Silent Exodus

They were more than a million Jews. Between 1946 and 1974, this million is the number of forgotten fugitives, expelled from the Arab world, and whom history would like to forget, while the victims themselves have hidden their fate under a veil of modesty. The Jews have been living in Arabic lands for thousands of years and seemed to accept their fate forever, some even considering their survival as a miracle.

But 1948, the beginning of their exodus, was also the birth of the State of Israel.

And, while the Arab armies were preparing to invade the young refugee-country, while the survivors of the Shoah were piling up in dangerous boats to fulfill at last the return to the land of their dreams and their prayers, a few hundred thousand Arabs from Palestine were getting ready to flee their home, convinced that they would return as winners and conquerors.

They were soon going to fill up the refugee camps built on their brothers’ land, and – because of their refusal to integrate – pass on their refugee status to the next generations.

The Jews did not get any special status. They had just returned to the Land of their fathers

And if they came from Aden, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Morocco, Tunisia or Libya, if they had lost everything and sometimes even relatives, memories and cemeteries, it is in Israel and the west that they were ready to rebuild their lives. Without ever asking for any compensation, any right to return, or even wishing that their story be told…