By Or Kashti

Copyright haaretz

In December 1999, a few months after Ehud Barak defeated Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel’s elections and promised a “dawn of a new day,” and just before the millennium celebrations, a three-day conference was held at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, titled “Society and Culture from a Mizrahi Perspective.” It was the first conference of its kind, bringing together leading scholars, social activists and educators.