How can return for SWANA and Arab Jews be a visionary gesture? 

This is the question our guests ask on JVP Radio Episode 5 - SWANA and Arab Jews: Imagining Return. Writer and curator Camille Lévy-Sarfati speaks about returning to Tunisia as a political act of resistance — a way to imagine narratives beyond the ones prescribed by Zionism. And scholar Livnat Konopny-Decleve shares her work on political imagination: how we can revisit the past not as a reactionary gesture, but as a revolutionary act that frees us from the dogmas of the present and allows us to build a liberated future. Together, we reflect on the work many of us have been doing over the last few years to build a global Mizrahi / SWANA Jewish Left in solidarity with Palestine.

This episode is part one of a two-part series dedicated to SWANA and Arab Jewish organizing. From NYC to Tunis our guests share how they are dismantling the Arab-Jewish binary by returning to their cultures and forging a future grounded in solidarity and collective liberation. 

CREDITS

Host & Producer: Noemie Hakim-Serfaty

Host & Producer: Rosa Schwartzburg

Producer & Editor: Fivel Rothberg

Intro Music: Lo Galerian by Eleonore Weil

Transitions and outro Music from Laura Elkeslassy’s upcoming album Ya Ghorbati | Divas in Exile

• Ahalan Wa Sahalan, written and composed by Maurice El Medioni
• Ala Srir Enum, after Habiba Msika.
• Abiadi Ana, after Zohra El Fassia

Violin Taqsim by Eylem Basaldi

Oud Taqsims by Rachid Halihal

Music Production: Ira Khonen Temple, Eylem Basaldi, Laura Elkeslassy. 

Vocals: Laura Elkeslassy

Key, Accordion, Piano: Ira Khonen Temple

Violin: Eylem Basaldi

Oud: Rachid Halihal

Drums: April Centrone, Nizar Dahmani

Bass: Marwan Allam, Zoe Aqua

Choir: Laura Elkeslassy, Yoni Avi Battat, Marwan Allam, Ira Khonen Temple, Eylem Basaldi, Nozar Dahmani, Rachid Halihal. 

SHOW NOTES

• Reading List on Mizrahi, Sephardi, SWANA and Arab Jews
• Shohat, Ella. “Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Jewish Victims.” (1988)
• Shohat, Ella. On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and Other Displacements: Selected Writings. (2017)
• Lavie, Smadar. Wrapped in the Flag of Israel: Mizrahi Single Mothers and Bureaucratic Torture. (2018)
• Azoulay, Ariella Aïsha. The Jewelers of the Ummah: A Potential History of the Jewish Muslim World. (2024)
• Livnat Konopny-Decleve’s film, The Rose of Ioannina; Nessij Collective, co-founded by Camille Lévy-Sarfati