The Story of Iraqi Jews

In 1948 there were 150,000 Jews living in Iraq, comprising a community that was two and half millennia old. By 2021 there were exactly four.

What were the circumstances that led to this ancient community suddenly leaving Iraq?

Their story is helpful in understanding the history of the Jewish people.

Jews Seek Refuge in Babylonia

Jews fled to Babylonia from Israel following the destruction of the first temple in 586 BCE. The majority of Jews in Babylonia could trace their roots to these peoples. When the Romans destroyed the second temple in 70 CE, even more Jews immigrated to Babylonia.

In Babylonia, they built a community that sustained itself for 2,500 years.

While living in Babylonia, they maintained their culture and traditions. They became a “state within a state” and were ruled by an exilarch (Chief of the Diaspora) who had high political status. This arrangement was renewed for many hundreds of years, through multiple reigns and periods.

By many accounts the Jews in Babylonia flourished. They grew in wealth and influence. They worked in agriculture and were artisans and traders. They were active in Babylonian civic life. Babylonia became a spiritual center for Judaism.

The Jews were also never fully secure in their position in Babylonia. Each new ruler meant needing to renew commitments to their safety, and that did not always happen. During the Umayyad caliphate they could not build synagogues; under Muslim rule, they paid a jizbya tax to secure their safety; facing persecution under Turkish rule in the 19th century, many fled Babylonia for Persia, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Some also went back to Jerusalem.

British Mandate Onwards

The first World War brought many changes to Babylonia and the Jews living there.

The British Mandate initially brought better security to the Jews. Under the reign of King Faisal I, many Jews played a key role in the government and in trade. They were allowed to teach Hebrew in schools alongside Arabic, English, and French. The 1924 Iraqi constitution guaranteed equality before the law, freedom of worship, equal civil rights and access to government posts, and establishment of minority language.

So what happened?

The 1930s marked a turning point.

First was the growing Arab nationalist movement in the late 1920s and early 1930s. This movement sought, among other things, independence from colonial Europeans, and was strongly opposed to the Zionist movement to create a Jewish homeland in Israel; it coincided with formative years in the creation of a Palestinian identity. Baghdad was a center of the Arab nationalist movement.

Many Iraqi Jews were not Zionists, nevertheless many Iraqi Arabs considered them so, by virtue of them being Jewish.

Second was the introduction of Nazis. From 1932 - 1939, Fritz Grobba served as Germany’s representative to Iraq. Iraqi Arabs were at this point feverishly anti-British, and so were receptive to the Nazi’s presence. Antisemitic propaganda was introduced into schools, newspapers, and radio. Mein Kempf was translated into Arabic and published in local newspapers.

The Mufti of Jerusalem, Han Amin al- Husayni, exiled in Baghdad, played a role in strengthening Nazi ties and fomenting anti Jewish agitation.

Iraqi Jews, who had aligned themselves to the British thinking it would bring greater security, now found themselves on the wrong side of the fight.

Tolerance Turns to Persecution

Starting in 1929, Jews started to be removed from government positions. This accelerated into the 1930s. King Faisal’s death in 1933 led to his son Ghazi taking control, who further promoted Arab nationalism.

The 1930s saw increased violence and uprisings against Jews, aligned to anti-Zionist sentiments, despite repeated attempts of the Iraqi Jewish community to convince their Arab neighbors that they were not Zionists.

This violence culminated in the 1941 Farhud pogrom. The episode began as an attempted coup instigated by Arab nationalist Rashid Ali al-Gaylani against the pro-British government, that resulted in a one-month battle against the British.

It failed.

Violence erupted almost immediately upon the signing of an armistice with the British and Gaylani fleeing Iraq. For two days, mobs looted, murdered, raped, and fired upon the Iraqi Jews. The police joined them. Official accounts put the death toll at 110 Jews, unofficial accounts were at 150 or higher.

The pogrom shattered the Iraqi Jews, and called them to question whether they had a future in Iraq. But they were prevented by the government from leaving for Israel. The country returned to economic prosperity during World War II and the government tried to make some amends to the Jewish population, but the sense of precariousness in the community was not assuaged.

Iraqi Jews now faced greater persecution. By the mid-1940s, the government sought active measures to cut Iraqi Jews out of economic life and replace them with non-Jews.

The establishment of a new Israeli state in 1948, and the immediate declaration of war against it by Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Transjordan, meant things got even worse: home searches, destruction and / or confiscation of property, arrests, barred admission to high schools and colleges, and allegations of communist affiliations.

Zionism was declared illegal, alongside anarchism, Nazism, Communism, and atheism. These were punishable by death, hard labor for life, or 15 years imprisonment. Suspected Jews were arrested and tortured into confessions.

Finally, in 1950, Iraq allowed its Jews to leave upon condition of relinquishing their Iraqi citizenship. Between May 1950 and August 1951, the Israeli government airlifted ~110,000 Jews to Israel.

By 1955, the Chief Rabbi of Baghdad estimated all but 5,000 had left.

Lessons for Today

The first lesson is that there is no practical difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. All Jews in Iraq were targeted regardless of their views on the State of Israel. Iraqi Jews were not early Zionists and went to great lengths to communicate this position to their Arab peers. They were persecuted all the same.

Furthermore, whether the perpetrators of the Farhud self-identified as antisemitic or “merely” anti-Zionist is irrelevant: they saw Jews as legitimate targets for their violence. That is antisemitism.

The second lesson is the need for a Jewish homeland. Iraqi Jews had 2,500 years of history in Babylonia. That should have been long enough to establish permanence and agency over their destiny. But despite all their history and contributions to the economy and society, they were never secure.

And when their rulers finally turned against them, they were helpless.

A third lesson is that the history of the Jewish people across the world is one of continually being forced out of one home and seeking refuge in another, or being eliminated. After 2,000 years, the founding of Israel finally provided a home for the Jewish people.

By the end of 1952, close to 740,000 Jews had immigrated to Israel. Among these were 377,000 from Muslim countries, including Iraq.

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