Identity politics in Israel’s academic discourse: Have we reached a post-Mizrahi stage?

Abstract

My paper deals with the tension between postcolonial and post-critique theories. This paper explores the evolution of identity politics in Israeli literary criticism in the academia. The analysis traces a shift in Israeli literary criticism, influenced by U.S. articles, toward non-political esthetics, challenging identity politics, and emphasizing a universal ‘White’ identity, originally aimed at challenging power structures and White oppression. Rooted in post-structuralism, the study argues that despite its revolutionary origins, identity politics has inadvertently perpetuated power dynamics, particularly between ‘Mizrahi’ and ‘Ashkenazi’ Jews in Israel. The analysis traces a shift in Israeli literary criticism, influenced by U.S. articles, toward non-political esthetics, challenging identity politics, and emphasizing a universal ‘White’ identity. In my article I present the post-Mizrahi category which does not marginalize or silence power relations, and allows for ample movement between identity categories. Wishing to repair the persistent inequality in Israeli academia and public discourse, I support a reintroduction of identity politics to the study of literature, but via a post-Mizrahi approach which avoids fixing the Mizrahi in the position of the oppressed in the face of the hegemonic discourse.