The government on Monday officially recognized the suffering of Yemenite, Balkan and Mizrahi Jewish families who came to Israel in the 1950s and will offer them financial compensation.
This injustice was “among the most painful in the history of the State of Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, adding that it was time that families “who had their babies taken from them” get both recognition and compensation.
What happened to them would be taught in history classes in the future, he said.
Finance Minister Israel Katz said he hoped the decision would “begin to heal, even in a small measure, the pain of history.” The rich cultural legacy of Yemenite Jews should be honored, he said.
The government said it would allocate NIS 162 million for compensation. NIS 150,000 will be given to families who were not told when or how their children died or that they were buried, but their graves were never found or were found after many years. NIS 200,000 will be given to families who do not know what happened to their child.
Families will be able to file requests starting in June.
In response, Union Sefaradi Mundial (USM), a Jerusalem-based NGO devoted to the legacy of Sephardi Jews, said: “Compensation by itself is not enough. The government must accept responsibility. The State of Israel has to [own up to] these events of children who went missing.”
USM head Prof. Shimon Shetreet said his sister Sara disappeared when she was 10 months.
“My own parents and the parents of other children would be turning in their graves had they known that after all these years, the State of Israel is still refusing to take responsibility,” he said.
The compensation is being offered as an act of generosity rather than admittance of guilt, USM said.
Yemenite Jews and others said their babies were taken from them and given up for adoption, usually to European Jews who were said to offer the children a better future. Their claims were hotly debated and dismissed as “myth” for decades.
Rabbi Uzi Meshulam was arrested when police raided his home in 1994 after he and his followers, armed with guns, demanded that the state investigate the issue.
Meshulam spent time in prison and was dismissed for many years as a radical with outlandish claims. He died in 2013.
Many Israelis who took part in the absorption efforts of Yemenite Jews and other Jewish communities still deny that such a plan was in place.