Zionist Poet, Arabic Poetry Prize

Several journals recently reported that Dutch Jewish Zionist Tuvit Shlomi won a prize for Arabic poetry:

• Dutch-Jewish poet masks Israeli roots to win Arab prize (Haaretz)

"Winning the competition is an opportunity for me to show that I'm rooted in the Middle East just as much as the other applicants. That Israel is for me what Morocco is for them," said Shlomi, who had lived in Israel for a year, frequently visits the country and speaks fluent Hebrew.

• Jewish poet changes name to win Arab contest
  (al-Arabiya)

"My Dream is Dead" is a poem exploring Shlomi's relation to Israel, where she has relatives.

"It is about searching for a home, a purpose, for the real Israel," she said. "But those are things I see in it, and I want to leave it open for other people."

• Dutch Jewish woman wins Arab poetry prize
  (Jewish Review/JTA)

Shlomi, whose late mother was a Holocaust survivor and father is Israeli born, described herself as “consciously Jewish.” Though born in Utrecht, Holland, and a congregant at an Orthodox synagogue, Shlomi said it was not a stretch for her to apply for a prize that promotes Berber and Moroccan culture.

“I feel close to other Mediterranean cultures because they remind me of my own,” she said.

“The Dream is Dead” was born from Shlomi’s internal debates about the dream and reality of Israel, where she has many relatives.

“It is about searching for a home, a purpose, for the real Israel,” she said. “But those are things I see in it, and I want to leave it open for other people.”

• Top Arab Poet Is Jewish (Jewishweek/JTA)

“My Dream is Dead” was born from Shlomi’s internal debates about the dream and reality of Israel, where she has many relatives.

“It is about searching for a home, a purpose, for the real Israel,” she said. “But those are things I see in it, and I want to leave it open for other people.”

It is hard to see how Israel for Shlomi is like Morocco for a recent Moroccan immigrant. Shlomi's mother was Dutch, and Shlomi has spent only one year in Israel, whose culture is a recent import from E. Europe with some Central European and post-Soviet Russian admixture as well as a slight Arabic veneer either due to cultural theft from Palestinians and or inherited from Jewish Arabic immigrants despite racist Ashkenazi attempts at suppression of Jewish Arab identity.

Because no information is disclosed about Tuvit Shlomi's father, I cannot determine whether she might have Jewish Arabic ancestry, but even if she does, her Zionist involvement seems so large that she could well duplicate some of the anti-Arab bigotries of the Jewish-Arabic singer Noa, who has called Hamas Nazi-like.

While Noa's extremism probably comes from total internalization of the racist European Jewish mentality, the tragedy of Yemini Israeli Ofra Haza probably resulted from inability to integrate her Jewish Arabic cultural heritage with her life as an Israeli celebrity.
Sphere: Related Content