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