A remarkable Iraqi Jew I met in Tel Aviv in the mid-seventies had been the accountant of the Arabian American Oil company at Bahrain. When Israel achieved its independence, the Arabs rioted and the community moved to safety in Bombay, India. Bahrain is an island situated at two days navigation from Basra, Iraq, the port serving the Gulf. Basra had a community of merchant Jews, and they traded in the booming Gulf seaside villages aka Trucial States. Jews could not participate in the caravan trade of the mainland, due to Wahhabi fundamentalists. This respectable Iraki Jew told that Bahrain houses had flat roofs, and the community moved on the roofs when they escaped for their lives. He spoke a painfully correct Hebrew, like my Father spoke Spanish, having learnt the language as an adult.
The climate is horrible: August-September average 40 C and the northern wind brings humidity, creating a day-and-night suffocating climate. Bahrain and the rest of the Gulf Arab settlements are now very wealthy and westernized, and they tolerate Christians and Jews. Most of the population is transient, Arabs from the Levant and Pakistani, Malaysian, etc. The future is unknown: the climate change may turn the place uninhabitable by 2100, and the oil may become worthless. The current cities are built on abandoned ruins of undiscovered civilizations, nothing lasts forever. Pic: the Kedourie Family. of Bahrain.
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