SEPHARDIC MUSEUM

 

 

Dear concerned friends scholars and all those who care about Sephardim and MIzrachim,

 

This Knesset committee meeting was a frameup and series of character defamation lies against Attorney David Yadid, who has spent over 10 milion shekalim of his own money  to help Holocaust survivors get reparations from their suffering in Holocaust in Iraq, Morocco, Algeria, and even previous class action suits from Libya. I am the expert witness for the Iraqi and Moroccan Jews in numerous class actions against the State of Israel. The Israeli Finance Ministry does all it can to block Attorney Yadid from representing Holocaust survivors; in particular those form Sephardic and Mizrahi backgrounds.

Eli Allalouf noted that Yadid received 8,000 complaints, which is a blatant lie and character assassination. In reality there were 20 complaints. I also wrote a letter to the Israeli Law Board defending Yadid’s actions. They objected to his recruiting clients via the respective immigrant associations and moshavim and the Histadrut Israeli labor federation  for class action suits at public meetings for Iraqi and Moroccan survivors to sign up for free or for a meagre 20 NIS registration fee (and never charged until receiving sums and at rates based on government decided fees).  At meeting Allalouf announced he would allow anyone to speak to defend the “evil lawyer Yadid”. He prevented me from speaking, fighter for Sephardic and general Holocaust survivors since the early 1980s and member of the Israeli parliamentary committee for Holocaust survivors, as well as cutting off after her first sentence in beliitlement Levana Zamir head of the Egyptian Jews and head of lobby of some 20 plus organizations of Jews from Arab and Muslim countries, and he threw out of the room Efroni, who coordinates the Jews of Mosul and is part of the Iraqi organizations behind the Farhud Iraqi class action lawsuits, and was a victim of the Farhud Nazi-inspired riots in 1941 as a young child.  Efroni is a key player in helping the Kurds in organizing in Kurdistan in last five years against Isis and Syria and no more needs to be said about that. When Aharoni said that what committee did to Attorney Yadid was a character assassination and for that he was thrown out of the hall by ushers  in the end of his talk. The racist anti-Sephardi  Itzik Shmuly (for the Zionist House Party – Labor)  denied anything he said. The trash mouth and self-hating Sephardi/Mizrahi Committee member Fedida said that Efroni gets money personally from this and doesn’t represent 1,000 Jews. When Efroni finished Eli Alalouf for the third time said he will not let anyone who complimented Yadid to speak. This is an anti-democratic statement.  

 

The Israeli Finance Ministry decided in a haughty plan to compel any survivor wanting an annual reparation sum had to break his or her legal agreement with an Israeli lawyer (i.e. David Yadid) and thus Yadid said to those survivors if you want to break our legal agreement I will charge you 1800 NIS. He has paid lawyer and clerk salaries for some 4 years in his Iraq department of some dozen employees and a Morocco department of similar size  at his expense. In the demented Israeli justice system, lawyers don’t get reimbursed for expenses if they win class action suits. If he had not acted, the State of Israel and the Claims Conference would not have paid any sums to any Mizrahi Holocaust survivor.

 

In his warped comments as a head of a Committee in the Israeli Parliament where the Moroccan Jews are a majority today of the State of Israel , the self-hating Eli  Allalouf said  that there were only “a few decrepid Moroccan Jews” in the Holocaust and all this is a poly of interlopers. There were 50000 Moroccan Jews who lost their houses due to the Vichy pro-Nazi and 2000 Moroccan Jews were in forced labor. Allalouf noted that Yadid received a total of 3.7 million shekalim in recent months. He has over 100 employees and tens of thousands of clients so I don’t know what Allalouf’s figure even pertains to.

 

I was paid by Yadid a modest sum to research Morocco, Iraq, and Egypt as expert witness. I wrote 4 volumes of evidence of the Nazi-inspired Farhud in 16 cities throughout Iraq and within almost 2 months, and not only in Baghdad in 2 days. The history and legal departments employed numerous historians at rates as much as 8 times what I was paid to write reports denying the Holocaust. Historians not connected to the Holocaust, received between 125000 to 250000 NIS per report at the expense of the Israeli taxpayer

 

The white Ashkenaim (unlike those like myself who was blocked for defending Yadid and the Mizrahim) were allowed to speak and weren’t heckled. I was the only one from the Knesset Holccoaust survivors affairs committee denied the democratic right to speak. .

 

A lot of discussion was about free legal advice which usually doesn’t bring results.

 

The subject here was about those who received reparations because of a very partial and selective order from Finance Minister Cachlon to give annual (not monthly) reparations to a few of the Jews from Morocco, Algeria, and Iraq. The majority will not receive unless there are court decisions. Allaouf takes orders from his party head Cachlon to deceive most of the Sephardic and other survivors. Predecessor Finance Minister Yair Lapid played similar tricks on the backs of most of the Holocaust survivors (not just Sephardim) and was blind to Finance MInsitry tricks.  Another Iraqi lawyer Nawi stated that Shmuel did not tell all the truth and Shmuly made law (Clause 21) to block most of the survivors from receiving reparations and forcing them to hire lawyers. Nawi was also told to leave the hall and he said that most of you on the committee should be in jail.  

 

There is much more and it is complicated, but I want you to know and pass it on.

 

Shalom,

 

Yitzchak Kerem

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