These three articles come from different news sources focusing on the same controversial incidents that took place in Israel in the 1950s. Thousands of cases from this period in Israel report Yemenite and other Mizrahi immigrants losing young children and infants, believing them to have been abducted by the Israeli government and used for experiments and research or put up for adoption by Ashkenazi families. The New York Times article written by Fezehai focuses mostly on the testimonials of people either searching for or reconnected with missing family members. Fezehai brings up some of the recent actions taken on by the Israeli government in response to rising calls for justice, including the admission by a cabinet member that “children were taken without their parents’ consent” and laws allowing families to access adoption files.
Abraham’s article uses this specific incident to talk about broader issues of racial division and oppression in Israel, bringing up an aversion on Israel’s part towards acknowledging the existence of an Arab-Judeo culture in favor of creating a binary between all things Arab and Jewish. Abraham calls significant attention to the racial prejudices that went into the abduction of Mizrahi babies and their adoption by Ashkenazim. Abraham also wrote one line that points to a particular narrative of Israel’s founding, mentioning “Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands in 1948.” The use of this phrasing makes it clear that Abraham is acutely aware of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and racial oppression in Israel in this article, likening the treatment of the Mizrahi Jews to that of Palestinians and other non-Jewish Arabs.
Fezehai and Abraham certainly have similar points to make through the articles, but come from different perspectives and different narrative understandings. One question I had that was not addressed was of the adoptive families and their level of participation in these incidents. Were they aware of how these Mizrahi babies had come to them, aware of the abductions and the lack of concept by the biological parents? Were they implicit in the scandal or bystanders to it?
