In the Contest Between Victimized Expellees, Million Jewish Refugees of Arab Lands Have Proof - Draiman

In the Contest Between Victimized Expellees, Million Jewish Refugees of Arab Lands Have Proof

Nov. 30: when the million Jewish refugees from Arab lands (and Iran) are recognized, their cultures and traditions embraced and acknowledged.

By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus

Published: December 1st, 2015

Algerian Jews
Photo Credit: JIMENA

This November 30 and every one in the coming years will be officially known as the day of commemoration for Jews who had to flee Arab countries.

Nov. 30 was the date chosen for the commemoration because it is the day after the United Nations voted to partition Mandate Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. That, by no coincidence at all, was the date on which it simply became too dangerous – if not a death sentence – for Jews to remain in their former Arab host countries.

It is estimated that nearly a million Jews were expelled from Arab states such as Syria, Libya, Algeria, Egypt and Yemen, when the United Nations declared Israel a new nation.

As a result of this expulsion, the Jewish population in the Middle East and North Africa, excluding within Israel, shrank from 856,000 to 4,400 in a very short period of time.

Most of the Jews were forced to leave with little or none of their property or belongings, either because that was the law or because they feared for their lives.

Ashley Perry is the director general of the Israeli Knesset Caucus for the Reconnection with the Bnei Anousim and president of Reconectar.  Perry wants to take the effort already begun by MK Shimon Ohayon, who spearheaded the effort to have Nov. 30 recognized in Israel, and make it bigger.

Ohayon pointed out in 2014, when the issue was taken up in the Knesset, “more than 50 percent of Israelis are descended from Jews of Arab lands and Iran, but the younger generation doesn’t know anything about it.”

Jewish Libyan girls

“In a span of 25 years, these communities stopped to exist. Their story ended, and their contributions to the Jewish people have not been told, and they have been forgotten,” he said.

The Palestinian Arabs have expended enormous energy creating a mythical connection between their people and the land. That effort has been so successful that a majority of the people outside of Israel believe the “Palestinians” are the indigenous people.

How much more successful should an effort be that was based on actual, historical facts, facts shored up by demonstrable evidence that Jews, practicing their religion, were spread throughout the region?

Jewish Yemenite bride

Last year the Israeli government decided to require the kind and amount of information about these cultures be expanded and integrated into the curricula in Israeli schools. The Foreign Ministry was also henceforth required to increase international awareness and recognition of these Jewish refugees.

Perry wants 2016 to be the year of the Jewish Refugees from Arab countries. He wants to ensure that the Jews who were forced to flee their homes in hostile Arab lands do not lose their unique history, culture and traditions, and he wants the understanding and knowledge of those facets of former communities be spread to modern Jewish communities.

“The issue of the Jewish refugees from Arab countries is one that has been ignored for too long and has to be placed on the highest agenda of Israel and the Jewish world,” Perry told the JewishPress.com.

The issue goes beyond there being a robust history that has been ignored and first-hand knowledge of which is slowly dying off. If more people had a grasp of this history, the anti-Israel propagandists who claim Jews are newcomers and usurpers in the Middle East would be revealed as the charlatans they are.

As Perry explained, it is “a history that many have tried to ignore and repress because once you know the long history of the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa you can no longer believe the lies about Israel’s conflict with our neighbors.”

One effort Perry is promoting to introduce the history of these peoples to modern Jews is a collaboration between various Israeli government entities. It is a compilation of photographs, artifacts and information which is packaged as a traveling exhibition and intended to be displayed at embassies, consulates, Jewish communal events and institutions around the world.

In a nod to this important new and long-delayed commemoration, please enjoy a performance by the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra, an orchestra which features traditional Sephardic Jewish-Arab and Andalusian music and poetry.

About the Author: Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the U.S. correspondent. A graduate of Harvard Law School, she previously practiced First Amendment law and taught in Philadelphia-area graduate and law schools.