ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the aspects of the Yemeni Jews’ experience which distinguish them as an immigrant group, both with reference to Israel as a receiving society, and in relation to other immigrant groups within Israel. Ginger and Salt brings to the forefront several anthropological issues in the study of migration, the family, and modernization. These issues include: the simple to complex society continuum; the unidimensional nature of “norms”; the shift from extended to nuclear families associated with modernization; and the necessity for the anthropological study of the immigrant experience over time. The immigrant experience over time includes cognitive dissonance, and the chronic separation and merging of a diversity of cultural norms based upon Jewish life in Yemen. The chapter suggests that contradiction has become a “normal” part of the routine cognitive efforts and social actions of the immigrant generation, but less so for their children who have grown up with the ways of Israeli society.
