Only 39% of Recognized Farhud Survivors Still Alive in Israel

Only 10,250 recognized Farhud survivors are still alive in Israel, according to new figures released Wednesday by the Holocaust Survivors’ Rights Authority in the Prime Minister’s Office.

The Farhud was a violent anti-Jewish pogrom carried out in Baghdad on Shavuot in June 1941. It is remembered as one of the defining events in the collapse of Iraq’s ancient Jewish community and part of the broader history of Jewish suffering during the Holocaust era.

The figure represents just 39% of the 26,246 Farhud victims recognized by the authority over the years, underscoring the rapid disappearance of the generation that survived the 1941 pogrom against the Jews of Baghdad.

The data was published ahead of the 85th anniversary of the Farhud, which took place during Shavuot in June 1941. The average age of the survivors today is 89.

Women make up a clear majority of the remaining survivors, accounting for 61% of the total. Their share rises with age: 58% among survivors in their 80s, 65% among those in their 90s, and 74% among those aged 100 and above.

Most survivors are in advanced age. About 62% are in their 80s, 37% are in their 90s, and 1% have passed the age of 100.

The figures also show a sharp gender gap in family status. About 57% of the survivors are widowed, while 35% are married. Among men, 75% are married, compared with only 25% of women. Among widowed survivors, women account for 83%, compared with 17% men.

The vast majority of recognized Farhud survivors, about 93%, immigrated to Israel in 1950 and 1951 as part of Operation Ezra and Nechemiah, the mass immigration of Iraqi Jews to the newly established state.

Attorney Ronit Rozin, director of the Holocaust Survivors’ Rights Authority in the Prime Minister’s Office, said the new data highlights the limited time left to hear directly from the survivors.

“Eighty-five years after that bloody Shavuot in Baghdad, the data on Farhud survivors sharpen the race against time,” Rozin said. “The generation that experienced the horrors of the Farhud, immigrated to Israel and helped build the state is dwindling.”

She said Israel made an administrative decision recognizing Farhud victims, and that the authority has since been responsible for carrying it out in practice.

“We have a national duty to ensure that the voices of Farhud survivors are heard and that the memory of those events is not forgotten,” Rozin said.

The figures come as Jewish organizations worldwide warn that the Holocaust survivor generation is disappearing quickly. New Claims Conference data shows fewer than 200,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors remain alive globally, about half of them in Israel.