The Persecution of Jews in Iraq

"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." –Max Sawadayee, Iraqi Jew, in “All Waiting to be Hanged”

My paternal grandfather vividly recalled his experiences living as a Jew in Baghdad and the Farhud in 1941 which took place during the traditional Jewish harvest festival holiday of Shavuot. I learned from my grandfather (pictured on the left with me in 1987) that the Farhud literally translates to “pogrom” or “violent dispossession” in Arabic. This was a Nazi pogrom coordinated with genocidal leaders like the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini and Rashid Ali. In a two-day period Arab mobs went on a rampage in Baghdad and other cities in Iraq. Nearly 150 Jews were killed and more than 2,000 injured; some 900 Jewish homes were destroyed and looted, and hundreds of Jewish-owned shops were robbed and destroyed.

My older family members recall witnessing how Iraqi soldiers pulled small children away from their parents and ripped the arms off young girls to steal their bracelets; pregnant women were raped and their stomachs cut open. My grandfather hid his baby brother underneath his t-shirt when the violence began and ran home. My great-grandfather saved his entire family during the riots that broke out in Baghdad by claiming to be a Muslim when Iraqi troops came into their home with the intent of looting, raping, and killing. Unfortunately, the British did not intervene or seem to care about what was happening to the Jewish community. Eventually, when being a Jew was practically criminalized, my father's family escaped to Israel with only the clothes on their backs — their belongings were confiscated — leaving behind everything that they knew. Their experience was not a unique one and was shared by several thousand Baghdadi Jews.

Iraqi Jews take pride in their distinguished customs till today. The Iraqi Jewish community is among the oldest in the world and has an incredibly rich history of learning and scholarship. Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, was born in Ur of the Chaldees, in southern Iraq. Jews had prospered in what was then Babylonia for 1200 years prior to the Muslim conquest in 634 AD.

During Islamic rule Jews found that they were living at the mercy of rulers. In the 9th century, Jews found themselves living as second-class citizens or Dhimmis. Under shariah law the Jews of Babylonia wore yellow patches and were forced to pay heavy taxes for their survival. Residence restrictions were also enforced. Extreme oppression of some Arab caliphs in 1000 AD saw that the taxation of the Jews amounted to expropriation. In 1333 persecution against Jews culminated in the pillaging and destruction of the Baghdad Sanctuary. In 1776 is a year that Babylonian Jewry recalls the slaughter of Jews at Bosra. Many of these indigenous Jews fled to places like India due to anti-Jewish measures taken by Turkish Muslim rulers in the 18th century.

Throughout their presence in Babylonia, the Jews maintained strong ties with the Land of Israel. With the aid of rabbis from Israel they succeeded in establishing many prominent rabbinical academies.

A Baghdadi rabbi with Hasidic students and Syrian Jews at a wedding celebration in Jerusalem, 1904.

By the 3rd century, Babylonia became the center of Jewish scholarship. The community's most influential creation was the Babylonian Talmud.

While the situation of the Jewish community fluctuated under Islamic rule, some leaders were merciful. In some cases Jews held high positions in government or prospered in commerce and trade. At the same time, Jews were subjected to special taxes, restrictions on their professional activity, and anti-Jewish incitement among the masses. The situation changed for Jews during British rule, which began in 1917. Jews fared better economically and many were elected to government posts. This traditionally observant community was also allowed to found Zionist organizations and to pursue Hebrew studies.

All of this progress ended when Iraq gained independence in 1932. Nazi propaganda and antisemitism had a huge presence on Iraqi radio broadcasts. Mein Kampf had been translated into Arabic by Yunis al-Sab'awi, and was published in a local newspaper, Al Alam al Arabi (The Arab World), in Baghdad during 1933-1934. Yunis al-Sab'awi also headed the Futtuwa, a pre-military youth movement influenced by the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) in Germany. Al-Sab'awi eventually became a minister in the new Iraqi government.

In June 1941 a pro-Nazi coup inspired by Haj Amin al-Husseini and orchestrated by Rashid Ali sparked one of the most bloodiest pogroms in Iraqi Jewish history. This pogrom is referred to as the Farhud and is comparable to Kristallnacht, a pogrom carried out in Nazi Germany. Armed Iraqi mobs, with the complicity of the police and the army, murdered hundreds of Jews and wounded many others.

Although emigration was prohibited, many Jews made their way to Israel during this period. Many had come to terms with the fact that Iraq was no longer safe.

In 1950 the Iraqi parliament finally legalized emigration to Israel, and between May 1950 and August 1951, the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government succeeded in airlifting approximately 110,000 Jews to Israel in Operations Ezra and Nehemiah. This figure includes 18,000 Kurdish Jews, who have their own distinct traditions and customs. Some 20,000 were smuggled out through Iran.

Jewish refugees who fled Iraq in 1951 register upon arrival in Israel. Photo courtesy of Babylonian Heritage Center

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 ceased; Jewish bank accounts were frozen; Jews were dismissed from public posts; businesses were shut; trading permits were canceled; telephones were disconnected. Jews were placed under house arrest for long periods of time or restricted to the cities.

Persecution was also prevalent at the end of 1968. Fourteen men--eleven of them Jews--were sentenced to death in staged trials and hanged in the public squares of Baghdad and others died of torture. On January 27, 1969, Baghdad Radio called upon Iraqis to "come and enjoy the feast." 500,000 men, women and children in Iraq 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."

The Iraqi Jewish population once numbered at 150,000 in 1947. Today there are 7 Jews living in Iraq who hide their Jewish identity and live in fear. The community has been totally ethnically cleansed and destroyed.

Sources:
Bard, Mitchell. "The Mufti and the Fuhrer." Jewish Virtual Library. 26 Jan. 2009

Ben-Porat, Mordechai. To Baghdad and Back. Gefen Publishing House, Ltd, 1998.

Farrell, Stephen. "Baghdad Jews Have Become a Fearful Few." 1 June 2008. New York Times. 26 Jan. 2009 .

Laqueur, Walter and Barry Rubin. The Israel-Arab Reader: a Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict. Penguin, 2008.

Lewis, Bernard. The Jews of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Mylroie, Laurie and Judith Miller. Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf. City: Ballantine Books Inc, 1990.

Roumani, Maurice et.al. The Case of the Jews from Arab Countries: a Neglected Issue. WOJAC Books, 1983.

Shiblak, Abbas. Iraqi Jews. London: Saqi, 2005.

Ye'or, Bat et.al. Islam and Dhimmitude. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002.

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