Violence in Baghdad (1950-51), Violence of the Archives

This article examines the series of violent events that shook Baghdad’s Jewish community in the years 1950-1951 – and the violent history of these events’ commemoration (or rather obliteration). The article focuses on the private archive of Baruch Nadel, a journalist, researcher and author, who blamed the State of Israel and the Mossad – and specifically Zionist emissary, Mordechai Ben-Porat – for planning and executing the series of explosions which, according to Nadel, was intended to spur the Jews of Iraq to emigrate to Israel as part of “Operation Ezra and Nehemiah.” Through attentive analyses of texts left by Nadel in his archive for “future researchers,” the authors expose Nadel’s modes of coping with the sovereign’s silencing mechanisms, which were designed to silence both the historic narrative and those who wished to expose it.