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AKRE, Iraq, May 24 (AFP) - 5h14 - Hajj Khalil is
the last Muslim with Jewish roots in the Iraqi
Kurdish village of Akre. One of his dearest wishes
is to travel to Israel to apologise to his cousins
for failing in his duties as a host when they
visited him five years ago.
"In 2000, several of them came to see me and I
didn't even greet them, let alone invite them to
stay. Despite the autonomy enjoyed by Kurdistan,
Saddam Hussein had spies everywhere," says Khalil
Fakih Ahmed, a 74-year-old wearing the traditional
Kurdish headdress.
In Akre, a large cluster of hillside houses some 420
kilometres (260 miles) north of Baghdad, near the
border with Turkey, place names are one of the few
reminders of the former Jewish presence.
The last Jews in the region left Iraq between 1949
and 1951, just after the creation of the state of
Israel.
One block of houses is still called Shusti -- or
'Jewish town' in Kurdish -- but the old synagogue
was destroyed long ago.
In the mountains overlooking the town lies a plateau
called Zarvia Dji (Land of the Jews) where the
Jewish community used to gather for celebrations.
"My grandmother converted to Islam when her husband
died and my father had just turned 10," Hajj Khalil
recalls, sitting in his garden with his children and
grandchildren around him.
"When the Jews left, we stayed because we had become
Muslims."
But in the streets of Akre, Khalil and his family
are still called "the Jews".
"If you ask for Izzat or Selim in the street, nobody
will know who you're talking about," says the old
man's 19-year-old grandson. "But if you say 'Izzat
the Jew', they'll know immediately."
According to the United Nations, some 150,000 Jews
still lived in Iraq just after World War II, several
thousand of them in Kurdistan.
Former Israeli defence minister Yitzhak Mordechai
was born in Akre.
In 1999, Khalil's cousin Itzhak Ezra, who lives in
the northern Israeli city of Tiberias, arrived in
Akre.
"We told the neighbours he was a Turkish trucker who
needed a place to sleep. But Itzhak met an old
friend who recognised him after half a century."
"Luckily, his friend said nothing and the story was
kept secret," he says.
A few weeks after returning to Israel, the long-lost
cousin sent a letter to thank Khalil for his
hospitality.
"Saddam's spies found out and arrested our
brother-in-law who lived in Mosul," southwest of
Akre, says Saber, one of Khalil's sons.
Saber went to see the intelligence services in an
attempt to secure his relative's release but was
arrested and detained for a month in Baghdad.
"They interrogated me, I pretended to be illiterate
and demented. Then they offered me a passport to go
and spy for them in Israel before eventually
releasing me," Saber says.
Between 1991 and the March 2003 US-led invasion of
Iraq, some Israelis were able to reach this area in
autonomous Kurdistan through the Turkish border. But
Saddam retained intelligence agents in the region
until the fall of his regime.
"When my cousins came to visit me" in 2000, "they
didn't understand why we would not meet them but I
could not explain it to them. They were very
offended and left," Hajj Khalil remembers.
Since then, he has had no contact with his
relatives. "My father is hoping to go and see them
to resolve this misunderstanding," his son Izzat
says.
AFP
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