How The “Philosemitic” Kurdistan Muslim Kurds Helped Jews “Celebrate” Rosh Hashanah in the Mid-19th Century

Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose?

“(T)hey [Jews] had not only to bear the whole cruelty of the Kurds, but were even sold like cattle, and attacked in that which to them is most sacred—their faith. Thus for instance on New Year’s day, when the Schofar sounded in the Synagogue the Kurds rushed into the Temple, attacked the women and maltreated them, broke the symbolic trumpet, and compelled the Jews to desist from their ceremony.”

—Benjamin [Binjamin], I. J. (Israel Joseph), 1818-1864. Eight years in Asia and Africa from 1846 to 1855. Hanover [Germany], 1863; pp. 120-21

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