Operation Magic Carpet (Yemen)

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Operation Magic Carpet (Yemen)

Operation 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

Yemenite Jews

Yemenite Jews are those Jews who live, or whose recent ancestors lived, in Yemen , on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula. Virtually the entire Jewish population emigrated from Yemen between June 1949 and September 1950 in what was deemed Operation Magic Carpet ....
to the new state of Israel

Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East 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 relatively small area....
. British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
and American

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
transport planes made some 380 flights from Aden

Aden

Aden is a city in Yemen, 170 kilometers 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....
, in a secret operation that was not made public until several months after it was over.

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Operation 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

Yemenite Jews

Israel

United Kingdom

United States

Aden

Background

Following the 1947 UN Partition Plan

1947 UN Partition Plan

The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine or s:United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 was a plan adopted by a decision of the UN General Assembly on November 29, 1947....
in which a Jewish State in Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a name which has been widely used since Roman times to refer to the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It is derived from a name used already much earlier for a narrower geographical region, mainly along the coastal region....
was declared, Muslim rioters engaged in clashes in Aden that killed 82 people and destroyed a number of Jewish homes. Early in 1948, the accusation of the murder of two Muslim Yemeni girls led to looting of Jewish property. Aden's Jewish community was economically paralyzed, as most of the Jewish stores and businesses were destroyed.

The Operation

In response to an increasingly perilous situation, most of the Yemenite Jewish community secretly emigrated to Israel between June 1949 and September 1950 in Operation Magic Carpet. A smaller, continuous migration was allowed to continue into 1962, when a civil war put an abrupt halt to any further Jewish exodus. Some wealthy Jewish families who doubted promises of a better future in Israel decided not to leave their properties, and a total of some 300 Jews remained in Yemen.

During the course of Operation Magic Carpet (1949–1950), the overwhelming majority of Yemenite Jews - some 47,000 Yemeni, 1500 Aden as well as 500 Djibouti

Djibouti

Djibouti , officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea in the north, Ethiopia in the west and south, and Somalia in the southeast....
an and Eritrean Jews - were airlifted to Israel. Most of them had never seen an aircraft before. They were uprooted from their religious ways of life as farmers and had to adapt to a totally new way of life in a new world..

The operation's official name originated from two relevant biblical

Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
passages:

Exodus
Exodus

Exodus is the second book of the Jewish Torah and of the Christian Old Testament. It tells how Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and through the wilderness to the Mountain of God Sinai....
19:4 - "You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I bore you on wings of eagles, and brought you to Myself."
Book of Isaiah
Book of Isaiah

The Book of Isaiah is a book of the Bible traditionally attributed to the Prophet Isaiah, who lived in the second half of the 8th century BC. In the first 39 chapters, Isaiah prophesies doom for a sinful Judah and for all the nations of the world that oppose God....
40:31 - "But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

Since they had never seen aircraft before, many of the immigrants were extremely scared and refused to board, but were assured when reminded of these verses by their rabbi.

Operation Magic Carpet was the first in a series of operations

Jewish exodus from Arab lands

The Jewish exodus from Arab lands refers to the 20th century expulsion or mass departure of Jews, primarily of Sephardi Jews and Mizrahi Jews background, from Arab and Islamic countries....
whose purpose was to transport entire communities of Jews from Arab countries to Israel en masse during the 1950's and 1960's.