Tisha B'Av Day

On Tisha B'Av classes were cancelled and I decided to spend the morning catching up this blog as it is hard to find time to write while attending classes and doing homework every night. As luck would have it our internet service was out that day! I started to upload some pictures and realized we had no internet, after making some phone calls and trying to get on some neighbor's servers we had used before ours was installed we realized it was a neighborhood issue not just our flat. It turned out later it was a problem with Bezeq the phone company.

I decided to save what I had written as a word document and attend some Tisha B'A study sessions at Pardes. I also got to see the movie Forgotten Refugees and hear from one of the women who is featured in the film. The movie explores the history, culture, and forced exodus of Middle Eastern and North African Jewish communities in the second half of the 20th century. Using extensive testimony of refugees from Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, and Morocco the film recounts the stories - of joy and suffering - that nearly one million individuals have carried with them for so long. The Forgotten Refugees has helped raise awareness about this important period of Jewish and world history; an issue which has been tragically ignored in the media, world politics, and educational programs. On June 19, 2007, a fifteen minute version of The Forgotten Refugees was shown before the United States Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which convened for a special hearing on the mass violations of human rights of Jews under Islamic regimes in Arab Countries throughout North Africa, the Middle East, and the Gulf Region. On March 31, 2008, the first-ever Resolution recognizing the rights of “The Forgotten Refugees” was adopted by the United States House of Representatives.

Blog Activity: Find some of the places mentioned in the movie on the map and see if you can find on the internet how many Jewish people live in these countries today.

I have posted some pictures of things I saw on my walk from my flat to Pardes