CHAPTER FOUR

AMADIYA

A. Amadiya in the Previous Centuries

Amadiya is situated 65 miles northeast of . The town is built on an oval rocky plateau, which in its higher area has cliffs fty to eighty feet high, while the lower area is sharp and strewn by boulder.1 Ama- diya was the capital of the Bahdinan province, named after the ruling Kurdish family. Signi cantly, Amadiya was once one of the famed Jew- ish centers in central .2 According to Rich (1820) and David D’Beth Hillel (1826), the population of Amadiya was composed of 200 Jewish households and 1000 Muslim households, representing 8,000 Muslims.3 Before the mid-nineteenth century, Amadiya underwent a change that affected the city and its Jewish community. In 1828, Mîr Mu4ammad of Rawanduz also known as Mîrê Kor (Kur., the Blind Mîr) laid siege to the town and conquered it. He plundered Amadiya and mistreated in particular its Jewish inhabitants, an important seg- ment of the population who “were treated with merciless cruelty and oppression.”4 Many Jews were forced to migrate and the less fortunate were subjected to his tyranny.5 Until 1838, the Blind Mîr succeeded in subjugating other urban centers with Jewish populations, such as Rania, Koi, Arbil, Aqra and , penetrating as far as Jezira and Mardin. It is unknown whether Jews were treated as badly in these centers as in Amadiya. In 1838, the Turkish army captured Mîr Mu4ammad and subsequently executed him. This was one of the last accounts of semi-independent

1 Military Report on (Area 9) 1929: 52. 2 On David al-Roi and the various legends and traditions regarding the establish- ment of the Jewish community of Amadiya, see Ben-Yaacob 1981: 73–5 and Brauer 1993: 57–60. 3 Rich 1836 (vol. I ): 153; Fischel 1939: 227. Bahd nan is an old province in what is modern day northern Iraq. It included the towns of Dohuk, Zakho and Amadiya. Consult Longrigg 1925: 37, 42, 159. 4 On the Blind Agha, see van Bruinessen 1978: 71, 157, 221, 291, 442. 5 Stern 1854: 225. 98 part one: chapter four entities ruled by Kurdish tribal leaders. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, the Turkish authorities administered this and similar districts more or less directly.6 Following the removal of the Blind Agha, the Pasha of Mosul ruled Amadiya with an iron st. The condition of the Jews improved little, but they were obliged to carry water and stones from the plain up to the citadel, and to do every form of degrading work, which impeded their industry. Within a short time, this once ourishing community was reduced to a community of one hundred families.7 The economic conditions of the Jews deteriorated following the increasing political insecurity.8 Asahel Grant, who visited Amadiya in 1839, soon after the fall of the Blind Agha, found it almost deserted because of the wars that followed the invasion of the of Rawanduz. he found that only 250 of the 1,000 houses were inhabited. The rest of the houses and the market were destroyed.9 In 1850, George Percy Badger had encountered a delegation of Amadiya Jews en route to the Pasha in Mosul, to le a complaint concerning the “money-extortions” by the muttasalim, the governor of the town. Jews and Christians alike suffered under the tyranny of the muttasalims; they desired to migrate, but were forced to remain in town.10 Around that time, the missionary Henry Aaron Stern who visited Amadiya accompanied the two local rabbis to the synagogue.11 He was permitted to speak to the Jews in the synagogue and recorded the following report: The next day the governor called on me, and, without giving or return- ing my salaam, rudely inquired what business I had [ had ] with the Jews the preceding evening. I stated to him, in a few words, the object of my intercourse, which immediately removed all suspicion from his gloomy mind and with eyes gleaming with re, he said, ‘your work is a meritori- ous one. I hope all the Jews will believe in Christ; for it is better that they acknowledge one great prophet, than deny both.’12

6 Hay 1921: 191. 7 Stern 1854: 225. 8 Eli Binyamin, “The Formation of the Jewish Community in Amadiya,” Hithadshut 5 (1985): 25 (Hebrew). 9 Asahel Grant, The Nestorians or the Lost Tribes, London and New York: John Murray. repr., Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1841: 44–46. 10 J. P. Badger, The Nestorians and their Rituals, with the Narrative of a Mission to Mesopotamia and Coordistan in 1842–1844 and a Late Visit to those Countries in 1850. 2 vols. London, 1852: 198–99. This kind of prohibition, exercised as well by tribal Kurdish aghas, indicates the lack of autonomy among the Kurdistani Jews. 11 Stern 1854: 225–6. 12 Ibid., 227. It is not clear if Stern had informed the rabbis about his missionary labor before his speech in the synagogue. My guess is that the rabbis did not have a