The Experience of Ethnic Estrangement of Sephardi Students in Israeli Yeshiva High Schools in the 1980s

Abstract

The article deals with remembered experiences of estrangement and devaluation among Mizrahi graduates of yeshiva high schools in the late 1980s. Most of the literature on the experience of estrangement in educational institutions suggests that it derives from cultural or ethno-religious hierarchies. The singularity of this study is the link it finds between the experience of estrangement and the correlation of religious hierarchies with ethnic hierarchies, which in turn, produce an experience of estrangement. The research indicates a construction of Ashkenazi religiosity as standard and Mizrahi religiosity as faulty and out of place in yeshiva high schools. The religious practices and liturgy of the yeshiva high schools in this study followed a purely Ashkenazi tradition. In addition, in their remarks the educational staff focused attention on the inferiority of Mizrahi religiosity and religious practices, perceived as faulty, or devalued them by giving prominence to inversion rites. Internalization of this tagging caused the students to doubt the appropriateness of their family religious practices. At the same time, they were criticized by their families for adopting Ashkenazi religious practices. All this created an experience of estrangement, both in the yeshiva and at home.