Protesters against normalisation with Israel demonstrating in Tunis The leader of a Jewish organisation in Paris has challenged the Tunisian ambassador to France to confirm or deny that his government approved of the ‘scandalous declarations’ of the Committee for Arab Resistance and Support of the Fight against Normalisation with Israel. Read More »

Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebani greets Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh Mohsin Habib is a Bangladeshi commentator writing for the Stonegate Institute. In this article analysing recent death threats to the Jews of Tunisia, he reaches rather more pessimistic conclusions than the BBC . Read More »

Iraq-born Zvi Gabay, pictured when he was serving as Israeli ambassador to Dublin The tragedy (or ‘Nakba’) of the Jews from Arab countries has been ignored – but it is not too late to remember it, argues Iraq-born Zvi Gabay in the Israeli daily Read More »

Jews are seeking a ‘right of return’ to Arab countries, claims this Israel Hayom article of 2 February. Read More »

Maurice Roumani, Libyan-born historian The attitude of Libya’s new government towards Libyan Jewry will depend on its composition, argues Benghazi-born historian Maurice Roumani in this interview with Manfred Gerstenfeld in Arutz Sheva. Read More »

Map shows Jewish-owned land in Syria in green This blog has already drawn attention to the little-known fact that Jews own substantial property in what is now Syria. Read More »

The Iraqi parliament is planning to pass a new bill banning Iraqis from travelling to Israel , Al Jazeera online reported this week. If passed the bill would be one more nail in the coffin of ‘normalisation ‘ between Israel and Arab countries. Ynet News takes up the story: The bill was proposed following a number of incidents at Baghdad airport. Read More »

Zebulun Simantov – the last Jew in Afghanistan Lyrical piece by Alex Thomson for Channel 4 News about Zebulun Simantov, the last Jew of Afghanistan. Simantov is an enduring symbol of the Jewish faith in Kabul, having survived Communism, death and destruction. Read More »

Jews have no claim or presence in the Muslim world, and if they do want their property back, the Arabs won it fair and square in military campaigns. That’s the essence of a Friday sermon delivered by Sudanese cleric Sheik Abd Al-Jalil Al-Karouri, which aired on Sudan TV on January 6, 2012 ( via MEMRI) . Read More »

Jacob Lellouche, owner of the last Kosher restaurant in Tunis What’s the story on the Jews of Tunisia? They are defiantly rejecting Israeli calls to leave, says the BBC. BBC reporter Wyre Davies says there used to be 300,000 Jews in Tunisia ( there were never more than 120,000, but oriental exaggeration is catchy). Read More »

National Committee for Supporting Arab Resistance and Fighting Normalization and Zionism Instead of transmitting messages of false comfort, the guys at Tunisia Live are doing a great job exposing antisemitism wherever it might be rearing its ugly head. Read More »

As the world marks Holocaust Memorial Day, Petra Marquart-Bigman in her Jerusalem Post blog can’t help but recognise an eerie similarity in genocidal intent between the Palestinian Mufti and his 1940s predecessor, Haj Amin al-Husseini. . Read More »

The Paradesi synagogue in Cochin, Kerala Israeli Jews from the Indian province of Kerala have been on a ‘roots’ trip, reports the Indian medium NDTV . (In this article ‘God’s own country’ is India, not Israel. Read More »

There is a saying in my house: ‘you can’t beat Tbeet .’ It’s hard to serve up chicken and rice in a more appetising way. I can almost smell the aroma of cardamon and turmeric rising from the photograph. Excuse me, dear reader, while I hurry off to the kitchen. Read More »

Memorial to the nine Jews hanged in Baghdad on 27 January 1969 Today, January 27, marks the anniversary of one of the darkest chapters in the annals of Iraqi Jewry. On 27 January 1969, nine Jews were hanged in Baghdad’s central square. Read More »

A cross on Mount Lebanon I may be mistaken, but I think we are seeing an awakening of western interest in the plight of Middle East minorities. Some people are even beginning to join the dots between the plight of Christians and that of Jews. Read More »

Salafist Yassir al-Burhami With thanks: Lily Here’s a chilling reminder of what lies in store for the Copts of Egypt, in the words of the Egyptian Salafi preacher Yassir Al-Burhami (via MEMRI). The Salafists are the doctrinaire Islamists who won around a quarter of the vote in the Egyptian elections . Read More »

The traditional Hilula to the tomb of Rabbi Abu Hatseira was cancelled this year The news that 75 percent of votes in the Egyptian parliamentary elections went to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood should be setting off alarm bells in the democratic Read More »

Although this blog has already fleetingly referred to the article: Arab Jews: are they extinct? I was asked by blogger Elder of Ziyon if I would comment further on it. My comment has turned into an EoZ guest post: Naava Mashiah’s article is doing the rounds of the Arab media, gaining prominence in Arab News. Read More »

Why it makes sense to be colour-blind when discussing ‘colonialism’ in the Middle East: AKUS, writing in CiFWatch, takes Comment is Free contributor Khalid Diab’s to task for his reflections on Arab and Israeli stereotypes . Read More »