Jewish Ledger
The Iraqi Jewish Archives. Lost and Found…and LOST?
By Carole Basri and Adriana Davis
Carole Basri
(JTA) – On Jan. 27, 1969, nine Jews were hanged in Tahrir Square in the center of Baghdad as half a million people looked on.
It was the climax of a campaign of persecution that followed the establishment of Israel, which in turn hastened an exodus of what had been a strong and flourishing community. Of the 160,000 Jews who had lived in what is today Iraq since the destruction of the First Temple, only a handful of Jews remain.
When the Jews fled, they were not allowed to take anything more than three sets of clothing and 50 dinars – a pittance. Their communal and personal property was confiscated by the Iraqi regime.
52 years ago, 9 Jews were hanged in Baghdad - today, their descendants risk losing everything they left behind
February 5, 2021
(JTA) On Jan. 27, 1969, nine Jews were hanged in Tahrir Square in the center of Baghdad as half a million people looked on.
It was the climax of a campaign of persecution that followed the establishment of Israel, which in turn hastened an exodus of what had been a strong and flourishing community. Of the 160,000 Jews who had lived in what is today Iraq since the destruction of the First Temple, only a handful of Jews remain.
When the Jews fled, they were not allowed to take anything more than three sets of clothing and 50 dinars a pittance. Their communal and personal propert.
52 years ago, 9 Jews were hanged in Baghdad. Today, their descendants risk losing everything they left behind. January 27, 2021 2:45 pm Ranj Abderrahman Cohen, an Iraqi Kurdish Jewish man, stands at a ruined Jewish synagogue in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on July 5, 2020. Jews were historically Iraq s second-largest religious sect, comprising 40 percent of Baghdad s population according to a 1917 census, before their exhile in 1969. (Safin Hamed/ AFP via Getty Images)
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(JTA) On Jan. 27, 1969, nine Jews were hanged in Tahrir Square in the center of Baghdad as half a million people looked on.
It was the climax of a campaign of persecution that followed the establishment of Israel, which in turn hastened an exodus of what had been a strong and flourishing community. Of the 160,000 Jews who had lived in what is today Iraq since the destruction of the First Temple, only a handful of Jews remain