Advocacy means going on the record. Since 2002, JIMENA has brought the history, lived experiences, and perspectives of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews to policy makers, international bodies, and the public. Through statements, letters, and policy responses, we advocate on issues affecting our communities and Jews worldwide - from education and antisemitism to cultural heritage, Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, and international affairs. These statements show where we stand, what we've advocated for, and why.
Advocacy means going on the record. Since 2002, JIMENA has brought the history, lived experiences, and perspectives of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews to policy makers, international bodies, and the public. Through statements, letters, and policy responses, we advocate on issues affecting our communities and Jews worldwide - from education and antisemitism to cultural heritage, Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, and international affairs. These statements show where we stand, what we've advocated for, and why.
June 13, 2022. In May, 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) created a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This ongoing, permanent commission will publish reports every June to the UNHRC in Geneva and every September to the UN General Assembly in New York. The Commission invited individuals, groups, and organizations to submit information and documentation relevant to its mandate. As such, JIMENA submitted hundreds of pages of personal testimonies of Jewish refugees from North Africa and the Middle East. On June 7th, 2022, under the direction of Commission Chair Navi Pillay, the commission released its first report. Unsurprisingly, the testimonies of Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa were completely ignored. We share the cover letter of JIMENA’s February submission, again urging the UN to “fully incorporate the histories of Jewish refugees as one facet among many others that can assist in developing a just and sustainable future for Jews, Palestinians, and all those who are owed justice, security, and safety in the Middle East.” To Ms. Pillay: On 27 May 2021, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution establishing a commission of inquiry into human rights violations in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Included in the commission’s mandate was a call to investigate “all underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict, including systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity.” The Commission also requested submissions from interested individuals and organization to provide information and documentation helpful to understanding the “[u]underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict in and between the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel; as well as systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity.” Needless to say, the “underlying root causes” of the recurrent conflict and tension in Israel and the Palestinian territories are complex and multifaceted. Some go back centuries, to the to the institutionalized subjugation of Dhimmi Jews under Islam. That said, it is evident that the circumstances through which many Israeli citizens came to arrive in Israel—and the concurrent circumstances which compelled their departure from their former homes—are among the root causes of the ensuing decades of conflict and instability, and so require their share of attention and analysis as part of the Commission’s overall mandate. On behalf of JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, we offer this submission documenting the experiences of the roughly 650,000 North African and Middle Eastern (Mizrahi and Sephardic) Jews who migrated to Israel in the years following its establishment. This migration which typically came in the wake of sustained and state-sanctioned discrimination and repression based on ethnic and religious identity emanating from other Middle Eastern states. Frequently, this discrimination was expressly tied to putative “anti- Zionist” commitments from these countries, and manifested in the form of violence, dispossession, denaturalization, harassment, and outright expulsion. It resulted in a massive and unprecedented ethnic cleansing of indigenous Jewish communities. Jews thousands of miles from the conflict were thus subject to collective punishment and became hostages to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Discriminatory laws stripped Jews of their citizenship, excluded them from jobs, denied them trading licenses, froze their bank accounts, extorted money and sequestered their property without compensation. They were expelled or forced to flee. Before it succumbed to pressure from the Palestinian leadership and declared war on the fledgling state of Israel in May 1948, the Arab League drafted anti-Jewish laws scapegoating their member states’ Jewish citizens as the ‘Jewish minority of Palestine’, although they were non-combatants. Zionism became a crime: Jews could be arrested, jailed and even executed on the flimsiest of pretexts: sending signals from their wrist-watches, possessing ‘Zionist’ symbols on a prayer shawl, etc. This information is relevant as one piece in a much larger puzzle that can help explain the seeming intractability of the conflict in a fashion that does justice to the rights and experiences of all stakeholders. For example, when Middle Eastern Jews faced denaturalization and statelessness by nations putatively acting on “anti-Zionist” principles—as occurred in Egypt, Libya, and Iraq,—these practices of dispossession presented even indigenous Jewish Middle Easterners as a foreign element whose history and presence in the Middle East was illegitimate and warranted extirpation. When such Jews today encounter narratives which again present their presence in the Middle East as “colonial” or a “European” intervention, they hear more than the denial of the historical fact of their continuous presence in the region, they also hear an alarming echo of the same narratives which only a few decades ago warranted their expulsion from their homes. In part—not in entirety, but in part—the situation Israelis and Palestinians find themselves in today is caused by the blunt reality that much of Israel’s Jewish population is in Israel as a direct consequence of patterns of state-sponsored repression undertaken under the banner of and putatively justified by “anti-Zionism.” Many of these Jews accordingly believe, with ample historical evidence backing them up, that Israel’s existence as a Jewish homeland is indispensable to their safety and self-determination as a community. No account of the “underlying root causes” of the conflict in Israel and the Palestinian territories can succeed unless it reckons with this history in a clear-eyed fashion. Currently, the Israeli Jewish population is approximately 50.2 Mizrahi and Sephardic in origin. Despite this, it has been an unfortunate feature of many prior inquiries and investigations into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that the particular issue of Middle Eastern Jewish history has typically been ignored even by investigators possessing the best of intentions. This oversight has had troubling consequences. Most obviously, by omitting an essential facet of relevant regional history, the failure to reckon with the experiences of Middle Eastern Jews both distorts understandings of Israeli Jewish experience (often portrayed as primarily or even solely European in character) and hamstrings potential avenues for reform and progress, insofar as the resultant proposals typically fail to address crucial points of concern or redress essential to the Middle Eastern Jewish population. In addition, the omission of the immediate and directly relevant history of a large slice of the Israeli population in discussions about their lives and future serves to discredit the underlying work among persons who are critical stakeholders and essential participants in any future project to bring a just and enduring conclusion to the conflict. Consequently, JIMENA is pleased that the current commission’s mandate, insofar as it extends to all “underlying root causes” of the conflict, clearly encompasses a robust and comprehensive exploration of how the treatment of contemporary Middle Eastern Jewish history has been one significant contributor to continued conflict and tension. It is, of course, impossible to roll back history. Justice in Israel and in the Palestinian Territories ultimately is a matter of moving forward to a just future, not attempting to revert to an imagined idyllic past. In these circumstances, history must be dealt with carefully. It is very easy to tell historical accounts which do not assist in overcoming calcified patterns of mistrust, but instead seem to warrant them and even encourage greater intransigence. There are no doubt many who look upon recent history—whether the history is that of Middle Eastern Jews, Palestinian refugees, Arab-Israeli wars, or any other frame—and claim it as buttressing their dim and cynical assessments of the vitality of any foreseeable resolution to the enduring conflict; or worse, vindicating their own demands for absolute and uncompromising political or territorial maximalism that is defiantly dismissive of the real and legitimate rights and prerogatives of their presumed adversaries. But this is not the only way history can be used. History matters for understanding how we reached where we are today, and it matters for understanding how the people in Israel, the Palestinian territories, and around the world will process and react to emergent proposals aimed at securing justice, co-existence, and equality for all persons. Recent developments, such as the Abraham Accords, offer unprecedented opportunities to begin what will no doubt be an arduous but also necessary process of reconciliation between Middle Eastern Jewish communities and the states in which they formerly made their homes. Such steps are already beginning, and offer a model for how seemingly implacable adversaries can use history to overcome history. Our hope is that the Commission will not replicate mistakes of the past by relegating the experiences of Middle Eastern Jews to footnotes and asides, but will fully incorporate them as one facet among many others that can assist in developing a just and sustainable future for Jews, Palestinians, and all those who are owed justice, security, and safety in the Middle East. Sincerely,Board and Staff of JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa cc. Mr. Miloon Kothari, Mr. Chris Sidoti
Joint Communal Letter · February 22, 2022 Sephardic and Mizrahi Organizations on New Scholarly Research on Middle Eastern Jewish History Sixteen organizations and congregations welcome the growth of scholarship on our history, and ask that it not sideline the communities it describes. In 2022, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded a federal grant of nearly $250,000 to a scholarly project titled “Reimagining Jewish Life in the Modern Middle East, 1800 – Present.” JIMENA joined Sephardic and Mizrahi organizations and congregations across the United States in writing to the NEH. We welcomed the growing interest in our history. We also raised a concern our communities know well: that writing about Middle Eastern Jews too often reflects the political commitments of its authors more than the lived experience of the people it describes. The letter asks scholars to engage with the existing literature, to represent the full range of our communities’ views, including on Zionism and Israel, and to keep Mizrahi and Sephardic voices at the center of the debate. “Middle Eastern Jews in America, Israel, and around the world must not be rendered tertiary characters in our own stories.” From the joint letter The letter To the National Endowment for the Humanities The past few years have seen an extraordinary flowering of interest in Middle Eastern Jewish life and history. Internationally, the Abraham Accords have opened new opportunities to excavate and reinvigorate Jewish culture and history in Arab nations, while Israel has increasingly paid heed to ensuring that Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish life is incorporated into collective national narratives. Domestically, we have seen an unprecedented rate of growth in academic initiatives focused on the histories and culture of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews, from K-12 through higher education. Most recently, the US National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded a nearly $250,000 grant to fund a scholarly project dedicated to “Reimagining Jewish Life in the Modern Middle East, 1800 – Present.” As organizations representing Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews, Jewish communities from the Middle East and North Africa, we view the growth in interest in Middle Eastern and North African Jewish history as a welcome and long overdue development. This federally funded NEH grant exhibits growing public interest in our communal histories and as a publicly funded project, invites citizen engagement. As American citizens from the communities the grant seeks to “reimagine” we issue this statement to the NEH to sound a note of caution regarding certain trends which, regrettably, we have regularly seen manifest in writings about Middle Eastern Jews. We do so in the hopes that we can forestall potential distortion and politicization, and intolerable weaponization, of the memory and history of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry. Too often there exists a marked gap between those writing about Middle Eastern Jews, on the one hand, and the views and experiences of the Middle Eastern Jewish community itself, on the other. Frequently, this gap manifests in ill-conceived, tendentious, and often ideologically-motivated “histories” that opportunistically flatten our experience to fit contemporary political agendas. Such works are typically self-consciously partisan and fail to do justice to the complex and layered relationship Middle Eastern Jews have with, among other things, Arabic or Persian language and culture, Zionism and anti-Zionism, Israeli state policies of inclusion and of exclusion, and experiences of dispossession and expulsion in lands Jews had called home for millennia. That these are fraught and politically-contested topics does not justify polemicists deciding to rewrite our stories and histories for their own partisan ambitions. Other times, Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews are “represented” via interactions with an unrepresentative and marginal set of activists and scholars whose views are presented as authoritative even as they characterize only a small sliver of Middle Eastern Jewish perspectives. Individual books, articles, and theses have been cherry-picked and wrongly presented as if they are the only authoritative word on Middle Eastern Jewish life. The result has been to render narratives about Middle Eastern Jews, including those found in major textbooks or public discourse, often virtually unrecognizable to Middle Eastern Jews. This, in turn, has profoundly alienated many in our community from the very projects and literature that should be most essential in preserving our history and facilitating our place in Jewish, Middle Eastern, and global society. This is an inestimable tragedy for Middle Eastern Jews and, we submit, for the scholarly community that should be more invested in accurate historical narration than in scoring transient political points. Middle Eastern Jews in America, Israel, and around the world must not be rendered tertiary characters in our own stories; a frequent occurrence when minority communities become the academic subjects of mainstream, Western scholarship. Some in our community have expressed concern that the new NEH-funded project, helmed by Professors Lior Sternfeld, Michelle Campos and Orit Bashkin, may replicate these well-known and harmful trends in scholarship about Middle Eastern Jews. It is, of course, impossible to judge a book that has not yet been written. However, some of the authors have made concerning statements that suggest either unfamiliarity with, or derision towards, already-existing histories and accounts of Middle Eastern Jewish perspectives. It is entirely true, as one co-author put it, that Middle Eastern Jews were not merely “a group of people waiting for redemption by Zionism but” were also people who “live[d] and prosper[ed] and work[ed] and suffer[ed] … in the Middle East as part of Middle Eastern societies.” It is not remotely true to suggest this is a novel observation representing the need for a full-scale “reimagining” of Jewish life in the Middle East, or that existing literature from Mizrahi Jewish writers have presented their accounts in such a flat and superficial manner. Our intention in writing this letter is to insist that all scholars partaking in the emergent wave of scholarship about Middle Eastern Jews, of which this project is but one, take affirmative steps to guard against painting a false or misleading portrayal of Middle Eastern Jewish history that is more loyal to ideological or political commitments than to complex social histories. This includes avoiding, downplaying, or misrepresenting the state of existing scholarship and history about Middle Eastern Jewish communities, as well as denigrating or denying the values and choices Middle Eastern Jews have made, past and present, including those about Zionism and Israel. The undersigned groups, deeply rooted in our communities’ daily life and with decades of experience collecting and curating the history of diverse Middle Eastern Jewish communities, welcome the opportunity to collaborate and contribute to this new wave of academic interest in our heritage and history. Finally, we recognize that the flowering of new research on Middle Eastern Jewish experience will inevitably produce articles, chapters, or manuscripts that provoke significant controversy and debate. This is unavoidable and part and parcel of a laudable commitment to academic freedom and free inquiry. However, we the undersigned organizations insist on the lodestar commitment that discussions about these controversies and debates do not sideline Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish voices. No single author or manuscript can be expected to capture the full richness and diversity of Middle Eastern Jewish experience, nor do any write upon a blank slate. The new wave of emergent scholarship can and should be placed into conversation with the many excellent works that already exist. As we await the fruits of the next generation of research, and the inevitable discussion, debate, and disputation that will arise, we would like to bring attention to this bibliography of academic works on Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews, that can help guide learning about our community in a way that is respectful of, and resonant with, our own lived experiences. Signed, Signatories 30 Years After A.A. Society Beit Sasson: The Sephardic Congregation of Newton Congregation Bene Naharayim of Queens, New York Eretz Synagogue and Cultural Center Iranian American Jewish Federation JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa JJAC: Justice for Jews from Arab Countries SAMi: Sephardic American Mizrahi Initiative Sephardic Congregation of Paramus, New Jersey Sephardic Education Center Sephardic Jews in DC Sephardic U Sephardic Voices Sinai Temple of Los Angeles Temple Moses Sephardic Synagogue of Miami Further reading A bibliography of our history JIMENA maintains a bibliography of academic works on Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews to help students, educators and researchers learn about our communities in a way that is resonant with our own lived experiences. Explore the Bibliography → Press inquiries: Sarah Levin, Executive Director, JIMENA · sarahlevin@jimena.org
Joint Communal Letter · July 28, 2021 Sephardic and Mizrahi Organizations Denounce Antisemitic Statements by CAIR Leader Hussam Ayloush California’s Sephardic and Mizrahi communities called on Governor Newsom and the California Democratic Party to act on a party leader’s calls for Israel to be “terminated.” In July 2021, JIMENA joined Sephardic, Mizrahi and Iranian Jewish organizations and congregations across California in a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom, California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks and Assembly Member Jesse Gabriel. The letter addressed statements by Hussam Ayloush, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Los Angeles (CAIR-LA) and a delegate to the California Democratic Party, including his calls for the State of Israel to be “terminated.” For our communities, this was not an abstract political dispute. Many of our families were driven from the Middle East and North Africa by state-sanctioned antisemitism carried out under the banner of anti-Zionism. We recognized the language, and we knew where it can lead. “It is not only irresponsible but extremely dangerous for a party leader to call for the destruction of any nation, even those whose policies they disagree with.” From the joint letter The letter Letter Denouncing Antisemitic Statements Made by California Democratic Party Leader To Governor Gavin Newsom, California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks, and Assembly Member Jesse Gabriel: We, the organizations listed below, represent Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish communities in the state of California. We are writing to express our denunciation of multiple antisemitic statements made by California Democratic Party (CDP) leader Hussam Ayloush. As an institution whose mission is to be a “leading advocate for justice and mutual understanding” and whose Los Angeles Executive Director, Hussam Ayloush, currently serves as an Assembly District Delegate to the CDP, we are deeply concerned by CAIR LA’s (The Council on American Islamic Relations LA) role in influencing California’s Democratic Party with revisionist lies about Israel and the Jewish people, and the Middle Eastern Jewish community in particular. These lies are contributing to the rising tides of antisemitism our communities are currently experiencing, and are making the CDP an increasingly hostile place for many Jews, particularly those of North African and Middle Eastern descent. We feel it is critical to open this letter by asserting that the vast majority of Jewish people are indigenous to Israel. As Mizrahi Jews, our ancestors lived continuously in the Middle East since the dawn of Judaism itself. In the mid to late 20th century, state-sanctioned antisemitism, frequently taken under the banner of anti-Zionism, led to the ethnic cleansing and displacement of close to one million Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews from countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa. About 650,000 of these Jews fled to Israel as stateless refugees and the remainder scattered to countries around the world, including the USA, with an estimated 200,000 residing in California. Today, Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews comprise over half of Israel’s Jewish population. Since 2014, former CDP Executive Board member Hussam Ayloush has gone on record with antisemitic, genocidal calls for the state of Israel to be “terminated.” We are deeply disturbed to learn that Mr. Ayloush has also referred to those who support Israel as “heartless hateful bloodthirsty humans” and compared them to Nazis. Mr. Ayloush has repeatedly refused to recognize the positions, needs, and interests of California’s diverse Jewish communities who are predominantly Democrats and avowed Zionists. We are deeply troubled by Mr. Ayloush’s influence over CDP positions and policies as it relates to Israel and the Jewish people and we believe that it is not only irresponsible but extremely dangerous for a party leader to call for the destruction of any nation, even those whose policies they disagree with. We are also deeply concerned that Mr. Ayloush’s ongoing and repeated characterization of Zionism as a “political ideology whose tentacles are rooted in racism” is directly contributing to antisemitic, revisionist histories of the Jewish people. As a coalition of 40 international Sephardic organizations have clarified in a letter to Jewish Voice for Peace, “Zionism has been the yearning of Jews throughout more than 2,500 years of diaspora. Today the majority of the Mizrahi and Sephardic community resides in Israel, and the vast majority of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews, in Israel and in diaspora, are self-identified Zionists.” In seeking to obscure these realities in service of his own ideological ends, Mr. Ayloush is promulgating an antisemitic message that seeks to portray Jews as foreign interlopers in Israel and the larger Middle East. This lie is directly contributing towards the catastrophic rise of antisemitism our state is currently experiencing. Mizrahi Jewish communities in our state watch with growing concern as the same antisemitic sentiments and rhetoric that led to the oppression and ethnic cleansing of one million indigenous Jews from the Middle East seem to be infiltrating California’s influential civil rights organizations and the CDP, particularly after the recent war between Gaza and Israel. Members of our Mizrahi communities remember how antisemitic sentiments sprouted into full-fledged, state-sanctioned anti-Zionism in countries throughout the Middle East. Not unlike the current climate we are living in, Zionism in the Middle East and North Africa was hardly ever defined, and this ambiguity enabled terrible acts of antisemitism to occur under the mask of anti-Zionism. We recently watched in horror as Iranian Jewish Americans in our state were violently targeted by “Pro-Palestinian” activists who were shouting antisemitic slurs on the streets of Los Angeles. For many in our Jewish Middle Eastern communities these violent acts of antisemitism elicited visceral fears and memories of similar events many experienced in countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa. At a time when hate crimes against Jews account for over half of religious-based hate crimes in the USA and when antisemitism continues to be the most prevalent religious-based hate crime in California, up a disturbing 72% since 2016, it is essential for the Democratic Party and all civil rights organizations in the state to draw clear redlines against language and activities that explicitly and implicitly target California’s Jewish communities. The CDP Code of Conduct states: The CDP expects all leaders, members, employees, and others associated with the CDP to act professionally, respecting the personal rights and dignities of all individuals involved with the party so as to create a productive, inclusive environment for all. All individuals should feel welcome and safe within the CDP, regardless of their sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, pregnancy, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, religion, creed, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, body size, domestic violence victim status, or any other legally protected classifications. The CDP’s behavior standards are not limited to CDP conventions and other meetings. Harassment will not be tolerated at any and all events sponsored by or affiliated with the CDP, as well as in CDP-related calls, texts, emails, and social media like Facebook, Instagram, and SnapChat. We believe that Mr. Ayloush’s harmful rhetoric violates the CDP Code of Conduct, and we strongly urge the leaders of the CDP to take appropriate action to help ensure that state party leaders are not allowed to denigrate the “ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, religion, creed” of others, and that the CDP remains a welcoming and safe place for Jewish Democrats, including Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. Sincerely, Signatories Arielle Yael Mokhtarzadeh Co-President, 30 Years After Jasmin Niku Co-President, 30 Years After Susan Azizzadeh President, Iranian American Jewish Federation Gina Bublil-Waldman President, JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa Sarah Levin Executive Director, JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa Rabbi Daniel Bouskila Rabbi/Director, Sephardic Educational Center Neil J. Sheff President, Sephardic Educational Center Rabbi David Wolpe Max Webb Senior Rabbi, Sinai Temple Titles as of July 2021. Since this letter Continuing to call out CAIR’s influence JIMENA has continued to speak out about CAIR’s role in shaping how Jews, Israel and Zionism are presented to Californians, especially in public education. In “Necessary Disruption,” published in Distinctions Journal in 2025, Executive Director Sarah Levin describes how CAIR and its affiliates have worked to embed anti-Israel, anti-Zionist ideology into education, and how JIMENA intervened in California’s Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum to make sure the experiences of Middle Eastern Jews were taught. We support the work of the Intelligent Advocacy Network (IAN). IAN is a California watchdog that works to promote transparency and the lawful use of public funds and political influence. Its research and complaints to government agencies have raised serious questions about public funding received by CAIR’s California chapters and about the fundraising practices of CAIR’s political arm, questions that have since been reported by national news outlets. We are grateful for IAN’s efforts to bring accountability, and we encourage Californians to learn more about its work. Learn about IAN’s work → Notes [1] “The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR),” Anti-Defamation League. adl.org [2] Hussam Ayloush, Facebook post, August 3, 2014. facebook.com [3] Hussam Ayloush, post on Twitter, August 4, 2014. twitter.com [4] Hussam Ayloush, “A Slur on Muslim Community,” Orange County Register, December 1, 2002. meforum.org [5] Sephardic and Mizrahi Communal Response to Jewish Voice for Peace, January 23, 2019. jimena.org [6] California Democratic Party Code of Conduct. cadem.org Press inquiries: Sarah Levin, Executive Director, JIMENA · sarahlevin@jimena.org
Dear Secretary Blinken: We are writing on behalf of JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, a San Francisco, CA based organization representing the heritage and rights of the one million Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) who fled religious persecution or were ethnically cleansed from the region from the 20th century until today. On behalf of our members I would like to extend our congratulations on your confirmation as Secretary of State and look forward to working with you to promote and defend the American values of freedom of religion, expression, and rule of law. Since 2018, a coalition of 18 leading Jewish organizations including: Anti-Defamation League, Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, B’nai Brith International, World Jewish Congress, and Simon Wiesenthal Center have publicly called on the U.S. State Department to encourage the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to explicitly recognize the rights of Jewish and minority heritage when negotiating cultural property agreements with countries in North Africa and the Middle East. On multiple occasions we specifically requested that Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) originating in North Africa and the Middle East include provisions that list and name specific Jewish and Christian items to be excluded from the restricted list of items to be brought in the United States. We also requested that the State Department’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Heritage adheres to the limitations set by Congress under the Cultural Property Implementation Act by denying broad, excessive import restrictions to nations that have neither valued nor cherished the ancient heritage of Jewish, Christian, and other minority peoples. It is in this same vein that we request that any regulations to implement the Turkey MOU be frozen or suspended until such time as Turkey recognizes and respects the religious freedom and property of minority populations. As you know, immediately after his inauguration on January 20th President Biden issued a Memorandum to all Executive Departments and Agencies placing a freeze on any pending rule or regulation issued by the Trump Administration. President Biden’s freeze has been necessitated by the Trump Administration’s effort to continue to improperly direct US policy after he has left office. One of these ill-conceived measures, signed on January 19th, Trump’s last day in office, was a cultural property agreement or Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Erdogan Regime in Turkey. That MOU provides de-facto recognition to that government’s claims to the personal and communal property of that nation’s religious Jewish and Christian minorities. In fact, the Turkey MOU is consistent with a series of Trump Administration MOUs with authoritarian governments in Libya, Algeria, Jordan, and Yemen that recognize state ownership of all personal and communal property of displaced religious minorities. These MOUs have been contrary to the values of our nation and fail to serve their stated goal of protecting cultural property. We also request that you suspend the Trump Administration’s MOU with Yemen’s Saudi-supported government as part of the Biden Administration’s disengagement with the Saudi led war in Yemen. The current MOU with Yemen turns a blind eye to not only that government’s claims over Jewish religious property, but to its complicity in the shelling and bombing of Yemen’s own cultural heritage into dust. Hopefully, a freeze on any implementing regulations for the MOU with Turkey and a suspension of the MOU with Yemen will be an important first step towards ascertaining whether all Trump Administration MOU’s with authoritarian MENA governments can be reformed to protect the rights of religious and ethnic minorities to their own property. Thank you, Executive Director of JIMENA, Sarah Levin President of JIMENA, Gina Bublil-Waldman C.C. Chair The Cultural Advisory Committee of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Stefan Passantino Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs Assistant Secretary, Marie Royce House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Gregory Meeks Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Chairman, Bob Menendez Commission for the Preservation of American Heritage Abroad Chairman, Paul Packer JIMENA Letter on Turkey MOU
Since 2019, JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, has been deeply involved in efforts to help the California Department of Education produce an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) that is free from bias and inclusive of the experiences of Jewish Americans. Yesterday, after eight hours of hearings, the State Board of Education unanimously approved the fourth draft of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. It is with the support and collaboration of JIMENA’s various community partners that we implemented an effective advocacy campaign that resulted in an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum that was significantly improved from the first draft. We are proud of JIMENA’s accomplishments, which include the following: Produced Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern Americans, the first lesson plan centering Sephardic Jewish Americans ever adopted into an American public high school system. The first draft, written by Dr. Galia Avidar, is available for distribution nationwide. Our lesson plan includes meaningful definitions of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and Facing History and Ourselves, marking the first time the California Department of Education has integrated the IHRA definition into its instructional materials for high schools. Mobilized a new coalition of diverse Middle Eastern minority communities across the state of California. Advocates for Inclusive Middle Eastern Education (AIMEE) exists to ensure that our histories and heritage are included in Ethnic Studies curriculum in California and beyond. Successfully advocated for the inclusion of marginalized Jewish experiences and definitions of antisemitism within an Ethnic Studies framework, a huge milestone for Jewish representation within an academic discipline that has traditionally omitted Jewish American experiences. While celebrating these milestones, JIMENA and our Sephardic partners will continue to advocate for equal treatment of all Middle Eastern communities in Ethnic Studies frameworks, and we firmly believe that our lesson, “Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern Americans,” should be placed thematically alongside lessons on Islamophobia and other forms of bigotry impacting communities from Southwest Asia. This position has had unwavering and broad support from a diverse coalition of major Jewish institutions, including the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, Simon Wiesenthal Center, StandWithUs, Israeli American Council, and many others. JIMENA will continue to work with Jewish communal organizations and our Middle Eastern partners to address the flaws in the model curriculum that was adopted and to ensure that the voices of all minority groups, including Middle Eastern and North African Jews, are equally represented in Ethnic Studies classrooms across the state and beyond. We are committed to serving as a resource for Jewish communal organizations that engage with local school districts as they work to implement ethnic studies curricula in their communities, to ensure that it does not result in discrimination or hostility against Jewish students. Our work in California is clearly the beginning of a much larger effort. The Jewish community and our allies must come together in a national effort to ensure that antisemitism and BDS do not find their way into classroom curriculum across the country.
Updated March 12, 2021 To California State Board of Education Members: Next week you will be tasked with approving an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) with the aim of helping California students become engaged and empathetic global citizens. We, representing our Nation’s prominent Jewish institutions, join 15,000 members of the public in expressing our gratitude for the California Department of Education’s (CDE) recommendation that the State Board of Education include the “Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern-Americans” lesson in the ESMC. We ask that you: 1. Approve the CDE’s recommendation to include the “Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern-Americans” lesson in the ESMC, and 2. Place this lesson in the ESMC’s Asian American Studies section. The ESMC appropriately includes Judaism in its list of major South Asian religions and designates antisemitism a form of oppression in its guiding principles. Sample Lesson 24: South Asian Americans in the United States now addresses xenophobia and Islamophobia with nuance. The Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies section will be greatly enriched if it includes this lesson on antisemitism, pairing shared struggles against hate so this section also aligns with the ESMC’s thematic approach. This lesson gives a voice to a large and vital part of California’s diverse ethnic population — South Asian (Middle Eastern) Jewish Americans also known as Mizrahi Jews. After living in Asia for millennia, they arrived on our shores fleeing antisemitism, marginalization, and state-sanctioned discrimination. Over 200,000 live in our state including Iranian Jews, one of the world’s largest Middle Eastern diasporic communities. Antisemitic crimes, still the most prevalent religious-based hate crime in the United States and California, are increasing – now comprising 68% of all religious-based California hate crimes targeting the Jewish 2% of the population. Disturbing in its scale, yet only half in our Nation know that antisemitism exists. The ESMC will correct that for this generation. * Governor Newsom’s vision for this important project is clear — the ESMC must “achieve[] balance, fairness and [be] inclusive of all communities.” We are grateful for the progress that’s been made toward Governor Newsom’s aims. His vision of a California for All will be advanced by your vote in March to include this lesson in the ESMC’s Asian American Studies section aside its current content on other Middle Eastern ethnic groups and religions (more than 60% of California’s Middle Eastern-American population is non-Arab, the majority being Jewish-Americans). Thank you. 30 Years After Anti-Defamation League American Jewish Committee CAMERA: Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America Iranian American Jewish Federation Israeli American Council Jewish Learning Works JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa Progressive Zionists of California Progressive Zionist Union (PZU) Sephardic Education Center Simon Wiesenthal Center Stand With Us Zioness cc: Governor Gavin Newsom Brooks Allen, Executive Director to State Board of Education Superintendent Tony Thurmond Chief Deputy Superintendent Stephanie Gregson * This lesson includes the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. Written two decades ago by an apolitical body of world scholars, policy experts, and researchers, it is championed and embraced by President Biden and now the most authorized and internationally accepted definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition is also recommended by the UN Secretary General, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (made up of 34-member countries including the US), and European Parliament. It has been adopted in almost 30 nations and by representative religious bodies including the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and Global Imams Council. Three hundred and two members of the U.S. House of Representatives used the IHRA definition in the Never Again Education Act, co-sponsored by 45 Representatives from California including Jackie Speier, Ro Khanna, Ted Lieu, Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren, Anna Eshoo and Adam Schiff.
JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa strongly supports the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) recommendations the California State Board of Education’s Instructional Quality Commission (IQC) approved at its November 19th meeting. Now the IQC will be handing the State Board of Education an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum draft that is balanced and inclusive, as legislators intended when passing AB 2016, the groundbreaking legislation that spurred the creation of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. The IQC agreed with 10,000 individuals who joined JIMENA’s call to create a comprehensive Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum by including our lesson plan, “Antisemitism and Jewish Middle Eastern-Americans.” That lesson adds Jewish Americans from the Middle East, a large and vital part of California’s diverse ethnic composition, to our State’s new Ethnic Studies framework. The inclusion of our lesson helps ensure that the curriculum does not replicate discriminatory hierarchies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). At least 60 percent of California’s diverse MENA population were in danger of being excluded from this curriculum, which is why JIMENA and other Middle Eastern groups advocated for the ESMC to accurately represent the rich and vibrant diversity of our state’s Middle Eastern ethnic minorities. “We are so deeply grateful that the lived experiences of so many minorities, including American Jews from the Middle East, are one very important step closer to being taught in California’s classrooms,” JIMENA Executive Director Sarah Levin said. JIMENA’s lesson plan and the lesson drafted by the Institute for Curriculum Services help fill a gap in content the State provides teachers — content on contemporary antisemitism — during the time of an unsettling and unprecedented rise in antisemitic acts in California and America. Jews, who comprise just 2 percent of the population, are the target of 60% of religious-based hate crimes according to 2019 FBI statistics. We thank California State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, IQC Executive Director Shanine Coats, and the members of the IQC for their strong leadership, hard work creating impactful curriculum, and standing tall against bigotry and hate. We are also grateful to our community and allies for advocating on our behalf.
Dear California State Superintendent of Public Education Tony Thurmond, In light of recent events, JIMENA would like to share four core principles that we ask you to consider in the development of the California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. We believe these principles will be vitally important in producing an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum that is representative, equitable and free of bias. 1. California’s diverse Middle Eastern populations should be fairly and equitably represented. As you know, JIMENA has simply asked the California Department of Education to follow the State Board’s standards and guidelines, which require the curriculum to be balanced and portray peoples proportionately if they are represented. Therefore, if Arab Americans are included in the curriculum, the ESMC should also include Mizrahi Jews and other Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) groups as part of the “broadly defined umbrella of Asian Studies”. Non-Arab Middle Easterners – which account for more than 60% of California’s MENA population – have built a broad coalition called Advocates for Inclusive Middle Eastern Education (AIMEE) to ensure that our stories are told. The State of California must uphold its promise of transparency and public input in reviewing the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. We are deeply troubled by the CDE’s recommendation that the public will not be allowed their rightful opportunity to review and comment on any new Arab American Studies lesson plan or content to be added to the curriculum, per standard procedure as defined in AB2016. We believe it is critical that the curriculum focuses on the lived experiences of communities here in the United States of America. As the only Jewish organization which provided the California Department of Education with a comprehensive lesson plan for inclusion in the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, JIMENA’s focus is sharing the lived experiences of Middle Eastern and North African Jews IN North America, many of whom have been racialized and have experienced one of the worst forms of bigotry – antisemitism. Our lesson plan, “Antisemitism and Middle Eastern-American Jews” centers Mizrahi Jewish experiences in a lesson plan on antisemitism in the United States. The State of California must draw clear redlines against antisemitism and discrimination. The Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum must not include the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement, and other highly politicized conversations about Middle Eastern conflicts that create unsafe classrooms for Jewish and Middle Eastern minority students throughout California. Thank you, Gina Bublil-Waldman, President Sarah Levin, Executive Director cc. Governor Gavin Newsom State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond Chief Deputy Superintendent Stephanie Gregson
On Thursday, August 13th the Instructional Quality Commission (IQC) of the California Department of Education (CDE) met to review the second draft of its revised Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC). JIMENA is deeply troubled by last minute recommendations by CDE to include an Arab American lesson plan, which will not be available for public review. While JIMENA supports the inclusion of Middle Eastern-American experiences, it is our hope that the revised Ethnic Studies Curriculum will make clear that under the “broadly defined umbrella of Asian Studies” are Mizrahi Jews and other Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) groups which represent 60% of California’s Middle Eastern community but have been excluded from both drafts of the ESMC. During the IQC meeting, JIMENA’s Executive Director Sarah Levin noted that, “We need an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum that is balanced and equitable for all Middle Eastern and North African school children – including Mizrahi Jews and the 500,000 Middle Eastern Californians who were excluded from both drafts of the curriculum.” These concerns are shared by the ten members of the multi-ethnic Middle Eastern-American Coalition, “Advocates for Inclusive Middle Eastern Education (AIMEE)” who continue to request inclusion of their stories in California’s Ethnic Studies Curriculum. AIMEE collation member, Peter Warda who serves as President of the Assyrian American Association of Southern California noted, “At present, our countries of origin are quickly becoming homogenous due to policies that either lead to the expulsion of minority groups or force them to conform to majority expectations. Our experiences as persecuted, indigenous minorities attest to this. We fear that our exclusion from a curriculum would contribute to the ongoing cultural genocide and erasure of minority voices from the Middle East and North Africa.” These sentiments were shared by over 20 Mizrahi Jews who called into the IQC meeting Sapir Taib, JIMENA’s Program Director noted to members of the IQC that, “My grandparents fled antisemitic religious persecution in Libya and Tunisia and as a Mizrahi Jew, I was disappointed to see my indigenous Middle Eastern community completely omitted from the revised Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. As a Jewish person of color, and as an immigrant, it was troublesome to me that the primary reference to Jews in the curriculum was in the context of our communities being the beneficiaries of white privilege.” Echoing the sentiments of Stand With Us and Israeli American Council, many of the Mizrahi Jews who called in requested that JIMENA’s lesson plan, “Antisemitism and Middle Eastern-American Jews” be added to the curriculum. JIMENA is seeking not only inclusion of materials reflecting Southwest Asian and North African demographics in California, but transparency in the process of the curriculum’s development. We implore the California Department of Education to ensure that new materials added to the curriculum, goes through the 45-day public comment periods, in accordance with AB 2016.
My name is Sarah Levin and I serve as the Executive Director of JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, an organization representing the interests of Jews from North Africa and the Middle East – also known as Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. We have a very large constituency base in the Los Angeles Unified School District – including many Iranians. I’m here to appeal to you, not only in my official role, but as a concerned mother who is a product of, and a firm believer in public-schools and in ethnic studies. My sons come from a Jewish background that includes Iraqi, Turkish and Israeli heritage. We are two of the more than 500,000 Californians of Middle Eastern heritage who were completely omitted from the Arab American Studies Course of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. With a coalition of Mizrahi Jews, Assyrian Christians, Coptic Christians, Kurds and Iranians of various faiths – we are asking you to please focus on supporting the revision process mandated by the State Board of Education, and do not even consider a vote endorsing the first draft of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. Like you, I am looking forward to our schools and students receiving the highest quality, most rigorous curriculum – which is surely not the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum which State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond, State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, Governor Gavin Newsom, AB 331 author Jose Medina, and many other officials strongly criticized. Thank you.
Re: Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum – Middle East and North Africa We, the undersigned organizations are writing to request revisions be made to the draft Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC). Together our groups comprise a minority-majority coalition representing an estimated combined total population of over 500,000, or at least 60%, of the Middle Eastern diasporic population in California (4,5). Our communities are racially, ethnically, culturally, and religiously diverse yet we all identify as groups indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) (1) – most of whom fled oppression and persecution to ultimately settle in our beautiful State of California. Despite our high numbers, our communities and stories were omitted from the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. The curriculum, as it was written, does not reflect Middle Eastern pupil demographics in the State of California nor “allow school districts to adapt their courses to reflect the pupil demographics in their communities” as AB 2016 (CA Education Code Section 51226.7(b)) requires. The Middle East and North Africa, which was once one of the most ethnically and racially diverse areas of the world, is quickly becoming homogenous as a result of the types of oppressions that an Ethnic Studies pedagogy is committed to teaching. Our Middle Eastern and North African diasporic community’s experiences as persecuted, indigenous, minorities – and later as refugees and immigrants attests to this. Much of the MENA region continues to be plagued by civil war and social strife. With high levels of female unemployment (~40%), nearly half of MENA’s population lives on less than US$5.50 per day. (2) As refugees and immigrants, many of us continue to face discrimination in this country, at school, and in our communities with our centers frequent targets of hate crimes. We fear that our exclusion from a curriculum, which we support, would contribute to the ongoing cultural genocide and erasure of minority voices from the Middle East and North Africa. Our inclusion in the curriculum would affirm the important and compelling minority voices from the MENA region. While the ESMC has a lesson on students mapping the MENA region (3), it only explores in depth one, non-representative, regional ethno-religious group leaving educators and students to falsely conflate all Middle Easterners as “Muslims” and “Arabs.” In fact, of the estimated 720,000 individuals of MENA origin in California, 54% are not Arabs and an estimated 31% are not Muslim. (4,5) The ESMC’s current narrow and misleading focus deprives students of a critical framework for learning about the full panoply of MENA Americans’ experiences. At a time when there is great need to provide our students with the highest-quality education related to race, ethnicity, and nation our hope is to see the ESMC include us. We suggest changing the “Arab American Studies” course outline to “Middle Eastern American Studies” so the vast majority of Middle Eastern and North African children can see themselves reflected in the California curriculum and their classmates can learn their family and communal stories too. We’d like to reference the California State Board of Education’s 2013 “Social Content Standards” (6) as they were so beautifully written and if taken into consideration would provide a wonderful reframing for a Middle Eastern American Studies Course that is inclusive of diverse MENA communities. These standards are focused on diversity and proportions of portrayals — that “help end stereotyping [by] portray[ing] accurately and equitably the cultural and racial diversity of American society [including] women and minorities in other societies.” Similarly, the State Board of Education’s approved Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Guidelines require “balance” and that it “validate students’ lived experiences,” and be “inclusive.” (7) The relevant Social Content Standards include (6): 1. Ethnic and Cultural Groups. To “instill in each child a sense of pride in his or her heritage, develop a feeling of self-worth [and] eradicate the roots of prejudice:” 2. Proportion of portrayals. “must portray accurately, to the extent possible, the roles and contributions of a fair proportion of diverse ethnic groups.” 3. Religion. To “enable all students to become aware and accepting of religious diversity while being allowed to remain secure in any religious beliefs they may already have …without displaying bias toward or prejudice against any of those beliefs” Employing these required standards will produce an ethnic studies course that teaches students about the communities most likely enrolled in their schools. For instance: Palestinian-Americans, who comprise an estimated 3% (4) of California’s MENA population (7), are featured in the Arab American Studies course outline and mentioned in the Introduction as well as the Glossary. Yet, the two largest MENA groups in California – Iranians, who comprise 26% (4) of California’s MENA population; and Israelis and Jews of MENA descent, who comprise 28% (4,5) — are not mentioned at all. Also not mentioned are MENA Christians (Assyrian Christians, Coptic Christians, and non-Muslim Middle Eastern Christian) who also comprise a sizable portion of California’s MENA population. We ask that the California Department of Education consider the inclusion of lesson plans, or educational content, written by scholars from the following religious and ethnic communities; Zoroastrians, Coptic-Christians, Assyrian-Christians, Mizrahi Jews, Baha’is, Yezidis, Iranians, and Kurds. We commend the California Department of Education and the ESMC writers and advisory committee members for their hard work and desire to provide our students with a high-quality Ethnic Studies curriculum. We stand ready to support you in developing this curriculum to provide accurate, balanced, high-quality content addressing our histories and cultures, as well as racism, justice, and equality, to empower all of our State’s students. Thank you, 30 Years After Assyrian Association of Southern California Assyrian Foundation of America Coptic Solidarity JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa Kurdish Community of Southern California Los Angeles Baha’i Center Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans Zoroastrian Association of California Footnotes: 1. Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, West Bank and Gaza, and Yemen. 2. https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/mena/overview 3. ESMC Chapter 2, pages 237 and 275. 4. 2018 US Census Data, People Reporting Ancestry. https://bit.ly/2YeEDAh 5. Berman Jewish Databank, US Jewish Population, 2018 (with MENA Jews accounting for an estimated 25% of California’s Jewish population) https://bit.ly/3hGTqvl 6. Content Standards https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/lc.asp 7. ESMC Guidelines. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/ethnicguidelines.asp
To Mr. Jeremy Sabloff and the Cultural Property Advisory Committee at the U.S. Department of State: We submit these comments to you on behalf of JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa. JIMENA is one of the few organizations in North America representing the interests of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish refugees from North Africa and the Middle East. For context, Mizrahi Jews are an indigenous Middle Eastern population, whose ancestors lived continuously in the region for over 2,500 years. In the mid 20th century until today, state-sanctioned antisemitism led to the ethnic cleansing and displacement of close to one million Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews from countries throughout the region – including Yemen. 650,000 of these Jews fled to Israel as stateless refugees and the remainder scattered to countries around the world, including the USA. Today, Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews comprise over half of Israel’s Jewish population. This past December, a coalition of 18 leading Jewish organizations including: Anti-Defamation League, Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, B’nai Brith International, World Jewish Congress, and Simon Wiesenthal Center publicly called on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to encourage the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to explicitly recognize the rights of Jewish and minority heritage when negotiating cultural property agreements with countries in North Africa and the Middle East. In our letter to Secretary Pompeo, we specifically requested that Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) originating in North Africa and the Middle East include provisions that list and name specific Jewish and Christian items to be excluded from the restricted list of items to be brought in the United States. We also requested that the State Department’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Heritage adheres to the limitations set by Congress under the Cultural Property Implementation Act by denying broad, excessive import restrictions to nations that have neither valued nor cherished the ancient heritage of Jewish, Christian, and other minority peoples. The letter to Secretary Pompeo is below and our requests, within the context of MOUs originating in the Middle East and North Africa, remain consistent. On July 31st, 2018, during a public hearing for the Request of the Government of the People’s Republic of Algeria for U.S. import restrictions on virtually the entire cultural heritage of Algeria, representatives of exiled Middle Eastern Jews urged the Cultural Property Advisory Committee to withhold these import restrictions – but it seems these requests were ignored. Algeria failed to meet the criteria set for restrictions under the Cultural Property Implementation Act and we were surprised that the United States gave the Algerian government authority and control over the property of its oppressed and exiled Jewish and Christian citizens. We hope our requests today will be considered and we are prepared to take more significant steps to protect our cultural heritage and bring awareness to how through the MOU process, the human rights of religious minorities from the Middle East and North Africa is being violated. An MOU with Yemen is based on a flawed premise – that Jewish cultural property constitutes the national heritage of the Yemeni government. In fact, under the color of law, Jewish cultural property in Yemen was expropriated from private homes, schools, and synagogues. For decades, Jews in Yemen faced terrible state-sanctioned antisemitic persecution including forced conversions to Islam, violent pogroms, and restrictions to freedom of movement. Within the last ten years, the Jewish community of Yemen has faced deadly antisemitic persecution leading to the exodus of Yemen’s remaining Jewish families. The International Council of Museum’s Red List for Yemen specifically included Torah scrolls as part of the cultural heritage Yemen seeks to take ownership of, which is deeply problematic. Unlike other endangered archeological items that CPAC is trying to protect, Torah scrolls are not a national cultural relic of any government – but are an integral, living element of Jewish heritage, and belong in the custody of Jewish communities. If this committee truly cared about protecting cultural property it would advocate a position of returning Yemeni Torah scrolls to Yemenite Jewish communities who are certainly the best caretakers of their living cultural property. We ask you, how can a country that severely violated the human rights of its Jewish people, and is currently embroiled in famine and war, be entrusted to serve as responsible owners and custodians of Jewish cultural property? We find it abhorrent that a country whose antisemitic policies, and inability to protect its Jewish people, would now like to claim legal ownership over confiscated Jewish communal property. By signing an MOU with Yemen that does not include provisions that list Torah scrolls, and other Jewish items, to be excluded from import restriction lists, this committee is complicit in Yemen’s antisemitic crimes. MOUs demand that the governments themselves show they are taking measures to preserve and protect the heritage in their own countries and Yemen should be asked to present an inventory of remaining Jewish moveable and non-movable patrimony and an account of what they are actively doing with respect to the care of synagogues, cemeteries and other sites and items of Jewish and Christian heritage. Sadly, we know the Yemeni government is complicit in the bombing and shelling of cultural sites, including museums, and has done nothing to preserve the remnants or memory of Jewish history from Yemen. These MOUs claim to be about looting, but their broad scope and limited evidence of success suggests their impact is providing a legal vehicle to legitimize foreign confiscations and wrongful ownership claims. Proponents of import restrictions point to looting of museums, but such material is already subject to detention and seizure under the National Stolen Property Act. Furthermore, U.S. imports from Yemen indicate that the U.S. is not a destination for looted or stolen material. Legitimate efforts to curb looting in Yemen and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa are essential, but must be targeted to preserve archaeological resources, and not to disguise the brazen property confiscations of antisemitic governments. We close by voicing our frustration that the Cultural Property Advisory Committee accelerated the timeline for action on Yemen’s MOU request, thus minimizing the opportunity for the Jewish community and others to oppose it. The call for public comment was made during the Jewish High Holidays, exhibiting insensitivity towards Jewish people and institutions who care deeply about this issue. We hope that your committee will take the concerns and requests of the Jewish community seriously. Thank you, Sarah Levin, Executive Director, JIMENA Gina Bublil-Waldman, President, JIMENA C.C. Honorable Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs Assistant Secretary, Marie Royce House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Eliot Engel Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Chairman, Jim Risch Commission for the Preservation of American Heritage Abroad Chairman, Paul Packer Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, Elan Carr