The Iraqi Jews – The Oldest Diaspora, Now Safe in Israel

by Norman Berdichevsky (February 2012)

The Yemenites New English Review, December, 2011) tracing the changes it underwent due to the transformation of the original Zionist agricultural settlement to a thriving town. For much of my time in Israel, I worked for a translation agency located in Ramat-Gan in what is considered a predominantly “Iraqi” area where one can still hear the older generation speak a distinctive ‘Jewish Arabic’ that was once the daily jargon of a large part of Baghdad (more than 25% Jewish in 1945).

A further paradox awaited them however. More than any other Jewish community in the Middle East, they responded to the appeal of the Zionist movement and were able to create pathways of illegal emigration, a vibrant youth movement and carried out strategic operations to aid the nascent state of Israel, including smuggling the seeds of date palm trees and helping to establish one of the leading agricultural export industries of Israel.

Origins

Babylonia became the undisputed center of Judaism from 219 to 1050. The learned rabbis Abba Arika, founder of the Sura Academy and Samuel in Nehardea (later removed to Pumbedita, the modern city of ill fame, Fallujah) were acknowledged throughout the Diaspora as the most renowned commentators of the Talmud. They were sought out as the primary arbiters of weighty religious questions. Their successes continued to enjoy similar esteem during the ascendancy of the Persian Empire, until the advent of Islam.

Subsequent Moslem Arab rule and in particular the Mongol invasions and conquest of Baghdad wreaked havoc on much of Mesopotamia. In his memoirs, Marco Polo described the readiness of Jews to join forces with the Mongols, an act for which they were never forgiven by Moslem rulers once the Mongols had withdrawn.

Further reforms in 1839 and 1855 abolished the head tax paid by minorities (jizya). The British conquest in 1917 opened a new era with full recognition of equal rights for Jews and Christians.

The Mandate and Modern Iraqi State 1920-Today

These events were not lost on Iraqi Jews and later to the Jews of Palestine in 1948 when they debated whether to accept postponing their demands for independence or whether to place their trust in a future U.N. administered solution guaranteeing minority rights.

By 1948, 11,000 Iraqi Jews had already made their way to Palestine. These included the majority from Baghdad and the Kurdish Jews, a quite separate group, many of whom still spoke an Aramaic dialect, much more rural and engaged in primary occupations and generally lived on good terms with their Kurdish neighbors in Iraq, Persia and Syria.

The Jews of Kurdistan and Historical Cordial Kurdish-Jewish Relations

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Iraqi Participation in the 1948 War Against a Jewish State in Palestine

The Controversy About the Bombs

Six months later on March 19, 1950-a bomb went off at the American Cultural Center and Library in Baghdad a favorite meeting place for young Jews and this was followed at short intervals by bomb and grenade throwing incidents directly against Jews at cafes and at Jewish owned companies accompanied by leaflets demanding that Jews leave the country. In January 1951, similar attacks were carried out against a major synagogue. These events led to a mass emigration that left behind only 6,000 Jews by 1954.

The New Social and Political Scene in Israel

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