OTTAWA — For the first time ever, the Sephardi Association of Ottawa (SAO) marked Nov. 30 as the day of commemoration for Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim countries. 

In response to the Israeli Knesset’s June 2014 decision to recognize the date as the official day of remembrance for these refugees, the SAO held a night of tribute devoted to the 850,000 Jews who fled their homes in Arab and Muslim countries around the time of the foundation of Israel in 1948. 

“It is about time we told this story. It is about time we had this conversation. This story is ultimately a personal one. It is about people’s lives being uprooted. Property abandoned literally overnight,” SAO president Clemy Srour told some 150 people at Ottawa’s Soloway JCC. 

Srour shared his sentiments alongside representatives from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and the Embassy of Israel. Together, attendees recognized the plight of Jewish refugees who migrated to Israel during the 1940s from countries such as Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, Algeria and Egypt. 

The SAO ceremony followed the Canadian Parliament’s recent decision to join the Knesset in acknowledging the experiences and fate of Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim countries.  

“Last March, the government of Canada adopted a report on the status of Jewish refugees from Arab lands. The government of Canada officially recognized their suffering, and placed it alongside the tales of the Palestinians,” Israeli Ambassador to Canada Rafael Barak said. 

Canada’s embrace of the report, put forward by the House of Commons standing committee on foreign affairs and international development, follows similar pronouncements by the U.S. Congress, which in 2008 unanimously supported a resolution recognizing the history and rights of Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim lands. The decision was made in the interest of what the government called a comprehensive approach to peace in the Middle East. 

Members of Ottawa’s Jewish Sephardi community were eager to share their stories of persecution, discrimination and abuse. 

Congregation Beth Shalom Cantor Daniel Benlolo spoke of his childhood in Casablanca, Morocco. Prior to his family’s migration to Quebec in the early 1970s, Benlolo lived among approximately 300,000 Moroccan Jews, often recognized as the largest Jewish population within the Arab and Muslim world. 

“At the peak, Jews represented about 10 per cent of Morocco’s total population. The majority of the Jewish population left during Israel’s War of Independence and the Six Day War, fearing of course the violence and the outbursts,” Benlolo said. 

While Benlolo brought some of his favourite parts of Moroccan fashion, culture, cuisine and music to North America, his upbringing was, like many others fleeing Arab and Muslim nations, fraught with pain and distress.  

“One day, my school friends were best friends, and then when the war broke out in Israel, we weren’t allowed to speak to each other, because their parents made sure they would not speak to a Jew. It was very difficult as a young person,” Benlolo said.

Several Sephardi testimonials expressed a sense of optimism and a desire to begin life anew in Israel. 

Iraqi native Edward Atraghji, who now lives in Canada, marvelled at the high level of positivity maintained by fellow Sephardi refugees after their arrival in Israel. “In spite of all the problems that we had, the cafes were always full, the beaches were always full, the people always happy,” Atraghji said