It was after Ishmael Khaldi, 39, visited the University of California, Berkeley campus as Israel’s Deputy Consul General to the U.S. Pacific Northwest in 2006 that he decided he needed to write a book. “People at Berkeley didn’t want to shake my hand because I was there representing Israel,” says Khaldi, author of the recently-released A Shepherd’s Journey, a biographical account of growing up as a minority in Israel. “This encounter, with such ignorance, deep criticism, and inflammatory rhetoric, was the most shocking moment of my career so far.”
Khaldi believes that much of the Western world – the Jewish community included – have a skewed and inaccurate picture of what Israel is all about.
Khaldi’s hope is that his book will help shed a little light on the subject, and provide an inside view of the country’s Muslim Arab minority. “Although Israel is part of Jewish identity and connects every Jew around the world, the state of Israel is not just Jewish and Zionist. It’s a country of all its citizens,” says Khaldi. “My very existence proves that Israel is one of the most culturally diverse societies and the only true democracy in the Middle East.”
The first Israeli diplomat of Bedouin descent, Khaldi grew up as a shepherd in a tent in a traditional Bedouin village.
The first Israeli diplomat of Bedouin descent, Khaldi grew up like most of Israel’s 180,000 Bedouin, as a shepherd in a tent in a traditional Bedouin village. He walked four miles round trip to school each day from his village of Khawalid, near the Jewish town of Kiryat Ata, in the Haifa region. Like most of Israeli’s northern Bedouin, his village established close ties with neighboring kibbutzim, and since the 1930s has had amicable relations with Jewish Israelis, who have played a big role in helping to advance Bedouin technological and agricultural production. Khaldi’s grandmother even learned to speak Yiddish!
Unlike most Bedouin, however, Khaldi, decided not to build a modest home nearby his parents and start his own family and herd. Instead, when he finished his national IDF service (a service both he and all of his brothers completed), he went off to see America. On his return, he earned a degree in Political Science at the University of Haifa, then an M.A. in Political Science and International Relations at Tel Aviv University. After this, he began working for the American embassy in Tel Aviv, then Israel’s Foreign Service, a move which landed him the job at the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco, and onto the Berkley campus.
Apartheid State?
Khaldi’s entire adventure – from tending goats on the hills of northern Israel to meeting North American volunteers from the neighboring Kibbutz Kfar Hamaccabi, to his first foray in New York, where he unknowingly runs across the subway tracks to get to the right side and is eventually “rescued” by a Haredi family in Borough Park, to his long-distance romance with a Bedouin girl from a village next to his family’s, to his formation of close friendships with secular and religious Jews and Muslims on two continents, and finally to his ascent to the Israeli Foreign Service – is recorded in his intriguing new book.
Khaldi attributes his own uncommon life trajectory to the opportunities available to minorities in Israel. “Israel is a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-religious society,” says Khaldi, referring to the religious freedoms, women’s rights, equal educational opportunities, economic development, freedom of the press, and legislative representation. “Israel can be an example to the region and help facilitate the creation of regional wealth and development.”
Of course, Israel is not perfect. There is some level of bureaucratic discrimination and an unequal allocation of resources, both on ethnic and non-ethnic bases. But, says Khaldi, the situation of minorities in Israel is no different from the situation of minorities in the United States and other Western democracies.
“There are African American diplomats representing the United States – now there is an African American president – but that doesn’t mean discrimination does not exist in America,” says Khaldi. “It also doesn’t mean that, because there is discrimination, African Americans should wash their hands of their country of birth.”
Furthermore, says Khaldi, given that the U.S. is 234 years old, and Israel is a mere 62 (plagued by external threats, massive immigration, and internal tumult), the status of minorities in Israel is way ahead of the curve, particularly compared with the treatment of minorities in neighboring Arab countries.
“Israel may be the only country in the Middle East where a Bedouin shepherd can become a high-tech engineer, a scientist or a diplomat. The sky’s the limit.”
Khaldi says that he is living proof that Israel is not the "Apartheid state" that some make it out to be. “Israel may be the only country in the Middle East, if not the world, where a Bedouin shepherd can become a high-tech engineer, a scientist or – a diplomat. The sky’s the limit.”
Arab-Israeli Integration
Admittedly, most members of Israeli minorities don’t make it as far as Khaldi. But he says this has less to do with the opportunities offered by the country than with a resistance to integrate; what Khaldi dubs “a self-imposed barrier to full integration into a modern life.”
Most Bedouin struggle between a desire to embrace modernity and at the same time preserve their heritage and customs. Khaldi is no exception. “In a lot of ways I am stuck between worlds,” he says. “We are a very traditional and conservative people, and it is difficult for us to integrate, particularly into modern, secular, liberal mainstream Israeli society.”
Interestingly, it is for this reason that Khaldi says he feels most comfortable in the company of religious Jews, whose culture and values tend to be much more conservative.
Khaldi recalls when he first landed at JFK International Airport, where he was shocked to be met by such a chaotic mix of people and graffiti, and cars and jet engines. “All at once, my exhaustion and anxiety broke open. I felt like the world was collapsing around me, and I cried like an orphan newborn lamb whose mother had just died,” he writes.
Then suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, he spotted a Hassid in the terminal, on the floor above him. “My heart swelled and my mood brightened immediately. I felt as if I had been lost at sea and suddenly spotted a beacon of light,” he writes. It was that Hassid that pointed him in the direction of Borough Park, Brooklyn, where he quickly found refuge with another Hassidic family.
Lost in New York, Khaldi found refuge with a Hassidic family in Borough Park.
Khaldi is confident that the resistance among Israel’s minorities to integrate will melt away with time. Already, the young Bedouin generation is much more integrated and modern than the one before. The same can be said for other Muslim minorities in Israel, although in general the level of resistance among other Arab Israelis is fiercer than among the Bedouin.
Unlike the Bedouin, who are by and large loyal to Israel, many other Arab Israelis are more politically-minded and align themselves with the Palestinians and their national aspirations. What accounts for the difference?
Khaldi explains that Bedouin, who by legend are said to be born of the wind due to their nomadic nature, don’t feel strong ties to any land in particular and never have; whereas the fellahin (Arab ‘farmers’) are agricultural and territorial by nature.
Khaldi came to understand this difference when he went to grade school in the nearby fellahin village of Ras Ali, and again in high school at the Haifa Arab Orthodox College, where he was chastised for his loyalty to Israel.
“I always thought I was an Arab, until I went to school with Arabs who told me no, that I was Israeli and Bedouin. Whereas we [Bedouin] consider ourselves Israeli first and Arab second, they consider themselves Arabs who happen to live in Israel,” he says.
One of his most bitter memories is of his first Memorial Day at the Haifa Arab Orthodox College, where he drew a great deal of attention to himself standing outside his class to observe the moment of silence. “This outraged my fellow students, who taunted, ‘The Bedouins standing with Israel are traitors,’” recalls Khaldi, whose brothers Hamudi and Amin were doing their service with the IDF at the time. “I felt miserable, but I stood there all the same. I am, after all, a proud Bedouin.”
He encountered the same sort of segregation from members of other Muslim communities. “Although I am an Arab Muslim, I am often greeted with suspicion by other Arab Muslims. They look at me first of all as Israeli,” says Khaldi, who now works as a political advisor to Foreign Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
Yet things are changing. Khaldi says that at least among Israeli Arab fellahin, the sentiment is beginning to wane and that like Bedouin, Israeli Arabs are starting to integrate.
“The world is changing. The younger generation is much more exposed to other values and other cultures and the differences between them are disappearing,” he says. Khaldi points to the growing number of Arab high school girls participating in national service (Sherut Leumi).
This is just one example of many that Khaldi says fills him with hope for the future of Israel and its minority populations. “I am a proud third-generation Israeli. And while it will continue to be a challenge to preserve our culture, I look forward to raising a young generation that is even more Israeli than me,” he says. “There are differences in tradition and religion between us, but at the end of the day we are all Israeli citizens.”
A Shepherd’s Journey is available both on Amazon.com and at www.Ishmaelkhaldi.com.
(16) Do Lern Hwei, November 23, 2011 6:19 PM
Good to have people like Ishmael Khaldi in Israel
Ishmael Khaldi's story should encourage supporters of Hamas and Hizbollah terrorism to seek peaceful solutions to conflicts. Even fellahin are granted the right to practice their occupation undisturbed since the inception of the State of Israel, so long as they do not attack Hebrew Israelis. I found out from the Singapore Muslims that the Temple Mount was placed under the care of the Wahb administration, which I do not agree with as Muslims had similarly occupied Hagia Sophia and turned it into their own place of worship till the current secular government turned it into a heritage site. Further reading uncovered the fact that the first Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan actually let the local Islamic authorities run that site. There could be some truth that if allowed to participate in the general political life in Israel, Muslims will be helpful.
(15) Mark Brajtman, August 8, 2010 3:13 PM
I hope that the AIPAC and BritishJewish Board of Deputies publish this story. The world must learn the truth, not accept lies from the Arab world. HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE AWARE THAT THERE ARE MUSILMS WHO ARE LOYAL TO THEIR COUNTRY, ISRAEL, ACTUALLY VOLUNTEER TO SERVE IN THE IDF?H OW MANY ARE AWARE OF THE NUMBER OF SENIOR IDF MUSLIM BEDUIN OFFICERS? TIME FOR THE WORLD TO WAKE UP AND LEARN THE TRUTH, AND START TO SUPPORT ISRAEL
(14) Anonymous, August 8, 2010 8:20 AM
As a passionate reader of your web site (I have subscription to articles from your site), I found this article very exciting and interesting. I haven’t seen this kind of articles in our (Israeli) newspaper; I think this should be published first of all to our internal public, because a lot of us are not aware that this kind of stories (that gives hope to good and better life) exists here. It should be given more publicity to this story in our media, and even more important to the public opinion abroad. I am going to spread this article among my friends here and abroad. I think that your web site is doing an extraordinary job in education, you have a very professional writers that now how to promote JEWISH issues to a non religious Jew like me. I have always been a proud Jew, but now I even know much better why I should be proud. I have learn a lot from reading the staff that you publish in your web, all I can say is that you succeed to bring me much closer to Judaism than I have been before I start reading your staff. Wishing you success in work,
(13) Anonymous, August 8, 2010 8:04 AM
My own family ties with Israel go back easily a hundred years and from my having had Beduin grazing their camels and livestock on my front lawn in drought years to my recently seeing a group of Beduin in the Negev in western dress (resembling Mexican movie desperadoes) together with this account certainly shakes up both my perceptions and my hopes for the better. I am grateful to him and to you for presenting this splendid account of our emerging Land.
(12) Anonymous, August 6, 2010 10:42 PM
An amazing story tht need to be publicized
I received this from a Jewish educator of adults I know and am so pleased and grateful to hear such an uplifting story in these dismal PR times for Israel. I hope Mr Khaldi's story will be widely publicized.
(11) Tessie lombe Lusale, August 2, 2010 5:52 AM
an eye opner to exposure.
A very heart warming and intriguing life story. An eye opener. Khaldi has opened a door of knowledge that is birthed out of a sense of rejection to the benefit of all of us. Well done Khaldi it takes one person to begin bridging a gap.
(10) vicki langford, August 2, 2010 4:59 AM
from bedouin shepherd
Found this so uplifting...thank you...cant wait to read the book
(9) Benjamin Ketang, August 2, 2010 3:59 AM
The Indonesia Israel Public Affairs Committee (IIPAC)
Shlomo it is good to read to read your article, at first meeting they tried us to be "Good" friends then slowly they want erase Yisrael from our heart and Never trust them....
(8) jgarbuz, August 1, 2010 11:21 PM
Jewish homeland AND the country of all of its citizens...
Like every modern country, though more like European democracies than the US, it is the homeland of a specific nation, the Jews, but also the country of all of its citizens, both Jewish and non-Jewish. But integration does not mean necessarily mean intermarriage. In Israel, there is no civil marriage. While civil unions and "common law" is recognized, marriage is the purview of the different religious communities. The Rabbinate will only marry two Jews in accordance to halacha. So, while any two people can live together as a couple, and get all the tax and subsidy benefits as if they were married, the Rabbinate will only marry Jews to each other. And hopefully, that is the way things will remain so that Jews can remain a distinct people.
(7) Ezra, August 1, 2010 9:57 PM
Israel, land of opportunities
First, let me congratulate the author (Ishmael Khaldi) not only for the awesome article, but also for reflecting and projecting the true Israeli values of honesty, openeness and sense of justice and equality that constitute the core principles of Israeli society. After reading this article, I have a concrete and vivid example which confirms what I always thought : Israel is a living example of a land of opportunities (for those who dare to put hatred and animosity aside).
(6) Barry Werner, August 1, 2010 9:38 PM
Ishmael Khaldi is genuine
I met Ishmael Khaldi and heard him speak. He is genuine. It is heartening to see this ray of hope. If Israel is to survive, it will have to be in peace with its Arab neighbors. Israeli Arabs, well, maybe mainly the Bedouin Arabs for now, can help bring that about. I immediately bought his book.
(5) andre, August 1, 2010 8:56 PM
We know so little about bedouins
me from afar, that they are proud, fearless, yet apparently fair, something rare. The IDF has some bedouins in, it trusts them. Our whole system : trust.
(4) Anonymous, August 1, 2010 6:22 PM
?
Even if Israel's minorities were to become more integrated, what makes you so certain that Jews would necessarily end up marrying them?
(3) M. Garcia, August 1, 2010 5:07 PM
fascinating article
A fascinating story. I love to see such an optimistic and hopeful outlook on the integration of minorities in Israeli society.
(2) Moshe B, August 1, 2010 3:33 PM
Thanks for printing this!
Thanks for printing this. I added it to my books page for others to see.
(1) shlomo, August 1, 2010 1:51 PM
arab integration (intermarriage, assimilation) with Jews is good?
"Khaldi is confident that the resistance among Israel’s minorities to integrate will melt away with time." This is a good thing? We want the Jewish people to assimilate and intermarry with non-Jews? I thought this was what we are fighting against