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The story of the Jews of Babylon, modern-day Iraq, began at their exile from the land of Israel. The circle closed in Israel in the end of the 20th century with the Aliya, or immigration, of most of the Iraqi Jewish community and the elimination of the Babylonian diaspora. In the intervening 2,600 years, Babylonia was the intellectual, spiritual, and ethical center of Jewish life.

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The first Jews to settle in Babylonia arrived in an act of force. Uprooted from their homes in the kingdom of Judah, some 40,000 Jews were forced to follow Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylonia (562-605 BC), to his kingdom. After the king's death, the Jewish slaves were freed. In the days of Cyrus, king of Persia, they were allowed to go back to the land of Israel. Some did return (in what is known as Shivat Tsion or The Return to Zion) and built the Second Temple, only to be forced out again by the Romans in 70 CE, after the temple's destruction. In subsequent centuries Babylonian Jews took in new rounds of Jewish refugees from distant lands and formed a de-facto new national home base for world Jewry. Between times of peace and coexistence the community suffered frequent periods of great oppression by rulers including the Mongols, Arabs, Persians and ottomans.

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Babylonian Jews became the keepers of the Bible in the 5th century BC. In the Talmudic Era they established the academies of Sura, Nehrdea and Pumbedita, whose heads were considered the highest authorities on religious matters in the Jewish world. These rabbis compiled the Babylonian Talmud, the spiritual codex of Judaism, and composed the writings of the Geonim (the great sages) that interpreted the Bible and Talmud. The Babylonian academies (Yeshivot) directed the Jews of the Diaspora in all matters of religion and law, and for more than 1,000 years Babylonian Jewry assumed the role of leader of the Diaspora communities.

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For a small group of people that at no time numbered more than 150,000, the Babylonian Jewish community was very diverse. The Kurdish Jews, who lived in the rural mountainous regions in the north, were part of a route of international commerce in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the area was an important center of religious Jewish learning. Over time they developed their own special ethnic traditions, dress, and cuisine. The Jews of Basra, Iraq's Persian Gulf port, had close ties to the outside Arab world and the commerce centers of the Far East. Throughout Babylonia, the Jewish community maintained the ancient Jewish shrines, handing down that responsibility through the generations. In Baghdad, in the 19th century, were one-third of the city's population was Jewish and Jews comprise the majority of merchants, the city's commercial life came to a halt on the Jewish Sabbath and holidays.

Weakness of the government in Iraq, restrictive laws and persecution against the Jews at the end of the era of the Geonim (589-1038) caused Babylonian Jewry to go into decline. Restored revival occurred only in the 19th and 20th centuries, with the establishment of religious public educational institutions and modern communal schools. Their traditional occupations gave way to participation in international commerce and modern professions. Babylonian Jews set new standards in business and banking, where they thrived locally and internationally, opening up channels of commerce to India, china, Hong Kong, Burma and Australia to the east, and England and continental Europe to the west.

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The year 1941 witnessed the Farhud, the pogrom against the Jews of Baghdad, inspired by the events occurring in Europe at the time. Later in the 1940s Iraqi authorities severely persecuted the Jews. As a result numerous fled from Iraq to Persia, and the government was forced to allow Jewish immigration to Israel. The Jews who were permitted to leave their natal country were deprived of their property and their ancient cultural heritage.

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The 1950s culminated in a mass exodus of Jews from Iraq. The establishment of the state of Israel, in 1948, and Zionist ideology came at the right moment: many Iraqi Jews, whose ancestors had yearned for Zion through the centuries, were eager and ready to take part in building the prescient Jewish state, and others followed suit.

In 1950 – 1952, the Mossad L'Aliya Bet, the precursor of the Mossad, orchestrated a mass airlift that relocated nearly all of Iraq's 140,000 Jews to the newly founded state of Israel in operation Ezra and Nehemiah. Those who remained behind, some 6,000 Jews, later suffered at the hands of the Ba'ath party and also eventually left in subsequent decades.

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The Jewish community in Iraq is no more. But there are still strong bonds and community life within Iraqi Jewish circles in Israel, England, the United States, and Canada. Today, the descendants of Babylonian Jewry carry on their ancestors' legacy and enrich the communities they live in. it is a legacy that values peace and partnership with other religious groups, one that is grounded in family and community, and in active involvement in the world of the intellect, music and the arts, science and commerce.