IKN - Israel Kurdistan Network

Protestors in Tel Aviv: "Free Kurdistan"

2010-06-02T12:39:00.000-07:00

Jewish buildings in southern Kurdistan

2010-05-01T05:25:00.000-07:00

One of the few original buildings in the Jewish quarter in Silêmanî (Sulaimaniyah), iraqi Kurdistan

Near Zarvia Dji, "The Land of the Jews" - outside Akre.

Pictures: Kurdistan Adventures

Israel Kurd issue 2 [PDF]

2010-04-25T05:32:00.000-07:00

The latest issue of Israel Kurd are now available online, both in English and Kurdish.

Read Israel Kurd issue 2

Israel-Kurd free online!

2009-12-28T06:06:00.000-08:00

The newly established Israel Kurd magazine has released its first issue online as a PDF file.

Please share and read!

READ ISRAEL-KURD Issue nr.1! (.PDF FILE)

IsraelKurd.com (English) IsraelKurd.com (Kurdish)

Appeal from an Israel – kurd organization to the world public opinion about the current situation in Turkey in general and Kurdistan in the private

2009-12-28T03:22:00.000-08:00

The Time at which all the politics and leaders in the free world trying and take steps opining doors for democracy prevails and promotion of human rights, the time we still remember what the Nazis committed crimes against Humanity, we believe that the current crimes are binging with the Kurdish people at this moment.

The Turkish government practice immoral Rights of the Kurdish people in Turkey and immoral the rights of leaders elected by the people and arresting them in prisons with have no rights, and to losing most basic rights of citizenship without respecting basic laws of Human Rights in the world, here to be an appeal to the leaders of the world and to the free world nations led by the United Nation and the United state of America and European Union, tell them you want to make the Kurdish people and the liberation movement as a terrorist movement such as Taliban, al-Qaeda, hamas and Islamic jihad and Lebanon Hezbollah terrorist’s.

For a nobility that we would kindly ask you to all humanitarian duty and responsibility of historical incident to you that you intervene with all power you have to stop these crimes and violations and un democratic practice against Kurdish people as soon as possible , do appeal to Turkish government to stopping this indiscriminate against Kurdish nation.we believe that

the middle east does not need to be a forty million kurds people, rather than the exercise of democratic rights and humanitarian action to change movements and extremist groups who suffer from the world, we as a people are going take the same sufferings

Once again, this humanitarian appeal and an entrepreneur directed to the international conscience to take action to contain and resolve this, salute and thank all stakeholders who interact with human conscience with the issue that people sympathize with the oppressed and suffering with our best wishes and appreciation to all of you.

26-12-2009 Dawood Baghstani President of Israel- Kurd Organization http://www.israelkurd.com/en/

Kurds inviting Kurdish Jews back to Kurdistan from Israel

2009-08-11T16:22:00.000-07:00

(Newspaper "Israel Kurds")

Although the glory of the pride of the Iraqi Kurds leader Saladin, the ancestral origins of the region, which was preferred to the recovery of Jerusalem from the families of the crusader occupation and the consolidation of the Islamic world under the flag, but the Kurdish region of Iraq and live a different reality today.

Is no longer strange that the eye is the Star of David on top of the first page of a newspaper or magazine, issued in the autonomous province, and he frowned a banner headline that read versions of those calling for the return of Jews to the region. Some of these calls were published and promoted by the magazine "Israel Kurds" by the Kurdish people in Arbil, the capital of the province.

And promote the magazine explicitly to accept the return of Jews to the region they are Kurds, and publishes statistics on the presence of more than 150 Kurdish Jew.

Reactions to the grass-roots level in the Kurdish street, ranging from indifference and welcome.

In a report aired by Al Arabiya television said the Kurdish people: "I am the owner of the library and bring all the magazines and publications of the time before and after the Intifada."

Another says that if the rights of Jews in the region are welcome, and easy for them, considering that this is normal if an Israeli or an Israeli.

While a third say that the call was unusual, they are human beings and we are humans and we will visit them as tourists and they come to their country.

Even among some of the Islamists, they do not see in it a provocation to the feelings of Muslims but just a suggestion.

For his part, said Farhad Awni headline the Kurds that the issuance of the magazine and its call for the return of the Jews in accordance with the law, which does not allow the existence of barriers to the press and freedom of expression even though the street, in conformity with the official opinion of the federal government refuses to establish relations with Israel.

Contrary to those views in a Jewish neighborhood in Erbil, where the buildings still reflect the footprint of building the Jewish people through some of the fear of such a return in the near future.

The woman in the age of them, "When I lived in the region has not a Jew, and came back and started to remember the Jewish area, and he said this was my home and I heard that the Jews to get out of the region said that we will get back in the day, and I do not have a home and need-to-house."

To watch the video on the subject, click here

Discords over Kurd-Israel ties

2009-08-09T16:20:00.001-07:00

Kurdish politicians and intellectuals say Kurdish relationship with Israel would take place only through Iraq as Kurdistan is a part of Iraq. Kurdistan Region is a part of Iraq as it is responsible for building relations with other states, expert for Kurdish relations with the Mideast countries Bukhari Abdullah said. “We are Iraqis. If Iraq has relations with Israel, then we are included and vice versa is also true”, he added.

“Kurdish leaders have repeated several times, if Iraq has relations with Israel, that relation directly incorporates Kurds,” head of KDP foreign relations Safin Dizayee said. We are committed to the Iraqi constitution as it put foreign relations directly to shoulders of the Iraqi foreign ministry, he added.

Having relations with a democratic country like Israel is not a sin and most of the Arab countries have relations with it, Kurdish writer and journalist Zirak Kamal said.

Those who say that Kurds have relations with Israel have no evidence as “there is no relation between both’, college instructor Marif Omer said. Relations is built according to development and economic interests, so there is nothing dangerous in that, Omer said.

AKnews

Bengio: Israel has no clear Kurdish policy

2009-07-20T05:07:00.000-07:00

RUDAW.NET

19-07-2009
Bengio: Israel has no clear Kurdish policy

By Hawar Abdulrazaq

Ofra Bengio is senior research fellow at the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and Africa Studies and senior lecturer in the Department of Middle Eastern History at Tel Aviv University. She is the author of Saddam's Word: Political Discourse in Iraq (1998) and co-editor of Minorities and the State in the Arab World (1999) and The Turkish-Israeli Relation: Changing Ties of Middle Eastern Outsiders (2004).

She says in an interview with Rudaw that Israel has no clear policy towards the Kurds and that the Kurdish government fears for an Arabic backlash, if they establish clear relations with Israel.

Is there are relation between Iraqi Kurds and Israel?

According to different sources there are certain ties between Israel and the Kurds but these are mostly through third parties. In fact certain business transactions had existed even under Saddam Hussein who benefited from certain goods coming from Israel but which did not carry the name Israel.

Does the Israeli government has a clear policy towards Kurds?

I do not think there is clear Israeli policy towards the Kurds because the Kurds themselves are ambivalent about such relations and because Jerusalem does not want to antagonize Turkey.

Do you think it’s love or ignorance that Kurds living in a Muslim region still like Israel?

As two non-Arab peoples the Israelis and the Kurds see eye to eye on certain things. The Kurds of Iraq may take the Israeli experience as a model. Israelis on the other hand have great sympathy with the sufferings of the Kurds which were persecuted by the regimes in Iraq. They would like to see them prospering in their autonomous region. Officially Israel has nothing to do with the way the Iraqi state develops. It is an entirely Iraqi business.

America has softened it’s stance towards Iran. Do you think they will so far as given up on Iran’s nuclear program and the normalization of U.S and Iran's relations?

The American policy has not yet crystallized. It is still in the stage of trial and error and there is therefore great ambivalence and ambiguity in its declarations and policies. It certainty does not want to see Iran going nuclear but on the other hand does not know how to tackle the problem. as to Obama relations with Israel it is not as strong and as intimate as that of Bush but things may change in the future. For now Jerusalem and Washington do not see eye to eye on the means to solve the Iranian issue but Developments in North Korea might change The American soft approach.

After Erdogan’s angry statements towards Israel and his support to Hamas, is Israel thinking of replacing Turkey with the Kurds as their strongest alley in the region?

Relations between Israel and Turkey have suffered of late a severe crisis. Still neither of the two seems willing to give up altogether their strategic relations due to certain common dangers emanating from Iran for example. Relations between Israel on the one hand and Turkey and the Kurds on the other need not be mutually exclusive. Turkey has relations with Israel and the Palestinians and Israel can have relations with Turkey and the KRG. In fact it is the KRG which is reluctant to have such relations for fear of the reaction of the Arab world and especially of the Arabs of Iraq. In spite of the toning down of anti Israeli rhetoric's in Baghdad the possibility of it having relations with Israel seem far fetched now. The same is true for an Israeli consulate in Irbil.

How do you see the Kurdish future?

The Kurdish movement appears to be in a better shape now than any time in the past. The Kurdish experiment in Iraq is quite successful and the Kurds of Turkey are also gaining more and more rights. There are strong voices in Turkey for peaceful solutions of the Kurdish problem there while Ankara has been the lifeline for the KRG. The Kurdish situation is in a great flux in the region but it seems that their gains in Iraq for example cannot be taken from them any more.

Nahariya back to Kurdistan

2009-07-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

Mtzweid Israeli passport, without trying to hide your identity, deaf Mordechai Ben Menashe, used to tie Nahariya, the districts his childhood in Iraq, along with three friends. Accompanied by surviving soldiers, jumped Lmosol Muslim kings won dignity

Eddie wave Published: 18.06.09, 15:37

Cshgis Mordechai Ben Menashe, Nahariya -72 year old, the passport Israeli policeman at the airport customs of Irbil, northern Iraq, it was for the most natural thing to do. For Ben Menashe, Northern Iraq is a second home and visiting there is not more from a visit to Roots. Customs cop, something surprised submitted her passport, a question in English what exactly does Ben Menachem name.

Mordechai, without be confused, said her straight Kurdish, a tone of irony, that when living there, is not yet born. "Clerical Hmoftat, she saw that I understand the language, she called the officer pulled be confused without the visa stamp and put me on the Israeli passport."

Thus, for two weeks, turned Ben Menashe along with three other friends dragging him from the country, across the North of Iraq, makes a good time, and the health of the clean air Kurdistan, already planning the next visit to Iraq.

"I knew that there will be problems. I have contacts there I save over the years. I knew that they were willing to give everyone one has an Israeli passport, which says he was born in Iraq, to visit there."

Ben Menashe's story at first sounds like a thousand stories night and night, but his apartment in Nahariya, he shows pride and the Israeli passport stamp can not be confused

About identity: Iraqi Republic, in English and Arabic.

Scattered on the table numerous pictures, some meaningful special מקברי צדיקים northern Iraq. Ben Menashe was born 72 years ago Bkozing 'kilometers, then a small town with 25 thousand inhabitants, the city is developed with approximately - 300 thousand inhabitants. His father, Avraham z "l, who was the owner of a gold shop in the city and died in Iraq, Sarah, immigrated to Israel in 1951, through Cyprus with nine children.

The family settled in Afula and Mordechai married with a beautiful wife passed Nahariya. Ben Menashe remember well his childhood in Iraq and after 58 years in the country. He speaks Kurdish and Arabic, is rooted in what is happening there, up to date trip to North Iraq was not, apparently, the last. During the conversation with him it became clear that there has already visited Cssdam Hussein controlled the country.

Between Jews Kurds have good relations, which lasted hundreds of years. Always these two minorities were Hnrdfim Ocrto alliance in Iraq. Even today, according to the Menashe Jews Kurds consider their alliance. Took a picture of one of the pictures belong to a visit last appears respectable, dressed in clothes of traditional Kurds.

Ben Menashe no satisfaction in the cities visited Kurdish north of Iraq, and he also visited the cities Mosol, softening, etc., Arab towns in Israel where love is not really flush. "Kurds have given him four soldiers will be accompanied by us in the cities of the Arab. There is much in קברי צדיקים, grave of the Prophet Daniel, Hanania's help. Visited them all."

Not afraid? Though Iraq is still at war.
"I do not remember even one moment of fear. Not really. Kurdish region received us like kings. Dynasty even invited us to the district to visit. In the Arab soldiers accompanied us and it was fine. While we were there was an explosion and the north - 24 people were killed. But the officer who accompanied us said assumption assumptions tadpole not Hurt ".

Kurdish Wedding Dance Israel

2009-07-08T04:00:00.001-07:00

Jews in Khanaqin, southern Kurdistan

2009-06-20T15:28:00.000-07:00

A typical wealthy house of old Khanaqin town. This one is near the old " Seray" just a street across from the river Elwen. It belonged to a jewish family. They were uprouted in late 1940es by the Arab iraqi government. In 2005 the neighbours still remebered them. They had sold the house to Ghazi Agha Bajalan.

Itzik Kala

2009-05-11T06:03:00.000-07:00

Itzik Kala, a Kurd born and raised in Jerusalem, performing in Israel.

The Kurds, Israel, and the Future of Syria

2009-04-13T16:04:00.000-07:00

The Kurds, Israel, and the Future of Syria

(PDF Document)

Editor's Column about the Jews in Kurdistan

2009-04-08T09:08:00.000-07:00

Editor's Column

Enduring voices

by Andrew Silow-Carroll
NJJN Editor-in-Chief

April 9, 2009

I was exchanging e-mails recently with a reader about a column I wrote defending endogamy — that is, marriage between two Jews. “A bigot is one strongly loyal to one’s own social group, yet irrationally and prejudicially intolerant or disdainful of others,” he wrote. “If this paper’s chief editor is not a bigot — as he hopes — after reading this [column], I’m left wondering what he thinks he is.”

I don’t think I am intolerant of anything, unless you count lactose.

But his question continues to nag at me: Why does any culture value its own transmission, and can I justify the Jewish obsession with continuity in an era of multiple identities and, the flip side, violent tribalism?

In my defense, I quoted the work of K. David Harrison, a linguist who studies dying languages. According to his Enduring Voices Project, “Nearly 80 percent of the world’s population speaks only one percent of its languages. When the last speaker of a language dies, the world loses the knowledge that was contained in that language.”

By extension, Judaism is a culture with a rich language — not just Hebrew or Yiddish but a language of ritual, of social norms, of worship, of behaviors that order its practitioners’ world — in short, a rich system of knowledge. To dedicate oneself to preserving that shows no disdain for other cultures. Consider: When colonial powers try to wipe away traces of an indigenous culture, we call it ethnic cleansing. When Jews seek other Jews in order to live as rich a Jewish life as possible, some call it bigotry.

Soon after this exchange I came upon Ariel Sabar’s beautiful new book, My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq. Sabar’s father, Yona, is the world’s preeminent expert on Neo-Aramaic, the language he grew up speaking in the Jewish quarter of Zakho, a Kurdish market town in northern Iraq. The book traces Yona’s journey from Kurdistan to Israel to southern California, where he is a professor at UCLA.

The book is an American-born, journalist son’s attempt to reconnect with a father he once dismissed as an awkward, hopelessly uncool immigrant. But it is also a rumination on language and Jewish culture, and the ways, and worth, of trying to preserve both.

For perhaps 1,700 years and until the seventh-century rise of Arabic, Aramaic was to the Levant what English is to the modern world: its lingua franca. The language lives on in the Talmud, the Zohar, the traditional wedding ketuba, and other texts. You hear it in the Mourner’s Kaddish and the Kol Nidrei prayer chanted on Yom Kippur eve.

But “lives” is a relative term — Aramaic began disappearing as a living Jewish language with the immigration of Iraq’s small Kurdish-Jewish community to Israel in the 1950s. Like Yona Sabar, Kurdish Jews made a lightning leap from the 18th century to the 20th, and the language barely made the crossing.

Ariel Sabar recreates the lost Jewish world of Zakho, where his hard-working grandparents thrived as dyers and textile merchants. Israel is a shock, and Yona’s parents and grandfather are adrift in the ramshackle tent cities and slums built to accommodate the flood of new immigrants. As Kurds, they occupy perhaps the lowest rung on Israel’s strict ladder of ethnic hierarchy. (One of the book’s heroes is Itzhak Ben-Zvi, Israel’s second president, an Ashkenazi Jew who championed the study and preservation of “Oriental” Jewish cultures.)

Out of this world Yona emerges as an unlikely scholar at Hebrew University with a rare distinction: fluency in a language that other scholars know only from the synagogue and dusty manuscripts. He soon lands at Yale and eventually becomes a lionized academic and teacher in Los Angeles. Writes Ariel: “Teaching Aramaic in America, I came to see, was how he sang God’s song in a strange land.”

Ariel, meanwhile, grows up a typical California kid, embarrassed by his father’s eccentricities and distant from his plucked Jewish roots. Ariel marries a non-Jewish woman and, while he pledges to raise their son as a Jew, disappoints the family by refusing to have the boy circumcised.

And here a reader is tempted to cluck his tongue and lament the withering of another branch on the Jewish family tree. But there is something cannier and more surprising going on in My Father’s Paradise. Ariel thinks long and hard about what we owe the past, and the future. He can’t live his father’s life, any more than his father can live in the dusty alleyways of Zakho. But he can tell the story of the Kurdish Jews, of Aramaic, and of his father’s heroic efforts to remember both.

Ariel Sabar made his choices; you and I might make others. His book suggests the various ways we can embrace diversity while adding new chapters to the cultures we inherit.

“Jews had carried a flame into the hills of Kurdistan, and they carried it out, still burning, 2,700 years later,” he writes. “My father touched another candle to it and brought it across continents. I didn’t want it to die with me. If my children ever feel adrift, unsure of who they are, I want that candle to still be burning.”

Jewish presence in Kurdistan

2009-04-07T02:43:00.000-07:00

Jewish presence in Kurdistan goes back to the 9th century BC when Assyrian king Shalmeneser III settled deported Jews in the area between 858 and 824 BC. In the first century BC, Jewish teachers gave their congregations the freedom to proselytize which resulted in many Kurds converting to Judaism.

By the beginning of the 2nd century AD, Judaism was well established in Kurdistan Jewish presence continued until the middle of this century when the modem state of Israel was formed.

In the 17th Century AD Rabbi Samuel Barzani founded numerous seminaries and schools in Kurdistan. Even in this century, in the early 1900s several Jewish schools were open for both Jewish and non-Jewish Kurds. These schools remained in operation until shortly after the formation of the Jewish state in 1948. Since then many Kurdish Jews have moved to Israel where they live in Kurdish enclaves and maintain their ethnic customs.

Many older Kurds still carry memories of their Jewish neighbors and friends.

David Star on Amed Wall, Kurdistan

2009-04-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

David Star on Amed Wall, northern Kurdistan (Diyarbakir, Southeast Turkey)

Starting from the earliest times, the city was ruled by the Hurri-Mithani, Hittites and Assyrians. It was once the capital city of the Arami Bit-Zamani Kingdom. It was later occupied or ruled by the Meds, Persians, Macedonians, Seleukos, Romans, the Ilkhanide and the Akkoyunlu Seljuks. It is referred to as Amidi, Amid, Amido or Amida in different sources. In Islamic - Arabic sources it is cited as "Diyar-i Berk". In the republican era it is started to be known as Diyarbakir deriving from the copper ore existing in the area.

(The Amed wall)

"Kurds and Jews"

2009-04-01T02:43:00.000-07:00

Pictures from the event:

"Kurder och judar" - information in Swedish from Fredrik Malms blog

KURD AND JEWS
The Jewish Friendassociation greet all welcome for a program on
Kurds - of Jews only friends in the Middle East?

Tuesday March 31, 2009 kl. 18.30
Jewish Center, Nybrogatan 19, 2 tr. Valentin Hall

Fredrik Malm, Member of Parliament for the Liberal Party and chairman of the Stockholm section of the Sweden-Israel, speaking of politics, oppression and cultural heritage.

Many Kurds and Jews feel moral and political solidarity with each other. Thousands of Kurdish Jews emigrated in the 1950s from Kurdistan to Israel. Today, the Kurds in Iraq upon their autonomy, particularly with Israel as a source of inspiration.

Israeli-Kurdish Friendship League

2009-03-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

The Israeli-Kurdish Friendship League(IKFL) was established in Jerusalem, in 1993, by activists and scholars from Israel and the US. Its raison d'être was to foster bonds of friendship, as well as cultural and scholarly ties, between Israelis, Jews and Kurds worldwide.

Visit the Israeli-Kurdish Friendship League blog here

Ben-Zion Israeli's travel to Kurdistan

2009-03-01T03:40:00.001-08:00

Material from ynetnews.com about the journeys of Ben-Zion.

This article and the following one will feature photos from the 1930s documenting Ben-Zion's trips to Egypt, Iraq, Kurdistan and Persia. Ben-Zion was sent on a mission by the Zionist settlement, which sought to revive the growing of palms in Israel.

Ben-Zion meets with Jews in the village of Sindoor

Ben-Zion meets with Jewish families in the village of Sindoor

1934, Jews' homes in the village of Sindoor in Kurdistan

In the city of Kirkuk, known for its oil wells (Ben-Zion is holding on to the electric pole)

In 1934, the Agency asked Ben-Zion to contact the Israel community in Mosul. In the photo: A classroom for Jewish children with the teacher holding a stick

Kirkuk

1933, Ben-Zion near Prophet Jonah's grave in Nineveh (Mosul)

That year Ben-Zion travels to the Kurdistan region in order to contact the Israel communities in the villages. This is a photo from one of the villages in Kurdistan

D. Ben-Zion meeting with Jewish families in village of Sindoor

C. Ben-Zion standing next to 102-year-old Jew in village of Sindoor, Kurdistan

B. A convoy of camels in Kurdistan

Turkish PM Erdogan Storms Out of World Economic Forum

2009-02-15T04:14:00.000-08:00

Rep. Pallone Challenges Turkey's Genocide Hypocrisy

2009-02-15T04:13:00.000-08:00

CHAK "The Kurdish people are with you" - Holocaust rememberence

2009-02-05T10:13:00.000-08:00

The Kurdish people are with you
- CHAK (The Centre of Halabja against Anfalazation and Genocide of Kurds)

The Holocaust was the systematic murder of millions of Jewish people by the Nazi regime and its collaborators before and during WWII. The Holocaust is the most brutal genocide that history has ever witnessed, and Kurdish people join Jewish people all over the world in remembering the Holocaust.

Unfortunately, humanity has witnessed the genocide of a number of peoples both before and after WWII. Currently, the world passively watches the genocide ofthe people of Darfur. Such brutal crimes against humanity are not hidden away in our past but are real in many corners of the world today. We must do something together to stop this madness.

Kurdish people have also dealt with this most terrible of crimes: the slaughter of Ezdi Kurds by the young Turks in 1916; genocide committed by the Kemalist regime of Turkey between 1937 and 1938; the mass killing and ethnic cleansing crimes against the Faili Kurds by the Arab regimes of Iraq; the mass killings of around 8,000 Barzani Kurds in 1983; the chemical bombardment of Kurdish villages between 1987 and 1988; the chemical attacks on Serdashtin 1987; the chemical attacks on Halabja in 1988, which killed 5,000 people; and the ethnic cleansing attacks that culminated during the Anfal genocidal campaign in 1988, resulting in the disappearance of approximately 182,000 Kurds and the destruction of around 4,000 Kurdish villages.

Kurdish people are still oppressed by Turkey, Iran, and Syria, and many crimes against Kurds continue today, such as the prosecution and murder of intellectuals and human rights activists and the bombarding of Kurdish villages.While we are remembering the tragedy of the Holocaust, we appeal to the international community to do something to stop crimes against humanity everywhere in the world and make the world a more peaceful place for allpeople regardless of race, religion, faith, color, or culture.

Kurdocide Watch (CHAK) January 2009

Israel hopes to colonize parts of Iraq as ‘Greater Israel’

2009-02-01T05:45:00.000-08:00

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer

(WMR) -- Israeli expansionists, their intentions to take full control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and permanently keep the Golan Heights of Syria and expand into southern Lebanon already well known, also have their eyes on parts of Iraq considered part of a biblical “Greater Israel.”

Israel reportedly has plans to relocate thousands of Kurdish Jews from Israel, including expatriates from Kurdish Iran, to the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Nineveh under the guise of religious pilgrimages to ancient Jewish religious shrines. According to Kurdish sources, the Israelis are secretly working with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to carry out the integration of Kurdish and other Jews into areas of Iraq under control of the KRG.

Kurdish, Iraqi Sunni Muslims, and Turkmen have noted that Kurdish Israelis began to buy land in Iraqi Kurdistan, after the U.S. invasion in 2003, that is considered historical Jewish “property.”

The Israelis are particularly interested in the shrine of the Jewish prophet Nahum in al Qush, the prophet Jonah in Mosul, and the tomb of the prophet Daniel in Kirkuk. Israelis are also trying to claim Jewish “properties” outside of the Kurdish region, including the shrine of Ezekiel in the village of al-Kifl in Babel Province near Najaf and the tomb of Ezra in al-Uzayr in Misan Province, near Basra, both in southern Iraq’s Shi’a-dominated territory. Israeli expansionists consider these shrines and tombs as much a part of “Greater Israel” as Jerusalem and the West Bank, which they call “Judea and Samaria.”

Kurdish and Iraqi sources report that Israel’s Mossad is working hand-in-hand with Israeli companies and “tourists” to stake a claim to the Jewish “properties” of Israel in Iraq. The Mossad has already been heavily involved in training the Kurdish Pesha Merga military forces.

Reportedly assisting the Israelis are foreign mercenaries paid for by U.S. Christian evangelical circles that support the concept of “Christian Zionism.”

Iraqi nationalists charge that the Israeli expansion into Iraq is supported by both major Kurdish factions, including the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan headed by Iraq’s nominal President Jalal Talabani. Talabani’s son, Qubad Talabani, serves as the KRG’s representative in Washington, where he lives with his wife Sherri Kraham, who is Jewish.

Also supporting the Israeli land acquisition activities is the Kurdistan Democratic Party, headed by Massoud Barzani, the president of the KRG. One of Barzani’s five sons, Binjirfan Barzani, is reportedly heavily involved with the Israelis.

The Israelis and their Christian Zionist supporters enter Iraq not through Baghdad but through Turkey. In order to depopulate residents of lands the Israelis claim, Mossad operatives and Christian Zionist mercenaries are staging terrorist attacks against Chaldean Christians, particularly in Nineveh, Irbil, al-Hamdaniya, Bartalah, Talasqaf, Batnayah, Bashiqah, Elkosheven, Uqrah, and Mosul.

These attacks by the Israelis and their allies are usually reported as being the responsibility of “Al Qaeda” and other Islamic “jihadists.”

The ultimate aim of the Israelis is to depopulate the Christian population in and around Mosul and claim the land as biblical Jewish land that is part of “Greater Israel.” The Israeli/Christian Zionist operation is a replay of the depopulation of the Palestinians in the British mandate of Palestine after World War II.

In June 2003, a delegation of Israelis visited Mosul and said that it was Israel’s intentions, with the assistance of Barzani, to establish Israeli control of the shrine of Jonah in Mosul and the shrine of Nahum in the Mosul plains. The Israelis said Israeli and Iranian Jewish pilgrims would travel via Turkey to the area of Mosul and take over lands where Iraqi Christians lived.

Evolution of a genetic disease in an ethnic isolate: - Thalassemia in the Jews of Kurdistan

2009-01-25T16:21:00.000-08:00

Evolution of a genetic disease in an ethnic isolate: - Thalassemia in the Jews of Kurdistan

>>Read the full article here<<

"Expert" on Jews and Freemasons Baha Al-Amir: George Bush Invaded Iraq in Order to Implement a Judeo-Masonic Agenda

2009-01-19T05:02:00.000-08:00

Israel and Turkey: so different, yet so similar, yet so different...

2009-01-07T23:47:00.000-08:00

From Turkishdiary.blogspot.com

Israel and Turkey: so different, yet so similar, yet so different...

Turkey has recently condemned Israel's offensive in Gaza. Ankara has even decided to suspend its mediating efforts between Israel and Syria.

It would be easy to dismiss such a position as just solidarity with the Muslim brothers and sisters in Gaza. Not that it would be wrong. But I would like to change the perspective in the issue, noticing that Israel and Turkey, two long-standing allies, have more in common than one could imagine. And that is what I am going to highlight right now.

Both Turkey and Israel are countries which are strongly defined by their main religions, and yet both are convinced secular countries. In both cases religion identifies largely with ethnicity (with the important exceptions of Kurds, of course, where ethnicity is predominant, and Alevis, who are not considered as a religion minority). Which has brought discrimination and / or war against religious and / or ethnic minorities. The modalities are different, but the similarities are striking.
Both Turkey and Israel are countries which have been artificially created by the international community. Israel, through the partition of Palestine into two states decided by the United Nations in 1947; Turkey, through the Treaty of Lausanne, which in 1923 replaced the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, actually reintegrating a series of territories which had been previously stripped off it, and frustrating the Kurds' hopes for an independent State (hopes that had been fed by the Treaty of Sèvres). I should add that the international community has not little responsibility in the Armenian genocide.
This may be little more than a curiosity, but I think it's significant. Both countries have compulsory military service. In Israel, it applies both to men (3 years) and women (2 years); in Turkey, it's mandatory only for men (15 months). I admit I don't know what the consequences of this are in Israel (where a limited amount of conscientious objection exists anyway), but I know in Turkey for a long time this situation helped PKK recruit militants, since many Kurds did not wish to be sent to fight against their own fathers or brothers, preferring rather fight at their side.
Both countries are just a few weeks away from the next electoral rendez-vous. On February 10, Israelis will vote for the next government (and, for those of you who can read French, I suggest that you go through this interesting article by Le Monde); on March 29, municipal elections will take place in Turkey.

Let me focus on this last point. The key issue in Turkey's local elections will be the Kurdish majority regions (what PKK and in general militant Kurds refer to as “Kurdistan”, a word that in Turkey can bring you straight to prison). On the subject, I can recommend you this article on the Christian Science Monitor.

Now, what has been the big news in Turkey in the last few days (apart from Nazim Hikmet's rehabilitation)? I quote from Reuters:

Turkey has launched its first 24-hour Kurdish-language TV station

Which brings me to the conclusion:

Israel is moving towards elections → Israel bombs Palestinians
Turkey is moving towards elections → Turkey gives more rights to Kurds

Of course Kurds are not satisfied, and they are not completely paranoid in considering this decision as a way by the government to get as many votes as they can, in short a propaganda move. It is also true that Ankara has quite a double-face attitude: while PKK is considered a terrorist group, soon after Hamas won the elections the AKP government welcomed to Turkey Khaled Meshal, the exiled Hamas leader. And they never uttered a word about the rockets fired against Israel.

Nonetheless, one cannot help noticing that making propaganda through opening up to minorities is a more democratic way than bombing civilians. So, what are the main differences in this situation? Why do two similar countries in two similar situations act in such different ways?

First of all, Turkey is a EU candidate. It is true that in the last few years the great reform impulse that marked the first period of the AKP government has slowed down, if not thoroughly stopped. And the new nationalistic vague has not helped in that sense. It is also true that this government is struggling hard at least to show a nice image of itself, which is surely not enough, but it's helping improvement. And improvement is never easy, especially for a proud people like Turks. The journey is still long, but the path is the right one.

Now, this doesn't mean of course that Israel should be a candidate to the EU, but at least it shows that the EU can actually have a role in international politics. More than that: personally, I think we have a responsibility in that sense.

But in all this story we must not forget one decisive point: in Turkey Kurds vote. In Israel Palestinians don't.

Jews Undercover - Iran

2009-01-03T03:19:00.000-08:00

Jews Undercover - Iran (Journeyman pictures clip)

It's not easy being a Jewish MP in an assembly that routinely calls for the destruction of Israel, but Iranian Jews' rights are protected by law.

Fredrik Malm (fp) on the road to peace in the Middle East: The Palestinians should learn from the Kurds

2008-12-29T05:58:00.000-08:00

This article is translated from Swedish
Read the Swedish verision here (Newsmill - Palestinierna borde lära av kurderna)

Fredrik Malm is a member of parliament for the Liberal Party and candidate for Parliament.

Fredrik Malm (fp) on the road to peace in the Middle East: The Palestinians should learn from the Kurds

Published: 2008-12-28, Updated: 2008-12-28

(Malm in Kurdistan)

"By constantly manifest an implacable for the existence of Israel, the Hamas leadership reinforced the perception among Israelis that there is no alternative but to again and again to violence to ensure that Palestinians in Gaza moved back to square one." It provides Member of Parliament FREDRIK MALM (fp).

For three years since Israel evacuated its settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip. After the peace process collapse and subsequent four years of Palestinian uprising was no counterpart to negotiate. The settlers were bought out or worn out, and Israel closed the border and controlled coastal and luftfrum. But the evacuation from Gaza meant the fact that the Palestinians for the first time since the Palestinian National mevetandets birth gained control over the entire Gaza Strip.

Gaza could become the good Palestinian example. Despite the enormous misery and a mixture of hatred and fear Israel had the Palestinians a chance to lift themselves out of an existence marked by militant opposition, the death cult and extremism. A positive development in Gaza would pave the way for a new process on the West Bank. And it would undermine the Israeli krigshökarnas fear of a Palestinian state-building.

But it was exactly the opposite. Hamas won the elections in Palestine and was isolated by the outside world. They operated out rival Fatah by force and fired rockets daily into Israel. Islamic laws were introduced. Resources were channeled to military purposes with the aim to equip the new war against Israel. Palestinians have often appeared as defenseless. Hamas changed this to make the Palestinians as irresponsible. This will be their strong cooperation with and dependence on Iran, which further strengthens the threat against Israel.

Yesterday, as Israel took the step of targeted air strikes hit the dozens of Hamas Fasteners in Gaza. Several hundred have been killed, most of them from Hamas security apparatus. The death figures horrifies and always killed several civilians even when military targets are attacked. This is only the beginning. Israel will implement some form of ground offensive in order to further smash the Hamas infrastructure. If the conflict entering the streets and houses in danger death rate soar.

But let us draw a brief parallel to another area. After the Gulf War in 1991 drove the Kurds to Saddam Hussein's army from northern Iraq and set up a self. It was the first time in decades as the Kurds, who lived in the area for millennia, also controlled it. Iraqi Kurdistan was then a larger ruin than Gaza, and had nearly 200 000 people killed in the genocide, and several million refugees returned from neighboring countries.

The Kurds had no income since the UN sanctions against Iraq also included them, and Saddam Hussein, imposed on top of that a blockade against northern Iraq where the power supply and the supply stopped. The Kurdish parties came soon in the civil strife, just as Hamas and Fatah did.

The parallels between Iraqi Kurdistan and Gaza are many. But there is a significant difference: the Kurds never used their newly won freedom to fire at Arab communities or to support the War against the rest of Iraq. Internal conflict was solved by a ceasefire and a - certainly less democratic - the separation of powers. Despite enormous problems, traumas since the wars, hostile neighbors, political leadership from the guerrillas and little educated population so kavlade Kurds up our sleeves and took the responsibility to build something. Nothing perfect, not fully democratic - but a zone of stability that does not threaten its neighbors and is seeking bilateral talks. And above all, an area that is being developed.

The Palestinian nationalism has followed an entirely different trend. Its overarching objective has been to not accept the existence of the State of Israel. With time, the PLO / Fatah have become increasingly moderate and open to negotiations, but they have lost many Palestinians support as a result of corruption and abuse of power. Instead, Hamas has strengthened the trend of Palestinian intransigence - which is also constantly growing in pace with the Israeli attacks, the daily humiliations at checkpoints, martyr propaganda in Arab media and the lack of Palestinian democratic alternative.

By constantly manifest an implacable for the existence of Israel, Hamas ledarksap enhanced sense among Israelis that there is no alternative but to again and again to violence to ensure that Palestinians in Gaza moved back to square one. And through an iron grip around the enclave it difficult for Palestinians to get even to square two.

There are essentially only one way to ultimately break this våldssprial. It is a Palestinian leadership in Gaza, which has the primary aim to develop Gaza and make life bearable for those who live there - instead of looking for new conflict with Israel. This must be done while Israel gives the Palestinians the opportunity to walk the road, something Israel has not made an effort to significantly to facilitate. By highlighting the checkpoints in the West Bank, facilitate the movement of Palestinian workers, facilitate trade and importation of supplies, so Israel can also send a signal to the Palestinians to iron grip can be easier if the Palestinians decide to walk a different path. And on the day the Palestinians choose leaders who want to walk this road, the new challenge for Israel - to accept and facilitate the process.

FREDRIK MALM

Voyage to Kurdistan

2008-12-11T06:57:00.000-08:00

Type: CD
Discs: 1
Year: 2005
Genre: Music, Oriental, Kurdish
Barcode: 6483-7293627811620

> Samples from the album here <

Articles in Kurdish about the Kurdish-Jewish relations

2008-12-11T06:46:00.001-08:00

Fermo rêzehevpeyvînên din bixwînin:

Dostaniya Kurd û Cuhûwan (Kurdish-Jewish relations)

2008-12-11T06:40:00.000-08:00

MC
NETKURD
Aktuelbûn:13:05 - 11/12/2008

Têkiliyên Kurd û Yahûdiyan têra xwe kevnare ne, pişta xwe didin dema Imparatoriya Asuriyan, wextê êsîrkirin û ajotina wan bo xaka Medan.

Ji Gabar Çiyan pirtûkek nû:

Dostaniya Kurd û Cuhûwan

“Têkiliyên Kurd û Yahûdiyan têra xwe kevnare ne, pişta xwe didin dema Imparatoriya Asuriyan, wextê êsîrkirin û ajotina wan bo xaka Medan.

Hetanî berî niha bi demek kin jî hejmarek mezin ji cuhûwan, li başûr û bakurê welêt jiyana xwe didomandin. Îro hejmara wan kêm bûye. Gelek ji wan barkirine Israîlê. Hejmara Kurdên Cuhû li Israîlê bi qasî 200 hezarî ye. Kurdên Cuhû, anjî Cuhûwên ji Kurdistanê, îro li Israîlê jî li gorî toreyên welêt jiyana xwe didomînin.

Têkiliyên biratî û dostaniyê bi gelê xwe û yên cînar re, gavên însanî ne. Di vê çarçoveyê de têkiliyên biratiyê bi Cuhûwên Kurd re, û gavavêtinên dostaniyê bi Gelê Cuhû re divê xurtir bibe. Divê bi giştî bi çandên cewaz re, bi taybetî jî bi Kurdên olcewaz re, û bi gelên cînar re têkiliyên me ji gelek aliyan ve xurt bibe.

Gelê Cuhû mîna Kurdan, di dîroka xwe de gelek caran bi xetera qirkirinê hatiye hemberî hev: Ew jî mîna Kurdan, hatiye ajotin, kûştin, qirkirin û li cîhanê belav kirin. Lewma dîrok û tecrûbeyên wan dikare ji gelek aliyan ve ji mirovî re bibe alîkar. Her wisa rewşa herêmê, dikare şensek mezin bide me ku em nêzî hev bibin”, tê gotin di pêşgotina e-pirtûkê de.

Berî niha bi demeke kin, gerînendeyê Zarathustra News ê, rojnamevan Gabar Çiyan bi hejmarek ronakbîrên Kurd û cuhû re hevpeyvîn pêk anî bû. Çiyan, di vê xebata xwe de cî dide wan hevpeyvînan.

Pirtûk bi kurdî ye, û bê heq tê belavkirin. Kesên bixwazin dikarin bi rêya malpera EuroKurd Human Rights ê, www.eurokurd.net ê pirtûkê bixwînin û ji xwe re çap / kopiye bikin.

Zarathustra News – zoroaster@comhem.se

Kurdish wedding in Israel

2008-11-30T07:38:00.000-08:00

Le Cordon Jew: Kubbeh for Soup

2008-11-30T07:16:00.000-08:00

Kubbeh/קובה למרק/كبّ/Kubeh/Kube/Kubbe
The following recepie was found at Soul and Gone!

Kubbeh: not to be confused with kibbeh, despite being a variation of the same word for a variation on the same thing. Like kibbeh, these are made from ground meat in a chiefly bulgur shell, but they hail from the northern regions of Iraq rather than Syria, and instead of deep frying, they’re treated to a simmer in broth, making them more dumpling than mezze. In Israel, the word “kubbeh” is applied indiscriminately to both the fried and simmered variety (in Arabic, pronunciation differences between dialects leads to the discrepancy in names for the same thing), but for the sake of clarity, I’m calling these Kurdish-style dumplings “kubbeh” and the fried and raw versions predominant in the Levant “kibbeh.”

Anyway. Kubbeh are a specialty of the Jews of Kurdistan, who once formed large percentages of the population of now-infamous cities like Mosul and Arbil before immigrating to Israel en masse along with the rest of the Iraqi Jewish population in the 1940s and 1950s. My old hood in Jerusalem, centered around the Machane Yehuda market, was heavily Kurdish, home to a Kurdish-Jewish community organization that never seemed open, and dozens of restaurants, social clubs and backgammon parlors that never seemed closed. Several of the restaurants (most notably, Mordoch) specialize in kubbeh-based soups, ranging from the crimson marak kubbeh adom to the sour, green hamousta. So between Jerusalem’s Little Kurdistan and the frozen sections of Israeli supermarkets, kubbeh were never far off. But like edible hummus, Zohar Argov, responsible M16-bearing teenagers and the Divine Presence, we don’t have any here in the far reaches of Exile.

Until now.

INGREDIENTS

SHELL:

1 cup coarse bulgur (AKA #3 bulgur)
1 cup fine bulgur (AKA #1 bulgur)
1 cup semolina
1-2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt

FILLING:

Olive oil for frying
Roughly 2 pounds, or around 800-900 grams, ground beef
4 cloves garlic, crushed lightly and chopped
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

A few notes on the ingredients:

BULGUR: That’s right, two kinds of bulgur. Here’s the size difference:

Head to a Middle Eastern market, or order online (fine and coarse are available at Tulumba.com).

BEEF: Lean ground beef. 90/10, perhaps. Don’t be an idiot and get 95/5. That’s not meat. That’s seasoned Boca tofu crumbles. Get out of here and go back to sucking at the partially hydrogenated teat of Snackwell’s.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1) Mix the two types of bulgur together and add water to cover the bulgur by about an inch and a half. Let sit for 45 minutes, making sure that the bulgur remains covered by water the whole time.

2) Meanwhile, slowly fry the beef in olive oil on low heat. When the meat is very well-browned and dry, add the garlic and black pepper and continue cooking a few more minutes, then remove from heat and set aside.

3) Remove the bulgur to a strainer and squeeze it with your hand until all the excess moisture is pressed out.

4) Put the bulgur in a bowl and add the semolina and salt. Stir. Then add the flour and knead by hand until you get a nice stiff dough. It will look like this:

Put out a hand bowl of cold water and prepare to stand in one place for an hour or two. Maybe give yourself a little pep talk. You are a Kurdish grandmother. You are a Kurdish grandmother. You were born in a village outside of Mosul. You came to Israel in 1952. You went through a stint in a ma’abarah. You grew up in Rishon. You are disappointed in your no-goodnik son for waiting until he was thirty-five years old to give you grandchildren. You don’t particularly like the grandchildren, either.

Now, you are ready.

5) Wet your hands with the bowl of water. Your hands must be constantly moist throughout the kubbeh-making process, or the dough will crumble.

Take a piece of bulgur dough the size of a small egg, or a little smaller than a golf ball. Squeeze it (with your moist hands) into a roughly round shape.

Use your thumb to create a deep indentation in the ball, then use your thumb and (MOIST) fingertips to turn the ball into a bowl. Smooth over any large cracks in the dough that appear. You can paste a little extra dough onto particularly resilient cracks.

Fill the bowl with a tablespoon or so of your seasoned ground beef. Remember, you’ll never catch a man with thick-walled, filling-poor kubbeh.

Pinch it closed and smooth the surface so you have a perfect ball.

Now keep at it, savta. You’ll probably get 30-something kubbeh out of this. Just put them in a freezer bag and keep them frozen until you have a soup that can be aided and abetted by the presence of kubbeh (which is any soup, essentially). Drop them in frozen and let those bad boys simmer for twenty minutes.

“But Michael,” you say, “I want to know how to make an authentic Kurdish-Israeli kubbeh soup.”

Ibrahim Al-Aloush : "Kurds invite Israel to destroy Iraq"

2008-11-25T02:32:00.000-08:00

Jordanian Ibrahim Al-'Aloush : "Kurds invite Israel to destroy Iraq"

Jordanian Ibrahim Al-Aloush denies Kurdish & Jewish genocides

Det kurdiska Israel

2008-11-20T12:10:00.000-08:00

Det kurdiska Israel

BEYAN.NET - den 5 oktober 2004

Shabi Avraham är en av cirka 200 000 kurdiska judar. Han har sina rötter i södra Kurdistan, men är född i Israel. Här berättar han för Daniel Bart om längtan efter sin kultur och viljan att träffa svensk-kurder.

Shabi Avraham är aktiv i Riksförbundet för kurdistanska judar i Israel.
Tillsammans med sin fru Ruthy kom han till mitt hotell i Jerusalem och vi pratade om Kurdistan och kurderna i Israel. Shabis föräldrar kom från Kurdistan 1951 i Operation Ezra och Nehemia. Shabi föddes fyra år senare. Shabis pappa kom från Zakho och hans mamma från Hewler.

När de kurdiska judarna kom till Israel hade de liksom de marockanska judarna en låg utbildningsnivå och var oförberedda för det moderna samhället. Det tog tid innan gruppen blev integrerad i det israeliska samhället.

Idag bor det uppskattningsvis 200 000 kurder i Israel. Majoriteten bor i städerna och där används varken kurdiskan eller judeo-arameiskan i någon större utsträckning. En stor minoritet bor dock fortfarande i 35 kurdiska byar på den israeliska landsbygden. Där talas både kurdiska och judeo-arameiska som byspråk såsom det var i Kurdistan. Enligt kurdologen Jonah Mordechai bodde 1986 23 procent av kurderna Israel i de kurdiska byarna.

Idag finns det en stor längtan efter kurdisk kultur bland de unga
urbana kurder som inte längre talar kurdiska. Bland unga kurder säger man ”Ani Kurdi Ge’e” vilket betyder ”Jag är stolt över att vara kurd.” Många israeliska kurder åker numera också på semester till södra och norra Kurdistan.

Shabi och Ruthy bor i samhället Beit El i det svindlande vackra
Samarien på norra Västbanken. Ingenstans är det platt bland de
samariska bergen. Ruthy arbetar som journalist på radiostationen Arutz Sheva. Jag frågar Shabi vad han tänker om kurderna i Sverige.
– De israeliska kurderna vill gärna ha kontakt med kurderna i Sverige, säger han.

Han och Ruthy blir glada när jag berättar om vänskapen mellan
kurder och judar i Sverige. De ser gärna att svenska kurder besöker Israel för att bygga vänskapsband.
– Det skulle vara väldigt uppskattat om svensk-kurdiska artister skulle vilja komma och sjunga på den stora kurdiska kulturfestival, Saharane, som äger rum varje höst i Israel, säger han.

I år arrangeras Saharane under en dag i den första veckan i oktober nära Genesarets sjö i norra Israel. Varje år besöker mellan sex och sju tusen israeliska kurder festivalen.

Shabi säger att han skulle vilja ha hjälp med att göra en engelskspråkig version av organisationens informativa webbsajt som fortfarande bara finns på hebreiska. Sajten är väldigt populär och har över 2 000 unika träffar per månad och dokumenterar de kurdiska judarnas kulturhistoria.

På flygplatsen hem köper jag flera skivor med den i Israel berömde kurdisk-israeliske musikern Itzik Kalla. På skivan ”Ana Kurdi” (judeo-arameiska för ”Jag är kurd!”) sjunger Kalla omväxlande på kurdiska och på judeo-arameiska. En vers på det ena språket följs ofta av en vers på det andra.

Bilden: Shabi Avraham och hans yngsta son.

Fakta om de kurdiska judarna:

Antal: 200 000
Språk: Kurdiska, judeo-arameiska och hebreiska
Religion: Judendom, de flesta är traditionella
Antal kurdiska byar í Israel: 35
Kontakt:info@kurdishjewry.org.il, http://www.kurdishjewry.org.il

jv_danielbart@hotmail.com


Daniel Bart

De kurdiska judarna – vilka är de?

2008-11-20T12:08:00.000-08:00

De kurdiska judarna – vilka är de?

BEYAN.NET - den 28 september 2003

Kurdistan är vid sidan av Indien det enda land i världen med en historisk judisk befolkning där judar aldrig blivit förföljda. I början av 1950-talet flyttade de flesta av Kurdistans judar till den återupprättade judiska staten Israel. Idag bor det totalt över 150 000 kurdiska judar i landet.

Enligt Talmud (den rabbinska judendomens kanoniska litteratur) bestod de första judarna i Kurdistan dels av judar från Israel som deporterades till Kurdistan av det assyriska imperiet på 800-talet före vår tid och dels av de många lokala kurder som snart därefter blev judar.

Under perioder av Kurdistans historia var en stor del av kurderna judar. Det berömda kurdisk-judiska kungariket Adiabene (100-talet före vår tid) styrdes av en judisk-kurdisk kungafamilj och en stor del av befolkningen var också kurdiska judar.

Kurdistan är vid sidan av Indien det enda land i världen med en historisk judisk befolkning där judar aldrig blivit förföljda. Med en flertusenårig närvaro i Kurdistan blev de kurdiska judarna en omistlig och integrerad del av det kurdiska samhället. De kurdiska judarna levde ofta i isolerade byar på landsbygden och är fortfarande kända för att vara mer kulturellt kurdiskt konservativa än andra kurdiska grupper. Många sedvänjor och kulturella särdrag som har fallit bort bland andra kurder upprätthålls än idag av de kurdiska judarna. De kurdiska judarna var en del av en kulturell och religiös mosaik bestående av yazdanister (aleviter, yarsanister, yezidier), judar, kristna och muslimer.

I början av 1950-talet flyttade de flesta av Kurdistans judar till den återupprättade judiska staten Israel. De allra flesta kom att bosätta sig i Jerusalem med omgivningar. Flera stadsdelar i den södra delen av det västra judiska Jerusalem är till övervägande delen kurdiska. Det finns också ett flertal kooperativa jordbruksbyar (sing. moshav plur. moshavim) nära Jerusalem som i stort är helt kurdiska. Totalt bor det över 150 000 kurdiska judar i Israel, 100 000 i Jerusalem med omnejd.

Kulturellt och språkligt kan de kurdiska judarna beskrivas som en förmedlande mellangrupp mellan kurder och araméer (”syrianer/assyrier”). Medan relationerna mellan kurder och araméer historiskt sett varit ansträngda hade de kurdiska judarna goda relationer med båda grupperna.

Liksom de kristna araméerna talar de kurdiska judarna arameiska, men det finns väsentliga språkliga skillnader mellan grupperna. Medan araméerna talar östarameiska talar de kurdiska judarna en egen form av arameiska; judeo-arameiska som skrivs med hebreiska bokstäver. Stora delar av Talmud är skrivet på en äldre form av detta språk (500 efter vår tid).
Tre olika språk användes i olika funktioner av de kurdiska judarna. Hebreiska var det språk som användes inom bön och liturgi. Judeo-arameiska användes inom familjen medan kurdiskan användes för att kommunicera med andra kurder. I de kurdiska judarna folkkultur (muntlig litteratur, musik o.s.v.) användes kurdiska.

De kurdiska judarna i Jerusalem, Israel har behållit sin kurdiska identitet och kultur. Det finns idag mycket Kurdistanromantik och många berättelser om livet i Kurdistan. De israeliska kurdernas organisationer bedriver omfattande biståndsverksamhet i både södra och nora Kurdistan och under Gulfkriget demonstrerade tusentals israeliska kurder i solidaritet med folket i södra Kurdistan.

Banden mellan kurder i Israel och kurder i Irak är idag mycket starka. Många irakiska kurder ser Israel som ett exempel på att det går att stoppa vad som ses som arabisk imperialism. De kurdiska judarna och resten av det kurdiska folket delar en lång gemensam historia. Men resten av det judiska folket och det kurdiska folket har båda en svår historia med många tragiska likheter. Det Kurdistans folk har lärt sig av Israels exempel är att ett folk som inte har en egen stat är rättslöst, värnlöst och utlämnat åt majoritetens eventuella välvilja eller godtycke.

I Stockholm byggs nu nya broar mellan judar och kurder. I våras startades ett samarbete mellan JudStud (Judisk Student i Stockholm) www.judstud.se och KSAF (Kurdiska Student och Akademikerföreningen) www.ksaf.com. Föreningarna planerar att fördjupa detta samarbete under kommande läsår.

Se också The Israeli Kurdish Friendship League www.israel-kurd.org

Professor Mehrdad Izady, världens främste kurdolog om de kurdiska judarna: http://kurdweb.humanrights.de/keo/english/religion/judaism/judaism.html


Daniel Bart

CIA about the Israel Kurdish connection

2008-11-02T14:29:00.000-08:00

the following page was found from the report "The Kurds : Rising expactations, old frustrations" at http://www.foia.cia.gov

(former classified document)

Kurds in Israel celebrating the Sukkot Holiday

2008-10-27T03:34:00.000-07:00

Sukkot refers to the Jewish holiday commemorating those forty years in which the Jewish people wandered in the desert. During this holiday the Kurd congregation in Israel holds a colorful out door festivity.

Jewish Molly Crabapple in northern Kurdistan

2008-10-20T02:35:00.000-07:00

When you were 18, you were briefly detained in a Turkish jail for sketching in Kurdistan. What did you make of the region? And as a Jew, were you sympathetic to the Kurds� longing for their own homeland?
I love the Middle East generally, and Kurdistan specifically. I studied Turkish and Arabic for years being just fluent enough in Turkish to get me into trouble, though not fluent enough to get me out of it. I dug the relaxed Kurdish take on Islam, their language, their raw, throaty music, the wild green hills near Dogubeyazit with the silver roads that went from nowhere to nowhere, how you could walk around, and within a few hours, women would invite you over for food, and how easy it was to talk to anyone. I even liked the guns and tribalism and sulfur whiff of violence.

But Southeastern Turkey five years ago was very recently a war zone. The Turkish government, despite being moderate by Middle Eastern standards, is no ideal democracy. Since Ataturk, the official party line is that minorities don't exist. Kurdish language and music were banned. Textbooks referred to Kurds as "mountain turks." "How Happy is He Who is a Turk" was written in thirty foot letters on the side of mountains.

I stayed with people who had posters of Ataturk in the front rooms, and Kurdish nationalist posters in the back. I spent a long time in a village called Hassankeyf, all ancient and honey-colored, which the government was flooding to build their new dam. Of course, they didn't make any provision for the folks living there. You can check out Amnesty International for Turkey's dismal human rights record. Police in the East also constantly hassled me for talking to locals.

While I'm not sure about splitting Turkish Kurdistan off to make a Kurdish homeland (for one thing it would be vastly poorer than the more modernized West), the Turkish government could learn a lesson about multi-cultural tolerance from the Western democracies whose trappings they try to emulate.

Great work about the Israeli Kurdish Relations

2008-10-17T06:18:00.000-07:00

>> The Israeli Kurdish relations.pdf <<

This is a interesting document by an Armenian named Sergey Minasian.

"For centuries the territory of the present-day Northern Iraq has been inhabited
by the peoples that belonged to various religious, ethnic and language groups.
Muslims (Kurds and Turkmen), Christians (Armenians and Assyrians), Yezidi and
Jews resided in this territory together. Whereas the Kurds, Yezidi, and, partially,
the Assyrians and Jews mostly lived in mountainous areas and were engaged in
nomadic husbandry, the Armenians and some Jews were mainly concentrated in
large cities and towns playing a key role in trade, finance and management"

...

"Many aspects of Kurdish and Jewish culture are so interwoven that popular
Jewish legends on the origin of the Kurds regard the latter as Jews. Some argued
that the Kurds originated from one of the break-away tribes of Israel or related
the origin of the Kurds to King Solomon, etc."

...

"This ethnic group of Jews has several names: the Kurdistani Jews, the Jews
of Zakho, and the Assyrian Jews. The Kurdistani Jews often refer to themselves as
the «anshei Targum» or the «people of Targum.» They speak the Eastern dialect of
the Neo-Aramaic language akin to the language of the Babylonian Talmud."

...

"The Parastin, the intelligence service of the Kurdish Democratic Party, was
also established with Mossad’s support in the late 1960s."

...

"According to a former senior Mossad official Eliezer Tsafrir, Israel had military
advisers at the headquarters of Mulla Mustafa Barzani in 1963-1975, trained
and supplied the Kurdish units with fire arms, field and anti-aircraft artillery."

...

"In 2004 the Israeli mass media reported about the meetings of the Israeli
officials with the Kurdish political leaders, Masud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, and
the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon publicly confirmed the good relations
with the Iraqi Kurds."

...

"Nevertheless, the development of the Israeli-Kurdish relations continues to
negatively affect the Israeli-Turkish relations. The invasion of the Israeli army to
Lebanon in the summer of 2006 and the subsequent events, including the possible
deployment of the Turkish peacekeepers in this country, once again attracted the
attention to the possible development of the strategic relations between Turkey
and Israel in the context of the Kurdish problem."

...

"In cooperation with the USA and Shah’s Iran, in the 1950s – early 1980s,
Israel provided comprehensive military and political aid to the Iraqi Kurds, which
played an important role in the continued armed struggle against the Iraqi government.
Signing the Algiers Accord between Iran and Iraq, and the 1979 Islamic
Revolution terminated the support of Kurds by Teheran in Northern Iraq, and as
a result, restricted the Israeli aid to the Kurds since the latter has no common border
with Iraq. Hence, the activity of the Israeli-Kurdish contacts in the militarypolitical
sphere dwindled dramatically up until the early 1990s, which, however,
did not diminish the significance of the Kurdish factor in the general geo-strategy
of Israel in the Near and Middle East."

First chapter for free!

2008-10-15T16:55:00.000-07:00

Ariel Sabar

! Read the first chapter of the book MY FATHER'S PARADISE ! (CLICK TO READ)

I am the keeper of my family’s stories. I am the guardianof its honor. I am the defender of its traditions. As thefirst-born son of a Kurdish father, these, they tell me, aremy duties. And yet even before my birth I resisted.Our first clash — really more of a proxy battle — was over my name.

My father wanted to call me Aram, after the swath of ancient Syria wherethe first Aramaic-speaking tribes dwelt in the second millennium b.c.A son named Aram would be a thread through three thousand years ofhistory, uncoiling through Israel and Kurdistan back to a patch of landbetween the Habur and Euphrates rivers where my father’s native languagefirst graced the lips of man. A son named Aram would pass thisawesome birthright to his own son, and that son to his, on and on downthe line, like princes in a fairy tale.This may have been my father’s reasoning.

But it was not my mother’s.She seemed to understand me even before I was born, because she didn’tmuch care for Aram. As an American she knew the cruelty of children tokids with weird names. Aram, she told my father, was a nonstarter.And so even before I drew a breath, I had landed my first blow.

Ours was a clash of civilizations, writ small. He was ancientKurdistan. I was 1980s L.A.He grew up in a dusty town in northern Iraq, in a crowded mud-brickshack without electricity or plumbing. I grew up in a white stucco ranchhouse in West Los Angeles, on a leafy street guarded by private policecruisers marked bel-air patrol.

My Father’s Paradise review

2008-10-15T16:51:00.000-07:00

My Father’s Paradise review made by jaclemens !

Read the review here!

Ariel Sabar's 'My Father's Paradise'

2008-10-15T16:49:00.001-07:00

My Father's Paradise A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq. By Ariel Sabar. Illustrated. 332 pages. $25.95. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

In the eighth century B.C., a hundred years before the Judeans were dropped by the river of Babylon, a different Jewish tribe, the Israelites, were also marched out of their ancient kingdom to begin a long exile. Unlike their Baghdadi brethren who would go on to write the Talmud, these Jews would spend the next 2,700 years isolated in the small mountain villages of Kurdistan. "They that were lost," as the prophet Isaiah described them, mostly illiterate peasant farmers, their long history and distinct language almost completely unrecorded.

Lost, that is, until Yona Beh Sabagha, the very last bar mitzvah in the bustling Kurdish border town of Zakho. Little did he know it in 1950, but the burden of being the last would define his whole life. Kurdish Jewry in Iraq would soon end as 18,000 people left for Israel, escaping the backlash triggered by the Jewish state's founding. With them, they took Aramaic, Jesus' tongue and once the lingua franca of the Middle East, which persisted in Kurdistan even after Arabic conquered the region. As Yona experienced his family's decline in Israel - his father, once a prosperous merchant in Zakho, was reduced to manual labor as members of the Kurdish community were maligned as primitives - preserving the dying language became his mission. The boy who spent every morning in Zakho's synagogue watching his grandfather, the town cloth-dyer, lost in ecstatic prayer, grew up to become a respected academic who wrote the definitive dictionary of Neo-Aramaic, the last phase in the language's evolution.

Yona Beh Sabagha's son is Ariel Sabar, a journalist and now author of what could best be described as a biography of his father that is also part history, linguistics primer and memoir. "My Father's Paradise" is a personal undertaking for a son who admits he never understood his unassuming, penny-pinching immigrant father, a man who spent three decades obsessively cataloging the words of his moribund mother tongue. Sabar once looked at his father with shame, scornful of the alien who still bore scars on his back from childhood bloodlettings. This book, he writes, is a chance to make amends.

The bulk of "My Father's Paradise" centers on Yona Beh Sabagha's transformation into Yona Sabar (a name change intended to echo the Hebrew word for native Israeli, sabra), moving from Kurdistan to the immigrant hovels of Jerusalem to Yale and finally to his life now as a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Along the way, we hear of a unique 20th-century Jewish upheaval, a community whose central trauma, after living peacefully with their Christian and Muslim neighbors, was being dispatched to a Europeanized Israel that failed to properly absorb them. Aramaic, that dying king of a language, also receives here a fitting eulogy.

As long as the focus stays on Yona Sabar, a last of the Mohicans for Kurdish Jews, the book is graceful and resonant. It falters only when the author extends too far beyond this narrative, imagining a bit too colorfully village life in Zakho or obsessively self-analyzing his dissonant relationship with his father. What holds our attention is that last bar mitzvah boy of Zakho, who, by helping to save Aramaic, managed to find a rare equilibrium between past and present. Or, as his son elegantly puts it, he "sublimated homesickness into a career."

FROM IHT.COM

Blogger about the Jews of Kurdistan

2008-10-15T16:47:00.000-07:00

Read the full blog post at "Arthur thinks"

I heard Ariel Sabar speak about his new book, My Father’s Paradise, last night at the DC JCC. It was a fascinating presentation, and I would like to read the book.

His father, Yona Sabar, a professor at UCLA, was born in 1938 in a village called Zakho, in northern Iraq (Kurdistan), just a few miles south of the Turkish border. The Jews of Kurdistan, perhaps 20,000 in number, had lived in small villages in the Kurdish mountains for millenia (literally, millenia), perhaps since the capture of the northern Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians in the 8th century B.C.E. They lived in small communities, did not isolate themselves from their Moslem (and Christian neighbors), but were totally and completely isolated from the rest of the world, maintained their own customs and language (a dialect of Aramaic, now called by some Neo-Aramaic, to distinguish it from the Aramaic of Kol Nidre, the Kaddish, and Jesus.

Kurdish Jewish books

2008-10-08T03:10:00.000-07:00

Found the following books in the worlds first Kurdish library (Sweden).

Geoffrey Khan - The Jewish neo-Aramaic dialect of Suleymaniyya and Halabja

Cevat Eroglu - Israil'in beka stratejisi ve Kürtler

"I remember the Jews of Kurdistan"

2008-10-04T16:36:00.001-07:00

Article from JewishJournal

September 28, 2008

Iraqi First Lady at Museum of Tolerance: I remember the Jews of Kurdistan

Did Iraq approve visit? 'I go where I want to go'

By Tom Tugend

Hero Ibrahim Ahmed
Photo by Bart Bartholomew
Courtesy Simon Wiesenthal Center

The wife of Iraqi president Jalal Talabani paid a visit to the Simon Wiesenthal Center on Friday, toured its Museum of Tolerance, and recalled her friendship with the Jews of her Kurdish hometown.

Hero Ibrahim Ahmed, the petite first lady of Iraq, briefly recalled the killings and tortures the regime of dictator Saddam Hussein had inflicted on her fellow Kurds.

She added, "In every person's mind there is a small Saddam. Killing Saddam is nothing, but killing the Saddam in our minds is everything."

The Journal, the only media outlet admitted to the event, asked whether the Iraqi government had approved her visit to the high-profile Jewish and ardently pro-Israel institution, which plans to build a Center for Human Dignity in Jerusalem.

Ahmed, owner of an Iraqi media group and a strong advocate for children's rights, answered quickly, "I don't ask for permission. I go where I want to go."

Her visit reciprocated a dinner she had hosted at her home in Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq for Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, and Liebe Geft, director of its Museum of Tolerance.

Cooper and Geft had been invited to come and consult on plans for a traveling exhibit to commemorate the murder of 5,000 Kurdish men, women and children in the town of Halabja.

The independence-minded Kurds had long been a thorn in the side of Saddam Hussein, who on March 16, 1988 ordered his planes and artillery to blanket the town with poison gas.

On a side trip to Halabja, Cooper and Geft inspected Saddam's torture chambers and watched footage of the massacre, some of which "was too horrible to look at," said Cooper.

During the dinner at her house, Ahmed reminisced about her childhood hometown, and her puzzlement when residents of the Jewish quarter suddenly started to build and eat in outdoor huts -- which the American visitors quickly recognized as the celebration of Sukkot.

When the guests said goodbye, they invited their hostess to tour the Museum of Tolerance, if she were ever in Los Angeles. Two weeks later, she called to say that she was on her way.

The realpolitic of Israel-Turkey

2008-09-25T03:03:00.000-07:00

From an article in TDN

...

He [ Prof. Efraim Inbar, professor at Bar-Ilan University] pointed out that this pattern of good relations withstood many important tests, �The AKP is a party whose members don't have particularly warm feelings towards Israel: some of its leaders I would not hesitate to call it plain anti-Semitic. Yet relations with Israel remain business as usual.�

He called the perception amongst Turks that Israel supported an independent Kurdistan a �misunderstanding,� admitting that Israel supported Kurdish independence in the 1960s as a means of weakening Iraq, but now supported a strong unified Iraq as a counterbalance to Iran. �If this sort of strategic environment continues, then business too will continue as usual, despite the fact that there are some irritants in our relationship,� Inbar added.

McDowall about the Jewish Kurds

2008-09-18T04:03:00.000-07:00

Kurds in Israel (Clip)

2008-09-15T11:26:00.000-07:00

The Kurds, Israel, and the Future of Syria (Article)

2008-08-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

The Kurds, Israel, and the Future of Syria by By Joseph Puder

Israel has a longstanding relationship with the Kurdish people. In the early 1960’s, Mustafa Barzani and his Peshmerga fighters received training and support in the Jewish State. David Ben Gurion, then Israel’s Prime Minister, possessed an acute vision and understanding of the regional geopolitics – so lacking in today’s realities.

Article here

Ronen Amram

2008-08-10T11:36:00.000-07:00

Kurdish Jewish artist Ronen Amram
" Kurdistan Feast "

Poster of Jewish Kurdish artist in Israel

2008-07-20T02:40:00.000-07:00

Jewish women blogging about Kurdish question

2008-07-17T05:21:00.000-07:00

Peshmerga women blog - visit it here!

The name of the blogger is Emmunah and this is how she describes her blog:

I'm writing this blog for my sisters in arms. I'm Jewish, and we are used to fighting for our lives. Tyrants of the world I'm putting you on notice...you will lose...we will win!

Akre's last Muslim with Jewish roots wants to visit family in Israel

2008-06-24T12:44:00.000-07:00

The following article was found on the Kurdish newspage

AKRE, Iraq, May 24 (AFP) - 5h14 - Hajj Khalil is the last Muslim with Jewish roots in the Iraqi Kurdish village of Akre. One of his dearest wishes is to travel to Israel to apologise to his cousins for failing in his duties as a host when they visited him five years ago.

"In 2000, several of them came to see me and I didn't even greet them, let alone invite them to stay. Despite the autonomy enjoyed by Kurdistan, Saddam Hussein had spies everywhere," says Khalil Fakih Ahmed, a 74-year-old wearing the traditional Kurdish headdress.

In Akre, a large cluster of hillside houses some 420 kilometres (260 miles) north of Baghdad, near the border with Turkey, place names are one of the few reminders of the former Jewish presence.

The last Jews in the region left Iraq between 1949 and 1951, just after the creation of the state of Israel.

One block of houses is still called Shusti -- or 'Jewish town' in Kurdish -- but the old synagogue was destroyed long ago.

In the mountains overlooking the town lies a plateau called Zarvia Dji (Land of the Jews) where the Jewish community used to gather for celebrations.

"My grandmother converted to Islam when her husband died and my father had just turned 10," Hajj Khalil recalls, sitting in his garden with his children and grandchildren around him.

"When the Jews left, we stayed because we had become Muslims."

But in the streets of Akre, Khalil and his family are still called "the Jews".

"If you ask for Izzat or Selim in the street, nobody will know who you're talking about," says the old man's 19-year-old grandson. "But if you say 'Izzat the Jew', they'll know immediately."

According to the United Nations, some 150,000 Jews still lived in Iraq just after World War II, several thousand of them in Kurdistan.

Former Israeli defence minister Yitzhak Mordechai was born in Akre.

In 1999, Khalil's cousin Itzhak Ezra, who lives in the northern Israeli city of Tiberias, arrived in Akre.

"We told the neighbours he was a Turkish trucker who needed a place to sleep. But Itzhak met an old friend who recognised him after half a century."

"Luckily, his friend said nothing and the story was kept secret," he says.

A few weeks after returning to Israel, the long-lost cousin sent a letter to thank Khalil for his hospitality.

"Saddam's spies found out and arrested our brother-in-law who lived in Mosul," southwest of Akre, says Saber, one of Khalil's sons.

Saber went to see the intelligence services in an attempt to secure his relative's release but was arrested and detained for a month in Baghdad.

"They interrogated me, I pretended to be illiterate and demented. Then they offered me a passport to go and spy for them in Israel before eventually releasing me," Saber says.

Between 1991 and the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, some Israelis were able to reach this area in autonomous Kurdistan through the Turkish border. But Saddam retained intelligence agents in the region until the fall of his regime.

"When my cousins came to visit me" in 2000, "they didn't understand why we would not meet them but I could not explain it to them. They were very offended and left," Hajj Khalil remembers.

Since then, he has had no contact with his relatives. "My father is hoping to go and see them to resolve this misunderstanding," his son Izzat says.

Shalom Kurdistan

2008-06-19T17:30:00.000-07:00

Click on the banner to visit ShalomJerusalem.com's Kurdish section

"Solidarity with the Kurds"

2008-06-01T04:41:00.000-07:00

Photo: Kurdish demonstration in Stockholm (Sweden) in late november 2007

A musician kurd from Israel in a Israeli journal

2008-06-01T04:39:00.000-07:00

Kurdish radio about Israel

2008-05-17T06:35:00.000-07:00

The kurdish public service radio station (part of Sveriges Radio SR) aired on the 14th May a show about Israel and the 60 year celebration.

Sara Jahangiry (kurdish student) and Martin Blecher (chairman of the Israelgroup - IsraelGruppen) attended and was interviewed.

Listen here! (SR International Kurdiska "Radio Zayele)
Time: 02:00 - Sara Jahangiry (in Kurdish)
Time: 06:30 - Martin Blecher (in Swedish)

Israel 60 Years.... Congratulations

2008-05-08T15:01:00.000-07:00

Iraqi Jew site

2008-04-15T16:35:00.000-07:00

The IraqiJews site has a interesting guestbook with many interesting stories about the Jews and the Kurds.

Name = Saman Jabbary
country: Germany
I am a kurdish man from Kirkuk. I remember that my father spoke about his jewsish friends in kirkuk. I will be very happy when the Iraqi-jews will be back to Iraq. Iraq is for all (Muslim, Christian, Jews, Yezidi and others)

Name = Helmut Kadir
Shalom, I come from a small Kurdish village called (kulajo). It was located in Kifri district of Kerkuk province. There was a big orchard called (bax-gawra) it was was very nice and had every kind of fruit in it. It was owned by a person we all knew that he bought it from Jews when they left Iraq. Another site still exists in that the region called (tapay-kalan), it is a big hill but we all heard that once it was a village that belonged to Jews and they all left to Israel. Still, nobody knows what is inside that hill. We, as Kurdish people, like Jews and we wish that one day they'll come back to Iraq, just as anybody else that was deported from their homeland. In that village we have Jews married to the Kurds and we would like very much to see them back to the land of Mesopotamia where we can all live together again. Thank you for the great website and peace to all. Helmut Kadir.

Name = Setrak Iskenderian
country: Los Angeles, California
My name is Setrak Iskender, born in Baghdad Iraq 1960. I am an Iraqi-Armenian; my father attended a Jewish school in Kirkuk (Northern Iraq), during the late 1920s & the early 1930s. He was satisfied with their education & treatment & he decided to let me & my younger brother Aram Iskender to attend Jewish schools.
I was admitted to Menahem Saleh Daniel Elementary in the early 1960s; Miss Kanawaty was the principle Miss Marcel was the vise principle I graduated from there in 1972 & attended Frank Iny School (Mr. Abdullah Obedia was the principle). I spent 1 year and after the nationalization of the education in 1973 the school was closed & went to another school. Ironically, I returned to graduate from Al Nithamiyah High school (formerly known as Frank Iny). My life in those schools & inside the Iraqi Jewish community was so great, wonderful & still lingering in my memory.

Name = Karim Faily
country: USA
The Kurds & Jews got along very well till the evil Saddam came to power. At least the Jews had a home to go, but we did not have any place to go. We must fight this evil.

Name = roee
country: Israel
Nice site. My father was one of those jews who left Iraq during that perioud of time, right in the year of 1970 when he decided to escape Iraq in order to have a better life without persecution from his arab neighbors. Of course he wasn't allowed to leave but luckly for him the kurds and iran back then used to be in a very good relations with israel so he went to the kurdistan part of iraq and they helped him to get into iran. There he was helped by the jewish agency to move to Israel.

Name = Raya Allam
Hi,
Very nice website you have here. My father(an Iraqi Muslims) always speaks fondly of the Iraqi Jews, how they made up such a vibrant part of the Iraqi community and how it is such a great loss to have them leave Iraq, perhaps forever...
He is looking for his friend Haim Murad, a Kurdish Jew.

Name = Karim A Karam
I am a Kurd from Iraq. My father & relatives used to work with the Jewish people in 1940-1960 in Baghdad, the time (1960) when most of the Jews left Iraq. We wish that we could leave Iraq with our Jewish friends, that we dearly missed. My father & relatives helped our friends leave Iraq, I was too young then. We have smuggled some of our Jewish friends to Kurdish regions of Iraq then to Iran & Turkey. You are too kind with the Kurds & we'll always love you. May God bless you all. Truly,
Karim

Name = Martin-Fallon Roxenlind (Don Corleone)
country: Sweden
Thank you for your homepage. It's very interesting. The Jewish people will always belong to the Middle East, just as the kurdish. The Iraqi people are from a lot of religions and nationalities, that's why Iraq is called Mesopotamia. We have to think how we can all live together again.

Name = Sebastian Parwar
country: Sweden
My father was Zaradisht and my mother jewish from Kurdistan Iran. They were killed and I was adopted by a family who moved to Baghdad. In 1976 I moved to Poland then to Sweden with my wife. I knew the truth about myself 40 years later, after my mother died. In her will she told me the whole story and that I was jewish. I couldn't believe it. I was both sad and happy. I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year and Hag Hanukkah Sameach.

Lullabies and lamentations

2008-04-13T01:44:00.000-07:00

article by Ben Shalev
full article at www.hareetz.com

...

Fermana" ("Destruction") is a song that laments Saddam Hussein's slaughter of the Kurds. Elia learned it from Kurdish-Turkish workers who came to work in Jerusalem in the mid-1990s, and she included a stunningly powerful version of the song on her second album, released in 1997. Since then, she says, she has learned of other versions of the song, from different parts of Kurdistan, each one relating to the specific trauma of that region and telling its unique story of destruction.

...

Her potential audience in Israel is small, she says, and some in the Kurdish community are not receptive to her style of singing, which is also influenced by the classical Western singing in which she was trained before she discovered Kurdish folk songs. The new collection is the first album she has released since 1997 and, at this stage, it will be sold only at her performances and not in stores. Other projects of hers, such as the idea of releasing an album of songs set to Hebrew poems, have not been that successful. "Once it would have depressed me and really got me down," she says. "Now I can deal with it. At least I'm doing something, little by little."

[Book] Jews of Kurdistan

2008-04-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

Around the world with Jewish folktales: Jews of Kurdistan

2008-04-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is “AROUND THE WORLD WITH JEWISH FOLKTALES: JEWS OF KURDISTAN,” by Baruch Rand and Barbara Rush, a previously-owned large paperback book. It was published by the Toledo Board of Jewish Education in 1978 and runs 67 pages (with a small mark on the cover). This is a beautifully designed collection of Jewish tales that span many centuries and come from countries of the Middle East, Africa, and eastern Europe. There are stories here that readers will recognize as familiar tales and moral tales that teach lessons. Long Island’s Barbara Rush has also edited “Jews of Kurdistan” and “Seventy and One Tales for the Jewish Year: Folktales for the Festivals.”

Kurdish Wedding Dance - Kurdish Jews from Israel

2008-04-03T08:33:00.001-07:00

Famoust Kurdish-Jews

2008-04-03T08:29:00.000-07:00

1-Yitzhak Mordechai(יצחק מרדכי‎) Israeli General,Ex-minister of Defense and Transport)

2-Asenath Barzani : The first Woman Rabbi

3-Moshe Barzani : one of the first Persons in Zionist Movement and The member of Lehi(Freedom Fighter of Israel)

4-Yona Sabar : Kurdish-Jewish Scholar and Linguist from USA

5-Daniel de Ridder : Kurdish-Jewish football player of Celta de Vigo,Spain

6-Alon Mizrahi : Kurdish-Jewish football Player in Israel

7-Itzik Kalla : Kurdish-Jewish Singer,Israel

8-Tamir Gal : Jewish-Kurdish Singer,Israel

The US-Kurdish Relations and the Kurdish Question in Iraq

2008-03-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

Noam Chomsky, intellectual Jewish academic interviewed by Peshawa Abdulkhaliq Muhammed.

Kurdistani Nwe Newspaper, February 17, 2008

MUHAMMED: How do you see and assess the US-Kurdish alliance? What do you think to be the common interests on which such relations are built?

CHOMSKY: The alliance is, I think, fragile. That should be obvious even from recent history, for example, Kissinger's abandonment of the Kurds to the savagery of Saddam Hussein 30 years ago after having encouraged a revolt against Saddam, or Reagan's support for Saddam's massacre of Kurds a decade later, or Clinton's enormous and decisive support for Turkey's violent and destruction repression of Kurds through the 1990s. At the moment, the relatively autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq is providing support for the US goal of ensuring that Iraq remains a client state and a base for US forces in the region, and that it will privilege US investors, as stated rather brazenly in the Bush-Maliki declaration of November 2007, reiterated by Bush in a "signing statement" in January 2008, in which he asserted that he would reject portions of the congressional legislation he had just signed that interfered with these objectives. But if those services to US power decline or are considered less useful, then the alliance will once again erode.

MUHAMMED: Michael Rubin from AEI in his recent report on Iraqi Kurdistan, surprisingly stated: "Iraq has changed, but Iraqi Kurdistan has not", to what extent do you think such claims are rational given the fact that Kurdistan is the sole part of Iraq that enjoys a degree of safety, security and democracy?

CHOMSKY: I do not know what he means. Surely Iraqi Kurdistan is not what it was under Saddam's tyranny, or 10 years ago during the civil war. Iraq has indeed changed, towards ever greater catastrophe. One of the most dedicated and informed journalists who has been immersed in the shocking tragedy, Nir Rosen, recently published an epitaph entitled "The Death of Iraq," in Current History. He writes that "Iraq has been killed, never to rise again. The American occupation has been more disastrous than that of the Mongols, who sacked Baghdad in the thirteenth century the perception of many Iraqis as well. Only fools talk of `solutions now. There is no solution. The only hope is that perhaps the damage can be contained. There are doubtless problems in Iraqi Kurdistan, but nothing like those in Iraq under US occupation, though violence does seem to have reduced in the south after the British withdrew, leaving an ugly scene in their wake.

MUHAMMED: In the same report, Rubin said: "Sympathy to Kurdistan is understandable but is increasingly based on a myth." Do you think Kurdistan really needs US sympathy to exist? Or the Kurds can be a force that can jeopardize US interests in Iraq and in the region?

CHOMSKY: Without US support, Kurdish rights would be severely jeopardized, as we see from recent history, and by the place of Kurdistan within the region.

MUHAMMED: What is the current view of US Foreign Policy towards the minorities (including Kurds)? Do you think such policies are run by moral values or they are interest-orientated policies? What are the roles of Turkish lobbyists in the US in shaping and influencing US policy towards the Kurds?

CHOMSKY: I do not see how one can speak about moral values without ridicule in the light of recent history, not just with regard to the Kurds. And it is well to remember that the US is not fundamentally different from other powerful states, past and present, in this regard. Clinton did not need Turkish lobbyists to provide a huge flow of arms to Turkey in the 1990s for its vicious counterinsurgency campaign against Kurds, though they probably have some role, as do lobbyists for other states.

MUHAMMED: What is your recommendation and advice for the Kurdish leadership in Iraq to stay as an effective part of Iraq, and avoid any US betrayal in the future?

CHOMSKY: Some advice should be too obvious to articulate: for example, do not have illusions about foreign powers and their soothing rhetoric. But it is not my place to give advice to Kurds, even if I had a sufficiently intimate knowledge of their circumstances and aspirations to do so with any confidence.

The Zionist - Kurdish Connection

2008-02-23T08:35:00.000-08:00

The Zionist - Kurdish Connection (blogpost from arabwomannews.blogspot.com)

In my March 2007, post "Our brothers-the Kurds". I mentioned a certain Mossad agent who wrote a book on Iraqi kurds and said "It is not so much a mossad/kurdish alliance. It was more of a friendly alliance between two "opppressed" people. Us, the Israelis having known the Holocaust, understood very well the Kurdish plight for a state of their own."

I also mentioned that Kurdish dealings with Israel can be traced as far back as the 70's.

The name of this former Mossad agent is Eliezer Tsafrir. Photo above.

The reader will notice that behind Tsafrir are pictures of the Fascist Gemayel from Lebanon and next to him none other but the late Mostafa Barazani, father of Masoud Barazani, one of the current Kurdish warlords in Iraq.

The "Left" who wept for the "kurdish genocide", (a well acted out political mise en scene) including so called "Arab leftists" who supposedly carry unconditional support for the Palestinian cause, and who concomitantly called for Kurdish independence - I demand of you to grovel in mortification NOW.

And, what's with these Kurdish figures on plates ? A father and son tradition of eternal remembrance, on Porcelain ?

I am suddenly taken by a great urge to dance Greek Sirtaki and smash all those plates to the ground.

Important Jewish-Kurdish personalities

2008-02-22T01:59:00.000-08:00

Yona Sabar, Ph.D. Kurdish Jew from Zaxo, He has published more than 90 research articles about Jewish Neo-Aramaic and Folklore of the Kurdish Jews.

Michael L. Chyet, Jewish-American linguist.
He is cataloger of Middle Eastern languages at the Library of Congress. Formerly he was senior editor of the Kurdish Service of the Voice of America and professor of Kurdish at the University of Paris and at the Washington Kurdish Institute. He has written a Kurdish-English dictionary.
Michael has studied more than 30 languages.

More about Michael (KurdishAcademy.org)

Kurdistan, the beloved country cannot even cry

2008-02-22T01:58:00.000-08:00

From eKurd.net

Kurdistan, the beloved country cannot even cry 14.11.2007
By Ami Isseroff, Israel

November 14, 2007

I was not going to write about Kurdistan and the Kurds. That is because I am an Israeli and a Zionist. One way in which the cause of Kurdish self determination has been discredited in the Middle East is by claiming that it is all a plot by evil Zionists to dismember Arab states (since when are Turkey and Iran Arab states? ), or a plot by America to "punish" Turkish independence. If the Americans do not bomb the PKK into oblivion, they are "meddling" in the affairs of the Middle East and not doing their proper duty it seems.

I wasn't going to write, but I could not resist. The one-sided international lynch mob that has organized itself to deny rights to the Kurds of Turkey, and to help the Turkish government commit genocide, must be proested by someone.

Self determination of every people can be viewed as a "plot" to dismember some other country. The American revolution was a plot to dismember the British Empire, and the Indian struggle for freedom was another such plot. Self-determination for Syria and the Arabs was a British imperialist plot to dismember the Ottoman Turkish empire, wasn't it?

The "terror" of the PKK has a cause: the suppression of Kurdish language and culture in Turkey. Nobody is pressuring the Turkish government to give the Kurds what they want and what they deserve - real ethnic autonomy within Turkey. Nobody is even ready to admit that this is a right.

35 million Kurds have lived "since time immemorial" in northern Iran and Iraq, and in Eastern Turkey and Syria. Following World War I, they were promised independence by US President Wilson, but the promise was never implemented.

In Iraq, Kurds have won a measure of autonomy and they say they are satisfied with the present arrangement. If they are satisfied, then of course there is no reason to change the arrangement. It is not about dismembering Iraq at all as some make believe.

But in Turkey, the Kurds are not even taught their own language in public schools. Very reluctantly, under European pressure, the Turks agreed to allow some private schools that teach Kurdish. We can imagine the outcry that would issue from all the politically correct people if Israel did not provide education in Arabic for its Arab citizens, and offered such private schools as a 'concession.' Yet as regards the Kurds, everyone agrees that they have no rights. Gangsters who blow up mosques in Iraq are termed "fighters," but Kurds who fight Turkish soldiers are called "terrorists." The United States, ostensibly the only real friend of the Kurds, is reportedly supplying intelligence information to the Turkish airforce to enable them to hit PKK "terrorist" (or "insurgent" or "freedom fighter") targets in Iraq. An occupying power has an obligation to protect the population of an occupied area, not to invite others to bomb it. www.ekurd.net

The Kurds are the stray fringes of the dirty little secret of the Middle East and North Africa: Many of the independent states created by the withdrawal of Western colonialism, simply reinstated older Arab and Muslim colonialism, stifling the legitimate right to self determination of native peoples. Most of you never heard of the Amazigh and the other native peoples of North Africa, who probably constitute the majority of the North African population, and who are denied the right to develop their own culture and language and relegated to the pejorative status of "Berbers." Of course you know what Berbers are, right? Everyone knows who Berbers are. But they don't know that "Berber" is a word that is not much better than n*gger. In Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Saudia Arabia, Iran, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and elsewhere, there are national and religious minorities that have been brutally supressed. Not surprisingly, the word "self-determination" makes "politically correct" Middle East pundits very very nervous, except when it is applied to the Arabs of Palestine, or the Oozlebarts of Iraq.

According to the dogma of the politically correct, suppression of national rights must lead to violence and terror. The result of suppressing the national rights and aspirations of all these people must eventually produce bigger and better PKK terrorist movements, as well as nationalist and separatist movements throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Even if you don't believe that, you must surely see the justice of allowing each people self determination. There is room in the community of nations for a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, a Czech state and an East Timor state, a Bangladesh and a Pakistan. There was room enough for everyone. Except that when the turn of the Kurds came, it turned out that there is no room at the inn, and they must be ignored and condemned.

Ami Isseroff

Mossad Man Remembers Slain Militant

2008-02-22T01:49:00.001-08:00

SOURCE

By MATTI FRIEDMAN

RAMAT HASHARON, Israel (AP) — In 1983, Mossad agent Eliezer Tsafrir observed Imad Mughniyeh's handiwork from a rooftop in Beirut: two rising mushrooms of smoke and wailing ambulances racing to collapsed buildings where nearly 300 American and French troops had just been killed.


Eliezer Tsafrir, an ex-Mossad agent who was the Israeli intelligence organization's Beirut station chief in 1983 and 1984, is seen at his home in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, Monday, Feb. 18, 2008. In an Associated Press interview, Tsafrir offered an insider's take on Imad Mughniyeh's mysterious assassination last week, saying it would have required years of patient intelligence work by dozens of operatives. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Tsafrir, then Beirut station chief for the Israeli spy agency, was in a unique position to see the rise of the Lebanese terror mastermind. In an Associated Press interview, Tsafrir offered an insider's view of Mughniyeh's mysterious assassination last week, saying it would have required years of patient intelligence work by dozens of operatives.

Mughniyeh's organization, Hezbollah, and its Iranian backers immediately blamed Israel for the explosion that ripped through his Pajero SUV in the Syrian capital on Feb. 12. Israel issued an official denial of involvement, though some military officials' subsequent denials were less emphatic.

Now a 74-year-old grandfather in sneakers and a sweat shirt, Tsafrir retired in 1992 after an intelligence career that included stints heading Mossad operations in Tehran and Kurdish regions in Iraq. At his small apartment in a leafy Tel Aviv suburb, decorated with photos and other mementos from his years of service, Tsafrir looked back on Mughniyeh's career and his violent demise.

The attacks Tsafrir witnessed in October 1983 were among the first attributed to Mughniyeh — a pair of simultaneous suicide truck bomb explosions that killed 241 American soldiers and 58 French paratroopers. Over the next quarter century, Mughniyeh would be linked to a long list of others, including airplane hijackings, kidnappings, bombings at Israel's embassy and a Jewish community center in Argentina, and other attacks in Europe and the Arab world. He had been in hiding for years and reportedly had undergone plastic surgery to avoid being found.

The Mossad's agents in Beirut became aware of the young Mughniyeh in the early 1980s, after Israel invaded Lebanon to evict Palestinian militants who had taken over swaths of the country, Tsafrir said. Tsafrir was dispatched to run the Mossad's Beirut operation in 1983, leaving the following year.

Mughniyeh, a Shiite Muslim from southern Lebanon, first signed up to fight with Yasser Arafat's Palestinian forces and then became one of the founders of a small pro-Iranian faction of local Shiites.

"We started hearing his name at that time," Tsafrir said.

That group eventually morphed into the formidable Hezbollah organization, and Mughniyeh became the group's operations officer and one of the world's most wanted terrorists.

Mughniyeh's attacks touched Tsafrir personally: His brother and his son both narrowly escaped separate suicide attacks while serving in Lebanon. The Israelis believed both attacks were planned by Mughniyeh.

Israeli agents in Lebanon were shocked by Mughniyeh's tactics, Tsafrir remembered. Suicide bombing, unknown at the time, would be picked up by Palestinian militants in the 1990s, then elsewhere in the Islamic world before reaching a horrifying climax with al-Qaida's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S.

"We asked ourselves, 'How can this be?'" Tsafrir said.

Although Israel and the U.S. perhaps top the list of suspects in Mughniyeh's assassination, Tsafrir said, France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia are also among countries that had "unsettled accounts" with him. And he likely had internal opponents.

"A person like this makes a lot of enemies," Tsafrir said.

An operation like the one that killed Mughniyeh last week would have been extremely complex, requiring years of intelligence work and dozens of people, he said. "It's not a matter of just pressing the button," he said.

"An operation like this would take tremendous amounts of intelligence — human intelligence, not electronic intelligence," he said. "You need the ability to find people, to check the location, to install the device, and to escape" — no simple task in the middle of a hostile capital.

"The agents could be recruited, or infiltrated into the organization, or both. But there would be dozens involved, and everything would be compartmentalized: People wouldn't know what the others were doing, and would only know what they needed to know," Tsafrir said.

Mughniyeh's assassination has generated swirls of speculation. Some anti-Syrian politicians in Lebanon have accused Damascus of being behind the killing. U.S. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has suggested factions within Hezbollah or the Syria regime may be to blame. Reports in the Arab press have suggested Palestinians might have been involved.

Hezbollah declined to comment on the U.S. claim. The Syrians have said they are investigating and will make an announcement when the inquiry ends.

Asked what the Mossad's policy is toward targets like Mughniyeh, Tsafrir would only give an example from the past: In 1972, after Palestinians from the Black September group killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir gave an order to kill those who were responsible or were planning new attacks.

Over the next 10 years, Palestinian operatives were killed in cities across Europe in attacks widely attributed to Israeli agents.


Eliezer Tsafrir, an ex-Mossad agent who was the Israeli intelligence organization's Beirut station chief in 1983 and 1984, speaks on the phone at his home in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, Monday, Feb. 18, 2008. In an Associated Press interview, Tsafrir offered an insider's take on Imad Mughniyeh's mysterious assassination last week, saying it would have required years of patient intelligence work by dozens of operatives. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Ferdinand explores the history of the Kurds

2008-02-13T13:04:00.000-08:00

Kurds an ethnic group in their own right – genetically most closely related to Jews

Ferdinand Hennerbichler explores the history of the Kurds from their origins to the present day

Kurds an ethnic group in their own right – genetically most closely related to Jews

As the Kurd conflict has currently reached a new high point in world politics, wieninternational is presenting the book “Die Kurden” written by Ferdinand Hennerbichler, a member of its staff.

Kurds were not originally Iranians, even if they speak an Iranian language today, but an ethnic group in their own right descended from original inhabitants of the Middle East. Genetically they are most closely related to Jews.

This is the basic conclusion of the book “Die Kurden”, a comprehensive history of the Kurds from their beginnings until the present day – compulsory reading for all those who seek to fully understand the background to the long conflict involving the Kurdish people and particularly the critical stage it has reached at present. For experts at the RMIB Geoscience publishing company in the Netherlands it is the “most important new publication about the Kurds”. In international expert circles the work by Ferdinand Hennerbichler is being cited as a standard reference work on the subject.

About the book

According to recent genetic studies, Kurds are very closely related to Jews. Despite what many people believe, they were not Iranians, even if they speak an Iranian language today. There were Kurds in the regions they inhabit long before the oldest of the Indo-Iranians who live there today. Kurds originally spoke their own pre-Indo-European language and they did not adopt Iranian until the middle of the first millennium before the Christian era. Even the Iranian they speak today has very old roots (such as full ergativity) and is unique in having links with Basque. Basque is a living pre-Indo-European language, and the oldest Kurdish could therefore be as old as Basque, dating back to 2,500 years before the Christian era. Population geneticists have also discovered that Kurds are the descendants of the oldest Stone Age farmers in Kurdistan.

Their ancestors thus co-invented modern agriculture around 10,000 years before the Christian era and helped to develop and disseminate Indo-European languages. Moreover, leading international researchers such as Ariella Oppenheim, Almut Nebel and Marina Faerman in Israel have demonstrated that the closest genetic relatives of the Kurds are the Jews. Armenians are close relatives of both. All three ethnic groups belong to the original civilisations in the Middle East and Asia Minor.

The Jews of Kurdish

2008-01-28T15:09:00.001-08:00

The Jews of Kurdish - Article by Shifra Epstein

The Israeli Kurdish Friendship League

2008-01-28T15:06:00.001-08:00

www.israelkurd.org

Kurdistan the beloved country - Ami Isseroff

2008-01-14T09:06:00.000-08:00

From eKurd.net

Kurdistan, the beloved country cannot even cry 14.11.2007
By Ami Isseroff, Israel

November 14, 2007

I was not going to write about Kurdistan and the Kurds. That is because I am an Israeli and a Zionist. One way in which the cause of Kurdish self determination has been discredited in the Middle East is by claiming that it is all a plot by evil Zionists to dismember Arab states (since when are Turkey and Iran Arab states? ), or a plot by America to "punish" Turkish independence. If the Americans do not bomb the PKK into oblivion, they are "meddling" in the affairs of the Middle East and not doing their proper duty it seems.

I wasn't going to write, but I could not resist. The one-sided international lynch mob that has organized itself to deny rights to the Kurds of Turkey, and to help the Turkish government commit genocide, must be proested by someone.

Self determination of every people can be viewed as a "plot" to dismember some other country. The American revolution was a plot to dismember the British Empire, and the Indian struggle for freedom was another such plot. Self-determination for Syria and the Arabs was a British imperialist plot to dismember the Ottoman Turkish empire, wasn't it?

The "terror" of the PKK has a cause: the suppression of Kurdish language and culture in Turkey. Nobody is pressuring the Turkish government to give the Kurds what they want and what they deserve - real ethnic autonomy within Turkey. Nobody is even ready to admit that this is a right.

35 million Kurds have lived "since time immemorial" in northern Iran and Iraq, and in Eastern Turkey and Syria. Following World War I, they were promised independence by US President Wilson, but the promise was never implemented.

In Iraq, Kurds have won a measure of autonomy and they say they are satisfied with the present arrangement. If they are satisfied, then of course there is no reason to change the arrangement. It is not about dismembering Iraq at all as some make believe.

But in Turkey, the Kurds are not even taught their own language in public schools. Very reluctantly, under European pressure, the Turks agreed to allow some private schools that teach Kurdish. We can imagine the outcry that would issue from all the politically correct people if Israel did not provide education in Arabic for its Arab citizens, and offered such private schools as a 'concession.' Yet as regards the Kurds, everyone agrees that they have no rights. Gangsters who blow up mosques in Iraq are termed "fighters," but Kurds who fight Turkish soldiers are called "terrorists." The United States, ostensibly the only real friend of the Kurds, is reportedly supplying intelligence information to the Turkish airforce to enable them to hit PKK "terrorist" (or "insurgent" or "freedom fighter") targets in Iraq. An occupying power has an obligation to protect the population of an occupied area, not to invite others to bomb it. www.ekurd.net

The Kurds are the stray fringes of the dirty little secret of the Middle East and North Africa: Many of the independent states created by the withdrawal of Western colonialism, simply reinstated older Arab and Muslim colonialism, stifling the legitimate right to self determination of native peoples. Most of you never heard of the Amazigh and the other native peoples of North Africa, who probably constitute the majority of the North African population, and who are denied the right to develop their own culture and language and relegated to the pejorative status of "Berbers." Of course you know what Berbers are, right? Everyone knows who Berbers are. But they don't know that "Berber" is a word that is not much better than n*gger. In Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Saudia Arabia, Iran, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and elsewhere, there are national and religious minorities that have been brutally supressed. Not surprisingly, the word "self-determination" makes "politically correct" Middle East pundits very very nervous, except when it is applied to the Arabs of Palestine, or the Oozlebarts of Iraq.

According to the dogma of the politically correct, suppression of national rights must lead to violence and terror. The result of suppressing the national rights and aspirations of all these people must eventually produce bigger and better PKK terrorist movements, as well as nationalist and separatist movements throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Even if you don't believe that, you must surely see the justice of allowing each people self determination. There is room in the community of nations for a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, a Czech state and an East Timor state, a Bangladesh and a Pakistan. There was room enough for everyone. Except that when the turn of the Kurds came, it turned out that there is no room at the inn, and they must be ignored and condemned.

Ami Isseroff

Israeli-Kurdish music !

2008-01-12T01:14:00.000-08:00

Liturgical songs for the holy days in the tradition of the Jews of Kurdistan Zaxo -Listen here!

Reuven Yamin - Listen here!

Kurdish Hits Collection - Listen here!

Moshe Mamouco - Listen here!

Ronen Aram - Listen here!

Jewish lady won the award "Friend of the Kurds 2006"

2008-01-04T09:59:00.000-08:00

The winner of the Kurd festival (Kurdgalan) in Sweden (Stockholm arranged by KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) was Helena Svantesson. She won the award for "Friend of the Kurds 2006".

Helena is a Jewish holocaust survivor that have been working in Kurdistan with Individual Humanhelp and has as a pensioner been working on own basis. She has a centre named after her in Kurdistan and also works with orphan children in Kurdistan. She has survived the death camp in Auschwitz and calls herself a friend of the Kurdish people.

Kurdish restaurants in Israel

2008-01-03T16:18:00.000-08:00

Text: IsraelKurd.org

Misadonet (Jerusalem)

This Kurdish restaurant has one of the best home-style kitchens in the country. The dish to die for here is Mama Nomi's giri-giri, a rich creation of lamb hearts stuffed with rice, meat, raisins, walnuts, and pine nuts, all served in a curried apricot sauce. Kubbeh soups, each distinctively flavored, are also quite special.

12 Yoel Salomon Street, Jerusalem
Tel: 02-6248396
Cuisine: Kurdish Cuisine
Open Sunday - Thursday 11:00am till 11:00pm. Friday till one hour before Shabbat. Saturday night after Shabbat till midnight. Closed Shabbat.

Murduch - An authentic Kurdish restaurant: Behind Machane Yehuda Market.

By far the best meal you can get in Jerusalem.

If you walk down Agripas Street, after you pass the entrance to the market (on your right) you will find the restaurant (70 Agripas St). The entire menu is worth trying, but if you order the Red Kube soup, you'll be in for a wonderful surprise. The soup is a tomato based soup with a burgel wheat dumpling - you have to try it!

On Fridays there is usually a long line - but it's well worth the wait

We'd also recommend a table at the intimate Kurdish Kitchen, a deceptively simple place near Zion Square in the heart of Jerusalem, for kubeh meat dumplings in lemony hamousta soup.

Jews, Kurds and tribes

2008-01-02T15:22:00.000-08:00

Jewish Subjects and Their Tribal Chieftains in Kurdistan: A Study in Survival (Jewish Identities in a Changing World) by Mordechai Zaken.

A interesting and an essentiel work about relations and common history between Jews in Southern Kurdistan and Kurdish aghas and sheikhs, from the origin until 1950…

# Hardcover: 326 pages
# Publisher: Brill Academic Pub (August 2007)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 9004161902
# ISBN-13: 978-9004161900

"The Jewish and Kurdish tragedies"

2007-12-11T15:30:00.000-08:00

Found in "The Kurdish and Armenian genocides: from censorship and denial to recognition?" by Desmond Fernandes.

One lesson of both the Jewish and Kurdish tragedies of this century is that well-intentioned people may be far to slow in recognizing the reality of genocide despite vivid warning signs
...
Responsible world leaders should, indeed, show friendship for the Turkish and Kurdish poples alike, and do this by 'speaking the truth to power' and challenging rather than helping to perpetrate injustice

from "Pîroz be : A Jewish greeting to Mehdi Zana" by Margo Schulter

Kempinski in Kurdistan

2007-12-05T01:37:00.001-08:00

The jewish Kempinski company will build in Kurdistan.
Kempinski is a luxury hotel group founded in 1897. Kempinski Hotels, the trading name for Kempinski Aktiengesellschaft, is an independent German delisted AG, which is involved in a number of hotel and hospitality related businesses, including conference, catering and hotel supplies.

Speech by Primeminister Necirwan Barzani (Kurdistan Regional Government in south Kurdistan, Iraq)

....

This project is the most serious foreign investment project in the Kurdistan Region. This hotel is a partnership between the private and public sectors. Elegan Group is the investor, Kempinski will manage the hotel, and the KRG is playing a major role with the provision of land and support services to make this project a reality. This project demonstrates and proves that the KRG supports this kind of investment. We look forward to a long, productive relationship with Kempinski Hotels. Their success will be our success.

...

On behalf of the Kurdistan Regional Government, I warmly welcome the owners, the Elegan Group, and investors in this Kempinski Hotel who have taken this outstanding initiative. We consider their efforts as committed participation in contributing to the future of the Kurdistan Region and to the rest of Iraq.

Link
PM's speech at 5-star hotel groundbreaking ceremony

The president of Kurdistan in a Israeli hospital

2007-12-04T09:57:00.000-08:00

The president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani is said to have been taken secretly to a hospital in central Tel Aviv after a brief stopover in Amman, Jordan. This is not confirmed by any other source. Neither is the report that Barzani had been wounded Friday, Nov. 24, in an assassination attempt by one of his aides in Irbil, the Kurdish capital. Kurdish officials only admitted he was out of the country, while a source close to Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party said he had been taken out of Iraq Friday for medical treatment without mentioning his destination.

source

Israel National News on the Kurdish question

2007-11-13T00:39:00.000-08:00

Yehuda HaKohen and Eliyahu Chaim are joined by Kurdish activist Ara Alan and discuss the struggle for a free Kurdistan in the Middle East. Mordechai Taub provides political analysis.

source - Israel National News

Listen here!

Ara Alan

Yehuda HaKohen (Member of the IKN - Israel Kurdistan Network group on Facebook

"Solidarity with the Kurds"

2007-10-30T00:52:00.000-07:00

David & Layla [Movie clips]

2007-10-22T04:31:00.000-07:00

David & Layla is a 2006 film written and directed by the Kurdish-American director Jay Jonroy, an independent director and producer based in New York. It is his first feature film and is inspired by the true story of the Kurdish-Jewish couple Alwand Jaff and her husband, David Ruby.

David & Layla - TRAILER (Official Theatrical Trailer USA)

David & Layla - TV Spot (Official TV SPOT USA)

Other clips:

David & Layla - The Dating Game at Omar Khaayam Club. CLIP 1

David & Layla - Seduction, Sailing & History ! CLIP 2

David & Layla - Moonlight, Roses, Poetry & Hang Out! CLIP 3

David & Layla - Facing the Imam at the Mosque. CLIP 4

For more information about the movie, visit the official David & Layla site!
http://www.davidandlayla.com/

Kurdish music from Israel

2007-10-06T08:08:00.000-07:00

Track 1
Track 2
Track 3
Track 4
Track 5
Track 6
Track 7
Track 8
Track 9
Track 10

Israeli-Kurdish cultural relations

2007-09-29T16:43:00.001-07:00

Kurdish wedding in Israel

Kurdish Jews, said to be the descendants of the Ten Tribes of Israel who were exiled in 723 BCE. to the area known today as Kurdistan, located in Northern Iraq, Iran and Eastern Turkey. They continued to live there as a separate entity until their immigration to Israel in the 1950s. The Kurdish Jews of today show a much greater affinity to their fellow Jews elsewhere than to the Kurdish Muslims.
(Source: The Jerusalem Post Newspaper)

Ronên Yona - The Kurdish musician living in Israel

The residents of southern Kurdistan, Halabja, Sulaymaniyah, Hewler, Akre and Zakho can still point out where it used to be the Jewish quarters and finding old synagogues and graveyards.
In Amadya, residents recently argued over where the Jewish graveyard had been even though a centuries-old Jewish community had departed just decades earlier.
(http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC06.php?CID=589)

Unlike Jerusalem's Kurdish Jews, who speak Aramaic at home and Hebrew outside, their compatriots who settled in other parts of Israel use Aramaic in all facets of their daily lives.

Lord's Prayer in Aramaic

In Israel, the Kurdish immigrants and their descendants have kept alive the cultural heritage of Jewish Kurdistan through their distinctive cuisine, music, and traditions. The most significant celebration that is unique to the Kurdish Jews is the Seharane
(http://www.yaleisraeljournal.com/spr2005/goodman.php)

The Saharane is the major annual Kurdish cultural event in Israel with 6 000- 7 000 participants every year and takes place in northern Israel near Lake Kinneret.
The word Saharene must come from the Kurdish word "sayeran", which means "to see, and to explore nature". In this context, the word "Saharane" may also mean "excursion" in Kurdish.

This is the traditional national event of the Kurdish-Jewish community, celebrated at different times during the year. Originally, the Saharene was a seven-day festival that marked the close of winter and the beginning of spring in Kurdistan.

For more information contact e.g. info@kurdishjewry.org.il

The Saharane festival

The author Izzat Zaki says that the Nestorian Christians describe themselves as "the children of Israel" and claim they are the remnant of the Ten Lost Tribes. Zaki contends that they do not marry outside their religious faith and live in the most defensible mountainous regions of Kurdistan. Zaki quotes them as saying, "we use Aramaic just like the Jews."
(http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2005/4/kurdisrael1.htm)

David & Leyla - Front cover

The movie "David & Leyla" is about a a Jewish boy in Brooklyn that dumps his Jewish fiancee when he falls in love with the Kurdish Muslim girl. Parents and relatives on both sides are horrified, but are reconciled at raucous interfaith wedding.

In many other respects, judging from David & Layla, Kurds are not unlike Jews in their hospitality, love of food, vigorous wedding dancing, and various meshugas.
The creator of this movie is Jan Jonroy from Zaxo in southern Kurdistan.

From the movie David & Leyla

Kurdish dishes of Jews who returned from Kurdistan

Kurdish-Israeli military relations

2007-09-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

It has since the 1960's under the leadership of Mustafa Barzani been Israeli officers and experts in presence in southern Kurdistan when it was a period at close quarters between the Baathist Iraq the cruel Saddam Hussein and the Shah monarchist Iran

According to Eliezer Tsafrir (former senior Mossad official), Israel had military advisers in 1963-1975 at the headquarters of Mustafa Barzani, trained and supplied the Kurdish units with fire arms, field and anti-aircraft artillery.
(Reuters, 21.02.1999.).

One theory and cause that had led to a military cooperation and support from Israel in Kurdistan is that Israels found their "allies" in their Baathist neighbour countries Syria and Iraq, journalists had for a long time accusing the Kurds of being Israels eyes and ears in the middle east.

The Kurdish military material collapse in southern Kurdistan 1975, Israel, a long-time friend, gave mainly training and a few weapons to the Barzani peshmerga force. They where 100 000 man strong but badly outgunned.
(http://www.meforum.org/article/220)

Peshmerge soldiers - (Kurdish: pêşmerge) literally means "those who face death"and like Israel they actively uses female soldiers.

The KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) together with Mossad´s established in the late 1960s the KDP intelligence service "Parastin", wich means resistance.From the end of the 1950s to the early 1960s, by various estimates, thousands of Mossad agents and instructors of the Israeli army resided in south Kurdistan at the time and conducted undercover operations. Israel became the principal source of weapons supplies and training for the Kurds in their struggle against the Iraqi government.

The dozens of former Israeli special forces soldiers with elite military combat background crossed into southern Kurdistan through northern Kurdistan in 2004 to train two sets of Kurdish troops.

Two years later in 2006,the former Israel Defense Forces commandos, in secret trained Kurdish soldiers in southern Kurdistan to protect a new international airport and in counter-terrorism operations and they educated over a 100 soldiers in the Peshmerga force how to spot terrorists and shooting techniques in crowds.

Kurdish-Israeli political relations

2007-09-24T15:31:00.000-07:00

"Israel has always supported the Kurds in a Machiavellian way - a balance against Saddam," one former Israeli intelligence officer told the New Yorker. "It's Realpolitik. By aligning with the Kurds Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq and Syria. The critical question is 'What will the behaviour of Iran be if there is an independent Kurdistan with close ties to Israel? Iran does not want an Israeli land-based aircraft carrier on its border."
- Seymour HershPulitzer Prize-winning reporter who exposed the abuse scandal in Abu Ghraib.

Jewish organizations worldwide started a propaganda and lobbying campaigns to aid the Kurds in southern Kurdistan during Operation Desert storm to stop the Iraqi government persecutions. (Barron A. US and Israeli Jews Express Support for Kurdish Refugees // Washington Report of Middle East Affairs, May-June 1991, p.64.)
Israel also provided, through north Kurdistan, first aid items to south Kurdistan and the Israeli Prime Minister Shamir, during a meeting with the US State Secretary James Baker called on the US government to defend the Kurds (Shahak I. Open Secrets: Israeli Nuclear and Foreign Policies // (www.abbc.com/historia/shahak/opensec/07.htm)

Operation Desert Storm

According to a former director-general of the Israeli foreign ministry, the strategy of Israel towards Iraq was to seek alliances with non Arabic regions in Iraq. The Kurds provided help in the 1950's when Kurdistani Jews were fleeing to Israel.

Kurdish Jews in Rawanduz, northern Iraq, 1905.

Until their immigration to Israel in the the Kurdistani Jews lived as a closed ethnic community.
Kurdish Jews have also 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.
Moshe was executed in Israel and you can read his final words here on this link.

Monuments to his comrade Meir Feinshtein and Moshe Barzani.

The president of south Kurdistan (KRG Kurdistan Regional Government) Massoud Barzani answered a question while visiting Kuwait in May 2006 about the Kurdish-Israeli relationship: “It is not a crime to have relations with Israel. If Baghdad establish diplomatic relations with Israel, we could open a consulate in Hewlêr (southern Kurdistan).” Israeli television has in the past broadcast photographs from the 1960s showing Massoud Barzani´s father, Mustafa Barzani
embracing the then Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan.

Barzani initiated contacts with Israel in 1963 and military cooperation began in 1965, the Kurdish peshmerga were trained and commanded by officers from Israels military intelligence and the Israelis participated in the Kurdish war from 1965 until the mid 1970´s

In September 1967, Mustafa Barzani visited Israel and met Moshe Dayan, Barzani got a promise from Dayan that they would continue their support to the Kurds.
(http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FF30Ak07.html)

Menachem Begin, the prime minister of Israel in 1980 acknowledged that the state of Israel had
helped and provided south Kurdistan with humanitarian aid and weapons.
(http://www.dangoor.com/72page30.html)

The Kurds accused Mossad in 1999 of providing information that led to the arrest of Abdullah Öcalan in Kenya, the leader of PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) in northern Kurdistan. Kurdish protesters in Berlin attacked the Israeli embassy and the Israeli security forces shot against the crowd. (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FF30Ak07.html)
Hundreds stormed the Israeli Consulate and it resulted in three protesters shot to death, another 16 protesters and 27 police officers wounded.

The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations - המוסד למודיעין ולתפקידים מיוחדים

Israeli mass media in 2004 reported about the meetings of the Israeli officials with the Kurdish political leaders when Massoud Barzani, Jalal Talabani and the former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon publicly confirmed the good relations with the south Kurdistan region.

At the same time, a Palestinian newspaper Al-Manar quoted unidentified sources as saying that Jalal Talabani (todays Iraqi president) the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, had secretly visited Israel where he met with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other senior Israeli officials and discussed with them steps to declare an independent Kurdish state.

According to Rubin's article, written before the Iraq war that deposed Saddam, many Kurds were already expressing approval of Israel and studying the country as a model for their own autonomy and liberation. Victims of persecution and genocide themselves, they could identify. What's more, they despised the Palestinians for their support of Saddam. The older generation of Kurds remembered the absent Iraqi Kurdish Jews fondly, and even the younger generation were able to listen to Israeli radio, watch Israeli TV, and access Israeli websites, unlike the inhabitants of the rest of Iraq.
(http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC06.php?CID=589)

Today, the communications company Bezek transmits broadcasts on behalf of the Kurdish democratic Party in southern Kurdistan every evening and Israel supports the PKK movement in east Kurdistan. (http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2007/01/04/7069.shtml)

The background of Kurdish-Israeli relations

2007-09-24T12:21:00.000-07:00

There is a ancient tradition that relates the Kurdistani Jews as the descendants of the ten tribes from the tim of the exile of the Assyrian in 6th century BCE. The Kurdistani Jews speaks the eastern dialect of the Neo-Aramaic language akin to the language of the Babylonian Talmud.

According to the Bible, the Jews after the year 722 B.C the Jews settled in Mesopotamia and Media, todays Kurdistan area, the settlement of the spread of Judaism and Jews. The religious texts report that in the late 8th century BC, the Assyrian invaders of the Northern Kingdom of Israel deported the Jews to "Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes" (II Kings 17:6), the Kurds is ancestors of the Medes. The Medes kings, allowed the Jews to return and live in peace in Jerusalem in their sacred city. (http://home.cogeco.ca/~kurdistan2/5-4-04-opinion-kurdistan-isreal-alliance.html)

Among the most important Jewish shrines in Kurdistan are the tombs of Biblical prophets, such as that of Nahum in Alikush, Jonah in Nabi Yunis (ancient Nineveh todays Mosul in south Kurdistan), and Daniel in Kirkuk. There are also several caves supposedly visited by Elijah. All are venerated by Jews today.
(http://www.kurdistanica.com/english/religion/judaism/judaism.html)

According to the tradition, Jews first arrived in the area of modern Kurdistan after the Assyrian Kingdom of Israel during the 8th century bce.
During the first century before Christ, the royal house of Adiabene, whose capital was Hêwler converted to Judaism along with a considerable number of its Kurdish citizens.

The great Kurdish warrior Saladin Ayyubi´s doctor Rambam was a Jew. For centuries after Saladin, the Kurds and Jews have been living peacefully with each other and we see before the breakup of the Ottoman empire, a large Jewish population in Mosul, south Kurdistan. (http://home.cogeco.ca/~kurdistan2/5-4-04-opinion-kurdistan-isreal-alliance.html)

IKN

2007-09-24T11:57:00.000-07:00

בָּרוּךְ הַבָּא (Barux haba) - Hun bi xer hatin.
Welcome!

This blog's main goal is to create a network among Kurds and Jews. There are according some reports as much as 200 000 Kurdish Jews living in Israel today.