The ‘taboo history’ of the Jews of Iraq
Questions for Carole Basri
Carole Basri addresses a committee of the British House of Lords in 2007 on the plight of Jews in Iraq. Photo courtesy Carole Basri
If you go
Who: Carole Basri: “The Taboo History of Jews in Arab Countries”
What: American Jewish Committee Metro NJ annual meeting and dinner
When: Thursday, June 16, 6 p.m.
Where: Mountain Ridge Country Club, West Caldwell
Cost: $125
Reservations: Contact 973-379-7844 or newjersey@ajc.org
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May 9, 2011
Lawyer and filmmaker Carole Basri has many facets, and most of them reflect her roots as a Jew of Iraqi descent.
An adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, she is an expert on international relations and Jewish history in the Middle East. Since 2003 she has worked in various capacities as a legal adviser to the American and Iraqi authorities in Baghdad. A filmmaker, Basri has served as director on The Last Jews Of Baghdad: End of an Exile, Beginning of a Journey (2005), a documentary that presents a historical and personal view of the persecution, torture, escape, and flight of over 160,000 Jews from Iraq between the years 1940 and 2003.
Searching For Baghdad: A Daughter’s Journey (2002), on which Basri served as a producer and director, documents her travels to find the remnants of her heritage outside of Iraq.
Basri will discuss “The Taboo History of Jews in Arab Countries” at the annual meeting and dinner of the American Jewish Committee Metro NJ region on Thursday, June 16. Linda Kohl of Short Hills will receive the 2011 Community Relations Award at the event, which is being cochaired by Carol and Robert Marcus and Thelma and Richard Florin.
In her talk, Basri will present her own family’s story with a historical overview. She discussed her topic with New Jersey Jewish News by phone on March 15.
NJJN: Why is the history taboo?
Basri: It is taboo on many levels, and not just in Arab countries. It was taboo in my own family, where we had a hanging of my father’s cousin, Joseph Basri, in Baghdad. My uncle, Meir Basri, was tortured by Saddam Hussein for three months because he was head of the Jewish community in 1969 when nine Jews were hanged in Tahrir Square [after being convicted on trumped-up charges of spying for Israel]. A lot of people were tortured. One quarter of the Jewish males between ages 20 and 60 in 1969 and 1970 were either tortured or went missing….
The Arab League drove out 900,000 indigenous Jews from their countries. The Jews left after ethnic cleansing, torture, suppression of religion, and vandalism.
In Iraq, anti-Jewish legislation started in 1933. Fritz Grobba, Hitler’s ambassador to Iraq, bought up newspapers and started printing Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, redacting those parts that were anti-Arab.
In 1941 there was a pro-Nazi uprising in Iraq that is compared to Kristallnacht because there was so much glass shattered in Jewish streets. Almost 200 people were killed.
NJJN: Were Iraqi Jews sent to concentration camps?
Basri: No. But the Iraqis drew up plans to do that. It was very much talked about. The prime minister said, ‘We should take all the Jews to the border with Jordan, and if Jordan doesn’t take them, they can shoot them.”
NJJN: Did the situation for Jews in Iraq ease after World War II?
Basri: No. Jews were no longer able to practice their professions. All their bank accounts were frozen. It was a very tragic situation. They made the Jews pay for the Iraqi war effort against Israel in 1948.
NJJN: What happened to your family?
Basri: My mother’s father had to bribe his way out. He was able to get a plane to take him out of the country with my grandmother and four children, but he had to leave two daughters behind.... He took his two oldest daughters, fearing they would be assaulted or killed. He took his two sons. He left his two youngest daughters with relatives and smuggled them out of the country one year later through Kurdistan. This was the “taboo history.” The family always said, “We left,” but we left as refugees. We went to Belgium, then the United States.
On my father’s side, they all went to refugee camps in Israel and lived like refugees in tents. It was horrible.
It also has been a taboo history in Israel and it has not been brought up until recently in peace talks.
It is a taboo history to Jews all over the world and to the Arabs, of course.
NJJN: Haven’t there been similar persecutions of Jews in other Arab countries?
Basri: Right; in Iraq, though, it was very calculated. In 1952 they brought in legislation which said, “If you give up all your property we will allow you to travel out of the country.” They didn’t expect that many Jews to do it, but at least 90,000 applied…. Then, while they were figuring out how they would leave, the government confiscated their passports and all the Jewish property.
They were penniless, and the Muslims were told not to buy their property, so the Jews left destitute. It was like going to a refugee camp…. They had to leave everything behind.
NJJN: In the years of Saddam Hussein and since, what has life been like for the Jews in Iraq?
Basri: Under Saddam the Jewish population decreased from 3,500 down to 50. He was terrible to the Jews. Since 2003, some have died and some have gone to Israel. There are only seven Jews left there today.
NJJN: Are you in touch with them?
Basri: Yes. I know them all. I have been to Baghdad seven times since 2003. I have worked with U.S. Ambassador L. Paul Bremer at the Coalition Provisional Authority and with the Iraqi Ministry of Health…. I’ve worked with the Iraqi tribunal on the war crimes of Saddam [and] I worked on the oil-for-food program.
NJJN: What is life like now for the seven Jews still in Iraq?
Basri: I can’t go through it in depth because…these people are trying to keep a low profile, and I want to respect that low profile. They are in danger.
Comments
Arshak Yanikian
June 22, 2011
I am deeply sorry regarding you family misfortune in Iraq . My father is Photo Arshak on Rashid street Baghdad since 1927 . I am his senior son and during the years past 1979 we had many many Jewish clients come to our studio for picture specially the wedding pictures. My father used to have many Jewish friends and all of them used to live good life and specially during the Royal Kingdom time . There were many ultra rich Jewish families in Baghdad . The last Jewish friends that I remember that used to come in our studio years 1968 and on to 1971 before I went to Glasgow for Masters degree in Structural Engineering were Lawrence and his other Jewish friend that I don’t remember his name . They used to come with their friend Lawyer Jaafar Qambar who was my father’s friend . Jaafar used to play back gammon with my father from 8 pm to 9 pm almost 3 or 4 times per week and Lawrence and his friend used to sit and join the company . After 9 pm all of us we go to Abu Nawass street and have fish Maskuf in the casino on the banks of Tigress River . The government put restriction to import material from out side the country so the 2 clever Jew friends use to find which Government contract is in the market befor bidding they buy the specifications and search for the material needed to be used in the contract and from that they go to the Iraqi market to buy most of the material available and when an assigned contractor gets the job he will buy the material from them ofcourse with higher prices this I call it inside the country Trade . I think after 1975 the 2 Jew friend left Iraq to U.K . My point to you was most of Iraqi Jews lived in good life but a very few of the were prosecuted for some violation to the law since I lived in Baghdad until my age was 33 and I left to USA . Now Iraq is bad and I cannot go back for security reasons .
Shmuel Moreh
June 24, 2011
Prof. Carole Basri made an excellent step toward reminding the World of the calamities of the Jews from Arab Lands and especially that of the Iraqi Jews. All the politicians, historians and writers kept a conspiracy of silent towards the Farhud. Only in Israel Jewish writers from Iraq started writing on the Farhud in Arabic. When in 1991 a book edited by S. Moreh & Z. Yehuda was published in Hebrew on Hatred of Jews and the Farhud, the Israeli media and the politicians kept silent. Only recently some books were published in English to make the World aware of the calamities of the Farhud and the Jews suffered in Arab Lands. Thanks to the films of Prof. Carole Basri, Salim Fattal and the books on Farhud published by S. Moreh & Z. Yehuda, Al-Farhud, The 1941 Pogrom in Iraq, by Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, The Hebrew Universiyt, 2010 and by Edwin Black’s excellent book on The Farhud, Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust, Washington, DC, Dialogue Press, in 448 pages, Violette Shamash, Memories of Eden, 2008 and Mrs. Tova Murad’s novels on the Farhud and her life in Baghdad, enabled the Western World to get a real picture of how these prosperous communities were brutally destroyed, their properties confiscated while Israel and the World kept silent and cosidered the Palestinian refugees the only one in the Middle East who deserve compisation. It is time that the World considers the Farhud and the occupation of North Africa by the Nazi Germany, were part of the Holocaust.
Prof. Shmuel Moreh,
The Hebrew University
Sami
July 09, 2011
Antisemites and Arabs keep on posting on the web a book written by Naeim Giladi that says Israel terrorised iraqi Jews to go Israel.
It is important that the community fight back against this book.
shushan
July 21, 2011
the mossad blew up shuls in bagdad to encourage Jews to leave and become slaves in israel for the ashkenazi mafia.
How many Jewish communities have been destroyed beause of israel since 1948? and while Jewish communities are being destroyed the cia controlled zionist goyerment breed arabs in israel to make life unbearable for Jews even in the zionist paradise
amer
September 01, 2011
Publishing
Iraqi Jewish lost his rights because of his religion, needs diligent solution for his problem
I need international layer for defend my case
I hope this email finds you well, and I would like to thank you in advance for your fruitful and constructive cooperation in shedding the light on my case that would be attached to you. As well as, I hope you would be able to publish this letter at your media, as my case is not restricted to me only but you may say it concerns all the Iraqi Jews all over the world.
Thank you for your valuable time
Best Regards
Amer Musa Naseem Alkateb
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
P.O. Box: 921279
Mobile: 00962787426079- 00962797106723
Albert I. Bivas
February 13, 2012
Carole Basri seems to mention that some Jews in Iraq were accused on some trump charges of spying for Israel. To set the record straight, Israel apparently used the jews in arab country for its own (malevolent) self interest. Just one example is the “Lavon Affairs” whereby Israeli manipulated young jews in Egypt to blow out the american embassy in Cairo to blame the egyptians and poison the Egyptian-american relationship.
Let us also tell the story and remind all the false pretense under which the “zionists”/isrelis brought the yemenites jews in Israel. Some of these Israelis have kidnapped some children of these yemenites jews to give them for adoption to ashkenazim who could not have children. Also the religious books, many of them very valuables, of these yemites jews have been stolen by some Israelis and sold to libraries, museums and booksellers where some have been later found. Despite claims by the victims and promise by the israeli government to investigate the malevolent acts to find the guilties and try to remedy or compensate the victims and the situations, no actions were done but continues cover-up. You may contact the Yemenite Jewish Federation for further information on the subject of the negative treatment of yemenite jews by and in Israel.
Let us not omit the fact that one of the primary causes of the “catastrophes” that happened to jews of arab countries was was the stat of Israel, its creation and “zionism” in its latest modern, twisted misrepresented form.
Also, it is wrong to put all the blame on the arab and wrong to paint them all and always as bad, anti-semite/anti-jews or of whatever negative comments. The Arabs have often been good to the jews as well as other of different cultures, religions or otherwise. Just a far as Egypt is concerned, they have received, indeed welcomed, jewish refugees from Europe (e.g.: Jews from Eastern Europe fleeing the pogroms and other mistreatments, including victims of nazisms, etc…
Etc… etc…
marta talmor (Asher)
March 13, 2012
Hello
My name is Marta and I was born in Israel/ My parents were born in Iraq and made Aliah on 1951 from Iraq. I’m very interested in the history of the family in Iraq and unfortunately don’t have much facts and evident. Recently, we found a picture of my uncle’s wedding in Iraq under the name of “Arshag” photo . I Read Mr. Arshak Yanikian comments which lit up a red light in my mind to follow the history of my parents especially to find some images that shown there life there. Can you help me?
With pleasure,
Marta Talmor
Nili Rajwan
June 18, 2012
Interested in finding out what happened to my father in law, and his brother, who disappeared in Bagdad around November of 1972. My father in law’s name was Yaakov Rejwan and his brother was Shaul Rejwan. When I lived in Israel, many years ago, I tried to find out what happened and never can get to the bottom of this. Can you lead me to someone who can help.
Thank you.
I can be reached at my email address, and would then love to talk to you either over the phone or in person.
Penn grad
June 18, 2012
Part of Zionist mythology is that the creation of Israel is necessary to protect Jews from rampant anti-Semitism. This mythology had to be manufactured where it didn’t exist, mainly to convince Jews themselves of the need to move to - and populate - the newly formed Zionist state.
One such place is Iraq, where Jews have lived and prospered for centuries and had little incentive to leave, because it had been so good to their community. This started to change following the British occupation after the destruction of the Ottoman Empire.
Zionist propaganda has it that the Jews of Iraq fled Iraqi persecution in the middle of the 20th century, and that they are still under threat from the Iraqi nemesis, which threatened Israel under Saddam, the modern Haman.
But, the truth is that hostility towards Jews in Iraq was manufactured by Zionist Jews and blamed on Iraqis.
Wilbur Crane Eveland was a former CIA agent, who worked for US intelligence in Iraq from 1950 to 1952. He was in the country when bombs exploded in Jewish holidays and celebrations. He wrote in his book, Ropes of Sand: America’s Failure in the Middle East:
“Just after I arrived in Baghdad, an Israeli citizen had been recognized in the city’s largest department store: his interrogation led to the discovery of fifteen arms caches brought into Iraq by an underground Zionist movement.
In attempts to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the United States Information Service Library and in synagogues. Soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel ...
Although the Iraqi police later provided our embassy with evidence to show that the synagogue and library bombings, as well as the anti-Jewish and anti-American leaflet campaigns, had been the work of an underground Zionist organization, most of the world believed reports that Arab terrorism had motivated the flight of the Iraqi Jews whom the Zionists had ‘rescued’ really just in order to increase Israel’s Jewish population.”
Of course, there is Naeim Giladi’s work The Jews of Iraq, an important piece of testimony on recent Jewish history in Iraq and Zionist Israel, which also documents Zionist false flag terror perpetrated against innocent Jews to push them to flee. Also found here. Excerpts:
About 125,000 Jews left Iraq for Israel in the late 1940s and into 1952, most because they had been lied to and put into a panic by what I came to learn were Zionist bombs.
Sir Francis Humphreys, Britain’s Ambassador in Baghdad, noted that, while before WW I Iraqi Jews had enjoyed a more favorable position than any other minority in the country, since then “Zionism has sown dissension between Jews and Arabs, and a bitterness has grown up between the two peoples which did not previously exist.”
Today there is no doubt in my mind that the anti-Jewish riots of 1941 were orchestrated by the British for geopolitical ends.
Zionist propagandists still maintain that the bombs in Iraq were set off by anti-Jewish Iraqis who wanted Jews out of their country. The terrible truth is that the grenades that killed and maimed Iraqi Jews and damaged their property were thrown by Zionist Jews.
Giladi delves into the evidence he uncovered in his investigations, and reading the whole article is well worth it.
This history is important, as it serves as a context to view the more recent troubles of Iraq. The Zionist-dominated media has been defaming Iraq and its leadership for decades, yet there is a positive history of Zionists killing their own to do just that. Also, Jews have lived in peace for centuries in Iraq, as did the Shias and Sunnis. How can we be sure that atrocities committed against both sides are not perpetrated by a third party to divide and rule?
The history of false flag terror is very important in understanding what is happening today, as we deconstruct the lies and propaganda spun around world events.