POV++-+From+Iraq+to+Israel

=From Iraq to Israel = = =  My grandmother emigrated from Iraq to Israel in 1950.Her name is Georgia Havakok and she is my maternal grandmother. She is 83 years old. Right now she is my only living grandparent. She lives in a small town near Tel Aviv.

At that time, the political condition in Iraq was terrible. Iraq was a kingdom ruled by a very young king named Faisal the Second. However, the British mandate controlled the country and it was more effective than the king himself. The Jews in Iraq were not treated like human beings, for example: when an Iraqi person saw a Jew, he could take their money. The situation was getting worse because the Iraqis had heard about the Nazis in Germany and started copying the Germans. That was the background for my grandmother and her family leaving Iraq.

In Israel the political condition wasn’t that good, but it was still better than in Iraq. Israel was a new country in those days (Israel was established in 1948) and Jews from all over the world came to live there. Israel called Jews from all over the world to come and join together to make a new country.

So in 1950 my grandmother emigrated from Iraq with almost all of her family, except for my mom and some of her sisters and brothers, who were not born yet. Some people that emigrated from Iraq to Israel came by walking or using camels and donkeys, but my grandmother came to Israel by airplane.

When she lived in Iraq, my grandmother felt uncomfortable, but as soon as she got to Israel her feelings changed amazingly. On the journey, first they flew from Iraq to the island Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea, and stayed there one whole day and night. Then they flew to Israel. In the airplane she saw that there were only Jews. My grandmother was surprised by this, because seeing that many Jews in one place was rare. In Iraq at that time, the Jews were afraid to go out together in big groups. When she landed in Israel, my grandmother felt really good and safe because in Iraq most of the people[Muslims] hated the Jews, and she felt that that scary time was over.

When I asked her about her feelings and her thoughts she said, “I’m so happy that we emigrated from Iraq to Israel, I can see on the TV the war that is happening in Iraq right now and it’s scaring me and I’m happy that I’m here and my family is with me.” She also said, “I hope that my family will remember my story after I die, I want my children and my grandchildren to tell my story so everybody will know.”

So my Grandmother had a very hard journey from Iraq to Israel, crossing three countries and two continents, in extreme conditions and many political problems.