FROM WICKED CARRY US AWAY

Six Jews airlifted to Israel from Iraq (Debbie Berman, July 27, 2003, Israel Insider)

Six elderly Iraqi Jews were airlifted on a Jordanian jet from Baghdad to Israel in a secret immigration mission this weekend.

The mission, entitled Ezra Me'Zion [Help from Zion], was jointly coordinated by the Jewish Agency and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), which have been investigating the status of the Jewish community in the country since the American war against Iraq. [...]

Jews were exiled 2,700 years ago by King Nebuchadnezzar to Babylonia, where they formed one of the most influential Jewish Diaspora communities whose crowning achievement was the compilation of the Babylonian Talmud. In the early 1950s some 130,000 Iraqi Jews immigrated to Israel during the "Ezra and Nehemiah" campaign, named after the Babylonian Jewish leaders referenced in the Bible. An additional 10,000 Jews gradually the country gradually left the country during the ensuing years. [...]

Although the remnant of the once-flourishing Diaspora community now live in poverty and fear, 29 Iraqi Jews declined the offer to relocate to Israel.

The remaining Jews do not function as a community, do not attend services in Baghdad's Meir Tweig Synagogue, and have almost no contact with each other. Most rarely leave their homes in fear that their Jewish identity will be discovered.

HIA Vice President Rachel Zelon described the poor living conditions of Iraqi Jews, whose possessions were confiscated by the state during Saddam Hussein's regime: "Most of them live in bitter poverty in subhuman conditions...The small Jewish community has been living in a society that hates Israel and despises Jews. Most of them tried to hide their Jewish identities, telling only close friends."

No truth to the rumor that the plane flew the whole way with its left turn signal on. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 31, 2003 8:11 PM