“Forgotten Refugees” Remembered
Semha Alwaya, founding member of Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (JIMENA), has written an excellent column informing San Francisco Chronicle readers of the often ignored Jewish refugees from Arab countries (and Iran). In it, she tells this chilling story of an anti-Jewish pogrom in Iraq:
In a two-day period Arab mobs went on a rampage in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, murdering, raping and pillaging these cities’ Jewish communities. Nearly 200 Jews were killed, more than 2,000 injured; some 900 Jewish homes were destroyed and looted, as were hundreds of Jewish-owned shops. My father was a survivor of the carnage. He hid in a hole dug in the ground to save his life. He saw Iraqi soldiers pull small children away from their parents and rip the arms off young girls to steal their bracelets. He saw pregnant women being raped and their stomachs cut open.
Read the rest of the column here.
The Chronicle also deserves credit for having in the past reported on the Jewish refugee issue with a detailed news report.
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