A sobering but salutary and very necessary reminder of what happened to Jews in Arab lands before Israel was restored:

Today marks the 65th anniversary of the Farhud. Arabic for ‘violent dispossession,’ this is the word used to describe the infamous pogrom of June 1, 1941, against the Jews of Baghdad. In its wake, the Farhud left some 200 dead, 2000 injured, and 900 Jewish homes destroyed. It was the beginning of the end of the Jewish community of Iraq, a community that had existed for twenty-six centuries, preceded Islam by a thousand years, and once numbered over 125,000 souls. Today, not a single Jew is left in Iraq.

Read it all.

Posted by melanie at June 1, 2006