JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

aghdad
Fourteen Iraqis, including nine Jews, were hanged publicly
in Baghdad on January 27, 1969, after being convicted on
charges of spying for Israel. Two other Jews were hanged in
August of the same year. In April 1973 the total number of the
innocent Jews who were hanged, murdered, or kidnapped and
disappeared reached 46; dozens more were detained.
There were 77,000 Jews in Baghdad in 1947. After the
mass exodus to Israel in 1950–51, approximately 6,000 Jews
were left. Subsequently, Jews continued to leave Baghdad, so
that only about 3,000 remained in 1963 when Qassem was
toppled by ʿAbd al-Salām ʿĀrif. This figure remained nearly
the same until 1971, when the Jews began to escape from the
country to Iran via Kurdistan and the authorities began to issue
passports to Iraqi Jews. From this point on, the number
of Jews dropped steadily to be about 350 in 1975. In 2005 there
were only a few Jews still living in Baghdad.
[Abraham Ben-Yaacob / Nissim Kazzaz (2nd ed.)]
Institutions and Community Life – 1917–1970
During the British administration and after World War II,
the number of Jewish educational institutions, especially the
secondary ones, increased. In spite of the restrictions on the
number of Jews admitted to government secondary schools,
their number in these institutions was higher in 1950 than in
1920; but, because of lack of data, only the number in Jewish
educational institutions will be mentioned. In 1920 there
were some 6,000 Jewish youngsters in Jewish educational institutions:
2,500 in talmud torahs, 3,350 in kindergartens and
elementary schools, and 150 in secondary schools; for 1950,
the total was 13,476 pupils, of which 1,800 were in the talmud
torahs, 8,970 in kindergartens and elementary schools, and
2,626 in secondary schools.
During this period there were also important social
changes within the Baghdad community. The majority of
women removed the gown (Arabic, ʿabaʾ) and the veil (Persian,
pūshī), which they formerly wore in the street. The number
of girls engaged in teaching and in clerical work increased
and some of them received a university education. There was
also a change in the occupations of the Jews. Whereas in 1920
they were engaged in trade, banking, labor, and public services,
in 1950 thousands earned their livelihood by clerical
work or in the professions such as law. Immediately after the
British conquest, the Jews began to leave their quarter to settle
in all parts of the city. In the 1930s the Battāwīn and Karrāda
quarters were established and inhabited by the wealthy. The
attitude toward religion also underwent a change. During
the first years after the British conquest there were only a
few Jews who profaned the Sabbath or ate non-kosher food,
whereas at the end of this period the number of Sabbath observers
decreased.
From the end of the Ottoman period until 1931 the Jews
of Baghdad had a “General Council” of 80 members, which
included 20 rabbis and was led by the chief rabbi. The General
Council elected a council for religious matters and a council
for material welfare. The former dealt with ritual slaughter,
burials, and the rabbinical courts, while the latter was responsible
for the schools, hospitals, and charitable trusts. In
1926, however, a group of intellectuals gained the upper hand
in the latter council and attempted to remove the chief rabbi,
Ezra *Dangoor. After a stormy period, in 1931, the community
passed the “Law of the Jewish Community.” It deprived
the rabbis of the community’s leadership and made it possible
for a nonreligious person to assume leadership. In spite of this
in February 1933 R. Sasson *Kadoorie was elected chairman
of the community. His position was, however, a secular one,
while a rabbi without any community authority was elected
to the position of chief rabbi. Just before the mass emigration
of 1951, there were about 20 Jewish educational institutions in
Baghdad; 16 were under supervision of the community committee,
the rest were privately run. In 1950 about 12,000 pupils
attended these institutions while many others attended
government and foreign schools; approximately another 400
students were enrolled in Baghdad colleges of medicine, law,
economy, pharmacy, and engineering. All but two of the Jewish
educational institutions closed in 1952. These two had approximately
900 pupils in 1960, while about 50 Jewish pupils
attended government schools. The Baghdad community also
had a school for the blind, founded in 1930, which was the
only one of its kind in Iraq. It closed in 1951.
Pupils in Jewish educational institutions in Baghdad in 1920 and
just before the mass exodus of 1950–51
Year Talmud Torah Kindergartens
and Elementary
Schools
Secondary
Schools
58 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3
Total
1920 2,500 3,350 150 6,000
1950 1,880 8,970 2,626 13,476
The Jews of Baghdad had two hospitals; one, a general
hospital named for Meir Elias, founded in 1910, and the second,
an eye hospital named for Rima Kadoorie, founded in
1924. At both these hospitals, Jews received treatment, and
operations were performed for the needy for little or no payment.
Every school in town had a clinic. The community also
had several philanthropic societies to provide dowries for girls
without means, help to mothers, maintenance of yeshivah students,
and for the vocational training of poor children. All
these institutions, including the hospitals, eventually closed.
Afterward, the community committee arranged for the sick
to be admitted to various hospitals in the town.
Only seven synagogues remained in 1960 of the 60 synagogues
of Baghdad in 1950. The community committee had
subcommittees for religious affairs and administration. These
two subcommittees were elected by the general committee,
elected in turn by men of the community every four years. In
November 1949, Sasson Kadoorie was forced to resign, when
local Jewry blamed him for not acting to free the numerous
young Jews arrested on charges of Zionism. He was replaced
by Ezekiel Shemtob, who served until 1953, when Kadoorie