Posted on 02/07/2020 7:27:12 PM PST by robowombat
SHOCKING DEVELOPMENT: Some Arab countries are trying to get the Jews they forced out to return
FEBRUARY 7, 2020 BY BARENAKEDISLAM
More than 850,000 Jews lived in Arab countries in the 20th century. With the creation of Israel in 1948, all but a few thousand Jews were forced to leave the Arab countries where they had lived for generations and centuries. But today, there is a palpable longing in most Arab states for the Jews to return. Many believe that only with a Jewish presence will their countries blossom and develop as they did in the past.
World Israel News The purging of the Jews caused a crisis in almost every Arab country from which they came. Despite their relatively limited numbers, the Jews’ impact on society, culture, economy, and trade was crucial to the development of those countries, and their loss was felt. After the Jews were evicted from Iraq and Egypt, for example, those countries experienced crisis after crisis.
The Jewish contribution to Arab states was significant. In Egypt, the gold market flourished with a Jewish presence and continues to do so to this day, even though the Jews were thrown out and their stores ransacked. Jewish symbols like the Magen David remain engraved on Egyptian shops, in markets, and on buildings. The older generation still remembers the prosperity of the time when Jews were in possession of their stores.
It is no coincidence that Cairo has decided to invest tens of millions of dollars in the restoration of synagogues throughout Egypt. The most recent is the renovation of the once magnificent Eliyahu Hanavi (Elijah the Prophet) Synagogue, in which $6 million is being invested.
It is not only the Egyptians who want to coax back the prosperity that accompanied the Jewish presence. A few months ago, new Sudanese Minister of Religion Nasser Aladin called on Sudanese Jews whose families were forced to emigrate in the wake of the establishment of the State of Israel to return.
In Lebanon, over a million dollars has been invested in the restoration of the Magen Avraham synagogue in the Wadi Abu Jamil neighborhood in West Beirut, near the Lebanese parliament.
Perhaps more than any others, it is the Iraqis who long for the return of their Jewish brethren, and Iraqi Jews who long for their former homeland. In recent years, a number of Facebook accounts have opened in Israel to renew the connection between Iraqi Jews and the Arabs beside whom their ancestors lived in harmony for over a thousand years prior to the advent of Islam.
The Iraqi Jews were wrenched from their former home, but their contribution to the country is felt to this day. Like Jewish minorities in other countries, the Jews of Iraq concentrated on trade, crafts, light industry, governmental and municipal services, and banking. The impact of Jews on commerce and banking was especially significant.
Arab countries of old flourished in large part because of the contribution of their Jews. But then, in some countries, there was an exchange of populations: the Jews were forced out and Palestinian Arab refugees arrived in their place. The wealthy and educated Jewish population was replaced by a weak and poor population, a cultural shock that particularly affected Syria, Iraq, and Libya.
With the rise of xenophobic Arab/Muslim rejection of the State of Israel, the Arab states that could not beat Israel on the battlefield punished their Jews instead. Now, years later, there is a growing realization of the counter-productivity of that injustice, and many are calling for the Jews to return.
Some Muslims are even calling for a tax levied on non-Muslims in Arab countries to be returned to the Jews. Despite this growing sentiment, Arab leaders continue to choose for the most part to look the other way, not only refusing to protect the Jews but actively contributing to their persecution.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the Arab states suffer serial economic failures and never-ending wars and disputes. Some Muslims believe this is a punishment by Allah for their failure to protect the Jews, as they were instructed to do.
Would Jews whose families immigrated to Israel after being forced out of Arab countries ever want to return to those countries?
I was shocked to see a news piece on Indians returning to Uganda (Idi Amin had expelled them in 1972); things must be bad in India if Uganda is seen as a destination. Uganda is desperate, and so are enough Indians...
Arabs import Third World people to "Do Work Arabs Don't Want To Do" (sound familiar?) which is ANY work at all. Unfortunately, these people must be supervised, which is work.
They don't want to admit it but Jews are hard working, industrious people who benefit any area they live in.
Arab countries that want Jews back better start ordering massive amounts of books for their libraries which usually contain just varying copies of the koran and a few medical books - if there are any still standing ...
I don't think so.
Old news. This is the umpteenth time they’re trying to induce the Jews who were either forced out, ran for their lives, or had to sneak out, to return so they can have another pogrom for old times’ sake. About the only place worthy of some consideration is Morocco. The royal family there has always been a good bunch. But naaah.
I can believe they genuinely want to stimulate the economy.
And that they are backward enough that their best idea is “The Jews were good with money, let’s bring them back!!!”
I worked with an Indian programmer who had a veddy Brit accent. I asked him if he was born in the UK. He said he was raised there after Idi Amin kicked all the Indians out of Uganda.
Some years later, post-Amin, his dad got a letter from the Ugandan government asking him to come back.
It seems that Amin’s followers, who had been given the shops stolen from the Indians, didn’t know about replacing inventory and blew the income on having a good time. When the inventory ran out, they just closed up shop.
I asked the guy if his dad went back. He looked at me and in a veddy American way, said “Are you F**ing kidding me?”
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