JIMENA Blog

In a letter to Secretary of Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, JIMENA called on Secretary Mnuchin to rebuff those supporting, promoting and legitimizing Arab governments’ seizure of the property and patrimony of the Jewish people. . ____________________________________________________ March 19, 2019 The Honorable Steven Mnuchin
Secretary of the Treasury
U.S. Department of Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W. Washington, DC 20220 Dear Secretary Mnuchin: We strongly urge you to rebuff those supporting, promoting and legitimizing Arab governments’ seizure of the property and patrimony of the Jewish people. All across the Middle East and North Africa Jews, who had resided in the region for millennia, either fled
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By Sarah Levin, Times of Israel. March 18, 2019 Earlier this month, when Congresswoman Ilhan Omar accused American Jews of dual-loyalty to the State of Israel, many former Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran recoiled, remembering the innocent Jewish lives imprisoned and lost in their countries of origin because of anti-Semitic accusations of dual loyalty. American Jews, including those from the Arab world and Iran, questioned why leaders of the Democratic party insist on keeping Congresswoman Omar on the House Foreign Affairs Committee after she repeatedly spouted the same anti-Semitic tropes that led to the oppression and ethnic cleansing
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0Save January 23, 2019 In a letter to Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), JIMENA, along with a coalition of Sephardic and Mizrahi synagogues and communal organizations called on JVP to remove all references to Mizrahi and Sephardic history in their organizational literature. January 23, 2019 We, the organizations and congregations listed below, represent Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish communities in countries around the world – including Israel. We are writing to express our denunciation with Jewish Voice for Peace’s (JVP) latest document, “Our Approach to Zionism”, which tokenizes, appropriates, revises and explicitly lies about Mizrahi and Sephardic history and experiences in
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In a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, JIMENA called on Secretary Pompeo to encourage the State Department and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to explicitly recognize the rights of Jewish and minority heritage when negotiating future cultural property agreements with countries in North Africa and the Middle East. ____________________________________________________ December 9, 2018 The Honorable Michael Pompeo
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520 Dear Secretary Pompeo, On behalf of the undersigned Jewish organizations we are writing to encourage the State Department and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to explicitly recognize
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Take Action by writing op-eds, blog-entries and news articles! Talking points • During the 20th century, 850,000 indigenous Jews from the Middle East and North Africa were ethnically-cleansed or forced to emigrate without their assets or possessions. If you are a former Jewish refugee from an Arab country or Iran, or a descendent, your personal or familial story is the foundation of your personal argument. Please share your story in writing! • UN resolution 242 stated that Jews fleeing Arab lands were bona fide refugees under international law. Unfortunately, Arab governments have been indifferent to international law on this
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The Cultural Property Advisory Committee of the State Department will meet on July 31, 2018,to review an Memorandum of Understand (MOU) request from Algeria which would validate Algerian claims to confiscated Jewish property and heritage. Under the Cultural Property Implementation Act, our government has been signing similar MOUs – agreements between the US and foreign governments that blockade the entry of property to the USA. The MOUs claim to be about looting, but their broad scope and limited evidence of success suggests their real impact is providing a legal vehicle to legitimize foreign confiscations and wrongful ownership claims. Legitimate efforts
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Iraqi Jewish Archive (IJA) Background On May 6, 2003, just days after the Coalition forces took over Baghdad, 16 American soldiers, entered the flooded building of Saddam Hussein’s Intelligence agency the Mukhabarat. In the basement, under four feet of water, they found tens of thousands of books, artifacts and documents belonging to the Jewish community of Iraq – materials that had been seized from synagogues, schools and other and Jewish institutions. With limited treatment options in Baghdad, and with the agreement of the-then Iraqi Ministry of Culture and the US Department of State, the materials were shipped to the United
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The evening will begin with a buffet dinner of Israeli food, infused with Iraqi flair, and a film screening of The Dove Flyer: Farewell Baghdad.
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October 9, 2017 JIMENA Cofounder and President to Receive Prestigious Award from the Coalition of Organizations of Jews from Arab and Islamic Countries in Israel (San Francisco) This November, the Coalition of Organizations of Jews from Arab and Islamic Countries in Israel, will award Gina Bublil-Waldman, with an “Ot Kavod” award, or “Badge of Honor” for her contributions toward the Middle Eastern Jewish-Refugee Justice Movement. The award was initiated in 2016 to honor individuals whose work achieves the promotion of the rights, heritage and history of former Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. Last year the award
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A four-year extension to keep the Iraqi Jewish Archive in the U.S. is set to expire in September 2018, as is funding for maintaining and transporting the items. The materials will then be sent back to Iraq.
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