In Israel, Reliving the 1941 Baghdad Massacre

October 7, 2023. The Tel Aviv suburb of Givatayim, 8 pm. Sirens wail, signaling an incoming missile from Gaza.

Oria Jackson rushes to the protected room of her apartment, located on the top floor of a seven-story building.

The horrific Hamas’ massacre of 1,400 Jews and kidnapping of 230 Israelis and foreign nationals earlier that day race through her mind.

Oria Jackson

Shuddering in her bomb shelter, Oria recalls another terror massacre, 82 years ago in her birthplace of Baghdad, Iraq. During the two-day Farhud (“violent dispossession” in Arabic), mobs of Arabs wielding swords, axes and guns invaded thousands of Jewish homes – raping, pillaging, and massacring.

Oria’s thoughts of mutilated bodies, from Baghdad to Gaza, meld in a gruesome mix. Then suddenly – SLAM! – a missile from Gaza strikes the roof of Oria's building, just meters from where she sits. The impact and explosion send shock waves, shattered glass and twisted metal hurtling through her apartment.

The protected room, made of reinforced concrete and steel, saves her from violent death.

“I grew up hearing gory details from my parents and six siblings who experienced the horrific Farhud,” Oria tells Aish.com, “but I never imagined the same thing would happen in Israel.”

Oria Jackson’s demolished apartment in Givatayim

Deal with Hitler

Prior to the Farhud, Baghdad was the wealthiest Jewish community in the world. Jews dominated banking, commerce, law and government, and constituted over a third of the city’s population. Jews had lived peacefully in Iraq for 2,500 years; the Babylonian Talmud was developed in present-day Iraq.

All that changed in the wake of World War II. The British were in control of Iraq’s huge oil reserves, a resource that Hitler coveted for his expanding war plans: to first conquer Russia, then the Middle East – exterminating all its Jews. To this end, Nazi General Erwin Rommel’s troops were positioned in Egypt.

Jewish family in Iraq, circa 1925 (illustrative)

Hitler found a willing partner in the Grand Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Muslim leader violently opposed to the establishment of a Jewish state (and till today the ideological father of the Islamist movement to annihilate Israel). With nearly one million Jews living in Arab lands, the Mufti feared a mass exodus of these Jews to Israel. Hitler's proposed genocide was a convenient final solution.

The Mufti forged a close alliance with Hitler and visiting Nazi Germany to learn the tactics of ghettos, pogroms, and concentration camps.

On Hitler’s payroll, the Mufti delivered a daily pro-Nazi radio broadcast to the Muslim world, and implemented a vicious anti-Jewish campaign in Iraqi media and schools. The German embassy in Iraq purchased the Arab World newspaper (Al-alam Al-arabi) and filled it with incendiary hate propaganda about Jews as “subhuman vermin” and “the treacherous enemy.” Mein Kampf, Protocols of Elders of Zion, and Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic writings were translated into Arabic and widely distributed. The Futtuwa Iraqi youth movement was established based on the model of Hitler Youth. Posters in Iraq markets declared: “God (Alla) is your master in Heaven; Hitler your master on Earth.” Iraq’s second-most popular baby name, after Mohammed, was Hitler.

Adolf Eichmann, on a wartime visit to Palestine, swelled with pride at how "Nazi flags fly in Palestine and they adorn their houses with Swastikas and portraits of Hitler."

High-ranking SS officer Dieter Wisliceny would later testify at the Nuremberg trials: "The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry, and had been a collaborator and advisor of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan... He was one of Eichmann's best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures."

The Grand Mufti meets with Hitler

The Farhud Massacre

For Baghdad’s Jews, the situation reached a boiling point on May 25, 1941, when Hitler issued Order 30 “to move forward in the Middle East by supporting Iraq.”

One week later, on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, tens of thousands of bloodthirsty Nazi-Muslims rampaged through the streets of Baghdad, swearing allegiance to the Mufti and Hitler, and screaming: “Cutal al Yehud – slaughter the Jews!”

The Arab marauders went door to door, targeting every Jewish home and business in Baghdad. (The Mufti had prepared for the massacre by ordering a red hamsa symbol painted on all Jewish properties.) For two terror-filled days of Shavuot, Arabs plundered and demolished hundreds of Jewish homes and businesses, while hundreds of Jews – men, women and children – were raped and slaughtered.

The Farhud was the Middle East version of Kristallnacht, and showed how Hitler’s Jew-hatred had spread to the Muslim world.

Oria's sister, Carmela Zelcha, was five years old at the time of the Farhud.

“When the violence started, we pushed all the furniture against our front door to prevent the mob from breaking in,” Carmela tells Aish.com. “My grandfather paid a local Arab policeman to stand outside the house and protect it. As a child, I overheard the adults speaking about how the Arabs, with their gruesome ways of murdering Jews, outdid even the sadistic Nazis.”

Arab mobs during the Farhud pogrom

Zionist Underground

The Farhud was a wakeup call for Baghdad’s Jews who began to realize that, after millennia of peaceful existence in Iraq, their days were numbered. A Zionist underground movement, Tenua, was formed to secretly teach Iraqi Jews the foundations of Zionism and the Hebrew language.

Yehuda David, the older brother of Oria and Carmela, became a leader of Tenua, managing branches in various Iraqi cities. Yehuda obtained weapons – rifles, pistols and grenades – to protect the family in the event of another pogrom.

“The police were always on the lookout for Zionists,” Carmela explains. “One time the police came to our house, so my brother quickly hid the cache of weapons under a floorboard. Police searched the house for hours, but my aunt stood on the spot where the weapons were hidden, not moving the entire time.”

Yehuda David, a leader of Tenua, the Iraqi Zionist underground

Border Smuggling

The situation for Iraqi Jewry turned ominous in 1948 when, following Israel’s declaration of independence, Iraq declared war against the Jewish state. The Iraqi government curtailed Jews’ civil rights and fired many Jewish state employees. Jewish youths and well-connected Jewish businessmen were arrested, tortured and/or publicly hanged. Iraqi Jews, realizing that the Farhud was more than just an isolated incident instigated by Nazi propaganda, sought to leave for Israel en mass.

Leaving Iraq, and escape routes were slow and treacherous.

Herzel Hatka grew up in Khanaqin and became a Tenua activist at age 17, illegally smuggling Jews across the border into Iran. These activities were a capital crime, and when a Muslim smuggler “revealed secrets,” Herzel and his brother George, also a Tenua activist, were put on the police "wanted list" and forced into hiding.

Herzel tells Aish.com, "We managed to get a message to the central office of Tenua in Baghdad, asking for help to get us out of trouble. Yehuda David was in charge of our branch, and his aunt lived in Khanaqin, which gave him freedom to visit the city without arousing suspicion. After we’d been hiding for a few weeks in the attic of a safe house, Yehuda came to help us escape.”

They developed a plan whereby Herzel and George disguised themselves as Bedouin women, wearing black veils and cloaks. They fled Khanaqin by train to Baghdad, then across the border to Iran, eventually arriving in Israel.

Carmela’s Escape

Yehuda’s sister Carmela made aliyah to Israel in 1949 at age 13.

“I left my family behind and traveled with a small group of children, as not to arouse suspicion. We weren't able to take anything with us. We first traveled by train to Basra, then by motorboat across the Shatt Al-Arab river that forms the boundary between Iraq and Iran. It was a very dangerous journey. If we'd been caught, that would have been the end.”

After arriving in Iran, Carmela was sent to Tehran, where she stayed in a makeshift tent camp located in a cemetery. From there, she flew to Israel and was placed on a kibbutz with other youth separated from their families. One by one, all of Carmela’s siblings made it to Israel.

Eventually, the Iraqi government permitted Jews to leave the country, on condition they leave all their money, property and possessions behind. Carmela’s parents owned valuable real estate in Baghdad. They wanted to sell the property, but nobody would buy it – because as soon as they left, it would all be free.

In 1951, Carmela’s destitute parents arrived in Israel and the family was reunited. They lived in tent camps (Mabarot) until they could afford an apartment. Eventually, they opened a restaurant in Jerusalem.

By 1951, 90% of the Iraqi Jewish community had immigrated to Israel.

Jews flow from Iraq to Israel, 1951

Holocaust Survivors

An interesting postscript: With Nazi propaganda legitimizing the murder of Jews in Iraq, survivors of the Farhud were designated by the Israeli government as “Holocaust survivors,” entitling them to various benefits.

Monument in Ramat Gan, Israel, in memory of Jews killed in the Farhud.

Orit, whose apartment was hit on October 7 by the missile from Gaza, says she’s not surprised by the Hamas atrocities committed. “The Farhud instilled in me an emotional distrust,” she says. “I always knew of the potential for a massacre. But I never imagined that 82 years later, I’d experience a repeat of the Farhud here in Israel.”

Thanks to Chava Levin, Noah Omri Levin and Dalia Schwartz for generous assistance in telling this story.