Betanure
Betanure, also known as Beth Tanura (Aramaic: בית תנורא) and Bar Tanura (Aramaic: באר תנורא), was a Jewish village located in the Barwari region in Duhok Governorate, northern Iraq.
History
The town was inhabited exclusively by Jews who claimed that their ancestors have lived there since the return from Babylon, and who supported themselves by manual labour. In 1893 the community was pillaged by Kurds from the mountains, who killed two Jews and wounded others. The remainder fled to the neighbouring villages, and did not dare return to their homes until assured of the protection of the Vali of Mosul, which they secured through a letter from Moses ha-Levi, chief rabbi of Turkey.[1]
The population of Beth Tanura has been declined and was smaller in the 1900's than it was before because of the massacres led by Nestorians and Kurds After the Assyrian genocide, many Nestorians from Tyari settled in the village, their population was almost equal in numbers to the Jewish one, however the Jewish population remained a majority and the farmlands remained under Jewish ownership. After the exodus of Iraqi Jews Beth Tanura became a Christian village until Saddam's campaign against the Kurds, which led to the exodus of many Assyrians from the area, including Beth Tanura, Iraq's army destroyed the village in 1971, destroyed the houses that were mostly were built by the indigenous Jewish population.
The community consisted of 17 large families the 1940s. In 1951, the entire community emigrated en masse to Israel.
Language
The local dialect, known as the Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Betanure, is among the rarest and most seriously endangered varieties of neo-Aramaic spoken at the present time.[2]
See also
Notes
- ↑ Mosul, Jewish Encyclopedia
- ↑ Mutzafi, Hezy. The Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Betanure, 2008. ISBN 978-3-447-05710-3