Iraq / Kurdistan: An illuminated plaque on paper with four liturgical poems in Hebrew for Purim. Northern Iraq, mid-19th century

The Jews of Kurdistan are the ancient Eastern Jewish communities inhabiting the region known as Kurdistan in northern Mesopotamia, roughly covering parts of northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey.

Their clothing and culture is similar to neighbouring Kurdish Muslims and Assyrians. Until their immigration to Israel in the 1940s and early 1950s, the Jews of Kurdistan lived as closed ethnic communities. The Jews of Kurdistan largely spoke Aramaic as a lingua franca, with some additionally speaking Kurdish dialects, in particular the Kurmanji dialect in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Today, the large majority of the Jews of Kurdistan and their descendants live in Israel.

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