Main Feature
Forced Migration of Jews
Prof. Ada Aharoni, Haifa, Israel
Volume 28 Issue 7, 8 & 9 | Posted: September 19, 2014
The various efforts for peace between Israelis and Palestinians have overlooked an important factor concerning the Arab – Israeli Conflict. The displacement of 850,000 Jews from Arab countries, the loss of all their assets and property, and the hardships accompanying their migration and emigration to Israel, constitute an aspect of the Middle East refugee problem which has been neglected.
As almost half of the Jewish citizens of Israel, together with their descendants, are from Arab countries, peace research and future peace efforts should take this important part of the history of the conflict into account, and to address it, in all its complex aspects.
The various efforts for peace between Israelis and Palestinians have overlooked an important factor concerning the Arab – Israeli Conflict. The displacement of 850,000 Jews from Arab countries, the loss of all their assets and property, and the hardships accompanying their migration and emigration to Israel, constitute an aspect of the Middle East refugee problem which has been neglected.
As almost half of the Jewish citizens of Israel, together with their descendants, are from Arab countries, peace research and future peace efforts should take this important part of the history of the conflict into account, and to address it, in all its complex aspects.
To be able to reach a peaceful solution to the Conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, this neglected part of history should be amply researched and duly addressed. The uprooted Jews from Arab countries in Israel feel that although the displacement of Palestinians is well documented and relatively well known, their own forced migration from Arab countries has been overlooked.
This fact makes them rather intransigent toward a possible solution of the conflict that does not include their own heritage and history. Taking into account the forced migration of the Jews from the Arab countries as part of the tragedies incurred during this long and painful conflict, would give a better chance to peace.
Starting in 1948, 856,000 Jewish refugees were uprooted in their hundreds of thousands from the lands of their birth in which they had dwelled for centuries prior to the Muslim conquest, that is, before the Arabs came from the Arabian desert to these regions in the 7th century A.D. Until the 10th century A.D., 90 percent of world Jewry lived in regions now known as the Arab countries.
In 1948 there were over 856,000 Jews living in the Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa. By 1976, most of the Jewish communities in these countries had disappeared, leaving behind a few thousand Jews, scattered over a number of cities in the region. These historic facts could be used to advance the Peace Process in the Middle East today, if they are presented and used in a positive way.
This sad and relatively abrupt end to some of the oldest Jewish settlements in the world, is in great part due to a chain of intolerance, discrimination, degrading civil codes and often cruel persecutions which were meted out to members of the Jewish faith by their host countries, after the rise of the State of Israel in 1948.
However, there were times when Jews enjoyed well-being and a degree of tolerance and protection under the law and in some instances even rose to prominence under Arab rule.
The declaration of the State of Israel in 1948 as an independent Jewish state, on the one hand marked the intensification of anti-Jewish measures in Arab countries, and on the other, as an opportunity to get rid of the Jews who wanted to flee, by permitting them to emigrate.
Several Arab countries have in some instances indirectly encouraged this trend by closing an eye to the clandestine Zionist activities and operations in their countries. Later, however, this trend was reversed, so that Jews in some Arab countries such as Syria and Yemen, are held as hostages to this day.
Conditions Unbearable
With the United Nations resolution on the partition of Palestine in November 1947, Arab riots broke out against numerous Jewish communities throughout the Arab world. Jewish shops, homes and synagogues were burned and looted; hundreds of Jews were murdered, thousands were imprisoned, their movement was restricted, emigration to Israel banned and many Jews were deprived of their citizenship.
Jews who at one time were influential in commerce suddenly lost their holdings; bank accounts belonging to Jews were frozen, and property valued at millions of dollars was confiscated. As in previous centuries, Jews were further removed from government agencies and their admission to public office was severely restricted. They lost their means of survival and became hostages in their own countries of birth and origin.
Consequently, they could no longer remain there. Where once Jewish communities flourished and thrived, as in Iraq, Egypt and Syria, their traces have been erased, as Jews in large numbers were compelled to uproot and to emigrate, and they were forced to leave all their property behind.
The following table summarizes the dramatic disappearance of Jewish communities in the Arab world between 1948 and 1976.1
ESTIMATED JEWISH POPULATION IN ARAB COUNTRIES 1948 AND 1976
1948 1976
Morocco 265,000 17,000
Algeria 140,000 500
Tunisia 105,000 2,000
Libya 38,000 20
Egypt 100,000 200
Iraq 135,000 400
Syria 30,000 350
Lebanon 5,000 150
Yemen 55,000 1,000
Aden 8,000 0
Total 881,000 25,620
Second Exodus
The vast immigration of Jews from the Arab countries has been termed “The Second Exodus”.2 The State of Israel served as a natural refuge for the majority of Jews from Arab countries. Some departed independently, others were involved in massive rescue organized by the local communities and the Israeli authorities.
Outstanding examples are the Jews of Yemen and Iraq, who were airlifted en masse to Israel between 1948 and 1951. Similarly, the Jewish community of Libya was almost entirely relocated to Israel. A total of 586,269 Jews from Arab countries arrived in Israel3 with at least 200,000 emigrating to France, England and the Americas.
Including their offspring, the total number of Jews who were displaced from their homes in Arab countries and who live in Israel today is 1,136,436, about 41 percent of the total population. At least another 500,000 currently reside in France, Canada, the United States, Latin America and Australia.
The high influx of Jews from Arab countries into Israel shortly after its establishment as a state had a significant influence on the demographic make-up of its population. In 1931, only one out of every four Jews living in the Land of Israel came from Asia and Africa. By 1948 there were still only 70,000 of the latter in Israel, as compared to 253,661 Israeli-born Jews and 393,013 Jews from Europe and America, out of a total population of 716,678 Jews.3
In the early 50’s the picture changed dramatically. By 1951, Jews from Arab countries made up nearly 30 percent of the entire population.4 This unusually rapid change in the demographic make-up of the population was due to the thousands of Jews that were pouring into Israel as a result of persecutions in Arab countries.
During the years 1948 and 1951, nearly 50 percent of all immigrants, totaling 387,000 came from Asia and Africa, with a similar number coming, at that time, from Europe and America. During the two-year period from 1955 to 1957, the percentage of Jews from Arab countries arriving in Israel rose to 69 percent.5 In 1955 this group represented 92 percent of all immigrants. Approximately 100,000 came during those years from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.6
The majority of Jewish refugees from Arab lands arrived in Israel during the first three years of statehood. Of the total 586,070 that arrived to date, nearly 400,000 entered the country between 1948 and 1951. The effects of this mass immigration in such a short period of time can also be observed in the total population increase for those years. Before May 15, 1948, there were little more than 700,000 Jews living in Israel, by 1951 the population figure doubled to 1,404,400.
Immigration of Jews from Arab countries to Israel was not an entirely new phenomenon in 1948. Jews had arrived in Israel from Arab countries as early as 1881, when a group of more than 2,000 Yemenite Jews succeeded in completing the long trek to Palestine a year before the first Eastern European settlers (Bilu) arrived. By 1948, over 45,000 Jews from Arab countries had immigrated to the Land of Israel. The motivation of these early settlers was primarily Zionist and spiritual.
Jews arriving in Israel after 1948 were similarly inspired by the Zionist ideal of returning to their homeland. However, for the most part, they were forced to become refugees overnight, to flee from their homes and to abandon centuries of established culture and tradition as a result of persecutions which made life for Jews in Arab countries increasingly unbearable.
Jewish and Palestinian Immigration
It is not generally known that the number of Palestinians who fled the newly formed State of Israel was surpassed by the number of Jews who were forced to emigrate from Arab countries. During the 1947 United Nations debates, the head of the Egyptian delegation warned that “the lives of a million Jews in Moslem countries will be jeopardized by the establishment of the Jewish State”.
Haj Amin el-Husseini, chairman of the Palestine Arab Higher Executive, told that body, “If a Jewish State were established in Palestine, the position of the Jews in the Arab countries would become very precarious”. “Governments”, he added ominously, “have always been unable to prevent mob excitement and violence”. When the State of Israel was established, the Jews in the Arab countries became hated outcasts in their own lands, terrorized, imprisoned and often banished. This led to mass immigration of Jews who sadly realized there was no future for them in the land of their birth.
A review of the behavior of the various Arab countries toward their Jewish minorities reveals some difference.
Iraq
Less than a year after Israeli independence was declared in 1948, repressive measures were taken in Iraq. Thousands of Jews were imprisoned or taken into “protective custody” on charges of “Zionism”. Jews applied in large numbers for exit permits to Israel, but legislation was quickly passed freezing Jewish bank accounts and forbidding Jews to dispose of their property without special permission.
The Jewish community in Iraq had been one of the oldest and largest in the Arab world, and in 1948 it numbered 135,000. Over 77,000 lived in Baghdad alone, comprising a fourth of the capital’s population. The community was wealthy and prestigious, and before World War II, Jews held a dominant place in the import trade and occupied high government positions.
Yemen
Jews had begun to leave Yemen in the 1880s, when some 2,500 had made their way to Jerusalem and Jaffa. But it was after World War I, when Yemen became independent, that anti-Jewish feeling in that country made emigration imperative. Anti-Semitic laws, which had lain dormant for years were revived, as for example: Jews were not ermitted to walk on pavements – or to ride horses. In court, a Jew’s evidence was not accepted against that of a Moslem.
Aden
The history of modern anti-Jewish persecutions in Aden is a bitter and long one. On December 2, 1947, the Arabs proclaimed a solidarity strike against the UN resolution on the partition of Palestine. More than a hundred Jews were murdered, the Grand Synagogue was burned, Jewish property was rampaged, looted and destroyed. Riots of similar intensity destroyed Jewish property again in 1958, 1965 and 1967.
Egypt
The 1947 Egyptian census reported 65,639 Jewish residents of that country, many of them in finances and liberal professions: engineers, lawyers, doctors and teachers. However, Jewish estimates ran as high as 100,000. Today there are only about 200 Jewish residents left in Egypt.
In 1956 the Egyptians undertook ruthless economic and political measures aimed specifically at the Jews in their midst. Many leaders of the large Egyptian-Jewish community were arrested, led through the streets of Cairo and Alexandria, and some were stoned.
These ruthless measures brought the end of one of the oldest and most prosperous Jewish communities in the Middle East.
Libya
The Jews of Libya had greatly suffered during the war years, for the country had been under Axis control and many Jews died in the concentration camps at Giado and at Auschwitz.
Syria
In 1943, the Jewish community of Syria had 30,000 members. This population was mainly distributed between Aleppo, where 17,000 Jews lived and Damascus, which had a Jewish population of 11,000.
Anti-Jewish riots, which broke out as early as 1945 and 1947, prompted the denial of basic rights to Jews. In 1945, the government restricted emigration to Israel, and Jewish property was burned and looted. In 1949, banks were instructed to freeze the accounts of Jews and all their assets were expropriated.
Lebanon
The emigration of Jews from Lebanon followed a somewhat different pattern as compared to the Jews of other Arab countries, primarily as a result of the Christian-Arab rule which characterized the political structure of this country and which conducted a policy of relative tolerance towards its Jewish population.
Algeria
In 1948 there were 140,000 Jews in Algeria. Before 1962 there were 60 Jewish communities, each maintaining at least one synagogue, one Rabbi and its own educational services. During the three months between May and July of 1962 almost all the Jewish of Algeria left the country.
Biographical Note
Professor Ada Aharoni is a peace researcher and a cultural sociologist. She has conducted this present research at the Neaman Institute, the Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. She has published 24 books, and more than 120 articles.
NOTES
1 – Based on: Official census of each country; yearbooks of the Jewish communities: The Jewish case before the Anglo- American Committee of Inquiry, 1946; Hayim Chohen, 1952 and 1973; David Sitton, 1974; Andre Chouraqui 1952; Joseph B. Shechtman, 1961; David Littman, 1975. (See Bibliography).
2 – Ada Aharoni, The Second Exodus, (Bryn Mawr, PA, 1983), From the Nile to the Jordan (Lachmann, Haifa, 1995), Translation into French: Du Nil Au Jourdain (Stavit, Paris, 2002).
3 – Government of Israel Central Bureau of Statistics 1975.
4. Government of Israel, Statistical Abstract, 1974 (Jerusalem, Central Bureau of Statistics, 1974).
5. Government of Israel, Immigration to Israel 1948-1972 (Jerusalem, Central Bureau of Statistics 1974).
6. Government of Israel, Statistical Abstract, 1974, op. cit.
Research Conducted at The Neaman Institute
Israel Institute of Technology- Technion, Haifa
The Boren Foundation
Prof. Ada Aharoni
Prof. Ada Aharoni, Haifa, Israel