On this Yom Ha’Shoah / International Holocaust Commemoration Day on January 27, we should contemplate what the fate of MENA Jewry would have been had German general Rommel won the Desert Campaign. Even after the Allied victory, a November 1945 pogrom in Tripoli killed 130 Jews (36 of them children), destroyed five synagogues and plundered most remaining homes andbusinesses. On June 1, the United Nations will mark the 80th anniversary of the Farhud (violent dispossession in Arabic) in Iraq. Following the 1948 establishment of Israel, most of MENA Jews were expelled or fled – many to France, the United States and the United Kingdom, but most to Israel. In the spirit of the Abraham Accords , there is a growing interest in the Holocaust and its impact on the Jews of MENA (Middle East/North Africa).

Source: The North Africa Journal January 26, 2021 18:00 UTC