By July 4, 2017 Read More →

March 1951 Jewish Refugees From Arab Countries – Iraq

Iraqi Jews Landing in Israel 1950In Iraq, every adult Jewish emigrant was permitted to take with him 50 dinars (about $140), and every minor, 30 dinars (a dinar is worth about 28c), in checks on an Ottoman bank, as well as sixty pounds of baggage per person.  All possessions of the emigrants, including photographs, were subject to censorship.

However, after March 1951, emigrants were permitted to take only their personal possessions.   Jews waiting their turn to leave the country lived on the sale of their household possessions at a fraction of their value.

Street searches of Jews became a commonplace, as did wholesale arrests on charges of illegal smuggling of gold and jewelry from the country.

It was clear, by the end of 1950 that the Iraq government, by a series of fines and extortions, had succeeded in extorting form their owners a considerable part of Jewish property holdings.  The total wealth of Iraqi Jewry is place at $436,000,000.

Source: The Arab Refugee Problem, How it can be Solved.  Proposals—submitted to the General Assembly of the United Nations, December 1951

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