DIYALA

DIYALA, province of eastern Iraq, 6,154 sq. mi. (15,754 sq. km.). There were formerly Jewish communities in eleven towns and villages of Diyala. According to the 1947 census, the total Jewish population was 2,850. The capital city, Ba'quba , was inhabited by Jews as early as the 12th century. In khanaqin in 1845 there were twenty Jewish families; in 1932 there were 1,110 Jews, most of whom spoke Arabic, while a minority spoke Jebelic Aramaic. Most of the Khanaqin Jews were employed in the textile and iron trades. Some of them were also perfume and spice dealers. In 1911 a coeducational school was founded by the Alliance Israélite Universelle. The majority of the Jewish population of Diyala immigrated to Israel in 1950–51, while some went to America. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Ben-Yaacob, Yehudei Bavel (1965), index. (Abraham Ben-Yaacob)