The “Al Aqsa Flood” and the Ethnic Cleansing of Iraq’s Jews

The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, opened the floodgates 100 years ago

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Haj Amin Al-Husseini’s pro-Nazi Germany and anti-Jewish rhetoric were never challenged and were allowed to fester. A reading of al-Husseini’s work from the early 1930s and 1940s offers ample evidence that his anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist incendiary rhetoric had devastating consequences on ancient Jewish communities who lived in the Arab world for thousands of years – witness the Algeria pogrom of 1934; violence and disturbances in Rabat and Oujda in Morocco in 1933, 1934 and again in 1938; the “Farhoud” pogrom in Iraq in 1941; the 1945 street riots in Egypt and Libya; and the pogrom against the Jewish community in Cairo in 1948.¹

Jewish worshipers in Prophet Ezekiel’s tomb in Iraq, 1932. (*Library of Congress*)

Ezekiel’s tomb converted to a Shiite shrine — Recently, Ezekiel’s tomb in Iraq was converted to a Shiite shrine. (*credit: Lyn Julius*)

Who can believe that Baghdad, where I was born, was once among the most Jewish cities in the world? Two years ago, I interviewed British-Iraqi and Jewish Lyn Julius, the author of “Uprooted.” I asked her, “what is left of Jewish history and heritage in Iraq; she replied, “Very little is left; Jewish shrines have been converted to mosques, cemeteries built over, and Jewish property has been taken over or crumbled to dust.”²

Yes, we are talking about the same Iraq where the Babylonian Talmud was written, and the prophet Ezekiel’s Tomb is under threat of destruction.

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Notes

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/how-3000-years-of-jewish-civilization-in-the-arab-world-vanished-overnight/↩︎
Ibid↩︎

Suzan Quitaz

Suzan Quitaz is a Kurdish-Swedish journalist and researcher on Middle Eastern affairs. She has conducted freelance research and writing assignments for several media outlets, including Al Majalla, a Saudi current affairs magazine, The New Arab, and MEMRI. She worked as a freelance producer on two documentaries for Al Jazeera and previously worked for several years as a producer and researcher at Al Araby television.

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Suzan Quitaz

Suzan Quitaz is a Kurdish-Swedish journalist and researcher on Middle Eastern affairs. She has conducted freelance research and writing assignments for several media outlets, including Al Majalla, a Saudi current affairs magazine, The New Arab, and MEMRI. She worked as a freelance producer on two documentaries for Al Jazeera and previously worked for several years as a producer and researcher at Al Araby television.

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