Jewish refugees

In Jewish history, Jews have experienced numerous mass expulsions or ostracism by various local authorities and have sought refuge in other countries.

The Land of Israel was always regarded by Jews as the Jewish homeland, though throughout most of Jewish history they were barred from the land. After its establishment in 1948, the State of Israel adopted the 1950 Law of Return restoring Israel as the Jewish homeland and making it the place of refuge for Jewish refugees at the time and into the future. This law was intended to encourage Jews to return to their homeland in Israel.

After 1970 the Jackson–Vanik amendment accorded those Jewish emigrants from the Soviet bloc countries who desired to enter the United States refugee status combined with federal assistance in the initial stages of their resettlement.

List of events that prompted major streams of Jewish refugees

722 BCE
The Assyrians led by Shalmaneser conquered the (Northern) Kingdom of Israel and sent the Israelites into captivity at Khorasan. Ten of twelve Tribes of Israel are considered lost; but these tribes are not considered Jewish, rather than Samaritan. These tribes have been living since then near the city of Nablus in what is today the West Bank.
597 BCE
The Babylonian captivity. In 537 BCE the Persians, who conquered Babylon two years earlier, allowed Jews to return and rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple.
70
The defeat of the Great Jewish Revolt. Masses of Jews were sold to slavery across the Roman Empire, many fled.
119
Large Jewish communities of Cyprus, Cyrene and Alexandria become extinct after the Jewish defeat in Kitos War against Rome. This event caused a major demographic shift in the Levant and North Africa. According to Eusebius of Caesarea the outbreak of violence left Libya depopulated to such an extent that a few years later new colonies had to be established there by the emperor Hadrian just to maintain the viability of continued settlement.
135
The Romans defeated Bar Kokhba's revolt. Emperor Hadrian expelled hundreds of thousands Jews from Judea, wiped the name off the maps, replaced it with Syria Palaestina, forbade Jews to set foot in Jerusalem.
629
The entire Jewish population of Galilee is massacred or expelled, following the Jewish rebellion against Byzantium.
7th century
Muhammad expelled Jewish tribes Banu Qaynuqa and Banu Nadir from Medina,The Banu Qurayza tribe was slaughtered and the Jewish settlement of Khaybar was ransacked. All three tribes previously had a peace treaty with Muhammad, but they broke the treaty and sided with the opposition. The Banu Qurayza, not only sided with the opposing leaders (The Quraish) but they also waged war against Muhammad.
1095 - mid-13th century
The waves of Crusades destroyed hundreds of Jewish communities in Europe and in the Middle East, including Jerusalem.
Mid-12th century
The invasion of Almohades brought to end the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain. Among other refugees was Maimonides, who fled to Morocco, then Egypt, then Eretz Israel.
1276
Jews expelled from Upper Bavaria.[1]
12th-14th centuries
France. The practice of expelling the Jews accompanied by confiscation of their property, followed by temporary readmissions for ransom, was used to enrich the crown: expulsions from Paris by Philip Augustus in 1182, from France by Louis IX in 1254, by Charles IV in 1322, by Charles V in 1359, by Charles VI in 1394.
13th century
The influential philosopher and logician Ramon Llull (1232-1315) called for expulsion of all Jews who would refuse conversion to Christianity. Some scholars regard Llull's as the first comprehensive articulation, in the Christian West, of an expulsionist policy regarding Jews.
1288
Naples issues first expulsion of Jews in Southern Italy.[2]
1290
King Edward I of England issues the Edict of Expulsion for all Jews from England. The policy was reversed after 365 years in 1655 by Oliver Cromwell.
1293
Destruction of most of the Jewish communities in the Kingdom of Naples.[2]
1348
European Jews were blamed for poisoning wells during the Black Death. Many of those who survived the epidemic and pogroms were either expelled or fled.
1392
Jews expelled from Berne, Switzerland. Although between 1408 and 1427 Jews were again residing in the city, the only Jews to appear in Berne subsequently were transients, chiefly physicians and cattle dealers.[3]
1442
Jews again expelled from Upper Bavaria.[1]
1478
Jews expelled from Passau.[1]
1491
Jews of Ravenna expelled, synagogues destroyed.[2]
1492
Ferdinand II and Isabella I issued the Alhambra decree, General Edict on the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (approx. 200,000), from Sicily (1493, approx. 37,000), from Portugal (1496) from Calabria Italy 1554. It is important to note that this event happened on Tisha B'Av, as with many other events in Jewish history.
1495 — Charles VIII of France occupies Kingdom of Naples, bringing new persecution against the Jews, many of whom went there as refugees from Spain. See 1510.[2]
1496
Jews expelled from Portugal
1499
Jews expelled from Nuremberg.[1]
1510
Jews expelled from Naples.[2]
1519
Jews expelled from Regensburg.[1]
1547
Jews expelled from Naples.[2]
1551
All remaining Jews expelled from the duchy of Bavaria. Jewish settlement in Bavaria ceased until toward the end of the 17th century, when a small community was founded in Sulzbach by refugees from Vienna.[1]
1569
Pope Pius V expels the Jews from the papal states, with the exception of Ancona and Rome.[2]
1593
Pope Clement VIII expels the Jews living in all the papal states, except Rome, Avignon and Ancona. Jews are invited to settle in Leghorn, the main port of Tuscany, where they are granted full religious liberty and civil rights, by the Medici family, who want to develop the region into a center of commerce.[1]
1597
Nine hundred Jews expelled from Milan.[2]
1654
The fall of the Dutch colony of Recife in Brazil to the Portuguese prompted the first group of Jews to flee to North America.
1648-1654
Ukrainian Cossacks and peasants led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky destroyed hundreds of Jewish communities and committed mass atrocities. Ukraine was annexed by the Russian Empire, where officially no Jews were allowed.
1701–1714
War of the Spanish Succession. After the war, Jews of Austrian origin were expelled from Bavaria, but some were able to acquire the right to reside in Munich.[1]
1744-1790s
The reforms of Frederick II, Joseph II and Maria Theresa sent masses of impoverished German and Austrian Jews east. See also: Schutzjude.
1881–1884, 1903–1906, 1914–1921
Repeated waves of pogroms swept Russia, propelling mass Jewish emigration (more than 2 million Russian Jews emigrated in the period 1881-1920). During World War I, some 250,000 Jews were transferred from western Russia. See also Pale of Settlement, May Laws, Russian Civil War.
1933-1957
First Batch of Refugee children arrive in England from Germany.
Buchenwald survivors arrive in Haifa.
The German Nazi persecution started with the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses in 1933, reached a first climax during Kristallnacht in 1938 and culminated in the Holocaust of European Jewry. The British Mandate of Palestine prohibited Jewish emigration to Mandatory Palestine. The 1938 Evian Conference, the 1943 Bermuda Conference and other attempts failed to resolve the problem of Jewish refugees, a fact widely used in Nazi propaganda (see also MS St. Louis). Many German and Austrian Jewish refugees from Nazism emigrated to Britain where many were well treated, but many weren't[4] and many fought for Britain in the Second World War. After WW-II eastern European Holocaust survivors migrated to the allied controlled part of Europe as the Jewish society to which most of them belonged did not exist anymore. Often they were lone survivors consumed by the often futile search for other family and friends, and often unwelcome in the towns from which they came. They were known as displaced persons (also known as Sh'erit ha-Pletah) and placed in displaced persons camps, most of which were by 1951 closed. The last camp Föhrenwald was closed in 1957.
1947-1972
Jewish refugees look out through the portholes of a ship while docked in the port of Haifa.
Iraqi Jews displaced 1951.
The Exodus bringing in refugees.
In the course of the operation "Magic Carpet" (1949-1950), the entire community of Yemenite Jews (called Teimanim, about 49,000) immigrated to Israel.
The Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries, in which the combined population of Jewish communities of the Middle East and North Africa (excluding Israel) was reduced from about 900,000 in 1948 to less than 8,000 today, and approximately 600,000 of whom became citizens of Israel. The history of the exodus is politicized, given its proposed relevance to a final settlement Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] When presenting the history, those who view the Jewish exodus as equivalent to the 1948 Palestinian exodus, such as the Israeli government and NGOs such as JJAC and JIMENA, emphasize "push factors", such as cases of anti-Jewish violence and forced expulsions,[5] and refer to those affected as "refugees".[5] Those who argue that the exodus does not equate to the Palestinian exodus emphasize "pull factors", such as the actions of local Jewish Agency for Israel officials aiming to fulfil the One Million Plan,[7] highlight good relations between the Jewish communities and their country's governments,[9] emphasize the impact of other push factors such as the decolonization in the Maghreb and the Suez War and Lavon Affair in Egypt,[9] and argue that many or all of those who left were not refugees.[5][7]

Then UNHCR announced in February 1957 and in July 1967, that these Jews who had fled from Arab countries "may be considered prima facie within the mandate of this office," so according them in international law, as bona fide refugees.[12]

1947
Egypt passed the Companies' Law. This law required that no less than 75% of employees of companies in Egypt must be Egyptian citizens. This law strongly affected Jews, as only about 20% of all Jews in Egypt were Egyptian citizens. The rest, although in many cases born in Egypt and living there for generations, did not hold Egyptian citizenship.[13]
1948
State of Israel established. Antisemitism in Egypt strongly intensified. On May 15, 1948, emergency law was declared, and a royal decree forbade Egyptian citizens to leave the country without a special permit. This was applied to Jews. Hundreds of Jews were arrested and many had their property confiscated. In June through August 1948, bombs were planted in Jewish neighborhoods and Jewish businesses looted. About 250 Jews were killed or wounded by the bombs. Roughly 14,000 Jews left Egypt between 1948-1950.[14]
1954
Gamal Abdel Nasser seizes power in Egypt. Nasser immediately arrested many Jews who were tried on various charges, mainly for Zionist and communist activities. Jews were forced to donate large sums of money to the military. Strict supervision of Jewish enterprises was introduced; some were confiscated and others forcibly sold to the government.[14]
1956
Suez Crisis. Roughly 3,000 Egyptian Jews were interned without charge in four detention camps. The government ordered thousands of Jews to leave the country within a few days, and they were not allowed to sell their property, nor to take any capital with them. The deportees were made to sign statements agreeing not to return to Egypt and transferring their property to the administration of the government. The International Red Cross helped about 8,000 stateless Jews to leave the country, taking most of them to Italy and Greece. Most of the Jews of Port Said (about 100) were smuggled to Israel by Israel agents. The system of deportation continued into 1957. Other Jews left voluntarily, after their livelihoods had been taken from them, until only 8,561 were registered in the 1957 census. The Jewish exodus continued until there were about 3,000 Jews left as of in 1967.[14]
1967
Six Day War. Hundreds of Egyptian Jews arrested, suffering beatings, torture, and abuse. Some were released following intervention by foreign states, especially Spain, and were permitted to leave the country.[14] Libyan Jews, who numbered approximately 7,000, were subjected to pogroms in which 18 were killed, prompting a mass exodus that left fewer that 100 Jews in Libya.[15]
1970
Less than 1,000 Jews still lived in Egypt in 1970. They were given permission to leave but without their possessions. As of 1971, only 400 Jews remained in Egypt. As of 2013, only a few dozen Jews remain in Egypt.[14]
1960s-1989
Due to the 1968 Polish political crisis thousands of Jews were forced by the communist authorities to leave Poland. See also rootless cosmopolitan, Doctors' plot, Jackson-Vanik amendment, refusenik, Zionology, Pamyat.
1962
Jews flee Algeria as result of OAS violence. The community feared that the proclamation of independence would precipitate a Muslim outburst. By the end of July 1962, 70,000 Jews had left for France and another 5,000 for Israel. It is estimated that some 80% of Algerian Jews settled in France.[16]
1965
Situation of Jews in Algeria rapidly deteriorates. By 1969, fewer than 1,000 Jews remain. By the 1990s, the numbers had dwindled to approximately 70.[16]
1970s
State-sponsored persecution in the Soviet Union prompted tens of thousands of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel, and some also to the United States with "refugee" status.
1979-1980s
Iranian Jews were persecuted by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0003_0_02211.html
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/italytime.html
  3. ↑ https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0003_0_02749.html
  4. ↑ "Warm British welcome for Jews fleeing Nazis a 'myth'". Phys.org / University of Manchester. February 27, 2013. Retrieved August 4, 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Changing tack, Foreign Ministry to bring 'Jewish refugees' to fore ""To define them as refugees is exaggerated,” said Alon Liel, a former director-general of the Foreign Ministry"
  6. ↑ Changing the refugee paradigm
  7. 1 2 3 Israel scrambles Palestinian 'right of return' with Jewish refugee talk "Palestinian and Israeli critics have two main arguments: that these Jews were not refugees but eager participants in a new Zionist state, and that Israel cannot and should not attempt to settle its account with the Palestinians by deducting the lost assets of its own citizens, thereby preventing individuals on both sides from seeking compensation."
  8. ↑ Philip Mendes The causes of the post-1948 Jewish Exodus from Arab Countries
  9. 1 2 3 Yehouda Shenhav The Arab Jews: A Postcolonial Reading of Nationalism, Religion, and Ethnicity
  10. ↑ Avi Shlaim No peaceful solution
  11. ↑ A new hasbara campaign: Countering the 'Arab Narrative'
  12. ↑ http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3498/jewish-refugees
  13. ↑ http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Egypt.html#5
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Egypt.html
  15. ↑ http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/libyajews.html
  16. 1 2 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Algeria.html
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