Journal of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center
No.16, Spring  2008


 

Prof. Shmuel Moreh:

THE FARHUD MEMORIAL DAY IN THE CENTER

(R.to L.): Y. Loushi, H. Hakkak, Prof. S. Moreh, B. Hakkak

On June 4, 2006, The Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center in Or-Yehuda held a Memorial Evening on the Farhud (The Pogrom of June 1-2, 1941 in Baghdad) in which the names of 129 Jewish victims were read out by Dr. Zvi Yehuda, the Director of the Research Institute of Babylonian Jewry at the Center.

Candles were lit by Dr. Nissim Kazzaz whose father was murdered in the Farhud, in memory of all those who were assassinated, and Kaddish was read followed by a Hebrew elegy  recited by Cantor Arieh Ovadia.

Mr. Mordecai Ben-Porat, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Center, gave a talk about the significance of the Farhud, as a turning point in the attitudes of the Jewish community towards the Iraqi people and the rise of the Zionist underground.

Prof. Shmuel Moreh, Chairman of the Academic Committee and Chairman of the Association of Jewish Academics from Iraq, delivered a lecture on "The Attitude of Arab intellectuals towards the Farhud", and dealt with the regret expressed by some Iraqi intellectuals for the notorious events which deprived Iraq of its most active and positive elements in the fields of economy, finance, medicine, law, culture and literature.

Dr. Zvi Yehuda delivered a lecture on "Those who are accused of perpetrating the Farhud", putting the blame on the Nazi German representatives in Iraq, Pro-Nazi Iraqi and Palestinian elements in the government, army and police as well as on the mobs.

The poets Herzl and Balfour Hakkak and Yehizkael Moriel read their poems on the slaughter by the Farhud and their reminiscences as children of the terrible events. The writer Salim Fattal, whose uncle was slaughtered in the Farhud, read a chapter from his realistic autobiographical novel "In the Alleys of Baghdad", describing the chilling events of the slaughter of his uncle and his friend Nahum Qazzaz at the Bab al-Shaikh quarter, the massacre and the looting of Jewish houses and how the tragic news of the assassination of his uncle was received by his family.

Prof. Shmuel Moreh, urged the Israeli Government to recognize the Farhud, which was organized by Nazi representatives, and Pro-nazi elements in the Iraqi government, police and army, as a part of the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, that it should be considered an integral part of the Holocaust and the necessity of its inclusion in the Yad Ve-Shem projects. He added that the memorial day of the Farhud should be sponsored by the Israeli authorities. The speaker hailed the decision of the Holocaust Museum of Los Angeles, and the State University of California and Human Rights in the United States to consider the Farhud an integral part of the Holocaust studies at Universities and Museums.