Kurdistan's Jewish heritage

EDITORIAL: Kurdistan needs help to preserve its Jewish heritage. In present-day Kurdistan, the Jewish heritage and its stories are almost forgotten (JUDIT NEURINK, Jerusalem Post).

A main feature of the synagogue is the tomb of the biblical prophet Nahum, who correctly predicted the end of the Assyrian Empire – although his bones have for safety reasons been moved to a nearby church. Until the Fifties, Jews from all over the country would come here on a yearly pilgrimage during Shavuot. “He who has not made the pilgrimage to Nahum’s tomb has not yet known real pleasure,” the common saying was then.

Al Qosh now is a Christian town. Once it was a mixed town, where Christians and Jews lived in harmony, like in so many other places in Iraq. The key to the synagogue’s gate is now guarded by the son of an old Christian friend of the last rabbi, who was one of the last to leave in the early ‘50s, when after the creation of the State of Israel Jews were made to feel they were no longer welcome.

Yet Jews in Iraqi Kurdistan – where Al Qosh is situated from a geographic point of view, although politically it is part of the Iraqi government of Baghdad – were very much part of the fabric of the society. They were mainly farmers and craftsmen, living side by side with the Kurds, and in the process taking over many of their habits. Although intermarriage was not common, friendships were.

Background on the (traditional) Tomb of Nahum in Al Qosh is here and links. And more on Aramaic-speaking Jews in Kurdistan is here and links.