Safe under Saddam, Iraqi Jews fear for future

"I speak the truth: Saddam Hussein was good to us," said Tawfik Safer, 80, outside the now locked doors of Baghdad's last synagogue.

"I think it was because we had nothing to do with politics," he said.

Safer has seen a thriving community that traced its roots back to the Babylon of biblical times, whittled to below three dozen, most of them old and frail like himself. There is little prospect of new births.

The Jews of Baghdad, left behind by tens of thousands who departed for Israel over the past half-century, were afforded the direct telephone number of an Iraqi state security officer they could call if anyone bothered them.

"We did our fasting. We celebrated Passover. We read our religious books. Then the war came and the synagogue was closed because of the circumstances," Safer said.

There has been no trouble since Baghdad fell on April 9, said Muhammad Jasim, 30, caretaker of the building, which was put up in 1942 in what is now a largely Christian neighbourhood.

But around Iraq suspicion comes easily, of minorities all the more so. One notable Shia cleric last week issued a fatwa forbidding followers from selling land to Jews and promised death to any Jew who bought real estate.

Whatever the ill intentions of others may bring, migration and the simple march of time may end Jewish history in Iraq.

The Jewish Agency for Israel, which arranges immigration, has sent an envoy to Baghdad to make first contact.

The envoy, who spent three days in Baghdad two weeks ago visiting some of the 34 people the Agency says have presented themselves as Jews, found there were no children among them; the last Jewish wedding in the city was in 1978.

Safer and two Iraqi Jews of the younger generation, Khalida and Nidal Saleh, sisters in their late 30s, said they had not heard from the agency but in any case they would not leave.

"I want to live here. We were born in Iraq," Khalida said.

Iraq's Jews trace their roots to the capture of Jerusalem nearly 2,600 years ago by King Nebuchadnezzar. He sent Jews to his capital Babylon, 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad, making it the cultural centre of the Jewish world for almost 1,000 years.

Before the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, Iraq still had a vibrant Jewish community – some 280,000 people by Safer's recollection. Nearly half that number settled in the newly created Israel. Others went to Europe or America.

When asked about the days before 1948, Safer smiled.

"There were 75 synagogues in Baghdad alone!" he said.

But now he is concerned about the state of post-war Iraq.

"There is chaos," he said. "I fear civil war."

Reuters