Jews of Arab Countries: The Loss of Ancestral Inheritance
Jews have lived in what are now Arab countries for more than three thousand years, long before the Arab conquests that began in the seventh century.
In 1948, there were more than 870,000 Jews living in the Middle East and North Africa. By 1958, ninety-seven percent of all Jews in Arab countries had emigrated due to hostile political, social and economic climates.
Text and photos, based on a 2003 exhibit of the American Sephardi Federation, offer a glimpse into the rich lives of Jews who lived in two of these countries, Iraq and Libya.
Jews of Iraq
Jews came to Babylon—modern-day Iraq—in 586 BCE following the destruction of the First Temple and resided there continuously for more than 2,500 years. Babylon became the center of Jewish scholarship following the destruction of the Second Temple in 72 CE. The fortunes of Babylonian Jews waxed and waned under successive dynasties following the Muslim conquest in the seventh century.
The Jewish community in Iraq had been one of the oldest and largest in the Arab world, numbering 135,000 in 1948. However, as a result of anti-Jewish legislation and violence, the majority of Iraqi Jews were airlifted to Israel in what became known as “Operation Ezra and Nehemiah” (1948-1950).
Jews were oppressed during the latter days of the Ottoman Empire, and they welcomed the British conquest of Baghdad in 1917. Iraqi Jews enjoyed full freedom during the British Mandate.
Rabbi Ezra Dangoor (1848-1930), chief rabbi of Baghdad and Rangoon.
When Iraq became independent under British protection in 1932, the treatment of Jews changed radically. The teaching of Hebrew was prohibited in 1934, and the entry of Jewish students into high schools and universities was restricted. Over three hundred Jewish civil servants were dismissed between 1934 and 1936. Attacks on Jews and the bombing of Jewish institutions became frequent.
| Jewish Populations in Arab Countries | ||
|---|---|---|
| Country | 1948 | 1976 |
| Morocco | 265,000 | 5,800 |
| Algeria | 140,000 | 0 |
| Iraq | 135,000 | 100 |
| Tunisia | 105,000 | 1,500 |
| Egypt | 100,000 | 200 |
| Yemen | 63,000 | 200 |
| Libya | 38,000 | 0 |
| Syria | 30,000 | 100 |
Jewish wedding in Baghdad, circa 1930.
Armed mobs attacked Jews and Jewish property in Baghdad during Shavuot 1941. One hundred and eighty Jews were killed, seven hundred were wounded.
The Jewish community of Iraq numbered 135,000 in 1948; over 77,000 Jews (one-fourth of the population) lived in Baghdad.
In September 1948, Jews were banned from import trade. In a show trial, Shafiq Ades, one of Baghdad’s richest Jewish merchants, was convicted of providing arms to Israel. He was fined heavily and hanged.
Rabbinical Scholars in Baghdad, 1910.
Because of the anti-Jewish legislation and violence, most of the Jewish population fled. Jews were permitted to leave Iraq in 1948 as long as they left permanently and renounced their citizenship. Every emigrant over the age of twenty was permitted to take the equivalent of eighty dollars as well as three summer outfits, three winter suits, a pair of shoes, a blanket, underwear, socks, sheets, one wedding ring, one wristwatch, and one thin bracelet. Assets remaining in Iraq were frozen. In 1950-1951, over 120,000 Iraqi Jews were airlifted to Israel as part of Operation Ezra and Nechemia.
Baghdad, June 1, 1941: All night long, we heard gunfire and shouting . . . . It went quiet before dawn. That morning my father went to the synagogue . . . . . When he got back he told Mother what happened; Jewish homes were burned, daughters raped, homes looted. One synagogue was burned down. As Father was talking, they burst into our house, broke down two doors, entered shouting, waving sticks. Father took us to the stairway leading to the roof. We started to climb, one after another, my mother after us, my father bringing up the rear. Suddenly, my mother heard a shot. She turned, and saw my father, dead. A policeman came. My mother started to cry, telling him, “They killed my husband.” He said: “How do you want to die?” and bashed her head in with his gun.
—Nezima Mu’allem-Cohen, recorded in Yigal Lucin’s The Pillar of Fire [in Hebrew]. From Rachel Neiman’s English translation of Itamar Levin’s Locked Doors: The Seizure of Jewish Property in Arab Countries (Connecticut, 2001).
(Left to right) Rabbis Isahar Hakmon, Eliahu Raccha, Rahamim Adar, Yitzhak Buhabza, Zion Bitar and two unidentified rabbis sitting in a sukkah in Tripoli, Libya, circa 1926.
Jews of Libya
Jews lived continuously in Libya for more than two millennia, since the third century BCE under Greek, Roman, Ottoman, Italian, British and Arab rule. In 1880, there were eleven rabbinic academies in Tripoli.
Airlift of Iraqi Jews, “Operation Ezra and Nehemiah,” 1950 and 1952.
In 1945, more than one hundred and thirty Jews were brutally killed and burned, and hundreds more were injured in a pogrom in Tripoli. Synagogues were burned, and four thousand Jews were left homeless. This was a defining moment for the Libyan Jewish community, and more than thirty thousand Jews emigrated to Israel between 1949 and 1951, leaving only a few hundred in Benghazi and a few thousand in Tripoli.
The Rights of Jewish Refugees
Resolution 242, adopted by the United Nations in 1967, declares that there should be “a just settlement of the refugee problem.” Resolution 242 makes no distinction between Palestinian Arab refugees and Jewish refugees from Arab countries. U Thant, the U.N. secretary-general at the time, emphasized that all refugees, Arab and Jews, were entitled to a just settlement of their respective claims.
Slat Bramly Synagogue in Benghazi, Libya, circa 1920-1930.
In 1969, Libya was overthrown by Muammar el-Qaddafi. The remaining Jews were expelled in 1970. Jewish property was burned, confiscated, or looted, and all debts to Jews were canceled.
Interior of a Jewish home in Benghazi, Libya, circa 1920.
Pogrom in Libya: They went to the synagogue first . . . . Then at night we hear[d] screaming, from every house, screaming, screaming . . . . They arrive[d] at our house . . . . They started knocking down the house; my brother was pouring boiling oil on the Arabs so they . . . took a bomb and threw it at him. They took him to the hospital. It was morning, we went out. You saw, there was a little boy, they gouged his eyes . . . and they killed his mother . . . . They went to another house, the house of the mother-in-law of my sister . . . they tied her dog to her hand so that he could eat her . . . . They killed the man and the woman and they threw them into the well . . . . I saw all of them. I cannot forget . . . the vandalism, they took the money, the homes, they took everything of the Jews.
—Lydia, interview by Vivienne Roumani-Denn, tape recording, “The Last Jews of Libya,” http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/JewsofLibya/.
Children reading Tehillim in the Gherian Region, Libya, circa 1943.
E finita, Libya e finita.
It is ended. Libya is gone . . . . Qaddafi destroyed the cemeteries. I would not return for all the gold in the world.
—Saul Legziel, interview by Vivienne Roumani-Denn, tape recording, “The Last Jews of Libya,” http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/JewsofLibya/.
This photo essay was featured in the Fall 2003 issue.