What about the rights of Jewish refugees?

"My house is your house"

Your View, August 24th 2009, 10:03 am

This is a guest post by Lyn Julius

A daughter of the wealthy Jewish Castro family from Egypt once attended a lecture by Anwar Sadat's widow Jehan in New York City.  Congratulating her afterwards on her excellent speech, the Egyptian Jewess exchanged pleasantries with Mrs Sadat. "But you must come back to visit (Egypt) and to show it to your children", Mrs Sadat said, adding the traditional Egyptian courtesy, beti betak - " My house is your house".

Little did she appreciate the irony, but the presidential villa Jehan Sadat lived in had literally belonged to the Castro family expelled by Nasser in 1956. Observers of the Middle East conflict frequently talk of trampled Palestinian rights, but suffer a blindspot when it comes to the  mass dispossession of a greater number of Jews across 10 Arab countries. Few Jews lived as opulently as the Castros, but all over the Middle East and North Africa, Jewish homes, shops and businesses were seized or sold for well under market value as fearful Jews left in haste. Schools, synagogues and hospitals were abandoned as some 850,000 Jews were scapegoated as Zionists after 1948.  A ghostly Jewish presence, a reminder of a more pluralistic, tolerant age, still haunts the Arab world today like a severed limb.

So reports last week that President Mubarak, paying his first visit to Washington since 2004, might have discussed with President Obama a plan for  Palestinian refugees to be compensated, in exchange for a waiver of their 'right of return', has left Jews exiled from the Arab world gasping: "what about us?"

The US-based Historical Society of Jews from Egypt fired off an open letter to President Mubarak seething with indignation:

"If Nasser had not persecuted us, stolen all our property, and expelled us ignominiously with only the shirts on our backs, we would still be living in Egypt and contributing to its greatness as we always have. Indeed, we care about our heritage and cherish it openly. It will be a good day when Egypt finally recognizes our many positive contributions to its history. Sadly, it does not appear this day is near. We wish to bring to your attention, again, as we have many times in the past, a number of grievances. So far, not only have they not been satisfied, but they have not even been addressed.The Egyptian establishment believes that if they just ignore us, we will simply go away."

Clauses in the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty allowing for the settlement of Jewish claims have never been implemented, perhaps because the Israeli government did not want to be blamed for sinking an already-floundering Egyptian economy. But Egypt is haunted that some day the Jews - once a community of 80,000 - will demand  their property back. In May 2008 a group of elderly Jews from Israel had their planned 'roots' visit to Cairo and Alexandria cancelled after just such scaremongering.

Continued: "My house is your house"