The Jews of Iraq

Tragedy-to-glory-to-tragedy in many acts … new hope and rebirth David Sheena, Ph. D.

Dedicated to the memory of my sister Janet Schapira (Sheena) z”l

A fantastic story

I was an “extra,” a minimal player in one of

the great dramas to play out on the world

stage. The stage was Babylon or Iraq or

Mesopotamia; Jews have many names for

everything. I personally entered the story at

its end, just before the curtain was falling for

the final time. And as the Torah enjoins us

to learn and hallow our history:

Remember the days of old.

Consider the years of many generations;

Ask thy father and he will declare unto thee,

Thine elders, and they will tell thee.

(Deut 32:7)

I learned more about how I came to be there.

And in the process of my bittersweet educa-

tion, I learned that most of our Jewish life is

founded on Babylonian invention and has

been guided by Babylonian institutions.

When we sit in a synagogue, using a prayer

book, following a liturgy, on a schedule de-

termined by a calendar, guided by Talmudic

precepts, we become aware of some of the

most wondrous and powerful institutions

that our people or any people have devel-

oped. And Babylon “invented” them all or

was the major participant.

And, now, we can be struck by the drama of

the pictures most of you have seen of the

epilogue to this glory of Iraqi Jewish culture,

pitiful scenes of the last two or three dozen

remaining broken Iraqi Jews left in Baghdad

at the end Saddam’s regime.

What a fantastic and improbable story that

got us here!

The First Jew

The first Jew was an Iraqi Jew, or, in any

case, he came from the land that was to be-

come modern day Iraq.

Of course, he was our first Patriarch.

Abraham was commanded to leave the land

of his birth in order to found an enduring

and universally valid way of life. It was

thanks to this affinity with Mesopotamia,

which goes back far into the past, that the

people of Israel were able to fulfill their

unique mission. The credit for giving Israel

its all-important start, physically and cultur-

ally, belongs to ancient Mesopotamia.

Around the year 1850 BCE, an emigration

by a group of Arameans took place from Ur

of the Chaldees in Sumeria, a powerful, col-

orful and busy capital city situated halfway

between Baghdad and the Persian Gulf. So

Abraham was a citizen of a great city and

inherited the traditions of an old and highly

organized civilization

The family of Abraham wandered North to

Harran in upper Mesopotamia and then to

Canaan, where they brought with them the

influences of Babylonian culture, law and

tradition.

Biblical stories regarding the Creation, the

Flood, and the Tower of Babel have striking

parallels in Babylonian literature, and show

that the Hebrew tribes were influenced by

Mesopotamian culture during their stay in

that area. The social and legal backgrounds

of the patriarchal narratives likewise reveal

cultural contacts with Mesopotamian legal

tradition. Elements of Jewish hymnal and

wisdom literature, along with certain cultic

practices, also stem from the period of the

tribes’ stay in the land between Ur and

Harran.

2

We also know about the similarities between

the law-giving tradition of Moses in Sinai

and that of Hammurabi in Babylonia.

Many of the names of the Hebrew months

we use to this day are Babylonian, and our

lunar calendar with its intercalations, i.e. the

addition of leap months, to keep track with

the solar year is also Babylonian in origin.

All the marriage, inheritance and birthright

stories in Genesis have their origins in

Babylonian law. For example, the younger

sons who do not inherit, may receive some

payment and be sent off so as not to contest

the prime inheritor, as in the stories of Isaac

and Ishmael and again with Jacob and Esau.

The first travels in Iraq It is possible that the flight from Ur coin-

cided with the destruction of Ur by the

Elamites around 1960 BCE. Terah, Abra-

ham’s father died in Harran, and Abraham

went on to find G-d, separate from his fa-

thers, G-d for whom justice and righteous-

ness were of supreme concern.

Our history now ends its connection to

“Iraq” for a while with the period of our so-

journ in Egypt, the Exodus, the period of the

Judges, the rules of the Kings and the rend-

ing of the nation into Israel and Judah.

More Iraqi geography in the Torah It was clear in the Bible from the very first

chapter that we were “born” in Iraq, in the

Garden of Eden. It is possible that Eden is

the name of a plain or a steppe, Edinu, wa-

tered by the two rivers Tigris and Euphrates.

These were two of the four rivers that went

out of Eden, the rivers many of us have

swam and rowed in, the Hiddekel (al-Dijla),

and the Euphrates.

Four great civilizations grew in Mesopota-

mia, and they are all in the Torah. In the

third millennium BCE, the cradle of civiliza-

tion gave birth to Sumeria in the south

(where writing was invented) and Akkad in

the north. The next century produced the

descendants of these two great civilizations,

Assyria and Babylon.

The Torah continues. Our genealogy, issu-

ing from Noah (Genesis X: 9-11), reads like

a map and historical summary of these cul-

tures

He was a mighty hunter before the Lord;

wherefore it is said: 'Like Nimrod (see map)

a mighty hunter before the Lord.'

And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel

(Babylon, see map), and Erech (Uruk, see

map), and Accad (Agade, the predecessor of

Babylon, or the land of Accad; see map),

and Calneh, in the land of Shinar (identi-

fied as Mesopotamia, or Sumeria; see map).

Out of that land went forth Asshur (Assyria;

see map), and builded Nineveh (near Mosul;

see map), and Rehoboth-ir, and Calah (pos-

sibly Nimrud)

The next “Iraqi” connection – Assyria –

Are the tribes really lost? The superpower of the time was Assyria,

from northern Iraq, seated in Nineveh - It

was the locale of the story of the Prophet

Jonah who was sent by G-d to warn the in-

habitants of Nineveh, and was located near

the current Mosul of recent news. Assyria

rose up to challenge and annex its surround-

ings.

The kingdom of Israel was made a tributary

of Assyria in the year 745 BCE. After peri-

ods of acquiescence and rebellion, Israel

was laid waste in the year 721 BCE. The

people of Israel were exiled. And here we

have the question of the ten lost tribes.

What happened to them? We know from

later history that the exiles of Judah sur-

vived. After all, here we are.

.

It may be interesting to note, in reverse his-

tory, that we see the hand of Saddam Hus-

sein. He is from the town of Tikrit, and is

descended from a people racially related to

the Assyrians. And, unlike the later Babylo-

nians we will encounter, the Assyrians were

a powerful and cruel people. The tribes of

3

See Harran, Ashur, Nineneh, Caleh above, and Ur, Erech, Babylon, Sumer (Sh inar) and Agade

below; all place names, among others, mentioned in The Torah

4

the northern kingdom of Israel were brutally

dispersed to Syria, Assyria and Babylon. Not

having the leadership of their prophets,

princes and scribes, they dissolved into their

host populations. Some of these exiles may

have connected with later exiles from Judah.

These tribes are lost or completely ab-

sorbed, so, contrary to stories in the popular

press, there are no lost tribes to search for.

Moving on to the kingdom of Judah – the

next Iraqi connection – Babylonia Again, we have a small state caught in a

power struggle between Egypt and Babylon,

being under the rule of one or the other. And

again, tragic and politically misguided rebel-

lions brought Judah to an end. In March 597

BCE, King Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to

Jerusalem, and in that year, the city fell and

the flower of Judah’s population - along

with the king - was taken into captivity.

Thus begins our story, the story of Iraqi

Jews.

As a footnote: ever rebellious, the remnants

of Judah rose again, and a furious Nebu-

chadnezzar stormed Jerusalem again, razing

it to the ground in the year 586 BCE, one of

the events we still commemorate on Tisha

b’Av.

Although, according to the Psalmist, our

ancestors reportedly “wept by the waters of

Babylon,” they emerged purged and purified

into a new people - the Jews.

Judaism in Babylon – a surprising success

story

It took the fire of exile to produce a vibrant

and economically successful Jewish society.

It was because the Judeans saw themselves

in a special light and took a special view of

their destiny. The outlooks of Jeremiah (the

prophet of doom) and Ezekiel (the prophet

of hope) had been their strength and well-

spring.

Ezekiel, exiled to Babylonia in 597 BCE,

broke new ground for the people of Judah in

Babylon. He taught them a previously un-

heard of notion: that although the nation was

defeated, the G-d of Israel had not been de-

feated and had not abandoned them.

Ezekiel also taught and promised the hope

of individual salvation: that the righteous

will not suffer for the sins of the wicked, so

everyone had a chance regardless of the sins

of the fathers.

The tomb of the prophet Ezekiel near

Baghdad, a pilgrimage site.

The ruins of Babylon today. Saddam Hus-

sein imported Sudanese workers during

the Iran-Iraq War to restore the city and

put his name on top.

5

It was by the river Chebar (traditionally the

river Habur; see lower map) that Ezekiel

had his vision of the Throne-Chariot, the

Merkabah, an inspiration to the Jews that it

would be possible to worship G-d in exile as

well as in Jerusalem.

A second prophet also had administrative

and religious success in Babylon and later

Persia. Daniel is said to have amazed Nebu-

chadnezzar by walking out of the fiery fur-

nace, perhaps in a place near the oil fields of

modern day Kirkuk.

Monotheism and Judaism under test We must note that until the time of the

Babylonian exile, Jews, like all the other

peoples of the time, believed in a unity of

G-d with city or G-d with place, and

although our monotheism had become finely

honed by the prophets Isaiah and Habakkuk,

it was entirely another thing to test it in the

fire of exile. Historically, we had become a

detached Jewish community, and as had

happened to others, including the exiles of

northern Israel, exiles would turn to the gods

of the stranger.

But, and this is the source of the greatness of

our people, our monotheism evolved into a

universal one, where G-d was the G-d of the

Babylonians and of all people, in addition to

the Jews. G-d had become a G-d of

compassion, justice, and love. The Jews

were chosen to carry this beacon. And, the

Torah, along with later edited writings,

became a more solid rock for the people

than the hills of the actual Jerusalem.

In Babylon, among our ancestors, the “mod-

ern” Jew was born, and the concepts of galut

and aliya, exile and return, were born.

The first “America” The opportunity of return did arrive. In the

year 539 BCE, King Cyrus the Great of Per-

sia, Kouroush-e-Kabir, entered Babylon.

And, following the policy that prosperous

provinces make for greater tribute, in 538

BCE, Cyrus issued the famous decree per-

mitting the Jews to return to Jerusalem and

rebuild their Temple.

We see a surprising parallel to our own lives

here in America. The Jews in Babylon had

become comfortable and well established in

business and government in the fifty years

since the exile and were reluctant to return

to their homeland; in the same manner,

American Jews are not always eager to emi-

grate and settle in modern day Israel. In any

case, over 40,000 persons did return, and our

story continues with the population that re-

mained in Babylon – almost an equal num-

ber.

The new “inventions” of Babylon Ezekiel was not alone in seeking to impress

upon the exiles the centrality of the Torah

for their individual and national well-being.

He was probably assisted and followed by a

long line of teachers known as sofrim,

scribes who began to collect and write down

the oral traditions that contained the essence

of our religious faith and way of life.

And thus, with the appearance of the scribes

and their assumption to the role of teachers,

the school replaced the Temple and the

teacher replaced the sacrificing priest; and

most importantly, meaningful religious ob-

servance - especially Shabbat and fasting -

took the place of sacrificial rites. It was at

this time that the foundation of the syna-

gogue was laid.

The tomb of Ezra the Scribe near Basrah on

the Tigris; he established the weekly reading

of the Torah among other institutions.

6

A great experiment had succeeded, an exiled

nation had survived, and religion moved

from the hands of the priests to the hands of

the people. Sacrifice worship gave way to

synagogue prayer.

The next heroes from “Iraq”

Some historians ascribe to two Babylonian

giants of our people the Mosaic qualities of

greatness and leadership. Ezra the Scribe

and Nehemia the king’s cupbearer traveled

to Jerusalem to establish much needed re-

forms in order to revitalize the community

and make the Torah the effective constitu-

tion of the land.

Ezra’s burial place in Iraq has long been a

pilgrimage site for Iraqi Jews to this day.

Ezra and Heskel (Yehezkel) are very com-

mon Iraqi Jewish names.

Are our current-day professions Babylo-

nian in origin, and maybe the glue that

still binds us?

It appears that we owe much of our profes-

sional inclinations to the activities of the

Jews of Babylon. It was there that the occu-

pations of merchant, trader, financier and

banker were introduced to Jewry – profes-

sions we continue to favor to this day. Our

ancestors in Palestine had been peasants,

settlers, cattle breeders and small tradesmen.

There were no serious provisions for com-

merce in the Torah. It was an alien occupa-

tion; the word “Canaanite” was synonymous

with shopkeeper and merchant who were

sometimes reviled by the prophets for their

deceit.

There is a parallel here with the Babylonian

Talmud being “commercially” oriented and

the Jerusalem Talmud being “agriculturally”

oriented.

Also, there is reason to believe that the Jews

had had a love and a desire to cultivate the

land of Israel that was holy to them, whereas

they had no attachment to the land of Baby-

lon and no drive to cultivate it.

This gravitation to these “urban” professions

may have been a fortunate “cement” for our

people, because whereas farming is scat-

tered, these occupations tended to require

more communal and societal organizations

of our people, and therefore provided the

necessary critical mass for the survival of

the Jewish community. The size of the

community was very large even by today’s

standards. The Talmud estimates the Jews of

the year 70 CE to number about a million.

Estimates for two-to-five centuries later,

also approach two million. These numbers

sound surprising. Compare this number to

less than 200,000 in the final days of the

Iraqi community of the 1950’s.

Babylonians – Persians – Greeks – Seleu-

cids – Parthians – Romans – Byzantines –

Sassanians A steady stream of conquests and rebellions

weakened the Jews of Palestine and Babylo-

nia. Four centuries of Sassanian rule (227-

636) followed. Remnants of the palace of

the Sassanian Chosroes I remain an attrac-

tion near Baghdad, and my family and I are

counted among its visitors. See the Appen-

dix for a historical time line.

Babylonia assumes leadership Following the romantic but very ill-fated

Bar Kochba rebellion in 135 CE, Roman

repression succeeded in driving the Jewish

community of Palestine into poverty and

The Arch of Ctesiphon, of the Sassanians,

near Baghdad, one of the “70” wonders of

the world, and still a tourist attraction. See

below a picture of my father visiting the

Arch

7

decline. The Jewish community of Babylo-

nia was by then ready to assume intellectual

and cultural leadership. Parthian and then

Sassanian tolerance was welcoming to the

Jews living in and immigrating to Babylo-

nia. See the Appendix for a historical time

line.

Rabbinic Judaism was the outgrowth of the

Palestinian traditions subjected to a Babylo-

nian interpretation. This was a fortunate turn

of events for later centuries. The Jews of the

Diaspora critically needed it, since “Babylo-

nian Judaism” was the first functional Dias-

pora model, and until recently all world Ju-

daism was Diaspora (galut) Judaism.

The Babylonian Talmud, in addition to hav-

ing supremacy over the Palestinian Talmud,

was more focused on issues faced by “ex-

iles.” The Palestinian Talmud addressed ag-

ricultural issues, ritual purity matters, and

sacrifice and Temple rite concerns that did

not exist outside of our national homeland.

.

Encounter with Islam

In the first half of the seventh century, after

the death of Muhammad, his followers in-

vaded Mesopotamia and also conquered the

Sassanian Empire in 644. Shortly after, they

became the undisputed masters of the near

East, the southern coast of the Mediterra-

nean, and the south of Spain.

This occurred on the tail end of a period of

Persian persecution of Babylonian Jews. The

Moslems, on the other hand, had developed

a practical political tolerance for existing

institutions in order to make use of them.

The Jewish population under Islam, was tol-

erated as the “People of the Book,” believers

in the True G-d. They were designated

Dhimmis, protected people of a special

covenant with Moslems. This was a “mixed

bag.” Islam offered protection and religious

autonomy but at an economic and political

cost. The non-Moslems were politically sec-

ond-class citizens and had to pay a special

poll tax. The Exilarch, the head of the exile,

was allowed to remain. The state was de-

fined in religious terms and therefore ex-

cluded non-Moslems.

Diaspora leadership

It was at this time that the Order of Prayer

was established by Rabbi Amram, the Gaon

of the Sura Academy, in the 8th century.

The Jews of Spain, France, Germany, Italy,

and North Africa would have been com-

pletely lost, had the Jews of Babylonia not

come to their aid with material and spiritual

support. Responsa (answers to questions)

found in the Geniza of Cairo provides a rich

record of this correspondence.

The community had two heads: one) an Exi-

larch, the Resh Galuta, the (head of the ex-

ile), who was a descendant of the Davidic

line and lived and was treated royally by the

Jews and the host government; and two) the

Geonim or the heads of the prestigious acad-

emies. From the beginning of the Islamic

era, which coincided with the completion of

the work of the Talmud, until the eleventh

century, the glory of Babylonian Jewry re-

sided in the two ancient academies of Sura

and Pumbeditha (and later in Baghdad) and

in the work of their masters. In the 8th cen-

tury, Baghdad became the center of activity

for not only the Muslim empire but for the

Babylonian Jewish community.

What these institutions created was the first

equality of the individual in history based on

ability and study. Learning became the op-

erative nobility and class. The school in

Babylon made for a cultural democracy, and

the synagogue made for a religious democ-

racy.

Our literary tradition from “Iraq”

Tannaim; amoraim; saboraim; Geonim: 10-220 CE The tannaim – the teachers -

the editors of the Oral Law into

the Mishna.

220-500 CE The amoraim – the speakers -

the ones who “completed” the

Mishna by adding the Gemara;

the Mishna and the Gemara

comprised the Babylonian

Talmud.

8

500-650 CE The Saboraim - the explainers

and expounders.

650-1038 CE The Geonim (sages) – heads of

the academies.

Hillel, the renowned teacher and counterfoil

to Herod in the first century, was “Hillel

haBavli,” the Babylonian.

Saadia Gaon The appearance on the scene of the first

“heretics,” the Karaites in the 8th century

with their anti-Talmudism, resulted in a re-

sponse from the most notable of geonim

Saadia Gaon who in 921 established the cal-

endar we currently use. He edited the stan-

dard prayer book, and he wrote the Book of

Doctrines and Beliefs, a precursor to Mai-

monides’ Guide to the Perplexed.

The pressure becomes too great – the pe-

riod of tragedy begins - decline of the

Geonim

Many forces happened upon the scene to

begin to grind away at the established order.

There was infighting within the Exilarchate,

and the Karaites were draining some of the

community’s energies. New centers of rab-

binic scholarship in Spain, North Africa and

the East had sprung up to challenge Babylo-

nian eminence. The decline of Baghdad and

the Abbasid Caliphate were external forces.

The Academy of Sura closed in the 11th cen-

tury CE and the Gaonate ended in 1038 CE

The next force was so great that the surprise

is that there was any subsequent recovery at

all. Hulagu, grandson of Genghis Khan the

Mongol, took Baghdad in 1258. (In an

interesting twist of history, he named a Jew

Sa’d al-Dawla as governor – the first since

The Jewish Iraqi presence in the golden Talmudic age; see the three great academies of Sura,

Pumbeditha, and Nehardea; the last being the name of the current publication of the Babylo-

nian Jewry Heritage Center in Israel

9

Joseph. Anti-Jewish resentment among the

Moslems - the beginning- brought about his

death.)

By the middle of the thirteenth century the

Gaonate ceased to exist either as a historical

record or as a fact. Conditions in Mesopo-

tamia faded into the dark ages. After the

Mongol conquest of 1258, the creative work

of Babylonian Jewry was done, and the

Babylonian center fell into a period of deep

slumber. Their words however, reverberated

in North Africa and Europe.

Our own dark ages – the glory fades The Mongols managed to end the Caliphate,

Baghdad’s glory and the glory of its Jewish

community. Some estimates put their killing

at up to 2,000,000. The Jews are almost not

heard from at that time. And Babylonia,

which had hosted a peak population of per-

haps up to two million Jews, had little Jew-

ish population left to reckon with. Nothing

was ever the same again. Jewish persecu-

tions at that period probably put a temporary

end to Jewish presence in the city of Bagh-

dad.

Legacy

In particular, a lasting facet of the cultural

heritage of Babylonian Jewry was the deci-

sive role it played in the rise and efflores-

cence of Judeo-Arabic culture in Muslim

Spain. The Legacy left by Spanish Jewry –

later known as the Golden Age of Jewish

culture – would not have been possible

without the contributions made by the Rab-

bis of Sura, Baghdad and Pumbeditha. The

Jews of Spain followed the Babylonian and

not the Palestinian Talmud and imitated

Babylonian Jewry in every aspect even in

the pronunciation of Hebrew. That is why

oriental Jews (as Jews from Arab Lands are

called) are referred to as Sephardic Jews.

Babylonian Jews gave law, Midrash, poetry,

philosophy, and grammar. They transmitted

the basic strong tenets of our observance and

community to the west:

• The idea that an ignorant man cannot be

an observant one.

• The concept that man’s life, although

worldly, is dedicated to G-d.

• The belief that all Israelites are

brothers.

• The hope of a messianic future humanity

that will recognize the value of Jewish

contribution to civilization.

Recovery but not former glory

The Ottomans, the hosts of the exiles of

Spanish Expulsion of 1492 A quick list of invaders includes various

Mongols, Turkmans, Persians, Safawis, Ot-

tomans, and the British in World War I. The

Ottomans came in 1534 with Suleiman the

Magnificent. There were also decimating

“invasions” of plagues in 1743, 1773, and

1831,

Life for the Jewish Community under the

Ottoman Turks was for the most part toler-

able and hospitable to growth. The Otto-

mans knew that they had many minorities in

their empire and tried to deal with them.

They were the ones who welcomed the

Spanish exiles in 1492. By the middle of the

sixteenth century, the Jewish community of

Baghdad began to reassert its existence. It

was a mixed bag under the Ottomans. There

was no ghetto, and there was significant

autonomy. There were 6,000 Jews living in

Baghdad in the 1st quarter of the 19

th cen-

tury.

Jews, however, were subject to the whims of

the local walis (governors), and, on too

many other occasions, the caprice of outside

intruders such as the Mamalukes.

A small revival In 1808 Sultan Mahmud II instituted reforms

which were salutary to the Jewish popula-

tion. There were rebirths of some commerce,

Rabbinic scholarship, and Torah study.

Some Yeshivot were opened for the first

time in five centuries, in 1840.

You can’t tell a man by his hat This same Sultan, Mahmud II, introduced

the Fez to all his subjects to make everyone

- even the Jews – indistinguishable from one

10

another. King Faisal I of Iraq later intro-

duced the Sidara. In both cases, the purpose

was to disassociate from the past culture and

to build a new community. See the photo-

graphs of my grandfather in the Fez and my

father in the Sidara. Hats played an impor-

tant role in many communities, and head-

dress for Jews was borrowed from the native

population. Below is a picture of Rabbi Yo-

sef Hayim wearing the eastern turban. Rab-

bis in Britain wore top hats, and today we

identify an entire community of Jews as

“black hats.”

An interesting footnote of history regarding

the community of hats: Kemal Ataturk, the

father of modern Turkey (the descendant of

the Ottoman Empire), broke tradition with

the Fez and introduced the cap to the Turks

to bring Turkey into Europe. He also discon-

tinued the use of the Arabic alphabet.

Western Civilization arrives

In 1864, the Paris-based Alliance Israelite

Schools, which brought western culture,

opened in Baghdad and in other cities. It

was a double-edged sword. It provided a

fine modern education and prepared the

Jewish population to be able to enter the

twentieth century. However this was done

at the expense of drawing students away

from their religious studies.

Western civilization was being felt, and the

Jews were there to receive it. The famous

David Sassoon dynasty built commerce,

learning and philanthropy in the nineteenth

century between Baghdad, India, and Brit-

ain. By World War I, The Jews had recov-

ered to form the largest single group

(80,000) in Baghdad. They controlled the

commerce, banking, and civil service sectors

of the country.

The Ben Ish Hai I take great personal pride that my great

great-uncle is the Hakham Yosef Hayim,

known by his pen name, the Ben Ish Hai,

after his books. I trace my lineage to him

through his brother Hakham Yehezkel, the

father of my maternal grandmother. The Ben

Ish Hai, who died in 1910, is still the Hala-

chic authority for the oriental Jews in Israel

and in this country. Many modern day

Sephardic siddurim state that they are in ac-

cordance to the Ben Ish Hai.” His halachot,

laws, are studied today in synagogues from

Boston to Paris, and there is currently in

Great Neck, New York, the Midrash Ben Ish

Hai, a synagogue named after him.

My paternal grandparents, Sassoon and

Loulou, at their wedding around 1900, with

my grandfather wearing the Turkish Fez.

Photograph of my father Salim. In the

1940’s, at the Arch of Ctesiphon, wearing

an Iraqi Sidara introduced by King Faisal

11

The final act The British had a mandate over Iraq and

“created” the country of Iraq in 1932. Those

decades were the cauldrons of Zionism,

Communism, Nazism and nationalism, and

Iraq felt them all. Zionism was a small force,

and for the most part Iraqi Jews made much

of their public displays of citizenship and

loyalty.

Again, it was a “mixed bag,” with various

periods of calm and repression. The Jewish

community, sensing the future, tried in vain,

to dissuade the British from granting inde-

pendence or at least to give British citizen-

ship to the Jews, as the French had done in

North Africa. Interestingly, however, it was

a Jewish finance minister, Sassoon Heskel

who negotiated with Churchill for the inde-

pendence of Iraq.

In 1941, anti-British sentiment brought

about a coup and a pro-Nazi government. A

riot known as the farhud (looting), on Sha-

vuot took almost 200 Jewish lives. In true

historical complexity, the Shiite leader of

the time ordered his followers to not partici-

pate.

Ezra and Nehemia once again

After a relative calm, came executions, ter-

rorization, and firings – the Jews were seen

as being associated with Israel which had

defeated Iraq. Jewish life in Iraq was no

longer tenable.

Iraqi Jews started to emigrate clandestinely,

and in 1950, laws of surrender of Iraqi Na-

tionality were promulgated. This meant that

Jews could renounce their citizenship and

leave for”parts unknown” (the word Israel

would never be publicly stated). Virtually

the entire Jewish population registered to

leave. In a cruel trick at the last minute, the

government froze the assets of the departing

Jews, and in an instant, they were rendered

penniless. This was the second exodus. Is-

rael was the moving force behind the trans-

porting of Iraqi Jews to Israel. This was

dubbed Operation Ezra and Nehemia, after

the leaders of the Babylonian Jews who led

them to Israel under the Persians in 539

BCE.

After almost three millennia, only 6,000

Jews were left in Iraq, and I was one of

them.

Some painful thoughts. Where are we

now? What happened? I once asked the eminent Iraqi historian Dr.

Elie Khedoorie z”l “what happened? Where

is the ancient prominence and glory? We

wrote the books.” We Iraqis are poorly rep-

resented in the institutions of the Diaspora.

There are Iranian synagogues, Syrian syna-

gogues, and Egyptian synagogues, among

others, but if it were not for the heroic ef-

forts of the founders and leaders of Bene

Naharayim and the Babylonian Jewish Cen-

ter, there may not be any synagogues of our

community outside Israel. So what hap-

pened?

My great great-uncle, the modern day ha-

lachic luminary, Hakham Yosef Hayim,

known as the Ben Ish Hai after his major

work.

12

Some possible answers:

Dr. Khedoorie said that every institution has

to hand over its mantle of leadership some-

time, and the Mongols, among others, did a

good job of helping that along.

Rabbi Ya’aqob Menashe of the Midrash

Ben Ish Hai told me that he puts the root

cause at the hands of the Alliance school

which influenced the Iraqis to become cos-

mopolitan and to become more culturally

assimilated. In support of that notion, I note

that the majority of the populations of the

Iranian and Syrian synagogues do not come

from the capital cities of Teheran and Da-

mascus, but rather from places like Bukhara

in Uzbekistan and such towns as Isfahan,

Shiraz, and Kerman in Iran or Halab in

Syria. Whereas, we Iraqis in America are,

for the most part, from the capital city of

Baghdad. It is also possible that the more

“western” professions of the Iraqi Jews fa-

cilitated more integration in America’s cul-

tural life. Clearly such professions as medi-

cine, law, pharmacy, and international trade

are more likely to be studied and practiced

in a capital city than in one of the outlying

towns.

My cousin and Bene Naharayim member,

Sami Kattan, puts the cause into an interest-

ing historical perspective; he told me to just

look at the original Babylonian galut; we

assimilated then, and have been doing it ever

since.

I have one more hypothesis to add, and that

is the peculiar Iraqi character. When I came

to America and looked in wonder at the fan-

tastic country that the westerners had cre-

ated. I told myself that we are equally intel-

ligent, wise and capable, so how could they

have accomplished so much, and we did

not? The answer struck me to be that that

they know how to work together and we do

not. Iraqis tend to be individualistic, and

somewhat resentful of leadership authority.

Why else did it take fifty years to build a

synagogue for our community? Since I came

to America, we had been meeting for holi-

days in one hotel after another until we fi-

nally built a spiritual home, our synagogue.

It is my deep wish that our communal

“homes” in America will help to keep us

Jewish and with enough taste of our Baby-

lonian essence.

Wanting to forget … then needing to re-

member A phenomenon that Iraqi Jews experienced,

both in America and in Israel, was the desire

of immigrant young people to fit in: to stop

speaking our special Judeo-Arabic, to forget

our “Arab” history, and to become Ameri-

can or Israeli as the case may be. History,

however, has to be viewed with the benefit

of the passage of time, and fortunately that

has happened.

Iraqi Jews today - in Israel and in America -

do want to learn more about their unique

heritage, take pride in it, and keep it alive

for the next generation before it completely

slips away

Some communal hope for the future Having described the historical pain, I want

to put it behind and be part of the rejuvena-

tion of the Jewish future in America, Israel,

and the world, and to work hard to maintain

our part of the Jewish kaleidoscope and rain-

bow. It is vital to define our place in the new

century - which puts so much emphasis on

the “new.” I am proud that there are now

two Babylonian synagogues in New York,

Congregation Bene Naharayim in Jamaica

Estates and the Babylonian Jewish Center

in Great Neck.

These two institutions appear to be keenly

aware of their duty at this time in history;

they are the guardians and the keepers of our

heritage. In addition to Babylonian services,

siddurim, and hazzanut (cantorial chants),

every attempt is made by their leaders to

celebrate all the different Jewish holidays

according to the Iraqi tradition in matters of

food, music, and customs that accompany

special yearly cycle celebrations. There are

13

cultural events and activities to connect the

American Iraqi-Jewish community with its

history. There is work going on at this time

in the wake of the second Gulf war to “res-

cue” as much as possible of the Judaica that

was abandoned in Iraq or confiscated by the

government there.

Along with the Babylonian Jewry Heritage

Center in Or Yehuda (Israel), and the Scribe

publication in London (see websites in the

references section), these institutions offer

our hope to remain linked to our past as we

hope to nourish our special Babylonian

links.

Wedding picture of my maternal grand-

mother, Mouzli Bassous, the niece of the

Ben Ish Hai, on the cover of Nehardea, the

publication of the Babylonian Jewry Heri-

tage Center in Or Yehuda (Israel), in an

issue featuring Baghdadi Jewish Women,

in 1993.

14

My Personal Journal of Iraqi of Recollections

My grandfather and the Turks As the Ottomans gave the Jews civil equal-

ity, this equality came at a price: conscrip-

tion. My grandfather was drafted to fight the

British in World War I. It was a march from

which many did not return. The sentiment of

the Jews was, of course with the “liberating”

British, and my grandfather “deserted” the

Ottoman army, and stayed to do business

with them. The fortunes of war changed, and

he was arrested by the Turks and sentenced

to be executed. He escaped and long adven-

tures and travel in the wilderness, he showed

up in Baghdad looking like a wild man.

Fear

As a child, I was keenly aware of our posi-

tion as Jews in a Moslem country. We were

educated, economically well-off, and part of

the cultural elite of the country. Our life was

rich and substantial, but we had to be dis-

crete, watchful and inconspicuous. We did

not advertise our Judaism. There were no

Jewish stars, no openly displayed Hebrew,

and our sissioth had no Jewish identifica-

tion. It was such a surprise for me in Amer-

ica to first hear someone say publicly out

loud “give this to the Rabbi.” That is when I

knew I was in America.

I remember the vague fear that was felt eve-

rywhere and the stories being told around

1950 of houses being targeted for searches

for any Zionist connection – not much was

needed for an excuse. My mother and father,

I recall with my curiosity of the time “sani-

tized” our house and burned anything that

Throngs of Jews waiting to register to re-

nounce their citizenship and leave penniless to

Israel in 1950. The scene is outside my syna-

gogue, Meir Tweig, the last now remaining in

Baghdad, and the one I attended with my fa-

ther and grandmother.

“Staged” photograph of my paternal grandfa-

ther Sassoon after his escape from the Turks in

World War I.

15

could be incriminating in a little fire in the

kitchen.

I remember the dislocation and havoc of the

Exodus of 1950. The lines of people regis-

tering to leave; the rush to sell belongings –

jewelry was being sold on grocers’ scales. I

can still see that day of panic when every-

one’s property was frozen. My relatives

were leaving with four or more layers of

clothes, because that was all they could take.

Yet there was a hope of a return to our land

of Israel that kept the spirit alive in many.

A relative calm Until my family and I left Baghdad in 1955,

I was a protected child. So after that period

of upheaval, I was able to enjoy and absorb

what the country offered, which, in perspec-

tive, at its worst, did not approach the hor-

rors of many a European country.

Our language was Judeo-Arabic, a Hebra-

ized Arabic, which our family spoke here in

America. Jews took the flavor of their host

nations in language, dress, food, music, and

customs. Our rabbis wore turbans like the

Moslem clerics.

The Jewish community, in the Turkish style,

ran its autonomous institution under the

Chief Rabbi, who had to walk a fine line

between the Moslem authorities and the

community to try to keep the peace, fre-

quently raising the ire of one or the other.

Still, I remember being awed when he vis-

ited my father accompanied by two Iraqi

policemen provided for him, a small rem-

nant of the glory afforded the Exilarch a

thousand years before.

The community ran its own schools, rab-

binic courts, hospitals, ritual baths, the vari-

ous services for the needy, and so on. It sup-

ported itself largely by a tax on kosher meat.

All civil documents of birth, marriage, etc.

were the responsibility of the community.

The Christian communities operated simi-

larly.

I did visit the ruins of Babylon as a child,

but I did not know enough to hear the ech-

oes of the old Jewish glories cry out to me. I

do not believe that there was an awareness

among the people of their own historic place

in history, being preoccupied with everyday

survival. And I did visit the Arch of Ctesi-

phon, of the Sassanians and again I did not

connect it with our history. In the Iraqi civ-

ics studies prescribed by the ministry of

education, we were taught about the Jews

being Muhammad’s adversaries in his strug-

gles. We were duly put in our place.

The rest my education in the Jewish schools

(only one or two were left in my time) was a

bright star. I learned Arabic, French, Eng-

lish, and Hebrew, and academic subjects

taught in each of them. All my fellow stu-

dents showed their mettle in the universities

of America and England. Most businessmen,

like my father, spoke half a dozen lan-

guages.

At the end of our sojourn in Iraq, I used to

accompany my father to the many govern-

ment departments, as he tried to get us pass-

ports to leave the country. I learned a great

deal about the fine art of bribery.

Religious life in Iraq – an exercise in

moderation and courtesy Since a Jew in that world did not have to

work at being Jewish (as we must do now in

America), Jewish life was gentle and pleas-

ant, without the excessive need to be obser-

vant in the same extreme practiced by some

of our Ashkenazi co-religionists. There was

only one type of being “Jewish” with no

factions or divisions as here or in Israel. Of

course, I am referring about different times

that no longer exist.

Eastern Jewish life had an ease about it that

was different from the European mode, per-

haps because of the weather and generally

more hospitable host countries. So women

did not wear wigs, and men wore either tra-

ditional or western dress. Rules of modesty

notwithstanding, women were not hidden

16

away. If I may be permitted a vernacular

usage, Iraqi Jews were not “uptight” about

their Judaism.

The synagogue had its special etiquette.

People stood up when the Rabbi passed, and

I as a child, kissed his hand. People would

not cross their legs in the synagogue, but

could use snuff. Aliyot were auctioned so

that the synagogue honors were available to

anyone and not decided by a group or com-

mittee.

The Sephardic synagogue is arranged in a

parlor style and not a theater form. The Te-

bah (Bimah) is in the middle with seats all

round. In the summer, services would be

open-air, outside.

Shabbat services began early, and people got

home in time for breakfast. Some of my

fondest memories are of walking home, with

my father, after Havdala on mosaei Shabbat,

and seeing the Moslem bakeries which were

especially open then to sell to the Jews.

The prayer book we use for Shabbat is about

80% the same as the traditional Ashkenazi

prayer books. This is not quite the case for

Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur mahazorim

which are fleshed thick with special poetry

and supplications. The biggest differences

between Eastern and Western synagogues is

that in the East, every word is said aloud,

except, of course, silent prayers – a vestige

of older times when everyone did not have a

book or could read. The other difference one

would notice is that there is a birkat ko-

hanim, the priestly blessing being offered to

the congregation at every morning service,

and twice when there is a Musaf.

I remember very fondly our personal greet-

ing “cards” on the holidays. I used to ac-

company my father as we went from relative

to relative to family friend to deliver holiday

wishes, and being served coffee and candy

in each place.

The other holiday tradition I miss is the cus-

tom of the Baghdadi Jews to visit the tomb

of the prophet Ezekiel south of Baghdad,

just as it was the custom of the Basra Jews

in the south to visit the tomb of Ezra the

Scribe.

Epilogue

Our Iraqi life continued. Most Iraqi Jews

went to Israel, where they make up the

fourth largest segment of the population

(third before the recent Russian immigra-

tion). The Iraqi community in Israel was

The interior of the Meir Tweig synagogue

I attended with my family in Baghdad. It

now houses the last few Jews in the city.

Iraqi Jews, after many years of comfort,

arrived to rationing and privation into tent

cities like this in Israel in 1950. Better

housing was allocated to the Europeans.

17

very useful for its Arabic language skills in

all of Israel’s needs in war and in negotia-

tion with the Arabs. But Israel has been a

successful melting pot, and Israelis think of

themselves as coming from a particular part

of Israel and not from a country of origin as

the do in America. It takes many questions

to extract an Israeli’s origin. There is a

strong effort to maintain the Iraqi cultural

heritage in Israel, but the advance of years is

inexorable on communal memory.

Iraqi tradition sandwiched among other

Sephardim In the Boston area as in many other cities

and communities around the US and the

world, the handfuls of Iraqi Jews can only

manage, when they care, to be part of a lar-

ger Eastern community. The community

here began as Egyptian and is now predomi-

nantly Iranian. I, along with few other Iraqis,

am very comfortable among people who

share our style and traditions.

We are all very happy that we have just ac-

quired a modest building in Brookline, for a

synagogue, where we can try to nurture our

Sephardic moderation

Loyalties Everyone is entitled to his moment of fame.

I got mine in 1991, when I was interviewed

by CNN and the Boston Globe as an Iraqi

My interview with Boston Globe in 1991 on occasion of the Gulf War. It was

a surprise to the general public that there were Iraqi Jews in America.

My son, Solomon, leads a procession, on

May 23, 2004, carrying our family Torah,

from our old rented place of worship at

Beth Zion in Brookline to our new home,

our own Sephardic synagogue, Beth Abra-

ham.

18

Jew while America was fighting “my coun-

try.” They wanted to know my feelings and

loyalties. It was my “country,” Iraq, attack-

ing my “country,” America, All while my

other “country,” Israel, was being attacked.

It was difficult to explain the views of a hos-

tage population that had much love for their

roots but not for the regimes that brutalized

the land and its people.

Childhood with my sisters and brother –

As children, my sisters Janie and Nadia, and

my brother Sami and I, lived protected from

the storms that roiled around us. Iraq was

not the cauldron of fear and dislocation of

pre-war Europe, and our family was able to

shield us.

Whenever we feel the different life in Amer-

ica, sweet childhood memories are evoked.

Sleeping under glorious starry skies on the

flat roof of our house in rainless summers;

swimming with our parents in the Tigris

River in the dark of the evening – it was not

seemly for women to swim in public; play-

ing together in our sukkah made of palm

fronds.

The snacks we used to buy from street sell-

ers would make our own children grimace.

We bought paper cones filled with sumac

and za'tar, the very sour spices, and poured

them into our throats. We bought fava

beans, mango pickles, and real hearts of

palm – the trunk of a palm tree.

My current wish

I hope that peace and stability will finally

bring healing to present day Iraq. I am wait-

ing to be able to return and visit my birth-

place, in many ways the birthplace of our

Jewish people.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Anny Dietz who developed

the “Shabbat across the World” series in

Forest Hill, New York, and who asked me to

present this material in memory of my sister

Janie, z”l.

This loving labor of setting down some per-

sonal and communal memories would be

poorer had it not been for the sharp eye and

valuable and valid corrections, insights, and

additions of my cousin, Alice Aboody, of

the Babylonian Jewish Center.

David Sheena, Ph. D.

Shebat, 5765

January, 2005

Newton, Massachusetts

19

APPENDIX

Time Line of Rulers over Babylonian Jewry

586 BCE-539 BCE Babylonians (Nebuchadnezzar)

539 BCE-331 BCE Achaemenians (Persians - Cyrus)

331 BCE-126 BCE Seleucids (Greeks – Alexander the Great)

126 BCE-227 CE Parthians (Inhabitants of Persia)

227 - 636 Sassanians (Persians)

636 -1258 Moslems (Caliphs)

1258-1336 Mongols (Genghis Khan, Hulagu)

1336-1405 Jala’ris (Mongols)

1405-1508 White Sheep Dynasty (Diyarbakr)

1508-1534 Safawis (Shiite dynasty from Persia)

1534-1917 Ottomans (Turks, Pashas, walis)

1917–1921 British Mandate (High Commissioner)

1921-1932 Iraqi monarchy under mandate (Faisal, son of Sharif Hussein proclaimed

King)

1932-1958 Various dictators, beginning with Abdul-Karim Kassem and ending with

Saddam Hussein.

1950-1951 Jewish exodus from Iraq; 107,603 Jews airlifted to Israel; significant

Jewish presence in Iraq begins to end.

2003 Less than one hundred Jews left in Iraq; some airlifted to Israel after the

second U. S. Gulf War.

20

References and bibliography:

Rejwan, Nissim, The Jews of Iraq, Weidefeld and Nicolson, London, 1985.

Saggs, H.W.F., The Babylonians, The Folio Society, 1988.

Sawdayee, Maurice, M., The Baghdad Connection, 1991.

Sassoon, David Solomon, a History of the Jews in Baghdad, 1949.

Stillman, Norman A., The Jews of Arab Lands, Jewish Publication Society, 1979.

The Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, http://www.babylonjewry.org.il/

The Scribe, Journal of Babylonian Jewry, http://www.dangoor.com/scribe.html