The Yemeni, Mizrahi, and Balkan Children Affair: Lost Infants, Shattered Motherhoods

Between 1948 and 1954, at least 1,500 children between 0-4 years had disappeared from childcare facilities and hospitals in tent camps, transit camps, and hospitals in Israeli towns. About two-thirds were of Yemeni origin. Although these disappearances follow a shared pattern, the Yemeni case stands out due to a directive issued by the cabinet that ordered the forcible removal of Yemeni infants to infants’ homes in the immigrants’ camps. Three commissions of inquiry investigated this ethnically-based child-removal policy, yet its dire consequences were never challenged or reviewed. What remains missing from the accounts is a gendered and intersectional perspective of the involvement of women’s organizations and the mothers’ experiences.