Iraqi politician to attend Washington Farhud commemoration
Former Parliamentarian Mithal al-Alusi will attend a commemoration of the Farhud on 5 June in Washington DC in memory of Shlomo Mansour, the Farhud survivor who perished on 7 October 2023 after Hamas attacked his kibbutz, Kibbutz Kissufim. David Kheder Basson writes:
Sephardic Heritage International in DC (SHIN-DC) invites the public to join the Iraqi Jewish community, the diplomatic community, and Members of Congress on June 5, 6:30-8 p.m., to commemorate the victims of the Farhud – an outbreak of antisemitic mob violence against Baghdad Jewry that erupted on June 1, 1941, during the Shavuot Jewish holiday.
Speakers will include Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Congressman Randy Fine, as well as keynote speaker Maurice Shohet, a Jew who was born and raised in Iraq. Shohet, who is a SHIN-DC board member and represents the World Organization of Jews from Iraq, was an advisor on the project to preserve what became known as the “Iraqi Jewish Archive,” a cache of Iraqi Jewish documents and books rescued in 2003 from the flooded basement of the Baath intelligence headquarters in Baghdad. His mother’s family survived the Farhud with the help of Muslim neighbours.
Other speakers include Iraqi politician Mithal Al-Alusi, as well as Elan Carr, CEO of the Israeli American Council and former U.S. Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, and Rabbi Brian Shamash, who will conduct the memorial prayers. Carr and Shamash are both of Iraqi Jewish heritage.
“The commemoration will also provide an opportunity to stand against antisemitism and terror,” said SHIN DC Director Afraim Katzir.
Mithal Al-Alusi, a former Iraqi parliamentarian who leads the Iraqi Ummah Party and advocates an Iraqi-U.S.-Israeli alliance, called the Farhud “a very black day” in Iraqi history, “casting a shadow over 2,500 years of good relations between Iraqi Jews, Christians, Arabs and Kurds.”
“The Farhud is comparable to October 7, where they attacked, killed, and took people as hostages,” said Al-Alusi. “This is the anti-democratic way that we have until now in Iraq, the militia, Iran, and Hamas, in the same alliance against Israel, against democracy, against human rights, against normality, and against peace…I hope that we can focus more on the Farhud to show the dangers if we give the new Arab Muslim fascists free rein to do what they have done in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere.”
To attend in person or online, click here
A commemoration was held at the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center at Or Yehuda (Hebrew):
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