THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
68 Friday, September 5, 1975
Systematic Persecution Drove Jews Out of Iraq
JERUSALEM — The es-
tablishment of the state of
Israel fired the imagination
of the Jews of Iraq and gave
new meaning to their pray-
ers for a return to their an-
cestral homeland, but it was
the harassment to which
they were subjected by the
Iraqi authorities that fin-
ally led to their mass exo-
dus.
This is the conclusion
reached by Isaac Bar-Moshe
Best Wishes For A Happy
and Healthy New Year
Mr. and Mrs. Morris Berk
in his book, "Exodus from
Iraq: Recollections
1945-1950," just published
in Jerusalem in Arabic.
It is Bar-Moshe's convic-
tion that, had it not been for
what he terms the utter stu-
pidity and blindness of Nuri
el Sa'id's successive govern-
ments, the position of the
Jews of Iraq would have
been similar to that of any
other Jewry, and there
would not have been mass
Southfield
I3I1Z71 TIMID 112V5
The Brummer Family
24221 Berkley
Oak Park, Mich. 48237
To All Our Relatives And Good Friends
We Wish A Happy New Year
MAURIE and FLORENCE CASCADE
MR. AND MRS. MAX GVAZDA
Southfield, Michigan
Southfield
wish all their relatives and
friends a healthy, happy New Year
I
MR. and MRS. HENRY COHEN
Southfield
THE ISAACS
wish all their relatives and friends
Low, Ethel and Bill
Southfield
a good and healthy New Year
extend best wishes for a happy, healthy New Year
To all their relatives and friends
Mr. & Mrs. Meyer I. Cooper
1
16198 Oxley Rd., Apt. 103
A Happy, Prosperous New Year
To All Our Friends and Relatives
MR. AND MRS. PHILIP JOSEPH
AND SONS
Oak Park
Mr. & Mrs. HYMAN KARP
it.o.lt all our children.
rolutireS und Irienifi;
hoppv. liculthl - and prosperoto
\cn I cur
Edith and Isadore Kolodney
30410 Southfield Road, Apt.
extend licNi
95-A, Southfield 48076
for u 1 .cur
(rill( /,eor e. lrenlllr (1ml ItuppilleNN In
(III their
awl relulereN
FRAN, JEFF and GARY KRAVITZ
Birmingham
wish all their family and friends
a happy, healthy, prosperous New Year
MR. and MRS. LOUIS KEPES
14511 Ludlow, Oak Park
wish all their friends and
relatives a year filled
with health, happiness
and prosperity
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
A Healthy New Year To
All of Our Dear Friends
and Relatives
SANDY, IRWIN, ALAN, DAVID
and STEVEN RABINOWITZ
•
THE MAX FRIDMAN
FAMILY
22780 N. Bellwood Dr.
Southfield
wish their relatives, friends
and clients a healthy, happy
and prosperous New Year
L
tl,:rizrt
rutr5
Southfield, Michigan 48075
extem/ hest ici.,lie., fig- a hi/,/,ti, liculth1 - and
/)('(iv/ill 1•cur to all their relulireN and friend,
The Torah scrolls are carried off the plane first, as
the Jews of Iraq land in Israel during the 1951 airlift.
emigration.
Those governments,
whose sole concern was to
protect themselves from
the wrath and hatred of
their own populace, gave
the clandestine Zionist
movement in Iraq its
greatest push forward and
created the conditions
which were to lead to the
liquidation of a Jewish
community whose roots in
the country went far
deeper than those of their
Moslem-Arab compa-
triots.
However, while this is the
way he summarizes the cir-
cumstances in which the
mass emigration of Iraq's
Jews came about, Bar-
Moshe is concerned with the
story of the exodus itself, as
it affected thousands of in-
dividual lives, first and fore-
most his own.
Author of three volumes
of short stories, he makes no
claims to scholarship or
even investigative reporting;
and describes his NO-page
tome as "if you like, a novel,
or a collection of short sto-
ries, or zt work of autobiog-
raphy — but ultimately it
01ay be'a mixture of all
these things. -
The period covered by
these recollections was in-
disputably the most fateful
for the 20,000-strong, Iraqi
Jewish community.
But the real trouble
started late in 1947, when
the United Nations Parti-
tion Plan for Palestine
was adopted almost simul-
taneously with the conclu-
sion of the Portsmouth
Agreement between Iraq
and Great Britain to re-
place the Anglo-Iraqi
Treaty.
The Iraqi Government's
attempts to shift the wave
of popular anger at the new
agreement with Britain on
to the events in Palestine in
fact marked the beginning
of the end for Iraqi Jewry.
Things became more dif-
ficult when Nuri el Sa'id
discovered to his shock that
not only left-wing Jews but
the whole Jewish establish-
ment became involved in the
anti-government demon-
strations which finally led
to the annulment of the
Portsmouth Agreement.
In addition to Nuri and
his short-sighted policies,
Bar-Moshe considers the
British as another villain of
the story.
In the notorious affair of
Shafiq `Adas,- a wealthy
businessman from Basra
who was arrested, tried
and executed on vague
charges of "aiding the
Zionist enemy," the still-
influential British be-
haved in a way which the
author considers disgrace-
ful.
They acted like mere on-
lookers and refused to inter-
fere in what seems to have
been the grossest travesty of
justice.
The Jews were never to
recover from the blow,
which they rightly inter-
preted as a clear sign that
they were no longer needed
in the land in which they
had lived for over two mil-
lennia.
—From the Jerusalem Post
Basel Congress
If were to sum up the
[Zionist] Basel Congress [of
1897] in a single phrase—
which I would not dare to
make public—I would say:
In Basel I created the Jew-
ish State. Were I to say this
aloud I would be greeted by
universal laughter. But per-
haps five years hence, in
any case certainly fifty
hence, everyone will per-
ceive it [Palestine Partition
Plan adopted by UN in
1947].
—Theodor Herzl
i
1
I
To All Our Friends and Relatives
We Wish You A Healthy, Happy,
Peaceful 8 Prosperous New Year
I
ALEX and BEA KLEIN & ZORA
25560 Filmore Place, Southfield
A Healthy, Happy New Year
To All Our Friends and Relatives
ALEX and HONORA LIPSON
AND FAMILY
Best Wishes To All Our
Family and Friends for
a happy, healthy New Year
I
1
MR. AND MRS. ABRAHAM PAUL
I
Southfield
I
MR. & MRS. HYMAN SABBOTA
AND FAMILY
Southfield
wish all their relatives and
friends a healthy, prosperous New Year
We wish to extend the best
New Year's greetings to all
our relatives and friends
DAVE, ANN and RHODA SEGAL
22151 Parklawn, Oak Park
MRS. DANIEL TEMCHIN
wishes her children, grandchildren,
relatives and friends a very happy,
healthy New Year
SAMUEL AND RUTH KRAMER
AND FAMILY
Detroit
wish all their relatives and
friends a happy New Year
May The New Year Bring
Health, Happiness and
Peace To All Our Friends
Relatives and the World
MR. & MRS. DAVID IWREY ,
Southfield