The
Jewish exodus from Arab lands refers to the 20th century expulsion or mass departure of Jews, primarily of
SephardiSephardi Jews are a subgroup of Jews originating in the Iberian Peninsula, usually defined in contrast to Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews.-Definition:A...
and
MizrahiMizrahi Jews or Mizrahim, , also referred to as Edot HaMizrach are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus. The term Mizrahi is used in Israel in the language of politics, media and some social scientists for Jews from the Arab world and...
background, from
ArabArab people or Arabs are an ethnic group whose members identify along linguistic, cultural or genealogical grounds...
and Islamic countries. The migration started in the late 19th century, but accelerated after the
1948 Arab-Israeli WarThe 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known by Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation and by Palestinians as the Catastrophe , was the first in a series of wars fought between the newly declared State of Israel and its Arab neighbours in the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict.The war...
.
800,000 to 1,000,000 Jews were either forced out or fled their homes in Arab countries from 1948 until the early 1970s (roughly 300,000 more Jews than Palestinians); 260,000 reached Israel in 1948-1951, 600,000 by 1972. The Jews of Egypt and Libya were expelled while those of Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and North Africa left as a result of a coordinated effort among Arab governments to create physical and political insecurity. Most were forced to abandon their property. By 2002 these Jews and their descendants constituted about 40% of Israel's population. One of the main representative bodies of this group, the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries, (
WOJAC) estimates that Jewish property abandoned in Arab countries would be valued today at more than $300 billion and Jewish-owned real-estate left behind in Arab lands at 100,000 square kilometers (four times the size of the State of Israel). The organization asserts that the Jewish exodus was the result of a deliberate policy decision taken by the
Arab LeagueThe Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organization of Arab states in Southwest Asia, and North and Northeast Africa. It was formed in Cairo on March 22, 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria...
.
Exodus Causes
The
Arab worldThe Arab World refers to Arabic-speaking countries stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean in the southeast...
consists of 25 countries in which Arabic is the main language. In those countries North of the Sahara a Jewish presence dates back to the
Babylonian captivityAlthough the term Babylonian captivity, or Babylonian exile typically refers to the deportation and exile of the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar II in 586 BC, in fact the exile started with the first deportation in 597 BC...
in the 6th century BCE and, outside of Arabia, predates the
Arab presenceMuslim conquests , also referred to as the Islamic conquests or Arab conquests, began after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad...
by a thousand years. Some people consider that these Jews are also Arabs: see
Arab JewsArab Jews is a controversial term referring to Jews living in the Arab World, or Jews descended from such persons.The term was occasionally used in the early 20th century, mainly by Arab nationalists, to describe the 1 million Jews living in the Arab world at the time...
.
Movement of Jews inside this block due to persecution has occurred before the 20th century, for example 10% of
Yemenite JewsYemenite Jews are those Jews who live, or whose recent ancestors lived, in Yemen Yemenite Jews (Hebrew: תֵּימָנִים,
Standard Temanim
Tiberian ; singular תֵּימָנִי,
Standard Temani
Tiberian ) are those Jews who live, or...
migrated to Israel between 1881 and 1914, however the scale of the exodus in the 20th century and the disappearance of these communities marks a significant change in both Jewish and Middle-Eastern history.
The precise circumstances of the Jewish exodus varies between Arab regions and states and changed over time, however Jews were generally caught between two complementary forces: one was the often longstanding and growing hardship and insecurity of being a minority in Arab states; the other the appeal of Zionism and of a better life in Israel or the Western World. Insecurity was exacerbated by the process of the Arab struggle for independence and the conflict in Palestine and in some cases this led to physical expulsion and appropriation of property.
During the Second World War Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya came under
NaziThe German Afrika Korps was the German expeditionary force in Libya and Tunisia during the North African Campaign of World War II...
or Vichy French occupation and these Jews were subject to various persecutions. In other areas Nazi propaganada targeted Arab populations under British or French rule. National Socialist propaganda contributed to the transfer of racial antisemitism to the Arab world and is likely to have unsettled Jewish communities.
In June 1941 there was a coup d'état in Iraq. Following the collapse of the new regime, an
anti-Jewish pogromFarhud was a violent pogrom against the Jews of Baghdad, Iraq on June 1-2, 1941. It took place when the city was without a political leadership after Rashid Ali al-Kaylani had fled but before British and Transjordanian forces had arrived...
took place, leading to the death of 180 Jews. Anti-Jewish riots involving the loss of life also took place in Libya in 1945, in Yemen in 1947 and in Egypt, Morocco and Iraq in 1948. At the same time, independent Arab countries began to encourage Jewish emigration to Israel. Arab pogroms against Jews appeared to spread throughout the Arab world, and there were intensified riots in
YemenYemen , officially the Republic of Yemen is a country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia...
and
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
in particular. In
LibyaLibya , officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , is a country located in North Africa...
, Jews were deprived of citizenship, and in Iraq, their property was seized. Those Jews who were forced to emigrate were not allowed to take their property. In recent years a Jewish advocacy group, JJAC has alleged that there was a deliberate policy of Arab League members to expel or force the departure of the Jewis population.
From 1948-1949, the Israeli government secretly airlifted 50,000 Jews from the Yemen and from 1950-1952, 130,000 Jews were airlifted from Iraq. From 1949-1951, 30,000 Jews fled Libya to Israel. In these cases over 90% of the Jewish population opted to leave, despite the necessity of leaving their property behind.
Claims are made that Jews emigrated either because of the influence of Zionism or due to persecution by Arab countries, however as no surveys were taken at the time and as the one does not contradict the other it is not possible to effectively separate the two causes.
There are controversial claims about the methods employed by Israeli officials in their attempts to stimulate emigration to Israel. Historian Moshe Gat contends that, in the most famous case in Iraq, the claim that the bombings were carried out by Zionists is contrary to the evidence, and in any event the impetus for the Jewish-Iraqi exodus was the imminent expiration of the denaturalisation law, not the bombing. According to
Norman StillmanNorman Arthur Stillman, also Noam , b. 1945, is the Schusterman-Josey Professor and Chair of Judaic History at the University of Oklahoma. He specializes on the intersection of Jewish and Islamic culture and history, and on Oriental and Sephardi Jewry, with special interest in the Jewish...
, "
nN is the fourteenth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled en.- Usage :N represents the dental or alveolar nasal in virtually all languages that use the Latin alphabet. A common digraph with
is , which represents a velar nasal in a variety of languages,...
either side, however, has provided truly convincing evidence, and for any detached observer the point must remain moot."
Within a few years of the Six Day War (1967) there were only remnants of Jewish communities left in most Arab lands. Jews in Arab lands were reduced from more than 800,000 in 1948 to perhaps 16,000 in 1991. The great majority of Jews in Arab lands eventually emigrated to the modern
State of IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
, and by 2003 they and their offspring, (including those of mixed linage) comprised 3,136,436 people, or about 61% of Israel's Jewish population.
Absorbing Jewish refugees
Of the nearly 900,000 Jewish refugees, approximately 680,000 were absorbed by Israel; the remainder went to Europe (mainly to France) and the Americas.
Hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees to Israel were temporarily settled in the numerous tent cities called
ma'abarotThe Ma'abarot were refugee camps in Israel in the 1950s. The Ma'abarot were meant to provide accommodation for the large influx of new Olim arriving in the newly independent state of Israel....
(transit camps) in Hebrew. The ma'abarot existed until 1963. Their population was gradually absorbed and integrated into Israeli society, a substantial logistical achievement, without help from the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
' various refugee organizations.
Absorption was not without its problems, however. Many of the refugees had a hard time adjusting to the new dominant culture and change of lifestyle and there were also several claims of discrimination against the refugees. In 1971, these sentiments would burst into protest led by the Israeli Black Panther movement.
Jewish refugee advocacy
There are a number of advocacy groups acting on behalf of Jewish refugees from Arab countries. Some examples include:
- Justice for Jews from Arab Countries seeks to secure rights and redress for Jews from Arab countries who suffered as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.
- Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (JIMENA) publicizes the history and plight of the 900,000 Jews indigenous to the Middle East
The Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
and North AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa.Geopolitically, the UN definition of Northern Africa includes the following seven countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia,Mauritania, and...
who were forced to leave their homes and abandon their property, who were stripped of their citizenship.
- Historical Society of the Jews from Egypt and International Association of Jews from Egypt
- Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center
In March 2008, "
fF is the sixth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ef or eff.-History:The origin of F is the Semitic letter vâv that represented the sound /v/, and originally probably represented either a "hook" or a "club"...
or the first time ever, ... a Jewish refugee from an Arab country" appeared before the
United Nations Human Rights CouncilThe United Nations Human Rights Council is an inter-governmental body within the United Nations System. The UNHRC is the successor to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights , and is a subsidiary body of the United Nations General Assembly...
. Regina Bublil-Waldman, a Jewish Libyan refugee and founder of JIMENA, "appeared before the UN Human Rights Council wearing her grandmother's Libyan wedding dress." Justice for Jews from Arab Countries presented a report to the UN Human Rights Council about oppression Jews faced in Arab countries that forced them to find amnesty elsewhere.
At a July 2008 joint session of the United Kingdom’s House of Commons and House of Lords convened by Labour MP John Mann and Lord Anderson of Swansea, in co-operation with Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC) and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Canadian MP
Irwin CotlerIrwin Cotler, PC, OC, MP was Canada's Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada from 2003 until the Liberal government of Paul Martin lost power following the 2006 federal election. He was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons for the constituency of Mount Royal in a by-election...
said
Arab countries and the League of Arab States must acknowledge their role in launching an aggressive war against Israel in 1948 and the perpetration of human rights violations against their respective Jewish nationals. Cotler cited evidence from a report titled Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries: The Case for Rights And Redress which documented for the first time a pattern of state-sanctioned repression and persecution in Arab countries – including Nuremberg-like laws – that targeted Jewish populations.
Among other notable advocates are historian
Bat Ye'orBat Ye'or ; a pseudonym of Gisèle Littman, née Orebi, an Egyptian-born British scholar, who writes about the history of non-Muslims in the Middle East, and in particular the history of Christian and Jewish dhimmis living under Islamic governments.She is the author of eight books, including Eurabia:...
who considers herself an Egyptian refugee and considers that experience as one that shaped her perspective.
Compensation Issues
The official position of the Israeli government is that Jews from Arab lands are considered refugees, and it considers their rights to property left in countries of origin as valid and existent.
Nonetheless, the assertion that Jewish emigrants from Arab lands should be considered refugees has received mixed reactions from various quarters.
Iraqi-born
Ran CohenRan Cohen is an Israeli politician and former Knesset member for Meretz-Yachad. He is a resident of Mevaseret Zion and married with four children....
, a former member of the
KnessetThe Knesset is the legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Operation of the Knesset:...
, said: "I have this to say: I am not a refugee. I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee". Yemeni-born
Yisrael YeshayahuYisrael Yeshayahu Sharabi was a Yemen-born Israeli politician, minister and the fifth Speaker of the Knesset.-Biography:Born in Sa'dah, Yemen, Yeshayahu was a member of the Dor Daim movement, before making aliyah in 1929...
, former Knesset speaker, Labor Party, stated: "We are not refugees. [Some of us] came to this country before the state was born. We had messianic aspirations". And Iraqi-born
Shlomo HillelShlomo Hillel is an Iraqi-born Israeli diplomat and politician who served as Speaker of the Knesset, Minister of Police and Minister of Internal Affairs. He was also an ambassador to several countries in Africa.-Biography:...
, also a former speaker of the Knesset, Labor Party, claimed: "I do not regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists."
The Orthodox Sephardi party,
ShasShas is a political party in Israel, primarily representing Haredi Sephardi and Mizrahi Judaism. Following the 2009 elections in which Shas won 11 seats, it joined Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government and holds four cabinet posts...
, recently announced its intention to seek compensation for Jewish refugees from Arab states.
The type and extent of linkage between the Jewish exodus from Arab lands and the Palestinian Exodus has also been the source of controversy. Advocacy groups have suggested that there are strong ties between the two processes and some of them even claim that decoupling the two issues is unjust.
Holocaust restitution expert Sidney Zabludoff has published a calculation that the losses sustained by the Jews who fled Arab countries since 1947 amounts to $6 billion, in contrast to the losses of the Palestinian Arab refugees which he estimates at $#3.9 billion (both sums in 2007 dollars).
Jewish Nakba
In response to the Palestinian Nakba narrative, there has been increasing usage of the term "Jewish Nakba" to refer to the persecution and expulsion of Jews from Arab countries in the years and decades following the creation of the State of Israel.
Israeli columnist
Ben Dror Yemini-Biography:Yemini was born in Tel-Aviv, Israel in 1954. He studied Humanities and History in Tel Aviv University, and later on he studied Law. After his university studies, he was appointed advisor to the Israeli Minister of Immigration Absorption and then became the spokesman of the Ministry.In...
, himself a Mizrahi Jew, wrote:
However, there is another Nakba: the Jewish Nakba. During those same years [the 1940's], there was a long line of slaughters, of pogroms, of property confiscation and of deportations against Jews in Islamic countries. This chapter of history has been left in the shadows. The Jewish Nakba was worse than the Palestinian Nakba. The only difference is that the Jews did not turn that Nakba into their founding ethos. To the contrary.
Professor Ada Aharoni, chairman of The World Congress of the Jews from Egypt, argues in an article entitled "What about the Jewish Nakba?" that "we must present the truth about the expulsion of the Jews from Arab states." Doing so could facilitate a genuine peace process since Palestinians would "realize they were not the only ones who suffered," [and] their sense of victimization and rejectionism will decline."
Additionally, Canadian MP and international human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler has referred to the "double Nakba." He criticizes the Arab states rejectionism of the Jewish state, their subsequent invasion to destroy the newly formed nation, and the punishment meted out against their local Jewish populations:
The result was, therefore, a double Nakba: not only of Palestinian-Arab suffering and the creation of a Palestinian refugee problem, but also, with the assault on Israel and on Jews in Arab countries, the creation of a second, much less known, group of refugees - Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
Jewish Population in Arab Countries in 1948 and 2008
In 1945, there were between 758,000 and 866,000 Jews (see table below) living in communities throughout the Arab world. Today, there are fewer than 8,600. In some Arab states, such as
LibyaLibya , officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , is a country located in North Africa...
, which was about 3% Jewish, the Jewish community no longer exists; in other Arab countries, only a few hundred Jews remain.
Jewish Populations of Arab Countries: 1948 and 2001/2008
| Country or territory |
1948 Jewish
population |
Jewish % of total
population, 1948 |
Estimated Jewish
population 2001 |
Estimated Jewish
population 2008 |
| Aden |
8,000 |
|
~0 |
| Algeria |
140,000 |
1.6% |
~0 |
| Bahrain |
550-600 |
0.5% |
36 |
around 30 people. |
| Egypt |
75,000-80,000 |
0.4% |
~100 |
fewer than a hundred remain. |
| Iraq |
135,000-140,000 |
2.6% |
~200 |
7-8 in Baghdad and fewer than 100 remain. |
| Lebanon |
5,000-20,000 |
0.4-2% |
< 100 |
around 40 in Beirut. |
| Libya |
35,000-38,000 |
3.6% |
0 |
| Morocco |
250,000-265,000 |
2.8% |
5,230 |
fewer than 7,000. |
| Qatar |
? |
? |
? |
a few Jews are reported. |
| Syria |
15,000-30,000 |
0.4-0.9% |
~100 |
fewer than 30 remain. |
| Tunisia |
50,000-105,000 |
1.4-3.0% |
~1,000 |
in 2004 estimated 1,500 remain. |
| Yemen |
45,000-55,000 |
1.0% |
~200 |
a few hundred remain. |
| Total |
758,000 - 881,000 |
|
<6,500 |
<8,600 |
Jewish Populations of non-Arab Muslim Countries: 1948 and 2001
| Country or territory |
1948 Jewish
population |
Estimated Jewish
population 2001 |
Estimated Jewish
population 2008 |
| Afghanistan |
5,000 |
1 |
| Iran |
70,000-120,000, 100,000, 140,000–150,000 |
11,000-40,000 |
fewer than 40,000 remain. |
| Pakistan |
2,000 |
N/A |
| Turkey |
80,000 |
18,000-30,000 |
Algeria
Almost all Jews in
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
left upon independence in 1962. Algeria's 140,000 Jews had French citizenship since 1870 (briefly revoked by Vichy France in 1940), and they mainly went to
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
, with some going to
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
.
Following the brutal
Algerian Civil WarThe Algerian Civil War was an armed conflict between the Algerian government and various Islamist rebel groups which began in 1991. It is estimated to have cost between 150,000 and 200,000 lives....
of 1990s there in particular, the rebel
Armed Islamic GroupThe Armed Islamic Group is a Muslim organisation that wants to overthrow the Algerian government and replace it with an Islamic state...
's 1994 declaration of war on all non-Muslims in the country most of the thousand-odd Jews previously there, living mainly in
AlgiersAlgiers is the capital and largest city of Algeria, and the second largest city in the Maghreb . According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630...
and to a lesser extent
BlidaBlida is a city in Algeria. It is the capital of Blida Province, and it is located about 45 km south-west of Algiers, the national capital. The name Blida, i.e...
,
ConstantineConstantine is the capital of Constantine Province in north-eastern Algeria. Slightly inland, it is about 80 kilometers from the Mediterranean coast....
, and
OranOran is a major city on the Mediterranean coast in northwestern Algeria. The name comes from the Berber word Uhran meaning The Lions....
, emigrated. The Algiers
synagogueA synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer....
was abandoned after 1994. These Jews themselves represented the remainder of only about 10,000 who had chosen to stay there in 1962.
Jewish migration from North Africa to France has the led to the rejuvenation of the French Jewish community (25% were killed during the Holocaust) which is now the third largest in the world.
In recent years there has been significant migration of Jews from France to Israel.
Bahrain
BahrainThe Kingdom of Bahrain is a small island country in the Persian Gulf ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family. Saudi Arabia lies to the west and is connected to Bahrain via the King Fahd Causeway, which was officially opened on the 25th of November 1986. Qatar is to the southeast across the Gulf of...
's tiny Jewish community, mostly the descendants of immigrants who entered the country in the early 1900s from Iraq, numbered 600 in 1948.
In the wake of the November 29, 1947
U.N. Partition voteA United Nations General Assembly Resolution is voted on by all member states of the United Nations in the General Assembly.General Assembly resolutions usually require a simple majority to pass...
, demonstrations against the vote in the Arab world were called for December 2-5. The first two days of demonstrations in Bahrain saw rock throwing against Jews, but on December 5 mobs in the capital of
ManamaManama is the capital and largest city of Bahrain with an approximate population of 155,000 people....
looted Jewish homes and shops, destroyed the synagogue, and beat any Jews they could find, and murdered one elderly woman.
Over the next few decades, most left for other countries, especially
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
; as of 2006 only 36 remained.
Relations between Jews and Muslims are generally considered good, with Bahrain being the only state on the Arabian Peninsula where there is a specific Jewish community and the only Gulf state with a synagogue. One member of the community, Rouben Rouben, who sells electronics and appliances from his downtown showroom, said “95% of my customers are Bahrainis, and the government is our No. 1 corporate customer. I’ve never felt any kind of discrimination.”
Members play a prominent role in civil society: Ebrahim Nono was appointed in 2002 a member of Bahrain's upper house of parliament, the Consultative Council, while a Jewish woman heads a human rights group, the
Bahrain Human Rights Watch SocietyThe Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society, BHRWS is a Bahraini human rights organization established in November 2004 which claims to protect housemaids, and to fight for women’s rights...
. According to the
Jewish Telegraphic AgencyThe Jewish Telegraphic Agency is an international news agency serving Jewish community newspapers and media around the world. The JTA was founded on February 6 1917 by Jacob Landau as the Jewish Correspondence Bureau with the mandate of collecting and disseminating news among and affecting the...
, the active Jewish community is "a source of pride for Bahraini officials".
In Bahrain's
2006 parliamentary electionThe National Assembly is bicameral with the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, having 40 members elected in single-seat constituencies for a four year term. The upper house, the Shura Council, has 40 members appointed by the King of Bahrain, with the stated aim of giving a voice to minority...
, some candidates have specifically sought out the Jewish vote; writer
Munira FakhroMunira Fakhro, is a Bahraini academic and was a candidate in Bahrain's 2006 general election for the opposition Waad.Dr Fakhro is Associate Professor at the University of Bahrain, having received her Doctorate in Social Policy, Planning and Administration from Columbia University where she has...
, Vice President of the Leftist
National Democratic ActionThe National Democratic Action Society - Wa'ad is Bahrain's largest leftist political party. It emerged out of the Popular Front, a radical clandestine opposition movement of Maoist, socialist and Arab nationalist orientation...
, standing in Isa Town told the local press: "There are 20- 30 Jews in my area and I would be working for their benefit and raise their standard of living."
Egypt
In 1948, approximately 75,000 Jews lived in
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
. About 100 remain today, mostly in
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
. In June 1948, a bomb exploded in Cairo's Karaite quarter, killing 22 Jews. In July 1948, Jewish shops and the Cairo Synagogue were attacked, killing 19 Jews. Hundreds of Jews were arrested and had their property confiscated. The 1954, the
Lavon AffairThe Lavon Affair refers to the scandal over a failed Israeli covert operation in Egypt known as Operation Susannah, in which Israeli military intelligence planted bombs in Egyptian, American and British-owned targets in Egypt in the summer of 1954 in the hopes that "the Muslim Brotherhood, the...
served as a pretext for further persecution of Egyptian Jews. In October 1956, when the
Suez CrisisThe Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, was a military attack on Egypt by Britain, France, and Israel beginning on 29 October 1956....
erupted, 1,000 Jews were arrested and 500 Jewish businesses were seized by the government. A statement branding the Jews "enemies of the state" was read out in the mosques of Cairo and Alexandria. Jewish bank accounts were confiscated and many Jews lost their jobs. Lawyers, engineers, doctors and teachers were not allowed to work in their professions. In 1967, Jews were detained and tortured, and Jewish homes were confiscated.
In 1951, the fraudulent
Protocols of the Elders of ZionThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an anti-Semitic literary forgery, a political hoax and a piece of plagiarism, with a complex publication history....
was translated into Arabic and promoted as an authentic historical document, fueling anti-Semitic sentiments in Egypt. In 1960, the
Protocols were the subject of an article by Salah Dasuqi, military governor of Cairo, in
al-Majallaaa, the official cultural journal. In 1965, the Egyptian government released an English-language pamphlet titled
Israel, the Enemy of Africa and distributed it throughout the English-speaking countries of
AfricaAfrica is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.8% of the...
. The pamphlet used the
Protocols and
The International JewThe International Jew is a four volume set of booklets or pamphlets originally published and distributed in the early 1920s by Henry Ford, an American industrialist, automobile developer and manufacturer....
as its sources and concluded that all the Jews were cheats, thieves, and murderers.
Iraq
In 1948, there were approximately 150,000
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
s in
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
. The community was concentrated in Baghdad and Basra. By 2003, there were only approximately 100 left of this previously thriving community.
In 1941, following Rashid Ali's pro-
AxisThe Axis powers comprised the countries that were opposed to the Allies during World War II. The three major Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—were part of a military alliance on the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, which officially founded the Axis powers...
coup, riots known as the
FarhudFarhud was a violent pogrom against the Jews of Baghdad, Iraq on June 1-2, 1941. It took place when the city was without a political leadership after Rashid Ali al-Kaylani had fled but before British and Transjordanian forces had arrived...
broke out in
BaghdadBaghdad is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is coterminous. Having a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq and the second largest in the Arab World....
in which approximately 180 Jews were killed and about 240 were wounded, 586 Jewish-owned businesses were looted and 99 Jewish houses were destroyed.
Like most
Arab LeagueThe Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organization of Arab states in Southwest Asia, and North and Northeast Africa. It was formed in Cairo on March 22, 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria...
states, Iraq initially forbade the emigration of its Jews after the 1948 war on the grounds that allowing them to go to Israel would strengthen that state. However, by 1949 Jews were escaping Iraq at about a rate of 1,000 a month (Simon, Reguer, and Laskier, p 365).
Hoping to stem the flow of assets from the country, in March 1950 Iraq passed a law of one year duration allowing Jews to emigrate on condition of relinquishing their Iraqi citizenship. They were motivated, according to Ian Black, by "economic considerations, chief of which was that almost all the property of departing Jews reverted to the state treasury" and also that "Jews were seen as a restive and potentially troublesome minority that the country was best rid of.". Israel was at first reluctant to absorb all the Jews, but eventaully yielded and mounted an operation called "
Ezra and NehemiahFrom 1950 to 1952, Operation Ezra and Nehemiah airlifted 120-130,000 Iraqi Jews to Israel via Iran and Cyprus. By 1968 only 2,000 Jews remained in Iraq...
" to bring as many of the Iraqi Jews as possible to Israel.
At first, the zionist movement tried to regulate the amount of registrants, until several issues relating to their legal status were clarified. Later on it gave up on that position and allowed everyone to register. Two weeks after the law went into force, the Iraqi interior minister demaned a CID investigation as to why the Jews were not registering. A mere few hours after the movement allowed registrations, a bomb attack injured four Jews at a café on Abu-Nawas street in baghdad.
In 21.8.1950, the Iraqi minister of interior threatened the company flying the Jews to have its license revoked if it does not fulfil the quota of 500 Jews per day. Later on, on 18.9.1950, Nuri As-said summoned a representative of the Jewish community and told him that he knows that Israel is behind the delay in the departure of the Jews, and threatened to "take them to the borders". On 12.10.1950, Nuri as-said summoned a senior official of the company and made similar threats again, equating the expulsion of Jews with the expulsion of Palestinians.
Two months before the expiry of the law, by which time about 85,000 Jews had registered, a bomb at the Masuda Shemtov
SynagogueA synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer....
killed 3 or 5 Jews and injured many. The law expired in March 1951, but was later extended after the Iraqi government froze and later appropriated the assets of departing Jews (including those already left).In 1951 the Iraqi Government passed legislation that made affiliation with Zionism a felony and ordered, "the expulsion of Jews who refused to sign a statement of anti-Zionism." During the next few months, all but a few thousand of the remaining Jews registered for emigration. Four more bombing attack occurred after Jews were not allowed to register anymore. In total, about 120,000 Jews left Iraq.
In May and June 1951, the arms caches of the
ZionistZionism is the international political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine. The area was the Jewish Biblical homeland, called the Land of Israel...
underground in Iraq, which had been supplied from Palestine/Israel since the
FarhudFarhud was a violent pogrom against the Jews of Baghdad, Iraq on June 1-2, 1941. It took place when the city was without a political leadership after Rashid Ali al-Kaylani had fled but before British and Transjordanian forces had arrived...
of 1941, were discovered. Many Jews were arrested and two Zionist activists, Yusuf Basri and Ibrahim Salih, were tried and hanged for three of the bombings, all of which happened after the expiration of the law. A secret Israeli inquiry in 1960 reported that most of the witnesses believed that Jews had been responsible for the bombings, but found no evidence that they were ordered by Israel. The issue remains unresolved: some Iraqi activists in Israel still regularly charge that Israel used violence to engineer the exodus, while Israeli officials of the time vehemently deny it. According to historian Moshe Gatt, few historians believe that Israel was actually behind the bombing campaign—based on factors such as records indicating that Israel did not want such a rapid registration rate and that bomb throwing at Jewish targets was common before 1950, making the Istiqlal Party or the CID a more likely culprit than the Zionist underground. In any case, the remainder of Iraq's Jews left over the next few decades. and had mostly gone by 1970. In 1969 eleven Jews were hanged, nine of them on January 27 in the public squares of Baghdad and Basra. The 2,500 remnant of the community almost entirely fled shortly thereafter.
Lebanon
The area now known as
LebanonLebanon , officially the Republic of Lebanon
[Republic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies...]
was the home of one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, dating back to at least 300 BCE. In 1948, there were approximately 24,000 Jews in Lebanon, with communities in
BeirutBeirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon with a population of over 2.1 million as of 2007. Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's coastline with the Mediterranean sea, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan Area, which...
, and in villages near
Mount LebanonMount Lebanon , as a geographic designation, is the Lebanese mountain range, known as the Western Mountain Range of Lebanon. It extends across the whole country along about , parallel to the Mediterranean coast with the highest peak, Qurnat as Sawda', at . Lebanon has historically been defined by...
, Deir al Qamar,
BaroukBarouk is a village in the Chouf District of Lebanon . Historically, the village is known for being the "land of good", because of its fountain . The poet Rachid Nakhleh, the writer of the national hymn , was born in Barouk...
, and Hasbayah. While the French mandate saw a general improvement in conditions for Jews, the Vichy regime placed restrictions on them. The Jewish community actively supported Lebanese independence after World War II and had mixed attitudes toward Zionism.
Unlike in other Arab countries, the Lebanese Jewish community did not face grave peril during the 1948 Arab-Israel War and was reasonably protected by governmental authorities. Lebanon was also the only Arab country that saw a post-1948 increase in its Jewish population, principally due to the influx of Jewish refugees coming from Syria and Iraq.
However, negative attitudes toward Jews increased after 1948, and, by 1967, most Lebanese Jews had emigrated - to the United States, Canada, France, and Israel. The remaining Jewish community was particularly hard hit by the civil wars in Lebanon, and, by 1967, most Jews had emigrated. In 1971, Albert Elia, the 69-year-old Secretary-General of the Lebanese Jewish community was kidnapped in Beirut by Syrian agents and imprisoned under torture in Damascus along with Syrian Jews who had attempted to flee the country. A personal appeal by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Prince Sadruddin Agha Khan to the late President Hafez al-Assad failed to secure Elia's release. In the 1980s, Hizballah kidnapped several Lebanese Jewish businessmen, and in the 2004 elections, only one Jew voted in the municipal elections. There are now less than 100 Jews remaining in Lebanon.
Libya
In 1948, about 38,000 Jews lived there.
A series of pogroms started in
TripoliTripoli is the largest and capital city of Libya.Tripoli has a population of 1.69 million...
in November 1945; over a period of several days more than 130 Jews (including 36 children) were killed, hundreds were injured, 4,000 were left homeless, and 2,400 were reduced to poverty. Five synagogues in Tripoli and four in provincial towns were destroyed, and over 1,000 Jewish residences and commercial buildings were plundered in Tripoli alone. The pogroms continued in June 1948, when 15 Jews were killed and 280 Jewish homes destroyed.
Between the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and Libyan independence in December 1951 over 30,000 Libyan Jews emigrated to Israel. In 1967, during the
Six-Day WarThe Six-Day War of June 5-10, 1967 was a war between the Israel army and the armies of the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The Arab states of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria also contributed troops and arms. At the war's end, Israel had gained control of the...
, the Jewish population of 4,000 was again subjected to pogroms in which 18 were killed, and many more injured. The Libyan government "urged the Jews to leave the country temporarily", permitting them each to take one suitcase and the equivalent of $50. In June and July over 4,000 traveled to Italy, where they were assisted by the Jewish Agency. 1,300 went on to Israel, 2,200 remained in Italy, and most of the rest went to the United States. A few scores remained in Libya.
In 1970 the Libyan government issued new laws which confiscated all the assets of Libya's Jews, issuing in their stead 15 year bonds. However, when the bonds matured no compensation was paid. Libyan leader
Muammar al-GaddafiMuammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi
1 has been the de facto leader of Libya since a coup in 1969....
justified this on the grounds that "the alignment of the Jews with Israel, the Arab nations' enemy, has forfeited their right to compensation."
Although the main synagogue in Tripoli was renovated in 1999, it has not reopened for services. The last Jew in Libya, Esmeralda Meghnagi died in February, 2002. Israel is home to about 40,000 Jews of Libyan descent, who maintain unique traditions.
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/JewsofLibya/LibyanJews/thejews.html http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/libyajews.html
Morocco
In Morocco the
VichyVichy France, or the Vichy regime are the common terms used to describe the government of France from July 1940 to August 1944. This government, which succeeded the Third Republic, officially called itself the French State , in contrast with the previous designation, "French Republic." Marshal...
regime during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
passed discriminatory laws against Jews; for example, Jews were no longer able to get any form of credit, Jews who had homes or businesses in European neighborhoods were expelled, and quotas were imposed limiting the percentage of Jews allowed to practice professions such as law and medicine to two percent.
King Muhammad VMohammed V was Sultan of Morocco from 1927 to 1953, exiled from 1953-55, where he was again recognized as Sultan upon his return, and King from 1957 to 1961. His full name was Sidi Mohammed ben Yusef, or Son of Yusef, upon whose death he succeeded to the throne...
expressed his personal distaste for these laws, and assured Moroccan Jewish leaders that he would never lay a hand "upon either their persons or property". While there is no concrete evidence of him actually taking any actions to defend Morocco's Jews, it has been argued that he may have worked behind the scenes on their behalf.
In June 1948, soon after
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
was established and in the midst of the first Arab-Israeli war, riots against Jews broke out in
OujdaOujda is a city in eastern Morocco with an estimated population of half a million. The city is located about 15 kilometers west of Algeria and about 60 kilometers south of the Mediterranean Sea...
and Djerada, killing 44 Jews. In 1948-9, 18,000 Jews left the country for Israel. After this, Jewish emigration continued (to Israel and elsewhere), but slowed to a few thousand a year. Through the early fifties,
ZionistZionism is the international political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine. The area was the Jewish Biblical homeland, called the Land of Israel...
organizations encouraged emigration, particularly in the poorer south of the country, seeing Moroccan Jews as valuable contributors to the Jewish State:
In 1956, Morocco attained independence. Jews occupied several political positions, including three parliamentary seats and the cabinet position of Minister of Posts and Telegraphs. However, that minister, Leon Benzaquen, did not survive the first cabinet reshuffling, and no Jews was appointed again to a cabinet position. Although the relations with the Jewish community at the highest levels of government were cordial, these attitudes were not shared by the lower ranks of officialsdom, which exhibited attitudes that ranged from traditional contempt to outright hostility". Morocco's increasing identification with the Arab world, and pressure on Jewish educational institutions to arabize and conform culturally added to the fears of Moroccan Jews. Emigration to Israel jumped from 8,171 in 1954 to 24,994 in 1955, increasing further in 1956. Beginning in 1956, emigration to
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
was prohibited until 1961; during that time, however, clandestine emigration continued, and a further 18,000 Jews left Morocco. On January 10, 1961, a boat carrying Jews attempting to flee the country sank off the northern coast of the country; the negative publicity associated with this prompted King
Muhammad VMohammed V was Sultan of Morocco from 1927 to 1953, exiled from 1953-55, where he was again recognized as Sultan upon his return, and King from 1957 to 1961. His full name was Sidi Mohammed ben Yusef, or Son of Yusef, upon whose death he succeeded to the throne...
to again allow emigration, and over the three following years, more than 70,000 Moroccan Jews left the country. By 1967, only 50,000 Jews remained.
The
Six-Day WarThe Six-Day War of June 5-10, 1967 was a war between the Israel army and the armies of the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The Arab states of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria also contributed troops and arms. At the war's end, Israel had gained control of the...
in 1967 led to increased Arab-Jewish tensions worldwide, including Morocco, and Jewish emigration continued. By the early 1970s the Jewish population was reduced to 25,000; however, most of this wave of emigration went to
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
,
BelgiumThe Kingdom of Belgium is a country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organizations, including NATO...
,
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
, and
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, rather than
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
.
Despite their current small numbers, Jews continue to play a notable role in Morocco; the king retains a Jewish senior adviser,
André AzoulayAndré Azoulay is a senior adviser to King Mohammed VI of Morocco. He previously advised Mohammed's father, King Hassan II....
, and Jewish schools and synagogues receive government subsidies. However, Jewish targets have sometimes been attacked (notably in the bombing of a Jewish community center in
CasablancaCasablanca is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean...
, see
Casablanca AttacksThe 2003 Casablanca bombings were a series of suicide bombings on May 16, 2003, in Casablanca, Morocco. The attacks were the deadliest terrorist attacks in the country's history. The attacks occurred four days after the Riyadh compound bombings that targeted Western compounds in Riyadh, Saudi...
), and there is sporadic anti-Semitic rhetoric from radical Islamist groups. The late King Hassan II's invitations for Jews to return have not been taken up by the people who emigrated; in 1948, over 250,000-265,000 Jews lived in Morocco. By 2001 an estimated 5,230 remained.
According to Esther Benbassa, the migration of Jews from the
MaghrebThe Maghreb , also rendered Maghrib , meaning "place of sunset" or "western" in Arabic, is a region in North Africa. The term is generally applied to all of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, but in older Arabic usage pertained only to the area of the three countries between the high ranges of the...
countries was prompted by uncertainty about the future.
Syria
Rioters in Aleppo in 1947 burned the city's Jewish quarter and killed 75 people. In 1948, there were approximately 30,000 Jews in
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
. The Syrian government placed severe restrictions on the Jewish community, including on emigration. Over the next decades, many Jews managed to escape, and the work of supporters, particularly
Judy Feld CarrJudith Feld Carr, CM is a musician and humanitarian, who resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Judy was born in Montreal, but spent much of her childhood in Sudbury, Ontario. She is famous for smuggling thousands of Syrian Jews out of Syria. She did this over 28 years in a secret operation.Feld...
, in smuggling Jews out of Syria, and bringing their plight to the attention of the world, raised awareness of their situation. Following the
Madrid Conference of 1991The Madrid Conference was hosted by the government of Spain and co-sponsored by the USA and the USSR. It convened on October 30 1991 and lasted for three days...
the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
put pressure on the Syrian government to ease its restrictions on Jews, and on Passover in 1992, the government of Syria began granting exit visas to Jews on condition that they do not emigrate to
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
. At that time, the country had several thousand Jews; today, under a hundred remain. The rest of the Jewish community have emigrated, mostly to the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
. There is a large and vibrant Syrian Jewish community in South
BrooklynBrooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located southwest of Queens on the western tip of Long Island. An independent city until its consolidation with New York in 1898, Brooklyn is New York City's most populous borough, with 2.5 million residents, and second largest in area...
,
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. In 2004, the Syrian government attempted to establish better relations with the emigrants, and a delegation of a dozen Jews of Syrian origin visited Syria in the spring of that year.
Tunisia
In 1948, approximately 105,000 Jews lived in
TunisiaTunisia , officially the Tunisian Republic , is a country located in North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and Libya to the southeast. Tunisia is located southwest of the island of Sicily and south of Sardinia. Its size is almost 165,000 km² with an estimated population of just...
. About 1,500 remain today, mostly in
DjerbaDjerba is, at 514 km², the largest island off North Africa, located in the Gulf of Gabes off the coast of Tunisia.-Description:The climate is mild and the soil well cultivated...
,
TunisTunis is the capital of the Tunisian Republic and also the Tunis Governorate, with a population of 1,200,000 in 2008 and over 3,980,500 in the greater Tunis area...
, and
ZarzisZarzis is a coastal town in southeastern Tunisia, on the coast of Mediterranean Sea. The climate is mainly dry and sunny, making it a popular tourist destination mixing the old and the traditional...
. Following Tunisia's independence from France in 1956, a number of anti-Jewish policies led to emigration, of which half went to Israel and the other half to France. After attacks in 1967, Jewish emigration both to Israel and
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
accelerated. There were also attacks in 1982, 1985, and most recently in 2002 when a bomb in
DjerbaDjerba is, at 514 km², the largest island off North Africa, located in the Gulf of Gabes off the coast of Tunisia.-Description:The climate is mild and the soil well cultivated...
took 21 lives (most of them German tourists) near the local synagogue, in a terrorist attack claimed by
Al-QaedaAl-Qaeda , alternatively spelled al-Qaida and sometimes al-Qa'ida, is an Islamist group founded sometime between August 1988 and late 1989 and early 1990...
. (See
Ghriba synagogue bombingThe Ghriba synagogue bombing was a deadly bombing carried out by Niser bin Muhammad Nasar Nawar in Tunisia on the El Ghriba synagogue.On April 11, 2002, a natural gas truck fitted with explosives drove past security barriers at the ancient Ghriba Synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba...
).
Yemen
If one includes
AdenAden is a city in Yemen, 170 kilometres east of Bab-el-Mandeb.Aden's ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of an extinct volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a low isthmus. This harbour, Front Bay, was first used by the ancient Kingdom of Awsan between the 5th and...
, there were about 63,000 Jews in
YemenYemen , officially the Republic of Yemen is a country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia...
in 1948. Today, there are about 200 left. In 1947, riots killed at least 80 Jews in Aden, a British colony in southern Yemen. In 1948 the new
ZaydiZaidiyya, Zaidism or Zaydism is a Shī'a madhhab named after the Imām Zayd ibn ˤAlī. Followers of the Zaidi fiqh are called Zaidis...
Imam
Ahmad bin YahyaAhmad bin Yahya Hamidaddin was the penultimate king of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen from 1948 to 1962. His full name and title was H.M. al-Nasir-li-din Allah Ahmad bin al-Mutawakkil 'Ala Allah Yahya, Imam and Commander of the Faithful, and King of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of the Yemen...
unexpectedly allowed his Jewish subjects to leave Yemen, and tens of thousands poured into Aden. The Israeli government's
Operation Magic CarpetOperation Magic Carpet is a widely-known nickname for Operation On Wings of Eagles, an operation between June 1949 and September 1950 that brought 49,000 Yemenite Jews to the new state of Israel. British and American transport planes made some 380 flights from Aden, in a secret operation that was...
evacuated around 44,000 Jews from Yemen to Israel in 1949 and 1950. Emigration continued until 1962, when the civil war in Yemen broke out. A small community remained unknown until 1976, but it appears that all infrastructure is lost now.
See also
- Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to Eretz Israel. It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology, and a value in almost all movements of Judaism...
- 1948 Palestinian exodus
The 1948 Palestinian exodus , also known as al Nakba , meaning the "disaster", "catastrophe", or "cataclysm", occurred when between 650,000 and 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes by Jewish or Israeli forces, during the creation of the state of Israel and the civil war...
- Arab-Israeli conflict
- Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is prejudice against or hostility towards Jews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background, culture, or religion....
- Arab anti-Semitism
- Islam and anti-Semitism
Islam and antisemitism looks at the teaching of Islam relating to Jews and Judaism and the attitudes of the Muslim world in history to Jews as a people, and the treatment of Jews in Muslim countries....
- Jewish history
Jewish history is the history of the Jewish people, faith, and culture. Since Jewish history encompasses nearly six thousand years and hundreds of different populations, any treatment can only be provided in broad strokes...
- Jewish population
Jewish population refers to the number of Jews in the world. Precise figures are difficult to calculate because the definition of "Who is a Jew" remains a source of controversy.-Total population:...
- Historical Jewish population comparisons
Jewish population centers have shifted tremendously over time, due to the constant streams of Jewish refugees created by expulsions, persecution, and officially sanctioned killing of Jews in various places at various times...
- Jewish refugees
In the course of history, Jewish populations have been expelled or ostracised by various local authorities and have sought asylum from antisemitism numerous times...
- Jews by country
This article deals with the practice of Judaism and the living arrangement of Jews in the listed countries.-See also:* Who is a Jew?* Jewish ethnic divisions** Ashkenazi Jews** Sephardi Jews** Mizrahi Jews** Jews and Judaism in the African diaspora...
- Jews outside Europe under Nazi occupation
-The Holocaust in French North Africa:The "Final solution" plan aspired to destroy all the Jews of the world. “... the Nazis sought to murder every Jew everywhere” .Hitler's Speech in Munich, 24 February, 1939: "the Jewish question today was no longer a German problem:...
- Maghen Abraham Synagogue
The Maghen Abraham Synagogue is the oldest synagogue in Beirut. Although abadoned since the Lebanese Civil War, it can still be seen in Wadi Abu Jamil district, the former Jewish quarter in central Beirut...
- Jews of the Bilad el-Sudan (West Africa)
Jews of the Bilad al-Sudan describes West African Jewish communities who were connected to known Jewish communities from the Middle East, North Africa, or Spain and Portugal. Various historical records attest to their presence at one time in the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai empires, then called the...
- Arab Jews
Arab Jews is a controversial term referring to Jews living in the Arab World, or Jews descended from such persons.The term was occasionally used in the early 20th century, mainly by Arab nationalists, to describe the 1 million Jews living in the Arab world at the time...
- Mizrahi Jews
Mizrahi Jews or Mizrahim, , also referred to as Edot HaMizrach are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus. The term Mizrahi is used in Israel in the language of politics, media and some social scientists for Jews from the Arab world and...
- Population transfer
Population transfer is the movement of a large group of people from one region to another by state policy or international authority, most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion...
External links