YES! Indeed! We are refugees. We are Jewish refugees. We are all Jewish refugees, Jewish refugees from Arab countries, some million of them… refugees, victims of an international Middle East policy that include the partition of Palestine into a purported Jewish and an Arab homeland, two states created from one country by an “international” community/entity led by individuals who have placed themselves as “supreme” judges and deciders to dictate to us what is a nation, a state or a country according to their own choice based on their self-interest, ignorance and neglect for others.

We were neglected and worse. We were despised, humiliated, hurt and insulted, left to miseries to cope by ourselves without any help and even with barriers imposed on us by some insensitive, uncaring, even perhaps nasty individuals if not entire societies, societies which perhaps at time did try to be humane toward us.

We should all to tell our stories for people to know the truth. Perhaps then, they will try to help, to remedy, to compensate, to redress the inequities as much as it can be done, to reinstall at least a minimum of justice as it can be humanly done (some 60 years - over one-half of a century later) and as G-d will allow and help to do it until Mashiah and the final redemption when all will be made completely whole and perfect.

I was born in Egypt. My father was also born in Egypt. My paternal grandfather was also born in Egypt. My paternal grandmother was also born in Egypt. We were all born and originated from Egypt or that region. My mother was born in Palestine. My maternal grandmother was also born in Palestine and my maternal grandfather was born in Syria. That country, countries and region were our home. We were Egyptian nationals. They did not take our nationality away. We were not treated generally any worse than in many other countries or places. We were all co-nationals. We were indeed victims of international politics, strategies, negotiations and expediencies.

My father was a respected stockbroker and a leader in the Jewish community of Egypt. He had worked his way up from the bottom of his profession. He cared and helped his community. He helped his family. He started to work at the age of 12 to help his family when his father’s business went bad. It seems that he was the brother who did the most at that time; other brothers were younger or had their own agenda. Later even after he was married and had a family, he and his brothers continued to help his father and other member of the family that needed help. My father was not an extremely wealthy man, he worked for a living, and his business had its ups and downs, yet he “shared” fully with other members of his family and with the community. My mother was very understanding, indeed very magnanimous toward his family who could be at times annoying and manipulative. It is in later years and in retrospect as I observed the attitude of some of them that
I realized it. Of course my mother with her good and generous nature would deny it.

I read in the Zohar that when a prominent member of the community, indeed perhaps any member of the of the community fall on their luck, it is incumbent upon the community to help them to restore them to their position. Unfortunately, I felt at times that our community at large, our international Jewish community, has failed.

We tried all to find a country where we could rebuild our lives, or a semblance of it as is in many cases. We may have tried one or two countries or places until we somehow succeeded, settled in one of them. Often in none we were really able to reconstruct fully our lives, we just did the best we could and learned to be happy with what we were getting, hoping and trying to do better. Yet many did not do it. The older they were, the less likely they were to do it. Younger ones had their lives disrupted and changed too, unable to return completely to their ways.

Are we assisting to another Jewish Holocaust? Our countries of origin are devoid of Jews. We were dispersed throughout the world. From some millions Jews in that region, all communities disappeared. From those communities dispersed throughout the world, many have left the fold, were lost to our communities in some ways or others. How many are left? What did happens? If this was not a physical holocaust, it seems to be a spiritual holocaust as some people call it and even consider it worst.

Albert Bivas

Published in Los Muestros

__________________