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For Meir Kahlon, chairman of the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries, this is a historic week. For the first time, Israel has officially recognized his suffering, that of his family and some 850,000 other Jews who left, were expelled or fled from their homes in Syria, Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon and other Arab and Muslim countries around the time of the founding of the State of Israel and afterwards.
“Until now, they spoke about the Arab refugees and not the Jewish refugees. Today we are marking the remembrance day commemorating the expulsion of the Jews of Arab lands,” shouted Kahlon emotionally into the microphone at Bar-Ilan University, where a seminar on the topic was held last Thursday with the title “Exodus, Emigration, Expulsion and Uprooting.”
November 30 is the official day the State of Israel marks for the first time as the national day of commemoration for Jewish refugees from Arab lands and Iran, based on a law sponsored by MK Shimon Ohayon (Yisrael Beiteinu) and passed this summer by the Knesset. The date has a special meaning – it is the day after November 29, the day in 1947 that the United Nations General Assembly approved the partition plan for the Palestine Mandate and the creation of a Jewish state. November 30, the day after the decision, is the day the Arabs started their concerted attacks on the Jews.
“The Arab nations did not accept the UN partition plan, and the riots against the Jews started. We want to remember this day as the Nakba [catastrophe in Arabic, used to refer by Palestinians to Israel’s Independence Day] Day of the Jews of Arab lands,” Kahlon told Haaretz. “It is not just the Nakba of the Palestinians – it is also our Nakba, Jews of Arab lands who were expelled and slaughtered.”