Israel's Arab Jews officially recognized as victims of Holocaust
Roughly 1,000 of Israel's North African and Iraqi Jews have requested to receive a one-time compensation grant that recognizes the suffering of those communities under the Nazi regime.
In December, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon decided that Jews from Algeria, Morocco and Iraq, who suffered persecution at the hands of the Nazi regime, would be eligible for a financial grant and a full exemption when purchasing medications. While Kahlon’s decision did not receive extensive media coverage, it still has enormous social implications. It expands the circle of victims of Nazism to include groups of Jews from Arab countries, who were marginalized until very recently. They spent years fighting the state for recognition of their status as victims.
This one-time grant of 3,600 Israeli shekels ($950) may not be a lot of money, but it restores this group to its rightful place, after being excluded for so long from the collective Holocaust memory. These Jews were also victims of the Holocaust, just like the Jews of Europe.
While his decision might seem like a minor victory, Kahlon has managed to use it to implement his social worldview. It is safe to assume that the fact that the finance minister is the son of immigrants from Libya, whose Jewish community suffered extensively from the Nazi occupation of that country, impacted his decision. At the time, Kahlon explained that even people who were not hurt directly by the Nazi regime but nonetheless suffered from the waves of hatred “are considered by us to be eligible for this aid.” He said that he considers it an honor to be the person correcting “a historical injustice for society at large and for the generation that experienced [the Holocaust] in particular.” Kahlon reached this decision together with his deputy, Knesset member Yitzhak Cohen from the Shas Party, a son of Jews who came from Morocco.
According to figures from the Ministry for Social Equality, since news of the new regulations were made public, some 1,000 Jews from Algeria, Morocco and Iraq have applied for assistance. These include North African Jews who suffered persecution by the Nazi regime and their allies — especially the victims of the “Farhud," a pogrom in Baghdad in June 1941. These numbers are small, as many people who lived in those communities at the time are no longer alive.
