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Menahem Daniel School at Baghdad, Iraq

Description

An elementary school for girls founded in 1904 under the name "Kindergarten Menahem Daniel". Menahem Daniel and his son Ezra donated the land and buildings for the school. The curriculum included both French and English education. Many students continued their studies at the Aliiance's Laura Kadoorie School after graduation. The school employed mainly female teachers. In 1950, shortly before mass immigration to Israel, the school had 460 students, 15 teachers, and 11 classes.

Baghdad was home to the largest Jewish community in Iraq possibly from as early as its founding in the eighth century. By 1908, the Jews of Baghdad numbered around 53,000, about a third of Baghdad's total population, and lived in many quarters--including al-Tawrat, Tahat it-Takyah, Abu Saifan, and Suq Hannun. Although Jews were involved in local politics, new tensions began to rise between Jews and Muslims--leading to an anti-Jewish riot on October 15, 1908--and World War I forced many Jews to flee the city. In 1948, the Jewish community in Baghdad numbered around 77,000; however, the Jewish community began to fear life in Baghdad after the Farhūd, a pogrom which occured on June 1, 1941, left 130 Jews killed and millions lost in property damage. The Farhūd inspired the growth of Zionism and Communism among a minority of Jews in Baghdad who felt increasingly disconnected from the Iraqi state. Bombings throughout the 1950s further estranged the Jewish community, and by 1952 after mass immigration to Israel, Europe, the United States and Canada, only about 6,000 Jews remained in Iraq. The Jewish community endured further violence throughout Saddam Husayn's regime, and by 2003 the last synagogue in Baghdad had closed.

Baghdad, Iraq

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