ICH-ISRAEL
Intangible Cultural Heritage Center

Kurdish Jews, also called Kurdistani Jews, descend from one of the oldest communities of the Jewish Diaspora. Their tradition traces its roots to the northern tribes of Israel, deported by the Assyrians in the 8th century BCE. The Book of Kings places these exiles in the cities of the Medes, a territory that overlaps with historic Kurdistan [1] [2].

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Over some 2,500 years, Jewish communities took root across northern Mesopotamia, in parts of present-day Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. Iraqi Kurdistan held most of them, in towns such as Zakho, Amadiya, Aqra, Dohuk, Arbil, Kirkuk, and Sulaymaniyah [2].

Steep ridges and remote valleys shaped daily life, yet isolation was never complete. In the 12th century, the traveler Benjamin of Tudela reported Jewish communities in more than 100 villages and cities. The region also produced its own scholars: in the 17th century, Asenath Barzani led the yeshiva of Amadiya and earned wide recognition for her Torah learning [3].

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After the Islamic conquests of the 7th century, most Jews in the Middle East gradually moved to Arabic. Kurdish Jews kept Aramaic as a spoken language into the 20th century [1]. Their dialects, which linguists group as Jewish Neo-Aramaic, absorbed Kurdish, Persian, and Arabic vocabulary over time [1]. Many speakers simply called their language "our language": lishana deni around Zakho, lishana didan in northwestern Iran [4].

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Families earned their living from farming, herding, weaving, and trade, alongside Muslim, Christian, and Yazidi neighbors [1] [9]. Kurdish tribal leaders offered protection [2]. Life under Ottoman and local rule still brought heavy taxes and outbreaks of violence, between long periods of coexistence [1].

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Religious life extended to pilgrimage. Believers traveled to tombs attributed to the prophets Daniel in Kirkuk, Jonah in Mosul, and Nahum in Alqosh [1] [3]. Each Shavuot, several thousand people gathered at Nahum's tomb, until the last pilgrimage in 1951 [5]. ISIS later destroyed the shrine of Jonah, while Nahum's tomb has been saved from collapse [6].

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From Kurdistan to Israel

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Migration to the Land of Israel began long before the modern state. Rabbinic scholars settled in Safed in the late 16th century [3], others reached Jerusalem from the 18th century [9], and new groups followed in the 1920s and 1930s [7]. Conditions in Iraq worsened sharply in the 20th century. Arab nationalism gained ground, the Farhud pogrom struck Baghdad in 1941, and riots, boycotts, and political targeting grew after the founding of Israel in 1948 [1] [8]. Kurdish Jews numbered between 20,000 and 30,000 at that point [7].

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Between 1950 and 1952, Operation Ezra and Nehemiah airlifted about 120,000 Iraqi Jews to Israel, most Kurdish Jews among them [1] [2]. Many had to give up their citizenship and property to leave [8] [9]. Jews from the Kurdish regions of Iran, Turkey, and Syria continued to arrive over the following decades [8]. Arrival brought its own hardships. Families landed in tent camps, and the "melting pot" ideal of the young state pressed immigrants to set aside their languages and customs [3] [8] [13].

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The Community Today

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Estimates of the Kurdish Jewish population in Israel range from 150,000 to 300,000, depending on the source, and 200,000 is the figure cited most often [2] [3] [10]. Roughly half live in Jerusalem and its surroundings [3] [10]. The Katamonim neighborhood in south Jerusalem became a center of community life, as did Mevaseret Zion just outside the city [3] [9]. Kurdish Jews also founded more than 30 agricultural villages across the country [3]. Hebrew now serves as the everyday language. Jewish Neo-Aramaic survives mainly among the elderly, and speaker estimates vary widely, from about 500 to a few thousand [1] [11].