Nehardea Magazine

Journal of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center
No.15, Winter 2005/2006

BABYLONIAN JEWS IN RECENT GENERATIONS

LOVE LETTERS FROM BASRA IN 1942 Victor Ozair M. Sc., P. E., Los Angeles

In memory of my parents Ragina and Nessim Shaul Ezeir, "Ozair"

After the fall of Baghdad to the British army and the collapse of the Ottomans in 1917, new realities of freedom embraced the young in many areas: freedom of expression and personal behavior, freedom of interaction with the opposite sex, freedom to protest against old customs, habitual practices and traditional social conventions.

This liberal attitude of the young generation resulted from processes, which began a long time before the occupation of the British army:

1. The establishment of the modern schools in Baghdad in 1864 for boys and in 1895 for girls exposing the young to European culture.

2. The appointment of Medhat Pasha in 1869 as the Turkish Governor of Baghdad. Medhat Pasha had a very constructive and reforming influence on Jewish society.

3. The military revolt in Turkey in 1908 by the young officers of the Turkish Army, called the Young Turks, headed by Medhat Pasha. The revolt displaced Sultan Abd Al Hamid and formed a liberal reformist government. The reaction of that revolt with its liberal doctrine affected the Jewish community of Baghdad.

4. The influence of the British rule in Baghdad after 1917. Thousands of Jewish youths were employed in the new administration, in management, in technical areas and in financial and commercial activities. The Jewish community entered into a period of social and economic progress never known before.

5. The increase of commercial contacts with European countries. In the twenties, Jews took over the importation of all foreign consumer goods and industrial products. This open contact with the western world brought out some modernization into the life of Jewish society.

The following graceful, true story describes delicately this new reality of freedom practiced by Ragina and Nessim in 1924, when they wrote their love letters. Letters kept coming to Yosef Hoory in Baghdad from his sister Sima, who pressed him so urgently to bring his daughter Ragina to Bombay. She wrote to him '...I want to remind you again that you must bring your daughter Ragina to Bombay soon, I say this month. She is ready for marriage and I have found for her a very rich person from a good family...'

In August that year, Yosef Hoory and Ragina arrived to Basra and stayed with a relative. They did not carry passports with them. They contacted Mr. Nessim Ezeir requesting his help to get for them the necessary documents for their travel to India. Mr. Ezeir, a high ranking Jewish police officer, was heading the passport checking post at the border of Iraq and Iran. He was a handsome, young and impressive person, polite and considerate. He had graduated from the Turkish high school during the Ottoman regime. After the war, when he completed an officers' course, organized by the British authority, and some additional training, he was given an important position at the passport office in Basra.

Mr. Ezeir was happy to meet Ragina. She was a beautiful young lady, very attractive, well mannered and with good education from the Alliance school. When he first saw her, he was very impressed. He was touched with her charms, her beauty and her admirable character. He gladly offered to help them. He took them on the second day in his carriage and showed them the city of Basra. During their three weeks stay, he treated them with great respect and invited them every night to a dinner party with chalghi and music in their honor. Ragina was equally impressed with this handsome officer. She accepted his invitations with pleasure. The morning of their last day in Basra, he took them, with a company of honor guards, to the port, where they boarded the ship. He reluctantly bid them farewell.

In Bombay, Yosef and his daughter Ragina were welcomed pompously at his married sister Sima's big mansion. Ragina was vastly impressed with the splendor and the richness of her new life. A week later, Sima arranged a gala in which she introduced Ragina to her rich Jewish friend. This person owned a vast textile complex, several buildings, hotels and a large mansion with servants and cooks. In the following days, he invited Ragina to parties and shows. He showed her his factories. He inundated her with all the beauties and magnificence of a rich life. He bought for her expensive gifts. One night he took her to a gala arranged by the British High Commissioner. At the gala, there were princes and princesses and Maharajas and generals and all the top personalities of Bombay society. There were dazzling colors all around embellished with glittering decorations. Charming ladies filled the hall sporting gold and bracelets of jewels and diamonds. The entertainment lasted all night. After the gala he took her back to her aunt with adequate respect and appreciation.

One day Ragina woke up happy, but a little confused and scared. She realized that she could not grow accustomed to this new life, which involved her so suddenly in peculiar etiquette, distinct formalities, odd customs and unfamiliar social interaction. She was an innocent, humble girl from Baghdad, a dormant city of 1924. She had been living, only a short time earlier, a simple, naive and unsophisticated scholastic life. However, she entered suddenly into a world of gaiety and formalities, a world of abundance, one of luster and grandeur, into a glorious world of dreams. For six months she lived at her aunt's within this spell of luxury and magnificence, this multicolored abundance of wealth, this pure taste of sweetness and joy. Yet by the end of these six months, she felt uneasy and unable to get accustomed to this complicated, new life. She could not make up her mind about this Jewish Indian millionaire, who wanted to marry her. She was still thinking upon that handsome officer in Basra.

Mrs. Rejina Ezeir

Precisely that week, she received a letter from Mr. Ezeir. The letter read as follows: Very Dear Ragina, Thank you for your accepting my letter. How are you Ragina. I wish you the best of health and happiness. I have been hesitating painfully to write to you during these long months, but with a little courage left within me, I decided to spill my emotions on the paper, so that you understand the way I feel towards you. To tell you the truth, I cherish the time we spent here together. I have always dreamt of a dear friend. Now, I know that you are the one angel of my dreams and that you are real. You are everything I aspire and adore. My life had no meaning until you came along. Do you remember when we sat down by the river in the Ashar, hand in hand, and the moonlight was shining above through the bright twinkling stars. At that time, the beauty of the water and the charms of the scenery were touching us in the bliss of love. We talked in silence and the hush of the evening added to the spell. Here at this moment, I am back in the same place sitting alone, longing for your charming touch. I wonder where you are now. Please excuse my burst of emotions. I will be gratified with happiness to hear from you. Please take care of yourself. Your loving Nessim

The Ezeir family

Ragina read the letter and wrote to him reciprocating his feeling with similar warmth and passion. A reply to her came soon and read as follows:

Very Dear Ragina, I was dancing on tiptoe in gladness upon receiving your letter. Thank you so much for the beautiful words you wrote to me. I want to say with sincerity and honesty how much I love you and that my life is meaningless without you. My love for you has grown with time in the same proportion as the intensity of my loneliness, which I feel here so far away from you. Nothing can erase this love from my heart, in spite of the fact that you might decide to stay for good in India. I will still love you whether the sun stops shining or the world turns upside down. At this moment, I remember vividly your sweet smile, your gentle words, your warmth and tenderness, your kindness and innocence. I am in love with you, with your eyes, your nose, your hair and your hands, with the way you talk, the way you walk, with all your being. I love you because you are what you are. I am dreaming of building my life and yours together and to be joined with you in the bliss of marriage. Your loving Nessim

Ragina received this letter. She read it again and again. She read it with vivacity and zeal and with great emotion. Afterwards she showed it to her father and to her aunt and told them that she decided to return to Baghdad to marry Nessim, because her love for Nessim exceeded all the treasures of the world including the mansions and the jewels of India.

Their travel to Baghdad was arranged immediately. She came back to Nessim and they were married soon after his graduation from an additional officers training course qualifying him for a promotion to a higher status in the police department. By 1932, when Iraq took full independence, Mr. Ezeir had a high ranking position in the administration of the police department. However, at the end of that year, he was discharged from his duties for his being Jewish.

The dismissal of Jewish officials, who were serving in high government positions, was only the beginning of hostility. The enmity and antagonism extended profusely and culminated in 1936 with the killing of Jews in the streets of Baghdad. The hostility continued during the revolt of Rashid Ali in 1941 with a pogrom al-Farhud, when hundreds of Jews were killed and injured in their homes and in the streets by fanatic Arab gangs within the two days of Shavuot festival. Additional animosity and harmful actions against the Jews were organized and planned by the government of Iraq. In 1951 the government confiscated all Jewish assets, froze all funds deposited in the banks and expelled all Jews from Iraq. As a matter of fact, my parents lost all their savings and their furnished home.

My mother used to remember so often that brief royal time she had experienced in India. She was humble. She did not complain when life conditions deteriorated. She acted fairly through difficult times and she looked always at the bright side of life. Above all, she managed to raise good children.

Then was the aliya to Israel in 1951. My parents stayed in the Maabara, a transitory tent camp, while the children were away completing their higher studies and the military service. My parents had to endure the hardship of the Maabara for a very long time until they were able to afford the move to an apartment in Ramat Yitzhak. When we finished our studies and flourished in the academic, the industrial and the business echelons, my parents became ill and needed medical treatment. It was painful to us that we were unable to have enough time with them and to enjoy ourselves in their company when they were in good health. We were wrong to think that life is eternal and good things might last forever. My parents died in 1981 and 1982. Blessed be their memory.

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BABYLONIAN JEWS IN RECENT GENERATIONS
LOVE LETTERS FROM BASRA IN 1942 Victor Ozair M. Sc., P. E., Los Angeles
In memory of my parents Ragina and Nessim Shaul Ezeir, "Ozair" After the fall of Baghdad to the British army and the collapse of the Ottomans in 1917, new realities of freedom embraced the young in many areas: freedom of expression and personal behavior, freedom of interaction with the opposite sex, freedom to protest against old customs, habitual practices and traditional social conventions. This liberal attitude of the young generation resulted from processes, which began a long time before the occupation of the British army: 1. The establishment of the modern schools in Baghdad in 1864 for boys and in 1895 for girls exposing the young to European culture. 2. The appointment of Medhat Pasha in 1869 as the Turkish Governor of Baghdad. Medhat Pasha had a very constructive and reforming influence on Jewish society. 3. The military revolt in Turkey in 1908 by the young officers of the Turkish Army, called the Young Turks, headed by Medhat Pasha. The revolt displaced Sultan Abd Al Hamid and formed a liberal reformist government. The reaction of that revolt with its liberal doctrine affected the Jewish community of Baghdad. 4. The influence of the British rule in Baghdad after 1917. Thousands of Jewish youths were employed in the new administration, in management, in technical areas and in financial and commercial activities. The Jewish community entered into a period of social and economic progress never known before. 5. The increase of commercial contacts with European countries. In the twenties, Jews took over the importation of all foreign consumer goods and industrial products. This open contact with the western world brought out some modernization into the life of Jewish society. The following graceful, true story describes delicately this new reality of freedom practiced by Ragina and Nessim in 1924, when they wrote their love letters. Letters kept coming to Yosef Hoory in Baghdad from his sister Sima, who pressed him so urgently to bring his daughter Ragina to Bombay. She wrote to him '...I want to remind you again that you must bring your daughter Ragina to Bombay soon, I say this month. She is ready for marriage and I have found for her a very rich person from a good family...' In August that year, Yosef Hoory and Ragina arrived to Basra and stayed with a relative. They did not carry passports with them. They contacted Mr. Nessim Ezeir requesting his help to get for them the necessary documents for their travel to India. Mr. Ezeir, a high ranking Jewish police officer, was heading the passport checking post at the border of Iraq and Iran. He was a handsome, young and impressive person, polite and considerate. He had graduated from the Turkish high school during the Ottoman regime. After the war, when he completed an officers' course, organized by the British authority, and some additional training, he was given an important position at the passport office in Basra. Mr. Ezeir was happy to meet Ragina. She was a beautiful young lady, very attractive, well mannered and with good education from the Alliance school. When he first saw her, he was very impressed. He was touched with her charms, her beauty and her admirable character. He gladly offered to help them. He took them on the second day in his carriage and showed them the city of Basra. During their three weeks stay, he treated them with great respect and invited them every night to a dinner party with chalghi and music in their honor. Ragina was equally impressed with this handsome officer. She accepted his invitations with pleasure. The morning of their last day in Basra, he took them, with a company of honor guards, to the port, where they boarded the ship. He reluctantly bid them farewell. In Bombay, Yosef and his daughter Ragina were welcomed pompously at his married sister Sima's big mansion. Ragina was vastly impressed with the splendor and the richness of her new life. A week later, Sima arranged a gala in which she introduced Ragina to her rich Jewish friend. This person owned a vast textile complex, several buildings, hotels and a large mansion with servants and cooks. In the following days, he invited Ragina to parties and shows. He showed her his factories. He inundated her with all the beauties and magnificence of a rich life. He bought for her expensive gifts. One night he took her to a gala arranged by the British High Commissioner. At the gala, there were princes and princesses and Maharajas and generals and all the top personalities of Bombay society. There were dazzling colors all around embellished with glittering decorations. Charming ladies filled the hall sporting gold and bracelets of jewels and diamonds. The entertainment lasted all night. After the gala he took her back to her aunt with adequate respect and appreciation. One day Ragina woke up happy, but a little confused and scared. She realized that she could not grow accustomed to this new life, which involved her so suddenly in peculiar etiquette, distinct formalities, odd customs and unfamiliar social interaction. She was an innocent, humble girl from Baghdad, a dormant city of 1924. She had been living, only a short time earlier, a simple, naive and unsophisticated scholastic life. However, she entered suddenly into a world of gaiety and formalities, a world of abundance, one of luster and grandeur, into a glorious world of dreams. For six months she lived at her aunt's within this spell of luxury and magnificence, this multicolored abundance of wealth, this pure taste of sweetness and joy. Yet by the end of these six months, she felt uneasy and unable to get accustomed to this complicated, new life. She could not make up her mind about this Jewish Indian millionaire, who wanted to marry her. She was still thinking upon that handsome officer in Basra. Mrs. Rejina Ezeir Precisely that week, she received a letter from Mr. Ezeir. The letter read as follows: Very Dear Ragina, Thank you for your accepting my letter. How are you Ragina. I wish you the best of health and happiness. I have been hesitating painfully to write to you during these long months, but with a little courage left within me, I decided to spill my emotions on the paper, so that you understand the way I feel towards you. To tell you the truth, I cherish the time we spent here together. I have always dreamt of a dear friend. Now, I know that you are the one angel of my dreams and that you are real. You are everything I aspire and adore. My life had no meaning until you came along. Do you remember when we sat down by the river in the Ashar, hand in hand, and the moonlight was shining above through the bright twinkling stars. At that time, the beauty of the water and the charms of the scenery were touching us in the bliss of love. We talked in silence and the hush of the evening added to the spell. Here at this moment, I am back in the same place sitting alone, longing for your charming touch. I wonder where you are now. Please excuse my burst of emotions. I will be gratified with happiness to hear from you. Please take care of yourself. Your loving Nessim The Ezeir family Ragina read the letter and wrote to him reciprocating his feeling with similar warmth and passion. A reply to her came soon and read as follows: Very Dear Ragina, I was dancing on tiptoe in gladness upon receiving your letter. Thank you so much for the beautiful words you wrote to me. I want to say with sincerity and honesty how much I love you and that my life is meaningless without you. My love for you has grown with time in the same proportion as the intensity of my loneliness, which I feel here so far away from you. Nothing can erase this love from my heart, in spite of the fact that you might decide to stay for good in India. I will still love you whether the sun stops shining or the world turns upside down. At this moment, I remember vividly your sweet smile, your gentle words, your warmth and tenderness, your kindness and innocence. I am in love with you, with your eyes, your nose, your hair and your hands, with the way you talk, the way you walk, with all your being. I love you because you are what you are. I am dreaming of building my life and yours together and to be joined with you in the bliss of marriage. Your loving Nessim Ragina received this letter. She read it again and again. She read it with vivacity and zeal and with great emotion. Afterwards she showed it to her father and to her aunt and told them that she decided to return to Baghdad to marry Nessim, because her love for Nessim exceeded all the treasures of the world including the mansions and the jewels of India. Their travel to Baghdad was arranged immediately. She came back to Nessim and they were married soon after his graduation from an additional officers training course qualifying him for a promotion to a higher status in the police department. By 1932, when Iraq took full independence, Mr. Ezeir had a high ranking position in the administration of the police department. However, at the end of that year, he was discharged from his duties for his being Jewish. The dismissal of Jewish officials, who were serving in high government positions, was only the beginning of hostility. The enmity and antagonism extended profusely and culminated in 1936 with the killing of Jews in the streets of Baghdad. The hostility continued during the revolt of Rashid Ali in 1941 with a pogrom al-Farhud, when hundreds of Jews were killed and injured in their homes and in the streets by fanatic Arab gangs within the two days of Shavuot festival. Additional animosity and harmful actions against the Jews were organized and planned by the government of Iraq. In 1951 the government confiscated all Jewish assets, froze all funds deposited in the banks and expelled all Jews from Iraq. As a matter of fact, my parents lost all their savings and their furnished home. My mother used to remember so often that brief royal time she had experienced in India. She was humble. She did not complain when life conditions deteriorated. She acted fairly through difficult times and she looked always at the bright side of life. Above all, she managed to raise good children. Then was the aliya to Israel in 1951. My parents stayed in the Maabara, a transitory tent camp, while the children were away completing their higher studies and the military service. My parents had to endure the hardship of the Maabara for a very long time until they were able to afford the move to an apartment in Ramat Yitzhak. When we finished our studies and flourished in the academic, the industrial and the business echelons, my parents became ill and needed medical treatment. It was painful to us that we were unable to have enough time with them and to enjoy ourselves in their company when they were in good health. We were wrong to think that life is eternal and good things might last forever. My parents died in 1981 and 1982. Blessed be their memory.
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