CarolC,

First of all, sorry I didn't add links. The Cat was down while I was typing this, so I couldn't blickify. I just put in the URLs.

It's true that that website I linked to above had a political agenda, as do all people who make public comments about the Middle Eastern situation, including you. I know you like to claim there is such a thing as a "human rights agenda" and that the sites YOU link to are not politically motivated, but I've never bought that particularly. Most of the people who take sides in this issue believe that their own perspective leads to a better human rights situation, including the eretz yisraelis.

In any case, the site was based on the work of Princeton historian Bernard Lewis. His works most relevant to this discussion are not on the web, so I can't link to them, but he is an immensely respected figure in the history of the Middle East, with about fifteen books on the subject. He is fair when it comes to citing both the achievements and the flaws of Arab and Muslim cultures. While he maintains, for example, that Islam preserved classical culture from ruin, and thereby contributed mightily to the modern world, he does not shy away from speaking the truth: historically, Muslims frequently oppressed Jews.

You say that I am going "far back" in history to find examples of this oppression. There is a reason for this. Under colonial rule (Lebanon under England, Libya under England and Italy, Tunisia and Morocco under France, etc.) Jews had a relatively stable existence because they were protected by the colonial power. If we cite post-colonial examples, you say "it's the result of Zionism poisoning the Arabs against Jews" and if we cite pre-colonial examples you say "well, if you want to go back that far in history, everyone is a barbarian."

The fact is that you will find far more testimonials from Jews who say they were oppressed. Even the one testimonial you have produced to the contrary is from Iraq, where as I have pointed out, he would have been doomed to life under Saddam had he stayed. Here are a few counter-testimonials:

Here is an article by a Tunisian Jew at Jimena (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa.)

[http://www.jimena-justice.org/faq/memmi.htm]. Some excerpts:

As to the pre-colonial period, the collective memory of Tunisian Jewry leaves no doubt. It is enough to cite a few narratives and tales relating to that period: it was a gloomy one. The Jewish communities lived in the shadow of history, under arbitrary rule and the fear of all-powerful monarchs whose decisions could not be rescinded or even questioned. It can be said that everybody was governed by these absolute rulers: the sultans, beys and deys. But the Jews were at the mercy not only of the monarch but also of the man in the street. My grandfather still wore the obligatory and discriminatory Jewish garb, and in his time every Jew might expect to be hit on the head by any Moslem whom he happened to pass. This pleasant ritual even had a name - the chtaka; and with it went a sacramental formula which I have forgotten. A French orientalist once replied to me at a meeting: "In Islamic lands the Christians were no better off!" This is true - so what? This is a double-edged argument: it signifies, in effect, that no member of a minority lived in peace and dignity in countries with an Arab majority! Yet there was a marked difference all the same: the Christians were, as a rule, foreigners and as such protected by their mother-countries. If a Barbary pirate or an emir wanted to enslave a missionary, he had to take into account the government of the missionary's land of origin - perhaps even the Vatican or the Order of the Knights of Malta. But no one came to the rescue of the Jews, because the Jews were natives and therefore victims of the will of "their" rulers. Never, I repeat, never - with the possible exception of two or three very specific intervals such as the Andalusian, and not even then - did the Jews in Arab lands live in other than a humiliated state, vulnerable and periodically mistreated and murdered, so that they should clearly remember their place.

Another site you can visit is the forgotten refugees site [http://www.forgottenrefugees.org/links.htm], which attempts to collect firsthand accounts by Jews expelled from Islamic countries. There's a recent article posted there from an Egyptian Jew, who writes:

But even as child, I understood that Jews were second-class citizens. Signs in the street read: El yahud kalb el arab, "The Jews are the dogs of the Arabs." At school, my best friend Menyawi turned to me and said with a half-smile, "One day, all the Jews will have their throats slit." An older Muslim man advised that if I was threatened in the streets, I should say: Ana Muslum, M'wahed billah, "I am a Muslim and believe in one God."

Despite the hatred in the air, my family was successful. In 1950, as a teenager, I attended a British prep school in Cairo that boasted prominent alumni such as King Hussein of Jordan and Columbia professor Edward Said (who never writes about how his Jewish classmates were expelled from Egypt). But I never got the chance to graduate.

In 1952, Egypt's new nationalist leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, began arresting Jews on trumped-up charges and confiscating their property. My uncle and cousin were arrested and a warrant was issued for my father. My family happened to be traveling in Europe, and my father said: "We'll never return." My uncle chose to remain, and, following the 1967 war with Israel, was thrown in an Egyptian concentration camp for three years, along with hundreds of other Egyptian Jews.


This Site, [http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/JewsofLibya/] has interviews with Libyan jews. There, every Jewish businessman by law had to have an Arab "partner" who got at least 51% of the profits. Because the Jew was required by law to make less than 49% of the profits, the Arab "partner" didn't have to do anything! The Jew ran the business, and the partner showed up annually to take half his money! It was a government-sponsored mafia operation that systematically milked only Jews. In fairness, the same interviewer says that he had generally friendly relations with many Arabs, but that the when Libyan government was run by Arabs, the Jews had "no rights."

Anything on the synagogue?