In the course of the operation "Magic Carpet"
(1949-1950), the entire community of Yemenite Jews (called Teimanim,
about 49,000) immigrated to Israel on "the wings of eagles."
Before 1948, there were close to one million Jews living in the Arab
world, while today only a few thousand still remain. During the four
years following the establishment of the state of Israel, violent
anti-Semitic riots broke out across the Middle East and restrictive
government measures were put in place, which forced ancient Jewish
communities, some thousands of years old, to dissolve. Driven from their
homes and properties, 856,000 Jews were expelled from Arab countries
and Iran, fleeing mostly to Israel but also to the United States,
Europe, Canada, and elsewhere.
The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has launched a new campaign
to mark this tragedy in cooperation with the World Jewish Congress and
the Ministry of Pensioner Affairs. Called ‘
I Am a Refugee,’ the
international campaign seeks to bring the forgotten and often
overlooked stories of Jewish refugees from Arab countries to both Israel
and the international community.
The campaign, led by Deputy Foreign Minister, Daniel Ayalon, whose own
father’s family was forced to flee Algeria, aims to highlight the
injustices that were done to the Jewish refugees, via Facebook and
online sources. “The time has come to correct an ongoing historical
injustice that has affected half of the population of Israel,” said
Deputy FM Ayalon on the MFA website.
Jews living in Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Iraq, Iran, Morocco, Egypt,
Yemen and Syria lost their legal status, properties and homes, which in
many cases were seized by the government. On the
I Am a Refugee Facebook
campaign page, personal stories, photos, video documentaries, and
documents have been uploaded of Jewish life and escape from these
different Middle Eastern countries. In one pre-World War II photo, a
class of Jewish youngsters can be seen in a Benghazi synagogue, while
another photo depicts a Jewish wedding in Aleppo, Syria in 1914. In
others, Iraqi and Kurdish Jewish refugees are seen arriving to Israel in
the 1950s, while other photos show life in the Israeli transit camps
that absorbed these refugees. An uploaded video documentary tells the
story of a Jewish family’s exodus from Egypt.
According to MFA website, the personal stories that appear on the
Facebook page will be presented at a conference in New York when the
United National General Assembly convenes at the end of September.
Ayalon has asked Jewish refugees and their families to take an active
part of this campaign via Facebook, to “tell the world your personal
story, which is an inseparable part of the Jewish people and the story
of the re-establishment of the State of Israel.”
This past June, the United Nations marked World Refugee Day, where only
one group of refugees—the Jewish refugees from Arab countries– was
noticeably absent, according to a recent Huffington Post article written
by Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Proser. “The historic
Jewish presence in the Arab World must be recognized. The grave
injustices inflicted upon them must be acknowledged,” Prosor wrote in
response to the UN oversight.
The
I Am a Refugee campaign aims to open the way to
international acknowledgement and recognition of the Jewish refugee
issue. This coming Monday, an international conference of jurists and
experts on the refugee matter will be held in Jerusalem, to continue to
advance this campaign.
About the Author: Anav Silverman is a regular contributor to Tazpit News Agency.
19 Elul, 5772 - Sept. 6, '12
