Jews of Iraq
Bulletin Montreal May-June 1971
Associations with Iraq go back to the time of Abraham who
left Ur for Canaan by divine command around 1800 BCE because
of religious intolerance. Both Isaac and Jacob took wives
from the old country and eleven of Jacobs twelve children
were born in Iraq.
Jews appear again on the scene when, twelve centuries later,
in 597 BCE, King Yehoyachin and 18,000 of the leading citizens
of Judah were brought captive to Babylon. The people of Judah
had been in two minds regarding foreign policy. The Hawks
wanted to defend their countrys independence. The Doves,
led by the prophet Jeremiah, wanted to come to terms with
the moderate King Nebuchadnezzar.
years afterwards Nebuchadnezzar came and razed Jerusalem to
the ground, killed or dispersed the 4million inhabitants and
took back with him 100,000 able-bodied men to dredge the silting
irrigation canals of Babylonia, which is Southern Iraq, Northern
Iraq, which depends on rainwater, is usually referred to as
Mesopotamia. (The Jewish people have not recovered from that
had really very little interest in politics but he had a grand
vision of establishing Gods Kingdom on Earth. Nebuchadnezzar
offered him safe passage to Babylon but he was not willing
to face the bitter exiles. However, he sent them the following
message which became in a way the charter of the Jewish Diaspora:
"these are the words of the Lord of Host, the God of
Israel: to all the exiles whom I have carried off from Jerusalem
to Babylon: build houses and live in them; plant gardens and
eat their produce; marry wives and beget sons and daughters
and seek the welfare of the City to which I have carried you
off and pray to the Lord for it, for in its peace you will
have peace". In Babylon the Diaspora became a way of
time the Babylonians came to treat their exiles well and the
latter gradually took the position rather of colonists than
of captives. Lands were allotted to them and they grew to
love and own the soil they cultivated, some of which has remained
in Jewish ownership until modern times).
exile, the formula was let us preserve the Torah so
that the Torah will preserve us, a nation without a State
of its own; and to hope that in time a Mashiyah will appear
who will lead us back to the Promised Land. In 539 BCE the
Persian King Koresh, Cyrus the Great, who is named in the
Bible as Mashiyah, defeated Babylon and offered to repatriate
the liberated Jews. But only 40,000 returned the rest,
about 80,000, encouraged by the Persians, stayed on to prosper
in the rich land of the rivers, astride the main trade routes
between East and West.
the Rivers of Babylon, there we decided to stay; we also wept
when we remembered Zion."
aim of the Persians was to create a buffer State. In Babylon,
this Jewish buffer State retained its importance on and off
for over 1,000 years. For example, in the year 363 CE the
Roman Emperor Julian, who renounced Christianity, vainly tried
to win over to his side the Babylonian and Mesopotamian Jewries
in preparation of his contemplated invasion of Persia. He
wrote to them, "When I have successfully concluded the
War with Persia I will rebuild with my own efforts the sacred
city of Jerusalem that you may glorify the most high God therein."
But the community remained loyal to Persia. This loyalty had
been a major factor in the disastrous Jewish war with Rome
which ended with the destruction of the Second Temple.
is interesting to observe here that in 1971 Iran celebrated
the 2500th anniversary, a Jubilee of Jubilees, of Cyruss
Empire. As Israel was not going to be represented I offered
to the Iranian Embassy to lead a delegation of Iraqi Jews
to Persepolis to pay homage to the memory of Cyrus and his
enlightened and tolerant rule. Teheran found it difficult
to arrange this at short notice and we were invited instead
to the reception at the Savoy Hotel which was attended by
the Diplomatic Corps and other distinguished guests including
members of the government, when I and twenty members of the
community delivered to the Ambassador an illuminated scroll
to commemorate the occasion. The Shah later expressed his
appreciation and thanks.
Babylonian Ezra gave Judaism the decisive impulse that eventually
produced the Pharisaic Movement and the rabbinical system.
He changed the Hebrew alphabet, started the synagogue and
set himself to make the Torah the governing force in Jewish
Life. Seeing what happened to the Lost Ten Tribes, Ezra fixed
Jewish priorities. Top priority is the preservation of the
Torah. Second priority the survival of the Jewish people
and third priority the establishment of a Jewish State.
He was in a real sense the true founder of traditional Judaism
from which also emerged Christianity and Islam. It is said
of Ezra that if the Torah was not given to Moses, he would
have been worthy to receive it. Centuries later, Hillel too
went up from Babylon to Jerusalem. He was the first of the
Tannaim who established the Oral Torah (Mishnah). His youngest
and most famous disciple was Yohanan Ben Zakkai, the founder
of the Yavneh Academy. This became the centre of Jewish life
and thought after the national disaster and destruction of
the Second Temple in 70 CE.
the beginning of the present common era there were many conversions
to Judaism all over the Middle East. In Northern Iraq, the
Royal Family and many of the people of Adiabene became Jews.
It is said that Jews at that time constituted 20% both of
the Persian as well as the Roman Empires. But after the fall
of Jerusalem it was the Christians who made converts in the
frontier territories of Mesopotamia. The earliest converts
were Jews.. But wherever Rabbinical influence was strong among
the local community as in Babylonia, there Christianity (and
later, Islam) made little progress among Jews. Iraq remained
within the Persian Empire for 1,000 years. Babylonia, covering
Central Iraq, became practically an autonomous Jewish State
headed by a hereditary Exilarch (Resh Galutha) descended from
King Yehoyachin. The Exilarch had his courts and prisons and
collected taxes, half of which went to Central Government.
one time Babylonian Jewry numbered over one million and may
have constituted the majority of the population. When the
Temple was in existence they sent every year, about the time
of Succoth, rich presents to Jerusalem in convoys, sometimes
consisting of 30,000 armed pilgrims. It was ruled at that
time that the prayer for rain should not be recited until
15 days after the conclusion of Succoth to allow the pilgrims
to return. The Babylonian Diaspora retained its paramount
importance from the 6th Century BCE to the 13th Century CE
a period of nearly 2,000 years. Its communal constitution,
which served as a model to the whole Jewish people, was largely
maintained until recent times.
our stay in Babylon we made ourselves thoroughly at home.
As the Talmud records."
Babylonia became practically the Jewish Fatherland. Here were
established the famous vast academies of Nehardea, Sura and
Pumbaditha which later served as prototypes for the first
European Universities of the 12th century. The Babylonian
Talmud took 300 years to develop in complete freedom and was
completed in 499. In its 2.5 million words the Talmud touches
on every aspect of life. For instance, it discusses whether
a person who is walking on a moving platform that is going
in the opposite direction would be breaking the Sabbath if
his position relative to the ground remained the same. Einstein
admits that this gave him the idea for his theory of relativity.
the end of Persian rule Mazdakite fanatics made life unbearable
for the Jews who, in time, invited and gave decisive help
to the Moslem conquest of Iraq and indeed of other parts of
the Middle East.
the Caliphs of Baghdad the Jews paid a head tax and enjoyed
religious and communal freedom. The authority of the Exilarch
extended, as in Persian times, to all parts of the Empire
and this office lasted until the 14th Century. Thereafter
the community was headed by a local Nasi who, until recent
times, was also always of the Davidic line. He was assisted
by a Hakham. In 1849 both positions were united in a Hakham
Bashi (Chief Rabbi).
establish a Jewish Middle class in Europe Charlemagne had
asked Harun al-Rashid to send Jewish teachers. These came
with Rabbi Machir who was given by Charlemagne a Princedom
in Narbonne and was known as King of the Jews. With the fall
of Saad Addawla, the Jewish Chancellor of the Mogul
Empire, the Jews suffered terribly at the hands of the populace
in the pogrom of 1291 and many were forced to embrace Islam,
a process which was repeated on several occasions in Iraq
fortunes started to improve after the Ottoman re-conquest
of 1638, whose army included many Jewish officers and men.
(Some sources say 10,000 Jewish officers and men out of a
total army of 100,000).
the Great War the Jews of Iraq were betrayed first by the
Allies who handed over the country to Arab rule and then by
the Arabs who, in a short time, proceeded to discriminate
against the other national groups the Kurds, Jews,
centuries the Treasury of Iraq was in Jewish hands. Under
Ottoman rule the head of the community was ex-officio Treasurer
(Sarraf Bashi) of the country. This tradition was continued
in the early years of modern Iraq when Sir Sasson Heskel held
the Finance Ministry in several governments. In the 1920s
and 30s over 50% of the trade and finance was in Jewish
hands but by the 50s this had dropped to less than 10%.
From 1820 Iraqi Jews spread out to India, Australia, the Far
East and Europe. The Rashid Ali pogrom of 1941 decided the
community that there was no future in Iraq. In the mass emigration
of 1950/51 Aliya Ezra and Nehemia and thereafter the majority
left for Israel but the better-off went to Europe and America
where there now are about 40,000, of whom about 7,000 are
in the UK, including our brethren from India who have faithfully
kept to the Baghdadian tradition.
fact that our community was divided in this way does not relieve
us of our responsibilities towards the needy who ended up
mainly in Israel.
is a pity that Israel does not make full use of the fact that
thirty years ago there was an exchange of populations - the
800,000 Palestinian Arabs who left Israel and the 800,000
Jews from Arab countries who came to Israel. While Israel
absorbed its refugees, Arab countries deliberately kept theirs
in camps to be used as a lever against Israel.
the Jews arrive in Israel as Olim, they leave the Arab countries
mostly under duress.
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