Iraqi Jews

Before Alexander of Macedon

The Jews, driven into slavery, did not mix with pagan neighbors, but continued to remain faithful to their religion and customs. They were joined by other Jews from neighboring regions who also lost their homeland. The conqueror of the Jews did not oppress them, he granted them complete freedom in religion and the judiciary and other areas of internal life. They only required loyalty to the tsar and the state, as well as the abandonment of attempts to rebel and restore their state. Many exiles owned and cultivated the land, others were engaged in craft.

In 538 BC e. Babylon was captured by the Persian king Cyrus. Jews with undisguised joy reacted to the arrival of a new king. Cyrus, seeing such devotion, signed a decree allowing all Jews to return to their homeland. He also issued money from his own treasury for the restoration of the temple, and also ordered the return of all the Temple utensils captured by Nebuchadnezzar. But not all Jews decided to leave Babylon.

Alexander the Great and Persia

In 331 BC e. the great conqueror Alexander of Macedon conquered Babylonia. He reaffirmed the former rights of the Jews, and also granted them new ones. For example, Jews who served in Alexander’s army were exempted from work on Saturday. After the death of Alexander, Babylonia, along with other territories, withdrew to his commander Seleucus . Under him and his dynasty, Jews continued to prosper.

In 120 BC e. Babylonia fell under the rule of the Arshakids dynasty, gradually spreading their rule from the territory of their homeland - Parthia to the vast territory of the East. Under the Sassanids, the life of the Babylonian Jews either improved or worsened. This was mainly due to religious persecution. For example, under Kavad I, Jews were actively persecuted, their children were given up for education by Zoroastrian priests, synagogues were demolished, and the study of the Torah was banned. And under Tsar Khosrov I Anushirvan, the Jews regained all their rights, since the tsar’s policy towards them was restrained and balanced.

Under the rule of Islam

In the VII century. Arabs conquered Mesopotamia, and in 661 it was part of the Caliphate. The Babylonian Jews, tired of religious persecution, actively supported the Arab conquerors, for which the caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab granted new rights to the Jews. Having conquered Firuz-Shapur in 658, Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib declared the head of the local Yeshiva, Rabbi Yitzhak, the spiritual leader of the Jews of Babylonia and allowed him to issue religious decrees to streamline Jewish community life. Under the Abbasids, Baghdad became the center of Jewish education and book writing (Sadok 1989: 216). Under the rule of the Islamized Mongols, the situation of Jews sharply worsens. Synagogues are destroyed, children are forcibly sent to Muslim families, every Jew is obliged to wear a special insignia. Under the Ottomans, the Jewish community of Babylonia improves slightly: in the yeshiva, they study the Torah again, pray in synagogues, and the economic condition of the Jews improves.

In 1908, the Young Turks granted freedom of religion. By 1910, the Jewish community in Baghdad became the largest, largest and most prosperous community in Turkey after the Jewish community in Salinik (Kedourie 1971: 357). At this time, several Jews became members of parliament from the territory now called Iraq.

English Administration, Kingdom and Republic

During the period of the British occupation, the situation of the Jews improved even more. In 1921, Iraq was declared a kingdom. King Faisal I grants complete freedom in faith, education, and occupation. Jews are full delegates in parliament. From this moment, Jews begin to make up a significant proportion of all employees of the state apparatus.

Since 1918, numerous Zionist organizations have been operating in Iraq that openly promote their ideas, teach Hebrew, and organize youth circles and associations. But in 1929, oppression began again, escalating into open hostility. Jews were fired from government posts, squeezed out of trade and culture. Sometimes it came to killings. Zionist organizations were forced to go underground. But their work began to bear its first fruits: small groups of Iraqi Jews began to move to Palestine. In 1948, several tens of thousands of Jews made aliyah through neighboring Iran. At this point, the Iraqi authorities banned Jews from leaving Iraq, and with the formation of the state of Israel, Jewish migration only increased. In 1950, the Jewish agency Sokhnut for Repatriation conducted Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, during which 110,000 Jews left Iraq. Further migration intensified. A few years later, the Jewish community of Iraq was reduced to 6 thousand people. The work of Abbas Shilbak, The Lure of Zion: The Case of Iraqi Jews , is devoted to the problem of mass migration of Jews from Iraq. It deals with the issues related to the events that led to the mass departure of Jews from Iraq (Stillman 1990: 376).

By the end of February 2014, 11 Jews live in Iraq .

From the very beginning of their exile, the Jews of Babylonia were able to establish their religious life. Jewish scholarship reached its peak in the 6th century, when the Babylonian rabbis enjoyed unquestioned authority. Until the mid-19th century, Nasi was at the head of the Iraqi communities, who managed legal proceedings and tax collection. Among the leaders of the Jews of Iraq, Tsdaka Khotsin, the author of many halachic writings, the commentator of the Halakhah and the Kabbalist Abdallah bin Avraam Somayh, as well as Abdallah ibn Khidr ibn Suleiman Khinin, compiler of poems and prayers, which included in the prayer books of the eastern communities, were especially famous.

• Sadok H. 1989 Zionism in Iraq // Middle Eastern Studies 25 (2): 216.
• Kedourie E. 1971 The Jews of Baghdad in 1910 // Middle Eastern Studies 7 (3): 357.
• Stillman N. 1990 Jews of the Islamic World // Modern Judaism 10 (3): 376.

• Iraq - article from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
• Babylonia - article from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
• haaretz.com
• time.com