The Wadi Salib riots were a series of

street demonstrations A political demonstration is an action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause or people partaking in a protest against a cause of concern; it often consists of walking in a mass march formati ...

and acts of

vandalism Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property. The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owner. The term f ...

in the

Wadi Salib Wadi Salib ( ar, وادي صليب, he, ואדי סאליב; lit. Valley of the Cross) is a primarily Palestinian neighbourhood located in downtown Haifa, Israel, on the lower northeastern slope of Mount Carmel, between the Hadar HaCarmel and th ...

neighborhood of

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, in 1959, sparked by the shooting of a Moroccan Jewish immigrant by police officers. Demonstrators accused the police of ethnic discrimination against

Mizrahi Jews Mizrahi Jews ( he, יהודי המִזְרָח), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () or ''Mizrachi'' () and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained i ...

History

On July 9, 1959, police confronted a Wadi Salib resident, Yaakov Elkarif, who was drunk and disturbing the peace. When he began behaving erratically and hurling empty bottles at the police sent to arrest him, he was shot and seriously wounded. Residents surrounded the police vehicle and dragged an officer out of it. He was released only after shots were fired in the air.So much for the melting pot

Tom Segev Tom Segev ( he, תום שגב; born March 1, 1945) is an Israeli historian, author and journalist. He is associated with Israel's New Historians, a group challenging many of the country's traditional narratives. Biography Segev was born in Jerus ...

Conflicting testimonies arose from the event. One witness claimed Elkarif provoked the officer through threats. Another witness offered that Elkarif, perceived as a stereotypical Moroccan immigrant, violent and hot-tempered, was shot for his lack of standing in society. Lastly, another witness claimed that the officer fired with the intention of calming the situation which resulted in Elkarif's accidental shooting. After false rumors circulated that he had died, several hundred Wadi Salib residents marched to

Hadar HaCarmel Hadar HaCarmel ( he, הדר הכרמל lit. "''Splendor of the Carmel''"; or simply known as the neighbourhood of Hadar he, שכונת הדר, الهدار in Arabic) is a district of Haifa, Israel. Located on the northern slope of Mount Carmel be ...

, a predominantly Ashkenazi district, smashing shop windows and setting cars on fire. Back in Wadi Salib, the angry demonstrators targeted the headquarters of

Mapai Mapai ( he, מַפָּא"י, an acronym for , ''Mifleget Poalei Eretz Yisrael'', lit. "Workers' Party of the Land of Israel") was a democratic socialist political party in Israel, and was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger in ...

abor Party Abor or ABOR may refer to: * Abor, Enugu, a town in Ojebogene L.G.A., Enugu, Nigeria * Abor, Ghana, a town in the Volta Region of Ghana * Abor Hills, Arunāchal Pradesh * Abor people (disambiguation), multiple uses * Abor Formation, located in ...

and the ''

Histadrut Histadrut, or the General Organization of Workers in Israel, originally ( he, ההסתדרות הכללית של העובדים בארץ ישראל, ''HaHistadrut HaKlalit shel HaOvdim B'Eretz Yisrael''), is Israel's national trade union center ...

'' (the Israeli congress of

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

s). The police tried to disperse the demonstrators by force, leaving 13 police and 2 demonstrators wounded. 34 demonstrators were arrested. On July 11, riots broke out in other locales in Israel, particularly in large communities of

Maghrebi Maghrebi Arabic (, Western Arabic; as opposed to Eastern or Mashriqi Arabic) is a vernacular Arabic dialect continuum spoken in the Maghreb region, in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Western Sahara, and Mauritania. It includes Moroccan, Alge ...

immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

, like

Tiberias Tiberias ( ; he, טְבֶרְיָה, ; ar, طبريا, Ṭabariyyā) is an Israeli city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Fo ...

Beersheba Beersheba or Beer Sheva, officially Be'er-Sheva ( he, בְּאֵר שֶׁבַע, ''Bəʾēr Ševaʿ'', ; ar, بئر السبع, Biʾr as-Sabʿ, Well of the Oath or Well of the Seven), is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. ...

, and

Migdal HaEmek Migdal HaEmek ( he, מִגְדַּל הָעֶמֶק, lit. ''Tower of the Valley'', also officially spelt Migdal HaEmeq, ar, مجدال هعيمق) is a city in the Northern District of Israel. In it had a population of . There is a tower to ...

. It was claimed the riots were not completely spontaneous, and that a local movement, Likud Yotsei Tsfon Africa (Union of North African Immigrants) was involved in planning some of them. David Ben-Haroush, one of the movement's founders, was sent to prison. Ben-Haroush ran for the next Knesset

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operate ...

while incarcerated, on the Union's list, though he failed to cross the

electoral threshold The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of the primary vote that a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can ...

Ashkenazi-Mizrahi relations

The perceived discrimination against Mizrahim is believed to have been one of the main catalysts to the riot. This event was the initial recognition of an existing ethnic discrimination among Israeli Jews. Prior to the creation of Israel in 1948 the term “Mizrahim“ did not exist but entered the Jewish lexicon as a term used broadly by Ashkenazim to refer to Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. The Mizrahim were viewed as passive recipients whereas the Ashkenazim actively contributed to the creation of the Zionist vision of a Jewish-national community in Israel. Most Mizrahim were forced to immigrate to Israel, arriving as destitute refugees; a status they assumed when Arab states retaliated against the declaration of Israeli statehood in 1948 by seizing the homes and property of their Mizrahim citizens. The Wadi Salib riots still resonate in Israeli society as a symptom of the social malaise that led to clashes between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews.

Legacy

In 1979,

Amos Gitai Amos Gitai ( he, עמוס גיתאי; born 11 October 1950) is an Israeli filmmaker, who was trained as an architect. Gitai's work was presented in several major retrospectives in Pompidou Center in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and L ...

produced a film on the subject - ''Me'oraot Wadi Salib''. The Wadi Salib riots have been discussed in many scholarly articles.

References

External links

*Yfaat Weiss
''A Confiscated Memory: Wadi Salib and Haifa's Lost Heritage''
Columbia University Press, 2011.
A Black Flag in a Red City, Haifa City Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wadi Salib Riots 1959 in Israel Ethnic riots Protests in Israel Mizrahi Jewish culture in Israel Racism in Israel Sephardi Jewish culture in Israel