The 1948 War and the Forgotten Arab Jews

While most narratives of the 1948 war focus on the conflict between Jewish and Arab national movements, a third group was caught in the crossfire: the Mizrahi Jews. These communities, rooted in the Middle East for centuries, faced expulsion from their homes in countries like Iraq, Egypt, and Yemen. This episode explores the mass exodus of approximately 850,000 Jews from Arab lands during the same period as the Palestinian Nakba, examining how political shifts, violence, and state-building policies forced them to flee. We look at specific cases, such as the Farhud in Baghdad and the Operation Ezra and Nehemiah airlift, to understand the complex identities of these refugees who ended up in Israel, often marginalized despite their deep historical ties to the region. It is a story of displacement, identity, and the enduring human cost of border-drawing that reshaped the entire Middle East.

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