Mizrahi Jews- The Forgotten Refugees

A Mizrahi Jew is the term coined to reflect a Jew who is indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa. The Mizrahi faced a great deal of trouble from the formation of Israel in 1948, which led to a wave of anti-semitism towards Arab Jews in Arab countries. These unique Jewish people are often over looked and their story is largely unknown.

A video commemorating the forgotten refugees:

Interview with the creator of the documentary linked above entitled- The Forgotten Refugees

"With the establishment of Israel, Zionism became a capital crime. In Baghdad, which was nearly a quarter Jewish, cheering crowds gathered to see Jews hanged in the central square. The Iraqi government nationalized Jewish property and jailed and killed hundreds of Jews." (Rosenthal, 116) By 1951, nearly all of the 150,000 Mizrahi Jews in Iraq fled to Israel to escape anti-semitism. Hundreds of thousands escaped from other Arab lands like Cairo, Damascus, Iran, Morocco, and Libya. Their hardships were not over upon settling in the new Jewish state. Many Jews in Israel discriminated against the Mizrahi. They were looked at as being a "apathetic, primitive, backward people who did not like to work." (Rosenthal,116-117) These allegations were largely false; Many of the Mizrahi Jews came from urbanized areas and had educations and skillful work experience.

The Mizrahi were enduring a cultural repression. They were encouraged not to speak Arabic, though most could not speak Hebrew. Many who had been skilled workers in their birthplace were not deemed to be skilled in Israel. Some had to change their difficult to pronounce Arab names in exchange for Hebrew names. The Mizrahi cultural seemed to not count for much in the lands of Israel. (Rosenthal, 114-117)

Loolwa Khazzoom tells his story about the confusing times of being a Mizrahi Jew:

"My family remained on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for [sic] 2,500 years until 1950, when the modern Iraqi government forced Jews to flee as refugees. With a history like that,Iraqi Jews are as authentically Iraqi and Jewish as you can get. Nonetheless, throughout my life, neither the Jewish nor the Middle Eastern communities have been keen on accepting us fully. In Jewish communities in America, I experienced contempt, ridicule and discrimination based on my heritage and religious traditions. I was expected to assume my identity in favor of some kind of pan-Jewish yearning for my European roots. What European roots?"

What Khazzoom describes is a typical scenario for Mizrahi Jews. Though Khazzoom discusses the need to assume his European roots in the eyes of Americans, Ashkenazim Jews also wanted Mizrahi Jews to embrace European like roots. The problem is of course that the Mizrahi have no ties to Europe or European culture, hence the identities they are expected to assume are not familiar to them.

Naomi is a young Mizrahi Israel Jew who has a cultural clash with a non Mizrahi boy in her class who stops by her house:

"He saw the peeling paint and wall-to-wall people. My parents were eating with their hands, speaking Yemeni Arabic, and looking unkempt. I nearly died of shame. I knew I hadn't done anything wrong, but I could tell in his eyes what he thought of our 'backwardness.' He had seen the 'Other Israel,' my Israel." (Rosenthal, 114)

Naomi has a cultural shock at school and while visiting classmates homes, which are much tidier and less congested than her own. The text books at her school speak from the Ashkenazi perspective and go into depth on the horrors of the Holocaust and overshadows all of the history of the Mizrahi. Naomi explains her predicament:

"I was losing myself in their world. I learned about the heroic pioneers, all Ashkenazim, who established a new state and the kibbitzim, but not the stories of the other half of our people- people like me, the poor Mizrahim, the Arab Jews. I wanted to belong but my story was not in the books. Our culture didn't seem to count." (Rosenthal, 114)

The Mizrahi deserve to have their tale told. Michael Grynszpan, director of The Forgotten Refugees, deserves commemoration for his work on exploring these over looked and forgotten peoples history.