Jews of Arab Countries, Refugees in 20th Century

 Nadene Goldfoot                                      

"June 17, 2020 was Jewish Refugees Day, when we remembered the fate of 850,000 Jewish refugees forced out of Arab countries and Iran in the 20th century. Communities dating back 2,500 years were destroyed.

At the United Nations, UN Watch's Hillel Neuer asked Algeria, Egypt, Iraq and the others: “Where are your Jews?”

                                               

     A Synagogue on Jerba, off Tunisia 

                             Inside a Tunisia synagogue  

With the Palestinians demanding half of what was left of our Jewish Homeland, promised at the end of WWII, we should remember that the Jews of these places were forced out by the Arab countries because of Israel,  tiny that is was, was created after 2,000 patient years of waiting.  Jews had gone there to live after being forced out of their own country by the Romans. 

                            Great Synagogue of Tunis

                                   Jewish Algerian family

Algeria's Jews had lived there before 70 CE, and possibly were there with the Carthaginians who came here with them.  Carthaginians settled in today's Tunisia, shown above in purple between Algeria and Libya.   A settlement was founded in Carthage by Phoenicians in N. Africa, possibly the biblical Tarshish, in 200 CE, but were then already long-established in the area.  The Jewish cemetery of the Roman Period had 3,000 tombs in Carthage, , a seaside suburb of Tunisia’s capital, Tunis, which is known for its ancient archaeological sites. Founded by the Phoenicians in the first millennium B.C.E, it was once the seat of the powerful Carthaginian (Punic) Empire, which fell to Rome in the 2nd century B.C.E Today it retains a scattered collection of ancient baths, theaters, villas and other ruins, many with sweeping views of the Gulf of Tunis.  Jewish proselytization was apparently active in the 3rd and 4th centuries.  The community declined due to persecution after the conquest by Justinian, the Byzantine emperor (527-65) in 535.  The Talmud mentions various scholars from Carthage. Some Berber tribes had converted to Judaism.  When the Roman Empire became Christian, Jews suffered.                                                                  

 Spain's 1492 decree against Jews caused many to flee to Algeria.  It became the center of Sephardi life and produced some notable scholars.  In the 16th century under Turkish rule, Jews were treated well.  By 1804, mob violence attacked Jews.  French occupation in 1830 gave the land new spirit and by 1870 the Cremieux Decree conferred French citizenship to Jews.  With Moslems now there, violent anti-Jewish outbreaks happened in the late 1800s.  France fell in 1940 in WWII and the Vichy government introduced anti-Semitic laws, and Germans occupied the land from 1942-3 and of course Jews suffered. 

                                             
                                   Jew of Algiers of the past

30,000 Jews were living in Algiers in 1961.  When Algiers attained independence in 1962, 135,000 Jews, almost all of them, emigrated to France, with about 10,000 going to Israel.  By 1990, 600 remained in Algeria mostly in Algiers which has a synagogue and a communal center.  There is no Jewish community left in Algeria today.

Last Jew in Egypt keeping heritage alive

Egypt's history with Jews should be the oldest, from 18th to 16th centuries BCE during the Hyksos dynasty.  Jews, before they were Jews, were living there for 400 years of which most was spent in slavery.  Moses at age 80 freed them in about 1311 BCE in the Exodus.  Jews have lived in Egypt on and off for ages.  In 1948, war in Israel's beginnings, many Jews were placed in concentration camps and attacks were made on Jewish homes.  A great emigration of Jews in Egypt occurred and their number dropped from 90,000 in 1947 to 30,000 in i1955.  Nasser expelled many Jews from Egypt.  Most left in following years and in 1966, 2,500 remained with 1,800 in Cairo and the others in Alexandria.  In 1967 during the 6 Day War, male Jews were arrested and the others emigrated.  By 1990, 240 remained.  In 2010, I believe one woman was there.  A Syrian man I know who thought his mother had been a hidden Jew was in Egypt and tried to go to a synagogue but failed.  They were closed.  

In 2016, an article in an Egyptian periodical contained a quote from Magda Tania Haroun (the president of Cairo's Jewish community) which seemed to imply that there were only 6 Jews remaining in the entire country, all of them women over age 65. However, a subsequent article in another periodical clarified that she was specifically referring to the Jews remaining in Cairo (where she is based) and that there are a further 12 Jews in the city of Alexandria, whose spiritual leader is Ben Youssef Gaon. With the death of Magda's mother, Marcelle Haroun, at the age of 93, in July 2019, left only five Jews in Cairo.

                                              

 Iraq's city of Ur is where Abraham came from. Iraq had been Mesopotamia.   Their Jewish population by 1991 was 150, chiefly in Baghdad, where one synagogue still operated.  The history of the Jews in Iraq is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c. 586 BC. Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities.

IBRAHIM YOUSSEF SHALEH, the leader of Iraq’s Jewish cmty 370

(photo credit: REUTERS) 

During 2013, What happened in the Arab countries was in effect, ethic cleansing.  While the Nakba is marked every year with demonstrations and wide coverage, the Jewish disaster does not merit any public or media notice. It was the Farhud, the riots against Jews in Iraq.  This was in the Jerusalem Post.  During Shavuot, Iraqi Jews will commemorate the 72nd anniversary of the “Farhud” – the riots that took place on Shavuot, June 1-2, 1941. In the riots reminiscent of Kristallnacht in Germany, 179 Jews were murdered, hundreds more wounded and much Jewish property looted.

In the 20th century, Iraqi Jews played an important role in the early days of Iraq's independence. Between 1950 and 1952, 120,000–130,000 of the Iraqi Jewish community (around 75%) reached Israel in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah.

The religious and cultural traditions of Iraqi Jews are kept alive today in strong communities established by Iraqi Jews in Israel, especially in Or Yehuda, Givatayim and Kiryat Gat.  According to government data as of 2014, there were 227,900 Jews of Iraqi descent in Israel, with other estimates as high as 600,000 Israelis having some Iraqi ancestry.  Smaller communities upholding Iraqi Jewish traditions in the Jewish diaspora exist in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Singapore, Canada, and the United States.

THE ATTACKS against the Jews in Arab lands occurred even before the establishment of the State of Israel. In Iraq they began with discrimination in the areas of the economy, education and public life. Afterwards, Arab nationalism ignited the fires of rioting against the Jews, which came to a peak in the farhud of 1941.

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

Messages From A Syrian Jew Trapped in Egypt, by Nadene Goldfoot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Egypt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Iraq

Jews of Tunisia

Nadene Goldfoot                                               

Tunisian synagogue in Ghriba.  Today, Marcia Fine, author, said, "This is one
 of the places  (Tunisia) where Jews and Muslims live together in harmony. .
They work together, their children play together, they accept the other's traditions.
 Yes, it can work if people remain calm and caring."

Carthage was first a settlement founded by the Phoenicians in North Africa, directly across the sea from Italy.  It probably was the biblical Tarshish.  Tarsus, a town, was in Cilicia to the north of which were situated large forests and copper mines in biblical days.  Possibly, the ships of Tarshish were made there.  Some scholars maintain that the ships of Tarshish refer to vessels traveling to the Phoenician colonies in Sardinia and Spain.                                            

Carthage-notice the amp hi-theaterCarthage, today is a seaside suburb of Tunisia’s capital, Tunis

 Jews were first mentioned here about in 200 CE, but by then were already long-established.  There was a Jewish cemetery in Carthage from the Roman period which had 3,000 Jewish tombs.  Jewish proselytization was "apparently active in the 3rd and 4th centuries. The city started as one of a number of Phoenician settlements in the western Mediterranean that were created to facilitate trade from the city of Tyre on the coast of what is now Lebanon. 
                                                                         

 Justinian, the Byzantine emperor from 527-565 who was so intolerant towards religious minorities and brought about a thoroughgoing anti-Jewish policy,  brought on a conquest in 535 and so the Jewish community declined due to persecution by him. Jews were not allowed to serve in civil or military posts, to own Christian slaves, to give evidence against Christians, or to celebrate Passover at the same time as Easter.  In 553, he issued an edict regulating the synagogue service and forbidding the DEUTEROSIS, the rabbinic expositions.  Justinian didn't allow the rabbinic interpretation mentioned in the synagogue.  This would have been anything under the title of Targum, Mishnah or Midrash, and probably any rabbinic exposition.  In Africa, he outlawed synagogues in 535 and forcibly converted the Jews of Borion.
                                                                         

Samaritans living in Israel now-and their Judaism is more of a basic form of ours today.

 There was an unsuccessful revolt by the Samaritans (the Talmud called them the Kutim, people with their capital at Samaria, originally calling themselves Bene Yisrael or Shomerim-the keepers of the Law, descendants of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh with an admixture of non-Israelite colonists) and Jews against his rule in Caesarea in 556.   There were many scholars mentioned in the Talmud from Carthage.  Now this area is part of Tunisia.

The city of Kairouan was the greatest center of rabbinic scholarship in the west.  The position deteriorated under the Almohades when many Jews accepted Islam in the 12th century.  These were Moslem sectaries who rose in north Africa and conquered southern Spain in 1149-1174.  In both areas they compelled all non-Moslems to become converted.  Though north African Jewry ultimately recovered from the blow, in Spain it brought final disaster to the communities living under Moslem rule, who embraced Islam or fled to Christian Spain.  Thus, today,  the descendants who are still Muslim could find Sepharic Jewish  DNA in their tests.  Of course, the Spanish Inquisition occurred in 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue.  Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism under penalty of death if they remained in Spain, so many didn't stay.  Many moved next door to Portugal.  .

.  Spanish refugees who settled in Tunisia were different in their customs and way of life from the native Tunisian Jews and founded separate communities.  The 2 groups merged later.

When Tunisia was under Spanish rule from 1535 to 1574, many Jews died or were sold into slavery.  The discriminatory legislation was lifted a little during the 19th century.  Tunisia passed under French protection in 1881, and its Jews were permitted to have French citizenship since 1910.

The community suffered from Vichy laws and the German occupation during World War II.  The members of the Bet Din curt in Tunis are appointed by the bey and their decisions are executed by the authorities.  The Great Council of Tunisia has 3 Jewish representatives.

There were 67,000 Jews in Tunisia in 1959 with 55,000 living in the town of Tunis.  Most of the Jews are merchants, storekeepers, and office workers, but by 1990, the total for the country had dropped to 2,500. as a result of emigration to France and Israel.
                                                                       

Tunisian Jewish lady praying in oldest synagogue-Ghriba 2015
She really looks like my Ashkenazic grandmother.  

Jews on the Tunisian island of Djerba (Jerba) (an island off the coast of Tunisia) trace their roots all the way back to Babylonian exile of 586 B.C., and still pray at Africa's oldest synagogue.  The Jews were saved in 1943 from extermination at the hands of the Nazis by paying a gold ransom.  Most of its Jews left for Israel in 1949.  Less than 1,000 remained by 1990, mostly pious and some deeply learned.  The ancient synagogue in the former place is a renowned center of pilgrimage and the subject of many legends.  

Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_Tunis_(1535)
facebook: author, Marcia Fine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Carthage

The Jewish Connection With North Africa

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                                   

Ptolemy VI Philometor, Pharaoh-
Egypt under the control of Ptolemy VIII 164 BCE–163 BCE; Ptolemy VI restored 163 BCE

Our Jewish history connects to Africa since biblical days. "By the time of the last pharaoh, the well-known Cleopatra VII Philopator of the Ptolemaic Dynasty  no longer held the power it once did.   Fewer monuments were erected and, with her death in 30 BCE, Egypt became a Roman province and the glory and might of the pharaohs of old faded into memory. She was a pharaoh.
                                                                           

Cleopatra

Cleopatra, portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor. 

There probably were Jews serving in the military of the last Pharaohs.  At the time of the destruction of the First Temple of Solomon in 586 BCE by the Babylonians, many Jewish  fugitives went back to Egypt seeking refuge.                                                      

586 BCE, Destruction by Babylonians of the Temple

 Many records illustrate the life of the Jewish military colony at Yeb in the 5th century BCE.  This was probably not a unique situation.
                                                                           

Alexander the Great (336-323 BCE) -statue in Istanbul
Young king of Macedonia, made a deep impression on the Jews.  

Then Egypt was conquered by the Greeks, and the Jewish element increased quickly.  Alexander the Great and his successors introduced Jewish settlers into their new cities.  This is how Alexandria became a set of Jewish life and its civilization.
                                                                               

From Egypt, Jewish settlements spread west along the Mediterranean Sea.  By the 2nd century BCE, there was an important colony in Cyrene.  They have found many inscriptions and literary monuments that shows Jews lived there during the Roman period nearly as far west as the Straits of Gibraltar. Egyptian Jews were so strong that they were able to revolt after 70 CE when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans.  The Jews of Cyrene took control of the whole province in 115.

As Christianity grew in Egypt, the rivalry between Christian and Jew developed.  The Patriarch Cyril led many persecutions against Jews in the 4th century.  This was the cause of the end of Alexandrian Jewry.

Farther west, the Vandal invaders introduced a kinder policy towards Jews in the 5th century. Then the Christian Byzantine reconquered the land under Belisarius 100 years later who undid the horrible anti Jewish policies.
                                                                   

Ethiopian Jewish IDF soldier

A tradition developed at this time of the presence of many independent or semi-independent tribes saying that they were Jews.  The Jews of Ethiopia belong to this group.  Their story is that they came from the Queen of Sheba and her union with King Solomon when she went to visit him.

In the 7th century, North Africa experienced a great revival  after the Moslem invasion.   The Jewish communities became completely Arabicized in the language of Arabic, customs and social habits.  Egypt had a new city, Cairo, and it against became the seat of an important settlement.
                                                                           

Tunisia-between Algeria and Libya on the sea.
When under Spanish rule (1535-1574), many Jews were killed or were sold into slavery.  
When under French protection in 1881, Jews were permitted French citizenship in 1910.  By 1990, only 2,500 Jews left. Many Jews had emigrated to France and Israel.    

Farther West was the city of Kairouan, which was near Tunis-between Algeria and Libya.  Jews settled here after its foundation in the 7th century which became a great center of Jewish learning. The community decayed after the 12th century and until the late 19th century, no Jew was allowed to live in the city.  None lives there now.   Eldad Ha-Dani had appeared in about 883. He was a late 9th century traveler whose origins and personality still remain a riddle.  He claimed to belong to the tribe of Dan.  In 880-5, he visited Jewish communities in N. Africa and Spain and told them fantastic accounts of the 10 Tribes. He was living as a nomad.    We believe there were Jewish tribes found inland.

In the middle of the 12th century, the Almohades censored open practice of Judaism in Morocco and in neighboring territories.  This was persecution and caused the migration of Jews to go east back to Egypt.  Finally, the almohades lost their power and Jewish life in North Africa revived.
                                                                         

Jews of Morocco

In 1391, there was a persecution program going on against the Jews and this led to an emigration across the Straits and introduced a new Jewish element of a higher talmudic culture.  Then in 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, the Spanish King said Jews had to convert to Catholicism or leave the country.  They faced death if they did not.  This was strictly enforced everywhere, but especially in Morocco we see it was handled a little differently.  .  There the Jews were confined to their own quarter (Melelah), compelled to wear black clothing, made to pay heavy taxes, and treated very badly with swearing and other acts showing they were more like 3rd class citizens; trash.  They were excluded from several Holy Cities like Kairouan, and often gangs tried to massacre Jews.  Generally, they were just tolerated.

Finally, during the 19th century arrived and nothing had changed in the treatment of Jews.  Now the lot of Jews in Ethiopia had deteriorated.  So relations between them and the Jews of Europe opened up.  This brought security and emancipation for the time being, until the Fascist regime came to power.  This led to serious acts in Tripoli even before Italy officially adopted anti-Semitism in 1938 under Hitler's power.  Later, they adopted a policy of systematic discrimination.  Territories under the French imitated this policy after the Franco-German armistice of 1940 when any thought of previous emancipation for Jews was then nullified.
                                                                               

After the German armies occupied North Africa in 1941-1943, there was the persecution against Jews as it was happening in Germany itself.  Persecutions, forced levies, outbreaks of violence were happening everywhere from Tripoli westward.  When the Germans were defeated, the anti-Semitism slackened.  Jews and Moslems were now not getting along.
               
After 1948, the Jews of North Africa left in large numbers, mostly for Israel or France with some going to Canada.  Few Jews remained in Algeria since 1962, while the Libyan community had been liquidated since the Six-Day War of 1967, and very few stayed in Egypt.  Almost all the Ethiopian Jews were taken to Israel in the 1980s and early 1990s.  I was living in Safed at the time and saw the Ethiopian situated there.  We all lived in high-rise apartment buildings.  Safed was cold in the winter, hot in the summer.  At another period, Russian Jews were relocated on the desert.  It was too bad that the two groups could not change places, but it all depended on what housing was available at that time.
                                                                                 

Miss Israel 2014; An 18-year-old resident of Beersheva, Mor Maman, Moroccan. 

By 1990, only 13,500 Jews lived in North Africa and 10,000 of them were in Morocco, where they spoke French.  I was teaching English in the junior high in Safed from 1981-to the end of 19185.  The beautiful lady in charge of our English Department was from Morocco.  She also taught French, so was tri-lingual.  

Update: 3/13/16, 9:41 am Pacific Time:  Israel is coming back to Africa, and Africa is returning to Israel.  Prime Minister Netanyahu said this on February 23rd in welcoming visiting Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, who arrived for a 3-day state visits, the first by a Kenyan president since 1994. ( from  magazine-The Jerusalem Report, March 21, 2016 issue page 3). 

Resource: The New Standard Jewish encyclopedia
http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/alexander-the-great

Living in the Middle East as Dhimmas Before and After May 14, 1948 For Jews

Nadene Goldfoot                                                               

                Jewish family in Palestine living around Mt. Zion-Mount Zion is a hill in Jerusalem, located just outside the walls of the Old City. The term Mount Zion has been used in the Hebrew Bible first for the City of David ....  

First, in most Muslim states, Jews and Christians were not 1st class citizens in Muslim countries; they were called dhimmas (protected) .  If you were not a Muslim, you had to be subordinate to a Muslim. Usually you had a choice between death and conversion.   Jews were thus protected, but from what?  Supposedly from other Muslims.  The protection involved as a dhimma did little to help.  They were still infidels and had to acknowledge openly the superiority of the Muslim.  Besides all sorts of penalties and hardships, they had to pay a poll tax symbolizing the subordination.  

With the creation of Israel on May 14, 1948, almost all the Muslim nations reacted.  Not only did they make war on Israel immediately, but on the Jews in their own country.  

                                                                       

                                                      Raqia Ibrahim, Egyptian Jewish actress

EGYPT: population 79,089,650
1947:  90,000 Jews...1948:  75,000 Jews............1991:  less then 200
70+  Jews were killed and almost 200 wounded by bombs set off in the Jewish Quarter right after Israel was declared a state May 14, 1948.  In the 1956 War of Sinai, 25,000 Egyptian Jews were expelled and their property was confiscated by the government.  1,000 were went to prisons and detention camps.  November 23, 1956 proclamation which was read aloud in mosques said that "all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state and would be expelled.  Thousands were ordered to leave the country and could take only one suitcase and a small amount of money.  Then they were forced to sign  declarations "donating all their possessions to Egypt.  People were taken hostage so that those that left wouldn't speak against them.  In 1967 War, Jewish homes and property were confiscated.  Hundreds of former Nazis were allowed to live in Egypt and given positions in the government.  The Egyptian secret police was run by Leopold Gleim, head of Polish Gestapo, who was sentenced to death in absentia.  By 1979 the small remaining Egyptian Jewish community finally had official contact with Israel and those few can not practice Judaism without restrictions or harassment.  I met my young Egyptian-Jewish co-teacher in Tzfat in 1981 who told me that there were only a few old people left there.

IRAQ (Mesopotamia) ..pre Muslim history was called Babylonia: population: 31,234,000
1948:  150,000 Jews........1991: 150 in Baghdad
Jew that were expelled from Arabia settled in Kufa, Iraq.  A 2,700 year old Iraqi Jewish community had suffered terrible persecution in Iraq in WWII. Jews in June 1941 in Baghdad  suffered from riots and a pogrom by the Mufti-induced pro-Nazi coup of Rashid Ali.  The mobs were armed and the police and army murdered 180 Jews and wounded almost 1,000. Operations Ezra and Nehemiah brought Jews to Israel.   More outbreaks happened between 1946-1949.   By 1950 Jews were permitted to leave within a year if they forfeited their citizenship.  May 1950, 113,000 fled to Israel in "Operation Ali Baba."  In 1951 the property of emigrating Jews was frozen and economic restrictions were placed on those who remained.  By 1952 Jews were barred from emigrating and 2 were publicly hung after arresting them for throwing a bomb at the Baghdad office of the US Information Agency which was a false charge.  1963 saw the rise of the Ba'ath party which caused more restrictions on the remaining Jews.  They couldn't sell their property.  All Jews had to carry yellow identity cards.  After 1967's War, Jewish property was just taken, bank accounts were frozen, they were fired from public jobs, businesses were shut, trading permits were cancelled, telephones were disconnected, people were placed under house arrests for long periods or restricted to the cities.  1968 was the worst time when many were jailed when a spy ring was found.  14 men (11 Jewish) were hung in public squares in Baghdad.  Others were tortured to death.  On January 27, 1969, Baghdad Radio called people to come and enjoy a feast.  A crowd of 500,000  were called to see the hanging and they all chanted, "Death to Israel."By the 1970's, the remaining Jews were able to emigrate.  Those left were too old to leave.

SYRIA Aram) population 22,505,000
1948:  30,000 Jews.............1991: 4,000
The Syrian Jews suffered the most in the Arab world, so it's not hard to realize that the Muslims there are also suffering today.  In 1944 Syria became independent from France.  The new government didn't allow Jewish emigration to Palestine and severely restricted teaching of Hebrew in Jewish schools.  Attacks grew and Jewish businesses were boycotted.  Partition was declared in 1947 which caused Arab mobs in Aleppo  to attack the 2,500 year old Jewish community.  Many Jews were killed.  200+ homes, shops, and synagogues were destroyed.  Thousands fled illegally to get into Israel.  Things then became even worse.  Freedom of movement was severely restricted.  If you tried to leave the country you were killed or imprisoned  with hard labor.  Jews couldn't work in the government or banks.  The Jewish cemetery had a road paved over it in Damascus.  Jewish schools were closed and given to Muslims by the government.  1987-88 was when the secret police grabbed 10 Jews and tortured them for suspicion of violating travel and emigration laws, planning to escape and taking unauthorized trip abroad.  November 1989 had the promise to allow emigration of 500+single Jewish women.  Only 24 got to in 1989 and another 20 in 1991.  Jews in Syria live in extreme fear. Their Quarter in Damascus is under constant surveillance of the secret police.  They have continued to harbor Alois Brunner, one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals at large.  He was the chief aide to Adolf Eichmann, and was an adviser to the Assad regime.  He is always protected by the Syrian security service.

LIBYA: population: 6,173,579
1948:  38,000 Jews.......1991: 5
Jews suffered in a terrible pogrom in Tripoli on November 5, 1945 which killed more than 140 Jews and wounded hundreds more.  The synagogues were looted.  By June 1948, rioters murdered another 12 Jews and destroyed 280 Jewish homes.  Thousands fled after Libya was given independence and membership in the Arab League in 1951.  After 1967 the Jewish population of 7,000 suffered more pogroms in which 18 were killed and many more injured.  This caused a mass exodus that left less than 100 Jews.

LEBANON: 4,196,453
1948:  20,000 Jews....... 1991: less than 100
Christian Arabs ruled Lebanon before 1980 and Jews were tolerated but were insecure.  Most left in 1967.  All they had to do was cross their southern  border and they were in Israel.  Fighting took place from 1975-76 around the Jewish Quarter in Beirut and damaged many of the Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues.
The remaining 1800 Jews emigrated in 1976 fearing a growing Syrian presence. About 1985 Hezbollah kidnapped 9 Jews from Beirut, most were leaders of the community.  4 were later found murdered.  In 1991 were reports that a few were brought to Syria and were the central prison in Damascus.

ALGERIA: population: 34,895,000
1948:  140,000 Jews......1991:  300
A country of ancient Jewish communities dating back to Carthaginians and Romans.  There were even Berber tribes who embraced Judaism.   In 1934 a Nazi-incited pogrom in Constantine caused 25 Jews' death and many injured.  This was an early start of attacking Jews.    Algeria got independence in 1962 and then the government harassed the Jewish community and kept them from their economic rights.  So almost 130,000 Jews immigrated to France.  One synagogue is maintained in central Algiers today if any Jews are remaining.  Mondovi, Algeria was the home of writer Albert Camus who was a Nobel Prize winner in Literature who wrote "The Plague," in 1947, a historical satire in which the plague is the German occupation of France from 1940 to 1944 during WWII.  In it the town of Oran, Algeria is the equivalent of France with citizens that were slow to realize the magnitude of the danger because they didn't believe it could happen to them as the French were complacent at the beginning of the war.  They couldn't imagine that the Germans could defeat them in 6 weeks.  France fell in June 1940.

MOROCCO: population: 33,723,418
1948:  265,000 Jews.......1991:  6,000
Jews lived here when it was Mauritania, a Roman province.  Casablanca was a center for Jews.  June 1948 saw bloody riots in Oujda and Djerada which killed 44 Jews and wounded many more.  Economic boycotts were instigated against the Jews.  By 1956 Morocco had its independence and Jews couldn't emigrate to Israel until 1963 which allowed more than 100,000 Moroccan Jews to reach Israel.  Moroccan writer Said Ghallab wrote how Muslims felt about their Jewish neighbors in 1965.  "The worst insult that a Moroccan could possibly offer was to treat someone as a Jew...They were very anti-Semitic.  A whole Hitlerite myth is being cultivated among the populace.  the massacres of the Jews by Hitler are exalted ecstatically.  ..his arrival (couldn't believe he was dead) is awaited to deliver the Arabs from Israel."  King Hassan tried to protect the Jewish population.  Moroccan Jews had held leading positions in the business community and government.  July 1986 King Hassan was the host to Prime Minister Shimon Peres of Israel. My boss in the English Department of Tzfat Junior High was a beautiful Moroccan lady whose husband was a doctor.  She taught English and French, being French was her native language.  Of course she was fluent in Hebrew as well.  The principal of our school was also from Morocco.

YEMEN (SW Arabia) population: 23,580,000
1948:  58,000 Jews........1991:  1,500-2,000
Home of my favorite singer, Ofra Haza, one of Israel's best and most beautiful.  In 1922 the government took up an ancient law saying that Jewish orphans under age 12 were forcibly converted to Islam.  After the partition vote of 1947, Muslim rioters with the police instigated a bloody pogrom in Aden that killed 82 Jews and destroyed their hundreds of homes, stores, businesses.  The Jewish community was paralyzed.  By 1948 looting happened after 6 Jews were accused of the ritual murder of 2 Arab girls.  50,000 emigrated between June 1949 and September 1950 in "Operation "Magic Carpet."  Migrations continued into 1962 when a civil war started.  It was then thought that the Jewish community in Yemen was extinct, but in 1976 an American diplomat fund a small Jewish community in northern Yemen.  Jews remained to care for the elderly and sick that couldn't emigrate.  Then they were isolated and trapped.  They just gave up being they were without everything and converted to Islam.  By 1991 organizations have been able to go in and give aid.

ADEN: (port in S. Arabia in Yemen) population: 1,000,000
1948:  8,000 Jews........1991: 0
Jews have been here from remote times.  It was a British protectorate.  After the British annexation in 1838, Jews immigrated from Yemen.There were serious attacks by the local Arab population in 1947.  After Israel was a state in 1948, Aden served as the base for Operation Magic Carpet and most of the Jews there emigrated.  Anti-Jewish attacks increased in 1967 as the protectorate ended and the last Jews left.

TUNISIA: population: 10,383,577
1948:  105,000 Jews.........1991: 300
Jews lived here since Carthage in Roman times.  Tunisia was independent in 1956 and then decreed anti-Jewish laws.  In 1958 the Jewish Community Council was abolished and synagogues, cemeteries and the Jewish quarters were destroyed for "urban renewal."  (This also happened in Portland, Oregon).  Instability caused 40,000+ Tunisian Jews to emigrate to Israel.  In 1967 the Jewish population was down to 20,000.  During the 1967 War, Jews were attacked by rioting Arab mobs.  synagogues and shops were burned.  President Habib Bourguiba apologized to the Chief Rabbi.  The government asked the Jews to stay, but  7,000 Jews emigrated to France.  By 1982 there were attacks on Jews in Zarzis and Ben guardane.  The government tried to protect the Jews.  In 1985 a Tunisian guard opened fire on worshippers in a synagogue in Jerba and killed 5. 4 were Jewish.  Since then they have given Jews more protection.  When Israel bombed the PLO headquarters near Tunis on October 1, 1985, the government worked hard to protect the Jews from reprisals.  They did so again in October 1990 after the Temple Mount tragedy.  The government even was paying the salary of the Grand Rabbi of the community.

TURKEY: population: 73,722,988
1900:  350,000 Jews...... 1990:  20,000            2010: 17,000 (emigrated to Israel)
Turkey was the exception to the rule. Jews have a history of living here for 2,400 years.   Those  escaping the Spanish Inquisition were able to go to the Ottoman Empire.  Jews were favored as a valuable trading and artisan element .  After Israel was pronounced a state in 1948, 37,000 Turkish Jews emigrated to there.  Many Turkish Jews emigrated to Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington in the early 1900's.  18,000 Jews remained in Istanbul, 1,500 in Izmir and smaller communities in Edirne, Brusa and Ankara.   "Turkey was neutral in WWII.  As early as 1933 Ataturk invited numbers of prominent German Jewish professors to flee Nazi Germany and settle in Turkey. Before and during the war years, these scholars contributed a great deal to the development of the Turkish university system. During World War II, Turkey served as a safe passage for many Jews fleeing the horrors of the Nazism." The spiritual and cultural distinction of former days has ended, however. "There are several Jewish professors teaching at the universities of Istanbul and Ankara, and many Turkish Jews are prominent in business, industry and the liberal professions."  Today's government has suddenly become harsh towards Israel after a long friendship as it has moved towards embracing the Muslim Brotherhood and what it stands for.  

IRAN;  (Persia)  population :  76,923,300
1948: 100,000 Jews...... Jews.....1979: 80,000........2004: 20,000 to 25,000 Jews
Jews have been in Persia since the 6th Century BCE at the time of the 1st Temple.  Queen Esther was a Jewish queen married to King Ahasueros.  "Today Jews are faced with constant suspicion of cooperating with the Zionist state and with "imperialistic America" — both such activities are punishable by death.The government does not generally allow all members of a family to travel abroad at the same time to prevent Jewish emigration. Again, the Jews live under the status of dhimmi, with the restrictions imposed on religious minorities. Jewish leaders fear government reprisals if they draw attention to official mistreatment of their community.   Iran's President Ahmidinejad has called Jews and Israel names and has threatened to put an end to Israel while his country is working on a nuclear reactor that will be able to produce an A bomb.  This is the most serious situation Israel is facing.  At least 13 Jews have been executed in Iran since the Islamic revolution, most of them for either religious reasons or their connection to Israel. For example, in May 1998, Jewish businessman Ruhollah Kakhodah-Zadeh was hanged in prison without a public charge or legal proceeding, apparently for assisting Jews to emigrate.

JORDAN:  population: 5,568,565
1948: 0 Jews...........1990:  0
In 1921 the area of Transjordan was detached from the land originally incorporated under the Mandate and Emir Abdullah (1883-1951) became the king. He was the 2nd son of Hussein, sherif of Mecca and later the king of Hejaz.  He supported Britain during WWI so he got the nomination to be the ruler of Transjordan in 1923  He's the man ruler who negotiated with Chaim Weizmann in 1922 but since the British disappointed him went along with the other Arabs in invading Israel in 1948.    In 1948-1950 he annexed the eastern part of the land east of the Jordan River "West Bank" illegally. The UN had made it a part of the Jewish Homeland.  Abdullah was assassinated  in Jerusalem at the orders of the Mufti, Haj Amin el-Husseini.  His grandson, Hussein, ruled from 1952.  In 1967 Hussein sided with the other Arabs and involved Jordan in the Six Day War.  They were defeated and Israel took over what had been called "West Bank" but in reality it was the original Jewish  land of Judah and Samaria.  In 1970 he expelled the PLO from his country but later reconciled with Arafat and his son married a Palestinian girl.  He also acted as protector of the Arabs but in 1988 withdrew from this role and left it to Fatah.  His major supporters are the bedouin tribesmen while a majority of its population are Palestinians.  Many keep saying that this is really the land that should be "Palestine."  However, the king of Jordan is against such an idea.  He has been a good neighbor since the War of 1973. He was the least enthusiastic enemy then as he had not been informed about Egypt and Syria's war plans.  However, he sent his best units to Syria which took positions in the southern sector defending and attacking Israeli positions along the road on October 16th.  3 Jordanian artillery batteries also participated in the assault carried out by almost 100 tanks.

Israel was flooded with 900,000  immigrants from the Middle East countries at about the same time shortly after May 14, 1948 and took them all in.  That's what it was created for in the first place; to be a haven for Jews living in countries that did not want them.  None became refugees needing UN support.  "Jews in some Arab countries such as Syria and Yemen are held as hostages to this day."

So when I hear anyone in the Middle East population complain about Israel's treatment of Arabs in any way shape or form, I have to say, really?  You should be happy that they are not treating you as you have treated them.  They are trying to do a much better job.

Resource:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus
Myths and Facts; a concise record of the Arab-Israeli conflict by Dr. Mitchell G. Bard and Joel Himelfarb
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Turkey.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Turkey
http://www.meforum.org/263/why-jews-fled-the-arab-countries
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/iranjews.html
http://hsje.org/displacement_of_jews_from_arab_c.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aden

Tunisia's Imam of the Jews: Hassen Chalghoumi

Nadene Goldfoot
Tunisia has a population of about 10,383,577 who are 98% Sunni Muslims with the main fiqh being Maliki.  This is how they interpret Sharia law, how they observe rituals, morals and social legislation.  It's one of the 4 schools of Sunni Islam and is followed in North Africa, West Africa, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.  They have a secular government instead of  it being a state religion.

Before 1948 there were 110,000 Jews living there since the Roman times.  By 2010 there were only 1,000. In 1948 half the Jewish population went to Israel and the other half went to France.    Tunisia was the only Arab country under direct German occupation during WWII in the 40's.

40 year old Hasen Chalghoumi was born in Tunis in 1972 and is the Iman of the Drancy Mosque in Seine-Saint-Denis near Paris today. Before coming to Paris he was a member of the Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamaic reformist and spiritualist movement which was started in 1926 by Muhammad Ilyas al-Kandhlawi in India, as sort of a response to the Hindu religion. It has taken on a pacifist stance.  He had been a caller for jihad but had changed his views.  He was different in that he supported Sarkozy's ban on the burqa which put him in good stead with zionist organizations in France causing an uproar in his own mosque.

This Iman has been active with the French zionist organization CRIF which caused him problems.  In 2006 his house was sacked and his children threatened after a speech he had made.  He's been called the Iman of the Jews because he is one of the few progressives that sees his religion in a different light.

He just attended a democracy and religion forum in Tel Aviv where he shared his thoughts on the Holocaust, women's rights and Arab nationalism.  He denounces hatred of Jews and doesn't mingle religion with politics. He said that mosques in Tunisia have turned into hostages held by extremists.

May his age multiply twice and he live till 120.  A man like this doesn't come along everyday.  He's someone that could make inroads to peace in the area.  I only wish he could sway the Palestinians to become more like him.

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassen_Chalghoumi
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/controversial-jewish-imam-islamic-brotherhood-rise-in-egypt-endangers-state-of-israel.premium-1.434236
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiqh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Tunisia
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/tunisjews.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablighi_Jamaat