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Awena (عە وێنە, عوينة, עוינה), Iraq
The village of Awena (‘Ewêne, عە وێنە, عوينة, עוינה), in Iraqi-Kurdistan.
Description
Awena had about 20 Jewish families living in it prior to the mass immigration. There was a synagogue built of mud brick and it used to function as a school for boys. Men would sit on the floor, on rugs in the synagogue. The teacher was the local rabbi Hakham Aharon. Hakham Aharon also did the slaughtering of kosher animals and did officiated weddings.
There was a cemetery outside of the city and the Jewish cemetery was separate from the non-Jewish one.
Awena, Iraq
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Sources
Interview with S. Moshe.
See also, the Encyclopedia of Kurdish Jews (Hebrew) by Mordechai Yonah page 174, and Abraham ben Yaakob, Jewish Communities in Kurdistan (Hebrew) p. 105.