The Jews of Iraq

Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world’s oldest and historically significant Jewish communities. It was to Babylon that the Jews were exiled around 600 BCE. The descendants of these exiles ensured that Babylonia became the most important Jewish community after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. The community thrived as the center of Jewish learning until the Middle Ages, when the Mongol invasion, and the subsequent persecutions of the local Muslims, significantly reduced its importance. With the rule of the Ottoman Empire, the life of Iraqi Jews improved, though the community never regained its former importance. Iraqi Jews played an important role in the early days of the country’s independence, but the Iraqi Jewish community, numbered at around 150,000 in 1948, was almost entirely driven out of the country by increasing persecution from the 1940s onwards. Today, fewer than 100 Jews remain.

Early Biblical History
In the Bible, Babylon and the country of Babylonia are not always clearly distinguished; in most cases the same word being used for both. In some passages the land of Babylonia is called Shinar, while in the post-exilic literature it is called the land of the Chaldeans. In the Book of Genesis, Babylonia is described as the land in which Babel, Erech, Accad and Calneh are located and formed the beginning of Nimrod’s kingdom. This land was the supposed site of The Tower of Babel and the seat of Amraphel’s dominion.

Late Biblical History and the Babylonian Exile
Three times during the 6th century BCE, Nebuchadnezzar exiled the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah to Babylon. The first was in the time of Jehoiachin in 597 BCE, when the temple of Jerusalem was partially despoiled and a number of the leading citizens removed. After eleven years (in the reign of Zedekiah) a fresh rising of the Judaeans occurred; the city was razed to the ground, and a further deportation ensued. Finally, five years later, Jeremiah records a third captivity. After the overthrow of Babylonia by the Persians, Cyrus gave the Jews permission to return to their native land (537 BCE), and more than forty thousand are said to have availed themselves of the privilege.

It was only with Alexander the Great’s campaign that accurate information concerning the Jews in the East reached the western world. Alexander’s army contained numerous Jews who refused, due to religious scruples, to take part in the reconstruction of the destroyed Belus temple in Babylon.

The ‘Greek’ era survived in the East long after it had been abolished in the West. The important victory, which the Jews are said to have gained over the Galatians in Babylonia, must have occurred under Seleucus Callinicus or Antiochus III. The last-named settled a large number of Babylonian Jews as colonists in his western dominions, with the view of checking certain revolutionary tendencies disturbing those lands. Mithridates (174-136) subjugated the province of Babylonia around 160, and thus the Jews for four centuries came under Parthian domination.

How free a hand the Parthians permitted the Jews is perhaps best illustrated by the rise of the little Jewish robber-state in Nehardea. Still more remarkable is the conversion of the king of Adiabene to Judaism. These instances show not only the tolerance, but the weakness of the Parthian kings. When the Romans waged war under Trajan against Parthia it was in a great measure owing to the revolt of the Babylonian Jews that the Romans did not become masters of Babylonia too. Once Jerusalem fell to the Romans, Babylonia became the very bulwark of Judaism. The collapse of the Bar Kochba revolt only added to the number of Jewish refugees in Babylon.

Babylon was to remain the focus of Judaism for more than a thousand years. The Rabbi Abba Arika, afterward called simply Rab, was a key figure in maintaining Judaism after the destruction of Jerusalem. Rab left Palestine to return to his Babylonian home in 219 marking the beginning of a new movement in Babylonian Judaism, namely, the initiation of the dominant role the Babylonian Academies played for several centuries. Leaving an existing Babylonian academy at Nehardea to his friend Samuel, Rab founded a new academy in Sura, where he held property. Thus, there existed in Babylonia two contemporary academies, so far removed from each other, however, as not to interfere with each other’s operations. Since Rab and Samuel were acknowledged peers in position and learning, their academies likewise were accounted equal rank and influence.

Thus both Babylonian rabbinical schools opened their lectures brilliantly, and the ensuing discussions in their classes furnished the earliest stratum of the scholarly material deposited in the Babylonian Talmud. The coexistence for many decades of these two colleges of equal rank—though the school at Nehardea was moved to Pumbedita, now Fallujah—originated that remarkable phenomenon of the dual leadership of the Babylonian Academies which became a permanent institution and a weighty factor in the development of Babylonian Judaism.

The key work of these academies was the compilation of the Babylonian Talmud, started by Rav Ashi and Ravina, two leaders of the Babylonian Jewish community, around the year 550. Editorial work by the Savoraim or Rabbanan Savoraei (post-Talmudic rabbis) continued on this text for the next 250 years, although much of the text did not reach its final form until around 700 CE. The Mishnah and Babylonian Gemara together form the Talmud Bavli (the “Babylonian Talmud”).

The three centuries in the course of which the Babylonian Talmud was developed in the academies founded by Rab and Samuel were followed by five centuries during which it was zealously preserved, studied, expounded in the schools, and, through their influence, recognized by the whole diaspora. Sura and Pumbedita were considered the only important centers of learning; their heads and sages were the undisputed authorities whose decisions were sought from all sides, and were accepted wherever Jewish communal life existed. In the words of the haggadist, “G-d created these two academies in order that the promise might be fulfilled, that the word of G-d should never depart from Israel’s mouth.”

The periods of Jewish history immediately following the close of the Talmud are designated according to the titles of the teachers at Sura and Pumbedita: thus we have “the time of the Geonim and that of the Saboraim.” The Saboraim were the scholars whose diligent hands completed the Talmud in the first third of the sixth century, adding manifold amplifications to its text. The two academies lasted until the middle of the eleventh century, Pumbedita faded after its chief rabbi was murdered in 1038, and Sura faded soon after.

Sassanid period (225 to 634 CE)
The Persian people were now again to make their influence felt in the history of the world. Ardashir I destroyed the rule of the Arsacids in the winter of 226, and founded the illustrious dynasty of the Sassanids. Different from the Parthian rulers, who in language and religion inclined toward Hellenism, the Sassanids intensified the Persian side of life, favored the Pahlavi language, and restored with zeal the old monotheistic religion of Zoroastrianism, founded upon worship of Ahura Mazda, which now, under the favoring influence of the government, attained the fury of fanaticism.

Shapur I (Shvor Malka, which is the Aramaic form of the name) was a friend to the Jews, and his friendship with Shmuel gained many advantages for the Jewish community.

Shapur II’s mother was Jewish, and this gave the Jewish community a relative freedom of religion and many advantages. Shapur was also the friend of a Babylonian rabbi in the Talmud called Raba, and Raba’s friendship with Shapur II enabled him to secure a relaxation of the oppressive laws enacted against the Jews in the Persian Empire. In addition, Raba sometimes referred to his top student Abaye with the term Shvur Malka meaning “Shapur [the] King” because of his bright and quick intellect.

While both Christians and Jews suffered occasional persecution the Jews dwelling in more compact areas in cities like Isfahan, were not exposed to the general persecutions that broke out against the more isolated Christians. So this was a period of occasional persecutions for the Jews, followed by long periods of benign neglect in which Jewish learning thrived. By the 600s, however, the Jews were increasingly persecuted, and they welcomed the Arab conquest of 632-634.

Arab period (634 to 1258)
The first legal act of Islam toward the Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians after the conquests of the 630s was the poll tax, and the tax on real estate. The Jews may have favored the advance of the Arabs, from whom they could expect mild treatment.

The proximity of the court lent to the Jews of Babylonia a species of central position, as compared with the whole caliphate so that Babylonia still continued to be the focus of Jewish life. The time-honored institutions of the exilarchate and the gaonate attained great influence and constituted a kind of higher authority, voluntarily recognized by the whole Jewish diaspora. Unfortunately the two institutions soon began to rival each other. The rabbis of Pumbedita were persecuted so bitterly that several of them were compelled to flee to Sura. According to some, the Exilarchate was for sale in the Arab period.

The Ommiad calif, Umar II. (717-720), persecuted the Jews. He issued orders to his governors: “Tear down no church, synagogue, or fire-temple; but permit no new ones to be built.” Isaac Iskawi II. (about 800) received from Harun al-Rashid (786-809) confirmation of the right to carry a seal of office. At the court of the mighty Harun appeared an embassy from the emperor Charlemagne, in which a Jew, Isaac, took part. Charles (possibly Charles the Bald) is said to have asked the “king of Babel” to send him a man of royal lineage; and in response the calif dispatched Rabbi Makir to him; this was the first step toward establishing communication between the Jews of Babylonia and European communities. It is said that the law requiring Jews to wear a yellow badge upon their clothing originated with Harun. And although the intolerant laws of Islam were stringently enforced by him, the development of a scientific tendency began to make itself noticeable.

Like the Arabs, the Jews were zealous promoters of knowledge, and by means of translations of the Greek and Latin authors contributed essentially to their preservation. They took up religious-philosophical studies, maintaining the freedom of the human will. The government meanwhile accomplished all it could toward the complete humiliation of the Jews. All non-believers-Magi, Jews, and Christians were compelled to wear a badge; their places of worship were confiscated and turned into mosques; they were excluded from public offices, and compelled to pay to the caliph a tax of one-tenth of the value of their houses. An utterance of the caliph Al-Mu’tadhel (892-902) ranked the Jews, as state servants, after Christians.

Middle Ages
But Babylonia was still regarded with reverence by the Jews in all parts. Eldad ha-Dani, who in the ninth century traveled extensively from Africa, notes that the Jews of Abyssinia placed the sages of Babylon first in their prayers for their brethren of the diaspora—and a similar prayer—although it has lost its application—is still uttered today in many congregations.

The Caliphate hastened to its end before the rising power of the Mongolian Empire. As Bar Hebræus remarks, these Mongol tribes knew no distinction between heathens, Jews, and Christians, and the Great Khan Kublai Khan showed himself just toward the Jews who served in his army, as reported by Marco Polo. Under the Mongolian rulers, the priests of all religions were exempt from the poll tax. After the death of the great Khan and the murder of his Jewish favorite, the Muslims fell upon the Jews, and Baghdad witnessed a regular battle between them. The Khan Ghazan also became a Muslim, and made the Jews second-class citizens.

Turkish rule (1534 to 1922)
After various changes of fortune, Mesopotamia and Iraq came into the hands of the Ottoman Turks, when Sultan Suleiman II in 1534 took Tabriz and Baghdad from the Persians, leading to an improvement in the life of the Jews. The Persian reconquest in 1623 led to a much worse situation, so that the reconquest of Iraq by the Turks in 1638 included an army with a large population of Jews (some sources say they made up as much as 10% of the army). The day of the reconquest was even given a holiday, “Yom Nes” (day of miracle).

Over time, the Turkish rule deteriorated and the situation of the Jews worsened, but the population continued to grow. In 1884 there were 30,000 Jews in Baghdad and by 1900, 50,000. The community also produced great rabbis, such as Joseph Hayyim ben Eliahu Mazal-Tov (1834-1909).

Modern times (since 1922)
Sociologist Philip Mendes asserts that before the anti-Jewish actions of the 1930s and 1940s, overall Iraqi Jews “viewed themselves as Arabs of the Jewish faith, rather than as a separate race or nationality.” Additionally, early Labor Zionism mostly concentrated on the Jews of Europe, skipping Iraqi Jews because of their lack of interest in agriculture. The result was that until World War II, Zionism made little headway with Iraqi Jews.

In the early days after independence in 1922, well educated Jews played an important role in civic life. Iraq’s first minister of finance, Yehezkel Sasson, was a Jew, and Jews were important in developing the judicial and postal systems. Records from the Baghdad Chamber of Commerce show that 10 out of its 19 members in 1947 were Jews. Jews were also represented in the Iraqi parliament, and many Jews held significant positions in the bureaucracy.

In the 1930s, the situation of the Jews in Iraq deteriorated. Previously, the growing Iraqi Arab nationalist sentiment included Iraqi Jews as fellow Arabs, but these views changed with the introduction of Nazi propaganda and the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian Mandate. Despite protestations of their loyalty to Iraq, Iraqi Jews were increasingly subjected to discrimination and harsh laws. On August 27, 1934 many Jews were dismissed from public service, and quotas were set up in colleges and universities. Zionist activities were banned, as was the teaching of Jewish history and Hebrew in Jewish schools. Following Rashid Ali’s pro-Axis coup, the Farhud (violent dispossession) pogrom of June 1 and 2, 1941, broke out in Baghdad and approximately 200 Jews were murdered (some sources put the number higher), and up to 2,000 injured. Damages to property were estimated at $3 million. There was also looting in many other cities at around the same time. Afterwards, Zionist emissaries from Palestine were sent to teach Iraqi Jews self-defense.

In 1948, the country was placed under martial law, and penalties for Zionism were increased. Court martials were used to intimidate; wealthy Jews were detained; Jews were again dismissed from civil service; quotas were placed on university positions, and one of the most important anti-Zionist Jewish businessmen in the country was arrested and executed for allegedly selling goods to Israel.

Additionally, like most Arab League states, Iraq forbade any legal emigration of its Jews on the grounds that they might go to Israel and could strengthen that state. Despite the fact that intense diplomatic pressure brought about a change of mind, increasing government oppression of the Jews fueled by anti-Israeli sentiment, together with public expressions of anti-semitism, created an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.

By 1949, the Iraqi Zionist underground had become well established and Iraqi Jews were being smuggled out of the country illegally at a rate of 1,000 a month. In March 1950, Iraq passed a law allowing Jews to emigrate on condition of relinquishing their Iraqi citizenship in effect for one year. They were motivated, according to Ian Black, by “economic considerations, chief of which was that almost all the property of departing Jews reverted to the state treasury” and also that “Jews were seen as a restive and potentially troublesome minority that the country was best rid of.”

Israel was initially reluctant to absorb so many immigrants, but eventually mounted an airlift operation in March of 1951 called “Ezra and Nehemiah” to bring as many of the Iraqi Jews as possible to Israel, and sent agents to Iraq to urge the Jews to register for immigration as soon as possible.

From the start of the emigration law in March 1950 until the end of the year, 60,000 Jews registered to leave Iraq. In addition to continuing arrests and the dismissal of Jews from their jobs, this exodus was encouraged by a series of bombings starting in April 1950 that resulted in a number of injuries and a few deaths. Two months before the expiry of the law, by which time about 85,000 Jews had registered, another bomb at the Masuda Shemtov Synagogue killed five Jews and injured many others. The law expired in March 1951 but was later extended after the Iraqi government froze the assets of departing Jews, including those who had already left. During the next few months, all but a few thousand of the remaining Jews registered for emigration, spurred on by a sequence of further bombings that caused few casualties but likewise had great psychological impact. In total about 120,000 Jews left Iraq.

Most of the 10,000 Jews remaining after Operation Ezra and Nehemiah stayed through the Abdul Karim Qassim era when conditions improved, but anti-Semitism increased in the Ba’ath Party era, culminating in the 1969 lynching of 14 Iraqis, most of them Jews, who were falsely accused of spying for Israel, which led to the departure of most of the remaining Jews.

The remainder of Iraq’s Jews left over the next few decades, and had mostly gone by 1970. Today, fewer than 100 Jews remain in the country, and, as of 2004, debate over the Iraqi constitution has included whether Jews should be considered a minority group, or left out of the constitution altogether.

In October 2006, Rabbi Emad Levy, Bagdad’s last Rabbi and one of about 12 members of the Jewish community remaining in the city, compared his life to “living in a prison.” He reported that most Iraqi Jews stay in their homes “out of fear of kidnapping or execution.”