Jews of Arab lands

Ziv Genesove smells a cannabis plant in the Rif mountain range. (Courtesy)

March 12, 2019, 9:28 pm

In Moroccan cannabis fields, illumination of Jewish role in country’s hash trade

A tour of illicit marijuana plantations leads a writer to ancient religious texts, and a very special couscous recipe highlights the plant’s historic role in Jewish life

By Ziv Genesove

Mustafa hopes that the Jewish of Qamishli, Syria will be able to return once the radical Islamist factions are gone. (Ziv Genesove/ Times of Israel)

July 6, 2018, 1:49 am

Devoid of Jews for decades, one Syrian city would be ready to welcome them back

Residents of Qamishli, a liberal enclave that has grown amid the civil war, tell a ToI writer they’d greet Jewish returnees with open arms — however unrealistic that seems today

By Ziv Genesove

Jewish women light candles at the Ghriba synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia. (Larry Luxner/ Times of Israel)

June 5, 2018, 5:20 am

From other end of world, group races to preserve Middle East’s Jewish heritage

Since 2010, Boston-based Diarna has used 3-D mapping, traditional scholarship and oral interviews to document more than 2,500 locations of Jewish sites in Mideast and North Africa

By Larry Luxner

Rexhep Hoxha, left, and Fatos Qoqja in a bar in Tirania, Albania, November 8, 2017. Qoqja is pictured with a medal that his father received for saving Jews during the Holocaust. (Cnaan Liphshiz/via JTA)

January 19, 2018, 11:59 am

What made Muslim Albanians risk their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust?

While experts aren’t sure if religion played into a highly secretive sect’s humanitarian acts, Jewish refugees were 10 times more likely to be saved than in neighboring countries

By Cnaan Liphshiz

Jews of Aden, Yemen, awaiting evacuation to Israel on November 1, 1949. (GPO/Public domain)

December 11, 2017, 1:44 pm

As Jews evacuated from Aden bloodbath, a daring mission to rescue a Torah scroll

On the 50th anniversary of the vicious pogrom, the mystery surrounding a salvaged Yemenite heirloom is solved as its hero’s story is finally told

By Robert Philpot

Ben Zion Dee’ie taking a break from Rosh Hashanah preparations in the Jewish town of Hara Kebira on the Tunisian island of Djerba, September 20, 2017. (Cnaan Liphshiz/JTA)

September 26, 2017, 9:35 pm

In Tunisia, an ancient Jewish community braves uncertain future

Instability, terror and anti-Semitism are ever-present for Tunisian Jews, but the real challenge to their continued presence is quality of life

By Cnaan Liphshiz

A hotel can be seen behind the abandoned Dar Bishi synagogue in Tripoli, Libya, September 28, 2011. (Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images/via JTA)

July 27, 2017, 8:39 pm

Jews from Libya are worried about the fate of the country’s Jewish artifacts

A memorandum under consideration by the State Department would prohibit ritual objects being brought from the war-torn regime into the US

By Josefin Dolsten

April 18, 2017, 2:03 pm

Rachel Wahba

Pastor Dumisani and Mizrahi Jews

How a Christian outsider managed to insert the modern Jewish exodus from Arab lands into the larger Jewish narrative

French Jewish author Tobie Nathan (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, G. Garitan)

December 19, 2015, 8:58 am

Jewish author wins top Tunisian prize for book on Cairo expulsion

Jury of Goncourt List votes to give its first-ever award to Tobie Nathan for ‘This Country that Resembles You’

By JTA

A photo taken in the Jewish quarter of a Libyan city. (Courtesy of JIMENA)

December 3, 2014, 8:11 pm

Jews from Muslim lands: ‘Day of commemoration not enough’

Emigres hailing from Arab countries and Iran head to the Knesset to advocate for more education about their historical narrative

By Renee Ghert-Zand

October 13, 2014, 10:52 am

Syrian Jewish family said smuggled to Israel

Network of businesspeople and politicians help new arrivals acclimate to the Jewish state

By Gavriel Fiske

Illustrative image of a neo-Nazi rally (CC BY-Elvert Barnes/Flickr)

May 15, 2014, 7:00 pm

Hating the Jew you’ve never met

ADL’s globe-spanning study of anti-Semitism reveals that over 750 million people’s hatred isn’t about the Jews at all

By Haviv Rettig Gur

March 15, 2014, 12:07 pm

Joe Samuels

An Iraqi Jew to the Presbyterian Church

First-hand testimony refuting the claim that all was well for Jews in Arab lands until Zionism came along

Every three hours a plane arrived at Lod Airport carrying Jewish immigrants from
Iraq and Kurdistan via Tehran, May 1951 (photo credit: GPO)

July 16, 2013, 6:13 am

Gov’t backs bill marking memorial day for Jews of Arab lands

Moroccan-born MK urges Arab League chief to recognize fate of Jewish community as key aspect to resolving Arab-Israeli conflict

By Haviv Rettig Gur

March 14, 2013, 2:15 pm

Joe Samuels

We left Iraq, we’ll never go back

An invitation to Iraqi Jews to return stirs memories of a terrifying and irreversible escape