(##}

Archive

Jewish Quarter, Sulemaniyah, Iraq

Sulemaniya, Iraq

 “‘We call this Jewlakan—the Jews,’ he told me. ‘This is where the Jews once lived’” (1). 


Sulemaniyah (also spelled Sulaymaniyah, Suleymaniyeh, and Sulaimaniya) is a city in the northern region of Kurdish Iraq, bordering Iran (2). Sulemaniyah was also the site of a major Jewish quarter, popularly known as ‘Jewlakan.’ In 1947 there were approximately 2,256 Jews in Sulamaniyah (3). However, today, like the rest of Iraq, Sulemaniyah is home to almost no Jews. The majority of Kurdish Jews had left Sulemaniyah by 1970. The man considered to be, “the last Jew in Jewlakan,” Shalomo, stayed in Sulemaniyah throughout waves of migration, and died in his home of Jewlakan, “a few years ago” (4). How and why did a once integral part of Kurdish Iraqi society all but disappear in the matter of about a decade? These questions are addressed below.

Description

History of Jews in Iraq: Iraq was once home to approximately 140,000 Jews (5). It is difficult to say how many remain in Iraq today. Some estimates state close to 100 whereas others claim there are fewer than 10. Although Jews were separated into religious quarters like Jewlakan, the Jews of Iraq were integral to the cultural fabric of Iraq--entwined in Iraqi business, tradition, and social life (6). It is due to this fact that the tremendous loss of the Jewish population in Iraq, after the partition of Israel in 1948, was a shock to many. Ultimately, the once vibrant and integral Jewish Iraqi population all but ceases to exist within Iraq's borders today.

Iraqi Aliyah: The word, ‘Aliyah’ is Hebrew for ‘Ascent,’ and is used to describe the return of diasporic Jews to the independent state of Israel, post-partition in 1948 (7). Operation Ezra and Nehemiah was a legal airlift of approximately 130,000 Jews from Iraq to Israel between 1950 and 1952 (8).

The 1940s were a time fraught with political upheaval. Many nations barely recovering from WWI (1914-1917), and the Great Depression of the early 1930s, were then plunged into yet another world war. For Jews this was particularly tragic, as WWII bore the horrifying mark of the Holocaust. The rise of the US and the USSR sent the world into an interesting place, with nations either choosing to align with the democratic capitalist US or the communist USSR, or choosing an ardent nationalist, non-aligned and anti-imperial stance. All politics were held in Iraq, a region in which Jews were experiencing new and grander levels of antisemitism than ever before. Iraq witnessed the rise of the ICP (Iraqi Communist Party) as well as the League for Combating Zionism at the same time as Iraqi nationalist movements were becoming more frustrated. Jews were active in all of these sites of political and social activity (9). Then came 'the Wathba,' a failed nationalist attempt to overthrow the government in 1948.

This was a highly politicized time, and Jews, always integral yet somehow separate from Iraqi society, were caught in the middle--often targeted and attacked by politically frustrated groups. This is painfully evident in the 'Farhud' (violent dispossession) of 1941. Following what was seen as another 'colonial' victory in supposedly "independent" Iraq, and in concert with the Shavuot (an open Jewish holiday), frustrated Iraqis attacked and looted the Jewish neighborhood, killing hundreds of Jews, non-stop for two days (10). The Jewish community was never able to psychologically recover from this.

The year 1948, with the partition of Palestine and the subsequent Israeli victory in its war for independence against Arab countries, placed Jews in ever-increasing precarity. The 'dangerous' conflation in the mind of many Iraqis and the nation's leadership of Judaism and Zionism became a stigma Iraqi Jews could not thwart (11). Popular violence and state-sanctioned discrimination resulted, and Jews were yet again dispossessed.

It speaks volumes that even with the harsh laws passed by Iraqi Parliament in 1950 and 1952, demanding that those who chose to emigrate forfeit both their Iraqi citizenship and all of their property, approximately 130,000 Jews left (12). When viewed in the light of all of these trying events and experiences, it becomes less difficult to understand how an entire demographic of people would leave their ancestral homeland in a matter of a few years.

Today: There have been complex relations between Iraqi Kurdistan and Israel ever since the partition of Israel in 1948. The subsequest harrassment of Kurdish Jews  as well as horrible treatment during the Ba'ath party in Iraq in the 1960s and 1970s, resulted in the mass departure of Jews from Kurdish areas (13). Despite engrained differences between Arab nations and Israel, the Kurdish (non-Arab) are said to have been keeping "secret" relations with Israel since the 1960s (14). The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq may consider Israel to be key to western support for an independent Kurdish state (15). Meanwhile, tides may be changing in terms of the Jewish population in Iraqi Kurdistan as well. According to a story reported by NPR's Ivan Watson, Kurdish Jews have been clandestinely returning to their native Iraqi Kurdish lands (or to the lands of their forebearers) (16). This is happening on a small scale, but is a trend to watch for, and is an exciting potentiality for those Iraqis who miss the cultural richness the Jews contributed to their homelands. 

Jewish Quarter, Sulemaniyah, Iraq

Sulemaniya, Iraq

© Mapbox, © OpenStreetMap

Sources

[1] Jessie Graham, "A Seder in Sulaymaniyah: How the Story of Passover Resounds in Northern Iraq," Tablet Mag, accessed July 11, 2016, http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/1305/a-seder-in-sulaymaniyah.


[2] "Sulamaniyah," Go Kurdistan!, accessed July 11, 2016, http://www.gokurdistan.com/iraqi-kurdistan/destinations/sulamaniyah/.


[3] "The Virtual jewish World: Iraq," Jewish Virtual Library, accessed July 11, 2016, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Iraq.html.


[4] Ivan Watson, "Iraq's Kurdish Jews Cautiously Return to Homeland," NPR, accessed July 11, 2016, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16980428.


[5] "World Jewish Population," Simple to Remember, accessed July 11, 2016, http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/world-jewish-population.htm.


[6] Orit Bashkin, New Babylonians: A History of Jews in Modern Iraq (Stanford University Press, 2012).


[7] "Aliyah," Wikipedia, accessed July 11, 2016, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah.


[8] "Operation Ezra and Nehemiah," Wikipedia, accessed July 11, 2016, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ezra_and_Nehemiah.


[9] Orit Bashkin, New Babylonians: A History of Jews in Modern Iraq (Stanford University Press, 2012).


[10] Orit Bashkin, New Babylonians: A History of Jews in Modern Iraq (Stanford University Press, 2012).


[11] Orit Bashkin, New Babylonians: A History of Jews in Modern Iraq (Stanford University Press, 2012).


[12] Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times (University of Nebraska Press, 1991).


[13] "Iraqi Kurdistan sees a Jewish revival, thanks to the Islamic State," The Times of Israel, accessed July 14, 2016, http://www.timesofisrael.com/iraqi-kurdistan-sees-a-jewish-revival-thanks-to-the-islamic-state/.


[14] Ofra Bengio, "Israel and the Kurds: Love by Proxy," The American Interest, accessed July 14, 2016, http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/03/18/israel-and-the-kurds-love-by-proxy/.


[15] Ofra Bengio, "Israel and the Kurds: Love by Proxy," The American Interest, accessed July 14, 2016, http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/03/18/israel-and-the-kurds-love-by-proxy/.


[16] Ivan Watson, "Iraq's Kurdish Jews Cautiously Return to Homeland," NPR, accessed July 14, 2016, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16980428


Coordinates provided by Joseph Samuel. 


For more on Suleymaniya, see אנציקלופדיה של יהודי כורדיסתאן, Encyclopedia of the Jews of Kurdistan by Mordechai Yonah, p. 170-71.