My experience at Columbia University before and after October 7, 2023

It was a profound time to be on the Columbia University campus during the October 7th events and their aftermath.  I returned to school to finish a master’s degree I started 10 years earlier and found myself in the middle of the Jewish people and Israel’s toughest battles.

I found out that in the frequently discussed notion of Jewish indigenousness to the land of Israel, the perception in the West is firmly set on Jews being white.  Similarly, Israel being a “Western” country and is somehow a “white, settler-colonialist” and an “Apartheid State.”

This rhetoric is so commonplace, it has made it into literature published by Amnesty International, the Black Lives Matter Movement, and Critical Race Theory.  It also inspired the curricula across the United States.  Ironically, in Europe, Jews were considered insufficiently white.  But when they arrived in America, right into the paradigm of black or white, Jews gradually were considered “white” and assimilated.

Following one of the big anti-Israel demonstrations on campus, my professor asked me to narrate my parents’ story of forced migration from Yemen as children in 1951.  I said, “I wish someone told my parents when they were wandering on foot for over a year in the Arabian Desert, that they were colonial oppressors.”  I realized that my classmates have never processed who actually lives in Israel and how they got there.

There is at best, an informational disconnect between the reality of Mizrahi (Eastern) Jews and these demonstrably false notions.  Despite millennia of documented history, there is a sheer lack of awareness of the indigenous Middle Eastern Jews, whose ancestors never set foot in Europe, and share genetic markers, physical features, language, and culture, with the surrounding non-Jewish populations.  For this reason, they are referred to as the “Forgotten Refugees.”

The story of the Forgotten Refugees, which is the story of most Jewish Israelis today, is commemorated annually on November 30.  It is known as The Day to Mark the Departure and Expulsion of Jews from the Arab Countries and Iran.  It tells the story of nearly a million Jews displaced from Arab countries as a consequence of the events surrounding 1948 and the establishment of the State of Israel.

In order to explain this critical piece of Jewish history, I created an educational event a few weeks after October 7th, on November 30, 2023.  [See  video]

Furthermore, for the past 18 years I have been involved with interfaith teaching and traveling with Christians and Muslims around the world.  Our message all along has been that the conflicts in the Middle East, which are in no doubt influenced by geopolitical, economic, and other reasons, are essentially motivated by religious convictions.  Therefore, interfaith dialogue and activism are key to the promotion of peace in the region.  I would like to turn the journey of the Forgotten Refugees into a roadmap to peace in the Middle East and beyond.

Pursuing peace goes hand in hand with truth and justice.  I hope to open a window into the context of Mizrahi communities within the story of the Jewish people.  Tracing it through ancient manuscripts, I would like to show the diverse face of the Jewish people and the tapestry of Israeli society.

Columbia University accepted my proposal to make November 30th an annual affair on campus.  I will use the next few months to plan the next event on November 30, 2024.

The goal is to provide a comprehensive understanding, aiming to educate and prevent future conflict arising from ignorance.  My final project which I just submitted, weaves together a cohesive and compelling narrative, to amplify the often forgotten and unheard voices of the indigenous Middle Eastern Jews and their descendants.