The Second Exodus: The Clandestine Jewish Immigrants to Palestine Prior to Israel Independence (Part 2)

Lyn Julius

Founder of Harif, UK Associationof Jews from Middle east and North Africa

Lyn Julius is a journalist, blogger, and speaker. The British-born daughter of Iraqi – Jewish refugees, her work has appeared in JNS News, Times of Israel, Jewish Chronicle, Haaretz, Fathom, The Guardian, etc. Her book Uprooted: How 3,000 years of Jewish civilisation in the Arab world vanished overnight (Vallentine Mitchell, 2018) has been translated to Norwegian, Portuguese and Arabic.

Aliya Bet was the illegal immigration of Jewish refugees during WWII, desperate to run the British shipping blockade in order to reach Palestine. Jewish communities in Egypt and Iran played their part in helping refugees escape. At the time, the overwhelming majority of immigrants to Eretz Israel were Ashkenazim from Europe, but a trickle of Jews entered Palestine from Arab countries, either as individuals or in small groups. The great aliyot of entire communities, such as those of Yemen and Iraq, were not to take place until after 1948 when Israel flung its gates open. But clandestine immigration continued, for example from Morocco: the problem was no longer the British refusing to let Jews in, but Arab countries refusing to let them out.

Professor Henry A Green

Founder of Sephardi Voices, Moderator      

Henry Alan Green is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Miami and has taught there since 1984. After completing postgraduate work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Oxford, and the Sorbonne, he received his Ph.D. in Religion from St. Andrew’s University in 1982. He is the published author or co-author of four books and numerous articles, and has received recognition for his work on documenting the exodus of Jews from Arab countries after the Second World War.

Green is very active as a voice for Sephardi Jews, both in the United States and abroad.

Dr. Green testified before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in Washington D.C. in 2007, on the topic of truth, justice, and reconciliation for Jewish refugees from Arab countries, and serves on a number of boards for Sephardi-related organizations. In particular, he is a member of the Executive Committee for Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC) and was a former member of the Academic Advisory Board of the American Sephardi Federation (ASF). His new book, Sephardi Voices: the Untold Expulsion of Jews from Arab Lands, with Richard Stursberg, will be released in late March.