Naim Zilkha

Baghdad

In Arabic: بغداد‎

Capital of Iraq

The community in Baghdad was founded in the mid-eighth century and from the 9th-11th centuries was the seat of the exilarch (resh galutah). During the gaonate the Jews lived in a special quarter (dar al-yahud) and the "Jewish bridge" connected them to the rest of the city. The yeshivot of Sura and Pumbedita were established in Baghdad at the end of the 9th century. The city played an important role in the Karaite movement. In the 12th century, the community reached its peak and Benjamin of Tudela reports that it numbered approximately 40,000 Jews, 28 synagogues, and 10 yeshivot. Jews were active in the fields of medicine, pharmacy, gold smelting, and trade. Under Mongol rule (1258-1335), the physician Sa'ad al-Dawla was appointed as director of the financial administration of Iraq, and chief vizier of the Mongol empire. After the death of the sultan in 1291, he was executed on the pretense of not having given the sultan the appropriate medical attention.

After the conquerors changed their religion to Islam at the start of the 14th century, they renewed all the decrees and heavy taxes that applied to all "unbelievers". With the conquest of Baghdad by Tamerlane (1393) many Jews fled to Kurdistan and Syria and Baghdad remained almost without Jews until the end of the 15th century.

During the first part of the Ottoman occupation (1534-1623), there was an improvement in the Jews' situation. There were 250 Jewish houses in the city, of a total of 25,000 houses. From 1623-38 Baghdad was under Persian rule and the Jews were greatly relieved when Baghdad was once again conquered by sultan Murad IV. The day of the conquest Tevet 16th (5399) was fixed as "yom nes" (Day of miracle).

During the second half of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th, Turkish rule deteriorated and the attitude to the Jews became harsh. Many wealthy members of the community fled to Persia and other countries, among them David B. Sassoon, who moved his business to India. At that time, 6,000 Jewish families were resident in Baghdad led by a pasha known as "king of the Jews". With the opening of the Suez Canal (1869), the situation of the city's 20,000 Jews improved - along with the general economic situation - and many Jews from other localities settled there. In 1884 there were 30,000 Jews in Baghdad and by the beginning of the 20th century - 50,000.

The greatest of the Baghdad rabbis, Rabbi Joseph Hayim ben Eliahu Mazal-Tov (1834 - 1909), never accepted public financial assistance, his name is famous in the Jewish world, especially among the Baghdad-version (of prayer book) communities in Israel, England, India, Singapore, Manila etc.

Until the British occupation of World War 1, the Jews suffered from extortion and the cruelty of the local authorities. Many young men were recruited into the army service to serve in the murderous Caucasus Mountains. With British entry to Baghdad on February 3, 1917 (fixed as Yom Nes 17th Adar) there began a period of freedom for the Jews of Baghdad and many of them were employed in the civil service. When the state became independent in 1929 there was an increase in Anti-Semitism, especially after the appearance of the German ambassador A. Grobbe in Baghdad (1932). Jewish clerks were dismissed and in 1936 Jews were murdered and their institutions bombed. In the days of the pro-axis revolution of Rashid Ali al-Kilani on June 1-2, 1941, riots against the Jews took place with the passive support of both the army and police. Between 120-180 people were killed and more than 800 wounded. The value of the looted property was estimated at 4,000,000. Thousands left the city and only
returned when they heard that the situation had improved.

In 1945 there were frequent demonstrations against the Jews and especially against Zionism, and with the proclaimed partition of Palestine in 1947, the Jews were in danger of their lives. Many received harsh legal sentences and were forced to pay heavy fines. The number of Jews in Baghdad decreased from 100,000 to 77,000 and after the mass exodus to Israel ("Operation Ezra and Nehemiah") only about 5,000 Jews remained. In 1968 there were only 2,000 Jews left. With the establishment of Israel, hundreds of young Jews were arrested on charges of Zionist activity and two Zionist leaders were publicly hanged in Baghdad. On January 27, 1969, nine other Jews were hanged on charges of spying for Israel.

Until "Operation Ezra and Nehemiah" there were 28 Jewish educational institutions in Baghdad, 16 under the supervision of the community committee and the rest privately run. The number of pupils reached 12,000 and many others learned in foreign and government schools. About 400 students studied medicine, law, economics, pharmacy, and engineering. In 1951 the Jewish school for the blind was closed; it was the only school of its type in Baghdad. The Jews of Baghdad had two hospitals in which the poor received free treatment, and several philanthropic services. Out of 60 synagogues in 1950, there remained only 7 in 1960.

From the end of the Ottoman period until 1931 there was a "general council" of 80 members, among them 20 rabbis. A law was passed in early 1931 to permit non-rabbis to assume the leadership. Despite this, in 1933 R. Sassoon Kadoorie was elected and in 1949 R. Ezekiel Shemtob succeeded him. Kadoorie returned to his position in 1953. In December 1951 the government abolished the rabbinical court in Baghdad.

During the tenth century, there were two distinguished Jewish families in Baghdad, Netira and Aaron. At the end of the tenth century R. Isaac b. Moses ibn Sakri of Spain was the rosh yeshivah. In the 12th century the exilarch Daniel b. Chasdai was referred to by the Arabs as "Our lord, the son of David". The Baghdad community reached the height of its prosperity during the term of office of rosh yeshivah Samuel b. Ali Ha-Levi, an opponent of Maimonides, who raised Torah study in Baghdad to a high level. R. Eleazar b. Jacob Ha-Bavli and R. Isaac b. Israel were rashei yeshivot during the late 12th century through the middle of the 13th century. Notable personalities in the 18th and 19th included R. Abdallah Somekh, who founded a rabbinical college, Beit Zilkha; R. Sasson b. Israel; Jacob Tzemach; Ezekiel b. Reuben Manasseh; Joseph Gurji; Eliezer Kadoorie; and Menachem Daniel.

Until 1849 the community of Baghdad was led by a president ("nassi"), who was appointed by the vilayet governor, and who also acted as his banker. The most renowned of these leaders were Sassoon b. R. Tzalach, the father of the Sassoon family, and Ezra b. Joseph Gabbai.

The first Hebrew printing press in Baghdad was founded by Moses Baruch Mizrachi in 1863. Other printing presses were R. Ezra Reuben Dangoor, and Elisha Shochet. A Hebrew weekly, Yeshurun, of which only five issues were published, appeared in 1920. This was the last attempt at Hebrew journalism in Baghdad.

During the last decades of the 20th centuries, Jews in Iraq were permitted to live in two cities only - Baghdad and Basra. They numbered about 500 in total. During the First Gulf War, in the early 1990s, Baghdad had a small Jewish community of some 150. The only synagogue of Baghdad stood in the center of the city, surrounded by a wall.

The last Jews in Baghdad left the city after Iraq was invaded by the US Army in the Second Gulf War of 2003.

Basra

In Arabic: البصرة‎ 

Port in southern Iraq, on the Shatt Al-Arab river, the outlet into the Persian gulf of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates.

Jews settled there under the Umayyad regime and one of the nine canals near the town is called Nahr Al-Yahud ("river of the Jews"). Jews also settled in Ubulla, then the port of the town of Basra and now the site of Basra. Toward the end of the Umayyad caliphate, Masarjawayh, a Jewish physician from Basra, gained fame for his Arabic translations of Greek medical books. In the first generation of Abbasid rule, the court astrologer was the Jew, Misha Ben Abra, called Mashaallah. Besides many artisans and merchants, the Basra Jewish community comprised many religious scholars, including Simeon Kayyara of Sabkha (suburb of Basra), who wrote Halakhot Gedolot about 825. The sages of Basra were in close contact with the academy of Sura, to which the community sent an annual contribution of 300 dinars. In the 10th century when the academy closed, the last Gaon, Joseph Ben Jacob, settled in Basra. But until about 1150 the Jews of Basra continued to direct their questions on religious matters to the heads of the Yeshivah in Baghdad, and especially to Sherira Gaon and his son Hai Gaon. From these questions, it appears that the Jews of Basra had close commercial ties with the Jews of Baghdad. Both a Rabbanite and a Karaite community existed in Basra. A Karaite, Israel Ben Simchah Ben Saadiah Ben Ephraim, dedicated a Ben-Asher version of the bible to the Karaite community of Jerusalem. In the 11th century, Basra was gradually abandoned as a result of civil wars in Mesopotamia; and many of its Jews emigrated. Solomon Ben Judah (d. 1051), head of the Jerusalem Yeshivah, mentions religious scholars and physicians from Basra in Palestine and Egypt.

However, throughout the middle ages there remained an important community in Basra. Benjamin of Tudela (c. 1170) reports that approximately 10,000 Jews, including many wealthy men and religious scholars, lived in the town. He also mentions the grave north of the town, believed to be that of Ezra and also venerated by the Muslims. According to an early 13th century letter by Daniel Ben Eleazar Ben Nethanel Chibat Allah, head of the Baghdad Yeshivah, there was also a synagogue in the town named for Ezra. When the Mongols conquered Iraq in the mid-13th century, Basra surrendered and was not severely damaged. However, when Tamerlane conquered Mesopotamia in 1393, many Jews were killed and all the synagogues in the town were destroyed.

Nevertheless, a small community continued to exist. The community regained its importance during the 18th century. Its wealth increased; rich landowners in the community liberally distributed alms and even sent contributions to Eretz Israel. The liturgical poem Megillat Paras ("Persian scroll"), by the emissary from Hebron, Jacob Elyashar, describes the siege of Basra by the Persians and the town's deliverance in 1775, when the Jewish minister of finance, Jacob Ben Aaron, who had been captured, was released. Afterward Nissan 2nd - the day on which the siege was lifted - was celebrated in Basra as the "day of the miracle". Jews played such a vital role in the commercial life of Basra that in 1793 the representative of the East India Company was forced to live in Kuwait for nearly two years, because he had quarreled with the Jewish merchants. In 1824 David D'beth Hillel reported 300 Jewish households belonging to merchants and artisans and a Jewish finance minister. During the
persecutions of Jews which took place under the rule of Da'ud Pasha in the early 19th century, several wealthy members of the Basra community emigrated to India. The traveler, Benjamin II, mentions that in 1848, he found about 300 Jewish families in Basra. But in 1860 Jehiel Fischel, an emissary of the rabbis of Safed, reports 40 Jewish families in the town out of a population of 12,000. After the British occupation in 1914, the number of Jews increased from 1,500 to 9,921 in 1947, when Jews constituted 9.8% of the total population. Most of the Jews were traders and many worked in the administration service of the railroads, the airport, and the seaport. The legal status of the community was regulated by a 1931 law, according to which a president and a chief rabbi were assigned to head it. A boys' school was founded by the Alliance Israelite Universelle in 1903, and later became a high school. In 1950 it had 450 pupils. In 1913 an Alliance Israelite Universelle girls' school was founded, and attended in 1930 by 303 pupils. All schools were under the supervision of the community committee. In the 1930s, a theosophical group was formed and headed by the Jew Kadduri Elijah Aani (who went to Palestine in 1945 and died in Jerusalem). The community excommunicated this group, and its Jewish members were forced to establish their own synagogue, cemetery, and slaughter-house. A Zionist association, formed in Basra in 1921, was not allowed freedom of action.

From 1942, the clandestine He-Chalutz and Haganah organizations were active spreading Hebrew, organizing Aliyah, and in anticipation of pogroms, instructing young people in the use of weapons. These organizations were dissolved in 1951.

On September 23, 1948, a Jewish millionaire, Shafiq Adas, was hanged in Basra, having been sentenced to death and fined 5,000,000 pounds for selling British army surplus scrap metal to Israel. The Jews shut themselves in their houses, while thousands of Muslims watched the public hanging; but there were no attacks on Jews. All attempts to save Adas failed, despite his connections in government circles.

In 1949-50, Basra served as a center for the flight of Jews to Iran. Thousands were helped by smugglers to cross the Shatt Al-Arab to the Iranian shore. The few who were caught were sentenced to imprisonment. By 1968 less than 500 Jews were living in Basra. On January 27, 1969, 9 persons were hanged there, having been accused of espionage for Israel.

Beirut

Arabic: بيروت‎  French: Beyrouth

Capital of Lebanon

Beirut is the largest city in Lebanon, and also the country’s main seaport. It is also one of the oldest cities in the world.

This item includes attached files with maps of the former main Jewish residential district before 1948, along with the names of the prominent Jewish families that lived in the area.

 

21^ST CENTURY

Restoration of the Magen Avraham synagogue, which was damaged during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), began in May of 2009.

The Jewish cemetery of Beirut is located near Sodeco Square. It was slightly damaged during the Civil War. The cemetery has continued to serve the Jews of Lebanon.

In 2012 Nada Abdelsamad produced a documentary about the Jews of Lebanon, Lebanon’s Jews: Loyalty to Whom? The documentary featured interviews with Jews from Beirut and other areas in Lebanon, as well as of their former neighbors.

In 2004, one registered Jewish voter showed up at the polling booth during the municipal elections.

 

HISTORY

Jews were living in Beirut and the vicinity from the 2^nd century BCE. The chronicle of Joshua the Stylite mentions the existence of a synagogue in Beirut at the beginning of the 6^th century. According to Abiathar b. Elijah (late 11th century), Beirut and Gebal (Byblos) were subject to the Palestinian Gaonite (the main Talmudic academy and legal body of the Jewish community in Palestine, c. 9^th-11^th centuries).

By the time of the Crusader conquest (1100) Beirut was home to 35 Jewish families; when the Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela visited around 1170 he counted 50 Jewish households. In addition to the city’s permanent Jewish residents, Jews also frequently visited Beirut on their way to Eretz Yisrael.

According to the Jewish kabbalist and student of Nachmanides, Isaac b. Samuel of Acre many Jews were killed during the Muslim conquest of the city in 1291. Another student f Nachmanides who stopped in Beirut at the beginning of the 14^th century did not note the presence of any Jews in the city. An anonymous pupil of the Italian rabbi Obadiah b. Abraham Bartenura wrote in a 1495 letter that "at Baroto (Beirut) there are no Jews, and I do not know the reason, because the Ishmaelites at Baroto are better than all the other people of the kingdom and are very well-disposed toward the Jews."

Beirut’s Jewish community was renewed after the expulsion from Spain in 1492, and in 1521 Moses Basola found 12 Jewish families from Sicily living in the city. During Basola’s stay, he also noted that Beirut’s Jews were particularly interested in the activities of David Reubeni, whom a Jewish merchant had encountered in Gaza. Abraham Castro was in charge of customs during this period.

David d'Beth Hillel, who visited Syria in 1824, observed that "there are [in Beirut] some 15 families [of] Jewish merchants, natives of the country who speak Arabic and have a small synagogue, their customs resembling those of the Jews of Palestine." The writer and poet Ludwig August von Frankl visited Beirut in 1856 and found 500 Sephardi Jews living there, most of whom worked as merchants and porters. Jews also began arriving in Beirut from Damascus, Smyrna, Aleppo, Constantinople, and even Russia.

Two blood libels were levied against the Jewish community during the second half of the 19^th century, one in 1862 and another in 1890, both of which led to Christian attacks in the Jewish Quarter. Order was finally restored in 1890 by the Turkish authorities, and the rioters were arrested.

Community institutions during the late 19^th century included a synagogue and 12 batei midrash. In 1878 the Alliance Israelite Universelle opened a school for girls; a school for boys followed a year later. A crafts school for girls, also under the auspices of the Alliance, opened in 1897. There were 271 students enrolled in the boys’ school and 218 enrolled in the girls’ school in 1901.

In 1880 there were about 1,000 Jews living in Beirut. By 1889 that number had grown to 1,500. Beirut’s Jewish population between 1892 and 1906 was 3,000, and between 1907 and 1910 their numbers grew to 5,000.

Beirut’s Jewish population grew after World War I (1914-1918), particularly after Beirut was established as the new capital of Lebanon. The community came to be regarded as the most highly organized in Lebanon and Syria. The main synagogue, Magen Avraham, was the center of the community’s institutions, which included the Alliance schools, the congregational schools, a B'nai B'rith lodge, and a Maccabi club.

Most of Beirut’s Jews were middle class. By the 20^th century the Jews were no longer confined to a special quarter, but the poorer Jews tended to live on the streets that had once been part of the Jewish Quarter. Nonetheless, the former Jewish Quarter still played a significant role in the public imagination; after the establishment of the State of Israel (1948), anti-Jewish demonstrations were held, and mobs descended on the Jewish Quarter (the mobs were eventually dispersed by the Christian community).

The establishment of the State of Israel compelled Beirut’s Jewish community to make a number of changes. The newspaper Al-Alam Al-Israeili (The Israelite World) changed its name to Et Al-Salam (Peace). The Jewish community was also required to contribute a sum of money to the Arab League fund. In general, however, the Jewish community continued to live peacefully. Indeed, during Israel’s War of Independence (1948), the internal unrest in Lebanon during the ‘50s, and the Six-Day War (1967), the Lebanese authorities ordered the police to protect the Jewish Quarter in Wadi Abu Jamil. Additionally, wealthier Jews living among Christians and Muslims in the new suburbs were unharmed.

In contrast to many other Arab countries, Jewish life in Lebanon continued as usual after Israel’s establishment and through the subsequent wars. Indeed, after the establishment of Israel Lebanon’s Jewish population grew, as Syrian and Iraqi refugees began arriving after being expelled from their countries. Nonetheless, the community could still be subject to violence. In 1950 a bomb was planted by Muslim nationalists underneath the Alliance school building, causing it to collapse. The government also closed the Jewish Scouts and the Maccabi sports organization in 1953.

Nonetheless, the Alliance continued its work, and administered three other institutions. The organization’s educational programs enrolled 950 pupils in 1965. Additionally, 250 students attended the Talmud Torah, while the religious school Ozar HaTorah had 80 students.

During the 1950s and ‘60s, the community council, which was made up of nine members, was elected biennially. The council’s bikkur holim was responsible for medical treatment for the poor, as well as for their hospitalization if they were not Lebanese citizens. The council derived its income from the arikha (assessment) tax, which was paid by all men, as well as from endowments and synagogues. During this period most of Beirut’s Jews worked as merchants or as employees of trading and financial companies.

On the eve of the Lebanese Civil War, there were approximately 1,000 Jews living in Beirut, out of a total Lebanese Jewish population of about 1,800.

 

LEBANESE CIVIL WAR (1975-1990)

After the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War, the Jews of Beirut, along with the city’s other minority populations, found themselves caught in the crossfire; many of Beirut’s Jews also lived near the border separating the city’s Christian and Muslim sectors. Jewish homes, businesses, and institutional buildings sustained extensive damage during the fighting. The Magen Avraham synagogue was among the buildings that was damaged during the war. As a result of the chaos and violence of the war, Lebanon’s Jews began leaving the country. By 1982 there were approximately 250 Jews remaining in Beirut, 150 in the western section, and 100 in the eastern section.

After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, as well as the disorder that reigned after the Israeli withdrawal, the Jewish community of Beirut began to be targeted by radical Shia factions. 11 prominent members of the community, including the head of the community, Isaac Sasson, were kidnapped over a 3-year period (1984-1987); four bodies of the kidnapped victims were later recovered, while the fate of the rest has remained unknown. By the early 1990s the Jewish community in Beirut dropped to fewer than 100 members.