History of the Jews in Kurdistan

Kurdistani Jews

יְהוּדִי כּוּרְדִּיסְטָן جووە کوردستانییەکان Cihûyên kurdistanî
Rabbi Moshe Gabai, head of the Jewish community of Zakho, with Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi in 1951
Total population
300,000
Regions with significant populations
Israel	c. 300,000
Languages
Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (mainly Judeo-Aramaic languages), Israeli Hebrew, Kurdish (mainly Kurmanji), Azerbaijani (in Iran) Mizrahi Hebrew (liturgical use)
Religion
Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Other Mizrahi Jews, in particular Iraqi Jews, Iranian Jews, Bukharian Jews, Turkish Jews, and Syrian Jews

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Kurdistani Jews are the Mizrahi Jewish communities from the geographic region of Kurdistan, roughly covering parts of northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey. Kurdistani Jews lived as closed ethnic communities until they were expelled from Kurdistan, as part of the wider expulsion of Jews from Arab and Muslim states in the 1940s–1950s. The native language of Kurdistani Jews was Judeo-Aramaic rather than Kurdish. As Kurdistani Jews natively adhere to Judaism and originate from the Middle East, Mizrahi Hebrew is used for liturgy. Many Kurdistani Jews, especially the ones who hail from Iraq, went through a Sephardic Jewish blending during the 18th century.

In the present day, the overwhelming majority of Kurdistani Jews reside in the State of Israel, with the community's presence coming as a direct result of either the Jewish exodus from Muslim states or the making of Aliyah by those remaining in the following decades (see Kurdish Jews in Israel).