Aone-manmissionto record a lost Iraqi world
“THEY DECIMATED a whole community and for that, you can neither forgive nor forget.”
So says Baghdad-born Moshe Kahtan, who appears in his son’s documentary about the story of Iraq’s Jews.
For more than 15 years, British-born David Kahtan has spent his free time gathering material that explores the community’s 2,600-year-old history and looks at unresolved issues, from human rights abuses to the loss of property.
For Mr Kahtan, who works in finance, the story of Iraq’s Jews is a personal one.
His father was among thousands of Jews who were forced to flee their homes under Saddam Hussein’s regime. For years, the 44-year-old asked his father to tell his story.
“My dad was a closed book,” said Mr
Kahtan who was raised in Epsom, Surrey. “The Iraqi Jews have this amazing ability to look forward, not back. They rebuilt their lives and said: ‘the past is gone, it’s finished’.
“They were trying to protect the next generation by not talking about what they went through, but it’s part of our identity.
“I k e pt a s k i ng questions because I wanted to know more about my roots; and eventually my dad started to talk.”
He added: “I started talking to other people, but they didn’t want to be filmed. Only after 2003, when Saddam Hussein went, did they agree. I think there was still a fear, people were afraid.”
Mr Kahtan spent the next 15 years gathering material from interviewees in the UK, Israel, Canada and Switzerland — and now, he is in the process of editing the documentary together.
“I knew that if I didn’t do something with this footage, it would be lost,” said Mr Kahtan, who is hoping to complete the 90-minute documentary next year. “I hope it will be used educationally and in film festivals, because not enough is known about Iraq’s Jews.”
Using archive footage, the documentary looks at the community’s contribution to Iraq, while recognising that the community, which made up 40 per cent of Baghdad’s population in the 1920s and peaked at 180,000 people, is no more.
Mr Kahtan, who has made aliyah, is crowdfunding to raise the final funds he needs to licence and produce the documentary,
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He has spent 15 years gathering material from interviewees around the world