"Full Circle: Escape From Baghdad And The Return" -  a chronicle of a prominent Iraqi Jewish family's escape from persecution as told by a first-hand witness. ISBN 0-97771172-2
http://www.saulsilasfathi.com/

"Locked Doors: The Seizure of Jewish Property in Arab Countries"  - authored by Itamar Levin and published by Ministry of Defense Press and Praeger Publishers in 2001.  In English.  A review of this book can be found in the B'nai B'rith Magazine, Spring 2002 issue on page 9.  The book can be purchased by using my Amazon.com link to the left of this page.

The Jewish people of Syria, Baghdad and India (mainly of Iraqi origin) are not Sephardic Jewish people, but Mizrachim (Eastern) Jewish people.  From a posting by Udi Cain chaikin@netvision.net.il on JewishGen Discussion Group on March 02, 2002.

The Ancient Near East - The History of the Ancient Near East, Ancient Israel, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Arabia, Cyprus, Bahrain and Western Iran
http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/index.html

The Modern Middle East at various times, Holocaust Maps and many more links  
http://www.rootsweb.com/~isrwgw  

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/modernmap.html

Maps 

Art Source International offers a selection of antique maps, prints and globes at Art Source International

Afghanistan

The Jewish community dates back more than 800 years.  In 1948, there were some 5,000 Jews living in the country, but the majority emigrated to Israel in the 1950s.  Most of the remaining Jews live in Kabul where there is one synagogue.

Iran

The Persian Jewish community is over 2,500 years old, dating back to the 6th century B.C.E., but has been dispersed to Israel, California and New York. It is home to one of the few Diaspora communities old enough to have received extensive biblical attention (Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, Esther).  Though Jews of ancient Persia suffered from occasional oppression, they had top court positions and prominent social and professional standings. The Arab Muslim invasion of 642 CE relegated Jews to dhimmi status - a protected, but inferior, religious minority.  Persecution in the 19th century forced communities to convert and precipitated waves of Aliyah that continue today.  In 1925, Jews were emancipated and the community flourished until the 1979 Islamic revolution.  Since then the population has declined from some 80,000 to fewer than 15,000.

Before the 1979 revolution, the Jewish community numbered 80,000.  Today there are still about 25,000 Jews left.

There are some 18,000 Jews in Tehran.  There are also 20 synagogues, all of which are full during the Jewish holidays. There are also 10 Jewish schools in Tehran. Another 12,000 or so Jews live elsewhere Iran, mainly in Isfahan and Shiraz.

Iran bans Jews from any correspondence with relatives in Israel, though Jews can receive incoming phone calls from Israel.

Farhi Family Genealogy - a very informative and beautifully laid out web site of major familes dating back to the Ottoman Empire
http://www.farhi.org/

Yivo's holdings include items in Judeo-Persian (Farsi in Hebrew characters).  Used by the Jews of Iran for speaking and writing, including centuries-old poetry, prose and even a very early 20th century Teheran newspaper, it is barely spoken by today's modern community.
www.yivoinstitute.org

  Books

"An Unknown Episode", the history of an encounter of thousands of Polish Jewish soldiers with the Jews of Iraq and Iran in 1942-1943 written by Dr. Shaul Sehayik (Tel Aviv 2003).

This is an amazing true story of Jewish brotherhood and how the Iranian and Iraqi Jewish communities during the years of 1942-43, accepted, assisted, smuggled to Palestine  and opened the houses and the hearts to their Jewish Polish brothers who suffered awful persecutions during WWII, refugees, soldiers in the Anders Army and  750  children known as "the Teheran Children".

Table of Contents and a Forward:
http://www.zchor.org/brotherhood/book.htm

Holocaust Victims in Teheran.  Ada Holtzman contributed the database of these children to the JewishGen Holocaust Database.  The introduction to the data file is  at
http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Holocaust/0102_Tehran-children.html

The database is searchable at
http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Holocaust/

From a posting by Joyce Field

"The Comprehensive History of the Jews in Iran" - authored by Dr. Habib Levi and published by Mazda Publishers

Translating Services - Click Here

Just in case you didn't think of it, contact a nearby university or college's foreign language department.  They may offer to write letters and translate letters into English.  A nominal fee is usually charged.

 With this LingvoSoft smart dictionary software on your computer, you can easily switch between English and Yiddish, Farsi to English (and many other languages) for prompt translations of 400,000 words both ways! Download Free Trial now

Jews of Iran - scroll down and watch this documentary
www.searchles.com/search/tag/middle.east/person/camkaraoke/fans

Mashad - in 1736, Nader Shah, the ruler of Persia, enticed 40 Jewish families with promises of privileges and financial incentives to move to his new capital.  But the Jews were confined to ghetto-like neighborhoods in the fervently Muslim city.  In 1839, a pogrom incited by rumor resulted in a decree against the Jews: conversion or death.  Over 200 families converted but continued to practice Judaism secretly, marrying within the community to preserve their Judaism.  Although they now can practice Judaism openly, they remain a tightly knit group wherever they live today.

Shiraz - had a Jewish presence and is almost 120 miles north of Hamadan.

Shushan - Ester, of Purim fame, lived here.  There was once a large Jewish presence

Teheran Burials - The following link has photos of the Jewish Cemetery of Teheran. It is alphabetical by the given name and not by the surname. This is quite common in the Middle East and was common in East Europe before the
introduction of surnames.
http://www.beheshtieh.com/index.html

"In further reference to the Holocaust and Teheran (Tehran), you may be interested to know that the World Jewish Congress made a list of 1675 Jewish refugees, mostly from Poland, who were in Teheran, Persia, after escaping via the USSR.  The most common towns of origin for these refugees were these:

  Bedzin, Bielsko, Cieszanow, Czestochowa, Jaroslaw, Kalisz,
  Katowice, Krakow, Lodz, Lublin, Lwow, Nowy Sacz, Pultusk,
  Radom, Rozwadow, Rzeszow, Sanok, Tarnobrzeg, Tarnopol,
  Tarnow, Tomaszow Lub, Warszawa, Wilno, Wyszkow, Zamosc

If you are interested in seeing details on these refugees, the Czestochowa-Radomsko Area Research Group has typed and indexed this entire list.  The most commonly occurring surnames appear below my name and signature.  This CRARG web site will allow you to search more than 1/4 Holocaust records:" From a posting by Daniel Kazez
http://www.crarg.org/search.php

Iraq

Jews have deep roots in Iraq going back more than 2,500 years and belonged to the oldest Diaspora community, with a very strong Jewish tradition.  Here was the birthplace of Abraham. Jews can date their community back at least to the First Babylonian Exile in 586 B.C.E.  Some cite the even more ancient date of 732 B.C.E., when the Israelite tribes of Samaria were expelled by the Assyrians.  The majority of Iraqi Jewry's ancestry come from those exiled from Israel by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. 

A bloody pogrom in Baghdad in 1941 and discriminatory legislation, property seizure and anti-Jewish rioting stimulated a wave of emigration culminating in the 1949-1951 Operations Ezra and Nehemiah, in which Israel evacuated some 104,000 Jews.  Today, only some 35 aging Jews remain and a single synagogue functions in Baghdad, a city once a fifth Jewish.

The community never assimilated, produced great scholars, rabbis and learned books, and for some 800 years, from 200 to 1038 B.C.E., represented the intellectual center of the Jewish world, according to Lev Hakak, a professor of Jewish studies and literature at UCLA, who was born in Israel of parents who were part of the great exodus in 1951-51. In the 1940s, there was a once thriving and influential community of 130,000 Jews and today there are fewer than 50.  In 1932, when Iraq gained its independence, all progress for Jews came to an abrupt and violent end.  Laws were passed restricting employment for Jews, as well as where Jews could live and travel.

The Baghdad Jews are not Ashkenazim (Jews from Northern and Eastern Europe) or Sephardim (descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews) but part of a third major branch of Judaism, the Mizrakhim (Middle Eastern Jews).

At the Jewish community's height in the twentieth century, 150,000 Jews lived in Iraq.  In 1941, the lot of Iraqi Jews turned to fear and instability, fueled by a pogrom.  In 1970 there were only 3,300 Jews left. During  the 1920s, the British created Iraq out of three provinces, Mosul, Baghdad and Basra of the old Ottoman Empire.

Emigration was prohibited so many Iraqi Jews escaped through an underground Jewish community.

In 1951-52, there was a great exodus of some 110,000 Iraqi Jews to Israel.  Today the estimated 250,000 Israelis with Iraqi roots has become the third largest Jewish Community in Israel. Those who were left after the Six Day War in 1967 were arrested and dismissed from their jobs.  Many had lived in the Beitawin district, still known as Thawrat (Torah) because of the Jews who once lived there in Baghdad.

 "Many Jewish people of Iraq and Kurdistan, are referring themselves as of "East of Eretz Israel" origin, and I gave the example of my father-in-law's parents, who like huge amount of people who came from Kurdistan right after the British conquered Israel, and took the surname Mizrachi because they came from East of Israel, and today we have thousands of people with the surname Mizrachi (Eastern) which was given to their ancestors in the 1920s, since they came from East of Israel."  From a posting to JewishGen by Udi Cain on 3/9/02

Iraq 1940 - Movie Clip
http://www.movietone-portraits.com/

"Searching for Baghdad: A Daughter's Journey" - authored by Adriana Davis and produced by D-Squared Media E-mail adavis@dsquaremedia.com  - a story about a number of prominent Baghdadi Jews in the 1800s sailing for Southeast Asia where they established a trading empire.  Carole Basri, a descendant, journeys East to discover what may have been preserved of the Iraqi Jewish essence in this documentary.

  Books

"From the Tigris to the Mississippi: My Road to Maturity" - authored by Violet Kandoory.  Violet is an Iraqi Jew who now lives in St. Paul, Minnesota and tells her story from the time she was born in Baghdad in 1927 to her escape to Israel, then to Egypt and Switzerland and then to New York and finally to St. Paul, Minnesota

"Jewish State, Iraqi Contributions" - an article about the Jews from Iraq and what they brought to Israel - the sounds, smells and tastes of their centuries-old culture.  Authored by Loolwa Khazzom and published in Hadassah Magazine of November 2003 page 26

"Surviving Saddam - Memoirs of an Iraqi Jew from Baghdad" - the story of his escape in 1970 and life for Jews in Iraq
http://thesite2000.virtualave.net/iraqijews/herdoon.html

"With Baggage from Babylon" - an article published in the November, 2003 issue of Hadassah Magazine and authored by Rahel Musleah.  Page 13.

Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center - although I haven't studied the site very much, there seems to be quite a bit of information about the Jews of Iraq at this site which offers an insight into the 2,700 years of Babylonian Jewish history since they were exiled from the land of Israel and until their eventual return from Iraq to their former homeland.
http://www.babylonjewry.org.il/new/english/home.htm 

Iraqi Jews genealogy - from Baghdad to links to family trees at http://thesite2000.virtualave.net/iraqijews/genealogy.html

There is a book entitled: "Jewish Schools in Baghdad: 1832-1974; Picture Album", Hebrew-English edited by Yehuda Z. Or Yehuda, Babyl. Jew. Herit. Ct, 1996 114 pages. This information was supplied by Carol Rombro Rider CRomRider@aol.com 

This site is dedicated to the Jews of Iraq who left Baghdad during the 1960's and 1970's. We are dispersed all over the world: Israel, UK, USA, Canada, Holland, Australia, ...
This is the place to share memories and stories and to look for lost friends.
http://thesite2000.virtualave.net/iraqijews  

Los Angeles - There are some 3,000 Jews of Iraqi origin and descent in Los Angeles.  Members of the Iraqi Jewish community, the largest such enclave in the U.S., belong to various synagogues, but the center of their religious life is Kahal Joseph, on the West Side of the city.  The Sephardic congregation consists of some 400 families, most of whom have either descended from or had emigrated to India, China, Singapore and Burma in the early 1900s.

Rubin Mass Ltd. P O box 990, Jerusalem 91009, Israel  Telephone: 972 2 6277863  Fax 972 2 6277864  Their web site is 
www.interage.co.il/mas  
(mention that you saw them mentioned on Jewish Web Index). E-mail rmass@inter.net.il  has a catalog list of recent publications from Israel.  Some of the books available, that might be of interest to a researcher is #87126 Annals of Iraqi Jewry Melameda, Ora (ed.) Melamed, O. (ed.) $60; #80509 Edward Norman's plan to transfer Arabs from Palestine to Iraq by Chaim Simons; #66572 Geology of Iraq, V.; A Ehrlich and Y. Bartov $35; #67882 Iraq under Qassem Dann, O Uriel; #84214 Iraq-My Testimony Mercado, authored by Esther Mercado $18; #101514 Newspapers and Periodicals of Iraq compiled by Haim Gal and published by The M. Dayan Center - Tel Aviv University $16.  Also #98165 Palestinian Refugees in Iraq Qudsiyeh authored by Shaml Labib $25.

ETSI - Sephardi Genealogical and Historical Society  - The purpose of "ETSI" is to help people interested in Jewish Genealogical and Historical Research in the Sephardi World.  "ETSI's" field of study covers the Ottoman Empire (Turkey, Greece, Palestine, Syria, Libya, Egypt); North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia); Spain, Portugal, Italy and Gibraltar.  The study of every Sephardi community or family who lived in other regions is equally within the society's aim.   
http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/1321   
or email laurphil@wanadoo.fr

Sephardic Sites - 
http://www.jewishgen.org/sephardicsig/

Translating Services - Click Here

Just in case you didn't think of it, contact a nearby university or college's foreign language department.  They may offer to write letters and translate letters into English.  A nominal fee is usually charged.

Lebanon

The Sephardic Communities of Lebanon and Lebanese Sephardim Deportees from France.
http://sephardichouse.org/

Libya

  Books

ETSI - Sephardi Genealogical and Historical Society  - The purpose of "ETSI" is to help people interested in Jewish Genealogical and Historical Research in the Sephardi World.  "ETSI's" field of study covers the Ottoman Empire (Turkey, Greece, Palestine, Syria, Libya, Egypt); North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia); Spain, Portugal, Italy and Gibraltar.  The study of every Sephardi community or family who lived in other regions is equally within the society's aim.  
http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/1321   
or email laurphil@wanadoo.fr

Libyan Sephardim Deportees from France;
http://sephardichouse.org/

North African Jews in Israel - family history through the story of Simon Benzimra
www.geocities.com/Etsi-Sefarad

Saudi Arabia

"Unfortunately, I cannot shed any light on the status of today's Jewish community in Saudi Arabia, if there is such a thing.  However, I can tell you that historically there were three Jewish tribes living in Yathrib.  The Jewish tribes were at constant odds with the two pagan Arab tribes that lived there.  The Jewish name for Yathrib was Medinta and in the year 622 CE, the Jewish tribes together with the Arab tribes invited a relatively obscure arbiter from Mecca to come to Medinta to be the leader."  From a posting by Meyer Denn

Syria

  Books

Aleppo - "Jews of Aleppo: a Historical point of view" - authored by Sarina Roffe may be viewed at Issue 17 of ETSI.  also a list of the pupils who attended the Alliance Israelite Universelle School of Aleppo before 1879
www.geocities.com/Etsi-Sefarad

"Aleppo Tales" - authored by Haim Sabato and translated from the Hebrew by Philip Simpson.  Published by Toby Press.  The three tales told in the book are tied together by their reminiscences of Syrian Jewish life.

Damascus - in Hebrew/Arabic it is known as Damesek.  It is the capital of Syria.  Even in Polish, the town name is known as Damaszek. It was apparently the surname of some Syrian Jews much as European Jews adopted similar geographic names. Damascus was flourishing a couple of thousand years before Rome was founded in 753 BC, making it the oldest continuously inhabited city in existence.

ETSI - Sephardi Genealogical and Historical Society  - The purpose of "ETSI" is to help people interested in Jewish Genealogical and Historical Research in the Sephardi World.  "ETSI's" field of study covers the Ottoman Empire (Turkey, Greece, Palestine, Syria, Libya, Egypt); North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia); Spain, Portugal, Italy and Gibraltar.  The study of every Sephardi community or family who lived in other regions is equally within the society's aim.   
http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/1321    
or email laurphil@wanadoo.fr

Jodensavanne - a synagogue still stands in this village.

Sephardic Sites - 
http://www.jewishgen.org/sephardicsig/

Syrian Jewish Community - located in Brooklyn.
http://www.jewishgen.org/SefardSIG/AleppoJews.htm

Translating Services - Click Here

Just in case you didn't think of it, contact a nearby university or college's foreign language department.  They may offer to write letters and translate letters into English.  A nominal fee is usually charged.

Yemen

Some 45,000 Yemenite Jews --- nearly the entire community -- were brought to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet following Muslim riots in 1948 that killed scores of Yemenite Jews.  Only some 200 Jews live there in 2006.

al-Salem - there were in 2006, 45 Jews living here.  It is locate4d near Sanaa.  These Jews fled the town after being threatened with murder.

Information about Yemenite Jews -  
www.chayas.com/articles.htm 

Jewish Tombstones Yemen are the subject of an article ("Jewish Tombstones in
Aden" (Part 1)") by Professor Aviva Klein-Franke in the Yemen Times. Use the 'Search Feature" at the top of the page. From a posting by Andrew Blumberg
http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=978&p=culture&a=1

Jewish Tombstones in Yemen are the subject of part 2 of an article ("Jewish Tombstones in Aden" (Part 2)") by Professor Aviva Klein-Franke in the Yemen Times.
http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=980&p=culture&a=1

"The Jews of Yemen, The Last Generation" - introduction and photography by Zion Ozeri, published by Keter, 159 pages $49.95

The Last Jews of Yemen - an audio  
musical.htm

Please let me know if there is a favorite link of yours that is not included in my site and I will be happy to add it to Jewish Web Index