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.
Displaced Mizrahi Jews from Arab countries in a temporary Israeli refugee camp known as Ma’barot On June 13, 2015, “The Nakba Museum Project of Memory and Hope” plans to open their first exhibit, “Reclaiming the Lost Future,” in the Festival Center of downtown Washington D.C. Their ultimate goal is to build a museum that is dedicated to sharing Palestinian experiences of the “Nakba” – the Arabic word for “catastrophe,” used to describe Palestinian displacement following the establishment of the State of Israel. As North America’s primary organization representing and preserving the experiences of Jewish refugees from North Africa and the Middle East, JIMENA supports the empowerment of all refugee voices. But we are concerned that The Nakba Museum will fail to raise awareness about the true perpetrators of the Palestinians’ ongoing victimhood and catastrophe: Arab League nations who, as a political weapon in their ongoing battle against Israel, deliberately refuse to resettle and absorb Palestinian refugees; and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), who perpetrates the Palestinians’ never-ending refugee status. We are also concerned by the silencing of this conflict’s forgotten refugees: the nearly one million Mizrahi Jews expelled from their country’s of origin in the Middle East & North Africa in the 20th century. JIMENA aims to shed light onto the untold story of the “Jewish Nakba.” An estimated 850,000 Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews were forcibly displaced from Arab countries as a backlash of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Their government-sanctioned persecution, murder, torture, imprisonment, and forced surrender of their homes, assets and nationalities was one of the most catastrophic events and immense losses in Jewish and Middle Eastern history. Yet this painful chapter of history is largely forgotten and ignored. There is no museum – and rarely even a single exhibit in any museum, Jewish or otherwise – dedicated to preserving and sharing the experiences of the 850,000 Mizrahi Jewish refugees. The Nakba Museum believes that “sharing stories is a powerful tool to change perceptions, and to transform systems and conflicts.” While JIMENA may agree with this premise, we recognize that individual and collective Palestinian stories of displacement have long dominated Middle Eastern refugee narratives and discourse. The international community’s attuned attention, and in some cases obsession, with Palestinian suffering has not helped to positively influence the policies of UNRWA and Arab League nations. Instead, these entities continue violating Palestinian refugees’ rights by refusing to resettle and absorb them. For the sake of ending Palestinians’ suffering as stateless refugees in camps throughout the Middle East, we urge leadership of The Nakba Museum to avoid appropriating the Palestinian refugee experience for the purpose of singling out Israel. Rather than promoting unrealistic solutions to the Palestinian refugee problem, we hope they will responsibly use the opportunity of storytelling to critically examine the root problems and innovative, yet realistic solutions towards restoring Palestinians’ human rights and quality of life. JIMENA continues to be concerned that the global obsession with the “Palestinian Nakba” has left a negligible gap of public awareness and attention towards the historical and current plight of millions of other displaced people in the Middle East including Syrians, Iraqis, and oppressed religious minority refugee groups such as Yezidis, Assyrians, Coptic Christians, and Jews. We believe that all refugee stories need to be acknowledged, and we remain committed to voicing the stories of Jewish refugees from Arab countries. We encourage well-established Jewish museums and educational institutions to join us by doing more to uphold and share the histories and cultures of Mizrahi refugees and their descendants. For more information, we encourage you to read the following articles: As the Nakba comes to Washington, a wasted opportunityBen Cohen, jns.orgMay 7, 2015 What about the Jewish Nakba?Ben-Dror Yemini, ynetnews.comNovember 28, 2014 The Continuous Nakba: Two Arab refugeesJoe Samuels, Times of IsraelMay 20, 2015 Their Nakba and our refugeesDr. Edy Cohen, Israel HayomMay 14, 2015 Iranian Jewish Refugees still not over forced exile from IranKarmel Melamed, Times of IsraelMay 18, 2015
In today's turbulent Middle East, one of the region's most ancient indigenous populations is now among the most brutally persecuted: the Yezidi people. In Iraq, 10,000 Yezidi lives have already been claimed by ongoing torture and murder, an atrocity that has led UN human rights investigators to accuse ISIS of genocide.
Amidst the flurry of international media surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since Operation Protective Edge, one crucial voice continues to be co-opted and silenced: that of indigenous Mizrahi Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. In an August 6, 2014 interview on CNN’s “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer, Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan was questioned regarding his accusations that Jews “slaughter Christians in order to mix their blood in their holy matzoh.” In response, Hamdan denied the Anti-Semitism in Arab countries, by painting a picture of Islamic societies as pluralistic and accepting of Jews: “The Jews lived in the Arab region and among the Muslims as normal citizens. When the Jews were kicked from Europe in the mid-ages, they came to live in peace in our countries, and they were accepted.” JIMENA President and Libyan native, Gina Bublil-Waldman counters by noting that, “Jews have had a continuous presence in the Middle East for over 2,500 years – an entire millennium before the advent of Islam. Under Muslim rule, many Jewish communities in the Arab world were relegated to a subservient, second-class “dhimmi” status.” Hamdan is only the most recent to make this claim. Dr. Mousa Abu Marzook, then Deputy Head of Hamas’ political bureau, stated in an August 25, 2008 interview with IslamOnline: “The Jews who were living under the Islamic rule were the happiest on earth…Jews lived freely and ran prosperous businesses in Egypt and Baghdad, and the markets of Baghdad are evidences of what the Jews owned. Jews did not face any persecution or mistreatment.” Hamas also refuses to recognize Mizrahi refugees, instead blaming them for their own exile and the plight of the Palestinians. In a September 22, 2012 public statement published by Ma’an News Agency, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri condemned the first UN conference on Jewish refugees from Arab countries, held in New York in 2012, claiming that “those Jews are criminals rather than refugees… They were actually responsible for the displacement of the Palestinian people after they secretly migrated from Arab countries to Palestine before they expelled the Palestinians from their lands to build a Jewish state at their expense.” As a leading representative voice of Jewish refugees from Arab countries, JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East & North Africa aims to achieve universal recognition of the Mizrahi refugee experience by collecting and sharing the personal and communal eye-witness testimonies of some of the 850,000 Jews who fled Anti-Semitic persecution in the Arab world. Legal experts assert that the UN Agency for refugees (UNHCR) recognized Jews fleeing Arab countries as bona fide refugees. UN Resolution 242 which was unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council officially recognized Jewish refugees from Arab countries. In a JIMENA testimony, Iraqi-born author Emil Murad describes the long history of Anti-Semitism in Iraq: “From l930 all Iraqi governments systematically suppressed any sign of Jewish or national consciousness on the part of the Iraqi Jews…study of Jewish history was forbidden, restrictions were imposed on relations with Jews abroad and Zionism was considered to be treason.” In 1941, these actions culminated in the massacre known as the Farhud: “They began dragging Jews out of buses and murdering them in the road. Wild crowds and defeated soldiers who had returned with their weapons to the city, saw the pogrom as a celebration and a sort of amusement. The Jewish Quarter in the city centre became a battlefield, with looting, robbery, and rape…The pogrom inflicted mortal wounds on the Jewish community.” JIMENA President Gina Bublil-Waldman recalls the danger to Jews in Arab countries. “We were denied the most basic human and civil rights, such as the right to become citizens, the right to vote, the right to hold public office, or hold government jobs.” Waldman remembers the pogroms in 1945 in her hometown of Tripoli, Libya: “Libyan Arabs looted and burned Jewish homes and killed Jews. They dragged my neighbors and relatives out on the streets and slaughtered them… Nine synagogues – four of them in Tripoli – were burned to the ground, and 35 Torah scrolls were destroyed.” Mrs. Bublil-Waldman relates to ethnic and religious persecution in Muslim countries today: “Mizrahi refugees can empathize and serve as great allies to minorities from Arab countries. Honoring Mizrahi history is key to understanding the suffering of Yezidis, Christians and other oppressed groups in the Middle East.” In her August 17, 2010 article in The Propagandist, “Why Are The Palestinians Still Refugees” Bublil-Waldman asserts that “The Arab leadership sinned doubly by driving the Jews from their homes in nine Arab countries and at the same time refusing hospitality and integration to their own Palestinian brothers who sought refuge in Arab countries.” The accounts of Murad and Bublil-Waldman are not unique. They reflect the collective experience of Jews from the Arab world. In their Global100 survey, the Anti-Defamation League found a 74% Anti-Semitism Index for the Middle East region – far higher than any other region in the world. Amidst growing political turbulence and oppression of ethnic and religious minorities in the Middle East, it is all the more imperative to uphold and validate the narratives of Mizrahi refugees. Only then can we begin to comprehend the complex scope of Arab-Israeli conflict. Article Here
As members and leaders of the Bay Area Middle Eastern community, we write you this letter urging you to vote against Resolution SB 160: “A Peaceful Step Towards Neutrality: Targeted Divestment from Companies that Profit from Israel’s Occupation and Settlement Construction.” Not only does the bill harm Palestinians and Israelis, but if fosters an on-campus culture of divisiveness that is counter to the ideals of inclusiveness, democracy, discussion and cooperation that UC Berkeley students pride themselves on. As a human rights organization representing the 850,000 Jewish refugees indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa who were expelled and fled Arab countries, JIMENA is deeply concerned about the well-being of all refugees in the Middle East and North Africa, including Palestinian refugees. As was cited in the New York Times op-ed piece, End the Arab Boycott of Israel, by Ed Husain on March 6, 2013 Palestinian Imams have called for an end to the boycott movement. Jewish refugees from the region have a deep understanding that divestment, and other actions that foster polarization of these two fragile communities, will only serve to disempower the disadvantaged and harm individuals and organizations working for just and equitable solutions to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. JIMENA strongly encourages student leaders to find points of connection between their communities and work together in creating potential solutions for conflicts both domestic and international. As UC Berkeley is a center for some of the best and brightest minds in North America, JIMENA believes UC Berkeley students have the potential to find alternative solutions and we urge the student senate to uphold a strong ethical code of cooperation, respect and innovation rather than follow a divisive approach other student governments have taken that will not bring any solutions to a longstanding problem. Sincerely, JIMENA staff, board, and volunteers
During the 20th century, one million indigenous Jews from the Middle East and North Africa were ethnically-cleansed or forced to flee lands their ancestors lived in for over two-thousand years. Virtually all of their personal and communal property was confiscated. The dispossession and denationalization of nearly one million Jewish refugees was done under the color of law and today there are very few Jews remaining in most of these countries. UN resolution 242 stated that Jews fleeing Arab lands were bona fide refugees under international law. In today’s values, Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran were forced to leave behind billions of dollars worth of private and communal property and land that’s four times the size of the state of Israel. The ultimate objective of JIMENA is redress for former Jewish refugees and their descendants in the form of official international acknowledgment, uniformly articulated across all branches of US government policy and mainstream Jewish communal life. We aim to educate and mobilize the American public and policy makers to protect the confiscated property and the basic human rights of Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran, as well as other threatened minorities in the region. JIMENA’s advocacy work is done in partnership with various Jewish institutions, lawyers, strategists and experts. We work to support government policy the provides justice, redress and protection for the confiscated assets and Jewish cultural patrimony of Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. JIMENA is interested in protecting moveable and non-moveable Jewish property that was confiscated from Jewish individuals and communities as they fled or were ethnically cleansed from Arab lands and Iran. JIMENA speakers have provided personal testimonies and briefs at the UN Human Rights Council, UNESCO, US Congress, US Department of State, Israeli Knesset, British House of Lords, Italian Parliament, and Canadian Parliament. We’ve played a lead role in the advancement and passage of national and international legislation and policy that protects the rights of exiled Jewish communities and we are committed to continue working hard on active campaigns that pursue justice for Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran.