International Rights & Redress Campaign

The following country narratives describe the unmistakable trend – the state-sanctioned displacement of Jews from Arab countries. The situations in Egypt, Iraq and Libya are described in some detail; a more cursory review is provided on seven other countries, including Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen, Aden, Syria and Lebanon.

History 1

Jews have lived in Egypt since Biblical times. Israelite tribes first moved to the Land of Goshen (the north-eastern edge of the Nile Delta) during the reign of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep IV (1375-1358 B.C).

Over the years, Jews have sought shelter and dwelled in Egypt. By 1897, there were more than 25,000 Jews in Egypt, concentrated in Cairo and Alexandria. In 1937, the population reached 63,500.

In the 1940’s, with the rise of Egyptian nationalism and the Zionist movement’s efforts to create a Jewish homeland in adjoining Israel, anti-Jewish activities began in earnest. 1n 1945, riots erupted – ten Jews were killed; 350 injured, and a synagogue, a Jewish hospital, and an old-age home were burned down. After the success of the Zionist movement in establishing the State of Israel, between June and November of 1948, violence and repressive measures by the Government and Egyptians began in earnest. Bombs were set off in the Jewish Quarter, killing more than 70 Jews and wounded nearly 200. Rioting over the next few months resulted in many more Jewish deaths. 2,000 Jews were arrested and many had their property confiscated.

In 1956, the Egyptian government used the Sinai Campaign as a pretext to order almost 25,000 Egyptian Jews to leave the country and confiscated their property. They were allowed to take only one suitcase and a small sum of cash, and forced to sign declarations “donating” their property to the Egyptian government. Approximately 1,000 more Jews were sent to prisons and detention camps. On November 23, 1956, a proclamation signed by the Minister of Religious Affairs, and read aloud in mosques throughout Egypt, declared that “all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state,” and promised that they would be soon expelled (AP, November 26 and 29th 1956; New York World Telegram).

By 1957, the Jewish population of Egypt had fallen to 15,000. In 1967, after the Six-Day War, there was a renewed wave of persecution, and the community dropped to 2,500. By the 1970s, after the remaining Jews were given permission to leave the country, the community dwindled to a few families.

Jewish rights were finally restored in 1979 after President Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords with Israel. Only then was the community allowed to establish ties with Israel and with world Jewry. Nearly all the estimated 200 Jews left in Egypt are elderly and the once proud and flourishing Jewish community is on the verge of extinction.

Discriminatory Decrees and Violations of Human Rights
(Intended merely as a sampling and not an exhaustive compilation)

The first Nationality Code was promulgated by Egypt on May 26, 1926. Entitled to Egyptian nationality were only those who “belonged racially to the majority of the population of a country whose language is Arabic or whose religion is Islam.” 2 This provision served as the official pretext for expelling many Jews from Egypt.

On July 29, 1947, an amendment was introduced to the Egyptian Companies Law which made it mandatory for at least 75% of the administrative employees of a company to be Egyptian nationals and 90% of employees in general. This resulted in the dismissal and loss of livelihood for many Jews since only 15% of them had been granted Egyptian citizenship. 3

A mass departure of Jews was sparked when Egypt passed an amendment in 1956 to the original Egyptian Nationality Law of 1926. Article 1 of the Law of November 22, 1956, stipulated that “Zionists” were barred from being Egyptian nationals. 4 Article 18 of the 1956 law asserted that “Egyptian nationality may be declared forfeited by order of the Ministry of Interior in the case of persons classified as Zionists.” Moreover, the term “Zionist” was never defined, leaving Egyptian authorities free to interpret as broadly as they pleased.

Provision both in the 1956 and 1958 laws permitted the government to take away citizenship of any Egyptian Jew absent from UAR territory for more than six consecutive months. That this provision is aimed exclusively at Jews is shown by the fact that the lists of denaturalized persons published time and again by the Official Journal contains Jewish names only, despite the fact that there were many non-Jewish Egyptians who stayed abroad for over six months. 5

Economic Discrimination and Strangulation
(Intended as a sampling and not an exhaustive compilation)

Law No. 26 of 1952 obligated all corporations to employ certain prescribed percentages of “Egyptians.” A great number of Jewish salaried employees lost their jobs, and could not obtain similar ones, because they did not belong to the category of Jews with Egyptian nationality.

Between November 1-20 1956, official records reveal that by a series of sequestration orders issued under Military Proclamation No. 4, the property of many hundreds of Jews in Egypt was taken from their owners and turned over to Egyptian administrators. 6 Proclamation No. 4 was carried into effect almost exclusively against Jews; and though a number of Copts and Moslems were also interned, their assets were never sequestered. 7

Of the published lists of 486 persons and firms whose properties were seized under Military Proclamation No. 4, at least 95 per cent of them are Jews. The names of persons and firms affected by this measure represented the bulk of the economic substance of Egyptian Jewry, the largest and most important enterprises and the main sustenance, through voluntary contributions, of Jewish religious, educational, social and welfare institutions in Egypt. 8

In addition to the vast sequestration of property and other discriminatory treatment, Directive No. 189 issued under the authority of Military Proclamation No. 4, authorized the Director General of the Sequestering Agency to deduct from the assets belonging to interned persons, 10% of the value of the sequestered property, presumably to cover the costs of administration. Hence, without regard to the question of whether a property is legally sequestered, the Jews of Egypt were being taxed to pay for the machinery or improper sequestration and withholding. 9

The Jews leaving Egypt were subjected to additional deprivations and inconveniences. A regulation was established which only authorized Jews leaving Egypt to take with them travellers checks or other international exchange documents up to a value of 100 pounds sterling per capita. The Bank of Egypt provided Jews leaving the country with instruments specifically drawn on Egyptian accounts in Britain and France, when Egyptian authorities knew well that those accounts were blocked in reciprocation for the Egyptian blocking of British and French assets in Egypt and were not freely negotiable abroad. 10

Iraq is the modern designation fro the country carved out of ancient Babylonia, Assyria, and the southern part of Turkey after World War I.

It is also the place of the oldest Jewish Diaspora and the one with the longest continuous history, from 721 BCE to 1949 CE, a time span of 2,670 years.

By the 3rd century, Babylonia became the center of Jewish scholarship, as is attested to by the community’s most influential contribution to Jewish scholarship, the Babylonian Talmud. Jews had prospered in what was then Babylonia for 1200 years before the Muslim conquest in 634 AD. Under Muslim rule, the situation of the Jewish community fluctuated. Some Jews held high positions in government or prospered in commerce and trade. At the same time, Jews were subjected to special taxes, restrictions on their professional activity. Under British rule, which began in 1917, Jews fared well economically, but all of this progress ended when Iraq gained independence in 1932.

In June 1941, the Mufti-inspired, pro-Nazi coup of Rashid Ali sparked rioting and a pogrom in Baghdad. Armed Iraqi mobs murdered 180 Jews and wounded almost 1,000.

Additional outbreaks of anti-Jewish rioting occurred between 1946-1949. After the establishment of Israel in 1948, Zionism became a capital crime.

In 1950, Iraqi Jews were permitted to leave the country within a year provided they forfeited their citizenship. A year later, however, the property of Jews who emigrated was frozen and economic restrictions were placed on Jews who chose to remain in the country. From 1949 to 1951, 104,000 Jews were evacuated from Iraq in Operations Ezra and Nehemiah; another 20,000 were smuggled out through Iran. Thus a community that had reached a peak of some 150,000 in 1947 dwindled to a mere 6,000 after 1951.

In 1952, Iraq’s government barred Jews from emigrating. With the rise of competing Ba’ath factions in 1963, additional restrictions were placed on the remaining Iraqi Jews. The sale of property was forbidden and all Jews were forced to carry yellow identity cards. Persecutions continued, especially after the Six-Day War in 1967, when many of the remaining 3,000 Jews were arrested and dismissed from their jobs. Around that period, more repressive measures were imposed: Jewish property was expropriated; Jewish bank accounts were frozen; Jews were dismissed from public posts; businesses were shut; trading permits were cancelled; telephones were disconnected. Jews were placed under house arrest for long periods of time or restricted to the cities.

Persecution was at its worst at the end of 1968. Scores were jailed upon the discovery of an alleged local “spy ring” composed of Jewish businessmen. Fourteen men-eleven of them Jews-were sentenced to death in staged trials and, on January 27, 1969, were hanged in the public squares of Baghdad; others died of torture (Judith Miller and Laurie Mylroie, “Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf”, p. 34).

In response to international pressure, the Baghdad government quietly allowed most of the remaining Jews to emigrate in the early 1970’s, even while leaving other restrictions in force. In 1973, most of Iraq’s remaining Jews were too old to leave and they were pressured by the government to turn over title, without compensation, to more than $200 million worth of Jewish community property (New York Times, February 18, 1973).

Today, approximately 61 Jews are left in Baghdad. A once flourishing Jewish community in Iraq has thus been extinguished (Associated Press, March 28, 1998).

Discriminatory Decrees and Violations of Human Rights
(Intended merely as a sampling and not an exhaustive compilation)

The first piece of legislation enacted that violated the rights of Jews was the 1948 amendment 12 to the 1938 supplement 13 to the Penal Code of Baghdad. The Baghdad Penal Code set out the provision regarding communism, anarchy and immorality in section 89A(1). The section generally prohibits the publication of anything that incites the spread of hatred, abuse of the government or the integrity of the people. This amendment, enacted in 1948, added “Zionism” to communism, anarchism and immorality, the propagation of which constituted an offence punishable by seven years imprisonment and/or a fine.

In an article that appeared in the New York Times on May 16, 1948, it was reported that: “In Iraq no Jew is permitted to leave the country unless he deposits £5,000 ($20,000) with the Government to guarantee his return. No foreign Jew is allowed to enter Iraq even in transit.”

Law No. 1 of 1950, entitled “Supplement to Ordinance Cancelling Iraqi Nationality,” in fact deprived Jews of their Iraqi nationality. Section 1 stipulated that “the Council of Ministers may cancel the Iraqi nationality of the Iraqi Jew who willingly desires to leave Iraq...” (official Iraqi English translation). 14

Law No. 5 of 1951 entitled “ A law for the Supervision and Administration of the Property of Jews who have Forfeited Iraqi Nationality” also deprived them of their property. Section 2(a) “freezes” Jewish property. 15

There were a series of laws that subsequently expanded on the confiscation of assets and property of Jews who “forfeited Iraqi nationality”. These included Law No. 12 of 1951 16 and the attached Law No. 64 of 1967 (relating to ownership of shares in commercial companies) and Law No. 10 of 1968 (relating to banking restrictions).

The Jewish community of Libya traces its origin back some 2,500 years to the 3rd century B.C.

Around the time of the Italian occupation of Libya in 1911, there were about 21,000 Jews in the country, the majority in Tripoli.

In the late 1930s, anti-Jewish laws were gradually enforced, and Jews were subject to terrible repression. Still, by 1941, the Jews accounted for a quarter of the population of Tripoli and maintained 44 synagogues. In 1942, the Germans occupied the Jewish quarter of and times were extremely difficult for Jews in Libya although conditions did not greatly improve following the liberation. During the British occupation, rising Arab nationalism and anti-Jewish fervour were the reasons behind a series of pogroms, the worst of which, in November of 1945, resulted in the massacre of more than 140 Jews in Tripoli and elsewhere and the destruction of five synagogues (Howard Sachar, A History of Israel).

The establishment of the State of Israel led many Jews to leave the country. In June 1948, protesting the founding of the Jewish state, rioters murdered another 12 Jews and destroyed 280 Jewish homes. Although emigration was illegal, more than 3,000 Jews succeeded to leave to Israel. When the British legalized emigration in 1949, and in the years immediately preceding Libyan independence in 1951, hostile demonstrations and riots against Jews brought about the departure of some 30,000 Jews who fled the country up to, and after the point when Libya was granted independence and membership in the Arab League in 1951 (Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times).

Discriminatory Decrees and Violations of Human Rights
(Intended merely as a sampling and not an exhaustive compilation)

· Article 1 of Law No.62 of March 1957, provided, inter-alia, that persons or corporations were prohibited from entering directly or indirectly into contracts of any nature whatsoever with organizations or persons domiciled in Israel, with Israel citizens or their representatives. Provision of this article also enabled the Council of Ministers register residents in Libya who were relatives of persons resident in Israel. 17

· Law of December 31, 1958 was a decree was issued by the President of the Executive Council of Tripolitania, which ordered the dissolution of the Jewish Community Council and the appointment of a Moslem commissioner nominated by the Government. 18

· On May 24, 1961, a law was promulgated which provided that only Libyan citizens could own and transfer real property. Conclusive proof of the possession of Libyan citizenship was required to be evidenced by a special permit that is reliably reported to have been issued to only six Jews in all. 19

· Royal Decree of August 8, 1962 provided, inter-alia, that a Libyan national forfeited his nationality if he had had any contact with Zionism. Forfeiture of Libyan nationality under this provision extending to any person who had visited Israel after the proclamation of Libyan independence, and any person deemed to have acted morally or materially in favour of Israel interests. The retroactive effect of this provision enabled the authorities to deprive Jews of Libyan nationality at will. 20

· With the first law No. 14 of February 7, 1970, the Libyan Government established that all property belonging to “Israelis” who had left Libyan territory “in order to establish themselves definitely abroad” would pass to the General Custodian. In spite of the precise wording of the law (“Israelis who had left Libyan territory in order to establish themselves abroad definitely”), the Libyan Government started to take possession of property belonging to “Jews” without bothering about the fact that these Jews could not be considered as “Israelis” and had not “established themselves definitely abroad.” 21

· The Government decreed the law of July 21,1970, wherein it states that it wanted to control “the restitution of certain assets to the State.” The “Law relative to the resolution of certain assets to the State” asserted that the General Custodian would administer liquid funds of the property of Jews as well as the companies and the company shares belonging to Jews. 22

Jewish settlement in present-day Algeria can be traced back to the first centuries of the Common Era. In the 14th century, with the deterioration of conditions in Spain, many Spanish Jews moved to Algeria. After the French occupation of the country in 1830, Jews gradually were granted French citizenship. 23

In 1934, Muslims incited by events in Nazi Germany, rampaged in Constantine killing 25 Jews and injuring many more. Before 1962, there were 60 Jewish communities, each maintaining their own rabbis, synagogues and educational institutions. After being granted independence in 1962, the Algerian government harassed the Jewish community and deprived Jews of their economic rights. As a result, almost 130,000 Algerian Jews immigrated to France and, since 1948, 25,681 Algerian Jews have immigrated to Israel.

Algeria’s independence from France was the key event in the final uprooting of the Jewish community. As a result of the desire of Algeria and Algerians to join in the wave of Pan-Arab nationalism that was sweeping North Africa, Jews no longer felt welcome after the French departure. The Algerian Nationality Code of 1963 made this clear by granting Algerian nationality as a right only to those inhabitants whose fathers and paternal grandfathers had Muslim personal status in Algeria. 24 In other words, although the National Liberation Front in Algeria was known for its slogan “A Democratic Secular State,” it adhered to strictly religious criteria in granting nationality, thereby entrenching anti-Israel and anti-Jewish bias in the country.

The first documented evidence of Jews living in what is today Tunisia dates back to 200 CE.

After the Arab conquest of Tunisia in the 7th century, Jews lived under satisfactory conditions, despite discriminatory measures such as a poll tax.

In 1948, the Tunisian Jewish community had numbered 105,000, with 65,000 living in Tunis alone.

After Tunisia gained independence in 1956, a series of anti-Jewish government decrees were promulgated. In 1958, Tunisia’s Jewish Community Council was abolished by the government and ancient synagogues, cemeteries and Jewish quarters were destroyed for “urban renewal.”

Similar to the conditions for Jews in Algeria, the rise of Tunisian nationalism led to anti-Jewish legislation and in 1961 caused Jews to leave in great numbers. The increasingly unstable situation caused more than 40,000 Tunisian Jews to immigrate to Israel. By 1967, the country’s Jewish population had shrunk to 20,000.

During the six-day war, Jews were attacked by rioting Arab mobs, and synagogues and shops were burned. The government denounced the violence and appealed to the Jewish population to stay, but did not bar them from leaving. Subsequently, 7,000 Jews immigrated to France.

Even as late as 1982, there were attacks on Jews in the towns of Zarzis and Ben Guardane. Today an estimated 2,000 Jews remain in Tunisia.

Jews have lived in this land since biblical times and the community’s history is intertwined with the history of Jews in the land of Israel. Jewish population increased significantly after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Throughout the generations, the main Jewish communities were to be found in Damascus and Aleppo. 26

In 1943, the Jewish community of Syria had 30,000 members. This population was mainly distributed between Aleppo, where 17,000 Jews lived and Damascus, which had a Jewish population of 11,000.

In 1945, in an attempt to thwart efforts to establish a Jewish homeland, the government restricted emigration to Israel, and Jewish property was burned and looted. Anti-Jewish pogroms erupted in Aleppo in 1947, stimulating 7,000 of the town’s 10,000 Jews to flee in terror. The government then froze Jewish bank accounts and confiscated their property.

Shortly after the founding of Israel, as reported in the New York Times on May 16, 1948: “In Syria a policy of economic discrimination is in effect against Jews. ‘Virtually all’ Jewish civil servants in the employ of the Syrian Government have been discharged. Freedom of movement has been ‘practically abolished.’ Special frontier posts have been established to control movements of Jews.”

In 1949, banks were instructed to freeze the accounts of Jews and all their assets were expropriated. Over the course of subsequent tears, the continuing pattern of political and economic strangulation ultimately caused a total of 15,000 Jews to leave Syria, 10,000 of which emigrated to the U.S.A. and another 5,000 to Israel. 27

The Jews of Yemen have various legends relating to their coming to that country, the most wide-spread of which states that they arrived there before the destruction of the First Temple (587 BCE). The first historical evidence of their existence in Yemen dates from the third century.

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 (e.g. Jews were not permitted to walk on pavements – or to ride horses). In court, a Jew’s evidence was not accepted against that of a Moslem.

In 1922, the government of Yemen reintroduced an ancient Islamic law requiring that Jewish orphans under age 12 be forcibly converted to Islam. When a Jew decided to emigrate, 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. 29

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.

In 1947, after the partition vote, Muslim rioters engaged in a bloody pogrom in Aden that killed 82 Jews and destroyed hundreds of Jewish homes. 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.

Around the time of Israel’s founding, Yemen’s Jewish community was economically paralysed, as most of the Jewish stores and businesses were destroyed. This increasingly perilous situation led to the emigration of virtually the entire Yemenite Jewish community - almost 50,000 - between June 1949 and September 1950 in Operation “Magic Carpet.” A smaller, continuous migration was allowed to continue into 1962, when a civil war put an abrupt halt to any further Jewish exodus.

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.

Jews first appeared in Morocco more than two millennia ago, travelling there in association with Phoenician traders. The first substantial Jewish settlements developed in 586 BC when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem.

By 1948, this ancient Jewish community, the largest in North Africa, numbered 265,000. In June 1948, after the establishment of the State of Israel, bloody riots in Oujda and Djerada killed 44 Jews and wounded scores more. That same year, an unofficial economic boycott was instigated against Moroccan Jews.

Immigration to Israel started upon the initiative of small groups who arrived at the time of Israel’s independence. However, the waves of mass immigration, which brought a total of more than 250,000 Moroccan Jews to Israel, were prompted by anti-Jewish measures carried out in response to the establishment of the State of Israel. On June 4, 1949, riots broke out in northern Morocco killing and injuring dozens of Jews. Shortly afterwards, the Jews began to leave.

During the two-year period between 1955 and 1957 alone, over 70,000 Moroccan Jews arrived in Israel. In 1956, Morocco declared its independence, Jewish immigration to Israel was suspended and by 1959, Zionist activities became illegal in Morocco. During these years more than 30,000 Jews left for France and the Americas. In 1963, the ban on emigration to Israel was lifted bringing another 100,000 to her shores.

Today, the Jewish community of Morocco has dwindled to less than 10% of its original size. Of the 17,000 Jews that remain, two-thirds live in Casablanca.

Jews have lived in Lebanon since ancient times. King Herod the Great, in the 1st century CE supported the Jewish community in Beirut.

During the first half of the 20th century, the Jewish community expanded tremendously due to immigration from Greece, and Turkey, and later from Syria and Iraq.

There were instances of rioting and incitement around the time of the establishment of the State of Israel. As reported in the New York Times on May 16, 1948:

“In Lebanon Jews have been forced to contribute financially to the fight against the United Nations partition resolution on Palestine. Acts of violence against Jews are openly admitted by the press, which accuses Jews of ‘poisoning wells,’ etc.”

In the mid-50’s, approximately 7,000 Jews lived in Beirut. Compared to Islamic countries, the Christian-Arab rule, which characterized the political structure of this country, conducted a policy of relative tolerance towards its Jewish population. Nevertheless, being in such close physical proximity to the “enemy state” Israel, Lebanese Jews felt insecure and decided to emigrate in 1967, leaving for France, Israel, Italy, England and South America.

In 1974, 1,800 Jews remained in Lebanon, the majority concentrated in Beirut. Fighting in the 1975-76 Muslim-Christian civil war swirled around the Jewish Quarter in Beirut, damaging many Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues. Most of the remaining 1,800 Lebanese Jews emigrated in 1976, fearing the growing Syrian presence in Lebanon would curtail their freedom of emigration. Today an estimated 150 Jews remain in Lebanon.