Personal History
Guest Lecture – Prof J Sassoon
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Prof Joseph Sassoon will be discussing his latest book, “The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of a Dynasty” (Pantheon, October 22) The influential merchants of the nineteenth […]
Shlomo Hillel, Who Helped 120,000 Jews Flee Iraq, Dies at 97
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Working undercover, he used bribes, fake visas and a network of smugglers to bring refugees to Israel in the late 1940s and early ’50s. By Clay Risen Feb. 21, 2021 Shlomo […]
From Iraq to exodus: the flight of a country’s Jewish community
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by Holly Johnston ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Bertha Bekhor was 15 years old when a man knocked frantically at the door of her Baghdad home, on a warm June evening […]
Iraqi Jew Creates New Life for Herself in America
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by Ben Sales When arguing with her first grade teacher about the Arab-Israeli conflict, Ceen Gabbai didn’t realize she was taking a huge risk. It was around September of 2000, and […]
Here’s what it’s like to grow up as a Jew in Iraq
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By Ben Sales NEW YORK (JTA) — When Ceen Gabbai argued with her first-grade teacher about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, she didn’t realize how big of a risk she was taking. […]
From Baghdad to Boston and Beyond”: A Memoir of an Iraqi Jew
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“From Baghdad to Boston and Beyond”: A Memoir of an Iraqi Jew”. Amy Dane co-author of Dr. Jacob Shammash’s story of emigration from Baghdad in 1947, after the Farhud and […]
The Jew Who Helped Defeat Iraq’s pro-Nazi Regime
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by Ofer Aderet Yoav Byron Kattan, who passed away last week, founded a Zionist underground in Iraq and served as a judge in Israel Yoav Byron Kattan, a retired judge […]
From Baghdad To Kokomo
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Memoir Of A Young Man’s Odyssey To America by Albert Kudsizadeh A compelling account of growing up during the mid-twentieth century in the two oldest and once vibrant Jewish communities […]
Lost history: understanding the unseen story of Iraqi Jews
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Hannah Harn learns about the history of the Jews of Iraq As of 2016, Ireland was home to fewer than 3,000 Jews. “In the region of Munster, we have about 95 […]
‘I’ve been sentenced to death’ – a farewell letter of an Iraqi Jew in 1969
By Zack Evans, Cassandra Gomes-Hochberg Sami Halali and his family were able to flee Iraq to Israel in 1971. Sami explained that the family hid the letter in their house […]