The situation of Soviet Jewry today is similar to that of Iraqi Jewry 20 years ago, and hopefully Soviet Jews will be relocated in Israel as Iraqi Jews were then. Police Minister Shlomo Hillel said yesterday. He spoke at a festive ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of Iraqi Jewry’s re-settlement in Israel in the “Ezra and Nehemia” operation which brought 120,000 Jews from Iraq to Israel within the space of a few months. After the mass exodus of 1950, some 10,000 Jews remained in Iraq. Now there are only 3,000, many of them in prison. A few recent escapees have told of tortures used by the Iraqi police when investigating Jewish prisoners. Minister Hillel was a leader of that exodus. The gathering yesterday was also addressed by Aryeh L, Pincus, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive.
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