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| | Exodus Today
Don't pass over modern-day oppression.- National Review Online
- By Joseph Abdel Wahed
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-wahed041703.asp
As an Egyptian Jewish refugee, I celebrate Passover with special meaning.
Passover is a time to commemorate the Jews' liberation from slavery in Egypt
in 1,300 B.C. and return to freedom in Israel. At my family seders in Cairo
in the 1940s, we felt as if we represented the enduring memory of that
exodus. Little did we know that we would soon experience our own exodus from
Egypt as a result of racism and oppression.
On Passover it is a Jewish tradition that, in retelling the exodus story, we
should feel as if we ourselves experienced persecution and exodus from
Egypt. I hope that this year we also remember the modern exodus of Middle
Eastern Jews, one million of whom fled their homes in Arab countries between
1940 and 1980.
Jews are the oldest-existing indigenous group in the Middle East. While our
communities long predate the Arab conquest of the region in the 7th century,
our contributions to modern Arab states are immense. Sasson Heskel, a
Baghdadi Jew, was Iraq's finance minister in the 1930s. My relative Mourad
Bey helped draft the Egyptian constitution in the 1930s. (Not many Egyptians
know that a Jew helped draft their constitution.) And Layla Murad, the great
diva of Arabic music and film, was also an Egyptian Jew - our own Barbara
Streisand.
But even as child, I understood that Jews were second-class citizens. Signs
in the street read: El yahud kalb el arab, "The Jews are the dogs of the
Arabs." At school, my best friend Menyawi turned to me and said with a
half-smile, "One day, all the Jews will have their throats slit." An older
Muslim man advised that if I was threatened in the streets, I should say:
Ana Muslum, M'wahed billah, "I am a Muslim and believe in one God."
Despite the hatred in the air, my family was successful. In 1950, as a
teenager, I attended a British prep school in Cairo that boasted prominent
alumni such as King Hussein of Jordan and Columbia professor Edward Said
(who never writes about how his Jewish classmates were expelled from Egypt).
But I never got the chance to graduate.
In 1952, Egypt's new nationalist leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, began arresting
Jews on trumped-up charges and confiscating their property. My uncle and
cousin were arrested and a warrant was issued for my father. My family
happened to be traveling in Europe, and my father said: "We'll never
return." My uncle chose to remain, and, following the 1967 war with Israel,
was thrown in an Egyptian concentration camp for three years, along with
hundreds of other Egyptian Jews.
In 1943, 80,000 Jews lived in Egypt. In 2003, fewer than 50 remain. In 1300
B.C., the Israelites were forced to flee Egypt so fast that their bread
didn't have time to rise. In the 1950s and 1960s, Jews were forced to flee
Egypt so fast they didn't have time to pack their bags.
This pattern of intimidation and expulsion has been repeated in countries
throughout the Middle East: in Morocco, Libya, Syria, Iran, Yemen, and Iraq.
Arab governments have forced hundreds of thousands of Jews from their lands
through laws and waves of pogroms. The American Sephardi Federation
estimates that Arab governments confiscated tens of billions of dollars in
property and assets from fleeing Jews.
Some fled to Europe and America - like Vidal Sassoon, from Iraq, or Jerry
Seinfeld's mother, from Syria. But the majority returned to Israel, where
today more than half of the population is Mizrahi - the descendants of Jews
who fled the Middle East and North Africa in the 20th century.
But Arab governments today do not retell the story of Jewish flight from
Egypt. I recently checked in to a hotel and struck up a conversation in
Arabic with the Egyptian woman working behind the counter. Astonished to
learn I fled Cairo as a teenager, she said: "I didn't know there were Jews
in Egypt."
Today, hatred of Jews is stronger than ever. I see it in the Arab media,
school curricula, and of course the mosques. Just a few months ago, Egyptian
television ran a 41-part series based on the anti-Semitic myth of the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The same hatred that drove us from our
homes now fuels suicide bombings and lynchings, and the challenge before us
is to stop this racism once and for all.
As we recall the Israelites' exodus from Egypt, we should not forget the
modern exodus of Jews in the Middle East. This Passover is a time to
commemorate these lost Jewish communities and seek justice for the victims
of the Forgotten Exodus. When Arab governments recognize their role in
turning nearly a million Jews into refugees, peace will at last be possible.
- Joseph Abdel-Wahed is the former chief economist of Wells Fargo Bank and
cofounder of JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa.
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