Following the exposure in "Israel Today": The National Library will publish testimonies of Jews living in Islamic countries • "Getting Attention Concurrent with Public Consciousness"
National Library // Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
The National Library begins by publishing a collection of evidence from Sephardi voices, the comprehensive digital archive - the first to document and preserve the life stories of Jews living in Islamic countries. This is done by sharing videos, audio and photos.
Last month, for the first time in Israel Today, the vast volume of property left behind by Arab and Iranian Jews was left exposed after being expelled from their countries and immigrated to Israel upon the establishment of the state. Dr. Joel Finkelman, curator of Judaism Collection at the National Library, told Israel Today: "We have signed an agreement to cooperate with Sephardi voices because they touch on a very significant issue after a long period of time - getting attention in research in parallel with growing public consciousness" "In addition to collecting books, manuscripts, journals and archives, the library also preserves interviews about the stories of ordinary people and the influences experienced by historical events and / or social processes. In addition to the current move, we have agreed in principle to create a special page below on the library's website on this important topic. "
One of the testimonials // Photo: Liam Sharp
Professor Henry Green of the University of Miami, responsible for the audio-visual project of Sephardi voices, which includes gathering testimonies from Arab countries and Islam told Israel Today: "I am pleased that the National Library will be the home for the Sephardi voices interview, documents, portraits and photographs. I am very encouraged to see that "Israel today" takes a significant part in addressing the important issue of displacing Sephardi-Eastern Jews from Arab countries. " According to Green, about 400 interviews have been carried out so far and the goal is to reach about 2,000.
One of the testimonials // Photo: Liam Sharp
The current data weighting is done after decades where no significant progress has been made on the subject. The significant change occurred in 2017, and within the framework of the Minister of Social Equality, Gamaliel discovered a classified project aimed at assessing property estimates in Arab countries.