The community in Baghdad in 1967
(Rabbi S. Kadouri, M. Basri and D. Khalastchi)
Reliable information has recently been received that the Jewish community in Baghdad, about 75 people, enjoys fair treatment by the Iraqi government. The Jews have equal rights before the law, civil rights like all citizens, and freedom of movement and of maintaining religious rituals. Their children gain admittance to high schools and the civil service. The businessmen among them engage in internal commerce undisturbed and without restrictions. In contrast to personal and economic security, they suffer from a shortage of religious functionaries, such as ritual circumcisers, burial society staff, and grave-diggers. Non-Jewish doctors perform the circumcision of the infant sons, Muslims guard the new Jewish cemetery outside the city; they also care for the graves of the interred Jews. The younger generation grows up ignorant of matters of religion, Torah, and prayer, and the Jews of Baghdad find difficulty in holding a quorum for worship. Tens of Jewish men and women have converted to Islam, among them a family of about 35 people from the town of Hit; their motive for conversion was economic distress. Jewish youngsters, boys and girls, who have not found suitable partners in the community, marry Muslims. Adult Jewish bachelors have not established a Jewish family.
The small Jewish community is organized by a three-person committee, which represents the community before the Iraqi government institutions. The committee deals with the extensive public property left behind by the communities that existed in Iraq before the aliya to Israel. This property - synagogues, schools, business premises and other public assets - is considered to be a religious endowment, and is under the protection of the Iraqi Ministry of Religions and Religious Endowments. Most of the properties are leased as warehouses, and they long ago ceased to serve the community.
The tombs of the Jewish holy men, which were maintained by the community before the Jews left Iraq, are now cared for by the Ministry of Religions. These serve as places of pilgrimage for Muslims. The tomb of Ezra the Scribe was damaged in the bombing of the Iraq-Iran war, and has not yet been repaired, on the pretext of lack of funds. The rent received for the lease of the Jewish endowment properties serves for the upkeep and running of the offices of the Baghdadi Jewish community (which also house the community documents and archives), for covering the costs of the single synagogue still in use, and for the protection of the other synagogues and cemeteries. Incomes are used to help the sick, the handicapped, the needy and the elderly. This suppport saves these people from hunger, since the cost of living is high and the government pensions are very meager. People are obliged to buy what they need on the free market, and a kilogram of sugar costs 1000 dinars, when the salary of a middle-ranking clerk is 3000-5000 dinars. A US dollar is worth 2500 dinars. From this information and from data on mortality and zero childbirth, and on the departure of the Jews who remained in Iraq, the impression is that in one generation no sign of the Jews will be left in Iraq.