The Forgotten Expulsion: Jews From Arab Lands

"It is the cradle of Jewish civilization. It's where all the stories of the Bible took place and where Jews in antiquity exercised sovereignty."

"It is literally where we are from. The argument that Jews are indigenous to Europe would certainly come as a surprise to two of my grandparents born in Iraq."

Eylon Levy, former Israeli spokesman

"Algeria, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen Libya. Where are your Jews?"

"Your Jews fled as refugees after suffering persecution and deadly pogroms."

Hillel Neuer leader, UN Watch

 

"These are Judenrein countries now where they [once] had big Jewish communities."

"I believe that Jews have to know their history."

That what's happening now is also part of our history."

Judy Feld Carr, Toronto community leader

 

"That's what astonished me, that not only the world at large had forgotten this, if ever it had taken note, but that within the Jewish community itself, it was not something that was talked about."

"I had become, over the  years, you know, aware that in the lead-up to the [Israeli] Declaration of Independence, there had been a lot of turmoil in Palestine itself, but really had no real comprehension of the depth of the histories and the nature of the communities that were displaced on the other side."

"I was amazed that nobody had done anything about it; that the [Jewish] community itself was not talking about it; that even the Israelis weren't talking about it."

Executive producer, "The Forgotten Expulsion", Moses Znaimer, founder, ZoomerMedia Limited

 

VisionTV is preparing to launch a new film: The Forgotten Expulsion: Jews from Arab Lands. Its executive producer, Moses Znaimer, feels its time has come to set the record straight. That the historical reality is other than what the recently popular 'activism' perpetrating large protests and gatherings denying Israel's right of existence in its ancestral homeland needed to be countered by the truth. And the truth was anything but sneers of the anti-Israel gatherings that Jews should go back to Europe, and leave the Middle East and in particular 'Palestine' to Arabs claiming to be the authentic Palestinians.

 

History tells us that during the Roman Empire when Judaic lands were occupied by Rome administering its huge empire, the lands they earmarked as 'Palestine' were those historically peopled by Judean tribes. An insurrection of Jews in Jerusalem, fighting against Roman rule and occupation led to a defeat and a triumphant Roman legion set about exiling Judeans from their lands, creating millennia of Jews throughout the world scattered in a diaspora.

 

 The ingathering of diaspora Jews to join those within Palestine that had never left over thousands of years following the Holocaust to live in a geography where they were authentic indigenous residents of the land saw a wholesale increase in the presence of Jews through a movement called Zionism, an outgrowth of Jewish intellectuals dedicated to a longed-for Return to Zion in a momentum owing to the Holocaust and a need for a haven, a homeland that would dedicate itself to the preservation of world Jewry.

 

The establishment of that homeland created even wider divisions between Jews and hostile Arabs. Jews who had lived for thousands of years throughout Arab lands in the Middle East were dispossessed and exiled by furious Arab countries reacting to the presence of a Jewish state meant to preserve Jewish life. Ever since, hostility, threats and violence have assailed the Jewish state and its Jewish citizens. Within that state live Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, B'hai, Kurds and Bedouin among others. But Jews no longer live in Arab lands.

 

The Forgotten Expulsion: Jews from Arab Lands   Vision TV

 

The new film is a 45-minute documentary whose introduction took place on the one-year anniversary of October 7, highlighting the rich history of Jewish life throughout the Middle East, predating both Islam and Christianity. Moses Znaimer found himself interested in the history of Jews living among Arabs in majority-Arab lands and he "began to understand more fully the extent of it and the nature of the lies that it unveiled". 

 

Graphic images of the Hamas atrocities open the documentary among claims that Jews are not indigenous to the Middle East. An estimated million Jews referred to as Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews lived in Arab lands until they were technically cleansed during the 20th century; forcibly expelled or deciding to flee when Israel was established in 1948, rather than live among increasingly hostile Arab neighbours. Life among the Arabs for Jews was never peaceful, for murderous pogroms occurred now and again, just as they did in Europe. 

Thousands of Syrian Jews attempting to leave the country paid ransoms to officials in Syria. The historic Jewish community in Syria was seen as a wealth-generator for the Syrian regime of Hafez-al-Assad, exploiting Syrian Jewish anxiety about the future; allowing Jews to leave as long as they could bribe their way out. Cairo, Baghdad, Damascus and Casa Blanca rid themselves largely of their ancient Jewish population. 

Nor is UNRWA's role in Palestine ignored, accused of perpetuating the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians through their opposition to the integration of Palestinians into surrounding host countries. Its culpability in employing Hamas members within the ranks of UNRWA, its school curricula demonizing Jews and describing them as venal enemies to Palestinian aspirations of statehood have all fuelled the deadly animosity that sees Palestinians in countless acts of criminal violence against Israelis over the years.

The estimated 700,000 Palestinians who fled Israel, or were persuaded to leave by hostile force are the world's longest-lasting refugee group, swelled now over the generations by the original 'refugees' children and grandchildren to ten times their original number. All considered under UNRWA to be 'refugees'. That a like number - 700,000 - Jews fled or were exiled from Arab lands is never acknowledged, and no UN agency ever represented their interests.

 

Jewish life in 1940s Iraq   Vision TV

"Every refugee population in the world goes down over time. Because you're a refugee, but if your kid is born in the United States or Canada or somewhere and has nationality they're not refugees anymore."

"You had 700,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands, they don't exist as refugees, their children and grandchildren are not refugees."

"And none of the Jewish refugees, the Jewish Arabs, have ever counted as refugees."

Simcha Jacobivici, documentarian