History of the Jews in Kurdistan

Overview

The history of the Jews in Kurdistan concerns communities that lived across a mountainous region divided in the modern era among Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. Their history is linked to the wider Jewish presence in Mesopotamia, but it also has its own record of settlements, rabbis, synagogues and languages. Jewish life continued across successive political borders, with especially numerous communities in what became Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. Zakho, Erbil, Amadiya and Akre were among the towns associated with that history.^{1, 2}

Before the great exodus of 1950–51, one account counted 146 Jewish communities in Iraqi Kurdistan, 19 in Iranian Kurdistan, 11 in Turkish Kurdistan, and 11 in the Syrian section and other places. A regional population estimate placed the number of Jews in Kurdistan at 20,000 to 30,000 before Israel’s establishment. An unofficial Jewish Agency estimate for 1948 placed the Jewish population of Iranian Kurdistan between 15,000 and 20,000. These estimates describe communities across different borders and use different measures of population and identity.¹

Rise

Ancient Jewish roots in Mesopotamia form part of the background to Kurdistan’s Jewish history. Accounts connecting Kurdish Jews directly to the Israelites exiled by Assyria became an enduring community tradition. The documented history of Jewish communities in Kurdistan should be distinguished from that later account of their origins: evidence of ancient Jewish settlement and subsequent Jewish life does not establish a single line of descent for every community. In the first century, the royal house of Adiabene, a kingdom centered in the area of present-day Erbil, embraced Judaism. King Monobaz, his mother Helena and other inhabitants are associated with that conversion.¹

By the medieval period, Jewish settlements were prominent enough to appear in travelers’ accounts. Benjamin of Tudela visited Kurdistan around 1170 and reported more than 100 Jewish communities. His account also recorded the tradition that local Jews descended from the Assyrian exiles. Reports from travelers provide evidence of communities they encountered, while their ancient genealogies remain traditions rather than a complete demographic history. Amadiya had two synagogues; an inscription on one was dated to about 1250. From the sixteenth century onward, documents show rabbis in Amadiya exercising influence across Kurdistan and Azerbaijan.^{1, 2, 3}

Rule and society

Kurdistan’s Jews lived under successive rulers, including the Ottoman Empire, before the region’s division among modern states. Borders changed, but Jewish communities maintained ties through commerce, scholarship, family networks and religious practice. Nineteenth-century visitors found merchants, artisans and livestock owners among Amadiya’s Jewish families. In 1933, about 1,820 Jews lived in that town; all subsequently emigrated. Jewish settlements also extended beyond the best-known towns into villages and market centers across northern Iraq and western Iran.^{1, 2, 3}

Under the states that succeeded Ottoman rule, Jews experienced different local conditions. In Iraq, rising antisemitic persecution, restrictive laws and the 1941 Farhud undermined Jewish security. The establishment of Israel in 1948 was followed by further pressure on Iraq’s Jews and large-scale emigration. Kurdish neighbors and leaders also played a protective role: Kurds helped Jews remaining in Iraq and assisted their migration to Israel, including later escapes during Baathist rule. Those acts belong alongside the history of persecution by successive Iraqi governments.^{6, 7, 16}

Jews under its rule

Kurdish Jewish communities practiced Judaism through synagogues, rabbinic teaching, festivals and family traditions. Their principal everyday linguistic inheritance was Judeo-Aramaic, a group of Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects enriched by words from Hebrew and neighboring languages. Speakers called their language the language of the Targum or the language of the Jews. Differences among local dialects reflected the distances between towns, even as religious texts and communal networks connected them. Zakho’s Aramaic-speaking Jewish community preserved a distinctive tradition of Hebrew reading.^{1, 4, 5}

In Zakho’s Hebrew pronunciation, speakers distinguished the plosive and fricative forms of all six letters בגדכפ״ת. They distinguished hard ד from soft ד, with a [z] sound also occurring as a variant of the soft form, and pronounced soft ת as a voiceless interdental consonant. Such details make the community’s spoken heritage more precise than a broad label such as Aramaic-speaking. They also show how liturgical Hebrew and local Judeo-Aramaic remained closely connected. In Israel, descendants have continued to gather for Saharana, sharing music, food, stories and elements of their ancestral language.^{4, 5, 8, 9}

Decline

The mass departure of Kurdistan’s Jews took place in 1950–51, as part of the wider Jewish exodus from the Muslim world. It included the small Jewish community of Turkish Kurdistan as well as most Jews of Iraqi Kurdistan. Many Iraqi Jews reached Israel through Operation Ezra and Nehemiah; arrivals from Iraq and Kurdistan were photographed at Lod Airport in May 1951. Earlier migration had already brought Kurdish Jews to the Land of Israel, including settlers in Safed from the sixteenth century and families who established communities in Jerusalem before statehood. The mid-twentieth-century movement was far larger and transformed the region’s Jewish demography.^{1, 8, 10, 11}

After emigration, recognizable Jewish quarters remained in several towns. Residents of Akre can still identify its former Jewish quarter, while memories of Jewish neighbors persist among older residents and fade across generations. Former quarters also remain identifiable elsewhere, although synagogues and graveyards have often proved harder to locate or preserve. In 2022, funding was announced for restoration of a small synagogue near Akre. These physical traces, together with personal recollections, preserve evidence of communities whose members largely made new homes in Israel.^{12, 13, 14}

Legacy

Kurdish Jews in Israel formed associations based on their towns and districts of origin and preserved communal customs through families, congregations and public celebrations. Many settled in and around Jerusalem. Accounts of Saharana celebrations describe gatherings where descendants sing, dance and exchange memories of Kurdistan. Estimates of the population of Kurdish Jewish origin vary by date and definition; when Kurdistan established a Jewish affairs office in 2015, an estimate placed nearly 300,000 people of Kurdish Jewish origin predominantly in Israel. Their heritage thus continued on a much larger scale in Israel than in the communities from which their families departed.^{1, 8, 9, 10}

Relations between Israel and Iraqi Kurdish leaders added a political dimension to older personal ties. Israel maintained quiet relations with leaders including Mustafa Barzani for decades. Israeli security and intelligence personnel trained Kurdish forces fighting Iraqi troops, supplied humanitarian assistance and helped Kurdish leaders reach Western governments, particularly Washington. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly supported an independent Kurdish state in June 2014. Israel then openly backed the 2017 Kurdistan Region independence referendum.^{6, 15, 16}

In May 2015, Kurdistan’s parliament created government departments for seven religious minorities, including Jews and Yazidis. Later that year, Sherzad Omer Mamsani was appointed Jewish Affairs Representative to serve local Jews and strengthen ties with Israel and Jewish communities worldwide. Jewish–Kurdish solidarity remained visible beyond government relations. In February 2024, Kurdish diaspora organizations from Germany, Denmark and Austria sent a delegation to Israel, where members visited sites of the October 7 attacks and expressed solidarity with Jews. Some Israelis evacuated from northern communities during that period had Kurdish Jewish connections, illustrating how family history continued to connect the two peoples.^{1, 6, 17}