Lyn Julius
The Extinction of Jewish Life in the Arab World
Summary
Examining the overlooked history of the extinction of Jewish life in the Arab world. Until the 17th century, there were more Jews in the Arab world than in Europe, and they played a significant role in the region’s cities such as Baghdad. The extinction of these Jewish communities, with nearly a million Jews being driven out or fleeing, makes it one of the largest refugee movements.
Lyn Julius
Lyn Julius was born in the UK and educated at the French Lycée in London and the University of Sussex. The daughter of Jewish refugees from Iraq, she is a journalist and founder of Harif, the UK Association of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa (www.harif.org). Lyn blogs daily at Point of No Return (www.jewishrefugees.org.uk). Her work has appeared in the Guardian, Huffington Post, Jewish News, and Jerusalem Post. She has a regular column in the Times of Israel and JNS News. Her book Uprooted: How 3,000 Years of Jewish Civilization in the Arab World Vanished Overnight has been translated in to Norwegian, Portuguese and Arabic, and a Hebrew version is in progress.
Very few Jews still left there, maybe 4,000 out of a million. They’re always going to be “the last of the Mohicans.” There are always going to be those Jews who want to be buried where they were born.
There is no data but we have reason to believe many, many, Jews converted to Islam. I did come across one statistic that said in Yemen there were maybe 50,000 Arabs who had Jewish roots.
Judeo-Arabic is like Ladino in that it is a Jewish language, like Yiddish is a Jewish language, but there isn’t actually a relationship between the languages themselves. Ladino is based on mediaeval Spanish and Judea-Arabic is based on Arabic.