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The Jews of Iraq

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The Jews of Iraq Published by Americans for The Link Middle East Understanding, Inc. Volume 31, Issue 2 April-May, 1998 The Jews of Iraq The Link interviewed Naeim Giladi, a Jew from Iraq, for three hours on March 16, 1998, two days prior to his 69th birthday. For nearly two other delightful hours, we were I write treated to a multi-course Arabic this article for the meal prepared by his wife Rachel, who is also Iraqi. “It’s our Arab same reason I culture,” he said proudly. wrote my book: to In our previous Link, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe looked at the tell the American hundreds of thousands of indigenous Palestinians whose lives people, and were uprooted to make room for especially foreigners who would come to populate confiscated land. Most American Jews, were Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe. But over half a million other that Jews from Jews came from Islamic lands. Islamic lands did Zionist propagandists claim that Israel “rescued” these Jews from not emigrate their anti-Jewish, Muslim neighbors. willingly to Israel; One of those “rescued” Jews— Naeim Giladi—knows otherwise. that, to force them In his book, Ben Gurion’s to leave, Jews Scandals: How the Haganah & the Mossad Eliminated Jews, Giladi killed Jews; and discusses the crimes committed by Zionists in their frenzy to import raw that, to buy time to Jewish labor. Newly-vacated confiscate ever more Arab lands, Jews on farmlands had to be plowed to provide food for the immigrants and numerous occasions rejected genuine the military ranks had to be filled with conscripts to defend the stolen peace initiatives from their Arab lands. Mr. Giladi couldn’t get his neighbors. book published in Israel, and even in the U.S. he discovered he could I write about what the first prime do so only if he used his own money. His book is listed in our minister of Israel called “cruel Zionism.” catalog on pages 13-15. The Giladis, now U.S. citizens, live in New York City. By choice, they no longer hold Israeli citizenship. “I am Iraqi,” he told us, “born in Iraq, my culture still Iraqi The author, Naeim Giladi, pictured Arabic, my religion Jewish, my in 1947—the year his account for `çåíáåìÉÇ=çå= citizenship American.” The Link begins. John F. Mahoney qÜÉ=iáåâ= m~ÖÉ=O= AMEU Board of Directors (Continued from Page 1.) = Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr. Atwater, Bradley & Partners, Inc. My Story f k==jbjlof ^j= Henry G. Fischer (Vice President) = Of course I thought I knew it all back Curator Emeritus, Dept. of Egyptian Art Metropolitan Museum of Art then. I was young, idealistic, and more We announce with sadness the deaths of Bonnie Gehweiler Ambassador Marshall W. Wiley and Father than willing to put my life at risk for my Coordinator, Bethlehem 2000 Project Joseph L. Ryan, S.J. convictions. It was 1947 and I wasn’t Grace Halsell Marshall W. Wiley served in various quite 18 when the Iraqi authorities Writer Foreign Service posts, as U. S. Ambassador to caught me for smuggling young Iraqi Nell MacCracken Oman, Deputy Chief of Mission in Saudi Consultant Jews like myself out of Iraq, into Iran, Arabia, Chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Robert L. Norberg Baghdad, and Director of North African Affairs and then on to the Promised Land of the at the U.S. State Department in Washington. Lachlan Reed soon-to-be established Israel. President, Lachlan International He also did tours of duty in Yemen, Lebanon and Jordan. I was an Iraqi Jew in the Zionist Talcott W. Seelye underground. My Iraqi jailers did Former U.S. Ambassador to Syria In recent years, Ambassador Wiley everything they could to extract the Donald L. Snook lectured widely on the Middle East and was a frequent participant on national TV news names of my co-conspirators. Fifty years Jack B. Sunderland (President) programs. Since 1986, he served on our Board President, American Independent Oil Co. later, pain still throbs in my right toe—a of Directors. L. Humphrey Walz reminder of the day my captors used Associate Executive, H.R. Presbyterian Synod His presence on our Board will be missed pliers to remove my toenails. On another of the Northeast greatly. We will miss his Middle East occasion, they hauled me to the flat roof Miriam Ward, RSM expertise, his legal counsel, and his company. Professor, Religious Studies The one-day, round-trip trek by train from his of the prison, stripped me bare on a home in Maryland to our office in Manhattan Mark R. Wellman (Treasurer) frigid January day, then threw a bucket Financial Consultant can be tiresome at best. Marshall seldom of cold water over me. I was left there, missed a Directors meeting. The obligation of AMEU National Council an educational organization to provide reliable chained to the railing, for hours. But I Hon. James E. Akins information was of profound importance to never once considered giving them the Isabelle Bacon him—particularly if the organization was one information they wanted. I was a true on whose board he served. William R. Chandler believer. Joseph L. Ryan was a Jesuit priest who David S. Dodge My preoccupation during what I Barbro Ek taught at the Jesuits’ Baghdad College in Iraq, and later served as dean and academic vice- refer to as my “two years in hell” was Paul Findley president of Al-Hikma University in Iraq. Joseph C. Harsch with survival and escape. I had no From 1971 to 1975, he was an associate of the interest then in the broad sweep of Dr. Francis H. Horn Center for the Study of the Modern Arab World Dr. Cornelius B. Houk at St. Joseph’s University in Beirut, and from Jewish history in Iraq even though my O. Kelly Ingram 1984 to 1990 he directed the Pontifical Mission family had been part of it right from the Moorhead Kennedy for Palestine in Amman, Jordan. beginning. We were originally Haroons, Ann Kerr Father Ryan served on our Board of a large and important family of the John D. Law Directors until a few years ago when his health “Babylonian Diaspora.” My ancestors began to fail. Even then he maintained his Prof. George Lenczowski had settled in Iraq more than 2,600 years David Nes public endorsement of our efforts by accepting membership on our National Council. ago—600 years before Christianity, and C. Herbert Oliver George L. Parkhurst An unobtrusive and shy man, Joseph 1,200 years before Islam. I am descended Marie Petersen Ryan was also an insightful observer of the from Jews who built the tomb of human condition, who did not fear to speak on John J. Slocum Yehezkel, a Jewish prophet of pre- the plight of the Palestinians before Dr. John C. Trever congressional committees and in churches and biblical times. My town, where I was Don W. Wagner, Jr. synagogues. For the past seven years he was in born in 1929, is Hillah, not far from the residence at Fairfield University in Connecticut, ancient site of Babylon. AMEU Staff where from time to time I’d have lunch or supper with him. His assignment was The original Jews found Babylon, John F. Mahoney, Executive Director directing retreats for other Jesuits, and he’d with its nourishing Tigris and Euphrates Shibabaw Wubetu, Accounts Manager always be reading the latest books on rivers, to be truly a land of milk, honey, spirituality. Occasionally he’d tell me about a abundance—and opportunity. Although particularly good book he had just read and Jews, like other minorities in what AMEU (ISSN 0024-4007) grants permission to how much it had impressed him. Then he’d reproduce material from The Link in part or in ask, “How is it over there?” became Iraq, experienced periods of whole. We ask that credit be given to AMEU and that one copy be sent to our office at 475 —John F. Mahoney oppression and discrimination Riverside Drive, Room 245, New York, New York depending on the rulers of the period, 10115. Tel. 212-870-2053; Fax 212-870-2050; E- Mail <[email protected]> their general trajectory over two and qÜÉ=iáåâ= m~ÖÉ=P= one-half millennia was upward. Under the late Ottoman starvation diet that often left me weak-kneed. The pat of rule, for example, Jewish social and religious institutions, butter was to lubricate my leg in preparation for schools, and medical facilities flourished without outside extricating it from the metal band. The orange peel I interference, and Jews were prominent in government surreptitiously stuck into the lock on the night of my and business. planned escape, having studied how it could be placed in As I sat there in my cell, unaware that a death such a way as to keep the lock from closing. sentence soon would be handed down against me, I As the jailers turned to go after locking up, I put on could not have recounted any personal grievances that the old army issue that was indistinguishable from what my family members would have lodged against the they were wearing—a long, green coat and a stocking government or the Muslim majority. Our family had cap that I pulled down over much of my face (it was been treated well and had prospered, first as farmers winter). Then I just quietly opened the door and joined with some 50,000 acres devoted to rice, dates and Arab the departing group of soldiers as they strode down the horses. Then, with the Ottomans, we bought and hall and outside, and I offered a “good night” to the shift purified gold that was shipped to Istanbul and turned guard as I left.
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