The Ashkenazi Binary: How European Orthodoxy Crushed Middle Eastern Jewish Fluidity
What is the "Ashkenazi binary" of Judaism I mentioned in the post about clergy in Denmark? Here's a brief explanation.
It all begins in 19th-century Europe, with the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) movement. European Jews were torn in two: on one side, the "enlightened" who wanted modernity and left religion, and on the other, rabbis who reacted in panic, built walls, and said: "Nothing may be changed." This is how "Orthodoxy" was born—as a rigid counter-reaction to secularism. A situation of 0 or 1 was created.
In the lands of Islam, this war simply didn't happen. There, no defensive "Orthodoxy" emerged. Judaism remained a flexible and natural continuum. There was no tension of "religious vs. secular." You could go to synagogue in the morning and to the beach in the afternoon, and still be part of the community.
The tragedy happened in Israel.
The Israeli establishment (which was composed of Ashkenazim from both sides) presented immigrants with a cruel ultimatum: send your child to a socialist agricultural school (without religion) or a Haredi yeshiva (only religion)?
They forced people who lived in "both-and" to choose between "either-or."
This is how the inclusive and fluid Judaism of the Jews of Arab lands was trampled, and we got stuck with the rigid European model of "all or nothing." The result? The Judaism of the lands of Islam was reduced to "cultural traditionalism" and Orientalism on one side, and Shas (a Lithuanian imitation) on the other.