Since people don't talk about Pan-Arab colonization and the systemic murder, genocide, and exile of their Jewish populations we're going to start with one that was on June 1, 1941 - The Farhud.

The Farhud was the exile and genocide of Iraqi Jews. There's multiple theories as to exactly why it happened - Jews were under the protection of the British colonialists, hatred of Zionists/Zionism, conflating anti-Semitic tropes towards Jews, hatred of Jews in general, etc.

During the 1940's Iraq had roughly 135,000 Jews (3% of the country's population). They were indigenous Babylonian, Persian, and modern day Iraqi Jews.

The Jewish community had been there since before the 6th century BCE, pre-dating Islam and Muslims by hundreds of years.

Part of our history there is told with Purim, with Hadassah/Queen Esther & Xerxes/King Ahasuerus. He had colonized land from India all the way to Ethopia and over 127 provinces under his rule.

Y'all know about his presence in 300 but don't know much beyond that.

Since the topic of Xerxes, Queen Esther, and Purim are for another time we'll start going forward in history. But it's important for y'all to know exactly how long Jews lived in Babylon/Persia/Iraq.

Now let's fast forward to the 7th century BCE.

In the 7th century BCE Muslims had established themselves in Iraq. Jews and Arabs lived separately, including the emerging Muslims. The culture of the people was shared between Muslims, Xtianity, and Jews. Jew didn't really assimilate into the Muslim culture during this time.

Time to fast forward again to 1921, when Iraq was established as a state under the British mandate. The British Mandate also finally gave Iraqi Jews their rights to: be have full citizenship, vote, & ability to be elected to office. There were 4-6 Jews in Parliament & 1 Senator.

Rabbi Sasson Khedhuri was the head of the Jewish community who had a 60 member council and two executive committees: one for spiritual/religious/practicing members and one for secular members of the Jewish community. Jews were allowed to hold positions of power as citizens.

In 1932, Iraq became independent of British colonialism. During World War II, British influence and presence in the Middle East greatly diminished to focus on winning the war on their own front.

This is important because what followed affected European and Iraqi Jews.

Rashid 'Ali al-Kailani, anti-British Arab nationalist from a prominent family in Baghdad, led a revolution against the pro-British Vichy government on April 2, 1941. The Golden Square, 4 high-ranking army officials, and the previous Mufti of Jerusalem supported him.

He arrived as a refugee from the Palestinian revolt in 1936-1939 in Baghdad during October of 1939. He removed the pro-British rule and effectively formed a pro-German government and alliance. The Iraqi army and administration also supported him after doing so.

He was fairly loud about being pro-Axis and hoped that they would win the war so that Iraq would gain full independence from the British.

This influenced Nazi support and sentiments from the Arab nations in Iraq. Jews experienced a growth of violent anti-Semitism.

Mein Kampf was translated into Arabic by Yunis al-Sab'awi and published in the Al Alam Arabi (The Arab World) during 1933-1934. al-Sab'awi also was the leader of the Futtuwa, the Arabic version of Hitler Youth and was largely influenced by the German program.

Nazi propaganda was circulating in Arabic on radio broadcasts from Berlin a well during this time. al-Sab'awi became a minister in the pro-Axis Iraqi government.

There was worry from the British that this would cause other Arab nations to follow the direction of Arabs.

On April 19th British Army sent units from India to Basra and the Habforce (British-led Arab Legion troops) started moving east into Iraq from Transjordan.

At the end of May, the pro-Axis Iraqi regime was defeated and the leaders fled to Iran and then German-occupied EU.

To avoid being seen as interfering with Iraq's internal affairs the British deployed Iraqi troops who were loyal to the Regent Abd al-Ilah. The British government was trying to hand the reigns over to the Regent and his government members that had fled from Rashid.

The troops occupied Basra, which unfortunately without the British on Iraqi soil to keep eyes on them, started the looting of Jewish owned shops in the bazaars. Prominent Arabs sent night watchmen to protect the Jewish shops and many gave refuge to Jews in their homes.

In Baghdad on June 1, 1941 when the Regent returned and the British troops occupied the city, the Jews had thought the pro-Nazi/pro-Axis regime had ended. During Shavuot riots broke out targeting the Jews of Baghdad and lasted for 2 days, ending on June 2, 1941.

Jewish diaspora celebration of Shavuot lasts for 2 days. The pro-Nazi Arab members attacked Jews during one of their most vulnerable times and on a sacred day for us.

These attacks were led by the Iraqi soldiers, police, and Futtuwa youth who supported Rashid Ali al-Gailani.

Instead of destroying Jewish shops, possessions, and homes the intent this time was to kill. They wanted to eradicate the Jews from Iraq.

It wasn't just the soldiers, police, and youth militia that caused the Farhud. Civilians from Baghdad and Bedouins also joined in.

During these 2 days the rioters murdered 150-180 Jews, injured 600, and raped many of their women. 1,500 Jewish stores and homes were looted of their possessions. Roughly 2,5000 families (15% of Baghdad's Jewish community) were affected by the Farhud.

The government officials stated a drastically different number. In their reports only 128 Jews were killed and 210 were injured. They did include the correct amount of Jewish businesses and homes that were looted.

The Farhud was stopped when Iraqi troops entered Baghdad and started killing people in the mobs on June 2, 1941.

Following this hundreds of Jews fled from Iraq: to Iran, Beirut, Lebanon, India, even Palestine. Some refugees returned after stabilization of the Iraqi government.

When trying to reach Palestine, Jews were stopped by Palestinian police who enforced strict immigration quotas from the White Paper of 1939 which prohibited Jews from immigrating/having refugee status.

By 1951 most of the Jewish community made aliyah to Israel.

Maybe, just maybe when I have more spoons we'll go more into detail about other examples of Pan-Arab colonization, pogroms, and Jewish genocide & exile in Arab lands.

This is part of what I talk about when I say Pan-Arab colonization and the genocide of MENA Jews.