Degel Zion: Sephardi and Mizrahi Youth and the Sephardi Question

Abstract

This article examines the history of Degel Zion, which was established in 1938 as a Sephardi youth organization at the initiative of the Association of Sephardi Jews in Tel Aviv, and which operated until the latter years of the British Mandate. Degel Zion was established as a local ethnic organization but developed into a national youth movement that sought to organize Sephardi and Mizrahi youth and integrate them within the Yishuv and within the nation-building process. The article will discuss the manner in which Degel Zion related to the ‘Sephardi question’ – a term that referred to the social and cultural condition of the Sephardi and Mizrahi youth and their marginal status within the Yishuv. The article will explore the way in which Degel Zion justified its existence as an ethnic framework. The discourse on the Sephardi question, as promoted by Degel Zion, related not only to the influence of the national institutions on the shape of the ethnic problem, but also embodied a Sephardi-Mizrahi self-perception and historical narrative that the leadership and facilitators of the movement sought to inculcate in its young members.