85 Years After the Farhud: Herzog Warns Antisemitic Hatred Is Rising Again

Farhud Anniversary

At a Farhud anniversary ceremony in Jerusalem, President Isaac Herzog marked 85 years since the 1941 pogrom against the Jews of Iraq. He warned that antisemitic hatred is rising again around the world.

The ceremony took place Monday at the President’s Residence. Farhud survivors and their families attended.

The Farhud took place in Iraq on June 1 and 2, 1941. Violent rioters attacked the Jewish community of Baghdad and other cities. They murdered, wounded, and robbed hundreds of Jews.

For Herzog, the Farhud anniversary was not only a moment of remembrance. It was a warning.

“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 said.

Farhud Anniversary Warning

The Farhud remains one of the most painful chapters in the history of Middle Eastern Jewry. It shattered one of the world’s oldest Jewish communities. It also exposed the danger Jews faced, even in places where they had lived for generations.

“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,” Herzog said.

“In those dreadful hours, 179 Jews were slaughtered: women, children, the elderly, and men, for one reason alone: they were Jews.”

Herzog said the Jewish people must preserve the memory of the Farhud. He said that mission matters even more as Jews face rising antisemitism in democratic countries and among longtime friends of Israel.

“We are witnessing mounting antisemitic attacks, including in democratic countries, and even among longtime friends of the State of Israel,” he said.

From Baghdad to October 7

The ceremony also connected the memory of the Farhud to October 7.

Nadia Cohen attended the event. She survived the Farhud and later married Israeli spy Eli Cohen.

Hadassah Lazar also attended. She is the sister of Shlomo Mansour, a Farhud survivor who was abducted and murdered on October 7, 2023.

Mansour survived the Farhud as a child in Iraq. He later built his life in Israel and became a member of Kibbutz Kissufim. More than 80 years after surviving anti-Jewish violence in Baghdad, Hamas terrorists abducted and murdered him.

“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,” Herzog said.

He also spoke about Mansour directly.

“Shlomo was a member of Kibbutz Kissufim who was abducted and murdered in captivity,” Herzog said. “We bid him farewell eight decades after he and his family had lived through the events of the Farhud firsthand.”

Memory as a Shield

Herzog said the Farhud anniversary carries a clear responsibility. The Jewish people must warn the world about antisemitic incitement before it becomes violence.

“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,” he said.

For Israel, the message of the Farhud anniversary is direct. Jewish memory does not only look backward. It also protects the future.

The Farhud was a warning written in Jewish blood. Eighty-five years later, as antisemitism rises again, Herzog’s message was that the Jewish people must remember, speak, and fight back before hatred turns into another massacre.