Shlomo Hillel, the Baghdad-born Israeli who helped 120,000 Jews flee Iraq, dies in Israel

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Shlomo Hillel in 2018. A former Israeli diplomat and minister, he had been an operative for the Haganah, helping to smuggle Jews out of Iraq. Photograph Credit - Ronen ZvulunReuters via New York Times
Shlomo Hillel, a Baghdad-born Israeli operative who in the late 1940s and early 1950s used bribes, fake visas and a network of smugglers to move more than 120,000 Jews from Iraq to Israel, died on February 8th at his home in Ra’anana, Israel. He was 97. His death was confirmed by his son, Ari, who did not specify a cause.

Hillel was just 23 when the Haganah, a paramilitary organisation in what was then British-controlled Palestine, sent him undercover to Iraq. Jews had lived there for centuries, mostly in harmony with their neighbours, but growing Arab nationalism and anti-Zionist sentiment, including a 1941 pogrom in which several hundred Jews were killed, were making their situation precarious. Read more …