Israel's Forgotten Jewish Refugees

Israel's Forgotten Jewish Refugees 

Part I

An Israeli Foreign Ministry campaign launched in September aimed at restoring “rights and justice” for Jewish refugees that fled Arab lands in the previous century elicited harsh criticism from Palestinian leaders like Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee, who referred to the initiative as a ploy.

“Jews who came to Israel are not refugees, because they left their homes voluntarily and under pressure from Zionist groups and the Jewish Agency,” she was quoted by the Jerusalem Post as saying, suggesting that the Foreign Ministry’s move was really meant to distract from the suffering of the Palestinians and block their recent attempts to obtain a non-member-state status at the United Nations (UN).

But not everyone agreed.


“I don’t think it has anything to do with politics. Israel’s past governments didn’t value the educational power of this issue. Now they are changing this stance, primarily following the pressure of various Jewish-refugee organizations inside Israel,” said Dr. Yitschak Ben-Gad, a former Libyan refugee who served as Consul General of Israel in Florida, USA (2005-2007).

Although political motivations could certainly stand behind the ministry’s decision to launch the campaign amid Palestinians’ drive for recognition, Ashrawi’s claims of voluntary Jewish exodus cannot be taken seriously, especially because they contradict basic historical facts.

In the beginning of the previous century, there were about one million Jews residing in what’s now known as the Middle East, Iran and North Africa. Today, their population (outside of Israel) stands at no more than three percent, with experts saying their flight was dictated by reasons of personal safety.

“For Libyan Jewry the problems started in 1945 with the attacks on Jewish quarters in Tripoli and other cities,” said Dr. Haim Saadoun, Dean of Students at the Open University of Israel and Director of the Documentation Center for North African Jewry during World War II at the Ben Zvi Institute. Saadoun referenced atrocities that claimed the lives of 139 Libyan Jews – among them women and children.

Tensions escalated following Libya’s independence in 1951, and more Jewish blood was shed. Recalling those events that pushed him and his family to flee, Ben-Gad said they had to leave everything behind. “The situation was difficult even before the eruption of the pogroms, but Jews didn’t have a choice. With the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, many decided to leave, taking the bare minimum of their belongings”.

The situation in other Muslim states was also alarming, but Saadoun said the extent of suffering varied from one country to another.

“The circumstances that made Jews leave their homelands were different,” he noted. “Pogroms erupted as a result of the conflicts between the colonial powers and the liberation movements, as well as the efforts of the Arab League [to demonize the Jewish people and pin the blame for the misfortunes on them]. But they were far from being the only reason. Apart from violent attacks, Jews escaped various economic, business and religious limitations”.

Some immigrated to Canada and Europe, others relocated to Israel. In fact, the influx of refugees from Arab lands was so acute that it got some Palestinian leaders worried.

In 1951, Aref Al Aref, a Palestinian historian, journalist and politician, dispatched a telegram to the Arab League imploring the Arab governments not to expel the Jews. This, he wrote, would solve “two problems… that of Palestine generally and that of the refugees in particular.” His pleas, however, were never answered.


Part II

The Muslim world’s attitude towards Jews has not always been hostile. After the Muslim conquest of the Middle East and North Africa in the seventh century, Jews were tolerated and even permitted limited religious, educational, professional and business opportunities. At the same time, they were considered second-class citizens or the so-called dhimmis (protected minorities), with various restrictions in both legal and societal arenas.

In Yemen, for example, a Jew was not permitted to walk on the pavement or ride a horse; while in the courts, his evidence was not accepted against that of a Muslim. Other restrictions were manifested in expressions of contempt, denial of dignity and even incidents of recurring violence targeting Jewish individuals and their communities.

The establishment of colonial regimes in the 19th century by France, Great Britain and Italy allowed Jews to enhance their everyday lives and improve their status in society. But that didn’t last long. The eruption of WWII and the subsequent occupation of North Africa by the “Axis” forces led to the persecution of Jews, many of whom were deported to work or extermination camps.

But apart from facing eradication by the Nazis and their allies, Jews also suffered at the hands of their Muslim neighbors. The most shocking event, called the Farhud, occurred in Iraq in 1941, when Arab anti-British mobs attacked Jews, whom they identified as collaborators with the British. The three-day long massacre left some 182 Baghdadi Jews dead and one thousand others injured.

“The event came as a surprise to many Jews. For years, Iraqi Jewry sought to assimilate in the Muslim society (unlike their brethren in other Arab states); they considered themselves Iraqis and felt extremely connected to the country’s heritage. They had immense influence on the shaping of the language and the music, the education system and economy. Farhud scrapped all that,” explained Dr. Haim Saadoun, Dean of Students at the Open University of Israel and Director of the Documentation Center for North African Jewry during World War II (WWII) at the Ben Zvi Institute, adding that the end of the war didn’t ease Jewish suffering.

“Tensions escalated following the UN decision to partition Palestine into two states. The Arab League used the move to promote anti-Jewish sentiment [felt especially in Egypt], charging that Jews were funding the creation of Israel, something that fueled the Arab masses,” Saadoun told Israel Today, stressing that the situation was further aggravated by the rise of pan-Arabism and religious zeal.

In fact, threats against Jewish communities of the Middle East and North Africa were voiced from the tribune of the UN’s General Assembly, when, amid the Palestine partition debate of 1947, Heykal Pasha, an Egyptian delegate, suddenly declared:

“The United Nations . . . should not lose sight of the fact that the proposed solution might endanger a million Jews living in the Muslim [states]. Partition of Palestine might create in those countries [the feeling of] anti-Semitism [that would be] more difficult to root out than [that…] the Allies were trying to eradicate in Germany. . . If the United Nations decides to partition Palestine, it might be responsible for the massacre of a large number of Jews”.

Pasha’s ideas quickly became reality as the Arab governments began launching campaigns against Jews. Those included discriminatory legislation, confiscation of citizenship, random arrests and forced imprisonment, exclusion from practice in the civil service and quotas in certain fields of employment (not to mention numerous cases of government-funded violence).

According to the estimates of Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a think tank specializing in public diplomacy and foreign policy, Jews lost some $6.7 billion worth of property and assets (in current prices), with other calculations suggesting the number totaled no less than $30 billion.
This is part two of a three-part series on Israel's forgotten Jewish refugees. Check back next week for the conclusion.


Part III

Arab leaders consistently deny accusations that their nations' mistreatment of Jews led to an exodus and the creation of a Jewish refugee problem in 1948. They regularly make a show of offering that those Jews who left return to their Arab homelands as compensation for any past misdeeds.

Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian Authtority's chief negotiator, was quoted by the Palestinian news agency Maan as saying, “We are not against any Jew who wants to return to Morocco, Iraq, Libya, Egypt and elsewhere. I believe no Arab state rejects the Jewish right of returning to their native lands”.

Dr. Yitschak Ben-Gad, a former Libyan Jewish refugee who served as Consul General of Israel in Florida, USA (2005-2007) responded with fierce criticism, stating that the offer was unacceptable.

Dr. Haim Saadoun of Israel's Open University agreed. “Jews cannot go back, and it’s not the matter of the Arab Spring. It has more to do with the gap between the Jewish drive for modernization and Arab societies’ desire to stick to their traditions, often at the expense of modernity”.

But if home-coming is out of question, what’s the alternative? The answer to this question was suggested in a report by Israel's Foreign Ministry that offered to establish a special fund that would “compensate the Jewish and the Palestinian refugees… [as well as those] countries that had already been working on absorbing and rehabilitating [them]… [It] will also deal with the issue of Jewish property that is still in the hands of Arab and Muslim countries…”

This approach is nothing new. In 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for the settlement of the refugee issues, both Jewish and Palestinian, but the call fell on deaf ears, with Arab government representatives voting against it.

Another attempt to settle the problem was made during the Camp David peace talks of 2000, when President Clinton offered to create an international fund that would compensate the refugees, both Arab and Jewish. His project, however, just like other initiatives, has never seen the light of day.

In fact, the pleas of Jewish refugees have always been sidelined by the much more popular Palestinian refugee issue. Comparing numbers on both sides, BBC notes: “856,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries [were registered between] 1948-1952 [as compared to] 860,000 Palestinian refugees [recorded] by 1951,” adding that “now with their descendants they total 5 million (UNRWA)”.

But the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs comes up with another figure. “Studies suggest that in 1948 there were about 740,000 Palestinians living in what is now Israel. During the war some 190,000 either remained or left and returned soon thereafter. Thus, the most plausible number of refugees is 550,000…”

Using the same methodology, the think tank indicated that the 1967 war created about 100,000 refugees in addition to some 25-46 thousands of internally displaced persons, most of whom were compensated by either the Israeli authorities or international donors.

If these numbers are accurate, the two wars produced some 650,000 Palestinian refugees, the majority of whom continue to live in camps scattered across the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Addressing this issue, Ben-Gad pinned the responsibility on the Arab community.

“Arab leaders are not trying to solve the problem of Palestinian refugees, who are used as a football in the hands of their politicians, aimed at de-legitimizing Israel,” he charged. “On the other hand, Jews, who escaped persecution in Arab lands, were absorbed by Israel and received assistance [especially from charity organizations funded by the Jewish diaspora]. They turned from refugees to the constructive basis of the society. You can see them in all walks of political and social life.”

Will the suffering of Jewish refugees ever be acknowledged? “I have always raised this question. I believe that a drop can make a hole in concrete, if it only persists,” concluded Ben-Gad.

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