History of Jews in Kurdistan

Kurdish Jews

Moshe Barazani, Yitzhak Mordechai, Yosef Shiloach, Zvi Bar (Barzani), Ilana Eliya (singer)
Total population
150,000 (Israel)
Regions with significant populations
Israel 150,000 [1][2][3]  Iran small community in Iranian Kurdistan
Languages
Jewish and local dialects of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic were their native tongues in Kurdistan and are the native tongues of older generation today. Younger generations today speak the languages of their countries of residence, plus Mizrahi Hebrew (liturgical use) and traditional Kurdish, and Azeri (in Iran)[4] dialects.
Religion
Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Other Jewish groups (Mizrahi, Sephardi, Ashkenazi, etc.)

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Rabbi Moshe Gabai, chief rabbi of Maoz Zion, with President of Israel Yitzhak Ben-Zvi

Illuminated plaque on paper with calligraphy and decorative elements. Includes four liturgical poems for Purim customary among Kurdish Jews; mid-19th century, Kurdistan.

Kurdish Jews or Kurdistani Jews (Hebrew: יהודי כורדיסטן‎, Yehudei Kurdistan, lit. Jews of Kurdistan; Aramaic: אנשא דידנ‎, Nashi Didan, lit. our people; Kurdish: Kurdên cihû) are the ancient Eastern Jewish communities, inhabiting the region known as Kurdistan in northern Mesopotamia, roughly covering parts of Iran, northern Iraq, Syria and eastern Turkey. Their clothing and culture is similar to neighbouring Kurdish Muslims and Christian Assyrians. Until their immigration to Israel in the 1940s and early 1950s, the Jews of Kurdistan lived as closed ethnic communities. Kurdish Jews largely spoke Aramaic, with some speaking native Kurdish dialects. For example, in Iraqi Kurdistan, they spoke both Aramaic and the Kurmanji dialect. After coming to Israel however, those who spoke Kurmanji switched over to Aramaic. Today, the large majority of Kurdish Jews and their descendants live in Israel.

History [edit]

Ancient times and classic antiquity [edit]

Kurdish Jews in Rawanduz, northern Iraq, 1905

Tradition holds that Israelites of the tribe of Benjamin first arrived in the area of modern Kurdistan after the Assyrian conquest of the Kingdom of Israel during the 8th century BC; they were subsequently relocated to the Assyrian capital.^[5] During the first century BC, the royal house of Adiabene, whose capital was Arbil (Aramaic: Arbala; Kurdish: Hewlêr), was converted to Judaism.^[6] King Monobazes, his queen Helena, and his son and successor Izates are recorded as the first proselytes.^[7]

Middle Ages [edit]

According to the memoirs of Benjamin of Tudela and Pethahiah of Regensburg, there were about 100 Jewish settlements and substantial Jewish population in Kurdistan in 12th century. Benjamin of Tudela also gives the account of David Alroi, the messianic leader from central Kurdistan, who rebelled against the king of Persia and had plans to lead the Jews back to Jerusalem. These travellers also report of well-established and wealthy Jewish communities in Mosul, which was the commercial and spiritual center of Kurdistan. Many Jews fearful of approaching crusaders, had fled from Syria and Palestine to Babylonia and Kurdistan. The Jews of Mosul enjoyed some degree of autonomy over managing their own community.^[8]

Ottoman era [edit]

Tanna'it Asenath Barzani, who lived in Mosul from 1590 to 1670, was the daughter of Rabbi Samuel Barzani of Kurdistan. She later married Jacob Mizrahi Rabbi of Amadiyah (in Iraqi Kurdistan) who lectured at a yeshiva.^[9] She was famous for her knowledge of the Torah, Talmud, Kabbalah and Jewish law. After the early death of her husband, she became the head of the yeshiva at Amadiyah, and eventually was recognized as the chief instructor of Torah in Kurdistan. She was called tanna'it (female Talmudic scholar), practiced mysticism, and was reputed to have known the secret names of God.^[10] Asenath is also well known for her poetry and excellent command of the Hebrew language. She wrote a long poem of lament and petition in the traditional rhymed metrical form. Her poems are among the few examples of the early modern Hebrew texts written by women.^[11]

Immigration of Kurdish Jews to the Land of Israel initiated during late 16th century, with a community of rabbinic scholars arriving to Safed, Galilee, and a Kurdish quarter had been established there as a result. The thriving period of Safed however ended in 1660, with Druze power struggles in the region and an economic decline.

Modern times [edit]

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Since the early 20th century some Kurdish Jews had been active in the Zionist movement. One of the most famous members of Lehi (Freedom Fighters of Israel) was Moshe Barazani, whose family immigrated from Iraqi Kurdistan and settled in Jerusalem in the late 1920s.

The vast majority of Kurdish Jews were forced out of Iraq and evacuated to Israel in the early 1950s, together with the Iraqi Jewish community. The vast majority of the Kurdish Jews of Iranian Kurdistan relocated mostly to Israel as well, in the 1950s.

Genetic analysis of Kurdish Jews [edit]

An extremely close genetic proximity of Jewish communities and non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations has been observed in several DNA studies.^[12] In 2001, a team of German, Indian and Israeli specialists published the results of their research on Y-chromosome polymorphism, that showed that Jews and Kurds are close ethnic relatives.^[13] The Jews and Kurds, according to the research, have common ancestors who resided in northern Mesopotamia about 4,000 years ago. The Kurdish Jews, though found genetically close to their Muslim Kurdish neighbours, were still closer related to Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewish groups, disproving any significant contribution of Judaism converts to this Jewish community (documented conversion to Judaism occurred in the area during the classic period, among the ruling class of the Parthian client Kingdom of Adiabene).^[13] Among the Jewish communities, the closest genetic bond to Muslim Kurds was found among the Ashkenazi Jews, though the sequences were still distinguishable.

Historiography [edit]

One of the main problems in the history and historiography of the Jews of Kurdistan was the lack of written history and the lack of documents and historical records. During the 1930s, a German-Jewish Ethnographer, Erich Brauer, began interviewing members of the community. His assistant, Raphael Patai, published the results of his research in Hebrew. The book, Yehude Kurditan: mehqar ethnographi (Jerusalem, 1940), was translated into English in the 1990s. Israeli scholar Mordechai Zaken wrote an important book using written, archival and oral sources that traces the relations between the Jews and the Kurdish masters or chieftains (Aghas). He interviewed 56 Kurdish Jews from six towns (Zahko, Aqrah, Amadiya, Dohuk, Sulaimaniya and Shinno/Ushno/Ushnoviyya), as well as dozens of villages, mostly in the region of Bahdinan.^[14] Zaken's Book, Jewish Subjects and their Tribal Chieftains in Kurdistan, is based strongly on oral history sources, and it unveils the personal experience of urban and rural Jews during the first half of the 20th century.^[15]

See also [edit]

• History of the Jews in Iraq
• Israeli–Kurdish relations
• Jewish ethnic divisions
• Kurdish people
• Mizrahi Jews
• Northeastern Neo-Aramaic
• Seharane

References [edit]

Bibliography [edit]

• Mordechai Zaken, "Jewish Subjects and their tribal Chieftains in Kurdistan: A study in Survival," Jewish Identities in a Changing World, 9 (Boston: Brill Publishers, 2007)
• Brauer, Erich; Patai, Raphael, The Jews of Kurdistan. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1993).
• Asenath, Barzani, "Asenath's Petition", First published in Hebrew by Jacob Mann, ed., in Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, vol.1, Hebrew Union College Press, Cincinnati, 1931. Translation by Peter Cole.
• Yona Sabar, The Folk Literature of the Kurdistani Jews (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982).
• Ariel Sabar, My Father's Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq. Illustrated. 332 pp. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Biography & study of Yona Beh Sabagha = Yona Sabar, native scholar of this community and its language. Reviewed in The New York Times, Oct. 12, 2008 and The Washington Post, Oct. 26, 2008.
• Mahir Ünsal Eriş, Kürt Yahudileri - Din, Dil, Tarih, (Kurdish Jews) In Turkish, Kalan Publishing, Ankara, 2006
• Hasan-Rokem, G., Hess, T. and Kaufman, S., Defiant Muse: Hebrew Feminist Poems from Antiquity: A Bilingual Anthology, Publisher: Feminist Press, 1999, ISBN 1-55861-223-8. (see page 65, 16th century/Kurdistan and Asenath's Petition)
• Rabbi Asenath Barzani in Jewish Storytelling Newsletter, Vol.15, No.3, Summer 2000
• The Jews of Kurdistan Yale Israel Journal, No. 6 (Spr. 2005).
• Judaism in Encyclopaedia Kurdistanica
• Sabar, Ariel. My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kurdish Jews

• IKN - Israel Kurdistan Network