Kadoori Weaves Tale of Escape & Iraqi Culture
Recently interviewed by the Shoah Foundation, Nurit Kadoori at 97 shares her life of transition through strength and a colorful culture.
After 37 years with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and now with the AJT, , Jaffe’s focus is lifestyle, art, dining, fashion, and community events with emphasis on Jewish movers and shakers.
Nurit Kadoori, 97, remembers the day in 1950 when her family and fiancé scooped up what they could carry and shuttled off on a boat from Basra, Iraq, to Abadan, Iran, and onwards, to Tehran, Iran, by train.
The Jewish Agency (Sokhnut) facilitated the journey. Pogrom tactics were not subtle in Iraq in 1950-51 when the government wanted Jews expelled. Kadoori recalled, “First, they hung a Jewish teen in the Basra market, then they planted a bomb (albeit fake) in our synagogue. My parents had a thriving jewelry business, and the Jews (up until that point) were comfortable in Iraqi society. By ‘hook or by crook,’ we had to leave Iraq.”
In 1941, approximately 200 Jews were killed in the Farhoud pogrom. Her son, Danny, stated, “During that time, many Muslims protected Jews from the rampage perpetrated by their fellow citizens. Unlike the Jewish-European experience, the Jews of Iraq experienced fewer pogroms than their Jewish counterparts in Europe.”
Jews held high positions in Iraq and Mesopotamia (under Ottoman rule) as part of the educated class.
Thanks to American Jews, these refugees were resettled in Israel where Kadoori had family. Arriving in Haifa, they stayed in a refugee transit tent camp and eventually moved to Ramat Gan. The Jewish-Iraqi exodus to Israel was code named Operation Ezra and Nehemiah. The large-scale migration went to Israel (now 450,000), less so to London and New York.
Kadoori’s husband, Jamil (James), an internist, practiced for 16 years in Israel at a clinic and hospital. As a housewife, Kadoori found life in Israel “not pleasant, with lots of hard work and little food. Coming from a place of a reasonable abundance, it was hard to adjust. There was food rationing between 1949-59, but we managed.”
Dr. Kadoori wasn’t happy in his work where he wasn’t able to practice a “quality level of care.” Sad to leave family, Nurit packed up again for life in Long Island, N.Y., where they raised three children and stayed for 50 years before landing in Atlanta to be near resettled adult children.
Related to the prominent Sassoon and Kadoori families, Nurit explained that many Iraqi Jews escaped to China and India, where they established schools and synagogues.
Kadoori’s healthy lifestyle starts with walking, reading, tuning into politics, sewing, knitting, beading, even doing her own manicure, eating ice cream and “anything else she wants in moderation.” No alcohol.
She laughed, “I live in an independent living building in Sandy Springs and socialize, but I don’t need the headache of dating. And the food here is not so great.”
Her memories of Iraqi “finger licking good” Shabbat meals start with stuffing a chicken with meat and rice, baking for six hours, and pouring eggs over it, alongside fried eggplant, more rice and exotic sweets like baklava. Iraqi food overlaps with Persian and Indian fare using cumin, curry, peppers, and fragrant spices.
Though fluent in English, sons Danny and Robert, a senior vice president at CBRE, speak to their mother in Judeo-Arabic, a dialect spoken by the Jewish Iraqi community. As a blend of ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic, it’s also influenced by Turkish and Farsi.
Even while thriving in New York, the Kadoori’s ethnicity stuck with the Iraqi community, which sometimes included Iranian influence in synagogues. Although the Iraqi synagogue is set up like a Sephardic bimah, and men sit separately from women, Iraqi Jews are not “Spanish Sephardic,” but descendants from Babylon, where the Jewish community dates back to the sixth century BCE.
According to Danny, “Now for most, Judaism is practiced on the ‘lighter’ side. The generation that came after the Iraqi exodus has intermarried with other communities.”
The Babylonian Jewish population of the third to seventh centuries was one million making it the largest Jewish diaspora community. In 2014, Iraq was down to 500 Jews. As of 2021, the U.S. had 15,000, with 10,000 in England. Interestingly, during the reign of Sadam Hussein (1979-2003), antisemitic laws loosened, including travel restrictions, thus more Jews emigrated by choice. Now Ramat Gan, Givatayim, Kiyrat Gat, and Or Yehuda are strongholds for Iraqi life in Israel.
Recently interviewed by the Shoah Foundation, Kadoori is mentally and physically sharp, heading into the centenarian category. She stated, “I love America. Here we have the top of the line of everything.”
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