Beyond Suspicion

For more than four decades, socially disadvantaged Israeli Mizrahim—descendants of Jews from Middle Eastern and North African communities—have continuously supported right-wing political parties. Scholars, left-wing politicians, and activists tend to view Mizrahim as reacting against their structural exclusion, or more crudely as acting against their own interests, but Nissim Mizrachi locates the source of their “paradoxical behavior” within the limitations of the liberal grammar by which their outlook and behavior are read. In Beyond Suspicion, Mizrachi turns the direction of inquiry back on itself, contrasting liberal grammar—which values autonomy, equality, and universal reason and morality as the only authentic human choice—with the grammar of rootedness, in which the self is experienced through a web of relational commitments, temporal ties, and codes of collective identity. Recognizing rootedness as a fundamental need and desire for belonging is necessary to understand both scholarly and political rifts in Israel and throughout the world.

“With profound lessons for us all, this book excavates the rootedness at the heart of right-populist politics in Israel. In seeing his subjects fully, Nissim Mizrachi turns the mirror on ourselves to show us how our constricted vision limits the appeal of our ideas to the very people whose rights we claim to fight for. This book powerfully redefines our understanding of the illiberal world we increasingly inhabit.” — Ann Swidler, Professor of the Graduate School, Sociology, University of California, Berkeley

“In challenging sociological orthodoxy, Mizrachi dares us to conceptualize the social actor beyond our own dominant liberal paradigms. His extensive research among Mizrahi Jews calls into question prevalent ideas of individual autonomy, forcing us to recognize the role of rootedness and belonging in the self-conception of millions in Israel—and beyond.” — Adam Seligman, Professor of Religion, Boston University

Nissim Mizrachi is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University and head of the Challenge of Living Together area at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.