Ha Laḥma ʿAnya
In memroy of my parents, Sara and Kamayes Bublil and my grandmother Chmisa of Bublil
Pogroms in Libya and Aliya to Israel
We hid inside the house with the help of our Christian neighbours who lived in our building.
We saw fire outside our window, a sight we have never experienced before.
We hid for 28 days.
The Christians kept away every Muslim who asked about hiding Jews.
They brought us milk and bread during that time.
The King realised he cannot protect the Jews and so he issued us an exit clearance instead of a traveling document.
We haven’t been to Libya since.
We found out that there was no room on the flight to Rome, so we chose to fly to Sicily instead of lagging in Libya. After spending a night in Catania, we arrived in Rome to meet my aunt. We arrived in Israel shortly afterwards.
Life in Tripoli until 1967
I left Tripoli at 15 years old. I was a boy, but I understood everything that has happened.
My father owned a butcher shop, he was a butcher. My mother was a housewife that took care of all our needs.
We had a Muslim house worker who helped my mother with everything that was needed, like laundry, cleaning etc. We lived a good life.
I went to “Scuola Italia”, which was an Italian school, where both Christians and Muslims studied.
We had a better quality of living than the rest of the locals. We were respected. Thanks to our social status, I was invited twice to the King’s Palace for a party dedicated to his son.
I tell you this to demonstrate how good our life was until 1967.
In 1967, after the victory of Israel in the Six-Day War, the Muslims attacked the Jews, burnt houses and killed people.