(Jewish Group) Forgotten Arabian Jews recount lives of happiness and horror
In the lands of Arabia, where Jews used to live, a tenacious explorer can - here and there - find remnants of a people swept away on the sands of time and political tensions.
Here in Sanaa lie the ruins of a synagogue, there in Cairo sit the cracked graves of a Jewish cemetery, bearing witness to the vibrant communities that once existed in happy harmony with their Muslim friends and neighbors.
That all changed in 1948 with the creation of the State of Israel, regarded by its Arab neighbors as an interloper in the Muslim world, an unwelcome usurper whose establishment led to the displacement of the Palestinians who lived there. These Arab nations and their inhabitants now viewed their once respected Jewish communities with antipathy, blaming them for Israel’s creation and accusing them of loyalty to the nascent Jewish state over their homeland.
The animosity morphed into persecution on a national and personal level - leaving the Jews of the Arab world with little choice but to flee. Some went to Israel, some found the sanctuary they sought in Europe or North America; almost all left almost everything behind, to be picked over those who had for so long welcomed them but then cruelly turned their backs.
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