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An
American flyer, Hank Mullineaux, reflected on the experince of flyingYemenite Jews to
Israel during Operation Magic Carpet
It's difficult to put into
words, but it gives me a strange feeling to see these Jews. They wander about on foot for
weeks till they reach the camp near Aden. They arrive hungry and sick and naked. All they
have in this world are a few pots and pans and a brass water pipe, maybe a stove. But
you'll find every man carrying his Bible, and every other man clinging to a huge holy
parchment scroll clasped in front of him. That camp is just a piece of desert with almost
nothing on it, just a few tents and straw mats, but they behave as if they had just
stepped into Paradise. Then we pile them into those planes and they're terribly confused,
but they keep mum. When they climb out at Lydda, you feel they're so excited they ought to
throw themselves on the ground and kick, yet what do they do? They move about with shining
eyes and don't say a word. They look to me like people going awake through a dream. I
don't know what makes them tick, but they're wonderful to me.
(Reprinted with permission from Sholmo Barer, The
Magic Carpet, Harper and Brothers, 1952)
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