Natalie Zeituny
My name is Natalie Zeituny. I’d like to share with you my personal story and how it relates to the story of the Jewish communities in North Africa and the Middle East, communities whose roots stretch back more than 2,500 years and that today have almost all vanished. In reading my story, I hope that you will understand the broader picture of how nearly 1 million Jews were brutally expelled from their homes throughout North Africa and the Middle East. They were driven from places where they had peacefully lived, making contributions to the culture, economy and lives of their neighbors for many generations. Throughout this displacement, Israel has served a key role in absorbing and rehabilitating the Jewish refugees.
My family name (ze, too, ne) means “olive” in both Arabic and Hebrew. The Zeituny family was spread throughout the Middle East for many generations, in countries such as Syria, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey and as far east as Iran. Originally we were olive growers and traders in the region. We prospered and lived comfortably, openly practicing our Jewish heritage among our mostly-Muslim neighbors.
My grandmother was born in Safed, a mystical center in the north of Israel. Safed was founded by Jews over 2,000 years ago. However, it was in the late 15th and 16th Centuries that it became a spiritual center for the Jews of Palestine and within the Diaspora, attracting some of the greatest Jewish scholars, religious thinkers and spiritual leaders of the Jewish world. The spiritual books and rich literary and philosophical heritage left behind revolutionized the religious thought and practice of much of the Jewish world today.
I was born in 1970 in a little neighborhood in West Beirut called Wadi Abu Jmil. My parents, Salim and Lucy, my sister, Rosita and brother, Roje,lived peacefully among our Christian, Muslim, Druze, Assyrian, Maronite and other Jewish communities.
In 1975 my family was forced out of Lebanon. I was five years old at that time and could not really grasp the sudden change in our living conditions. The Civil War between the Muslims and Christians and the massive invasion by Syria of Lebanon made life increasingly unbearable for us.
In my world the Syrian occupation of Lebanon meant, no more playing outside with the neighbors, no talking with anyone who I did not know, spending the nights sleeping on the floor in a dark house, far away from any window that might break from the bombs that were falling on our neighborhood. It meant no more running and playing in the street. It meant no more school and no more friends visiting one another. All of a sudden I felt different from all of the other kids I used to play with. I could sense the danger. I could sense the dark shadow of fear and anxiety that hung over my family.
The Syrian authorities who invaded Lebanon were actively looking to arrest and torture Jewish families. They accused the Jews of collaborating with Israel. The Lebanese population at large was encouraged to give the Syrians any Jewish family name and addresses who they could accuse of collaborating with Israel.
Even our next door neighbors, who had been our dear friends and with whom we’d shared many of the most important moments of our lives, became suspicious and hostile, avoiding contact with us. This was a terrible blow; it made us feel both isolated and afraid of what the future would bring.
One dark night, a sniper fired at my bedroom, the bullet missed me by just a few inches. We felt we had none to appeal to, neither our neighbors nor the authorities would help us and we we’re afraid there’d be even worse consequences for us if we did attempt to report the incident to the authorities.
On another occasion both my uncle and many of my father’s friends were arrested and humiliated by the Syrian Authority. They were accused of collaborating with Israel simply because they were Jewish. While they were in jail, our family struggled to survive and care for the young children and elders, petrified from what new and unexpected tragedy might befall us.
My parents became increasingly concerned that the worsening situation in our neighborhood would threaten my teen-age brother’s safety. They decided to send him to live with one of our uncles in Toronto, Canada. Though he escaped the mounting hostility and violence of Lebanon, he died in a car accident in Toronto,the same year he arrived there. The horrific news about the death of my 18 year-old brother dealt a crushing blow to us.
After tremendous efforts by family members, a few of my father’s friends, and my uncle were finally released from jail. This was when we all decided that in order to survive we’d no choice but to leave Lebanon. But before we could leave, the authorities froze our family assets, preventing us from getting passports. My father had to use all of his Muslim contacts and beg old friends to support him. We had to have false papers made because a Jewish name on our passports would prevent us ever leaving. Not long before we left, my uncle was arrested for a second time and sent to a Syrian jail. My family’s dearest friends, Edgar Sason, Dr Halak and other prominent Jewish community business leaders disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again.
Looking back at our lives…
Our homes were confiscated.
Our bank accounts frozen.
Our citizenship revoked.
Our only crime was that
We were Jewish.
We left Lebanon
With two suitcases in our hands.
We were refugees
With no where to go
And no land to settle in,
No home to feel safe in
And no temple to pray in.
Despite the tremendous emotional and physical distress, suffering, pain and sorrow, we felt blessed and left with a great hope in our heart to start our new life in Israel with the other ~650,000 Jews from Arab lands who were absorbed in Israel.
Israel opened its gates and welcomed my family. Israel absorbed our pain and provided us with shelter, education, health care, culture, and community. It was in Israel, where I tasted hope of a new life. When we first came to Israel, we had to share my uncle’s family’s already crowded one-bedroom apartment in a little town south of Tel Aviv. Today my parents still live happily in Israel. In Israel my parents found a much safer home than Lebanon. They had access to better healthcare and educational systems, and were part of a community of people who loved and supported them. In Israel they found freedom of religion and could celebrate the holidays and practice their ancient traditions without fear of persecution. My sister and I decided to leave Israel for America. She came in 1987 and I, arrived 11 years later. We both wanted to come to the U.S. to experience the West, and integrate into a larger society that would provide us greater opportunities to grow and influence the conditions in the world. My sister now lives with her family in NJ and I live in San Francisco.
If you were to ask my 72 year old mother and 81 year old father, they would tell you that no one could have ever imagined that after years and years of living in peace and prosperity and total integration in the Lebanese community, the fabric of their lives would abruptly be torn apart, solely because they were Jews. My father told me that it does not matter how much you contribute to your country, how involved and caring you are in your community, when the going gets rough, the Jews are the first ethnic group suspected and targeted to be “cleansed.”
To the Anti-Semites of the Arab world it did not and does not matter that my family and I speak fluent Arabic, that our food, music, our choice of colors, our whole culture was influenced by Arab culture. In many ways we were Middle-Eastern Jews. During the 1960’s almost 15,000 Jews lived in Lebanon, today as few as 20 remain. I represent that last generation of the Lebanese Jewish community.
When I talk about vanished communities of people, I’m referring to the unique Jewish-Arabic heritage that was manifest in food, music, rituals, customs, values, language, and in the chants of the Shabbat services. That unique and beautiful cultural mélange is rapidly vanishing into the past, forgotten and wiped out by the virulently Anti-Semitic Arab Muslim regimes of then and today.
My Family story represents the story of nearly one million Jewish refugees, indigenous to the Arab world. Many of whom were brutally expelled from nine Arab Muslim countries, including Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Morocco, etc.
These almost 1 million Jews left behind their homes, their rich heritage, their unique culture and all of their worldly possessions, including their beautiful homes, their art collections, their synagogues and schools. All were immediately taken over by their former non-Jewish neighbors, many of whom had previously been friends and business partners. Today, according to WOJAC (World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries) 2004 statistics, less than 5,400 Jews remain in the Arab Muslim countries and less than 25,000 in Iran.
Today, the Middle East is a cauldron of chaos and change. What is not known is that Jews lived in what are now Arab states for over 2,500 years. Their communities pre-date the rise of Islam 1,400 years ago in the 7th century. Jewish communities from North Africa to Iraq date from the Babylonian destruction of the first Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, 500 years before the birth of Christianity. All of this is long before the establishment of today’s Arab Muslim countries.
When speaking of refugees in the Middle East, one must understand that in addition to the thousands of Palestinian refugees that the hostile Arab regimes helped create and force into camps, a greater number of Jewish refugees were created by the persecution of Arab Muslim governments. According to WOJAC
Between 1948 and 1951 there were two refugee movements in the Middle East. One was the exodus of about 600,000 Arabs from the Palestinian areas that became Israel. The second was the movement of about 1 million Jews from Arab countries into Israel. Palestinian refugees were enticed by Arab countries to leave their homes while eight Arab armies invaded the newly established Jewish state. The Arab League passed two resolutions in 1949. One prohibited Arab governments from giving citizenship to Palestinian Arab refugees. The second ordered Arab governments to facilitate the expulsion of Jews living in Arab countries.
(World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries, http://www.wojac.com/history.html )
Throughout our lives, the land of Israel has played a crucial role. I sincerely hope that this personal story will help re-establish the historical context of the Jewish Refugees from the Middle East and North Africa and the crucial role that Israel serves in the absorption and rehabilitation of Jewish refugees from around the world. By telling my story I hope that it will help bring peace to the Middle Eastern conflict. We must to continue to foster peace, democracy and the Jewish tradition of co-existence with all other traditions in world.