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JewishHistoryעברית

Kidnapping and murder of Lebanese Jews, 1984-1986

Date
July 1984 – February 1986
Location
West Beirut (Wadi Abu Jamil)Lebanon
Then part of
Lebanese Republic
Perpetrators
  • Organization of the Oppressed on Earth (Terror organization)
  • National Resistance Army, the Nation's Liberation Faction (Terror organization)
Killed (estimate)
4 – 11[1]Lebanese Jews abducted in 1984-87, of whom Encyclopaedia Judaica states four bodies were later recovered and the fate of seven remained unknown. JTA on 20 February 1986 wrote that ten Jews were known to have been abducted in the previous two years, that four hostages had been murdered since December (Isaac Tarrab, Haim Cohen Halala, Ibrahim Benisti and, by announcement, Elie Hallak), and that three more were believed still held. The Los Angeles Times reported that police found the body of Chaim Cohen Halala, 39, in late December 1985 after his kidnapping from his West Beirut home on 29 March.
Locality

2.7% – 7.3% of the Jewish population of West Beirut (Wadi Abu Jamil)[7]

Country

0.4% – 5.5% of the Jewish population of Lebanese Republic (c. 1980)[39]

Worldwide

0.000031% – 0.000084% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1980)[8]

Category
Terror attack, Persecution
Confidence
DisputedEncyclopaedia Judaica gives 11 abducted in 1984-87, four bodies recovered, and seven whose fate was unknown. JTA on 20 February 1986 gave ten abducted in two years and four murdered since December, with three more believed still held; it also recorded the July 1984 killing of Raoul Mizrahi by a differently named group. Ages and some kidnapping dates differ across JTA dispatches, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post. Fetched sources describe the Organization of the Oppressed as a Shiite group close to Hezbollah but do not establish that Hezbollah itself issued the claims.

Summary

From July 1984, armed groups abducted remaining members of Beirut's Jewish community. JTA recorded that on 1 July 1984 three gunmen kidnapped electrical engineer Raoul Sobhi Mizrahi, 54, from his West Beirut apartment; his body was found on 3 July, and a group calling itself the National Resistance Army, the Nation's Liberation Faction, said it had killed him as an Israeli agent. On 15 August 1984 three gunmen kidnapped Salim Jammous, secretary-general of the community, near the main synagogue in Wadi Abu Jamil. In late March 1985 armed men kidnapped Dr. Elie Hallak, vice president of the community; Elie Srour, who prepared the dead for burial; Haim Cohen Halala; and Isaac Sasson, the community president, who was seized after arriving at Beirut airport. The Washington Post reported on 17 November 1985 that a Shiite faction calling itself the Organization of the Oppressed in the World claimed to be holding Sasson, Srour, Cohen Halala and Isaac Tarrab and demanded a prisoner exchange. The Los Angeles Times reported that the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth said it had killed Cohen Halala and threatened the other three unless shelling of Shiite villages stopped. JTA reported in February 1986 that the same group announced the "execution" of Hallak and that police had found Ibrahim Benisti's body, beaten and shot, in West Beirut. Encyclopaedia Judaica states that in 1984-87 the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, a radical Shiite faction reportedly close to Hezbollah, abducted 11 prominent members of the community, including Sasson, that four bodies were later recovered, and that the fate of the other seven remained unknown.

Sources

  1. Simon Marcus / Hayyim J. Cohen / Oren Barak, Beirut. Jewish Virtual Library (Encyclopaedia Judaica)
  2. Background Report the Kidnapping of Lebanese Jewish Leaders. Jewish Telegraphic Agency (1985)
  3. Shiite Moslem Faction Says It Holds 4 Lebanese Jews. The Washington Post (1985)
  4. Terrorists Who Killed Lebanese Jew Threaten to Kill Other Three Hostages. Los Angeles Times (1985)
  5. Background Report Lebanese Jews Face Terrorism. Jewish Telegraphic Agency (1986)
  6. Fourth Lebanese Jew Reported Killed. Jewish Telegraphic Agency (1986)
  7. Beirut. Jewish Virtual Library (Encyclopaedia Judaica)

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 13,034,000[8]c. 1980DellaPergola's revised core estimate for 1 January 1980 in the 2024 Year Book chapter (original AJYB figure that year was 14,527,100).
  • Lebanese Republic: 200 – 1,000[39]c. 1980Schulze: only 450–1,000 of 4,000–6,000 Jews still in Lebanon in 1978; by 1980 further decrease to 200–300 (about 20 remaining in Beirut). Used as the nearest opened snapshot for mid-1980s Lebanon events. AJYB 1981 lists 400 for Lebanon in 1979.
  • West Beirut (Wadi Abu Jamil): 150[7]Estimated Jews in western Beirut in 1982, two years before the kidnappings that began in July 1984. The same entry gives 100 Jews in eastern Beirut in 1982.

Sources for population estimates

  1. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2025)
  2. Sergio DellaPergola, Notes toward a Demographic History of the Jews. Genealogy 8(1) (2024)
  3. Jewish Population of Europe in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  4. Jewish Population of the World. American Jewish Year Book 1948–1949, via Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1949)
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  6. Jews in the USSR (1926–1959). Demographic Changes. JewishGen Belarus SIG (table compiled from the 1939 All-Union census)
  7. Mandate for Palestine. Report of the Mandatory to the League of Nations (Palestine Administration, 1922). United Nations UNISPAL (British mandatory report) (1922)
  8. José Hinojosa Montalvo, La sociedad y la economía de los judíos en Castilla y la Corona de Aragón durante la Baja Edad Media. Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, Serie III, Historia Medieval (1993)
  9. The Contagion of Violence. 1391 and the Jews of the Spanish Kingdoms. Palgrave / Springer chapter (preview) (2021)
  10. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Religious Norms, Human Capital, and Money Lending in Jewish European History. Handbook chapter PDF via zvi-eckstein.com
  11. Sergio DellaPergola, Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History. Berman Jewish Policy Archive (PDF) (2001)
  12. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, THE CHOSEN FEW: HOW EDUCATION SHAPED JEWISH HISTORY, 70–1492 (book summary). Bar-Ilan University Economics seminar PDF (Princeton University Press forthcoming summary)
  13. Joseph Jacobs, Statistics. Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
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  18. Yannay Spitzer, A New Map of Jewish Communities in the Russian Empire (2012)
  19. Игорь Виленский, Оценка сокращения численности еврейского населения Российской Империи и СССР (1897–1926). Еврейская Старина (2024)
  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
  21. Sergio DellaPergola, Demographic Trends in Israel and Palestine: Prospects and Policy Implications. American Jewish Year Book 2003, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2003)
  22. Population of Israel/Palestine by Religion (1553–Present). Jewish Virtual Library (citing CBS, British Mandate publications, Bachi and others)
  23. US Jewish Population Pocket Demographics 2.0. Berman Jewish DataBank / Jewish Federations of North America (2018)
  24. H. S. Linfield, The Jews of the United States: Preliminary Figures for 1937 (Linfield) / Statistics of Jews. American Jewish Year Book 1939–40, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1939)
  25. Changes in the Jewish Population of the United States, 1949–1950. American Jewish Year Book 1951, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1951)
  26. American Jewry, 1970 (NJPS 1971 article). American Jewish Year Book, via Berman Jewish DataBank
  27. Germany: Jewish Population in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  28. German Jewish Refugees, 1933–1939. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  29. Robin R. Mundill, The Jews under Edward I (PhD thesis). University of St Andrews
  30. Stéphane Mechoulan, The Expulsion of the Jews from France in 1306: a modern fiscal analysis. University of Toronto Department of Economics working paper (2004)
  31. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Appendix A: Sources and Methodology for Section 2 (Jewish and total population in Germany-Austria and Poland-Lithuania). Authors' appendix PDF (citing Weinryb, Stampfer, Kupovetsky, Guggenheim, Toch, Battenberg, Israel) (2018)
  32. Kirsten E. Schulze, The Jews of Lebanon between Coexistence and Conflict. Internet Archive full text
  33. Jews in Arab Countries. American Jewish Year Book excerpt, Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1978)
  34. Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, The Farhud. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  35. Joseph Rothschild (tabulated), Interwar East European Census Data. Lawrence University course materials
  36. Mark Tolts, Population since World War I. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
  37. Davis Trietsch, Die Juden der Türkei. Länder und Völker der Türkei, Heft 8 (Leipzig) (1915)
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  40. Andrzej Żbikowski, Extermination of Polish Jews. The genesis and course of Operation Reinhard. Żydowski Instytut Historyczny (Jewish Historical Institute)
  41. Yitzhak Arad, “Operation Reinhard” | Death Camps of Belzec, Sobibor & Treblinka. Yad Vashem
  42. The Holocaust in Hungary. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  43. Bulgaria. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  44. The Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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  46. France. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  47. Belgium. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  48. Norway. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  49. Denmark. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  50. Greece. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  51. Lithuania. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  52. German Jews during the Holocaust, 1939–1945. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  53. Statistics of Jews (World and US Jewish Population). American Jewish Year Book 1946–1947, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1947)
  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
  55. Lebanon Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
  56. Jewish Populations in the Arab World. Jewish Virtual Library (citing Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2021 / AJYB 2023)
  57. Algeria (Vital Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  58. Archives juives n°45/2 — Les Juifs d'Algérie. Archives Juives / Les Belles Lettres (2012)
  59. EHRI Country Report — Tunisia. European Holocaust Research Infrastructure
  60. Leon Shapiro, World Jewish Population. American Jewish Year Book 1981 (estimates for 1979), via Berman Jewish DataBank (1981)
  61. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2020. American Jewish Year Book 2020, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2022)
  62. Sara Koplik, The Demise of the Jewish Community in Afghanistan, 1933–1952. SOAS University of London (PhD thesis abstract / deposit page) (2001)
  63. Argentina Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
  64. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the USSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)
  65. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the Uzbek SSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)