Eddie (Edmund) Moore rarely reveals the effects of the Farhud scars on him in the present, except for one sentence: "To this day I can't be in a crowded crowd, I don't go to football matches or demonstrations."
He is a man with a thin, easygoing, cordial sense of humor who revels in the beautiful family memories of Baghdad, and tries to recreate the smells and tastes of his mother's kitchen himself. Eddie continues to radiate strength and optimism even when alarm sounds, at the height of Operation Shield and Arrow, penetrate the well-kept house on the 14th floor in Ramat Aviv. His erect stature and manners do not betray his age, 86. In short, I fell in love. Bo and his wife Gabi (Gabriella) née Yakubowski, the blue-eyed beauty who had to convince her family that the freak was okay.
The desire to explore came at the age of 70. Eddie Moore and his wife Gabi, Photo: Joshua Yosef
Eddie's journey into childhood began when he retired after years in advertising. At the age of 70 he returned to university, this time to study for a bachelor's degree in Arabic and Islam at Tel Aviv University. He completed his bachelor's degree at the Hebrew University, where he studied economics and political science. "I began to learn about the Farhud and even posted a message in Yaron Enosh's relatives search section that I was looking for survivors from the incident. In the end, I interviewed 13 survivors over the years. After writing my family story and the story of our absorption in Israel, I am working on a non-fiction book with a concentration of testimonies."
His first book, "One Thousand Nights and a Day - Farhud and Zionism in Baghdad," published by Tulips, was published in 2016. I was introduced to it recently, after Eddie sent it to me through mutual friends. I read it eagerly and excitedly. It contains juicy and colorful descriptions of life in a warm family with many children, alongside picturesque descriptions of life on the bustling streets of Baghdad. It is written from the point of view of a child, the sixth out of ten, whose view of the events and the upheavals that the family goes through is full of sincerity and curiosity. In the book, Eddie describes in modest words the heroic story of an underground immigration project concocted by his brother and brother-in-law, and has not been told to this day. The book was translated into Arabic and aroused reactions in the Arab world as well.
Daggers, axes and knives
He was 5 years old on Pentecost Eve 82 years ago, on June 1, 1941. "The lux lamp and lanterns were polished and prepared in advance, the house was polished and prepared properly for the holiday of giving the Torah," Eddie writes, "Many foods were prepared and a large dinner table was set in the courtyard of the house. A few hours before the start of the holiday, my uncle from Palestine (who had come to visit) suggested to my eldest brother to accompany him to visit relatives who lived in the East Gate neighborhood. They took me with them... The joy of meeting joined the joy of the holiday and intensified it. Two hours later, and before the holiday began, we hurried back to the shared taxi stand to return home... There was an empty van in front of us, but for some reason it looked faltering, screwed up and unclean. I refused to board it, and all the entreaties of my uncle and my older brother were of no avail... Only after this taxi left and another taxi replaced it did I agree to board.
"The driver started driving, and with a slight rush we trailed behind the old taxi that was driving in front of us. Halfway through, in a place called Old Gate, a Shiite neighborhood whose residents are ultra-religious, an angry and enthusiastic crowd gathered and blocked the street to cars. The taxi I refused to board was stopped by a raging mob. Most people shouted outrages against the British and Jews and brandished daggers, axes and kitchen knives. The excitement and battle cries of the angry mob terrified us. The taxi in front of us stopped, and our taxi stopped behind it. Several demonstrators boarded the taxi in front of us, forcibly removed the Jewish passengers and slaughtered them before our eyes. Our driver was a Muslim, which did not bode well for the Jews in the taxi. But to our surprise he did not wait at all. Seeing what was happening, he drove backwards indiscriminately. The mob retreated slightly. The driver turned the car decisively, hitting several demonstrators at each turn.
"Our driver maneuvered the car indiscriminately and continued to harm the protesters. After completing a 180-degree turn, he accelerated the taxi like a madman, at full speed led us to the police station."
"Some of them started climbing into our taxi to judge us. I saw the angry looks of the raging crowd trying to eliminate us. The driver maneuvered the car indiscriminately and continued to hit the demonstrators. After completing a turn of one hundred and eighty degrees he accelerated the taxi like a madman, at full speed led us to the police station. There he dropped us off, and was apparently interrogated as to the meaning of the matter. We and the other taxi passengers were treated warmly and sympathetically by the police officers... They put me to sleep on the roof of the police building, red nightmares devoured my sleep."
When the uncle and the two sons were unable to return, there was great concern in the Moore house. Jacob Sr. went out to the main street to find out what was going on. At that point, in the Faraj-Allah neighborhood, where they lived, there were relatively few demonstrations, but gangs of incited youths stood at the drop-off stations and murdered every Jew who got out of a taxi in cold blood. Jacob returned home horrified and told what his eyes saw. The holiday lights were turned off, the festive dinner was canceled, and instead the family began sitting shiva.
On the morning of June 2, the officers continued to take proper care of little Eddie, telling him stories, playing with him, and feeding him. Later, a policeman escorted them to the street and sent them home in a shared taxi. "When we got home, we found the whole family sitting on the floor crying. Soon the tears of mourning turned into joyous jubilations mixed with weeping and sobbing. They couldn't believe we came back alive. But the happiness we brought them was quickly replaced by anxiety and fear of what was to come.
"A few hours passed, and the bustle of the raging mob in the streets increased. Unraveling waves of people demonstrated in the streets and destroyed everything in their path. They damaged the Jews and their property. They looted shops and houses, smashed statues of the royal family, and the commotion was horrific. Our street was filled with amuck-stricken protesters. There was loud banging on the gate of the house. My father climbed the barricade we had placed behind the main gate and looked out. He saw that our Muslim neighbor, who was friendly with him, was trying to fend off the crowd that was trying to break in. Dad ran to the closet in the bedroom, and from a hiding place pulled out a gun we didn't know existed. He ran toward the gate. All the entreaties of my mother and grandmother were to no avail.
Mass grave for Farhud victims, photo: M. Ben Tzur
"Dad went outside and fired a few shots in the air. He quickly let our Arab neighbor, Mr. 'Alwan, into the house and closed the gate. The neighbor suggested to my father that our whole family go through the roof to his house, where he would hide us and protect us from the crowd. Each member of the household, large or small, rushed to his clothing box and bundled up a small bundle. When I climbed up to the roof, I saw a rushing crowd, some holding the decapitated heads of women, children and men in their hands, most of them running around hate-stricken with loot in their hands. The neighbor took us into a small room, a whole family of ten, as well as my grandfather, grandmother, uncle who came from Jerusalem, and his two brothers, my young uncles. In the evening, the riots calmed down."
Ceasefire too late
In order to understand who sparked the riots and what caused them to stop, it is necessary to become familiar with the historical background. In 1932, the British Mandate for Iraq ended, and the country gained independence. In 1933, King Faisal I of Iraq died, and his son Razi was crowned under him. Razi perished in a mysterious accident in 1939, and his 5-year-old son, Faisal II, was crowned under him, but the young king's authority was held by Regent Abdel Ayla. The period from then until 1942 was characterized by governmental instability in Iraq, stemming from struggles between fascist nationalists who supported the Axis powers led by Nazi Germany and personalities who tended to take a pro-British stance.
From 1941 to 1932, the German Embassy in Baghdad was headed by orientalist Dr. Fritz Grube. The embassy under his leadership worked to establish ties with the elite and generously supported fascist and anti-Semitic activities, including the establishment of a fascist club and a paramilitary youth organization. Intellectuals and military personnel were invited to Germany as guests of the Nazi Party, and senior Nazi officials visited Iraq. The German Embassy purchased the Christian newspaper "The Arab World", and beginning in October 1933, Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf was serialized daily, translated into Arabic.
"The toddlers started crying from hunger and lack of space to lay their heads. The older children gathered them in their laps and tried to put them to sleep. The warm and enveloping family togetherness was the best healer for our experiences."
Eddy: "Until then, the Jews had great political influence and enjoyed economic prosperity. Some 50,<> Jews lived in Baghdad, about a third of the city's population. Most of the city was shut down from commerce on Saturday. The situation of the Jews deteriorated during that period. Hundreds of Jewish government officials were fired, and the number of Jewish students in government schools was limited."
Nazi propaganda was joined by Arab nationalist and anti-Zionist incitement, which intensified with the beginning of the Arab Revolt (1939-1936) in Palestine. There was an escalation in the severity of the incidents against the Jews in Iraq, which included not only restrictions on schools and the closure of a Jewish newspaper, but also incidents of violence and murder. In 1939, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, arrived in Baghdad and became an active participant in incitement against the Jews.
All this culminated in a rebellion by Rashid Ali, who on 1 April, exactly two months before Farhud, overthrew the curfew and seized power with the help of a group of pro-Nazi military officers. Rashid Ali demanded that the British remove their military presence from Iraq, which led to the outbreak of the Anglo-Iraqi War between the United Kingdom and its allies and Iraq and its Axis allies in May 1941,
During the month of the Anglo-Iraqi War, harassment of Jews intensified and demonstrations were held in the large cities, often ending in attacks on them. Members of the pro-Nazi al-Futtwa movement were organized into armed gangs and given policing powers that were used to persecute Jews. Jews accused of spying and signaling to British planes were arrested and tortured. Much money was extorted from the community for the war against the British, and anti-Jewish propaganda was carried out on local radio and Berlin radio in Arabic. A few days before the massacre, Jewish homes were marked with red Hamsa prints by organized youth gangs.
The Moore family. Eddie standing second from left, photo: Reproduction - Joshua Yosef
On 29 May, after the British reached the outskirts of Baghdad, Rashid Ali and Amin al-Husseini fled Iraq. The next day, Friday, 30 May, Younes al-Sabawi, a pro-Nazi activist who served as economy minister in Rashid Ali's rebellious government, declared himself military governor of Baghdad. He summoned the head of the community, Rabbi Sasson Khadoori, and suggested that he instruct the community to store food and shut themselves in their homes for the next three days: Shabbat, Sunday and Monday (the two days of Shavuot). At the same time, al-Sabawi himself called through the broadcasting service to massacre the Jews.
On 31 May, an armistice agreement was signed between the Iraqi government and the British, and British troops remained on the outskirts of Baghdad. The massacre took place in the chaos between the signing of the ceasefire agreement and the entry of British troops into Baghdad on the evening of 2 June. For the 179 murdered Jews, it was too late.
"We have come to know what a pogrom is"
Eddie describes what the Moores saw after the riots ended when they left their Muslim neighbor's house: "The house looks like rubble. Everything was robbed. The waves of people who arrived late in the celebration and found nothing to plunder consumed their rage by smashing and mutilating everything that came to hand. They broke down the doors and uprooted the windows, vandalized all the two hundred potted plants, and the hanging paradise in the yard of the house became a ruin full of ash, dirt, uprooted saplings, clay piles and scattered feathers. We came to know what a pogrom was.
"In the days following the Farhud, we saw our Arab neighbors dressed in clothes they had robbed of our homes, but that was the easy part of the incident. One terrible tidings reached our ears one after another. We learned that our close neighbors next door, a family of ten, had all been slaughtered. In addition, more than 150 Jews were slaughtered, entire quarters of Jewish neighborhoods were looted, destroyed and set on fire.
"Ironically, Dad's fabric market remains intact. Had my father, the wholesale cloth merchant, known what was going to happen, he would have left the expensive merchandise in the store, but he delivered it shortly after the riots broke out to our house, leaving us almost penniless. There wasn't a single corner of the house where we could lay our heads. Hunger, fatigue and astonishment also hit the toddlers. My parents' facial expressions, engraved with fear and shock, sowed terror in all of our hearts. Dad collected some bricks and built stone stools out of them. He placed them at small distances in a big circle and gathered us all there. Mom found a plucked broom and cleaned the floor of the circle and its surroundings. It was clear to everyone that we would not be able to continue living in the same environment.
"The toddlers started crying from hunger and lack of space to lay their heads. The older children gathered them in their laps and tried to put them to sleep. In the meantime, Mother entered the destroyed kitchen, and to the delight of all of us, came out with her hands full of scraps of fruits and vegetables hidden in a hidden pantry that the looters did not discover. The warm and enveloping family togetherness in difficult times and happy hours down the road was the best healer for the experiences we went through, alongside of course the dedicated community support. The Jewish community dug a huge mass grave for all the victims, and immediately began efforts to rebuild the ruins and help the orphans and those who were left destitute."
That same night, the Moores rented a large, partially furnished apartment in a slum in the heart of the market. Jacob, who had a business reputation, received a loan to buy new fabrics, and the family slowly began to recover. About a year after the Farhud, a new character joined the family, and together with her they all became secret partners and some were also active in a wonderful immigration story.
"Until that time (1933) the Jews had great political influence and enjoyed economic prosperity. Some 50,<> Jews lived in Baghdad, about a third of the city's population. Most of the city was shut down from commerce on Shabbat."
It all started with the deafening noise of a military BSA motorcycle rattling. Eddie: "We looked out the windows and saw a British soldier dressed in ironed survival clothes with a visor hat on his head, speaking to passersby. No one knew English in the neighborhood. My older brother Mordechai, who was 16 at the time, went down to the street and asked him what he wanted."
It turned out that the British soldier was Pinchas Michaeli, a distant relative who served in one of the British army camps near Baghdad as a car mechanic. Shimon Michaeli, Pinchas' father, immigrated to Israel in 1914 and maintained correspondence with Yaakov Mor. Pinchas, who was born in Israel, was a member of the Haganah as a teenager and with the outbreak of World War II enlisted as a professional in the British Army.
"Pinchas was young, sturdy and handsome, with a thick mustache and frizzy hair, fire-breathing eyes and cheetah movements," Eddie writes. "As far as we are concerned, he represented the brave and proud Israeli Sabra. We all fell into his net. A few days later, he moved in with our parents at my parents' invitation and is housed in the drawing room on the ground floor. A friendship was forged between him and my elder brother Mordechai, and its fruits yielded amazing Zionist results."
Upload, despite the danger
Even earlier, immediately after the Farhud, Mordechai and Rose-Shoshana, the third of the Mor brothers, joined the Zionist underground movement that operated in Baghdad. Although they both went to high school, they would disappear in the evenings for many hours of activity, and their absence worried their parents, who feared that they would embark on a bad culture.
"Against this background, shouting and fighting broke out between my father and them, but both of them maintained complete secrecy. My parents would wait for their return all nights, afraid and afraid lest they be kidnapped or murdered, as happened to Jewish girls and men in Baghdad. Every day we would be informed that the body of a young Jewish man or woman had been found floating in Tigris. This situation calmed down with the arrival of Pinchas, our English relative. Pinchas hinted to my parents in his own wise way that they had nothing to fear, and that Mordechai and Rosie were engaged in very important things for the Land of Israel."
Jewish immigrants from Iraq as part of Operation "Ezra and Nehemiah", photo: GPO
Meanwhile, a secret and intense love was forged between Pinchas and 15-year-old Lata Violet, the second of the brothers. The young man from Palestine was appointed manager of the British military garage in Baghdad, and thanks to his talent and diligence was promoted to sergeant. The friendship between Pinchas and Mordechai and the love that developed between him and Lata created a permanent trio who spent time together. Lotte had a good personality and spectacular beauty, but suffered much invective from Muslims and Jews for dating a British soldier.
Pinchas began to be absent from home from time to time for an entire week on sorties to the port of Haifa to bring food products to the British garrison stationed in Iraq. In fact, they would load the trucks with weapons, ammunition and food at the Haifa port, and from there set out on a journey of more than 1,000 kilometers to the large base in Habbaniyeh, Iraq. The journey of empty trucks from Iraq back to Israel sparked an idea in Pinchas and Mordechai: to smuggle out young Jews who yearn to immigrate.
Exile has returned home
Eddie: "The idea filled them both with indescribable happiness. They began to prepare for it to become a reality. Mordechai, with his connections in the movement, established by the Jewish underground with the help of emissaries who came from Israel, told its leaders about the plan... In coordination with superiors in Israel, an exit station from Baghdad was set up to collect the smugglers. It was agreed that the immigrants would be disembarked on the way, at Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov, and scattered there. Pinchas, so enthusiastic about the idea, brought Mordechai a gun as a gift. The organization was conducted in complete secrecy. Such occupations were considered a serious offense, punishable by certain death.
"The vigilance for the departure of the first group was oppressive, stressful and joyful. Almost all family members were exposed to the program. We shared the joy, anxiety and keeping the secret. One morning at dawn, my parents and my brother Mordechai got up early. He was responsible and accompanied by the first group that was about to smuggle across the border into Eretz Israel. Mom and Dad were in on the secret and knew all the details of the operation. We all woke up, and Mordechai left early in the morning with Pinchas on the motorcycle.
"Mordechai and Pinchas took with them our anxious souls, which almost flourished because of the fear of the unexpected. Anyone caught on charges of smuggling Jews into the Land of Israel – even if the guilt was alleged – is sentenced to death."
"They took with them our anxious souls, which almost flourished because of the fear of the unexpected. The situation in Iraq was extremely dangerous. Anyone caught on charges of smuggling Jews into the Land of Israel – even if the allegation was alleged – was sentenced to death. My parents, Mordechai and Pinchas, knew very well the price they would pay in case of failure, but the temptation was too great to give up the action. Mordechai came back around ten o'clock in the morning. Dad didn't go to work that day, and Mom, unlike usual, was close to him and didn't do the housework like she did every day. And we, the younger ones, have also given up on routine. When Mordechai returned home, we knew that the first step had been crowned with success. Twenty immigrants were put on the truck driven by Pinchas, well hidden behind empty British army supply boxes without anyone noticing. Thus began Pinchas and Mordechai's wonderful and pioneering journey to encourage Jews to immigrate to the Promised Land. And so we were all left tense, worried and praying for the success of the operation in anticipation of Pinchas' return with good news."
Pinchas' truck was accompanied by another Jewish resident of Israel who had enlisted in the British army. For the second truck, which went with him on all his journeys to Israel, Pinchas chose two local drivers, hired employees of the British army, Shiite Muslims. Each received 50 dinars from him for each shipment, equivalent to an annual salary. Eddie: "For the first time, the journey took a whole week, but this week seemed like a whole year. Pinchas returned to us at the end of the journey with a wide smile under his mustache and immediately began preparing the next shipment with Mordechai's close assistance. Thus, five shipments went without incident. We have become accustomed to this routine with a diminishing dose of fear as deliveries have increased. The sixth shipment caused us great stomachaches and terrible worries.
Three whole weeks passed, and Pinchas did not return from his journey. On this trip, too, he hid twenty immigrants, who were huddled in the darkness of the empty crates he had transported in his truck. This time the anxiety was really great.
"After three nerve-wracking weeks, Pinchas returned. He said that on the way to Jordan, the gas pump of the truck loaded with illegal immigrants broke down. Pinchas, the car mechanic, worked for 24 hours and almost managed to fix the problem creatively, but then a high-ranking British officer arrived accompanied by his driver in a military surviving car. He stopped next to the trucks, got out of his car and ordered Pinchas to return with him to the military camp in Habbaniya in Iraq so that they could install a new carburetor in the truck. In the meantime, he heard coughing from the trucks and found twenty people sweating and frightened. Pinchas had no choice, so he pulled out a pistol and, together with the two Muslim drivers, attacked the officer and handcuffed him. The British officer begged for his life and for his small children, said he was a supporter of the Zionist enterprise and promised to rescue them from the situation. Pinchas agreed. The two trucks returned to a camp in Iraq, where it took several nerve-racking days for the malfunctions to be fixed. At night, the British officer secretly supplied food and water to the immigrants trapped in the truck, sneaking them in the dead of night by sneaking individuals into the bathroom. He released the trucks after several tense and exhausting days."
Lata and Pinchas after reuniting in Jerusalem,
In 1945, Pinchas and Valletta were married in Baghdad. The Chuppah took place in the synagogue, and the magnificent celebration, after the economic recovery from the damage caused by the Farhud, was held on the roof of the family home. Throughout the years, Mordechai and Pinchas continued to transport more Jews in various trucks and vehicles, and one of the transports was even joined by Eddie's grandparents and one of his uncles. When they left Baghdad, the Iraqi police discovered them, and only through bribes and pleas did the police excuse themselves and not arrest those fleeing. Pinchas had to drop off his wife's family in Habbaniyah, and from there they made their way back to Baghdad.
At the same time, a Jew who wanted to immigrate in this way contacted Mordechai. Mordechai refused his request, since the truck immigrants were only those approved by the leaders of the Jewish underground in Iraq. The same Jew denounced Mordechai, who was arrested and tortured. Through contacts with the wife of the Speaker of the Iraqi House of Representatives, Mavolod Muhlutz Pasha, Mordechai was released pending his trial, and thanks to lobbying and money he was later saved from the hanging column. Some of Pinchas's activities are mentioned briefly in the book "One Language and Several Things" published by Yad Ben-Zvi, in which it is written that he was already a member of the Haganah as a teenager and that he delivered a total of about ten transports of twenty people at a time, i.e., about two hundred immigrants.
At the end of World War II, the British Army evacuated its forces from Iraq, and Pinchas was also sent home. His wife Leta was not allowed to immigrate with him. Only after months of being apart, through the same Speaker of the House of Representatives, did they succeed in obtaining an immigration permit for her, and she separated from her family and was reunited with her lover. The rest of the family fled in 1950 on a long and dangerous journey from Iraq to Iran, whose hardships Eddy describes in his book. After a few months in Tehran, they immigrated to Israel. At the same time, the Iraqi government allowed the immigration of Jews whose property it frozen. By 1952, more than 100,2 Jews had left the country in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah. "A 500,<>-year exile has come home," Eddie concludes with a smile. "I will tell you about absorption in Israel in the next article. The door is open, you're always welcome."
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