Nissim Mizrachi (; born 1962)Nissim Mizrachi's bibliography . National Library of Israel. is an Israeli sociologist. Mizrachi is a full professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University and a senior research fellow and the head of the “Challenge of Shared Life” Cluster at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.The Challenge of Living Together. Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. His primary research themes are the sociology of knowledge, medicine, culture, social boundaries, moral identity, liberalism, ethnic studies, and stigma. Mizrachi is best known as a leading figure in promoting the post-liberal turn in contemporary critical discourse in Israel. This approach seeks to liberate current research from the constraints of what he calls the "liberal grammar" of critical discourse. This entails a deliberate effort to extricate the research perspective from the liberal-progressive stance that has become the default position for understanding and reforming society. This shift does not imply opposition to principles such as freedom and equality on a normative level. Instead, it involves expanding the interpretative space beyond the confines of liberal-progressive thinking. In his latest book,Mizrachi, N. (2024) Beyond Suspicion: The Moral Clash between Rootedness and Progressive Liberalism. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mizrachi argues that to understand the so-called paradoxical behavior—the resistance of minority and marginalized groups to principles of equality and freedom from which they are more likely to benefit—it is essential to acknowledge a deep-seated need for belonging. Recognizing this sense of rootedness, which reflects the intrinsic desire for connection, is vital for grasping the conditions under which liberal values such as equality and freedom can thrive. He asserts that taking rootedness seriously is crucial for opening new avenues to preserve democracy in a landscape of profound diversity.
Biography Nissim Mizrachi was born and raised in Kiryat HaYovel, a working-class neighborhood in Jerusalem predominantly populated by Mizrahi Jews, immigrants from Middle Eastern and North African countries. The neighborhood also included other Jewish communities, such as Ashkenazi Jews, primarily Eastern European immigrants. He is the son of Doris, an Iraqi-born woman who moved to Israel in adulthood, and Rachamim Mizrachi, a native Israeli, working class parents who both lost their eyesight at two. Nissim has two older sisters.David M. Halbfinger (December 23, 2020). ״To Understand Red-State America, He Urges a Look at Red-State Israel". The New York Times. Mizrachi earned a B.A. in Philosophy & Sociology and an M.A. summa cum laude in Sociology and Anthropology, both from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He earned his Ph.D. in 1998 from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, with the assistance of the Fulbright Program, and a postdoc at Harvard University.Jasmin Gueta and Rotem Shtarkman (December 31, 2013). ״Equal opportunity for all?״. The Marker. In 2016, he was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley.Ari Libsker (December 28, 2023). “No Utopian Visions, No Absolute Ideologies”. Interview in Calcalist Weekend Magazine (The original in Hebrew). He has been teaching in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University since 2001, was appointed senior lecturer with tenure in 2006, and has served as a full professor since 2024. He served as head of the department from 2013 to 2016. He is a senior research fellow and head of the Challenge of Shared Life Cluster at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and the Shaharit Institute.Prof. Nissim Mizrachi. Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.
Mizrachi won the Sociology of Culture's Clifford Geertz Award for Best Article from the American Sociological Association in 2008;Sociology of Culture’s Clifford Geertz Award for Best Article. Sociology of Culture Award Recipient History. American Sociological Association. the Louis Guttman Award for Best Article from the Israel Sociological Society in 2013The Gutman Award winners. Israel Sociological Society. and the rector’s prize for excellence in teaching at Tel Aviv University.
Family Nissim Mizrachi is married to Iris, an ophthalmologist at Sheba Medical Center, and has three daughters.Carolina Landsmann (January 11, 2020). ״The Real Reason Mizrahim Vote for Netanyahu, and Why the Left Can't Win Them Over״. Haaretz.
Mizrachi’s Research Mizrachi researched two main fields: from the beginning of his academic life until approximately 2009, he studied the correlation between epistemology and social practice, especially psychosomatic medicine, in modern medicine. Since 2009, he has dedicated his studies to the sociology of liberalism and human rights, morality, ethnicity, and social difference. He focused on the mismatch between the liberal-progressive universal philosophical view and the social particularity of its advocates and adversaries.
The sociology of liberalism and human rights In a series of articles beginning in 2000, Mizrachi explored the abyss separating the liberal-progressive universal worldview and the social particularity of its advocates and adversaries. He described the way psychological sciences supplied the scientific bedrock for the cultural domination and subordination of the Mizrahi Jew.Mizrachi, N. (2004) “From Badness to Sickness’: The Role of Ethnopsychology in Shaping Ethnic Hierarchies in Israel,” Social Identities 10(2): 219-243. Mizrachi examined the trust relations between Israeli and Jordanian managers at an Israeli-Jordanian industrial site and how trust transforms in response to the changing political climate.Mizrachi, N., Drori, I., and Anspach, R. (2007). “Repertoires of Trust: The Practice of Trust in a Multinational Organization Amid Political Conflict,” American Sociological Review 72, 143-165. Winner of the Geertz Prize for Best Article in Cultural Sociology, 2008. He showed how students in Israeli high schools, regardless of ethno-class dissemination in academic tracking, renounce identity politics and regard free will as the most significant role in their advancement.Mizrachi, N., Goodman, Y., and Feniger, Y. (2009). “‘I Don’t Want to See It’: Decoupling Ethnicity from Social Structure in Jewish Israeli High Schools,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 32, 1203-1225. He explored three minority groups in Israel: Mizrahim, Arab Israelis, and Ethiopian Jews. The Arabs, the less participating group in Israeli society, use racist language when relating to stigmatizing experiences. Ethiopian Jews, the most visually salient, avoid using this language. Mizrahim viewed the mere mention of stigmatization as stigmatizing and depicted their group positively.Mizrachi, N. and Herzog, H. (2012). “Participatory Destigmatization Strategies among Palestinian Citizens of Israel, Ethiopian Jews and Mizrahi Jews in Israel,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 35(3): 418-435.
Beyond Suspicion: The Moral Clash Between Rootedness and Progressive Liberalism
The book, published in the University of California Press, 2024, takes the Mizrahi Jews as a test case of a marginalized community. It seeks to understand how they interpret their disadvantaged status as the majority of Israel's lower class, a working-class group, and explores “the great paradox.”Thomas Frank’s “The Great Paradox” in USA politics refers to poor voters who used to vote for the Republican Party, contrary to their interests (Thomas Frank, What's the Matter with Kansas? Holt, 2005.) in Israeli politics: they primarily vote for right-wing parties, despite the advocacy by left-wing parties for policies that would benefit them. They reject the agenda of universal liberal justice and human rights and the core values of the progressive liberal left. The book is grounded in extensive empirical research, including surveys and focus groups. Mizrahim's behavior has frustrated human rights advocates, liberal politicians, and social scientists, who view their actions as a paradox. This book offers an alternative understanding that challenges the prevailing liberal grammar. By grammar, the author refers to a set of analytic principles that guide the interpretive act, currently dominant in critical research. He first developed this approach in two programmatic articles.Mizrachi, N. (2012). “Beyond the Garden and the Jungle: On the Social Limits of Human Rights Discourse in Israel,” Maasei Mishpat 4: 51–74 [Hebrew]. (מעבר לגן ולג'ונגל: על גבולותיו החברתיים של שיח זכויות האדם בישראל). Winner of the Louis Guttman Prize for Best Article, 2013, awarded by the Israeli Sociological Society.Mizrachi, N. (2006), “Sociology in the Garden: Beyond the Liberal Grammar of Contemporary Sociology,” Israel Studies Review 31(1): 36-65. Most critical scholars have justified the failure of the liberal message to connect with disempowered communities using two methods: first, the message is delivered inadequately (such as the messenger's identity, wrong language, and lived experiences) or second, in the way the message is acknowledged (namely, the difficulty of marginalized peoples to be mindful of the message's ability to bring about freedom). The author turned the direction of inquiry upon the message itself.
Unlike most approaches to analyzing the political behavior of Mizrahim, the rural poor in America, peasants in Western and Eastern Europe and Asia, and others, which view their non-liberal stance as simply a "reactive" phenomenon arising from their structural position or historical, social, and economic forces, Mizrachi argues that these perspectives overlook the generative foundation of their behavior. He identifies this foundation in what he terms "rooted grammar." In contrast to liberal grammar, which values individual autonomy, equality, rational inquiry, and universal reason as the sole authentic human choice, rooted grammar posits that the self is deeply connected to, and even molded by, a larger whole that existed in the past, exists in the present, and must be preserved for future generations. Mizrachi contends that rootedness characterizes not only traditional Mizrahim but also various groups within the Jewish and general populations in Israel and worldwide. Rootedness is an expression of a fundamental need for belonging. Mizrahi argues that failing to recognize this need undermines understanding seemingly paradoxical behaviors concerning equality and freedom. When these values infringe upon the sense of belonging, they are constantly rejected by many communities because they threaten their core identity, which is deeply rooted in the greater whole to which they belong. A methodological turn facilitates the theoretical shift he undertakes in the book, which he calls "multiple hermeneutics." This approach aims to transform the non-liberal subject from a passive object—either a "victim" or a "victimizer"—into an active subject: an interpreter, critic, and analyst of their position within the social structure.