Welcome in the Ishmael's house?

Very often, for those living outside the European area, it was almost a stereotype to state that the Jews "always" benefited of better conditions in the Arab lands - a generic name that, in fact, was referred to the late Ottoman Empire. The comparison term was always the troubled European life, with the Spanish expulsions, the pogroms and ghettos and, of course, Shoah. One of the explanations is that we don't know too much what the idea of Arab lands mean and unless the latest terrorism alerts, we didn't care about it. Another one is our common threat of mind laziness.

But if you want to change your mind on the basis of carefully gathered data, Sir Martin Gilbert's book is extremely useful. Well written and diplomatically providing various - often terrible - facts, it is offering an almost accurate picture of the Jewish life in Muslim lands from the very beginning. The author is covering Iraq - with lots of interesting details - Yemen, Afghanistan - if you didn't know, yes, there are Jews in Afghanistan - Iran, Libya, Morocco, Algeria and, of course, the Ottoman Empire. Would like to know more about Lebanon - mentioned in a couple of sentences - or Syria. Maybe Jordan too. The general feature of the lives of thousands of Jews living there is a permanent threat, the violent killings and the periodical bursts of hate and aggressivity. Even though there were periods of calm, generous individuals hosting them or saving their lives, the daily reality was brutal and dangerous. As everywhere, Jews were humiliated, killed and living at the mercy of cruel religious and political leaders. That the galut in Muslim countries wasn't a paradise is proved also by the fact that among the 687,739 Jewish refugees in Eretz Israel from 1948-1951, only 100,000 were from Europe. The incredulous ones can talk with old people from Iraq or Iran still having vivid memories of their survival. The book is providing maps and a detailed bibliography helpful for all those curious to continue the documentation.

This book was on my reading list for a long time. Now, it offered me lots of subjects to write about.