Next Year, Anywhere But in Grim Baghdad

Sameer refused to discuss life under Saddam's regime, saying the topic itself was dangerous, but interviews with Levy and former Iraqi intelligence officials make clear that life was not particularly easy for Jews before the American-led invasion.

Kawan al-Qaisi, a former member of the state intelligence service, known as the Mukhabarat, said he was assigned to follow Sameer for a month in 2002 to see if he was a spy for Israel or involved in plots against the government.

"There was a file on every Jew in Iraq," Qaisi said. "Every Jew had an intelligence officer assigned to him."

Qaisi said the surveillance meant the Jews were protected, and by some accounts, they were largely spared from torture and execution because Hussein did not consider the tiny community a political threat. But Levy, who said his phone was always tapped and intelligence reports were filed about him every week, did not feel particularly safe. "During the reign of Saddam, I was not free," he said. "They tried to do everything to get me in a trap."

The Jews of Iraq -- whose population was estimated at about 140,000 in 1947 -- had long dominated finance and trade throughout the country. During the early 1940s, for example, thirty-five of Iraq's 38 importers of cotton and silk were Jewish, according to "Jewish and Iranian Schools in Iraq," a 1984 book by Fadhil al-Barrak, the former chief of Iraqi intelligence.

The book reveals the strong anti-Semitic attitudes that prevailed in the country. "The Jews played very menacing roles in Iraq's major problems," Barrak wrote.

As Levy prepared to end his Yom Kippur prayers, he put special emphasis on the closing line of the service. It is supposed to be accompanied by the blow of the shofar, a ram's horn, but Levy didn't have one.

Still, he chanted: "Next year may we be in Jerusalem!"

Levy said he'll settle for London or the Netherlands. Anywhere, really, as long as it's not Iraq.

Special correspondent Salih Dehema contributed to this report.