The exodus Obama didn’t mention
In his articulate, frank address to the Muslims world last week, President Obama forgot to mention one additional notable flaw of the Arab world: the 800,000 Jews expelled from Muslims lands when nationalism swept across the Muslim world, write Andre Aciman in The New York Times:
With all his references to the history of Islam and to its (questionable) “proud tradition of tolerance” of other faiths, Mr. Obama never said anything about those Jews whose ancestors had been living in Arab lands long before the advent of Islam but were its first victims once rampant nationalism swept over the Arab world. Nor did he bother to mention that with this flight and expulsion, Jewish assets were — let’s call it by its proper name — looted. Mr. Obama never mentioned the belongings I still own in Egypt and will never recover. My mother’s house, my father’s factory, our life in Egypt, our friends, our books, our cars, my bicycle...
Mr. Obama had harsh things to say to the Arab world about its treatment of women. And he said much about America’s debt to Islam. But he failed to remind the Egyptians in his audience that until 50 years ago a strong and vibrant Jewish community thrived in their midst. Or that many of Egypt’s finest hospitals and other institutions were founded and financed by Jews. It is a shame that he did not remind the Egyptians in the audience of this, because, in most cases — and especially among those younger than 50 — their memory banks have been conveniently expunged of deadweight and guilt. They have no recollections of Jews.
Full column here.
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Just as bad as the omission on the part of our Pres., is the silence of the Jews who voted for him. Perhaps they are not even aware of how the Jews were treated by the countries that they had lived in for thousands of years. If Israel would take from the Arabs who live in Israel we would never hear the end of that from our Jewish American friends or from the U.N.
Thank you Mr. Aciman;
My family goes back for generations in Egypt and we were indeed looted, as his family was. Somehow we are not “victims” to the left and their arab allies, somehow we were “foreigners” and deserved our fate. Thank G-d we are made of “sterner stuff"and don’t go about wingeing: we remade our lives and most of us, successfully in whatever country we landed.
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Jane C. Durango
06/09/09 11:25 AM
I read Aciman’s op-ed piece in today’s NYT. I really enjoyed his book Out of Egypt too. But, there are a lot more Jews who have been expelled by the Muslim world and had their property looted and had their lives torn apart after thousands of years in the Middle East from countries such as Iraq, Iran, Morocco, etc. There is an organization called JIMENA that is trying to keep their status in the public eye. Somehow their situation is always swept under the rug.