page_title: Farhud
hierarchical_section_title: Farhud
caption_attribution_description: English: Judaism in Iraq, Mass grave of victims of the Farhud, 1941. Scanning of a page from the book 'Iraq' (edited by Haim Saadoun), published by the Ministry of Education and the Ben - Zvi, Jerusalem, (5762, 2002) page 17.
context_page_description: Farhud was the pogrom or "violent dispossession" carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on June 1–2, 1941, immediately following the British victory in the Anglo-Iraqi War. The riots occurred in a power vacuum following the collapse of the pro-Nazi government of Rashid Ali while the city was in a state of instability. The violence came immediately after the rapid defeat of Rashid Ali by British forces, whose earlier coup had generated a short period of national euphoria, and was fueled by allegations that Iraqi Jews had aided the British. Over 180 Jews were killed and 1,000 injured, and up to 300–400 non-Jewish rioters were killed in the attempt to quell the violence. Looting of Jewish property took place and 900 Jewish homes were destroyed.
  The Farhud took place during the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. It has been referred to as a pogrom which was part of the Holocaust, although such comparison has been disputed.
context_section_description: Farhud (Arabic: الفرهود‎) was the pogrom or "violent dispossession" carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on June 1–2, 1941, immediately following the British victory in the Anglo-Iraqi War. The riots occurred in a power vacuum following the collapse of the pro-Nazi government of Rashid Ali while the city was in a state of instability. The violence came immediately after the rapid defeat of Rashid Ali by British forces, whose earlier coup had generated a short period of national euphoria, and was fueled by allegations that Iraqi Jews had aided the British. Over 180 Jews were killed and 1,000 injured, and up to 300–400 non-Jewish rioters were killed in the attempt to quell the violence. Looting of Jewish property took place and 900 Jewish homes were destroyed.
  The Farhud took place during the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. It has been referred to as a pogrom which was part of the Holocaust, although such comparison has been disputed. It has also been called "the beginning of the end of the Jewish community of Iraq", propagating the migration of Iraqi Jews out of the country, although a direct connection to the 1951–2 Jewish exodus from Iraq is also disputed, as many Jews who left Iraq immediately following the Farhud returned to the country and permanent emigration did not accelerate significantly until 1950–51. According to Hayyim Cohen, the Farhud "was the only [such event] known to the Jews of Iraq, at least during their last hundred years of life there". Historian Edy Cohen writes that up until the Farhud, Jews had enjoyed relatively favorable conditions and coexistence with Muslims in Iraq.
caption: Mass grave for the victims of the Farhud, 1946
exif: {}