US actor’s family was deported from Jaffa to Egypt in 1914 (Muslim pogrom, expulsion of Jews in Israel)

The celebrity US actor David Duchovny has just discovered something about his family he never knew: his grandfather Moshe was deported from Jaffa to Port Said in Egypt by the Turkish authorities at the start of World War I. Duchovny learned about his family’s migration from their place of birth, Berdichev in the Russian empire, to Palestine (then under Ottoman rule), thence to Egypt. They ended up taking a boat from Greece to the US, where Moshe acquired American citizenship

Bedouin police invaded the Jewish quarter of Jaffa, where the Duchovnys lived and worked, and forced them out of their homes with only bags and meager belongings. They were put aboard the Vincenzo Florio, a steamer headed to Port Said, Egypt.

At night, men were thrown overboard, possessions were looted, jewelry was ripped off women and parents and children were separated, with the young ones “carried from […] the quayside.”

“There were desperate appeals on every side in the darkness, with heartrending screams. Everyone arrived in Alexandria resourceless,” the newspaper report from the time says.

When I was a young kid in Brooklyn, we were the only non-Jewish family on the block. They treated me like I was one of their own, with the cheek pinches and backslaps by the grandparents just like their own grandkids. I even earned a little doing shabbas goy work when someone forgot to buy milk on Saturday morning, back when you could get a quart of milk with a quarter and have nickel for gum or a candy bar left over.

Then as I got older when I heard a lot of anti-Semitic comments from others including some from my own family I always thought that was completely nuts and still can't understand it.

To me Jews are like canaries in the social coal mine: when they start getting hard time, it's a bad sign.

I watched it too. Amazing. He was overcome.

“Your ancestors were among 6,000 Jewish residents of Jaffa who were deported to Egypt in December of 1914,” Gates responded.
https://www.algemeiner.com/2023/02/15/actors-david-duchovny-and-richard-kind-learn-jarring-information-about-jewish-past-on-finding-your-roots/

The same Morgenthau also protested the Armenian Genocide... and the Ottoman in charge asked him why does it matter to him, as “only” Christians are murdered. Morgenthau pressed on.

“You are a Jew; these people are Christians. The Mohammedans and the Jews always get on harmoniously. We are treating the Jews here all right. What have you to complain of? Why can’t you let us do with these Christians as we please?
https://books.google.com/books?id=orfADgAAQBAJ&pg=PT266

https://www.kveller.com/david-duchovny-learns-his-familys-tragic-jewish-history-on-finding-your-roots

David Duchovny Learns His Family’s Tragic Jewish History on ‘Finding Your Roots’

By Lior ZaltzmanFeb 13, 2023

Actor David Duchovny, known for “The X-Files,” “The Chair” and, most recently, playing a Jewish father in the controversial Netflix movie “You People,” has long known about his European Jewish roots. His paternal grandfather Moshe came from Berdychiv, which is in modern day Ukraine.

Yet in an episode of “Finding Your Roots” which airs this Tuesday, Duchovny, 62, discovers that his grandfather and his family made a couple of pit stops on their way to the U.S.

In the early 20th century, the Duchovnys made their way to Jaffa, where they opened an inn. Unfortunately, the Duchovnys, along with 6000 fellow Jews, were violently expelled from the state one night in December of 1914 by the local Ottoman government...
The clip describes how one day, Bedouin police invaded the Jewish quarter of Jaffa, where the Duchovnys lived and worked, and forced them out of their homes with only bags and meager belongings. They were put aboard the Vincenzo Florio, a steamer headed to Port Said, Egpyt.

At night, the “relatively orderly” deportation turned violent. According to the clipping, men were thrown overboard, possessions were looted, jewelry was ripped off women and parents and children were separated, with the young ones “carried from […] the quayside.”

“There were desperate appeals on every side in the darkness, with heartrending screams. Everyone arrived in Alexandria resourceless,” ...

“Are you saying that my family was in that, or is this just something that happened?” a stunned Duchovny asks host Henry Louis Gates, who confirms that his ancestors were among the 6000 deported to Egypt like that.

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