An Iraqi Jewish man has captured hearts in the country of his birth after a video of him “crying tears of joy” over seeing his national team reemerged.
Today there are just five Jews remaining in Iraq, where they once numbered as high as 135,000 according to Encyclopedia Judaica.
Reportedly one of the many Jews of Iraqi heritage living abroad, Daoud Jibril was filmed waiting for soccer players arriving from Iraq for a match in Australia last year.
Iraqi film crews spoke to the elderly man, who was draped in an Iraqi flag and apparently attached to an oxygen tank.
“Daoud Jibril, Jewish Iraqi in one of Australia’s airports waiting for the Iraqi national team,” reads the caption for this video produced by Sky Press Iraq.
It is not clear when the footage was taken - Iraq last played away against Australia in Sept. 2016 - but it has been widely shared on a number of Iraqi Facebook pages in recent weeks.
“I am crying out of happiness,” Jibril told the interviewer, indicating he had travelled 50 kilometers to be there.
“They are the beloved, the Iraqis. I hope they will always succeed in their lives,” he added, in words directed at the football players.
“When the first goal comes I’ll jump up and dance,” joked Jibril, who is originally from the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
Jibril’s children, he described, “have become Australian.” The presenter, however, insisted that they “will always be Iraqis.”
That sentiment from the journalist, and his praise for Jibril’s “patriotic spirit,” have been mirrored in the overwhelmingly positive online response from Iraqis.
“I swear that one tear from this true Iraqi is more honorable than all of the turbans,” commented Abu al-Sadeeq al-Karbalani, referring to Shia Muslim clerics.
“Brother, the patriot is patriotic whatever his belief, affiliation or religion,” added Ahmed Talal Abed.
After the creation of Israel, the vast majority of Iraq’s Jews immigrated there or elsewhere, under pressure as a result of increasing violence and persecution against them at home. Around 95 percent were airlifted between 1951 and 1952, with the rest following, mostly to Israel or the U.K., in the coming decades.
“It is such a shame they forced the native Jews of Iraq to emigrate, they formed a flower from among the Iraqi bouquet,” wrote Hassan Jabar in response to the video.
Safaa al-Mawsowi added: “They were forced out of their homeland as a result of oppression and unfairness."
Some Jews of Iraqi origin remain hopeful of returning, however. Haaretz reported last December that London-based Edwin Shukers had bought a house in northern Iraq with a view to settling there in the future.
The defeat of ISIS in the north of country last year was one factor that has given exiled Jewish Iraqis optimism, the piece claimed.
Still, hostility towards Israel remains a major barrier. The “Miss Iraq” beauty queen claimed that she and her family had been forced to flee the country in December after receiving death threats for a selfie she posted with “Miss Israel.”
Iraq’s population today is as much as 98 percent Muslim, with small Christian, Yazidi and other religious minorities increasingly leaving for the West.
The online response to Jibril’s emotional outpouring of love for his nation, however, seems to indicate growing tolerance. For those Jewish Iraqis who still hope to go back, it perhaps offers a glimmer of hope.
