IRAQ

History

Iraq is the modern designation fro the country carved out of ancient Babylonia, Assyria, and the southern part of Turkey after World War I.

It is also the place of the oldest Jewish Diaspora and the one with the longest continuous history, from 721 BCE to 1949 CE, a time span of 2,670 years.

By the 3rd century, Babylonia became the center of Jewish scholarship, as is attested to by the community’s most influential contribution to Jewish scholarship, the Babylonian Talmud. Jews had prospered in what was then Babylonia for 1200 years before the Muslim conquest in 634 AD. Under Muslim rule, the situation of the Jewish community fluctuated. Some Jews held high positions in government or prospered in commerce and trade. At the same time, Jews were subjected to special taxes, restrictions on their professional activity. Under British rule, which began in 1917, Jews fared well economically, but all of this progress ended when Iraq gained independence in 1932.

In June 1941, the Mufti-inspired, pro-Nazi coup of Rashid Ali sparked rioting and a pogrom in Baghdad. Armed Iraqi mobs murdered 180 Jews and wounded almost 1,000.

Additional outbreaks of anti-Jewish rioting occurred between 1946-1949. After the establishment of Israel in 1948, Zionism became a capital crime.

In 1950, Iraqi Jews were permitted to leave the country within a year provided they forfeited their citizenship. A year later, however, the property of Jews who emigrated was frozen and economic restrictions were placed on Jews who chose to remain in the country. From 1949 to 1951, 104,000 Jews were evacuated from Iraq in Operations Ezra and Nehemiah; another 20,000 were smuggled out through Iran. Thus a community that had reached a peak of some 150,000 in 1947 dwindled to a mere 6,000 after 1951.

In 1952, Iraq’s government barred Jews from emigrating. With the rise of competing Ba’ath factions in 1963, additional restrictions were placed on the remaining Iraqi Jews. The sale of property was forbidden and all Jews were forced to carry yellow identity cards. Persecutions continued, especially after the Six-Day War in 1967, when many of the remaining 3,000 Jews were arrested and dismissed from their jobs. Around that period, more repressive measures were imposed: Jewish property was expropriated; Jewish bank accounts were frozen; Jews were dismissed from public posts; businesses were shut; trading permits were cancelled; telephones were disconnected. Jews were placed under house arrest for long periods of time or restricted to the cities.

Persecution was at its worst at the end of 1968. Scores were jailed upon the discovery of an alleged local “spy ring” composed of Jewish businessmen. Fourteen men-eleven of them Jews-were sentenced to death in staged trials and, on January 27, 1969, were hanged in the public squares of Baghdad; others died of torture (Judith Miller and Laurie Mylroie, “Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf”, p. 34).

In response to international pressure, the Baghdad government quietly allowed most of the remaining Jews to emigrate in the early 1970’s, even while leaving other restrictions in force. In 1973, most of Iraq’s remaining Jews were too old to leave and they were pressured by the government to turn over title, without compensation, to more than $200 million worth of Jewish community property (New York Times, February 18, 1973).

Today, approximately 61 Jews are left in Baghdad. A once flourishing Jewish community in Iraq has thus been extinguished (Associated Press, March 28, 1998).

Discriminatory Decrees and Violations of Human Rights
(Intended merely as a sampling and not an exhaustive compilation)

The first piece of legislation enacted that violated the rights of Jews was the 1948 amendment 12 to the 1938 supplement 13 to the Penal Code of Baghdad. The Baghdad Penal Code set out the provision regarding communism, anarchy and immorality in section 89A(1). The section generally prohibits the publication of anything that incites the spread of hatred, abuse of the government or the integrity of the people. This amendment, enacted in 1948, added “Zionism” to communism, anarchism and immorality, the propagation of which constituted an offence punishable by seven years imprisonment and/or a fine.

In an article that appeared in the New York Times on May 16, 1948, it was reported that: “In Iraq no Jew is permitted to leave the country unless he deposits £5,000 ($20,000) with the Government to guarantee his return. No foreign Jew is allowed to enter Iraq even in transit.”

Law No. 1 of 1950, entitled “Supplement to Ordinance Cancelling Iraqi Nationality,” in fact deprived Jews of their Iraqi nationality. Section 1 stipulated that “the Council of Ministers may cancel the Iraqi nationality of the Iraqi Jew who willingly desires to leave Iraq...” (official Iraqi English translation).[1]

Law No. 5 of 1951 entitled “ A law for the Supervision and Administration of the Property of Jews who have Forfeited Iraqi Nationality” also deprived them of their property. Section 2(a) “freezes” Jewish property.[2]

There were a series of laws that subsequently expanded on the confiscation of assets and property of Jews who “forfeited Iraqi nationality”. These included Law No. 12 of 1951 16 and the attached Law No. 64 of 1967 (relating to ownership of shares in commercial companies) and Law No. 10 of 1968 (relating to banking restrictions).

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1. Law No. 1 of 1950 entitled “supplement to Ordinance canceling Iraqi Nationality”, Official Iraqi Gazette, March 9, 1950.

2. Law No. 5 of 1951 entitled “ A law for the Supervision and Administration of the Property of Jews who have Forfeited Iraqi Nationality” (Official Gazette, 10 March 1951, English version, p.17).