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Kashkush Family Home at Baghdad, Iraq
In April 1972, the Reuven Kashkush family of Baghdad, Iraq, were murdered in their home by a police unit one day before their intended emigration from Iraq. The five deaths were supposedly retribution for an Israeli commando raid in Beirut early that month.1 One family member, a daughter, escaped the massacre: she was attending class at the university that day, and returned home to find her family gone. Alda Zelouf, author of Iraq’s Last Jews, described the death of the Kashkush family as “one of the most horrible incidents of my time”.2
Description
Baghdad in the Middle Ages By the eighth century, Baghdad had the largest Jewish community in Iraq. In 1170, Benjamin of Tudela claimed that the city had 28 synagogues and 10 yeshivot.3 The city was a notable center of Jewish learning in the Middle Ages, as well as a center of political leadership for Babylonian Jews.
Baghdad in the Modern Era The Tanzimat reforms of the mid-1800s allowed political and economic advancement for Baghdad’s Jews. Jews were appointed to both Baghdad’s municipal council and the Ottoman parliament. By 1880, over a thousand Jewish students had been educated in religious schools, although secular education had begun to grow.4 The first Alliance Israélite Universelle school in Baghdad opened in 1864; it closed quickly due to opposition from the religious establishment, but reopened eight years later.5 By 1920, Baghdad had eight Jewish schools with more than five thousand pupils; by 1949, twenty schools with at least ten thousand. They dominated the Chamber of Commerce in the early 1900s, occupying five of the fifteen seats on the administrative council and almost half the total membership. As of 1908, Jews were roughly a third of Baghdad’s population.6
Violence and Emigration Following the Arab-Israeli War in 1948, Jews began to emigrate from Iraq. The government passed laws requiring emigrants to give up their citizenship and assets. Violence increased: an April 1950 bombing at a café frequented by Jews injured four, the Mas’uda Shemtob synagogue was bombed in January 1951, and American and Jewish diplomatic targets were also attacked. Many Jews were arrested and accused of espionage. By 1952, only six thousand Jews remained in Iraq.7
Baghdad, Iraq
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Sources
[1] “Iraq Murders 23 Jews; Highest Total in Any Year.” Jewish Floridian of North Broward, December 28, 1973. Accessed June 25, 2014. http://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00014313/00059/10j
[2] Gilbert, Lela. Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel Through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner. New York: Encounter Books, 2012. Accessed June 25, 2014. http://books.google.com/books?id=P85yAeWzTmMC
[3] Ahram, Ariel. Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. “Baghdad.” Brill Online, 2014. Accessed June 27, 2014. http://0-referenceworks.brillonline.com.luna.wellesley.edu/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-in-the-islamic-world/baghdad-SIM_000468
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.