The keynote speaker at last week's screening of The David Project's Forgotten Refugees film in New York was Canadian MP and human rights campaigner Irwin Cotler, who had just returned from the 'Durban 2' conference in Geneva (with thanks: Sacha):
April 24, 2009 – New York, NY – More than 200 people crowded into the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan yesterday for a special DavidProject screening of The Forgotten Refugees, the award-winning documentary film about the mass exodus of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa in the 20th century. The audience was addressed by Irwin Cotler, Canadian Member of Parliament and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, who had just returned from Geneva and provided a gripping eyewitness account of the Durban Review Conference (Durban II).
Cotler, who also serves as Special Counsel on Human Rights & International Justice in Canada, noted that the 2001 World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (Durban I) “was truly Orwellian. A conference that was supposed to be dedicated to the struggle against racism turned into a conference of racism against Israel and the Jewish people.”
Durban II, which took place in Geneva earlier this week, carried the process of debasing international human rights norms still further. Cotler denounced the presence of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the conference. “Let there be no mistake about it,” exclaimed Cotler, “a person like Ahmadinejad who incites to hate and genocide, who massively represses the rights of his own people, who defies the UN Security Council, a person who parades the Shahab-3 Missile on the streets of Tehran draped in the emblem ‘Wipe Israel off the Map,’ such a person belongs not as the guest of the United Nations Council on Human Rights or International Human Rights conferences, such a person belongs in the docket of the accused.”
Cotler’s keynote address followed the screening of The Forgotten Refugees, an award-winning documentary film about the history, culture, and forced exodus of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa in the second half of the 20th century. Using extensive testimony of refugees from Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, and Morocco, the film recounts the stories – of joy and suffering – in order to tell how and why the indigenous Jewish population of the region declined from one million in 1945 to only a few thousand today.
The film, directed by Michael Grynszpan and produced by Ralph Avi Goldwasser, has been screened around the world and was awarded Best Documentary at the 2007 Marbella International Film Festival and Best Feature Documentary Award at the 2006 Warsaw Jewish Film Festival. An accompanying educational curriculum for middle school and high school students has recently been developed by The David Project and is offered to schools and communities.
The David Project’s deputy director, Lawrence Muscant, explained why the film was made. “First, this is an important story that had largely been ignored. Hundreds of thousands of people deserve to have their story told,” said Muscant. “Second, learning about the history of Jewish communities in the Middle East is critical to understanding the complexities of the Arab-Israeli conflict today.”
“We had the privilege to screen the movie last year, but twice is not enough; This movie has to be shown anywhere, everywhere, at any time,” said Rabbi Elie Abadie, the Rabbi of Congregation Edmond J. Safra who hosted of the event.
Abadie went on to speak about why the film resonated with him. “My parents themselves were refugees. They ran for their life as they were persecuted in Aleppo, Syria. I was born in Lebanon but no country would give me citizenship until I came to the United States and received my first citizenship of my life in 1990.”
“As a result of Arab leaders’ aggression, two sets of refugees were created – Palestinian Arab refugees and Jewish refugees from Arab countries,” said Cotler, who has been at the forefront of the campaign to promote rights and redress for Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim countries. “We have to appreciate that while justice has been delayed, it can no longer be denied. It has come time to rectify this historical injustice, this expunging of Jewish refugees from Arab lands in the historical peace and justice narrative, and return this plight of Jews from Arab countries to the peace and justice narrative where they belong.”
Cotler explained that only education can bring about peace. “I think that we have to show The Forgotten Refugees in as many places as possible. Whenever we speak about the plight of the Palestinian-Arab refugees, we must also speak about Jewish refugees from Arab countries, he said. “If there will be no remembrance, there will be no truth. If there will be no truth, there will be no justice. If there will be no justice, there will be no authentic reconciliation. If there will be no authentic reconciliation, there will be no just and lasting peace towards which we all work.”
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