Tuesday Evening in Vancouver, Regina Waldman of JIMENA,

"It's a small world, after all, it's a small, small world", and I love its synchronicity.

These words were ringing in my ears as I opened one of the myriad of emails in my inbox as I was trying to catch up since returning home. There, was an invitation to hear Regina Waldman speak and show a movie on January 19th at the King David School in Vancouver. Regina is the co-founder of JIMENA, "Jews, Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa". I have been fascinated with her story and the organization since being put in touch with her through Retired Israeli Ambassador Asher Naim, who like Ms Waldman, was born in Tripoli, Libya. Ambassador Naim, after his service to Israel in helping to get the Russian Jews to Israel through Finland, helping to get Zionism is Racism removed from the UN Charter and was ambassador to Ethiopia at the time of Operation Solomon, now works tirelessly to help the Ethiopian Beta Israel or "Falashan" Jews who emigrated to Israel. When he suggested we speak months ago, neither of us imagined we would meet in Vancouver instead of Ethiopia or San Francisco, where she lives.

Born in Libya in 1948, Gina and her family were forced to flee her home country in 1967 with only the clothes on their back and $20.Born in Tripoli to a family that had lived in Libya for centuries, she was persecuted, nearly murdered and brutally expelled from her homeland in 1967, all because she was a Jew.She speaks of how she grew up in a hate-filled country, including her own school.As a young child she recalls the adversity she faced in going to school in an Arabic country.
It was the end of the Six-Day War; from 1948 to 1970, nearly a million Jews were forced to flee their homes in Arab lands.

As her family fled on a bus to the airport, the driver attempted to set the bus aflame and murder all the passengers.

After settling in America, Bublil became a leading activist in the Soviet Jewry movement, for which she received the Martin Luther King, Jr. Humanitarian Award. As director of the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jewry, Waldman was instrumental in winning freedom for thousands of Soviet Jews like Natan Sharansky. She has since also been instrumental in helping the Jews of Chile and Argentina.

In March 2008 she testified at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva about the Jewish refugees from Arab countries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnwmzCt99LQ

Using her personal story, she sheds light on the unknown history of the “Forgotten Refugees:” She recently testified before Congress on the plight of the nearly one million Jews who were made refugees from the Arab Countries.

Together with Joseph Abdel Wahed, Waldman founded JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa) to bear witness to the suffering of other Jewish refugees from Arab lands.

See you at 7pm at King David School in Oakridge. For more information contact me randi@passionatetravel.com