Corrida in Baghdad!

Every Summer Spanish cities put up a strange kind of sport called Corrida in which a large number of bulls are let loose in the streets chasing a large crowd of young men running before them. The bulls mean no harm and would only attack people who interfere with them. I was reminded of a similar incident that I experienced in Baghdad eighty years ago, when I read an article about it in an Arabic book "Baghdad in the Twenties" by Abbas Baghdadi.

In 1921 King Feisal newly installed as King of Iraq was living in temporary accommodation in the Saray of Baghdad when Jewish schools sent their boy scouts in their hundreds to offer greeting to the King.

At the same time a buffalo cow was providing milk for the Royal residence and run amok at the noise of the singing and clapping of the children, who in turn became frightened. There was pandemonium when the children and their masters started fleeing in all directions. I noticed Albert Heskel Basri, a relative older than me who protected me until order was restored when the buffalo was shot.

The following year Feisal moved to the refurbished country house of Shaoul Shashoua on the road to Adhamiya which became the Royal Palace for the next ten years where he stayed untill 1927 when the whole estate was flooded by the River Tigris, and the King had to move again to another Jewish estate, that of Senator Menahem Daniel near the South Gate of Baghdad!

Abdullah Dangoor
London

Naim Dangoor writes:
I remember making a similar visit in 1923 in the company of all the Jewish boy scouts to pay homage to the King in his new Palace.

In 1924 I attended a Boy Scout Jamboree in the Qushla in the company of my grandfather who was Chief Rabbi. We were seated in the front row, a few seats away from the King.

The reason why I am against bull fighting is that when the bulls appear in the arena, they are not in a fighting mood; they think they are going to play a game. After repeated provocations and stabbings, they fall down feeling cheated. Apart from cruelty to animals, bullfighting is not an honest sport.