The Savior of Iraqi Jewish Heritage: an interview with Dr. Harold Rhode

by Jerry Gordon (December 2013)

Dr. Harold Rhode, a civilian specialist and Islamic Affairs expert with the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), a think tank in the Office of Secretary of Defense and a friend of longstanding from their days in Washington, DC. As he was an Orthodox Jew Rhode could assess the significance of the archives. Rhode had volunteered to serve with the CPA and served as Liaison to the Iraqi Opposition for the CPA, hence the connection to Chalabi.

The MET Alpha WMD specialists, Rhode, Miller, Chalabi and workers went to the Mukhabarat in the company of the former Israel and Jewish section chief who directed them to the vast sodden array and promptly disappeared. Under the four feet of water in the basement of the Mukhabarat was a vast trove of several thousand ancient holy books, and artifacts of the legendary Babylonian Jewish Community that had been seized by Saddam Hussein in the 1970’s from local synagogues and Jewish community centers.

Biblical Psalm 137 and later in the 19^th Century patriotic Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi, Nabucco. In 539 BCE Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and in an act of humanity gave leave to Jews and other captive populations to return to their homelands. Cyrus’ kindness toward captive Jews is frequently mentioned by name in the Bible. Cyrus even provided funds and aid in restoring house of worship and temples. Cyrus’ edict granting human rights in the ancient world was memorialized in a cylinder contained in the archeological collection of the British Museum that is currently on tour in the US. Two Leaders of the returning Jewish Community in Babylon, Ezra the Scribe and Nehemiah the Jewish vizier to Persian King Darius led the effort to rekindle the Jewish faith and rebuild the walls. They started the construction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, capital of Judea. Ezra the Scribe is alleged to have produced the first torah scrolls, the Five Books of Moses in what ultimately became the Jewish Bible. Many Jews remained in Babylon which became the learning center of the Jewish world following the conquest of Jerusalem and the fall of the Second Temple in 70 CE. Many exiles found refuge in Babylon under the control of the Sasanian Persian Empire. The Babylonian Jewish Exilic community produced the Mishniac commentaries of the Talmud.

1815 copy of mystical Zohar
Source: Drew Angere for New York Times

Saddam Hussein  only to be defeated in 2003 in the Iraq war. Despite this turmoil and public executions of several Jews, several thousand remained in Iraq. Today there are virtually only a handful of aged Jews in Baghdad. They contributed to the sodden archives of the vanished ancient Jewish community that confronted Rhode, Miller and Chalabi in May 2003 in the flooded basement of Hussein’s Mukhabarat. It was a veritable Genizah – a depository of Jewish documents and community archives. It was not unlike the fabled one discovered in the 1890’s in Cairo by Cambridge University Jewish Scholar, Solomon Schechter.  

By default Rhode, an Ashkenazi Jew, became the savior of the Babylonian or Iraqi Jewish heritage. See his PJ media article about saving the archives. Working with Chalabi, Rhode and a team of workers they dewatered the Mukhabarat basement, endeavoring to salvage the documents. Rhode learned from contacts in Israel that they needed to cool or freeze the artifacts for restoration. The US government obtained a refrigerated semi-trailer. Chalabi procured metal containers to store the Iraqi Jewish archives for ultimate shipment to the US for restoration. Rhode working through his Pentagon mentor, Richard Perle, former Chairman of the Defense Policy Advisory Committee, ultimately obtained the backing of Bush Vice President Cheney. He facilitated the professional support of the US National Archives and Records Agency (NARA). NARA sent archival restoration specialists to Baghdad to evaluate and supervise the shipment of the Iraqi Jewish archives to their laboratories for restoration and digitization. Initial funding for the restoration project came from a $15,000 grant from Harvey Krueger, a New York investment banker then with Lehman Brothers. In July 2003, the CPA reached an agreement under international law with the Iraq interim government for return of the restored Jewish archives. An agreement that is controversial as Rhode and others contend that the Hussein’s Mukhabarat stole the property from the Jewish community and that it rightfully should be returned to the Babylonian Jewish Heritage Center in Israel. The Iraqi government contends that the archives may contain important historical information of the origins of the country. The saga of Rhode’s role in salvaging these archives is embodied in an exhibit of more than two dozen restored items from the 16^th to the 20^th Century mounted by NARA in Washington, DC. The exhibit opened on October 11, 2013 at the Lawrence F. O’Brien Gallery and will close January 5, 2014. Rhode volunteers as a docent each Sunday to lead visitors through the NARA exhibit. A petition campaign has been created to return the restored and digitized Iraqi Jewish archives to the Babylonian Jewish Heritage Centre in Israel.

You may view the artifacts at the NARA exhibit’s website, here. Watch this NARA You Tube video about the restoration of the Iraqi Jewish archives.

Rhode is a native of Philadelphia who in his youth followed a professional interest in Turkish and Islamic Affairs becoming an accomplished linguist in Arabic, Turkish and Persian. In the summer of 1978 he studied at Ferdosi University, Mashad, Iran, witnessing the early stages of the Iranian Revolution led by exiled Ayatollah Khomeini. He received a PhD in Islamic History, specializing in Turkish, Arabic and Iranian affairs, from Columbia University in 1979. In 1982 he went to work for Richard Perle in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as an Islamic Affairs expert.  In 1994 he  starting  working  for Andrew Marshall the director of ONA, where he remained until he retired in January 2010. Rhode’s experience while serving 28 years at the Pentagon in Islamic Affairs, Net Assessment and Policy Development have given him a unique perspective about national security issues regarding the Middle East region.

Against this background we interviewed Dr. Harold Rhode.

Jerry Gordon:  Dr. Rhode thank you for consenting to this interview.

Harold Rhode:  Thank you for inviting me.

Jerry Gordon:  You spent three decades as an expert on Turkey and Islamic Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and at a Pentagon think tank, The Office of Net Assessment. What were some of the assignments that you were engaged in?

Dr. Harold Rhode:  My knowledge of the Islamic World extends over 50 years starting when I was 14. Turkey is one of my primary areas of expertise. My Columbia University dissertation concerned what is Northern Israel or Southern Lebanon under Ottoman Rule. Richard Perle brought me into the Pentagon to cover Turkey and the Islamic world from 1982 to 1994. 

I worked on Iraq for twelve years from the Kuwait/ Gulf War through its liberation and thereafter, also working on Iran the entire time while serving as the Turkish Desk Officer. This was for about nineteen months around the time of the Kuwait War.

Gordon:  Why were you deployed to Iraq in Operation Enduring Freedom in 2003?

Rhode:  They were looking for people to go. I had spent twelve years working on these issues. So I volunteered me and my wife agreed.

Gordon:  What was the background for the discovery of the Iraqi Jewish Archives in Baghdad in April 2003?

Rhode:  When a tyrant is defeated all those who worked for him come to the new people and say I’m cooperating, in other words, please don’t kill me and give me a pass. One of the persons we encountered was the head of the Jewish and the Israel sections. We didn’t know there was a Jewish section. Logic told us there had to be an Israel section but not a Jewish section of the Mukhabarat. Mukhabarat is the best way to describe it. In English it’s the combination of the FBI and the CIA. It was the Iraqi intelligence service. The person in charge of this Intelligence section went to Ahmed Chalabi. In my opinion Chalabi was a great man and the American government when it’s upset with somebody will call l call them an Iranian spy. Shiite leaders in Iraq have some relationship with Iran irrespective of who rules Iran, because Iran is the largest Shiite power in the world. 

Chalabi called me and Judith Miller, former New York Times journalist who was embedded in the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) group. The former head of the Jewish and Israel section of Saddam’s Iraqi Intelligence Organization, then took Judy Miller’s WMD team, a lot of members of Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress and me, to the Mukhabarat, and showed us basement which was flooded. 

The reason it was flooded is that the Americans had dropped a bomb on the intelligence headquarters. The bomb did not explode but instead, cut through the building destroying the water system. This explains why the water dripped down into the basement where the Jewish and the Israeli sections were. 

The American government and the WMD team were also interested in the building to look for information on WMD. The WMD team waded into the water and first came upon the Israel section. They then proceeded down the hall and came to the Jewish section, pulling out material from both sections. From the Israel section, they pulled out a huge picture of the Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock, a map of Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor, and a sign in Arabic – “Whom will send off the 40^th missile towards Israel. (NOTE: IN the Kuwait war, Iraq fired 39 missiles at Israel.) They also pulled out some Jewish religious material from the Jewish section. Judy and her WMD team went on to do their assignments.

Gordon:  Who did you reach out to provide initial and continuing support of the Jewish Archives project?

Once it involved the National Archives I was out of it. The National Archives has done a marvelous job with the restoration of the Iraqi Jewish archives.

Gordon:  When was the agreement reached with the Iraqi government for return of the restored Iraqi Jewish archives?

Rhode:  I think that occurred when the American government concluded the agreement with the Iraqi authorities. The American government considered the archives as property which belonged to Iraq and therefore the International law it has to be returned. However, this was really property stolen by the previous Iraqi governments from the Jews who fled the country, mostly in 1950-51.

The problem is most of this is private property. These were holy books that belonged to individuals. They never belonged to the Iraqi government. When, for example, Iraqi Jews had a Torah made, if you moved to another synagogue, the Torah moved with you. In 1950/51 when most of the Jews left they were not allowed to take this material with them. They were only allowed to take basically a suitcase of clothes, if that, and so the Jews were forced against their wishes to leave the material behind.

Gordon:  It has been suggested that the Iraqi Jewish Archives should be deposited with the Iraqi Jewish Museum in Israel. Is that feasible given the current agreement with the Iraqi government?

Gordon: What are the highlights of the current Iraqi Jewish Archives exhibit in Washington?

Gordon: How ancient and significant was the Iraqi Jewish community?

Before World War II Jews was a quarter of the population in Baghdad, over 80,000. They were the largest group there.

Gordon:  There was a pogrom, The Farhud, in Baghdad in 1941 during a pro-Nazi putsch. What were the consequences for the Iraqi Jewish Community?

Gordon:  When the State of Israel declared Independence in 1948, what actions did the Iraqi government impose on the Jewish community?

Rhode:  There was a whole network trying to bring Iraqi Jews out. The Iraqi government made life absolutely unbearable and even people who were not particularly Zionists really had no choice but to leave. Their lives in Iraq were basically over because of the restrictions placed on them by the Iraqi government were very strong. Harold Luks wrote about the end of the Iraqi Jewish community drawing upon State department documents prepared by staff who weren’t particularly pro-Jewish. He prepared this for Clark Clifford many years ago. The article describes the horrors of what the Iraqi government was doing to the Jews.

Gordon:  The State of Israel undertook Operation Nehemiah and Ezra to repatriate the Iraqi Jewish Community. What was the scope of operations and who absorbed the cost of their resettlement in Israel and the community’s Diaspora?

Gordon:  How well has the Iraqi Jewish community been absorbed in Israel and its Diaspora?

Rhode:  I would say easily close to 100% easily. The Baghdadi Jews are smart and entrepreneurial. Within five years many who came with nothing had surpassed their Ashkenazi fellow Jews. They were doing better financially. They are integrated extremely well. Did they have complaints culturally? Everybody had complaints culturally. 

Gordon:  Since your retirement from the Pentagon you have been active in opining on Middle East issues including resolution of the Israel Palestinian conflict.  Why in your opinion is a final status agreement not achievable?

Gordon:  What is your opinion about the current US Administration’s capabilities to provide a realistic assessment of the Islamic Middle East?

Gordon:  What is your outlook on what may happen with the P5+1 negotiations over a Nuclear Iran?

Gordon:  What is your evaluation of the Islamist agenda of the Turkish regime of Premier Erdogan?

Gordon:  The Kurds in the Middle East have been denied a promised state of their own since the end of WWI.  Why has this occurred and are they natural allies of Israel?

Gordon:  How does Hezbollah threaten Lebanon and Israel?

Gordon:  There is talk of an alliance of convenience against a Nuclear Iran in the Middle East composed of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates. How realistic is that?

Gordon:  Why in your opinion did the Saudis reject a UN Security Council Seat after lobbying hard for it?

Gordon:  The Saudis have backed Blasphemy Codes through the work of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation at both the UN and even conferences in Washington. Do you view that as problematic?

Gordon:  How important given your national security experience is the US relationship with Israel?

Gordon:  Dr. Rhode thank you for this authoritative interview and championing the cause of retuning the Iraqi Jewish Archives to the community in Israel.

Rhode:  Your most welcome.

 

___________________

The West Speaks.

 

To comment on this interview, please click here.

To help New English Review continue to publish timely and interesting interviews like this one, please click here.

If you have enjoyed this article and want to read more by Jerry Gordon, please click here.

Jerry Gordon is a also regular contributor to our community blog. To read his entries, please click here.