The Forgotten Exodus

The world has overlooked an important episode in modern history: the 800,000 Jews who left or were driven from their homes in Arab nations and Iran in the mid-20th century to forge new lives for themselves and future generations. The Forgotten Exodus, a new limited podcast series brought to you by American Jewish Committee (AJC), explores the lessons we can learn from this pivotal moment of Jewish history. The series delves into the rich, yet little-known heritage of Jews from Arab nations, as some of those countries normalize relations with Israel, and the moving stories of courage, resilience, and reconciliation that illustrate how Jews in the Middle East and North Africa overcame tremendous challenges.  Premiering August 1, join us as we share these stories in The Forgotten Exodus.  New episodes will be released weekly. Subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. ___ Show Notes: www.AJC.org/ForgottenExodus Theme song credit: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Tiemur Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 Transcript: MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN, HOST: The world has overlooked an important episode in modern history: the 800,000 Jews who left their homes in Arab nations and Iran in the mid-20th century. Some fled antisemitism, mistreatment, and pogroms that sparked a refugee crisis like no other.  CAROL ISAACS, GUEST: A lot of businesses were trashed, houses were burnt, women raped, mutilated, babies killed. It was an awful time. And that was a kind of time when the Jews of Iraq started to think, well, maybe this isn't our homeland after all. MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: Others sought opportunities for their families or followed the calling to help create a Jewish state. BENNY GAMLIELI, TRANSLATOR FOR ZE’EV TZUBERI, GUEST: So during thousands of years, the Jewish people used to dream, to go, that the Messiah will come, to go to Israel, to go to the Holy Land, to see the city of Jerusalem. It was a dream during thousands of years. MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: In Israel, America, Italy, wherever they landed, these Jews forged new lives for themselves and future generations. American Jewish Committee will explore the lessons we can learn from this pivotal moment of Jewish history in a new limited series called The Forgotten Exodus.

Who are the Jews of Iraq? Why did they leave? And why do so many Iraqi Jews, even those born elsewhere, still consider Iraq their home?  The premiere episode of a new limited narrative series from American Jewish Committee (AJC) uncovers the answers to these questions through the inspiring story of Mizrahi Jewish cartoonist Carol Isaacs’ family. Feeling alienated growing up as the only Jew in school from an Arab-majority country, Carol turned her longing for Iraq and the life her family left behind into a gripping graphic memoir, The Wolf of Baghdad.  Meanwhile, Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, professor of History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University, delves into the fascinating, yet the little-known history of Iraqi Jewry, from its roots in the region 2,600 years ago, to the antisemitic riots that led them to seek refuge in Israel, England, and the U.S. _________ Show notes: Sign up to receive podcast updates here. Learn more about the series here. Song credits: Thanks to Carol Isaacs and her band 3yin for permission to use The Wolf of Bagdad soundtrack. Portions of the following tracks can be heard throughout the episode:  01 Dhikrayyat (al Qasabji)  02 Muqaddima Hijaz (trad)  03 Che Mali Wali (pt 1) (trad) 05 Fog el Nakhal (trad)  11 Balini-b Balwa (trad)  12 Al Effendi (al Kuwaiti)  14 Dililol (trad)  15 Che Mail Wali (pt 2) (trad)  Pond5: “Desert Caravans”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Tiemur Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837; “Sentimental Oud Middle Eastern”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Sotirios Bakas (BMI), IPI#797324989.; “Adventures in the East”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI) Composer: Petar Milinkovic (BMI), IPI#00738313833. ______ Episode Transcript: CAROL ISAACS: A lot of businesses were trashed, houses were burnt. It was an awful time. And that was a kind of time when the Jews of Iraq had started to think, ‘Well, maybe this isn't our homeland after all.’ MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: Welcome to the premiere of the first ever podcast series devoted exclusively to an overlooked episode in modern history: the 800,000 Jews who left or were driven from their homes in Arab nations and Iran in the mid-20th century. Some fled antisemitism, mistreatment, and pogroms that sparked a refugee crisis like no other, as persecuted Jewish communities poured from numerous directions.  Others sought opportunities for their families or followed the calling to help create a Jewish state. In Israel, America, Italy, wherever they landed, these Jews forged new lives for themselves and future generations. This series explores that pivotal moment in Jewish history and the rich Jewish heritage of Iran and Arab nations as some begin to build relations with Israel. Each week, we will share the history of one Jewish family with roots in the Arab world. Each account is personal and different. Some include painful memories or elegies for what could’ve been. Others pay homage to the conviction of their ancestors to seek a life where they were wanted. To ground each episode, we rely on a scholar to untangle the complexities. Some of these stories have never been told because they wished to leave the past in the past. For those of you who, like me, before this project began, never read this chapter in Jewish history, we hope you find this series enlightening. And for those who felt ignored for so many decades, we hope these stories honor your families’ legacies. Join us as we explore stories of courage, perseverance, and resilience.  I’m your host, Manya Brachear Pashman, and this is The Forgotten Exodus. Today’s episode: Leaving Iraq. CAROL: All my life, I've lived in two worlds – one inside the family home, which is a very Jewish world, obviously, but also tinged with Iraqi customs like Iraqi food, a language we spoke—Judeo Arabic. So, I've always known that I’m not just British. I've lived in these two worlds, the one at home, and then the one at school. And then later on at work, which was very English. I went to a terribly English school, for example, there were about a thousand girls. Of those thousand girls, 30 were Jewish, and I was the only Mizrahi, the only non-European Jew. So, there's always been that knowing that I’m not quite fitting into boxes. Do you know what I mean? But I never quite knew which box I fit into. MANYA: Carol Isaacs makes her living illustrating the zeitgeists of our time, poking fun at the irony all around us, reminding us of our common quirks. And she fits it all into a tiny box. You might not know Carol by her given name, but you’ve probably seen her pen name, scrawled in the corner of her cartoons published by The New Yorker and Spectator magazines: TS McCoy, or The Surreal McCoy.  Carol is homesick for a home she never knew. Born and raised Jewish in London, she grew up hearing stories of her parents’ life in Baghdad. How her family members learned to swim in the Tigris River using the bark of palm trees as life preservers, how they shopped in the city sooks for dates to bake b’ab’e b’tamer.  Millions of Jews have called Iraq home for more than 2,600 years, including many of their children and grandchildren who have never been there, but long to go. Like Carol, they were raised with indelible stories of daily life in Mosul, Basra, Baghdad – Jewish life that ceased to exist because it ceased to be safe. CAROL: My mother remembered sitting with her mother and her grandmother and all the family in the cellar, going through every single grain of rice for chometz. Now, if you imagine that there were eight days of Passover, I don't know 10, 12 people in the household, plus guests, they ate rice at least twice a day. You can imagine how much rice you'd have to go through. So little things like that, you know, that would give you a window into another world completely, that they remembered with so much fondness.  And it's been like that all my life. I've had this nostalgia for this, this place that my parents used to . . . now and again they’d talk about it, this place that I've never visited and I've never known. But it would be wonderful to go and just smell the same air that my ancestors smelled, you know, walk around the same streets in the Jewish Quarter. The houses are still there, the old Jewish Quarter. They're a bit run down. Well, very run down. MANYA: Carol turned her longing for Iraq and the life her family left behind into a graphic memoir and animated film called The Wolf of Baghdad. Think Art Spiegelman’s Maus, the graphic novel about the Holocaust, but for Jews in Iraq who on the holiday of Shavuot in 1941 suffered through a brutal pogrom known as the Farhud, followed by decades of persecution, and ultimately, expulsion. Her research for the book involved conversations with family members who had never spoken about the violence and hatred they witnessed. They had left it in the past and now looked toward the future. There’s no dialogue in the book either. The story arc simply follows the memories. CAROL: They wanted to look forward. So, it was really gratifying that they did tell me these things. ‘Cause when my parents came, for example, they came to the UK, it was very much ‘Look forward. We are British now.’ My father was the quintessential city gent. He'd go to the office every day in the city of London with his pinstriped suit, and a rose plucked from the front garden, you know, a copy of The Guardian newspaper under his arm. He was British. We listened to classical music. We didn't listen to the music of my heritage. It was all Western music in the house. MANYA: But her father’s Muslim and Christian business associates in Iraq visited regularly, as long as they could safely travel.    CAROL: On a Sunday, every month, our house would turn into little Baghdad. They would come and my mother would feed them these delicacies that she spent all week making and they’d sit and they’d talk. MANYA: As Carol said, she had heard only fond memories throughout her childhood because for millennia, Jews in Iraq lived in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors.  CAROL: Jews have always lived in Mesopotamia, lived generally quite well. There was always the dimmi status, which is a status given to minorities. For example, they had to pay a certain tax, had to wear certain clothing. Sometimes, they weren't allowed to build houses higher than their neighbor, because they weren't allowed to be above their neighbor. They couldn't ride a horse, for example, Jews. I mean, small little rules, that you were never quite accorded full status. But then when the Brits arrived in 1917, things became a bit easier. MANYA: But 20-some years later, life for Jews took a turn for the worse. That sudden and dramatic turning point in 1941 was called The Farhud. ZVI BEN-DOR BENITE: Jews have been living in Iraq for thousands of years. If we start with the Farhud, we are starting in the middle of the story, in fact, in the middle of the end.” MANYA: That’s Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, a professor of history and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. The son of Iraqi Jewish parents who migrated to Israel in the early 1950s, he carries in his imagination maps of old Jewish neighborhoods in Mosul and Baghdad, etched by his parents’ stories of life in the old country. He shares Carol’s longing to walk those same streets one day.  ZVI: Iraqis, even those who were born in Israel, still self-identify as Iraqis and still consider that home to a certain extent – an imaginary home, but home. And you can say the same thing, and even more so, for people who were born there and lived there at the time. So here’s the thing: if I go there, I would be considering myself a returnee. But it would be my first time. MANYA: As a Jew, Zvi knows the chances of his returning are slim. To this day, Iraq remains the only Arab country that has never signed a ceasefire with Israel since Arab nations declared war on the Jewish state upon its creation in 1948. Jews are no

Once home to one of the world’s oldest Jewish communities, some 50,000 Yemeni Jews, or Teimanim, left their homes between 1949-50 as part of Operation Magic Carpet. They walked for months to reach Alaskan Airlines planes “filled like sardines” that chartered them to safety in the then-young Jewish nation. How did this incredible story unfold and what were the political, social, and economic forces that drove them to leave? In the #1 Jewish podcast in the U.S, the history and personal stories of Yemenite Jews are uncovered and told. Hear from windsurfer Shahar Tzubari, who won a bronze medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, about how his grandparents left behind their life as dairy farmers in Ta’iz, Yemen, to come to Israel, and Ari Ariel, a Middle East historian at the University of Iowa, who delves into what the 2,600-year-old community was like and the dramatic transitions that led to the mass exodus. ___ Show notes: Sign up to receive podcast updates here. Learn more about the series here. Video credits: Sailing - Men's RS:X Windsurfing - Beijing 2008 Summer Olympic Games Shahar Tzuberi Wins Israel's First Olympic Medal Of 2008 Beijing Olympics  Song credits:  "Emet El Shmeha", by Shoshana Demari "Hatikvah"  “Muhabet” by Turku, Nomads of the Silk Road Pond5:  “Desert Caravans”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Tiemur Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Sentimental Oud Middle Eastern”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Sotirios Bakas (BMI), IPI#797324989. “Adventures in the East”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI) Composer: Petar Milinkovic (BMI), IPI#00738313833. “Modern Middle Eastern Underscore”: Publisher: All Pro Audio LLC (611803484); Composer: Alan T Fagan (347654928) “Middle Eastern Arabic Oud”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Sotirios Bakas (BMI), IPI#797324989 Photo credit: GPO/Zoltan Kluger ____ Episode Transcript: BENNY GAMLIELI/ZE’EV TZUBARI: During thousands of years, the Jewish people used to dream, that the Messiah would come, to go to Israel, to go to the Holy Land, to see the city of Jerusalem. It was a dream during thousands of years.  MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: The world has overlooked an important episode in modern history: the 800,000 Jews who left, or were driven from their homes in Arab nations and Iran in the mid-20th century. This series, brought to you by American Jewish Committee, explores that pivotal moment in Jewish history and the rich Jewish heritage of Iran and Arab nations, as some begin to build relations with Israel.  I’m your host, Manya Brachear Pashman.  Join us as we explore family histories and personal stories of courage, perseverance, and resilience. This is The Forgotten Exodus.  Today’s episode: Leaving Yemen. [Video clip of Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics Windsurfing RS:X event] MANYA: That is the sound of Israeli Windsurfer Shahar Tzubari in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, coming up from behind to earn the bronze medal. At the same time, he was electrifying his country by winning Israel’s only medal in those Olympic Games, he was also fulfilling his mandatory military service to help defend the Jewish state. Two generations before him also served in the Israeli military, including his grandfather who fought to defend Israel against attacks from its Arab neighbors just days after shepherding his family on foot across Yemen to board a plane and make the new Jewish state their new home.   SHAHAR TZUBARI: I just know about the past, of my parents and my grandparents. And I know, they fought for this country. And they fought for independence. And for me, I’m here, and I represent basically what they fought for.  MANYA: Shahar, who now coaches Israel’s women’s windsurfing team, is a second-generation Israeli whose grandparents and generations before them lived in Yemen. Their journey to the Jewish state resembles that of tens of thousands of Yemeni Jews, who came to Israel from Yemen between 1948 and 1949 as part of a mass exodus commonly called Operation Magic Carpet.  In fact, Yemeni Jews, or Teimanim, are believed to be one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world outside of Israel, existing there even before the destruction of the First Temple. Yemeni Jews spoke a particular dialect of Hebrew and maintained many original religious traditions and others shaped over the centuries by the influence of Maimonides and Kabbalah. Hundreds of Jewish settlements were scattered across Yemen, where Jews primarily served as silversmiths, blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, shoemakers, and tailors.    But that population started to shift in the 19th Century, what historians call the “age of migration,” driven largely by economic shifts. When the Suez Canal opened in 1869, movement between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean suddenly became much easier. That was true not only for imported and exported goods, but transportation of people too. ARI ARIEL: Most of the time, the story is told starting with Magic Carpet, because that's the big migration. But it's really a much older story. MANYA: That’s Ari Ariel, a Middle East historian at the University of Iowa who focuses on Jewish communities in the Arab world and Mizrahi communities, those who immigrated from Arab countries to Israel and elsewhere in the Diaspora.  His own family left Yemen for Israel in the 1930s. Professor Ariel has spent the last decade trying to piece together that lineage and the history of Yemeni Jews. He notes that between 1872 and 1881, Ottomans retook parts of Yemen where they had previously ruled centuries before. They also ruled over Palestine.  But that wasn’t the only significant transition. In fact, just in the span of five decades leading up to 1922, monumental transitions unfolded. The Ottoman Empire fell apart. Yemen became independent, both Jewish and Arab national movements arose, and the British, who obtained a mandate over Palestine in 1922, expressed support for a Jewish national home – Israel.  ARI: So, there are big economic changes. More and more imported goods start to enter Yemen, and Yemeni Jews, who are craftsmen, largely, and small-scale merchants, really can't compete. So, you have documents complaining about the price of imported shoes and other kinds of imported things.  So, in 1911, the Zionist movement, for the first time sends an emissary to Yemen, because they want Yemeni Jews to move to Palestine. And here, there's also an economic factor. For the Jewish nation to redeem itself, Jews have to fulfill all economic roles.  What that means is they really want Jewish farmers. So, they send a guy named Shmuel Yavnieli. He goes and he walks, he goes around to different villages. It's kind of an intrigue story. He goes from village to village trying to get Yemeni Jews to move.  When he writes back to Jerusalem, he makes it pretty clear, the only Jews who he thinks he's going to be able to get to move to Palestine are the ones who aren't doing so well economically. And that if the Zionist movement agrees to pay for, say, their transportation or housing, or things of that nature, that they may move, and he is successful at doing that.  From my perspective, as a historian, that's important, too, because from that point, pretty much most Yemeni Jews who leave Yemen are going to Palestine. That's not true initially. So in the earlier periods, you have lots of Yemeni Jews going to East Africa, to India, to Egypt, a small number to the U.S., actually. So you get these movements. But once it's directed by a state, or I guess, a state like structure, in the case of the Zionist movement, at this point, the flow becomes much clearer to Palestine.  MANYA: The Tzubari family’s initial departure from Yemen – aunts, uncles, cousins – is part of that larger story of migration. But Shahar’s grandparents came amid the events of the mid-20th Century that sparked the most significant exodus. Within a three-month period, nearly 50,000 Yemeni Jews, including Shahar’s grandparents and great grandparents, poured out of Yemen and made Israel their new home. This is their story as told to me by Shahar and his father Ze’ev Tzubari. Ze’ev Tzubari’s parents were born in southwestern Yemen. For generations they had been dairy farmers. Before they left in 1949 through Operation Magic Carpet, they lived in Ta'iz, once known as the nation’s cultural capital.  ZE’EV AND BENNY, TRANSLATOR: [speaking Hebrew]:  ZE’EV: In Yemen?  BENNY: Yes, you remember what they did? ZE’EV: They had, what I remember, goats, cattle, they had cattle. BENNY: In Ta’iz?  ZE’EV: In Ta’iz, there, we had cattle.] MANYA: Ze’ev spoke to me in Hebrew, and a family friend, Benny Gamlieli, translated. Here’s Benny. BENNY: By the way, my parents as well came through this project by Alaska [Airlines] and brought, as I said, over 50,000-55,000 Jewish people from Yemen came through this project. You know this Aliyah, that we call the Magic Carpet. MANYA: Operation Magic Carpet was the nickname for a joint venture of the Israeli government, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency, to transport Jews from Yemen to Israel. Its official name was Operation Kanfei Nesharim, which, translated from Hebrew means “On the Wings of Eagles”, referring to the passage in Exodus: “how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to me…” BENNY: So during thousands of years, the Jewish people used to dream, that the Messiah will come, to go to Israel, to go to the Holy Land, to see the city of Jerusalem. It was a dream during thousands of years. MANYA: There are a number of theories about why the exodus from Yemen took place at this moment in time and the circumstances surrounding it. Ze’ev’s translator, Benny, said Jews and Muslims lived side by side. But being Jewish wasn’t easy. Since the seventh century, Jews in Yemen were considered second class, which varied in meaning from ruler to ruler. Since 1910, the imam of Yemen had an agreement with the Ottomans to take care of the Jews.  But t

In the first half of the 20th century, Egypt went through profound social and political upheavals culminating in the rise of President Gamal Abdel Nasser and his campaign of Arabization, creating an oppressive atmosphere for the country’s Jews, and leading almost all to flee or be kicked out of the country. Hear the personal story of award-winning author André Aciman as he recounts the heart-wrenching details of the pervasive antisemitism during his childhood in Alexandria and his family’s expulsion in 1965, which he wrote about in his memoir Out of Egypt, and also inspired his novel Call Me by Your Name.  Joining Aciman is Deborah Starr, a professor of Near Eastern and Jewish Studies at Cornell University, who chronicles the history of Egypt’s Jewish community that dates back millennia, and the events that led to their erasure from Egypt’s collective memory. Aciman’s modern-day Jewish exodus story is one that touches on identity, belonging, and nationality: Where is your home when you become a refugee at age 14? ___ Show notes: Sign up to receive podcast updates here. Learn more about the series here. Song credits:  Rampi Rampi, Aksaray'in Taslari, Bir Demet Yasemen by Turku, Nomads of the Silk Road Pond5:  “Desert Caravans”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Tiemur Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Sentimental Oud Middle Eastern”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Sotirios Bakas (BMI), IPI#797324989. “Frontiers”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Pete Checkley (BMI), IPI#380407375 “Adventures in the East”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI) Composer: Petar Milinkovic (BMI), IPI#00738313833. “Middle Eastern Arabic Oud”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Sotirios Bakas (BMI), IPI#797324989 ___ Episode Transcript: ANDRÉ ACIMAN: I've lived in New York for 50 years. Is it my home? Not really. But Egypt was never going to be my home. It had become oppressive to be Jewish. MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: The world has overlooked an important episode in modern history: the 800,000 Jews who left or were driven from their homes in Arab nations and Iran in the mid-20th century. This series, brought to you by American Jewish Committee, explores that pivotal moment in Jewish history and the rich Jewish heritage of Iran and Arab nations as some begin to build relations with Israel. I'm your host, Manya Brachear Pashman. Join us as we explore family histories and personal stories of courage, perseverance, and resilience.  This is The Forgotten Exodus. Today's episode: leaving Egypt. Author André Aciman can’t stand Passover Seders. They are long and tedious. Everyone gets hungry long before it’s time to eat. It’s also an unwelcome reminder of when André was 14 and his family was forced to leave Egypt – the only home he had ever known. On their last night there, he recounts his family gathered for one last Seder in his birthplace. ANDRÉ: By the time I was saying goodbye, the country, Egypt, had essentially become sort of Judenrein.  MANYA:  Judenrein is the term of Nazi origin meaning “free of Jews”. Most, if not all of the Jews, had already left. ANDRÉ: By the time we were kicked out, we were kicked out literally from Egypt, my parents had already had a life in Egypt. My mother was born in Egypt, she had been wealthy. My father became wealthy. And of course, they had a way of living life that they knew they were abandoning. They had no idea what was awaiting them. They knew it was going to be different, but they had no sense. I, for one, being younger, I just couldn't wait to leave. Because it had become oppressive to be Jewish. As far as I was concerned, it was goodbye. Thank you very much. I’m going. MANYA: André Aciman is best known as the author whose novel inspired the Oscar-winning film Call Me By Your Name – which is as much a tale of coming to terms with being Jewish and a minority, as it is an exquisite coming of age love story set in a villa on the Italian Riviera.  What readers and moviegoers didn’t know is that the Italian villa is just a stand-in. The story’s setting– its distant surf, serpentine architecture, and lush gardens where Elio and Oliver’s romance blooms and Elio’s spiritual awakening unfolds – is an ode to André’s lost home, the coastal Egyptian city of Alexandria.  There, three generations of his Sephardic family had rebuilt the lives they left behind elsewhere as the Ottoman Empire crumbled, two world wars unfolded, a Jewish homeland was born, and nationalistic fervor swept across the Arab world and North Africa. There, in Alexandria, his family had enjoyed a cosmopolitan city and vibrant Jewish home. Until they couldn’t and had to leave.  ANDRÉ: I would be lying if I said that I didn't project many things lost into my novels. In other words, to be able to re-experience the beach, I created a beach house. And that beach house has become, as you know, quite famous around the world. But it was really a portrait of the beach house that we had lost in Egypt.  And many things like that, I pilfer from my imagined past and dump into my books. And people always tell me, ‘God, you captured Italy so well.’ Actually, that was not Italy, I hate to tell you. It was my reimagined or reinvented Egypt transposed into Italy and made to come alive again. MANYA: Before he penned Call Me By Your Name, André wrote his first book, Out of Egypt, a touching memoir about his family’s picturesque life in Alexandria, the underlying anxiety that it could always vanish and how, under the nationalization effort led by Egypt’s President Gamel Abdel Nassar, it did vanish. The memoir ends with the events surrounding the family’s last Passover Seder before they say farewell.   ANDRÉ: This was part of the program of President Nasser, which was to take, particularly Alexandria, and turn it into an Egyptian city, sort of, purified of all European influences. And it worked.  As, by the way, and this is the biggest tragedy that happens to, particularly to Jews, is when a culture decides to expunge its Jews or to remove them in one way or another, it succeeds. It does succeed. You have a sense that it is possible for a culture to remove an entire population. And this is part of the Jewish experience to accept that this happens. MANYA: Egypt did not just expunge its Jewish community. It managed to erase Jews from the nation’s collective memory. Only recently have people begun to rediscover the centuries of rich Jewish history in Egypt, including native Egyptian Jews dating back millennia. In addition, Egypt became a destination for Jews expelled from Spain in the 15th Century. And after the Suez Canal opened in 1869, a wave of more Jews came from the Ottoman Empire, Italy, and Greece. And at the end of the 19th Century, Ashkenazi Jews arrived, fleeing from European pogroms. DEBORAH STARR: The Jewish community in Egypt was very diverse. The longest standing community in Egypt would have been Arabic speaking Jews, we would say now Mizrahi Jews. MANYA: That’s Deborah Starr, Professor of Modern Arabic and Hebrew Literature and Film at Cornell University. Her studies of cosmopolitan Egypt through a lens of literature and cinema have given her a unique window into how Jews arrived and left Egypt and how that history has been portrayed. She says Jews had a long history in Egypt through the Islamic period and a small population remained in the 19th century. Then a wave of immigration came. DEBORAH: We have an economic boom in Egypt. Jews start coming from around the Ottoman Empire, from around the Mediterranean, emigrating to Egypt from across North Africa. And so, from around 5,000 Jews in the middle of the 19th century, by the middle of the 20th century, at its peak, the Egyptian Jews numbered somewhere between 75 and 80,000. So, it was a significant increase, and you know, much more so than just the birth rate would explain. MANYA: André’s family was part of that wave, having endured a series of exiles from Spain, Italy, and Turkey, before reaching Egypt. DEBORAH: Egypt has its independence movement, the 1919 revolution, which is characterized by this discourse of coexistence, that ‘we’re all in this together.’ There are images of Muslims and Christians marching together.  Jews were also supportive of this movement. There’s this real sense of a plurality, of a pluralist society in Egypt, that’s really evident in the ways that this movement is characterized. The interwar period is really this very vibrant time in Egyptian culture, but also this time of significant transition in its relationship to the British in the various movements, political movements that emerge in this period, and movements that will have a huge impact on the fate of the Jews of Egypt in the coming decades. MANYA: One of those movements was Zionism, the movement to establish a Jewish state in the biblical homeland of the Jews. In 1917, during the First World War, the British government occupying Egypt at the time, issued a public statement of support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, still an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. That statement became known as the Balfour Declaration. DEBORAH: There was certainly evidence of a certain excitement about the Balfour Declaration of 1917. A certain amount of general support for the idea that Jews are going to live there, but not a whole lot of movement themselves. But we also have these really interesting examples of people who were on the record as supporting, of seeing themselves as Egyptians, as part of the anti-colonial Egyptian nationalism, who also gave financial support to the Jewish project in Palestine. And so, so there wasn't this sense of—you can't be one or the other. There wasn't this radical split. MANYA: Another movement unfolding simultaneously was the impulse to reclaim Egypt’s independence, not just in legal terms – Egypt had technically gained independence from the British in 1922 – b

Throughout most of her life, Giulietta Boukhobza rarely talked about the life she left behind in Libya when she was 16. However, today, with antisemitism on the rise and Israel under constant threat, she shares her family’s story of their harrowing escape from Libya as part of an effort to raise awareness for future generations. Joining Boukhobza is filmmaker Vivienne Roumani-Denn, the creator of “The Last Jews of Libya,” a documentary about how her family and others were forced out of their North African homeland, who provides the historical backdrop for Boukhobza’s story, illustrating how life was never easy for Jews in Libya, but it was still home.  Boukhobza’s story is also one of triumph. Together with her husband David Harris, the longtime CEO of American Jewish Committee, they demonstrate that speaking up and fighting for what you believe is the only option.  ___ Show notes: Sign up to receive podcast updates here. Learn more about the series here. Song credits:  "Enta Omri" (live) by Umm Kulthum Kamar Barik; Gushe Cheman; Rampi Rampi; Aksaray'in Taslari; all by Turku, Nomads of the Silk Road Pond5:  “Desert Caravans”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Tiemur Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Sentimental Oud Middle Eastern”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Sotirios Bakas (BMI), IPI#797324989. “Frontiers”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Pete Checkley (BMI), IPI#380407375 “Adventures in the East”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI) Composer: Petar Milinkovic (BMI), IPI#00738313833. “Middle Eastern Arabic Oud”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Sotirios Bakas (BMI), IPI#797324989 “A Middle East Lament”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Alpha (ASCAP); Composer: Dan Cullen (PRS), IPI#551977321 “Mystic Anatolia”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Alpha (ASCAP); Composer: Okan Akdeniz (MSG), IPI#37747892568 “Modern Middle Eastern Underscore”: Publisher: All Pro Audio LLC (611803484); Composer: Alan T Fagan (347654928) ___ Episode Transcript: GIULIETTA BOUKHOBZA: My family was in Libya for many, many years. You were a second-class citizen, but you didn’t know better. You knew that if somebody hits you in the street, you don't go to the police, because the police will take the side of the Arab. They didn't care. You were just a Jew and a Zionist.  MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: The world has overlooked an important episode in modern history: the 800,000 Jews who left or were driven from their homes in Arab nations and Iran in the mid-20th century. This series, brought to you by American Jewish Committee, explores that pivotal moment in Jewish history and the rich Jewish heritage of Iran and Arab nations as some begin to build relations with Israel.  I'm your host, Manya Brachear Pashman. Join us as we explore family histories and personal stories of courage, perseverance, and resilience.  This is The Forgotten Exodus.  Today’s episode: Leaving Libya. GIULIETTA: We were all hiding in our houses, all the Jews. And there were news about buildings, that they were burned. We didn’t know at the time that they had killed some families. And my particular family, we were able to leave, actually the famous Quatorze Juillet, the 14th of July, the Bastille Day. So it was freedom for us too, and we ended up, we went to Italy. MANYA: Until recently, Guilietta Boukhobza never talked about the life she left behind in Libya at the age of 16, and for many years her children rarely inquired. Only recently, her oldest son has started to ask his mother what happened to her family, their family, more than 50 years ago. What prompted her parents to leave everything behind, besides what each family member could fit inside a suitcase? GIULIETTA: One suitcase. So we were eight children, and a mother and a father. Each one got his suitcase. I don't even remember what we put in it. I have no memory. It’s so funny. I don't remember making the bag. I vaguely remember getting into this kind of truck, arriving at the airport.  I remember arriving in Rome and starting to cry. Because I was saying, and it's true, we were very, very happy to get out of there, but still there is trauma. That you just leave there, you arrive to a train station and you start crying and you say ‘I want to go home.’ What the hell is home? They’ll kill you there. MANYA: Her father’s favorite wool blanket. A handmade rug her mother treasured. The journals Giulietta had kept since the age of ten. Though she doesn’t remember any of these items going into a suitcase, these are the mementos that over the years have reminded Giulietta of her childhood in Misrata and Tripoli. The contents of those suitcases mattered very little at the time.  GIULIETTA: In my family they came, they almost killed us. I mean, I still remember coming, and we're alive by a miracle so, we are grateful that we were not killed. MANYA: World events, ignorance about history, and the naïveté that often accompanies that ignorance also propel Giulietta to share her story. She is bewildered and alarmed by the rising tide of antisemitism and anger toward Israel. Israel is not perfect. Not by any stretch. But neither is America, the country that has given her freedoms and opportunities that she never knew existed for Jews growing up in Libya.   Giulietta has a unique vantage point. She is married to the longtime CEO of American Jewish Committee, David Harris, who has shown her that speaking up and fighting for what you believe is the only option.  In 2017, David wrote Letter from a Forgotten Jew, a column stylistically written from a first-person perspective based on the stories he had heard from Jews that fled Arab countries such as Iraq and Libya. In reality, it was an ode to his wife whose experience had been ignored for too long. Since then, Giulietta has shared pieces of her story and occasionally picks up her own pen to offer her perspective on world events.   GIULIETTA: Now, everything that happened to me I see in a different light. It’s not any more about me. I was just, how do you say, I just happened to be at the wrong time at the wrong place. So, I don't want you to feel bad for me or feel sorry for me. I talk like almost as if it is not me. I'm talking about the third person. And, and I don't even have so much pity for this third person because this third person survived and thrived in a way.   When I look at my story now, I see it in relation to what I see around me – the growing antisemitism, the stupidity of the West, the ignorance towards history, the indifference and almost embarrassment of some Jews who should be proud of who they are and what they achieved. You almost envy these people who never had the trauma that you have. Now, I feel almost privileged that I had that because I can understand more and see the danger of what can happen when people don't know history or whatever. MANYA: The Libyan Jewish community goes back thousands of years, to the Third Century before the Common Era, even before Roman times. Of course, it wasn’t called Libya at the time. Over millennia, Jews lived in Cyrenaica, the region next to Egypt, and Tripolitania, the region bordering Tunisia. They lived under Roman, Ottoman, Italian, Spanish, British and, eventually, Libyan rule.   Who was in charge at the time determined Jews’ comfort, their livelihood, and oftentimes their survival. Under some regimes, Jews were treated as a protected minority who paid special taxes and faced certain restrictions.  Under some, they held government positions. And yet under others, they feared for their lives. In fact, after the 18th Century, Jews in Tripoli– when there were still Jews in Tripoli– celebrated two additional Purims to mark their deliverance from two separate attempts to annihilate them. VIVIENNE ROUMAINI-DENN: Even in the best of times, they lived uneasily. On an individual basis there was that full trust. But at the same time, when there were pogroms, you just never knew when somebody would save you, or kill you. And both happened. You found Arabs who really risked their life to save you and you found others who actually just killed you.  MANYA: That’s filmmaker Vivienne Roumani-Denn, the creator of “The Last Jews of Libya,” a documentary about how her family was forced out of their North African homeland. The documentary was inspired by a manuscript her mother left behind, which Vivienne discovered only after her death.  A librarian by training, Vivienne began conducting oral histories, interviewing dozens of Jewish refugees who once called Libya home. She also created the first website to curate stories and conversations in the Libyan Jewish community.  In 1999, she became the founding director of the Sephardic Library and Archives of the American Sephardi Federation at the Center for Jewish History in New York. She later served as the federation’s executive director.  Meanwhile, her older brother Maurice Roumani, a professor of politics and international relations, wrote the seminal scholarly work on Libya’s modern Jewish history titled, “The Jews of Libya.”  VIVIENNE: At the end of the Ottoman period, there was a thriving Jewish school. Many Jewish children learned Hebrew so well that they would speak it in the street. It's a nice little glimpse of the Ottoman rule in Libya, which was before anybody is currently living. MANYA: Indeed, Jewish life flourished in Libya for centuries. Shabbat tables featured chraime, fish simmered in a spicy tomato sauce, and mafrum, vegetables stuffed with meat. In Tripoli, by the 1940s, men could walk to one of 44 synagogues every Saturday morning. The beat of the goblet drum, or darbouka, signaled the impending nuptials of a bride and groom. And when the bride emerged on her wedding day with her hands and head exquisitely painted with henna, she was a sight to behold.  In 1911, the Italians conquered the Ottoman rulers and at first, Jews fared well.  VIVIENNE: Life under Italian rule was calm, and even when fascism first c

Financier, philanthropist, and longtime president of the World Sephardi Federation Nessim Gaon was proud of the Sudanese birthright that made him part of a long lineage of Jews from Arab lands. However, with growing antisemitism in Sudan, he also believed Israel offered the only safe haven for Jews around the world and devoted his life to constantly improving the Zionist project.  Gaon’s oldest grandchild, Dr. Alexandra Herzog, deputy director of Contemporary Jewish Life for American Jewish Committee, shares the story of her grandfather’s flight from Sudan, his quest for equality in Israel, and his pursuit of peace between the Jewish state and Arab nations that led to the historic 1979 accord between Israel and Egypt. Along with Dr. Herzog, oral historian Daisy Abboudi describes great changes in Sudan that take place during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which saw the country emerge from a period of Islamic extremism to a land of possibilities for Jewish pioneers. However, this brief window of openness closes once again as Gaon’s cousins, Diana Krief and Flore Eleini, describe how following Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, Sudan once again became a terrifying place to be a Jew.  ___ Show notes: Sign up to receive podcast updates here. Learn more about the series here. Song credits:  Saza Niye Glemedin; Penceresi Yola Karsi: all by Turku, Nomads of the Silk Road Pond5:  “Desert Caravans”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Tiemur Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Hatikvah (National Anthem Of Israel, Electric Guitar)”; Composer: Composer: Eli Sibony; ID#122561081 “Frontiers”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Pete Checkley (BMI), IPI#380407375 “Adventures in the East”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI) Composer: Petar Milinkovic (BMI), IPI#00738313833. “A Middle East Lament”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Alpha (ASCAP); Composer: Dan Cullen (PRS), IPI#551977321 “Mystic Anatolia”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Alpha (ASCAP); Composer: Okan Akdeniz (MSG), IPI#37747892568 “Modern Middle Eastern Underscore”: Publisher: All Pro Audio LLC (611803484); Composer: Alan T Fagan (347654928) “Fields Of Elysium”; Publisher: Mysterylab Music; Composer: Mott Jordan; ID#79549862 ___ Episode Transcript: ALEXANDRA HERZOG: Oftentimes, I asked him, would you want to go visit Sudan? If you could, would you? And you know, he would tell me, ‘Well, I have this image in my head. And I want to keep it that way.’ And I think that it was so loaded for him in terms of memories, in terms of, you know, vibrancy of life and I think he wanted to keep it as this frozen image. MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: The world has overlooked an important episode in modern history: the 800,000 Jews who left or were driven from their homes in Arab nations and Iran in the mid-20th century. This series, brought to you by American Jewish Committee, explores that pivotal moment in Jewish history and the rich Jewish heritage of Iran and Arab nations as some begin to build relations with Israel. I'm your host, Manya Brachear Pashman. Join us as we explore family histories and personal stories of courage, perseverance, and resilience.  This is The Forgotten Exodus. Today’s episode: Leaving Sudan MANYA: When Diana Krief and her 95-year-old mother Flore Eleini look back on their family’s life in Sudan, they conjure dark memories. Flore remembers enjoying afternoon tea outside with her mother-in-law when soldiers armed with bayonets stormed the garden. FLORE ELEINI: Life was normal, life was good. And then, little by little. it deteriorated. We were the very, very last Jews to stay in the Sudan. And then, after the Six Day War, of course, they came, you know, in the street, they were shouting, kill, kill, kill, kill the Jews, kill, kill, kill the Jews. And one day, I thought it was our end. MANYA: Her daughter Diana remembers soldiers raiding their house and posters of decapitated Jews outside their home. DIANA KRIEF: It's actually by others that I came to know that I was Jewish, that I was a Jew, you know, born in a Jewish family. They used to come in front of the house with posters of Jews in the Mediterranean Sea with their heads cut off, and blood everywhere. That’s the first time I had actually seen the land of Israel. I didn't know that we had a land before.  And it was “itbah” the whole time. And even when we would put the radio on, they would sing“itbah itbah al yahud.” That means “slaughter, slaughter the Jews”. And this always stayed in my memory. MANYA: In 1968, Flore and Diana were among the last Jews to flee Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan. They followed a path to Geneva blazed by Flore’s cousin, Nessim Gaon, a financier and philanthropist born and raised in Sudan who had moved from Khartoum to Switzerland a decade earlier.  Gaon, who died in May 2022 at the age of 100, was a legend in modern Jewish history. As a longtime president of the World Sephardi Federation, he worked to raise the profile of Sephardic Jews around the world and level the playing field for them in Israel – where Arabic speaking Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews were often looked down upon.  On the contrary, Gaon believed they offered Israel a gift – a link between the Jewish state and their former homes in the Arab world. Gaon himself offered a shining example. He persuaded his dear friend, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to meet with Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat, which led to the historic 1979 accord between Israel and Egypt – the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab nation. ALEXANDRA: For him when Israel was built, it really was like a miracle. He really, truly believed in the possibilities that Israel could offer. He also realized that Sephardic Jews could play a role in creating a bridge between Israel and the Arab countries, and that they would be able to help in creating peace or at least creating dialogue between some of those countries. And that's really what he did in his conversations with Anwar el-Sadat and Menachem Begin.  MANYA: That’s Gaon’s oldest grandchild, Dr. Alexandra Herzog, who now serves as the deputy director of Contemporary Jewish Life for American Jewish Committee. As her last name indicates, her mother Marguerite, Gaon’s daughter, married into the Herzog dynasty. Alexandra’s paternal grandfather was former Israeli president Chaim Herzog, and her uncle Isaac Herzog, is the Israeli president today.  But in addition to that proud legacy, Alexandra is especially proud of the impact her maternal grandfather made in helping Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews – a slight majority of Israel’s Jewish population, but a significant majority of its Jewish poor – thrive, succeed, and lead in the Jewish state. Gaon was the driving force behind Project Renewal, an initiative launched in the 1970s to rehabilitate some of Israel’s most distressed neighborhoods and improve education and social services there. He developed a bar mitzvah program that provided the education, ceremony, and gifts for thousands of underprivileged boys. And tens of thousands of young Sephardi leaders from impoverished neighborhoods received university scholarships. ALEXANDRA: A lot of the people who came out of this program are actually mayors or members of the Knesset – important people in Israel who actually have, as a ripple effect, a strong impact on the lives of other people as well. MANYA: The history of Sudan’s once tiny and tight-knit Jewish community is limited to the late 19th and early 20th centuries – a brief window when it was safe to be Jewish in that Northeast African country. But the Sudanese diaspora’s connection to that country runs unusually deep.  Sudan, Egypt’s neighbor to the south, was much more than a waystation during the age of migration. It was a land of possibilities. Even if their forefathers spent centuries elsewhere, their descendants today often identify with the fleeting generations spent in Sudan. DAISY ABBOUDI: If you speak to people who were there, and you say, where are you from, they will say, Sudan, in a very proud, but definitive way. MANYA: That’s Daisy Abboudi, a London-based oral historian of Sudanese Jewish history, who began her career by interviewing her own grandparents. DAISY: Sudanese is very much part of their identity and their descendants kind of focus on Sudan. And I know, there's this kind of phenomena from around the Middle East – a kind of nostalgia of looking back. There’s kind of an inherited nostalgia that exists as well. But it's particularly strong in Sudan for a country where people didn't have thousands of years of roots. And I'm kind of always wondering, why? Why has it got this pull? MANYA: The reason could be embedded in the history of Sudan and the pioneering spirit of the Jews who landed in this rustic pocket of Northeast Africa, where the Blue and White Nile Rivers converged, the constellations shone brightly in the night sky, and the scent of jasmine and gardenia floated in the air. In the early 19th century, Sudanese and Egyptian residents lived under Ottoman rule. Jews in Egypt – and the few there might have been in Sudan – faced harsh taxes. But that changed toward the end of the 19th century, as the Ottoman Empire fell, and British forces took over Egypt, before moving south. With them came Christian missionaries who intended to “civilize” the tribes there. An opposition and independence movement began to build, led by a self-proclaimed Mahdi, who claimed to be the foretold redeemer of the Islamic nation. The 1966 epic film, Khartoum, depicts the infamous 1884 Siege of Khartoum, in which the Mahdi, portrayed by Hollywood superstar Laurence Olivier, defeated the popular British General Charles Gordon, played by another Hollywood legend of Ten Commandments fame, Charlton Heston. DAISY: When this independence movement starts, it's led by a man who calls himself the Mahdi, which means the kind of chosen one, and he wins, basically. He conquers Sudan quite quickly and then promptly

Home to one of the world’s oldest Jewish communities, the story of Jews in Iran has been one of prosperity and suffering through the millennia. During the mid-20th century, when Jews were being driven from their homes in Arab lands, Iran assisted Jewish refugees in providing safe passage to Israel. Under the Shah, Israel was an important economic and political ally. Yet that all swiftly changed in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which ushered in Islamic rule, while chants of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” rang out from the streets of Tehran.   Author, journalist, and poet Roya Hakakian shares her personal story of growing up Jewish in Iran during the reign of the Shah and then Ayatollah Khomeini, which she wrote about in her memoir Journey From the Land of No. Joining Hakakian is Dr. Saba Soomekh, a professor of world religions and Middle Eastern history who wrote From the Shahs to Los Angeles: Three Generations of Iranian Jewish Women between Religion and Culture. She also serves as associate director of AJC Los Angeles, home to America’s largest concentration of Persian Jewish immigrants.  In this sixth and final episode of the season, the Hakakian family’s saga captures the common thread that has run throughout this series – when the history of an uprooted community is left untold, it can become vulnerable to others’ narratives and assumptions, or become lost forever and forgotten. How do you leave behind a beloved homeland, safeguard its Jewish legacy, and figure out where you belong? ___ Show notes: Sign up to receive podcast updates here. Learn more about the series here. Song credits:  Chag Purim · The Jewish Guitar Project Hevenu Shalom · Violin Heart Pond5:  “Desert Caravans”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Tiemur Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Oud Nation”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Haygaz Yossoulkanian (BMI), IPI#1001905418 “Persian”: Publisher: STUDEO88; Composer: Siddhartha Sharma “Meditative Middle Eastern Flute”: Publisher: N/; Composer: DANIELYAN ASHOT MAKICHEVICH (IPI NAME #00855552512), UNITED STATES BMI Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Sentimental Oud Middle Eastern”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Sotirios Bakas (BMI), IPI#797324989. “Frontiers”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Pete Checkley (BMI), IPI#380407375 “Persian Investigative Mystery”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Peter Cole (BMI), IPI#679735384 “Persian Wind”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Sigma (SESAC); Composer: Abbas Premjee (SESAC), IPI#572363837 “Modern Middle Eastern Underscore”: Publisher: All Pro Audio LLC (611803484); Composer: Alan T Fagan (347654928) “Persian Fantasy Tavern”: Publisher: N/A; Composer: John Hoge “Adventures in the East”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI) Composer: Petar Milinkovic (BMI), IPI#00738313833.   ___ Episode Transcript: ROYA HAKAKIAN: In 1984, when my mother and I left and my father was left alone in Iran, that was yet another major dramatic and traumatic separation. When I look back at the events of 1979, I think, people constantly think about the revolution having, in some ways, blown up Tehran, but it also blew up families. And my own family was among them.  MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: The world has overlooked an important episode in modern history: the 800,000 Jews who left or were driven from their homes in Arab nations and Iran in the mid-20th century. This series, brought to you by American Jewish Committee, explores that pivotal moment in Jewish history and the rich Jewish heritage of Iran and Arab nations as some begin to build relations with Israel. I'm your host, Manya Brachear Pashman. Join us as we explore family histories and personal stories of courage, perseverance, and resilience. This is The Forgotten Exodus.  Today’s episode: Leaving Iran MANYA: Outside Israel, Iran has the largest Jewish population in the Middle East. Yes, the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2022. Though there is no official census, experts estimate about 10,000 Jews now live in the region previously known as Persia.  But since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Jews in Iran don’t advertise their Jewish identity. They adhere to Iran’s morality code: women stay veiled from head to toe and men and women who aren’t married or related stay apart in public. They don’t express support for Israel, they don’t ask questions, and they don’t disagree with the regime. One might ask, with all these don’ts, is this a way of living a Jewish life? Or a way to live – period?  For author, journalist, and poet Roya Hakakian and her family, the answer was ultimately no. Roya has devoted her life to being a fact-finder and truth-teller. A former associate producer at the CBS news show 60 Minutes and a Guggenheim Fellow, Roya has written two volumes of poetry in Persian and three books of nonfiction in English, the first of which was published in 2004 – Journey From the Land of No, a memoir about her charmed childhood and accursed adolescence growing up Jewish in Iran under two different regimes.  ROYA: It was hugely important for me to create an account that could be relied on as a historic document. And I did my best through being very, very careful about gathering, interviewing, talking to, observing facts, evidence, documents from everyone, including my most immediate members of my family, to do what we, both as reporters, but also as Jews, are called to do, which is to bear witness. No seemed to be the backdrop of life for women, especially of religious minorities, and, in my own case, Jewish background, and so I thought, what better way to name the book than to call it as what my experience had been, which was the constant nos that I heard. So, Land of No was Iran. MANYA: As a journalist, as a Jew, as a daughter of Iran, Roya will not accept no for an answer. After publishing her memoir, she went on to write Assassins of the Turquoise Palace, a meticulously reported book about a widely underreported incident. In 1992 at a Berlin restaurant, a terrorist attack by the Iranian proxy Hezbollah targeted and killed four Iranian-Kurdish exiles. The book highlighted Iran’s enormous global footprint made possible by its terror proxies who don’t let international borders get in the way of silencing Iran’s critics.   Roya also co-founded the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, an independent non-profit that reports on Iran’s human rights abuses.  Her work has not prompted Ayatollah Khameini to publicly issue a fatwa against her  – like the murder order against Salman Rushdie issued by his predecessor. But in 2019, one of her teenage sons answered a knock at the door. It was the FBI, warning her that she was in the crosshairs of the Iranian regime’s operatives in America. Most recently, Roya wrote A Beginner's Guide to America: For the Immigrant and the Curious about the emotional roller coaster of arriving in America while still missing a beloved homeland, especially one where their community has endured for thousands of years. ROYA: I felt very strongly that one stays in one's homeland, that you don't just simply take off when things go wrong, that you stick around and try to figure a way through a bad situation. We came to the point where staying didn't seem like it would lead to any sort of real life and leaving was the only option. MANYA: The story of Jews in Iran, often referred to as Persia until 1935, is a millennia-long tale. A saga of suffering, repression, and persecution, peppered with brief moments of relief or at least relative peace – as long as everyone plays by the rules of the regime. SABA SOOMEKH: The history of Jews in Iran goes back to around 2,700 years ago. And a lot of people assume that Jews came to Iran, well at that time, it was called the Persian Empire, in 586 BCE, with the Babylonian exile. But Jews actually came a lot earlier, we’re thinking 721-722 BCE with the Assyrian exile which makes us one of the oldest Jewish communities.  MANYA: That’s Dr. Saba Soomekh, a professor of world religions and Middle Eastern history and the author of From the Shahs to Los Angeles: Three Generations of Iranian Jewish Women between Religion and Culture. She also serves as associate director of American Jewish Committee in Los Angeles, home to America’s largest concentration of Persian Jewish immigrants. Saba’s parents fled Iran in 1978, shortly before the revolution, when Saba and her sister were toddlers. She has devoted her career to preserving Iranian Jewish history.   Saba said Zoroastrian rulers until the 7th Century Common Era vacillated between tolerance and persecution of Jews. For example, according to the biblical account in the Book of Ezra, Cyrus the Great freed the Jews from Babylonian rule, granted all of them citizenship, and permitted them to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their Temple.  The Book of Esther goes on to tell the story of another Persian king, believed to be Xerxes I, whose closest adviser called Haman conspires to murder all the Jews – a plot that is foiled by his wife Queen Esther who is Jewish herself. Esther heroically pleads for mercy on behalf of her people – a valor that is celebrated on the Jewish holiday of Purim.  But by the time of the Islamic conquest in the middle of the 7th Century Common Era, the persecution had become so intense that Jews were hopeful about the new Arab Muslim regime, even if that meant being tolerated and treated as second-class citizens, or dhimmi status. But that status had a different interpretation for the Safavids. SABA: Really things didn't get bad for the Jews of the Persian Empire until the 16th century with the Safavid dynasty, because within Shia Islam in the Persian Empire, what they brought with them is this understanding of purity and impurity. And Jews were placed in the same category as dogs, pigs, and feces. They were seen as being religiously impure, what's referred to as najes. MANYA: Jews were placed in ghettos called mahaleh, where they

The Forgotten Exodus has been nominated for a Webby Award, also known as “the Internet’s highest honor” — but we need your help to win! Click here to vote for The Forgotten Exodus for “Best Limited Podcast Series.” It takes less than a minute. Voting ends at 11:59 p.m. PDT on April 20, 2023. The Forgotten Exodus is the first-ever narrative podcast series devoted exclusively to the fascinating and often-overlooked history of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewry from Arab countries and Iran. Created by American Jewish Committee (AJC), the series debuted as the top-ranked Jewish podcast in America last August. Please make sure that these fascinating and impactful stories reach an even wider audience. Vote for the series now. ____ Show notes: Pond5:  “Arabic (Middle Eastern Music)”; Composer: Andrei Skliarov; Item ID # 152407112   Vote now: AJC.org/Webby   Listen to "The Forgotten Exodus": AJC.org/ForgottenExodus