December 1951
H. Dewey Anderson, “The Situation of Jews in Moslem Countries,” 1951, Chapter 14 in The Arab Refugee Problem: How It Can Be Solved, proposals submitted to the General Assembly of the United Nations, December 1951.
Chapter XIV
THE SITUATION OF JEWS IN MOSLEM COUNTRIES
Since 1948, some one million Jews have become the victims of accelerated anti-Semitism. These are the Jews in the Moslem countries of the Arab League and of North Africa – communities which have existed for thousands of years.
Some 300,000 Jews from the Arab states and North Africa have fled or been evacuated to Israel. Four hundred thousand additional will be absorbed, it is expected, within the next three years. From 1919 to 1947, Jewish migration to Palestine from Moslem lands constituted 8.5 per cent of the total. In 1951, their proportion stood at 50 percent of the three-year immigration total since the establishment of Israel.
The extent of oppression and of Jewish fears may be gauged from the fact that whole communities re seeking asylum in Israel.
The entire population of Yemen has been absorbed; nearly the whole of Iraqi Jewry; the largest part of the Libyan community. Virtually all the Jews of Iran have registered for asylum in Israel.
The Pattern in the Moslem Countries
The creation of Israel has been a convenient lightening rod for the Moslem ruling castes in the Arab League stats that are making the Jew the scapegoat to divert attention from the corruption of government, the failure of the military adventure in Palestine, and the misery of the masses.
A pattern of physical violence, economic boycott, and financial expropriation is being developed in a number of countries, accompanied by wholesale arrest of Jews.
Iraq and Egypt, in particular, have borrowed heavily from the anti-Jewish laws of the Nazis. Hitler, in progressive stages of his cold war against the Jews, established the pattern of barring Jews from government employ, banning them from schools and universities, refusing to enlist them in the army, forcing them into labor camps.
Hitler introduced the economic boycott, the multiple taxes on Jews, the forced sale of Jewish businesses at a small percentage of their value, while a softening up process consisted of physically smashing Jewish business centers. The collective atonement fine was another Nazi invention, as was the flight tax. These practices have been adopted to their own uses by a number of Arab states as subsequent pages reveal.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with its specific recognition of the inherent dignity and equality and inalienable rights of all members of the human family, as the following reveals, are openly violated by the Arab states signatory to the Declaration, in so far as their attitude to their Jewish nationals is involved.
* * *
Egypt
The Jewish community in Egypt numbers some 45,000 to 50,000 in a population of 20,000,000. In 1948 the Jewish population was somewhere between 75,000 and 85,000. Once comparatively free and self-sufficient, and ranking high culturally and economically, it has suffered greatly before and since the establishment of Israel from economic discrimination and physical attack.
Pogroms Took Place in Cairo and Alexandria in November 1945
The intimidation of the Jewish population began some years before the establishment of Israel. Bartley Crum, a member of the Anglo-American Committee on Inquiry, reporting in his book, “Behind the Silken Curtain,” on the experiences of the Committee in the Arab countries in 1946, stated that no Jew dared to testify before the Committee. When some of the leaders of the Egyptian Jewish community were requested to appear before them, they “understood this to mean that the King preferred them not to appear before us.” One reason for this, Crum was informed, was the probability that if they testified they could not avoid discussing the mob attacks of Jews in Cairo and Alexandria, which had occurred a few months before.
On November 2, 1945, a pogrom took place in Cairo in which a synagogue was burned down and a home for the aged, a shelter for transients, a hospital, the quarters of the art society, and other public buildings were destroyed. From then until the fall of 1947 things were comparatively quiet. Egypt’s reaction to the United Nations November 29 resolution recommending the partition of Palestine, was a series of acts against the Jews.
Enactments Against Jews
In 1948 Egypt adopted a number of enactments which resulted in:
1. The interment of large numbers of Jews in concentration camps.
2. The sequestration of Jewish property.
3. The exclusion of Egyptian Jews from employment either in government service or in private corporations.
4. The restriction on the operation of Jews in the professions.
These were coupled with violence upon the persons and property of Jews.
Jews suspected of Zionist sympathies were arrested and thrown into jail. The Jews were sealed off from all contact with the remainder of the world. Migration from the country was forbidden them.
Arrest of Jews
On January 11, 1948, the New York Times reported that 50 houses and hotels in Cairo had been raided, searched, and Jews arrested to prevent “Zionist crimes” against the Arabs.
On May 15, 1948, on the basis of lists prepared by the Political Bureau of the Police Department, indiscriminate arrests of Jews took place in Cairo, Alexandria and Port Said. Those arrested were accused of Zionist activity. It is estimated that more than 1,000 Jews were arrested in Cairo, among them 160 women; 118 in Alexandria; and 40 in Port Said.
By May 30, 1948, an additional 1,000 Jews were arrested throughout the country. Throughout June 1948, frequent arrests of Jews took place without any excuse being offered. These arrests were reported in the Egyptian paper, El Ahram.
In August 1948, 3000, Jews, suspected of Zionist sympathies, were thrown into jail and their property placed under public administration.
In September, 1948, a new wave of arrests took place. On September 28 the homes of all the inhabitants of the Jewish quarter of Cairo were searched. Fifty Jews were arrested.
On May 11, 1949, the New York Post reported that there were approximately 6,000 Jews in prison in three camps in Egypt on charges of Zionism.
Law Gives Right to Day and Night Searches
On June 6, 1948, the practice of searches by night and day directed against the Jews without any warrants was given legal authority in Proclamation No. 30.
Acts of Violence Against Jews
On June 20, 1948, 12 houses were blown up in one of the Jewish quarters of Cairo. Twenty Jews were killed an more than 41 were wounded.
On July 19, 1948, the Jewish department store, Cicurel, in Cairo, was blown up and some 500 shops in the vicinity suffered damage. Three persons were killed and 17 injured
On July 20, 1948, another pogrom took place when a mob raided several streetcars at Mailka Fareida Place, ejected all European-looking persons and killed all the Jews they could find, desecrating bodies in the process.
On July 28, another Jewish department store in Cairo was blown up and four persons wounded.
On August 1, 1948, two more Jewish department stores were bombed and 28 persons injured.
In August 1948, the Jews of Cairo suffered a pogrom. Two hundred and fifty persons were killed and wounded.
In each instance the Egyptian authorities tried to place the blame on the Jews themselves.
Impartial observers estimate that some 500 persons were either killed or dangerously wounded during July and August 1948.
On September 22, 1948, part of the Jewish quarter of Cairo was demolished as a result of a heavy explosion. Jewish homes and shops were looted by Arabs following the explosion. Nineteen Jews were killed and 62 injures.
In October 1948, new incidents took place. According to the correspondent of the Cyprus Mail, “not a single day passes without Jewish murders at Cairo and Alexandria, or the dynamiting of Jewish homes and stores.” “But nothing has been done,” one French official commented, “and the police themselves take the side of the ruffians when a foreigner is attacked.”
Economic Strictures Against the Jews
Economic strictures against the Jews were initiated through the issuance of the so-called Company Law No. 138 of 1947. The law was officially published on August 4, 1947 and provided that within three months 75 per cent of the white collar workers, 90 per cent of the laborers and 40 per cent of the boards of directors of all Egyptian corporations and all Egyptian offices or branches of foreign corporations should be Egyptian.
Although the law does not mention the word “Jew,” its effect was automatically to exclude the majority of Egyptian Jewry from employment in any corporation in Egypt, for only 7 per cent, or about 5,000 Jews are able to qualify as Egyptian under the law. This despite the fact that 90 per cent of the Jews living in Egypt were born in that country. The character of the regulations covering citizenship is such that half of the 90 per cent are regarded as stateless and half as citizens of countries other than Egypt. Even 7 per cent qualified for posts cannot get or hold them because employment is interpreted as applying only to Egyptian Moslems.
Jewish Property Sequestered
On May 29, 1948, Egypt promulgated a law called Proclamation No. 26, subjecting to sequestration the property of persons who are interned in Egypt, as well as that of persons residing outside of Egypt whose activities are deemed “prejudicial to the safety and security of the state,” and also the property of any person placed under surveillance. Sixty-eight sequestration orders were issued between June 1, and September 30, 1948. Sixty-seven of them referred to Jews or establishments under Jewish control.
As a supplement to the sequestration order a further provision prohibited direct or indirect transactions with any persons or establishments whose property had been sequestered. The execution of any contract or agreement concluded by or for the benefit of such a person or establishment before martial law was declared was forbidden.
Coupled with the wholesale arrests already cited, the intension of the sequestration of Jewish property becomes clear.
No appeal from the action was permitted for the proclamation specifically barred any sequester from initiating any civil or commercial action in any par of Egypt, or from continuing any such action if already begun.
A further supplement to this order was the instruction to sequester all property in Egypt belonging to Jews who sojourned, even temporarily, in Israel.
Although there is no official evaluation of the Jewish assets sequestered, reliable sources indicate that millions of pounds of Jewish property were involved. The administration of these sequestered properties was placed in the hands of government officials.
With the coming into power of the Wafdist Party in 1950, the situation of the Jews was somewhat ameliorated. The detainees were freed and orders issued for the return of sequestered property. Such property came back to its owners diminished in value due to the inefficiency and also the corruption of the government administrators.
The ban on exit from the country was also lifted and exit permits granted to Jews. Those who were given permission to leave forfeited all rights ever to return. Many who departed left their property behind. Between 20,000 and 27,000 Jews reportedly have left the country. More than 15,000 of them have gone to Israel.
Despite the easing of tension, the Jews of Egypt continue to be fearful of renewed and intensified anti-Semitism; the effects of anti-foreign acts cited above. They fear their fate may be similar to that if Iraqi Jews – flight without possessions.
Iraq
Iraq, birthplace of Abraham, has been the home of a Jewish community for 2,500 years. From 1948 to 1951, 121,633 Jews fled the country to Israel. Not more than 15,000 now remain there.
Violence has been a commonplace in the history of Iraq, since its independence. In 1932 it celebrated that independence by massacres of members of minority groups, including Syrians, Kurds and Jews.
In 1941 pogroms took place in Baghdad as part of a pro-Axis demonstration in which the Mufti and his followers played an important part. One hundred and ten Jews were killed, 586 Jewish stores looted, 911 houses destroyed.
In 1946 a similar uprising took place in Baghdad in which hundreds of Jews wee wounded and many Jewish businesses looted and destroyed.
It remained for the Arab war on the partition resolution of the United Nations to give the strongest impetus to the most concerted campaign against the Jews, this time by the government itself.
Zionist Activity Banned on Pain of Death
In July, 1948, a law was passed making all Zionist activity punishable by execution, and with a minimum penalty of seven years’ imprisonment. By the summer of 1948 virtually all the wealthy Jews of Iraq had been placed under arrest and their properties confiscated on the score of their being Zionists.
Under this law, Iraq’s wealthiest Jew, Shafiq Ades, was arrested on charges of aiding the Zionist cause, sentenced, and hung on September 23, 1948. In addition , Ades was fined $20,000,000, collectible from his estate.
In October, 1948, the Egyptian paper, El Ahram, estimated that as a result of arrests, trials and sequestration of property, the Iraqi treasury collected 20,000,000 dinars or the equivalent of $80,000,000.
Economic Strictures
On August 28, 1948, Jews were forbidden to engage in banking or foreign currency transactions.
In September, 1948, wholesale dismissals took place of Jewish employees of the railways, the post office, the telegraph department and the Finance Ministry on the ground that they were suspected of “sabotage and treason.”
In September, 1948, it was decided not to issue new licenses to Jewish physicians or to renew the licenses of those then holding them.
On October 8, 1948, the issuance of export and import licenses to Jewish merchants was forbidden.
On October 19, 1948, the discharge of all Jewish officials and workers from all government departments was ordered.
On December 2, 1948, the Iraq government suggested to oil companies operating in Iraq that no Jewish employees be accepted.
New Taxes Bankrupt Jewish Population
Under the Iraqi law only those in the trades and the professions had been required to pay income taxes. As a result, the Jews of Baghdad, who constituted a large part of the merchant and professional class, had been paying the taxes for virtually the entire country. In 1948 and 1949, under a forgotten article in the income tax law, the authorities re-assessed the profits of merchants five years back, the effect of which was to plunge Jewish merchants into bankruptcy. Under the law no Jew was permitted to sell or mortgage movable property worth more than £500 without the prior approval of the military authorities.
Special Requirements for Employment
Further, Jews were required to have citizenship papers and good conduct certificates in order to qualify for employment. Since it was difficult to get either, the number of Jewish employables was drastically reduced.
Jews Barred from High School and Universities
Until 1948 five per cent of the total number of students in the schools were permitted to be Jews, then their numerical proportion of the population. This despite the fact that Jews constituted 20 per cent of the population of Baghdad, and that the Jewish population of Baghdad constituted the majority of the Jewish population of the country. Because of this numerous clauses, the Jewish community was compelled to provide schools for some 12,000 pupils, to which the government gave a subsidy of £450.
In 1949 the Iraq government decreed that in the Jewish schools, Arabic, history, geography and ethics must be taught by Moslem teachers. Subsequently all Jewish students were banned from high schools and colleges.
Denied Access to Medical Aid
Although Jews paid taxes they were denied access to hospitals, dispensaries and sanitaria.
Even the institutions maintained by the Jews closed down in 1948-1949 because the Jews had no means to maintain them.
Like many Iraqis, Jews possessed firearms for which licenses were required and renewable annually. In 1949 the government did not renew the firearms licenses of Jews, but at the same time did not ask them to give up their arms. The result was that Jews were placed in the position of possessing arms illegally and were subject to arrest, fine and imprisonment.
A Moslem possessing a revolver without a license might be fined £15, but Jews were fined £1,000 and given three-year prison sentences.
Jewish Clubs Closed
Jewish clubs throughout Iraq were closed on the pretext of their being required for the use of Arab refugees, or as the result of the arrest of their administrative committees.
Freedom of Movement Barred
Even freedom of movement within the country was barred to Jews. A Jew passing from one town to another was subject to arrest and interrogation. If released, e was compelled to pay an unofficial tax.
Citizenship Papers Denied
No Jew could get citizenship papers even if he was born in the country, unless he had procured such papers before May 15, 1948.
Jews Conscripted for Hard Labor
Jews, like all other citizens of Iraq, were subject to compulsory military service. After May 15, 1948, Jews conscripted into the army were not given military training but assigned to hard labor.
Prosecuted for Relations with Zionists
After May 15, 1948, Article 89A of the Penal Code was modified to give unrestricted powers to the courts to persecute all persons accused of having relations with Zionists. The article did not define the meaning of Zionism. It was enough, however, to have received a letter from Palestine to be subject to arrest and imprisonment, even if such a letter were received before the amendment of the Penal Code and before May 15, 1948.
Thus a Jewish lawyer of Basra, 70 years old, who had once been a civil judge and member of the Iraq Parliament, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment because, as it was alleged, 25 years earlier, while he was a judge and Iraq still a British-mandated territory, he had handed down a verdict permitting the use of the proceeds of certain Jewish-owned lands and buildings for the benefit of Jewish Palestine.
Exit of Iraqi Jews Permitted
On March 1, 1940, the Iraqi Parliament passed a law permitting the exit of all Iraqi Jews, provided they signed a declaration renouncing their citizenship. The time period for registration for departure was limited to one year, and subsequently extended for three months.
The Jews of Iraq, fearful of the anti-Semitic purges, seized this opportunity to leave the country; one hundred and seven thousand were brought to Israel by special air lifts.
The mass exodus from Iraq was stimulated by violence and economic expropriation designed to produce this effect.
On January 14, 1951, the Masouda Shemtaub Synagogue in Baghdad was bombed and a number of Jews killed and wounded.
In June 1951, time bombs were hurled into three Jewish business establishments. Later the Syyad Bazaar, the economic center of the Jewish community of Baghdad, was occupied by troops.
Until early in 1951, every adult Jewish emigrant was permitted to take with him 50 dinars (about $140), and every minor, 30 dinars (a dinar is worth about .28), in checks on an Ottoman bank, as well as sixty pounds of baggage per person. All possessions of the emigrants including photographs, were subject to censorship.
After March 1951, however, emigrants were permitted to take only their personal possessions. Jews waiting their turn to leave the country lived on the sale of their household possessions at a fraction of their value.
Street searches of Jews became a commonplace, as did wholesale arrests on charges of illegal smuggling of gold and jewelry from the country.
It was clear, by the end of 1950, that the Iraq government, by a series of fines and extortions, had succeeded in extorting from their owners a considerable part of Jewish property holdings.
The total wealth of Iraqi Jewry is placed at $436,000,000.
Total Assets Frozen
Not content with this, on March 19, 1951, the Iraqi Parliament passed a new law freezing the property and bank accounts of those Jews who had surrendered their Iraqi citizenship and applied for admission to Israel.
A Custodian General was appointed for the frozen property evaluated at between 90,000,000 and 100,000,000 dinars (approximately $280,000,000). The latter was vested with broad powers. And although the law discusses only the freezing of assets, the Custodian General is empowered to liquidate all Jewish property under his jurisdiction. He may order the inspection of the books of any person he believes possesses, or has at his disposal, the property of a denaturalized person. He may order the dissolution of companies established by a denaturalized person, or of which the latter is a share-holder, on a number of grounds, either that the continuance of the company is harmful to Iraq; or that it would lead to smuggling. And he is permitted to dispose of the shares of a denaturalized person.
Under the law, all banks and public bodies must report to the Custodian General real property belonging to a denaturalized person, whether it is held in trust or otherwise. The disposal of such property is forbidden. The same obligation applies to partners, holders of mortgages, insurance polices and leases. All movable property, under the law, is turned over to the Custodian. Exempt only is household furniture and effects, food and personal clothing.
The confiscation and the freezing of the property of Iraqi Jews was conceived by Nuri-as-Said, the Minister President of the country, as a means of improving the economy of Iraq.
On March 22, 1951, the terms of the freezing order were extended to apply to Jews who left the country with passports on or after January 1948.
Under this amendment, a Jew lost his naturalization and his property if he did not return within two months of the posting of the notice of the law by Iraqi diplomatic and consular officials.
Similarly, the law was made applicable to Jews who left the country with passports prior to January 1948, if they had not become nationals of other countries, and if they should refuse to return on the demand of the Iraq government.
To complete the dragnet, Iraqi Jewish citizens who leave the country subsequent to the law’s passage, with passports, and fail to return in the time specified, are subject to the same forfeiture as are also Jews who leave the country illegally. Under the regulations, permission to travel abroad is granted only for medical treatment, business and short vacations.
Every Jew intending to remain in Iraq has been compelled to sign a declaration that he is not in possession of goods or articles belonging to intending immigrants under penalty of two years’ imprisonment or a fine of 4,000 pounds.
Not satisfied with these measures, the extremist Istialal Party, the second strongest political party in Iraq, is urging the expulsion of all the Jews and the outright confiscation of their property.
On May 12, 1951, the plight of the Jews who had chosen to remain in Iraq was described a follows in an Associated Press dispatch from Baghdad:
“….Even the15,000 Jews choosing to remain here have great doubts about their future. Some nationalist politicians have been peddling the slogan: ‘Nationalize oil and denationalize all the Jews…’
“Because of the ‘Freeze’ law a Jew cannot take a cent with him in cash. He is permitted to take only clothing. Nothing else, not even a family heirloom, can leave the country.
There are several open-air markets where the remnants of Jewish home life are hawked each afternoon at a small percent of their value.”
Lebanon
Lebanon has been considered the most advanced state of the Middle East.
Some seven to eight thousand Jews live in the Republic among a population of 1,157,142, a little more than half of whom are Christians.
The Christian community and especially the Maronite Church were believed friendly to the creation of a Jewish state.
Since the participation of Lebanon in the Palestine war, conditions have changed. The antagonism to the Jewish population has been expressed both in the form of physical violence and in economic boycott.
On January 5, 1948, a bomb was thrown at a Jewish school in Beirut.
On May 24, 1948, riots took place in Teybe, in Southern Lebanon.
In January 1948, the Lebanese government ordered all foreign Jews, including students at the American University at Beirut, to leave the country.
Jewish officials were dismissed from their posts.
Travel abroad was forbidden to Jews.
The Jewish community was compelled to contribute 50 million francs to the Arab Palestine fund. When some Jews refused, their homes were bombed on July 27, 1948.
Following the signing of the Armistice agreement between Israel and Lebanon, dismissed Jewish detainees were released, Jewish officials reinstated, and the migration of foreign Jews to Israel permitted.
With the specter of Iraqi Jewry’s fate before them the Lebanese Jewish community continues to be tense and fearful lest a new wave of anti-Zionist violence engulf them. Today 50 per cent of the Jewish community is in need of relief.
Syria
Syria has a record of continuous violence against the Jews, who number 6,000 to 8,000 among a population of 3,250,000. Even before the establishment of Israel, Syrian Jews had been fleeing from Syria to India, Egypt, the United States and Palestine.
Violence and Death Penalty for Zionist Sympathies
On March 4, 1947 a pogrom took place in Aleppo, incited by the Moslem Brotherhood. One hundred fifty houses, 50 shops, 5 Jewish schools were destroyed or damaged and 12 synagogues were destroyed.
On May 15, 1948, 250 Jews of Aleppo were imprisoned.
On August 5, 1949, a synagogue was attacked in Damascus; 6 Jews were killed and 27 injured.
In February 1949, the government ordered Syrian banks to block all Jewish accounts and to stop all Jewish real estate transactions. Homes were suddenly declared abandoned and confiscated by the authorities. All Jewish schools were closed.
The economic situation of Syrian Jewry is catastrophic.
Exit to Israel is forbidden.
Yemen
The entire Jewish population of Yemen, numbering 45,009, was evacuated from that country following the establishment of Israel.
The Jews of Yemen were flown to Israel in an operation which became known as “Magic Carpet,” after the ruler of Yemen had granted permission for their exit in December 1948.
The transport of the Yemenite Jews is the result of the unspeakable conditions under which they lived. They were either homeless wanderers in the desert, exposed to robbery and torture, or they lived in ghettos locked at night and were burdened with all kinds of taxes, and on the verge of death by starvation.
Iran
Until 1940, Iran was a transit haven for the persecuted Jews of Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, 70,000 Iranian Jews have registered for emigration to Israel, virtually the entire remaining population of the country.
The Jewish population of Iran, in largest part indigenous, dates back to ancient times. Today it is in a precarious situation. About 50 per cent are desperately in need of aid and their living conditions fall below even the minimum level of the extremely low Persian standards.
The majority of the Jews live in overcrowded and unsanitary ghettos.
Although legally Jews are accorded equal rights, in practice this does not apply. No Jew can be elected to the Parliament. Restrictions make it virtually impossible for Jews to enter the civil service. They are excluded from the legal profession. Few Jews are admitted to the high schools.
Such is the degree of impoverishment that many children are unable to attend school because they do not have clothes.
A total of 22,630 Jews from Iran entered Israel between May 15, 1948, and September 30, 1951. Once the 70,000 registered Jews have been admitted to Israel, the entire Jewish population of Iran will have been evacuated.
French Morocco
Some 258,000 Jews live in Morocco among a population of some 8,600,000, the majority Moslem. The Jewish community there is one of the most ancient in the world, having existed as far back as 70 B.C.
The area has been a French protectorate since 1912. Until French rule the Jews were compelled to live in ghettos surrounded by walls and were the target of every kind of discrimination as well as physical attack.
Under French rule their situation improved. They were permitted to live outside the ghettos, to wear European clothes, attend secondary and high schools and to engage in the professions, in crafts and in commerce.
However, the Jews are still the subjects of the Sultan. They cannot become French citizens; they are not permitted to hold positions in the civil service.
Poverty and disease are rampant. Some 35 per cent of the Moroccan Jewish population is in need of relief. Only about 17.7 per cent of the Jewish population is gainfully employed. Five to ten persons live in a single room. Thirty-five per cent of the Moroccan Jewish youth, as the result of extreme undernourishment, is suffering from a variety of diseases.
Jews Victims of Vichy Regime
During the war the Jews of Morocco were the victims of Vichy. The local French administration, following the dictates of Vichy, introduced many measures directed against the Jews patterned after those of the Nazis. These included the compulsory wearing of the yellow badge.
In November 1942 Moroccan nationalists planned to stage a mass pogrom to celebrate the expected march of the Nazi armies into Casablanca. The Jews were saved only because on November 12 the American army occupied Casablanca.
Strictures and Violence since 1948
Following the1948 Arab war on the partition resolution, the Jewish community became the target of attack.
On June 7 and 8, 1948, riots and pogroms took place in the towns of Oujda and Djerada. Sixty Jews were injured. A boycott against the Jews of Oujda was proclaimed.
On June 1, 1948, posters appeared urging the massacre of the Jews. Jewish appeals to the authorities for protection were ignored.
On June 7 the vaunted pogrom took place. A similar attack followed on June 8 in Djerada. Forty-three Jews were killed and 155 wounded.
Zionism Outlawed; Exit Barred for Jews
The Sultan of Morocco outlawed Zionism and prohibited the emigration of Jews. Nonetheless thousands left illegally for Israel. Although the ban on Zionism has now been lifted, it is believed that a large proportion of the Jewish population will leave the country as soon as it can.
Algiers
There are 130,000 Jews in Algiers, a Department of France, where Jews have lived since ancient times.
Since 1870 when the Cremieux laws gave French citizenship to the Jews, the Jewish community has had the basic rights granted to all French citizens. Nonetheless, conditions of Jewish life are very difficult. Nearly 30 per cent of the Jews today are in need of assistance.
During World War II, Jews were exposed to all the discriminatory legislation imposed by the Vichy regime at the behest of the Nazis, with the result that Jews in Algeria experienced the same spiritual and material hardships suffered by their fellow Jews in occupied lands.
When General Ciraud landed in French Morocco in March 1943, he abrogated the 62 anti-Jewish decrees imposed by the Vichy regime. But he also abrogated the Cremieux laws of 1870 giving citizenship and equality to the Jews. General de Gaulle restored the Cremieux decree in October of 1943 without any opposition from the Moslems.
Since the establishment of Israel, however, the agents of the Mufti have been very active in stirring up anti-Jewish sentiment. In the first period of the Palestine war, all Jewish public and commercial organizations were closed down for a time.
The disquiet of the Jewish population is indicated by its urge to evacuate to Israel.
Tunisia
Tunisia, too, is a French protectorate, under a Bey with a French Resident General.
Some 90,000 Jews live in Tunisia. There has always been a Jewish population in the capital, Tunis (ancient Carthage). Some 65,000 Jews live in Tunis and the suburb Ariana. The majority of the Jews of Tunis live in horas (ghettos), only about 25 per cent live outside its walls.
Some 35,000 to 40,000 Jews are scattered throughout the remainder of the country.
In 1881 native Jews of Tunis were granted equality with Moslems. Nonetheless, no Jew was permitted to serve as a judge or to hold high office in the Tunisian administration, until 1938 when Tunisian Jews were granted French citizenship and as such could occupy important posts in the Protectorate. The process of naturalization came to an end in 1938. Today only one out of every five Tunisian Jews is a French citizen.
Although relations between Jews and Moslems in Tunis are regarded as good, the Moslems pay at least lip service to the anti-Semitic slogans of pan-Arabism.
The position of the small Jewish community in the hinterland of Tunisia is desperate. They are subject to economic boycotts and physical violence.
Tunisian Jewry was under Nazi domination from November 13, 1942 to May 7, 1943. Compulsory labor was imposed for all Jews between the ages of 17 and 50; 5,000 Jews were conscripted for this purpose, but many escaped. Hostages were taken, staggering collective fines imposed. Jews in the small ghettos were murdered. In the ghetto of the capital city Jewish women were raped by Nazi soldiers. Jews were shot or beaten to death by the Nazis as spies and saboteurs.
Some 30 per cent of the Jewish population is indigent. All are exposed to the general anti-Semitic propaganda stimulated by the Arab Higher Committee and the Arab states.
Since 1948 Israel has received 45, 157 Jews from Morocco, Algiers and Tunis.
Libya
The Jewish communities in the various Libyan zones date back to the days of the Old Testament.
In 1948 it was estimated that some 30,000 Jews lived in Tripolitiania and Cyrenaica, two-thirds of them in the former area.
By the end of 1951, 28,810 had been evacuated to Israel, while the remainder are preparing to leave the country. Libya, now under British rule, will soon become an independent state.
The flight of Libyan Jewry to Israel was dictated by conditions of oppression. During the war the Italian government, following its alliance with the Nazis, introduced a series of anti-Jewish decrees. At the end of the war the decrees were abrogated by the British, but the Jews continued to be exposed to economic and social discrimination and to physical attack.
In November 1945, a pogrom took place in Tripoli where the majority of the Jewish population lived. One hundred persons were killed and Jewish property destroyed.
On June 14, 1948, the second wave of violence hit Tripoli with more casualties. A panic-stricken Jewish community sought exodus to Israel.
Today, only a few thousand Jews remain and they, too, are soon expected to reach the Jewish state.
Aden
Aden, a British colony at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, had, at the beginning of 1949, a native Jewish population of some 3,600.
In December, 1947, following the U.N. partition resolution, the Jews of Aden City were attacked and a reign of terror instituted. Seventy-six Jews were killed and seventy-eight wounded. Two-thirds of the Jewish sections of the city were burned and looted. Fifteen hundred Jews fled to safety in a former Italian prisoner of war camp outside of Aden City. Order was restored only after British reinforcements were brought in from the Canal Zone.
Since then, 2,944 Jews have been brought to Israel, while the rest expect to find asylum there soon.
* * *