JIMENA is the only organization in the United States dedicated to pursuing acknowledgment, redress, and full inclusion for the one million Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa in the 20th century, and their Mizrahi and Sephardic descendants, in American public life and in the mainstream Jewish community. No one else is doing this work at the intersection of advocacy and education, and that's by design.
This work is about bringing a history that has long lived at the margins into the center of Jewish consciousness and Jewish life. We want every former Jewish refugee from the Middle East and North Africa to feel seen, respected, and included. We want their descendants to feel empowered to safekeep, share, and renew their Middle Eastern, North African, and Mediterranean Jewish legacies. And we want every Jewish American, Sephardic or not, to see this history as part of their own collective Jewish story.
That's the arc our work follows: empowerment to education to advocacy. It starts with empowering individuals and communities to proudly share their own family stories and legacies. That empowerment becomes education, as we equip educators, students, and leaders with the tools to understand and teach this history. And that education becomes advocacy, as the network we've built pushes for the recognition and rights owed to Jewish refugees from MENA countries and their families, and in doing so, creates more space for Mizrahi and Sephardic voices to be included and embraced.