Baghdad, Iraq – The Last Jews of Baghdad.

Baghdad, Iraq – Baghdad was once one of the great cradles of Jewish culture and wisdom, but now there are only eight Jews left in the Iraqi capital, and their situation is “more than desperate.” The Rev. Canon Andrew White, the Anglican chaplain to Iraq, says that the small group is in considerable danger. However, the community has been unable to agree to emigrate as a whole. Some of its members, without identifying themselves as Jews, have attempted to leave individually, but have been turned down. White says that only one of the Jews, a woman, still regularly goes to a Baghdad synagogue, though he will give no details.

White provides the group with food and money once a month, some of which they give to local Muslims, he says. “Not because they are forced to,” he says, “but because they care about them. These are wonderful people.” He notes that the Iraqi Jews constituted one of the world’s oldest Jewish communities, and that the country contains numerous important Jewish sites, such as the graves of the prophets Ezra and Ezekiel. The flourishing Jewish community in Baghdad also produced one version of Judaism’s second-holiest book, the Talmud, in about 550 A.D.

The Baghdad Jews have not been able to agree to make an application to go to Israel together, says White. For people who have “spent [their] life in Iraq hearing awful things about Israel,” he says, such hesitation would be natural.

Read extended article [TimeMagazine]