Lyn Julius
Last Jews of the Arab World
Summary
It’s been 55 years since the Six-Day War broke out, and Israel’s victory in the war had dramatic repercussions on the few thousand Jews still living in Arab countries. In this lecture Lyn Julius discusses this often forgotten impact.
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.
Well, yes, there were Jews in Lebanon as I explained. And they all, and most of them left, they actually did manage for the most parts to take some assets with them. I think the problem was when you leave in a hurry, you always, you can undersell your assets. And, often, you know, people do abandon property as well. I think things got even worse in the 1970s, for those Jews still remaining in Lebanon, because by then a civil war had broken out. There were bombs flying, and people were desperate to leave. And so I would’ve thought that a lot of them would’ve left their assets and property behind.
Well, I have to say that maybe half the Lebanese Jewish population, which numbered about 14,000 in the 1950s did go to Israel. But you often find that those Jews who were still living in Arab countries did not go to Israel. You know, they often had connections outside Israel, and they preferred to go to other places. It was not a question of the Lebanese government not allowing them to go to Israel. I mean some did go to Israel, obviously not directly, through a third country perhaps. Of course there were quite a few who were smuggled out to Israel by the Mossad. But generally speaking, those who left later didn’t go to Israel.
Well actually a lot of those Iraqi Jews who you saw in the film did end up in the UK and they, but some did go to Israel as well. And it was quite an interesting time because I remember meeting some of these Jews who escaped illegally through Kurdistan. And in fact, my cousin Lizette made that journey, through Kurdistan and I’d never met her before. It was the first time, you know, I was 15, I’d never met her in in my life, and she came and stayed with us. So that was really nice.