40 The Economist January 22nd 2022
Middle East & Africa
JewsintheArabworldWelcome back
T
he sloganof the Houthi rebels, who
control northern Yemen, is blunt.
“Death to Israel, curse on the Jews,” it reads
in part. So it was no shock when the group
chased Jews out of its area of control. What
might be surprising is where some of those
Jews ended up. Yusuf Hamdi and his ex
tended family were rescued in a mission
organised by the un, America, Qatar and
the United Arab Emirates (uae) in 2021. Mr
Hamdi and company then passed up a
chance to go to Israel, instead becoming
the first Yemenite Jews to settle in the uae.
The uaeoffered inducements: a rent
free villa, fancy car and monthly welfare
cheques. It is all part of an effort to seed
new Jewish communities in the country.
Since the government declared 2019 the
year of tolerance, and officially recognised
the existence of Jews in the uae, new ko
sher restaurants and a Jewish centre have
sprung up. During the festival of Hanuk
kah last year the state erected large meno
rahs in city squares (pictured). It plans to
open a statefinanced synagogue later this
year. “Jews are back in the Middle East,”
says Edwin Shuker, an Iraqi Jew who fled toBritain, but resettled in Dubai last year.
From Morocco to the Gulf, a surprising
number of Arab countries are welcoming
back Jews and embracing their Jewish heri
tage. The reasons vary. The failures and ex
cesses of Arab nationalism and Islamism
have forced many countries to rethink
chauvinist dogmas. Modernising autocrats
have jettisoned communal tropes and pur
sued multicultural agendas. And the Israe
liPalestinian conflict is no longer seen as a
priority in the region. “The Arab world has
too many problems to still care about Pal
estine,” says Kamal Alam, an expert on Syr
ia and its Jewish diaspora. “Instead they
begrudgingly look at Israel and Jews as
models for running a successful country
that feeds itself without oil.”Before the establishment of Israel in
1948, more Jews lived in the rest of the Arab
world than in Palestine. At least a quarter
of Baghdad’s population was Jewish. So
was Iraq’s beauty queen in 1947. But after
the creation of Israel and its displacement
of Palestinians, Arab rulers turned on their
Jewish subjects. Many were stripped of
their citizenship and their property. State
media and school textbooks promoted
antiSemitism, and the sermons of Muslim
preachers fanned the flames. Arab states
chased away all but a few thousand of the
region’s nonIsraeli Jews.
In recent years, though, the mood has
drastically changed. Most Arabs have no
memory of the big ArabIsraeli wars of last
century. Milder opinions have been en
couraged by leaders who see the Jewish
state as a potential trade partner and ally
against Iran, and who seek more accep
tance in the West. The rulers of Egypt, Sau
di Arabia and the uae, for example, host
multicultural gatherings and often muzzle
clerics who step out of line. Sympathetic
portrayals of Jews have appeared in Arab
films and tvshows; documentaries have
explored the region’s Jewish roots. Some
Arab universities have opened depart
ments of Jewish history. Such is the change
in attitude that when four Arab countries—
Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the uae—
agreed to normalise relations with Israel in
2020, there were no big protests.
Saudi Arabia has not formally made
peace with Israel. But the kingdom—once
one of the world’s most closed and intolerA BU DHABI
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