Saturday, June 25, 2011

Iraqi Jews in Israel (1950)



Two Iraqi Jews after their arrival in Israel (1950). 
Posted by Miriam Woelke at 7:31 PM
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7 comments:

  1. MosheJuly 3, 2011 at 3:34 PM

    Your post about the Iraqi Jews arriving in the medinah in 1950 reminds me of what the Zionists did to the Yemenite and Moroccan Jewish communities.

    From 1948 to 1952 more than 50,000 Yemenite Jews were fooled by the Zionist Jewish Agency into abandoning their ancient home and way of life and instead moving to the Zionist State, where they were summarily uprooted from their dedication to Judaism. Indeed, a boy testified later to the religious Peiylim organization that he was taken to an orchard during the Sabbath on an orange-picking trip. When he protested that this violated the Sabbath, he was told: “Only in Yemen is there a Sabbath; here, in Israel there is no Sabbath.” A former teacher at the Ein Shemer immigrant camp testified that at a meeting of teachers a camp official announced that the side curls of all the boys were to be cut and that, should a protest rise over it, the parents should be told that it was being done for “hygienic” reasons. (They found no hygienic reasons, however, to cut the hair of the girls). Yemenite boys were told, “there is no need for side curls in Israel.”

    These events were even born out by the report of the Commission appointed by the Zionist government to investigate the conditions in the camps after protests by religious elements. After visiting all the camps and listening to 181 witnesses, this Commission officially reported that:

    1- Anti-religious prejudices and acts were openly initiated by camp officials and counselors.
    2- “Soul-snatching” was not unusual.
    3- Peyos (sidelocks) of religious Yemenite children were systematically cut off, and were clearly untended as an anti- religious act.
    4- Some camps allowed a systematic abuse of religion. Religious children were weaned away from their religion, and parents were intimidated into accepting a non-religious education for their children.
    5- Children in UJA supported camps were told that in Israel there was no Sabbath as in the Diaspora, that there is no G-d, and that all religious observances are rubbish.
    6- The sudden imposition of other customs that shook the “very foundations of morality” of the children.

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  2. MosheJuly 3, 2011 at 3:34 PM

    The project of the Zionists to bring Yemenite Jews to the Zionist State was called Operation Magic Carpet. This was to appeal to the unwitting belief of the pious Yemenite Jews that the establishment of the Zionist State heralded the arrival of the Messiah, as they were told by Zionist emissaries. The Zionists even worked with local Arab and British authorities in Aden (southern Yemen) to assist them in seeking to evacuate the Jews from Yemen. Although some of the Yemen Jews were evacuated by airplane, many made the trek to “greet the Messiah in Jerusalem” by foot! Little did they know that they were heading for the Zionist hell that awaited them to destroy their pure souls.

    When they arrived in the Zionist state the Yemenite Jews were first assigned to immigrant camps, where in a number of investigations religious organizations discovered that the Yemenites were being systematically alienated from their religious heritage. It was discovered that camp staff were not religious Jews, religious study was discouraged, and prayers were disrupted. These events transpired in locations known as Ein Shemer (which resembled a concentration camp with its barb wire fence), Atlit, Be’er Yaakov and Machane Yisrael.

    Religious Jews who sought access to these camps to assist the Yemenites were refused entry or discriminated against by the Zionist overseers. Sanctions were imposed against those who tried to promote religious studies in the camps, children who studied Torah and their parents! The non-religious staff flaunted their disregard for religion in front of the pious Yemenites and encouraged dancing and other social activities between boys and girls, something thoroughly forbidden by Judaism.

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  3. MosheJuly 3, 2011 at 3:35 PM

    As is typical of their practice against their Jewish opponents everywhere, the Zionists resorted to threats, penalties, intimidation and strong-arm methods. Even the religious Zionist newspaper Hatsofeh reported on December 12, 1955 that in the settlement of Achuzam,

    “…the campaign of oppression against the residents of Achuzam, north of Be’er Sheba, to ignore their request for religious education reached a new height with the organized bloody attacks in the last few days. Twenty-four villages, all from the religious community, some severely wounded, are still in jail after having been arrested four days ago…”

    The Zionists undertook a systematic campaign throughout the locations where they settled Yemenite Jews to discourage them from remaining loyal to Judaism in favor of the godless bliss of the Zionist Paradise. It is widely known, and investigations in the Zionist state itself confirmed, that the Zionists even took away newborn babies to give them to childless couples, and told the natural parents that the children had died of illness.

    Treatment similar to that experienced by the Yemenite Jews was experienced by Jews from Morocco, Iraq, Tunisia and Libya.

    ReplyDelete
  4. MosheJuly 3, 2011 at 3:40 PM

    My Mashpia's wife, who is from Morocco, told me how the Lubavitcher Rebbe gave orders to his Shluchim in Morocco to fight the Jewish Agency. One her cousin's family was snared by them, and less than one year after they arrived in the medinah, they were completely asimilated Jews. But B'H, thanks to the Rebbe's endeavors, most Jews from Morocco choose to emigrate to France, Canada and the United States instead of leaving Morocco for the medinah. And thanks to Satmar, many Yemeni Jews choose to emigrate to the US instead of the medinah.

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  5. Miriam WoelkeJuly 3, 2011 at 9:04 PM

    B"H

    You are right with the discrimination against Peyes (sidecurls) and religion, as David Ben Gurion wanted anyone but religious Jews. Until today, many Sephardic or Jews from Iran, Kurdistan, etc. are much more traditional than Ashkenazi Jewry.

    I have been preparing an article on the "Children Of Teheran" who were taken to Israel by the Jewish Agency and put into Kibbutzim. In other words, they were put into a secular lifestyle and, I think it was the CHAZON ISH, complained about it.

    So, I was planning to write a big article on that but got stuck in the middle when I found out that not all of those children were actually from a frum background. Many of the "Children of Teheran" had completely secular parents !

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  6. MosheJuly 4, 2011 at 12:23 AM

    "So, I was planning to write a big article on that but got stuck in the middle when I found out that not all of those children were actually from a frum background. Many of the "Children of Teheran" had completely secular parents !"

    You can still write about that for the honor of those religious children who were snared, eventhough all were not fully religious, many among them were religious.

    There is nothing which makes me sick as seeing an assimilated Jew, especially when s/he comes from a religious background.

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  7. Miriam WoelkeJuly 4, 2011 at 12:30 AM

    B"H

    I read the ARTSCROLL edition of the CHAZON ISH biography where the fate of the "Children from Teheran" were mentioned. The book makes it sound, as all the children had been from a religious background but I found out that this wasn't the case.

    I will write about it and I have been collecting quite some material. However, it is true that not all the children had been religious !

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