My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel

by Ari Shavit

In a Tel Aviv café, I meet Gal Gabai. A friend and colleague, Gabai is a journalist and the anchor of a popular political talk show. I ask her what makes her identify with Aryeh Deri. “You are a secular feminist left-winger,” I say to her. “You are committed to democracy, liberalism, and the rule of law. Why are you mesmerized by this ultra-Orthodox politician who was convicted of taking bribes and whose world is so distant from yours?” Gabai, who is a decade younger than Deri, says that ever since she was a young girl in 1970s Beersheba, she remembers being torn between two polar forces. One was ruge raas: the edict to hold your head high. The other was khshumeh: shame, the need to hide from others, not to let them see you in your disgrace. For dozens of years khshumeh was stronger than ruge raas, shame stronger than pride. “There was a feeling that there was something wrong with us, with Oriental Jews,” Gabai says. “That there was something tainted and inferior. That’s why we bowed down to the Ashkenazim and abased ourselves before them. There was a subtle, complicated sort of self-loathing, a deep unease with one’s self. Until Deri came and proved that we could stand tall and proud—walk among the Ashkenazim as equals. Deri brought North African Jewish tradition to center stage. He said we were just as good, if not better. He awoke the ruge raas in us. He let us lift our heads high. He gave even Oriental yuppies like me the ability to be at peace with ourselves and feel ...