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