Almost all Soly Mizrahi has left of her life in Egypt are memories, which she carefully records on the cream colored pages of a diary and on sheets of notebook paper.
The Jewish-owned department stores that once lined the Cairo shopping district, the names of the city's many small synagogues, the time her husband spent imprisoned for his politics and his religion and the day she was forced from her home are things that are etched in her memory.
In 1960, Mizrahi, her late husband, Albert, and their children, Maurice and Allegra, were expelled from Egypt. In less than a week, they had to get out of the country and - except for essential articles of clothing, a few personal items and a small amount of cash - could not take anything with them.
After a brief stay in France, the Mizrahis settled in the Kansas City area, joining family already living here.
"We had to start from the beginning," Soly Mizrahi said. "We had nothing. It was very hard."
The Mizrahis' story is not unique.
According to Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC), a coalition of Jewish communal groups under the auspices of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the World Jewish Congress and the American Sephardi Federation, in the years immediately following the establishment of the state of Israel, more than 850,000 Jews living throughout the Arab world were either expelled or fled their homes out of fear for their safety.
The World Organization of Jews from Arab countries estimates that those refugees were forced to abandon close to $100 billion in personal and community assets.
Despite these staggering numbers, the plight of this group of refugees has been ignored.
For a variety of reasons, the international community has focused its attention on the approximately 726,000 displaced Palestinians (United Nations estimate) and forgotten about the Jews who suffered a similar fate.
But if JJAC and other Jewish organizations have anything to say about it, Jewish refugees won't remain in the background. These groups have launched a campaign to bring the issue to the world's attention.
Birth of Israel
Relations between Arabs and Jews began to sour as Zionism took root in Eretz Yisrael. But it was the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 that caused the communities to fracture.
According to a JJAC report released in June 2003: "... state sanctioned repressive measures, coupled often with violence and repression, precipitated a mass displacement of Jews and caused the Jewish refugee problem in the Middle East,"
In the two decades following Israel's birth, Jewish communities that had existed for hundreds and in some cases thousands of years all but disappeared. The JJAC estimates that fewer than 8,000 Jews remain in all of the Arab countries combined.
The changed climate was hard for many Jews to come to grips with.
The atmosphere in the Arab world was not always one of fear. At one time, life was good, said Soly Mizrahi.
"The Jews were living very good with the Arabs," she said. "There was no anti-Semitism. No fanaticism. ... The Jews in Egypt were very prominent."
In fact, Soly's parents migrated to Egypt from Greece in the early 1900s in order to make a better life for themselves. Her father, a carpenter, eventually opened his own furniture store. The family prospered.
Soly met and married Albert Mizrahi, a prominent journalist who had ties to top government officials.
But the Mizrahis' lives became increasingly difficult after the birth of Israel. Albert Mizrahi was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned for his political and religious ties. The situation culminated in 1960 with the family's expulsion.
Deanna Pool, a resident of Lee's Summit, Mo., said that her family's experiences in Morocco were far less dramatic but still troubling.
"In all truth and fairness, Morocco was the kindest," Pool said. "They would clamp down and they would let go. They would feel bad. We fared much better than the Jews of Tunisia, who suffered under anti-Jewish legislation. They were given 24 hours to leave. In Libya, they were given 48 hours to leave. In Egypt, they fled or were given a week or two to leave the country. In Iraq, they were expelled. We fared much better."
Pool's family had lived in Morocco for generations. Her father was the secretary general of the Jewish community of Rabat.
"He was passionately Jewish and Zionist and thought of himself as a link between the newly independent state of Israel and Morocco, which he loved passionately," Pool said.
Morocco remained relatively friendly to the Jews until it joined the Arab League
Under pressure from Egyptian leader Gamel Abdel Nasser, the Moroccan government began tightening the reins. This resulted in waves of Jews - many of whom held mid-level government positions - leaving the country.
By the time Pool was in her early 20s, a once-robust Jewish community had dwindled in numbers.
"It was draining psychologically ... to lose your emotional moorings," she said. "The cousins were gone, the extended family, the friends, the neighbors."
As the situation deteriorated, Pool, who held a ministerial rank position in the government, and her husband began helping Jews leave the country illegally.
"We helped take the Jews out in trucks to the Algerian border through the Atlas mountains in the north," she said. "I am a loyal person, and I felt I was disloyal to Morocco. It was not a good feeling. I felt it was time to leave. Although the Moroccan authorities entreated us to stay, we didn't feel comfortable. They had joined the Arab League of Nations. They participated in the boycott of Israel. You could not be seated between two chairs. So I decided to leave."
Demand for parity
Most observers agree that the plight of the displaced Jews has been forgotten primarily because the Jews ceased to be refugees.
The Jewish Agency for Israel estimates that Israel absorbed approximately 600,000 of them. The remainder built new lives in France, Canada, Mexico, the United States, including Kansas City, and various countries in South America.
David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, wrote about this issue in a column published in The New York Jewish Week earlier this year.
"While we essentially disappeared from the world's radar screen overnight ... as we embarked on our new lives, the Palestinians did not," Harris said. "To the contrary, for a whole host of reasons - partly of their own making, partly of the making of cynical Arab leaders and partly of the making of generally well-intentioned but shortsighted third parties - the Palestinians were not afforded the same chance to start new lives. Instead, they were manipulated and instrumentalized. The Palestinians were placed in refugee camps and encouraged to stay there, generation after generation."
Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendants have insisted that any peace deal with Israel include a so-called "right of return" to their former homes and lands in what is now Israel, and/or compensation.
Until lately, American Jews have been loath to broach the subject.
The Jews from Arab countries have always wanted reparations, said Pool, a member of the board of directors of the American Sephardi Federation. But, she said, they felt there were more pressing concerns so long as Israel was battling for her survival.
"This issue had never been brought to the fore because Israel was fighting for her life," Pool said. "How can we say 'Take care of our problems?' ... But to us, it has always been a live issue."
In the past several years, the attitude of the Sephardic community has changed dramatically. As the Palestinians' demands for right of return and compensation have gained traction, a growing number of Jews have felt compelled to remind the international community that there is, in fact, another group of refugees whose grievances must be addressed.
"We have also been refugees," Pool said. "So we have to undo this castle of cards. They have now made the return of refugees the main issue. We will say the same thing for us. We, too, want to be back in our countries. We want to go back to our properties. We want our damages. ... We have to bring parity. We have to reverse the tide."
Public campaign
The effort "to reverse the tide" has already begun in earnest.
Groups like the JJAC are making the legal and political case for dealing with the Jewish and Palestinian refugee issues in tandem. They have launched a public information and education campaign.
The goal is to mobilize the Jewish community, inform the general community and fight for redress.
The Israel Project, based in Arlington, Va., is just one of the groups getting in on the action. TIP recently sent out a brochure detailing the plight of Jewish refugees and the need to bring the issue to the attention of the international community.
Democratic pollster Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, founder and president of TIP, calls the Jewish refugee issue the "great untold story." She believes it must become part of the roadmap to peace discussions.
"The roadmap process calls for a series of things that need to be done in parallel," Laszlo Mizrahi said. "One of the things that it says is that we need to deal with the refugees. It doesn't just say Palestinian refugees. ... The roadmap process is about addressing the grievances of two peoples."
Laszlo Mizrahi said that the Palestinians can not be allowed to claim that they are the only ones making compromises. She believes the refugee issue is one way to highlight this point.
"The Jewish people have to stand up for themselves," Laszlo Mizrahi said. "We have to say, 'We've already sacrificed a hell of a lot."
Jewish groups may be beginning to make headway. In June, the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia held a briefing on Jewish refugees from Arab lands. A similar hearing is expected in the Senate.
In the meantime, the American Sephardi Federation has begun the arduous process of collecting and documenting claims from displaced Jews.
Over the long term, what will be gained from this flurry of activity? The answer depends on whom you ask. Some people want financial compensation. Some people want recognition. And some people want political leverage.
Maurice Mizrahi said he is not sure the efforts will come to anything.
"I want compensation for what we left there," he said. "But I know it's not going to happen. Because of world opinion it will be swept under the carpet."
Despite their losses, the Mizrahi family has no plans to file a claim. They prefer to focus on the new life they've built for themselves.
"You have to keep on going," Maurice Mizrahi said. "The past is the past."
©Kansas City Jewish Chronicle 2003
