History of Judaism in Iraq

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Iraqi Jews ( Hebrew : יֵהוּדִים בָּבְלִים) are in Iraq -born and / or entstammende the Iraqi cultural heritage Jews . The history of the Jews in Iraq has been since the time of the Babylonian captivity around 586 BC. Documented. As Babylonian Judaism , Iraqi Judaism was the oldest and historically most significant Jewish community in the world.

Ezra belonged to the Babylonian Jewish community, and his return to Judea ushered in significant changes in Jewish worship. The Talmud was written in Babylonia , now Iraq .

From the Babylonian era to the rise of the Islamic Caliphate, the Jewish community of Babylon flourished as the center of Jewish scholarship. The Mongol storm and Islamization in the Middle Ages led to a decline. The situation of the Iraqi Jews improved under the Ottomans .

At the beginning of Iraqi independence in the 20th century, Jews played an important role; in 1948 their number was around 120,000. After the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, they almost completely left the country due to persecution and pogroms . Most of them fled to the newly founded state of Israel , today fewer than 100 Jews live in the country.

Great Synagogue of Baghdad

Early biblical story

The Bible does not always make a clear distinction between Babylon and the land of Babylonia; it mostly uses the same word for both. Some passages use the term “ Sinear ” for Babylonia, whereas the post-exilic literature uses “ Chaldea ”. The Genesis describes Babylonien than the area Babel , Erech , Accad or Kalne (Gene 10:10), the realm of Nimrod. The Tower of Babel was built here (Gen. 11, 1-9.), And Amraphel's seat was also here (Gen. 11, 1-9 ).

The history books mention Babylonia frequently (31 times in the books of kings ), whereby there is often no distinction between the city and the country. The allusions are limited to the contacts between the Israelites and the various Babylonian kings, especially Merodach Baladan (Berodach-baladan 2 Kings 22:12 ; compare Isa. 39: 1) and Nebuchadnezzar . In Chron., Ez. And Neh. the interest is directed towards Cyrus (see e.g. Ez. V. 13), albeit in retrospect on the conquests of Nebuchadnezzar and Artaxerxes (Neh 8, 6).

Babylonia plays a minor role in the poetic biblical literature (see Ps. 87, 4, and especially Psalm 137 ), but it occupies an important place in the prophets. Isaiah mentions the “Babylonian yoke” (13.1), which at that time still appears as “distant land” (39.3). The book of Jeremiah plays a prominent role with numerous references to life in Babylon and its history. His references to events in Nebuchadnezzar's reign are a valuable source for reconstructing the last days of Babylon. The inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar are almost exclusively devoted to buildings; without the book of Jeremiah, little would be known of his struggle against Jerusalem.

Later Biblical History and the Babylonian Exile

In the 6th century BC The Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah were banished to Babylon three times by Nebuchadnezzar II . These events are mentioned by Jeremiah 52: 28-30. The first banishment took place in the time of Jehoiachin 597 BC. In retaliation for a refusal to pay tribute, the temple of Jerusalem was partially looted and part of the upper class was deported into exile ( Dan 5.1-5  EU ). After eleven years, during the reign of Zedekiah , who was enthroned by Nebuchadnezzar , there was an uprising in Judah, possibly supported by nearby Egyptian troops, whereupon Jerusalem was razed to the ground and another deportation followed. Finally, five years later, Jeremiah mentions a third imprisonment. 537 BC BC. After the fall of Babylon by the Persians allowed Cyrus allegedly forty thousand Jews to return to their homes. (See Jehoiakim , Ezra , Nehemiah )

Early biblical accounts of Jewish life in Babylonian exile are extremely sparse; certain sources seek to compensate for this deficiency by borrowing from the realm of legend and tradition. Thus the “Little Chronicle” ( Seder Olam Zutta ) constructs an alleged continuity up to King Jojachin by creating a genealogy of the Exilarchen (“Reshe Galuta”) and turns Jojachin himself into an Exilarchen. The fact that Zerubbabel returned to Judea during the Greek period is also an invention of the “Little Chronicle”. The descendants of the Davidic house certainly held a high place in Babylonian Jewry, as they did in Palestine at the same time. During the Maccabees uprising , the descendants of this Jewish royal family emigrated to Babylonia.

The Greek Period (300 BC to 160 BC)

With the Alexander campaign , more precise information about the oriental Jews reached the west. In Alexander's army there are reports of Jews who refused to participate in the reconstruction of the destroyed Belus temple in Babylon for religious reasons. The reign of Seleucus Nicator 312 BC BC over a large part of Babylonia was the beginning of a new era for Jews and Syrians, the "Minjan sheṭarot" ( Aera contractuum or era of contracts ), which was also adopted by the Parthians as a calendar. When the Seleucid era lost its importance in the West, it survived for a long time in the Orient. The rabbis mentioned Nicator's founding of the city of Seleukia on the Tigris; both the “Big” and the “Little Chronicle” refer to it. The Babylonian Galatians (2. Makk. 8.20) must under Seleukos Callinicus or under Antiochus III. have been defeated by the Jews. The latter settled large numbers of Babylonian Jews as colonists in the western areas in order to bring local revolutionary tendencies under control. Mithridates (174-136) subjugated the province of Babylonia in 160, bringing the Jews under Parthian rule for four centuries.

The Parthian period

Jewish sources mention neither a Parthian influence nor the name "Parthian", except occasionally in the sense of "Persian". The "Small Chronicle" mentions the Armenian prince Sanatroces from the House of Arsakiden as one of the successors ( Diadochi ) of Alexander. Among other Asian princes, the Roman decree in favor of the Jews reached Arsace (I Makk 15, 22), although the identity of this Arsace is not certain. Not long afterwards, the army of the Jewish prince and Syrian king Antiochus Sidetes, accompanied by Hyrkan I, marched into the Partho-Babylonian territory against the Parthians and the allied armies defeated the Parthians (129 BC) on the Great Zab (Lycus), where the king is said to have ordered a two-day armistice because of the Sabbath and the feast of weeks. Around 40 BC The Jewish puppet ruler Hyrcanus II fell into the hands of the Parthians, who, according to their custom, cut off his ears and made them unfit to rule. The Babylonian Jews evidently sought the establishment of a high priesthood for the exiled Hyrcanus, which would have made them completely independent of Palestine. However, the Palestinians received the Babylonian Ananel as high priest, which indicates the importance of the Babylonian Jews. The Babylonians, like the entire diaspora, continued to depend on Palestine for religious affairs. So they directed their traditional pilgrimages to Jerusalem.

The rise of the small Jewish robber state in Nehardea (see Anilaios and Asianios ) shows which freedoms the Parthians allowed the Jews . The conversion of the King of Adiabene to Judaism appears even more remarkable . These examples show not only the tolerance but also the weakness of the Parthian kings. The Babylonian Jews wanted to fight Vespasian together with the Palestinian Jews, but it was not until Trajan that the hated Romans went to war against the Parthians, and it was largely due to the revolt of the Babylonian Jews that the Romans were unable to defeat Babylonia. Philo speaks of the large number of Jews living in this country, which had increased considerably after the destruction of Jerusalem by new immigrants. In Jerusalem help from the east was expected from the beginning, and it was known that, as in the time of the Roman procurator Petronius, the Babylonian Jews could provide effective help. With the fall of Jerusalem, Babylonia became the decisive bulwark of Judaism. With the suppression of the Bar Kochba rebellion, the number of Jewish refugees in Babylon continued to rise.

In the ongoing Roman-Persian wars , the Jews' hatred of the Romans as the destroyers of their sanctuary and the support for the Parthians as their protectors grew. The Parthian kings - possibly in recognition of the services of the Babylonian Jews or the House of David - granted the exiled princes, who until then had been more of a mere tax collector, a regular prince as Resch Galuta . Thus the community of Jewish subjects received a central authority which ensured the undisturbed development of their internal affairs.

Babylonia as the center of Judaism (219 to approx. 1050)

Ezekiel's grave near Kifel , with Iraqi-Jewish residents, 1932.

After the fall of Jerusalem, Babylon became the center of the entire Jewish world for over a thousand years. Abba Arikha , later simply called Rab, was a key figure in the preservation of Judaism after the destruction of Jerusalem. left Palestine and, with his return to his Babylonian homeland in 219 AD, marked the beginning of a new movement in Babylonian Judaism: the centuries-old leading role of the Babylonian academies. After leaving an existing Babylonian academy under his friend Samuel in Nehardea , Rab founded his own Sura academy . There were two academies in Babylonia, but they did not compete with each other. The reputation of both academies grew in the same way. The results of the activities of both Babylonian rabbinical schools flowed into the earliest layer of the Babylonian Talmud . The schools that existed side by side for decades (the school was moved from Nehardea to Pumbedita (today Fallujah )) became a permanent institution and an important factor in the development of Babylonian Judaism.

The key work of these academies was the creation of the Babylonian Talmud , begun around 550 by Rav Aschi and Rabina , two leaders of the Babylonian Jewish community. The Savoraim, or Rabbanan Savoraei (post-Talmudic rabbis), continued editing this text for the next 250 years, most of which was finalized around 700. (See Epochs within Jewish Law. ) The Mishnah and Babylonian Gemara together formed the Talmud Bavli (the " Babylonian Talmud ").

Within three centuries the basis of the Babylonian Talmud was laid in the academies founded by Rab and Samuel. It was then edited for five centuries until it was recognized throughout the diaspora. Surah and Pumbedita were considered the most important places of study: their heads and sages were considered undisputed authorities, their decisions were asked and accepted wherever Jewish communities existed.

The periods of Jewish history immediately following the completion of the Talmud were named after the titles of the teachers in Surah and Pumbedita as "the time of the Geonim and the Saboraim". The Talmud was completed under the Saboraim in the first third of the 6th century, and its text was enriched many times. The two academies existed until the middle of the 11th century, Pumbedita closed after the murder of their chief rabbi in 1038, and Sura soon after.

The Sassanid Period (225-634)

The Persian people reasserted their influence on world history when Ardashir I defeated the Arsacids in 226 and established the important Sassanid dynasty. Unlike the Parthian rulers from Northern Iran, who belonged to the Mithraic cult and Zoroastrianism and spoke the Pahlavi dialect, the Sassanids strengthened nationalism and founded a Zoroastrian state religion that suppressed dissenting groups in many ways.

Shapur I (Aramaic: Shvor Malka) was weighted to the Jews. His friendship with Shmuel earned the Jewish community numerous perks.

Shapur II's mother was allegedly Jewish, which gave the Jewish community certain religious freedoms. Shapur was friends with the Babylonian Talmudic scholar Raba , who achieved a relaxation of the laws discriminating against Jews.

Clearly, Christians, Manichaeans, Buddhists and Jews were initially disadvantaged, especially under the Sassanid high priest Kartir . However, because of their cohesion in cities like Isfahan , Jews were less discriminated against than the scattered Christians. Occasional persecutions of the Jews were followed by lengthy periods of benevolent neglect, during which Jewish life flourished. In the 7th century, however, the pressure on the Jews grew to welcome the Arab conquest in 632-634.

Arab-Islamic period (634–1258)

The first caliph Abu Bakr sent his general Chālid ibn al-Walīd against Iraq, and a Jew named Ka'ab al-Ahbar is said to have promised the general victory. As the first legal measures after the conquests of the 630s, the Muslims introduced the poll tax (" Jizya ") and the real estate tax (" Kharaj ") for Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians .

It is possible that the Jews favored the advance of the Arabs, as they hoped for milder treatment. This should include the fact that the exilarch Bostanai secured the favor of Umar , who after Theophanes and Abraham Zacuto gave him the daughter of the defeated Sassanid Chosroes II. Jewish traditions such as the "Seder ha-Dorot" attribute legendary similarities to Bostanai with the hero Mar Zuṭra II . Bostanai, the founder of an exilech dynasty, is said to have been so important that the victorious Arab general endowed him with high privileges, such as the right to wear a signet ring that was otherwise only reserved for Muslims.

Umar and Utman were followed by Ali (656), with whom the Babylonian Jews allied themselves against his rival Muʿāwiya I. A Jewish preacher, Abdallah ibn Saba from southern Arabia, who converted to Islam , encouraged and propagated this religion by interpreting Muhammad's appearance in a Jewish sense. Ali made the Iraqi Kufa his capital, where the expulsion of the Jews (approx. 641) from the Arabian Peninsula was ordered. Possibly because of these immigrants, the Arabic language gained ground so quickly among the Babylonian Jews. Ali occupied Firuz Shabur , where, according to Jewish chroniclers, 90,000 Jews lived. Mar Isaak, the leader of the Academy of Sura , paid homage to the caliph and was granted privileges by him.

The proximity to the court gave the Babylonian Jews a central position in comparison to the entire caliphate , so that Babylonia remained at the center of Jewish life. The traditional institutions of the Exile Chat and Gaonate, the heads of the academies, achieved great influence and formed an authority recognized by the entire Jewish diaspora. Soon, however, Exilarchen and Geonim fell apart . A certain Mar Yanka, a close friend of the exile, depressed the rabbis of Pumbedita so much that several of them fled to Sura and only returned after the death of their persecutor (around 730). "The sale of the exile chat in the Arab period" (Ibn Daud), and centuries later Sherira claimed not to be descended from Bostanai. In the Arab legend, the resh Galuta (ras al-galut) played an important role, one could see ghosts, another died under the last Umayyad caliph, Merwan ibn Mohammed (745–750).

The Umayyad caliph Umar II (717-720) persecuted the Jews by ordering: “Do not destroy any churches, synagogues or fire temples, but prevent new buildings!” Isaac Iskawi II (approx. 800) received from Harun al-Rashid (786- 809) the right to a seal. Karl (possibly Karl the Bald ) is said to have asked the "King of Babel" to send him a man of royal descent, whereupon the Caliph sent Rabbi Machir to him, thereby laying the foundation for communication between Jews in Babylonian and European communities. The law is said to go back to Harun, according to which Jews had to wear a yellow mark on their clothing. Although his strict Islamic laws put the Jews at a disadvantage, they also benefited from the flourishing Arab culture, so that among Harun and his successors there is talk of the beginning of a Jewish-scientific tradition in Babylonia, especially under Al-Mamun (813-833).

Like the Arabs, the Jews promoted knowledge, for example by translating Greek and Latin authors. Especially at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, they made a major contribution to its maintenance. They carried out religious-philosophical studies (“ Kalam ”) in connection with the Mutazilites and the preservation of human free will (“ chadr ”). The state continued to humiliate the unbelievers as completely as possible. Al-Mutawakkil forced everyone - magicians, Christians and also Jews - to wear a special mark, their places of worship were confiscated and converted into mosques, they were removed from public office and had to pay the caliph tithes of the value of their houses. According to a statement made by Caliph Al-Mu'tadhel (892-902), Jews ranked among Christians in the hierarchy of civil servants.

The Mongolian Period (1258-1534)

The caliphate accelerated its decline even before the Mongol Empire unfolded its rise. According to Bar Hebraeus , the Mongols did not distinguish between Gentiles, Jews, and Christians, and according to Marco Polo , Kublai Khan only tolerated Jews who had served in his army. Hülegü , who destroyed the caliphate during the conquest of Baghdad (1258) and conquered Palestine in 1260, tolerated Muslims, Jews and Christians, but undoubtedly the Jews and many others were among those who suffered in those terrible days. Under the Mongol rulers, priests of all religions were exempt from poll tax. Hülegü's second son Ahmed was sympathetic to Islam, but his successor Arghun (1284–1291) rejected this and was fond of Jews and Christians; his chief adviser was the Jew Sa'ad al-Daulah , a doctor from Baghdad. After the death of the great Khan and the murder of his Jewish favorites, the Muslims attacked the Jews and in Baghdad there was talk of a real battle between the two groups. Also Gaykhatu had a Jewish finance minister, Reshid al-Daulah . The Khan Ghazan converted to Islam and made the Jews second class citizens. The Egyptian Sultan Nasr, who also ruled Iraq, restored the law from 1330, which brought new restrictions. When Timur conquered and ravaged Baghdad, Wasit , Hilla , Basra and Tikrit in 1393 , the Jewish places that defended themselves were destroyed. Many Jews fled to other areas during this time.

In the course of the Mongol invasions, numerous Jewish communities were destroyed or driven out. The later Jewish community consisted largely of new immigrants from other places, mainly Aleppo . So there is no continuous connection with the Iraqi Jews of the Babylonian tradition of Talmudic or Geonic Judaism, they rather formed a separate group within Oriental Judaism.

Ottoman rule (1534-1918)

Kurdish Jews in Rawanduz , Northern Iraq, 1905

When Sultan Suleiman I took Tabriz and Baghdad from the Persians in 1534, and Mesopotamia and Iraq came into Turkish hands, this led to an improvement in Jewish living conditions. The Persian reconquest in 1623 worsened the situation again, so that when Iraq was reconquered in 1638, the Turkish army recorded a high proportion of Jewish soldiers, according to some sources ten percent. The Jews even made the day of the reconquest a holiday: “Yom Nes” (Day of the Miracle).

In 1743 the plague broke out in Baghdad, to which numerous Jews and all rabbis fell victim. The remaining Baghdad Jews asked the community in Aleppo to send a new chief rabbi, which led to the appointment of Rabbi Sadka Bekhor Hussein. This resulted in a further alignment of the Iraqi Jews with the Sephardic Observance.

With the weakening of central Turkish rule, the situation of the Jews in the region deteriorated, but their population grew. Numerous members of the Jewish community, such as David Sassoon, tried to escape persecution under Daud Pasha . In 1884 there were 30,000 Jews in Baghdad; In 1900 there were 50,000, which was over a quarter of the total urban population. Eminent rabbis emerged from the community, such as Joseph Chaim Ben Eliahu Mazal-Tov, known as Ben Ish Chai (1834–1909).

Modern Iraq (1918 to date)

Jewish weaver in Ramadi , Iraq, 1918
Mass grave of the victims of Farhud, 1946
Memorial in Or Yehuda for the Iraqis killed in 1969

During the British occupation from 1918 and the following British mandate from 1920 to 1932 and immediately after independence, well-educated Jews played an important role in social life. The first Iraqi finance minister, Sassoon Eskell , was Jewish, Jews also played an instrumental role in the development of the judiciary and postal system. The Baghdad Chamber of Commerce registered 10 of its 19 members as Jews in 1947; the first musical ensemble of the newly founded Radio Baghdad in the 1930s consisted mainly of Jews. Jews were represented in the Iraqi parliament, and numerous Jews held important positions in the bureaucracy. This caused many resentments among the Iraqi people.

Since the 1890s, a Zionist movement had established itself in Iraq, which initially limited itself to reading Hebrew and Zionist magazines. As the international situation came to a head, particularly the ongoing conflict over the Palestine mandate , anti-Zionist demonstrations began in Baghdad in the 1930s. Despite expressions of loyalty to Iraq, the country's Jews increasingly fell victim to discriminatory measures and laws. In April 1941 took place under Rashid Ali al-Gailani a military coup against the pro-British King Faisal II. After Baghdad capitulated on 31 May 1941. the British, it came on the two following days to Farhud ( "forcible expropriation") mentioned pogrom in which 170 to 180 Jews were killed and many injured, raped and their property looted. An even greater number of non-Jews - looters, law enforcement officers, and Muslims trying to protect their Jewish neighbors - were killed or injured. There was also looting in other cities. As a result, Zionist emissaries were sent from Palestine - mostly accompanied by British troops - to teach Iraqi Jews in Hebrew and to organize self-defense groups.

In 1948 the country was placed under martial law and the penalty for Zionism increased. Stand courts were introduced to intimidate wealthy Jews, Jews were again dismissed from the public service, quotas for Jewish university posts were introduced, and Jewish businesses were boycotted. Shafiq Ades , a major Iraqi non-Zionist Jewish trader, was executed for allegedly trafficking with Israel. Finally, like most Arab League states, Iraq passed laws against the emigration of its Jews on the grounds that they could strengthen the Israeli state. With the state repression of the Jews, the anti-Israeli mood in the country grew, and public anti-Semitic statements increased general fear and uncertainty.

By 1949, the Zionist underground in Iraq had become so organized that the Iraqi northern and southern borders had become uncontrollable and Iraqi Jews were smuggled out of the country, the number of which amounted to 1,000 per month. Hoping to stop the outflow of assets from the country, Iraq passed a law in March 1950 authorizing the emigration of Jews for one year if they renounced their Iraqi citizenship. One sought after Ian Black essentially for "economic considerations to bring the property of the departing Jews back into the treasury"; in addition, “Jews were seen as a source of unrest and a potentially disruptive minority, which the country can best get rid of.” Israel initially refused to accept so many foreigners, but in March 1951 the Airlift “ Operation Esra and Nehemiah ” brought as many Iraqi Jews as possible to Israel, which now sent agents to Iraq to compel the Jews to register for immigration as soon as possible.

Between the enactment of the Emigration Act in March 1950 and the end of the year, 60,000 Jews left Iraq. In addition to the arrests and layoffs of Jews, a series of bomb attacks from April onwards, with numerous injuries and deaths, accelerated emigration. Two months before the expiry of the law, during which about 85,000 Jews had been registered, an attack on the Masuda Shemtob Synagogue resulted in Jewish deaths and other injuries. However, the law, which expired in March 1951, was renewed after the Iraqi government froze the assets of departing Jews, including those who had already left the country. Over the next few months, the remaining thousands of Jews who remained were registered for emigration, accelerated by a series of further bomb attacks which, although small in number, had a great psychological impact. During Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, around 107,603 Jews were flown to Israel via Iran and Cyprus.

The true identity and goals of the masterminds behind the bombings were debated controversially and in the decades that followed it was overshadowed by a revision of the founding days of the Israeli state. The Iraqi regime blamed Zionist agents for the anti-Jewish riots and attacks. The Iraqi authorities charged three members of the Zionist underground with some attacks, among which Shalom Salah and Yosef Basri Ibrahim were sentenced to death and the third to prison. Salah Shalom alleged at the trial that she was tortured to confess; Yosef Basri insisted on his claim of innocence. According to an Israeli secret investigation in 1960, there were no indications of Israeli authorship or any plausible motives of our own.

The thesis of a Zionist conspiracy to accelerate the emigration of Iraqi Jews to Israel became a popular motif of anti-Zionist organizations and authors such as the Israeli Black Panthers, peace activist Uri Avnery, and others. According to the historian Moshe Gat “the Jews who fled to Israel from Iraq also shared the view that the attacks were the work of Zionist agents”. According to the sociologist Philip Mendes, however, this view was "influenced and distorted by feelings of discrimination". According to Gat, "much of the available literature reflects the widespread belief that the attacks were of enormous importance for the mass emigration of Jews: the Zionist emissaries committed these brutal acts in order to uproot the wealthy Iraqi Jewish community and bring it to Israel" . However, he himself sees only a weak direct connection between the attacks and the exodus. The hectic and massive Jewish registration efforts for expatriation and departure were driven by the knowledge that the expatriation law would expire in March 1951.

Furthermore, further repression, including the financial transaction bans and ongoing anti-Jewish unrest, triggered the fear of pogroms. It is also unlikely that Israel would have resorted to such measures to accelerate the Jewish evacuation, since it was already struggling to cope with the other influx of Jewish immigration. Gat also doubts the guilt of Jewish assassins. First, an anti-Jewish Christian officer in the Iraqi army was arrested, but not charged, in whose apartment explosives similar to those used in the attack on the Jewish synagogue were found. There is also a long history of anti-Jewish attacks in Iraq. Second, the public prosecutor's office was unable to name an eyewitness to the bomb throwers. Third, torture was involved after Shalom Salah. The authorship of the bomb attacks remains open, with Gat as the likely perpetrator being members of the anti-Jewish Istiqlal party. Certain interpretations of these events meant that many Iraqi Jews faced discrimination on their arrival in Israel.

Years later, the Zionist emissary Yehuda Tager stated that during the larger attacks by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Zionist Yosef Beit-Halahmi orchestrated smaller attacks on his own, claiming that these were allegedly carried out on probation and not as direct attacks.

Iraqi Jews left vast fortunes, often in the centers of large cities. A large number of them were quartered in Israeli refugee camps ( Ma'abarot ). After Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, most of the 10,000 Iraqi Jews stayed in the country during the Abd al-Karim Qasim era when conditions improved, but anti-Semitism grew during the Aref brothers' reign and the Baʿth party reign . At the height of their power in 1969, fourteen Iraqis were publicly hanged, including nine Jews accused of espionage for Israel, causing most of the remaining Jews to leave the country.

The rest of Iraqi Jews left Baghdad over the next few decades, especially until 1970. By 2004 there were fewer than 100 Jews in the country, many of whom left the country after the Iraq war . It was considered whether the Iraqi constitution should recognize Jews as a minority or delete them altogether.

In October 2006, Baghdad's last rabbi, Rabbi Emad Levy , one of the approximately twelve members of the Jewish community, compared his life to a “prison life”. Most Iraqi Jews would not leave their homes "for fear of kidnapping or assassination" from religiously motivated violence.

According to recent estimates, the Jewish population in Baghdad is seven or eight. There are three rabbis among the American forces stationed in Iraq.

See also

literature

  • Sara Manasseh: Baghdad. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 1: A-Cl. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2011, ISBN 978-3-476-02501-2 , pp. 232-239.
  • A. al-'Arif: An-Nakba, 1947-1955. Vol. 4 Al-Maktaba al-'Asriya, Sidon / Beirut 1960.
  • E. Black: Banking on Baghdad. Wiley, 2004.
  • I. Black & B. Morris: Israel's Secret Wars. Futura, 1992.
  • M. Gat: The Jewish Exodus from Iraq, 1948–1951. Frank Cass, 1997.
  • H. Haddad: Flight from Babylon. McGraw-Hill, 1986.
  • S. Hillel: Operation Babylon. Doubleday, 1987, ISBN 0385235976 .
  • RS Simon, S. Reguer, M. Laskier: The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times. Columbia University Press, 2003.
  • Art .: "Babylonian Judaism" In: Religion Past and Present. 4. A., Vol. 1, pp. 1045-1048.
  • Tamar Morad, Dennis Shasha, Robert Shasha (eds.): Iraq's last Jews - memories of everyday life, change and flight. Translated from the English by Anke Irmscher. Wallstein, Göttingen 2012.
  • Alisa Douer : The Jews of Iraq. Logos, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-8325-4483-6 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ The Tower of Babel and Babylon, Gilgamesh, Ningizzida, Gudea
  2. ↑ Nehardea Magazine ( Memento of the original from November 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.babylonjewry.org.il
  3. ↑ BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israelis from Iraq remember Babylon
  4. ↑ Georges Roux, "Ancient Irak", (1964) 1972, p. 344 f.
  5. ↑ see Sherira's "Brief", ed. Neubauer, p. 28
  6. ↑ Midr. 9, 8.
  7. ↑ For example, Iraqi Jews use Tiberian vowel symbols and a form of the Sephardic pronunciation of Hebrew, which is partly influenced by local Arabic dialects. See Judeo-Arabic . There is a clear difference to the former Babylonian systems, although there is more of a relationship to the Yemeni customs. Their Arabic dialect is more closely related to that of Mosul (and less to Syriac ) than that of their Muslim neighbors .
  8. ↑ Nehardea , cit. in http://www.dangoor.com/thescribe73.pdf
  9. ^ Embassy in Berlin , accessed on November 23, 2017
  10. ^ E. Black, p. 347
  11. ↑ Simon, Reguer and Laskier, p. 365
  12. ↑ p. 91
  13. ^ Hillel, 1987
  14. ↑ RGG Vol. 1, p. 1048
  15. ^ Morris Schwarz, p. 93; Gat, pp. 186-187
  16. ↑ Article calling the bombings
  17. ^ Gat, p. 177
  18. ↑ http://www.labyrinth.net.au/ ~ ajds / mendes_refugees.htm -. Forgotten refugees
  19. ↑ Gat, p. 179
  20. ↑ Mendes, Philip experienced. ~ ajds / mendes_refugees.htm THE FORGOTTEN REFUGEES: the causes of the post-1948 Jewish Exodus from Arab Countries , Presented at the 14 Jewish Studies Conference Melbourne March 2002. Retrieved June 12, 2007.
  21. ↑ Tom Segev , Now it can be told , Haaretz , April 6, 2006.
  22. ↑ “The situation of the remaining 6,000 Jews became increasingly difficult. Many were arrested on charges of spying on Israel, nine were sentenced to death and hanged in public. ”Gale, Naomi. The Sephardim of Sydney , Sussex Academic Press, 2005, ISBN 1845190351 , p. 38.
  23. ↑ "In 1969 Saddam and his mentor al-Bakr staged a show trial of nine Jewish Iraqis who were later publicly hanged for espionage for Israel." Jack Kalpakian: Identity, Conflict and Cooperation in the International River Systems. Ashgate Publishing, 2004, ISBN 0754633381 , p. 134.
  24. ↑ [//de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Defekte_Weblinks&dwl= http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1121568339673 Page no longer available ] , Search web archives: Jerusalem Post@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.jpost.com
  25. ↑ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/770027.html Baghdad's last rabbi to leave Iraq, Haaretz
  26. ↑ Baghdad Jews Have Become a Fearful Few , New York Times
  27. ^ The last Jews of Baghdad - TIME
  28. ↑ - Forward.com

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