Foremost, it is important to note that in countries like Morocco and Lebanon, the trends of Jewish migrations differed from those in other Arab countries; in the former they were not allowed to flee the country until 19612, and in the latter migration only became tangible with the onset of the civil war in the 1970s and was directed to countries such as the USA, Brazil, Mexico, France and Canada. One cannot then speak of ‘Jewish Arab immigration’ as a singular phenomenon since it was a process of many segments spanning several time periods and for different reasons. In Algeria for example, Jews left fleeing the chaos after independence in 1962 that not only threatened the country’s Jewry but also its Christians3.

Two more interesting cases are those of Yemen and Iraq as the history of Jewish immigration from both countries has received much attention. In Yemen, this became known as “Operation Red Carpet” and portrayed as the plight of Yemeni Jews to move from destitute to Salvation in Israel. In a recent book on the matter, Esther Meir-Glitzenstein demonstrates that this operation was actually planned for by authorities on both sides; the imam of Yemen who ruled North Yemen, the British authorities, the State of Israel, the Jewish Agency and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) were all involved. Despite it being organized, the death toll on this operation was very high, with 700 people dying upon arriving at the designated camp in Aden. Israel later welcomed about 30,000 sick immigrants for whom it could not provide care.

What is thought to have been the salvation of these people was actually a bitter journey twisted to benefit the young state of Israel. The 50,000 Yemenis who took this journey did not voluntarily assemble into this movement, but it had all been arranged by the authorities on both sides. Meir-Glitzenstein finds that most of the blame should go to the JDC as they failed to arrange flights for immigrants, left people stranded in the dessert, and were in some cases connected to smuggling activities. The Israeli Knesset was in close observation of this operation, and somehow it was still promoted as a successful rescue plan.

In Iraq, the violence that was cited as the main source for the Jewish immigration to Israel was actually found to be induced by an underground Zionist network. Two bombings that targeted the Jewish community went off on March 19th and April 8th. Following the incidents, leaflets were distributed urging Jews to leave Iraq. Consequently, Iraqi Jews rushed to immigration offices and renounced their citizenship; as the attacks were of course the works of Arab terrorism. The leaflets that were distributed by the Zionist organization calling on Jews to flee to Israel were later found to have been printed prior to the bombs, the first dated March 16th and the second April 8th4. Apart from the underground network, officials of both countries were involved. Writing on Iraqi Jewry, author Naiem Giladi reveals that just a year earlier, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Said and the Israeli spy Mordechai Ben-Porat had spoken of financial incentives in return for laws that would ban the Iraqi citizenship on Jews.

In his book ‘The Gun and the Olive Branch’ David Hirst recounts the arrest of an Israeli man named Yehuddah Tajjar in Baghdad that led to the capture of other Jews in Iraq who finally admitted that the ambitions of the Zionist underground network was to ‘frighten the Jews into emigrating as soon as possible’5 at a time when Holocaust fervor was waning and new incentives were needed for immigration to Israel. Only around 5,000 of 130,000 Jews stayed in Iraq after this wave of violence.

These efforts of drawing Oriental Mizrahi Jews into Israel could have had several motives; balancing the trauma of the Palestinian refugee with an Israeli counterpart that featured a happy ending (as opposed to settling in camps), making Zionism more appealing to Arab Jews, and refreshing the supply of immigrants after the end of the second world war. Today, Zionist propaganda still maintains that Arab Jewish immigrants fled the conditions in their own repressive country to find refuge in the young, modern and democratic state of Israel. Though Arab violence against Jews was becoming a tangible threat, this mass movement may not have been entirely voluntary. As shown above it was prepared for by Zionist organizations and Israel, with the cooperation of Arab leaders, and not always in the most civilized manners. 

1 David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch (New York: 2003) 272-289.

2 David Green, “Arab Jews and Myths of Expulsion and Exchange”, The Palestine Chronicle, December 2009, 4 October 2012, 3 Green

<a data-cke-saved-href="http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=" href="http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=" 15627"="">4 Naiem Giladi, “The Jews of Iraq”, Jews Against Zionism 5 October 2012 <http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/zionism/impact/iraqijews.cfm>

5 Hirst