The operation ‘Magic Carpet’ (also called ‘Wings of Eagels’: ‘Kanfei Nesharim’) between June 1949 and September 1950 airlifted about 49,000 Yemenite Jews to the State of Israel.
The Jewish Virtual Library wrote: “The year 1949 saw massive waves of immigration to Israel. Some 250,000 Jews who arrived that year alone were placed in military barracks and tent camps, and were later moved to ma’abarot [transit camps]. The state nearly collapsed under the burden. Calculations made that year showed that the state needed some $3,000 for the absorption of each immigrant, which meant that the state required about $700,000 for the whole campaign; the entire state budget was less than that. Yet, despite everything, the young state was more than willing to do all that was necessary to absorb the immigrants, believing that this was the reason for its establishment in the first place.“
But this massive and complex endeavour – about 380 flights – was not without complications. “Immigration to the modern Jewish state has often been chaotic at best. But the insistence that nefarious motives guided its placement work with refugees is unsupported by archival evidence” wrote Yaacov Lozowick in his article “The Myth of the Kidnapped Yemenite Children, and the Sin It Conceals”
Lozowick gave insights of what happened: “It was the mid-1960s, and something odd was happening. Families who had arrived in Israel 15 years earlier—most but not all from Yemen—were getting IDF summons for their teenage children’s initial checkups. Yet their children had died as infants, and the letters seemed a cruel mockery. Unless … well, many of the grieving parents hadn’t actually seen the bodies of their dead children. They had come to the hospital ward one day and had been told, brusquely in most cases, that their child had died.“
Now a commemorative day marking the immigration of Yemenite Jews and honouring the memory of those who perished on the way to Israel is planned by the Knesset.
In its sitting on Wednesday, the Knesset Plenum voted to approve in preliminary reading the ‘Day for Marking the Immigration of Yemenite Jews and Memory of Those Who Perished on the Way to Israel’. The move was sponsored by MK Yonatan Mashriki (Shas).
In the vote, 54 Members of the Knesset supported the bill, without opposing votes, and it will be turned over to the Education, Culture and Sports Committee for deliberation, according to the press release of the Knesset. And continues:
It is proposed to stipulate that every year on December 16, the start date of Operation On Wings of Eagles in 1948, the operation for the immigration and absorption of the Jews of Yemen in the State of Israel—a commemorative day will be observed marking the immigration of Yemenite Jews and honouring the memory of those who perished on the way to Israel.
The explanatory notes to the bill state: “The immigration of the Jews of Yemen is one of the most moving and important chapters in the history of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. The immigration from Yemen, and Operation ‘Wings of Eagles’ in particular (also known as Operation ‘Magic Carpet’), which took place between 1948–1950, marked the start of the mass waves of immigration and served as living testimony to the Zionist vision of ingathering of exiles and bringing the Diaspora Jews to Eretz Israel.
To recognize the importance of the immigration of Yemenite Jews, to commemorate their unique contribution to Israeli society, and to honour the memory of those who perished on the way, it is proposed to set an annual day marking the immigration of Yemenite Jews and the memory of those who died on the way to Israel.“
Based on the press release of the Knesset (14.11.2024). Selected as relevant/shortened/augmented and lectured by VonNaftali. Pic “Magic Carpet“