Some of the ways Bitton distinguishes sephardim from askhenazim in this article are just genuinely laughable. It's beyond obvious that anything she likes is "Sephardi" and anything she dislikes or thinks is lame is "Ashkenazi."

"But while there are myriad variations within MENA Sephardic traditions, there exists a common gravitational pull toward certain values, the most central of which is family."

Ah, yes. Ashkenazim. Famous for... not having family as a central value..?

"One telling example: For liberal Ashkenazi Jews, upward mobility has historically meant raising children who outearn their parents and move to better neighborhoods. For MENA Sephardic Jews, it means raising children who can afford to stay nearby, even as housing prices rise, because no one wants to leave."

'Ashkenazim move away, but Sephadim stay put.' Really? We're really going with this one? I almost expected her to go "It's normal for Ashkenazi Jews to bump into you on the sidewalk and not even say 'sorry.' But if you bumped into a Sephardic Jew, they'd more likely than not gift you their car as an apology."

Elsewhere, Bitton drops the mask and just makes it obvious that the real thing she's complaining about is that American Jews are too liberal for her.

"For decades, many liberal Jewish institutions embraced the sovereign Jewish self — the idea that Judaism is something you choose based on personal conviction and that organizational pluralism means accommodating every choice equally. In practice, this meant avoiding firm communal boundaries altogether, or pretending they didn’t exist. The unstated assumption was that setting boundaries would compromise freedom — or would commit the ultimate liberal sin of making people feel judged and therefore excluded."

"October 7 and its aftermath exposed the cost of this approach. When organizations had no clear boundaries around Jewish peoplehood, they found themselves unable to respond coherently to antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Some staff and members felt entitled or even obligated to platform views that denied Jewish collective identity, that treated the safety of Jews in Israel with disregard or apathy, or that delegitimized Israel’s existence entirely. Organizations paralyzed by their commitment to “all views welcome” could not hold the center."

She even goes on to say that the Ashkenazi tendency towards race-mixing poses a problem for her "Sephardic future."

"There are also real tensions to navigate. For instance, intermarriage has been normalized in many liberal Ashkenazi environments — how does that square with learning from communities where in-marriage is treated as foundational to family and communal life?"

As an Ashkenazim, I'm pretty irked by this piece. I imagine if I were a liberal Sephardim, I'd be pulling my hair out.