Day to Mark the Departure and Expulsion of Jews from the Arab Countries and Iran

The Day to Mark the Departure and Expulsion of Jews from the Arab Countries and Iran (Hebrew: יום לציון היציאה והגירוש של היהודים מארצות ערב ומאיראן Yom l-Tziyon HaYetziah V'HaGerush Shel HaYehudim M'Artzot Erev Um'Iran) is a Memorial Day that is marked in Israel every year starting in 2014, on November 30 with the purpose of marking the departure and expulsion of Jews from Arab countries and Iran.[1] November 30 is the date that was chosen since it is symbolically the day following November 29, a day the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was adopted, and when many communities of Jews in Arab countries and Iran started to feel the pressure and hostility from their Arab and Persian neighbors and as a result of that were forced to leave their countries. It is based on a law sponsored by MK Shimon Ohayon (Yisrael Beiteinu) and passed in the summer of 2014 by the Knesset.

Yemenite Jews on their way to a camp set by the "Joint" in Aden

For many Mizrahi Jews in Israel it is considered to be a belated recognition of their collective trauma, after years of what many of them claimed to be the marking of European Jewry suffering only from the part of Israel, or the marking of 1948 Palestinian exodus only from the part of the Arab countries.[2]

The Knesset established this observance in 2014. The purpose of this observance is to recognize the collective trauma of Mizrahi Jews during the period around the establishment of the State of Israel. Many Mizrachi Jews felt that their own suffering was being ignored, both in comparison to the suffering of European Jewry during the Holocaust and in comparison to the 1948 Palestinian exodus. The Gregorian-calendar date chosen is the day after the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was adopted, as that date marked the beginning of concentrated pressure and hostility against the community.[3]