by Asaf Elia-Shalev
University of California Press, 2024
[Publication date: March 19, 2024]
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.
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.
REVIEWS:
"Drawing on archival press accounts, government documents and interviews with surviving Panthers, Elia-Shalev — a Los Angeles-based reporter with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency — weaves a tale of young street toughs who underwent a political awakening. These young men saw their plight as a result of entrenched prejudice and lack of public resources, and they decided to fight back." ― J: The Jewish News of Northern California
From the Back Cover
"Israel's Black Panthers tells a story not so much forgotten as willfully repressed—the tale of the profound racism toward non-European Jews that goes back to the earliest years of the Israeli state and of a political awakening that challenges the most cherished liberal Zionist origin stories. Compellingly and sensitively told, Asaf Elia-Shalev's work is an antidote to the triumphalist myths that still dominate the political discourse and essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the divisions that continue to cleave Israeli society."—Ben Ehrenreich, author of The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine
"A beautifully told story about one of the most fascinating episodes in Israeli history, one with powerful lessons for the struggle for equality today."—Peter Beinart, author of The Crisis of Zionism
"A meticulous, intimate study that serves as a history of Israel's civil rights movement and a reminder that every struggle for equality begins with a few people who are willing to pay the cost. Timely and essential."—Joshua Hunt, author of University of Nike
"With this incisive and compelling book, Elia-Shalev has achieved two important feats. He has filled a vast gap in the standard history of Israel by centering the experiences of Mizrahi immigrants and their descendants. And he has traced the arc of Mizrahi populism from left-wing agitation in the 1960s to the right-wing extremism that has infused the current Israeli government to devastating effect."—Samuel G. Freedman, author of Into the Bright Sunshine
“This powerful book offers a key to thinking and seeing Israel in a different way.”—Ben Judah, author of This is Europe: The Way We Live Now
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Asaf Elia-Shalev is an investigative reporter and staff writer with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Based in Los Angeles, California, Elia-Shalev currenlty specializes in narrative stories of Jewish interest. His award-winning journalism has appeared in multiple languages and in dozens of publications, including the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Haaretz, and the Forward. He has covered news events in Israel and the wider Middle East and spent a while reporting on climate change in the Arctic while based in Anchorage Alaska.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of California Berkeley (2010) and a master’s degree in investigative journalism as a Toni Stabile Fellow at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (2015). He was also a journalist-in-residence at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (2017).
