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October 4, 2002/Tishri 28 5763, Vol. 55, No. 6
Compensation sought for Jewish refugees
RACHEL POMERANCE
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - An initiative seeking compensation for Jews forced to flee Arab countries during the creation of the State of Israel is gaining steam.
Justice for Jews From Arab Countries was launched Sept. 30 to publicize the "historical truth" of Jewish refugees from Arab countries, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, said Sept. 30.
The group claims that roughly 865,000 Jews were forced to flee Arab and Muslim lands because of hostility.
That's more than the number of Palestinian refugees - some 750,000 - who fled or were expelled from Israel during the 1948 War of Independence.
Many of the Jewish refugees were stripped of their property when they fled.
The issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries has been swept under the "Persian carpet," joked Holbrooke, who is an honorary chairman of the new organization, along with Lord George Weidenfeld of Great Britain's House of Lords.
Also taking leadership roles are Canadian legislator and human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler and former Knesset speaker Shlomo Hillel, who helped some 100,000 Jews leave Iraq just after Israel's War of Independence.
The new group was created by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the American Sephardi Federation and the World Jewish Congress.
The coalition seeks "redress" for Jews displaced from Arab lands.
Exactly what form that will take should be determined in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the group says.
"We want to make sure that every time the issue of refugees is discussed within the context of the Middle East peace process, then the rights of former Jewish refugees will also be addressed," said Stanley Urman, director of the Washington-based Center for Middle East Peace and coordinator of the new group.
The group said it plans to coordinate a campaign to collect claims from Jewish refugees, develop a legal committee to document such claims, lobby heads of state and international bodies, mobilize Jewish communal support and back a public education project.
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