At sunset tonight, Jews throughout the world, from China to Chile and from London to Mumbai will celebrate the religious festival of Shavuot. This festival, which Jews believe commemorates the giving of the Torah (Five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) by God to the people of Israel, is a time of great joy, celebration and the eating of dairy foods such as cheesecake.
For many Jews who fled Islamic violence in the Middle East and North Africa and especially those from what was once the substantial Jewish community of Iraq, the festival of Shavuot is tinged with sadness. This is because this time of year was also when the Muslims of Iraq attacked, without provocation, their Jewish population, killing many and forcing many others to flee homes, these attacks are known as the ‘Farhud’ and occurred 72 years ago in 1941.
The Jews of the Islamic world, known as Mizrachim, had suffered hundreds of years of oppression, second class dhimmi status and death at the hands of aggressive Islam, but the mid 20th century Islamonazi attacks were the final straw. Jews fled Islamic lands for the relative safety of Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel. They left behind their homes and businesses in a land where they had lived for centuries. They also left behind the graves of the Prophets Ezekiel and Jonah and Ezra the Scribe. For 2,600 years Iraqi Jews had hung on, despite the depredations of Islam they lived under for at least a millenium. Finally, the situation became too bad and Iraq lost most of the remainder of its Jewish population, many of whom fled to the State of Israel when it was recreated in 1948 by the United Nations.
The website ‘Jewish Refugees’ which documents the expulsions and mass murder committed by Muslims against Middle Eastern and North African Jews, details the harrowing stories of those who had to flee Islamic violence. In its Shavuot reflection post, the Jewish Refugees site said:
“On Shavuot, the holiday which Jews around the globe begin celebrating this Tuesday night, Iraqi Jews mark 72 years since the Farhud — the 1941 riots in which 137 people were slaughtered and hundreds more injured. The Babylonian (Iraqi) Jewry Heritage Center in Or Yehuda has inscribed the victims’ names, and Iraqi Jews worldwide recall the horrible disgrace of those events, which were so reminiscent of Kristallnacht in Germany. The Farhud riots were carried out by a mob that had been incited to violence, and resulted in the Iraqi Jewish community losing faith in the country they had called home for millennium; the community of some 140,000 Jewish people dwindled to just a sparse few today.
Iraqi Jews were harassed for no apparent reason. The Jews, who had lived in Iraq for 2,600 years, weren’t subverting the country from within, like the Palestinian Arabs who fought against the Jewish settlements, and eventually the State of Israel. Actually, Jews were the targets of hostility in every Arab country in which they lived, not just in Iraq. One-hundred-and-thirty-three Jews were killed in Libya as anti-Jewish violence reached its peak in the North African country in November 1945; in Aden, Yemen, some 100 Jews were murdered in November 1947; in Egypt, the Jews were ejected from their homes and expelled from the state. And, despite all the international attention paid to the “Palestinian Nakba,” little has been said about the great injustice that the Jews of Arabia suffered. It’s true that history is not a competition of tragedies, but it’s important to note the ethnic cleansing that spread throughout the Arab nations. The scope of this tragedy was quite extensive — some 856,000 Jews were forced to flee their homes in Arab countries, compared to the 650,000 Palestinian refugees. And yet, for unknown reasons, the government in Israel still hasn’t placed the catastrophe that befell Arab Jews high on its domestic, or international, agenda.
Jews were being harassed before Israel was declared a state. Historian Edwin Black, Prof. Shmuel Moreh and Dr. Zvi Yehuda have published research that uncovers the links between then-Iraqi Prime Minister Rashid Ali al-Gaylani’s pro-Nazi government and the Third Reich in Germany. Iraq implemented discriminatory regulations against Jews that affected all aspects of their daily life, and afterward incited mobs to violence against the Jews. The Farhud riots of 1941 were the culmination of these efforts.
The fusion of xenophobic-tinged nationalism and a contagious anti-Jewish sentiment created a reality that was ripe with Jew hatred. Then-German Ambassador to Iraq, Dr. Fritz Grobba, readily fueled the attitude, and Haj Amin al-Husseini, who had fled from Palestine, found Iraq to be a convenient arena for anti-Jewish activities. The brutal, anti-Jewish environment culminated in the hanging of Shafiq Ades, a wealthy Jewish businessman, in Basra’s central square, as inflammatory, anti-Jewish radio broadcasts and speeches at the U.N. podium filled the air.
Finally, with no other choice, the Jews of Iraq gathered their belongings and deserted their country, the Iraq that they had ushered into the modern age. Iraqi Jews left behind their private belongings and the ancient property of their communities, including the supposed burial sites of the prophets Ezekiel, Jonah, Nahum Alqoshi and Ezra the Scribe, which the Iraqi government proceeded to take over.
There were, of course, Iraqis who refused to condone attacks against the Jewish population, but they were mostly silenced. The Jews had become the scapegoat in the conflict between Sunnis and Shiites, just as today Israel stands between Iran and the Arabs in their conflict. Were the Jews still residing in Arab countries, it’s reasonable to assume that their communities would have been ravaged in the recent uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen and Syria.”
This Shavuot, which has a Christian analogue in the festival of Pentecost, spare a thought or a prayer for those victims of Islam, such as those above, whose story has been almost forgotten by the mainstream media. If you are not Jewish then think hard on this fact, it is not only Jews who are at risk from Islamic violence, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and others are also at risk as well. If you don’t think that such a thing could ever happen here in a civilised country like the United Kingdom, then why not try giving an open and public Bible reading in one of Britain’s hostile Islamic ghettos, such as Tower Hamlets in London. I guarantee that a street preacher in Whitechapel High Street would not emerge unscathed from an encounter with the fifth column of Islamic Bearded Savages that we have mistakenly allowed in, and who are poisoning whatever council, political party, interfaith group or other entity that they involve themselves in.
It must frustrate the Bearded Savages immensely that Jews and Christians are still here despite nearly 1.5 millenia of aggressive Islamic attempts to wipe us out. Let us in the words of the Bible ‘choose life’ and never submit to the fascistic death cult which is Islam. Submission to Islam will bring death or worse. Fighting back against Islam, preferably in an ethical and constitutional way, will show that you are on the side of Life and not on the side of Death.
God Save The Queen
Am Yisrael Chai (The people Israel they live)
No Surrender to Islam EVER.
I would like to end this piece by taking the opportunity to wish my Jewish readers Gut Yomtov (good and happy festival), and my Christian readers a good and peaceful Pentecost.
Links
Jewish Refugees site. This is one of the sites that the political Left would rather you didn’t read because it shows that the idea of Islam as being a religion of Peace is a complete and utter lie.
http://www.jewishrefugees.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/remember-farhud-for-futures-sake.html
About the Jewish festival of Shavuot
http://www.jewfaq.org/holidayc.htm
About the Christian festival of Pentecost
http://christianity.about.com/od/biblefeastsandholidays/p/pentecostfeast.htm
‘Choose Life so that you may live’ biblical quote
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live, and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
From Deuteronomy 30:19-20
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+30&version=NIV
