Operation Ezra & Nehemiah

In 1948, when Israel was declared a state, Jews all around the world wanted to move there as soon as they could. They felt very close to Israel since they were one of the oldest communities of Jews. In 1950, Jews all around Iraq experienced great relief when they found out it was legal for them to move to Israel as it had been previously deemed illegal by the Iraqi government. The migration occurred because all of the Jews in Iraq felt as if they had very strong ties to Israel. The Iraqi Jews were resettled in Israel through Operation Ezra & Nehemiah, an operation focused on allowing emigration from Iraq to Israel, it was put into place for the people who felt as if Israel was their home. Once the Iraqi Jews were safely in Israel they were …show more content…
They felt as if they maintained very strong religious connections to the land and that they wanted to live there in order to make this connection even stronger. The Iraqi Jewish community was also one of the oldest communities of Jews only giving them more of a reason to emigrate there as soon as they could. In 1947, the Iraqi government made emigration to Israel illegal. A lot of Jews were arrested and reprimanded because they tried to leave Iraq. During the Iraqi Jew’s dilemma, zionism was becoming a very prominent thing in the Jewish world. While Iraqi Jews wanted to be apart of zionism they couldn't. The zionist movement recognized what was happening in Iraq and how it was illegal for Jews to leave and go to Israel. The zionist community tried to fix the situation as best as they could. Nissim Mishal expands on this idea, “The Zionist movement issued a manifesto calling on the Jews to sign up for …show more content…
The Law of Return was a law put into place so that it was legal for emigration to occur between Iraq and Israel. A year later in 1951, the Iraqi government started Jewish emigration. Although Iraq tried to make it as complicated as possible to be able to go to Israel the government had to allow it.
Operation Ezra & Nehemiah was an operation that helped Jews emigrate from Iraq to Israel, it was put into place for the people who felt as if Israel was their home. The operation was named after Ezra and Nehemiah because in biblical times these two characters led the Jewish Jews out of Babylonia back to Israel in order to rebuild the Temple. At least 90,000 Jews signed up to go back to Israel through Operation Ezra & Nehemiah. Operation Ezra and Nehemiah ended leaving only about 6,000 Jews in Iraq. The operation was very successful in getting the Jews back to Israel where they wanted to