The Knesset Aliyah and Absorption Committee held an emotional and charged session today on the findings of the State Committee investigating the disappearance of close to 1,000 Yemenite children in the early 1950\'s. The committee found that there had been no organized kidnapping-for-adoption, but that in about 50 cases social workers may have taken the children and given them up for adoption. Moshe Nachum, president of the Federation of Yemenite Jews, threatened to turn again to the International Court in the Hague if he does not receive permission to see the documents in the state adoption archives. MK Rabbi Aryeh Gamliel (Shas) told the Committee why he thought the findings were unreliable:
\"I went to Moshav Yachin six years ago, and met an old woman, who told me her story. She said that her son was sick, and she brought him to the hospital. Later, they told her that her child had died. She then took the nurse who told her, grabbed her by the hair... and said, \'I\'ll kill you if you don\'t bring me my child!\' - and the nurse brought her the child - alive!\" Mayor Yigal Yosef of Rosh Ha\'Ayin said, \"The committee did not give us an answer to the major question that we asked, which is what happened to the children? If they are dead, then where are their graves?\"
Dr. Esther Herzog, a social anthropologist of the Beit Berl Institute, wrote in Ma\'ariv today that the committee is a \"lying, fake committee.\" She explained that this is based on the facts that many groups were not called to officially take part in the committee proceedings, and that much of the documentation was hidden, and that one nurse was even caught lying about the source of the documents. \"They have even made up a new term - \'disappearance of children\' - how can this be? If one child disappears, everyone looks for him, so how could it be that hundreds of children disappear and nobody knows what happened or and no one looks for them? It\'s not that everyone was evil, but these things could not have happened without coordination between organizations - for it is well-known that the children were transferred to women\'s organizations before adoption, so to come today and say that nothing happened is totally ridiculous...\"
\"I went to Moshav Yachin six years ago, and met an old woman, who told me her story. She said that her son was sick, and she brought him to the hospital. Later, they told her that her child had died. She then took the nurse who told her, grabbed her by the hair... and said, \'I\'ll kill you if you don\'t bring me my child!\' - and the nurse brought her the child - alive!\" Mayor Yigal Yosef of Rosh Ha\'Ayin said, \"The committee did not give us an answer to the major question that we asked, which is what happened to the children? If they are dead, then where are their graves?\"
Dr. Esther Herzog, a social anthropologist of the Beit Berl Institute, wrote in Ma\'ariv today that the committee is a \"lying, fake committee.\" She explained that this is based on the facts that many groups were not called to officially take part in the committee proceedings, and that much of the documentation was hidden, and that one nurse was even caught lying about the source of the documents. \"They have even made up a new term - \'disappearance of children\' - how can this be? If one child disappears, everyone looks for him, so how could it be that hundreds of children disappear and nobody knows what happened or and no one looks for them? It\'s not that everyone was evil, but these things could not have happened without coordination between organizations - for it is well-known that the children were transferred to women\'s organizations before adoption, so to come today and say that nothing happened is totally ridiculous...\"