JERUSALEM — President Isaac Herzog commemorated the 85th anniversary of the Farhud pogrom at an event in Jerusalem on June 1, 2026. The Farhud was a two-day pogrom that began on June 1, 1941—the Jewish holiday of Shavuot—in Baghdad, resulting in approximately 200 Jewish deaths, widespread injuries, looting of Jewish homes and businesses, vandalism of holy sites, and sexual violence against Jewish women and girls.
Herzog likened the events leading to the Farhud to Kristallnacht in Germany and Austria and suggested parallels to the October 7, 2023 massacre. He attended the commemoration at the President’s Residence, which was organized by David Kahtan, whose father survived the Farhud as a child.
An exhibition of about 80 black-and-white portraits of child survivors of the Farhud, photographed by Rona Olshevsky, was displayed during the event. Nadia Cohen, widow of Eli Cohen, shared her personal memories of the pogrom during a panel discussion, recalling that her family had been wealthy and well-educated before being forced to start anew in a transit camp in Israel. Cohen stated that British military forces were present in Iraq during the Farhud but did not defend the Jewish community, describing them as “just fence-sitting.” She also expressed concern that in Israel, greater emphasis has been placed on remembering the Holocaust than on the Farhud or other violent episodes in the history of North African Jews. Cohen noted that displaced Arabs carry keys to their former homes as a symbol of memory, and questioned why Iraqi Jews do not similarly preserve such tangible memories.
David Kahtan said, “Memory is a form of resistance.” He added that hatred, incitement, and extremist ideologies remain relevant today and noted that approximately 850,000 North African Jews were displaced from their homes in the mid-20th century.
The Farhud marked the beginning of the end of a cohesive Jewish community in Iraq, which had existed since the sixth century BCE, following the Babylonian exile. Prior to the 1941 violence, Jews and Muslims largely coexisted peacefully in Iraq, with many Jews holding prominent roles in economic, cultural, and civic life. The spread of Nazi propaganda in the 1930s contributed to rising antisemitism. By 1952, under Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, about 120,000 Iraqi Jews had immigrated to Israel. As of 2026, only a few elderly Jews remain in Iraq out of a former population exceeding 180,000, with one functioning synagogue and no spiritual leaders.