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January 28, 2005/Shevat 18 5765, Vol. 57, No. 22
Few Iraqi Jews expected to vote
RACHEL POMERANCE
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - Carole Basri has a few deaths to avenge.
The descendant of Iraqi Jews is close to people whose family members were hung in Baghdad's public square by Saddam Hussein's regime in 1969.
Those who met their death were falsely accused of espionage for the United States or Israel.
That's why Basri, a University of Pennsylvania law professor who has accompanied U.S. officials to Iraq to help fight corruption, has registered to vote in Iraq's first democratic election, scheduled for Jan. 30.
Jews "were persecuted like everyone else under Saddam, except we were the first," Basri said. "I want to strike back against what happened in the past, and the best way to strike back against that is to be for democracy."
But few of the 15,000 Iraqi Jews in the United States, or the 244,000 in Israel, are expected to cast ballots.
"We were all raised on decades of enmity with Saddam Hussein and his predecessors," Jacky Hugi, a son of Iraqi immigrants who writes on Arab affairs for Israel's Ma'ariv newspaper, told JTA. "There's too much water under that bridge."
Even before Saddam became president, he created a secret police force in 1968. An agent was assigned to watch each of the country's Jews, who then numbered about 3,500.
Jews were prohibited from traveling more than three-quarters of a mile from home or owning a telephone, Basri said.
Iraqi Jewish expatriates should vote in the upcoming election to honor the memory of Saddam's victims and to stand in solidarity with the new Iraq, Basri said.
Not everyone agrees - or has the means to vote.
Although one of the main concentrations of Iraqi Jews is in Los Angeles, the L.A. voting center is far away across the city. The other large Iraqi Jewish community is in New York, and the other four voting centers are far away, in Detroit, Chicago, Nashville and Washington.
Voters must make two trips to the voting centers - one to register, during a weeklong period that was to end Jan. 28, and one to vote between Jan. 28-30.
Iraqi-American Jewish leaders describe mixed reactions to the election in the community.
Some display interest in a democratic Iraq, while others lack the care or motivation to vote - even as one party in the race, led by Mithal al-Alusi, calls for diplomatic relations with Israel.
Some wonder whether their vote even makes a difference, given the small numbers of Iraqi Jews in the United States. Others argue that they owe nothing to a country that kicked them out around the time of the creation of Israel, rendering them penniless refugees.
Turnout from Israel also is expected to be moderate. Since Iraq still doesn't recognize the Jewish state, the nearest absentee ballot station is in Jordan - not a friendly locale for Israelis since the intifada began.
"I know of no Israelis who plan to vote," said Mordechai Ben-Porat, head of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, which represents Iraqi expatriates in Israel. "Anyone who wants to take part would have to travel to Amman twice - once to register, and again to cast a ballot. That's a lot to ask."
According to Ben-Porat, many Iraqi Jews who remember the material and intellectual riches of their native land would like to play a part in - or at least witness - Iraq's rehabilitation after Saddam's overthrow.
During the 1991 Gulf war, several of Saddam's Scud missiles landed in Ramat Gan, a Tel Aviv suburb, home to a huge Iraqi expatriate community. It was an irony lost on no one, and few Israelis believe the average Iraqi is now ready to embrace them.
"It's not my country anymore," Iraq-born author Eli Amir said.
Other notable expatriates in Israel are Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a former defense minister who recently rejoined the Cabinet on the Labor Party ticket, and outspoken liberal lawmaker Ran Cohen. Both have publicly downplayed the idea of voting for a democratic government in Baghdad.
That sense of alienation likely will increase with time: Just 29 percent of Iraqi-Israelis were actually born in Iraq, while the rest were born to expatriate parents. This new generation is unlikely to find its interest in Iraq rekindled.
"With all due respect to the Iraqi elections, we are Israelis and have enough local politics to keep us occupied," Hugi said.
In the United States, many Iraqi expatriates say they feel deeply tied to their land of origin and are following developments there closely. "They want to be connected because this is a big part of who they are," Basri said. "They all still speak the language, cook the food."
The Jewish community in Iraq, which today has dwindled to about a dozen people, is one of the oldest in the world. Jews first arrived there as slaves in 586 B.C.E. after the Babylonians destroyed the Holy Temple and conquered the kingdom of Judah.
That's why Jews from the area often refer to themselves as "Babylonian Jews," emphasizing their connection to an area that was the center of Jewish scholarship from the seventh to 11th centuries C.E., bequeathing the Babylonian Talmud.
JTA Correspondent Dan Baron contributed to this story from Israel.
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