Eli Cohen Netflix The Spy Who Didn’t Return

The new series starring Sasha Baron Cohen can be deceiving. In spite of the myth that Eli Cohen’s character has grown over the years in Israel, he has not been properly commemorated. Far from it. Eli Cohen Netflix The Spy Who Did Not Return remains a mysterious dim figure without a proper commemorative enterprise in the country for which he sacrificed his life.

Sasha Baron Cohen is honoring the spies

Sometimes history repeats itself, sometimes it presents a clear and sharp appearance. That’s exactly what Netflix’s new series for the State of Israel is doing. The country that commemorates symbols, street names, public buildings, and memorials to its past, forgot about spy Eli Cohen. Netflix does not.

Jews of Arab countries in the service of the new Israel

Today, there is intense debate among historians in the State of Israel who dare to look at the past with courage. Not from the history books of the Ministry of Education. Arab Jews, unlike Eastern European Jews, never looked up to form a state.

The life of the Jews from Arab countries was characterized by traditional, religious way of life, and existed for centuries in glorious communities under Muslim rule.

Payment was relatively cheap. The Jews did not harbor hopes for their own state. Respect the local establishment and call their children the names of the country’s Arab leaders.
Thus, in the early 1950s tens of thousands of Jews from Arab countries with alleged Arab names immigrated to Israel.

World War II is the disaster of Eastern Jews

The Zionist movement that arose in the late 19th century did not include the presence of Jews from Arab countries.

With the revival of Zionism in Europe, the problems began to emerge among the Jews of Arab countries as well. The processes that led to the establishment of the State of Israel urged the communities to move from the Arab countries to the new state.

At the same time, most European Jews perished in the Holocaust, gas chambers and atrocities committed by the Nazis. Young state captains were looking for new clients and these were plentiful in Arab countries.