Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Council of the Jewish Religion in the Kurdistan Region

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Alleged "Kurdish Jewish leader" converts to Islam - but it sounds like a scam

Aram Ezzat, Chairman of the Council of the Jewish Religion in the Kurdistan Region, announced his joining the Islamic religion and pronounced the two testimonies in front of the journalists' lens, stressing that his step is embodied in "striving to obtain God's pleasure and the love of the Noble Messenger."

Ezzat said in a press statement that he informed his Jewish colleagues and friends of his decision and that he handed over the sect's representation to his colleagues to decide to choose his successor after 6 years of holding the position.

He added, "I have other personal reasons, but I have not been subjected to any threat or pressure, and I am not the type who succumbs to threats and everyone knows me."

This story seems bogus.

I cannot find any mention either of Aram Ezzat or of the "Council of the Jewish Religion" in Kurdistan.

The main self-described leader of the Jewish community in Kurdistan is supposedly Sherko Abdallah, according to an AFP article on Jews of Kurdistan from 2020. He was appointed Kurdistan's official Jewish representative.

That article said that many Kurdish Jews converted to Islam under pressure and while some of them practice Judaism in secret there are very few left.

However, according to the National Association of Jews from Kurdistan in Israel, there are absolutely no native Jews left in Kurdistan (and even Abdallah, the official Jewish representative, is not Jewish:)

Currently, there are no Jews remaining in the Kurdistan Region, except for very few expatriates... When Jews were expelled from Kurdistan in the 1950s, the Jews living in Kurdistan left in their entirety. No Jewish family remained. Because of the very close nature of the Jewish communities, this was never under any doubt, as all members knew each other and were closely attached to their community leaders.

Since the 2010s, a new but rare phenomenon has occurred of a small handful of impostors who claim to represent long-lost Jews, usually in order to obtain some personal advantage, solicit money, or get a position. This is dishonest, degrading, and connected to antisemitism. Impostors serve nothing except usurping goodwill toward Jews, by attempting to gain personal benefits through inserting themselves into the public consciousness about the Jews from Kurdistan. Three examples of such impostors are,
- Mr. Sherzad Omar Mamsani and Mr. Sherko Othman Abdullah. Both men defrauded an earlier Kurdistan Region administration into roles as local Jewish representatives, before the National Association renewed efforts to advise on Jewish concerns.
- Mr. Ranjdar Abdulrahman, under the alias “Ranj Cohen”, whose attempts to displace the authentic Kurdish Jewish community’s role in Kurdistan are reprehensible.

It sounds like this Aram Ezzat is not Jewish, but is trying to somehow scam people by saying he was. Apparently, some Kurds believe that either Jews hid money, or that they can claim reparations from Iraq as Jews, and they are claiming to be part of a community that completely disappeared from Kurdistan and Iraq.

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