Emigration or Displacement: Conditions and Ambiguities Surrounding the Emigration of Iraqi Jews

The Eastern Jews have not mainly been part of the Zionist colonial plan in Palestine, since the original Jewish sects in the East have been deeply rooted in their residing Arab and Islamic communities. They believed that Judaism was a religion rather than a separate nationalism from its community. The study of the Jews of Iraq, their communal immigration to Israel in the period of 1950-1950, probably presents the ideal sample to analyze and apprehend the relationship between the Zionist movement and Eastern Jews, precisely the Arab ones, considering their deep-rootedness, racial purity, scientific achievements, religious and commercial prosperity, and interaction with their local surrounding. This study intends with reference to the British, Iraqi and Israeli documents to explore the depths of the conditions encompassing the immigration of this sect to Israel following the emergence of the Jewish state, and the engulfing roles fulfilled primarily by the Zionist movement advocated by influential foreign and local powers that assisted in strengthening the Jewish State and the birth of “Jewish question” in the East.