Mideast Youth - Thinking Ahead

Arab Jews: Videos

January 7th, 2008Esra'a (Bahrain)

I compiled a list of short videos by or about Arab Jews, which I thought may be of interest here. If you want to know more about Arab Jews through documentaries or media coverage I recommend you check out some of the links below.

∼ The Silent Exodus - Jews expelled from Arab countries since 1948

∼ Saddam and Jews - A man interviewed for Al Jazeera notes that Iraq under Saddam wasn’t against Jews

∼ Ex-Iraq Israelis - In direct contradiction with the above video (ex. Saddam’s execution was a “miracle” for Jews)

∼ Yemenite Jews - Jews who escaped from Yemen in 1947 due to violence

∼ Yemenite Jews in Rayda

∼ The other Arabs - Documentary by Wafaa Al Natheema

∼ The other Arabs - An Introduction

∼ The Last Jews of Libya - Documentary trailer (click here for the official website)

∼ The Last Jews of Libya - Interview

∼ Al Jazeera on Arab Jews

∼ The Last Jew of Babylon, Part. I

∼ The Last Jew of Babylon, Part II.

∼ Moroccan Jewish celebrities

∼ Jews of Morocco - Slideshow

∼ “I am an Arab Jew” - Upcoming documentary by Eli Amir

Arab Jews, Religion, Videos
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10 Responses to “Arab Jews: Videos”

  1. #1 Danial - January 7th, 2008 at 5:16 pm

    Thanks for posting these vids Esra’a.

  2. #2 elinor(Iran) - January 7th, 2008 at 5:25 pm

    Esra’a lady, you are touching most of the issues that usally they ignore or try to forget about in our countries.
    The rate of change in the highly sensitive East in the contemporary history have resulted in much, we are still suffering the concequesneces… From Arab and Jew, Persian and Bahai, socialist, woman, secular, .. the change has taken us to the places where we don’t know where we belong, it had been like a surgery, and things happened as if we were all unoncious, the cursing fact is when we gain back the consciousness we look in the mirror to see the scar of the knife on our face, and perhaps a pair of scissors still inside the body!
    Gradually we will gain more and more consciousness as to realize what has happened to us as human beings, as the representatives of G-d over his land, what has happened to our fraternity and the main goal of our creation altogether, then perhaps we will find ways to cpompensate for all the damages that each of the nations caused the other and then go back to the normal life, to our values, the values that we should be proud of, even though it seems so distorted now, it is there, and it will come back to surface honey, I have faith in G-d and in what he has created :)

  3. #3 R E Konrad - January 7th, 2008 at 6:40 pm

    Excellent info. Thank you Esra’a. I also ran across the vid of Dr. Wafa Sultan. Curiously, I’d just recieved a e-mail from my brother praising Dr. Sultan. Great stuff that I’d never been exposed to in the Arab-Jew vids….thanks again!

  4. #4 Kawthar (UAE) - January 7th, 2008 at 9:47 pm

    The Last Jew of Babylon (Part One)

    The Last Jew of Babylon (Part Two)

  5. #5 RandallJones - January 7th, 2008 at 11:23 pm

    Here is an interview with Iraqi Jew Naeim Giladi author of Ben Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah & the Mossad Eliminated Jews.

    http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/ameu_iraqjews.html
    I’ll quote a pat of it here

    The British continued to land more forces in and around Basra. On May 7, 1941, their Gurkha unit, composed of Indian soldiers from that ethnic group, occupied Basra’s el-Oshar quarter, a neighborhood with a large Jewish population. The soldiers, led by British officers, began looting. Many shops in the commercial district were plundered. Private homes were broken into. Cases of attempted rape were reported. Local residents, Jews and Muslims, responded with pistols and old rifles, but their bullets were no match for the soldiers’ Tommy Guns.

    Afterwards, it was learned that the soldiers acted with the acquiescence, if not the blessing, of their British commanders. (It should be remembered that the Indian soldiers, especially those of the Gurkha unit, were known for their discipline, and it is highly unlikely they would have acted so riotously without orders.) The British goal clearly was to create chaos and to blacken the image of the pro-nationalist regime in Baghdad, thereby giving the British forces reason to proceed to the capital and to overthrow the al-Kilani government.

    Also I’ll put here a quote from Ropes of Sand America’s Failure in the Middle East by the AmericanWilber Crane Eveland, a former advisor to the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). From page 47

    In this small world, I came to know on a first name basis not only Iraqi cabinet ministers, but also a circle of young, socially prominent Iraqis, sons and daughters of leading officials. Educated abroad, they criticized America’s role in the Near East, condemned British influence, and predicted that the Iraqi government would not last long. Despite their strong feelings, we became close friends. Although they seldom spoke of it, they, like other Arabs, were convinced that the state of Israel would not have been created without American assistance. Yet, these Iraqis as with others, I cannot recall ever hearing a disparaging remarks about Jews as people. Having once outnumbered the Arab residents of Baghdad, even the poorest Jew lived better than the average Iraqi. The 130,000 living in Iraq considered this land as their place of origin: looking back to Abraham, Nebuchadnezzar, the destruction of the first temple, and exile in Babylon, a history of 4,000 years, they, like the Christians and other minorities in this Moslem srtate, considered themselves, and were considered, Iraqis.

  6. #6 Esra'a - January 7th, 2008 at 11:56 pm

    Thanks Kawthar, I added these videos to the list.

  7. #7 Gay guy - January 8th, 2008 at 8:31 am

    Admittedly, I have not seen any of the films mentioned above but I do live with what you call the Arab Jews of Israel (we call Mizrahim) and I am married to one (Yeminite/Persian/Kurd). So my experience comes not from history books but from life experiences.

    My issue when people talk about these people is that they have an agenda and it usually sounds something like this: the real enemies are the Ashkenazi (European Jews) who forced the Mizrahim to move to Israel and live as unequals. This plays into the false idea that Israel is a foreign European colony.

    The truth is that Israeli culture has been dominated by this group for the past 20 years. Generally, the right wing in Israel is supported by the Mizrahim for a lot of reasons (the memory of discrimination by Ashkenazim being one of them but also a distrust of Arab intentions) and this group tends to be much more suspicious of peace with Arab countries than the European Jews. I believe that part of this is a split personality: I have an Arab culture but I am at war with the Arabs so how do I love my culture and still feel strength to fight if needed. Each person has dealt with this in a different way but in general, there is a very thriving Mizrahi culture in Israel.

    My hope is that once there are formal agreements in place with all the Arab countries (most importantly the Palestinians), this split personality will be put to rest.

  8. #8 Nissim Dahan (Israel/USA) - January 8th, 2008 at 10:00 am

    Thanks Esra’a for posting this. To the best of my knowledge, there were some 850,000 Arab Jews who were exiled, or displaced from Arab countries in the wake of the founding of the state of Israel. Not too many people know about this, thus, “The Silent Exodus.”

    I have some personal knowledge in this regard. My wife was born in Cairo, Egypt. Her family had lived there for generations. Her father, beloved by all who knew him, became quite successful as a businessman, owning a sports goods factory, and four retail shops. He even remembered a young Yassir Arafat buying soccer balls for the football teams he was running in Cairo for young people.

    One night, in 1956, my father-in-law was arrested and blacklisted as a spy for Israel. He returned back home, and told the family that it was time to leave. They packed whatever they could into 31 leather bound suitcases and made their way to Paris, France, where my wife grew up. They left their home, their business, and most of their possessions, and had to start from scratch in their new home.

    My father-in-law always remembered with fondness the good times he had in Egypt, but never quite got over losing everything there.

  9. #9 Muneeb (Saudi Arabia/Pakistan) - January 8th, 2008 at 8:33 pm

    NICE! :D
    thanx for posting..
    helps me understand them better, they are just represented by the few wrong ppl who do all the bad stuff

  10. #10 Nadia - January 10th, 2008 at 1:18 pm

    Thanks for “The Other Arabs” clip.

    ..Is there a transcript or a video of the full Al Jaz piece anywhere, I’m really curious about it?

    anyways, this is another montage by jewsoflebanon.org
    http://youtube.com/watch?v=9vslChFGonQ

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