The death by stroke on 15 March of 61 year-old orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Thafer Eliyahu in Iraq was poignant for two reasons: the doctor treated the neediest for free, and with his death only four Jews now remain in Iraq.
There is one synagogue in Baghdad that only opens occasionally, and there are no rabbis.
Jewish roots in Iraq go back 2,600 years when, according to biblical tradition, they arrived in 586 BC as prisoners of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II after he destroyed Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.
In Iraq they wrote the Babylonian Talmud, on the land where Abraham was born and where the Garden of Eden is thought by some to have been, in the Mesopotamian marshlands.
During Ottoman-ruled Baghdad, Jews were the second largest community in Baghdad, 40 percent of its inhabitants.
In June 1941 the Farhud pogrom in Baghdad left more than 100 Jews dead, properties looted and homes destroyed.
After the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, which included Iraq in the Arab coalition, almost all of Iraq’s 150,000 Jews went into exile.
Their identity cards were replaced by documents that made them targets wherever they presented them.
The majority signed documents saying they would “voluntarily” leave, and renounce their nationality and property. To date Iraqi law forbids the restoration of their citizenship. By 1951, 96 percent of the community had left.
“Promotion of Zionism” was punishable by death and remains to this day.
The conflict and instability from the 1980s Iran-Iraq war to the 2003 American invasion completely eroded the Jewish community.
Israel is now home to 219,000 Jews of Iraqi origin.
They left behind in Iraq homes and synagogues which were in perfect condition, and each owner was identifiable until 2003.