Enemies, a Love Story: Mizrahi-Arab-Ashkenazi Relations Since the Dawn of Zionism

by Hillel Cohen, Haim Watzman (Translator)

Overview

Originally published in Hebrew in 2021, Hillel Cohen’s Enemies, A Love Story argues that to understand the ongoing conflict in Palestine/Israel we need to examine the interactions among three identity groups: Mizrahim, Ashkenazim, and Arabs. Refusing to treat Jewish society as a monolith, Cohen shows how the ethnic divide between Ashkenazim (Jews of European descent) and Mizrahim (Jews of Middle Eastern origin) can inform and complicate how we view the wider picture of nationalism, religiosity, and oppression in this part of the world.

Cohen considers how and why Ashkenazi-Arab and Mizrahi-Arab relations have metamorphosed over time, from the final decades of the Ottoman Empire into the Mandate period, from the Nakba and its aftermath to the Six Day War of 1967, and from the political upheaval of the 1970s to the rise of the right-wing Likud party and the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. The author challenges widespread beliefs that “Mizrahi” is synonymous with rigid nationalism and “Ashkenazi” with progressivism and support for reconciliation, showing how religiosity and socioeconomic status have shaped Israeli attitudes toward Palestinians.

Readers interested in Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East should find tremendous value in this timely book on a sensitive issue.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780271099897
Publisher:	Penn State University Press
Publication date:	11/25/2025
Series:	Critical Studies in Palestine/Israel
Pages:	412
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.39(d)

About the Author

Hillel Cohen is Associate Professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of Year Zero of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1929 and Good Arabs: The Israeli Security Agencies and the Israeli Arabs, 1948–1967.

Editorial Reviews

As in his previous histories, Cohen refuses to allow preconceptions and the taken for granted to distort his narrative. He insists on allowing the historical agents speak for themselves, and enables the often astonishing complexities of history appear in their fullest. This book is bound to challenge most readers’ view of the past, put in question any naive reading of the present, and further complicate any vision for the future for the Israelis, Palestinians, and the Middle East at large.”

—Yaacov Yadgar, author of Israel’s Jewish Identity Crisis: State and Politics in the Middle East

From the Publisher