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Podcast: North Star with Ellin Bessner
Episode: Stories from Iraq's most famous pogrom: Farhud's 80th anniversary
Description: The Farhud was a two-day pogrom against the Jewish community of Iraq in the spring of 1941. Pro-Nazi rioters killed hundreds of Jews in Baghdad and destroyed 900 Jewish homes and businesses. The tragedy marked a turning point in the fate of the Iraq’s 2,000-year-old Jewish community: Zionism was later declared a crime and Jews were turfed from government jobs.
Several hundred thousand Farhud survivors eventually moved to Israel, and about 500 families later made their way to Canada. Today, on the 80th anniversary of the Farhud, we hear from two of them: Joe Samuels was born in 1930, in th...