700,000 Jews from Arab and Moslem countries immigrated to Israel since its establishment in 1948, among them:

• 127,000 from Iraq
• 45,000 from Yemen
• 300,000 from Morocco
• 35,000 from Libya
• 29,000 from Egypt
• 15,000 from Algiers
• 4,500 from Afghanistan
• 60,000 from Iran

In 1948 Jews numbered 650,000. In its first year Israel received 203,000 immigrants from 42 different countries including Holocaust survivors. In 1950 the Law of Return was adopted allowing any Jew the right to return to Israel, and in 1952 a new law gave all Jewish immigrants Israeli nationality.

After the six-day war in 1967, 380,000 Jews immigrated from Western countries. The main immigration of Soviet Jewry started in 1989 amounting to one million in two years. In 1985 and 1991 52,000 Jews were air-lifted from Ethiopia.

At present Israel's population numbers six-million, among them five million Jews.

From an Arabic Daily

 

 

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