On Wednesday at the UN headquarters in New York, the Israeli Mission to the UN held an event to commemorate the Jewish refugees from North Africa and the Middle East, in coordination with JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa). This public event was heavily attended by ambassadors from around the world, UN officials, and members of the community, and featured speeches by Elan Carr, the US State Department’s Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating anti-Semitism and Sarah Idan, the former Miss Iraq, among others.
Edited by: TJVNews.com
The event was held one day after the annual UN General Assembly plenary session that commemorates the passage of Resolution 181 “Partition Plan” on November 29, 1947. The day features resolutions that highlight the Palestinian refugees, but ignore the Jewish refugees.
Special Envoy Carr stated that “in order to fight antisemitism whether it be in Europe or anywhere else, it has to be acknowledge that antizionism is antisemitism.” He continued “Jew hatred is Jew hatred whether it is focused on the Jew down the street or the Jew in the diaspora or the Jewish state.”
In her remarks, Sarah Idan spoke about visiting Israel following the revocation of her Iraqi citizenship after she posted a photo taken with Miss Israel.
She went “to learn more about this tiny country that so many Arab states see as an enemy and threat. I was very surprised and especially touched by the experience of visiting the Babylonian Heritage Museum on Or Yehuda – which serves as a center to honor the heritage and history of Iraqi Jews. I was born in Baghdad…and felt very connected to the Iraqi Jews I met in Jerusalem who welcomed me with open arms and with so much love, even though my country treated them unfairly. I was overwhelmed when I saw pictures of Iraqi government stamps on their passport saying “one-way exit – not allowed to return”. I told them I was utterly ashamed.”
In her comments, she also stated that antisemitism served as a cause of the Jewish refugees: “Sadly 3,000 year chapter of Jewish life in Iraq, along with the larger Middle East and North Africa came to an abrupt and traumatic end – and much of this is the result of antisemitism.”
Nathaniel Malka spoke on behalf of JIMENA: “Without remembrance, there cannot be truth; without truth, there cannot be justice; without justice, there cannot be reconciliation; without reconciliation, there cannot be peace. We are here today for remembrance. We recall the history of my ancestors and the rest of the million Jews who left North African and Middle Eastern lands under duress in the last century. Let me wish you all strength in your work toward reconciliation, enabled by the justice required for it, determined with truth and built over the remembrance we undertake today and increasingly all the other days of the year.”
