Illustration Photo - Jews Fleeing Yemen in the 1950s
Cubans helped bring Jews from Iraq, Iran, India and Yemen to Israel in operation whose details have been kept secret until now, French daily reports.
Report: Cuban Pilots Helped 150,000 Jews Flee to Israel in 1950s
Cubans helped bring Jews from Iraq, Iran, India and Yemen to Israel in operation whose details have been kept secret until now, French daily reports.
Five Cuban pilots were responsible for bringing to Israel 150,000 Jews from Iraq, Iran, India and Yemen during the 1950s, the French daily La Liberation reported on Monday.
According to the report, which is based on an interview the Cuban historian Rolando Marron gave to the Cuban daily Juventud Rebelde, the details of the operation have been kept secret for over 60 years until this past Sunday.
Marron said that among the Jews brought between 1951 and 1952, 115,000 refugees were from Iraq, 25,000 were from Iran, and several hundreds from Yemen and India.
“The condition of the Jewish populations in the surrounding Arab states was difficult due to historic conflicts”, Marron was quoted as saying.
“Since the governments of those Arab countries prohibited the Jews to leave by land, and since transport by sea was difficult, the Israeli government organized one of the most important aerial mass migrations in history.”
According to the report, the reason for the Cuban involvement was the “strong friendship” between an “important official in the Israeli trade mission in New York and a Cuban businessman” who happened to be one of the pilots.
The Chassidic/Sephardic Look
Facinating to see, that Sephardim all wore long Payos. Ever since they came out of their countries and went to Litvishe yeshivis they have stopped looking Chassidish.
Not many know this, but the first Baal Shem was a Sephardi!
DS
this is on a plane? why do they all look deathly?
ME
AND LOOK AT THE TICHLECH!!!
teimanim are beautiful
with very Jewish eyes
to DS
they most probably led VERY difficult lives!
Daniel
And that Cuban pilot may very well have been of Sephardic ancestry himself.
Grace
Yes.