Iraqi Israelis Mark Farhud's 85th Anniversary at Herzog Residence, Honoring 200 Jews Killed
Updated
Updated · The Jerusalem Post · Jun 1
Iraqi Israelis Mark Farhud's 85th Anniversary at Herzog Residence, Honoring 200 Jews Killed
3 articles · Updated · The Jerusalem Post · Jun 1
Dozens of Iraqi-born Israelis and descendants gathered Monday at the President’s Residence, exactly 85 years after the Farhud began in Baghdad, to commemorate victims and pass the story to younger generations.
About 200 Jews were murdered in the June 1-2, 1941 pogrom, with homes, businesses and synagogues looted and women raped — an attack President Isaac Herzog compared to 1938 Germany and linked in spirit to the October 7 massacre.
David Kahtan, whose father survived the Farhud, organized the event and displayed about 80 black-and-white portraits of child survivors as part of his broader effort to record testimonies before they are lost.
Nadia Cohen, an Iraq-born Farhud survivor and widow of Eli Cohen, said Iraqi Jews were left undefended despite a British military presence and lamented that Israel has given far less attention to the Farhud than to Holocaust remembrance.
The Farhud marked the start of the collapse of Iraq’s ancient Jewish community; about 120,000 Iraqi Jews later moved to Israel in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, part of roughly 850,000 displaced North African Jews.