Matti Friedman’s “Mizrahi Nation“ is a thoughtful, engaging, and highly commendable introduction to an overlooked dimension of Israeli history and society. Wisely warning at the outset that he won’t “try to offer anything resembling a comprehensive history,” Friedman nevertheless succeeds in highlighting many of the important ways in which Middle Eastern sensibilities now inform manners and mores in the Jewish state. Naturally I have a few quibbles, but in what follows I intend not to argue with his narrative but to supplement it.
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More about: Israel, Matti Friedman, Mizrahi Jewry, Talmud, Zionism