The Jewish population of Baghdad, which numbered 130,000 five
decades ago, is now down to less than a minyan according to a
New York Times report. The handful of Jews remaining
in the Iraqi capital live in fear and are very reluctant to
have their names published or be interviewed in person. Over
the course of several months one reporter corresponded with a
40- year-old Jew who referred to himself as "Saleh's
grandson" to avoid being identified by the Shiite extremists
in his neighborhood. A former car salesman, he describes
himself as "a rabbi, a shochat and one of the heads of
the Jewish community in Iraq." He is proud to be a Jew, he
says.
He says the last beis knesses in the city was closed
in 2003 after it became too dangerous to gather openly. He
prays at home and feels he has no future in his home country:
there's nobody for him to marry and he cannot wear a yarmulke
outside. He stays close to home because at checkpoints, which
are often manned by death squads, he would have to present
his ID card, which lists his religion. In his own
neighborhood he is protected by Muslim neighbors who have
known his family for decades.
"Saleh's grandson" has relatives living outside of Iraq who
urge him to join them. By 1951 most Iraqi Jews had fled the
country in Operation Ezra and Nechemia, which brought 120,000
Jews to Eretz Yisroel to escape the antisemitic pogroms
rampant in Iraq from 1949 to 1952.
His mother passed away 20 years ago, his older brother
emigrated in 1991 and his father was brought to Israel at the
age of 82 when the Jewish Agency assisted some of the last
members of the community to leave in 2003. He says among the
handful of Jews remaining in the city are two doctors and a
few unemployed people living off of handouts. When someone
passes away or needs urgent assistant, they gather
together.
Babylonian Jewry was founded 2,400 years ago following the
Destruction of the Second Temple. In 1908 the government
granted the Jews equal rights, religious freedom and
parliamentary representation, but in the 1940s reports of the
Zionist movement and the founding of the State of Israel
brought harsh reactions, driving many Jews to other
countries. The few who remained left following the Gulf War
in 1991.
At the end of 1994 Arab newspapers published in London
reported that 50 Jewish families were living in Baghdad.
Their communal life surrounded the Meir Tweig Synagogue,
which drew 25 congregants on Shabbos and no more than 50 on
holidays. Yitzchak Ezra Abdallah was head of the community.
The last reported wedding took place in 1978. Generally young
couples left the country to marry and rarely returned to
Iraq.
Following the invasion of coalition forces and the fall of
Saddam Hussein in 2003, other remnants of Iraqi Judaism were
uncovered. In the basements of the Iraqi intelligence
organization US soldiers fond an archive of the Jewish
community. The archive, which was flooded during the war,
includes documents that were preserved for up to 500
years.
