Baghdadi Jewish networks in Hashemite Iraq : Jewish transnationalism in the age of nationalism

Abstract

This thesis traces the participation of Baghdadi Jews in

Jewish transnational networks from the mid-nineteenth century until the mass

exodus of Jews from Iraq between 1948–1951. Each chapter explores different

components of how Jews in Baghdad par- ticipated in global Jewish civil society through the modernization of communal leadership, Baghdadi satellite communities, transnational Jewish philanthropy and secular Jewish education. The final chapter presents three case studies that demon- strate the interconnectivity between different iterations of transnational Jewish networks. Although chapters are presented thematically opposed to chronologi- cally there is a mild chronological progression from the first chapter which deals primarily with the nineteenth century to the last chapter whose case studies are from the Hashemite period.