“I felt I was leaving behind the Garden of Eden,” writes Oded Halahmy of his expulsion from Iraq. His is just one of the fascinating testimonials in “Iraq’s Last Jews,” a compilation of first hand accounts by Jews who fled their Iraqi homeland. These stories provide more than just the details of Iraq’s former Jewish community; we learn so much about that country’s larger history and culture.
At the time of the British occupation of Iraq in 1917, one third of Baghdad’s population was Jewish. An incredible statistic, given that there are only about a dozen Iraqi Jews left there today. Of the 137,000 Jews who resided in Iraq in the early 1940s, 124,000 had fled the country by 1952.
The book is filled with amazing characters like Baghdad-born Halahmy, who moved to Israel in 1951, and is now a famous sculptor and art gallery owner in New York. At his Pomegranate Gallery in SoHo, Halahmy now helps young Iraqi artists (of all faiths) promote their work internationally.
In contrast to his positive memory of Iraq, Linda Masri Hakim, who left in 1972, after the Ba’athist regime had taken power and steadily increased its persecution the Jewish community, still has nightmares about being stuck in that country today. “When I wake up, I touch my pillow and say, ‘thank God I am not in Iraq.'” Linda says she would like to “close the book” on the Jews’ history in that country and “forget about perpetuating the memory. This is my attitude because we can’t go back .ñ.ñ. in the same way that European Jews could go back to Europe after the Holocaust.”
From the mix of idyllic and traumatic memories we get a sense of the enormous loss Iraq itself suffered from the persecution and flight of its Jewish community. Shiite Muslim Dhiaa Kasim Kashi writes that, from a cultural standpoint, Iraq “suffered a big shock when the Jews left,” because “all of Iraq’s famous musicians and composers were Jewish,” as were a large portion of its other artists. In addition, “Jews were so central to commercial life in Iraq that business across the country used to shut down on Saturdays because it was the Jewish Shabbat. They were the most prominent members of every elite profession – bankers, doctors, lawyers, professors, engineers, etc.” In Kashi’s view, had the Jews stayed, they would have helped “manage the country far better” and served as a “moderating influence of society,” a bulwark against the “extreme brand of Arab Nationalism” embodied by Saddam Hussein, which ultimately led the country into three devastating wars and complete economic collapse.
If many of the individuals who fled Iraq rose to prominence thereafter, it may be due to the exceptional richness of their heritage. They were thoroughly integrated into the larger community and used Arabic as their main language, they were literate and Jewish community leaders played an important role in shaping Iraq’s political destiny for centuries. Sir Sassoon Hezkel, for example, participated in the negotiations with Winston Churchill that led the formation of the modern Iraqi state. Knighted by the British crown, he was also an early supporter of King Faisal I, the first Hashemite leader of Iraq. (He later served as Faisal’s minister of finance, which goes to show the level of trust that used to exist between Iraq’s Muslim and Jewish communities).
Yet “Iraq’s Last Jews” is almost a misleading title. The story of Iraq’s prominent Christian communities is also told here. At a time when many Iraqi Christians are suffering from renewed persecution, their proud history is both timely and relevant for diplomats and journalists involved in that country’s transition. It is not a coincidence, for example, that the northern city of Mosul remains the last bastion of Sunni extremism. There is a very real fear among some of the town’s Sunni population, many of whom now live in the homes formerly occupied by expelled Jews, Kurds and Christians, that they may be dispossessed of the ill-gotten gains they acquired under Saddam’s rule.
What is it about this ancient land that had the world’s major powers involved in its destiny throughout recorded history? That is the larger question this book addresses. The testimonies of “Iraq’s Last Jews” serve as the narrative threads that help to unveil layer upon layer of false assumptions and misguided perceptions, most of which stem from news coverage devoid of historical perspective. Even the normally well-informed New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman thought it wise to joke, in 2003, that the US had invaded “the Flintstones.” Though Friedman was obviously trying to convey the extreme poverty he witnessed while traveling through Iraq, of all the countries the US has ever invaded, Iraq may be the least befitting of such a simplistic analogy. Iraq is a naturally rich country, both in resources and culture, and the extreme poverty its civilians were reduced to under Saddam Hussein is a historical anomaly.
“Iraq’s Last Jews” does describe heart wrenching tragedies, but the collection also reminds us that “mutual respect and even friendship” between Arabs and Jews and Christians was “once the norm” in Iraq.
Having traveled extensively throughout Iraq, both before the war (as a humanitarian worker) and after the 2003 invasion (as a journalist), I learned more flipping through these 200 hundred pages than I imagined possible. “Iraq’s Last Jews” is without a doubt the most surprising and informative book about that country’s culture and history to date.
Michael Soussan teaches international relations at New York university’s Center for Global Affairs and is the author of the forthcoming “Backstabbing for Beginners: My crash course in international diplomacy.”
Iraq’s Last Jews
Stories of Daily Life, Upheaval and Escape from Modern Babylon
edited by Tamar Morad, Dennis Shasha and Robert Shasha
Palgrave Macmillan