Gamblor
10-07-2004, 12:59 AM
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer&cid=1096430699344&p=1006953079845
More desperate even than the Americans, Baghdad's last Jews struggle to survive
No one heard Emad Levy's Rosh Hashana prayers last week and that's how he wanted it. Standing in the living room of his rundown home off a main street in central Baghdad, the last Hebrew-reading Iraqi Jew prayed alone. No shofar was blown and no feast was eaten. When he finished, the 38-year-old bachelor walked to an adjoining room and bathed 80-year-old Ibrahim [Abraham] Shkouri, who is still recovering from a leg amputation.
In many ways, this Rosh Hashana marked an ominous first for a man who embodies the very last vestiges of the 2,600-year-old Iraqi Jewish community.
For the first time, Levy, the community's acting rabbi (there are no more certified rabbis), was unable to go to the synagogue and blow the shofar on Rosh Hashana.
It was also the first time that Levy did not pray at the graves of his dead ancestors at the Baghdad Jewish cemetery - an Iraqi Jewish custom performed the day before Rosh Hashana.
With some 3,200 graves, the large overgrown cemetery lies on the eastern edge of the capital. It is adjacent to Sadr City, a sprawling slum of more than two million Shi'ite Muslims, many of whom have been battling the US soldiers in their midst and blaming the Jews for the war.
"If I go, they will know I am Jewish," says Levy, whose name is pronounced Lawi in Arabic.
Today, being identifiably Jewish in the power vacuum of post-Saddam Iraq is practically suicidal.
With roots that go back to 597 BCE, the once large and thriving Iraqi Jewish community has been reduced to a bunch of bachelors and elderly people living in fear for their lives.
Levy, who is also Iraq's last certified shohet (ritual slaughterer), has had to slaughter sheep in his house for fear of being recognized as a Jew if he does it elsewhere. In the past, kosher slaughters were done at the synagogue or at the state slaughterhouse. Last year, a US military rabbi stationed in the so-called "Green Zone," once the headquarters in Baghdad for the US-led occupation authorities and now used as the US embassy, looked after the Jewish community's kosher needs.
"Rabbi Ackerman used to fill my freezer," says Levy as he sits in a fancy restaurant in Baghdad's upscale Arresat district, lamenting the American rabbi's departure. He picks at a tomato and cucumber salad prepared for him at his request. Levy won't touch anything with mayonnaise, in case it contains animal oil.
A Jewish identity in today's Iraq ranks either just after or just before US soldiers as a high-value target for Iraqi resistance groups or foreign Islamic ones - depending on which one you ask. Either way, it's not a good identity to carry around and, to the chagrin of Iraq's last 17 Jews, it's written on their ID cards.
Last March, four bodyguards of the US-based Blackwater Security Consulting Company were attacked while driving through Fallujah, a hotbed town filled with foreign Arab and local insurgents. Gruesome video footage showed that the bodies of two of the men were mutilated, dragged through the streets, then hung from the town's bridge and burned while crowds cheered.
Rumors filtered back to Baghdad that the security guards had dual citizenship: American and Israeli. One source with contacts in the rebellious province says that this was partially true. Israeli passports were found on two of the security professionals, he says, those whose bodies were mutilated and hung. The Israelis, he said, had their appendages cut off and their bodies cut up while they were still alive. Then fuel was poured over them and they were lit ablaze.
Whether the two men were Israeli or not, the underlying belief held by the average Iraqi is clear - there is no place for Jews or Israelis in Iraq.
LEVY LONGS for the day he can leave. The only regular excursion he makes is to the Babylon Hotel.
"The only place I go is to the pool," says the slightly graying bachelor. "I'm tired of this life."
Since last spring, Levy has the added responsibility of taking care of the diabetic Shkouri, who, typical of the elderly Iraqi Jews still here, doesn't want to move to Israel.
"I am Iraqi, I have nothing there," says the older bachelor who once took care of the finances of an import/export iron business. "I want to die here."
The Jews still here are either too old to start a life elsewhere or they are waiting to sell their property so they can leave. Levy's father, Ezra, who was the acting rabbi before him, left for Israel last year. His brother escaped to Amsterdam long ago and his mother died.
Levy is typical of the handful of the younger Iraqi Jews - those in their late 30s to early 40s who have remained single ("there are no Jewish women to marry") and are waiting to sell up.
None of them has any future here, says Levy.
Levy is proud of being Jewish and proud of being Iraqi, he says. But, he explains, "I have the weight of the community on me. I want to leave, to start a new life. Make a family."
Although Levy insists he tells anyone who asks, "Ana yahudi," the reality is that he has no one to tell.
The community has all but died out. The last marriage was in 1978 and there are currently no children.
There are four other single "young" Iraqi Jews left in Baghdad. Two are brothers: the younger one, in his mid-30s, has a gold jewelry shop and is working on his PhD in English at Baghdad University. His older brother is a wealthy merchant who has temporarily stopped working for fear of being kidnapped.
The other two are a brother and sister, both doctors in their late 30s and early 40s, living with their ageing mother. The woman remains unmarried although she is the only single Jewish woman of marriageable age.
When asked why one of the bachelors does not marry her, Levy explains: "I want to go to the Holy Land and choose," he says. "Outside [Iraq] I will have many options."
No one wants their names given, says Levy, and even mentioning their profession is troublesome. "They are very scared."
They are trying quietly to stay alive. Baghdad's last Jews live scattered around the capital keeping mostly to themselves and rarely meeting so as not to bring attention to themselves. Their contact is mainly by phone, almost daily.
"We check on each other to see if maybe someone needs some help," says Levy.
UNTIL 1951, more than 150,000 Jews celebrated the Jewish holy days in Iraq. Fifty-six synagogues dotted the capital. But prior to World War II, strong Nazi influences and the creation of the Jewish state stirred anti-Semitism in Iraq, forcing the majority of the Jews to leave by 1952.
Most of those who remained escaped after Saddam Hussein came to power in 1968. One of his first acts was the public hanging in Baghdad's Freedom Square of nine Jews he accused of spying. Persecution, particularly of the wealthy Jews, continued through the Seventies.
But from the Eighties on, the remaining Jews received the former president's protection, probably as a way to court the United States for support in its war with Iran. The regime is not racist - it does not hate Jews - it only hates Zionists, it told the world.
The remaining Jews attended weekly religious services at the Meir Tweig synagogue, the last one open in the country, and celebrated their holy days together. In 2003, just before the war, the last 34 Jewish Iraqis held their Pessah Seder together.
But now they can't. The synagogue, built in 1942 in the Beitaween neighborhood of central Baghdad, is closed. A tough young Muslim guard stands behind the three-meter-high solid steel door and keeps strangers away. He only allows the Iraqi Jews to enter, but they don't dare anymore.
The hatred Saddam encouraged for the "Zionists" now runs rampant in Iraqi streets. It appears no one but Saddam differentiates between Jew, Israeli and Zionist.
Mosque imams interchangeably use the words "Yahudi" (Jew), "Sayuni" (Zionist) and "Israili" (Israeli), cursing them equally and blaming them for bringing the "war on the Muslims" and the war on Iraq.
In a view commonly held by Iraqis, one spokesman for the populist Shi'ite Muslim cleric, Muqtada Al-Sadr, claims that the US-led war on Iraq was instigated by the Jewish lobby.
"The Jews," says Sheikh Hassan Al-Zurghan, "are trying to destroy the rest of the Muslims and they are employing the Christians to do it."
Before being detained by US forces this year, the somber-looking, bearded sheikh told reporters that "the main aim of the Jews is to destroy Christianity and Islam."
The Zionist Lobby, the Jews and Israel are interchangeably referred to by Iraqis when explaining why America made war on their country. September 11th? That was a Zionist plot, say Iraqis. Otherwise why were there no Jews in the Twin Towers on the day they fell, they ask.
Many Arabs are fans of conspiracy theories. But the former peons of Saddam's totalitarian police state are their sworn adherents. And not without good reason: they lived them, their government implemented them regularly. Politically-motivated assassinations were Iraqis' daily bread. And they continue to be.
THOSE JEWS who do continue working tell people who don't know them they are Christian and hope that those who know the truth will keep their mouths shut. Like the Iraqi Christians, the Iraqi Jews are fairer-skinned than most Iraqi Muslims. Some have light-colored eyes, like Levy. But these days even Iraqi Christians have become a target. Last month, car bombs exploded in front of five churches, killing numerous people.
The coordinated attacks on Christians are believed to be the work of Islamic fundamentalists from outside Iraq.
"No Iraqi would do this," say locals. But Jews are another story and one wrong word passed to the wrong person could bring a local Mahdi Army assassin from Sadr City to one's door.
The Mahdi Army is the militia of the young firebrand Shi'ite cleric, Al-Sadr. Whether Shi'ite or Sunni, leading sheikhs around Iraq are replacing Saddam with anti-Israeli/Zionist rhetoric and adding anti-Jewish to it, as well.
Sadr is certainly one of them. The chubby, young rabblerouser frequently peppers his Friday sermons with anti-Semitic slogans as well as popularly held beliefs about the relations between the Jews and the war. He also happens to be one of the most popular leaders in Iraq today and has announced he will be participating in the upcoming elections.
In one Friday sermon, the belief that the war on Iraq is meant to benefit Israel received new color. As thousands of worshipers sat listening attentively on their prayer mats under the searing Iraqi sun, Sadr accused the US of exporting Iraqi electricity to the Jewish state.
"The Americans export electricity to Israel while Iraqi people are suffering from a shortage."
Jews and Israel are commonly blamed for everything. When I attended the funeral of Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim following his assassination in a car bombing in Najaf in August 2003, an Iraqi policeman told me the sayunis (Zionists) and the Americans did it.
If someone is thought to be greedy or to have stolen something, a common retort is, "What? Am I Jewish?"
The only positive words I have heard from Iraqis about Jews is from those whose parents or grandparents knew them before the Fifties.
"My grandmother told me that they are very nice people," says one middle-aged religious Muslim. "Her Jewish neighbor repaired shoes. He was a good man, she said."
When interviewed about the wave of killings of Iraqi academics and intellectuals, many Iraqis said, "the Zionists are trying to destroy our society. They are trying to kill our intelligentsia."
When people complain that the price of real estate has skyrocketed, they say the reason is because "The sayunis are coming here to buy up our country." A fatwa (religious decree) was promptly made by one Shi'ite imam that any Jew buying property must be killed.
During a recent neighborhood "cultural evening" in Sadr City for boys and men belonging to the Mahdi Army [foreign female reporters were the exception], religious teachings were interspersed with songs of praise for Al-Sadr, readings from the Koran, and Zionist conspiracies. One Islamic religious teacher lectured about how "the Jewish brain is trying to control the world."
Al-Sadr's faithful fan club numbers in the millions, most of whom live in the trash-filled and electricity-less Baghdad district known as Sadr City, adjacent to the Jewish cemetery. Last April, many of them took their guns out of their closets and began fighting US forces, making the nearby cemetery - like everything else Jewish in the country today - a no-go zone. In a bustling city where, until the first half of the last century Baghdad Jews held high positions and great wealth, now even visiting the Jewish dead has become a hazardous mission.
"It's too dangerous," says Iraq's very last observant Jew. "I can't risk it."
Land of Mesopotamia
Two thousand and six hundred years ago, the Jews arrived in what was then Mesopotamia as captives of the Assyrian king Nebuchadnezzar. Their history in the land that is today's Iraq developed into one of prominence, but declined along with their numbers in the last century, following anti-Semitic attacks.
Today, their existence in Iraq is quiet, pathetic and behind-the-scenes.
The first 10,000 Jews arrived in what was then called Babylon (100 km south of Baghdad) in 597 BCE, crawling on their hands, their feet shackled, after Nebuchadnezzar conquered the Jewish Kingdom of Judah, destroyed the First Temple, and brought them as captives to his empire.
Decades later, when a Persian conqueror allowed them to return to Jerusalem, most refused. They had developed a rich community of religious scholars, scientists and merchants in Babylon. Some even became advisers to caliphs and kings. Babylon was the center of the Jewish world and it was here that the compilation of Jewish law and practice, the Babylonian Talmud, was written.
By the time the British marched into Baghdad in 1917, the Jews were a thriving, wealthy, influential community numbering 150,000, with more than 50 active synagogues and many private day schools.
But their prominence was soon to end with the rise of Zionism, the Nazi German influence in Iraq in the 1930s, and the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.
Iraqi authorities began limiting Zionist activities in 1929. In 1933, Nazi influence was strong at the German embassy and sympathizers recruited Iraqi youth. Iraq promulgated anti-Jewish laws as early as 1934 and declared Zionism illegal in 1935. The German embassy bought one of the local newspapers to ensure the circulation of Nazi propaganda. By 1939, there was a pro-Nazi curriculum in Iraqi schools.
Life for the Jews slowly became unstable, but it was not until June 1941 that it became violent. That was when a pro-Nazi military coup inspired anti-Jewish riots around the country.
The farhud, as the Iraqis called it, was a pogrom, in which approximately 180 Jews were killed, 1,000 were injured, synagogues were burnt and houses were looted.
"My mother told me about it," says 43-year-old Karima Husseini, an educated secular Shi'ite woman. "She said it was awful. My mother loved her Jewish friends and she cried when they left after the farhud."
Husseini says that was Iraq's first farhud.
"The second one was in Kuwait, the third was by the Shi'ites during the 1991 uprising and the last was after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime."
In 1947, with the partition of Palestine, many anti-Jewish laws were passed in Iraq to control and limit Jews' movements and lives. Laws modeled after Nazi Germany's Nuremberg Laws restricted the role of Jews in commerce. Others restricted travel, university enrolment, and the sale of land.
On March 3, 1950, the Iraqi Parliament passed the "Ordinance for the Cancellation of Iraqi Nationality for Jews." The law permitted Jews to leave the country, but on condition that they lose their citizenship. For many Iraqi Jews, this was a message to leave. Operation Ezra and Nehemia was planned by the Israeli government to evacuate approximately 150 emigrants a month with the agreement of the Iraqi government.
Yet, it was not until 1951 that the majority of the community gave up and packed its bags.
After a bomb attack killed several worshipers at the Masuda Shem Tob synagogue in Baghdad, approximately 120,000 Jews were airlifted to Israel. In March 1951, the Iraqi Parliament passed a law depriving all the Jews who no longer held Iraqi citizenship of their property. Only a few thousand Jews stayed, not willing to give up their Iraqi lifestyle, or their wealth.
When Saddam came into power, most of the remaining Jews finally left, fearing for their lives. The dictator saw himself as a modern-day Nebuchadnezzar who would "free the Holy Land" from the Jewish grip.
Today, Iraqi and Arab religious Muslim leaders often speak of King Nebuchadnezzar in their Friday sermons, reminding worshipers that they are the descendants of the legendary king.
Longtime neighbors
Sitting on a major thoroughfare in the heart of Baghdad, the Shamash Synagogue is not recognizable from the street. It looks like a furniture factory. And that's because it is.
The furniture shop was built in front of the synagogue's entrance as an extension. To the side of the shop is a dirty three-meter wall which surrounds the whole premises.
To enter the synagogue, one must pass through the furniture shop into the opening which leads to an expansive room which is clearly recognizable as a house of prayer for Jews. The ceiling is two-stories high and there is a gallery with seats for women worshipers. Steps lead to a raised platform at the front of the hall. There is an empty space where an ark once held Torah scrolls. Yet there are still large framed prayers written in Hebrew, one covered with a cloth.
Emad Levy, the synagogue's unofficial rabbi, says that many of the synagogues still hold Jewish religious decorations - "They take care of them" - but most of the precious Torah scrolls and books have been shipped out of the country by Levy.
The prayer hall is the furniture factory and storage area.
"It's cooler in here," says one worker.
The former synagogue lies not far from Beitaween, once a wealthy Jewish neighborhood lined with impressive Ottoman-era mansions on expansive pieces of property. Now, the beautiful Jewish homes are dilapidated buildings owned by Iraqi Muslims. Prostitutes stand in doorways and armed criminals fill the nearby coffeeshops, where televisions show porno films. Only a few Jews still live in Beitaween. My Iraqi driver shakes at the thought of taking me there.
Not far from the Meir Tweig synagogue, just off Rashid Street, is the idara, the Jewish community's administrative offices, which hold the records of birth, marriage and death of Iraqi Jews dating back to 1889. It also holds the records of Jewish community-owned property.
Most of those properties are former synagogues, like Shamash, now rented to Muslims who use them as offices, factories and storage space. Muslims renting a property go to the idara to pay their rent annually, where a 70-something accountant collects the money. Payment arrives regularly without problems.
In post-Saddam Iraq, that is not to be taken for granted. Some tenants take advantage of the lack of law and order, subtly threatening to use violence if landlords demand rent.
Until now, the Iraqi Jews have been guarded by their neighbors. In the volatile first days after the war, Iraqi Muslims came to the aid of their longtime neighbors, chasing out hawasem - looters - who attempted to raid the idara. Grabbing their own AK-47s, the young and old Muslims and Christians defended their Jewish neighbors.
"The Jews have always lived here, in this house, and it is only normal that we should protect them," Ibrahim Mohamad, 36, said after the bandits fled.
More desperate even than the Americans, Baghdad's last Jews struggle to survive
No one heard Emad Levy's Rosh Hashana prayers last week and that's how he wanted it. Standing in the living room of his rundown home off a main street in central Baghdad, the last Hebrew-reading Iraqi Jew prayed alone. No shofar was blown and no feast was eaten. When he finished, the 38-year-old bachelor walked to an adjoining room and bathed 80-year-old Ibrahim [Abraham] Shkouri, who is still recovering from a leg amputation.
In many ways, this Rosh Hashana marked an ominous first for a man who embodies the very last vestiges of the 2,600-year-old Iraqi Jewish community.
For the first time, Levy, the community's acting rabbi (there are no more certified rabbis), was unable to go to the synagogue and blow the shofar on Rosh Hashana.
It was also the first time that Levy did not pray at the graves of his dead ancestors at the Baghdad Jewish cemetery - an Iraqi Jewish custom performed the day before Rosh Hashana.
With some 3,200 graves, the large overgrown cemetery lies on the eastern edge of the capital. It is adjacent to Sadr City, a sprawling slum of more than two million Shi'ite Muslims, many of whom have been battling the US soldiers in their midst and blaming the Jews for the war.
"If I go, they will know I am Jewish," says Levy, whose name is pronounced Lawi in Arabic.
Today, being identifiably Jewish in the power vacuum of post-Saddam Iraq is practically suicidal.
With roots that go back to 597 BCE, the once large and thriving Iraqi Jewish community has been reduced to a bunch of bachelors and elderly people living in fear for their lives.
Levy, who is also Iraq's last certified shohet (ritual slaughterer), has had to slaughter sheep in his house for fear of being recognized as a Jew if he does it elsewhere. In the past, kosher slaughters were done at the synagogue or at the state slaughterhouse. Last year, a US military rabbi stationed in the so-called "Green Zone," once the headquarters in Baghdad for the US-led occupation authorities and now used as the US embassy, looked after the Jewish community's kosher needs.
"Rabbi Ackerman used to fill my freezer," says Levy as he sits in a fancy restaurant in Baghdad's upscale Arresat district, lamenting the American rabbi's departure. He picks at a tomato and cucumber salad prepared for him at his request. Levy won't touch anything with mayonnaise, in case it contains animal oil.
A Jewish identity in today's Iraq ranks either just after or just before US soldiers as a high-value target for Iraqi resistance groups or foreign Islamic ones - depending on which one you ask. Either way, it's not a good identity to carry around and, to the chagrin of Iraq's last 17 Jews, it's written on their ID cards.
Last March, four bodyguards of the US-based Blackwater Security Consulting Company were attacked while driving through Fallujah, a hotbed town filled with foreign Arab and local insurgents. Gruesome video footage showed that the bodies of two of the men were mutilated, dragged through the streets, then hung from the town's bridge and burned while crowds cheered.
Rumors filtered back to Baghdad that the security guards had dual citizenship: American and Israeli. One source with contacts in the rebellious province says that this was partially true. Israeli passports were found on two of the security professionals, he says, those whose bodies were mutilated and hung. The Israelis, he said, had their appendages cut off and their bodies cut up while they were still alive. Then fuel was poured over them and they were lit ablaze.
Whether the two men were Israeli or not, the underlying belief held by the average Iraqi is clear - there is no place for Jews or Israelis in Iraq.
LEVY LONGS for the day he can leave. The only regular excursion he makes is to the Babylon Hotel.
"The only place I go is to the pool," says the slightly graying bachelor. "I'm tired of this life."
Since last spring, Levy has the added responsibility of taking care of the diabetic Shkouri, who, typical of the elderly Iraqi Jews still here, doesn't want to move to Israel.
"I am Iraqi, I have nothing there," says the older bachelor who once took care of the finances of an import/export iron business. "I want to die here."
The Jews still here are either too old to start a life elsewhere or they are waiting to sell their property so they can leave. Levy's father, Ezra, who was the acting rabbi before him, left for Israel last year. His brother escaped to Amsterdam long ago and his mother died.
Levy is typical of the handful of the younger Iraqi Jews - those in their late 30s to early 40s who have remained single ("there are no Jewish women to marry") and are waiting to sell up.
None of them has any future here, says Levy.
Levy is proud of being Jewish and proud of being Iraqi, he says. But, he explains, "I have the weight of the community on me. I want to leave, to start a new life. Make a family."
Although Levy insists he tells anyone who asks, "Ana yahudi," the reality is that he has no one to tell.
The community has all but died out. The last marriage was in 1978 and there are currently no children.
There are four other single "young" Iraqi Jews left in Baghdad. Two are brothers: the younger one, in his mid-30s, has a gold jewelry shop and is working on his PhD in English at Baghdad University. His older brother is a wealthy merchant who has temporarily stopped working for fear of being kidnapped.
The other two are a brother and sister, both doctors in their late 30s and early 40s, living with their ageing mother. The woman remains unmarried although she is the only single Jewish woman of marriageable age.
When asked why one of the bachelors does not marry her, Levy explains: "I want to go to the Holy Land and choose," he says. "Outside [Iraq] I will have many options."
No one wants their names given, says Levy, and even mentioning their profession is troublesome. "They are very scared."
They are trying quietly to stay alive. Baghdad's last Jews live scattered around the capital keeping mostly to themselves and rarely meeting so as not to bring attention to themselves. Their contact is mainly by phone, almost daily.
"We check on each other to see if maybe someone needs some help," says Levy.
UNTIL 1951, more than 150,000 Jews celebrated the Jewish holy days in Iraq. Fifty-six synagogues dotted the capital. But prior to World War II, strong Nazi influences and the creation of the Jewish state stirred anti-Semitism in Iraq, forcing the majority of the Jews to leave by 1952.
Most of those who remained escaped after Saddam Hussein came to power in 1968. One of his first acts was the public hanging in Baghdad's Freedom Square of nine Jews he accused of spying. Persecution, particularly of the wealthy Jews, continued through the Seventies.
But from the Eighties on, the remaining Jews received the former president's protection, probably as a way to court the United States for support in its war with Iran. The regime is not racist - it does not hate Jews - it only hates Zionists, it told the world.
The remaining Jews attended weekly religious services at the Meir Tweig synagogue, the last one open in the country, and celebrated their holy days together. In 2003, just before the war, the last 34 Jewish Iraqis held their Pessah Seder together.
But now they can't. The synagogue, built in 1942 in the Beitaween neighborhood of central Baghdad, is closed. A tough young Muslim guard stands behind the three-meter-high solid steel door and keeps strangers away. He only allows the Iraqi Jews to enter, but they don't dare anymore.
The hatred Saddam encouraged for the "Zionists" now runs rampant in Iraqi streets. It appears no one but Saddam differentiates between Jew, Israeli and Zionist.
Mosque imams interchangeably use the words "Yahudi" (Jew), "Sayuni" (Zionist) and "Israili" (Israeli), cursing them equally and blaming them for bringing the "war on the Muslims" and the war on Iraq.
In a view commonly held by Iraqis, one spokesman for the populist Shi'ite Muslim cleric, Muqtada Al-Sadr, claims that the US-led war on Iraq was instigated by the Jewish lobby.
"The Jews," says Sheikh Hassan Al-Zurghan, "are trying to destroy the rest of the Muslims and they are employing the Christians to do it."
Before being detained by US forces this year, the somber-looking, bearded sheikh told reporters that "the main aim of the Jews is to destroy Christianity and Islam."
The Zionist Lobby, the Jews and Israel are interchangeably referred to by Iraqis when explaining why America made war on their country. September 11th? That was a Zionist plot, say Iraqis. Otherwise why were there no Jews in the Twin Towers on the day they fell, they ask.
Many Arabs are fans of conspiracy theories. But the former peons of Saddam's totalitarian police state are their sworn adherents. And not without good reason: they lived them, their government implemented them regularly. Politically-motivated assassinations were Iraqis' daily bread. And they continue to be.
THOSE JEWS who do continue working tell people who don't know them they are Christian and hope that those who know the truth will keep their mouths shut. Like the Iraqi Christians, the Iraqi Jews are fairer-skinned than most Iraqi Muslims. Some have light-colored eyes, like Levy. But these days even Iraqi Christians have become a target. Last month, car bombs exploded in front of five churches, killing numerous people.
The coordinated attacks on Christians are believed to be the work of Islamic fundamentalists from outside Iraq.
"No Iraqi would do this," say locals. But Jews are another story and one wrong word passed to the wrong person could bring a local Mahdi Army assassin from Sadr City to one's door.
The Mahdi Army is the militia of the young firebrand Shi'ite cleric, Al-Sadr. Whether Shi'ite or Sunni, leading sheikhs around Iraq are replacing Saddam with anti-Israeli/Zionist rhetoric and adding anti-Jewish to it, as well.
Sadr is certainly one of them. The chubby, young rabblerouser frequently peppers his Friday sermons with anti-Semitic slogans as well as popularly held beliefs about the relations between the Jews and the war. He also happens to be one of the most popular leaders in Iraq today and has announced he will be participating in the upcoming elections.
In one Friday sermon, the belief that the war on Iraq is meant to benefit Israel received new color. As thousands of worshipers sat listening attentively on their prayer mats under the searing Iraqi sun, Sadr accused the US of exporting Iraqi electricity to the Jewish state.
"The Americans export electricity to Israel while Iraqi people are suffering from a shortage."
Jews and Israel are commonly blamed for everything. When I attended the funeral of Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim following his assassination in a car bombing in Najaf in August 2003, an Iraqi policeman told me the sayunis (Zionists) and the Americans did it.
If someone is thought to be greedy or to have stolen something, a common retort is, "What? Am I Jewish?"
The only positive words I have heard from Iraqis about Jews is from those whose parents or grandparents knew them before the Fifties.
"My grandmother told me that they are very nice people," says one middle-aged religious Muslim. "Her Jewish neighbor repaired shoes. He was a good man, she said."
When interviewed about the wave of killings of Iraqi academics and intellectuals, many Iraqis said, "the Zionists are trying to destroy our society. They are trying to kill our intelligentsia."
When people complain that the price of real estate has skyrocketed, they say the reason is because "The sayunis are coming here to buy up our country." A fatwa (religious decree) was promptly made by one Shi'ite imam that any Jew buying property must be killed.
During a recent neighborhood "cultural evening" in Sadr City for boys and men belonging to the Mahdi Army [foreign female reporters were the exception], religious teachings were interspersed with songs of praise for Al-Sadr, readings from the Koran, and Zionist conspiracies. One Islamic religious teacher lectured about how "the Jewish brain is trying to control the world."
Al-Sadr's faithful fan club numbers in the millions, most of whom live in the trash-filled and electricity-less Baghdad district known as Sadr City, adjacent to the Jewish cemetery. Last April, many of them took their guns out of their closets and began fighting US forces, making the nearby cemetery - like everything else Jewish in the country today - a no-go zone. In a bustling city where, until the first half of the last century Baghdad Jews held high positions and great wealth, now even visiting the Jewish dead has become a hazardous mission.
"It's too dangerous," says Iraq's very last observant Jew. "I can't risk it."
Land of Mesopotamia
Two thousand and six hundred years ago, the Jews arrived in what was then Mesopotamia as captives of the Assyrian king Nebuchadnezzar. Their history in the land that is today's Iraq developed into one of prominence, but declined along with their numbers in the last century, following anti-Semitic attacks.
Today, their existence in Iraq is quiet, pathetic and behind-the-scenes.
The first 10,000 Jews arrived in what was then called Babylon (100 km south of Baghdad) in 597 BCE, crawling on their hands, their feet shackled, after Nebuchadnezzar conquered the Jewish Kingdom of Judah, destroyed the First Temple, and brought them as captives to his empire.
Decades later, when a Persian conqueror allowed them to return to Jerusalem, most refused. They had developed a rich community of religious scholars, scientists and merchants in Babylon. Some even became advisers to caliphs and kings. Babylon was the center of the Jewish world and it was here that the compilation of Jewish law and practice, the Babylonian Talmud, was written.
By the time the British marched into Baghdad in 1917, the Jews were a thriving, wealthy, influential community numbering 150,000, with more than 50 active synagogues and many private day schools.
But their prominence was soon to end with the rise of Zionism, the Nazi German influence in Iraq in the 1930s, and the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.
Iraqi authorities began limiting Zionist activities in 1929. In 1933, Nazi influence was strong at the German embassy and sympathizers recruited Iraqi youth. Iraq promulgated anti-Jewish laws as early as 1934 and declared Zionism illegal in 1935. The German embassy bought one of the local newspapers to ensure the circulation of Nazi propaganda. By 1939, there was a pro-Nazi curriculum in Iraqi schools.
Life for the Jews slowly became unstable, but it was not until June 1941 that it became violent. That was when a pro-Nazi military coup inspired anti-Jewish riots around the country.
The farhud, as the Iraqis called it, was a pogrom, in which approximately 180 Jews were killed, 1,000 were injured, synagogues were burnt and houses were looted.
"My mother told me about it," says 43-year-old Karima Husseini, an educated secular Shi'ite woman. "She said it was awful. My mother loved her Jewish friends and she cried when they left after the farhud."
Husseini says that was Iraq's first farhud.
"The second one was in Kuwait, the third was by the Shi'ites during the 1991 uprising and the last was after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime."
In 1947, with the partition of Palestine, many anti-Jewish laws were passed in Iraq to control and limit Jews' movements and lives. Laws modeled after Nazi Germany's Nuremberg Laws restricted the role of Jews in commerce. Others restricted travel, university enrolment, and the sale of land.
On March 3, 1950, the Iraqi Parliament passed the "Ordinance for the Cancellation of Iraqi Nationality for Jews." The law permitted Jews to leave the country, but on condition that they lose their citizenship. For many Iraqi Jews, this was a message to leave. Operation Ezra and Nehemia was planned by the Israeli government to evacuate approximately 150 emigrants a month with the agreement of the Iraqi government.
Yet, it was not until 1951 that the majority of the community gave up and packed its bags.
After a bomb attack killed several worshipers at the Masuda Shem Tob synagogue in Baghdad, approximately 120,000 Jews were airlifted to Israel. In March 1951, the Iraqi Parliament passed a law depriving all the Jews who no longer held Iraqi citizenship of their property. Only a few thousand Jews stayed, not willing to give up their Iraqi lifestyle, or their wealth.
When Saddam came into power, most of the remaining Jews finally left, fearing for their lives. The dictator saw himself as a modern-day Nebuchadnezzar who would "free the Holy Land" from the Jewish grip.
Today, Iraqi and Arab religious Muslim leaders often speak of King Nebuchadnezzar in their Friday sermons, reminding worshipers that they are the descendants of the legendary king.
Longtime neighbors
Sitting on a major thoroughfare in the heart of Baghdad, the Shamash Synagogue is not recognizable from the street. It looks like a furniture factory. And that's because it is.
The furniture shop was built in front of the synagogue's entrance as an extension. To the side of the shop is a dirty three-meter wall which surrounds the whole premises.
To enter the synagogue, one must pass through the furniture shop into the opening which leads to an expansive room which is clearly recognizable as a house of prayer for Jews. The ceiling is two-stories high and there is a gallery with seats for women worshipers. Steps lead to a raised platform at the front of the hall. There is an empty space where an ark once held Torah scrolls. Yet there are still large framed prayers written in Hebrew, one covered with a cloth.
Emad Levy, the synagogue's unofficial rabbi, says that many of the synagogues still hold Jewish religious decorations - "They take care of them" - but most of the precious Torah scrolls and books have been shipped out of the country by Levy.
The prayer hall is the furniture factory and storage area.
"It's cooler in here," says one worker.
The former synagogue lies not far from Beitaween, once a wealthy Jewish neighborhood lined with impressive Ottoman-era mansions on expansive pieces of property. Now, the beautiful Jewish homes are dilapidated buildings owned by Iraqi Muslims. Prostitutes stand in doorways and armed criminals fill the nearby coffeeshops, where televisions show porno films. Only a few Jews still live in Beitaween. My Iraqi driver shakes at the thought of taking me there.
Not far from the Meir Tweig synagogue, just off Rashid Street, is the idara, the Jewish community's administrative offices, which hold the records of birth, marriage and death of Iraqi Jews dating back to 1889. It also holds the records of Jewish community-owned property.
Most of those properties are former synagogues, like Shamash, now rented to Muslims who use them as offices, factories and storage space. Muslims renting a property go to the idara to pay their rent annually, where a 70-something accountant collects the money. Payment arrives regularly without problems.
In post-Saddam Iraq, that is not to be taken for granted. Some tenants take advantage of the lack of law and order, subtly threatening to use violence if landlords demand rent.
Until now, the Iraqi Jews have been guarded by their neighbors. In the volatile first days after the war, Iraqi Muslims came to the aid of their longtime neighbors, chasing out hawasem - looters - who attempted to raid the idara. Grabbing their own AK-47s, the young and old Muslims and Christians defended their Jewish neighbors.
"The Jews have always lived here, in this house, and it is only normal that we should protect them," Ibrahim Mohamad, 36, said after the bandits fled.