Jews from Arab countries seek restitution

LONDON, Sept. 20 (JTA) — Jews who fled Arab countries following the creation of the State of Israel are preparing to launch a new campaign for restitution. Meeting in London at a forum organized by the World Organization for Jews From Arab Countries and Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, Jewish representatives from 14 nations met Sunday and Monday to create the steering committee for the International Campaign for Rights and Redress. The group plans to conduct an international advocacy and public education campaign on the heritage and rights of former Jewish refugees, documenting human-rights violations against those who fled Arab countries, as well as their lost assets. The director of the justice group, Stanley Urman, said the summit was a landmark occasion. “It is a commitment by Jewish communities in 14 countries on five continents to once and for all document the historical injustice perpetrated against Jews in Arab countries,” he said. “It is not just a theoretical and educational exercise; it is concrete.” Supported by the Israeli government, the plan also has the backing of Jewish communities in North and South America, Europe and Australia, with organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, B’nai B’rith International and the World Sephardi Congress involved. “We are delighted to play a key role in this crucial project,” said Henry Grunwald, president of British Jewry’s umbrella group, the Board of Deputies. “The plight of Jews from Arab countries is all too often a cause that we in the wider Jewish community forget, and we must act to educate and raise awareness of this important issue.” Organizers long have been unhappy that the issue of Palestinian refugees largely has eclipsed the question of the nearly 900,000 Jews displaced from Arab countries around the 1948 creation of the State of Israel. They want the Jewish refugees’ fate addressed as well in any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Some 600,000 of these refugees settled in Israel; by 2001 fewer than 8,000 Jews remained in Arab countries. The displaced Jews were recognized as refugees by the United Nations, but there was virtually no international response to their plight. The only way that the rights of former Jewish refugees can be asserted, organizers believe, is through an international advocacy campaign. They will launch the campaign in March with a special month of commemoration to highlight the torture, detention, loss of citizenship and seizure of property suffered by many Jewish refugees. “This is a milestone in the effort to address the historic injustice to the Jewish communities in Arab countries,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “We hope that this renewed, unified campaign will not only succeed in creating a comprehensive data bank, but will also put this issue on the agenda of the international community, which has neglected it for so long.” Data on the communal and individual assets lost in the mass displacements — incorporating public education, the collection of testimonies and programs to lobby media and governments — will be collected and preserved in a special unit established in Israel’s Ministry of Justice. Urman declined to speculate on the value of the Jewish refugees’ assets, insisting that the fundamental issue was justice rather than compensation. Redress might come in many forms, he said, from a commitment to protect and preserve historical Jewish sites in Arab lands to the endowment of chairs at universities to preserve Middle Eastern Jewish culture. In Iraq, the Jewish community numbered around 140,000 before being mostly dispersed in the 1950s. Like many others in his community, Maurice Shohet, president of Bene Naharayim, the Iraqi Jewish community in New York, abandoned his possessions when he fled Iraq with his family in 1970 at age 21. “We left everything; we just wanted to save our lives,” he said. The combined assets Iraqi Jewry left behind now could be worth billions of dollars. When the U.S.-led war on Iraq began in 2003, the prospect of an elected, post-Saddam government offered some hope of restitution for the community. But “so far all we are hearing is the voice of the insurgents,” Shohet said. Shohet visited his home town of Baghdad last year, but he cut short his trip because of violence. With divisions rampant within Iraq society and the government still going through a transition period, compensation still seems far away. Yet that makes the issue more urgent, Urman said. With Israel’s recent withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, there might also be a new impetus toward fresh talks between Israel and the Palestinians. “If Gaza results in renewed commitment by the Palestinian Authority to advance serious peace negotiations, it will have moved us forward to a resolution of both the Arab and Jewish refugee issues. But it’s a big if,” Urman said. “The government of Israel and the Jewish world know they have the last and best opportunity to resolve this. If not now, when?”