Baghdad at the end of the 19th century was a walled city, and the Jews lived in the old Jewish quarter in its center. Neighborhoods such as Bab-al-Sharqi, Battawiyin, Alwiya, and Karrada did not exist then, and instead, alongside the River Tigris, there were orchards where Jews and Muslims would go on their Sabbaths and holidays and festivals. The Jews of Baghdad were accustomed to spending their leisure time in the many coffee-houses in the city, and on Sabbaths and festivals they went to the orchards outside the city with food, arak and musical instruments. They would eat, drink and sing, sometimes in the company of Muslim friends. Occasionally the Muslims attacked the Jews who went off to enjoy their free time, but the Jews felt confident in themselves and fought back. Jewish women used to go out for walks along the bank of the Tigris, and men and children went swimming in the river on summer days.
The departure of the Jews from their homes to coffee-houses on the Ramadan festival, or to morning prayers, frequently caused a rash of thefts from their houses. Thieves took advantage of the custom of not locking the front door; they went in and stole anything they could lay hands on. There were periods when the thieves in Baghdad grew so numerous, mainly when times were hard, that the Turkish authorities were unable to control the situation. In one case, the entry of thieves into a Jewish home saved the residents: they were awakened by the noise and left the room where they had been sleeping, and its roof fell in on the robbers.
The Jews of Baghdad, like the other citizens, suffered in the summer season from fires. It was customary that when the Jews realized that their house was on fire they shouted out, "Faza!" (Help!), and other people, Jews and Muslims, came to help put out the fire; and if the helpers were unsuccessful, they called in the Turkish Gendarmerie. When the latter arrived they extinguished the fire by knocking the walls of the house down onto the fire, and they took anything in the house that they could find. The result was that in putting out the fire the householder lost his house and his belongings.
The inhabitants of Baghdad did not possess refrigerators or ice before 1881. Only in that year was an ice factory set up. The ice was sold by weight.
In addition to the dangers lurking for the Baghdadi citizens in the summer - fire, theft, drowning in the river, and the many epidemics that befell them - there were the perils of winter. The houses of the city were built of bricks made of the loamy soil prevalent in the region; when the rainfall increased, and the river level rose, the foundations became sodden and the houses collapsed, sometimes on their residents. A detailed and grim account of such an event appeared in the newspaper "Perah" in the winter of 1884, and we present it below in English translation.
Baghdad, Holy Sabbath Eve, 3 Adar 5644 (1884)
We inform you that on account of the heavy rain that fell here all the houses have became sodden; many houses have fallen and many walls in the alleys are crumbling. The city workers go about all day, and where they find a wall in danger they demolish it. In the houses that have fallen, both of Jews and of Muslims, no one was hurt. Last Sabbath a house fell and five people in it were killed, one of them a pregnant woman. The house that collapsed, in the Qambar Ali quarter, near El Takia, in Darbuna, was an old building. The house became soaked with the rain and on the Sabbath 27 Shevat a wall of the neighbor's fell onto the iwan (roofed balcony), and the iwan fell. Two women were sitting on the balcony: an old lady and her son's children, a son and a daughter, the son aged 12 and the daughter 14, and a young woman with her 3-year-old daughter; this woman was pregnant. They were sitting eating "the third meal" of the Sabbath and the wall collapsed onto the iwan, and the iwan crumbled. They called in some Muslims to clear the ruins, but they were unable to save them, and they took them out, all five of them dead, from under the rubble and there was great distress in the city. Even the Muslim unbelievers wept over them; if it had not been night and they had not taken the five out at night and buried them, there would have been a crisis in the city. On that same Sabbath night a Muslim house collapsed and a woman and her son died under it. Across the river too, near the tomb of our master Yehoshua the High Priest, God rest his soul, of blessed memory, a Muslim house collapsed on its residents, and four persons died. Moreover, on the previous Sabbath, 20 Shevat, a house fell and all its residents fled. When the residents of the house saw the pile of rubble they ran into the alley and the house fell. On that same Sabbath, in the morning at the time of prayers, a Jew was asleep in his room and the Tarma and the room collapsed. The wooden ceiling beams fell on his head. The Jews gathered and took him out from under the roof, and, praised be His name, he was not dangerously injured, only his leg was hurt. Last week too, near Qambar Ali, a 12-year-old Jewish child was standing near the front door of his home; the door was locked and he was knocking at it, and suddenly the wall next to the door collapsed. A section of the wall, about three feet, fell on the door and the child was trapped under the wall. Only his head projected out of the fallen wall. He began to scream, and rescuers came and got him out from under the wall and he was saved, praised be His name. In another case, Shakarkhana in the market where candies are made, the place called Shakarkhana of Elia ben-Aqiba, suddenly fell, but, praised be His name, at that time all the Shakarkhana workers and the apprentice were standing near the door of the Shakarkhana and when they saw the walls beginning to crumble and spread dust, they ran off into the market and were saved.