Edwin Shuker Edwin Shuker is an Arab Jew from Iraq with a truly remarkable story he wants to share with the world, writes Aron Hegarty
His story is the unheard narrative of the Jewish refugee, whose history of being the original people in Middle Eastern countries – dating back more than 2,000 years – risks being forgotten about.
After fleeing in 1971, Mr Shuker uses a long-awaited return to his homeland to inspire the next generation and offer hope of a future in Iraq, where Jews and Arabs can co-exist once again.
The Iraqi national attended Trinity College Dublin in January to promote the screening of Remember Baghdad which was followed by a talk on the film and his life.
Remember Baghdad, directed by filmmaker Fiona Murphy, traces the 64-year-old’s journey back to the country of his birth after decades of war and instability, to buy a home and give hope that Jews can return to live there.
Ahead of the event in Dublin, Mr Shuker spoke to The Irish Catholic about the documentary, his life, the history of Arab Jews and acceptance of all faiths.
Tensions
Born in Baghdad in in 1955, Mr Shuker recalls how he and his family managed to flee Iraq amid rising tensions: “It took us two and half years to find a way to escape through the northern Kurdish mountains. There the Kurdish population helped us cross the border into Iran in August 1971.”
At the age of 16, he and his family arrived in the United Kingdom as United Nations refugees.
Mr Shuker graduated from Leeds University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics then moved to London, where he established himself as a prominent businessman. He later became the Vice President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
Despite being far away from his native Baghdad, it was a random encounter while he was living in England that brought Mr Shuker closer to home.
“We rebuilt our lives and then one day, someone in the audience who heard my story told me ‘this is fascinating, I didn’t know there were Jews in Iraq?’ and that became a sentence which changed my life.
“I saw with my own eyes that a legacy of 2,600 years was disappearing and we were being written out of the narrative of the very places where we were the indigenous population. The Jewish community across these countries had been living there 1,200 years before Islam and Arabs came out from the Arabian desert into these lands.”
He reflected: “To think that in my lifetime, having being an eye witness, having lived in these places that our history is no longer taught anywhere.
“That our language is dying and our cemeteries – where my grandfather is buried – in Iraq are disappearing literally in front of my eyes.
“I made a promise that if I could push that to even one more generation – to show my own children where they came from – who knows what will happen?”
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Mr Shuker, who also served as Vice President of the European Jewish Congress, helps to maintain Jewish shrines and sites in order to keep the connection between his native Iraq and its displaced Jewish community intact.
He hopes documenting his return to Baghdad will prove to be a watershed moment in the history, and future, of Arab Jews.
“After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, I made sure I was there in Iraq,” said Mr Shuker.
“I was the first Jew to go back to Baghdad to look for my old house, my school, the cemetery and that was then followed by further visits in 2004 and 2005.
“Then in 2015, I was convinced and persuaded by a director (Fiona Murphy) – who was making a documentary about Iraqi Jews – to go back to Iraq to film and get pictures that would add hugely to the film.
“The documentary is 69 minutes long and tells the story of me, how I went back to Baghdad, looked for the house I grew up in, found it and later bought a house to prove a point as a symbolic gesture to say: ‘I’m not done here, there’s unfinished business’.
“That is the story of the film and it ends on an optimistic note suggesting that maybe in 10, 20 or even 50 years’ time this house will be the beginning of a reconnection between the Jews and their homeland…or it could die with me.”
It doesn’t matter if the audience is in thousands or just six or seven because I want the narrative of my people to be heard”
As well as being a businessman, Mr Shuker is an international activist and public speaker on the Middle East. He has engaged in and supported many projects which promote human rights and freedom in the region.
Mr Shuker reportedly describes himself as an “Arabic and Hebrew speaker” and says his first-hand accounts are what set him apart from other commentators.
“The talks that I give are a testimony, an eye witness account. It is a history, but not a history that has been adapted or interpreted; it is an eye witness which makes all the difference. It’s the reason I take my story and the story of our people all over the world.
“It doesn’t matter if the audience is in thousands or just six or seven because I want the narrative of my people to be heard and absorbed by as many people as possible.
“Everyone has heard of the Palestinian refugee, but very few people have heard of the concept of the Jewish refugee.
“My story is never to undermine the Palestinian narrative, but rather to say there is no monopoly on suffering by one side. Both set of refugees have paid dearly for national conflict.
“But for decades the story of the Jewish refugees was not heard at all and, as I find myself getting older, I find myself saying ‘I have to tell our story to as many people as possible’.
“The more people that hear about it from me directly, the more I will be giving gratitude to the legacy and history of the civilisation that my ancestors built.”
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The earliest reference to Jews in Ireland was in 1079 in the Annals of Inisfallen, which recorded ‘five Jews came over from the sea with gifts to Tairdelbach [King of Munster]’.
A permanent Irish settlement for Jews was established in the late 15th Century. The first of three synagogues based in Dublin was founded in 1660 with later ones built in Belfast and (until its closure in 2016) Cork.
The Jewish community in Ireland grew rapidly between 1871 and 1911 from 230 to 3,805. By 1946 there was a record 3,907 Jews living in Ireland.
However, the Jewish population on these shores has been in decline since then; dropping to a low of 1,581 in 1991.
There was a rise to 2,557 in the latest 2016 cenus, but today this figure is reportedly closer to the 2,000 mark ahead of the 2021 cenus.
The history and timeline of the Jewish people in Iraq though goes back much further than most people realise, according to Mr Shuker.
“The Jewish community in Iraq is in fact the most ancient community in the world and traces its roots back 2,600 years,” he explained.
“It started when the Babylonian King (Nebuchadnezzar II) attacked Jerusalem and destroyed Solomon’s Temple then marched all the Jews to Babylon. There they sat by the rivers of Babylon reading Psalm 137 as they wept for Zion.
“After the temple was destroyed, they didn’t know what to do. Judaism was based on a temple and suddenly they are now in foreign lands and don’t know who to refer to.
“Fortunately, they were guided by Prophets such as Jeremiah, who said to them: ‘What are you weeping about? Get up and start working, be faithful and pray for the peace of wherever I exile you. So there (where you are exiled to) you will find your own peace’.
“That was the marker for the next 2,600 years,” continued Mr Shuker on his story of the Jewish community.
Second temple
“Some decided to go back to Jerusalem and establish a second temple, whereas many others stayed behind and developed a more mobile form of Judaism; wherein they could live with their Jewish identity without a temple or having to go back to Jerusalem.
“This carried them through and kept their identity until the middle of the 20th Century when three factors changed everything. The first was anti-semitism through Nazism in Europe, the second was Arab Nationalism and then the third was the establishment of the state of Israel.
“Arab armies attacked Israel on the day it was declared, but they were unsuccessful. The armies went back to their countries, feeling frustrated and demoralised, and they found almost 856,000 Jews living there and that was resented after the defeat.
“By 1951, over 90% of Jews who lived in those areas were displaced. Their assets were frozen, their nationalities were revoked and they were sent to Israel, which doubled in size over short period of time. They took in refugees then put them into transit camps for many years until they managed to build houses for them.
“People like my grandparents suffered a lot adjusting to a new country and language but the young people were already integrated,” said Mr Shuker on Israel.
The situation became worse as we approached another Israeli-Palestinian-Arab war and again the Jews who stayed behind in the Arab countries paid the price”
“There was a minority (7-8%) who did not go to Israel and stayed in these Arab countries; one of them was my father, the other was my mother. My father was finishing university, so he didn’t want to go and then after graduating realised that it wasn’t easy to integrate in a new country so he married.
“We stayed behind in Baghdad and life was good. In the late 1950s there was a king, there was order and there was a parliament in Iraq.
“But life changed in 1958,” said Mr Shuker of living in Iraq. “The royal family was annihilated, a general took over and then in 1963 the ‘bad’ party came along for the first time.
“One of the first things they did was ask the Jewish community of Iraq to queue; bringing with us our Iraqi nationality and we did. I was eight years old at the time when I was standing waiting; we gave our identity cards and in return they issued us with a yellow card.
“This made us the ‘other’ (second, third class citizens) in our own country and you had to produce this yellow card for all financial dealings. Immediately you got earmarked as Jewish.
“The situation became worse as we approached another Israeli-Palestinian-Arab war (the Six-Day War of June 1967) and again the Jews who stayed behind in the Arab countries paid the price.”
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The annual Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations took place at the Mansion House in Dublin on January 26.
The event cherishes the memory of six million Jews and millions of others who were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis because of their ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, political affiliations or their religious beliefs between 1941 and 1945.
This year’s theme for the Holocaust Memorial was for people to ‘stand together’ and focused on the role that other faiths have contributed to saving Jewish lives.
In addition, January 27 also marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz – Nazi Germany’s largest concentration camp – where all faiths gathered in unison for a soul-searching exercise of reflection, confession and atonement for past mistakes.
Mr Shuker believes that Jewish people cannot fight anti-semitism on their own and will need the help of all religions to work together to protect each other from acts of hatred.
“We need all faiths to understand and stand by us,” he said. “Therefore, we are building alliances with all people.
“I have been working with all faiths to make sure that everyone realises that an attack on one faith, is an attack on all faiths.
“One cannot stand by and watch a faith being attacked and stand aside because eventually the other faiths will suffer too, then there is no one to defend them.
“I have made sure that as Vice President (of the Board of Deputies of British Jews) we are more than inclusive; that we go out of our way to introduce ourselves to anyone that welcomes us.
Every faith group
“I am interested every faith group. For them to join our story and for us to join their story.”
On the issue of contemporary anti-semitism, he commented: “If only those who advertise and promote (anti-semitism) would know that there is another side to the story, then the solution would be more fair, positive and accepting for all sides.
“You would get all sides co-operating rather than competing over who suffered the most.”
Mr Shuker says Ireland is “very important” to him for its good relations in the Middle East and as a country which has generally accepted and shown tolerance to the Jewish community.
The much-travelled philanthropist hopes he can spread his story and build relationships with more trips to the ‘Emerald Isle’ in future.
“This is my second visit to Dublin,” he said of his ties with Ireland. “The first time I came was two years ago when I gave a talk in the Mansion House, which was very well received.
“I succeeded here in passing the message to be absorbed and welcomed, and I look forward to the next opportunity to come back again.”
