'Our stories must be told'

A new campaign across 14 countries to record the history and expulsion of 870,000 Jews from Arab countries was discussed in Paris this week. JTA NEWS interviewed Stan Urman, director of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, who said that Israeli officials have collected the case histories of some 3,000 families.

“We would like to have 100,000 cases,” he said, “but honestly that figure may be too high. People should be telling their stories, but there is a process involved here to record everything.”

Jewish organizations have been willing to get involved in the campaign. Justice for Jews will finance projects on the international level, while groups in participating countries would pay to compile the case histories.

“This is a historical mobilization of the international Jewish community,” Urman said. “The same thing happened for Soviet Jews. Now these stories from Jews from Arab countries must be told.” Read article in full