THE FORCED MIGRATION OF JEWS FROM ARAB COUNTRIES

AND PEACE

Prof. Ada Aharoni

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. Jewish orphans had to be converted to Islam, and anyone who helped such children to escape did so on pain of death. When a Jew immigrated, he had to leave all his property. In spite of this, between 1923 and 1945 a total of 17,000 Yemenite Jews left and immigrated to Palestine ⁷.

After the Second World War, thousands of more Yemenite Jews wanted to come to Palestine, but the British Mandate's White Paper was still in force and those who left Yemen ended up in crowded slums in Aden, where serious riots broke out in 1947 after the United Nations decided on partition. Many Yews were killed, and the Jewish quarter was burned to the ground. It was not until September 1948 that the British authorities in Aden allowed the refugees to proceed to Israel. The Egyptians had closed the Suez Canal and the Strait of Tiran to Israeli vessels, so the immigrants had to be airlifted to the new nation.

By March 1949, most of the Yemenite refugees in Aden had been brought to Israel, through "Operation Magic Carpet" the dramatic airlift, which brought 48,818 Yemenite Jews to Israel. It is another example of the displacement of an entire Jewish community from its ancient roots in the Arab countries. It is estimated, there are about 1,000 Jews in Yemen today. They are held as hostages, and are kept in dire conditions and not allowed to leave.

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.

The Jewish community of Aden, numbering 8,000 in 1948, was forced to flee. By 1959 over 3,000 arrived in Israel. Many fled to the U.S.A. and England. Today there are no Jews left in Aden.