Denaturalization law and then freezing of assets

The Jewish community of Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul was the direct heir of the Babylonian exile and numbered among the oldest and most learned in the world. After the pogrom of the Farhoud and the war in Palestine, its situation had deteriorated: arrests, exclusions from public service, trials.

In March, parliament passed a law authorizing Jews to leave the country on the condition that they renounce Iraqi citizenship. A year later, a second law froze the assets of those who had departed. Families thus left Iraq stripped of everything they owned.

In less than two years, nearly the entire community was transported to Israel. This was the end of an uninterrupted Jewish presence of two thousand five hundred years in Mesopotamia.