But despite the significance of the riot to the Mizrahi Jewish community, most Israelis still lack awareness about it, according to David Kahtan, Moshe\u2019s son.<\/p>\n
\t \u201cIt\u2019s only recently that the Farhud is starting to become known in Israeli society,\u201d Kahtan said. \u201cBut it\u2019s 85 years too late.\u201d<\/p>\n The younger Kahtan is working on changing that. A year after the television broadcast of the documentary<\/a> he produced about the history of Iraqi Jewry, he led the creation of a memorial ceremony at Beit HaNassi, the President\u2019s Residence in Jerusalem, marking the anniversary of the Farhud.<\/p>\n Some 200 people attended the first-of-its-kind event, including many survivors who arrived with their families to pass on their stories. At the entrance, one young woman gently teased her grandfather that his identity card was too old, and that he wouldn\u2019t be admitted by the guards.<\/p>\n David Kahtan, who grew up in the UK and speaks better English than Hebrew, is working to record the testimonies of survivors before they die. Alongside the ceremony is a photo display he organized of more than 85 survivors, photographed by Rona Olshevsky.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a personal initiative that has become a life passion,\u201d Kahtan said. \u201cIt\u2019s not my profession, but I\u2019m trying to do my part so this story gets told.\u201d<\/p>\n \t Witnesses to a massacre<\/p>\n Historians view the Farhud as a turning point in the history of Iraqi Jewry, shattering a sense of security among the community and foreshadowing the mass exodus of most of the country\u2019s Jews to Israel over the coming decades.<\/p>\n At the time of the attack, Iraq was home to one of the world\u2019s oldest Jewish communities, with 150,000 people and roots stretching back more than 2,500 years to the Babylonian exile. Jews played prominent roles in Iraq\u2019s commerce, government and cultural life.<\/p>\n But the Farhud, which began during the Shavuot holiday, exposed how Nazi-inspired antisemitism had spread beyond the European continent and into the Arab world. It erupted during a period of political instability in Iraq following the collapse of a pro-Nazi coup led by former prime minister Rashid Ali al-Gaylani. British-backed forces had just retaken the country, and rumors were spreading that Iraqi Jews had aided the British victory.<\/p>\n \u201cOn that terrible night, frenzied rioters descended upon the homes of the Jews of Baghdad, beating them, killing and wounding them\u2026 for one reason alone: they were Jews,\u201d President Isaac Herzog said at the opening of the ceremony. \u201cEighty-five years have passed, yet the waves of antisemitic hatred continue to rise, and even to intensify, threatening the safety of Jews across the world.\u201d<\/p>\n \t Nadia Cohen, the widow of the legendary Israeli spy Eli Cohen<\/a>, recalled the atmosphere during the days before the attacks in Baghdad, where she lived as a young child.<\/p>\n She saw a person on the street marking Jewish houses in the neighborhood with paint so they could be easily identified, and sensed that something in her world had changed. She didn\u2019t tell her parents, however.<\/p>\n \u201cLong before I was the wife of a famous spy, I knew how to keep quiet,\u201d Cohen told attendees of the ceremony. \u201cOur parents were listening to the radio about the news coming from Germany at the time, and they were trying to hide their anxieties from us.\u201d<\/p>\n On the eve of the Shavuot holiday, the Jewish community was dressed in festive white clothing, but when her father came back from synagogue that morning, he was shocked by the scenes of slaughter he had witnessed on the streets, Cohen recalled.<\/p>\n Armed mobs attacked Jewish neighborhoods, looted homes and businesses, and assaulted residents while security forces largely failed to intervene.\u00a0Upon arriving home, Cohen\u2019s father had the wisdom to bring some cakes and drinks to nearby policemen, attracting them to protect their building and ultimately saving the family, she said.<\/p>\n \t Eddy Mor was another survivor who was visiting Baghdad for the holiday when the violence began. On his journey home, he saw people pulled from their cars and slaughtered on the streets, and was only saved when his bus found safety at a police station overnight. When he returned home, a mob gathered around his house with knives and other weapons, but his father produced a gun \u2014 to the family\u2019s surprise \u2014 and managed to protect them temporarily.<\/p>\n While many Jewish families were brutally betrayed by neighbors they had trusted, others were saved from the mob by Muslims as well, Mor noted.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it weren\u2019t for the help of Muslims, there would have been two or three times as many people murdered,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the official numbers don\u2019t sufficiently reflect the scope of violence at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n Another survivor of the Farhud, Shlomo Mantzur, was just a baby when his city was attacked, and his family later moved to Israel. Decades later, Mantzur was murdered<\/a> by Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Kissufim on October 7, 2023, with his body abducted to Gaza and\u00a0held for 509 days.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_20260601_142312-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tFarhud survivor Moshe Kahtan at a commemoration in Jerusalem June 1, 2026 (Zev Stub\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_20260601_144945-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tDavid Kahtan at a commemoration of the Farhud in Jerusalem on June 1, 2026 (Zev Stub\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-06-01-at-7.56.20-PM-640x400.jpeg\")
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\n\t\t(L-R): Eddy Mor, professor Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, Hadassah Lazar, Nadia Cohen and Rabbi Elhanan Miller speak at a ceremony marking 85 years since the Farhud pogrom in Iraq, at the President\u2019s Residence in Jerusalem, June 1, 2026 (Haim Zach\/GPO)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_20260601_145325-1-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tPart of a photo exhibition of Survivors of the Farhud, displayed at the President\u2019s Residence in Jerusalem, June 1, 2026 (Zev Stub\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n
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