The construction of multi-layered melancholy in peripheral Tel Aviv

Based on the feminist theory of intersectionality, with a specific focus on emotions, this article proposes the concept of “multi-layered melancholy” to describe the feeling of sadness that emerges during personal or collective loss following spatial, ethnic, and gender inequality among a discriminated group of citizens who are located at the margins of Israeli society and the urban sphere. The case study explored is the Hatikva neighborhood, which was originally a lower-income neighborhood of Mizrahim (marginalized Jews who immigrated to Israel from North Africa and Asia during the 1950s (and which has undergone a dramatic process of change in recent years following the arrival of African migrants and the subsequent contraction of the veteran community. Following anthropological field work I conducted in the Hatikva neighborhood from 2010 to 2013, the analysis shows the multi-layered articulation of spatial, ethnic, and gender melancholy in the urban sphere, and contributes to the current writing on these concepts by showing how they connect to one another and operate simultaneously in practice. While this feeling of loss arises sporadically in specific contexts, I argue that the older Mizrahi women I met in a local day center for the elderly embody a three-dimensional melancholy due to their gender, ethnic, and spatial marginality.