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 Post subject: The Ringworm Children
PostPosted: Thu Nov 23, 2006 4:15 am 
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Has anyone seen this documentary? 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).


 
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 23, 2006 7:25 am 
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But this can't be surprising. The evolution of human rights has taken a long time in the US. Look at the criticism of the supposed hypocrisy of the French government pro=Arab stand, and the discrimination by French society of Muslim, dark skinned minorities. Israel is no different, and has not been since it rejected the Christ.

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PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 10:33 am 
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EdoRiver, What does Christ have to do with this?The US is maybe the most Christian nation on Earth, and yet until Martin Luther King Jr.(1960's) official discrimination against colored people was the norm.

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Last edited by Antongarou on Sat Nov 25, 2006 10:42 am, edited 1 time in total

 
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 10:41 am 
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Also, Danial, I can't find any copy of the movie for Hire, but I found the director's E-mail here.

PS.As I understand it the movie is in hebrew without subtitles.

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PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 6:43 pm 
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Blacks/coloured/etc are still discriminated.

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PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 7:49 pm 
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Wow, this is news to me. We should try to get an interview with the director. Are there any books or documents that discuss this further? I need to do my research.

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PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 8:04 pm 
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Danial, you can find a copy here.

Quote:
In the early 1950's, approximately 100,000 immigrant children, primarily from North Africa, received X-ray radiation treatment for ringworm upon their arrival in Israel. At the time, the medical establishment thought ringworm a grave danger to public health. It was later discovered that these treatments caused high rates of infertility, cancer and death. This tragic affair was hidden from the public eye for decades... until now. Through exhaustive research and testimonies of survivors, this emotional documentary illustrates how stereotyping immigrants can have horrific consequences.


And you rock for bringing attention to this. I think I'll order a copy too.

Antongarou, did you guys hear anything about this in Israel?

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PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 7:11 am 
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Yes, the movie was screened on a major TV channel about 2003- at the time I wasn't much for documentaries and such, so I didn't see it, but that is the reason I told Danial he may have problem understanding it- it was produced by an Israeli, about Israelis, for Israelis.It was part of the general discourse of the discrimination against the Sephardic Jews going on since the 80's(including Ehud Baraks apology during his campaign)- right now it is pretty much accepted that they were treated badly during the years they came here and is a matter of common knowledge.

There is a whole different stink about "abducted Yemeni children"- Sephardic, specifically Yemeni, children that the doctors told the mothers were stillborn or died in the first few days of their life but instead were given to Ashkenazi families for adoption, which may or may not be true, the mothers believe it to be true of course, but there are so few evidence(to either direction) that such thing happened that it may be just a matter of them being in denial for years, or a few isolated incidents that got blown out of proportion.

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PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 6:53 pm 
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Wow that's really interesting. It's actually surprising that we didn't hear much about this in the Arab world.

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PostPosted: Mon Nov 27, 2006 10:44 pm 
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Esra'a wrote:
Wow that's really interesting. It's actually surprising that we didn't hear much about this in the Arab world.


Yeah no kidding. The Arab world would've had a field day with these findings.


 
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 8:00 am 
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I suspect it is because the Arab rulers&media don't want Arabs to think that there are "Good Israelis" and "Bad Israelis"-they may start thinking for themselves and ask themselves if the line between the "good" and the "bad" isn't that hard and fast, they may even (God Forbid!) decide that Israelis are people and not hateful caricatures/demons/whatever.Much simpler to portray all Israelis as evil and leave it at that.

Another possible reason is that the Arab media may not be listening to the inner Israeli discourses, only bothering to check on the one between Israel an the world.

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 12:35 pm 
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Antongarou wrote:
Another possible reason is that the Arab media may not be listening to the inner Israeli discourses, only bothering to check on the one between Israel an the world.

This one is much more likely.

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 3:29 pm 
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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"

Abducting 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.)


 
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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 3:53 pm 
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1)The thing is that Ashkenazi Jews tend to be both more left leaning and come from more prosperous(middle class) families, so there is much more tolerance among us.I suspect it is a matter of both culture and socio economic class-most of us have relatives in European countries and/or the US, and the "Jewish vote" in those countries also goes traditionally left-of-center.

2)Also the matter about the Russians and Anglo speaking community is easily understandable: the newer Russian immigrants are what may be nicknamed "cultural snobs", i.e. they consider the middle eastern culture of Israel to be "Inferior" to their own European culture, viewing Arabs as being "inferior" is a very easy and logical extension of that.The Anglo speaking community, to judge from the friends I have there tends to be more Orthodox and right-of-center politically, both of which contribute to prejudice against non-Jews.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 4:15 pm 
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Antongarou,

I cannot say that I shared your experiences.

I don't know what you mean by "left-leaning" but if it has something to do with tolerance, it must be some other left than we have here in Europe (or there in Europe, I am in Ireland). The Jewish vote in Germany wasn't really that left-wing, not for a long time. Jewish politicians are more prominent in the Christian Democratic Union (right/centre) and Liberal Democrats (in Germany right-wing liberals). I don't know about Britain or France.

I think the Russian immigrants in Israel feel week and long for somebody to look down to and treat like they have been treated in Russia. They are wrong, and they are destroying the country that welcomed them!

I am a cultural snob too. I don't see anything wrong with that.

I also don't see how Orthodoxy and right-of-centre politically contribute to prejudice against non-Jews.


 
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