Around 1950 a million Jews were displaced from Arab and Moslem countries from North Africa and the Middle East. No international organization, no UN agency was interested in helping these refugees except Jewish organizations. That was not the result of Zionism like many (including some of the involved prefer to remember) but because of persecution and constant harassment. 

I was an 8 year old boy in those days. I remember my mother leaving me at home and going to activities in favor of the refugees. I was not happy. At 15 I still remembered those days. I complained and mother told me "you have everything. The house is warm, you eat whenever and whatever you want. But they are children without a roof, clothing or food. So, you stay with grandmother and I will do my thing". Thanks, mom... 

Here I will not write about the past or the present, but only post some of the pictures of those days. Some I found in the internet, some in Wikipedia and some in an exhibition I visited years ago in the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv. The last one is a personal one with the great-grandfather of my children in the Bet Lid refugee camp were he lived a few years with his extended family after arriving to security in Israel, part of them from Irak and part from Iran. 

Some pictures by Edgar Hirshbein I saw at the Eretz Israel Museum in an exposition he called Maabarot (transit camp in Hebrew). The last such camp closed in 1963. 

the line to collect water 

children do the same everywhere

A cobbler opened his shop in the camp.

Pictures I found in the Internet and Wikipedia. 

The first two pictures are by Kluger. Taken in Rosh Haayin camp, 1950. You see Jewish refugees from Yemen.

This one is from Bet Lid Camp

Bet Lid Camp

Pardes Hanna Camp by Brauner

Next photo is from my family album. There you have the grandfather of my late wife, dressed to receive the Shabbat. How do I know? Well, dressed in white, patent shoes and reading the Bible in a tent at Bet Lid Camp! He hails from Basra, today it's in Irak, but when he was born there was no country with that name. If you wanted to send a letter to Basra or Baghdad you wrote "Mesopotamia". He lived 3 years in that Camp. I am sure some of his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren do no know this story and never saw the picture. If I will show them the picture, they will look at it, smile and say WOW!, turn around and forget it...

On the left uncle David with a child I did not identified yet.

I'm not an historian and I just touched the subject. The problem, as always, is that Jews are a minority wherever you look, and reality is not kind with minorities. Most never heard of Middle Eastern Jews. In Spanish the word "Jew" (judío) is still considered an insult. So I do not expect much of the actual Spanish government or many others. My cicle of life is at its end and I do not expect to see a change, except for the worst. I post these pictures just to feel better with myself.