President Isaac Herzog hosted an event at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem on Monday marking 85 years since the Farhud, the 1941 pogrom against the Jews of Iraq, in which hundreds of Jews were murdered, wounded, and robbed in Baghdad and other cities.
The event was attended by survivors of the Farhud and their families, including Nadia Cohen, a Farhud survivor and the widow of the late Israeli spy Eli Cohen, and Hadassah Lazar, the sister of the late Shlomo Mansour, a Farhud survivor who was abducted and murdered on October 7, 2023.
Addressing the gathering, Herzog recalled the events of June 1941. “On that terrible night, between June 1 and 2, 1941, frenzied rioters descended upon the homes of the Jews of Baghdad, beating them, killing and wounding them," he said. “In those dreadful hours, 179 Jews were slaughtered: women, children, the elderly, and men, for one reason alone: they were Jews."
The President warned of continuing antisemitism around the world. “Eighty-five years have passed since those harrowing events, yet the waves of antisemitic hatred continue to rise, and even to intensify, threatening the safety of Jews across the world," Herzog stated. “We are witnessing mounting antisemitic attacks, including in democratic countries, and even among longtime friends of the State of Israel."
He stressed the importance of preserving the memory of both the Farhud and the Holocaust. “When we give voice to what our sisters and brothers in Iraq endured 85 years ago, with witnesses to those terrible days here among us, and when we pass on the memory of the dreadful Holocaust that consumed a third of our people, we remind the world, again and again, of the dangers contained in antisemitic incitement, and of where that racist hatred led us in the past," Herzog said. “The more we persist in this work-warning, cautioning, and fighting-the more we will be able to halt it."
Herzog also referred to the connection between survivors of the Farhud and the October 7 massacre. “In sad and painful circumstances, our entire nation came to know the story of the Farhud survivors who founded Kibbutz Be’eri, as the members of that kibbutz once again faced a terrible massacre on October 7," he said.
The President also spoke about the late Shlomo Mansour. “Such, too, is the story of Shlomo Mansour, of blessed memory, the beloved man whom I had the privilege of eulogizing at his funeral, and whose sister, Hadassah, is here with us, a woman I love and deeply esteem," Herzog said. “Shlomo was a member of Kibbutz Kissufim who was abducted and murdered in captivity. We bid him farewell eight decades after he and his family had lived through the events of the Farhud firsthand."