The Forgotten Refugees

A film about the mass exodus of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa in the 20th century. The Forgotten Refugees explores the history, culture, and forced exodus of Middle Eastern and North African Jewish communities in the second half of the 20th century.

Using extensive testimony of refugees from Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, and Morocco the film recounts the stories - of joy and suffering - that nearly one million individuals have carried with them for so long. The film weaves personal stories with dramatic archival footage of rescue missions, historic images of exodus and resettlement, and analyses by contemporary scholars to tell the story of how and why the Jewish population in the Middle East and North Africa declined from one million in 1945 to several thousand today.