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In the wake of Israel's establishment in 1948, as Arab nationalism strengthened throughout the Middle East, an entire culture was uprooted -- the million-strong bearers of Sefardic culture that had flourished under the Ottoman Empire. In just a few years the one million Jews who had lived in the Middle East outside of the British Mandate decreased to just a few thousand.

Yet, said Shelomo Alfassa, U.S. director of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, "When the world hears of refugees, they think of Palestinians." Although there were as many as 600,000 Arab refugees (the U.N. number was 472,000), Alfassa said there were "over 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries who lost everything they had."

Yet, Alfassa noted, although the U.N. has issued 180 resolutions about Palestinian refugees, it has issued none about Jews. All it has done was to mention on two occasions that Jews fleeing Arab countries are refugees. Hence derives the mission of his organization. "Our goal is to make sure that the issue of Jewish refugees finds its place on the international political and judicial agenda so that in the future, if need be, rights can be secured as a matter of law and equity," he said.

A November 2007 report written by Stanley Urman, executive vice president of the organization, with Irwin Cotler and David Matas, "Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries: The Case for Rights and Redress," suggests that these refugees have been forgotten because they did not remain refugees for long -- some two–thirds were resettled in Israel.

In the film "The Forgotten Refugees" -- to be screened on March 29, 4 p.m., at the Jewish Center in Princeton -- refugees from Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Morocco, and Iran will share their personal stories as the film explores the impact of the Arab Muslim conquest, the development of Judeo-Arab culture, and the modern rise of Arab nationalism that drove Jews from their homes.

The report observes: "Upon the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948, the status of Jews in Arab countries changed dramatically as virtually all Arab countries declared war, or backed the war against Israel." It maintains that the emigration of Jews from these countries was a forced expulsion, "the result of state-orchestrated, state-sanctioned patterns of oppression, including threats, harassments, beatings, and pogroms targeting the Jewish population."

In Iraq, for example, anti-Jewish rioting broke out after the establishment of Israel and the propagation of Zionism became a crime, punishable by seven years imprisonment. No foreign Jew was allowed to enter Iraq, even in transit. In 1950 came a law permitting Jews to leave the country within a year, but they had to forfeit their citizenship and their property was frozen. Between 1949 and 1951, 124,000 Jews were evacuated or were smuggled out through Iran. In 1952, the permission to leave was cancelled and Jews were barred from emigrating. In 1963, they were forbidden to sell their property and forced to carry yellow identity cards.

After the Six-Day War in 1967, many of the remaining 3,000 Jews in Iraq were arrested and dismissed from their jobs or public posts. Also, their property was expropriated, their bank accounts frozen, their businesses shut down and trading permits cancelled, and they were placed under house arrest or required to remain within the cities.

In 1968, dozens of Jews were jailed and tortured for alleged involvement with a spy ring, and 11 were sentenced to death in show trials and publicly hanged in January 1969. By the early 1970s most of the remaining Jews had fled, and in 1973, the government pressured the few remaining elderly Jews to turn over title to more than $200 million worth of Jewish community property.

Alfassa was hired by Justice for Jews from Arab Countries in 2006 to help educate politicians in the United States Congress and Senate as well as the media on the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran. "We want them to be aware of the issue if it goes to the U.N., which we expect in few years," he said.

The last year has seen a lot of process, Alfassa suggested. The organization spoke about this issue at the U.N. Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, the European Parliament, and the British House of Lords and House of Commons, and a resolution was adopted by U.S. Congress recognizing Jews as refugees in the context of the Middle East peace process.

In his work Alfassa has been privy to personal testimonies in claim forms that refugees have filed with his organization. These are hand carried to Israel, which issues each refugee a claim number and sends a longer form where they must detail exactly what happened to them and what they lost.

Alfassa's great-grandparents emigrated to the United States -- from Rhodes and from Edirne, Turkey -- because of economic problems in Turkey and the Balkans leading up to World War II. Alfassa noted that the Ottoman Empire never had the kind of state-sponsored anti-Semitism that existed in Christian states and that its relative tolerance allowed Jewish communities to live comfortably under Ottoman rule.

Alfassa grew up in the Sefardic community in Brooklyn until age 12, and Ladino was his native tongue. He then shuttled between California, Florida, and Jerusalem until 1999. He worked for 17 years in emergency management, including time as emergency manager of the National Medical Response Team that responded to terrorism. But Sephardic Jews were always his avocation.

In 1996, he created the first Web site on Sephardic Jews in 1996. It was discovered by Sefardic House, a New York institute for researching and promoting Sephardic history and culture, which then offered him a job in 1999.

In his professional involvement with Sephardic Jewry, Alfassa has also served as director of research and development for the "American Sephardi" at the Center for Jewish History, vice-president of the Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture in New York, and staff consultant to two Sephardic educational centers in Jerusalem.

The discussion about seeking rights and redress for Jews from Arab countries started in the 1950s and is still a continuing process, Alfassa said. He sees this issue as an important part of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, one of whose main issues is settlement of the refugee problem. "There are two victim populations from the Arab-Israeli conflict," he observed.

Alfassa's organization was able to provide refugee witnesses to the David Project to interview for its film "The Forgotten Refugees," which was created to highlight the Jewish refugees from Arab countries as a human rights issue. For Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, it has played a slightly different role, Alfassa said. "It became the perfect educational tool to show people how the dynamic of Arab nationalism worked."

The Jewish Center's Israeli/Jewish Film Festival is screening the 2007 film "Orthodox Stance," Sunday, March 15, 4:00 p.m. at the Jewish Center, 435 Nassau Street, in Princeton. The filmmaker, Jason Hutt, will speak. Dmitriy Salita, a 25-year-old Russian immigrant, is a top professional boxer, a rigorously observant Jew, and a young man in search of meaning. While providing an intimate, three-year long look at the trials and tribulations faced by an up and coming professional boxer, the film is a portrait of seemingly incompatible cultures and characters working together to support Dmitriy's rare and remarkable devotion to both Orthodox Judaism and the pursuit of a professional boxing title. The film won the 2008 Documentary Award at the London Jewish Cultural Awards. For more information, contact Deborah Marinsky at (609) 987-8526 or debmarin@aol.com.