WINNIPEG โ A Jewish refugee from Iraq is urging the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) to expand its planned 1948-focused exhibit by including the mass displacement of Jews from Arab and Muslim countries, warning in an advocacy video that the museumโs current approach is โone-sidedโ and risks erasing her communityโs history.โ
Video Centers On Iraqi Jewish Experience
The video features Dr. Caroline Bassoon-Zaltzman, who introduces herself as a Jewish woman who grew up in Baghdad in the 1960s in a community that she says had existed for more than 2,500 years. Speaking directly to the camera, she recalls that โevery day of my childhood was shaped by fear,โ describing an atmosphere of mounting antisemitism that she links to Nazi influence and the rise of Arab nationalism in Iraq.โ
Dr. Bassoon-Zaltzman recounts that arrests, disappearances, and reports of kidnappings, torture, and murder left families constantly unsure who might be targeted next. She describes returning from school not knowing whether her father would be at home or had been taken by the authorities, stating that he was jailed three times and that the family did not know if he was alive or dead during those detentions.โ
Systematic Persecution And Forced Escape
In the video, she says Jewish civil rights in Iraq were stripped away, with Jews ultimately forbidden to leave the country legally. She describes how the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi secret police, โterrorized our communityโ and monitored Jews constantly, including by forcing them to carry yellow identity documents marked with the word โYahud,โ or โJew.โโ
Dr. Bassoon-Zaltzman recounts that when she was 14, her family escaped Iraq overnight. She says they left behind their home, memories, belongings, and โour livesโ before arriving three days later in Tehran, then two weeks later in Israel, and ultimately resettling in Montreal. She adds that it took her two decades to speak publicly about what had happened to her family.โ
Link To Wider Mizrahi And North African Jewish Displacement
Dr. Bassoon-Zaltzman situates her personal story within a broader historical pattern, stating that almost one million Jews were โviolently uprooted, forcibly displaced, and ethnically cleansedโ from Middle Eastern and North African countries in the mid-20th century.
Historians and communal organizations have documented large-scale Jewish flight and expulsion from countries such as Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Libya, and Yemen in the years surrounding the creation of the State of Israel and subsequent Arab-Israeli conflicts.โโ
For many of these Jews, property was confiscated, citizenship was revoked or restricted, and communities with ancient roots were effectively eliminated in a span of a few decades. Advocacy groups and scholars have in recent years urged museums, governments, and international bodies to recognize this displacement in parallel with Palestinian narratives of the 1948 Nakba.โ
Critique Of CMHRโs Planned 1948 Exhibit
The video opens with Dr. Bassoon-Zaltzman asserting that โThe Canadian Museum for Human Rights is launching a one-sided political exhibitโ and that โIt erases stories like mine.โ While the video does not name the exhibit title, it clearly links her criticism to the CMHR Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past And Present exhibit, dealing with 1948 and its aftermath, which has drawn attention for its focus on Palestinian displacement.โโ
She appeals directly to viewers to intervene with the museumโs leadership so that the experience of Jews from Arab and Muslim countries, including Iraqi Jews, is fully represented. Her message aligns with the ongoing public debate about whether Canadian institutions present the 1948 period in a way that includes both Palestinian and Jewish refugee histories.โโ
Call To Action For Viewers
In the closing section, Dr. Bassoon-Zaltzman looks into the camera and asks supporters to โtake one minute to speak up.โ She urges viewers to visit ActionHub.ca, a campaign site that allows them to send messages to the museumโs CEO, telling her that โour history must not be erasedโ and concluding with the appeal: โTell Isha Khan: Donโt erase Jewish voices.โโ
For a Jewish and pro-Israel audience, the video serves both as testimony and as a mobilization tool, positioning the CMHR exhibit as a contested space where representation of Jewish refugees from Iraq and other Arab states is seen as a test of historical fairness. It underscores a broader concern that public narratives about 1948 in Canada must reflect the dual reality of Palestinian displacement and the near-total uprooting of Jewish communities across the Middle East and North Africa.
