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Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries:
Real Victims Deserving Real Recognition
By
Shelomo Alfassa
Published
in The
Cutting Edge News April 14, 2008 & syndicated
to the Chicago Sun-Times April 16, 2008
On
April 1, 2008, the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly passed a
Resolution which grants first-time-ever recognition to Jewish
refugees from Arab and Muslim countries. The adoption of
House Resolution 185, affirms that all victims of
the Arab-Israeli conflict must be treated with equality,
and this may be the catalyst for a dramatic shift in United
States policy.
Why?
Because prior to last week's adoption, all U.S. Resolutions
on Middle East refugees referred only to Palestinian Arabs.
The new Resolution underscores the fact that Jews living
in Arab and Muslim countries suffered human rights violations,
were uprooted from their homes, and were made refugees.
Justice
for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC) is the tip of the
spear for the International Rights and Redress Campaign,
a global movement backed by a coalition of over 77 Jewish
organizations. The Campaign seeks legal rights and redress
for the over 850,000 Jews who lost everything from their
dignity and property, to their loved ones—many of whom
were beaten, tortured and murdered prior to or during their
flight from Arab countries. The 77 Jewish organizations
which have worked with JJAC, have lent their active support
to a human rights issue which has brought the Jewish community
together.
The
main focus of this global Campaign is to register the narratives
of the Jews that were displaced from Arab and Muslim countries.
This is a paperwork process, a tedious one. It requires
people who were born in, and who fled from, Arab and Muslim
countries to document where they came from and what they
had to leave behind. Over the course of several years, many
thousands of people have been registering with JJAC, providing
not only names and addresses, but descriptions and documentation
of the loss of their possessions. More than the possessions
however are the tragic stories of their experiences.
--An
Iraqi Jewish woman called Rachel recounts: "My husband
was arrested three times and was tortured in prison. He
was almost killed the latest time while I was pregnant.
We had to escape from Iraq on foot and had to leave all
our property and belongings."
--An
Iraqi Jewish woman called Lorraine recollects: "My
father was imprisoned twice in 1948 and 1978, for selling
one of his carpets because we had no cash. We fled and
had to make life for ourselves without the parent's emotional
or financial support. We were orphaned for more than 20
years. My parents had to remain in Iraq and from 1964
to 1990, Jews could not sell their property. When my parents
were able to escape, they were humiliated, helpless and
penniless, leaving behind everything with only the clothing
on their backs."
--An
Iraqi Jewish woman name Fortune recounted: "My father
was arrested at our home and tortured almost half to death.
We saw him again after eight months. He was able to obtain
a passport and fled to Lebanon where he then managed to
flee to Switzerland and eventually Israel. My mother supported
us alone as one by one my family fled the country. One
relative fled to Turkey then to Israel after learning
her entire family was murdered while she was in school.
My brother and I fled to Northern Iraq where Kurds were
paid to bring us to Tehran and then we went to Israel."
--A
Jewish woman, Victoria from Tunisia, told: "On several
occasions my father was taken away in the middle of the
night by the police without charges. My brother and I
were harassed in school and discriminated because we were
Jews. I was often humiliated in front of my classmates.
We lived in CONSTANT fear."
--A
Syrian Jewish woman called Stella remembers: "As
all the young people were escaping from Syria, the government
was putting their families in jail. The locked up several
fathers and mothers. The next day the community decided
to stay in the synagogue where a black flag was flown
outside the building. After crying and praying all day,
we gathered at the government building, like a rally,
and demanded they better kill us, as we screamed for our
freedom. It was like a civil war. My father had been captured,
but eventually came home as a sick man. The next day he
had a heart attack and died."
--David,
an Egyptian Jew recounts: "The police came into my
jewelry store then took me to a police station where we
were handcuffed and beaten. The put us on a truck and
took us to a prison camp where they hit us with belts
and sticks. We were terrorized by the officers all night.
I lost everything. A year later I was transferred to another
prison, and three years later I was deported."
--Frieda,
a Jew from Egypt tells that her father: "Was arrested
and taken outside of Cairo to what we call a concentration
camp to be interrogated with other ‘Jews' and foreign
nationals. My mother was placed on house arrest. When
we left we had 48 hours to get ready and we left behind
everything."
--Joe,
a Jewish man from Egypt recounts: "I remember the
darker side: my lost childhood, neighbors and school friends
I will never see again, the harassment, the killings of
innocent Jewish families, the sudden and unlawful confiscation
of Jewish property. Most of all, I can still feel like
it was only yesterday the deep and intense fear for our
lives as crowds shouted 'edbah el Yahud' [slaughter
the Jews]."
--An
Egyptian Jewish man called Steven recalls: "My mother
went to the bank to withdraw the money she had saved which
was in the tens of thousands. The bank teller said, ‘We
don't give money to Jews.' She went to gain access to her
safe deposit box to get her jewelry, diamonds and gold,
and was denied. My father died penniless in Israel, he had
left everything in Cairo."
Underscoring
the importance of this Resolution, Congressman Joseph Crowley
(D-NY), one of the bi-partisan co-sponsors, said, "The
world needs to understand that it is not just the Arabs
and it's not just the Palestinians in the Middle East, but
also Jewish people who themselves were dispossessed of their
possessions and their homes, and were victims of terrorist
acts. These are people who lived in Middle Eastern communities
not for decades, but for thousands of years." Rep.
Crowley added that the Resolution will, "bring light
upon an issue that has been swept under the carpet."
While
Palestinians have been left to linger in refugee camps by
their fellow Arab cousins, and just because Jews have moved
forward over the last decades, that does not negate the
fact that Jews were also refugees, and that Jews suffered
terribly.
It
would constitute an injustice were the United States to
recognize rights for one victim population - Palestinian
refugees - without recognizing equal rights for former Jewish
refugees from Arab countries, as both were victims of the
very same Middle East conflict. Because of this, House Resolution
185 also urges that the President and U.S. officials participating
in Middle East discussions ensure: "That any explicit
reference to Palestinian refugees is matched by a similar
explicit reference to Jewish and other refugees, as a matter
of law and equity."
At
the end of WWII, there were close to one million Jews living
in the Middle East and North Africa. They were loyal citizens
that contributed to every facet of society. These people
watched as their entire civilization, everything they knew,
was destroyed because of discrimination, harassment, violence
and worse. Thus, it is in the spirit of equality, fairness,
and legitimate moral leadership that the United States government
passed this important Resolution which recognizes the suffering
and hardship these hundreds of thousands of victims experienced.
Shelomo Alfassa is U.S. Director of Justice for Jews
from Arab Countries.
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