Muslims Rescue Baghdad’s Jewish Community Center

I am not suggesting anything besides the fact I'm very surprised Jews still live in Iraq.

Hey...somebody has to sell retail.....:)

"in just 3 weeks iraq has a better 2nd amendment than california. "
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It shows how important the 2nd Amendment is. Our Founding Fathers knew, of which they spoke.

The more law abiding people have guns, the less chance criminals have.

More proof that the Iraqis are really decent people who deserved to be liberated.

It's strange. A bolt of sunbeam bathed our kitchen table as husband and myself watched Fox News' war coverage.

"I think it will be all right," I said, the words coming from my mouth but almost from nowhere.

"What's that?" husband asked.

"Iraq."

"Yeah, give them a couple of years. They'll be fine."

"I don't know what it is, but I've been impressed by these people," I continued. "They seem intelligent. Obviously they're glad to be free. There's a keen shine to their eyes. Even the looters seem like happy guys."

"How about those guys stealing the air conditioner off the roof top?" husband chuckled.

"I saw a fellow, he was on a wagon hitched to a donkey. A really shakey affair. On the wagon was a big, red couch, tilting left and tilting right on the back of that thing. When the driver saw the camera man, he waved all friendly like, so proud of his red couch he was porting precariously down the road."

This article, and me and my husband's pleasant Saturday conversation, some talks with neighbors, leads me to wonder if we all aren't seeing the same thing. Specifically that the Iraqis seem like a pleasant peoples and look like if any group of people can make it in that hell of thuggery called the Mid-East, it is the Iraqis.

They are obviously not stupid. The cities the coalition forces have went through look fairly well kept. Right from the beginning, even when the liberal kookoids were bemoaning the lack of welcome from the Iraqis, I could see with mine own lying eyes groups of them coming up to convoys, the children smiling shyly. Eventually they came out in droves. They smile and dance and they bang their sandals on Saddamn's face.

Hey, I like them. That's the ticket. I like the Iraqis. Me and a whole bunch of Americans I'm beginning to think.

I like the fellow who walked 24 miles to save Jessica Lynch. I like the Kurds who showed up to quietly police Um Quasir then politely faded into the background when coalition forces showed up. I like the Iraqis who lived decades in exile, many ready to return to make their homeland what they know it could be.

They are just soooooo ready. sooooooo very ready to become a great nation and you know what?

I totally believe they will do it.

I agree - in fact the media is pointing up continually there are so many differences in religion and ethnic this and that, adnauseum - meaning, of course, that the Iraqi people cannot make a go of democracy - too much diversity.

Which, I might add, the left is rooting for - because it will again give them a chance to hound the President for his actions.

Hmmmm?? I thought the left was for DIVERSITY ... guess not??

Me, too.

Just before the war started I was ready to join the 'nuke em all' crowd...

My great fear, now, is that the good will on both sides will falter once the left gets their ilk in there to cause division and destroy whatever goodwill our troops (our first ambassadors) have built there.

"More heartwarming news that is being ignored by the main media."

Yes this IS heartwarming news. Naturally the media won't cover it....it's a POSITIVE thing.

Well, the media COULD cover it: they would ask why US troops were not guarding the place.

The Iraqi's are perhaps the most liberal of the Arabs. Unfortunately, they have been "led" by the Butcher. Best case scenerio, Iraq becomes a model state for the Middle East. These people are itching to "get along" and make a real life for themselves. They are not obsessed with their hatred for the rest like most of the Arabs are.

Neighbors helping neighbors.I loved this story.

ping

"They are just soooooo ready. sooooooo very ready to become a great nation and you know what?

I totally believe they will do it."

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Great post! I agree.

Most of the "looters" are just peaceful people taking home a few things from the abandoned government buildings and abandoned residences of Saddam's officials. You don't see any violence or rioting, just people taking a small share of what is theirs and the regime took from them.

The small number of criminal elements, such as those who tried to break into the Jewish center, loot hospitals and useums are being dealt with.

And I think we should put everything in perspective. Here we had a 21-day war with minimum civilian casualties, minimum damage to the infrastructure and civlian buildings, so what is a little looting for a few days in comparison.

The liberal media somehow is trying to present as if this mild looting somehow overshadows the importance of the entire liberation of a nation.

From your keyboard to Gods ear.

L

Good news, but hell! How dare they infringe on the oppressed Iraki's new found freedom? /sarc..

You see, there's that insurmountable majority of bastards who dominate everywhere.. And then there's that minority of us who really do give a damn..

Proud of those people who had the balls to come to the Jews' aid. Don't care what religion they were.

>>I agree - in fact the media is pointing up continually there are so many differences in religion and ethnic this and that, adnauseum - meaning, of course, that the Iraqi people cannot make a go of democracy - too much diversity. <<

The unabashed hypocrisy of the media astounds me. Most of them are staunch advocates of the marxist-derived multiculturalist/diversity doctrine.

If I were a Jew there, I'd leave too. If only for economic reasons.. Seeing how there are numerous countries that would take me.

THAT was a great rant.

I like them too.

ignored, because THIS is the meaning of "militia"

1948 Jewish population: 150,000
2001: Approximately 1001

One of the longest surviving Jewish communities still lives in Iraq. In 722 B.C.E., the northern tribes of Israel were defeated by Assyria and some Jews were taken to what is now known as Iraq. A larger community was established in 586 B.C.E., when the Babylonians conquered the southern tribes of Israel and enslaved the Jews. In later centuries, the region became more hospitable to Jews and it became the home to some of the world's most prominent scholars who produced the Babylonian Talmud between 500 and 700 C.E.

Iraq became an independent state in 1932. The 2,700-year-old Iraqi Jewish community has suffered horrible persecution since that time, particularly as the Zionist drive for a state intensified. In June 1941, the Mufti-inspired, pro-Nazi coup of Rashid Ali sparked rioting and a pogrom in Baghdad. Armed Iraqi mobs, with the complicity of the police and the army, murdered 180 Jews and wounded almost 1,000. Additional outbreaks of anti-Jewish rioting occurred between 1946-49. After the establishment of Israel in 1948, Zionism became a capital crime.

In 1950, Iraqi Jews were permitted to leave the country within a year provided they forfeited their citizenship. A year later, however, the property of Jews who emigrated was frozen and economic restrictions were placed on Jews who chose to remain in the country. From 1949 to 1951, 104,000 Jews were evacuated from Iraq in Operations Ezra & Nechemia; another 20,000 were smuggled out through Iran.2

In 1952, Iraq's government barred Jews from emigrating and publicly hanged two Jews after falsely charging them with hurling a bomb at the Baghdad office of the U.S. Information Agency.

With the rise of competing Ba'ath factions in 1963, additional restrictions were placed on the remaining Iraqi Jews. The sale of property was forbidden and all Jews were forced to carry yellow identity cards. After the Six-Day War, more repressive measures were imposed: Jewish property was expropriated; Jewish bank accounts were frozen; Jews were dismissed from public posts; businesses were shut; trading permits were cancelled; telephones were disconnected. Jews were placed under house arrest for long periods of time or restricted to the cities.

Persecution was at its worst at the end of 1968. Scores were jailed upon the discovery of a local "spy ring" composed of Jewish businessmen. Fourteen men - eleven of them Jews - were sentenced to death in staged trials and hanged in the public squares of Baghdad; others died of torture. On January 27, 1969, Baghdad Radio called upon Iraqis to "come and enjoy the feast." Some 500,000 men, women and children paraded and danced past the scaffolds where the bodies of the hanged Jews swung; the mob rhythmically chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to all traitors." This display brought a world-wide public outcry that Radio Baghdad dismissed by declaring: "We hanged spies, but the Jews crucified Christ."3 Jews remained under constant surveillance by the Iraqi government. An Iraqi Jew (who later escaped) wrote in his diary in February 1970:

Ulcers, heart attacks, and breakdowns are increasingly prevalent among the Jews...The dehumanization of the Jewish personality resulting from continuous humiliation and torment...have dragged us down to the lowest level of our physical and mental faculties, and deprived us of the power to recover.4

In response to international pressure, the Baghdad government quietly allowed most of the remaining Jews to emigrate in the early 1970's, even while leaving other restrictions in force. Most of Iraq's remaining Jews are now too old to leave. They have been pressured by the government to turn over title, without compensation, to more than $200 million worth of Jewish community property.5

The government also engages in anti-Semitic rhetoric. One statement issued by the government in 2000 referred to Jews as "descendents of monkeys and pigs, and worshippers of the infidel tyrant." 6

In 1991, prior to the Gulf War, the State Department said "there is no recent evidence of overt persecution of Jews, but the regime restricts travel, (particularly to Israel) and contacts with Jewish groups abroad."

A Jerusalem Post report noted that 75 Jews have fled Iraq in the past five years, most relocating to Holland or England. About 20 emigrated to Israel. 7

Only one synagogue continues to function in Iraq, "a crumbling buff-colored building tucked away in an alleyway" in Bataween, once Baghdad's main Jewish neighborhood. According to the synagogue's administrator, "there are few children to be bar-mitzvahed, or couples to be married. Jews can practice their religion but are not allowed to hold jobs in state enterprises or join the army."8 The rabbi died in 1996 and none of the remaining Jews can perform the liturgy and only a couple know Hebrew. The last wedding was held in 1980.9

The Iraqi government has refurbished the tombs of Ezekiel the Prophet and Ezra the Scribe, which are also considered sacred by Muslims. Jonah the Prophet's tomb has also been renovated. Saddam Hussein also assigned guards to protect the holy places.

At one time, Baghdad was one-fifth Jewish; other communities were first established 2,500 years ago. Today, approximately 38 Jews live in Baghdad, and a handful more in the Kurdish-controlled northern parts of Iraq.10

Thanks for the history.

To say, it's unfortunate, doesn't give it justice.

But if a new Democracy takes hold, I think there is a greater chance that Arabs, Jews, Christians can live side by side peacefully.

But if a new Democracy takes hold, I think there is a greater chance that Arabs, Jews, Christians can live side by side peacefully.

Arabs, Jews, and Christians did live relatively peacefully side by side until a certain thing happened in the Arabian peninsula during 7th century.