"One of my relatives, by the name of Ebrahim Berookhim, was a 30-year-old Jewish businessman [who] owned a five-star hotel in the heart of Tehran, and he was abruptly arrested by the regime on false charges of spying for Israel and America. They had no evidence, they had no witnesses - these were just blanket charges, and they arrested him.
And abruptly, on July 31st, 1980...he was put in front of a firing squad and he was executed. He became the third Jew that the Iranian regime officially executed 40 years ago. After that episode, within a number of weeks, we fled Iran."
Please take a few minutes to watch this video and learn about the experiences of Karmel and his family. Follow CAMERA on Campus for more #MizrahiStories

The Forgotten Refugees is a 2005 documentary film directed by Michael Grynszpan and produced by The David Project and IsraTV with Ralph Avi Goldwasser as executive producer, that recounts the history of Jewish communities of the Middle East and North Africa and their demise in the face of persecutions following the creation of the modern State of Israel in 1948.

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A documentary that captures fragments of the lives of the Egyptian Jewish community in the first half of the twentieth century until their second grand exodus after the tripartite attack of 1956 .. An attempt to understand the change in the identity of the Egyptian society that turned from a society full of tolerance and acceptance of one another .. and how it changed gradually by mixing religious and political views into a society that rejects the others .. a film about the cosmopolitan Egypt in the 40's and Egypt in the new millennium .. how did the Jews of Egypt turn in the eyes of Egyptians from partners in the same country to enemies!!
Produced by: Haitham Al-Khamissi
Directed by: Amir Ramses
All copyrights reserved to @Haitham Al-Khamissi هيثم الخميسي
فيلم وثائقي يرصد مقتطفات من حياة الجالية اليهودية المصرية في النصف الأول من القرن العشرين حتى نزوحهم الكبير خارج مصر بعد العدوان الثلاثي عام 1956 .. محاولة لفهم التغيير في هوية المجتمع المصري الذي تحول من مجتمع مليء بالتسامح وقبول الآخر .. وكيف تغير تدريجياً بخلط الآراء الدينية والسياسية في مجتمع يرفض الآخر .. فيلم عن مصر الكوزموبوليتانية في الأربعينيات ومصر في الألفية الجديدة .. كيف تحول يهود مصر في عيون المصريين من شركاء في نفس الرطن إلى أعداء!!
إنتاج: هيثم الخميسي
إخراج: أمير رمسيس
جميع حقوق الطبع والنشر وحقوق الملكية الفكرية للفيلم محفوظة لـ @Haitham Al-Khamissi هيثم الخميسي

Compilation of testimonies commissioned from Sephardi Voices UK by Harif and the Spanish synagogue in Montreal for the 80th anniversary commemoration of the Farhud, the Baghdad massacre of 1 and 2 June 1941, which claimed the lives of at least 179 Jews.
To see the full 30 May 2021 Commemoration, sponsored by 26 organisations, click on this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLquHutFdT0

It started on June 1st, 1941. For two days, a vicious mob in Baghdad went from door to door to Jewish homes - killing, raping, looting. The pogrom, known as the Farhud in Arabic, was a shocking turning point for the Iraqi Jewish community. Within a decade, most of the Jews of Iraq fled the country.

Aaron Zangi was born in Baghdad, Iraq. He lived all his life in Basra. His father was imprisoned for helping his siblings to escape to Iran. In January of 1969, Aaron was imprisoned and tortured and then released on the 11th day of his imprisonment. Aaron’s release saved him from execution; on January 27th, 1969, nine innocent Iraqi Jews were publicly hanged by the same spying accusations Aaron was just acquitted from. When he was released, his mother helped him and his younger brother to escape to Iran. He remained in Iran for a few months, helping Jews from Iraq seeking refuge in Israel, before joining them in the Jewish State.

Carmella Pardo was born in 1941 in Bombay, India to Iraqi parents. When Pardo was a small child, her family returned to the Iraqi city of Basra. In 1948 her father Salim was arrested and charged with being a communist and Zionist. He was sentenced to 5 years of hard labor in a desert prison. Upon Salim’s imprisonment, her parents agreed that her mother should escape to Israel with Carmella and her brother. Carmella, her mother and brother escaped Iraq through Iran to Israel. Salim joined them in 1953 after being released from prison.

Denise Amnon was born in Aleppo, Syria in 1926. When World War II forced the schools in Syria to close, her family moved to Beirut, Lebanon in 1939. Her grandfather was a Rabbi, though he did not practice, and her father was a banker. She met her husband in Istanbul, married and immigrated to the U.S.

Fuad Salem was born in the city of Shamia, Iraq in 1934. He remembers the anti-Semitic persecution he suffered during his childhood. While he was studying in Baghdad, at the age of 13, he and his uncle were taken from their house by the police to prison; they were accused of being Zionists. He saw then firsthand how they were torturing Jews in prison. At 14, his father smuggled him to Iran.

Henriette Eshkenazi was born in Sudan. In 1946, when Henriette was 13, her father passed away while her mother was pregnant with her seventh child. Henriette then moved to Cairo to live with her aunt. She got married and remained in Egypt, even during the time that most Jews fled from the country. She was the only Jew in the area, and her husband's employers compensated him well for continuing to work at their company. Due her Sudanese citizenship, she was able to obtain a visa for her and her family to immigrate to the United States, where they currently live.

Yvette Dabby was born in Basra, Iraq. Growing up, most of her family had already fled Iraq for Israel. As a young woman, she was fired from the Structural Engineering office where she worked because her boss was no longer allowed to employ Jews. In 1969 the situation for Iraq’s remaining Jews became untenable and Yvette was forced to escape. She was smuggled out of the country by Kurds.

Caroline Pettel was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1965, where she lived until age six. Her family was smuggled out of Iraq in 1971, during the Iraqi holiday of independence. They escaped to Tehran, Iran and continued on to settle in Israel.

Joseph Samuels was born in Baghdad in 1930. He was an excellent student and was accepted to universities in the US, and Samuels obtained student visa. But after 1948, Iraq refused to grant exit visas to Jews. He decided to flee, and with his younger brother, in a small boat with without an engine, was smuggled Basra to Iran and then to Israel. He eventually settled in Santa Monica, California.

Sadok Masliyah was born Salech Masliyah in Baghdad, Iraq in 1934. He has fond memories of his childhood in Iraq. He fled Iraq and immigrated to Israel alone as a minor, using the documentation of his older brother who had already fled to Israel illegally.

The exodus from Morocco after Israel was established was not as dramatic as from other Arab countries. Nonetheless only one percent of the Jewish population remains there today. Lyn Julius will give some historical background, touch on the impact of colonial influence and examine the myths surrounding the wartime king: did he save the Jews from the Nazis? She will then discuss the run-up to Moroccan independence, the
emigration ban and how the Jews have become central to Morocco’s foreign policy and PR strategy.

(Lockdown University, 29 July 2021). Jews in Arab countries look back on the colonial era with nostalgia - and contributed massively in every field - but there were limits. Lecture by Lyn Julius.

Professor Norman A Stillman traces the development of Judeo-Arabic, once the most widely spoken language among Jews until the 20th century.

Talk given by Lyn Julius to the Herzliya Cultural Group. In the wake of the signing of the Abraham Accords between Morocco and Israel.

Lyn Julius gives an overview of the neglected, ignored and distorted story of Jews driven out of the Middle East and North Africa during the 20th century.

Jungian psychoanalayst David Gerbi was expelled with his family from Libya in 1967. In 2011, he returned, intending to restore the Al-Bishi synagogue in Tripoli, but had to flee for his life. Threats have not deterred him from his mission of reaching out to the Libyan government and working for reconciliation between Libyan Jews and Muslims.

Lockdown University, 17 June 2021. There is a misperception that the Shoah affected only the Jews of Europe. Had Rommel not lost the Battle of El Alamein in 1942, the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa would also have been targeted for extermination. Lecture by Lyn Julius.

Leeds-based Nigel Grizzard, Yorkshire’s Jewish Heritage and Tour Guide, has been delving into the Sephardi history of England’s largest county: the Turkish merchants who established a Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue in Leeds, the Sephardi Rabbonim who still serve in Yorkshire, the deportation of Leeds Sephardi Jews on the infamous ship the Dunera to Australia during WW2, the exodus from Egypt in 1956 and the housing of Jewish refugees in Horsforth, the settlement of four generations of Baghdadi Jews in the seaside town of Scarborough – and much more!

Did you know that Sephardi Jews from Morocco came to Brazil and Peru from 1810 onwards during the rubber boom, and settled in the Amazon? In the course of his quest for traces of these Jews, our intrepid lecturer Dr Shaul Zadka stumbled, among other oddities, on the grave of a rabbi revered by Christians. He returns to Harif with tales of another exciting adventure, told for the first time.