ROME — The Iraqi government prevented Jews from attending events during Pope Francis’s historic visit to the country, the Jerusalem Post contends.
Despite express wishes by the Vatican for the pope to meet with “representatives of the three Abrahamic religions in Ur of the Chaldeans in Iraq,” wrote Seth J. Frantzman this week, no public Jewish delegation was allowed to attend the event.
“The Iraqi government ignored the history of Iraqi Jews during the visit of Pope Francis last week, marring an otherwise unprecedented visit and wasting an opportunity to highlight the Jewish part of Iraq’s history,” Frantzman wrote.
“Today we, Jews, Christians and Muslims, together with our brothers and sisters of other religions, honor our father Abraham by doing as he did: we look up to heaven and we journey on earth,” the pope told an interreligious gathering on the Plain of Ur, calling for unity among all who believe in the God of Abraham.
“As children of Abraham, Jews, Christians and Muslims, together with other believers and all persons of good will, we thank you for having given us Abraham, a distinguished son of this noble and beloved country, to be our common father in faith,” the pope recited in prayer together with participants in the event.
According to Frantzman, the pope’s message “stood in contrast to the stance of the Iraqi government,” which “ignored the history of the Iraqi Jewish community.”
“This was the case at Ur and also during the pope’s subsequent trip to Mosul, where a Jewish community once thrived,” he wrote. “At least half a dozen ancient synagogues have been uncovered in Mosul.”
While the Vatican sought to include Jews not only in the prayer but also “physically” at the interfaith meetings, Frantzman wrote, it appears that “the Iraqi government stymied efforts for any Jews to travel to Iraq.”
Omar Mohammed, the historian behind the blog Mosul Eye, said that a failure to acknowledge the Jewish contribution to Iraq’s history leaves a conspicuous hole in efforts for interreligious inclusiveness, Frantzman noted.
“Without recognizing the Jewish history of Iraq, without recognizing the Jewish part of Iraq, without recognizing the Jewish contributions to Iraq from thousands of years ago until now,” Mohammed said, “there will be no real diversity or inclusion.”
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