The Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries,
or Jewish exodus from Arab countries, was
the departure, flight, expulsion, evacuation
and migration of 850,000 Jews, primarily of
Sephardi and Mizrahi background, from Arab
and Muslim countries, mainly from 1948 to
the early 1970s. The last major migration
wave took place from Iran in 1979–80, as
a consequence of the Islamic Revolution.
A number of small-scale Jewish exoduses began
in many Middle Eastern countries early in
the 20th century with the only substantial
aliyah coming from Yemen and Syria. Prior
to the creation of Israel in 1948, approximately
800,000 Jews were living in lands that now
make up the Arab world. Of these, just under
two-thirds lived in the French and Italian-controlled
North Africa, 15–20% in the Kingdom of Iraq,
approximately 10% in the Kingdom of Egypt
and approximately 7% in the Kingdom of Yemen.
A further 200,000 lived in Pahlavi Iran and
the Republic of Turkey.
The first large-scale exoduses took place
in the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily
from Iraq, Yemen and Libya. In these cases
over 90% of the Jewish population left, despite
the necessity of leaving their property behind.
Two hundred and sixty thousand Jews from Arab
countries immigrated to Israel between 1948
and 1951, accounting for 56% of the total
immigration to the newly founded state. Following
the establishment of the State of Israel,
a plan to accommodate 600,000 immigrants over
four years, doubling the existing Jewish population,
was submitted by the Israeli government to
the Knesset. The plan, however, encountered
mixed reactions; there were those within the
Jewish Agency and government who opposed promoting
a large-scale emigration movement among Jews
whose lives were not in danger.Later waves
peaked at different times in different regions
over the subsequent decades. The peak of the
exodus from Egypt occurred in 1956 following
the Suez Crisis. The exodus from the other
North African Arab countries peaked in the
1960s. Lebanon was the only Arab country to
see a temporary increase in its Jewish population
during this period, due to an influx of Jews
from other Arab countries, although by the
mid-1970s the Jewish community of Lebanon
had also dwindled. Six hundred thousand Jews
from Arab and Muslim countries had reached
Israel by 1972. In total, of the 900,000 Jews
who left Arab and other Muslim countries,
600,000 settled in the new state of Israel,
and 300,000 migrated to France and the United
States. The descendants of the Jewish immigrants
from the region, known as Mizrahi Jews ("Eastern
Jews") and Sephardic Jews ("Spanish Jews"),
currently constitute more than half of the
total population of Israel, partially as a
result of their higher fertility rate. In
2009, only 26,000 Jews remained in Arab countries
and Iran. and 26,000 in Turkey.The reasons
for the exodus included push factors, such
as persecution, antisemitism, political instability,
poverty and expulsion, together with pull
factors, such as the desire to fulfill Zionist
yearnings or find a better economic status
and a secure home in Europe or the Americas.
The history of the exodus has been politicized,
given its proposed relevance to the historical
narrative of the Arab–Israeli conflict.
When presenting the history, those who view
the Jewish exodus as analogous to the 1948
Palestinian exodus generally emphasize the
push factors and consider those who left as
refugees, while those who do not, emphasize
the pull factors and consider them willing
immigrants.
== Background ==
At the time of the Muslim conquests of the
7th century, ancient Jewish communities had
existed in many parts of the Middle East and
North Africa since Antiquity. Jews under Islamic
rule were given the status of dhimmi, along
with certain other pre-Islamic religious groups.
As such, these groups were accorded certain
rights as "People of the Book".
During waves of persecution in Medieval Europe,
many Jews found refuge in Muslim lands, though
in other times and places, Jews fled persecution
in Muslim lands and found refuge in Christian
lands. Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula
were invited to settle in various parts of
the Ottoman Empire, where they would often
form a prosperous model minority of merchants
acting as intermediaries for their Muslim
rulers.
== North Africa region ==
=== French colonization ===
In the 19th century, Francization of Jews
in the French colonial North Africa, due to
the work of organizations such as the Alliance
Israelite Universelle and French policies
such as the Algerian citizenship decree of
1870, resulted in a separation of the community
from the local Muslims.The French began the
conquest of Algeria in 1830. The following
century had a profound influence on the status
of the Algerian Jews; following the 1870 "Décret
Crémieux", they were elevated from the protected
minority dhimmi status to French citizens
of the colonial power. The decree began a
wave of Pied-Noir-led anti-Jewish protests
(such as the 1897 anti-Jewish riots in Oran),
which the Muslim community did not participate
in, to the disappointment of the European
agitators.
Though there were also cases of Muslim-led
anti-Jewish riots, such as in Constantine
in 1934 when 34 Jews were killed.Neighbouring
Husainid Tunisia began to come under European
influence in the late 1860s and became a French
protectorate in 1881. Since the 1837 accession
of Ahmed Bey, and continued by his successor
Muhammed Bey, Tunisia's Jews were elevated
within Tunisia society with improved freedom
and security, which was confirmed and safeguarded
during the French protectorate. Around a third
of Tunisian Jews took French citizenship during
the protectorate.Morocco, which had remained
independent during the 19th century, became
a French protectorate in 1912. However, during
less than half a century of colonization,
the equilibrium between Jews and Muslims in
Morocco was upset, and the Jewish community
was again positioned between the colonisers
and the Muslim majority. French penetration
into Morocco between 1906 and 1912 created
significant Morocco Muslim resentment, resulting
in nationwide protests and military unrest.
During the period a number of anti-European
or anti-French protests extended to include
anti-Jewish manifestations, such as in Casablanca,
Oujda and Fes in 1907-08 and later in the
1912 Fes riots.The situation in colonial Libya
was similar; as for the French in the other
North African countries, the Italian influence
in Libya was welcomed by the Jewish community,
increasing their separation from the non-Jewish
Libyans.The Alliance Israelite Universelle,
founded in France in 1860, set up schools
in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia as early as
1863.
=== World War II ===
During World War II, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia
and Libya came under Nazi or Vichy French
occupation and their Jews were subject to
various persecution. In Libya, the Axis powers
established labor camps to which many Jews
were forcibly deported. In other areas Nazi
propaganda targeted Arab populations to incite
them against British or French rule. National
Socialist propaganda contributed to the transfer
of racial antisemitism to the Arab world and
is likely to have unsettled Jewish communities.
An anti-Jewish riot took place in Casablanca
in 1942 in the wake of Operation Torch, where
a local mob attacked the Jewish mellah. (Mellah
is the Moroccan name for a Jewish ghetto.)
However, according to the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem's Dr. Haim Saadon, "Relatively
good ties between Jews and Muslims in North
Africa during World War II stand in stark
contrast to the treatment of their co-religionists
by gentiles in Europe."From 1943 until the
mid 1960s, the American Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee was an important foreign organization
driving change and modernization in the North
African Jewish community. It had initially
become involved in the region whilst carrying
out relief work during World War II.
=== Morocco ===
As in Tunisia and Algeria, Moroccan Jews did
not face large scale expulsion or outright
asset confiscation or any similar government
persecution during the period of exile, and
Zionist agents were relatively allowed freedom
of action to encourage emigration.In Morocco
the Vichy regime during World War II passed
discriminatory laws against Jews; for example,
Jews were no longer able to get any form of
credit, Jews who had homes or businesses in
European neighborhoods were expelled, and
quotas were imposed limiting the percentage
of Jews allowed to practice professions such
as law and medicine to no more than two percent.
King Mohammed V expressed his personal distaste
for these laws, assuring Moroccan Jewish leaders
that he would never lay a hand "upon either
their persons or property". While there is
no concrete evidence of him actually taking
any actions to defend Morocco's Jews, it has
been argued that he may have worked on their
behalf behind the scenes.In June 1948, soon
after Israel was established and in the midst
of the first Arab–Israeli war, violent anti-Jewish
riots broke out in Oujda and Djerada, leading
to deaths of 44 Jews. In 1948–49, after
the massacres, 18,000 Moroccan Jews left the
country for Israel. Later, however, the Jewish
exodus from Morocco slowed to a few thousand
a year. Through the early 1950s, Zionist organizations
encouraged emigration, particularly in the
poorer south of the country, seeing Moroccan
Jews as valuable contributors to the Jewish
State:
The more I visited in these (Berber) villages
and became acquainted with their Jewish inhabitants,
the more I was convinced that these Jews constitute
the best and most suitable human element for
settlement in Israel's absorption centers.
There were many positive aspects which I found
among them: first and foremost, they all know
(their agricultural) tasks, and their transfer
to agricultural work in Israel will not involve
physical and mental difficulties. They are
satisfied with few (material needs), which
will enable them to confront their early economic
problems.
Incidents of anti-Jewish violence continued
through the 1950s, although French officials
later stated that Moroccan Jews "had suffered
comparatively fewer troubles than the wider
European population" during the struggle for
independence. In August 1953, riots broke
out in the city of Oujda and resulted in the
death of 4 Jews including an 11-year-old girl.
In the same month French security forces prevented
a mob from breaking into the Jewish Mellah
of Rabat. In 1954, a nationalist event in
the town of Petitjean (known today as Sidi
Kacem) turned into an anti-Jewish riot and
resulted in the death of 6 Jewish merchants
from Marrakesh. However, according to Francis
Lacoste, French Resident-General in Morocco,
"the ethnicity of the Petitjean victims was
coincidental, terrorism rarely targeted Jews,
and fears about their future were unwarranted."
In 1955, a mob broke into the Jewish Mellah
in Mazagan (known today as El Jadida) and
caused its 1700 Jewish residents to flee to
the European quarters of the city. The houses
of some 200 Jews were too badly damaged during
the riots for them to return.
In 1954, Mossad had established an undercover
base in Morocco, sending agents and emissaries
within a year to appraise the situation and
organize continuous emigration. The operations
were composed of five branches: self-defence,
information and intelligence, illegal immigration,
establishing contact, and public relations.
Mossad chief Isser Harel visited the country
in 1959 and 1960, reorganized the operations,
and created a clandestine militia named the
"Misgeret" ("framework").Emigration to Israel
jumped from 8,171 persons in 1954 to 24,994
in 1955, increasing further in 1956. Between
1955 and independence in 1956, 60,000 Jews
emigrated. On 7 April 1956, Morocco attained
independence. Jews occupied several political
positions, including three parliamentary seats
and the cabinet position of Minister of Posts
and Telegraphs. However, that minister, Leon
Benzaquen, did not survive the first cabinet
reshuffling, and no Jew was appointed again
to a cabinet position. Although the relations
with the Jewish community at the highest levels
of government were cordial, these attitudes
were not shared by the lower ranks of officialdom,
which exhibited attitudes that ranged from
traditional contempt to outright hostility.
Morocco's increasing identification with the
Arab world, and pressure on Jewish educational
institutions to arabize and conform culturally
added to the fears of Moroccan Jews. Between
1956 and 1961, emigration to Israel was prohibited
by law; clandestine emigration continued,
and a further 18,000 Jews left Morocco.On
10 January 1961 the Egoz, a Mossad-leased
ship carrying Jews attempting to emigrate
undercover, sank off the northern coast of
Morocco. According to Tad Szulc, the Misgeret
commander in Morocco, Alex Gattmon, decided
to precipitate a crisis on the back of the
tragedy, consistent with Mossad Director Isser
Harel's scenario that "a wedge had to be forced
between the royal government and the Moroccan
Jewish community and that anti-Hassan nationalists
had to be used as leverage as well if a compromise
over emigration was ever to be attained".
A pamphlet agitating for illegal emigration,
supposedly by an underground Zionist organization,
was printed by Mossad and distributed throughout
Morocco, causing the government to "hit the
roof". These events prompted King Mohammed
V to allow Jewish emigration, and over the
three following years, more than 70,000 Moroccan
Jews left the country, primarily as a result
of Operation Yachin.
Operation Yachin was fronted by the New York-based
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), who financed
approximately $50 million of costs. HIAS provided
an American cover for underground Israeli
agents in Morocco, whose functions included
organizing emigration, arming of Jewish Moroccan
communities for self-defense and negotiations
with the Moroccan government. By 1963, the
Moroccan Interior Minister Colonel Oufkir
and Mossad chief Meir Amit agreed to swap
Israeli training of Moroccan security services
and some covert military assistance for intelligence
on Arab affairs and continued Jewish emigration.By
1967, only 50,000 Jews remained.The 1967 Six-Day
War led to increased Arab–Jewish tensions
worldwide, including in Morocco, and significant
Jewish emigration out of the country continued.
By the early 1970s, the Jewish population
of Morocco fell to 25,000; however, most of
the emigrants went to France, Belgium, Spain,
and Canada, rather than Israel.Despite their
dwindling numbers, Jews continue to play a
notable role in Morocco; the King retains
a Jewish senior adviser, André Azoulay, and
Jewish schools and synagogues receive government
subsidies. Despite this, Jewish targets have
sometimes been attacked (notably the 2003
bombing attacks on a Jewish community center
in Casablanca), and there is sporadic anti-Semitic
rhetoric from radical Islamist groups. Invitations
from the late King Hassan II for Jews to return
to Morocco have not been taken up by the people
who had emigrated.
According to Esther Benbassa, the migration
of Jews from the North African countries was
prompted by uncertainty about the future.
In 1948, over 250,000–265,000 Jews lived
in Morocco. By 2001 an estimated 5,230 remained.
=== Algeria ===
As in Tunisia and Morocco, Algerian Jews did
not face large scale expulsion or outright
asset confiscation or any similar government
persecution during the period of exile, and
Zionist agents were relatively allowed freedom
of action to encourage emigration.Jewish emigration
from Algeria was part of a wider ending of
French colonial control and the related social,
economic and cultural changes.The Israeli
government had been successful in encouraging
Morocco and Tunisian Jews to emigrate to Israel,
but were less so in Algeria. Despite offers
of visa and economic subsidies, only 580 Jews
moved from Algeria to Israel in 1954-55.Emigration
peaked during the Algerian War of 1954–1962,
during which thousands of Muslims, Christians
and Jews left the country, particularly the
Pied-Noir community. In 1956, Mossad agents
worked underground to organize and arm the
Jews of Constantine, who comprised approximately
half the Jewish population of the country.
In Oran, a Jewish counter-insurgency movement
was thought to have been trained by former
members of Irgun.As of the last census in
Algeria, taken on 1 June 1960, there were
1,050,000 non-Muslim civilians in Algeria
(10 percent of the total population including
130,000." Algerian Jews). After Algeria became
independent in 1962, about 800,000 Pieds-Noirs
(including Jews) were evacuated to mainland
France while about 200,000 chose to remain
in Algeria. Of the latter, there were still
about 100,000 in 1965 and about 50,000 by
the end of the 1960s.As the Algerian Revolution
began to intensify in the late 1950s and early
1960s, most of Algeria's 140,000 Jews began
to leave. The community had lived mainly in
Algiers and Blida, Constantine, and Oran.
Almost all Jews of Algeria left upon independence
in 1962, particularly as "the Algerian Nationality
Code of 1963 excluded non-Muslims from acquiring
citizenship", allowing citizenship only to
those Algerians who had Muslim fathers and
paternal grandfathers. Algeria's 140,000 Jews,
who had French citizenship since 1870 (briefly
revoked by Vichy France in 1940) left mostly
for France, although some went to Israel.The
Algiers synagogue was consequently abandoned
after 1994.
Jewish migration from North Africa to France
led to the rejuvenation of the French Jewish
community, which is now the third largest
in the world.
=== Tunisia ===
As in Morocco and Algeria, Tunisian Jews did
not face large scale expulsion or outright
asset confiscation or any similar government
persecution during the period of exile, and
Zionist agents were relatively allowed freedom
of action to encourage emigration.In 1948,
approximately 105,000 Jews lived in Tunisia.
About 1,500 remain today, mostly in Djerba,
Tunis, and Zarzis. Following Tunisia's independence
from France in 1956, a number of anti-Jewish
policies led to emigration, of which half
went to Israel and the other half to France.
After attacks in 1967, Jewish emigration both
to Israel and France accelerated. There were
also attacks in 1982, 1985, and most recently
in 2002 when a bombing in Djerba took 21 lives
(most of them German tourists) near the local
synagogue, a terrorist attack claimed by Al-Qaeda.
=== Libya ===
According to Maurice Roumani, a Libyan emigrant
who was previously the Executive Director
of WOJAC, the most important factors that
influenced the Libyan Jewish community to
emigrate were "the scars left from the last
years of the Italian occupation and the entry
of the British Military in 1943 accompanied
by the Jewish Palestinian soldiers".Zionist
emissaries, "shlichim", has begun arriving
in the early 1940s, with the intention to
"transform the community and transfer it to
Palestine". In 1943, Mossad LeAliyah Bet began
to send emissaries to prepare the infrastructure
for the emigration of the Libyan Jewish community.In
1942, German troops fighting the Allies in
North Africa occupied the Jewish quarter of
Benghazi, plundering shops and deporting more
than 2,000 Jews across the desert. Sent to
work in labor camps, more than one-fifth of
that group of Jews perished. At the time,
most of the Jews were living in cities of
Tripoli and Benghazi and there were smaller
numbers in Bayda and Misrata. Following the
allied victory at the Battle of El Agheila
in December 1942, German and Italian troops
were driven out of Libya. The British installed
the Palestine Regiment in Cyrenaica, which
later became the core of the Jewish Brigade,
which was later also stationed in Tripolitania.
The pro-Zionist soldiers encouraged the spread
of Zionism throughout the local Jewish populationFollowing
the liberation of North Africa by allied forces,
antisemitic incitements were still widespread.
The most severe racial violence between the
start of World War II and the establishment
of Israel erupted in Tripoli in November 1945.
Over a period of several days more than 130
Jews (including 36 children) were killed,
hundreds were injured, 4,000 were displaced
and 2,400 were reduced to poverty. Five synagogues
in Tripoli and four in provincial towns were
destroyed, and over 1,000 Jewish residences
and commercial buildings were plundered in
Tripoli alone. Gil Shefler writes that "As
awful as the pogrom in Libya was, it was still
a relatively isolated occurrence compared
to the mass murders of Jews by locals in Eastern
Europe." The same year, violent anti-Jewish
violence also occurred in Cairo, which resulted
in 10 Jewish victims.
In 1948, about 38,000 Jews lived in Libya.
The pogroms continued in June 1948, when 15
Jews were killed and 280 Jewish homes destroyed.
In November 1948, a few months after the events
in Tripoli, the American consul in Tripoli,
Orray Taft Jr., reported that: "There is reason
to believe that the Jewish Community has become
more aggressive as the result of the Jewish
victories in Palestine. There is also reason
to believe that the community here is receiving
instructions and guidance from the State of
Israel. Whether or not the change in attitude
is the result of instructions or a progressive
aggressiveness is hard to determine. Even
with the aggressiveness or perhaps because
of it, both Jewish and Arab leaders inform
me that the inter-racial relations are better
now than they have been for several years
and that understanding, tolerance and cooperation
are present at any top level meeting between
the leaders of the two communities."Immigration
to Israel began in 1949, following the establishment
of a Jewish Agency for Israel office in Tripoli.
According to Harvey E. Goldberg, "a number
of Libyan Jews" believe that the Jewish Agency
was behind the riots, given that the riots
helped them achieve their goal. Between the
establishment of the State of Israel in 1948
and Libyan independence in December 1951 over
30,000 Libyan Jews emigrated to Israel.
On 31 December 1958 a decree was issued by
the President of the Executive Council of
Tripolitania, which ordered the dissolution
of the Jewish Community Council and the appointment
of a Muslim commissioner nominated by the
Government. A law issued in 1961 required
Libyan citizenship for the possession and
transfer of property in Libya, a requirement
that was rejected to all but 6 Libyan Jewish
individuals. Jews were banned from voting,
attaining public offices and from serving
in the army or in police.In 1967, during the
Six-Day War, the Jewish population of 4,000
was again subjected to riots in which 18 were
killed, and many more injured. According to
David Harris, the Executive Director of the
Jewish advocacy organization AJC, the pro-Western
Libyan government of King Idris I "faced with
a complete breakdown of law and order ... urged
the Jews to leave the country temporarily",
permitting them each to take one suitcase
and the equivalent of $50. In June and July
over 4,000 traveled to Italy, where they were
assisted by the Jewish Agency for Israel.
1,300 went on to Israel, 2,200 remained in
Italy, and most of the rest went to the United
States. A few scores remained in Libya and
others managed to return between 1967 and
1969.In 1970 the Libyan government issued
new laws that confiscated all the assets of
Libya's Jews, issuing in their stead 15-year
bonds. However, when the bonds matured no
compensation was paid. Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi justified this on the grounds that
"the alignment of the Jews with Israel, the
Arab nations' enemy, has forfeited their right
to compensation."Although the main synagogue
in Tripoli was renovated in 1999, it has not
reopened for services. The last Jew in Libya,
Esmeralda Meghnagi, died in February 2002.
Israel is home to about 40,000 Jews of Libyan
descent, who maintain unique traditions.
== Middle East ==
=== Iraq ===
==== 1930s and early 1940s ====
The British mandate over Iraq came to an end
in June 1930, and in October 1932 the country
became independent. The Iraqi government response
to the demand of Assyrian autonomy (the Assyrians
being the indigenous Eastern Aramaic-speaking
Semitic descendants of the ancient Assyrians
and Mesopotamians, and largely affiliated
to the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean
Catholic Church and Syriac Orthodox Church),
turned into a bloody massacre of Assyrian
villagers by the Iraqi army in August 1933.
This event was the first sign to the Jewish
community that minority rights were meaningless
under Iraqi monarchy. King Faisal, known for
his liberal policies, died in September 1933,
and was succeeded by Ghazi, his nationalistic
anti-British son. Ghazi began promoting Arab
nationalist organizations, headed by Syrian
and Palestinian exiles. With 1936–39 Arab
revolt in Palestine, they were joined by rebels,
such as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The
exiles preached pan-Arab ideology and fostered
anti-Zionist propaganda.Under Iraqi nationalists,
Nazi propaganda began to infiltrate the country,
as Nazi Germany was anxious to expand its
influence in the Arab world. Dr. Fritz Grobba,
who resided in Iraq since 1932, began to vigorously
and systematically disseminate hateful propaganda
against Jews. Among other things, Arabic translation
of Mein Kampf was published and Radio Berlin
had begun broadcasting in Arabic language.
Anti-Jewish policies had been implemented
since 1934, and the confidence of Jews was
further shaken by the growing crisis in Palestine
in 1936. Between 1936 and 1939 ten Jews were
murdered and on eight occasions bombs were
thrown on Jewish locations.
In 1941, immediately following the British
victory in the Anglo-Iraqi War, riots known
as the Farhud broke out in Baghdad in the
power vacuum following the collapse of the
pro-Axis government of Rashid Ali al-Gaylani
while the city was in a state of instability.
180 Jews were killed and another 240 wounded;
586 Jewish-owned businesses were looted and
99 Jewish houses were destroyed.In some accounts
the Farhud marked the turning point for Iraq's
Jews. Other historians, however, see the pivotal
moment for the Iraqi Jewish community much
later, between 1948–51, since Jewish communities
prospered along with the rest of the country
throughout most of the 1940s, and many Jews
who left Iraq following the Farhud returned
to the country shortly thereafter and permanent
emigration did not accelerate significantly
until 1950–51.Either way, the Farhud is
broadly understood to mark the start of a
process of politicization of the Iraqi Jews
in the 1940s, primarily among the younger
population, especially as a result of the
impact it had on hopes of long term integration
into Iraqi society. In the direct aftermath
of the Farhud, many joined the Iraqi Communist
Party in order to protect the Jews of Baghdad,
yet they did not want to leave the country
and rather sought to fight for better conditions
in Iraq itself. At the same time the Iraqi
government that had taken over after the Farhud
reassured the Iraqi Jewish community, and
normal life soon returned to Baghdad, which
saw a marked betterment of its economic situation
during World War II.Shortly after the Farhud
in 1941, Mossad LeAliyah Bet sent emissaries
to Iraq to begin to organize emigration to
Israel, initially by recruiting people to
teach Hebrew and hold lectures on Zionism.
In 1942, Shaul Avigur, head of Mossad LeAliyah
Bet, entered Iraq undercover in order to survey
the situation of the Iraqi Jews with respect
to immigration to Israel. During the 1942–43,
Avigur made four further trips to Baghdad
to arrange the required Mossad machinery,
including a radio transmitter for sending
information to Tel Aviv, which remained in
use for 8 years. In late 1942, one of the
emissaries explained the size of their task
of converting the Iraqi community to Zionism,
writing that "we have to admit that there
is not much point in [organizing and encouraging
emigration]. ... We are today eating the fruit
of many years of neglect, and what we didn't
do can't be corrected now through propaganda
and creating one-day-old enthusiasm." It was
not until 1947 that legal and illegal departures
from Iraq to Israel began. Around 8,000 Jews
left Iraq between 1919–48, with another
2,000 leaving between mid-1948 to mid-1950.
==== 1948 Arab–Israeli War ====
In 1948, there were approximately 150,000
Jews in Iraq. The community was concentrated
in Baghdad and Basra.
Before United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine
vote, the Iraq's prime minister Nuri al-Said
told British diplomats that if the United
Nations solution was not "satisfactory", "severe
measures should [would?] be taken against
all Jews in Arab countries". In a speech at
the General Assembly Hall at Flushing Meadow,
New York, on Friday, 28 November 1947, Iraq's
Foreign Minister, Fadel Jamall, included the
following statement: "Partition imposed against
the will of the majority of the people will
jeopardize peace and harmony in the Middle
East. Not only the uprising of the Arabs of
Palestine is to be expected, but the masses
in the Arab world cannot be restrained. The
Arab–Jewish relationship in the Arab world
will greatly deteriorate. There are more Jews
in the Arab world outside of Palestine than
there are in Palestine. In Iraq alone, we
have about one hundred and fifty thousand
Jews who share with Moslems and Christians
all the advantages of political and economic
rights. Harmony prevails among Moslems, Christians
and Jews. But any injustice imposed upon the
Arabs of Palestine will disturb the harmony
among Jews and non-Jews in Iraq; it will breed
inter-religious prejudice and hatred." On
19 February 1949, al-Said acknowledged the
bad treatment that the Jews had been victims
of in Iraq during the recent months. He warned
that unless Israel would behave itself, events
might take place concerning the Iraqi Jews.
Al-Said's threats had no impact at the political
level on the fate of the Jews but were widely
published in the media.In 1948, the country
was placed under martial law, and the penalties
for Zionism were increased. Courts martial
were used to intimidate wealthy Jews, Jews
were again dismissed from civil service, quotas
were placed on university positions, Jewish
businesses were boycotted (E. Black, p. 347)
and Shafiq Ades (one of the most important
anti-Zionist Jewish businessmen in the country)
was arrested and publicly hanged for allegedly
selling goods to Israel, shocking the community
(Tripp, 123). The Jewish community general
sentiment was that if a man as well connected
and powerful as Shafiq Ades could he eliminated
by the state, other Jews would not be protected
any longer.Additionally, like most Arab League
states, Iraq forbade any legal emigration
of its Jews on the grounds that they might
go to Israel and could strengthen that state.
At the same time, increasing government oppression
of the Jews fueled by anti-Israeli sentiment
together with public expressions of antisemitism
created an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.
Like most Arab League states, Iraq initially
forbade the emigration of its Jews after the
1948 war on the grounds that allowing them
to go to Israel would strengthen that state.
However, by 1949 Jews were escaping Iraq at
about a rate of 1,000 a month. At the time,
the British believed that the Zionist underground
was agitating in Iraq in order to assist US
fund-raising and to "offset the bad impression
caused by the Jewish attitudes to Arab refugees".The
Iraqi government took in only 5,000 of the
c.700,000 Palestinians who became refugees
in 1948–49 and refused to submit to American
and British pressure to admit more. In January
1949, the pro-British Iraqi Prime Minister
Nuri al-Said discussed the idea of deporting
Iraqi Jews to Israel with British officials,
who explained that such a proposal would benefit
Israel and adversely affect Arab countries.
According to Meir-Glitzenstein, such suggestions
were "not intended to solve either the problem
of the Palestinian Arab refugees or the problem
of the Jewish minority in Iraq, but to torpedo
plans to resettle Palestinian Arab refugees
in Iraq". In July 1949 the British government
proposed to Nuri al-Said a population exchange
in which Iraq would agree to settle 100,000
Palestinian refugees in Iraq; Nuri stated
that if a fair arrangement could be agreed,
"the Iraqi government would permit a voluntary
move by Iraqi Jews to Palestine." The Iraqi-British
proposal was reported in the press in October
1949. On 14 October 1949 Nuri Al Said raised
the exchange of population concept with the
economic mission survey. At the Jewish Studies
Conference in Melbourne in 2002, Philip Mendes
summarised the effect of al-Saids vacillations
on Jewish expulsion as: "In addition, the
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri as-Said tentatively
canvassed and then shelved the possibility
of expelling the Iraqi Jews, and exchanging
them for an equal number of Palestinian Arabs.
"
==== A reversal: Allowing a Jewish immigration
to Israel ====
In March 1950 Iraq reversed their earlier
ban on Jewish emigration to Israel and passed
a law of one-year duration allowing Jews to
emigrate on the condition of relinquishing
their Iraqi citizenship. According to Abbas
Shiblak, many scholars state that this was
a result of British, American and Israeli
political pressure on Tawfiq al-Suwaidi's
government, with some studies suggesting there
were secret negotiations. According to Ian
Black, the Iraqi government was motivated
by "economic considerations, chief of which
was that almost all the property of departing
Jews reverted to the state treasury" and also
that "Jews were seen as a restive and potentially
troublesome minority that the country was
best rid of." Israel mounted an operation
called "Operation Ezra and Nehemiah" to bring
as many of the Iraqi Jews as possible to Israel.
The Zionist movement at first tried to regulate
the amount of registrants until issues relating
to their legal status were clarified. Later,
it allowed everyone to register. Two weeks
after the law went into force, the Iraqi interior
minister demanded a CID investigation over
why Jews were not registering. A few hours
after the movement allowed registration, four
Jews were injured in a bomb attack at a café
in Baghdad.
Immediately following the March 1950 Denaturalisation
Act, the emigration movement faced significant
challenges. Initially, local Zionist activists
forbade the Iraqi Jews from registering for
emigration with the Iraqi authorities, because
the Israeli government was still discussing
absorption planning. However, on 8 April,
a bomb exploded in a Jewish cafe in Baghdad,
and a meeting of the Zionist leadership later
that day agreed to allow registration without
waiting for the Israeli government; a proclamation
encouraging registration was made throughout
Iraq in the name of the State of Israel. However,
at the same time immigrants were also entering
Israel from Poland and Romania, countries
in which Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion assessed
there was a risk that the communist authorities
would soon "close their gates", and Israel
therefore delayed the transportation of Iraqi
Jews. As a result, by September 1950, while
70,000 Jews had registered to leave, many
selling their property and losing their jobs,
only 10,000 had left the country. According
to Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, "The thousands
of poor Jews who had left or been expelled
from the peripheral cities, and who had gone
to Baghdad to wait for their opportunity to
emigrate, were in an especially bad state.
They were housed in public buildings and were
being supported by the Jewish community. The
situation was intolerable." The delay became
a significant problem for the Iraqi government
of Nuri al-Said (who replaced Tawfiq al-Suwaidi
in mid-September 1950), as the large number
of Jews "in limbo" created problems politically,
economically and for domestic security. "Particularly
infuriating" to the Iraqi government was the
fact that the source of the problem was the
Israeli government.
As a result of these developments, al-Said
was determined to drive the Jews out of his
country as quickly as possible. On 21 August
1950 al-Said threatened to revoke the license
of the company transporting the Jewish exodus
if it did not fulfill its daily quota of 500
Jews, and in September 1950, he summoned a
representative of the Jewish community and
warned the Jewish community of Baghdad to
make haste; otherwise, he would take the Jews
to the borders himself. On 12 October 1950,
Nuri al-Said summoned a senior official of
the transport company and made similar threats,
justifying the expulsion of Jews by the number
of Palestinian Arabs fleeing from Israel.Two
months before the law expired, after about
85,000 Jews had registered, a bombing campaign
began against the Jewish community of Baghdad.
The Iraqi government convicted and hanged
a number of suspected Zionist agents for perpetrating
the bombings, but the issue of who was responsible
remains a subject of scholarly dispute. All
but a few thousand of the remaining Jews then
registered for emigration. In all, about 120,000
Jews left Iraq.
According to Gat, it is highly likely that
one of Nuri as-Said's motives in trying to
expel large numbers of Jews was the desire
to aggravate Israel's economic problems (he
had declared as such to the Arab world), although
Nuri was well aware that the absorption of
these immigrants was the policy on which Israel
based its future. The Iraqi Minister of Defence
told the U.S ambassador that he had reliable
evidence that the emigrating Jews were involved
in activities injurious to the state and were
in contact with communist agents.Between April
1950 and June 1951, Jewish targets in Baghdad
were struck five times. Iraqi authorities
then arrested 3 Jews, claiming they were Zionist
activists, and sentenced two — Shalom Salah
Shalom and Yosef Ibrahim Basri—to death.
The third man, Yehuda Tajar, was sentenced
to 10 years in prison. In May and June 1951,
arms caches were discovered that allegedly
belonged to the Zionist underground, allegedly
supplied by the Yishuv after the Farhud of
1941. There has been much debate as to whether
the bombs were planted by the Mossad to encourage
Iraqi Jews to emigrate to Israel or if they
were planted by Muslim extremists to help
drive out the Jews. This has been the subject
of lawsuits and inquiries in Israel.The emigration
law was to expire in March 1951, one year
after the law was enacted. On 10 March 1951,
64,000 Iraqi Jews were still waiting to emigrate,
the government enacted a new law blocking
the assets of Jews who had given up their
citizenship, and extending the emigration
period.The bulk of the Jews leaving Iraq did
so via Israeli airlifts named Operation Ezra
and Nehemiah with special permission from
the Iraqi government.
==== After 1951 ====
In 1969, about 50 of the Jews who remained
were executed; 11 were publicly executed after
show trials and hundred thousand Iraqis marched
past the bodies in a carnival-like atmosphere.By
2003, there were only about 100 left of this
previously thriving community.
=== Egypt ===
==== Background ====
Although there was a small indigenous community,
most Jews in Egypt in the early twentieth
century were recent immigrants to the country,
who did not share the Arabic language and
culture. Many were members of the highly diverse
Mutamassirun community, which included other
groups such as Greeks, Armenians, Syrian Christians
and Italians, in addition to the British and
French colonial powers. Until the late 1930s,
the Jews, both indigenous and new immigrants,
like other minorities tended to apply for
foreign citizenship in order to benefit from
a foreign protection. The Egyptian government
made it very difficult for non-Muslim foreigners
to become naturalized. The poorer Jews, most
of them indigenous and Oriental Jews, were
left stateless, although they were legally
eligible for Egyptian nationality. The drive
to Egyptianize public life and the economy
harmed the minorities, but the Jews had more
strikes against them than the others. In the
agitation against the Jews of the late thirties
and the forties, the Jew has been seen as
an enemy The Jews were attacked because of
their real or alleged links to Zionism. Jews
were not discriminated because of their religion
or race, like in Europe, but for political
reasons.The Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmoud
an-Nukrashi Pasha told the British ambassador:
"All Jews were potential Zionists [and] ... anyhow
all Zionists were Communists."
On 24 November 1947, the head of the Egyptian
delegation to the United Nations General Assembly,
Muhammad Hussein Heykal Pasha, said, "the
lives of 1,000,000 Jews in Moslem countries
would be jeopardized by the establishment
of a Jewish state." On 24 November 1947, Dr
Heykal Pasha said: "if the U.N decide to amputate
a part of Palestine in order to establish
a Jewish state, ... Jewish blood will necessarily
be shed elsewhere in the Arab world ... to
place in certain and serious danger a million
Jews. Mahmud Bey Fawzi (Egypt) said: "Imposed
partition was sure to result in bloodshed
in Palestine and in the rest of the Arab world."The
exodus of the foreign mutamassirun ("Egyptianized")
community, which included a significant number
of Jews, began following the First World War,
and by the end of the 1960s the entire mutamassirun
was effectively eliminated. According to Andrew
Gorman, this was primarily a result of the
"decolonization process and the rise of Egyptian
nationalism".The exodus of Egyptian Jews was
impacted by the 1945 Anti-Jewish Riots in
Egypt, though such emigration was not significant
as the government stamped the violence out
and the Egyptian Jewish community leaders
were supportive of King Farouk. In 1948, approximately
75,000 Jews lived in Egypt. Around 20,000
Jews left Egypt during 1948–49 following
the events of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War
(including the 1948 Cairo bombings). A further
5,000 left between 1952–56, in the wake
of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 and later
the false flag Lavon Affair. The Israeli invasion
as part of the Suez Crisis caused a significant
upsurge in emigration, with 14,000 Jews leaving
in less than six months between November 1956
and March 1957, and 19,000 further emigrating
over the next decade.
==== Suez Crisis ====
In October 1956, when the Suez Crisis erupted,
the position of the mutamassirun, including
the Jewish community, was significantly impacted.1,000
Jews were arrested and 500 Jewish businesses
were seized by the government. A statement
branding the Jews as "Zionists and enemies
of the state" was read out in the mosques
of Cairo and Alexandria. Jewish bank accounts
were confiscated and many Jews lost their
jobs. Lawyers, engineers, doctors and teachers
were not allowed to work in their professions.
Thousands of Jews were ordered to leave the
country. They were allowed to take only one
suitcase and a small sum of cash, and forced
to sign declarations "donating" their property
to the Egyptian government. Foreign observers
reported that members of Jewish families were
taken hostage, apparently to insure that those
forced to leave did not speak out against
the Egyptian government. Jews were expelled
or left, forced out by the anti-Jewish feeling
in Egypt. Some 25,000 Jews, almost half of
the Jewish community left, mainly for Europe,
the United States, South America and Israel,
after being forced to sign declarations that
they were leaving voluntarily, and agreed
with the confiscation of their assets. Similar
measures were enacted against British and
French nationals in retaliation for the invasion.
By 1957 the Jewish population of Egypt had
fallen to 15,000.
==== Later ====
In 1960, the American embassy in Cairo wrote
of Egyptian Jews that: "There is definitely
a strong desire among most Jews to emigrate,
but this is prompted by the feeling that they
have limited opportunity, or from fear for
the future, rather than by any direct or present
tangible mistreatment at the hands of the
government."In 1967, Jews were detained and
tortured, and Jewish homes were confiscated.
Following the Six Day War, the community practically
ceased to exist, with the exception of several
dozens of elderly Jews.
=== Yemen ===
The Yemeni exodus began in 1881, seven months
prior to the more well-known First Aliyah
from Eastern Europe. The exodus came about
as a result of European Jewish investment
in the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, which created
jobs for labouring Jews alongside local Muslim
labour thereby providing an economic incentive
for emigration. This was aided by the reestablishment
of Ottoman control over the Yemen Vilayet
allowing freedom of movement within the empire,
and the opening of the Suez canal, which reduced
the cost of travelling considerably. Between
1881 and 1948, 15,430 Jews had immigrated
to Palestine legally.In 1942, prior to the
formulation of the One Million Plan, David
Ben-Gurion described his intentions with respect
to such potential policy to a meeting of experts
and Jewish leaders, stating that "It is a
mark of great failure by Zionism that we have
not yet eliminated the Yemen exile [diaspora]."If
one includes Aden, there were about 63,000
Jews in Yemen in 1948. Today, there are about
200 left. In 1947, rioters killed at least
80 Jews in Aden, a British colony in southern
Yemen. In 1948 the new Zaydi Imam Ahmad bin
Yahya unexpectedly allowed his Jewish subjects
to leave Yemen, and tens of thousands poured
into Aden. The Israeli government's Operation
Magic Carpet evacuated around 44,000 Jews
from Yemen to Israel in 1949 and 1950. Emigration
continued until 1962, when the civil war in
Yemen broke out. A small community remained
until 1976, though it has mostly immigrated
from Yemen since. In March 2016, the Jewish
population in Yemen was estimated to be about
50.
=== Lebanon and Syria ===
==== Background ====
The area now known as Lebanon and Syria was
the home of one of the oldest Jewish communities
in the world, dating back to at least 300
BCE.
==== Lebanon ====
In November 1945, fourteen Jews were killed
in anti-Jewish riots in Tripoli. Unlike in
other Arab countries, the Lebanese Jewish
community did not face grave peril during
the 1948 Arab–Israel War and was reasonably
protected by governmental authorities. Lebanon
was also the only Arab country that saw a
post-1948 increase in its Jewish population,
principally due to the influx of Jews coming
from Syria and Iraq.In 1948, there were approximately
24,000 Jews in Lebanon. The largest communities
of Jews in Lebanon were in Beirut, and the
villages near Mount Lebanon, Deir al Qamar,
Barouk, Bechamoun, and Hasbaya. While the
French mandate saw a general improvement in
conditions for Jews, the Vichy regime placed
restrictions on them. The Jewish community
actively supported Lebanese independence after
World War II and had mixed attitudes toward
Zionism.However, negative attitudes toward
Jews increased after 1948, and, by 1967, most
Lebanese Jews had emigrated—to Israel, the
United States, Canada, and France. In 1971,
Albert Elia, the 69-year-old Secretary-General
of the Lebanese Jewish community, was kidnapped
in Beirut by Syrian agents and imprisoned
under torture in Damascus, along with Syrian
Jews who had attempted to flee the country.
A personal appeal by the U.N. High Commissioner
for Refugees, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, to
the late President Hafez al-Assad failed to
secure Elia's release.
The remaining Jewish community was particularly
hard hit by the civil war in Lebanon, and
by the mid-1970s, the community collapsed.
In the 1980s, Hezbollah kidnapped several
Lebanese Jewish businessmen, and in the 2004
elections, only one Jew voted in the municipal
elections. There are now only between 20 and
40 Jews living in Lebanon.
==== Syria ====
In 1947, rioters in Aleppo burned the city's
Jewish quarter and killed 75 people. As a
result, nearly half of the Jewish population
of Aleppo opted to leave the city, initially
to neighbouring Lebanon.In 1948, there were
approximately 30,000 Jews in Syria. In 1949,
following defeat in the Arab–Israeli War,
the CIA-backed March 1949 Syrian coup d'état
installed Husni al-Za'im as the President
of Syria. Za'im permitted the emigration of
large numbers of Syrian Jews, and 5,000 left
to Israel.The subsequent Syrian governments
placed severe restrictions on the Jewish community,
including barring emigration. Over the next
few years, many Jews managed to escape, and
the work of supporters, particularly Judy
Feld Carr, in smuggling Jews out of Syria,
and bringing their plight to the attention
of the world, raised awareness of their situation.
Although the Syrian government attempted to
stop Syrian Jews from exporting their assets,
the American consulate in Damascus noted in
1950 that "the majority of Syrian Jews have
managed to dispose of their property and to
emigrate to Lebanon, Italy, and Israel". In
November 1954, the Syrian government lifted
its ban on Jewish emigration.In March 1964,
the Syrian government issued a decree prohibiting
Jews from traveling more than three miles
from the limits of their hometowns. During
1967, riots broke out in Damascus and Aleppo.
Jews were allowed to leave their homes only
for few hours daily. Many Jews found impossible
to pursue their business venture because the
larger community was boycotting their products.
In 1972 demonstrations were held by 1000 Syrian
Jews in Damascus, after four woman were killed
as they attempted to flee Syria. The protest
surprised Syrian authorities, who closely
monitored Jewish community, eavesdropped on
their telephone conversations, and tampered
with their mail.Following the Madrid Conference
of 1991, the United States put pressure on
the Syrian government to ease its restrictions
on Jews, and during Passover in 1992, the
government of Syria began granting exit visas
to Jews on condition that they did not emigrate
to Israel. At that time, the country had several
thousand Jews. The majority left for the United
States—most to join the large Syrian Jewish
community in South Brooklyn, New York—although
some went to France and Turkey, and those
who wanted to go to Israel were brought there
in a two-year covert operation.In 2004, the
Syrian government attempted to establish better
relations with its emigrants, and a delegation
of a dozen Jews of Syrian origin visited Syria
in the spring of that year. As of December
2014, only 17 Jews remain in Syria, according
to Rabbi Avraham Hamra; nine men and eight
women, all over 60 years of age.
=== Transjordan and West Bank ===
The Tel Or village was established in 1930
(or 1932) in Transjordan in the vicinity of
Naharayim hydroelectric power plant. The village
of Tel Or was the only Jewish village in Transjordan
at the time. The village was built as housing
compound for operation crews of the power
plant and their families, being predominantly
Jewish. Tel Or had existed until its depopulation
in 1948 during the Arab–Israeli War, when
it was overran by the Transjordanian forces.
The families of the employees were evacuated
in April 1948, leaving behind only workers
with Jordanian ID cards. Following a prolonged
battle between Yishuv forces and the Transjordanian
Arab Legion in the area, the residents of
Tel Or were given an ultimatum to surrender
or leave the village. The village of Tel Or
was shortly abandoned by the residents, who
fled to Yishuv-controlled areas to the West
of Jordan.
In 1948 during the Arab–Israeli War, Jerusalem's
Jewish Quarter population of about 2,000 Jews
was besieged, and forced to leave en masse.
The defenders surrendered on 28 May 1948.
Colonel Abdullah el Tell, local commander
of the Jordanian Arab Legion, with whom Mordechai
Weingarten negotiated the surrender terms,
described the destruction of the Jewish Quarter,
in his Memoirs (Cairo, 1959):
... The operations of calculated destruction
were set in motion. ... I knew that the Jewish
Quarter was densely populated with Jews who
caused their fighters a good deal of interference
and difficulty. ... I embarked, therefore,
on the shelling of the Quarter with mortars,
creating harassment and destruction. ... Only
four days after our entry into Jerusalem the
Jewish Quarter had become their graveyard.
Death and destruction reigned over it. ... As
the dawn of Friday, May 28, 1948, was about
to break, the Jewish Quarter emerged convulsed
in a black cloud—a cloud of death and agony.
The Jordanian commander is reported to have
told his superiors: "For the first time in
1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the
Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains
intact. This makes the Jews' return here impossible."
The Hurva Synagogue, originally built in 1701,
was blown up by the Jordanian Arab Legion.
During the nineteen years of Jordanian rule,
a third of the Jewish Quarter's buildings
were demolished. According to a complaint
Israel made to the United Nations, all but
one of the thirty-five Jewish houses of worship
in the Old City were destroyed. The synagogues
were razed or pillaged and stripped and their
interiors used as hen-houses or stables.In
the wake of the 1948 war, the Red Cross accommodated
Palestinian refugees in the depopulated and
partly destroyed Jewish Quarter. This grew
into the Muaska refugee camp managed by UNRWA,
which housed refugees from 48 locations now
in Israel. Over time many poor non-refugees
also settled in the camp. Conditions became
unsafe for habitation due to lack of maintenance
and sanitation. Jordan had planned transforming
the quarter into a park, but neither UNRWA
nor the Jordanian government wanted the negative
international response that would result if
they demolished the old Jewish houses. In
1964 a decision was made to move the refugees
to a new camp constructed near Shuafat. Most
of the refugees refused to move, since it
would mean losing their livelihood, the market
and the tourists, as well as reducing their
access to the holy sites. In the end, many
of the refugees were moved to Shuafat by force
during 1965 and 1966.
=== Bahrain ===
Bahrain's tiny Jewish community, mostly the
Jewish descendants of immigrants who entered
the country in the early 20th century from
Iraq, numbered 600 in 1948. In the wake of
29 November 1947 U.N. Partition vote, demonstrations
against the vote in the Arab world were called
for 2–5 December. The first two days of
demonstrations in Bahrain saw rock throwing
against Jews, but on 5 December, mobs in the
capital of Manama looted Jewish homes and
shops, destroyed the synagogue, beat any Jews
they could find, and murdered one elderly
woman.Over the next few decades, most left
for other countries, especially Britain; as
of 2006 only 36 remained.
== Muslim-majority countries ==
=== Iran ===
Exodus of Iran's Jews refers to the emigration
of Persian Jews from Pahlavy Iran in 1950s
and later migration wave from Iran during
and after the Iranian Revolution of 1979,
during which the community of 80,000 dropped
to less than 20,000. The migration of Persian
Jews after Iranian Revolution is mostly attributed
to fear of religious persecution, economic
hardships and insecurity after the deposition
of the Shah regime and consequent domestic
violence and the Iran–Iraq War.
While Iranian constitution generally respects
minority rights of non-Muslims (though there
are some forms of discrimination), the strong
anti-Zionist policy of the Islamic Republic
of Iran created a tense and uncomfortable
situation for Iranian Jews, who became vulnerable
for accusation on alleged collaboration with
Israel.
Most of 80,000-strong Iranian Jewish community
exited Iran between 1978 and early 1980s.
In total, more than 80% of Iranian Jews fled
or migrated from the country between 1979
and 2006. A small Jewish community of 7–10
thousands still resides in Iran as a protected
minority.
=== Turkey ===
When the Republic of Turkey was established
in 1923, Aliyah was not particularly popular
among Turkish Jewry; migration from Turkey
to Palestine was minimal in the 1920s.During
1923-1948, approximately 7,300 Jews emigrated
from Turkey to Palestine. After the 1934 Thrace
pogroms following the 1934 Turkish Resettlement
Law, immigration to Palestine increased; it
is estimated that 521 Jews left for Palestine
from Turkey in 1934 and 1,445 left in 1935.
Immigration to Palestine was organized by
the Jewish Agency and the Palestine Aliya
Anoar Organization. The Varlık Vergisi, a
capital tax established in 1942, was also
significant in encouraging emigration from
Turkey to Palestine; between 1943 and 1944,
4,000 Jews emigrated."The Jews of Turkey reacted
very favorably to the creation of the State
of Israel. Between 1948 and 1951, 34,547 Jews
immigrated to Israel, nearly 40% of the Jewish
population at the time. Immigration was stunted
for several months in November 1948, when
Turkey suspended migration permits as a result
of pressure from Arab countries.In March 1949,
the suspension was removed when Turkey officially
recognized Israel, and emigration continued,
with 26,000 emigrating within the same year.
The migration was entirely voluntary, and
was primary driven by economic factors given
the majority of emigrants were from the lower
classes. In fact, the migration of Jews to
Israel is the second largest mass emigration
wave out of Turkey, the first being the population
exchange between Greece and Turkey.After 1951,
emigration of Jews from Turkey to Israel slowed
materially.In the mid 1950s, 10% of those
who had moved to Israel returned to Turkey.
A new synagogue, the Neve Şalom, was constructed
in Istanbul in 1951. Generally, Turkish Jews
in Israel have integrated well into society
and are not distinguishable from other Israelis.
However, they maintain their Turkish culture
and connection to Turkey, and are strong supporters
of close relations between Israel and Turkey.Even
though historically speaking populist antisemitism
was rarer in the Ottoman Empire and Anatolia
than in Europe, since the establishment of
the state of Israel in 1948, there has been
a rise in antisemitism. On the night of 6–7
September 1955, the Istanbul pogrom was unleashed.
Although primarily aimed at the city's Greek
population, the Jewish and Armenian communities
of Istanbul were also targeted to a degree.
The caused damage was mainly material - more
than 4,000 shops and 1,000 houses belonging
to Greeks, Armenians and Jews were destroyed
- but it deeply shocked minorities throughout
the countrySince 1986, increased attacks on
Jewish targets throughout Turkey impacted
the security of the community, and urged many
to emigrate. The Neve Shalom Synagogue in
Istanbul has been attacked by Islamic militants
three times. On 6 September 1986, Arab terrorists
gunned down 22 Jewish worshippers and wounded
6 during Shabbat services at Neve Shalom.
This attack was blamed on the Palestinian
militant Abu Nidal. In 1992, the Lebanon-based
Shi'ite Muslim group of Hezbollah carried
out a bombing against the Synagogue, but nobody
was injured. The Synagogue was hit again during
the 2003 Istanbul bombings alongside the Bet
Israel Synagogue, killing 20 and injuring
over 300 people, both Jews and Muslims alike.
With the increasing anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish
attitudes in modern Turkey, the country's
Jewish community while still believed to be
the largest among Muslim countries, declined
from about 26,000 in 2010 to about 17,000-18,000
in 2016.
=== Afghanistan ===
The Afghan Jewish community declined from
about 40,000 in the early 20th Century to
5,000 by 1934.In 1929, the Soviet press reported
a pogrom in Afghanistan.In 1933, following
the assassination of Mohammed Nadir Shah,
King of Afghanistan, Afghan Jews were declared
non-citizens and many Jews in Afghanistan
were expelled from their homes and robbed
of their property. Jews continued living in
major cities such as Kabul and Herat, under
restrictions on work and trade. In 1935, the
Jewish Telegraph Agency reported that "Ghetto
rules" had been imposed on Afghan Jews, requiring
them to wear particular clothes, that Jewish
women stay out of markets, that no Jews live
within certain distances of mosques and that
Jews did not ride horses.From 1935 to 1941,
under Prime Minister Mohammad Hashim Khan
(uncle of the King) Germany was the most influential
country in Afghanistan. The Nazis regarded
the Afghans (like the Iranians) as Aryans.
In 1938, it was reported that Jews were only
allowed to work as shoe-polishers.Contact
with Afghanistan was difficult at this time
and with many Jews facing persecution around
the world, reports reached the outside world
after a delay and were rarely researched thoroughly.
Jews were allowed to emigrate in 1951 and
most moved to Israel and the United States.
By 1969, some 300 remained, and most of these
left after the Soviet invasion of 1979, leaving
10 Afghan Jews in 1996, most of them in Kabul.
More than 10,000 Jews of Afghan descent presently
live in Israel. Over 200 families of Afghan
Jews live in New York City.At one point it
was reported that two Jews were left in Afghanistan
and that they did not talk to each other.
=== Pakistan ===
At the time of Pakistani independence in 1947,
some 1,300 Jews remained in Karachi, many
of them Bene Israel Jews, observing Sephardic
Jewish rites. A small Ashkenazi population
was also present in the city. Some Karachi
streets still bear names that hark back to
a time when the Jewish community was more
prominent; such as Ashkenazi Street, Abraham
Reuben Street (named after the former member
of the Karachi Municipal Corporation), Ibn
Gabirol Street, and Moses Ibn Ezra Street—although
some streets have been renamed, they are still
locally referred to by their original names.
A small Jewish graveyard still exists in the
vast Mewa Shah Graveyard near the shrine of
a Sufi saint. The neighbourhood of Baghdadi
in Lyari Town is named for the Baghdadi Jews
who once lived there. A community of Bukharan
Jews was also found in the city of Peshawar,
where many buildings in the old city feature
a Star of David as exterior decor as a sign
of the Hebrew origins of its owners. Members
of the community settled in the city as merchants
as early as the 17th century, although the
bulk arrived as refugees fleeing the advance
of the Russian Empire into Bukhara, and later
the Russian Revolution in 1917. Today, there
are virtually no Jewish communities remaining
in Karachi or Peshawar.
The exodus of Jews from Pakistan to Bombay
and other cities in India came just prior
to the creation of Israel in 1948, when anti-Israeli
sentiments rose. By 1953, fewer than 500 Jews
were reported to reside in all of Pakistan.
Anti-Israeli sentiment and violence often
flared during ensuing conflicts in the Middle
East, resulting in a further movement of Jews
out of Pakistan. Presently, a large number
of Jews from Karachi live in the city of Ramla
in Israel.
=== Sudan ===
The Jewish community in Sudan was concentrated
in the capital Khartoum, and had been established
in the late 19th century. By the middle of
the 20th century the community included some
350 Jews, mainly of Sephardic background,
who had constructed a synagogue and a Jewish
school. Between 1948 and 1956, some members
of the community left the country, and it
finally ceased to exist by the early 1960s.
=== Bangladesh ===
The Jewish population in East Bengal was 200
at the time of the Partition of British India
in 1947. They included a Baghdadi Jewish merchant
community that settled in Dhaka during the
17th-century. A prominent Jew in East Pakistan
was Mordecai Cohen, who was a Bengali and
English newsreader on East Pakistan Television.
By the late 1960s, much of the Jewish community
had left for Calcutta.
== Table of Jewish population since 1948 ==
In 1948, there were between 758,000 and 881,000
Jews (see table below) living in communities
throughout the Arab world. Today, there are
fewer than 8,600. In some Arab states, such
as Libya, which was about 3% Jewish, the Jewish
community no longer exists; in other Arab
countries, only a few hundred Jews remain.
== Absorption ==
Of the nearly 900,000 Jewish emigrants, approximately
680,000 emigrated to Israel and 235,000 to
France; the remainder went to other countries
in Europe as well as to the Americas. About
two thirds of the exodus was from the North
Africa region, of which Morocco's Jews went
mostly to Israel, Algeria's Jews went mostly
to France, and Tunisia's Jews departed for
both countries.
=== Israel ===
The majority of Jews in Arab countries eventually
immigrated to the modern State of Israel.
Hundreds of thousands of Jews were temporarily
settled in the numerous immigrant camps throughout
the country. Those were later transformed
into ma'abarot (transit camps), where tin
dwellings were provided to house up to 220,000
residents. The ma'abarot existed until 1963.
The population of transition camps was gradually
absorbed and integrated into Israeli society.
Many of the North African and Middle-Eastern
Jews had a hard time adjusting to the new
dominant culture, change of lifestyle and
there were claims of discrimination.
=== France ===
France was also a major destination and about
50% (300,000 people) of modern French Jews
have roots from North Africa. In total, it
is estimated that between 1956 and 1967, about
235,000 North African Jews from Algeria, Tunisia
and Morocco immigrated to France due to the
decline of the French Empire and following
the Six-Day War.
=== United States ===
The United States was a destination of many
Egyptian, Lebanese and Syrian Jews.
== Advocacy groups ==
Advocacy groups acting on behalf of Jews from
Arab countries include:
World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries
(WOJAC) seeks to secure rights and redress
for Jews from Arab countries who suffered
as a result of the Arab–Israeli conflict.
Justice for Jews from Arab Countries
JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East
and North Africa) publicizes the history and
plight of the 850,000 Jews indigenous to the
Middle East and North Africa who were forced
to leave their homes and abandon their property,
who were stripped of their citizenship
HARIF (UK Association of Jews from the Middle
East and North Africa) promotes the history
and heritage of Jews from the Arab and Muslim
world
Historical Society of the Jews from Egypt
and International Association of Jews from
Egypt
Babylonian Jewry Heritage CenterWOJAC, JJAC
and JIMENA have been active in recent years
in presenting their views to various governmental
bodies in the US, Canada and UK, among others,
as well as appearing before the United Nations
Human Rights Council.
== Views on the exodus ==
=== United States Congress ===
In 2003, H.Con.Res. 311 was introduced into
the House of Representatives by pro-Israel
congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. In 2004
simple resolutions H.Res. 838 and S.Res. 325
were issued into the House of Representatives
and Senate by Jerrold Nadler and Rick Santorum,
respectively. In 2007 simple resolutions H.Res.
185 and S.Res. 85 were issued into the House
of Representatives and Senate. The resolutions
had been written together with lobbyist group
JJAC, whose founder Stanley Urman described
the resolution in 2009 as "perhaps our most
significant accomplishment" The House of Representatives
resolution was sponsored by Jerrold Nadler,
who followed the resolutions in 2012 with
House Bill H.R. 6242. The 2007–08 resolutions
proposed that any "comprehensive Middle East
peace agreement to be credible and enduring,
the agreement must address and resolve all
outstanding issues relating to the legitimate
rights of all refugees, including Jews, Christians
and other populations displaced from countries
in the Middle East", and encourages President
Barack Obama and his administration to mention
Jewish and other refugees when mentioning
Palestinian refugees at international forums.
The 2012 bill, which was moved to committee,
proposed to recognize the plight of "850,000
Jewish refugees from Arab countries", as well
as other refugees, such as Christians from
the Middle East, North Africa, and the Persian
Gulf.
Jerrold Nadler explained his view in 2012
that "the suffering and terrible injustices
visited upon Jewish refugees in the Middle
East needs to be acknowledged. It is simply
wrong to recognize the rights of Palestinian
refugees without recognizing the rights of
nearly 1 million Jewish refugees who suffered
terrible outrages at the hands of their former
compatriots." Critics have suggested the campaign
is simply an anti-Palestinian "tactic", which
Michael Fischbach explains as "a tactic to
help the Israeli government deflect Palestinian
refugee claims in any final Israeli–Palestinian
peace deal, claims that include Palestinian
refugees' demand for the 'right of return'
to their pre-1948 homes in Israel."
=== Israeli government position ===
The issue of comparison of the Jewish exodus
with the Palestinian exodus was raised by
the Israeli Foreign Ministry as early as 1961.In
2012, a special campaign on behalf of the
Jewish refugees from Arab countries was established
and gained momentum. The campaign urges the
creation of an international fund that would
compensate both Jewish and Palestinian Arab
refugees, and would document and research
the plight of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
In addition, the campaign plans to create
a national day of recognition in Israel to
remember the 850,000 Jewish refugees from
Arab countries, as well as to build a museum
that would document their history, cultural
heritage, and collect their testimony.On 21
September 2012, a special event was held at
the United Nations to highlight the issue
of Jewish refugees from Arab countries. Israeli
ambassador Ron Prosor asked the United Nations
to "establish a center of documentation and
research" that would document the "850,000
untold stories" and "collect the evidence
to preserve their history", which he said
was ignored for too long. Israeli Deputy Foreign
Minister Danny Ayalon said that "We are 64
years late, but we are not too late." Diplomats
from approximately two dozen countries and
organizations, including the United States,
the European Union, Germany, Canada, Spain,
and Hungary attended the event. In addition,
Jews from Arab countries attended and spoke
at the event.
=== Jewish "Nakba" narrative ===
==== Comparison with Palestinian Naqba ====
In response to the Palestinian Nakba narrative,
the term "Jewish Nakba" is sometimes used
to refer to the persecution and expulsion
of Jews from Arab countries in the years and
decades following the creation of the State
of Israel. Israeli columnist Ben Dror Yemini,
himself a Mizrahi Jew, wrote:
However, there is another Nakba: the Jewish
Nakba. During those same years [the 1940s],
there was a long line of slaughters, of pogroms,
of property confiscation and of deportations
against Jews in Islamic countries. This chapter
of history has been left in the shadows. The
Jewish Nakba was worse than the Palestinian
Nakba. The only difference is that the Jews
did not turn that Nakba into their founding
ethos. To the contrary.
Professor Ada Aharoni, chairman of The World
Congress of the Jews from Egypt, argues in
an article entitled "What about the Jewish
Nakba?" that exposing the truth about the
expulsion of the Jews from Arab states could
facilitate a genuine peace process, since
it would enable Palestinians to realize they
were not the only ones who suffered, and thus
their sense of "victimization and rejectionism"
will decline.Additionally, Canadian MP and
international human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler
has referred to the "double Nakba". He criticizes
the Arab states' rejectionism of the Jewish
state, their subsequent invasion to destroy
the newly formed nation, and the punishment
meted out against their local Jewish populations:
The result was, therefore, a double Nakba:
not only of Palestinian-Arab suffering and
the creation of a Palestinian refugee problem,
but also, with the assault on Israel and on
Jews in Arab countries, the creation of a
second, much less known, group of refugees—Jewish
refugees from Arab countries.
==== Criticism of Jewish Naqba narrative in
Israel ====
Iraqi-born Ran Cohen, a former member of the
Knesset, said: "I have this to say: I am not
a refugee. I came at the behest of Zionism,
due to the pull that this land exerts, and
due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going
to define me as a refugee." Yemeni-born Yisrael
Yeshayahu, former Knesset speaker, Labor Party,
stated: "We are not refugees. [Some of us]
came to this country before the state was
born. We had messianic aspirations." And Iraqi-born
Shlomo Hillel, also a former speaker of the
Knesset, Labor Party, claimed: "I do not regard
the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that
of refugees. They came here because they wanted
to, as Zionists."Historian Tom Segev stated:
"Deciding to emigrate to Israel was often
a very personal decision. It was based on
the particular circumstances of the individual's
life. They were not all poor, or 'dwellers
in dark caves and smoking pits'. Nor were
they always subject to persecution, repression
or discrimination in their native lands. They
emigrated for a variety of reasons, depending
on the country, the time, the community, and
the person."Iraqi-born Israeli historian Avi
Shlaim, speaking of the wave of Iraqi Jewish
migration to Israel, concludes that, even
though Iraqi Jews were "victims of the Israeli-Arab
conflict", Iraqi Jews aren't refugees, saying
"nobody expelled us from Iraq, nobody told
us that we were unwanted." He restated that
case in a review of Martin Gilbert's book,
In Ishmael's House.Yehuda Shenhav has criticized
the analogy between Jewish emigration from
Arab countries and the Palestinian exodus.
He also says "The unfounded, immoral analogy
between Palestinian refugees and Mizrahi immigrants
needlessly embroils members of these two groups
in a dispute, degrades the dignity of many
Mizrahi Jews, and harms prospects for genuine
Jewish-Arab reconciliation." He has stated
that "the campaign's proponents hope their
efforts will prevent conferral of what is
called a 'right of return' on Palestinians,
and reduce the size of the compensation Israel
is liable to be asked to pay in exchange for
Palestinian property appropriated by the state
guardian of 'lost' assets."Israeli historian
Yehoshua Porath has rejected the comparison,
arguing that while there is a superficial
similarity, the ideological and historical
significance of the two population movements
are entirely different. Porath points out
that the immigration of Jews from Arab countries
to Israel, expelled or not, was the "fulfilment
of a national dream". He also argues that
the achievement of this Zionist goal was only
made possible through the endeavors of the
Jewish Agency's agents, teachers, and instructors
working in various Arab countries since the
1930s. Porath contrasts this with the Palestinian
Arabs' flight of 1948 as completely different.
He describes the outcome of the Palestinian's
flight as an "unwanted national calamity"
that was accompanied by "unending personal
tragedies". The result was "the collapse of
the Palestinian community, the fragmentation
of a people, and the loss of a country that
had in the past been mostly Arabic-speaking
and Islamic. "Alon Liel, a former director-general
of the Foreign Ministry says that many Jews
escaped from Arab countries, but he does not
call them "Refugees" since his definition
for the term "Refugee" is different from UNWRA's
definition.
==== Criticism of Jewish Naqba narrative by
Palestinians ====
On 21 September 2012, at a United Nations
conference, the issue of Jewish refugees from
Arab countries was criticized by Hamas spokesman,
Sami Abu Zuhri, who stated that the Jewish
refugees from Arab countries were in fact
responsible for the Palestinian displacement
and that "those Jews are criminals rather
than refugees." In regard to the same conference,
Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi has argued
that Jews from Arab lands are not refugees
at all and that Israel is using their claims
in order to counterbalance to those of Palestinian
refugees against it. Ashrawi said that "If
Israel is their homeland, then they are not
'refugees'; they are emigrants who returned
either voluntarily or due to a political decision."
== 
Property losses and compensation ==
In Libya, Iraq and Egypt many Jews lost vast
portions of their wealth and property as part
of the exodus because of severe restrictions
on moving their wealth out of the country.
In the North Africa, the situation was more
complex. For example, in Morocco emigrants
were not allowed to take more than $60 worth
of Moroccan currency with them, although generally
they were able to sell their property prior
to leaving, and some were able to work around
the currency restrictions by exchanging cash
into jewelry or other portable valuables.
This led some scholars to speculate the North
African Jewish population, comprising two
thirds of the exodus, on the whole did not
suffer large property losses. However, opinions
on this differ.Yemeni Jews were usually able
to sell what property they possessed prior
to departure, although not always at market
rates.
=== Estimated value ===
Various estimates of the value of property
abandoned by the Jewish exodus have been published,
with wide variety in the quoted figures from
a few billion dollars to hundreds of billions.The
World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries
(WOJAC) estimated in 2006, that Jewish property
abandoned in Arab countries would be valued
at more than $100 billion, later revising
their estimate in 2007 to $300 billion. They
also estimated Jewish-owned real-estate left
behind in Arab lands at 100,000 square kilometers
(four times the size of the state of Israel).The
type and extent of linkage between the Jewish
exodus from Arab countries and the 1948 Palestinian
exodus has also been the source of controversy.
Advocacy groups have suggested that there
are strong ties between the two processes
and some of them even claim that decoupling
the two issues is unjust.Holocaust restitution
expert Sidney Zabludoff, writing for the Israeli-advocacy
group Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs,
suggests that the losses sustained by the
Jews who fled Arab countries since 1947 amounts
to $700m at period prices based on an estimated
per capita wealth of $700 multiplied by one
million refugees, equating to $6 billion today,
assuming that the entire exodus left all of
their wealth behind.
=== Israeli position ===
The official position of the Israeli government
is that Jews from Arab countries are considered
refugees, and it considers their rights to
property left in countries of origin as valid
and existent.In 2008, the Orthodox Sephardi
party, Shas, announced its intention to seek
compensation for Jewish refugees from Arab
states.In 2009, Israeli lawmakers introduced
a bill into the Knesset to make compensation
for Jews from Arab and Muslim countries an
integral part of any future peace negotiations
by requiring compensation on behalf of current
Jewish Israeli citizens, who were expelled
from Arab countries after Israel was established
in 1948 and leaving behind a significant amount
of valuable property. In February 2010, the
bill passed its first reading. The bill was
sponsored by MK Nissim Ze'ev (Shas) and follows
a resolution passed in the United States House
of Representatives in 2008, calling for refugee
recognition to be extended to Jews and Christians
similar to that extended to Palestinians in
the course of Middle East peace talks.
== Films about the exodus ==
I Miss the Sun (1984), USA, produced and directed
by Mary Hilawani. Profile of Halawani's grandmother,
Rosette Hakim. A prominent Egyptian-Jewish
family, the Halawanis left Egypt in 1959.
Rosette, the family matriarch, chose to remain
in Egypt until every member of the large family
was free to leave.
The Dhimmis: To Be a Jew in Arab Lands (1987),
director Baruch Gitlis and David Goldstein
a producer. Presents a history of Jews in
the Middle East.
The Forgotten Refugees (2005) is a documentary
film by The David Project, describing the
events of the Jewish exodus from Arab and
Muslim countries
The Silent Exodus (2004) by Pierre Rehov.
Selected at the International Human Rights
Film Festival of Paris (2004) and presented
at the UN Geneva Human Rights Annual Convention
(2004).
The Last Jews of Libya (2007) by Vivienne
Roumani-Denn. Describes how European colonialism,
Italian fascism and the rise of Arab nationalism
contributed to the disappearance of Libya's
Sephardic Jewish community.
"From Babylonia To Beverly Hills: The Exodus
of Iran's Jews" Documentary.
Goodbye Mothers. A Moroccan film inspired
by the sinking of the Egoz
== 
Further reading ==
=== Whole region ===
Abu Shakrah (2001). "Deconstructing the Link:
Palestinian Refugees and Jewish Immigrants
from Arab Countries" in Naseer Aruri (ed.),
Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return.
London: Pluto Press:208–216.
Cohen, Hayyim J. (1973). The Jews of the Middle
East, 1860–1972 Jerusalem, Israel Universities
Press. ISBN 0-470-16424-7
Cohen, Mark (1995) Under Crescent and Cross,
Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Cohen, Mark (1986) "Islam and the Jews: Myth,
Counter-Myth, History", Jerusalem Quarterly,
38, 1986
Deshen, Shlomo; Shokeid, Moshe (1974). The
predicament of homecoming: cultural and social
life of North African immigrants in Israel.
Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-0885-4.
Eyal, Gil (2006), "The "One Million Plan"
and the Development of a Discourse about the
Absorption of the Jews from Arab Countries",
The Disenchantment of the Orient: Expertise
in Arab Affairs and the Israeli State, Stanford
University Press, pp. 86–89, ISBN 9780804754033
Fischbach, Michael R. (2008), Claiming Jewish
Communal Property in Iraq, Middle East Report,
retrieved 5 April 2010
Fischbach, Michael (2013), Jewish Property
Claims Against Arab Countries, Columbia, ISBN
9780231517812
Hacohen, Dvorah (1991), "BenGurion and the
Second World War", in Jonathan Frankel, Studies
in Contemporary Jewry : Volume VII: Jews and
Messianism in the Modern Era: Metaphor and
Meaning, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780195361988
Goldberg, Arthur. 1999. "Findings of the Tribunal
relating to the Claims of Jews from Arab Lands".
in Malka Hillel Shulewitz (ed.) The Forgotten
Millions. London: Cassell: 207–211.
Gilbert, Sir Martin (1976). The Jews of Arab
lands: Their history in maps. London. World
Organisation of Jews from Arab Countries:
Board of Deputies of British Jews. ISBN 0-9501329-5-0
Gilbert, Martin (2010). In Ishmael's house:
a History of Jews in Muslim Lands. New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300167153.
Hacohen, Dvora (1994), Tochnit hamillion [The
One Million Plan] ("תוכנית המיליון,
תוכניתו של דוד בן-גוריון
לעלייה המונית בשנים 1942-
1945"), Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Publishing
House
Hakohen, Devorah (2003), Immigrants in Turmoil:
Mass Immigration to Israel and Its Repercussions
in the 1950s and After, Syracuse University
Press, ISBN 9780815629696
Harris, David A. (2001). In the Trenches:
Selected Speeches and Writings of an American
Jewish Activist, 1979–1999. KTAV Publishing
House, Inc. ISBN 0-88125-693-5
Landshut, Siegfried. 1950. Jewish Communities
in the Muslim Countries of the Middle East.
Westport: Hyperion Press.
Levin, Itamar (2001). Locked Doors: The Seizure
of Jewish Property in Arab Countries. Praeger/Greenwood.
ISBN 0-275-97134-1
Lewis, Bernard (1984). The Jews of Islam.
Princeton. Princeton University Press. ISBN
0-691-00807-8
Lewis, Bernard (1986). Semites and Anti-Semites:
An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice, W.
W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0-393-02314-1
Massad, Joseph (1996). "Zionism's Internal
Others: Israel and The Oriental Jews". Journal
of Palestine Studies. 25 (4): 53–68. doi:10.2307/2538006.
JSTOR 2538006.
Morris, Benny. Black, Ian. (1992). Israel's
Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence
Services. Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-3286-4
Ofer, Dalia (1991), Escaping the Holocaust
illegal immigration to the land of Israel,
1939-1944, New York: Oxford University Press,
ISBN 9780195063400
Jonathan Frankel, ed. (1991), "Illegal Immigration
During the Second World War: Its Suspension
and Subsequent Resumption", Studies in Contemporary
Jewry : Volume VII: Jews and Messianism in
the Modern Era: Metaphor and Meaning, Oxford
University Press, ISBN 9780195361988
Parfitt, Tudor. Israel and Ishmael: Studies
in Muslim-Jewish Relations , St. Martin's
Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-312-22228-4
Roumani, Maurice (1977). The Case of the Jews
from Arab Countries: A Neglected Issue, Tel
Aviv, World Organization of Jews from Arab
Countries, 1977 and 1983
Schulewitz, Malka Hillel. (2001). The Forgotten
Millions: The Modern Jewish Exodus from Arab
Lands. London. ISBN 0-8264-4764-3
Moshe Shonfeld (1980). Genocide in the Holy
Land. Neturei Karta of the U.S.A.
Segev, Tom (1998). 1949, the first Israelis.
New York: Henry Holt. ISBN 0-8050-5896-6.
Shabi, Rachel, We Look Like the Enemy: The
Hidden Story of Israel's Jews from Arab Lands.
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009. ISBN 9780802715722
Shapiro, Raphael. 1984. "Zionism and Its Oriental
Subjects". in Jon Rothschild (ed.) Forbidden
Agendas: Intolerance and Defiance in the Middle
East. London: Al Saqi Books: 23–48.
Shenhav, Yehouda (2006), The Arab Jews: A
Postcolonial Reading of Nationalism, Religion,
and Ethnicity, Stanford University Press,
ISBN 9780804752961
Shohat, Ella. 1988. "Sephardim in Israel:
Zionism from the Standpoint of its Jewish
Victims". Social Text 19–20:1–35.
Stearns, Peter N. Stearns, Peter N (ed.).
Encyclopedia of World History (6 ed.). The
Houghton Mifflin Company/ Bartleby.com. Citation
Stillman, Norman (1975). Jews of Arab Lands
a History and Source Book. Jewish Publication
Society
Stillman, Norman (2003). Jews of Arab Lands
in Modern Times. Jewish Publication Society,
Philadelphia. ISBN 0-8276-0370-3
Swirski, Shlomo. 1989. Israel The Oriental
Majority. London: Zed Books.
Szulc, Tad (1991). The Secret Alliance: The
Extraordinary Story of the Rescue of the Jews
Since World War II. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
ISBN 978-0-374-24946-5.
Marion Woolfson (1 January 1980). Prophets
in Babylon: Jews in the Arab World. Faber
& Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-11458-0.
Zargari, Joseph (2005). The Forgotten Story
of the Mizrachi Jews. Buffalo Public Interest
Law Journal (Volume 23, 2004 – 2005).
=== Country or region specific works ===
North Africa
Chouraqui, Andre (2002), Between East and
West: A History of the Jews of North Africa,
ISBN 1-59045-118-X
Choi, Sung-Eun (2015). Decolonization and
the French of Algeria: Bringing the Settler
Colony Home. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-57289-9.
Laskier, Michael (1994), North African Jewry
in the Twentieth Century: The Jews of Morocco,
Tunisia, and Algeria, NYU Press, ISBN 9780814750728
Laskier, Michael (2012), The Alliance Israelite
Universelle and the Jewish Communities of
Morocco, 1862–1962, SUNY Press, ISBN 9781438410166
De Felice, Renzo (1985). Jews in an Arab Land:
Libya, 1835–1970. Austin, University of
Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-74016-6
Gruen, George E. (1983) Tunisia's Troubled
Jewish Community (New York: American Jewish
Committee, 1983)
Simon, Rachel (1992). Change Within Tradition
Among Jewish Women in Libya, University of
Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-97167-3
Goldberg, Harvey E. (1990), Jewish Life in
Muslim Libya: Rivals and Relatives, University
of Chicago Press, ISBN 9780226300924
Roumani, Maurice (2009), The Jews of Libya:
Coexistence, Persecution, Resettlement, Sussex
Academic Press, ISBN 9781845193676
Mandel, Maud (2014), Muslims and Jews in France:
History of a Conflict, Princeton University
Press, ISBN 9781400848584Egypt
Beinin, Joel (1998), The 
Dispersion Of Egyptian Jewry Culture, Politics,
And The Formation Of A Modern Diaspora, University
of California Press, ISBN 977-424-890-2
Gudrun Krämer, The Jews in Modern Egypt,
1914–1952, Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1989
Lagnado, Lucette (2007) The Man in the White
Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family's Exodus from
Old Cairo to the New World . Harper Perennial.
ISBN 978-0-06-082212-5
Gorman, Anthony (2003), "The Mutamassirun",
Historians, State and Politics in Twentieth
Century Egypt: Contesting the Nation, Psychology
Press, ISBN 9780415297530Iraq
Bashkin, Orit (2012). New Babylonians: A History
of Jews in Modern Iraq. Stanford, California:
Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804778749.
Cohen, Ben (1999). "Review of "The Jewish
Exodus from Iraq"". Journal of Palestine Studies.
27 (4): 110–111. doi:10.2307/2538137. JSTOR
2538137.
Gat, Moshe (1997), The Jewish Exodus from
Iraq, 1948–1951, Frank Cass, ISBN 9781135246549
Haim, Sylvia (1978). "Aspects of Jewish Life
in Baghdad under the Monarchy". Middle Eastern
Studies. 12 (2): 188–208.
Hillel, Shlomo. 1987. Operation Babylon. New
York: Doubleday.
Kedourie, Elie. 1989. "The break between Muslims
and Jews in Iraq," in Mark Cohen & Abraham
Udovitch (eds.) Jews Among Arabs. Princeton:
Darwin Press:21–64.
Meir-Glitzenstein, Esther (2004), Zionism
in an Arab Country: Jews in Iraq in the 1940s,
Routledge, ISBN 9781135768621
Rejwan, Nissim (1985) The Jews of Iraq: 3000
Years of History and Culture London. Weidenfeld
and Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-78713-6
Shiblak, Abbas (1986), The Lure of Zion: The
Case of the Iraqi Jews, Al Saqi Books
Shenhav, Yehouda (1999), "The Jews of Iraq,
Zionist Ideology, and the Property of the
Palestinian Refugees of 1948: An Anomaly of
National Accounting" (PDF), International
Journal of Middle East Studies, Cambridge
University Press, 31 (4): 605–630, doi:10.1017/s0020743800057111Yemen
Meir-Glitzenstein, Esther (2014). The "magic
Carpet" Exodus of Yemenite Jewry: An Israeli
Formative Myth. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN
978-1-84519-616-5.
Nini, Yehuda (1992), The Jews of the Yemen
1800–1914. Harwood Academic Publishers.
ISBN 3-7186-5041-X
Parfitt, Tudor (1996), The Road to Redemption:
The Jews of the Yemen 1900–1950, Brill's
Series in Jewish Studies vol. XVII, ISBN 9789004105447
Ariel, Ari (2013), Jewish-Muslim Relations
and Migration from Yemen to Palestine in the
Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, BRILL,
ISBN 9789004265370Other
Schulze, Kristen (2001) The Jews of Lebanon:
Between Coexistence and Conflict. Sussex.
ISBN 1-902210-64-6
Toktas, Sule (2006), "Turkey's Jews and Their
Immigration to Israel" (PDF), Middle Eastern
Studies, 42 (3)
Malka, Eli (April 1997). Jacob's Children
in the Land of the Mahdi: Jews of the Sudan.
Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0-8156-8122-9
== See also ==
Day to mark the departure and expulsion of
Jews from the Arab lands and Iran
Arab Jews, History of the Jews under Muslim
rule
Jewish population
Historical Jewish population comparisons
Jews by country
Jews outside Europe under Nazi occupation
1948 Palestinian exodus
Ma'abara, Development town, Refugee camp
After Saturday Comes Sunday, Christian emigration,
Muhajir (disambiguation) (Muslim exodus)
Jewish refugees, Palestinian refugees, Sahrawi
refugees, Greek refugees, Kurdish refugees
Cicurel family
Pallache family
== 
Notes ==
