NY Times: Israel Abducted Thousands of Jewish Immigrant Children

A new report sheds light on the Israeli government's practice of abducting the young children of immigrants during the nation's early years and illegally putting them up for adoption.

The New York Times published a lengthy story about what's known as the "Yemenite Children Affair." It involves as many as 4,500 infants and toddlers who went missing after modern-day Israel was established in 1948. The children were taken from Jewish families who had immigrated to the new country from Yemen and other parts of the Middle East.

The families — known as Yemenites, part of Mizrahi communities — were put in what were called transit camps upon their arrival.

The babies were placed with families of an Ashkenazi heritage, or Jews of European descent, the Times reported. The BBC even reported in 2017 that some of the children were taken for medical experimentation, which resulted in many deaths.

The biological families were often told the children had died at the hospital but weren't always given a death certificate. No one was ever shown a body.

According to the Times, three official Israeli commissions over the years turned up nothing that implicated the Israeli government. In 2016, however, the government admitted that children had been taken between 1948 and 1954.

In today's age of DNA testing, people are now discovering their true heritage and are even finding biological relatives, decades after they were adopted. A group called AMRAM is working to identify families who may have been impacted by the adoptions.

AMRAM's co-founder Naama Katiee, 42, said the Israeli government was likely trying to start its new nation from scratch.

"They really thought they had to raise a new generation, which was separate from the old 'primitive' community," Katiee told the Times.

Yemenites and other Jews of Mizrahi descent were often poor and were not as religious or educated as other Jews, the Times noted.

"This was a method of raising a new generation by separating, and by cutting off the connection to their origins," Katiee said.

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