WHAT OF THE REAL BIBLICAL JEWS
IN IRAQ AND IRAN?
WHAT OF THE REAL BIBLICAL
JEWS IN IRAQ AND IRAN?
JAN LILLEBY
Below I have collected some clips from Wikipedia, on Iraqi history and also Iran’s, in relation to their Jewish populations.
It’s a very complicated history…a massive number of details and happenings, - which would make up an entire Lexicon if I should tell it all. Most of the important things can be found on Wikipedia. I leave this to the readers!
I started to wonder: Where shall these 144 000 Jews listed in Revelation 7, by tribal names, come from? Because in Israel today there are only 3 % Semitic Jews, thus of Abraham’s gender. The majority of Israel’s population are Ashkenazi (from Khazaria kingdom). They were fleeing from the war on Khazaria in 1219 CE as Djengis Kahn’s army occupied them. The Khazars had been converted to the Talmudic Babylonian religion back in 740 CE under king Bulan. They became European ‘Jews’ (Ashkenazi) – gentile people who had been converted to Talmudism many generations earlier. They make up a majority of Ukraine today, and are also found in many other European nations. Even ‘Die-Hard-Zionists’ are getting these truths clear, via all the material found on the Internet as well as on YouTube, etcetera.
But where did the real Biblical Jews go? I start here with Iraq, just to check if there are some Jews left in the nation. I will follow up with checking on Iran and eventually other Middle East nations. We’ll see about it.
HERE IS THE WIKIPEDIA CLIP:
“The 18th century saw the Jewish community of Aleppo exert a significant influence over the Jewish communities of Baghdad and Basra not only culturally but economically.[44] Syrian Jewish families establishing themselves in Iraq were often formerly Spanish Sephardic families from Aleppo. These were typically high-class families such as the Belilios family who were frustrated with the dimming prospects of Aleppo and attracted to Baghdad and Basra's booming trade with India. This process saw the leading Jewish families of Baghdad, Basra and Aleppo grow to be heavily interlinked through marriages, religious life, partnership and trade in the 18th century.[44]
As this process of cultural assimilation saw the Jews of Baghdad come to more closely resemble the Jews of Aleppo, economic decline in Syria, Kurdistan and Persia worsened. The 18th century saw a growing number of Jews leave from there to Baghdad, Basra or the Baghdadi-led outposts being established in the Far East.[44] The still small and reemerging Jewish community of Baghdad became a migration destination with Jewish families settling in Baghdad from Istanbul, Aleppo, Damascus, Ana and Basra. A key driver of this was decline of the old caravan route running between these cities.[44] There was also migration from the communities of Palestine, the villages of Kurdistan, and it is said that a handful of Jews settled in Baghdad from Germany.[44]
Nineteenth century
By the early 19th century, Baghdad had been reestablished as a leading Jewish center in the Middle East. There were over 6,000 Jews in city, two synagogues and strong community institutions.[44] This was not a golden age, however. Over time, the centralized Ottoman control over the region deteriorated and the situation of the Jews worsened, but the population continued to grow very rapidly. An example of this deterioration is the persecution of Dawud Pasha, which began in 1814 and lasted until 1831. Many leaders of the Jewish community, such as Solomon Ma’tuk, were forced to flee. One of the foremost leaders of the community, David Sassoon, was forced to flee first to Busher and then to India.[citation needed]
By the early 19th century, trade between Baghdad and India was said to be entirely in the hands of the Jewish community. Though Jewish traders from the Middle East had been crossing the Indian Ocean since antiquity, the deteriorating situation in the Ottoman Empire and the rise of commercial opportunities in British India saw many Jews from Iraq establish themselves permanently in India, at first in Surat, then especially in Calcutta and Bombay.[47]
This was the beginning of primarily Iraqi Jewish diaspora in Asia known as the Baghdadi Jews, to which David Sassoon and many of the other leading Jewish families in Baghdad fled the persecution of Dawud Pasha.[48] These Judeo-Arabic speaking communities, following mostly Iraqi Jewish customs, would be formed along the so-called opium route between India and China, including in Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai.[49] These were all led by leading Iraqi Jewish families such as the Sassoons, Ezras, Eliases, Gubbays and Judahs.[48] These families were active sponsors of religious life and charity back in Iraq.[9]
During the 19th century, the influence of the Jewish families of Aleppo of the previous century faded as Baghdad emerged as a strong Jewish and economic center in its own right. The Jewish population has grown so rapidly that by 1884, there were 30,000 Jews in Baghdad and by 1900, 50,000, comprising over a quarter of the city's total population. Large-scale Jewish immigration from Kurdistan to Baghdad continued throughout this period. By the mid-19th century, the religious infrastructure of Baghdad grew to include a large yeshiva which trained up to sixty rabbis at time.[51] Religious scholarship flourished in Baghdad, which produced great rabbis, such as Joseph Hayyim ben Eliahu Mazal-Tov, known as the Ben Ish Chai (1834–1909) or Rabbi Abdallah Somekh (1813–1889).
The state of Iraq
1932 photograph of Ezekiel's Tomb at Kifl. The area was inhabited by Iraqi Jews who appear in the photo.
Early Labor Zionism mostly concentrated on the Jews of Europe, skipping Iraqi Jews because of their lack of interest in agriculture. The result was that "Until World War II, Zionism made little headway because few Iraqi Jews were interested in the socialist ideal of manual labor in Palestine."[52]
During the British Mandate, beginning in 1920,[53] and in the early days after independence in 1932, well-educated Jews played an important role in civic life. Iraq's first minister of finance, Sir Sassoon Eskell, was a Jew, and Jews were important in developing the judicial and postal systems. Records from the Baghdad Chamber of Commerce show that 10 out of its 19 members in 1947 were Jews and the first musical band formed for Baghdad's nascent radio in the 1930s consisted mainly of Jews. Jews were represented in the Iraqi parliament, and many Jews held significant positions in the bureaucracy. Between 1924 and 1928, some Jews fled persecution in Russia, arriving in Iraq as refugees.[54]
Organized Zionist activity began in Iraq in the 1920s. The Jewish population was generally sympathetic toward the movement, although not at that time as a solution for Iraqi Jews.[55] The Zionist organization in Baghdad was initially granted a permit by the British, in March 1921, but in the following year, under the government of King Faisal I, was unable to renew it. Nevertheless, its activities were tolerated until 1929. In that year, after conflict and bloodshed in Palestine during anti-Zionist demonstrations, Zionist activities were banned and teachers from Palestine, who had taught Hebrew and Jewish history, were forced to leave.[55]
In the 1930s, the situation of the Jews in Iraq deteriorated. Previously, the growing Iraqi Arab nationalist sentiment included Iraqi Jews as fellow Arabs,[56] but these views changed with the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian Mandate and the introduction of Nazi propaganda.[57] Despite protestations of their loyalty to Iraq, Iraqi Jews were increasingly subject to discrimination and anti-Jewish actions. In September 1934, following the appointment of Arshad al-Umari as the new minister of economics and communications, tens of Jews were dismissed from their posts in that ministry; and, subsequently, there were unofficial quotas of Jews that could be appointed in the civil service or admitted to secondary schools and colleges.[58] Zionist activity had continued covertly even after 1929, but in 1935 the last two Palestinian Jewish teachers were deported, and the president of the Zionist organization was put on trial and ultimately required to leave the country.[59]
Mass grave for the victims of the Farhud in 1946
Following the collapse of Rashid Ali al-Gaylani's pro-Axis coup d'état in 1941, the Farhud ("violent dispossession") pogrom broke out in Baghdad on June 1, in which approximately 200 Iraqi Jews were murdered (some sources put the number higher[60]), and up to 2,000 injured – damages to Jewish-owned property were estimated at $3 million (US$ 62 million in 2024). There were also instances of looting of Jewish properties in many other cities at around the same time, with the pogrom lasting for two days until June 2. Afterwards, Jewish emissaries from Palestine were sent to teach Iraqi Jews self-defense, which they were eager to learn.[52] The newly restored pro-Allied monarchist regime quickly implemented measures to prevent the outbreak of similar anti-Jewish violence and established a committee of enquiry on 7 June "to examine the facts and find who was culpable."[61]
Persecution by Iraqi authorities
Before the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine vote, Iraq's prime minister Nuri al-Said informed British diplomat Douglas Busk "that he had nothing against Iraqi Jews who were a long established and useful community. He felt bound to tell me, however, that the Arab League meeting might decide that if a satisfactory solution of the Palestine case was not reached severe measures should be taken against all Jews in Arab countries. He would be unable to resist such a proposal."[62]
In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly Hall at Flushing Meadow, New York, on Friday, 28 November 1947, Iraq's Foreign Minister, Muhammad Fadhel al-Jamali, included the following statement:
Partition imposed against the will of the majority of the people will jeopardize peace and harmony in the Middle East. Not only the uprising of the Arabs of Palestine is to be expected, but the masses in the Arab world cannot be restrained. The Arab-Jewish relationship in the Arab world will greatly deteriorate. There are more Jews in the Arab world outside of Palestine than there are in Palestine. In Iraq alone, we have about one hundred and fifty thousand Jews who share with Muslims and Christians all the advantages of political and economic rights. Harmony prevails among Muslims, Christians and Jews. But any injustice imposed upon the Arabs of Palestine will disturb the harmony among Jews and non-Jews in Iraq; it will breed inter-religious prejudice and hatred.[63]
In 1948, the year of Israel's independence, there were about 150,000 Jews in Iraq.[65]
Persecution of Jews greatly increased that year. In July 1948, the government passed a law making Zionism a capital offense, with a minimum sentence of seven years imprisonment. Any Jew could be convicted of Zionism-based only on the sworn testimony of two Muslim witnesses, with virtually no avenue of appeal available. On August 28, 1948, Jews were forbidden to engage in banking or foreign currency transactions. In September 1948, Jews were dismissed from the railways, the post office, the telegraph department, and the Finance Ministry on the ground that they were suspected of "sabotage and treason". On October 8, 1948, the issuance of export and import licenses to Jewish merchants was forbidden. On October 19, 1948, the discharge of all Jewish officials and workers from all governmental departments was ordered. In October, the Egyptian paper El-Ahram estimated that as a result of arrests, trials, and sequestration of property, the Iraqi treasury collected some 20 million dinars or the equivalent of 80 million U.S. dollars.
Operation Ezra and Nehemiah
Iraqi Jews arriving in Israel on a flight from Cyprus, September 1950
With Iraqi Jews enduring oppression and being driven into destitution, the Iraqi Zionist underground began smuggling Jews out of Iraq to Israel starting in November 1948. Jews were smuggled into Iran and from there proceeded to Israel.[64] By 1949, the Iraqi Zionist underground had become well-established (despite many arrests), and they were smuggling Iraqi Jews out of the country illegally at a rate of 1,000 a month.[73] The fleeing Jews took money and some possessions with them, and this capital flight harmed the Iraqi economy.” END OF WIKIPEDIA CLIP.
How many Jews of Abraham’s gender in Iraq?
This is impossible to know for certain. Most of Iraq’s Jews of old, was of the Sephardi line, - they were Semites, and thus of Abraham’s gender. They were REAL Biblical Jews. They came from Spain over to Syria (Aleppo) and from there to Iraq. As you have learned from the Wikipedia clip above. (Sephardi line is traced all the way back to Israel’s destruction in 70 CE, when a large number of Jews were dispersed into Asia/Middle East/Mediterranean nations like Spain and others.) The most common recognized geographical enlisting goes:
“Sephardi means 'Spain' in Hebrew and refers to Jewish people who have their cultural background in Spain, Portugal, North Africa and parts of the Middle East. Jewish communities thrived in many North African and Middle Eastern countries and Iran for centuries, enriching and being influenced by their societies.”
All the unrest and the military coups/wars in Iraq – with its thousands of details… do not reveal a correct number of Jews present today. We are left only to guessing.
We learn from the above clip from Wikipedia that the real trouble for Iraqi Jews – the real Biblical Jews of Abraham’s gender – started as the evil Ashkenazi-driven Zionist-Movement reached Palestine in 1920 and on, so that their evil deeds made the Iraqi officials skeptical towards all Jews in their land. And from there we learn of a constant demise of the Jewish population, up until now…decimated into an unknown number. Some thinks that there might be only 100 Jews left, and others say 1000. Which of this estimate may be true?
We can only conclude: There are very few real Biblical Jews in Iraq, as per 2024.
WHAT OF THE JEWS IN IRAN?
The Iranian Jews are called traditionally for Mizrahi.
Mizrahi in Hebrew means “Eastern” or “Oriental” – and such Jews come from Middle Eastern ancestry. Their earliest communities date from Late Antiquity, and the oldest and largest of these communities were in modern Iraq (Babylonia), Iran (Persia), and Yemen.
Many Iranian Jews say their steadfast support for Israel is embedded in deep cultural and religious ties to Judaism that date back centuries.
Historians trace Iran's Jewish population to nearly 3,000 years ago, making Judaism one of the oldest minority religions in the country. And let us remember that Daniel became a Persian Royal Court officer when Darius took Babylon. See Dan. 6:1-3, NASB,
“1 It seemed good to Darius to appoint 120 * satraps over the kingdom, that they would be in charge of the whole kingdom,
2 and over them three commissioners (of whom Daniel was one ), that these satraps might be accountable to them, and that the king might not suffer loss.
3 Then this Daniel began distinguishing himself among the commissioners and satraps because * * he possessed an extraordinary spirit, and the king planned to appoint him over the entire kingdom.”
The Jew Daniel became a highly respected and distinguished servant of the royal Persian leadership; an excellent leader under the king.
In other words, the Mizrahi Jew is a real genuine BIBLICAL Semite Jew, from the gender of Abraham!
It is reported that there are around 200,000 Mizrahi in the Israeli population today. A minority compared to the overwhelming numbers of Ashkenazi (Khazar) Jews. This estimate tells us that of the total population of Israel today, these Mizrahi’ makes up around 3% (at the most), of Israel’s 9,3 mill. Other historians hold to 4%. Never the less: Real genuine Jews are in great minority.
They cannot be very happy about Israel threatening to bomb and make havoc in Iran, like we learn from TV-Media lately (Autumn 2024). Neither will they applaud the Iranian war ministry sending missiles over Israel.
While Iraq’s Jewish population may be very minimal – as I told above on Iraq – it is far greater concerning the Iranian Jewry, the Mizrahi.
Inside Iran today there are around 5,000 to 8,000. But when the revolution took place in 1979, they were about 80,000 Jews.
Adding to these the 200,000 in Israel, they still make a considerable group of Jews, having ancestry so far back as 3,000 years. They are actually BIBLICAL genuine Semite Jews, sons and daughters of Abraham. As opposed to the fake-Jews, the Ashkenazi/Khazars who have ancestry not via Shem, but Japhet, - see Gen. 10:3 which connects Japhet (Shem’s brother) to Ashkenaz Thus they come from the old Khazar nation. Coming to Europe in the 13th century, they were called Ashkenazy because of the Gen. 10:3 lineage listed. They were not Semites. To be a Semite, you have to have ancestry from Shem, and not Japhet.
They were refugees coming to Europe when Djengis Khan took the Khazar nation in 1219. They were converted to Talmudic Judaism in 740 CE under king Bulan. But as they arrived in Europe they said they were Jews. From this they got the ancestral name Ashkenazy Jew.
But I shall not keep dragging off a long story here on that. See other articles in my web where I explain these things.
THE 144,000 EVANGELISTS OF THE NEW ISRAEL
PORTRAYED IN REV. 7 AND 14
So, conclusively, I truly believe that for Moses and Elijah – the two prophets in Rev. 11 during the Great Tribulation in Israel soon to come, they will have enough real Biblical Jews to call for making that new and sensational organizing of the twelve tribes in Rev. 7 – 12,000 from each tribe making up a group of 144,000 ‘sealed’ and segregated evangelists to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom led by Moses and Elijah.
If there are Biblical Jews in Iraq, I am sure that some of these can be called into that ministry as well as with those from Iran.
Rev. 14:1-5, NASB, says of this genuine Biblical group of called Jews,
«1 Then I looked, and behold, the Lamb was standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four * thousand, having His name and the name of His Father written on their foreheads.
2 And I heard a voice from heaven, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder, and the voice which I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps.
3 And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders; and no one could learn the song except the one hundred and forty-four * thousand who had been purchased from the earth.
4 These are the ones who have not been defiled with women, for they have kept themselves chaste. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever * He goes. These have been purchased from among men as first fruits to God and to the Lamb.
5 And no lie was found in their mouth; they are blameless.”
I know that there are about 7,5 mill Jews in the USA, and 3,000 other Jews living diverse places in the world. It is reported that in 2023 there lived around 38,000 Syrian Jews in New York City! But I do not think it is likely that God will fetch them and bring them among these 144,000 seen in Rev. 7 and 14. It has to be Jews who lives already in the Middle East, and can be roll called by the two prophets at short notice. God will make this great move, for sure!
A short clip from Wikipedia will be the end of this article, regarding the Iranian Jews, the so-called Mizrahi – those from the East/Orient, - and you may also notice that there are a few groups of Iranian Jews in the USA, if not so many,
“Iranian Jews[4] (Persian: یهودیان ایرانی, romanized: Yahudiyān-e Irāni; Hebrew: יהודי איראן, romanized: Yehudei Iran) constitute one of the oldest communities of the Jewish diaspora. Dating back to the biblical era, they originate from the Jews who relocated to Iran during the time of the Achaemenid Empire. Books of the Hebrew Bible (i.e., Esther, Isaiah, Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah) bring together an extensive narrative shedding light on contemporary Jewish life experiences in ancient Iran; there has been a continuous Jewish presence in Iran since at least the time of Cyrus the Great, who led Achaemenid army's conquest of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and subsequently freed the Judahites from the Babylonian captivity.
After 1979, Jewish emigration from Iran increased dramatically in light of the country's Islamic Revolution. Today, the vast majority of Iranian Jews reside in Israel and the United States. The Israeli community of Iranian Jews is mostly concentrated in the cities of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Netanya, Kfar Saba, and Holon.
In the United States, there are sizable Iranian Jewish communities in Los Angeles (Tehrangeles), Beverly Hills, and in Great Neck. Smaller Iranian Jewish communities also exist in Baltimore and in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. According to the 2016 Iranian census, the remaining Jewish population of Iran stood at 9,826 people,[5] though independent third-party estimates have placed the figure at around 8,500.[3]
Terminology
Today, the term Iranian Jews is mostly used in reference to Jews who are from the country of Iran. In various scholarly and historical texts, the term is used in reference to Jews who speak various Iranian languages. Iranian immigrants in Israel (nearly all of whom are Jewish) are referred to as Parsim. In Iran, Persian Jews and Jewish people in general are both described with four common terms: Kalīmī (Persian: کلیمی), which is considered the most proper term; Yahūdī (یهودی), which is less formal but correct; Yīsrael (ישראל) the term by which Jewish people refer to themselves; and Johūd (جهود), a term having negative connotations and considered by many Jews as offensive.[6]
History
Main article: History of Jews in Iran
Jews had been residing in Persia since around 727 BC, having arrived in the region as slaves after being captured by the Assyrian and Babylonian kings. According to one Jewish legend, the first Jew to enter Persia was Sarah bat Asher, grand daughter of the Patriarch Jacob.[7] The biblical books of Isaiah, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, and Esther contain references to the life and experiences of Jews in Persia and accounts of their relations with the Persian kings. In the book of Ezra, the Persian kings are credited with permitting and enabling the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple; its reconstruction was effected "according to the decree of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia" (Ezra 6:14). This great event in Jewish history took place in the late sixth-century BC, by which time there was a well-established and influential Jewish community in Persia.
Jews in ancient Persia mostly lived in their own communities. Persian Jews lived in the ancient (and until the mid-20th century still extant) communities not only of Iran, but also the Armenian, Georgian, Iraqi, Bukharan, and Mountain Jewish communities.[8][9][10][11]
Some of the communities have been isolated from other Jewish communities to the extent that their classification as "Persian Jews" is a matter of linguistic or geographical convenience rather than actual historical relationship with one another. Scholars believe that during the peak of the Persian Empire, Jews may have comprised as much as 20% of the population.[12]
According to Encyclopædia Britannica: "The Jews trace their heritage in Iran to the Babylonian Exile of the 6th century BC[E] and, like the Armenians, have retained their ethnic, linguistic, and religious identity."[13] But the Library of Congress's country study on Iran states that "Over the centuries the Jews of Iran became physically, culturally, and linguistically indistinguishable from the non-Jewish population. The overwhelming majority of Jews speak Persian as their mother language, and a tiny minority, Kurdish."[14] “ END OF WIKIPEDIA CLIP.
If you wish, just enter Wikipedia for a better study in this important topic.
I KNOW THAT THIS HAS NO DIRECT CONNECTION WITH US, THE CHURCH, THE BODY OF CHRIST; NEVERTHELESS IT IS A PLUS TO HAVE SOME KNOWLEDGE OF THESE THINGS. We thus learn of God’s major movements in history, as well as the end times, and the tribulation to come upon Israel before Jesus arrives from heaven!
I have not yet scanned history books on Jews in Egypt, or Syria or any other Middle-East nations. Please pardon me for that….
Gracepano.com
