Talkbacks Uzi Meshulam, who led campaign to probe Yemenite Children Affair, dies

We have a friend, a Jew of Yemenite descent, who told us about his mother. She, her husband, and their six children were airlifted to Israel from a refugee camp in Aden. She was six months pregnant at the time. Down the road, she went into labor, and was told, afterwards, that she had given birth to a stillborn child. Evidently, she never understood. The baby she was carrying had been alive and kicking right up until she went into labor. Oh, she gave live birth. Someone made the incomprehensible decision that, having six children already, she wouldn't miss one more. Better to give the newborn to a woman who -- because of trauma endured in the concentration camps -- could not have children. Everybody's happy, right? Wrong. Our friend's mother never stopped mourning her supposed stillborn child, never stopped understanding why she was told that she could not see the child, or attend his funeral. She died at the age of forty-seven, leaving seven orphans -- our friend being the seventh. His brother, whom he never knew, was raised in good circumstances, and has achieved some renown in his field. He was loved, cosseted, educated and raised to great distinction. That doesn't right the wrong. Our friend is the seventh child, born in Israel, to a mother who was consigned to a too early death because of the circumstances of her supposed stillborn birth -- a baby who was never stillborn at all. Happy ending? No. A horrible stain on Israel's history. I have no doubt that those in charge of the program had the best intentions in mind -- take a newborn from a mother who already had six children and give that newborn to a couple who could never bring one of their own into the world, and who were desperate for a child and would give that child the best that they could. No. No. That's not the best of intentions. It's cruel and inhuman. But it did happen. The State of Israel's greatest shame.