13 February 2008

Jewish refugees from Moslem lands

In just 50 years, nearly one million Jews who lived in communities with histories of thousands of years, have left those communities, either by force or in the face of fear.

"Point of No Return" is a blog providing information and links about the Middle East's forgotten Jewish refugees. While not a newly established blog (it began in 2005), it is relatively new to me, therefore the label "new blog."

It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, and to preserving the stories of those refugees and their struggle for recognition and restitution.

There is a good list of links for more information on related issues.

Normally, in such sites, Iran is labeled as an Arab country, although it is neither Arabic in culture or in language - in the old pre-Revolutionary days it was even anti-Arab and pro-Israel - so it was nice to see Iran properly included on this site.

On the eve of the Revolution in Iran - just after I left Teheran - the community numbered some 80,000 individuals. Today's estimate is some 20,000 throughout the country. Most live in Teheran with smaller numbers in Shiraz, Isfahan and other towns.

The blog includes interesting postings on such communities as Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Eritrea, France, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, North Africa, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Yemen, Berbers, Libya, and members of these communities living in Israel and elsewhere.

For some basic information on the issue, see this post.

No comments:

Post a Comment