Jew Oughta Know

The Palestinians weren't the only refugees. Nearly one million Jews were pushed out of the Middle East and North Africa in revenge for the creation of Israel. Ancient Jewish communities were uprooted as hundreds of thousands of Mizrahi (Middle Eastern Jews) poured into Israel.

For the Palestinians who left Israel -- whether by force or voluntarily -- Israel's War of Independence was a nakba (catastrophe). The war's end in 1949 left over 720,000 Palestinian refugees. Why they left, what happened to them, and how much responsibility Israel bears is the focus of today's episode.

The War of Independence left multiple narratives in its wake, from the Jews who lost 1% of their population to the war, to the Arab-Israelis who fell under martial law.

Don't know your Prime Minister from your President? Israeli politics has been big in the news in 2019 -- so here's how the government works, and why Israel voted left for the first thirty years of its existence.

When the IDF seized the town of Lydda from Arab forces during the War of Independence, Ben Gurion ordered the expulsion of tens of thousands of Palestinians. Was it justified? Was it just?

The War of Independence continues as the Egyptian army uses the Gaza Strip to make a run for Tel Aviv. They were stopped by the new Israeli Air Force, which had to source parts, planes, and pilots from all over the world.

Barely a month after declaring independence, a fight on the beach in Tel Aviv almost splits Israel in two. As the army struggles to supply the Jewish side of Jerusalem, the Israel Defense Forces and the Irgun open fire on each other over a ship called the Altalena.

Within hours of declaring independence, Israel was invaded by five Arab armies. In the middle of an existential war, the government made its first decision: to proclaim Israel open for Jewish immigration.

On May 14, 1948, just a few minutes before Shabbat, David Ben Gurion declared the new State of Israel. Reading from the Declaration of Independence, which just barely made it to the secret ceremony, he committed the new Jewish State to idealistic and historic principles, while bracing for a war he knew was imminent.

Straight out of Indiana Jones, the Ark of the Covenant just might be the single greatest missing relic of all time. A fitting finale to Season 3, it disappeared quite suddenly in the 6th century BCE and hasn't been seen since. We go looking for it all over the Middle East and Africa.