Comments on: Doing justice to the liberators of North African Jewry

By: Lyn Julius

Lyn Julius — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 00:43:15 +0000

Mark,
You are right that the Jews of the MENA were spared death and deportation as a result of the Allied defeat of the Nazis, but the Allies were not responsible for what Arab states did to their Jewish citizens after the end of the war and when they acquired their independence. In almost all cases, ironically enough, Jewish citizens went on to be persecuted and expelled as a result of Nazi-style laws. It was only because – except in the case of Algeria – the new state of Israel ransomed the lives of the majority that these Jews from Arab countries survived at all. The Allies are guilty of failing to put the greatest pro-Nazi of all, the Mufti of Jerusalem, on trial – thus allowing his legacy of anti-Jewish genocidal bigotry to endure in the shape of the Arab/Muslim conflict with Israel.

By: Lyn Julius

Lyn Julius — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 20:49:04 +0000

Hello Mark (and thank you Robert for springing to my defence).
I must say I am most flattered that your criticisms of my article have placed me in the august company of Robert Satloff and Robert Wistrich!
Clearly it is indisputable that the Allied liberation of North Africa saved the Jews from almost certain extermination – and you omit to mention that the Jews of Algiers played a key role in facilitating the Allied landings there. But it is notable that it took a whole year – until October 1943 – for the Allies to reinstate the Decret Cremieux. The reason was probably because they did not want to upset the French Vichyite antisemites who still ran the country.
As for the British in Iraq not intervening to stop the Farhud, they miraculously managed to intervene the next day when Muslim lives and property were being threatened by the mob, so I do not buy the excuse that the British were hopelessly outnumbered. And what is your explanation for the British failure to intervene in Libya in 1945 when 130 Jews were murdered in the Tripoli pogrom? Clearly Allied interests were not always coterminous with Jewish interests.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 13:19:52 +0000

Robert Werdine,
In my article, "Doing Justice to the Liberators of North African Jewry, I criticized not only Lyn Julius, but also Rafael Medoff, Thomas Powers, Robert Satloff and Robert S. Wistrich for their flawed understanding of the fighting in North Africa or the Middle East in World War II. You accuse me of doing Ms. Julius "an injustice." My main point is that without the Allied victories in these two interrelated theaters, there would have been few Jews left alive after the war to be expelled by the newly-independent Arab states.
I didn't include in my article the findings of two German scholars, Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Kuppers, who document how Walter Rauff, the SS officer helped design the mobile gas vans that were used to kill many Jews after the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and was a leading officer in the Einsatzgruppen, was positioned with Rommel's Army in June 1942 ready to commit mass murder on Egyptian Jewry if the German-Italian advance had reached Alexandria and Cairo. Fortunately, in late June and early July 1942, Rommel's advance was stopped at El Alamein by the British Commonwealth/Empire soldiers and airmen. American pilots flying bombers and fighters played a role in this crucial victory.
Rauff later retreated to Tunisia, where between November 1942 and the spring of 1943, he and his mass-murdering accomplices wreaked havoc on Tunisian Jews until the Allied liberation of that country in April-May 1943.
Ms. Julius is the daughter of Jews expelled from Iraq in 1950, according to information I located on The Guardian website. As a direct result of British Commonwealth and Empire military victories in April-May 1941, 120,00 Iraqi Jews survived the war and then immigrated to Israel, Great Britain, America and other western democracies. In my article, I also criticize Prof. Wistrich of the Hebrew University for ignoring this critical reality in his May 31, 2011 op-ed in Haaretz, "Iraq's Kristallnacht: 70 Years Later." If Churchill had not prevented the Axis from turning Iraq into an Axis base, the 500,000 Jews of Palestine would also have been at risk of Hitler's genocidal ambitions.
Finally, Robert, you write: [Julius] might or might not have included the Allied landings in her brief summary, but it's not terribly relevant, since her principal focus here was on.
the tragedy that befell Algeria's Jews as they were caught up in the Algerian War of 1954-1962." Again, there would have not been 130,000 Algerian Jews alive after the war to experience this tragedy without the blood-soaked Allied victories from Iran in the east to Morocco in the west between the spring of 1941 and the spring of 1943.

By: Robert Werdine

Robert Werdine — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 05:40:27 +0000

Mark,

I should like to say that I am a great admirer of Lyn Julius’ work, her advocacy on the much-neglected issue of the history and traditions of Afro-Asian Jewry and her efforts to educate the public about the subject. I think you do her an injustice here.

The primary subject of Lyn’s article was the circumstances of the tragic exodus of Algeria’s Jewry in the early 1960’s. As a lead in to this subject, she provides a brief summary of the history and experience of Algerian Jewry. She might or might not have included the Allied landings in her brief summary, but it’s not terribly relevant, since her principal focus here was on the tragedy that befell Algeria’s Jews as they were caught up in the Algerian War of 1954-1962. Your excoriation of her non-inclusion of the Allied North Africa landings here seems a mean and petty thing.

I also seriously doubt that her omission betrays an “inexcusably flawed understanding of the military history of World War II in North Africa” since this history was not even the focus of her discussion.

By: David Scholem

David Scholem — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 23:42:53 +0000

My teacher Yitshaq Ben-Ami [ironically, father of Jeremy B-A who at the head of J Street in history-bumper-sticking America is feverishly mis-representing Israeli history even as it unfolds beneath our feet] had a saying: "History is a man-made record full of tracks, and there is a constant process of covering up and uncovering the truth." A better summary there never was. He was referring to serious political forces who grasp ownership of narratives to gain advantage among publics who have forgotten the war-fogged reports by eye witnesses from the scene. History is the anvil on which to beat the future into shape. The hammer is the political ambition of the surviving "winners". Now, at this time when communications technology enables the spread of misnamed "knowledge" in an instant via the internet, the internet is its own antidote as–or IF–serious people knowledgeable about the truth let that ruth be known. In the final analysis, the truth sets us free. The question is, how long does it take to break through "the bodyguard of lies".