Remembering the Farhud.

Whilst we in the West quite rightly remember those who perished in the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis, there were other pogroms and dispossessions in the East that were carried out by Muslims, that have been shamefully ignored by far too many people for far too long.

On the night of the Jewish festival of Shavouot, on the 1st of June 1941, in Bagdhad in modern day Iraq, the Jews of that city, who had lived there for 2,700 years, were collectively set upon, murdered, dispossessed and expelled by mobs of Muslims. Although the Jews of Iraq and other places in the Islamic world were not subjected to the monstrous mechanised and industrialised death that devoured the Jews of Germany, France, Poland, the Soviet Union and elsewhere under Nazi control, that doesn’t mean that they did not suffer or that their suffering should be forgotten or seen as a minor sidebar of history.

Iraqi, and later on, Lybian, Syrian, Tunisian, Egyptian Jews in fact Jews from across the Islamic world were targeted, driven out and killed by mobs fuelled by the Islamic Jew-hatred that lurks close to the surface in Islamic cultures. These mobs were also aided and encouraged by Nazi agents who were lurking in these countries and helping to feed the already existing Islamic Jew-hatred.

Here’s an excellent article about the Farhud from a former diplomat and deputy general at the Israeli Foreign Ministry Zvi Gabay, taken from the Jerusalem Post.

During Shavuot Iraqi Jews will commemorate the 75th anniversary of the farhud – the cruel and bloody riots that took place on Shavuot (June 1-2, 1941) against the small Jewish community of Iraq. In the riots, reminiscent of Kristallnacht in Germany, 179 Jews were murdered, hundreds more wounded and much Jewish property looted. The memory of the riots remains fresh in the minds of the Iraqi Jews in Israel and abroad.

Similar attacks occurred against almost all Jews who lived in Arab countries. The Jews did not declare war on their hosts. They never fought against them, as the Arabs in Mandatory Palestine fought against the Jewish settlements and afterwards against the nascent Jewish State of Israel

The world has heard a great deal about the injustice that happened to the Palestinian Arabs, under the code name “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” but knows almost nothing about the wrongs committed against Jews in Arab countries. What happened in Iraq and the rest of the Arab countries was in effect an ethnic cleansing of the Jews. Jews were forced to leave behind their personal and communal properties ,including schools, hospitals, ancient synagogues, cemeteries and prophets’ graves (some of which are being demolished now by Islamic State). The Arab governments confiscated all Jewish property.

The threatening anti-Jewish climate that prevailed in every Arab country was accompanied by inflammatory anti-Jewish declarations broadcast via radio, and even from the podium of the United Nations. Government harassment and popular attacks drove the Jews of the Arab world to migrate en masse to Israel.

There were certainly Muslims in the Arab countries who did not support the attacks on the Jews, but their voices were not heard. The Jews were the scapegoats in internecine power struggles between the Sunnis and the Shi’ites, just as today Israel is at the center of the struggle between the Shi’ite Iran and the Sunni states.

In recent years, a process of awakening can be discerned in the Arab world, especially among intellectuals, who recognize that it was not only the Palestinian Arabs who suffered a nakba; the Jews of the Arab world had their own catastrophe.

For sake of history and educating the future generations a proper commemoration of the plight and the heritage of Jews from Arab countries should take place in Israel. Arab leaders – Palestinians and others – would do well to stop parroting the slogan “right of return” and deluding their people, because there is no turning back the wheel of history.

Read the original source of this excellent article here:

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/The-farhud-the-riots-against-the-Jews-of-Iraq-455630

Just as we should never forget those who died in the death camps and charnel houses of Europe , so we should also remember those Jews who died at the hands of Muslims. Such wanton religiously-inspired death and destruction at the hands of Muslims should not be whitewashed for reasons of political correctness nor diminished for reasons of political expediency, but kept in the public mind.

We must not forget the horrors of the Farhud.

Remember, mourn and resolve that never again will this happen.

The Jewish Mourners Prayer, the Kaddish


Yit’gadal v’yit’kadash sh’mei raba (Cong: Amein).
May His great Name grow exalted and sanctified (Cong: Amen.)


b’al’ma di v’ra khir’utei
in the world that He created as He willed.


v’yam’likh mal’khutei b’chayeikhon uv’yomeikhon
May He give reign to His kingship in your lifetimes and in your days,


uv’chayei d’khol beit yis’ra’eil
and in the lifetimes of the entire Family of Israel,


ba’agala uviz’man kariv v’im’ru:
swiftly and soon. Now say:

(Mourners and Congregation:)

Amein. Y’hei sh’mei raba m’varakh l’alam ul’al’mei al’maya
(Amen. May His great Name be blessed forever and ever.)


Yit’barakh v’yish’tabach v’yit’pa’ar v’yit’romam v’yit’nasei
Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled,


v’yit’hadar v’yit’aleh v’yit’halal sh’mei d’kud’sha
mighty, upraised, and lauded be the Name of the Holy One

(Mourners and Congregation:)

B’rikh hu.
Blessed is He.


l’eila min kol bir’khata v’shirata
beyond any blessing and song,


toosh’b’chatah v’nechematah, da’ameeran b’al’mah, v’eemru:
praise and consolation that are uttered in the world. Now say:

(Mourners and Congregation:)

Amein
Amen


Y’hei sh’lama raba min sh’maya
May there be abundant peace from Heaven


v’chayim aleinu v’al kol yis’ra’eil v’im’ru
and life upon us and upon all Israel. Now say:

(Mourners and Congregation:)

Amein
Amen


Oseh shalom bim’romav hu ya’aseh shalom
He Who makes peace in His heights, may He make peace,


aleinu v’al kol Yis’ra’eil v’im’ru
upon us and upon all Israel. Now say:

(Mourners and Congregation:)

Amein
Amen

Prayer copied from jewfaq.org