Libya is pressing Washington to formalize an agreement which Jewish activists say could potentially give legal legitimacy to the seizure of Jewish property that took place when the country’s Jews were expelled in the 1960s.
The Memorandum of Understanding would prohibit the importation of pre-1911 historical and cultural relics into the US. This would mean that any effort to rescue Jewish communal property, such as Torah scrolls, would be illegal.
Speaking with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Gina Waldman, who runs the Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (JIMENA) advocacy organization, said that such a policy is "very, very offensive to the Jewish community...when the very government itself has destroyed every single synagogue, every single cemetery.”
The Libyan request specifically mentioned Jewish items, stating that some were being sold in Israel and calling them part of "Libya’s patrimony” that is "under severe and continuing threat of pillage.”
An attorney representing JIMENA told the JTA that the memorandum "legitimizes Libya’s confiscation of the property of fleeing Jews by recognizing the Libyan government’s legal claim to that property."
