Lyn Julius
Why Has the Exodus of the Jews From the Arab World Been Forgotten?

Lyn Julius | Why Has the Exodus of the Jews From the Arab World Been Forgotten | 08.25.21

- Well, thank you very much for having me, and thank you all for joining me here in Israel. It’s great to be back. This evening, I shall be talking about the exodus of Jews from Arab countries, and specifically I’ll be asking the question, why has the exodus of Jews from Arab countries been forgotten? And that assumes, of course, that it was ever known about in the first place. The topic ties in neatly with the biblical exodus we celebrated at Passover. Alec Nacamuli talked about the modern day exodus of Jews from Egypt, and you may also have heard about Mossad’s spectacular operation to smuggle out Jews from Ethiopia in the 1980s. So, who exactly are we talking about? I shall just share my screen in a minute.

Almost a million Jews lived in the Muslim world in 1948. Until the 17th century, most Jews lived under Muslim rule, although by the 20th century, only 10% lived in the Middle East and North Africa. Today, barely 4,000 Jews remain in the Arab world, although Turkey and Iran still have a few tens of thousands still living there. Why has this massive exodus been forgotten? If it was ever known about, perhaps people have denied its existence or dismissed it as irrelevant or they have deliberately suppressed it. So, before we talk about why this exodus has been forgotten, here’s a quick reminder of the facts. We are talking about the destruction of Jewish communities and their rich heritage in 10 Arab countries. These are very ancient communities, going back almost 3,000 years, to biblical times. Jews have lived in the region before there were any Arabs, 1,000 years before Islam.

So, they’re effectively an indigenous people in the Middle East and North Africa, not just in Palestine. Just go back again. So, according to this chart, you can see the numbers declining quite spectacularly from 1948 to today. And today you can count the numbers on the fingers of one or two hands. I have included Iran, which is down to about 8,000. Although Iran is not an Arab country and was not, and did not declare war on Israel in 1948. In fact, the exodus from Iran took place 30 years later in 1979 when the Ayatollahs took over. Jews have lived in places like Baghdad, Iraq, since the destruction of the first temple in Jerusalem. In 1939, 33% of the population were Jews, making it proportionately more Jewish than Warsaw and New York. Today, only three Jews live in Iraq. So, 650,000 of these Jews, that’s the majority, ended up in Israel and over 50% of Israeli Jews are there, not because of the Nazis, but the Arabs.

The 20th century was a time of great upheaval. Over 135 million people became refugees. But by concentrating only on the Palestinian Arabs, who in 1947 to ‘48 were made refugees from Israel, policy makers, the media, academia, and the public generally have formed a lopsided view of the conflict. The Jewish exodus was a case of massive ethnic cleansing. There was a larger number of Jewish refugees than Palestinians, and it was the biggest non-Muslim exodus until the flight of Christians from Iraq after 2003 in the American invasion then. The Jewish exodus was a forced exodus. Let me be clear that for the Jewish refugees, their exodus was also a liberation. They escaped violence and persecution. They resettled in free and democratic states in Israel and the West. No one wants to go back to countries that for the most part remain as hostile to Jews as on the day they left.

However, they are victims of an unresolved injustice. Jews left with one suitcase and the clothes on their backs. They left behind assets and property worth billions of dollars. They abandoned privately owned land amounting to Jordan and Lebanon combined. They were never compensated for their losses. To add insult to injury, Jewish heritage is being claimed as national heritage. For instance, Torah scrolls and communal records left behind in Egypt as Alec Nacamuli mentioned. And here you see the the Shrine of Ezekiel, which is situated in Iraq. It was the most popular place of pilgrimage for Jews when there was a community. And you can see how the tomb has been transformed into a Muslim shrine and the whole site is now a mosque.

So, the fact that over half the Jews in Israel are refugees from Arab or Muslim countries or their descendants, they are known as, Mizrahim, which means Easterners, is bound to affect any understanding of the conflict and also has implications for peace and reconciliation. And the 200,000 Jews who did not go to Israel are also entitled to recognition and compensation. So, in the Middle East and North Africa, for 13 centuries, Jews lived alongside Muslims, but they had a subordinate, humiliated status in the Muslim world, and this is known as dhimmi, they paid a special tax in order to be allowed to practise their religion. Starting in the 19th century, the colonial era gave them equal rights with the Muslims.

But the Arab world saw a rise in antisemitism, some of it imported from Europe. Arab nationalists wanted independence, but there was no place for Jews in their plans. And, of course, extremists, anti-Semites, such as the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem, who crushed moderate opposition to him and would later collaborate with the Nazis, declared Jihad or Holy War against all Jews living in the Middle East, not just in Palestine. In May, 1948, the Arab League declared war against the fledgling state of Israel and they declared a second war against their own Jewish citizens. And here you see the headline that appeared in the New York Times on the 16th of May, 1948.

That’s two days after Israel was declared. And the headline reads, “Jews in Grave Danger in All Moslem Lands.” The article was written by Mallory Brown and it reported on a series of discriminatory measures taken by the Arab League against their Jewish citizens. So, the members of the Arab League at the time were Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen. And the cited the text of the law drafted by the Arab League, which branded all Jewish citizens, members of the Jewish minority state of Palestine. Their bank accounts would be frozen and used to finance resistance to Zionist ambitions in Palestine. And here you see some extracts from this Draught Law.

The law was actually never passed, but certain aspects of it were actually passed by the individual member states. And here you see in the top paragraph that, “The Jews are branded the Jewish minority of the state of Palestine.” And this is important actually to remember, because the argument is commonly heard that Jews from Arab countries are a separate issue from the Israel Palestine conflict and should address their grievances to Arab states. But remember that both the Jewish and the Palestinian refugee problems were created as a result of a war declared by the Arab League and encouraged by the Palestinian leadership. So, the two are really very closely intertwined.

The result of this policy by the Arab League is that Zionism became a crime in all member states. This meant that you could be arrested, jailed, tried, and even executed on the flimsiest of pretexts. Jews were conflated with Zionists and this happened against a backdrop of violence or the threat of violence. And there were pogroms in Syria, in Bahrain, in Aden, and later on in Libya and in Morocco. Pressure built up and the Jews were desperate to leave these countries. Israel mounted dramatic rescue missions using civil aircraft for the first time. The newcomers came to Israel on some of the largest airlifts in history, 650,000 fled to Israel, doubling the Jewish population overnight.

And here you see a map showing the migration. 200,000 resettled in the west. Although 90% of Jews who fled Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen departed within three years of 1948. Those who stayed behind frequently suffered human rights abuses, persecution, arrest, torture, even hangings. Critics have charged that the Jews could not possibly be refugees because they did not all leave the countries, their countries at once. The departure of Jews from the Arab world was spread out over 30 years. By 1968, though, the remaining Jews were hostages to the Arab-Israeli conflict and could not leave even if they wanted to. This was the case in Syria and Yemen until the 1990s, in Iraq from the 1960s and in Morocco where a travel ban operated for six years.

So, this is a group of Iraqi refugees being airlifted to Israel, about 110,000 where airlifted in this way. So, Israel was a very poor country at the time in 1948, 1949. It didn’t have the resources to absorb all these people, so it sent them to tent camps or Ma'abarot. And there were over 200 of these and some lasted for decade or more. Obviously the tents were not there for 10 years. There were tin huts, asbestos huts, you know, sort of temporary accommodation. And these ma'abarot very often became cities like for instance, the city of Sderot, Rosh HaAyin, Or Yehuda. Lots of cities originated as tent council ma'abarot in Israel. But their story remains forgotten or ignored. And I’ll set out some of the reasons.

Number one, the Jewish refugees were never on the international peace agenda. They were absorbed into Israel. But the Palestinian refugees were not integrated into Arab states, but were deliberately kept in camps as a standing reproach to Israel. The UN was the main culprit here. It established 10 agencies to care for Palestinian refugees. It did not devote any resources to Jewish refugees. The Palestinian refugee numbers ballooned to over 5 million because refugee status could be inherited and the original figure was about between 600 and 800,000. But today it is over 5 million and every year it keeps rising because they keep adding the grandchildren and the great grandchildren and they could carry on adding infinitely.

So, the UN General Assembly passed 172 resolutions mentioning Palestinian refugees, none mentioned Jewish refugees. The security council passed 10 resolutions on Palestinian refugees, none mentioned Jewish refugees specifically. So, another reason why the Jewish exodus has been denied is Arabs did not want to acknowledge that it happened. And to admit the Jewish exodus happened means that the Palestinians are no longer seen as the principle victims. Some Arabs actually deny there were any Jews living in their countries. Others insist that thousands still remain. There’s less and less historical evidence of Jewish presence, synagogues crumble to dust, cemeteries are built over with motorways or high-rise blocks.

The official archives remain closed in Arab countries. And this is a key point because there can’t be any objective study of this whole question unless there is access to these archives. Since the Arab spring, more, excuse me, more and more Arabs are rediscovering their Jewish past, but very few are willing to acknowledge Arab responsibility for causing the Jewish exodus. Certainly no Arab states have ever acknowledged that they caused the exodus. They say the Jews left of their own free will, or they say the Zionist caused the Exodus. If they do acknowledge the Exodus, they blame Israel for ruining a peaceful and harmonious relationship between Arabs and Jews that supposedly prevailed before 1948 and Israel’s creation.

This, of course, is an absolute myth, because Jews were inferior dhimmis throughout history. Yes, there were so-called Golden Ages in Babylon and in mediaeval Spain. But the Jews situation was always precarious. And for instance, the Great Rabbi Maimonides, who was born in Cordoba in Spain, had to flee Muslim fundamentalists in the 12th century. So, the situation was always precarious. In the 20th century, a pogrom broke out in Constantine, in Algeria, this was in 1934, 179 Jews were murdered in Iraq in 1941 in the Farhud. And 140 Jews died in Libya in 1945. All these episodes occurred before Israel was established.

A third reason for, sorry, just, a third reason for why the Jewish exodus has been forgotten or denied has been denial by Jews. Jews did leave as refugees but did not remain refugees for long. They were, by the UN definition, refugees at the time having a well-founded fear of persecution. They are no longer refugees because their adopted countries gave them full citizenship, in other words, the problem was solved. Many Jews did not want to dwell on the past. They wanted to rebuild their lives and reinvent themselves and even hebrised their names in Israel. Those in Israel were embarrassed to compare what they had been through with the plight of Holocaust survivors.

The Shoah understandably cast an enormous shadow over Israel in the 1950s and the exodus from Arab countries seemed to be just a footnote. The prevailing orthodoxy in Israel was that Jews weren’t returning to their ancestral homeland. It was a matter of pride for the Jews themselves to say that they were coming as Zionists and not as humiliated refugees. For instance, I came across this story of Mordecai from Morocco. The owner of a large and prosperous factory in Marrakesh, Mordecai abandoned his business, house and motherland to come to Israel with nothing. His daughter, Rachel, diagnosed with a rare disease, was refused treatment in Morocco because she was Jewish. She eventually became blind because she was not treated in time, yet, Mordecai told his Israeli born children and grandchildren that his motive was Zionist.

Some Jews wallow in nostalgia. The food was better in Arab countries. Everything was more comfortable, life was better, life was idyllic, it was a paradise. Middle class Jews in particular retain happy memories of their childhoods. They were growing up in the colonial era, though it is often difficult to remember this and this was a carefree life of comfort and prosperity with servants. There’s also a human tendency to remember only the good and suppress the bad. Jews from Arab countries are sometimes themselves to blame for distorting their own history to flatter their enemies. A kind of dhimmi syndrome, centuries of ingrained Jewish insecurity and dehumanisation.

The American analyst and author, Robert Satloff, in his book “Among the Righteous,” even met Jews in North Africa who were so anxious to put a positive spin on the way they were treated, that they were, they even claimed the Nazis were not so bad. I quote, “As the last remnant of a people who had mastered the art of living as a tolerated community, sometimes protected, often abused, always second class, over 1,400 years of Muslim rule, these Jews long ago made peace with their lot, their silence about the persecution they suffered at the hands of the Nazis and the visian fascist allies is just the latest in a string of silences.

A few Jews, especially in Morocco and Tunisia, have retained links with their home countries. They might vacation in these countries or still have business interests. Some even actors, ambassadors and advisors.” For instance, Andre Azoulay, who you see in the picture with King Mohamed VI of Morocco, has been advisor to the Moroccan King for over 40 years. He’s been promoting a shared history and culture regardless of the fact that only 1% of Jews still remain in Morocco. Number four reason for why the exodus has been forgotten is what I call, Israel denial. In 1944, Israel introduced the 1 million plan.

For the first time, it encouraged the mass immigration of Jews from Arab countries as a matter of Zionist policy. It saw that these communities were increasingly at risk. Now that the gates were shot to European jury, David Ben-Gurion called the Jews in Arab lands hostages to Zionism. He wanted unrestricted immigration and called for the elimination of the Yemenite and the Iraqi exiles. “If we do not eliminate the Iraqi exile by Zionist means,” he said, “There is a danger it’ll be eliminated by Hitler-right means,” he said at the 1942 Biltmore Conference. Israel did not see the immigrants as refugees, but a Zionist returning to the ancestral homeland. There was another problem, so-called ashkenormativity.

The founders of the Jewish state were overwhelmingly Ashkenazi and its elite media and academia has remained dominated by Ashkenazim. The exodus from Arab countries was not their story. Their background was Europe and the Shoah. Israeli schools taught about the waves of Ashkenazi immigrants who arrived in the early days of modern Zionism and nothing about the Yemenite Jews who arrived just before them. They taught children about the Kishinev pogrom of 1903, which claimed 49 dead, but nothing about the Iraqi Farhuds of 1941, in which at least 179 Jews were murdered. An Israeli artist, who you see here, produced this artwork to illustrate how few pages in an Israeli school textbook were devoted to the history and heritage of Jews from Arab countries.

Israel wanted to create a new Israeli citizen speaking Hebrew. It did not want to drive a wedge between different communities. There was this idea of the melting pot. It’s been reasonably successful and the intermarriage rate between groups, ethnic groups is running at about 25%. But in terms of public diplomacy, the Israeli government dithered, ducked and dived on the Jewish refugee issue. Its failure to raise the question of the Jewish refugees has been a disaster. Tommy Lapid, the father of the present foreign minister, Yair Lapid, said, “It was one of the greatest blunders in the state’s history. The Palestinian narrative became a while Israel stayed silent about Jewish refugees.”

In the early to mid 1970s, Israel witnessed a proliferation of organisations of Jewish immigrants from Arab and Islamic countries demanding representation in the public sphere. the World Organisation of Jews from Arab Countries, WOJAC, was created in 1975. Its president was the Jewish businessman and philanthropist from Sudan, Leon Tamman, WOJAC collected claims and documentation. In 1987, WOJAC held a conference. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Benjamin Netanyahu, declared, “The immense suffering and deprivation of the Jewish refugees, their sacrifices and tragedies must be at the centre of negotiations. It was a mistake,” he said, “Not to stress that the forced exodus should be the top priority in foreign policy. This has allowed the belief to exist that we are the dispossesers. In fact, we are the dispossessed.”

By 1999, WOJAC efforts were stagnating. The case for Jewish refugees needed to be stated in the language of human rights. In 2001, justice for Jewish refugees, for, sorry, Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, an organisation called JJAC was established, a collection of nearly two dozen worldwide Jewish organisations with its headquarters in the US, with the help of a group of Canadian lawyers, almost all Ashkenazi I might add, led by ex-justice minister and international human rights lawyer, Irwin Cotler, Justice for Jews from Arab Countries set out the legal case for Jewish refugees. New bodies were founded to advocate for Jewish refugees, JIMENA in California and my own organisation, Harif in the UK. And here you see a demonstration we organised a few years ago in favour of minorities in Muslim countries.

Israel has since woken up to the need to raise the profile of Jewish refugees internationally. But the impetus came from outside. JJAC lobbied the US Congress and in 2008 the House of Representatives passed a resolution stating that, “No official US government document could refer to Palestinian refugees without also mentioning Jewish refugees.” The Canadian government also called for Jewish refugees to be recognised. The turning point for Israel came in 2009 when President Barack Obama made a speech in Cairo referring to the suffering of Palestinian refugees and also to the Holocaust, but without mentioning Jewish refugees, Netanyahu responded in what was called his Bar-ilan speech, acknowledging that the only possible comparison that could be made was between Palestinian refugees and the even greater number of Jewish refugees.

This prompted the Knesset to pass a law in 2010, stating that, “No future peace agreement can be signed between Israel and Arab states without compensation for Jewish refugees.” In 2014, the Knesset passed a further law designating the 30th of November as an annual day in the calendar to remember the Exodus. All Israeli embassies were instructed to mark that day. But despite these efforts, progress has been disappointing in the public sphere, in academia and the media. Few historians have written about the Jewish exodus.

Of course, you have the wonderful Martin Gilbert’s book, “In Ishmael’s House,” which is a must read. There’s a translation of Georges Bensoussan’s book, “Jews in Arab Countries; The Great Uprooting.” There’s Norman Stillman’s book, which I also recommended. I’ve been presumptuous to put in my own book here, “Uprooted.” But few historians really outside their ivory towers have really studied this subject. A poll taken in early 2022 among the Israeli public showed that 89% had not even heard of the annual remembrance Day of 30th of November.

Yes, Mizrahi food and music are dominant in Israel today, but only 14% recalled having learned anything about Mizrahim at school. In the West it is a truism that much media reporting is perhaps biassed against Israel. Anti-Semitic incidents are under reported. The media do not report on the persecution of Middle East Christians and other minorities. They rarely mention Jews unless it is to talk about the culture that Jews and Arabs share. Interfaith and coexistence initiatives, almost always, politely skirt around difficult subjects such as Israel and never mention the exodus of Jews from Arab countries.

Some think the Jewish refugee issue is an obstacle to peace. To talk of Arab or Muslim bigotry against Jews invites charges of Islamophobia. Often the Palestinian exodus or Nakba, is set alongside the Shoah instead of being positioned alongside the injustice of the Jewish exodus or Nakba. Although two sets of refugees emerged from the same conflict at around the same time. There’s also a false conception that if we emphasise the points of connection between Jews and Arabs, we can promote peace and reconciliation.

Yes, there were many similarities and a certain cultural symbiosis. However, a shared culture and language with Arabs did not save the most Arabised of Jews, the Jews of Iraq, any more than acculturation saved German Jews from Nazism. The most Arabised of Jews were forced to take the road to exile. Some 50 Iraqi Jews were executed on trump up spying charges or died in jail in the late '60s and early '70s. The colonisation of the facts is so egregious that even when Jewish leaders are aware of the Jewish Nakba or Exodus, they may come under pressure, not to mention it. In 2014, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre held an exhibition at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. People, Book, Land, 2,500 years of Jewish relations with the holy Land.

While it was a considerable achievement to hold an exhibition within the precincts of the UN legitimising the Jewish presence in the land of Israel, the exhibit had one gaping hole. The story of the movement of Jews from Arab countries to Israel. There was one sentence in the panel entitled, Israel Among the Nations, which says, “By 1968, middle Eastern Jews already represented 48% of the entire Jewish migration to Israel.” And that was it. Robert Wistrich, the late lamented historian, had put together the exhibition. I was there at the opening. When I asked him why Jews from Arab countries were not mentioned.

Wistrich said he had prepared a whole panel about them, but UNESCO forced him to pull the panel. They said the exhibition would not go ahead if it was left in. In another example of how history can be distorted to suit a political agenda is the controversy surrounding this photo. It, excuse me, it shows the Mufti meeting Hitler in November, 1941. Yad Vashem has refused to reinstate this photo after the museum was redesigned. They prefer to hide the truth about the Mufti’s collaboration with the Nazis in case it hinders future Palestinian Israeli relations. There has been a recent phenomenon of Arab states with no Jews renovating synagogues to show their tolerance for non-Arabs and non-Muslims.

Arab countries reap rewards in terms of tourism and public relations, projecting an image of tolerance and pluralism when they restore Jewish buildings. “People love dead Jews,” as the American writer, Dara Horn, puts it, “No one bothers to inquire what happened to the live Jews who once built and used them. It is clear these buildings will never again host a Minyan or echo to the sound of Jewish prayer.” And the photo you see here is of the newly restored Nebi Daniel Synagogue in Alexandria. It was inaugurated to much fanfare just before the coronavirus hit. Here you see the assembled officials of the Egyptian Ministries of tourism and heritage. Not a single Jew was invited or very, very few.

This was obviously not intended to be a Jewish event or anything about Jews. I think it was purely about tourism. And so much so that Jews from Egypt who obviously now are outside Egypt, decided to organise their own inauguration in February, 2021. So, we now come to another reason why the Jewish exodus has been forgotten. And this is what I call the Mizrahi counter narrative, which I believe serves to confuse the issue. And this narrative has been sort of gathering steam in the last few years. A cohort of mostly Israeli far left academics and writers such as Ella Shohat, who’s on the far right, Rachel Shabi, who’s in the middle, and writer called Massoud Hayoun, who’s written a book called, “When We Were Arabs” have been influenced by post-colonialism and the writers of the late Palestinian academic, Edward Said, who’s on the far left.

Said divided the world into the west and the rest, the colonial powers versus the developing world. The leftist academics see the Jews from Arab countries as Jewish Arabs or Arabs of the Jewish faith. And they believe they were torn away from their Muslim brothers by the evil western Zionist colonialists who forced them to migrate to Israel. In so doing the denied Jews are a separate people entitled to their own state. Almost no Jew from an Arab country that I know would agree with them. These far left academics ignore Jewish history in Arab lands. They see the brown Jews from Arab countries as victims of discrimination by the white supremacist Ashkenazi establishment in the same way as the developing world is a victim of Western white colonialism.

So, the discrimination, the poverty, the deprivation was real enough in the Israel of the '60s and '70s and the Israeli Black Panther movement was founded as a reaction to it and to advocate for greater rights and equality. By 1977, Mizrahi and Sephardi supporters of the Likud Party helped break the monopoly of the Labour Party by voting Menachem Begin into power. The left wing academics claimed that Mizrahim supportively could to protest against discrimination by the labour establishment. But I would argue that the Jewish refugee experience created a legacy of hurt bitterness and mistrust of Arabs. Mizrahim are commonly more hostile to Arabs than Ashkenazim.

This painful history explains why they are known to vote for right wing parties. Post-colonial ideology is another reason for ignoring antisemitism generally. It divides the world into the powerful and the powerless. According to the current orthodoxy, Jews in the west are white and powerful oppressors of people of colour. But in the fashionable hierarchy of oppression of marginalised groups, Jews are dumped with the bad guys, the oppressors. They are seen to enjoy power despite their history as a vulnerable minority and white privilege despite their ethnic origins in the Middle East.

Oppressed groups are supposed to support each other. This is known as intersectionality, but Jews don’t count. And Middle East Jews are invisible. Identity politics hold that people of colour cannot be oppressors’ only victims. There is no space in progressive politics for Jews from Arab countries, even though they themselves are people of colour who have been oppressed by other people of colour. The great Tunisian writer, Albert Memmi, appreciated this paradox. He supported the Tunisian struggle for independence from France while being fully aware of the oppression suffered by a small vulnerable Jewish minority through the ages, independent, excuse me, Tunisia had no place for Jews.

He writes, “We would’ve liked to be Arab Jews.” This is a term he adopts for convenience. “If we abandoned the idea, it is because over the centuries, the Muslim Arab systematically prevented its realisation by their contempt and cruelty.” This led Memmi to see Jewish self-determination as the only solution to the Jewish problem in Arab lands and Zionism as a national liberation movement. So, to conclude, the Jewish exodus needs to be remembered, because it is an integral part of the history and it is key to understanding Middle Eastern politics. Is only right that the suffering of Jewish refugees be recognised. It’s a matter of law and equity, that they be compensated. A peace agreement which does not take account of the Jewish refugees, will not be based on truth.

To restore the Jewish refugees to the peace agenda will help build trust and eventual reconciliation. As in other conflicts, the one between Turkey and Greece or India and Pakistan, the Middle East conflict produced two sets of refugees. Roughly equal numbers of Palestinians and Jews exchanged places in the Middle East. And this is a permanent exchange. The Jews are not going back to Arab countries and the Palestinians must renounce their demand to return to Israel. The right of return remains their ultimate objective. So, this is a very important consideration, the fact that the Jews do not want to return, and I think a humanitarian solution should be applied to Palestinians. They should no longer have to suffer a refugee status, but should be considered full citizens of their host Arab countries or of Palestine.

In the meantime, the Jews, Jewish refugees are the response to every myth or lie propagated by Israel’s enemies. For instance, the myth of settler colonialism, because they are indigenous, they are not colonisers. And in fact, all these lies that one hears about Israel, Jews, you can really make a very good argument, a very good case against them by invoking Jewish refugees. But that’s another story for another time. So, on that note, I will stop there. Thank you very much for listening and very happy to take questions.

• Thanks Lyn, that was excellent.

Q&A and Comments

• Thank you. I’ll just try and get out of my share screen, there you go. It’s okay. Oh, thank you, Monica,

Q: “Is it possible to have a copy of the population chart?” A: Yes, I can send one to Judi and perhaps you can forward it on.

Q: “Did the Arab League Draught Law go beyond draught status?” A: It didn’t, but the individual Arab governments actually passed identical measures. So, ultimately Zionism became a crime in all Arab League member states and this was a terrible thing for Jews, because there was no escaping the fact that they were considered as a fifth column.

Terry Choniak, “I have to tell you that a Jewish professor at the University of Manitoba is teaching the Jews in Arab lands had a great life and it was David Ben-Gurion plan to get them out of Arab lands in order to populate the new country of Israel.” Yes, we hear a lot of that propaganda. “And he says, Ben-Gurion sent Israeli soldiers disguised as Arabs to Arab lands to set off bombs so the Jews would get frightened and want to leave, is just an appalling take on all this.” Yes, that’s quite a common trope actually, that the Zionist set off set off bombs. But I think there was plenty of evidence of persecution in Arab countries and Jews did not need Zionists to come and set off bombs to make them leave. Sorry, I’ll just try and scroll down.

Q: “Which professor?” asks Harriet. A: I think there are several, you know, there are probably quite a few who actually believe this or peddle this lie.

Thank you Simon.

Q: “Do I know coverage in Australia of the ‘56 to '57 Jewish exodus from Egypt?” A: Yes, I have heard of her work.

Thank you. Norman Gladstone asks,

Q: “Were Arab Jews discriminated against when they arrived in Israel?” A: Yes, I did tell you that there was discrimination and the Black Panther movement did arise out of this discrimination.

Q: “Were immigrants from western countries treated better than the Arab Jewish refugees?” A: Well, there is a kind of misconception that only Jews from Arab countries were sent to the ma'abarot or tent camps. Actually, that’s not true because Holocaust survivors and refugees from Western countries were also sent to these tent camps. The difference is that Jews from Arab countries actually stayed longer in those tent camps, because many of the Western immigrants or the ones from, who’d survived the Holocaust got reparations and were able to move out. But this is not the case with all Jewish refugees from Arab countries. One can’t generalise because some groups did better than others. For instance, the Iraqi Jews were very well educated. They left the ma'abarot sooner than some of the other Jews. You have to differentiate between Jews who for instance, came from, who were uneducated, came from rural areas, were illiterate, that kind of thing. And other Jews who spoke several languages like the Jews from Egypt, Jews from Iraq, very well educated. You know, one can’t generalise and one shouldn’t.

Sorry, I’m just trying to scroll down. It’s not working, hang on one second. Lawrence. Sorry, Judi, can you read out the next question? I’m sorry, it’s a bit stuck.

• [Judi] Lyn, where, sorry, which question are you on, Lyn?

• So, it’s the one after Norman Gladstone.

• [Judi] “Why did Morocco have the highest number of immigrants?” Can you read that one? Can you see a now?

• Now I can see. It’s all right, thank you, I’m going on to Jennifer Movin, thank you very much for your compliment.

Q: “Why did Morocco have the highest number of immigrants to Israel after 1948?” A: Very simply because it had the largest Jewish population of all the Arab countries. Some of them did go to France, to Canada, but most of them did go to Israel. Most were actually quite poor, did not have a choice and therefore they ended up in Israel.

Alan Wallman, “I have a neighbour who is 96 years, young, an amazing man. Both he and his wife at around the age of 20 were forced to leave Baghdad on a one way ticket. The Jewish community of that city prior to the expulsion enjoyed a really comfortable life, were in the forefront of all walks of civil society. They were housed in a tent camp for a while on arrival in Israel, highly educated, both he and his wife speak Hebrew, of course, but fluent in English and French, a real inspiration.” Nice to hear that. Of course, my parents had to leave in 1950. They had to leave Baghdad. The difference is they went to England and not Israel, but the education was excellent in Baghdad. The Jews went to the Alliance Israelite Universelle where they were taught English and French as well as Arabic. And initially Hebrew was also taught. But in the '30s it was stopped.

Yeah, Ronnie has asked, sorry, I’m just trying to scroll down here.

• [Judi] Can you see it or would you like me to read it?

• No, can you, now I can see it, yeah. Thank you.

Q: “Now that Morocco’s relations with Israel, do they recognise the reason for the Jewish exodus and other countries?” A: Good question.

Q: “Which have relations with Israel, do they recognise the reason and plight of Jewish refugees from Arab countries?” A: Well, that is a very good question. The question actually has not been discussed with Morocco and neither has it been discussed with the Gulf countries who now have signed the Abraham Accords. I think that Israel is trying to build on the positive points of connection. And perhaps the negative might be broached a bit later on. We’ll see. Maybe the question may not be broached, it won’t be broached at all, we don’t know. I mean, there is this tendency to, you know, avoid difficult issues.

So, Marilyn has got a similar question. I hope that the Abraham Accords will lead to an acknowledgement, you know, there is an effort to familiarise these states with the fact that Jews lived in them. Funnily enough, the senior rabbi in the Gulf States, his name is Rabbi Elie Abadie. He was actually a refugee from Lebanon and he was chairman of JJAC, which I mentioned, Justice for Jews from Arab Countries. And I don’t know what approach he takes. I mean, does he tell his Arab interlocutors, you know, does he tell them about his story or does he gloss over it? I really don’t know.

Melvin, “The Syrian prime minister, Khalid Al-Azm, in 1949 referred to the Palestinian Arab refugees in 1948, 'we have been demanding the return of refugees to their homes, but we ourselves are the ones who encourage them to leave.’ But in a Resolution 194, which was an attempt to settle the conflict, it included the offer of the return of the refugees who’d be prepared to live in peace with their Jewish neighbours. But they rejected it.” That is absolutely true. The UN resolution was rejected by the Arabs because I think they thought it would imply recognition of Israel.

Lawrence, I’ll try and scroll down, is that, yeah, David Septon, “Remember studying in London, in the ‘60s and meeting Mizrahi Jews at Hilal House, who he found to be exotic. But he’s ashamed to say he did feel superior.” Well, he is very frank about that. “I had no feeling for their history. Thank you for exposing us to the story of the Mizrahi Jews.” It’s a pleasure.

Elena Draznin, “Brilliant, factual.” Thank you, oh, thank you very much. You’ve read my book, thank you. Judi, thank you. Thank you, too tittle is known. Wait, stop there. Thank you to all those who are thanking me.

So, Peter Brice says, “I heard on BBC Radio 4 that there’s a start of return of Jews to their old homes in Essaouira, Morocco. Do you know anything about this?” I don’t, actually, I didn’t hear that report, but I think you have to be a bit wary about this, 'cause actually Jews do have holiday homes in Essaouira, maybe 50 of them holiday in Essaouira regularly. I know a couple who do. But that’s not the same as actually moving back, you know, and returning to their old homes. I would very much doubt that any Jews would actually upticks and move back to their old homes.

Thank you, Colin. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you, Ruth. Uta, thank you. Thank you, Elena. Thank you, Hamman. It’s not, thank you. Julius says, “He’s learned more about Jews in Arab lands at Lockdown University than he ever knew before.” I’m very pleased, thank you. So, Cyril Baldachin wants to know, where am I? Oh, Julius, where Julius is from? Not me, but,

• But me.

• Okay, you’re not.

• But me.

• Oh yeah. Sonya, oh, nice to hear from you, thank you. Lorna, thank you. Abigail, thank you. Thank you. Michael, thank you. Yes, if you want to revisit the presentation, I’m sure there’ll be a recording available and Sue thinks that my lecture would make a fantastic movie. Thank you very much. It would certainly publicise this sad story. Ralph, sorry, can you just scroll up again to what Ralph said,

Q: “Do you approve of Jews born in Morocco should now go back to Morocco to live?” A: Well, Ralph, you tell me. Ralph is a good friend and he’s from Morocco. I think he’s having a good joke here.

Ann Evans, thank you. And yeah, Netanyahu raised the issue of Jewish refugees. He, in fact, it was while he was prime minister, that more was done to raise the issue than at any time before. Sodina is confused with the interchangeable use of Muslim majority countries and Arab majority countries. Well, not all Muslim countries are Arab, for instance, Iran is not Muslim, Turkey, sorry, it’s not Arab. Turkey is not Arab, but both are Muslim. Afghanistan is Muslim, but not Arab.

Q: “What percentage of Jews married Muslims in Arab lands?” A: Well, actually very few. There was very little intermarriage between the communities. However, Jews did convert to Islam over time. There was always pressure to convert. There was also a problem of Jewish girls being abducted by Muslims and forcibly married. It’s a sort of dirty little secret, if you like. The story goes, hang on one sec, let’s go up a bit. “The story goes that, a young Jewish girl did not marry prior to her 18th birthday, she was permitted,” really? “A girl who did not marry prior to her 18th birthday was permitted to marry a Muslim, at least in Iran.” I don’t know about that. One thing is true that Jews actually were betrothed to other Jews at a very early age, really to guard against this question of abduction. ,

Q: “Can you comment on Shlomo Hillel?” A: Yes, with great pleasure. In fact, only yesterday I was at the Atlit Detention Camp just near Haifa. And there they have opened a new exhibit on illegal immigration from Muslim lands. And there was also a plane which was used,

• Constellation C-46.

• It was a Constellation C-46, the original plane that Shlomo Hillel arranged to fly from Iraq to Israel in secret. This is all very clandestine. There’s a wonderful film you can see while you are sitting in the plane, which tells you the story of what happened. This plane really flew under the noses of the British and landed in a field in Israel. It managed to bring in about 100 illegal immigrants. And Shlomo Hillel.

• 200 actually.

• Was an amazing man. He was also instrumental in negotiating the great airlift of Iraqi Jews a few years later. And that’s just one or two of his exploits really. An amazing man.

Dr. Colin Letchi, “Ma'abarot existed in Afula.” Yeah, they were all over the place. They were all over the place. Thank you, Barry.

Q: “Disgusted by the world’s reaction. What was the reaction when Obama failed to acknowledge the Jewish refugees whilst in Cairo? Why did he omit them?” A: Well, the reaction was actually Netanyahu. Netanyahu made his Bar-ilan speech and he deliberately mentioned Jewish refugees because Obama had omitted them. Actually, Andre Aciman, who is the famous writer, born in Egypt, he wrote out of Egypt. And some of you may have heard of, he wrote an article, I think it was in the New York Times, saying, “Why did Obama not remember me?” But, you know, it doesn’t surprise me that Obama failed to acknowledge the Jewish refugees because nobody does. Nobody in, you know, very few people who reach senior positions in power, in government do.

Lana Young, thanks for, thank you. Is you are a friend of Edwin , who I’m sure you know. Yes, of course I know Edwin. And thank you for your compliment about my book.

Q: “How quickly did the reparations come from Germany?” A: That was in the 1950s. There was a great controversy over whether Israel should accept the reparations from Germany. And actually Menachem Begin was dead set against accepting money from Germany. But Ben-Gurion who’s quite a pragmatist said, no, Israel should accept the reparations. And in fact, it managed to transform from a developing country into a developed country. Very much thanks to these reparations.

Erica, “I’ve always felt frustrated and angry at the story of the Mizrahi Jews is so little known, in the art world Palestinian victimhood is so lauded.” Very sad, isn’t it? Barbara, thank you, Miriam, “Basically successful absorption of Arab Jews in Israel makes any comparison today with Palestinian refugees rather unrealistic.” No, I disagree with you there because I think they are a model, a model for the absorption of Palestinian refugees, of all the refugees ever created in the world. Only the Palestinians are still refugees over 70 years later. This is the abnormal situation and the unrealistic situation, and I think if the UN does something about it, then we might arrive at a solution. “Tell us about the organisation funding and assisting Jews, Hyatt Organisation.” Which one, sorry, I’m not sure.

• [Lawrence] In the Us, I think.

• Hyatt, yeah, I don’t know. Sorry, Yoland. I will look it up for you. Judy Eliasof, “Most Mizrahi Jews came with their families in contrast to European Jews who lost their families.” It’s very true. The family was a support system. Conditions and discrimination was experienced more towards Arab Jews, yeah. I wish people wouldn’t call them Arab Jews. They are Jews from Arab countries than they were there before the Arabs. Thank you, Nanette. Thank you, Grace. You left Baghdad in 1959 with your parents and sisters to go to the us but your home is Ottawa, Canada. “One day we Jews from Arab countries will count.” Amen to that, Grace. Lyn, “Judy Feld Carr, worked to rescue Syrian Jews for 30 years.” Yes, Judy Feld Carr actually did a Zoom talk for us for Harif, my organisation.

Q: “Were there other similar efforts in other Arab countries?” A: Absolutely. Mossad really spearheaded efforts to save Jews in Arab countries. But, of course, their story is not really known because, you know, they were sworn to secrecy. I think there are efforts to publicise some of the spectacular feats that, you know, that Mossad carried out. And I think a museum is being built in Israel dedicated to the Mossad. Oh, ah, yes, sorry.

So, Yoland, to come back to Yoland’s question about Hyatt, it wasn’t Hyatt, it’s HIAS, HIAS, Hebrew Immigrant Association, something like that. Anyway, HIAS was one of the organisations that helped, that helped rescue Jews and helped maintain Jewish refugees. And I suggest you go to their website, I think nowadays they rescue Afghan, Syrian and Ukrainian refugees.

Michael Block, “My son is married to a Yemenite lady and my nephew to an Iraqi lady.” Lucky you, lucky your son and your nephew. “We are Ashkenazi originally from Poland, Lithuanian, Australia and England, ain’t that great?” Yes it is great, I think, Kibbutz galuyot. Thank you, Marilyn.

Q: “What did you think of Andre Aciman’s books? I like them very much.” A: Yes, Andre Aciman is a fantastic writer and his story is amazing.

Thank you, Melvin. Have we come to the end? I forgot to mention I love, thank you, Grace. Thank you, Barbara. How sad we discriminate. Sorry, it’s just jumped. So interesting, thank you, Barbara. Monique , “At age 14, I left my home in Fez, Morocco under the cover of night. Most of my belongings stayed there. I arrived in Israel with one small suitcase. I have good memories, but also remember that each schoolyard fight ended with the Arab shouting, to the Jew.” Very interesting. Christopher , “You deserve all the compliments here, madam.” Merci beaucoup, Christoph.

Eileen, “I heard that there were some Egyptian Jews with considerable property who did receive fairly large amounts of money after they left.” I think you might be talking about the family who did get compensation, but it wasn’t nearly enough. It did not really reflect the property they left. Of course, nationals of Britain and France did get compensation. But again, I don’t think it was enough. Thank you, David. Thank you for your compliment.

Q: “How many refugees went to the USA and GB?” A: I can’t actually tell you, Abigail, but they are minority. There were 200,000 who did not go to Israel.

Q: “On the whole, is it true that Jews in Arab countries were treated better than Jews in countries ruled by Christians?” A: I’m not so sure about that. I think Jews who lived in Arab countries for many centuries had no rights, they were really at the mercy of the Muslims. But the Muslims were happy to kind of exploit them for their skills and for what they could, you know, for their, for the benefits they got out of them. There wasn’t this theological antisemitism that you got in Christian countries. So, on balance, yeah, on balance, it was probably better than in Christian countries, but I don’t think that’s saying very much.

Yeah, just to go back to the person who asked about compensation for Jewish property in Egypt, the UK government apparently froze Egyptian funds held in London and all British citizens received funds except for a few named families as part of,

• The agreement to release,

• The agreement to release the funds.

• The funds. Yeah, but I don’t think this was actually adequate, actually, I don’t think they were adequately compensated. Danny. Yes, Hebrew immigrant Aid Society. Thank you very much, that’s HIAS, HIAS, absolutely, yes, thank you. Sorry, we’ve jumped up to the top again.

Q: “Have the abuses of identity politics, racial chauvinism caused many Jews to become humanists?” A: I couldn’t answer that, sorry.

Okay. Anymore? Oh, is that the end?

• [Judi] No more questions today, wonderful.

• I think that’s the end. Is it? Yeah. Thank you very much for having me and thank you all.

• [Judi] Thank you, bye-bye.

• [Lyn] Bye.