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Muslims
Rescue Baghdad's Jewish Community Center From Looters
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The
center is located in a freshly painted white house on a lane off
Rashid Street in Baghdad's old town
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BAGHDAD,
April 12 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Iraqi Muslims came to
the aid of Baghdad's tiny Jewish community Saturday, April 12, chasing
out looters trying to sack its cultural center in the heart of the
capital.
"At
3:00 am, I saw two men, one with a beard, on the roof of the Jewish
community house and I cried out to my friend, 'Hossam, bring the
Kalashnikovs!" said Hassam Kassam, 21, Agence France-Presse (AFP)
said.
Neither
Hassan nor Hossam, who is the guard at the center, was armed at the
time but the threat worked in scaring off the intruders.
Two
hours later, the looters returned again and Hassan Kassem used the
trick once more.
The
center is located in a freshly painted white house on a lane off
Rashid Street in Baghdad's old town.
Two
days ago, amid rampant looting in the capital, neighbors removed the
sign reading "Special Committee for the Religious Affairs of Ezra
Menahem Daniel" to make the premises less conspicuous.
On
Friday, April 11, at about 10:30 am, two men seized an opportunity
created by the guard's mid-morning break to try to force open the door
in a first attempt to burgle the center.
"We
came over right way and asked them what they wanted," said
Abdallah Nurredin, 50.
They
tried to explain that they wanted to talk to the guard, Nurredin said,
"but when they saw the look we were giving them, they left
without saying another word".
On
Saturday, Hossam the guard left to look for a real gun in case the
persistent thieves returned.
"The
Jews have always lived here, in this house, and it is only normal that
we should protect them," said Ibrahim Mohamad, 36, who works in a
small undergarments factory near the center of town.
Although
the majority of Jews fled the country in the early 1950s, many of
their Muslim tenants come each week to pay their rent to an old woman
at the center, Mohamad said.
He
recalled that in October 1998, a Palestinian killed two Jews and two
Muslims in an attack on the community center.
"We
raced help to the victims, regardless of whether they were Jewish or
Muslim".
In
the Batauin district near the Saddun commercial artery, the entrance
of a large synagogue is blocked by an immense iron portal.
The
way onto the street is obstructed by trees and chairs. A self-defense
militia formed Friday to fight back against bandits.
"We
are defending the synagogue like all houses on the street and we will
not let anyone touch it," said Edward Benham, a 19-year-old
computer science student.
The
young Christian said that Jews normally came each Saturday but because
of the lingering security problem, no one came today.
Iraq's
Jewish community settled in Mesopotamia in the seventh century BC and
numbered more than 100,000 before the creation of the Israeli state on
the Palestinian lands in 1948.
Ninety
percent of Iraqi Jews have since emigrated, leaving only a
2,500-strong community when the pan-Arab secularist Baath party took
power in 1968.
Currently,
about 50 Jews live in Iraq.
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