“Seventy-five years ago, about 120,000 Jews lived in Iraq. In Baghdad, they were prominent in business and the professions — doctors, lawyers, bankers, professors, musicians, writers, artists, engineers. Last summer, a visitor just back from Iraq told me he could account for only five Iraqi Jews alive in the country. Not 5,000. Not 500. Five. They are too old to leave. When they die, there will be none.” – Dr. Cynthia Kaplan Shamash
Imagine if the prosperous North American Jewish communities we live in were totally obliterated – leaving five people to fend for themselves against aggressors. This is exactly what happened to the once affluent and vibrant Jewish communities in Iraq.
On February 24th, the Sephardi Club had the honor of hosting Dr. Cynthia Shamash Kaplan as she spoke at an event titled Persecution and Exile by One of Iraq’s Last Jews. Dr. Shamash shared stories about her life as a Baghdad native during a time when the Jewish life of the once flourishing city deteriorated in front her eyes.
Baghdad, formally known as Babylonia or Bavel, was once a city thriving with much Jewish life. After the destruction of the first Beit Hamikdash, the Jews of Israel were exiled to Bavel, where they restructured their lives according to Jewish custom and tradition, just as they had in their homeland, but they never stopped praying and longing for their return to Israel. During their time in the Babylonian exile they compiled the famous Babylonian Talmud and established two Talmudic academies, Sura and Pumbedita, founded by the famous scholars Rav and Shmuel.
From that illustrious time to Dr. Shamash’s birth, over two millennia had passed in harmony between the Jews and their neighbors. The peace was brought to an end on June 1st 1941, when a Nazi-inspired pogrom erupted in Baghdad and started the persecution and conflict. Just as the Jews had thought in Europe prior to the Holocaust, many Iraqi Jews hoped that things would improve and get better for them – but their hopes were met with despair.
At a certain point, Dr. Shamash’s parents realized they had to flee their beloved home for the sake of their futures and lives. “By the time I was in kindergarten, Jewish assets were being frozen, Jewish men had begun to lose their jobs, and universities would not accept Jewish students. And yet, surreally, it was by then illegal to leave,” she said.
Dr. Shamash recalled how her family tried to escape through the Iranian border, only to be caught and jailed for five weeks. During that time period she remembers being interrogated as an eight year old girl and accused of being a spy. The most daunting aspect of the whole story was that her doll was dismembered and searched as it was thought to contain a hidden recording device. Dr. Shamash still has the broken doll.
Eventually, after that ordeal, Dr. Shamash’s family managed to reach Europe’s margins, specifically Amsterdam. Dr. Shamash sorrowfully spoke about her father’s passing shortly after their safe arrival in Amsterdam; she believes that what finally contributed to his passing was all the stress and pain he had gone through during the family’s escape from Iraq. Dr. Shamash then moved from Holland to England seeking an education, and later to the United States in 1991 where she pursued a career in dentistry.
Iraqi Jews are only some of the many Sephardi and Mizrachi groups that had to flee the birthplace of their eminent history, and sacrifice so much to carry on their traditions in peace. It is common for the Jews in the Arab world to be almost forgotten when compared to the devastation among the European Jews.
Of course, both the Holocaust and the Middle East persecutions are terrible tragedies on such a horrible scale, but Dr. Shamash accurately represents what the Jews of the Arab world went and continue to go through. As Jews living in America, we must appreciate the liberties we are given and the right to practice our religion without fear of persecution.