Identity, Ethnicity, and Nationalism

Abstract

This article focuses on the changing cultural, social, and ideological characteristics of the central Sephardi Rabban Yochanan Ben-Zakai synagogue in Jerusalem, as a lens reflecting social and ideological processes of the local Sephardi community during the first half of the twentieth century. These included the community's attempts to consolidate its cultural uniqueness and civic identity vis-à-vis the surrounding and evolving spirits—within the Jewish community and outside it; its struggles with the local Ashkenazi community over historical and legal hegemony; its changing and evolving attitude toward the Ottoman and British Empires; and its gradual yet distinct adoption of the Jewish national framework. The article is based on an in-depth study of the archives of the Sephardi Commission (Va'ad Ha'eda HaSepharadit) in Jerusalem, as well as literary and scholarly sources and the local Jewish press of the time.