An echo of a Middle Eastern pogrom

People are murdered in their homes. Corpses are mutilated. The cries and shrieks of despair uttered by families emerging through windows are counterbalanced by bellowing in Arabic by groups of men. Infants are murdered, women and girls are raped, even gang raped – in many cases, in front of their families. Shops and homes are looted by people, carting away various kinds of possessions. A group of girls is abducted and brought to a nearby village. Smoke plumes arise in multiple locations, as homes are burned.

These details I have just described do not refer to October 7, 2023. No, this happened in Baghdad on June 1-2, 1941. This was the Farhud.

One of the most horrifying pogroms in the Arab world

In 2010, Edwin Black published a book about the Farhud, in which he analyzed the causes of the horrifying pogrom that terrorized Baghdad’s Jewish community for two consecutive days. As the causes of the pogrom, Black refers to a combination of anti-British revolt, Nazi agitation, and hatred of Jews. Those responsible for the acts on the ground were Fritz Grobba, the Nazi representative in Iraq, the so-called “Golden Square” – a group of Iraqi ultranationalists who carried out a coup in 1941 – and, of course, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husaini.

Al-Husaini was a crucial influence who fled to Iraq after the Arab Revolt in British-controlled Palestine, when British authorities had ordered his arrest. Never directly responsible, the Mufti’s anti-British and anti-Jewish agitation were a cause of the 1929 Hebron and Safed massacres of Jews. He played his part in the Arab Revolt as well. And upon arriving in Iraq he continued along those lines, by organizing the Arab National Party, which agitated for a Palestine without Jews. The Golden Square eagerly joined his endeavors. One of them was Rashid Ali Galiani, also known as Rashid Ali, a high-ranking Iraqi government official. By this time, Fritz Grobba had already entered Iraq several years prior and had bought an Arab Christian newspaper, which he then used to serialize a translation of Mein Kampf. In 1940, al-Husaini started spreading rumors that an anti-British revolt in Iraq was in the making – Iraq was nominally independent, but de facto controlled by the British through a Hashemite regent. As Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Said ordered a crackdown, the population responded negatively to his orders. It would lead to him resigning and becoming foreign minister. He was replaced by Rashid Ali, who proceeded to tell the British representative in Iraq that the Anglo-Iraqi relationship was now completely tied to events in Palestine. If the British would solve this problem, they would not have to worry about using resources to protect Iraqi oilfields from Axis invasion – a veiled threat.

By now, the Mufti’s contact with Nazi Germany had increased significantly, since the 1930s. For instance, in 1941 he wrote a missive decrying French and British transgressions in Syria, Iraq, and Palestine and blamed the Jews for being complicit in all of them. British intelligence was fully aware of the Mufti’s designs and pressured the Iraqi regent to order the arrest of Rashid Ali. However, the Golden Square learned of the plans and in April 1941 surrounded the regent’s palace, forcing him to flee. The Golden Square then launched a coup d’état, with Rashid Ali at the head of a new government.

The next step for Golden Square forces was to move towards the British base at Habbaniya. On the night of May 2, they penetrated the base’s perimeter, upon which the British commander ordered his forces to fire. By May 6, German high command decided to support Golden Square forces with all the aid they could give. Near the end of May, a British assembled group called “Habforce,” consisting of loyal regiments of the Arab legion, Jewish soldiers, and Gurkha fighters struck east from Palestine and Transjordan. They succeeded in rescuing the beleaguered British in Habbaniya and then pushed on to Baghdad. By May 29, 1941, Rashid Ali, the Mufti, and several dozen loyalists absconded to Iran. Fritz Grobba fled back to Germany, as British forces had appeared in front of Baghdad. On May 30, the mayor of Baghdad came out to sign a ceasefire document, as he was the only authority figure left. The regent was scheduled to return to Iraq and the coup was reversed.

Before fleeing Iraq, Rashid Ali had installed a Committee for Internal Security. Ostensibly led by the mayor, it consisted of Golden Square loyalists, among them Iraqi Nazi Yunus al-Sabawi, who had declared himself governor of Baghdad. Then, al-Sabawi summoned Baghdad’s Chief Rabbi Sassoon Kadoori and ordered him to instruct the Jewish community to stay indoors, cook enough food for a three-day journey, and pack suitcases, as they were to be transferred to detention centers. Lists of Jews had been compiled in advance and red hamsas were daubed on the doors of Jewish homes. Radio broadcasts were scheduled for noon, May 29, with orders that the military and Iraqi Nazi gangs should exterminate Baghdad’s Jews in a massive pogrom. A victory speech written by al-Sabawi had been prepared as well. Desperate, Chief Rabbi Kadoori approached Baghdad’s mayor, Arshad Umari. The mayor reassured him that nothing would happen and proceeded to relieve al-Sabawi from duty on May 29. No radio broadcasts followed and al-Sabawi left Iraq. On May 31, a radio broadcast announced that order had been restored to Baghdad and that the regent would return the next day. The Jewish community was relieved and ready to welcome back the regent, which coincided with Shavuot.

The Farhud was sparked by the sight of a group of Baghdadi Jews, who had answered a call to greet the regent, Prince Abd-al-Ilah, upon his return to the city. A group of Iraqi soldiers noticed them on their way back from surrendering to Habforce. This sparked an outburst of rage that spread quickly throughout all of Baghdad on June 1, 1941. As Black described, the systematic extermination which had been foiled, was now replaced with spontaneous slaughter. What followed was shocking beyond belief. Frenzied mobs attacked Jews wherever they could find them. Soldiers, police officers, and civilians joined the fray. While there were examples of Arabs defending Jews, such as Muslim neighbors hiding Jews in their homes or the story of a 14-year old boy named Ovadia being saved by an Arab police officer, who drew his gun to protect the boy from a mob chasing him, many stories told something different those days. Black described several of the horrifying details that occurred. Jews were beheaded and the limbs of some were sliced off and paraded through the streets. Elderly men and women were killed, people were hacked to death. Women and young girls were often raped and even gang raped, as horrified families had to look on. Infants were killed in front of their parents. A mob broke into a girls’ school, where the students were repeatedly subjected to rape. Women’s breasts were cut off on numerous occasions. Shops and homes were looted and burned. The urge to loot, in fact, saved many families, as it gave them time to escape via rooftops. Authorities refused to intervene, as no direct order had been given to shoot at the pogromists. It did not stop numerous police officers from joining the carnage and pillaging. And while British officers could see the smoke plumes emerging from Baghdad and hear the rattling of machine-gun fire, they were ordered not to intervene, as British soldiers restoring order would embarrass the regent. The regent would finally give the order to stop the pogrom, after Umari pleaded with him. Loyal units started firing on the pogromists, especially when they were encroaching on Muslim neighborhoods, with the intent to continue their pillaging. After the smoke cleared, Black states that more than 100 Jews were murdered. Lyn Julius names a range of 145 to 600 Jews killed. The real number will probably never be known. What is certain is that on top of the death toll, thousands were injured, women and girls were subjected to mass rape, and the material damage was immense.

Similarities with October 7^th

While there are several differences between the Farhud and October 7^th, such as the IDF, police officers and alert squads succeeding in repelling attacks and Jews being able to defend themselves, as opposed to the Farhud where Jews were left to their own devices, the atrocities committed by Hamas were an echo of the Farhud in many ways. Women were raped and gang raped, children were murdered, people were decapitated, people were tortured and corpses mutilated. The majority of casualties were Israeli civilians, just as Jewish civilians were targeted during the Farhud. In addition, Hamas even murdered Arab Israelis and foreign students and laborers, turning everyone on Israeli soil into a target. And horrifying examples such as Nir Oz, where terrorists could do as they pleased and had left before the IDF arrived, or the NOVA site were stark reminders of the Farhud, as well as pogroms in Eastern Europe. Moreover, the Farhud was one of the most notorious, but Lyn Julius points towards many pogroms taking place throughout the Arab world, countering the enduring image in the West that co-existence between Arabs and Jews was exemplary.

Not simply peaceful coexistence

Certainly, there were periods of remarkable tolerance and Jews enjoying good relations with their neighbors. However, those who stress these examples would like to ignore other uncomfortable facts. Usually, you will still hear that Israel ruined everything, but that is a weak argument. First of all, communities that had dwelled in Arab countries for centuries, such as the Iraqi community, were scapegoated after 1948. As an example, Iraqi authorities turned Jews into a fifth column, regardless of how they felt. Stripping them of their rights and confiscating their property led to the pauperization of the Jewish community. While Israel’s pull factors are still stressed by many Arab supporters of the Palestinian cause, leading them even to have the audacity to vilify Israelis of Mizrahi and Sephardic descent as traitors, they conveniently ignore the dire push factors that led to Jews fleeing en masse, as was the case for Iraqi Jews.

There is no shame in saying this: my paternal grandparents were refugees, due to the fact that Iraq did its very best to get rid of its Jews. Moreover, as Julius, herself a British woman of Iraqi Jewish descent, stressed in her 2018 book Uprooted, how does one then explain the nineteenth century Damascus blood libel? Or pogroms in the Moroccan city of Fez, which took place in 1033, 1465, and 1912? What about a pogrom in Algeria in 1934? Or the Tunisian pogrom in Gabès in 1941? How about the Libyan anti-Jewish riots in 1945, which lasted three days? All of these took place before Israel was established. And, finally, if everything was an example of harmony in the Middle East and North Africa, how does one explain the influence of the eighth-century Pact of Umar and the ensuing dhimmi status for Jews or the jizya tax? Jews in Yemen were routinely subjected to massacres, degradations, and forced conversions to Shia Islam. What about the fact that as late as the 1890s Jewish women were sold into slavery in Morocco? Or the fact that long before Israel was established many Arabs used derogatory terms for Jews, calling them dogs and chiding donkeys for being “sons of Jews” – even today, Jews are animalized in many school textbooks in the Arab world, referring to them as descendants of pigs.

One can certainly point to history and stress periods of peaceful coexistence between Jews and Arabs throughout the ages. It is good to do so, to show that peace is possible and continue to strive towards achieving this. But all too often this leads to a highly selective view of the region’s history, with the ultimate goal of blaming Israel for the deteriorated relationship between Arab countries and their own Jewish communities which vanished nearly overnight. Instead of protecting their Jews, Arab countries punished them. Though I, my little brother, my father or my family in Israel do not consider ourselves refugees, my paternal grandparents definitely were. They had to rebuild their lives from scratch, forced to flee Iraq, as the situation deteriorated rapidly. Push factors were very important.

On this day, I reflect on the horror of the Farhud and my gratitude to the state of Israel for taking in my grandparents, along with 120,000 other Iraqi Jews. Today, my family flourishes, contributing to a country that has offered them much and the opportunity to live in the ancestral homeland of the Jews. In addition, a substantial number of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews chose to settle elsewhere – part of my family moved on from Israel to the United States, where they live to this day. But above all, I wish to remember that even for the majority of Mizrahim and Sephardim who chose to settle in Israel, that journey began with trauma, it began with pain. Let us remember the sorrow of 850,000 Jews – roughly 650,000 would settle in Israel – who left Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. And let us hope that one day, as the countries in the region continue to offer staunch support for the Palestinian cause, they will acknowledge the pain they have inflicted on the Jews who fled their lands.