NCID-1850
Aziza Khazzoom
Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
Indiana University Bloomington
Education/Degree:
1 Sociology (University of California, Berkeley)
About
Aziza Khazzoom's BA is from Wellesley College and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. She is an associate professor of Near Eastern languages and cultures at Indiana University at Bloomington, previously senior lecturer of sociology at Hebrew University, and assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her central research question is how Orientalism and the East/West dichotomy shape Israeli Jewish identity and exclusionary patterns in Israel. This project connects the exclusion of Jews from the Middle East with that of Palestinians.
Current Work
Khazzoom tracks the emergence of ethnic inequality among Jews in Israel, after the creation of the state in 1948 and consequent mass immigration of Jews. That inequality divides Jews into two groups, based on origins in Muslim or Christian countries, mimicking the global Muslim/Christian "clash of civilizations". It was not a forgone conclusion that Jews would divide into those specific groups. Understanding why they did reveals historical connections between anti-Semitism, Isamophobia, and European colonialism that alter our sense of Israel's role in world politics.
Research Area Keyword(s)
anti-Semitism, immigration, Israel, Orientalism, race/ethnicity