Unholy Pilgrims in a New Diaspora: Iraqi Jewish Protest in Israel, 1950–1959

Abstract

This article explores the protests, demonstrations, and sit-ins organized by Iraqi Jews in Israel during the 1950s. Protesting their living conditions and discrimination by the state, Iraqi Jews traveled from their transit camps to urban centers, demanding housing, employment, education, and access to water and electricity services. I argue that the protests challenged both the invisible borders between cities and transit camps and the notion that Jews' exodus from Iraq signified a liberation from exile. The protesters offered a different narrative, in which their struggle to achieve social mobility and civil rights had actually begun upon arrival to Israel.