Jewish Congress Reports on Position of Jews in Arab Lands

The position of the Jews in the Arab world is analyzed in a report prepared by the Institute of Jewish Affairs of the World Jewish Congress which will be published shortly, but a summary of which was released today. The report says that “ultra-nationalism and xenophobia on the part of the Arab nations are principally responsible for the deterioration of the Jewish position in the Middle East today.” It establishes the following country-by-country facts:

1. Only about 6,000 Jews now remain in Syria, out of a total Jewish population in 1943 of 30,000. Persecution, which began in 1945, accounts for the exodus, Those Jews who still remain in Syria are there mainly because of the official prohibition of Jewish emigration, By and large, these people are destitute and completely dependent upon relief from abroad and local charity for the necessities of life.

2. The Jewish community of Iraq, which numbered about 130,000 before the Arab-Israel war, has now dwindled to some 5,000 persons.

3. Libya’s Jewish population in 1937 was 30,000; today it numbers below 3,000. The population shift came about, the report declares, from emigration motivated by persecution and apprehension over Libya’s establishment as an independent Arab state.

4. Of approximately 80,000 Jews who lived in Egypt in 1948, only 45,000 are left, Despite recent signs of amity toward Jews displayed by General Naguib, the Jews of Egypt, the study says, “are apprehensive of their future in a country dedicated to fighting foreigners, foreign powers and Israel.”

The Jewries of Iraq, Syria and Libya, the report continues, “have apparently no prospects for survival, even on a modest scale. In Iraq and Syria, the process of spoliation and voluntary liquidation is still going on, and it is reasonable to expect that the bulk of the existing remnants of these Jewish communities will leave, if permitted to do so.”

CONDITIONS BETTER IN LEBANON, MOROCCO AND TUNISIA

Turning to a few relatively brighter areas for the Jewish population in the Middle East, the study cites conditions in Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia as being less tense than in other Arab nations, but nonetheless deteriorating, Lebanon has been the only Arab state which has thus far avoided the pattern of liquidation of Jewish communities.

In French Morocco and Tunisia, the study continues, “the Arabs are not the masters of the scene. The local population has always been antagonistic, and the only influential friend of the Jews has been the Pasha of Marrakesh, El Glaoui, who has become the most powerful figure in French Morocco.” The Pasha, however, is advanced in age, and the report declares it is “doubtful” if a successor of his stature will appear on the scene.

The Jews of Tunisia, who form an important segment of the country’s intellectual, business and professional population, have a friend in the Bey. Early in 1953, under pressure from the Arab League, the Nationalists launched an anti-Jewish boycott which made inroads on the economic position of the Jews. This boycott, however, has relaxed and the Tunisian Nationalist Party dissociated itself on several occasions from anti-Jewish excesses which, they asserted, were the work of irresponsible elements. The Party even went so far, the report concludes, as to provide some compensation for the material damage which the Jews suffered as a result of the violence.