The Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries is one of the most significant events in modern Middle East history, yet the details nevertheless remain largely unknown to many. The departure, flight, expulsion and evacuation of some 850,000 Jews from across the region, as well as from North Africa exposed the fundamental insecurity of the Jewish people across much of the region.
Unfortunately, a recent Washington Post article left readers entirely unaware of the horrific circumstances of the near-total decimation of Iraq’s Jewish community.
The piece, by Miriam Berger, deals with a topic seemingly unrelated to Israel: namely, Pope Francis’ visit this week to Iraq. While the article for the most part had nothing to do with Israel or Jews, and rightfully detailed how the trip was “particularly rich in symbolism for Iraq’s embattled minority Christian communities,” a couple of references included therein are problematic.
Israel’s Creation: the Reason For Jewish Community’s Collapse?
At one point, Berger writes that (emphasis added): “Iraq, like elsewhere in the Middle East, was once a rich tapestry of religions and ethnicities. But wars and political changes in the 19th and 20th centuries, such as the fall of the Ottoman Empire, European colonialism, the rise of Arab nationalism and the creation of Israel, altered the frameworks that had once kept these communities together.”
In listing Israel’s creation alongside such obviously fraught and dangerous political moments such as the fall of the Ottoman Empire and European colonialism, the very existence of the world’s only Jewish is categorized as a destabilizing influence on the region. This simply is not true. Israel’s existence is not the reason for the collapse of Iraq’s Jewish community: Arab and Muslim intolerance of Jewish independence was.
Certainly, in and of itself, the declaration of a Jewish state had no direct negative impact on the fabric of life in Iraq. As such, the article should have listed fierce Arab opposition to Israel’s creation among the critical factors that “altered the frameworks” that once kept Iraq’s Jewish community relatively safe.
Even then, this only partially explains how the country’s Jewish population, which at its peak numbered in excess of 130,000, disintegrated in a matter of decades, to the point that only a handful of Jews are believed to now live in the region.
Jews in Iraq were massacred, had property confiscated, and faced horrendous persecution from their Arab compatriots.
Israel's creation wasn't the problem: It was Arab intolerance of Jews seeking independence, @MiriamABerger @washingtonpost.
Your piece should reflect that. pic.twitter.com/QnRPbikcGD
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) March 7, 2021
The following paragraph also subtly, but worryingly, mischaracterizes history (emphasis added): “Like Iraq’s once-prosperous Jewish community and other minority religious groups, vast numbers of Iraqi Catholic, Orthodox and other Christians have left for safety elsewhere in recent decades, with many seeking asylum in the West.”
This is a stunningly simplistic way of describing the flight of the Iraqi Jewish community. Jews did not simply leave, and describing their “seeking asylum in the West” glosses the very reason why they were forced to flee: unprovoked killings, confiscation of property, the banning of Jews from emigrating, and various other forms of discrimination.
Muslim persecution of Jews in Iraq commenced centuries before the State of Israel was established. Even though the Jewish community was relatively prosperous and succeeded in integrating into the country politically and socially, persecution was a part of daily life, including, for example, having to pay high taxes. Even after the Jews were formally emancipated, they still faced antisemitism. Meanwhile, as the Nazis rampaged through much of Europe, they found support from parts of the Arab world, especially from those seeking to destroy any aspirations for the creation of a Jewish state.
This toxic mixture of Nazi ideology with Islamic intolerance culminated in a particularly brutal attack on the Jews of Baghdad in June 1941, which later came to be known as The Farhud. By all accounts, the violence was extreme, with the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum recording 179 killed, over 2,000 wounded, at least 200 orphaned children, and property looted from some 50,000 Jews. Some independent researchers estimate that hundreds of Jews were killed.
Related Reading: The Farhud — The Massacre that Ended Iraq’s 2,600-Year-Old Jewish Community
The Farhud massacre heightened the already existing unease among the Jews of Baghdad. Despite some positive moves by Iraq’s government, the damage was irrevocable and caused a significant shift in the Jewish community’s mentality. According to many historians, more than any other episode, The Farhud set in motion the chain of events leading to the eventual downfall of Iraqi Jewry.
For this to be reduced to a simple narrative of Jews, among other minorities, having “left for safety elsewhere” effectively diminishes the scale of the tragedy and the root cause of their flight. While it is clear that the topic of Iraqi Jews is only tangentially related to the primary focus of Berger’s Washington Post article, framing their exodus in this manner fundamentally misleads readers.
Furthermore, the piece failed to note that the Iraqi government continues to discriminate against Jews. As Seth Frantzman of the Jerusalem Post noted, the Iraqi government prevented Jews from participating in the pope’s historic visit. Surely, if Jews were invoked by Berger, their deliberate omission from the welcome ceremony should have warranted mention.
Frantzman cited Iraqi-born Edwin Shuker, who summarized his disappointment with the Iraqi government at having “wasted a historic opportunity to reconcile with its Jews by inviting them to attend the ceremony at Ur and use the occasion to recognize and correct the injustice committed against them by successive governments.”
