The Jews of Iraq constituted one of the oldest and most deeply rooted Jewish communities in the world. But in the early 1950s most of them left for Israel, under circumstances that remain the subject of heated controversy. "Iraqi Jews: A History of Mass Exodus" examines the critical years of the late 1940s – after the establishment of the state of Israel – when deep rifts began to appear in Iraqi society, and the sad sequence of events that finally led to the mass exodus of Jews in the 1950s. An honest, impartial and well-documented account of a formerly well-integrated and vibrant community, "Iraqi Jews: A History" is a landmark in the political and social history of the Middle East.