly left-wing government actually to the left in the early 70s, mostly through mobilizations that occasionally let slip the mask hiding the Azkenazim's racist assumptions about treatment of North African Jews (the Panthers' leadership was almost wholly Moroccan)--there are some truly appalling remarks from Ben-Gurion and Abba Eban and Golda Meir about the presumed ignorance, brutality, and bestiality of the new immigrants, a "rabble," as Ben-Gurion called them. The degree of neglect is striking, so much so that Mizrahi kids were essentially denied any opportunity even for basic schooling (some of the leaders here, who eventually end up in the Knesset, celebrate and fetishize their own imperfect Hebrew) and formed street gangs very much like what you see in classic 1950s American JD lit and movies. At the end of the Panthers' brief time in the spotlight, about 1970-73, the government pushed through a package of reforms increasing aid, food, and housing support and allowing people with small arrest records to enlist. And that feels like the ultimate meaning here: despite the occasional threat to disrupt government business, the Panthers mostly wanted the system to work better--they were hardly Marxist revolutionaries, despite occasional hobnobbing at leftist conventions, and they came quite late and partially to notions of solidarity with Palestinians.

The ultimate radical-chic tragedy here is that the Panthers' support, cultural and electoral, seems to have come mostly from communists and sympathetic leftish Ashkenazi voters; the mass of Mizrahi voters instead fomented the rise of Likud from the mid-70s on, with its increasing militance and increasingly forthright racism and refusal to accommodate even the most basic nationalistic aspirations for Palestinians reversing the Panthers' politics.
Excited to see what my friend Oz's book, which also discusses this topic, will have to say.