Nevertheless, it seems to have been more or less forgotten. Also off the track and missing from the list is Zichron Ahim, dating back to the late s and early s and bordering Shaarei Rahamim. Home mainly to Urfalim, this quaint quarter was built around one long flight of steps leading down — and another long flight heading up or vice versa, depending on where you start. We are extremely grateful to Tal Chenya, the talented lecturer and tour guide who supplied us with most of our material on Shaarei Rahamim.
Chenya offers internet courses on Jerusalem, and features free short videos of the Holy City on his Facebook page. Aviva Bar-Am is the author of seven English-language guides to Israel. Shmuel Bar-Am is a licensed tour guide who provides private, customized tours in Israel for individuals, families and small groups. In Streetwise Hebrew for the Times of Israel Community, each month we learn several colloquial Hebrew phrases around a common theme.
These are bite-size audio Hebrew classes that we think you'll really enjoy. This month, we're learning phrases on the topic of strength and power. Ready to get tough with us? So now we have a request. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
Shmuel Bar-Am. A narrow alley in the Shaarei Rahamim quarter of Jerusalem's Nahlaot neighborhood. The Shaarei Rahamim quarter of Jerusalem's Nahlaot neighborhood. The narrow Kfar Baram street, named for an ancient Jewish village in the country's north, in the Shaarei Rahamim quarter of Jerusalem's Nahlaot neighborhood.
A small tower in the Shaarei Rahamim neighborhood that was used for air traffic control during Israel's War of Independence.
A boutique hotel in a building dating to the early s on Baram street in the Shaarei Rahamim quarter in Jerusalem's Nahlaot neighborhood. The narrow byway of Korazin street in the Shaarei Rahamim quarter of Jerusalem's Nahlaot neighborhood. The narrow byways of Korazin street in the Shaarei Rahamim quarter of Jerusalem's Nahlaot neighborhood.
Hamadregot Steps street in Jerusalem's Nahlaot neighborhood, home to many of Israel's Kurdish immigrants in the early s. Kurdish immigrants to Israel in In , Iraq was among several Middle Eastern countries that declared war against the newly established state of Israel.
As conditions deteriorated for Jews in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries, Israel passed the Law of Return , which allowed Jews all over the world to immigrate to Israel. This massive emigration in the early s came to be known as Operation Ezra and Nehemiah and paved the way for later airlifts of Jews in the Middle East and all over the world. Today, the largest concentration of Kurdish Jews is in Jerusalem. While many of the Kurdish immigrants who came to Israel had an agricultural background and integration into urban life in Israel was hard at first, the majority of Kurdish Jews today define themselves as Israeli and have adopted Hebrew as their primary language.
Intermarriage between Jews of various ethnic background is also increasing in Israel. The Saharane festival has remained an integral part of Kurdish-Jewish life in Israel today and is celebrated by people of all ages. Just as they did in their historic homeland, Kurdish communities gather and spend their days together singing, dancing and sharing traditional Kurdish dishes.
In addition to keeping Kurdish traditions alive, the festival is used as an opportunity for the community to highlight and celebrate Jewish Kurds who have attained important positions in Israeli society. Examples include Itzik Kala, an Israeli singer of Kurdish descent who sings in Aramaic , Kurdish and Hebrew and who has released 30 studio albums to date, and Moshe Barazani, an Iraqi-born Kurdish Jew and member of the Olei Hagardom , the Jewish underground fighters executed by the British in Mandatory Palestine, who are memorialized and widely commemorated as national heroes in Israel today.
The past few years have seen an emergence of organizations that foster Kurdish-Israeli relations, such as the Kurdish-Israeli Friendship Association or Jewish Coalitions for Kurdistan.
We are two nations of several million people who by and large both stand for Western values such as tolerance, progress, equal rights for women and who, in the Middle East and beyond, stand up to tyranny and fanaticism.
Many of the almost , Kurdish Jews in Israel and their descendants have integrated fully into Israeli society. Yet, they continue to have a strong cultural connection to their homeland and remain highly political. Increasingly, Muslim Kurds are also visiting their old neighbors in Israel for special gatherings like the Saharane festival. The ties between Kurds in Israel and the Kurdish heartland have deepened, and Kurds in both areas promote cultural initiatives.
Although there are some political initiatives that push politicians in Israel and the Kurdish Regional Government to expand on their official support of each other , the motivations behind these initiatives are often cultural and nostalgic. Thus in their appearance and behavior the Jews blended completely and utterly with the local indigenous population. During celebrations and parties there was no separation between men and women; holding hands, they danced folkloric dances together.
Furthermore, though women worked very hard from morning to night, they found time to enjoy bathing together in the river, singing and joking—a kind of ritual that takes many hours.
In the seventeenth century the relative freedom of Kurdish women in their community led to the scholarly achievements of Asnat Barazani , the daughter of the well-known Rabbi Samuel Barazani , who founded many Judaic schools and seminaries in Kurdistan. She was referred to as Lit. In the chain of tradition, they were followed by the amora'im. Asnat became the head of the prestigious Judaic academy at Mosul. During pregnancy—and especially during the first—a woman receives love, attention, and respect.
Because the pregnant woman attempted to conceal her pregnancy for reasons of modesty, she stayed indoors during most of the nine months. Numerous beliefs, customs, and rituals accompanied the pregnancy. It was quite common for the woman and her relative to seek a fortune-teller in order to find out the sex of the baby. The belief was that anything a woman sees or feels during conception or pregnancy would influence the character of the child, its looks, behavior, and well-being.
Therefore all her fancies and wishes had to be fulfilled. While women as a rule rarely drank alcohol, they believed that if a pregnant woman drank wine her baby would be born handsome and fair. An anxious pregnant woman was made to drink water that had been kept exposed on the roof overnight and received starlight.
Prior to her drinking, hot skewers were put in the water, to provide her with strength to overcome her fear. In the case of a woman who suffered from several miscarriages or lost many of her children, the belief was that there was an evil eye or witchcraft influencing her and therefore snake skin or threads of red, green, black, and white were wound around her waist while the names of certain demons were recited.
There was a strong belief that performing this ceremony would ensure that the birth would proceed without any problems. The birth was performed by a traditional midwife with no medical training , with the help of elderly women of the family.
Midwives were fully trusted and well respected by the community. If a husband dies childless, Jewish law demands that his widow marry his brother in Marriage between a widow whose husband died childless the yevamah and the brother of the deceased the yavam or levir.
If the eldest brother-in-law did not want her, his younger brother had to marry her, and if he was too young, she had to wait for him. However, this custom was not strictly observed. Usually the h ali z ah ceremony was performed, releasing the widow from the levirate tie and freeing her to marry someone else.
The birth of males was important for the perpetuation of the family. Women also preferred boys because they brought fame and elevated their status in the eyes of the family, particularly in the eyes of their husbands. The news spread very fast and in no time all the neighborhoods knew of the happy occasion.
The different responses are variously accounted for by referring to various facts: that there are no religious or other ceremonies accompanying the birth of a girl, that sons bring their wives into the family while girls leave the family, and that it is easier to find a wife for a male even if he is very old, while it is very hard to find a husband for a young woman if she is about to reach the age of twenty. As she gets older her chances of finding a husband become slimmer, so she becomes a burden on her family and in particular on the older brothers, who have to care for her.
Despite its beauty, the longer you leave it the less tasty it becomes, it loses its vitality, and in the end it becomes rotten. Formally, the father was the master of his family. Although the birth of girls was not as welcome as the birth of boys, the bride-price custom, whereby the father of the bride actually received money for his daughter as if the husband were buying her , meant that the birth of girls was not considered a burden on the family, even though it was less desired.
Girls were married at the age of thirteen or fourteen and boys at the age of seventeen. It was highly unusual for a man to marry into a class lower than his own, and this occurred only if the bride was remarkable for her beauty.
A man liked to show his wealth through his wife, and this was evidenced both by the amount of gold with which a man covered his wife and by her healthy looks. A woman had to look after her jewelry and wear her gold and silver on every occasion.
It was by the amount of gold he bestowed on her that a man demonstrated his love, affection, and appreciation. Usually parents began to look for a prospective bride within their extended families.
Cousin marriages were preferred among all Kurds, including the Jews. If this was not possible, men sought their brides from the extended family and most marriages were endogamous. Once the right bride was found, the couple would be introduced to each other in the company of the families.
Formally the matchmaking had to receive the consent of the father, but from interviews it appears that the father would not give his consent without his wife agreeing to the choice.
Many parents promised their daughters at a very early age, even at the age of six or seven. Amongst the Iraqi and Turkish Kurds, the bride-price custom was common. Marriages were contracted after the bride-price was agreed upon and this was formalized with a handshake. Once the terms of the agreement of the marriage contract were decided, the kiddushin ceremony was conducted and the father of the bride received the bride-price money or goods from the groom or his father.
A divorced Kurdish Jewess could remarry but her bride-price would be low or waived, depending on the circumstances. In the final analysis most women could marry and have a family, something that could not be said of the Iraqi Jewess. In many cases the father of the bride-to-be gave the bride-price to his daughter to use in order to buy material for her clothes and household goods, though formally these had to be provided by the husband.
In the event of conflict or if the woman wished to divorce her husband without any good reason, her family had to repay the bride-price. On the other hand, if a man wished to divorce his wife without any apparent reason, he could not demand the bride-price but would have to provide for her welfare until she remarried.
He also had to pay her the sum of money stipulated in the Marriage document in Aramaic dictating husband's personal and financial obligations to his wife. As a result, many men who were not happy with their wives but still wanted to retain all the property and money they had accumulated usually took second wives rather than divorcing their first wives.
Such an act caused enormous tension and friction in the household, with conflicts and fights between the children of both women over the inheritance. Furthermore, the community did not encourage divorce. Usually, when a man wished to divorce his wife, the two parties would get together and attempt to settle the conflict before approaching the rabbi. If this was not successful, they would go to an influential member of the community whose opinion they all valued and he would act as an arbitrator, usually managing to solve the conflict and prevent the divorce.
Only if the differences between the couple could not be bridged did they approach a rabbi. Very few divorces are recorded and several of them were the result of adultery. The compromise was for the man to take a second wife and for the woman to stay married and have a roof over her head. If both parties agreed to the terms, they performed the kiddushin betrothal ceremony. This was followed a few months later by the wedding ceremony, enabling the bride to prepare her clothing and linens in the interim.
It was customary for the girl to embroider all her bed linen and clothing. This began to change with the exposure to modernity, even in the period prior to the immigration to Israel. Thus, the kiddushin and marriage ceremonies were performed together, as is now customary in Israel.
The decorated bride rode on a colorfully decorated horse accompanied by musicians, singers, and the singing crowd, all the way to her future parents-in-law. From then on, the celebration began and generous hospitality was provided. After the wedding ceremony both parties were anxious as to whether the couple would be able to perform the act of intercourse.
While the newlyweds entered the bridal chamber everyone waited outside, eating and drinking, until it was announced that the couple had consummated the marriage. The couple was not allowed to leave the room before successfully performing the act of penetration, for fear of witchcraft, which is believed able to prevent the newlyweds from having intercourse. Prior to the wedding ceremony adults explain to the couple—and particularly to the man—how to successfully perform the act of penetration.
If the couple stayed more than half an hour in the room, those outside would knock on the door to find out what the difficulties were. When intercourse had been successfully performed, the bridegroom opened the door and let everyone— particularly his mother—see the bloodied sheet.
This was followed by ululating, singing and joyful cries of happiness, while the band commenced playing. The marriage concluded with seven days of celebration, during which the couple was not allowed to leave the house for fear of witchcraft. Gifts were presented at a special ceremony on the first Saturday night after the wedding night.
The master of ceremonies announced to the couple the details of the donors and their presents. On the first Saturday after the wedding the bride hosted all her women friends for lunch and presented them with gifts. On the second weekend, she invited both families to her house. Living in the same household saved expenses and all members of the extended family gathered food, particularly in the harvest period, when all hands were needed.
He was in charge of all the activities outside the domestic sphere, religious ceremonies and communal activities. In the home he sat at the head of the table and was the first to receive his food, which would be the biggest portion. Although there was thus a strict division of labor in the home, all the family members, including the wife, worked together in the field.
The behavioral characteristics of the Jewess in Kurdistan were the result of a combination of the traditional local customs of the indigenous population and Jewish religious laws. It was terminated with the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, British Mandate did not bring socio-economic prosperity, modernity, and secularization as it did to the Iraqi urban Jews, since the Jewish Kurds were isolated geographically, socially, and culturally from their Iraqi co-religionists.
As in the Iraqi community, the majority continued to object to educating girls. In general the h akhamim rabbis did not invest in educating the young because they were busy performing other demanding tasks such as ritual animal slaughter and performing circumcisions of Muslims.
In any case, very few were themselves literate. Boys learned in Lit. From their mothers, sisters, and grandmother girls learned how to perform all household duties and conduct themselves as wives and mothers. Non-Jewish Kurds also benefited vastly, since children were accepted into these schools regardless of their religious affiliation.
Operations of the Alliance continued until soon after the establishment of Israel.
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