Thread by @cremieuxrecueil

The Jewish Departure and Expulsion Memorial From Arab Lands and Iran reads

"With the birth of the State of Israel, over 850,000 Jews were forced from Arab Lands and Iran. The desperate refugees were welcomed by Israel."

Here are their populations over time:

As you can tell, these Jews were a major source of Israel's early immigrants, and they composed a large part of the "Other" category in this graph I posted earlier:

Sources:





There's also more to note.

https://twitter.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1715850457145286776

jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-refugee…
reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comm…

Firstly, the speed with which this happened is pretty marked. In 1920, Baghdad might've been a quarter Jewish. Tripoli in 1941 was. The expulsion of Jews in Libya was finalized under Muamar Gaddafi.

Many places declared themselves "Judenrein", borrowing a German term, or "Jew-Free". Many places are effectively "Jew-Free" long before the last Jew goes though. For example, Syria's last Jewish business owner was out in 2009.

Next, you'll notice there's an extra dot in 2021 for Afghanistan. That is because, for a long time, they had two Jews, and those Jews' travails have become widely-reported comedy gold.

They became renowned for fighting over ownership of Kabul's last temple, until the Taliban kicked them out of jail for bickering with one another too much, annoying the guards.

In 2005, the other member of the pair died and Zebulon Simentov remained.

The Taliban's story seems believable, because after Simentov left Afghanistan in 2021, one of the first things he did was finally annul his long-estranged marriage with his wife from a lifetime ago.

nytimes.com/2021/10/03/opi…

There's a conspiracy theory about Iraq.

Some people claim that Iraq's Jews weren't pushed out by Arab violence, but instead, by Mossad bombing its native Jews to push them to come to Israel.

There's no proof for this claim, but it has its believers.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950%E2%8…

I didn't draw straight lines when I was missing data points for specific years, because that would've showed the wrong changes.

For example, the big Iranian exodus happened after the Shah fell. The push in Algeria happened after France freed it and stopped protecting its Jews.

Similarly, Morocco barely punished riots against its Jews, and in 1963, it expelled them.

Said Ghallab once wrote the following about Moroccan attitudes towards Jews around 1965:

In places like Syria, the violence against Jews didn't start off under a government directive. In 1947, the partition declaration led to rioting in Aleppo and other cities, with the Jews having their property expropriated. As time went on, official policy became hostile too.

In Tunisia "urban renewal" was synonymous with destroying synagogues and Jewish homes, cemeteries, and businesses. The persecution led most of the Jews to leave, but today, a few remain.

After the partition vote, Jews in Aden suffered pogroms. In 1948, they suffered false murder accusations and looting.

Israel ran Operation Magic Carpet and transplanted nearly most of them (~50k) to Israel. The few Jews remaining suffer under official discrimination.

The descendants of these refugees might make up as much as two-thirds of Israel's citizens today, in terms of full or partial ancestry.

With all that said, there you go: a brief foray into how a large part of Israel's Jews got to be where they are!