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Zakho, Iraqi-Kurdistan

Zakho, Iraq

Located in northern Iraq, about five miles from the Iraqi-Turkish border, and twelve and a half miles from the Iraqi-Syrian border, the Kurdish town of Zakho contained large Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities.1 Each community lived in a separate quarter of the city, near their house of worship.2 Before their emigration to Israel in the early 1950s, the Jewish community of Zakho numbered about 1,900 persons, making it one of the largest Jewish communities in the area.3 The Jewish quarter, known in Kurdish as maḥallah juhiya and in Jewish-Aramaic as maḥalledḥozaye (the Jewish neighborhood), was within walking distance of the synagogues.4 The Jewish neighborhood was an island surrounded by two branches of the lesser Khabur, a tributary of the Tigris River that crosses the town from northeast to southwest, and suffered from frequent floods in winter and spring.5 Before motorized vehicles, the river was the main route for the transport of materials from central Kurdistan to the Tigris steppe, and Zakho was an important shipping center.6 About seventy of the town’s Jewish families were loggers and raftsmen who transported merchandise and wood to Mosul and beyond on large rafts made of logs tied together, alone or over inflated sheepskins.7 

Description

Jewish Community: Jews played a significant role in the commercial life of Zakho. They were involved in crafts such as weaving, jewelry smithing, and shoemaking.8 They were also involved in trade, logging, and agriculture. In the first half of the twentieth century, Zakho was the spiritual capital for
Jews in the area. Jews had converged there in the mid-to late-1800s, fleeing Muslim tribal unrest in Arbil and Amadiya. Jews in remote villages began to travel to Zakho for certification as kosher slaughterers or rabbinical training. Most boys left school after 4th grade if they attended at all, leaving
once they were strong enough to assist with the family business.9 In 1930, Jews made up only about 5% of the town’s population, but believed it to be the “Jerusalem of Kurdistan.”10

Social and commercial relations between the religious groups were mostly good, and the Jews felt secure thanks to the protection provided by the local chieftains, which was especially strong when the entire Jewish community of Zakho left for Israel in 1951–52.11 Jews had to seek the chieftains’ blessing and pay a free for marriages and were expected to volunteer their labor for public works projects, but received freedom of trade and religion.12

The city’s Jews and Christians spoke Neo-Aramaic, a version of the language most Iraqis outside Kurdistan had lost after the Islamic invasion of the seventh
century. The relative isolation of mountainous Kurdistan allowed the language to survive; however, since there was little use for it in Israel, today it is at risk of extinction.

The entire Jewish community of Zakho left for Israel in 1951-1952, mostly settling in Jerusalem. The most prosperous families were initially reluctant to leave their businesses behind for an uncertain future while the penniless felt they had nothing to lose in Israel.13 The first seventy families to go left in October 1950; they were mostly poor and illiterate.14 The exodus continued through the following months as the quota of Iraqi Jews allowed into Israel increased. There they gradually lost their Aramaic and Kurdistani way of life. Today, Zakho’s residents still refer to the area once inhabited by Jews as the Jewish neighborhood even though its last Jew left more than half a century ago.

Synagogues: The town had two synagogues: Knishta Rabtha (Neo-Aramic: the large synagogue) and Knishta Zurta (Neo-Aramaic: the little synagogue).15 The large synagogue was the oldest and had a foundation stone dated 5558 in the Jewish calendar, (1798 CE), the year it was built or remodeled.16 Each of the synagogues had a long inner hall used in winter, a half-open corridor for warmer weather, and an open yard for hot summer days. The large synagogue also had a mikveh, a ritual bath, known as a ṭabila.17

Present Day: After the establishment of the State of Israel, the Jewish community of Zakho emigrated en masse, most of the Zakho Jews preferring to live in Jerusalem and its neighborhoods.18 After the First Gulf War, it became possible for Kurdish Jews to visit the liberated area of northern Iraq. Those who did so found the synagogues in ruins, and a new highway running through the Jewish cemetery. Many of the Kurdish residents, however, were very welcoming; they still remembered the “old times” with the Jews, and sent regards to former friends and neighbors in Israel. These sentiments were reciprocated by the Kurdish Jews in Israel.19

Zakho, Iraqi-Kurdistan

Zakho, Iraq

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Gallery

Sources

[1] Sabar, Yona. Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. s.v. "Zakho." http://0-referenceworks.brillonline.com.luna.wellesley.edu/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-in-the-islamic-world/zakho-COM_0022530
(Accessed June 20, 2014). 


[2] Ibid.


[3] Ibid.


[4] Ibid.


[5] Ibid.


[6] Ibid.


[7] Ibid.


[8] Ben-Yaacob, Abraham, and Nissim Kazzaz. Encyclopaedia Judaica. 2nd ed. Vol. 21. s.v. "Zakho." http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX2587521376&v=2.1&u=mlin_m_wellcol&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w&asid=9c496ef5205f850027a41a72d0eca8ff (accessed June 20, 2014).


[9] Ariel Sabar, My Father's Paradise (Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2009), 50.


[10] Ibid.,  52-53.


[11] Ben-Yaacob, Abraham, and Nissim Kazzaz. Encyclopaedia Judaica. 2nd ed. Vol. 21. s.v. "Zakho." http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX2587521376&v=2.1&u=mlin_m_wellcol&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w&asid=9c496ef5205f850027a41a72d0eca8ff (accessed June 20, 2014).


[12] Sabar, My Father’s Paradise, 90.


[13] Ibid.


[14] Ibid., 93.


[15] Sabar, Yona. Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. s.v. "Zakho."
http://0-referenceworks.brillonline.com.luna.wellesley.edu/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-in-the-islamic-world/zakho-COM_0022530
(Accessed June 20, 2014).


[16] Ibid.


[17] Ibid.


[18] Ben-Yaacob, Abraham, and Nissim Kazzaz. Encyclopaedia Judaica.
2nd ed. Vol. 21. s.v. "Zakho."
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX2587521376&v=2.1&u=mlin_m_wellcol&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w&asid=9c496ef5205f850027a41a72d0eca8ff
(accessed June 20, 2014).


[19] Sabar, Yona. Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World.
s.v. "Zakho."
http://0-referenceworks.brillonline.com.luna.wellesley.edu/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-in-the-islamic-world/zakho-COM_0022530
(Accessed June 20, 2014).