Month: July 2014

My heart breaks for Aleppo

 Model of the Aleppo Great Synagogue at the Museum of the Diaspora, Tel Aviv. The synagogue, damaged in the 1947 riots, is thought to have been largely destroyed.

Writing in the Jewish Chronicle, Emma Klein laments the destruction of the Christians in Aleppo. The city’s now extinct Jewish community had included her own family, the Douek Cohens.

Aleppo has always held great resonance for me, since my paternal
ancestors found refuge there in 1492, after the expulsion of the Jews
from Spain. The city was part of the Ottoman Empire, a centre of great
tolerance which became a refuge for many communities. My family remained
there for 300 years before leaving for India, which had just become
part of the British Empire and must have offered great potential for
prosperity.

Jews had been settled in Aleppo since Biblical times and the name
Douek was well known. Our family name was Douek Cohen and there are
still some relatives bearing that name today.

During the visit of one of my cousins to Aleppo in the early 1960s,
she met members of the Jewish community who were living in great fear.
Very recently I met a young man, Rob, whose family had fled Aleppo a few
years later. One of his ancestors was also called Douek.

The family had been well established in Syria, until things changed
with the founding of the state of Israel*. Rob’s grandfather used to go
round Aleppo before Shabbat, giving money to the poor. His mother was
educated by nuns. Their relatively grand house was partly taken over by
the Syrians.

During the Six Day War, Rob’s mother recalled that they were given
refuge in the Italian Mission Hospital, run by nuns who were
subsequently beaten and raped for helping Jews. By then, too, Rob’s
grandfather was frequently tortured on his way home from synagogue and
Syrians would enter Jewish homes in the middle of the night to ensure no
Jew had escaped. The family’s eventual flight from Aleppo in 1971, via
Beirut, where they stayed for several months, was quite dramatic.

The Aleppo Jewish community believed that what had protected Aleppo’s
Jews for centuries was the Aleppo Codex. Written in the 10th century,
this bound manuscript of the Hebrew Bible is considered by many as the
most authoritative version. It was consulted by Maimonides himself, and
it is believed that it was brought to Aleppo in 1375 by one of his
descendants who thought that it would be the safest place for this
religious and scholarly gem. There it remained, until the synagogue
where it was kept was burned down by rioters, following the UN decision
in 1947 to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. Eventually it was
smuggled, in a washing machine, into Israel in 1958 by a Syrian Jew, and
presented to the Israeli president. It was discovered that some pages
had been lost, and more disappeared in Israel.

Christians, too, made up part of the Aleppo mosaic of communities.
One distinguished clergyman, the 17th century scholar, Henry Maundrell,
served in Aleppo for six years until his untimely death in 1701. In 1697
he travelled from Aleppo to Jerusalem and his book, Journey from Aleppo
to Jerusalem at Easter AD 1697, is considered a minor travel classic.

Today, Aleppo’s Christians live in great fear and most who could
afford to, have fled. Antoine Audo, bishop of Aleppo for 25 years, wrote
recently of the “daily dose of death and destruction” and pointing out
while there are 45 churches in Aleppo, the Christian faith was “in
danger of being driven into extinction”.

In 2006, Aleppo won the title of Islamic Capital of Culture. Today,
thousands of years of history are in danger of being reduced to little
more than a huge pile of rubble. Had the Western powers intervened, as
they did in Libya, where, of course, there was oil, they might have
saved this outstanding location of refuge, scholarship and culture from
destruction.

Read article in full 

*In fact things began to change in  the 1930s

Erdogan calls on Jews to denounce Israel

 President  Recep Tayyip Erdogan (photo: AFP)

Following a call by a US Jewish group for Turkish President Erdogan to give back a prize, Erdogan is still calling for Jews to denounce Israel. But he is softening his stance by not insisting that Jews issue a statement. Report by Haaretz

Turkey will keep its Jewish citizens safe, but the Jewish community
should denounce Israel, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a
Turkish newspaper.

“Jews in Turkey are our citizens. We are responsible for their security of life and property,” Erdogan told the Daily Sabah. 

He
added: “I talked with our Jewish citizens’ leaders on Thursday and I
stated that they should adopt a firm stance and release a statement
against the Israeli government. I will contact them [Jewish leaders in
Turkey] again, but whether or not they release a statement, we will
never let Jewish people in Turkey get hurt.”

He
said, according to the newspaper, that the Jewish leaders in Turkey
should criticize “Israeli aggression,” and that the Israeli government
“abuses all Jewish people around the world for its fraudulent policies.”

Read article in full 

Erdogan: ‘I’m no antisemite’  (French)

France offers asylum to Iraqi Christians

ISIS has blown up the tomb of the Prophet Jonah in Mosul

First came reports that the jihadist terrorists of the Islamic Army of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) were confronting the the Christians of Mosul with the dreadful choice: ‘convert or die’. In a move reminiscent of how Jewish homes were identified by a red ‘hamsa’ during the Farhud, Christian homes were daubed with an ‘N’ – for Nasrani’ (Christian). Now Christians are following the Jews into exile. The Daily Star (Lebanon) reports:

PARIS: France said Monday that it was ready to welcome Christians from northern Iraq who have been told by the Al-Qaeda offshoot group now ruling the region to either convert to Islam, pay a religious levy or face death.

Islamic State insurgents seized large swaths of northern Iraq last month, prompting hundreds of Christian families in Mosul to flee a city that has hosted the faith since its earliest years.

“We
are providing aid to displaced people fleeing from the threats of
Islamic Sate and who have sought refuge in Kurdistan. We are ready, if
they wish, to facilitate their asylum on our soil,” France’s foreign and
interior ministers said in a joint statement.

“We are in constant contact with local and national authorities to ensure everything is done to protect them.”

Iraqi
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki earlier this month condemned the
treatment of the Christians and instructed a government committee to
help those made homeless. However, he has not said when the army might
try to win back control of Mosul.

Islamic State has warned all women in Mosul to wear full-face veils or risk severe punishment. The Sunni insurgents, who have declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria,
also view Iraq’s majority Shiites as infidels who deserve to be killed.

Read article in full

ISIS purges Christians from Iraq (Huffington Post) 

The destruction of Near Eastern Christianity(Jerusalem Post)

War on Jews is Hamas”s raison-d”être

 Hamas supporters

In spite of saturation press and media coverage of the Gaza conflict,  rarely are Hamas’s objectives put in historical perspective. Hamas are not Palestinian nationalists but Islamists. Governments and pundits talk about the need for an end to violence and a ‘diplomatic solution ‘: sit down and talk. But Hamas, an acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement, simply does not have a negotiating position, short of the annihilation of Israel and the subjugation of Jews to Muslim rule, as per its Charter.

Even the UK Hamas representative Azzam Tamimi makes clear that Hamas does not want a truce in order to aspire to a more peaceful life for Gazans, whom it cynically exploits as victims and human shields. He admits that Hamas only wants Israel to capitulate to its pre-conditions. Hamas would then  steal a march over Fatah by appearing to be the only Palestinian force which could gain concessions from Israel – and so be better placed to wage the next war, or intifada. 

  

Hamas is the local Gaza branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its ideology has two dominant features: Islamic imperialism and extreme hatred for Jews, routinely broadcasting calls for genocide. Thus it shares certain characteristics with ISIS, the jihadist terrorist armysweeping across Syria and Iraq, and Boko Haram, who are terrorising northern Nigeria and kidnapping Christian schoolgirls.

Founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, a teacher, the Muslim Brotherhood was directly inspired by the rise of Nazism, as well as Mohammed’s campaign against the Jewish tribes of Arabia in the Koran. By the late 1940s the German-funded Brotherhood’s membership had rocketed – if you’ll forgive the pun –  from 800 to 500,000.

The movement only ever targeted the Jews and other non-Muslims – and more specifically, the Jews of Egypt.

This campaign was set off by the 1936 uprising in Palestine directed against Jewish immigration and initiated by the notorious Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Between 1936 and 1938 the Brotherhood organized mass demonstrations in Egyptian cities under the slogans “Down With the Jews!” and “Jews Get Out of Egypt and Palestine!” Leaflets called for a boycott of Jewish goods and shops. The Brotherhood’s newspaper, al-Nadhir, carried a regular column on “The Danger of the Jews of Egypt,” which published the names and addresses of Jewish businessmen and (allegedly) Jewish newspaper publishers all over the world – attributing every evil, from communism to brothels, to the “Jewish danger.”

The Jews of Egypt were repeatedly called on to publicly disassociate themselves from Zionism.

In June 1939 bombs were planted in a Cairo synagogue and Jewish homes, but this was as nothing compared to the violence to come. In November 1945, just six months after the end of the Third Reich, the Muslim Brotherhood carried out the worst anti-Jewish pogroms in modern Egypt’s history, when demonstrators penetrated the Jewish quarter of Cairo on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. They ransacked houses and shops, attacked non-Muslims, and torched the synagogues. Six people were killed, and a hundred more injured. A few weeks later the Islamists’ newspapers “turned to a frontal attack against the Egyptian Jews, slandering them as Zionists, Communists, capitalists and bloodsuckers, as pimps and merchants of war, or in general, as subversive elements within all states and societies,” as Gudrun Krämer wrote in her study The Jews in Modern Egypt 1914-1952 .

 The rest is, as they say, history. More riots erupted in 1948, thousands of Jews fled, discriminatory laws were introduced against non-Egyptians and in 1956, a third of Egypt’s original 80,000-strong community were expelled and dispossessed. After 1967, hundreds more Jews were interned and expelled.

The pitiful status ofJews in Egypt today would gladden the heart of any Hamas supporter: the country is almost judenrein, and the few dozen fearful Jews still living there – almost all converts to Islam or married to non-Jews – ‘know their place’.

 It is not for lack of trying that Hamas failed to subjugate the Jews of Israel: the formidable defence system known as Iron Dome, successfully intercepting 90 percent of rockets aimed at Israel’s population centres,  has thwarted Hamas’s objectives for now. Israel’s ground forces have prevented a mega-terror attack by uncovering the existence of Hamas’s vast network of cross-border tunnels. By the time you read this, Hamas might have agreed to a more ‘permanent’ ceasefire – once its rocket stockpile becomes depleted or its leadership decimated. And then Hamas will prepare for the next round.

 The West needs to understand that there is no compromise with Hamas short of it being disarmed, overthrown and replaced by a more responsible government. As long as Hamas rules Gaza, peace between Israel and the Palestinians will be no more than a short interlude between wars. Permanent peace will remain as elusive as a trail of rocket smoke.

Is it time for Jews to leave ‘Francalgerie’?

The traumatic events of 13 July and again on 22 July, when Parisian Jews were forced to barricade themselves inside synagogues to avoid a near-pogrom by angry and violent pro-Palestinian demonstrators, has  prompted professor Shmuel Trigano to ask in his Times of Israel blog: is it time for Jews to leave France? In the face of official indifference and media misrepresentation, history is repeating itself for a community that only a generation ago was forced to leave North Africa. France has become Francalgerie.

Rioting in Sarcelles on 22 July

“Le plus terrible reste cependant la réaction ou l’absence de réaction de la société et notamment des médias. La dépèche de l’AFP est un modèle du genre en matière de réécriture des événements dans le sens de leur dénaturation[2], mâtinée de l’opinion du grand « expert » en la matière, Pascal Boniface:«Interdire ce type de manifestation serait un remède pire que le mal». Les manifestants fustigeant la cruauté d’Israël sont abondamment cités et bien sûr l’AFP incrimine la Ligue de défense juive. Elle fournit dans sa dépêche un schéma sur les pertes à Gaza comme pour justifier implicitement la manifestation.

“Quel va être l’impact de cet événement sur les Juifs de France? Il pourrait jouer le rôle que des faits de ce type ont rempli dans le passé pour les Juifs du monde arabe: un événement symbolique très fort (une émeute,un assassinat…) tout ce serait plausible car c’est comme si l’exclusion des Juifs, qui avait commencé en Afrique du Nord et qui, d’une certaine façon menace, depuis, ceux d’entre eux qui ont trouvé refuge en Israël, se poursuivait sur le sol français. De la « Françalgérie »?”

Read  article in full (French):

It’s deja vu for Arab-born French Jews

ISIS destroys Jonah’s tomb: video

Conclusive video evidence of the destruction of the shrine of the Prophet Jonah in Mosul by the Islamic Army of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has come to light. A local official has also claimed that the shrine of the Prophet Daniel has been destroyed, Al Arabiya reports:

The radical Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group has destroyed shrines belonging to two prophets, highly revered by both Christians and Muslims, in the northern city of Mosul, al-Sumaria News reported Thursday.

“ISIS militants have destroyed the Prophet Younis (Jonah) shrine east of Mosul city after they seized control of the mosque completely,” a security source, who kept his identity anonymous, told the Iraq-based al-Sumaria News.

“The militants closed all of the mosque doors and prevented worshipers from entering to pray,” the source said.

A witness who did not wish to give his name said that ISIS militants “first stopped people from praying in it, they fixed explosive charges around and inside it and then blew it up in front of a large gathering of people,” according to Agence France-Presse.

An endowment official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, and Mosul residents told AFP it took the Sunni extremists an hour to rig the shrine with explosives.

The endowment official said the Islamic State jihadist group that overran large swathes of northern and western Iraq last month have now destroyed or damaged 30 shrines, as well as 15 husseiniyas and mosques in and around Mosul.

“But the worst destruction was of Nabi Yunus, which has been turned to dust,” he said, according to AFP.

In the Quran and the Bible, Prophet Jonah is famous for being swallowed by a fish. Dating back to the 8th century BC, Jonah is believed to be buried in Mosul and his tomb also a mosque is considered to be one of the few historic mosques found on the eastern side of the city.

Meanwhile, a local Mosul official, Zuhair al-Chalabi, told al-Sumaria News on Thursday that Prophet Daniel’s tomb was also destroyed. While Daniel is considered to be a prophet by Muslims, he is not mentioned in the Quran.

“ISIS implanted explosives around Prophet Daniel’s tomb in Mosul and blasted it, leading to its destruction,” he told Al-Sumaria News.

”Mosul is living in an extremely hard and horrible situation,” Chalabi warned. 

Read article in full

imam condemns destruction of Jonah’s tomb

Assaulted Moroccan rabbi: ‘we are all equal”

Rabbi Moshe Ohayon (pictured) declared his trust in Moroccan tolerance to a group of well-wishers earlier this week, despite being beaten up by a young man ‘for what Israel is doing in Palestine’, according to World Moroccan News. Funny how the culprit in these cases always seems to be acting alone, and invariably has a history of mental illness.

Rabbi Ohayon insisted that all Moroccans are equal. They were “weaned on the same milk, He noted.” Being a staunch supporter of the Moroccan King, he expressed his dislike of anti-monarchy movements.

He explained that, in spite of the attack, he would never give up on his Moroccan identity: “Jews and Muslims are brothers forever. Since our parents, our grandparents told us that when a Jewish mother would, for example, go to the market, a Muslim mother would breastfeed her children, and vice versa. Nothing has ever distinguished us from each other. And we pray to God that everything goes for the best in this Morocco we share.”

Moshe Ohayon, the president of the Jewish Committee in Casablanca, was attacked in Casablanca at 6, near the Windsor Hotel on his way to synagogue. A young Moroccan man kicked the elderly Rabbi over and over again, shouting, “this is for what Israel is doing in Palestine.”

“He did not stop hitting me until the blood flowed. What shocked me the most is that nobody in the street tried to help me,” said Rabbi Ohayon. After returning home, Mr. Ohayon called the police and the attacker was arrested.

The attacker, who had a history of violence against Jews, was apprehended the next day. The police declared that the suspect suffers from a mental disorder.

However, even in the face of anger and pain, Rabbi Ohayon remained positive about Morocco. He explained: “we are Moroccans, and no one has ever disrespected us. Wherever I go, everyone knows me. This incident was fate, Kudrat Allah … the key is that Morocco remains the Morocco as we know it, a country open to people of all faiths.”

Read article in full

Gaza fallout: Casablanca rabbi beaten up

1948: 150 Cairo Jews killed or ‘disappeared’

 Cairo as it looks today

During the month of July 1948, Cairo was sizzling with anti-Jewish unrest, tacitly encouraged by the Egyptian government. Levana Zamir stumbled upon this fascinating report from JTA:

 

“The situation of the Jews in Egypt was termed today as “highly
alarming” by a Frenchman who returned from Cairo and gave the first
detailed and uncensored report of the pogroms, mob violence, mass
looting and terrorism which is now taking place throughout Egypt against
the Jewish population.

“Egyptian mobs, he revealed, killed three rabbis by splitting their
throats, after dragging them into a Cairo slaughter house. He estimated
that at least 150 Jews had either been killed or had “disappeared” in
Cairo incidents during the last four weeks. A substantial number of Jews
had been wounded, he said. The pogroms and anti-Jewish terrorism are
tacitly encouraged by the passive attitude of the Egyptian Government,
he charged.

“The gravest single incident, he reported, occurred on July 20 at one
of Cairo’s chief street car junctions, in Malika Farida Placo. An
organized group of Egyptians ejected all the European passengers from
several trolleys. All passengers suspected of being Jews were savagely
killed on the spot, and many had their eyes pierced or were knifed,
while non-Jews and Europeans were robbed of all cash and belongings. The
police made no effort to intervene, the French visitor emphasized.

“Of the large number of Jews in Cairo who have been wounded, he
continued, 120 are now undergoing treatment in the Jewish hospital there
and an unannounced number are in government or private institutions.
Scattered incidents of knifing of Jews are repeatedly reported in
various parts of the Egyptian capital, he said. The killing of three
rabbis in the slaughter house took place on July 21, he reported.

“Both Jews and Europeans were attacked earlier in July when they left
large motion-picture theaters, the French traveler stated. The most
violent of these attacks, he declared, occurred near the Odeon and
Rivoli Theatres, in the center of Cairo, on July 17. The fury of the
Arab mob sent 20 persons to hospitals. It was in that assault that one
Henri Gaillard, a French national and an Olympics trainer, was fatally
wounded by seven knife stabs. Gaillard fought back and succeeded in
killing four of his assailants before he collapsed and died, the
informant said.

 “On July 26, the Frenchman asserted, Jews living in Cairo in the
neighborhood of the Royal Palace or in government-owned houses were
ordered to move out within 48 hours. That order, he said, provoked a
considerable number of “panic-stricken removals” in the course of which
an Arab mob stole or destroyed the belongings of those evicted.

“Since July 28, the informant reported, there has been some tightening
up of security measures, apparently after strong representations were
made to the Egyptian Government by Jefferson Patterson, the United
States charge d’affaires, following the writer of Stephen Haas, a
Philadelphia Jew. The informant revealed that Haas body was found knifed
to death, castrated, with the nose and ears severed, at a point near
the Citadel, although initial reports from Cairo stated that the
Philadelphian had been stoned to death by an Arab mob.

“Emphasizing that, in general, the position of Jews and Europeans in
Egypt continues to be highly alarming, the Frenchman asserted that only
those Jews who are now in Egyptian concentration camps feel
comparatively safe. It was his impression that the Egyptian and other
Arab military failures in Palestine had resulted in bitterness not
against the Egyptian Governments and its leaders who were responsible
for the Arab military fiascoes, but against the Jews who are their
hostages.

“Mass detention of Jews is continuing, he said, under the pretext that
one or another Jew had insulted King Farouk or even because they had
been found in possession of some Hebrew literature. There was widespread
speculation among Europeans in Cairo over whether the continuing
bombing of Jewish enterprises was committed by the Moslem Brotherhood or
other non-official groups or by Egyptian Government agents, he
declared.

Read article in full:

It’s déjà vu for Arab-born French Jews

The Sephardim of Sarcelles in Paris  have been re-living the violence which chased them out of the Maghreb a generation ago.  On 19 July,  a banned pro-Palestinian demonstration got out of hand, Nidra Poller writes in New English Review.


Paris burns as rioters rampage in ‘little Jerusalem’, an area of the city with a large population of Maghreb-born Jews
(photo: Thibaut Camus)

The demonstration scheduled for Saturday July 19th was banned. Unless I am mistaken, France is the only country that took this step. The organizers appealed, their appeal was rejected. So what did they do? Stay home and write op-eds? Send pizzas to the harassed citizens of Gaza? No, they proudly and publicly declared they would demonstrate anyway. Loudly proclaiming their democratic right to march, they trampled on the duty incumbent on law-abiding citizens.

This time the stampede didn’t get far past its starting point in Barbès.

 Riot police hemmed them in [they are complaining about police brutality]. They weren’t rounded up and sent to jail for breaking the law. So they showed their appreciation by going wild, tearing up the asphalt and throwing chunks at the police; injuring 15. They set fire to cars, garbage cans, wooden pallets, and Israeli flags, smashed whatever was in reach, wreaked havoc for hours on end. And there were no Jewish Defense League boys to blame it on.

 An informative article in Le Point describes the assault on the Lariboisoière Hospital. The security guards were outnumbered [disproportionate force?], ran for cover. An elderly man shouted at the mob, “Are you crazy, that’s a hospital.” “It’s a Zionist hospital,” they shouted.

But didn’t burn it down…this time around.

Today, they did a repeat performance in Sarcelles, known as little Jerusalem because a large contingent of the Sephardic Jews chased from the Maghreb settled there in public housing. For which they were grateful. From which many moved on to successful careers. And those who still live in neat and clean Sarcelles are constantly harassed by their Muslim neighbors in Gonesse.

Many Jewish men have been attacked at the train station that serves the side  by side Again, riot police were locked in battle for five hours while residents hunkered down in their homes.

How is the government going to deal with this flagrant and ever more violent disrespect? What will be the consequences for the  New Anti-Capitalist Party, the NPA, the extreme radical far left anti-capitalist party that got about 1% of the vote in the last municipal elections, and suddenly appears as an organizer of these stampedes? In 2005 the insurrection was almost exclusively confined to the banlieues, on the other side of the péripherique [ring road]. 

This time it penetrates to the center of Paris and it is fired with murderous hatred of Jews. Many who fled the Maghreb say it reminds them of those times. Some observers are saying this looks like the early stages of “pogroms” but I think the appropriate term would be “farhud.” [“ violent dispossession” in Arabic, a reference  to the 1941 Nazi–inspired jihad pogrom in Baghdad].

Read article in full

Paris feels like Tunis all over again

Number of French  Jews emigrating rises sharply (NY Times)

Bensoussan gives paper at Yale

 With thanks: Ahuva

Georges Bensoussan

Nine months after it took place at the Yale Center for the Study of Antisemitism, here is a video of the morning sessionof the conference: Exodus or exile: the departure of Jews from Muslim countries, 1948 – 1978.

Twenty-nine minutes into the clip, the French historian Georges Bensoussan gives a paper in English (19 minutes): hostages to the Palestine conflict, Jews in Arab countries in the 1930s. 

He describes how Arab nationalism excluded the Jewish population, increasingly perceived as a national minority. It could not tolerate such national minorities – witness the massacre of Assyrians in Iraq as soon as the country became independent.


The Jews were better educated than the Muslims, and were identified with colonialism. The Jews, on the other hand, feared the return of ‘dhimmi’ oppression if the Arabs became independent.



A branch of Arab nationalism was fascinated by Nazi Germany: paramilitary groups flourished. In the 1930s Palestine became the vessel into which Arab frustrations were poured. Zionism and Judaism became increasingly blurred, as the Palestine cause took on an increasingly islamic hue.

But Iraq and Yemen prove that antisemitism could thrive in countries no longer under the colonial yoke.



Nazi Germany financed antisemitic groups in the Arab world. The Jews became scapegoats as Nazi propaganda, such as the 1925 Arabic edition of the Protocols of Elders of Zion, gained influence.



The Mufti was not alone in spreading antisemitism. There was a nazification of Arab nationalism and a marginalisation of Jews, 40 percent of whom were denied nationality in Egypt, and subject to quotas and excluded from the army and diplomatic corps  in Iraq.

It is interesting that in the Q&A, questioners cast doubt on Bensoussan’s use of the term ‘nazification’, and accused him of being an activist, not a bona fide historian.  



More about Georges Bensoussan




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