Middle East Studies
Excellence in Scholarship and Learning
Excellence in Scholarship and Learning
The "Magic Carpet" Exodus of Yemenite Jewry
An Israeli Formative Myth
Esther Meir-Glitzenstein is Associate Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She is the author of: Zionism in an Arab Country: Iraqi Jews in the 1940s (Routledge 2004) and From Baghdad to Ramat-Gan: Iraqi Jews in Israel (Yad Ben Zvi Publishers 2009, Hebrew).
In 1949–50 "Operation Magic Carpet" brought the majority of the Jews of Yemen to Israel through secret cooperation between the Imam of Yemen, the British colonial rulers of Aden, the Israeli Government, and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). In order to immigrate to Israel, Yemenite Jews sold or abandoned their property, took their sacred books with them, and set out on foot, trekking many difficult and treacherous kilometres to reach the southern border of Yemen and cross into Aden. When they arrived in Aden they were located in a transit camp, from which they were later flown to Israel.
"Operation Magic Carpet" strengthened the Zionist claim of a historic Jewish right to the Land of Israel. As a result a heroic myth developed, presenting the bravery and ingenuity of Israelis who set out to rescue their "distant brethren" from lives of distress, degradation, and persecution in the context of the return of "ancient Hebrews" to Zion and its concomitant realization of the eschatological visions of the prophets of Israel.
Based on archival documents, the author reveals the enormous personal cost of the operation. The abandonment of immigrants to death in the desert during their trek to Aden, and the substantive loss of personal property in leaving their homes at short notice calls into question the personal benefit of such a brutal upheaval and demands a re-assessment of the aims of the immigration operation and its prime movers. Pertinent is discussion of the interests of the various states and organizations that were involved in this exodus, which can be seen in retrospect as the first stage in the evacuation of ancient Jewish communities throughout the Middle East and their transfer to Israel. On the wider political level, the question to be posed is: Did the Jews in the Muslim countries pay the price for the establishment of the State of Israel and the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem?
| Hardback ISBN: | 978-1-84519-616-55 |
| Hardback Price: | £67.50 / $89.95 |
| Release Date: | June 2014 |
| Page Extent / Format: | 256 pp. / 229 x 152 mm |
| Illustrated: | Yes |
Foreword by Anita Shapira
Acknowledgements
Introduction: History and Myth in the Narrative on the Immigration
from Yemen
Chapter I – The Immigration Tragedy and its Place in Memoirs
and Research Literature
Chapter II – A Community during an Extended Immigration Process:
The Migrations from Yemen until 1948
Chapter III – The First Hashed Camp: American Philanthropy
in the Shadow of British Colonialism
Chapter IV – Operation "Exodus from Yemen"
Chapter V – "We Failed and Disappointed": The Dysfunctional
Airlift
Chapter VI – "The Last Drop of Blood was Drained in Hashed":
The Failure at the Transit Camp
Chapter VII – Left to Their Fate at the Yemenite Border
Chapter VIII – Investigations and Cover-up
Chapter IX – The Formation of the "Magic Carpet" Myth
Conclusions: Tragedy, Myth, and Commemoration
Bibliography
Index
The work of Esther Meir breaks new ground in the research of
immigration. This book presents an unknown story of the immigration
of Yemenite Jews to Israel. While the accepted myth about
the organized flights from Yemen to the new state of Israel
in 1949 presented the immigration in terms of a fairy tale,
Meir uncovered a grim story of suffering, neglect, inhuman
conditions, that led to a substantial loss of life and to
a prolonged process of immigration.
... Meir presents the process as a transnational endeavor, in
which there were many players: The Imam of Yemen, whose strict
enforcement of the Sharia laws caused the Jewish community
in his country to live in poverty and degradation. During
the process of immigration the Jews had to take a long trek
through the mountainous areas of Yemen, on their way to Aden,
the port city under British rule, from which they were supposed
to immigrate to Israel. On their way they were stripped of
their belongings, given to humiliation and violence, and
they arrived at the camp in Aden enfeebled, totally disoriented.
Here the other players at this transnational story came into
play: the British, who could not care less about the poor
immigrants, the JDC workers, who were supposed to take care
of them, but did not expect the influx of people that came
and had difficulty to cope with it. They showed little regard
to their misery, making them stay in the camp under inhuman
conditions. And last but not least, the representatives of the
new state of Israel, which raised the slogan of "Ingathering of Exiles" as its paramount mission. In the case of the Yemenite Jews, they did not show
greater competence or care than the representatives of the
JDC.
... This
transnational story, in which the participants were Yemenite
rulers, British administrators,
American Jewish
philanthropic association, and Israeli government, is also
the story of the clash of cultures between East and West:
did the British disregard to the suffering of the Yemenite
Jews stem from the imperialist tradition of disregard of
the natives, who seemed foreign and incomprehensible? Did
the disdain for human suffering shown by the JDC employees
result from the strange appearance and habits of the local
Jews, whose language they did not understand, and who seemed
inferior to them? and the Israeli emissaries, whose attitude
was paternalistic, well-intentioned, but showed little understanding
or compassion to these people who trusted them.
... In the end, most of the
immigrants arrived in Israel. They went through the difficulties
of absorption in a poor country,
which doubled its population within three years. Eventually
they became part of Israeli society, and the tribulations
and suffering on the way to Israel were forgotten, shrouded
in nostalgia, as their special myth of joining the Zionist
enterprise. Meir uncovered this unknown encounter between
East and West, humanitarian concerns and ideology, goodwill
and incompetence, misunderstanding and neglect. It was a
story in which the main players, the Jews of Yemen, remained
silent, and Meir gave them back their voice.
... This is an important study, by an excellent scholar, which
presents immigration not at its final destination, but in
the transitory stage, which was not described so far. I highly
recommend it.
Anita
Shapira, author of Israel: A history (Brandeis University Press, 2012)
The text takes the reader through the
tragic story of the deterioration of the situation in Yemen;
the Muslim hostility, British indifference and the lack of organization
by some Israeli officials. The author concludes that the inability
of the state authorities and others to admit that something
had gone wrong led to years of denial and lack of compassion
or compensation for the hardships. Later in 1984, a repeat of
the disaster took place when more than 4,000 Ethiopian Jews
died on the way to Israel. "One is compelled to ask whether
this tragedy might have been averted had the lessons of Yemenite
immigration been learned, while the tragedy of European migrant
ships to Israel, like the Egoz and Sturma that sank, are commemorated,
the suffering of the Yemenites is not part of the Israeli consciousness.
It is an important lesson raised by this book: the need for
an Israeli society that can be both introspective and acknowledge
all its diverse communities. Reviewed by, Seth J. Frantzman,
PhD, Al-Quds University, Israel, in Middle East Media and
Book Reviews Online
The "Magic Carpet" Exodus of Yemenite
Jewry is an extremely valuable addition to
the literature on Yemeni Jewish migration. My minor criticism
notwithstanding, the
book does the important work of challenging long-held assumptions
and forces us to
reevaluate one of the most important migrations in Israeli and
Yemeni history.
Reviewed by Ari Ariel, University of Iowa, in
the Journal of Israeli History
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