In 1950, the Iraqi government passed a law stripping Jews of their citizenship if they chose to emigrate. 🕍
Over 120,000 Jews took that offer, leaving behind homes, businesses, and a community that had existed in Mesopotamia for over 2,600 years, since the Babylonian exile of 586 BCE
Operation Ezra and Nehemiah was the secret airlift that brought them to Israel. Families were allowed one suitcase. Bank accounts were frozen. Property was confiscated. They boarded planes with almost nothing, many of them seeing an aircraft for the first time in their lives
They were not refugees of the Holocaust. They were refugees of a different erasure, one that the world rarely talks about. The Jewish communities of Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Libya were dismantled almost entirely within a single generation. 850,000 Jews were displaced from Arab lands. Their story deserves to be told. 💛
What do you know about the Jewish communities of the Middle East and North Africa? Drop a comment below.
#jewishhistory #jewishdiaspora #israelhistory #jewishheritage #worldhistory

