This paper interrogates the political implications of depictions of Sephardi and Mizrahi identity in national and local arenas in Israel, particularly in Jerusalem. I analyze a selection of oral and visual narratives of these minorities in light of a ‘revival’ of Jewish heritage in Israel, and a concurrent acceleration of policies promoting the Judaization of Jerusalem (Fenster 2003; Yiftachel and Yacobi 2003). These narratives range from the personal to the institutional, including TV shows, storytelling performances, jokes, and plaques commemorating the communities who shaped Jerusalem’s historic Jewish neighborhoods. These portrayals of Sephardim and Mizrahim alternatively uphold or critique social and cultural hierarchies in Israeli society and by extension, Israeli claims to Jerusalem. The paper considers the implications of these representations for Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews’ self-identification vis-à-vis other Jews, Zionism, and the Palestinians. This subject is especially relevant at a time when the boundaries of Israeli identity are hardening, while at the same time Jewish ethnic diversity is increasingly acknowledged (Yassif 2002). Jerusalem presents an important locus for investigating these trends as it merges two historical developments: The first concerns the aging of a generation of Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews that has lived through the early days of the state and concomitantly, has experienced the consolidation of a Zionist identity driven by notions of modernity and labor, and Hebraized cultural hegemony. The second relates to the local embeddedness of this generation in Jerusalem during a time when the city is being reimagined by right-wing ethno-national policies and neoliberal forces following a decades-long process of Judaization (Yiftachel and Yacobi 2003; Benvenisti 1996). The retirement of a generation now revisiting family heritage long suppressed or left out of the Zionist narrative coincides with public commemoration of Jerusalem’s past. Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews who have experienced exclusion and discrimination since even before 1948 (Eliachar 1983; Smooha 1987; Swirski 1989) are bringing their grievances to bear in a city where they once constituted a majority and where today they demand recognition for their contributions to Jerusalem, the cornerstone of Israel’s political agenda. The narratives I analyze reveal that while affirmations of ethnic identity challenge mainstream depictions of Mizrahim and Sephardim in Israel, they uphold the Zionist paradigm as they assert their importance to Jerusalem.