Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 31 March 1972 — Page 29

Wife Of One Of Jews Hanged In Baghdad

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By M.Z. FRANK Abraham Ratner, a Brooklyn-born 75-year-Old artist, residing in Paris, exhibited at the Tel Aviv Museum a harrowing set of paintings depicting the public hanging of several Jews in Baghdad two years ago. In connection with this, I wish to tell of my encounter with a widow of one of the hanged men. It was in Beit Brodetsky, in Ramat-Aviv (a suburb of Tel Aviv), the oldest imFrank migrant hostel in Israel, sometime towards the end of 1970. I noticed in the elevator a good-looking somewhat dusky-complexioned little boy of four or five who spoke English with 'a strange accent. I asked him for his name. He said: Eli. On later occasions, I noticed Eli had a little brother Victor, with whom he spoke Arabic. Then, one day, I ran into their very pretty young mother, whom I had once heard speaking Arabic on the phone. Eli had already told me he was from Baghdad. But, to make conversation, I asked the mother where she was from. She said Baghdad. Then I asked how long they had been in Israel. She said three months. “WHERE IS YOUR husband?” I asked. “They hanged him,” she said simply. “You must have heard about the hangings in Baghdad.” Mrs. D., a graduate of the Baghdad University, spoke an excellent French as well as English and, judging by her dress, came from a very wealthy home. She attended the ulpan, where she had an easy time learning Hebrew, compared to “those Westerners,” as she once put it to me: her knowledge of Arabic helped her a great deal, since both the vocabulary and, still more, the grammar, of the two Semitic languages were very similar. Her only worry was what would she do after completing her course at the ulpan? She had never worked in her life. I don’t remember how the conversation came about the Chief Rabbi of Baghdad, Sassoon-Kadoorie, whose son and daughter in Tel Aviv I had met years ago. Rabbi Sassoon-

Kadoorie was still alive at the time, over ninety years of age. MRS. D. HAD NO GOOD word to say about him and practically accused him of her husband’s death. It seems, he was afraid to speak up for the condemned men and issued statements justifying the hangings. “What was he afraid to risk at this age?” she remarked bitterly. “Why was that Czech young man in Prague not afraid to burn himself?” Since then, Rabbi Sassoon-Kadoorie and the few obituaries in the Israel press compared him to the late Rabbi Levin of Moscow, who was forced to act and speak as th# authorities ordered. During the Leningrad trials, Mrs. D. kept on comparing the situation in Iraq with that in Soviet Russia. In the public debate which took place over a year ago about how loudly ought the Jews of the world protest and demand, she sided with the activists and advocated the same policy in behalf of the Jews in Iraq and other Arab countries. Eventually, the point of view she represented won out. But, in the case of the Jews in the Arab countries, as in the case of the Soviet Jews, there had been quiet and persistent activity before the shouting began. I met the man responsible for getting Mrs. D. and her children out of Iraq: he is a veteran underground Zionist worker of Iraq. Perhaps in another year I shall be at liberty to report how Mrs. D. was gotten out of Iraq. I waited a year to tell what I am telling now. NOW MRS. D. IS living in another hostel, not Beit Brodetsky, is waiting for an apartment in Ramat Aviv and is working in a bank. Her two boys are in a kibbutz. The Jewish community of Iraq was considered the oldest in the world outside of Israel. If you take note of the account in the Bible that Father Abraham was born in Iraq and went from Iraq to found a homeland for his progeny in what is now Israel, Iraq’s Jewry was still older. After the destruction of the First Temple by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia (Iraq), a large community was formed in Iraq by the Jews deported there from their homeland. Seventy years later, the first Zionist movement arose (not counting Abraham’s), when a substantial minority of

the Jews in Iraq migrated to Israel and rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem, laying the foundation of the Second Jewish Commonwealth. Under the rule of various conquerors — Persian, Parthian and others — the Jewish community thrived, created the Talmud, was ruled by their own spiritual and temporal heads — the Exilarchs. The decline came slowly and gradually after Iraq was conquered by the Arabs, its population converted to Islam. FOR SEVERAL CENTURIES before World War I, Iraq was under the rule of the Turks, who are Moslems but not Arabs. With the partition of the Turkish Empire by the victorious Allies, after World War I, its Arab-speaking territories were at first divided between Britain and France and then gained full independence. The first pogrom in Iraq in modern times took place during World War H, when Rashid Ali led a revolt inspired by the Nazis. The revolt was crashed, but the Jews had been put on notice. There was an underground Zionist movement in Iraq during the years before the State of Israel and some immigration from Iraq. In 1951 the vast majority of Iraq’s 120,000 Jews were brought to Israel and most of them were placed in tents. Mrs. D. told me her family was considering migrating to Israel in 1951 or 1952, but when they learned of the conditions of living in Israel at that time, they decided against moving. The very rich Jews remained, THERE ARE NO IRAQIS living in tents today in Israel. So many live in the fashionable town of Ramat-Gan that it has been dubbed ‘ ‘Ramat-Baghdad. ’ ’ Do the oldtimers, the Ashkenazim love all Iraqi Jews? Well, yes and no. But we are all Jews. Once, in Beit Brodetsky, I witnessed the following scene outside the building: Two workmen, one a Hebrew-speaking oldtimer, the other a .Yiddish-speaking newcomer, were mending the fence. Little Eli was playing with other children in the yard and was watching. When the newcomer was told who Eli was, he remarked about his father (in Yiddish): “He was a ‘korbon’ (sacrifice) for all of us.” We are all Jews, as I said.

Torah And Flora

Rabinowitz

Love Of Nature

By L.I. RABINOWITZ sight of the trees in blossom, I have not seen him doing should recite the blessing, it this year; he is old and ‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord,

in ill health, Sovereign of the Universe, and if he does who has so created the world not, it will that it lacks nothing, and has only be be- produced therein goodly cause the creature and goodly trees flesh is weak, wherewith to give delight to But in pre- the children of man.’ ” vious years I The Ashkenazi Prayer used to wit- Book contents itself merely ness a beauti- with giving the formula as ful sight dur- it is found in the Talmud,

ing those days. The saintly as quoted above, but in the || Rabbi Zevi Yehudah Kook, Prayer Book used by the : son of his even more distin- Oriental Jewish communities §| guished father, the late Rab- in Israel, under the influence bi Abraham Isaac Kook, the of the Zohar, there is an el a- v ! Chief Rabbi of what was then borate ritual which extends | Palestine, and the head of over no less than eight |

the Mercaz Ha-Rav Yeshivah pages,

founded by his father, used Who will maintain, after to take all the students of reading passages like that, J his Yeshivah out into the that, as has so often been I fields or to Independence alleged either by those of ill | Park which was the nearest will or out of ignorance, that | open planted space to the the Rabbis had no love for M then site of the Yeshivah. nature? On the contrary, as And looking with ineffable this column surely testifies, joy upon the lovely sight of there is not a single manithe trees in full blossom, he festation of Nature which would lead his students in does not inspire them to give the devotional recitation of expression to the most poetic the Blessing of the Trees. and soul-stirring observa-

And with that he was tions. carrying out the injunction

of the Talmud, “He who goes Dr. L. I. Rabinowitz can out during the month of be reached at 6 Mapu St., Nissan, and has his first Jerusalem, Israel.

Flashbacks In Jewish History Evolution Of Passover

Bloch

By RABBI A.P. BLOCH March 29, 1972 — Passover

Eve.

The Bible design ates Passover b y two means: “C h a g Hapesach” (Feast of the Paschal Lamb) and “Chag Hamatzohs” (Festival of Mat-

zos).

The first name focuses on events prior to the Exodus. The ritual of the Seder was initially designed to commemorate exclusively the tragedy of Jewish slavery. To that end Jews were ordered to eat the Paschal Lamb with Matzohs (Bread of affliction) and bitter herbs. The ancient informal recitation (Haggadah) by the head of the family of the story of Passover concentrated on the oppression and was devoid of expressions of joy. Indeed, the injunction “Vesomachto” (Thou shalt rejoice) mentioned in connection with other holidays was omitted in the case of Passover. THE SECOND name, “Festival of Matzohs,” embraces the entire holiday which commemorates the period from the Exodus to the crossing of the Red Sea. The matzohs which were crisped by the desert sun, as they journeyed forth as free men, symbolized freedom. ;

Some innovations were introduced into the Seder Service after the construction of the second Temple. The joy of the redemption from the Babylonian diaspora spilled over into the celebration of the redemption from Egypt. The first innovation was the communal chanting of “Hallel.” The “Kiddush” ritual was introduced in the 1st century B.C.E. By the end of the first century of this era the ceremonial of “Yerokos” and “Charoses” were made part of the pageantry. THE DESTRUCTION of the second Temple and the ensuing gloom moved Rabbon Gamaliel, the head of the Palestinian Academy, to convert the Seder into

a demonstration of faith ana joy. The miracles of the postExodus era were given greater prominence than the suffering which had preceded it. To enhance the new aspects of the celebration trie rituals of the “Four Cups of Wine” (symbol of redemption) and “Reclining” (symbol of freedom) were added. The Haggadah was elaborated and formalized. The rabbis also decided to call the fesiival “Pesach” as a reminder of the divine protection which kept the destructive plague from afflicting Jewish homes. Rabbi A.P. Bloch can be reached at Rochester Ave. # Lincoln Place, Brooklyn, 11217.

National Weekly Is Suggested

NEW YORK — A proposal that the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds launch a national Jewish weekly with which local communities could tie in with news of their own activities was thrown out at the afternoon session of the first all-media public relations institute of the Council. Irving R. Isaacs, president of the board of trustees of the Jewish Chronicle of Pittsburgh, who chaired the session, presented the proposal. About 30 people representing

only a very small number of communities attended, and heard discussions on how local communities might launch papers of their own. Their programming was quite inadequate and the talks by the four experts did not hang together. On the panel were Richard Jacobs, president of Joseph Jacobs, Inc.; Leon E. Brown, editor of The Jewish Exponent of Philadelphia; Conrad Berke, advertising director of the Jewish News of Newark, and Ira Cahn, editor of the Massapequa Post.

Ill* J*wlsh Port And Opinion Friday, March 31, 1973