Baghdad priest: City’s Jews must leave after names in WikiLeaks

The handful of Jews remaining in Baghdad must leave because their names appeared in a WikiLeaks cable, an Anglican priest in the Iraqi capital said.

The priest said he is working with the U.S. Embassy to get the Jews to emigrate, the McClatchy news service reported. The embassy told the news service that it would work to protect the named individuals and that the United States would help to relocate them.

“Protecting individuals whose safety is at risk because of the release of the purported cables remains a priority,” the embassy said in a statement. “We are working actively to ensure that they remain safe.”

An official from a Jewish organization familiar with the situation told JTA that he doubts that the release of the Wikileaks cables has changed the security situation for Baghdad’s Jews. Over the last decade or so, various Jewish organizations and governments have offered Iraq’s Jews opportunities to leave, but they repeatedly have turned the offers down, the official said.

The last remaining synagogue in Iraq has closed due to the dwindling numbers of Jews.

The names were made public after the publication of a password that opened the encrypted versions of the cables available on the WikiLeaks website.