Excerpts based on the book "From Babylon to Jerusalem"
The Story of the Barazani Family
Israeli historical fragmets
Kurdistan
The Kurds and the Jewish People
Beyond the mountains and the desert, in Northwest Asia, lies the hidden land of the Kurds.
Between the Zagros Mountains in Iran and the Taurus Mountains in Turkey, the Kurdish people have resided for over two thousand years. They live in villages and towns, in tents and stone buildings, on mountain slopes and plateaus, in green plains, rocky crevices, cliffs, and valleys, between valley and hill.
Spanning hundreds of thousands of square kilometers in mountains that rise up to 5,000 meters high, they are an integral part of the eternal landscape. Like the brown and gray rocks protruding from every cliff, like the peaks adorned with winter's snowy white, like the carpets of flowers and wild plants, like the springs bubbling from every direction. Like the wheat and barley fields, like the shepherds' paths leading from nowhere to nowhere, like the tributaries of the Tigris River winding through valleys and crossing lush plains.
The Kurdish people, descendants of the ancient Median kingdom, coalesced into a nation through a continuous historical process. During this time, they adopted the Islamic faith and belonged to the Sunni branch, known as the softer and more compromising among Muslim religious factions.
Their history is laden with ceaseless struggles and wars – they fought against the Assyrians, Persians, Mongols, and Crusaders; Arabs invaded them from the south, Turks from the north; The Persians positioned them as a living barrier against their enemies; the Ottomans suppressed them, and the British imposed a mandate on them with a promise to establish a state. Despite all this, the Kurds only experienced brief periods of independence, and even these existed in small emirates and fleeting kingdoms that did not last long.
It wasn't only external enemies who troubled them. Their pride and self-respect led to internal quarrels that prevented them from being sovereign in their own land. Rulers came and went, and the Kurds remained tied to their land in splendid isolation, disconnected from neighboring cultures and peoples, with only the mountains as their sole allies.
Progress was slow to reach Kurdistan, the land of the Kurds. For many hundreds of years, they lived secluded as if in a "time capsule", and even in modern times, they largely maintained their customs. They continued to manage their lives as in ancient and medieval times within clan and tribal frameworks – moving along their established daily paths, cultivating their fertile land, subject to the whims of the winds and the seasons, and never looking beyond the horizon enclosed by countless arid ridges.
Until the 19th century, their land was a small and negligible part of the vast Ottoman (Turkish) Empire.
The Ottomans' loose grip allowed the Kurds practical control over the territory where they lived, together with minorities – Jews, Christians, Yazidis, and various religious sects.
With the decline and disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, the Kurds seized the opportunity to resume local struggles and expand their living areas. The population within Kurdish clans and tribes grew, and their descendants moved north towards Turkey, east to Iran, and south towards the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Baghdad, and towards Syria. Natural population growth processes led them to reside in existing cities or establish their own settlements within the territories of neighboring peoples.
And in almost every Kurdish settlement, one could find a Minyan of Jews.
Many years before the arrival of the Kurds, Jews settled among the mountains and found rest and heritage there.
Many years before the arrival of the Kurds, Jews settled among the mountains and found rest and heritage there. Little is known about the mountain Jews, between the Zagros and Taurus. Historical research is scarce in sources, and a thick fog hangs over their history in ancient and later periods. But the Jews of Kurdistan have their own historical truth. Their history draws its sources from tradition passed down from generation to generation, and it has been, and still is, stronger and more stable than any scientific research.
This tradition has sustained them since the days of the Kingdom of Israel, which was exiled by the Assyrian Empire 2,800 years ago.
According to tradition, they are descendants of the Ten Tribes, and they are "the lost ones from the land of Assyria" – those exiles about whom the prophet Isaiah prophesied. Since then, they have maintained a continuous Jewish settlement – during the Babylonian Exile, in the days of the Return to Zion and the establishment of the Second Temple, in ancient and medieval times. Nuclei of settlers remained in the mountains for thousands of years, and occasionally swelled with groups and individuals from exiles who came from the Land of Israel and wandered in the area.
No continuous connection existed between them and the large Jewish center established in the Babylonian Exile, due to difficult access conditions. The communities and centers that existed in the Land of Israel knew little about their existence, if at all, and no regular contact was maintained with them either.
Their isolation and solitude did not prevent the mountain dwellers from continuing to observe the commandments of the Jewish religion without deviation and without omitting even a single letter from the Torah of Moses and Israel. They circumcised their sons at eight days old, and celebrated Bar Mitzvahs and weddings according to Jewish law and custom. A certified
shochet (ritual slaughterer) traveled between the villages, providing kosher slaughtering services. Sabbaths were holy for prayer and rest from work, and Jewish holidays were meticulously observed at their fixed times on the Hebrew calendar – Passover without
chametz, Yom Kippur with fasting and prayers, Rosh Hashanah with prayers and meals, and similarly Sukkot, Shavuot, and Hanukkah.
For over two thousand years, the mountain Jews zealously preserved their way of life.
Conquerors in various Asian territories imposed beliefs on the conquered; peoples converted religions willingly or by force, and only the Jews remained Jewish – nomads and settlers, descendants of eternal exiles, without national aspirations, devout in their religion, and maintaining their way of life as their ancestors did.
Jewish artisans in Kurdistan
The Kurdish people and the Jewish people lived side-by-side in almost every village or town. Sometimes a fair neighborhood developed between the peoples, sometimes not. Like other minorities – Christians, Yazidis, fire worshippers, devil worshippers, and various sects that filled the mountains – the Jews also suffered from pogroms and persecutions, and were forced to seek refuge under the protection of a Kurdish leader (Sheikh or
Agha). All minorities knew that the Kurds were the true landlords in the area – even if they were not officially sovereign – to them taxes had to be paid, from them one received work, and life's order had to be adapted to them.
Time took its toll, and the close proximity, as well as the isolation from the outside
world, left their mark on both peoples – the Kurdish people and the Jewish people – and a mutual influence was evident in their ways of life, which stemmed from the same sources. Both spoke ancient Aramaic, Kurmanji, and Arabic, and looked similar – the men wore adorned turbans with colorful scarves on their heads, the women wore long, colorful striped tunics and covered their hair with thick fabric scarves. They baked their pita bread from wheat harvested in the same fields, cooked vegetables grown in their shared lands and filled them with rice or bulgur, carried water buckets for drinking and washing from the same springs that emerged from the ground, built stone dwellings or used the same construction method of mud, stone, or eye rods, which had not changed much since they were together on the same land.
The Jewish family in the community and the Kurdish clan in the tribe each lived in a similar residential compound. Two or three generations lived there – sons, parents, and family elders. And in every family or clan, there was a clear hierarchy that determined the man at its head.
Local leaders of the Kurds and Jews cooperated and ensured they did not interfere with each other's religious observance – the Kurds prayed towards Mecca, the Jews towards Jerusalem. A person who died was buried on the same day, and afterward, some would sit for three days in mourning tents, while others would observe "Shiva" (seven days of mourning) at their homes.
In their gatherings for communal and family celebrations – the "Haflas" – they would spread laden tables, sing to the sounds of flutes (
zurna) and drums (Dola), and dance group dances where hands rested on each other's shoulders, arms raised skyward, and feet stomped on the ground.
From the 19th century onwards, the historical picture regarding the mountain dwellers began to clarify.
More modern communication methods and new modes of transportation emerged and cracked the walls of isolation. Researchers from developed Western countries, travelers, and emissaries – moved among the mountains and returned with impressed accounts, as if they had discovered a new world. The Jews they encountered in various remote corners left them with the impression of being primitive and uneducated, lacking any basic schooling , and different from any other Jew in Asia or Europe.
However, this was an external impression from transient visitors. Behind it lay the Jewish backbone that miraculously remained unbent – in every Jewish concentration there was a synagogue ("Kneshta") with a niche built into the wall facing Jerusalem, containing a Torah scroll. There was a prayer liturgy with identical texts passed down orally from generation to generation, a sacred officiant who was also a mohel, a rabbi, and a kosher shochet. There were standardized marriage contracts (
ketubot), tombs of righteous individuals (kivre tzaddikim), gravestones facing Jerusalem, amulets, and names of righteous and spiritual leaders whose names were whispered with reverence and awe.
When the Kurds found new living areas in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, the Jews followed them, having also undergone a process of natural increase.
When the Kurds found new living areas in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, the Jews followed them, having also undergone a process of natural increase.
Strengthening communication brought to light the spiritual assets of Judaism.
From the city of Baghdad, the largest Jewish center in Eastern Asia, rabbis were sent to exchange information with their lost brethren beyond the mountains ; holy books were distributed to every community, sacred artifacts and halachic opinions passed from rabbis to rabbis and community leaders ; emissaries from Alliance ("Kol Yisrael Haverim") established schools for boys and girls in large settlements ; small study rooms in remote towns became yeshivas from which Torah and halachic rulings emerged.
Little by little, the Jews in every settlement internalized that they were no longer alone in the world and had close brethren.
The developing relationship between the communities did not fully unite them. Small and large subtleties remained that differentiated between the Jews of central (Iraqi) Kurdistan and the Kurdish Jews from Turkey or Persia – the language was slightly different, as were the foods, clothing, and customs. But only someone who grew up there could notice these subtleties. Only someone who was Kurdish in spirit could understand what a rigid framework is, one impervious to environmental influences and even suspicious of distant brethren.
In the late 19th century, the end of the Ottoman Empire approached.
The Kurdish people continued their local wars and failed repeatedly.
The Jews did not participate in these small, regional wars. For them, the land of the Kurds was and remained a place of exile. This fierce and persistent faith was passed down from generation to generation in the communities of Urmia and Sulaymaniyah, in Sindor and Zakho, in Akra and Barzan, and in all dozens of scattered communities from the land of the Turks and Syrians to the land of the Iraqis and Persians.
They continued to believe throughout the years in the eternal utopia of their return to the Promised Land.
A selected collection of additional chapters, and historical pieces from the life of Kurdistan and Iraq Jews, in the following links:
