“A Simple Girl”: Redefining Mizrahi Womanhood

Published in The Art of Leaving, a memoir-in-essays, Ayelet Tsabari’s “The Simple Girl” explores Mizrahi female identity through the lens of “The Freha Song,” made famous by Yemenite pop singer Ofra Haza. “Freha” is sometimes translated as “bimbo,” but this translation misses the nuances that the word had in Israel. A freha wasn’t just an airheaded woman, a “simple girl,” who only cared about lipstick and nail polish and fun, but more specifically, was a Mizrahi woman of this ilk. Tsabari wants to see the song as subversive, a protest against stereotyping of Mizrahi women performed by Haza, but ultimately she realizes that the song’s authorship by a member of the Ashkenazic elite—precludes it from such an interpretation. Perhaps it is this realization that spurred Tsabari to create new images of Mizrahi women in her writing.