The lives of the 54,000 Jews remaining in Iraq were reported today to be in Jeopardy as uncontrolled mobs swarmed through Bagdad looting Jewish shops and attacking Jewish pedestrians. Police made no efforts to protect the attacked Jews, but Iraqi troops have occupied the Sayyar Bazaar, near the Amoun Bridge, which is the center of the jewelry trade, and are denying Jewish shopkeepers access to the area.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi authorities have moved quickly to prevent Jews from transferring any of their property or assets. Jewish property has been confiscated and Jewish bank accounts frozen. Authorities supervising the departure of Jewish emigrants to Israel are seizing their personal effects and the 50 pounds in cash emigrants were formerly permitted to take, and compelling them to leave completely penniless.
The 300 immigrants who arrived at Lydda Airport last night in the first direct Bagdad-Lydda flights of the Bagdad airlift, came without even a change of clothes. They reported that their luggage was seized at the Bagdad airport and they were permitted to leave only in the clothes they were.
They reported that during the last few days Jews have been attacked by mobs in the streets of Bagdad and that Jewish shops in the clothing bazaar were completely looted. Jewish shops in other quarters were pillaged as well. In every case where the police were called, they said, the police came long after the mobs had swept on and after the damage had been done.
Jews are not allowed on the streets of Bagdad carrying parcels, the refugees reported. Any Jew carrying a parcel is immediately picked up by the police and detained pending investigation whether he is an Iraqi national or has forfeited Iraqi nationality by registering for emigration. If the latter, he is immediately thrown into prison to await trial on charges of trying to dispose of his property.
The central prison in Bagdad is reported to hold several hundred Jews arrested in this way and held without even a preliminary investigation.
The refugees arriving here last night came in six planes. They were immediately taken to the Shaar Haaliya Camp, near Haifa. While concerned about the property they had left behind them, they expressed fears about relatives and friends still in Iraq.
The Bagdad-Israel airlift is now operating at the rate of about 10,000 passengers monthly. Efforts are being made by the Jewish Agency, which is handling the transfer of Iraqi Jews, to step up the rate to 20,000 monthly. The Iraqi Government has established a May 31 deadline for the emigration of Jews.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
