Report Finally Admits Israel Made Yemeni Babies Disappear

Israel's health ministry has released a report for the first time, revealing that in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Israel lost babies born to (mainly) Yemeni immigrants, who were then offered up for adoption to Ashkenazi adoptive parents. . That reports the newspaper Haaretz. However, the ministry refuses to publish the report. The responsible minister Nitzan Horowitz of the Meretz party also refused to answer questions about the report. One reason could be that the government is preparing a compensation scheme for the families of children who have disappeared, and publication of the report would thwart that scheme because it would reveal the guilt of the Israeli state.

The report was prepared by the former director-general of the ministry, Prof. Itamar Grotto and two other employees of the ministry. Haaretz has seen it. It doesn't provide any new details or numbers, but it does suggest the very first time doctors, nurses and other caregivers acted as intermediaries in removing the babies, who were then offered up for adoption – for money or not – to Ashkenazi (Western) people. parents in and outside Israel. The idea was that Yemeni (and to a lesser extent other Jews from Middle Eastern or North African countries) were underdeveloped and could not take good care of their children. At least this way they could receive proper care and education.

The scandal of the missing Yemeni babies has caused a stir for years. The babies disappeared without a trace after medical treatment – ??or immediately after birth. The parents were told that the child had died, but no death certificates were issued, no places were designated where the babies were buried and medical records were later often found to be disappeared. It is estimated that around 5,000 babies may have disappeared this way. There were protests (one of them around Yemeni Rabbi Meshulam in the 1970s became nationally known – also because they handed out prison terms). In addition, there were no fewer than three official commissions of inquiry that, from the 1990s, examined the case but never gave a definitive answer. Newspapers wrote about the case, but did not clarify either. Only the rebellious newspaper Haolam Hazeh of Uri Avneri and the Mizrachi Shalom Cohen reported that it was pierced, but that was without consequence.

The current report quotes a woman who was a student and aid worker at the time, Shoshanna Shacham, at the Rosh Ha'ayin transit camp: “We saw cars coming and nurses feeding the occupants babies who then disappeared in their cars. I said wait, where are they taking it? And they replied: we improve their situation, give them to people with whom they have a better chance of survival. We accepted that then. But when the parents came, they were lied to that the children had died.” The report also cites medical articles from the time describing Mizrachi, and especially Yemeni, parents not being hygienic and unable to properly care for their children.

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