Iraqi Jews: A History of Mass Exodus

Palestinian historian Abbas Shiblak turns his attention to the events that led up to the drafting of law 1/1950, where the Iraqi government in 1950 laid out their legal plan for permitting the mass exodus of Jews from Iraq. The Iraqi government sought to secure the wealth and assets that Jews had built for themselves over generations, entailing the drafting of legislation that would only permit legal emigration if Jews signed their property and assets over to the state. The punishing and plundering of Iraqi Jewry for wanting to escape an increasingly hostile environment meant enormous amounts of dispossession not only of material culture and heritage, but would produce ripple effects in the psyche, interpersonal institutions, and confidence of Iraqi Arab-Jewish identity. 

This short book is unconcerned with the languages, histories, cuisines, religious rites, or historical events of Jews from Iraq. Shiblak analyses the law that was inscribed exclusively as a byproduct of a larger Zionist plan that attempted to create a situation where Palestinians and Arab Jews would be made mass refugee groups and could be "exchanged" - both physically and in their property. In the end, neither Iraqi Jews nor Palestinians benefited from this idea. The law that saw the Iraqi government inherit all Jewish property and assets was in effect, according to Shiblak, to benefit Zionism, which could dispossess Palestinians of their property and see a swap of populations.

This monograph is an excellent historical account of the building and execution of a legal framework that ripped Jews from Iraq.