The Iraqi Jews

The sun is setting over a city with tall buildings_edited_edited_edited.jpg

The history of Iraqi Jews, also known as Babylonian Jews or Bavlim, which spans more than 2,600 years, is intrinsically interwoven with Mesopotamian history. Before disappearing virtually suddenly in the middle of the 20th century, the Jewish population profoundly influenced Iraq's cultural, economic, and spiritual character from their ancient exile to its enormous wealth under several caliphates.

This community was founded in 586 BCE when the Jews were exiled to Babylon. After conquering Babylon a few decades later, in 538 BCE, Cyrus of Persia issued an order permitting the Jews to return to the Land of Israel. But a sizeable section of the population chooses to stay in Mesopotamia. They formed trading networks, cultivated agriculture, and constructed strong communal organizations. By doing this, they established the groundwork for an ongoing Jewish presence that would flourish for more than two millennia.

Iraq emerged as the unquestionable center of global Judaism between the third and eleventh centuries. After the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, Mesopotamia became a scholars' center, supported by the esteemed rabbinical institutions of Sura and Pumbedita. The Babylonian Talmud, a massive compilation of law, ethics, legal arguments, and tradition, was assembled by experts in these institutions. The Babylonian Talmud continues to be the world's most authoritative source on Jewish law and religion. The leaders of these colleges, known as the Geonim, held great spiritual influence throughout the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad and led Jewish communities from Spain to Asia. Despite having Dhimmi status, which is a restricted but protected second-class citizenship, Jews had centuries of comparatively stable.

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, under Ottoman rule and later the British Mandate, the Iraqi Jewish community experienced a spectacular economic and cultural renaissance. Jews became fully integrated into modern Iraqi society. They adopted Arabic as their mother tongue, dressed in local fashions, and actively participated in public life. By the early 20th century, Jews made up more than 20% of Baghdad's population. Culturally, Jews were pioneers: brothers Saleh and Daoud Al-Kuwaity composed the foundational melodies of modern classical Iraqi music, earning immense popularity from the royal court and the public alike.

The 1930s and 1940s brought a violent fracture. Intercommunal relations started to deteriorate due to the explosive growth of pan-Arab nationalism and the intensive Nazi propaganda that was disseminated from the German consulate in Baghdad. The Farhud, which took place on June 1-2, 1941, was the pivotal moment in history. Following a failed pro-Nazi revolution, crowds used a leadership vacuum to launch a violent, two-day pogrom against Baghdad's Jewish community. Over 180 Jews were killed, hundreds were injured, women were beaten, and houses and businesses were routinely robbed. With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the situation significantly worsened. The Iraqi government transformed the Jewish residents into "internal enemies" and joined the military alliance against the fledgling state. Zionism was made a capital crime punishable by death. Jews' freedom of movement was severely restricted, their bank accounts were frozen, and they were expelled from public service.

In response to intense pressure, the Iraqi parliament unexpectedly passed a measure in 1950 that allowed Jews to leave the country as long as they gave up their Iraqi citizenship and all of their frozen assets. Nearly every member of the group registered to flee, taking advantage of this limited opportunity to avoid state-sponsored persecution. Operation Ezra and Nehemiah was a large airlift that Israel coordinated between 1951 and 1952. Between 120,000 and 130,000 Iraqi Jews left the country in a matter of months after being deprived of their money and only permitted to bring one suitcase per person. They left behind ancient tombs of biblical prophets like Jonah and Ezekiel, as well as millennia of history and historic synagogues. The few thousand people who remained had to face waves of fear. The Ba'ath regime's public hangings of Jews wrongly convicted of espionage in the late 1960s marked the culmination of this persecution. The surviving family were compelled by these atrocities to covertly cross the northern mountains into Kurdistan.

There are currently fewer than five Jews left in Iraq, making Jewish life there extinct. Nonetheless, a global diaspora of approximately 450,000 descendants, mostly residing in Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States, preserves the tradition of Babylonian Jewry. Iraqi ancestry has permeated every aspect of Israeli society, from modern music to iconic dishes like Kubbeh soups or the eggplant sandwich Sabich. Digitization initiatives like the Iraqi Jewish Archive, a collection of thousands of religious and communal documents found by US forces in 2003, help preserve the memory of their culture and history. Iraqi Jews' history is an example of centuries-old coexistence in an Arab country that was destroyed by the wrong 20th-century politics.