The Jews of Iraq
Al-Tahrir (Liberation) Square
Baghdad, Iraq
The 2,700-year-old Iraqi Jewish community has suffered
horrible persecution in modern-day Iraq. In June 1941, the Mufti-inspired,
pro-Nazi coup of Rashid Ali sparked rioting and a pogrom in Baghdad. Armed
Iraqi mobs, with the complicity of the police and the army, murdered 180
Jews and wounded almost 1,000. Additional outbreaks of anti-Jewish rioting
occurred between 1946-49. After the
establishment
of Israel in 1948,
Zionism became a capital crime.
 In
1950, Iraqi Jews were permitted to leave the country within a year provided
they forfeited their citizenship. A year later, however, the property of
Jews who emigrated was frozen and economic restrictions were placed on Jews
who chose to remain in the country. From 1949 to 1951, 104,000 Jews were
evacuated from Iraq in
Operations
Ezra & Nechemia; another 20,000 were smuggled out through Iran.2
In 1952, Iraq's government barred Jews from emigrating
and publicly hanged two Jews after falsely charging them with hurling a bomb
at the Baghdad office of the U.S. Information Agency.
With the rise of competing Ba'ath factions in 1963,
additional restrictions were placed on the remaining Iraqi Jews. The sale of
property was forbidden and all Jews were forced to carry yellow identity
cards. After the
Six-Day War,
more repressive measures were imposed: Jewish property was expropriated;
Jewish bank accounts were frozen; Jews were dismissed from public posts;
businesses were shut; trading permits were cancelled; telephones were
disconnected. Jews were placed under house arrest for long periods of time
or restricted to the cities.
Persecution was at its worst at the end of 1968. Scores
were jailed upon the discovery of a local "spy ring" composed of Jewish
businessmen. Fourteen men - eleven of them Jews - were sentenced to death in
staged trials and hanged in the public squares of Baghdad; others died of
torture. On January 27, 1969, Baghdad Radio called upon Iraqis to "come and
enjoy the feast." Some 500,000 men, women and children paraded and danced
past the scaffolds where the bodies of the hanged Jews swung; the mob
rhythmically chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to all traitors." This
display brought a world-wide public outcry that Radio Baghdad dismissed by
declaring: "We hanged spies, but the Jews crucified Christ."3
Jews remained under constant surveillance by the Iraqi government. An Iraqi
Jew (who later escaped) wrote in his diary in February 1970:
Ulcers, heart attacks, and breakdowns are increasingly
prevalent among the Jews...The dehumanization of the Jewish personality
resulting from continuous humiliation and torment...have dragged us down
to the lowest level of our physical and mental faculties, and deprived us
of the power to recover.4
In response to international pressure, the Baghdad
government quietly allowed most of the remaining Jews to emigrate in the
early 1970's, even while leaving other restrictions in force. Most of Iraq's
remaining Jews are now too old to leave. They have been pressured by the
government to turn over title, without compensation, to more than $200
million worth of Jewish community property.5
The government also engages in anti-Semitic rhetoric. One
statement issued by the government in 2000 referred to Jews as "descendents
of monkeys and pigs, and worshippers of the infidel tyrant."
6
In 1991, prior to the
Gulf War,
the State Department said "there is no recent evidence of overt persecution
of Jews, but the regime restricts travel, (particularly to Israel) and
contacts with Jewish groups abroad."
More recently, a Jerusalem Post report noted that
75 Jews have fled Iraq in the past five years, mostly relocating to
Holland or
England.
About 20 emigrated to Israel. 7
At one time, Baghdad was one-fifth Jewish; other
communities had first been established 2,500 years ago. Today, approximately
100 Jews are left in all of Iraq.
Only one synagogue continues to function in Iraq, "a
crumbling buff-colored building tucked away in an alleyway" in Bataween,
once Baghdad's main Jewish neighborhood. According to the synagogue's
administrator, "there are few children to be bar-mitzvahed, or couples to be
married. Jews can practice their religion but are not allowed to hold jobs
in state enterprises or join the army."8 The
rabbi died in 1996 and none of the remaining Jews can perform the liturgy
and only a couple know Hebrew. The last wedding was held in 1980.9
The last remaining Baghdadi Synagogue
Notes
1. David Singer, Ed.
American Jewish Year Book, NY:
American Jewish Committee,
2000.
2.
Jerusalem Post, (Dec. 13, 1997); Arieh Avneri,
The Claim of Dispossession, (Tel Aviv: Hidekel Press, 1984), p.
274; Maurice Roumani, The Case of the Jews from Arab Countries: A
Neglected Issue, (Tel Aviv: World Organization of Jews from Arab
Countries, 1977), pp. 29-30; Norman Stillman,
The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times, (NY: Jewish Publication
Society, 1991), pp. 117-119; Howard Sachar,
A History of Israel, (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), p. 399.
3. Judith Miller and Laurie Mylroie,
Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, (NY: Random House,
1990), p. 34.
4. Max Sawadayee, All Waiting to be Hanged, (Tel Aviv:
Levanda Press, 1974), p. 115.
5.
New York Times, (February 18, 1973).
6.
U.S.
State Department Report on Human Rights Practices for 1997.
7.
Jerusalem Post (Dec. 13, 1997)
8. New York Times Magazine, (February 3, 1985).
9. Associated Press, (March 28, 1998).
Photo from the
National
Photo Collection. |
