The issue of the missing Yemenite and other Jewish children is well-known in Israel, but surprisingly, it is virtually unknown abroad. In the years 1948-1954 thousands of Jewish children were taken, sometimes forcibly, from their biological parents while in hospitals or child-care homes.
These children were taken to institutes and kibbutzim, and many were given out to adoption. The adopting parents not only changed the childrens names, but also their I.D. numbers, so they would not be able to be traced. These activities were carried out by doctors, nurses, social workers and other members of the Israeli establishment at that time.
Their parents however were told that the children had died. In most cases, when the parents asked about the cause of death or requested a death certificate, or other documentation confirming the death of their children, they were ignored and their requests went unanswered. They never saw a body. In most cases, not even a burial spot. In a few cases, however, graves were shown to the families. Some of those graves, later on, were dug up by parents who did not believe that their beloved, healthy child truly died overnight. The graves were found empty.
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Some say that people in positions of power at the time that the State of Israel was established profited from the abduction and sale of children from poor immigrant families. Others claim they wanted to deny those children the education that their religiously observant parents would provide them, and sent them to secular kibbutzim and institutions to get a "modern" secular Israeli education.
These children were not only Jews from Yemen, but also from other middle eastern and european countries. The number of kidnapped children has been told to be around 2,400 by the official investigating committees. Some people estimate the number to be as high as 10,000 missing children.
Rabbi Uzi Meshulam gathered the names of 4,500 children. The information he collected over the years was confiscated by the government and he, together with some of his students, were sent to prison because of their activities. A high ranking Labor party official said that if this information had become public, it would mean the end of the Israeli establishment as we know it. After several years, Rabbi Meshulam was released from jail because of health problems, but with the condition that he and his students would not continue their investigation into the missing children affair.
Without any doubt, stealing children from their parents is a horrendous crime. But, how is it possible that the goverment conducted such activities? The government policy was to create a modern Jew, a new Israeli. To leave the Jewish isolation behind, and start living like all the other nations in the world, to build a normal country. High ranking politicians would say: "The day we see Jewish criminals and Jewish prostitutes walking the streets of Israel, then we will have succeeded in our goal of creating a normal state, just like the rest of the nations in the world." And regretfully, they succeeded in this issue.
The main reason Jewish children were stolen from their parents, was to provide them with a non-Torah education. The ruling class saw Torah Law and Jewish traditions as primitive, and tried to erase this from the Jews. They created a large number of Jews who have no idea of what it means to be Jewish. They have never seen a Jewish prayer book. And as a consequence of this, they cannot understand what they are doing living in the Land of Israel, and in their first opportunity the will move overseas. The "modern" Jewish education this children were given, included a deep hatred for everything that has to do with the Jewish religion, including religious Jews.
So the real crime, and the true objective of the governing elite, was to deny a Jewish education to the Jewish children. This crime was performed not only on the stolen children, but also on other groups of children. After the holocaust many Jewish orphan children arrived in Israel, several of the older children already came with a strong Jewish education. They were sent to secular kibbutzim and institutions to teach them about being Jewish in Israel.
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The following story was told by the wife of a famous Jerusalem Rabbi. She arrived in Israel as a young girl, her parents were murdered in the holocaust:
"When I arrived in Israel, I was sent with other Jewish children to a kibbutz. We were constantly told that living in Israel is such a great mitzva, that we no longer needed to keep any other mitzvot. No Shabat, no kashrut, no praying. The boys would form a minyan to pray, but the people in the kibbutz will hit them and lock them up in a dark closet."
"A barbed-wired fence surrounded the kibbutz. We were told it was to protect us from the Arabs, but we felt it was to keep us in the kibbutz. One night, I climbed the fence and escaped from the kibbutz. With lots of help from G-d, I arrived in Jerusalem. I moved into an orphan home for Jewish girls were I lived until I got married."
Most children were not so lucky. And the kidnapped babies did not have a chance. A woman from Yemenite descent, living in a secular kibbutz in northern Israel, had this to say:
"I was adopted and raised in this kibbutz. People were always very nice to me. I formed my family here. I rarely leave the kibbutz to visit the city. I was told and have always believed that my mother died the day I was born, and that my father died a few months before. I was told I have no brothers or sisters. But when I saw the report on TV (in 1997) about the empty graves that were found, and I learned more about the stories of the missing children, then I started thinking that maybe I was one of those children! Maybe my parents were alive! But I didn't know how to find them."
"I never learned anything about Torah, I was told it was something not good. Religious Jews have always been ridiculed and criticized here in the kibbutz. But now I know that when the Yemenite Jews came to Israel, they were all religious! What am I to do? It's my heritage! So I decided to start lighting Shabat candles on friday night. I went to Haifa to find a religious woman to teach me how it's done. Several kibbutz members got angry with me for lighting candles. Now I understand. I may already be 50 years old, but it's never to late to start!"
Forcing a secular education upon masses of Jewish children is a huge crime. Making them ignorant about their national heritage, forcing them to abandon Jewish culture and traditions. But most children who fell victims to this horrific crime were neither stolen from their parents nor orphan. Other strategies were used by the Israeli socialist regime. The majority of the children were taken from their parents in a more subtle way.
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During the first years of the state, hundreds of thousands of Jews arrived in Israel. They had no money, no housing, no work, nothing. They came from concentration camps after surviving the holocaust, and they also came from the arab countries where they had been expelled from. One of the first thing the government did was to build schools for their children. But several parents started refusing to send their children to those schools after hearing from their children what was being taught there.
Officials from the ruling party started providing money, housing, and work, to the parents who would send their children to the official government schools. But many parents were still not convinced. So the government started creating government religious schools, that were apparently not so bad, but were designed for the same purpose as the secular schools. A small number of parents still refused to send their children to those government schools, and for their refusal they endured severe punishments.
In today's modern Israel, the results of Israel "enlightened" educational system is apparent. Schools are centers of violence, drugs, and worse. Many parents who want to protect their children, have started sending them to religious schools, even if the parents are not religious. The solution to Israel's educational and many social problems is obvious. A good Jewish education must be provided to every child in Israel. All Jewish schools in Israel, including secular schools, must provide a good Jewish education.
Every Jewish soldier, should be sent at least for 3 months to learn in a Yeshivat Hesder, this will greatly unify the Jewish people and strenghten our nation. Ignorance is our worst enemy. An ignorance of Judaism can be fatal for any Jew. In the last years we have witnessed the spiritual holocaust taking place in the world. Jewish communities worldwide are being decimated by assimilation. Regretfully, assimilation is also rampant in Israel. Learning Judaism is our best protection from this tragedy.
