Born | Tripoli, Libya, 1948 |
Left Libya | 1967, as a refugee to Italy, then the United States |
Today | Cofounder of JIMENA, San Francisco Bay Area |
Expertise | Jewish refugees from Arab countries, human rights, Soviet Jewry |
Award | Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award |
Speaks to | Universities, congregations, film audiences, and policymakers |
Gina Waldman was born Malaka Bublil in Tripoli, Libya, in 1948, into a family whose roots in the country went back centuries. After the 1967 Six-Day War, anti-Jewish mobs attacked Tripoli and burned her father's warehouse. The family survived a near fatal attack and fled to Italy as refugees, taking only one suitcase. With help from HIAS, Gina later came to San Francisco, arriving without English.
In the Bay Area, Gina became a leading voice for human rights. As Director of the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jewry, she helped win freedom for Soviet Jews, worked with Andrei Sakharov and Natan Sharansky, and considers Sakharov her mentor. She also worked with Amnesty International on behalf of victims of the Pinochet regime in Chile, and in the early 1990s helped resettle Bosnian Muslim refugees in the San Francisco area.
After September 11, 2001, Gina cofounded JIMENA with Joseph Abdel Wahed to bring the story of nearly a million Jews from Arab lands into public understanding. She led the citizen campaign behind a 2008 Congressional resolution on Jewish refugees, testified before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in 2007, and spoke in Geneva in 2008. Her talks blend English and Arabic and call for reconciliation.
Speaking Topics
What Gina talks about
1. Growing up Jewish in Libya
Daily life, faith, and family in Tripoli, and the limits placed on Jewish girls and women.
2. Expulsion in 1967
A firsthand account of mob violence, escape, and arriving in Italy as a refugee.
3. The forgotten refugees
How nearly a million Jews left Arab countries between 1948 and 1970, and why their story matters.
4. A life in human rights
From the Soviet Jewry movement to Chile and Bosnia, lessons from decades of advocacy.
5. Love is stronger than hate
Reconciliation, memory, and building understanding across communities.
Select Talks
Selected talks and appearances
2021 | "Mizrahi Women Founders in Conversation," online program with Lyn Julius and Rachel Wahba (listed by The Media Line) |
2019 | Congregation Emanu-El, San Francisco, "Stories of Jews from Arab Countries," with Semha Alwaya |
2017 | JCC East Bay, Berkeley, "Beyond Bubbie: Taste of the Old East" (JIMENA and Reboot) |
2014 | Sun News television (Toronto), interview with host Ezra Levant about her escape from Libya |
2013 | University of California, Berkeley, Israel Peace and Diversity Week, talk to Muslim and Jewish student government leaders |
2011 | University of California, Berkeley, Sproul Plaza, "Talk Israel: Join the Conversation," Hillel national program |
2008 | United Nations Human Rights Council, 7th session, Geneva, Switzerland, testimony on Jewish refugees from Arab countries |
2007 | U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus, testimony on refugee rights |
2003 | Congregation Sherith Israel, San Francisco, "Forgotten Refugees: Jews Expelled from Arab Countries," JIMENA's first conference |
2002 | Yale University, "Love is Stronger than Hate," hosted by Yale Friends of Israel |
These are a selection of Gina’s talks. Gina has given many more, at college campuses, synagogues, community centers, television, the United Nations, and the U.S. Congress.
Publications and Media
Read, watch, and listen
Podcast
Episode 63: JIMENA: Mizrahi and Sephardi Voices
Jewish Women's Archive podcast Can We Talk? featuring Gina's oral history from the JIMENA Oral History Project. Read the transcript
Article
First Jews, now Christians: Libya's persecution complex
Her opinion essay on religious freedom in Libya and the history of Libyan Jews, The Times of Israel Blogs, 2013. Read the essay
Article
Why this Bay Area Libyan Jew is worried about her homeland's Jewish artifacts
JTA profile, published by J. The Jewish News of Northern California, on Libyan Jewish heritage, 2017. Read the article
Profile
Libyan Jewish refugee shares story
Yale Daily News coverage of her talk at Yale, 2002. Read the coverage
Affiliations
Organizations
- JIMENA (cofounder)
- Bay Area Council for Soviet Jewry (former Director)
- Amnesty International (past work)
Book Gina
Bring this speaker to your audience
To invite Gina Waldman to your school, university, congregation, or organization, use the Book Speaker button above or email info@jimena.org.